The Isle of Noises: Rock and Roll's Roots in Ireland

By Mark J. Prendergast

Story of Ireland's Rock & Roll music scene - history and biographies. B & W photos illustrate. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312039824
• ISBN13: 9780312039820
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: St Martins Press
• Length: 315 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Irish rock: from the 50s to the late 80s

This valuable book may be inevitably dated as I review it over fifteen years after I bought it. It's a 1989 edition, unchanged save a two-page preface, of a 1987 title published in Ireland as more blandly if sensibly 'Irish Rock.' Still, as with Colin Harper and Trevor Hodgett's "Irish Folk, Trad & Blues: A Secret History" (London: Cherry Red, 2005; also reviewed by me), it offers the perspective of an obsessed, well-educated, and youthful Irish fan turned diligent chronicler. Both books share an engagingly intelligent yet consistently lively way of narrating, insight into the ups and downs of fame and its discontents, and an impressive knowledge of the more dimly recalled nooks and obscured crannies amidst which lurk the remnants of hundreds of bands and thousands of songs. Unfortunately, much of their discography can now be obtained only by the affluent collector rather than the curious listener. Prendergast went on around the millenium to publish a thick book, "Ambient," on the surprisingly wide musical and historical perimeters as well as the heart of that then-trendy sound; little in Isle would anticipate this later interest. Attention-- too rare in many music books for the common reader-- is paid to elegant prose style, appropriate metaphors, and careful annotation. The book's only four chapters, but many sub-sections. 1) Beat Groups to Prog; 2) Folk into Rock; 3) Van M.; 4) Modern Music. Intriguing in retrospect that one of the biggest, if brief, successes of the 90s was not yet on Prendergast's or anyone's radar at the time of this book's appearance, Cranberries. That band's sudden rise and fall would have offered its own instructive lesson on the comet-like path so often understandably sought if less rarely attained by Irish musicians here: leaving the pub and townhall for the giddy dazzle of international stardom and chart hits. Of course, alongside such as Clannad, U2, Sinéad, Bob Geldof, Pogues, and less so on Undertones, SLF, Hothouse Flowers, and more on Thin Lizzy, Rory Gallagher, and Christy Moore, for example, there are dozens of little-known artists that however briefly Prendergast allows finally at least in print their own moment in the limelight. These musicians often prove to me more fascinating. Horslips, Virgin Prunes, Radiators (from Space), Dr. Strangely Strange or (for me still unheard--that record collector vs. curious fan dichotomy preventing me from finding an affordable copy of...) the album produced by Hendrix of Eire Apparent: such lesser-known artists (at least outside of themselves limited Irish circles) for me gain in allure. The stories of those better known to me appear less engaging, perhaps since they tend to repeat what fans already may know. Yet his sections on such artists are dependable guides into the Irish-dominant facets of more popular artists' careers, especially in their lesser known formative years in Ireland. Of course, for such a book to appeal to a wider readership, the bulk of the text is