SUNBEAR - CENTRE PAGE / A SHORT ACCOUNT AND SOME PHOTOS FROM COLIN
Colin who played with Sunbear sent me the short account of their association with Dead Elvis which you’ll find below. There’s an open invitation to others with any kind of association with the label - however tangential to do the same. I had forgotten about their long field recording of the late night sounds of Parnell Street (described in his account) which is included on their self-titled album on their own BearBones imprint. It reminded me of the way in which the late night events on the street outside of Fibbers and The Blue Lion were a popular entertainment in 147.
There was a great panoramic view of the street from the other Eamonn’s room and altercations were an extremely regular occurrence after the bars closed. The street didn’t have an immigrant population back in 1993 and 1994 so it was very much the fighting Irish in their ragged glory. Again the street itself and particularly the Welcome Inn, which was really the Dead Elvis office for two or so years, deserve a post. I’ll leave that till later. Colin also sent me on two snaps of Sunbear at the time which you’ll find at the bottom of the post. In one you can see the ramshackle centrail stairway as it was in 147 at the time. The track included above is not really representative of what Sunbear sounded like on the album they recorded with Marc in 1994 - but it is interesting for the free flowing experimentation nonetheless and it’s included because Colin mentions it in his account.
You can stream or buy the rest of the Sunbear debut album over at the Indecater website. The Indecater page also includes an interesting account of the making of the album from Martin. These guys really became part of the general Dead Elvis associated rabble after recording with Marc. He and Og can still be found ranting about the quality of the stuff they recorded in 147 back in the day.
1994: 147 Parnell Street and the Sunbear Connection
To say the first Sunbear gig (08/04/93) was a shambles would be generous. We were out of tune, bum notes everywhere and Martin forgot most of the lyrics. However, we persevered and got (a bit) better over the following year playing venues like Fibbers, The Attic, The Rock Garden and Behans Bar (Fox & Pheasant). There was a very distinct group of bands that played the same type of gigs around that time; Monomer, Unease, In Motion, The Idiots, Luggage and Wormhole. So when we found out that Wormhole were to release an album, we were pretty amazed. Not because they weren’t good enough, but because no band of that size in Dublin was doing anything like that. Plus, their album was to be on CD! CD pressing before then had been way out of most people’s budgets. Most small releases were glorified demos on audio cassette.
This got our attention and we talked lightly about putting one out ourselves. Except we didn’t know where to start. A drunken encounter with Óg Crudden at a North Strand party provided us with some of the answers. For one thing, he was involved in the label (Dead Elvis) that was putting Wormhole’s album out. And for another, he volunteered to help us put out our record. He was familiar with the process involved and they had already got a studio set-up in the basement of 147 Parnell St, where Marc Carolan manned the cockpit.
So before we knew it, we were recording in Fuse for £50 per day. A Soundcraft desk and a Tascam 8 track reel-to-reel machine were used and God knows what kind of mics. Marc was great to work with even back then and was exceptionally inventive too. The “Stephen Hawking” voice on the middle track, Centre Page, was done a year before Radiohead did something similar on OK Computer with Fitter/Happier. Way ahead of his time!
As far as I remember, we were there for 12 days. 12 days which involved hardly any sleep, way too much alcohol (fuelled by John Fitz in the Welcome Inn) and really bad delicious takeaway food from the Black & White chipper across the road.
At the final stages of the recording, someone asked how much music you can fit on a CD. “77 minutes” was Marc’s answer. Well, it’d be a shame not to fill that space, wouldn’t it? So one Saturday evening, upstairs in 147, we miked Parnell St. In stereo. It’s still interesting to listen to the traffic noise at the end of the final track. You can hear conversations, traffic, sirens, screams and shouts.
Following the release of the album on our own Bearbones label and several decent reviews we asked Eamonn Crudden to do a video for us. For some reason, we ended up setting up a living room on a road down on Dublin’s docklands and throwing chairs into the sea at Killiney beach, but somehow Eamonn captured a moment in Sunbear’s life and managed to put together something we were very proud of. The version on youtube (very bad quality) has the song ‘Notebook’ on it, but ‘Your New Laugh’ was also put on the same video. Both versions were aired a few times on No Disco by Donal Dineen.
So although Sunbear weren’t on Dead Elvis, we certainly would’ve been lost without their help.
Colin (an ex-Sunbear)
