Kaught at the Kampus

While I was producing Get That Monster Off the Stage Frank Price, singer in The Slowest Clock, gifted me his copy of Kaught at the Kampus saying, “you need this more than I do Paul.” I couldn’t believe his generosity, everyone I’d interviewed talked about the record – but I hadn’t heard the famed EP. I was excited, I was invested: at 18 I sneaked into deLacy House to watch The Fatima Mansions soundcheck; I’d pestered a very patient Mick Lynch to tell me where they’d gotten all the frogs for the ‘Charlton Heston’ video and while promoting gigs with Philip O’Connell I’d sit and listen agog as he’d entertain us with stories of Donnelly, Nun Attax and the Arc. I had done the homework!

I dropped the needle, the vinyl crackled and Donnelly’s voice came booming, “the next song is about psychiatrists and stuff and rubbish and it’s called ‘White Cortina’.” Jim O’Mahony once sang ‘White Cortina’ for me upstairs in a café on Washington Street, Jim did a fairly good rendition of the tune but nothing could have prepared me finally hearing the full force of Nun Attax in all their primal glory. It was just brilliant. Side One was all Nun Attax, they were the instigators, the great influencers. Dave O’Connell of Urban Blitz remembers, “gaping through the ceiling-to-floor glass windows of the cafeteria in Mayfield Community School at the improbable sight of Finbarr Donnelly, Ricky Dineen, Phillip O'Connell, Mick Finnegan and Smelly playing punk rock under the title of Nun Attax.” Everything changed at that moment for Dave: “we decided we had to get serious.” Sean O’Hagan was equally inspired by witnessing Nun Attax, “I was fascinated, it was the first time that I’d ever heard music that didn’t seem to have any kind of tangible relevance to anything I’d heard before, angular music.” That was the power of NUN ATTAX – they deserved three songs on the EP. Nun Attax would change band names and band members, later on in London they’d record better songs, but in August 1980 there wasn’t a better live band in the country. “It was like being a real musician,” remembers the unassuming Ricky Dineen, Nun Attax’s guitarist, “we were excited and really delighted, it was great.”

Side Two was given over to Mean Features, Urban Blitz and Micro Disney. It starts with Mean Features and Mick Lynch beseeching his bandmates and the Arc crowd that, “the next song is being recorded, so we have to get it right.” Liam Heffernan, Mean Features’ guitarist, remembers the night fondly, “it was all brilliant. Shur, we were only young lads. I remember Giordaí [Ua Laoghaire – Micro Disney guitarist] tuning our guitars in a car outside before we went on, no such thing as a tuner.” Mean Features get it right, ‘Summer Holidays’ is played at a ferocious speed, thundering bass and drums, a guitar that still sounds brilliantly raw and that just about stays in tune for the song’s short duration. Mick remembered those days fondly, “the first gigs I went to were down the Arc and by a stroke of luck I got a bit of work down there. I used to sweep up afterwards and make coffee and sandwiches and whatever. So that meant seeing all the bands.” He was an absolutely incredible frontman, not for nothing did Irish Jack call him, “an Iggy Pop with a Douglas accent.” Mick had honed his craft in the Arc – it was his training ground.   

Urban Blitz deliver ‘Breakaway’, the closest link back to the early days of punk and a pop tune that Pete Shelley would have been proud to call his own. Micro Disney finish things off with their ‘National Anthem’. Reminded of the track for Get That Monster Off the Stage Cathal was adamant that, “the Micro Disney track was shite but that’s neither here nor there.” Dave Galvin, Micro Disney’s drummer concurs: “for us Kaught at the Kampus was a huge disappointment. We had played a really good set on the night and there was some problem with the sound recording and the only one of our songs that was recorded properly was ‘National Anthem’ – it bore no relation to what we were doing, it was a complete sort of a rant almost.” It was the band’s first gig and the rant they recorded is of great cultural significance as the first recording by messrs Coughlan and O’Hagan. A few weeks later Micro Disney again graced the stage of the Arc supporting The Fall. Mark E Smith looked on from the wings. Elvera recalls Smith saying, “he’d love to pinch the band as his backing band, [laughing] get rid of Cathal. He was very impressed with Micro Disney at the time.”

Cathal remembered the recording of the EP, “the stars of the whole thing were Nun Attax. With a lot of justification a lot of people thought that they were going to become the next U2, a lot of people really did think that, in Dublin even. [Laughing] Even people who couldn’t stand their behaviour thought that that was going to happen. You know, the Nun Attax tracks were great. I mean it really caught them at what they were doing at that time.”

The EP was released and the bands got some airplay on national radio – Nun Attax and Micro Disney went on to record sessions for the Fanning show. The Arc closed in May 1981. Giordaí remembers that, “it was only a small scene that collapsed after the Arc died. Nothing happened in Cork then for ages. It was just a golden era from 1977 to 1981.” The city was beset by unemployment and a whole generation emigrated. Cathal and Sean slimmed Microdisney down to a two-piece and left for London. Nun Attax morphed into Five Go Down To the Sea? and followed them. Mick Lynch also followed suit and would later front Stump. These three bands would plough highly original furrows and record some extraordinary records. The Glee Club, Quirk Out and The Clock Comes Down the Stairs belong in every record collection.

The origins of those records can be traced all the way back to a gig of Cork bands in 1980. Elvera was nervous on the night, would a gig of just four Cork bands work, would they pull a crowd? She smiles as she remembers seeing, “coming over the hill the kids all dressed up in punk regalia.” She thought, “Great it’s going to happen!”

Donnelly, Mick and Cathal: that a music scene in Ireland’s second city, away from the prying eyes of Dublin, during a time of deep economic recession and stifling moralistic oppression could produce three of the country’s most charismatic frontmen ever is just phenomenal.

Or more likely, those were the very conditions needed to inspire the trio to get up on stage, give it a go, and buy a ticket for the Innisfallen ferry to Pembroke as fast as they could. Together the three old friends became an inspiration for generations of Irish musicians. Cork owes them a huge debt.

The bands that played at the Downtown Kampus at Cork’s Arcadia Ballroom between 1977 and 1981 aren’t honoured with plaques on the Lower Glanmire Road like their Showband predecessors. But that’s OK because this record is the vinyl plaque that rightly commemorates those years. Deep in its grooves are the hazy memories of countless amazing nights by some of the biggest touring UK and Irish bands of the day, huge heaving crowds, sweat pouring off the walls, and the sound of four young local bands going for it – going for it as if their lives depended on it. Live records don’t get much more vital than this.

In memory of Finbarr Donnelly, Sean Linehan, Chris McCarthy, Pat Kelleher, Mick Lynch and Cathal Coughlan.

by Paul McDermott