Mull It Over 001: Prime Cuts
The first edition of Mull It Over takes a look back at the last days of 2023. Featuring The Bonnevilles and PiNKSLiPS.
‘Wankers’. The plural noun landed 50% of Northern Ireland’s de-facto blues punk godfathers in hot water earlier this month. Following the exciting news that their muddy, guttural, White Stripes-indebted track ‘Long Runs The Fox’ hit the sync lottery and featured on Amazon Prime’s TV series Reacher, drummer Chris McMullan took to the holy frail of Facebook to denounce the music glitterati of Northern Ireland. Chris’ gripe was that traditional media failed to mention in even two lines how the Lurgan-based band managed to have their song appear in a show run by the world’s most ethically bankrupt corporate conglomerate. And he was right.
The Bonnevilles’ post was, in part, what inspired me to start this newsletter. We all know Amazon is the devil incarnate, as much as we know music journalism has had its fair bite at the apple as well. However, the fact that in a country where so much talent is reared and celebrated, we have a fantastic knack of missing the blindingly obvious. Chris McMullan and Andy McGibbon have been releasing albums as The Bonnevilles since 2010, and to their astounding credit, have had a song featured in one of streaming’s most popular shows in 2023. This might be the first you’ve heard of it. Let that be a good thing. It is not enough in 2023/2024 to write a good song and merely release it; the stars must align for it to be heard beyond its initial gestation. For a DIY outfit like The Bonnevilles, such considered song placement is as adjacent as one can get to a ‘hit’. The work should be praised. Algorithm be dammed, these boys got their song on to a top TV show and nobody seemed to care. Well, let’s celebrate now. Well done to The Bonnevilles. Keep feeding the corporate minoutar that we all need to survive. Félicitations!
The Slip
Gerry Norman is a Belfast stalwart. The Sligo-born musician was mentioned recently in a local publication as (I’m paraphrasing) ‘the thumping heart’ of Belfast’s music scene. From his first band A Plastic Rose’s alt-rock mythology to the Glen Hansard-meets-Counting Crows (stop sneering) pop-rock balladry of Tour Alaska, Gerry has proven his chops time and time again. The pied piper of Voodoo’s famed open mic night has returned with, perhaps, his most rounded project yet: PiNKSLiPS. Big choruses, big guitars, big fun.
I was captured by the light-footedness and DIY approach of ‘GerryCam’ on the band’s Instagram page and followed closely as each member spoke passionately about the project. In some kind of ‘Classic Albums’ time capsule I felt oddly comfortable in the candid nature of the videos and lack of social media preening that only works if your name is Kendrick or Beyoncé. The first single from PiNKSLiPS is ‘Young Blood’ and is, for lack of better verse, an absolutely banging rock tune. I’ve heard a lot, lot, lot worse supporting Foo Fighters in sold out stadiums. Give it a listen on your friendly, neighbourhood, ethically ambiguous, corporate streaming platform now.
So there you have it. Issue 001 of Mull It Over. Thanks for reading the first of what I hope will be many mad notions on the music scene in Northern Ireland. Sure it would be a lovely little country if we could only roof it.
Make sure to follow the Mull It Over Playlist on Spotify, which can be found below!