Perhaps best known for his role as drummer/ songwriter in Limerick indie stalwarts The Hitchers, Niall Quinn has been stabbing thorns into the side of the horrid music biz for over two decades now.
He’s flirted with several projects since the Hitchers demise (somewhere around 2001, though re-unions can never entirely be ruled out) and reputedly even roadied for hard rawkers Wolfsbane for a spell, but more recently he’s been blazing a trail as THEME TUNE BOY; releasing a steady, downloadable dribble of DIY singles over the past couple of years before opting for the Pledge Music/ Fund It route for his long-awaited debut LP ‘The Return Of The Living Dead.'
Well, the road to fruition may have been rough, but this writer for one is more than glad Quinn has stayed the course. Recorded partly in his beloved Limerick and also at sessions with Dutch punk-pop outfit Cooper in The Hague, ‘The Return Of The Living Dead’ is a colourful, sub-thirty minute splurge of satirical, idiosyncratic brilliance featuring songs tackling everything from wheelie bin etiquette to the lifelong passion of dedicated hoarders. Y’know – the stuff that makes us all tick.
Musically, quirkily tuneful punk-pop ramalama abounds, with scarf-waving anthems such as ‘Posteenager’, ‘One Way Conversation’ and the mercilessly sardonic ‘I’d Say That Gets Really Hard Being Right All The Time’ rubbing shoulders with the infectious chug of the anti-hoarding ‘Recess’ (surely destined to be the next single) and the heroically existential ‘Tailrace’ wherein Quinn ruminates: “How many more years living here in Luimneach?/ ‘Til I’m shuffled down the road and up a Ringaskiddy chimney.”
The LP is knee deep in such lyrical gems, but while Quinn’s scalpel-sharp ability in observing the minutiae of life inevitably recalls Half Man Half Biscuit’s Nigel Blackwell, he has plenty more strings to his bow, not least on the brief, breezy heartbreak of the hectic 57-second ‘Rose’ and the busk-abilly acousticism of ‘Pissing Away The Summer’ (“days slip away like professional shoplifters”) where he sounds a little like Ray Davies’ long-lost Irish cousin. Then there’s the all-too brief ‘Parting Salvo’: the most resigned and dignified little break-up song (“so buy a new broom and air that front room/ and heed these words as I bid adieu/ you know they’re soaked in the truth when I say...the wheelie bin goes out every other Friday”) this writer has heard in many a moon.
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‘The Return Of The Living Dead’, then, is joyful, left-field treat and one in the eye for the naysayers who continually tell us death is waiting around the corner for vigorous, punky guitar pop. It’s not. It’s alive and well, living in Limerick and giving this zombie industry the kicking it deserves. Let’s hope these riotous fisticuffs are just the start of Theme Tune Boy’s (post) teenage rampage.
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