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Rooney were a British DIY band that released three albums between 1998 and 2000, including the debut album Time on Their Hands which received much support from John Peel, who booked them for a session in 1999. [1] [2] They reached number 44 in Peel's Festive Fifty of 1998. [3] [4] The lo-fi music incorporated sometimes humorous — but often unsettling — spoken-sung lyrics describing everyday, mundane activities and observations, an approach which was consistent across all Rooney releases. [5]
Artist Paul Rooney self-released the first Rooney album Time on Their Hands on Common Culture Records in 1998. [6] [7] The album was widely and favourably reviewed, including notices by Stewart Lee in The Sunday Times, [8] Tom Ridge of The Wire [9] and Gary Valentine of Mojo magazine. [10] The continued support of John Peel earned a place for Went to Town at number 44 in John Peel's Festive Fifty of 1998, [11] [12] and a Rooney Peel session was broadcast in 1999. [3]
By 1999 Rooney became a band with new members Colin Cromer and Ian Jackson. [13] The second Rooney album On Fading Out was released in 1999, [13] [14] and the project ostensibly ended with the third and final album, On the Closed Circuit, in November 2000, [15] [16] [17] though gigs continued sporadically until late 2002. [18]
In 2006 comedian and writer Stewart Lee curated the Rooney track Into the Lens for the CD/book The Topography of Chance, which also included Mark E Smith, Derek Bailey and Simon Munnery. [19] [20] The Rooney Peel session was repeated in 2016 on Gideon Coe's BBC 6 Music show, [21] and an EP of the session, entitled This Job's Forever - The Peel Session, was released on Owd Scrat Records in 2020. [22]
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