First came the shop; then came the legendary label. With a nod to Brian Wilson, music obsessive Terry Hooley set up the Good Vibrations record store in Belfast in the seventies. Mindful that the raw, melodic sounds of local groups were in danger of being ignored by the London-centric music industry, he decided to document the scene himself. Groups such as Rudi, The Outcasts, Xdreamysts, Protex and, most famously, The Undertones, had their earworms turned into wax thanks to Hooley’s vision.
The first release was Rudi’s Big Time in 1978. Although plain sailing was never the Good Vibrations way, The Undertones’ deathless Teenage Kicks eclipsed everything else. Infamously rejected by every UK record label… and then famously played twice in a row on the John Peel show, this classic punk-pop…
