A reprint from The Dublin Diary of April 1989 about local band ‘The Beatless’

Did you hear about…? Paddy Irishman, Paddy Englishman, Paddy Scotsman were in a pub discussing the greenhouse effect on guitar strings and bass drum skins, when in walked Paddy American shouting fuck the greenhouse effect what about the effect Linda and Yoko had on Lennon and McCartney songs.

The drink was spilled. The fists were flying and chaos rained until Paddy Irishtown said lets play the bleeding songs and find out. And so began the legend of The Beatless who pioneered the ‘Liffey Beat’ sound. When asked why they named the band The Beatless, Paddy Irishtown said “they wanted a name no one used before!”

This is the band that played at the opening of a shoe shop ‘D18’ and got paid in shoes. Now they all wear new Chelsea boots, except Paddy Englishman who got a pair of size 16 Dock Martins by mistake. They also played a benfit gig on the DART while it went from Bray to Howth. It was run by ‘2FM’ in aid of the Children in Need Apeal. They are now sporting 2FM tracksuits. According to Paddy Scotsman they have even played for their supper.

I met The Beatless in a pub in Rathmines called Streets to ask them a few questions. They thought I was the taxman, so they made a dash for the door. When I shouted “I’ll buy yis a drink” they cautiously came back.

We held our impromtue interview in the back seat of a Renault 4 (pictured right) embedded in a wall inside the pub. There are a row of cottages, a milk truck and lots of other weird things inside this bar. The four members of the band, Paddy Irishtown, Robert (Ringo) Larkin from Dublin on Drums, Paddy Englishman, Nigel Williams on bass and lead vocals, from London. Paddy Scotsman, Hamish Campbell form, yes you have guessed it, from Scotland, and Paddy American, Liam Ryan, who spent the last five years in New York.

They all wore what they called Bavarian hunting jackets or, to the ordinary Joe, Beatle suits. Their first gig proper was the ‘Late Late Christmas Show’ in 1988. Gaybo had spotted them busking in Henry Street. Robert, more used to playing drums with Dublin’s leading cabaret artists told me the rest of the band made him wear a ‘Little Drummer Boy outfit’ on the ‘Late Late Show’. “who said I don’t suffer for my art?” he said.

The band took over the Dave Fanning Show on RTE radio twice. The second time for an hour and a half, with special guests including Larry Mullins of U2 on drums. The show was called ‘The Valentine’s Day Massacre’ that night.

The RTE switchboard was jammed all evening with requests for the band to play listeners’ favourite songs. The Fab Four challenged that they could play anything, and they did. Nigel told me there are plans afoot for a live TV show for charity similar to the Fanning Rock show phone-in.

The Beatless have become a very popular choice at Student Balls, Debs’ Balls, and Engineers’ Balls, in fact said Robert “we’re a band with a lot of Balls.”

As well as their famous Beatles covers, they have some very good original songs, such as ‘It’s over’ written by Liam, a song John Lennon would be pround of. Nigel writes most of the other originals like ‘Love is Hide and Seek’.

The band’s influences range from Gilbert O’Sullivan (Liam’s favourite), to ABBA and the Reynolds Girls. After a few more pints of the black stuff, Hamish mumbled something about being a 90s folk band. Robert said he was a Garry Glitter fan and Liam and Nigel were arguing whether or not to let Stock Aiken and Waterman produce the next single.

At this point, I thought it was time to leave. They all accosted me and threatened that if I didn’t mention where they were playing in April they would tell a certain Iranian Gentleman that I wrote ‘The Satanic Verses, Part 2’. They can’t scare me…