Terri Hooley
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No better tune.

Lauren Martin

Can you give us a little bit of a background about that particular track, and its story for your life, because itâs tied into quite a pivotal moment in your young life.

Terri Hooley

Itâs very funny. I used it at the opening of Good Vibrations, the film. Iâm a huge Hank Williams fan, and a lot of young people are coming up and asking me to play it, which is great. Hank Williams was a great singer-songwriter, and most of his work was done in three years, and he died early. He left a legacy, just everybodyâ¦ loads of people have recorded, and are still recording Hank Williams songs.

Itâs my first musical memory, because at the age of six, I lived in East Belfast in a place called Garnerville estate, in a pre-fab bungalow, and I got my eye shot out. When the ambulance came, and they put bandages around my two eyes, and it was a lovely sunny day and I could see the light, and they were putting me into the ambulance, and I was thinking, âThese guys are crazy. I could walk in the ambulance myself.â All I could think of was Hank Williamsâs âI Saw the Lightâ.

So, the BBC, many, many years later, phoned me up and went, âIs it true, the grandfather of punk is a big Hank Williams fan?â I said, âI absolutely am.â They said, âWould you like to come in and talk â itâs his birthday tomorrow?â I went, âIâd love to.â I told that story, and a woman got in touch with the BBC and wanted to know how to get in touch with me, because they didnât know where Iâd first heard it. It turned out that her aunties ran a guest house on Botanic Avenue, and my grandfather used to go around and collect on a Friday, money â donations for the church, because we were running a guest house we didnât go then. I think even Gene Vincent once stayed in that guest house, but Iâm not quite sure about that.

Anyway, one Friday I went around and they put on that record, and I begged them and begged them and begged them to play it again and again and again. I found out eventually where I first heard it. Stuart Baileyâs sitting there â just back from Nashville â gave me his fatherâs 78 copy for a Christmas present there. Itâs one of the few things Iâm allowed to put up on the wall in my girlfriendâs house. After eight years, I was allowed to put up two awards, and Stuartâs 78â¦ Iâve got a foot in the door now.

Lauren Martin

You finally got a copy of it to hang and put on your wall.

Terri Hooley

Itâs just beautiful to see it, and itâs in really good condition. It just reminds me ofâ¦ I used to go to peopleâs houses, especially in the â60s. I love all kinds of music. Iâm very passionate about music. Iâm not a musical snob â far from it. Everybody thinks Iâmâ¦ I love some of the most ridiculous records in the world.

I used to go, and all these girlsâ¦ It was the â60s, and it was the Stones, it was the Beatles, it was a really exciting time. Iâd be pulling out their dadsâ Charlie Parker albums, or Paganini, and Nina Simone and Ella Fitzgerald. âWhy you playing my mom and dadâs record collection?â Itâs just, I was always really interested to read the covers, to see who recorded it â fanatical, really. I was a bit of a record collectorâs nerd at the time. Iâm not so much now, but I was definitely then.

Lauren Martin

You were quite the record collector nerd from early on. Did you get that from your father?

Terri Hooley

No. The greatest thing aboutâ¦ We livedâ¦ We were more or less very, very poor, and everybody was in those days. The first record I ever actually owned, the day I became a record collector, I have still got; unbelievable â three divorces, been burnt out â and it was a Summer County [margarine] free flip-flop record. The guy came down the street, and he put one through our letter box, and I ran after him and askedâ¦ I begged him for one, and he gave it to me.

I knew my brother, even though he didnât really want it, he wouldnât let me have the other record. He was a bit mean, actually. I donât want to talk ill of the dead, but he was a right bastard. I hid it in the airing cupboard, under the towels. For months, I just would go in and lock myself in the bathroom and read all the words.

I invented a gameâ¦ It was Terri Hooley, Stuart Bailey, and Iâd count all the âTsâ on the record, and you got a point for each âTâ, and the âSâ for Stuart, and then see who would win. Iâd do this with all my friends. One day, a friend asked me, would I give him a hand with a chair to go around to his auntieâs house, and she had a record player. I heard it for the first time. It was, âSwinging on a Garden Gate,â by Humphrey Lyttelton, who was a great jazz musician, because jazz was the music of my youth.

When I heard it for the first time I thought, âJesus, this is just wonderful,â and that was my very first record that I ever got, and I didnât even have to steal it. David Holmes, famous DJ, he wrote in my bookâ¦

The original text was, âTerri gave me all these â60s soul records, and I think he stole them from somebody who was in prison.â

âDavid, what are you going on about? I might steal your girlfriend, I might steal your drink, I might steal your drugs, but Iâd never steal your record collection; no way.â

Lauren Martin

Even from early on, music was such a massive part of your life, but I know that as well as records, radio was a big part of your life.

Terri Hooley

Yeah.

Lauren Martin

I know that your dad bought you your first radio when you were six years old; he brought it back from a trip?

Terri Hooley

No, my dad was very left, and my mom was very Christian. My father was English, and they met during the war, and my grandfather didnât like my dad much at all, neither did my uncles. My grandfather pleaded with my mom, the day that they got married, not to marry him. He was a real leftie, and they were all Orange.

My mom married my dad, and she went to England and she didnât like it, so she left and came back home. I lived a lot at my grandparentsâ house, which was great, because they had a big piano, and I was in love with my aunties. I was a bit of a mommyâs boy, hanging on to my momâs apron strings. Everybody would sit around and sing, around the piano and all, and perform, and it was just magical.

We went to the Garnerville, and then my mom and dad would go out to their Labour party meetings at night, and Iâd sneak out of bed and listen to Radio Luxembourg, fanatically, and hear all this wonderful music, and American Forces overseas, to hear the blues and the soul. My father went to Sweden on a trade union gig, and he brought me back my first transistor radio. That was heaven to me, to be able to hear music anywhere.

It was just fantastic. I did have what was called a crystal set, which you used the frame of the bed as an aerial, and it was old ex-army headphones, and it was very limited. But to be able to walk about, carrying and listening to music, was just magical to me.

Lauren Martin

It may seem a bit hard to believe, with a lot of the younger people in the room, but it really was, in a lot of respects, the only way to hear music, was through the radio â through Radio Luxembourg and Radio Caroline. What sort of records were you exposed to? I would imagine, not having that much choice, what you were exposed to you either absolutely loved or absolutely hated. What kind of records were really catching you from a young age, listening to the radio?

Terri Hooley

I remember listening to American overseas broadcasts. It was really for the American troops in Germany. Iâm just back from San Francisco, and I heard this record one nightâ¦ I didnât know who it was, I didnât catch who it was. It was called âSan Francisco Bay Blues.â

âIâve got the blues for my baby down by the San Francisco Bay, ocean linerâs gone so far away. I didnât mean to treat her so bad, best girl I ever had.â It was just an amazing record to me, and it took me a while to find out who it was. It also took me a while to track it down. That was one of the first records, I think, that I ever sent away for. Eric Clapton did a version on his MTV Unplugged album, and brought that song to a different generation. I found out Bob Dylan, instead with Jesse Fuller, who was a bit of a one-man bandâ¦ he had actually come and played Belfast, but I was too young to go.

Eric Clapton did quite a good version, I must admit, and it turned that song on to anotherâ¦ I never thought Iâd ever be to San Francisco, and there I was, just the other day, last week.

Lauren Martin

Everything comes full circle.

Terri Hooley

That song, going through my head.

Lauren Martin

When it came to, you said, the relationship between your mom and your dad, and your mom took you to Methodist church when you were younger, and youâd be exposed to gospel music, and then you were listening to these things on the radio, how did you think, growing up, that had an impact on your tastes as you became a teenager?

Terri Hooley

I love gospel music. My mom would take me to church on a Sunday morning, to the Sunday school teacher at church. We werenât allowed to play on a Sunday. We had to wear our Sunday best, and we werenât allowed to get anything dirty. Sundays were pretty boring. I do actually love the gospel. I think itâs because of my Methodist upbringing; thereâs a bit of that in me. I like the singing in the churches. That was the bit of church that I like, was the singing. I used to go to Baptist churches, because they used to have tambourines and stuff. I enjoyed that. I remember one night, going to this Baptist hall, and theyâre going, âThereâs a sinner here, thereâs a sinner here,â and had everyone stand. They came up to me and I went, âNo, just totally here for the music,â and never went back.

I like a lot of American gospel music. I like lots of music, but what reallyâ¦ I got a job at the side of city hall, in the photographic exhibition. Music and photography were my great loves. I got to know the reps who would come to the record shop on a Friday, and then that was their last call of the week, and theyâd give me all these free recordsâ¦ demonstration records. I was just in heaven.

I was doing DJingâ¦ I started doing DJing when I was 15, in a youth club, and then I started doing DJ, and then I would have a record, which wasnât released for weeks, and it would be âTerriâs Tip for the Topâ. I can remember, it was like Ike and Tina Turnerâs âRiverâ, Percy Sledge, âWhen a Man Loves a Womanâ. Every week, Iâd have a âTerriâs Tip for the Topâ. It was neverâ¦ âTerriâs Tip for the Topâ was never in the top ten, which was amazing.

Lauren Martin

Very underground of you. I suppose one of the main things that strikes me about you getting into music early on, and feeling an affinity with gospel music, is how that also informed your taste for classic R&B music. Iâve got a track for you, that I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about.

(music: The Shangri-Las - âPast, Present And Futureâ)

Terri Hooley

Yeah.

Lauren Martin

Just when it was getting a bit dramatic.

Terri Hooley

It is the sort of three-minute perfect rock opera. Itâs got âMoonlight Sonataâ, by Beethoven there. Itâs got âA-Tisket, A-Tasketâ, and I love Ella Fitzgeraldâs version. Itâs also like a coffin rock record as well. I was a fanatical Shangri-Las fan, and Ronettes, the Crystals, Supremes, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas; just loved all the girlie groups, the Chiffonsâ¦ donât even start me on the Shirelles.

Lauren Martin

I was hoping to start you.

Terri Hooley

I used to torture my mom to death, especially with the Shangri-Las. My first girlfriend was killed in a car accident coming back from a party in Bangor. The night I was out, painting anti-Vietnam war, slogans around Belfast, and she went to this party, and she was killed on the way back. I used to sit in the bedroom; I just thought Iâd never be with anybody again. My mom used to hear me crying in bed at night. I used to sit in bed, and Iâd play this. I was quite a lonely kid. My brother was a bit nasty, and he wouldnât let me play with anybody he knew and stuff. When I got my own record player, 1/6 [shillings] every week, Kays catalog, Dansette, and I had my own records. I just sort of lived in a sweet world of my own in the bedroom, and the records were my best friends. I was asked, about 40 years ago, what was my all-time favorite record, and I said âItâs âPast, Present and Futureâ by the Shangri-Las. I love that record.â I thought, âThatâs a bit wimpish. It should have been something like âBorn to be Wildâ by Steppenwolf or something.â At that timeâ¦ I would say, if you asked me today, I would say thatâs a very personal record for me, and itâs very part of my growing up.

I was in New York 18 years ago, and somebody told meâ¦ I love George âShadowâ Morton, the producer. He produced the Dixie Cups. He produced a lot of great stuff. Somebody said to me, âHis phone number is in the New York phone book. Why donât you phone him up?â I went, âThatâs a bit like a stalker. I feel a bit bad about it.â

This girl gave me Mary Weissâs, the lead singer of the Shangri-Las, number and said, âWhy donât you phone her up?â I went, âIâm a bit shy.â If anybodyâs seen the story of Good Vibrations, the deal was to get an autographed photograph of the Shangri-Las, and I never got it. Mary Weiss sent me an email one day. David Holmes had got in touch with her, and she sent me an email. I was sitting at home on Friday afternoon, and Mary Weissâ¦ I said, âThat canât be Mary Weiss, the lead singer of the Shangri-Las.â I went and made myself a cup of tea, bit of brandy in it, and I sat there, afraid to open it up. I opened it up, and there was a message from her.

She said, âTerri, what is it you want me to autograph?â I sort of sent her a few lines, then she sent me a few lines, then I told her why I loved the Shangri-Las. I thought, âIâm writing my life story here. Iâd better stop.â We were going to fly Mary Weiss over from New York. Her mother had found, in her loft, an autographed poster of all the bandâ¦ Some of the band are dead. Mary sent it to meâ¦ Sent it to David Holmes, and then we asked her, âWould you come over to Ulster Hall for the opening?â

To tell you the truth, if Mary Weiss had come to Ulster Hall that night, I wouldnât have let her go back to America. Sheâs still not a bad-looking woman, I tell you. I was madly in love with her. I was madly in love with all the Shangri-Las, but I was a big Ronettes fan, and I used to carry, in my pocket, a cut-out of the NME, was a photograph of Ronnie Spector of the Ronettes. Years later, my good friend John T Davis and I were talking one night, and didnât he do exactly the same? He had a cut-out photograph out of a pop magazine, and carried it about when he was a school kidâ¦ another thing that we have in common. Yeah, it was just wonderful. I never even thought Iâd be in correspondence with Mary Weiss. I hope to meet her someday.

Lauren Martin

Thanks very much for sharing that. I appreciate it.

Terri Hooley

She could be a future Mrs Hooley.

Lauren Martin

With any luck. I was also playing that because, like you say in the film Good Vibrations, you agree to pass on your rights, as it were, for the Undertones âTeenage Kicksâ for something like Â£500, a signed photo of the Shangri-Las. I love that, Â£500 will come and go, but a signed photo of the Shangri-Las is forever. I like that saying.

Terri Hooley

People keep asking me. It is a funny thing. I was thinking that I would get some copies made for a few friends, and I went to look for it in the house and I couldnât find it. I know itâs in the room somewhere; I just havenât looked properly. Thereâs this room in the house, and if I set anything down, Claire puts it in the room. I go, âI was reading that letter. What happened to it?â She said, âI put it in the room.â Everythingâs in the room. I know itâs definitely safe but Iâm going to have toâ¦ Thereâs just CDs and records and everything in this room. It needs a good clear-out, but Iâll get to it one of these days.

Lauren Martin

I can imagine thereâs a lot of treasures in there. I was mostlyâ¦

Terri Hooley

Iâd say yeah; ten years ago, I was burned out in a fire, I lost an autographed Johnny Cash photograph that Iâd got from in London. After Johnny died, I took it down, because people wanted to buy it and I said, âNo, Iâm not selling it.â It went up in the fire. Recently, my guys were looking for something else for someone, and then they found an autographed Johnny Cash and June Carter photograph, which I didnât even know I had, so that was a nice surprise.

Lauren Martin

Collecting signed photos was as much as collecting records at this point.

Terri Hooley

I used to be a bit of an autograph hunter; the Kinks, Stones, everybody, when I was younger.

Lauren Martin

I was partly playing that record as well because pop music, and classic American R&B pop music, is such a fine red thread, as it were, throughout the whole feel of Good Vibrations. It was punk rock, but it had a very pop-accessible feel to a lot of things, and I thought the Shangri-Las was a good example of that. It was also really interesting how contemporary black music at the time, from the States, was very much a part of your taste, and that informed what the label went on to become. On that kind of note, Iâm going to play a track, and hopefully it will spark a memory of you from 1968.

(music: Juke Boy Bonner â âBelfast Bluesâ)

Knock it off, Iâve been told.

Terri Hooley

The â60s, to me, were justâ¦ I was born at the right time, in the right place. Iâm 65 now, so I was born in 1940. Just the rock & roll whole thing changed, and then the â60s, and I think the Beatlesâ¦ I was a huge Rolling Stones fanatic. Neverâ¦ I love what the Beatles did, but Iâm not a fanatical Beatles fan, but the Beatles did change everything.

For me as a teenager, growing up in the â60s was absolutely just the most amazing experience in Belfast. Rationing was over. People were starting to have a bit of money. Youth culture was really changing. Everythingâ¦ The music was changing. If you go back and look at the Stones and the Beatles and a lot of bands that were doing covers of American records, and I was the secretaryâ¦ I was running a folk club, a shebeen in the high street, then it sort of closed down, and Dougie Knight asked me if Iâd like to run the blues club in his shop on a Sunday night. Believe it or not, in the â60s, on a Sunday, everything closed down. They used to lock up the swings, so the kids couldnât play. You just couldnât do anything on a Sunday. Weâd run this club on a Sunday night, in his shop. We had maybe five artists on, and it was one and sixpence for girls, and 2/6 for boys, which was my idea. You got free coffee and biscuits and wonderful music.

It was a great promotion for Dougieâs shop, but we also put on concerts, and we brought over a lot of American blues artists. The last concert we ever did was in November, 1968, and thatâs just who you heard, was Juke Boy Bonner. In Belfast, thereâd been trouble, and also there wasnât any rioting that night, but there was a fear of rioting, and the pubs all closed at six oâclock in the evening, and the town was deserted.

We were a bit worried about getting Juke Boy Bonner down from the airport, because weâd heard the roads had been blocked off and stuff. The concert was in the War Memorial building on Waring Street. It was just two minutes away. Itâs a venue, itâs just never used anymore. We were all a bit worried, but the blues crowd came out; we had a good crowd, plus the fact it was the only place in Belfast on Sunday you could get a drink. With the blues crowd and alcoholics, it was a good night.

Lauren Martin

Tomato or tomato, at some point.

Terri Hooley

Weâd done all this food to sell and all; we just gave it away to people. We were waiting to see if Juke Boy Bonner was coming out. We had a friend up on stage playing, and Juke Boy Bonner arrived out. My friend Pauline jumped up and kissed him. It sort of mentions her in the song. I gave him a big hug and was so glad he got such a warm welcome.

That was the night that I realized the party was over, and the â60s was one big party we thought would go on forever. That was the night I realized Bob Dylanâs right; the times, they are aâchanging. That was the start of it. The â70s in this country was horrific. I didnât really do much. We were afraid to go out. Clubs and bars were bombed, and friends had been killed. We stayed at home a lot and were partying in our house. If there was trouble, people just stayed the night. I was sort of selling records from my back bedroom.

It wasnât until I had this job on Howard Street that a friend of mineâ¦ his sister and I had been good friends in the Maritime jazz club, and he was very interested in that period. He came in and he bought a Juke Boy Bonner CD in my shop, and Iâd ordered up all these CDs that were about to be deleted. Iâd ordered them all up. They came up with a copy of Juke Boy Bonner. I remember when we brought him to Belfast he says, âThereâs a track on it called âBelfast Bluesââ. That must be 15 years ago, and I never even knew it existed.

Apparently, Juke Boy Bonner went over to London next week and put it down. I never knew it existed until Colin Carsonâ¦ It was great just to hear that memory. Because my friend Pauline was raped and murdered in New Yorkâ¦ She was my mentor. She was a lot older than me. She taught me to read and write, but she taught me a lot of bad habits, too. I never went back to church after meeting her. I became a right heathen.

She took pity on me, because she thought I was care in the community. Thatâs a three-hour story. I saw this girl one night, she was ten years older than me. I asked to go out with her and she said, âI might see you in the tennis club.â I got all dolled up in my brotherâs teddy boy jacket, which you just didnât wear to dances in those days. I went to the gig, and the girl never turned up.

The speaker said, âAre you trying to be hard man?â I said, âNo, Iâm a pacifist. I donât believe in violence.â I told them the story, and they sort of adopted me and invited me to this barbecue. The next thing, I was drinking Guinness and brandy. They took me to this house, and there was a party on. They asked me what did I want to drink, and I didnât know. All I said was, âIâll have a Babycham,â because that was always on the TV. Pauline just turned around and said, âNo, youâre not. Guinness and porter, thatâs what youâll like.â I had the worst hangover ever. I swore Iâd never drink again.

Lauren Martin

Actually, that recording is called âBelfast Bluesâ, and it was recorded in 1969, so it would have been a year after the gig. It was on his 1970 LP.

Terri Hooley

Where was it recorded?

Lauren Martin

I think it wasâ¦ That was November â68 that he played that gig, so he would have recorded it a couple months later, but it was on a 1970 LP from some London sessions that he did. I picked that partly because you were the secretary of the Blues Society at that time.

Terri Hooley

It was the last gig that we ever did, as the Blues Society. It was the end of a decade for me. The â60s had ended early. It was just a kaleidoscope of color and fashion and freedom. Our Friday night would be, we would go to the Spanish Rooms on the Falls Road, and five or six of us would buy a gallon of cider, and weâd drink it around the entry, and then weâd get 1/6 back on the container, and then weâd buy a pound deal of hashish, and then we would go down to the Maritime Hotel to hear Them. That was just fantastic; one of the greatest bands ever to come out of Belfast, if not the greatest. That was amazing.

Many years later I went back with a couple of â60s musicians to do a bit of filming for The Old Grey Whistle Test, and we couldnât believe how small it was. It was like the size of this room. Our memory of it was, it was like the Ulster Hall. Mervyn Crawfordâ¦ He plays saxophone nowâ¦ He said, âGod, look how tiny that stage is.â My legs were shaking going up. We just couldnâtâ¦ It was like somebody had built a wee facsimile of it. Our memory of it was that it was huge, but it wasnât. It was just like this room, basically, maybe a bit bigger.

That was fantastic. That was a fantastic club. There were 80 clubs in and around Belfast where you could hear live music â unbelievable. When the Troubles came, there were like twoâ¦ The weekends were just bonkers. You just didnât get any sleep. The â60s was likeâ¦

Lauren Martin

Speaking of Them, I was also, with the âBelfast Bluesâ track, again talking about the influence of things like the Shangri-Las, the influence of contemporary black pop and R&B music on the sound. I think when youâre saying the end of the â60s was like a massive social, political, but also a cultural cut-off point, when Belfast really became very insular, mostly not of its own volition. I thought I could play parts of 2 tracks, just to kind of exemplify the influence of R&B on what was happening in Belfast.

(music: Rudi â âBig Timeâ)

Lauren Martin

It seems a shame to cut off in the middle of a riff, but that was âBig Timeâ by Rudi.

Terri Hooley

I donât know whether it was those speakers or what, but it sounded really good to me.

Lauren Martin

Itâs possibly difficult for somebody of my age group to understand hearing punk, anthologized as it has become, but in the context of Belfast, at the time, there was basically a ghettoization of the city â bars were shutting at tea time. There were no venues open, and there were quite literally barricades.

Terri Hooley

Yes, a ring of steel around the city center.

Lauren Martin

A ring of steel around the city center. I was listening to a really interesting BBC Radio 4 interview with a woman recently, who claims to be one of these punks. She said it was essentially a violent playground, between the punks, the RUC, and the army.

Terri Hooley

Yes.

Lauren Martin

I remember yourself saying that the punks basically saved Belfast.

Terri Hooley

They opened up the night life again in Belfast. Jim Cusack, who was the security correspondent for The Irish Times, knew quite a lot, and from Belfastâ¦ He said, âIt was Terri Hooley and the punks that opened up the nightlife in Belfast.â Iâm not completely sure that was true, but we certainly did help. Where we are, in this areaâ¦ the Harp Bar was just around the corner, which was a shithole, basically. It was a strip club during the day, and they had music at night. We opened up the Harp Bar, and it really was the first time in a decade where kidsâ¦ whether they were Protestant or Catholic, it didnât matter. If your hair was orange or green, it didnât matter if you came from Mars, as long as you were a punk. Not all punks were love and peace; far from it. There were some right bastards.

A lot of people said to me, âIf it wasnât for the punk and all, we would have joined the paramilitaries. We would have killed people. We would have ended up in jail.â It changed a lot of peopleâs lives, not only my own, but also a lot of the bands, like Stiff Little Fingers, the Undertones. It was just a time of no hope, and punk, to me, was like a little candle; a little light in the darkness, in this sea of madness and sectarian violence and craziness. It was also very exciting. It was really, really exciting.

Good Vibrations didnât have a good musical policy. Some people say, âTerri signed the band up because he fancied their girlfriends, or because theyâd bought him a drink one night,â or something. Itâs probably true. We hadnât a clue what we were doing. The last thing we ever thought was that anybodyâd ever remember any of this stuff. We just didnât have a clue. It was all new to us, how you made a record.

We sentâ¦ Rudi was a band that I really thought should have made it, and I regretâ¦ If you watch the film Good Vibrations, because I didnât put out a recordâ¦ No, they left us and went to England, and then came back and recorded for us again. I begged them. I broke down and cried and I said, âDonât go.â

A friend of mine had traveled with bands all over Europe. He said, âTerri, Rudi, I think, just jumped the gun too quickly.â We were sort of going OK, and then the Undertones was the big one, and that was just amazing.

I went to London, and the first people I took it to was Rough Trade. They were the biggest independent record distributors in the UK, and plus the fact of the label. Theyâd just signed up Stiff Little Fingers. I went down to Geoff Travis and Richard Scott. I got off the plane, I took it downâ¦ I was all excited, and I played them the Undertones [âTeenage Kicksâ]. They told me it was the worst record theyâd ever heard. I was devastated. We recorded this at the back of the Duke Of York pub in a clothing warehouse in a little studio, for Â£200, Â£50 a track. I took it to EMI and a whole lot of other record companies. They all thought it was shit. On the last dayâ¦ It was my last hopeâ¦ was CBS. I went in there, and they told me it was rubbish, and I wrecked their office. I was so frustrated. I was so angry.

I went around and left copies for John Peel and the BBC. I came backâ¦ I went and got trashed that weekend in London. I had a lot of mates. I didnât want to go home, because I felt Iâd really let the band down. I really believed in âTeenage Kicksâ. I really thought it was a great pop record, and very radio-friendly and stuff. I got trashed, and I didnât want to come home. I came homeâ¦ I was so disappointed, Iâd let the band down. I broke down and cried to my wife.

She said, âMaybe John Peel will play it.â That night, he played it, and famously, the first time ever in the history of the BBC, a record was played two times in a row, back to back. Sire phoned me up; they got my home phone number, and they phoned me up. They wanted to license the record for America, actually; that was the thing. I said, âLook, weâre not really a proper record label, and my job isnât running a record label. My job is to put Northern Ireland back on the music map, and thatâs all I want to try to do.â I said, âGet over here on Wednesday night. Theyâre playing in Derry.â They came over and I heard them on a Wednesday night. Thursday, they were signed. On the Fridayâ¦ Peter Powell had put it out as his record of the week on Radio 1, and a lot of other Radio 1 deejays were then playing it. CBS wanted the Undertones, and I said, âToo bad, they got signed yesterday.â CBS, who was particularly nasty to meâ¦ Thatâs why I wrecked their office, said, âHave you got any other bands on the label?â I said, âI have, but I wouldnât fucking give them to you.â

Lauren Martin

Thatâs really, the relationship that you, as Good Vibrations, and you personally, have had with both independent labels and major labels over the years, including Rough Trade, Sire, EMI. Itâs very interesting to think of, what is it thatâ¦

Terri Hooley

I donât actually like the music business. I like the music. The hit record companies, sometimes I think are legalized mafia. Thatâs why Iâve never had a contract with anybody in my life. I should have; actually, I could be quite rich if I had. Just think, if I had a penny for every time that I had heard âTeenage Kicksâ in my life, Iâd be able to buy you all a drink.

Lauren Martin

I ask partly because Iâm curious as to what you think at the time, because by the time that the Undertones were really sayingâ¦ That was like â78, â79â¦ Punk was quite an established musical genre. You had the Sex Pistols on Top of the Pops, the Clash were huge. What do you think in particular it was about the Northern Irish punk sound, that people at first were quite rejecting of, and then came to love?

Terri Hooley

I think itâs sort of a rawness, to some of the bands. You had it in the â60s, too. If you look at a lot of the bands, it was a sort of rough edge to the music. Also, I think it meant something here, to people. They were getting out of their ghettos, and going to these wee places. Stuart once wrote that no matter which tribe you came from, to go, you had to pass a lot of different areas to get to the Harp Bar. When you came down these streets, 35 years ago, at night, it was as scary as anything. There was just nobody about at all; nobody. It was scary.

The Harp Bar might have been rubbish, but when you got in to hear the music, it was just like going to see Them again, for me. I was very lucky. I got a chance to re-live my youth. After Stiff Little Fingers did all the political stuff, a lot of the bands didnât want to write about the Troubles. They wanted to write what was happening in their life. A lot of the bands avoided writing about the Troubles, which I sort of think, it was a reaction against the Troubles. I think there should have been maybe more political songs at the time.

Nobody felt like doing them, because Stiff Little Fingers had been such a tremendous success, with âSuspect Deviceâ and âAlternative Ulsterâ and stuff.

Lauren Martin

That kind of split, like in hindsight, it was kind of a thematic split in what was going on in the punk scene in Northern Ireland. You had Stiff Little Fingers, who were actively writing about the Troubles, and then you had groups like the Undertones, who were quite the flip of it, where they were more about, from my perspectiveâ¦ obviously, you can correct me if you think differentlyâ¦ but they were more about a kind of romantic escapism, about their own teenage lives and trying toâ¦ I remember reading something from Feargal Sharkey and he said, âThere is no way that a one-hour gig is going to squash 400 years of hatred and violence. The Undertones were about escapism.â Does that kind of chime with you? There was almost two kind of sides to it?

Terri Hooley

I suppose if you lived in Derry at that time, and you were a young person that just went out and rioted every day after school, and the Undertones formed a band. The reason why I thought they were so good in the studio, was because theyâd practice and practice and practice and practice. When they went into the studio, you basically were recording them live. They were that good.

I think the thing for many bands is, some bands are very lazy. Itâs just to practice and practice and practice and practice until you get it right. At the time, Derry being such a violent city, I think being in a band was like a safety net for them; not getting caught up in all this. Itâs hard to explain, really, but they were frightened to come down to Belfast because of all the sectarian murders and stuff.

Lauren Martin

[Inaudible]

Terri Hooley

Mickey Bradley, of the Undertones, a few years ago asked me to take him around the corner and show him where he recorded âTeenage Kicksâ. His memory of it was, they were really scared coming to Belfast.

Lauren Martin

I was going to say, because the Undertones are from Bogside, in Derry. That was, unfortunately, famously well known in the late â60s, early â70s, forâ¦

Terri Hooley

Yeah, we were frightened to go up to Bogside.

Lauren Martin

â¦ the sectarian violence, yeah. I was wondering also, the way that the Undertones portrayed themselves, and how people reacted to them. Theyâre looking backâ¦ Theyâre a very loved kind of northern Irish pop group. At the time, I was quite struck to read that people were really quite hostile to them. They felt they were kind of â¦ They were going against a quite typically Belfast thing of, âYou should know your place. I know who you are, and where you come from.â Their kind of aspirational way of acting, was seen as quite an antithesis to that.

Terri Hooley

The night that I took Sire up, I stayed in Mrs Sharkeyâs house, in the guest room, which is like a religious grotto. It was like going to Lourdes or something. I was like, âJesus, I love all this stuff.â The next day, I went down to get some cigarettes and a paper from the shop, and Feargal came with me. People ran across the road and spat on him. What on earth is that all about? In Belfast, nobody could be bothered to run across the road and spit on somebody. I was really shocked. I was quite taken aback about that.

People had put upâ¦ It had literally just startedâ¦ People had put up graffiti, who didnât like the band. I think they just got used to it after a while. I know Feargal took a lot of flak, personally. There was stuff in the music press about Stiff Little Fingers and the Undertones not liking each other and stuff like that.

There were a lot of good bands. One of the bands that I really loved was Ruefrex, and some of their stuff was political. They were from the Shankill Road. If I turned a band down, they used to go, âTerri only signs Protestant bands from East Belfast, which is far from the truth.â Iâm not well-liked in East Belfast, so Iâm notâ¦ I like all kinds of people.

We didnât really know what we were doing, and it was a real cottage industry. We all folded each otherâs sleeves. Unfortunately, we went bankrupt, because a lot of small independent distributors loved to sell our records, but they never wanted to pay us. A lot of them went bust, and then we went bust because we couldnât pay our bills.

I was quite glad, eventually. I was sort of quite relieved, but it was about three years of my life that just seemed to be madness and no sleep. Kids would be coming, knocking on my door at three oâclock in the morning with a demo. It was just bonkers. I think I just basically ran out of energy, so I was sort of quite glad. The other thing is, because we were such a small label, nobody really remembers some of the rubbish records that I put out.

Lauren Martin

Not to pick a rubbish record, because I wouldnât do that, but there is one particular record on the Good Vibrations label that I find really interesting. It was the only 12â single that you ever put out, and I was hoping to do a little segue into another side of this. Iâm going to play this, and hopefully you can tell me a little bit about it.

(music: The Undertones â âTeenage Kicksâ)

Lauren Martin

I felt like that one needed the ceremony of being faded out a little bit. It seems a shame to cut that off.

Terri Hooley

What I didnât realize at the timeâ¦ What happened was, a friend of mine, who was at the art college, gave me a demo of the Undertones. I played it and played it, and I thought there was something there. I had a lot of friends come around the house, and nobody liked it. A friend of mine who used to make the best potcheen in Belfast, up in the Royal Hospital, in the basement which was guarded by the British Armyâ¦ Actually, he was born out in Malaysia. His father had been something big in the army, so he had a security pass. He just made a really good potcheen, but you wouldnât want to drink any of it nowadays.

At half-three in the morning, I was playing the Undertones tape, and Ricky went, âI donât see what you like about that band.â There were other friends who were in bands in the â60s, and I thought they would like it, and they didnât.

We didnât have much money, and I wasnât sure quite what to do, and I was going to sign up another band. I was going to meet them at tea time. They sort of had a manager in the band. It was a bit like Elvis Costello & the Attractions, and I quite liked them. Bernie came up to me and he said, âIâm going up to Derry. Whatâll I tell this band? Theyâre about to break up if you donât put out a record.â

I thought, âJesus, Iâll tell you when I get across the road, at the crossing.â I went to tell them we were on the limb, and we were going to do it. I was really worried. I went, âWhatâll I tell this band?â They said, âThatâs all right. Donât worry about that, Terri. Weâre on our way to London to make it big. Your label will be too small for us anyway.â

I was going to relay to them, I didnât want to disappoint them. Then I went, âWeâre not good enough for you?â We brought them up to Queenâs University to play. It was very difficult for us to get gigs. We used to hire out hotels and tell them it was somebodyâs 25th birthday party, and then theyâd find out it was three punk bands.

Lauren Martin

You must have gotten barred from pretty much every venue in the city, after one gig at each one, pretty much?

Terri Hooley

No, we did get barred from Queenâs University for life, because I got all dressed up and I went up one lunchtime, and I went up to the office. I said to this young girl, âMy name is Terri Hooley from the Belfast Music Society. We would like to put on a concert in whatâs now the Nelson Mandela Hall.â The girl obviously was taking over while the woman who did the job was on her lunch break, and she thought we were Queenâs Classical Society and gave us the hall for Â£5. I went, âAre you sure this is right?â She said, âNo, thereâs your receipt. Itâs in the book. Nobody else can get the hall.â

When Queenâs found out it was seven punk bands called The Battle of the Bands, they tried everything to stop it, and actually had the local Hellâs Angels doing security and all. They tried to stop them getting gear in and all. The bouncers were really nasty. The gig went on, and it was a great gig, and we raised money to set up Just Books, the anarchist book shop on Winetavern Street.

It was a fantastic gig, and it was the first time the Undertones came up and played. I think they went into the studio and recorded âTeenage Kicksâ the next day. Queenâs gave me a terrible time, so what happened was, the kids didnât like it, so they put out a few windows at the front of Queenâs. There was no trouble inside the gig whatsoever, except the Ruefrex thought, âThis is the biggest gig weâll ever play.â

Everybody had 25 minutes, half an hour at the most, to do their set. You had to prove to the audience you were great in that time. The Ruefrex went, âWeâll never get an audience like this again.â They played outside, just with the Hellâs Angels, and they went up and lifted them off the stage. That was the only trouble we had that night.

I got a letter from Queenâs, and I think it must have went up in the fire ten years ago, because I tried to find it when we were doing the book, telling me that I was barred from Queenâs University for life â not for a week, not for a month, not for a year, but for life.

Lauren Martin

It must have been a bit of a badge of honor to do that, in the name of punk rock, I suppose.

Terri Hooley

I havenât been barred from too many places, but I was definitely barred from Queenâs. The next gig I went, the bandsâ¦ There was some band that was from England, and I think Rudi were playing. It might have been the Adverts or something. I sort of sneaked in the back door.

Lauren Martin

When it comes to the legacy of âTeenage Kicks,â because itâs perhaps the story of it getting played on John Peelâs show twice, which is the first time in BBC radio history that ever happened, and the legacy of the trackâ¦ Itâs such a familiar track to punk fans, rock fans, pop fans; itâs such a legacy record. When you hear it played out here, what is it aboutâ¦ because you must have heard it hundreds of thousands of times now, what is it about the track now that still grabs you, and is it the same as what grabbed you when you first heard it?

Terri Hooley

Yeah, I have many versions of it. I have Nouvelle Vagueâs version of it, the jazz version. I have Union Avenue who, when I first heard it, I thought it was Johnny Cash singing. It starts off with âRing of Fireâ and goes into âTeenage Kicksâ. Many bands have played it, like Green Day, REM did it in concert, somebody else did it as an encore at Tennentâs Vital recently, Kings of Leon or somebody. I canât remember who it was.

Itâs just a classic little pop record, really. The drum sound on it, it sounds to me as fresh today, like Rudi did, as it did all those years. Itâs just that Iâm not all that much interested in whatâs happening in the charts at the moment.

Lauren Martin

Do you feel, as somebody whoâ¦ youâve always called yourself hippie and punk rock, as youâre looking backâ¦

Terri Hooley

Iâm a hippie anarchist, to be honest, because thatâs what I am. The reason why I call myself a hippie anarchist is because, knowing how everybody likes to pigeonhole everybody, you have to be on one side or the other, and I donât really have a pigeonhole box for hippie anarchists. I want them to set one up, and then Iâll be in that box.

I donât really know what my politics are. I was brought up very Christian by my mother, and socialist by my dad. I was brought up to believe a lot of things; I believe Iâve got a brother in Melbourne, a sister in Paris, and the whole wide world is mom and dad to me, and weâre all a family of man. We all should look after each other.

Iâm not the worst person in the world, though my girlfriend might tell you different. Iâm sort of, in the words of the Shangri-Las song, âgood, bad, but not evil.â

Lauren Martin

I likeâ¦ I think thatâs a good way to live. I asked how you feel about that kind of record, and how you feel about still being a hippie anarchist. Being so in love with the â60s, and everything it symbolized, and keeping that alive through the film and your book and everythingâ¦ do you feel like you live in the past a little, still?

Terri Hooley

I do. I live in the past.

Lauren Martin

Do you think thatâs for better or worse? How do you feel?

Terri Hooley

In two minutes, this will be the past. I absolutely have to have things to look forward to. Last year, I did the Electric Picnic, and I was very nervous. It was sheerâ¦ it went down well. In fact, it went down fantastically well; 3,000 people in the tent, going bananas, and me on stage running around like a three-year-old child, but with a bottle of whiskey.

Lauren Martin

Thatâs quite an image.

Terri Hooley

That was just brilliant, but [I thought] Iâll never be invited back. They sent me a letter sayingâ¦ an email saying, âWe were very much inspired by your set, Terri, last year. Weâd like you to come back and do a bigger stage this year.â I thought, âJesus.â I wasnât feeling well, but I was really looking forward to doing it. I didnât get to do it, because I had a very bad chest infection, and then I went off to Barcelona to do a punk gig, and then did nothing. In fact, Stuart took me home one night, because we both did a DJ set on a Tuesday night. Thought he was never going to see me again; I was that bad.

I came back from Barcelona, and I opened my emails, and there was an email from Electric Picnic saying, âTerri, I heard you were very ill. Hope youâre feeling better, and by the way, youâre the first person we booked for the Electric Picnic next year.â I know Iâm going to be alive for another year, and that is what is going to keep me alive, is knowing that Iâll be back at the Electric Picnic.

I always have to have something to look forward to. Youâll not be getting rid of me just yet. In fact, I had my second wake in this building, and last January I had my third and final wake. I think Iâll be pushing it to have another. It was a journalist who said to me, âWhen are you having your third wake?â I said, âIâve had two. I think it might beâ¦â He said, âThe bloody two that you had were great.â

Lauren Martin

Yeah, I thinkâ¦ is that the last bit of time? Have we got time?

Terri Hooley

Itâs aboutâ¦ Does anybody want to ask me anything?

Lauren Martin

Yeah.

Terri Hooley

Iâm not that frightening. You donât have to ask me anything.

Lauren Martin

No, we donât ordinarily do it, but Iâd be happy, if anybody wants to ask any questions; anybody?

Terri Hooley

Do you know what usually happens, and this happens all the time. People â especially when I was out in Cologne â the people were frightened of me. Nobody would ask me any questions. I started to ask myself questions, and then answer them.

I did it in London. That was the funniest Q&A ever. Is anybody buying a drink? Any future Mrs Hooleys with a big bank account? No?

Lauren Martin

You got Â£500 back in the day. You were doing fine. It was just a mention to see that there is a screening of Good Vibrations, the film about Terri and Good Vibrations, on Sunday at the MAC. If anybodyâs interested in seeing the film, and seeing a bit more of the context of everything, youâre more than welcome to go.

Terri Hooley

Iâll never understand why they couldnât get somebody good-looking to play my part â somebody that didnât drink and curse and be a madman and disgraceful.

Lauren Martin

I heard Michael Fassbender was a bit busy.

Terri Hooley

Originally, it was going to be Michael Fassbender. All my female friends were going, âGeez.â Richard Dormer did the pilot, and he was absolutely brilliant. He had me down to a T. Heâs just amazing. We would have had the film out quickerâ¦ We worked very fast like that. I turned down two contracts ten years ago before. It really took 15 years, from beginning to end, to get the film. I never thought Iâd be alive to see it. When I did see it I thought, âI really like this film. Itâs really good, warts and all. It doesnât make me out to be an angel, because I havenât been an angel in my life. I havenât been that bad, but I havenât been an angel.â

Iâm very proud of everybody who worked on the film. We had a great team. Nick, the editor, said, âWe had a fantastic film that lasted two-and-a-half hours,â and it broke his heart to cut it down to 93 minutes. I was really surprised at people like The Belfast Telegraph. If anybody has seen the film, Belfast Telegraph has had insiders in the music industry say, âThis filmâs going to be big.â When the film came out I saidâ¦ It had a half page in the Telegraph; âIf thereâs one thing you do this weekend, youâve got to go and see Good Vibrations, the best movie ever to come out of Northern Ireland.â

Iâm very delighted with the success of the movie, for not only the directors, David Holmes, the producer, Chris Martin, and everybody in the film. The filmâs been shown all over the world. The best reaction I ever saw for the movie was, believe it or not, in Moscow. I was out there for Irish week, and they built a bar called the Hoolygan Bar, asked for my book. That wasnât a plug for my book, because I donât even have a copy, and Iâve never even read it.

Lauren Martin

Itâs not a plug, if itâs a plug.

Terri Hooley

I did DJ in it, and I let the Moscow punks take over, and it was just amazing. I really enjoyed Moscow. They were so enthusiastic about the movie, and they stood and clapped for ten minutes, and cheered. Theyâd all got free Guinness and Irish whiskey beforehand, so I think that might have been a part of the reason.

Lauren Martin

I think that might have helped.

Terri Hooley

They clapped and clapped until I got up and spoke to them. I was absolutely in tears, because I didnât expect a reaction like that. It was a bigger reaction than we got in Belfast. âMaybe heâs all right.â

Lauren Martin

Just another little thing; before that, there is Daniel Holmesâ short film. Itâs a premiere of The Light of My Eyes, which is on 50 minutes beforehand, and it starts at three; I forgot to say. Itâs three oâclock tomorrowâ¦ On Sunday afternoon. Did anybody want to ask any questions at all? No? Were you kind of hopeful for some?

Terri Hooley

Iâm dying for a peeâ¦

Lauren Martin

Hold on, Iâve got one. You hang tight.

Audience member

How are you, Terri? Thereâs a great scene in the filmâ¦ itâs more a question, did it happen in that particular way, where youâve kind of made up your mind that youâre going to open up the shop, and I think itâs kind of the IRA come together in a bar, and you rock on in, sit down, and throw the records on the top. It was kind of more simple, when it happenedâ¦ did you kind of hand-pick the records in the hope that, âIâve picked some really, really good ones,â or did you just pick all the crap that was lying at the bottom of the basement?

Terri Hooley

Actually, there was a brilliant drawing in the Irish Independent or something, or the Sunday Times, and it talks about, these guys came around looking for protection money. Somebody had given me all these demo records that they got, and thereâs all these Philomena Begley albums and Irish accordion albums and stuff that we had in the shop. I used to say, âThereâs no money in the till. Take those records, sell them, and then youâll get some money.â The cartoon was of a guy with a balaclava in the bar, buy one of these albums, or else.

Lauren Martin

You did have toâ¦ Obviously, that was in the film, but you did have to persuade the paramilitaries on both sides, essentially, to leave the business alone, because also it was on Great Victoria Street, and it was the most bombed street in Europe for a while. Obviously, opening up the shop was quite potentially a fraught process. It wasnât just like opening the doors. There was a lot more politics to it than that.

Terri Hooley

Yeah, thatâs the way it was. Dave [inaudible] and I had been friends, and when I was doing hippie magazines in the late â60s, and weâd try to set up in 1971 the Belfast Arts Lab, sort of building like this, and it had enormous success. There was eventually an Arts Lab set up, it didnât last long. The thing that came out of that was the printing press that Dave had. Richard, we were trying to get a building, and eventually we got the shop in Great Victoria Street. I wasnât sure whether the record shop would work or not, and it was just a hub of activity. You looked back at some of the footage in Shellshock Rock, and it was just so many kids in there on a Saturday.

Bands were formed in the shop, and people met in the shop, and got married. It was a good shop for partying in as well, because we had all the good music. It was difficult, and then Michael [inaudible], he had to leave the country, and wrote a book about his travels. We were both threatened, and I didnât leave. He says, âThere was a time when Terri and I used to go and talk to the IRA, and the UDA and try to get them to see a bit of sense, and then there was a time when it just went, âDonât ever come back, and youâre our enemies.â It was basically that.

It was quiteâ¦ it could be quite nervewracking sometimes, working there late at night, and hear the banging on the door and all, looking out the window, seeing who it was. There were times when people hit me and stuff like that. Years later, a lot of paramilitaries have apologized to me for things that happened in the past.

I havenât been attacked for a couple of years. I love the ceasefire, because I used to be attacked every month, and the old bones canât take it anymore, to tell you the truth. Iâm more frightened now. Iâm frightened of my girlfriend, actually. Iâm moreâ¦ People say about how brave I used to be and all. I just think it was insanity, really. Iâm not very brave these days.

I love Belfast. I live and breathe this city. I would say, in San Francisco, as an old hippie, I thought that it would all be wonderful. I didnât really like it at all, and I was so glad to get back home to Belfast. I really love Belfast. I love people from northern Ireland, and Iâm very proud to be from Belfast, but to tell you the truthâ¦ I think people here are very generous, and are very caring. Itâs just the bigots and the racists that I donât like, but you have to deal with them, too, I suppose. I wouldnât want to live anywhere else in the world. I never have. I always realized, as a younger person, especially when the Troubles came, and a lot of friendsâ¦ We had 40 friends, and we were called the tribe. I was the last man standing in Belfast. Everybody got up and left â¦ poets, artists, musicians.

I always felt that when I left, one, I would never come back, and two, I would feel like a traitor. Also, I love Belfast. Itâs so exciting. Itâs such a small city, and thereâs always something happening, especially now. 35 years ago, I wouldnât be invited to one gig a week, maybe a Saturday afternoon in the pub. Now, Iâm invited to 300 things every week in Belfast. I just wish I had the energy to go to most of them. A lot of them, admittedly, I wouldnât want to go to.

Thereâs so many young and exciting bands here. Iâve always said this, from the â60s, that Northern Ireland is such a small country, we have the best poets, musicians, performersâ¦ more than anywhere else in Europe. Somebody phoned me upâ¦ Van Morrisonâs ex-manager phoned last week and he said, âI just had a couple of new bands. Youâre absolutely right. I know youâve been saying it from the â60s â we have absolutely fantastic talent in this country.â You think of the people that come out of the countryâ¦ Seamus Heaney, Paul Brady, who Bob Dylan says is one of his favorite songwriters, Van Morrison, all the people.

Lauren Martin

Iâd like to think for most people, you are on that list, for modern Belfast history, definitely. Youâre saying that youâre proud of Belfast, but Iâm sure Belfast is very proud of you as well.

Terri Hooley

The Belfast City Councilâ¦

Lauren Martin

â¦ maybe not so much.

Terri Hooley

They used to try and ban my concerts and all. I was a pain in the ass to them. I laugh when they used to try and ban my concerts in Ulster Hall. The IRA were blowing up a city, the Shankill Butchers were butchering Catholics, and they thought punk was a threat. A couple of years ago, they just agreed to put up a plaque for me, and they called me a cultural icon, the two-faced so-and-sos.

Lauren Martin

I suppose being immortalized, that is extremely fitting, because you are quite literally a part of the fabric of the city.

Terri Hooley

The funny thing is, when we were doing all this, nobody ever thought that this would last, or anybody would ever remember it, plus the fact that many a time, we thought we would never last the week. Terry Gleason, the artist, saidâ¦ Terry lived on the Ormeau Road, and if you walked down the Ormeau Road on the right-hand side at night, it meant you were a Catholic. If you walked down the left-hand side, it meant you were a Protestant. Terry and his merry band of men always danced down the middle.

Thatâs one thing Iâm very proud of; I never took sides. I just couldnât reallyâ¦ I did argue with [a friend] about working-class people going out and killing working-class people, and stuff like this. Iâm just really glad itâs all over. It was horrific days. I donât really want to be reminded of them. Belfast isnât quite the way it was in the â60s for me. Itâs become very corporate. A lot of the old shops, the old book shops, of course we have to move on. Belfast is, to me, quite exciting at the moment.

Weâve gone through a really dark period, and you just couldnât get bored in Belfast, at the moment. Itâs just so much going on â in fact, too many festivals.

Lauren Martin

There is aâ¦ youâre DJing tonight as well, arenât you?

Terri Hooley

Yeah, with three house DJs, and Iâm really, really worried about it. Iâm like a fish out of water.

Lauren Martin

Where is that again?

Terri Hooley

Aether and Echo, and itâs ten oâclock. I think Iâll go on first. Donât ask me what Iâm going to play, because I havenât a clue.

Lauren Martin

If you fancy carrying the party on, you can come and see Terri DJ with everybody else. I think we are going to have to wrap up. I could listen to you talk all day, but we are going to have to keep track of the time.

Terri Hooley

I hope you werenât too bored, with all Iâve said. I wouldnât come along and listen to some old eejit talk about this load of old nonsense. Thank you, Lauren.

Lauren Martin

Terri Hooley, everybody.

[Applause]