Microdisney
Microdisney were a New Wave band from Cork, Ireland. They relocated to London, England early in their career.
They were composed of singer/keyboardist Cathal Coughlan and guitarist Sean O' Hagan, with backing musicians varying by album. A duo for their first few singles and album, they formed a five piece band for the rest of their career. An early incarnation of Microdisney was known as Constant Reminders and Micro-Disney respectively, one incarnation featuring future Stump singer Mick Lynch on vocals.
Existing from 1980-1988 they were basically rooted in New Wave but had a unique approach - accessible and often beautiful melodies with cynical and despairing lyrics. They broke up in 1988 due to a combination of factors: their record company dropped them due to their last album being a flop, they had run out of ideas for potential singles, and the main band members began to differ musically.
The band members went on to more famous things: Cathal in The Fatima Mansions and Sean (and most of Microdisney's backing band) in The High Llamas.
Discography:
Albums:
- 1984: Everybody Is Fantastic
- 1985: The Clock Comes Down The Stairs
- 1987: Crooked Mile
- 1988: 39 Minutes
Compilations:
- 1984: We Hate You South African Bastards / Love Your Enemies (A collection of their early work from 1982-1984. A later CD release adds the In The World EP from 1985 as bonus tracks)
- 1988: Peel Sessions (Compilation of most, but not all Peel Session tracks)
- 1995: Big Sleeping House (Greatest Hits)
- 2007: Daunt Square To Elsewhere (Anthology)
Singles:
- 1982: Hello Rascals
- 1982: Pink Skinned Man
- 1984: Dolly
- 1985: In The World (EP)
- 1985: Birthday Girl
- 1987: Town To Town
- 1988: Singer's Hampstead Home
- 1988: Gale Force Wind
Microdisney provides examples of the following tropes:
- Aerith and Bob: Cathal and Sean. Both are normal names in Ireland, however.
- Arc Symbol: There is a recurring theme of rail based transport. Train tracks appear on both "The Clock Comes Down The Stairs" and "39 Minutes", and a tram appears on the cover of the single "Birthday Girl".
- The phrase "All you people want is money for the trams" appears in And., Money For The Trams and at least one live performance of Harmony Time. It has never been revealed what it actually means.
- And the Beirut train on "High And Dry".
- The phrase "All you people want is money for the trams" appears in And., Money For The Trams and at least one live performance of Harmony Time. It has never been revealed what it actually means.
- Berserk Button: The song 464 is basically Cathal's Berserk Button in musical form, as is Money For The Trams, with its yelled line "Take your clothes off! Take your stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid clothes off!".
- Blatant Lies: Cathal would frequently do this live for comic effect. For instance "I am god", "I am Bono", "I am the pope", etc.
- Call Back: In The World's Teddy Dogs features the line "Look into Loftholdingswood" which is the opening line of the previous track, Loftholdingswood.
- The title of Give Me All Of Your Clothes is possibly connected to Money For The Trams which has the line "Take your clothes off" (as mentioned in Berserk Button).
- As is the first line of And He Descended Into Hell: "Put your dress back on, and I will sing a song".
- The cover of the compilation "Daunt Square To Elsewhere" is an obvious callback to their album "Everybody Is Fantastic". Both have a sunrise view of a city across the river, and both use the same font for the band name. The original (unused) version of the cover has the album name in the same font as "Everybody Is Fantastic" as well.
- As is the first line of And He Descended Into Hell: "Put your dress back on, and I will sing a song".
- The title of Give Me All Of Your Clothes is possibly connected to Money For The Trams which has the line "Take your clothes off" (as mentioned in Berserk Button).
- Completely Missing the Point: The title of the album We Hate You South African Bastards was titled in reference to apartheid. The label tried to get them to change it to We Hate You White South African Bastards but the band felt that the smart people would understand it. It still caused a lot of controversy, leading to the album to be renamed Love Your Enemies 12 years later, when it was rereleased.
- Cover Version: None in studio, but the band were very fond of doing them live. Cathal admitted that they did them whilst drunk - he has little recollection of doing them or why they did them. Special mention must go out to their cover of Who'll Stop The Rain which was reworked surprisingly well in their own style.
- Creator Backlash: The former members of the band will often say that Microdisney was the past and that they were young and naive then, and that they've gone onto better things. Fans tend to disagree.
- Creator Breakdown: The album Everybody Is Fantastic for despair, the song 464 for anger. We Hate You South African Bastards for a combination of the two.
- Deadpan Snarker: Cathal.
- Early Installment Weirdness: If you got into the band via Crooked Mile or 39 Minutes and pick up We Hate You South African Bastards or Everybody Is Fantastic, you're in for a surprise.
- Eighties Hair: The band members sported mullets in early 1985, around the time of the In The World EP. TV performances of Loftholdingswood can attest to this.
- Executive Meddling: The band cite this as a reason for breaking up after their last album, 39 Minutes. The label were after a hit and the album has the hallmarks of 80s production.
- Getting Crap Past the Radar: Numerous occasions, especially on their last two albums.
- In High And Dry, Cathal managed to fit the line 'See you all in hell' into the backing vocals, something which is hard to notice.
- Ireland
- Irish Accents: Cathal has a thick Irish accent which is apparent in his singing.
- Irish Names: Cathal and Sean.
- Keep Circulating the Tapes: The band's discography is out of print on CD with the exception of a couple of Best Of compilations. There are also few B Sides that haven't appeared on CD, such as fan favourites Harmony Time and Money For The Trams. There are also many songs from radio sessions that didn't appear on their Peel Sessions CD and so are circulated by fans who originally taped them.
- Lampshade Hanging: Cathal's line "She's trying to pronounce my name" in Town To Town, echoes one of his problems with journalists outside of Ireland. It's pronounced like Carl Cofflan.
- Dear Rosemary has the line "And some people liked me for that" referring directly to the paparazzi.
- Last-Second Word Swap: High And Dry starts off with the line "Why'd you have to leave me for some Albanian gambler on the Beirut train. When I finished laughing, I celebrated with a glass of pain-t" The booklet says 'glass of pain' but Cathal can clearly be heard overpronouncing the 't' at the end just to make sure.
- Also, the album title "Everybody Is Fantastic", which is almost the same as the title of the last song "Everybody Is Dead". Of course, the title of the album is sarcastic.
- Lyrical Dissonance: The band made this a trademark. Special mention must be given to Town To Town, a very upbeat and accessible song and the closest thing the band had to a hit. It's about the singer and his ex girlfriend burying bodies after a nuclear fallout.
- The seemingly charming acoustic ditty, Dear Rosemary causes Mood Whiplash with its line "They want to build a land fit for heroes to starve to death in".
- Missing Episode: Despite releasing several demo tapes in 1980 and 1981, as well as recording a radio session at that time, only one song from this period has turned up (the session track, Mitchelstown). This is only because it was played by the original radio host in 1988 and someone managed to record it.
- New Sound Album: The band went from melancholic drum machine based indie to upbeat radio orientated 80s pop with a full band in several years.
- Compare the band's first single Hello Rascals to their last, Gale Force Wind and the difference is...astounding.
- Oirish: Humane has the line "die with a smile", pronounced like "doi with a smoile".
- Out of Order: Whilst it mostly collects their music in chronological order, Daunt Square To Elsewhere places the tracks that first appeared on "We Hate You South African Bastards" after those that appeared on "Everybody Is Fantastic". All the tracks on "Bastards" were recorded before "Everybody Is Fantastic", but only four of them were released at the time. As a result, the remaining tracks have a later copyright date, thus explaining why they are Out of Order.
- Precision F-Strike: Love Your Enemies has the classic "Idiots, fucking ugly fools, fucking idiots, fucking idiots, fucking all my friends"
- Soprano and Gravel: Sean's voice- quite high, soft accent = sweet sounding and inoffensive. Cathal's voice- fairly deep, strong accent = powerful and occasionally aggressive.
- Stylistic Suck: The various versions of I Can't Say No, as well as Little Town In Ireland.
- Synthesizeritis: High And Dry.
- Take That: The doctor in Rack: "He spent fifteen years in a jesuit school, and now he's not fit for any job" Ouch.
- Unintentional Period Piece: The band's early work is on drum machines and early 80s synths because they didn't have a full band at the time of recording. The band's last album has later 80s synths and production because the record company insisted.
- What Could Have Been: Whilst the band's musical directions were totally at odds when they broke up in the late 80s (Cathal's anger and Sean's melody taken to their logical extreme in their solo work), they have both reached a creative and melodic point where they are on a similar page musically. However it is unlikely they will work together again.
- The band played the original song "King Of Free Speech" on several gigs on their last tour, leading people to believe it would be recorded later on. Ultimately, this never happened.