Come Here To Me!

(Article first published in Look Left, Vol.2 Issue 10)

Featuring heavily on a recently issued Reekus Records anthology, ‘Too Late To Stop Now’, Sam McGrath explores the music and politics of The Blades.

Socially conscious, musically gifted and uncompromising in their attitude towards the manipulative music industry, The Blades remain one the most revered and important Irish bands of all time.

The genius of Paul Cleary, lead singer and songwriter of the band, lay in his ability to craft both memorable love songs and standout tracks about the critical issues of his generation – boredom, unemployment and a crippling recession. Class conscious and sympathetic to socialist politics, Cleary “tried to get that into (his) music without browbeating people”.

Lending support to various worthwhile causes, The Blades played numerous benefit gigs throughout the 1980s. These included gigs for Rock Against Sexism in UCD in February 1980, for the families of those who died in the Stardust fire in 1981, for the pro-choice Anti-Amendment campaign in September 1982 and for the Dunnes Stores anti-apartheid striking workers in January 1985. In 1986, they famously shunned the ‘back-slapping’ Self-Aid to play the left-wing Rock The System one-day music festival at Liberty Hall.

The Blades roots lay in their working-class, southeast Dublin 4 neighborhood of Ringsend. Spurred into action by the Punk explosion, they made their live debut as a five piece at their local Catholic Young Men’s Society (CYMS) Hall in the summer of 1977. Ironically, the plug was pulled on the gig early when the sound engineer took exception to the band playing God Save the Queen; not understanding it was The Sex Pistols version (!).

Subsequently with Cleary on bass, his brother Lar on guitar and childhood friend Pat Larkin on drums, the band were a formidable trio. The sharply dressed, melodic post-punk outfit played ‘short, punchy, guitar-driven songs’ that suited the live, intense atmosphere of their first home, The Magnet, a tough local bar on Pearse Street.  These early gigs, only enjoyed by a room full of forty or so Mods and Soul Boys, would go down as some of the best in Dublin’s live music history.

A year later, they were in The Baggot Inn playing a famous six-week residency with another fledging Dublin band – U2. Dave Fanning, who DJ’d at the gigs, recalls that parts of the crowd would leave straight after The Blades, ignoring U2. The two bands couldn’t have been more different. While Cleary and co. would unleash an assault of high-tempo, three-minute pop/soul numbers, Bono used to come on stage and tell the “crowd of a dream he had the night before’”

This first line up of The Blades, which lasted from 1977 to 1982, released two fantastic singles; the catchy summer pop classic Hot For You in 1980 followed a year later with the more mature, Ghost of a Chance which dealt with love across the class divide. Disenchanted with the failure of Energy Records to proceed with the planned LP, Lar and Pat left the band.

Replaced by bassist Brian Foley (ex. The Vipers) and drummer Jake Reilly, Cleary took over guitar duties. Coupled with the horns section of the Blues Brass, a ‘couple of renegade musicians from The Artane Boys Band’, this more developed and ambitious model recorded a LP with Elektra but in a nasty turn of events, the record company, who had recently lost a substantial amount trying to break Howard Jones into the American market, decided not to release it.

Left with a finished product (recorded in London with The Smiths’ producer John Porter) but with little else, The Blades found themselves in a frustrating scenario. Luckily the record was eventually released, to critical acclaim, by the pioneering Irish label Reekus. Cleary, a life long fan of George Orwell, titled the LP The Last Man In Europe, the original choice of name for 1984.

Before their one and only studio album was released, The Blades brought out three first-rate singles. The guitar-driven The Bride Wore White in March 1982 which was voted single of the year in the Hot Press National Poll with Cleary also winning Best Irish Songwriter beating Bono, Van Morrison and Phil Lynott. It was followed later that year by Revelations Of Heartbreak, the multi-layered brass-tastic dancefloor stomper.

Then in 1983 The Blades released, often regarded as their masterpiece, the seminal Downmarket. In little under four minutes and two verses, Cleary managed to capture the mood of the whole country in the bleak 1980s recession using the specific personal experience of a young man waking up in an ‘unfamiliar bedroom’ after a one-night stand. His ‘successful’ encounter is contrasted against the ‘problems of the nation’. Stuck in a city that is ‘black and white and grey’, the protagonist, both physically and metaphorically, has no way of finding short or long-term relief from Dublin (such as that an airport or station could offer) but instead finds himself waiting at a bus stop the next morning.

One more single (Last Man In Europe) and a fantastic collection of their 1980 – 1985 recordings (Raytown Revisited) later, The Blades split up in 1986. Cleary subsequently formed The Partisans and today plays with well-respected pub-rock band The Cajun Kings.

The Blades are fondly remembered by those who were lucky enough to see them in action and are constantly being discovered by a new generation of fans. They remain one of the best Irish bands of all time and one of the few who attempted to address the social issues of their time.

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I asked on The Blades Fan Group Facebook for some memories and anecdotes. The response was fantastic.

Paul Jennings: ” I only seen them once. It was their second or third last gig but that was enough to say they were the finest Dublin/Irish band I’ve ever seen live …  Cleary was a genius.”

Seamus Duggan: “Saw The Blades in an L shaped room in O’Sheas hotel in Bray and still remember the difficulty of getting to the corner to actually see them. That and the power of the brass. Also saw them in The National Stadium and there was a real sense that they were a communal band, who expressed what their audience was thinking. Paul’s songs were always clever without being smart, if that makes sense. Downmarket was almost an anthem, but not in the stadium rock sense. An anthem for all those who didn’t put their fists in the air, for those who were suspicious of the easy answers, even their own.”

Des Flanagan: “They were the first real band I’d ever seen live, The White Horse Hotel, Drogheda. I have to admit I had butterflies in my stomach before the gig cos I had no idea what was in store. I was completely blown away, my ears buzzed for days after it cos it was so loud, they really were top draw. My love for music went up another level that night. Fantastic singer, fantastic songwriter!!”

C Anthony Farrell: “To see the blades live brought you a high. The build up to gigs in the Baggot started the moment I finished in Barrow Street, down the road from Pauls family home … The songs he wrote about social issues were on par with Weller and Bragg.”

Ken Sweeney: “At the time the Irish music scene was awash with U2 clones and bad New Romantics trying to ape Spanda Ballet. Myself and my friends didn’t want to walk around the Ilac Centre (in Dublin) dressed as pirates. Here were three lads from Ringsend with suits, we could relate too, and great pop songs. Paul Cleary was an immensely talented yet modest man. The singles just got better and better. Songs like ‘Downmarket’ reflecting the Ireland we lived in. I can still remember how exciting it was when The Blades opened gigs with Paul hammering out the A chord intro to ‘The Last Man In Europe’. But whoever let them put “Paul Cleary suit from Hairy Legs Legs Liffey Street ” on the sleeve of ‘Raytown Revisited’. That was a mistake.”

David Harris: “Seen The Blades a fair few times in the TV Club and the Baggot .. It started with putting on your best clobber, downing a flaggon of merry down and the 48a into Charlemont Street and then the T.V. Club. Then paul waking on stage with his white Fred Perry and beret and then it was a hundred miles an hour – Hot For You, Ghost Of A Chance, The Bride Wore White – All classics. YYou were there with your best mates and life was great, we have a lot to thank The Blades for”

Louise Duggan: “The Mercantile,T V club, Galway, Drogheda. Trinity Ball,U.C.D and Fridays at the Baggot–wherever–I just was blown away how they captured the combination of emotional and social issues, they belted them out with attitude and a fantatic melody. We all gathered to be on the same team, singing out the songs like a ritual, watching the sweat pouring from Cleary, with the occasional smile. –as time past the brass came along and wow–the music, the words in the songs, the passion of the band…just couldn’t be beat”

Proinsías Ó Baróid: “The Blades looked cool in photo shoots, gave good interviews, sincere and modest, always underating themselves (unlike many recognition vultures today and then) and toured like hell around the country. Ireland back then was arguably a few years behind England in trends and music related ‘scenes’, which hung on a bit longer over here. As a result there were still alot of young people in Ireland into the Mod or Ska scene (some even just getting into it) which had left the mainstream in England really with the end of the Jam in ’82, and the Specials. The Blades filled that void here for several years. Irelands towns and cities were still full of people into a certain look: Crombie coats, tight-fitting Levis gear, doc’s & loafers, fred perry’s, 3-button suit jackets, sta-prest trousers, harrington jackets, neat-to-skint hair etc… For many of these people The Blades represented this old school Mod/Ska look, wrote catchy melodies with poignant lyrics, all without big studio production and annoying 80’s synthesisers. A hark back to the 3-piece punk/new wave outfits of the late 70’s. Even their name: ‘The Blades’ gave an impression of the ‘edginess’ (if you parden the pun) of urban life for youths often riddled with conflict between various groups at clubs, disco’s or in the school yard which anyone who was really into the Mod/Ska/scooterist/Northern Soul scene back then would agree was a regular enough occurance with some exceptions. The Blades were a unifying element to these youths who all shared a common enemy; mainstreamers or casuals. The Blades identified with their audience and vica versa. You met people just like you at the gigs, or people you wanted to look like, and they would always play a few covers to acknowledge that they knew and understood who was coming to see them.”