As a Luton teenager, Sean O’ Hagan of legendary Cork group Microdisney returned to Ireland with his family; he describes his impressions of his new home town of Cork thus: “It had a whole sense of its own. It was very isolated and surreal, full of character and strangeness. It wasn’t plugged into the world in those days. That’s why all those good musical things happened, because it wasn’t plugged in. You actually did meet people from different backgrounds even though it was small and a provincial society…” At a New Year’s Eve party in 1980, on the cusp of a new decade, Sean met Cathal Coughlan and the seeds of Microdisney, one of Cork’s finest musical exports, were sown.

Mark McEvoy’s excellent new book charts 'those good musical things' and is in fact more oral history than historical narrative. It is all the richer for this too, because through their voices we hold court with characters like O’ Hagan and Coughlan, as well as Donal Gallagher, Niall O’ Flaherty, John Spillane, Paul Linehan and many, many more, Cork legends all. We hear in Donal’s words the story of how Rory Gallagher nearly joined The Rolling Stones, how he made a living in showbands in the early years; and then there’s media 'personality' Brendan O’ Connor’s time as a band mate of the Frank & Walters; too, Ireland’s first open-air festival; the Gallagher brothers’ (not Oasis, the real Gallagher Bros.) involvement in the establishment of Hot Press; first-hand accounts of Nirvana’s gig in Sr. Henry’s; the trials and tribulations of several bands after relocation to England; the sudden death of the great Finbarr Donnelly; the rise and history of Ireland’s first all-girl rock act… All the anecdotes are here and they never disappoint. The great achievement of this book, however (the superfluous use of exclamation marks on many of the pages apart), is that McAvoy is able to weave these voices and stories with acute detail and excellent reportage, so that the book is textured and structured and all the more readable for that.

The book begins with a general thesis on music and its role in the human endeavour, and quickly shrinks down to a single place: Cork. It is a city in which “there was a gig on every single night you went to town.” Indeed, of all the characters we meet throughout the book, the city is the most endearing. Underground venues spring up in places that are now 'euro-pubs', cafes, high-street clothes shops or derelict properties to strike fear into the hearts of superstitious children. We hear tell of gigs where the sweat “was pouring down the walls… the keyboard was soaking wet, with the whole stage rocking and the people crammed up against each other.” Collectives set up camp in corners and musical friendships are made.

The city plays host as a meeting place for the myriad of bands that evolve and die out and appear again in altered forms as if from nowhere. 'Quirky' is a word that pops up often enough in the book and it seems the Cork scene has always been so in some form or another. One of the remarkable aspects of the book is the cult status achieved by bands who may never have even gotten album deals. There is gentle animosity, humorous rivalry, and certainly begrudging respect between all of these bands as they come and go, and often, as line-ups interchange, musicians end up in bands they’ve slagged off.

Throughout though, Cork is illustrated as a musical city: the suburb of Bishopstown is pivotal, one school teacher spawning several known bands; city buildings like The Grand Parade Hotel (which housed Sr. Henry’s) become monuments to musical history; musicians grace the front pages of the city’s stalwart Echo and Examiner editions (you’d wonder whether this would be the case in other cities). Of course the more successful bands needed to break out of Cork to achieve their full potential, and some of the more insightful accounts in the book are those of exile. The sinister aspects are here too, accounts of exploitative talent shows for example, though one lingering doubt is whether a certain pride in the music or the scene has, at times, protected some of the reputations of our musical heroes in the accounts here.

The names of people and bands involved in this oral history, from the obvious (Rory Gallagher) to the downright bewildering (Steve Albini; RTE Sports Editor Tony O’ Donoghue), are too many to mention here, but needless to say the book constantly causes thoughtful or surprising remark. When looked at as a thesis, yet another interesting aspect is the pattern that emerges through different musical epochs: rock as a reaction to the showband era, punk as a reaction to rock, and so on. The reactionary habits of such a small scene are never more evident than when the owner of the Phoenix Bar on Union Quay split the punks and the rockers between floors of the pub. But as these scenes evolve, in a small place like Cork, there is always a dialogue between them, and musicians spread their talents across the board, and because of this you wonder whether the city’s size is one of the most important aspects in all of this. Certainly, if there’s an error in the book, it’s the title, because this encapsulates so much more than 'Cork Rock'. So whether it’s music you’re interested in, or Cork, or neither, you’ll find more than enough to thoroughly enjoy this fine book.


"Danny Denton is a writer and critic from Cork. He has published fiction and non-fiction in various journals, and is currently completing his first novel."