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Its Me
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Much more useful to an understanding of the Irish rock scene is Roddy Doyle' s comic novel The Commitments, which dissects the brief poignant career of a fictional Dubliner soul-revival band of the same name. The Commitments latch on to the soul music of Sam Cooke and Otis Redding because it sounds more "real" than what they hear in the local pubs and on the radio, and with the fanaticism of the newly converted (much like U2 in the United States during the Rattle and Hum sessions) they succeed marvelously, for example altering James Brown's "Night Train" so that the listed cities make sense on their island. "No one laughed," Doyle writes of one performance. "It wasn't funny. It was true." Of course the next second the band members are trading insults. At the end of the novel, the few members who haven't scattered are organizing a country-punk unit. They are just as committed to the new sound as they were to the old and their infatuation is contagious. They truly love their new toys, mid- 1960s Byrds albums, but the reader is left with the hunch that six weeks later they might be playing power- pop polkas. This is why it is so hard pinpointing the roots of Irish rock-and-roll bands, because those acquired roots could be different every few months. Had In Tua Nua with Sinead lasted, they could have just as easily developed into a heavy-metal band as a full-fledged folkie outfit. There were paths open in all directions. Sinead did not remain long with In Tua Nua. Her fatherprevented her from touring with the group (listening to the music suggests she did not miss much), and that is when she wound up in Waterford. While at that boarding school, she worked harder on her music and began playing in public more regularly, usually in pubs or coffeehouses (often with a supporting guitarist]. Bob Dylan covers were the rule, and early versions of The Lion and the Cobra's artier tracks "Drink Before the War" and "Never Get Old" also got aired out. She lasted at Waterford roughly a year, after which time she decided she was going to make her living as a singer At her father's urging, Sinead studied briefly at Dublin' s College of Music. When she was seventeen, Sinead joined a group called Ton Ton Macoute, as its singer She was not atlowed to write for the band. Nobody who has seen Ton Ton Macoute has anything positive to say about them (they did not stay together long enough to develop into anything worthy praising), and that was also the opinion of representatives of England's Ensign Records when they came to a Dublin rehearsal studio to audition several bands. They were impressed by none of them. Ensign's Nigel Grainge and Chris Hill were, however, taken by Sinead's presence and intensity (though not by the songs she performed) and encouraged her At that time Sinead was still painfully shy in front of an audience-and doubly so before an audience made up of two British record-company executives-and Grainge and Hill could see that she would not be saleable unless she became more comfortable in public.
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