The Fatima Mansions | |
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 the Fatima Mansions in 1991 | |
| Background information | |
| Origin | Cork, Ireland |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 1988–1995 |
| Labels | Radioactive Records |
| Past members | Cathal Coughlan Andrias O'Gruama Zak Woolhouse Hugh Bunker Nick Allum Nick Bagnall Nick Bunker Jonathan Fell Paul Murphy |
The Fatima Mansions were an Irish rock band formed in 1988 by Cork singer/keyboardist Cathal Coughlan, formerly of Microdisney. [1]
The original line-up consisted of Coughlan, Nick Allum, Jonathan Fell, Zac Woolhouse and Aindrias O'Gruama. They took their name from the Fatima Mansions corporation flats in Rialto, Dublin. [2] [3]
The Fatima Mansions were a popular live band, and gained indie chart success with their albums Viva Dead Ponies , Bertie's Brochures , Valhalla Avenue and Lost in the Former West .
They entered the Top 10 of the UK Singles Chart in 1992 [4] with a heavily reworked version of Bryan Adams' song "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You", taken from an NME tribute album in aid of the charity, the Spastics Society. The single was a double A-side; the flip-track, Manic Street Preachers' version of "Suicide Is Painless" received most of the radio airplay. They also gained mainstream exposure by opening a European leg of U2's Zoo TV Tour in 1992, although they were nearly booed off the stage and almost started a riot when front man Coughlan swore at a Milan audience and insulted the Pope. [5] The band often courted controversy with religion, dictators, empires and general authority being targets for Coughlan's vitriol. [1] Despite this, The Guardian newspaper described him as "the most underrated lyricist in pop today", [1] and DJ John Peel said he could "listen to Cathal Coughlan sing the phone book".
The album and singles campaign for 1994's Lost in the Former West was styled on the glamour of Liberace, and featured a cover version of The Walker Brothers's "Nite Flights".
Sean O'Hagan is an Irish singer and songwriter who leads the avant-pop band the High Llamas, which he founded in 1992. He is also known for being one half of the songwriting duo in Microdisney and for his work during the early 1990s with the English-French band Stereolab.
The Kane Gang were an English pop trio formed in Seaham in 1982. The group comprised Martin Brammer, Paul Woods and Dave Brewis. They scored several UK and US hits in the 1980s. Named alluding to the movie Citizen Kane, the trio recorded for the record label Kitchenware, which was also home to Prefab Sprout.
Microdisney were an Irish rock band formed in Cork in 1980. They were founded and led by songwriters Cathal Coughlan and Sean O'Hagan (guitar). Originally typeset as Micro Disney, the band had become Microdisney by the time they had relocated to London in 1983 and signed to Rough Trade Records. Between 1983 and 1986 the band recorded six Peel Sessions for BBC Radio and released their debut album for Rough Trade called Everybody Is Fantastic.
Audrey Riley is an English cellist and string arranger, based in the UK.
Cathal Coughlan was an Irish singer and songwriter from Cork, best known as the frontman of the band Microdisney, formed with Sean O'Hagan in 1980. Their second album The Clock Comes Down the Stairs reached number one in the UK Indie Chart. They developed cult followings in the Irish and UK indie music scenes before breaking up in 1988.
"(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" is a song by Canadian singer-songwriter Bryan Adams. Written by Adams, Michael Kamen, and Robert John "Mutt" Lange, the power ballad was the lead single for both the soundtrack album from the 1991 film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Adams's sixth studio album, Waking Up the Neighbours (1991). The single was released on June 17, 1991, by A&M and the accompanying music video was directed by Julien Temple.
Valhalla Avenue is an album by Irish alternative rock act The Fatima Mansions. Released in 1992 by Kitchenware Records, the album included the singles "Evil Man" and "1000%". Frontman Cathal Coughlan wrote, and with the assistance of Ralph Jezzard and Victor Van Vugt, produced and engineered the album.
Kitchenware Records was an independent record label based in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. It was founded in 1982 by Keith Armstrong, Paul Ludford and Phil Mitchell, and was originally part of The Soul Kitchen, an artist collective and nightclub.
"Nite Flights" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Scott Walker under his given name Scott Engel. It was first recorded and released by Walker's pop group The Walker Brothers as the title track of their final album, 1978's Nite Flights.
Viva Dead Ponies is the second album by The Fatima Mansions, and features elements of both their original, more synth-led and melodic sound on songs such as "You're a Rose", as well as the noisier, guitar-oriented style that would become more prominent in their later works.
Recorded and released between Viva Dead Ponies and Valhalla Avenue, the Bertie's Brochures mini-album found The Fatima Mansions displaying their more subtle side, with the record being dominated with slower, piano-led ballads such as the title track and their cover of Scott Walker's "Long About Now", although their radically altered take on REM's "Shiny Happy People" and "Mario Vargas Yoni" represented the band's noisier and more scathing side too.
Against Nature was the debut album from Fatima Mansions. It was released in September 1989, receiving almost universal critical acclaim, described by NME as "staggering in its weight of ideas...never loses its capacity to suddenly stun you", and also described as "a startlingly well-rounded debut". A review from Allmusic stated "Coughlan's lyrics are similarly aggressive throughout, with actions of overt and implicit violence in nearly every song and a grouchily misanthropic, almost nihilistic lyrical world-view throughout".
Lost in the Former West was the final album released by The Fatima Mansions. Writing for Hot Press, Liam Fay said that it is "both Fatima Mansions’ most accessible and most ambitious release yet. It revisits virtually all the bases that the band has touched during its previous four albums but maintains a cohesion and easy-appeal throughout. More than anything else, it is the sound of a group who feel that their time has finally come."
Cathal is a common given name in Ireland, spelled the same in both the Irish and English languages. The name is derived from two Celtic elements: the first, cath, means "battle"; the second element, fal, means "rule". There is no feminine form of Cathal. The Gaelic name has several anglicised forms, such as Cathel, Cahal, Cahill and Kathel. It has also been anglicised as Charles, although this name is of an entirely different origin as it is derived from a Germanic element, karl, meaning "free man".
Hurrah! were a British jangle pop band formed in the early 1980s and active until 1991. Two band members traded off lead vocals on track-by-track basis, giving the band two distinctly different sounds.
Knot a Fish is the debut and most critically acclaimed EP by the Irish post-punk band Five Go Down to the Sea?, released in 1983 on the London-Irish label Kabuki records and distributed by Rough Trade. Recorded just after the band changed their name from Nun Attax, it is the only of their recordings to feature cellist Úna Ní Chanainn, and is widely considered their best work.
Ricky Dineen is an Irish musician best known as the guitarist with the post-punk band Five Go Down to the Sea?, earlier known as Nun Attax, who later developed into Beethoven–fucking–Beethoven. He wrote most of the band's music and developed their angular musical style, which he said was in part influenced by contemporary post-punk bands such as The Fire Engines, Gang of Four, The Mekons and Bogshed.
Finbarr Donnelly was a singer and songwriter from Northern Ireland, who moved to Cork city at a young age. He is best known as the vocalist with the post-punk band Five Go Down to the Sea?. Known for his striking stage presence and absurdist, surreal lyrics, he and the band were hugely influential on later generations of Irish musicians. Mark McAvoy, author of "Cork Rock: From Rory Gallagher to the Sultans of Ping", said in a 2017 interview that "Donnelly probably would have been the most influential musician and songwriter in...the Cork music scene and the bands that stemmed from it."
Kaught at the Kampus is a live compilation 12-inch EP conceived and organised by Irish promoter Elvera Butler, and released in 1981 on her Reekus Records label. A showcase of then emerging Cork city punk and post-punk bands, it contains tracks by Nun Attax, Mean Features, Urban Blitz and Microdisney
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