Belfast Punk Sound Walk

What you just heard was a snippet to the Good Vibrations movie. A story about Terri Hooley but and the Belfast based good vibrations records shop and further record label. Opened in 1977 by Hooley in Great Victoria Street the shop moved various times throughout its tenure as Belfast’s epicentre for punk music and bands including: Stiff Little Fingers, The Undertones and The Outcasts to name a notable few bands to have graced the shops doors. However, despite its shine and polish as Belfast’s premier record shop and music label for its time, it came from incredibly humble beginnings. According to Hooley when reminiscing about how the shop started out, “I set up Good Vibes by buying 1,000 singles for £40 and selling them out of my back bedroom. When there was no space left we took over this derelict building in Great Victoria Street” (88) While being a record shop and label, Hooley also used this to inform punks and gig goers alike to keep them up to date with the latest local records and gigs that were taking place with newsletters produced by Good Vibrations. As well as informing the punks and gig goers of the time, in 1979 there was a Good Vibes Irish Spring Tour in 1979. The line-up including The Tear Jerkers and The Outcasts. However, the Tear Jerkers and The Outcasts weren’t the only bands to work with Hooley. A Derry based punk band The Undertones recorder their EP Teenage Kicks with Good Vibrations. After the success of this EP being played on Radio 1 and further material recorded by The Outcasts, Hooley had set up a splinter label called Good Vibrations International which stayed in line with its punk roots but allowed for some leeway. One such band was Zebra, an Irish Reggae band who had appeared on the labels first 12” single. However, after years of moving from Great Victoria to Wintaven and finally North Street, Good Vibrations finally closed down in 2015 with a service of sorts taking place in the Oh Yeah Centre, also located in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter. While closed down, Good Vibrations was at the heart of Belfast’s punk movement. It even had a stage musical put on in the Lyric Theatre located on Ridgeway Street in Stranmillis, as well as a movie released in 2012.

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What you just heard was Never Fight a Man with a Perm by IDLES, one of the many bands to have graced the Empire Music Hall.
The Empire Bar; located in the Queens Quarter of south Belfast on Botanic avenue, it offers everything from comedy to funk and to weekly blues nights every Thursday performed to some of the most diverse crowds you could ever see. However, and like many other places of performances the Empire has been closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, global pandemic aside the Empire has been a beacon and home for new and upcoming punk. Not just in Belfast music scene but those further afield. Such punk bands include Fontaine’s D.C., Squid and Crows to name a few who have played in this now hallowed music hall. One of the bands previously mentioned IDLES played to a sold out crowd in the Music Hall. According to XSNoise’s article “the band had the crowd on the palm of their hands the entire time” something that makes the atmosphere of a punk gig even better than just simply playing your set to a crowd and getting your pay-check. However, their version of punk still rebels but not against the system or the man. IDLES use their brand of punk to question the idea of what it means to be a man and combats toxic masculinity. Something that shouldn’t exist but still does and IDLES songs such as never fight a man with a perm and Danny Denelko are helping to defeat the stigma around being a manly man and letting men know that it’s punk to be your own kind of man.

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35 Hill Street in the Cathedral Quarter of Belfast’s City Centre is the home to the Harp Bar. However, prior to 1978 most gigs in Belfast had taken place in bars and youth clubs on the city’s outskirts, such as the “Glenmachan Hotel, Girton Lodge and Paddy Lambes”(96) Before the Harp bar though, there was The Pound Club. A venue found on Townsend Street. Blues and heavy rock were its sound. However, it was also a home of sorts to upcoming bands like Victim, Rudi and The Outcasts to name a few. However, this wouldn’t be the only place where bands like those previously mentioned would congregate. The Harp Bar became that new home for punk rockers and bands alike. It’s inaugural punk gig played by Victims in 1978 was the first of many and Wes Graham of Victim looks back fondly on what the bar had and has done for the punk movement, “Some may say the Harp was a major catalyst for the Ulster punk scene in the late 70s, a unique environment which spawned and nurtured a wealth of undiscovered talent, a seminal meeting place where disillusioned, like-minded teenagers congregated to launch a music-inspired crusade against Northern Ireland’s deep-rooted traditions of bigotry, discrimination and apathy” And it did that. It brought those from both sides of the divide, working class, upper class and even the rich kids from Bangor together. This was an environment where they could mix and mingle freely away from the intimidation of the Troubles. A regular of the bar, Joe Donnelly states, “It was a place where people could be different to the ordinary guy and girl in the street, and express their individuality through their taste in music and dress sense without fear of getting your head kicked in” It was this inclusive nature of the punk movement that brought both sides together and encouraged it, sure anarchy brought divide and it comes naturally with a movement such as punk, but the Harp emphasised and honed the inclusive nature of what being a punk is all about.

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Gordon Street in Belfast is the home of the Oh Yeah Music Centre. Opened in 2007 it was made for music makers and those involved in the business of music. It also holds the idea that it’s a valuable agent in NI and acts as a catalyst to change lives for the better. Before its opening though it was an idea. An idea shared between Stuart Bailie, Gary Lightbody and Belfast’s own Snow Patrol and through two years of volunteering the Oh Yeah Music Centre was born. As well as being a performance space for new and upcoming talent in the Belfast music scene it also hasn’t forgotten where Belfast’s musical history started. So it put on a music bus tour. The Oh Yeah Centre’s music bus tour was to celebrate the history of all thing’s music related in Belfast’s rich grassroots music scene. While it was to celebrate the likes of Van Morrison, Bap Kennedy and Ruby Murray and what they’ve done for Belfast’s music scene. More importantly it celebrates Belfast’s punk roots by highlighting the work of the Undertones, the release of Suspect Device by Stiff Little Fingers, Victim and The Androids playing the first ever punk gig at the Harp Bar as well as the first single released by Terri Hooley’s. Whilst putting importance on Belfast’s history it also wants to promote new and upcoming talent with the Scratch My Progress EP. Taking a select few artists every year to produce a single and put it on this EP, the 2020 class included NI’s own Gender Chores and their single ‘Night in the Woods’. They use their punk energy and style to attack the bigotry and intolerance in the highest of political offices of NI. Something not only the international punk movement sought out to do, but something which is still relevant to contemporary Belfast.

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Here at 24 Rosemary St. is where you’ll find Fresh Garbage. Opened in 1969 Fresh Garbage has been Belfast’s original alternative clothing and piercing shop. Before Rosemary street though the shop was located across from Kelly’s Cellars located at Bank Street. Opened by Geraldine Lynn the shop became a haven for hippies and punks alike during the late 60s and onwards. To this day there are still those in the community who flock to its doors for the latest, or retro of punk and vintage fashion. The shop was so popular amongst the population of Belfast punk legend, Terri Hooley sold newspapers outside of it. However, due to the effect of the Troubles had on Bank Street, they were forced to relocate to their new location of Rosemary Street. Suffering further financial hardship after its move to Rosemary, the shop wouldn’t see a boom in business until the early 2000s when the “nu” movement of music including nu rock, metal and punk had taken over the radio and brought those punk rockers and metal heads flocking back to the doors of Fresh Garbage.

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2 Victoria Street is where you would have found Giros. A DIY punk inspired performance and social space set up by Petesy Burn and “zinester” Danny as well as a few others involved in the punk scene in 1984. It wasn’t until 1986 where the group founded and opened Giros. The space was a café as well as a social hub and performance space for punks of any age and was inclusive as to allow for escape from sectarianism and bigotry which came from the Troubles. Before the move to Victoria Street in 2011, the original Giros was located on Donegal, a much larger and open space on the Donegal Road but it kept with the ethos of inclusivity that Giros was so heavily based on. It had also seen its fair share of bands come through its doors. Some touring bands that graced its performance included Bluetip, Godflesh, Jawbreaker and Los Crudos. As well as some local bands including Stalag 17 and Toxic Waste. One of the main reasons for why Giros was set up by the Warzone collective was explained by Petesy Burns, “There were not a lot of opportunities for creativity”. With this lack of creative opportunity in the late 70s and with the Troubles in place, the punks of Belfast had the Warzone collective to thank for a safe space such as Giros. As well as gigs and having a its own vegan café, Giros hosted documentary nights as well as a meeting space for various groups in Belfast such as pro-choice and gay rights activists. However, in 2018 the centre was sadly evicted and the building was later demolished.

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