Why Hooley is so hard to beat

Friday, February 22, 2008

By Stuart Bailie

Terri Hooley, the man who unleashed Teenage Kicks on the world, will receive a lifetime achievement gong at the Fate Awards. Stuart Bailie argues the recognition is both deserved and overdue

It's the morning after the night before, the body feels fragile, and Terri Hooley has lost his glass eye. And so we have to pick over the debris of the party, lifting up cans and stepping over ash trays, hoping to find the missing body part. We search through the stack of reggae records and check under the fridge.

Finally, Terri pulls his arm out from the back of the sofa, clutching the lost prosthetic. He gives it a quick wipe on the sleeve of his jumper and jams it back in the socket. Belfast's greatest double act is happily reunited.

Through much of bad times, Terri and his eye provided the blackest entertainment. When the murder gangs ran amok in Belfast, Terri would stand on stage at The Pound Club and The Harp Bar, barking out the lyrics of the Sonny And Cher tune, Laugh At Me.

Outside the violence was random, but in the relative safety of those venues, Hooley would pluck out his false eye and clutch it in his hand like a voodoo spell, staring into the hearts of the punk kids, demanding that they all see the light.

Sometimes he might even sing the old Tim Rose song, the one that Jimi Hendrix had made famous. By the time he'd got to the end of Hey Joe he would be foaming and furious, chanting his own coda to the murder ballad: " UVF, IRA, how many men did you kill today?" And in truth, we could not answer.

He's a part-time poet, meshing together American beat literature and Belfast blarney. At a party in London, he once invited an acquaintance into the bathroom. The guy thought he was going to be offered drugs, but instead, Hooley recited a lyric called Be My Friend. This became another of his party pieces, an act of compassion from a city of conflict.

If a stranger wanted to know the Terri essentials, you'd probably answer that he was the guy who set up a record shop called Good Vibrations in Belfast. His rickety room on Great Victoria Street became a meeting place for the lost tribes of Ulster, the people who valued music and culture more than the dead hand of sectarianism.

And when punk rock arrived, it gladdened his old hippy heart and his keen sense of anarchy. In 1978, he released Big Time, Teenage Kicks and a stack of lesser classics. He made us famous for something outside the usual tragic agenda. And because he was such a rubbish businessman, he was bankrupt by 1982.

But that was a temporary setback. Terri has returned many times, surviving bomb blasts, heart attacks and beatings by racketeers. He had to quit his shop on Howard Street when the peace dividend gave him soaring rates.

He was burnt out of North Street Arcade by arsonists, another repellent act in a city that deserves better.

Now Terri runs Phoenix Records at Haymarket Arcade, the last of the independents.

Tonight at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast, Terri's contribution will be hailed with a special trophy at the Fate Magazine Awards. He will take his dues from Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody and from the writer Glenn Patterson. And while Hooley is revered in Berlin and celebrated by Hot Press in Dublin, the man has never been honoured in his home town before.

A film of Terri's life, co-produced by Gary Lightbody and David Holmes, is being prepared. It will cover the punk era, but will also remember the ferment of the Sixties when Hooley's generation railed against nuclear weapons and the Vietnam War.

Many of his stories have been so embroidered over time that the facts are hard to recognise. But we can probably agree that he had angry words with Bob Dylan and John Lennon, that there was a discourse with Bob Marley and a messy night or two with Phil Lynott.

But rather than sweating over accuracy, the film will reveal the spirit of Hooley. It's about the refusal to be brutalised by events. To bring Teenage Kicks into the word is something to be glad about, but his decision to press up a bunch of records was only part of a bigger idea.

Good Vibrations came about at a time when we had no confidence about ourselves and our art. He showed the value of self-expression, how to be fearless. And that's the real legacy.

We're not going to petition for his sainthood just yet. Terri is lovely when he's sober but when the brandies take effect he can be tiresome. It's all part of the roaring boy persona, the gusto and the grandstanding and the stories that you've heard scores of times before.

Some of it hides insecurity. Other parts of the character are driven by his anti-Midas tendencies, the urge to sabotage a good thing and to avoid complacency.

So Hooley will never be a rich man, and he's too volatile to be embraced by the Ulster establishment. But the film is something to be excited about. Just as Manchester and Tony Wilson were remembered in 24 Hour Party People, so we will have the chance to commemorate a remarkable character and a shocking period of our history.

Sometimes youth culture, guitars and insolent voices define a city more than any other form, and you can make that case for Terri and Belfast. His style will outlast the guys in the suits and their shabby deals. His logic will survive them all. He has made an actual, positive difference. In the kingdom of the blind, Terri Hooley is king.

Terri Hooley receives the Oh Yeah Legend Award tonight at the Fate Magazine Awards at the Waterfront Hall, Belfast. Terri is also the first in a series of Radio Ulster music profiles, So Hard To Beat, talking about his life and times to Stuart Bailie, March 7 at 7pm.