Episode Notes

Episode 30 of To Here Knows When - Great Irish Albums Revisited focuses on 1 and 2 by Simple Kid. Also known as: SK1 & SK2

“Simple Kid 1 is a jumble sale of an LP, crammed with esoteric treasures. McFeely gets his pungent social commentary from Dylan, his third-person vignettes from Ray Davies, his swagger from Marc Bolan and his synthesisers, by the sounds of it, from a skip.”
The Guardian

“Simple Kid 2 is a wonderful album: musically, it's ingenious, a bustling congregation of styles - glam, folk, crackling electronica - that continually take the listener by surprise. And lyrically, for all its downbeat malaise, it has a sincerity and candour that can't fail to charm.”
The Guardian

Simple Kid was the moniker adopted by Cork’s Kieran MacFeely in the early 00s. Kieran first came to our attention as the singer in Cork band The V-Necks in the mid-90s. By 1997 The V-Necks were signed to Columbia Records by none other than David Balfe. Once upon a time Balfe had been a member of The Teardrop Explodes – Balfey as Julian Cope used to call him - and he had run Zoo Records with Bill Drummond releasing the first records by Liverpool’s Bunnymen and the aforementioned Teardrops. By the 90s he had established Food records and signed Blur, Jesus Jones, Dubstar and others. In the mid-90s he sold Food and moved to a big house in the country. His semi-retirement from the music business became the subject of Blur’s first No. 1 ‘Country House’.

“He was a city dweller, successful fella” - By the late 90s Balfe was back as Head of A&R at Columbia and one of his first decisions upon signing The V-Necks was getting the band to change their name to the title of one of their best songs – The Young Offenders.

The band’s debut single, ‘That’s Why We Lose Control’ was released in early 1998. I DJed in Sir Henry’s in Cork on Friday nights at the time with my old friend John O’Leary for Gigantic John’s indie clubnight. I can remember Shane Fitzsimons, another old friend, coming walking out over the gangway above the bar in Henry’s to the DJ box and handing us a promo cassette of ‘That’s Why We Lose Control’, Shane had just been sent it into the offices of the Examiner newspaper.

I’ll never forget John stopping the music and getting on a mic to inform the masses that we were about to play The Young Offenders debut single. As you can imagine on Leeside there was huge interest in what the band had produced.  The crowd of a few hundred people just stood and listened. We then rewound the tape and played it a second time – and felt elated as the crowd went absolutely berserk.

The Young Offenders released two more singles but an album, though recorded, was never released – in a post-Britpop landscape they got caught up in record company shenanigans and were ultimately dropped.  Kieran disappeared for a while. He did some travelling in the US and he went back to basics recording songs to a four-track with a drum machine.  He resurfaced in London as Simple Kid and in 2002 released two singles for the great Fierce Panda record label. ‘I Am Rock’ and ‘Truck On’. He was back.

1, his debut album came next in 2003. A second album simply titled 2 followed in 2005 and then around 2007 Kieran disappeared. A third album surfaced last year on Bandcamp.

Last September a Simple Kid gig was announced for April 2023 in Whelans - his first in 15 years - my review for the Irish Examiner can be read below. It was a great, great comeback. What follows is a candid conversation with Kieran, he’s open and honest about the mental health difficulties that led to one or two of his hiatuses and he definitely seems reinvigorated by the recent return to the stage. I sincerely hope we get to see him play live again soon.

For Further Reading/Listening/Viewing:

To Here Knows When column in The Goo on Simple Kid’s 1…

In April 2023 Simple Kid played his first gig in 15 years, I reviewed it for the Irish Examiner…

1, 2 and Simple Kid 3: Healthy & Safety can be heard below: