Hullo there! It’s been a while! I’ve just recently started a new job and there’s been a manic bedding in period so I haven’t had much time for the ole blogging lark.
The best thing about the job is, no more public transport! No delayed trains wrecking me head anymore, (well for a while anyway) I’ll soon have a new annoyance to give out about though, other drivers! Jesus they’re bad. All that to come.
In the meantime there’s this. Someone’s just turned me on to it. The Drogheda Boxing Club, home to many reprobate (meself included) of a Saturday night during the late 80’s and early 90’s, the best gig venue in the North East. Classic bands such as Hothouse Flowers, Don Baker and Sisters (YES!!! THEEEE SISTERS) of Mercy have all graced the stage of the boxing club. Physically, the place was a kip of the highest order, girls had to go to the toilet in threes (one to go and the other two to hold the door of the cubicle up), guys pee’d into a Wavin pipe that went straight out into the Boyne River and by the end of each night the entire floor was coated one inch thick in a slimey substance that could only have been a cocktail of spilled beer, urine and vomit, but it was our club, the only club in Drogheda and surrounds that catered for your alternative sort.
I first fell in love there, first got drunk there and I smoked my first spliff there. I remember the night we booed a very drunk Mary Coughlan off the stage after her first few minutes. Her band came back on and played a blinder of a blues set and when she herself tried to sneak back unnoticed the boos began again and she left the stage with a ‘Well Fuck yiz then!’
The reason I’m sharing all this with you is that if you look at the site, scroll down through the photos section to ‘The Dreads’ gallery and click in, you will see an 18 year old JackMcMad (The one in the cap at the bridge and the obscured one behind the drums in the live pic from Sir Henry’s Cork) who is, at that time embarking on his first musical career. Also, if you keep going down to the playlist there are three songs for your listening entertainment. Sick of You and She’s on to You are taken from the first brilliantly named, 600 Thousand Million Records On My Head (and I can still stand up) EP and the song Crazy from the album Burn your Idols, with Emma Spiller on backing vocals.
This is stuff I haven’t heard in years and to be honest, not being even one bit biased at all at all, me, never, would probably do well commercially, today.
Oh I nearly forgot, also on that site, in fact here, is a pic of Emptyhead from that era, sporting an absolutely fabulous Mullet!! He’s the one on the right
Sorry man, just had to point that one out. There are more of me amongst the throng but you’d never pick me out.
12 responses so far ↓
Bald Devil // February 14, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Hello Jack.
Really enjoyed the post. Used to play the odd gig mesylf in the old Boxing Club, band called “The Big Noise”. Also played some in the old Weavers, (before it was Harry Grooms). Always enjoyed good old Drawgheda, good and always lively crouds, lots of beer, and some of the best smoke I ever had.
Love the Emptyhead photo.. just a shame he is not here anymore… Ah well, some of us might not be around for much longer either.
Bald Devil loves you all.
Baino // February 14, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Got a soft spot for a Drummer myself, I’m just glad I don’t have to lug the gear around anymore. I’m ashamed to say that the mullet is alive and well in Western Sydney! Shame Emptyhead’s in Melbourne, he’d fit right in! The Boxing Club sounds like the sadly no longer existent Baulkham Hills School of Arts . . . a total misnomer if ever there was one, it was a barn with smoke so thick you couldn’t see the band and a bunch of underage drinkers with vodka in lemonade bottles! Ah the good ol days
Bald Devil // February 14, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Baino you flirt!! I could tell you stories about drummers!
Bald Devil loves you all.
EmptyHead // February 15, 2008 at 12:21 pm
BD! Aw, you miss me? So, you mightn’t be around much longer, huh? Might see you there later.
Baino. I’m in Melbourne and loving it. She’s sweet mate.
Jack!!! …. That photo? …….. You’re a cunt. I’ll expose you…. just you wait. wah ha ha ha ha
Revenge will be mine.
Bald Devil // February 15, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Go get him Emptyhead..
Does this mean you have nudie pix of him that you are going show us?
Bald Devil loves you all.
Finnish huge // February 15, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Wow, great come back, good to see your Working hard, Only in the and your up to your old tricke.
EmptyHead // February 15, 2008 at 11:02 pm
BD, I don’t have any nudie pics of Jack but I bet Finnish Huge does, outdoor saunas in Finland and all that. Come on Huge, embarrass Jack for me.
Bald Devil loves us all. Yippee.
Finnish Huge // February 16, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Empty head, I am sorry to report that Mc Mad is not as mad as he likes to make out he is, he was not man enough to let it hang out, in fact the only thing he let hang out was his gut. Mc Mad loves to think that he could be the next John Rambo or Ray Mears, maybe because when he was a scout he was not as good a scout as his father(A Scout Leader)would have liked, and he is trying to prove that now he can be, when in fact he can’t.After only a few min in the forest collecting fire wood at a Men in the Woods night, Mac Mad had to be rushed off to hospital after stabing himself with his own knife. What a Boy George he is, and you should see him when he has a cold, you wouldn’t that kind of moans from a Man that had been shot a few times.
Hope yal having a great time down there Empty Head.
JackMcMad // February 16, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Hey BD, are you not in enough trouble without trying to rowse Emptyhead into a bit of revenge?
Baino: Unfortunately the Boxing Club is no longer there either. They built a bridge through it. The club tried to move to a few diffferent venues but they never managed to achieve the same ambience.
Emptyhead: I didn’t post that photo, I merely supplied the link to it. I suggest you take it up with whoever posted it. Anyway, wearing a haircut like that constitutes a major crime in my book. It deserves to be made public.
Finnish Euge: When did you change your name? Surely it’s not a reference to your manhood? Five fucking stitches I got that night. At least I came back out to the woods after the hospital.
Baino // March 11, 2008 at 4:12 am
You are the second slackest blogger on my blogroll! And there are some pretty slack slackers slacking off there I can tell you . . .slackers of the world unite . . . tomorrow!
Baino // March 31, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Ok thats it, you’re coming off!
Empty Head // April 21, 2008 at 8:09 am
Jack McMad????? More like bloody Jack Slack if you ask me. What’s going on dude?
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