“Our first interview in ten years and our first ever podcast. We had a blast chatting with Paul - check out his other episodes it’s a great archive.”
Andrew Ferris and Jamie Burchell (Jetplane Landing)

Episode Notes

Episode 26 of To Here Knows When - Great Irish Albums Revisited focuses on Zero For Conduct by Jetplane Landing.

In Episode 22 we focused on That Petrol Emotion and we return to Derry for this Episode which focuses on Jetplane Landing. I’m joined by guitarist and vocalist Andrew Ferris and bassist Jamie Burchell. There’s a lovely connection back to That Petrol Emotion because Andrew Ferris was actually taught to play the guitar by John O’Neill. That’s just one of many brilliant stories in this episode.

Zero for Conduct was released on Jetplane Landing’s own Smalltown America label in 2001. The album was named by Mischa Pearlman in 2019 for Kerrang as one of the “The 13 most underrated albums of the '00s”.

“Courting a wide range of influences from Pavement to At The Drive In, Northern Ireland’s Jetplane Landing stormed onto the UK alternative scene with this phenomenal debut. Although it did spawn a minor underground hit with This Is Not Revolution Rock, it was perhaps a little too erudite, both musically and lyrically, to really take off the way it deserved. Which is stupid, really – Summer Ends and the vitriolic What The Argument Has Changed (‘If I could make a list of all my regrets / You would be at the top of every page / Highlighted in red’ spits Andrew Ferris) are two of the greatest, original and untypical love songs ever crafted. An utterly ambitious but expertly executed debut.”

Kerrang

I’ll go along with that. Jetplane Landing didn’t appear from nowhere – Andrew was the guitarist with Cuckoo and Jamie had joined on bass after some line-up changes. When Cuckoo disbanded in the late 90s Andrew and Jamie regrouped as Jetplane Landing.

In my head Schtum, Scheer and Cuckoo had all produced their debut albums within a year of each other but I’m wrong, there was four years between Schtum’s Grow and Cuckoo’s Breathing Lessons. It’s incredible to think that three bands from a small city like Derry were all signed to international record labels in the mid-90s. Andrew talks about the influence that the Northwest Musician’s Collective (later renamed the Nerve Centre) had on him and other young musicians growing up in Derry in the 90s.

I worked as Information Officer with the Cork Music Resource Co-op in the early 90s and even though I’ve never visited Derry I feel an affinity with the Nerve Centre as it was one of models used when establishing the Co-op.

I noticed a few weeks ago that Zero For Conduct, Jetplane Landing’s debut album was after being reissued on vinyl and it led me to pull out my CD of the album – I hadn’t listened to it in years – and I was just completely blown away all over again.

In August 2002 my good buddy Jim Morrish gave me a 6-track CD sampler of the album and asked me to review it for his website Zeitgeist. I’ve retrieved the review from the Wayback Machine – nothing online ever truly disappears as they say!

I cringe at some of those lines now and my overuse of the word “soar” in an attempt to get in an air flight reference. But I’m embarrassing myself simply to illustrate how taken I was by Jetplane Landing. The fact remains I loved Zero For Conduct then and I love it now.

They were early adopters of the internet and I can remember their website had a resources page for other bands with contact information for radio station presenters and producers, live promoters and fanzines. Really inspirational.  

Jetplane Landing’s albums were released on their own Smalltown America Records imprint.

“Northern Irish four-piece Jetplane Landing record their own albums in their own garage, book their own tours, release all their music on their own label, and very possibly pulp the paper to make the CD booklet with their own blistered hands.”

NME

Eventually the label would go on to release records by countless other artists. When Smalltown America closed in 2020, Andrew wrote:

“A little over twenty years ago Jamie and I figured out the mechanics of putting out our own records. While we were in his studio making our first album we needed a name for the tape boxes, 'Smalltown America' was born. Twenty years and 150 records later I feel confident in saying that we did what we came to do, so I'm closing Smalltown America with pride and a smile.”

Jetplane Landing released four great albums in between 2001 and 2014. Their second album, 2003’s Once Like a Spark is probably more well known than the others but for me Zero For Conduct is the one, it packs a punch, a seriously emotional punch. I’m really thrilled to be bringing you this episode.

For Further Listening/Reading:

To Here Knows When column in The Goo on Zero for Conduct…

Zero For Conduct is available on vinyl from Big Scary Monsters.

Zero For Conduct can be heard below:

Cahir O'Doherty now plays guitar with New Pagans and the band have just released their second album - Making Circles of Our Own. Out now on Big Scary Monsters and can be heard below.