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Blink’s Dermot Lambert Answers Questions About The Universe

Formed in Dublin in the early 1990s, Blink became stalwarts of the Irish music scene. Dermot Lambert, Robbie Sexton, Brian McLoughlin and Barry Campbell signed to a major label, released three albums and toured America. They lived every young musician’s dream.

Now, the band have just released ‘A Demo of The Universe’. Socially distanced, I caught up with front man, Dermot Lambert, to chat about the release, lessons learned in Blink and life as a solo musician and radio presenter.

You’ve just released ‘A Demo of the Universe’, a collection of previously unheard demos, live tracks and alternate mixes from the ‘A Map of the Universe’ era, which was released in 1994. Why decide to release it now? I take it that this was decided before the world went weird?

In truth this should have come out last year, being the 25th Anniversary of Map Of The Universe. I thought it would be nice to mark the occasion, but I was thinking more along the lines of a live show, then I got distracted by my own solo material, and I ended up performing some Blink tunes as part of my new live show, complete with 20 piece Mezzo Music Choir and the new band (Ian, Danni and Alice), which we still haven’t named. We’re working on a kicking live version of Cello for the next phase.

Blink recorded three albums and it’s said you had recorded up to 100 songs in some form. This collection is 25 songs full, is there potentially another album’s worth of material?

The tracks on this album had been recently digitised from various sources by a good friend Trevor Elliot, so I set about collating these older materials. There’s a lot of stuff, and the plan is to release at least another 1 album of about 18 tracks from the period between Map and The End Is High (1995 to 1998). We recorded an entire second album that was never released due to a variety of frustrating reasons.

A couple of months after Blink played your first gig, you ended up in a studio with John O’Neill from The Undertones and Gil Norton. Are any of these tracks from those sessions?

Those sessions are actually on A Map Of The Universe, believe it or not. Gil Norton produced It’s Not My fault, while he remixed Going To Nepal, which John O’Neill had produced alongside Dave Pine and Steve Hillage. Steve finished off the tracks that John and Dave started, so on one track (Christmas 22) I got Steve to play guitar, and I’d already gotten John to play on the same track, which meant we had a punk icon on the same song as one of the hippy kings – and I’m not joking when I tell you that nobody has ever been told this before! – no reason, there was just a lot going on – I might re-release the track so it states that they’re both featured on it.

The calibre of who we were working with was never lost on me, I was totally enjoying what was going on. Chris Dickie was one of the engineers on the session, and he was working between us and Nellee Hooper while they were doing Bjork’s Debut, I was beside myself when I later heard that Bjork had the Blink album! Fanboy to the end.

The version of ‘The Greatest Trick’ that’s included is from Wembley Arena when you were on tour with Crowded House. 1994 and the whole era was before digital storage. Asking as a bit of a nerd, how did you guys ensure that you managed to keep top quality masters of all these?

DATS – everything is on DAT, I’ve always been a complete collector of this stuff. I also have about 300 cassettes of rehearsals going back through all my bands as far as 1982, you’d be amazed at how the quality holds up on these too. I also have some reel to reels, but mostly it’s impossible to access these, there’s not many reel to reel machines in working order these days.

I need to ask the artwork for the album. It’s a really good companion to the demo-ness of the early recordings.

My daughter Clare rattled this up using Corel on my PC, I asked her to copy the original, she’s just turned 9, and she’s thrilled to have something she’s done ‘released’. NERD FACT ALERT – The original sleeve was designed by Nick Seymour from Crowded House, and later reinterpreted by Steve Averill. Then when we released the album in America, the yanks completely hated the sleeve and that’s how we ended up with the ‘Eye’ sleeve, which none of us like, especially as the original sleeve was so feckin good!

You signed to EMI, signing to a major label was a huge thing and it gave you the opportunity to tour in the US. What’s the biggest thing you learned from your time with a major label?

It’s a different world, or it was then anyway. Nowadays you can record something quite cheaply and bang it out on Spotify, whereas in those days it cost so much to print vinyl or cassettes or CDs, and then get sleeves printed etc etc, and THEN try to get the thing played on radio!… I did all this for years with my two earlier bands Empty Shell and Rex & Dino, and it’s not for the feint hearted – I earned my indie stars I don’t mind telling you. The major label input is the difference between reaching a huge audience or not.

We still maintained our independence while on the label though, we had total artistic control (hence tracks like Everything Comes Everything Goes and Normans Mom were allowed to stay on) , and we frequently refused to travel in Limos and 5 star hotels that they insisted on providing for us (the Irish office were never that silly). Christy Dignam later told me that was a mistake, and that we should have taken all that stuff, so the record company would spend so much money that they’d try harder to sell the band and get their money back (the famous word is ‘recoup’). I’m not sure which was the right approach, but we mostly had a great working relationship with EMI, and it helped us a lot.

Listening to these tracks must take you back. Any stories you can divulge?

So many stories, I should write a book. We had tons of fun, mostly very innocent. One of the best stories easily is what we called the Cup Game. Blink as a travelling unit was a very silly collection of people, reasonably educated, delusionally optimistic, and sometimes very very funny. The Cup Game happened in 1995, when we were travelling across America. There’s every likelihood that I started this.

Here’s how it works, you have a cup of coffee in a takeaway cup, and when you finish it, you pretend you have to tie your shoe lace and ask the person next to you to ‘hold your coffee’. As soon as they take the cup from you, and they are then standing holding your empty cup, you make some sort of self satisfied face, laugh harder than the occasion really calls for, and set about ridiculing your friend for being such a total eejit as to fall for such a lame gag.

On one of these occasions, the cup in question got passed to more than one person, and by the end of the day, we had decided that this indeed was the height of fun, and whoever had the cup at the end of the tour (three months) would have to buy everyone a pint. We all signed the bottom of the cup so that nobody could replace it with a fake, and we established rules such as no hiding the cup inside amps or drums, no throwing the cup at another person (it was essential that the person accepted the cup from you), you could hide the cup inside a jumper though for instance. Some of the best ‘cup passings’ included Robbie showing somebody something on a map, only to discover the cup was sellotaped to the back of the map.

My personal best attempt was to buy a huge cup of Coke, empty out most of the Coke, put the cup in, and put the lid back on, I thought this was genius, but the problem with America is that it’s sunny all the time, and apparently the lads in the van could see straight though the Coke cup at the big empty mass with a bit of Coke on top, a bit like ‘Nothing To Declare’ and I was rumbled. It’s funnier than I’m telling it. In the end, we believe our sound engineer threw the cup in the bin because he considered himself slightly less silly than the rest of us.

You’ve recorded your own solo material also and released an album ‘Tiny’, what are the biggest differences you’ve found from a band set up to working as a solo artist?

I’ve played in bands since I was 17, and now I’m kind of back in a band again. There’s pros and cons. One of the big pros of being in a band is the camaraderie, shared goals means a lot. Maybe because I’m from a big family (11 kids). There’s songs that would never get written by an individual that can get written by bands (Cello for instance is a total band song). I enjoy both ways of working, and i feel I’ve produced some very good music in both settings.

Are you ever really a solo artist or will you always be a member of Blink?

When Blink exists I’ll be in it, but I like being Dermot Lambert too, I’m liking that more and more these days.Before Blink I had put two other bands together who did pretty ok. Empty Shell from 1982 to 1986, and then Rex & Dino from 1986 to 1990. I had always written and put my ideas into a band structure, and as such a lot of my best music lives forever in those bands catalogues.

Recently I’ve begun to play some of my favourite songs outside of the band settings, and it’s very nice to be able to still play songs I wrote while in these bands. I do a gorgeous version of The Raven and The Tiny Magic Indian, not to mention my recent rendition of It’s Not My Fault with the Mezzo Ladies Choir. I also perform Christmas Forever with the choir alongside this, it’s a brand new song from what will be my next album later this year.

You run the Garage Gigs in Ireland and present Garageland on RTÉ 2XM, promoting new Irish music, give us a tip for three acts we may not have heard before.

I’d rather not give 3, because there are so many, and also because part of my job at Garageland is to not select favourites – it’s hard enough for them all as it is! But people are welcome to tune in every Monday at 7pm to hear lots of great new artists. I will say however, that I have been right at the forefront of discoveries such as Inhaler, The Wha, Magazines and The Script, so my humble finger on the pulse is often used to detect early vital signs by muso industry types.

What venue are you most looking forward to getting back to when we get to the new normal?

As a musician, I am bursting at the seams to play The Wild Duck again. It’s a really cool little venue, and then I really want to play the National Concert Hall with the new album.

Got any jokes?

Most of my adult life.

Send us a lockdown selfie?

Find Blink online on Facebook and YouTube.

Keep up to date with Garageland on their website, Facebook and Twitter and on radio every Monday at 7pm on RTÉ 2XM.

Stream or buy ‘A Demo of the Universe’ here.

May 10, 2020
The London Ear // Show 290

Hello! How are you all keeping? How are you passing the time? You can read about what I’ve been doing during lockdown here.

At this stage, I think it’s really important to remember that not everyone is having a good time. Some people have no outside space, some people have no money, not everyone is in a good space. I hope that The London Ear can bring you a little respite during all this.

The London Ear // Show 290 – May 2 2020

Here’s what happened on today’s episode of The London Ear.

1. Ryan Vail & Elma Orkestra: Love
2. Lila Vargen: Love You Twice
3. The Rolling Stones: Living in a Ghost Town
4. Fiona Apple: I want you to Love Me
5. The Late David Turpin: The Hotel (Strands Remix)
6. Everything Everything: A Birdsong
7. Misty River: Take This Dances
8. Pete and The Hobosapiens: Better Days
9. Blink: Cello
10. Uppbeat: Seasick
11. delush feat Tolu Mackey: The Greatest Gift
12. Bad Self: Stay Down
13. The Academic: Mixtape 2003
14. Shotgun Monkeyz: 7 Seconds to Babylon

Listen On Demand to The London Ear

Thanks for listening, The London Ear broadcast on DAB radio, Saorview, nationwide in Ireland and outside Ireland you can listen online. You can listen to the show again on the RTE player including all previous episodes. The show is broadcast every Saturday at 1300.

May 4, 2020
The Late David Turpin’s Offerings

David Turpin is an enigmatic character. The softly spoken musician and screenwriter has been releasing music since 2008, under his own moniker and as The Late David Turpin following a near death experience.

Four albums into his career, Turpin has released ‘Offerings (2008-2020)’, a collection of his favourite tracks from across his catalogue. The collection is only available for streaming and purchase for one day only, May 1 2020 on Bandcamp.

I socially distanced while catching up with Turpin for a bit of a natter.

Hello David, how are you today?

I’m okay, thanks. With one exception, I haven’t spoken to another person face-to-face in six weeks, which has been a trip.

You seem to have turned into the most prolific releaser of Irish music in 2020.
So far you’ve released 2 singles (including ‘Burn Everything’ with drag artiste, Veda), 2 previously unreleased tracks including a cover of Bette Midler’s ‘The Rose’, one instrumental album and now.. a ‘Greatest Hits’. What was the catalyst behind these?

I’ve released a lot of material over the years, and I also have a lot of unreleased material. I don’t like to look back at or listen to my own music, but being locked down on my own for the past six weeks, I’ve braved a backward glance and found that there were things I was actually proud of and wanted to share. ‘Greatest Hits’ is pushing it, though! I would diplomatically call it a ‘Retrospective Collection’. Perhaps somewhere in the infinite universe they were hits.

Before even listening to the album ‘Offerings’, I can see from the titles that you seem to be influenced by the Greek and Roman classics and by the animal world. How do you join these together to be a happy partnership?

That’s a very interesting observation, and I’m flattered you have made it. One of the texts that’s had a lot of influence on me is Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which is a compendium of classical myths related to transformation, often into animals. I think I’ve always been attracted to the idea of transforming into something else, perhaps because I’ve never felt at home in my self.

Most artists will always prefer their latest work as it’s what they currently have a more emotional attachment to. How did you choose the tracks for the compilation?

By memory at first, as I really don’t like listening to myself. In a way it was liberating never having had any ‘hit singles’ – if such a thing even exists any more – because I was free to choose the songs I liked. I haven’t always got it right, by a long chalk, but I think these 13 songs are ones where I got pretty close.

‘Offerings’ is only available to purchase for one day. Will we be able to stream it in the future or is it really a one day deal?

I kind of like the idea of it being there for one day and then gone. Part of looking back is recognising one’s own impermanence, so in a way it makes sense that it doesn’t hang around.

How do you describe your evolution or growth as an artist? We can all change a lot in 12 years.

I think, for a lot of people, getting older is seen as a process of loss. But those parts of us that we think we lose – our ability to ‘play’ and to ‘daydream’, for instance – don’t disappear, they just migrate to other places. I’ve tried to keep in touch with them by remaining curious. That’s why, as time has gone on, I’ve worked more and more with other people, and other vocalists.

If you could write to your 12 year younger self, about to release your first album, what advice would you give.

I’m not sure that I’m in a position to advise anybody, least of all myself. I might tell him not to listen to creepy middle-aged men, including the one claiming to be a future him.

You have worked with an amazing array of musicians and singers on your records. If you could write up a wish list, who would like to collaborate with?

For me, it’s less about particular individuals I’d like to work with, and more about kinds of ‘otherness’ I would like to be in contact with. I’d like to work more with vocals in non-English languages, for instance. I would also like to be able to work more with older singers. We don’t often hear the voices of the ‘aged’, aside from a few canonical figures, and it’s a shame because we are losing out on a great deal, sonically, texturally and thematically, by privileging the ‘young’ voice over all others.

I hear that ‘The Lodgers’, the film you wrote and scored is also getting a soundtrack release? It’s not often artists get to meld their two different disciplines like that.

Yes, it’s getting a digital release via a UK label called Burning Witches, and there’ll be a vinyl release to follow. The bulk of that score was by Stephen Shannon and Kevin Murphy, and I just kind of floated in and out. It’s hard with a film because the writer is the first one on, and the music team are the last ones off. So if you do both, you’re with it for a very long time. Being honest, I probably wouldn’t do it again.

How do you separate screen writing and making music. Are they different types of artistic cravings?

They’re different animals entirely. I am mainly working on film projects at the moment, and I do find myself longing, at times, for the freedom of doing music. Film can be a lot more circumscribed. But when you manage to navigate within that and still preserve what you wanted to say, it can be incredibly satisfying.

What three films would you recommend we watch this weekend?

Maybe the most useful thing to do is to recommend things that are easy to access. I know a lot of people have recently subscribed to Disney Plus, so I would recommend the original and best, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which was the first film I ever saw, and which continues to be somewhere in the roots of everything I do. If you’re using Netflix, I would recommend another classic, Blue Velvet. I think it’s one of the best American films of the 1980s, and time hasn’t dimmed its power: it’s still as scary, as sexy, and as strangely humane as ever. For people using Amazon Prime, one of the hidden gems there is a 2006 stop-motion animated feature by Christiane Cegavske called Blood Tea and Red String. I watched it late one night and was mesmerised by its power.

What are you working on (musically or filmically) right now?

At the moment, I’m working on a lot of film projects. I’m also beginning to develop my first feature to direct, which is something I’ve needed to do for a while. It’s a long road, of course, but I’m making a start.

Have you any new film material or music releases planned for the rest of the year?

Well, the Covid-19 crisis has changed a lot of plans in the film industry. The last feature I wrote, The Winter Lake, will be coming out soon, but it’s hard to say any more until we know how the situation develops. I’m looking forward to people seeing the film. It’s a mystery starring Emma Mackey, who I think is a very interesting actress.

What have you learned about yourself during lockdown?

I remain a mystery to myself. But I think lockdown has simple lessons to teach us all: Try to be considerate of others even when they aren’t there to remind you; try to be more comfortable in your own company; and if you need to have a wank, go for it.

Finally, can you make banana bread?

Any cooking involving bananas unnerves me. I remember once a man coming into my school to talk about first aid, and he told my class that – within the column of bone – the spinal cord itself has the same consistency and fragility as a banana. So now I can’t eat bananas without shuddering.

Send us a lockdown selfie?

I daren’t, but I shall.

EDIT May 4 2020: Since May 1 has passed, David has actually made the track ‘Pony Tears’ available as a Name Your Price track on Bandcamp

<a href="http://thelatedavidturpin.bandcamp.com/track/pony-tears">Pony Tears by The Late David Turpin</a>

Find David online:
thelatedavidturpin.com
twitter.com/latedavidturpin
facebook.com/thelatedavidturpin

May 1, 2020
The Covid-19 Diaries: Part 2

The Covid-19 Diaries: Part 2

April 28 2020.

It’s been six weeks since St Patrick’s Day. Six weeks and one day since I was last in the office. I’ve left the apartment five times since then. Four times to go to the supermarket, once to go to the park. But now, it’s seventeen days since I left the apartment.

In that time, almost 21000 people have died in the United Kingdom. That’s over 3 times the population of my hometown, Kells, in Co. Meath in Ireland.

About two weeks into all this, I had a conversation with someone about how I genuinely couldn’t understand the tone of the media in the UK. Everything was about the talk of the crisis in Italy and Spain. I couldn’t understand how they were not getting and choosing not look at what was and still is happening on their own doorstep. These figures aren’t just numbers, they are lives.

Now, four weeks later, BoJo is out of hospital and back at work. I wouldn’t wish anyone to be ill with Covid but it does seem that when BoJo was admitted to hospital, that was when the UK government decided it was time to take this seriously.

In my opinion, they were too slow.

Having a Routine

Today, yesterday and the day before. 70km done.

I’ve been really lucky during all this. I’m working from home which makes evenings and weekends seem like evenings and weekends.

Myself and Talulah have been getting up every morning, doing a bit on the exercise bike and then doing our bits for the day. The first week or two was all about getting used to the fact that even though I was at home all day, this wasn’t all free time. I still had a days work to do. So Monday – Friday 930-530 aren’t my hours. The extra time I have is the time that I save from not having to commute, which is a godsend. I hate commuting at the best of times.

Home Deliveries

As I mentioned in my last post, my immune system doesn’t work properly and then isn’t good in pandemic times. It’s also not good that I almost died from smoke inhalation when this Covid-19 thing attacks your lungs.

I attend a rheumatologist in Ireland, one of the reasons is because the medication I take daily, isn’t licensed in the UK. So I registered with gov.uk to say I was in a more high risk group. This has proven to be of immense help as I was then added to the priority list for online grocery shopping. It took a while to happen, but I genuinely have no words to describe how beneficial this has been.

Myself and Talulah initially went to the local Lidl and stocked up on what we could on St Patrick’s Day, during times when we thought that people would still be at work. The only other place we had been was our local Sainsbury’s, which is a small shop, once a week for the next two weeks. The first time was ok, social distancing etc. The second time was crazy. Social distancing measures outside, we queued up to get into the store, but mayhem inside. Plus, there were a lot of items they didn’t have. We ended up ordering all our veg online from a local market supplier.

Three weeks ago, an early Saturday morning visit to Tesco proved very helpful and relaxing but the following week, there were too many people in each aisle. I just wasn’t happy being there.

We’re now getting our groceries delivered on a Friday evening, so it feels like a weekend.

As a side note to this, I had a phone call from the National Screening centre who are monitoring all the people in vulnerable groups. They asked if I was ok, if I had enough supplies, if I needed someone to drop round with a box of food. All extremely nice of them. I don’t need their food boxes, there are more entitled and needy people who deserve to receive these food parcels. Good job though, they will definitely help a lot of people in this shitty situation.

Online Life

The first couple of weeks of the lockdown were crazy for social media / online activities. I had decided that I would try doing a daily vlog and I would try doing some Insta chats with musicians in the evenings. I found these to be near impossible to do. Not that I didn’t want to chat to these incredibly talented people but I found that are dealing with people during the day and during the difficulties of a pandemic, I was physically drained by the evening and I could just about muster the energy to keep up.

I had hoped I would write more etc etc but as well as doing my day job, I had to chill, decompress and look after myself for a bit.

That hasn’t stopped me in my spare time, working with an artist to help them promote their music using my Nessymon Media moniker. There have been a couple of releases, which have gone down a storm, which is great. It’s a bit of fun and I enjoy it.

However, after six weeks, I do want to write more myself and I do want to try and do more with the blog.

I think in the next post, I will tell you more about what I’ve been doing in the evenings and weekends to keep myself entertained.

April 28, 2020