Virgin Prunes were an Irish
post-punk
Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-roc ...
band formed in 1977 in
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
, Ireland. They disbanded in 1986 after the departure of singer
Gavin Friday
Gavin Friday (born Fionán Martin Hanvey, 8 October 1959) is an Irish singer and songwriter, composer, actor and painter, best known as a founding member of the post-punk group The Virgin Prunes.
Early life
Friday was born in Dublin and attende ...
. The other members continued under the name The Prunes until they split up in 1991.
History
The Virgin Prunes were founded by members of Lypton Village, a "youthful gang" in Ireland created by
Guggi
Guggi (born Derek Rowen) is an avant-garde Irish artist, once a member of the goth/ post-punk band Virgin Prunes alongside his close friend Gavin Friday.
Guggi was born in Dublin in 1959. He grew up with and remains best friends with U2's ...
(né Derek Rowen),
Gavin Friday
Gavin Friday (born Fionán Martin Hanvey, 8 October 1959) is an Irish singer and songwriter, composer, actor and painter, best known as a founding member of the post-punk group The Virgin Prunes.
Early life
Friday was born in Dublin and attende ...
(né Fionan Hanvey), and
Bono
Paul David Hewson (born 10 May 1960), known by his stage name Bono (), is an Irish singer-songwriter, activist, and philanthropist. He is the lead vocalist and primary lyricist of the rock band U2.
Born and raised in Dublin, he attended M ...
(né Paul Hewson) in the early 1970s.
Known for their outrageous and controversial stage performances, led by theatrical singer/songwriter Friday, the band began playing small shows in Dublin, gaining them a cult audience.
Friday and fellow vocalist Guggi, along with third vocalist Dave-iD Busaras, guitarist
Dik Evans
Richard G. "Dik" (also "Dick") Evans (born 1957) is an English-born Irish musician best known as a founder of the band Virgin Prunes and an early member of the band that would become U2. Dik and his younger brother David "the Edge" Evans, U2's ...
(brother of
U2's
The Edge
David Howell Evans (born 8 August 1961), better known as the Edge or simply Edge,McCormick (2006), pp. 21, 23–24 is an English-born Irish musician, singer, and songwriter. He is best known as the lead guitarist, keyboardist, and backing voca ...
), bassist Strongman (Trevor Rowen, brother of Guggi) and drummer Pod (Anthony Murphy), completed the original lineup.
Pod left the group and was replaced by Haa-Lacka Binttii (né Daniel Figgis). With Binttii on drums, tape loops and keyboards, the band secured a deal with
Rough Trade Records
Rough Trade Records is an independent record label based in London, England. It was formed in 1976 by Geoff Travis who had opened a record store off Ladbroke Grove. Having successfully promoted and sold records by punk rock and early post-pun ...
.
They released their first single, "
Twenty Tens"
on their own Baby Records label (distributed by Rough Trade) on 8 January 1981, followed by a second single, "
Moments and Mine (Despite Straight Lines)", on 27 June 1981.
Two other tracks recorded with Binttii were released during 1981 before conflicts with other members forced him out of the band.
"Red Nettle" was included on ''
NME
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...
'' compilation ''
C81'' and "Third Secret" appeared on
Cherry Red compilation ''Perspectives and Distortion''. Work had already started on the "A New Form of Beauty" project while Bintti was with the band, but after he was replaced by Mary D'Nellon (né David Kelly) on drums,
some of his tracks were rerecorded and his name was not included in the credits. He later formed the project Princess Tinymeat.
"A New Form of Beauty" was a project that originally contained four chapters and was released in various formats: a 7" single, 10" single and 12" EP released in 1981, and a cassette issued in 1982.
All four parts were later collected as the ''
A New Form of Beauty Parts 1-4'' compilation album. The project also included two additional pieces, the unpublished book ''A New Form of Beauty 6'' and the unreleased film ''A New Form of Beauty 7''.
In November 1982, the Virgin Prunes released their debut studio album, ''
...If I Die, I Die'' (produced by
Colin Newman
Colin John Newman (born 16 September 1954) is an English musician, record producer and record label owner. He is best known as the primary vocalist and songwriter for the post-punk band Wire.
Early life
Newman was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire ...
of
Wire
Overhead power cabling. The conductor consists of seven strands of steel (centre, high tensile strength), surrounded by four outer layers of aluminium (high conductivity). Sample diameter 40 mm
A wire is a flexible strand of metal.
Wire is c ...
), as well as the double 10" EP ''
Hérésie'', a French box set.
Commissioned by Yann Farcy after seeing them perform at the Rex Club in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, ''Hérésie'' was based on a loose examination of insanity. In 1984, both Guggi and Dik Evans, unhappy with the music business, left the band.
This forced drummer D'Nellon to switch to guitar and allowed Pod to return as the band's drummer.
The Virgin Prunes started to record but abandoned the unreleased album ''Sons Find Devils''.
A retrospective video titled ''Sons Find Devils - A Live Retrospective 1981-1983'' was released in 1986 by Ikon; this video had nothing to do with the unreleased album of the same name. In April 1985, rarities compilation ''
Over the Rainbow'' was released.
In July 1986, the band, now a four-piece, finally released a second studio album, ''
The Moon Looked Down and Laughed'' (including recordings of music written for ''Sons Find Devils'').
Later that year, Friday left the group. His departure was confirmed in the liner notes of the band's 1987 live album ''
The Hidden Lie'', which contained a short statement confirming the band's breakup.
After disbanding as Virgin Prunes, D'Nellon, Strongman and Busaras formed an offshoot group called The Prunes, which released three albums between 1988 and 1991 (1988's ''Lite Fantastik'', 1989's ''Nada'', and 1991's ''Blossoms & Blood'' ). Dik Evans played on ”Lite Fantastik" while 17-year-old Justin Kavanagh (aka Valley Limberg) from the Dublin hardcore band Mutant Asylumtook the helm as guitarist for "Blossoms & Blood". In 1993, Kavanagh went on to form Gormenghast and Snifferdog with Ger Griffin. Binttii's youngest brother,
Jonathan Figgis, was the boy who appeared on the cover of the second Virgin Prunes single, "Moments and Mine".
In 1998,
Cleopatra Records
Cleopatra Records is an American independent record label based in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1992 by Brian Perera. The record label has since grown into a family of labels, including Hypnotic Records, Purple Pyramid Records, Dea ...
rereleased the ''Sons Find Devils'' video, along with a soundtrack album on
CD. This was the first commercially available Virgin Prunes material to be released since 1993 and, for a few years, the only commercially available full-length Virgin Prunes album on compact disc (though studio recordings of the songs "Baby Turns Blue", "Pagan Lovesong" and "Caucasian Walk" had cropped up on various
goth
A Goth is a member of the Goths, a group of East Germanic tribes. Two major political entities of the Goths were:
*Visigoths, prominent in Spanish history
*Ostrogoths, prominent in Italian history
Goth or Goths may also refer to:
* Goth (surname) ...
and post-punk CD compilations).
Friday went on to have a reasonably successful solo career in both music and film, releasing five solo albums and several scores, while Guggi remained an influential artist in Dublin and Busaras continued to record as a solo artist in Ireland. After 20 years of self-imposed seclusion from the rock world, Dik Evans gave an overview of he and his brother The Edge's early years in U2 for the December 2005 issue of ''
Word Magazine
Word Magazine was an online magazine active from 1995 to 2000.
History
Launched in 1995 by Carey Earle, Tom Livaccari and Dan Pelson, Word Magazine created original stories, interviews, games, applications, music, interactive objects and art, an ...
''.
Daniel Figgis later became a composer and multimedia producer and curator, becoming composer in residence with Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown, Dublin. One of his compositions, "Post Production", a 23-section suite for four musicians, was performed at the
Winter Garden Theatre
The Winter Garden Theatre is a Broadway theatre at 1634 Broadway in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It opened in 1911 under designs by architect William Albert Swasey. The Winter Garden's current design dates to 1922, when ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in December 2006. In 2008, the Arts>World financial centre commissioned Figgis to compose and perform the sole European commission to celebrate their 20th anniversary of arts programming. His multi-disciplinary festival, "Snakes & Ladders", appeared on
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
on 8 January 2010 at
Symphony Space
Symphony Space, founded by Isaiah Sheffer and Allan Miller, is a multi-disciplinary performing arts organization at 2537 Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Performances take place in the 760-seat Peter Jay Sharp Theatre (also called Pe ...
.
The Virgin Prunes discography was remastered and reissued on
Mute Records
Mute Records is a British independent record label owned and founded in 1978 by Daniel Miller. It has featured several prominent musical acts on its roster such as Depeche Mode, Erasure, Einstürzende Neubauten, Fad Gadget, Goldfrapp, Grinderm ...
in 2004. The set of reissues included ''...If I Die, I Die'', ''The Moon Looked Down and Laughed'', ''Over the Rainbow'', ''Hérésie'' and an album of selections from the ''A New Form of Beauty'' series. In 2006, Busaras, Guggi and Friday contributed a track to the
sea shanty
A sea shanty, chantey, or chanty () is a genre of traditional Folk music, folk song that was once commonly sung as a work song to accompany rhythmical labor aboard large Merchant vessel, merchant Sailing ship, sailing vessels. The term ''shanty ...
collection ''
Rogue's Gallery
A rogues' gallery (or rogues gallery) is a police collection of mug shots or other images of criminal suspects kept for identification purposes.
History
In 1855, Allan Pinkerton, founder of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, established a ...
'', appearing in the track listing as ''Three Pruned Men''.
On 4 October 2009, three original members of the band (Friday, Guggi and Dik Evans) performed two classic Virgin Prunes songs, "Sweethome Under White Clouds" and "Caucasian Walk", at
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhatta ...
as part of "An Evening with Gavin Friday and Friends", to celebrate Friday's 50th birthday.
J.G. Thirlwell
James George Thirlwell (born 29 January 1960), also known as Clint Ruin, Frank Want, and Foetus, among other names, is an Australian musician, composer, and record producer. He is known for juxtaposing a variety of different musical styles.
...
appeared with them as backing vocalist.
Discography
Albums
Studio albums
Live albums
Compilation albums
Video albums
EPs
Singles
Selected compilation appearances
* "Red Nettle" on ''
C81'' (1981, Rough Trade/
NME
''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...
)
* "Third Secret" on ''Perspectives and Distortion'' (1981,
Cherry Red)
* "Jigsaw Mentallama" on ''Vinyl Magazine #9''
flexi disc
The flexi disc (also known as a phonosheet, Sonosheet or Soundsheet, a trademark) is a phonograph record made of a thin, flexible vinyl sheet with a molded-in spiral stylus groove, and is designed to be playable on a normal phonograph turntable. ...
(1981, Vinyl Magazine)
* "Mad Bird in the Wood" on ''Dokument: Ten Highlights in the History of Popular Music 1981>1982'' (1982,
Roadrunner
The roadrunners (genus ''Geococcyx''), also known as chaparral birds or chaparral cocks, are two species of fast-running ground cuckoos with long tails and crests. They are found in the southwestern and south-central United States and Mexico, us ...
)
Literature
* Rolf Vasellari: ''The Faculties of a Broken Heart'' (1985, Black Sheep Press)
References
External links
*
Gavin Friday, official websiteGuggi's official websiteDave-iD.comDaniel Figgis' official websiteMute Records websitePeter Rowen official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Virgin Prunes, The
Irish gothic rock groups
Irish punk rock groups
Musical groups from Dublin (city)
Irish post-punk music groups
Musical groups established in 1977
Musical groups disestablished in 1986
Mute Records artists
Touch and Go Records artists