A to Z of N. Ireland Punk Bands

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Antrim band Dirty Noise evolved from The Teenage Zits via a simple change of name. The lineup consisted of Mark McPolin on drums, Adrian Scott (Scottie) on guitar, Chris McPolin on vocals and Rab Gibb on bass. Initially the band had intended to rename themselves Dirty Noises, Chris McPolin takes up the story “I think we’d played a few gigs as Dirty Noises before being asked to play the A Centre on Long Lane, Belfast. When I collected the posters for the gig from Just Books, they had billed us as Dirty Noise, and it just stuck”. Come the day of the gig the band had to borrow the Defects drum kit and they nearly ruptured themselves moving the PA for the gig from Good Vibrations. This was the bands highest profile gig to that point in time and they went down very well with the enthusiastic crowd who particularly enjoyed their raucous rendition of Anarchy In The UK which closed their set (Chris being a massive Pistols fan). Chris comes clean about gig offers that followed “We were offered one of the support spots for the Crass gigs in Belfast the following year but I turned it down. I’d had a brief dealing with Steve Ignorant previously and thought he was a cunt! I didn’t tell the others in the band that I’d turned it down though as I think they’d have liked to have done it”. Scottie: “Fuck! Really? First I've heard of it! So we could have had The Last Supper support last year in Belfast? Ha ha! The previous dealing may have been the fact that we got turned down by Crass for their Bullshit Detector compilation! That's how good we were, apparently”. Chris “I still have the rejection letter from Crass somewhere saying that we could be on the Bullshit Detector album but we needed to write an anti war song! We were never a great band but we were certainly good enough for that heap of shit”

Further gigs in Belfast, Antrim, Coleraine, Castlerock and one in Derry followed. The band built up a tight set of original tracks including titles such as “Sunset On The City of War”,” Ricky Kasso”, Look To The West” “7 Daze A Week”, “Cos Goorgie Told Me So”, Uniform, Brixton Riots, I Forget What It’s Called” and “Another Belfast Night”.

Chris again “I helped with securing The Manhattan Bar as a venue together with TC from Stalag 17. We spent days going from bar to bar, club to club across Belfast trying to persuade them to put bands on. I think TC swung it with the Manhattan. We had the upstairs bar on a Friday night, they took the bar, and we took the door money, such that it was. It took time but it did take off, everyone welcome (except the Mods of course). Dirty Noise played there many a time; I saw some good bands too. There were a couple of other gigs offered at various places, but it was deemed too much of a risk, with me being English and all that. Belfast was still a dangerous place in those days. There were two occasions when guns were pulled on me, demanding to know what I was doing “here”, but such is life. I loved playing in the band, but not enough to get shot”.

Around 1984 Rab left the band and a succession of bass players were tried, including Franny Pennie but with little or no success, to the point where they played one of their last gigs with Scottie bassless! Scottie again “It was The Labour Club I think! Chris, Mark and I weren't getting on the best and that last gig was the final straw. I'd started listening to more political punk like Crass and Chris didn't like it. I was thrown out for apparently breaking too many strings!! That last gig Chris did a very good Johnny Rotten impersonation 'ever had the feeling you've been cheated'! Game over” Chris again “I did feel cheated, cheated by myself. We all became so uniform. I had no interest in what Scottie was listening to, everyone listened to different music, you bring different influences to the band that way. I had an interest in tunes. My favorite bands wrote tunes, The Outcasts wrote tunes, The Defects had a guitar player (Dukie) who could play like fuck, and they wrote good tunes, those were the local bands, never mind the Clash, The Ruts etc etc. The political/Anacho stuff lost me. I didn’t get it”.

After Scottie’s departure the band eventually settled on Tom ‘Warlicks’ Warren as their bass player and became a three piece.

Chris was now playing guitar and Mark was still at the drum stool. Chris again “This line up played a gig at St Comgalls Hall, as a fund raiser with a load of other bands. We played first I think (mainly so Warlicks and I could get to the pub next door quickly) and by the time we returned, there were cops onstage, someone stabbed and gig cancelled.....Result for us”. The bands set was filmed on VHS and copies still exist. Eventually Mark left the band to be replaced by a Dr Rhythm Groove Box Drum machine! Chris “It kept better time and wasn’t as violent so that was a plus. I played a gig in Cookstown by myself, just me and the drum machine under the name Dirty Noise too, very very weird evening”.

The band finally split in early 1986 when Chris moved back to England to live. As Chris quite eloquently puts it “The band were going nowhere and nowhere fast! We never rehearsed enough or pushed ourselves to improve enough”.

In 2021 Spit Records managed to salvage and repair two studio recordings made in 1985 just prior to their split and these recordings were subsequently issued as a limited edition 7-inch single. The A side, ’Look To The West’ can be heard below.”.