A Tale Of Two Films...the space before and between, three musical movements and another immense Cornerstone in Irish Rock.

  For those of you still waiting for us to hoist your musical cornerstones and national flags of music from the UK, France, Australia,Canada, the US ,etc etc.. You're going to have to wait for just a little longer as there are just one or two (or is it one or two hundred..?)more cornerstones that no serious musician or fan can possibly ignore when examining the roots of modern Irish or international rock. We were going to name this page Rock Cornerstone 1.1, but we felt the rags to riches , to rags to then more and even more riches story behind this band was worthy of just a little bit more. Of all the bands to emmerge from Ireland in the last twenty five years , this one is probably the only one to be able to match 'the Horslips phenomena' for skill and musical brilliance -they also seem to be the only other band with an electric fiddler capable of recreating the same awestruck response and levels of ecstatic excitement among a crowd of thousands in a solo as the worlds best lead guitarists do. Ironicaly -the only other electric fiddler to ever be able to do this to quite such an effect was Horslips very own Charles O'Connor over a decade before.The similarities to the Horslips story end there.... But before we delve deeper we will start at the begining with a socialogical (and very brief ) history lesson.
  Dublin in the late 70's and early eighties was in itself a tale of two cities. To the south was the nicer more affluent area of the city, with nicer schools, shops, services and relaxing residential areas, while to the north, there was Ballymun -In the 70's and 80's it became the subject of numerous 'dickensian' styled media commentaries on the 'want and poverty' of people born into tower blocks abandoned by hope, the govournment and everyone else. It was also made famous at the time for it's excess of very young, glue sniffing children and heroin addicts ...and said also to be the reason why absolutely nothing could be left unchained or unnatended in Dublin for more than thirty seconds ( wether it was a pushbike, moped, motorbike, car, bulldozer, train, pram, girlfriend or even yer mother -in -law! ...unfortunately for most men and their mother-in-laws the latter just wasn't true). School in Ballymun during those days was just somewhere to go before you either went to jail or got a job sweeping roads or toilets and into this era of hopelessness came a unique DJ -ing headmaster - who potentialy risked his entire career by thinking 'out of the box'.When one of his younger and brighter pupils began to show a wisdom way beyond his years in contemporary music and an equaly advanced literary flair in songwriting, his advice to the pupil, who was in the top sets of his school year, was exceptional !
  The advice was to quit school that very day aged just thirteen years old- long before sitting his 'leaving certificate'!. He was told to go home, get his guitar and one of the many bikes from his back garden (-the pupils hobby was finding and restoring the broken frames and wheels found in nearly every irish hedgerow and stream at the time , his garden famously became their source of rehabilitation and, in turn, the explanation for his bands future name as he was known in the city as 'the guy with the house of the frames'), he was then to cycle over to the other side of the city, get out his guitar and start singing in the streets. The pupil followed his headmasters advice and so spent the remainder of the eighties busking around Dublin and throughout the streets and malls of many other european cities.
  As the nineteen nineties dawned our busker ( now with his own band formed out of the elite of Dublins 'busking' community) was invited to come along as a 'moral support' to a film loving friend about to audition for a part in a small independant movie.Unfortunately for the friend, the role idealy needed to be filled by someone who was tall, preferably red haired and who could portray a busker from the deprived north of the city. Our premature school leaver not only fitted the brief precisely, but also found himself being offered the lead role when relunctantly coerced into the audition room by the casting crew..having now landed the lead role, it seemed that all he had to do was be himself and sing a few songs. Yet this small independant Dublin film about a struggling band , shot on a shoestring budget became not only the biggest and most talked about film of the year in the UK and Eire, but for flms centred on a musical theme it became the biggest of the decade worldwide. The soundtrack for 'The Commitments' was also one of the decades fastest selling -with our buskers voice undoubtedly being it's main selling point- and the 'platinum disc' seemed to appear almost instantaniously upon it's release.
  The big labels spotted the big dollar signs and once they heard that the lead singer of 'The Comitments' already had his own band they started to sniff round our vocalist like bees round a honey pot.Then, just as our Cornerstones future seemed destined for success with contracts and offers spread all over his table, the problems began. The first label dropped them after a year ...and then 'lost' the mastertapes to their debut album!And the next label fared no better. Although all the labels all seemed to acknowledge the voice of Glen Hansard as the new Van Morrison, what they realy wanted from him was another 'Commitments' album...a Van The Man with a brassy 'big band' feel to real in those big brassy dollars. Instead they got a 'Van The Man' 'acoustic celtic rock' feel that actualy made Van's earlier acoustics such as ' TB Sheets' ( written by Van in a griefstricken state ) look very 'middle of the road' or even 'easy listening'. Their complex though deeply melodic tunes burst wildly into unsuspecting ears, assaulting the sences with a sound that is 'violently wild and loud' before wrenching into a sudden, deafeningly soft and peacefull, melodic quietude...before suddenly rising to burst the remnants of already shattered eardrums yet again. Often now described as Bi-Polar or manic, The Frames (as they are called) pioneered a musical style which has not only permeated into and through most of Irelands recent celabrated artists (Damien Rice being a prime example) but it also deeply infiltrated ( throughout the nineties parrallel to and alongside bands like Nirvana ) American indie, rock, nu metal and grunge with 'System of a Down' being one of todays most relevant icons whose musical style could even be said to be underpinned by a 'Frames frame'.
  Despite the nineties being a decade that gave the frames a very
 dedicated core fanbase worldwide, it remained a time of continuous
 battling for the creative independance of the band..."leave us to our
 own devices and we will deliver" The band would cry out, "Only if it
 means another Commitments album" The labels would reply...
 The impasse was finaly decided when the band released
 'For The Birds' on their own Platteau label in 2000....(see right!)
 It outsold all of their previous recordings together and, despite all the
pre - indie flight nerves, the band finaly took off and their
music began to truly soar .Not only that, but all those
previous albums that were so hindered by big labels also began to
start selling too - leaving Glen and the boys with an over powering
temptation to scream "I TOLD YOU SO!!" from the top of every labels
office block.