Episode Notes

Episode 43 of To Here Knows When - Great Irish Albums Revisited focuses on Comforter (1994) and The Future is Medium (1996) by Compulsion.

Garret “Jacknife” Lee is a producer and mixer known for his work with REM, U2, The Killers, Snow Patrol, Modest Mouse, Taylor Swift and countless 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).

He released two albums as Telefís with Cathal Coughlan and more recently released Los Angeles with post-punk legends Lol Tolhurst (The Cure) and Budgie (Siouxsie and the Banshees/The Creatures) as Lol Tolhurst x Budgie x Jacknife Lee

We start in the Cabra Grand cinema at a Siouxsie and the Banshees and Micro Disney gig in 1980 and we work our way up to the present day to Jacknife’s collaborations with Coughlan and Budgie.

Along the way our conversation takes in: Casablanca Moon, Dave Clifford and Vox Magazine, Above the Thunderclouds, Gerry Leonard, Microdisney, Giordaí Ua Laoighre, Cathal Coughlan, Budgie, Lol Tolhurst, REM, Finbarr Donnelly, Five Go Down to the Sea?, Michael O’Shea, Una Ní Chanainn, Joey Mary Barry, The Golden Horde, The Waterboys, Thee Amazing Colossal Men, Virgin Records, Sean O’Hagan, Abbey Road, Nico Bolas, Scott Thurston, Pixies, Compulsion, One Little Indian, Mark Freegard, New Wave of New Wave, Britpop, Paul Tipler, Stereolab, Elektra Records, Interscope Records, Howie B, Green Day, Nirvana, Bush, Bono, Björk, Sack, Into Paradise, The Slowest Clock, 28 Days Later, Kasabian, Snow Patrol, All Saints, U2, the role of the producer, the producer as “disruptor”, The Cars, Robbie Williams, Taylor Swift, Pretty Happy, Modest Mouse, Telefís, Les Amazones d'Afrique, Rokia Koné, Lonnie Holley, Oasis, The Strokes, Sleeper, The Underground, The Pleasure Cell, Guernica, Stano, and Rollerskate Skinny.

This is the longest episode to date - it’s a history lesson.

In their 1993 Christmas double bumper Issue, the NME named 20 new bands as their TURN-ONS of that year.

Rereading the feature brought back so many memories for me, because of the 20 bands mentioned – I bought records that year by 10 of them: Elastica, Tindersticks, Madder Rose, Senser, Credit to the Nation, Palace Brothers, S*M*A*S*H, Voodoo Queens and Compulsion.

In summing up Compulsion’s year the NME wrote: “An object lesson in how to ROCK that marked Compulsion down as the indie AC/DC.”

Rewind three years and the reviews weren’t as kind. In the late 80s Joseph Mary Barry, Garrett Lee and Sid Rainey were Thee Amazing Colossal Men. They released one album Totale and in April 1990 Stuart Maconie in an NME review of the band’s debut single ‘Superloveexperience’ dismissed them with the snarky line - “Amazing’s not the word, pal.”  

Thee Amazing Colossal Men parted ways with Virgin Records and started again. Barry, Lee and Rainey requited Dutch drummer Jan-Willem Alkema. They re-emerged in 1992 as Compulsion. After self-releasing two highly-regarded EPs they signed to One Little Indian.

Comforter, the band’s debut album followed in March 1994. ‘Mall Monarchy’ its first single was awarded “Single of the Week” in both the NME and the Melody Maker.

Courtney Love was the guest reviewer in the Melody Maker and declared: “Now this is a good riff. I like this riff. I’d have used this riff.”

‘Basketcase’ followed in June 1994 and remains a firm favourite of mine. When I announced this episode a friend messaged, “I thought you weren’t a fan?” he asked.

He wasn’t to know that for weeks in mid-1994 I played Compulsion’s ‘Basketcase’ every Saturday night in The Village in Cork, or An Scráidbhaile as it was also known. It seems completely surreal to me that there was an actual recreation of an old Irish village underneath Sir Henry’s in Cork. I swear I didn’t dream this.

One night in The Village somebody robbed a few records from my bag. 30 years later I still remember exactly what was stolen. Sleeper’s debut single, the great ‘Alice in Vain’. The 7” fell back into the bag, so the robber got the sleeve but not the disc, Dinosaur Jr’s ‘Just Like Heaven’ 12” - their feral cover of the classic Cure tune - and Compulsion’s incredible ‘Basketcase’ 12”.

So you see my affection for Compulsion is personal - I bet those three songs never meant as much to that langer as they do to me.

By 1996 Britpop was in the ascendance. Compulsion wanted nothing to do with the party and instead looked to Europe for inspiration from 70s bands like Neu!

‘Question Time for the Proles” the first single from second album The Future is Medium was the band’s broadside against Britpop. “‘Proles’ are bewildered and not very bright kind of people who are being bombarded by these images of the Swinging Sixties,” Joseph Mary told the Melody Maker.

A jingoistic UK music press largely ignored The Future is Medium. How dare Compulsion ruin the party!

Some believers still existed: John Robb in the Melody Maker wrote that:

“Life can be cruel sometimes. There you are with your ferocious guitar sound and smart pop tunes. But your singer has short spiky hair, so therefore you must be punk revivalists. SO you get lumped in with the New Wave of New Wave movement, play loads of gigs, reactivate the live circuit and…suddenly Britpop comes along and no one wants to know cos you’re “punk”. You’re effectively stranded on the fringes of fashion. Does this piss you off? Nah. Dublin boys, Compulsion are made of sterner stuff.”

Robb contined, “The Future is Medium is one huge war zone of guitar filth. Big, bright and brassy, Compulsion are no spent force yet.”

Robb was spot on about the album but unfortunately wrong about the band. Following a Japanese tour in late 1996 Compulsion called it a day. As an Irish punk band they didn’t fit the prevailing UK trend and they were never comfortable with their US label’s attempts to market them as a neo-Grunge band. 

When I announced this episode, a musician featured on a previous episode messaged to say, “Full disclosure, I had no idea that the guitarist from Compulsion and Jacknife Lee were the same person, which just cost me a little piece of melted mind.”

Jacknife Lee has spent his time since Compulsion producing albums. His CV includes U2, REM, The Killers, Taylor Swift and countless others. He has recently completed work on a Pretty Happy album.

For Further Listening/Reading:

Comforter and The Future is Medium are being reissued soon on vinyl by One Little Independent Records.

The Jacknife Lee can be heard on Bandcamp:

Bamanan by Rokia Koné & Jacknife Lee can be heard on Bandcamp:

Telefís a h-Aon agus a Dó can be heard on Bandcamp:

Below: Press cuttings from various Irish (Vox), UK (NME, Melody Maker) and US (CMJ, Album Network, R&R, Billboard, Hard Report and others) music publications, click on each image to enlarge. UK cuttings from @nothingelseon.