The Cellar university of music circa late eighties. (Picture by Dee Elliot)
In the late eighties early nineties; acid house, rave, and dance where exploding across the world.
Unfortunately at that time our world was exploding in around us.
for a musical education and shelter from the storm in those dark days it was the cellar indie Saturday night, father joe greene followed by his young curate Greg McCann, gave the indie flock all of the latest indie sounds Stone Roses, charlatans the farm etc etc. I was sixte… ahem eighteeen when I first got in with a dodgy student card and there was a lot of stylish older cats with long mop tops and cool clothes I tried growing the mop top so I could flop my hair at the stone roses but alas I was blessed with that thick wiry hair that when ye grow it long grows out like an Irish Afro and doesn’t flop at all no matter how hard I tried.
I didn’t care i was being introduced to the best of current indie and Joe Greene was scouring Smithfield and other far flung places for choons. Boys who had escaped to London and Preston and other places were bringing joe required choons home too.
It wasn’t just the new stuff as Joe himself said he kept playing older bands like the stooges “till people liked them”
This young out of place crew cut got a thorough grounding in the stooges the stones velvet underground iggy pop Dylan James brown and on and on. When I left lurgan for Derry and Dublin and other places I never came across anywhere like the cellar in a Saturday night never heard as many magic sounds all three together.
Last night I was driving home and the Stone Roses came on. And I thanked the good lord for Joe Greene.
