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Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Bassist


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Birth of Patrick Devlin, Irish Rock Guitarist & Singer

Patrick Devlin, guitarist and singer, is born in Dublin on August 8, 1967. He currently fronts Blaggards, an American Celtic rock band based in Houston, Texas. The Houston Press describes Blaggards as “H-town’s heir to the emerald throne of Phil Lynott and Shane MacGowan.”

Growing up in Dublin, Devlin listens to and is influenced by Irish rebel music and heavy metal bands like Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden.

After moving to Houston in 1994, Devlin tends bar in Irish pubs and music venues for a number of years before starting his first band. From his perspective behind the bar, he realizes there is a local demand for Irish rock music that nobody is fulfilling. In 1996, to this end he forms a band called On the Dole. Although the band does well for several years, opening for legendary Irish touring acts like The Wolfe Tones and The Saw Doctors, eventually he decides it is time to clear the decks and start again.

In 2003, while hosting a weekly open mic at an Irish pub, Devlin meets bassist and singer Chad Smalley, son of Nobel laureate Richard Smalley and a veteran of the Houston music scene who had recently returned from New York and is looking for a new project. The two of them soon begin singing and performing together every week, developing a tight vocal harmony style.

In July 2004, Devlin and Smalley form Blaggards, along with violinist Turi Hoiseth and drummer Brian Vogel. Hoiseth and Vogel have since left the band, leaving Devlin and Smalley as the only original members.

Blaggards tours nationally and internationally. They perform at South by Southwest in 2008, where they are the only Celtic-based act on the official schedule. Their music has been played on the Sirius Satellite Radio program Celtic Crush, hosted by Larry Kirwan of Black 47. In 2013 he includes their recording of “The Irish Rover” on his compilation album Larry Kirwan’s Celtic Invasion.

The song “Big Strong Man” from Blaggards’ first album Standards (2005) appears in the 2010 British film The Kid, directed by Nick Moran.

“Big Strong Man” and “Drunken Sailor” (also from Standards) are both featured in episode 86 of the CBS series The Good Wife, aired on March 24, 2013.

Blaggards’ second album, Live in Texas, is released in 2010. It is a recording of a live performance at Houston’s Continental Club on June 13, 2009. The band’s latest album, Blagmatic, is released on July 14, 2021.

Blaggards, with Arizona-based fiddle player Heide Riggs and drummer Kevin “Turbo” Newton in the current lineup, continue to maintain a rigorous schedule, playing constantly throughout Texas and touring nationally several times a year. Beginning in 2010 (excluding the COVID years), the band does a 10-day Ireland tour every year in the early fall.


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Birth of Ali McMordie, Bass Guitarist of Stiff Little Fingers

Alistair Jardine “Ali” McMordie, bass guitarist best known as a founding member of the punk rock band Stiff Little Fingers, is born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on March 31, 1959. He plays with the band from 1977 until they break up in 1983 and joins them on the first few years of reunion tours five years later.

Prior to becoming Stiff Little Fingers, Jake Burns (vocals and guitar), Henry Cluney (guitar), Gordon Blair (bass), and Brian Faloon (drums), are playing in a rock music cover band, Highway Star (named after the Deep Purple song), in Belfast. Upon the departure of Blair, McMordie takes over on bass. Cluney has by this time discovered punk, and introduces the rest of the band to it. They decide that Highway Star is not a punk enough name, and after a brief flirtation with the name “The Fast,” decide to call themselves Stiff Little Fingers, after The Vibrators‘ song, which appears on the album Pure Mania.

Stiff Little Fingers is formed in 1977 at the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which informs much of their songwriting. They are the first punk band in Belfast to release a record – the “Suspect Device” single comes out on their own independent label, Rigid Digits. Their album Inflammable Material, released in partnership with Rough Trade Records, becomes the first independent LP to enter the UK top 20.

In the face of low sales and concert attendances, Stiff Little Fingers disbands in 1983. McMordie joins a group of Reading musicians in the newly formed dance-punk band, Friction Groove. They secure a deal with Warner label, Atlantic Records, and go on to record an album, The Black Box, in Berlin and Brussels, from which the first single, “Time Bomb,” charts very briefly.

Around 1986 McMordie provides, along with other Friction Groove members, the core band behind Sinéad O’Connor, who had just arrived in London from Dublin. He is later sacked.

Between 1992 and 1994, McMordie is executive producer for the Peace Together Irish concert events. Since 1994 he has been the tour manager for American artist Richard Hall, AKA Moby, with whose band he has sometimes played bass. He has also been used as the live bassist for Belfast singer-songwriter Dan Donnelly, having played in Dan’s live band at the Beautiful Days music festival in Devon in 2006.

In 2006, it is announced that McMordie is rejoining Stiff Little Fingers for their current tour, and subsequently he rejoins the band on a permanent basis. As of 2021, he is still playing bass with Stiff Little Fingers.

Besides being a live musician, McMordie runs Alistair McMordie Tour Management.


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U2’s Los Angeles Rooftop Video Shoot

Irish rock band U2 records the video for “Where the Streets Have No Name” on the rooftop of the Republic Liquor store in downtown Los Angeles on March 27, 1987, at a time when MTV still shows videos and U2 is unquestionably the biggest band in the world. The video shows police advising the U2 crew that they will shut down the performance due to crowd safety.

It takes place on the rooftop of the Republic Liquor store at 7th and Main. The location is now Margarita’s Place, a Mexican restaurant that still draws tourists. The impromptu performance is an homage to the Beatles final concert, as depicted in the film Let It Be. As lead vocalist and primary lyricist Bono says at the time, “It’s not the first time we’ve ripped off the Beatles.

The video shows the police about to shut down the show at any moment with one cop heard saying, “You’re drawing people in here from Orange County and all over the goddamned place. We’re shutting this location down.” According to band manager Paul McGuinness, the confrontation is overly dramatized. The band is hoping to get shut down by the authorities to garner publicity, but the police let them play.

The video is directed by Meiert Avis and produced by Michael Hamlyn and Ben Dossett and goes on to win a Grammy Award for Best Performance Music Video. Hamlyn is almost arrested following a confrontation with the police, according to an interview with Uncut magazine. Avis later says that “getting busted was an integral part of the plan.”

Bass guitarist Adam Clayton later says, “The object was to close down the streets. If there’s one thing people in L.A. hate, it’s streets closing down, and we’ve always felt bands should shake things up. We achieved it because the police stopped us filming. Were we worried about being arrested? Not at the time.”

The performance actually is not quite as impromptu as it appears. Prior to filming, a week is spent reinforcing the roof of the liquor store to ensure it will not collapse if fans swarmed onto it, according to Wikipedia. A backup generator is also put on the roof so shooting can continue if the authorities shut off the power on the primary generator. They also rebuild the sign for The Million Dollar Hotel, which can be seen in the background, as an added draw in case no one shows up.

The performance attracts about 1,000 people, not the 30,000 predicted in the radio clips at the beginning of the video. The audio is actually a studio recording, although the band plays four versions of the opening track hit from their 1987 album The Joshua Tree.

(From: “Flashback Monday: U2 Performs On A Roof In Downtown L.A.” by Sharon Knolle, LAist of Southern California Public Radio, laist.com, September 22, 2013)


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Birth of U2 Bassist Adam Clayton

adam-clayton

Adam Charles Clayton, Irish musician best known as the bass guitarist of the rock band U2, is born in Chinnor, Oxfordshire, England, on March 13, 1960.

Clayton is the oldest child of Brian and Jo Clayton. His father is a pilot with the Royal Air Force, who moves into civil aviation, and his mother is a former airline flight attendant. When he is 4 years old his father works in Kenya as a pilot with East African Airways. Clayton regards this as the happiest period of his childhood. In 1965 the family moves to Malahide, County Dublin, where Clayton’s brother Sebastian is born. The Clayton family becomes friends with the Evans family, including their son, David, who later becomes a fellow U2 band-member with Clayton.

When he is eight years old Clayton is sent to the private junior boarding Castle Park School in Dalkey, Dublin, which he did not enjoy because he is not particularly sports orientated. At age 13 he enters the private St. Columba’s College secondary school in Rathfarnham, Dublin. Here he makes friends with other pupils who are enthusiastic about pop/rock music. It is here in the school band where Clayton plays the bass guitar for the first time.

Clayton later changes school to Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin, where he meets future bandmates, Paul Hewson (aka “Bono“) and Larry Mullen Jr., and is reunited with his childhood friend David Evans (aka “The Edge”). In September 1976, Mullen puts an advert onto the school’s bulletin board seeking other musicians to form a band. The original band is a five-piece band known as “Feedback,” consisting of Bono, The Edge, Mullen, Dik Evans, and Clayton. The name is subsequently changed to “The Hype,” but changes to “U2” soon after Dik Evans leaves the band. Clayton stands in as the nearest thing that the band has to a manager in its early life, handing over the duties to Paul McGuinness in May 1978.

In 1981, around the time of U2’s second, spiritually charged October album, a rift is created in the band between Clayton and McGuinness, and the three other band members. Bono, The Edge, and Mullen have joined a Christian group, and are questioning the compatibility of rock music with their spirituality. However, Clayton, with his more ambiguous religious views, is less concerned, and so is more of an outsider, until Bono’s wedding to Alison Hewson (née Stewart), in which Clayton is the best man.

Clayton makes international headlines in August 1989 when he is arrested in Dublin for carrying a small amount of marijuana. He avoids conviction by making a large donation to charity. Clayton also has alcohol problems, which come to a head on November 26, 1993, when he is so hung over that he is unable to play that night’s show in Sydney, the dress rehearsal for their Zoo TV concert film. Bass duties are fulfilled by Clayton’s technician Stuart Morgan. After that incident, however, Clayton gives up alcohol.

In 1995, after the Zoo TV Tour and Zooropa album, Clayton heads to New York City with bandmate Mullen to receive formal training in the bass as until then Clayton has been entirely self-taught. Bono says of Clayton’s early bass playing, “Adam used to pretend he could play bass. He came round and started using words like ‘action’ and ‘fret’ and he had us baffled. He had the only amplifier, so we never argued with him. We thought this guy must be a musician; he knows what he’s talking about. And then one day, we discovered he wasn’t playing the right notes. That’s what’s wrong, y’know?”

In 2011 Clayton becomes an ambassador for the Dublin-based St. Patrick’s Hospital‘s Mental Health Service “Walk in My Shoes” facility.

Clayton and U2 have won numerous awards in their career, including 22 Grammy Awards, including seven times for Best Rock Duo or Group, and twice each for Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Rock Album.