Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Hooleygan: Music, Mayhem, Good Vibrations by Terri Hooley & Richard Sullivan

 

book review of Hooleygan: Music, Mayhem, Good Vibrations by Terri Hooley & Richard Sullivan

by Dubliner's Daughter columnist (Notes) on Friday, February 22, 2013 at 11:03am
Hooleygan: Music, Mayhem, Good Vibrations
by Terri Hooley and Richard Sullivan

Book & movie review by Lorraine Chambers
lorraine92627@gmail.com
Dubliners Daughter columnist

This March 2013 in the UK and Ireland is the film release of Good Vibrations which is the real life story of Terri Hooley and his record shop Good Vibrations which opened in Belfast while others were leaving or being blown away during the Troubles. Here is the book by the man who still walks the streets of Belfast, a town he loves so much though it breaks his heart at times. I had the unexpected pleasure of already viewing the movie at the Galway Fleadh Film Festival last summer and it is in my Top 10 favourite movies. What a story of music, survivial, sorrow, loss, love and joy. It rocks. After the screening there was the nightly afterparty at the Rowing Club by the lake and Terri Hooley was the DJ with such soulful tunes that even the women in the loo (bathroom) line were singing along as the tented marquee had dancing amongst the drinkers. I wanted to meet Terri yet it was a crowded night and I had my taxi to catch back to my host family.

Terri's book is his recollections of the life of punks and music lovers trying to weather a terrible co existence. Former friends were now divided by where they lived and drank, by their names and culture, yet the music was the peace amongst the broken pieces of a beautiful city trying to find sanity while waging war amongst itself. Terri is a man who embraced a new group of voices in his hometown - the cries and anthems of the punks. Their music support kept his store going and he pressed their songs to bring their songs to a wider audience.

Terri Hooley, the founder of Good Vibrations records, is responsible for bands such as The Undertones making their mark on the national music scene in Britain. After playing Teenage Kicks on BBC national radio John Peel became a big supporter of Good Vibrations records. The label celebrated its thirty-year anniversary in April 2008. The biopic based on the life of Terri Hooley began filming in 2009. Hooleygan is Terri's remarkable story, from his tireless commitment to local bands and the chequered history of his shop and record label Good Vibrations to his volatile enounters with the mainstream music industry.I predict that this book will be very popular upon the release of the movie and you can say you read it first here. (Or in my published book review at www.UJNews.com March issue).

Though I didn't meet Terri, he saw my review of the movie and he contacted me. He offered me to return back in Belfast to see the reunion of the band Mighty Shamrocks on a barge and take his walking Belfast music tour plus stay as a guest near the bells that Van the Man writes about. I was on my final few days of my journey in Ireland so I couldn't make it yet it is on my list for my next visit.

If you want to know more about the book, go buy it. Like a record, you must own your own copy to make your own decision. Commerce needs participation. Go to Belfast, find the latest location of Good Vibrations Record Store and tell Terri that Lorraine sent you. Write me back and tell me about it. Tell me if Terri told you any of his stories about his encounters with Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Phil Lynott as well as Snow Patrol, Rory Gallagher. He is a living legend of music. Go meet him!

Hooleygan: Music, Mayhem, Good Vibrations

Paperback, 229 pages
Published January 28th 2011 by Blackstaff Press
0856408514 (ISBN13: 9780856408519)

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