April 1979 saw The Moondogs follow in the footsteps of Derry cousins The Undertones when they signed to the Good Vibrations label who released the band’s debut 45 She's 19 / Ya Don't Do Ya. The single was championed by (surprise, surprise) John Peel, and shortly afterwards they were invited to join The Undertones (who else!) on their UK and Irish tours. There was enough interest generated in the band to attract the attention of Sire and WEA Records. In April 1980 they recorded their first session for the John Peel Show, and, not wanting to miss a second of their big moment, on the night the session was broadcast Jackie drove way up into the border hills (a risky move in Derry at the time) and parked next to a radio transmitter to ensure that he got crystal-clear and uninterrupted coverage of The Moondogs on air. Then in June of that year they opted to sign to Real Records, a subsidiary of Sire (who the Undertones were signed to of course!) and home to the likes of the Pretenders and Johnny Thunders. In July the band recorded a radio session for Capitol Radio and by September they were in a flat on London’s Kings Road and had started recording in the studio. Their first single for Real, Who's Gonna Tell Mary, was released in 1980, produced by Pete Collins and co-produced by Pete Waterman. (Legendary Rolling Stones collaborator Andrew Loog Oldham, who also had a hand in the production, nearly messed things up. He took a notion that The Moondogs could crack America, so he 'kidnapped ' the master tapes and flew to the USA. Writs flew like confetti until Oldham returned the tapes.) 1981 proved to be The Moondogs golden year. Granada TV approached the band with a view to giving them their own teatime TV show. Today, the idea of giving a young pop band a regular teatime kids TV show where they play their songs to their ideal record buying audience is a marketing dream. But when Granada approached the Moondogs, they weren't so sure. A large cheque helped remove some of the doubts, and they had a ball recording their twenty songs for the show at Rockfield Studios in Wales. They also rehearsed and filmed on the Coronation Street set when it wasn’t in use, and quite a few Newton and Ridley beer mats and ashtrays went missing. Guests on the series included Slade, Rockpile, Suzi Quatro and Chas And Dave to name just a few. The first show was broadcast in the last week of April 1981, by which time the boys were getting ready to go to New York to record their debut album. That same month they also recorded a radio session for the Andy Peebles show and their second session for the John Peel Show. They used the opportunity to try out some new songs, which they then sent to Todd Rundgren as ideas for the debut album. However, these recordings featured their move into New Romanticism with brass section and longer songs that they were later to regret. The Peel session was subsequently broadcast in May. Two further singles were released on Real - Talking In The Canteen produced by Nick Garvey of The Motors, followed by Imposter, which was produced by Kinks legend Ray Davies. The Moondogs were thrilled to work with Davies, especially as All Day And All Of The Night was one of their warm up songs (Davies actually caught Gerry playing it, much to his humiliation)! Davies was keen to work on the album but Todd Rundgren had already been roped in as producer. The Moondogs didn't know who Rundgren was, but since the offer meant travelling to and staying in New York, off they went - "We'd never been and we might never be again" said Jackie. They arrived at Rundgren’s studio in Bearsville, upstate New York, on May 30th 1981. That's What Friends Are For proved to be quite an ironic title for the album as the band split up halfway through recording. Says Jackie; “Going out there wide eyed, naive and easy-going, it was a shock to have to work the Rundgren way. Weeks went by and we had only done backing tracks. We needed a break maybe. Two of us were due to get married and were missing home, but more importantly, we were unsure about our music and where we were going. Remember, we were just three lads from Derry, I was the youngest at seventeen and we weren't convinced we had what it takes. New Romantic stuff was just coming in and we weren't sure about the look, the longer songs and their brass sections. We tried them but it didn't work." Prophetically, Warner Bros bought Sire Records and began to ‘clean out the cupboards’ and it seemed that The Moondogs would be dropped without the album ever being released. On their return to Derry, with the Dutch courage of a few beers, The Moondogs went en masse to the bank on a Friday afternoon to collect their publishing and recording advances, paid the VAT on their money and then declared themselves bankrupt. With a few pieces of paper it was over and the following Monday The Moondogs went and signed on the dole. The band had achieved much in a relatively short period of time. They had supported acts such The Police, The Pretenders and Sector 27, cut four singles and had their own TV series. Unbeknown to the band Todd Rundgren had finished off the album, and Sire released it in Germany later that year. It wasn't until 1985 that Jackie even saw a copy of the album. Terri Hooley called Jackie to tell him that a guy in the shop had a copy of the album with him. Eventually Jackie got his own copy of the album, bought off Ebay the Internet auction site by a sympathetic fan for £85. Jackie and Gerry went on to form a short-lived band with Billy Doherty of the Undertones, called The Hickeys, who made one TV appearance on RTE. Gerry began a solo career and in September 2002 added keyboards to several Undertones tracks. Gerry moved into the world of computers and Jackie became a TV presenter on the BBC N. Ireland show Channel One and then a highly sought after TV producer (Patrick Kielty Show etc). He currently runs his own company called Moondogs Productions. Austin drummed (and still does) with a blues covers band called Double Trouble, and runs a successful dog-training school in Derry. The Moondogs returned briefly in 1990 for a 10th anniversary show and emerged again in 1996 for a one-off gig, at the request of The Saw Doctors, in Galway. Then in 2000 they joined the regrouped Undertones and Bam Bam and The Calling for a one off benefit gig to raise money for Derry City Football Club at The Vibe in Derry. The concert raised a much needed £10,000. The band have played sporadically ever since. A CD of their John Peel sessions was released by Detour Records in 2003 and the band had an album of new material entitled ‘Red Fish’ released by Dublin label Reekus Records also in 2003. Further live dates followed to promote the album including support slots for the Buzzcocks in both Belfast and Dublin. In 2006 the band had four songs from the ‘Red Fish’ CD included on the film soundtrack to Dead Long Enough.   © Spit Records 2021 All Rights Reserved.