By far the island’s agitator supreme, Post Punk Podge takes us on a guided journey through TECHNOHIPPIES! ACTIVATE!, the thrilling new EP from he and his ever-masterful Technonippies. A genre-mutating barrage of feeling and fury, it veers between white-knuckle mania and moments of striking, slow-burn reflection – in ways that only Podge and co. truly can. Below, the masked master unpacks it all, track by track.
1. Plassey Air Redux
This is a fiddle tune I wrote a few years ago after a walk along Plassey bank by the University of Limerick. I was thinking of my childhood spent with my granny who grew up nearby in Rhebogue, and my father, who would bring me on walks out there. I played it on fiddle unaccompanied for Charles and Andrew Hendy from the Mary Wallopers and they said it nearly brought them to tears, so I decided I wanted to record it properly but only got around to it this year. The track was recorded live in the studio by Danny Lanham.
We had Danny O’Shea, our DJ, playing harmonium and Cian McGuirk our guitarist on an acoustic guitar a rare sight in the Technohippies, and I on fiddle. Danny our DJ also manipulated some cello drones using his DJ controller. Lankum would have been an influence on this reimagining or redux. When we play it live, people get their lighters out and waltz, even so it’s a nice break from the mosh. The title plays with a double meaning as it could refer to the fresh air in Plassey on a nice day or the air of a tune.
2. Johnny Turpentine
Musically, this song was influenced by garage punk bands like early Fat White Family or the Monks. The riff in the verse is coming from that sort of place. Lyrically, it’s inspired by bands like the Kinks and Blur, who use fictional characters to describe emotions or themes like addiction, in this case. The song is about a man who is addicted to sniffing turpentine and the madness this brings with it. Every town has a Johnny Turpentine-like character who has been surviving for years. I can relate to this as I too was once stuck in the cycle of addiction from the ages of fifteen to twenty-five.
The instrumental section is quite eastern sounding, Cian plays guitar and drums on this one, while Danny does backing vocals. It’s the first song we have recorded that uses entirely live drums and not sampled ones. The final chorus has some demented high-pitched vocals that were influenced by the Beatles song Helter Skelter. Laurie Shaw and Arthur Pawsey two of our favourite Irish artists are making a video for this song which should be up shortly. There’s a sample of John B. Keane at the start shouting ‘Hey’ that Danny Lanham found on YouTube from an old video.
3. Reheated Beef
This song is specifically about an ex-promoter in Limerick who didn’t pay bands for shows. We had a feud on Facebook, which was quite comical, whereby I wrote the lyrics to this song as a poem in response to him calling me mentally ill. Artists are often messed around by promoters who don’t pay them in Ireland. I had no direct dealings with this promoter, but was sick of hearing people complain about him. This is going back a few years now, hence the title ‘Reheated Beef’. Musically, it was written using a loop pedal and a Microkorg XL+ synth through a Boss overdrive pedal, looping basslines. Danny Lanham, the producer, and Cian replayed these synth bass lines, fooling around on another synth a Korg Monologue as my saved loops wouldn’t work in Ableton. Cian recreated a James Brown drum loop on a real kit for the drums, and I jammed out a lot of the Violin in the studio whilst also playing synth. I bought a huge gong ages ago, and you can hear Cian playing that in the outro.
We had a lot of fun making this song, and its influenced by the Wu Tang Clan song ‘Reunited’ musically with the classical Violin runs and improv I did over it at the end of the day of recording that Danny Lanham edited together. ‘Reheated Beef’ just summed it all up in a humorous way and the lyrics are meant to be funny. I don’t wish this person any harm. I just thought it was a funny concept for a song on a subject that Irish artists are often expected to grin and bear.
4. One for Kim
This song was written by my friend Kim Griffith and I when we were in a three-piece band called Guest when we were teenagers. It was originally called Oceans, and there was a first half with vocals in it that I have since forgotten how to play. I remembered the instrumental second half of the song and decided to re-record it as a tribute to Kim. Cian plays guitar, drums, synths, and organ on this one, following my basslines. We recorded the bass and drums live in the studio together adding the rest afterwards. The song was meant to be an instrumental but Danny Lanham, the producer came up with the vocal refrain in the studio and recorded Cian and I singing it. I feel this was a nice final touch to the song.
Musically it’s influenced by post rock bands such as Rest from Cork and The Redneck Manifesto who Kim and I would have seen play back in the day. It’s also influenced by the Stone Roses and Funkadelic when they start jamming. We had a lot of fun recording this one and it ebbs and flows between melancholy and joy. A little nod to Cian’s old band the legendary Eraser TV can be heard in the funky guitar playing.
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