THE UNDERTONES

The Undertones. Derry's finest, from Derry Ireland.



I was trapped in a 4 hour layover with 13 pounds in my pocket. I went to a CD store there in the duty free airport shopping center at either Heathrow or Gatwick in London. More than half of the store was tiny mini discs (something that apparently never made it to the states). I wasn't really looking for anything in particular. I did have a little obsession with box sets however and discovered a cheap one on the shelf of the tiny store.



It was a black box that said "THE UNDERTONES THE SINGLES BOX SET. There was a sticker that read, "Derry's finest". I thought, well if they are a city's finest, then they must be decent. I wasn't going to have any use for "pounds" in the states so I figured I'd go for it. It was only 9!





After I bought it I went and sat down to listen to it on my discman. It had 6 singles sleeves in the box. It was the coolest thing I had ever seen. I put in the first "Teenage Kicks". It blew me away. I had nothing to compare it to. I wasn't all that familiar with late 70's early 80's punk. But I loved what I heard.



Music is always best when you were the one to discover the band... as opposed to a friend introducing it to you. You feel like it's yours. The Undertones are mine. I've never met anyone who owns an undertone album. I own almost all of them.



It's all great music. The earlier the better, but it's all good. I especially like that they progressed and really experimented with their music in the later 80s.

Most of their great songs all came from their debut album "The Undertones" in 1979.



With their first single "Teenage Kicks".


The coolest cover ever. Consider it ripped off.

I describe them as a pop band from the gutters of Ireland. It's so gritty and so full of aggression and energy that they cross the line into a punk band. Like this song "It's Gonna Happen" sounds like a happy pop song but it's about the hunger strikes in the prisons of Northern Ireland around that time. The IRA were wrongly held by England in many cases and the Hunger strikes were to better the living conditions within the prisons. The first hunger strike lasted 62 days before he died. Watch the movie "HUNGER" if you really wanna be grossed out. "It's gonna happen until you change your mind".



The sound is exactly what I aspire for with my new band. Pop music with a nashing grit. I've wanted to start a band like the Undertones since I was 19 years old. It has officially happened.

There's only one singles boxset online for sale right now and it's at 125 dollars.