On this episode I’m joined by Martin McCann and John Brereton for a deep dive into Sack’s second album Butterfly Effect, released in 1997 on Dirt Records.

Andrew Mueller in the Melody Maker once wrote that, “when Sack are good, they’re extraordinary”. The focus of this episode is Dublin band Sack and in particular their second album Butterfly Effect, an album I have no hesitation in describing as extraordinary.

Sack were formed in the early 90s, the lads had previously been in the band Lord John White. The band suffered a really serious traffic accident returning from a gig in Cork late one night. Guitarist and song-writer John Brereton was very lucky to survive the crash and after a few years of rehabilitation, and literally learning to walk again, John and his bandmates re-emerged as Sack.

With John in Sack was his brother Tony on drums, Derek Lee on bass, and Martin McCann on vocals.

They were signed by the UK indie label Lemon Records (home to Power of Dreams, among others) and in September 1993 the band’s debut single, the Dilettanti EP, which featured the song ‘What Did the Christians Ever Do For Us’ was awarded “Single of the Week” in the NME by Stuart Bailie who described it as having, “the tune of a champion and the iconoclastic cross-burning glee of Fatima Mansions.”

‘What Did the Christians Ever Do For Us’  was an angry statement of intent that started with a sample of Pope John Paul II before Martin intones: “Bring him to me, I can’t get enough of that tender human flesh.” It sounded incredible then and it still sounds incredible today.  

It was followed a few months later by the Indian Rope Trick EP. And that was followed by a standalone reissue of ‘What Did the Christians Ever Do For Us’ in the Summer of 1994. This time around the songs was awarded “Single of the Week” status in both the NME and Melody Maker.

Mark Sutherland in the NME described Sack’s live shows as, “a psychotic cabaret characterised by a Fatima-Mansions-dismembering-The-Fall guitar sound and singer Martin McCann’s homicidal skinhead stage persona.”

Jennifer Nine in the Melody Maker wrote that, “Guitarist John Brereton’s ruthlessly catchy songs bulge with politics and menace, while singer Martin McCann vacillates between singing his heart out and seemingly offering to kick our heads in.”

And when debut album was released in September 1994, Andrew Muller in Melody Maker it as “a virulent, vitriolic and highly auspicious beginning.”

They played gigs across the UK with the likes of The Fall, The Boo Radleys, and the brilliant Compulsion and loads of others but when Lemon Records ran out of funds and folded Sack retreated home to Dublin.

Shane O’Neill (Blue in Heaven) and his brother Brian had set up Dirt Records in the mid-90s, releasing great albums by Tension, The Idiots and Revelino. Sack signed with Dirt and recorded their second album Butterfly Effect.

Paul Tipler, who had worked with Stereolab and Broadcast, produced the album. Garret “Jacknife” Lee, from the aforementioned Compulsion and also brother to Sack’s bassist Derek Lee, also contributed some production work, some programming and sampling.

Now unfortunately Butterfly Effect didn’t get a whole lot of attention, no doubt in part due to the lack of funds at Dirt’s disposal but it’s an incredible artistic achievement that thankfully hasn’t been forgotten by people. It got a beautiful reissue a few years ago, marking its first time on vinyl too.

And the great news is that Sack are back in the studio finishing up a new album that’s due out later in the year. In 2022 Sack released ‘What a Way to Live’, the band’s first new material in over 20 years, it’s a brilliant song so all bodes well for the new album. Both Shane O’Neill and Jacknife Lee have contributed their memories of working with Sack and these can be read below.

Garret “Jacknife” Lee

Garret “Jacknife” Lee is a producer and mixer known for his work with REM, U2 and others. He was the guitarist in the late-80s Irish band Thee Amazing Colossal Men who released the album Totale in 1990. Thee Amazing Colossal Men became Compulsion and released two great albums: Comforter (1994) and The Future is Medium (1996). More recently he released two albums as Telefís with Cathal Coughlan. After Compulsion broke up he contributed to the production of Sack’s Butterfly Effect. Jacknife features on Episode 43 to talk about all of this and more. Here he recalls his time working with Sack.

I was obviously very aware of Sack. I think I’d done sound in the Underground for Lord John White and I’d played with Aiken Drum a few times. I think. I’d also done front-of-house for Guernica so I knew them in all configurations. 

Sack played with Compulsion a lot in England around the time of their first album. We absolutely loved them. They were miles ahead of what was going on there. The music in the UK was a little primary colour. Compulsion were a little guilty of that too but being Irish we were not totally immersed in the London thing. Sack and Compulsion were very aware of what was happening in the States. It was smarter, more nuanced.

“Martin was odd. Crooning, unhinged in an internal way”

Pixies changed how bands sounded, if you paid attention. Sack existed in that post-Pixies world. Their lyrics were odd. The arrangements were odd. Martin was odd. Crooning, unhinged in an internal way.

In 1996 I had left Compulsion. We did our last tour in Japan and couldn’t face battling the Brit-pop sideshow back in England. I thought The Future is Medium was a great album but it didn’t connect. Too European for the Americans. Too muscular for the Brits.

Compulsion’s next project The Futurist Medium was begun but shelved when we ran out of money and goodwill from the public. Derek, my brother, gave me a little lifeline and asked me to come to Dublin to record with Sack.

“I’m not sure I added that much to the album but it was fun”

I had just done my first remix for Björk and had moved into the world of programming and sampling in the last few months of Compulsion and I found this to be exciting so he asked me to do a bit of that. Paul Tipler was my neighbour in Camden and I was a huge Stereolab and Broadcast fan. He was producing so it sounded like it could be fun. When we got to the studio it wasn’t built so we had to finish it off. I wasn’t expecting that but it was a good way of bonding before recording. They gave me a side room where I tried to figure out a new sampling system that I never really mastered. I’m not sure I added that much to the album but it was fun. Tipler is great at recording a band and I suggested some things. 

I had produced some records before working on this and was interested in production but not as a career or a job. I just enjoyed recording.

by Garret “Jacknife” Lee (co-producer/programming/sampling on Butterfly Effect) 

The Jacknife Lee by Jacknife Lee is available on Bandcamp.

Shane O’Neill

Shane O’Neill was the singer in Blue in Heaven, a band I featured on Episode 4 of the podcast. In the mid-90s he co-founded Dirt Records with his brother Brian. Dirt released great albums by The Idiots, Tension, Revelino (featured on Episode 8) and Sack. Shane and his old friend David Long (Dave joined me on Episode 5 to talk about his band Into Paradise) have released three great albums in recent years: Moll & Zeis (2021); Age of Finding Stars (2022) and And You Can’t Dram That (2023). Here Shane remembers his time running Dirt Records and getting involved with Sack.

Brian and I both loved Sack’s first album. I think we saw them at Columbia Mills and got talking to them. We were in the process of putting a studio together and they had the songs for an album. They wanted to use Paul Tipler to produce (I think he worked on their first album). We had no money really and so we just made it happen, everyone got pressured, it was a mess, but constructive. Deadlines blew by and they recorded in a building site. Paul was a proper engineer/producer and had to adapt fast. I vaguely remember having to persuade him not to walk a few times. 

The band had practiced a lot and could just knock it out

The one thing that was consistent was the band. John is a fantastic songwriter and for some reason he is just overlooked. It is more difficult to hear something original and get it, easier to rubber stamp the Xeroxed version of whatever is happening now. Martin is a great singer, and he was finding his feet with songwriting too. Derek on bass and Tony on drums were really unbelievable together, the crunch and attack behind these great songs could take your breath away. It was exciting to go downstairs and hear the progress. Garret (Derek’s brother) was there to add texture and depth, some gloss on the basic live performances. The band had practiced a lot and could just knock it out.

We saw it as ART

With no money we had to rely on press and radio which didn’t happen, and there was no structure around the band to organise gigs etc. Obviously we never recouped (lost our shirts!), we knew that was the probable outcome before we started, but we saw it as ART. As a label we weren’t cool or commercial, so in that awkward place in the middle. Brian always had an instinct for what was real, music that came from somewhere. Our idea was to try to leverage the positive things about the different bands and build up a presence that would benefit all of them, but all the bands were coming to the end of their cycles and so were we. We gave all the bands their work back, they did all the work really anyway, we just tried to stitch them together and go for a ride.

by Shane O’Neill (co-founder of Dirt Records)

And You Can’t Dream That by David Long & Shane O’Neill is available on Bandcamp.

For Further Listening/Reading:

For the Irish Examiner’s Ireland in 50 Albums series I’ve written about Butterfly Effect…

Butterfly Effect is available on Bandcamp.

In 2022 Sack released ‘What a Way to Live’, the band’s first new material in over 20 years. They are currently recording their fourth album. ‘What a Way to Live (Birds of Olympus Rerub)’ is available on Bandcamp.

Below: Press cuttings from various UK music publications, click on each image to enlarge. Images from @nothingelseon and @jjohnfoyle.