A to Z of N. Ireland Punk Bands

RADIO CITY

Radio City were a short lived band that hailed from the Portadown area in the early 1980’s. The two main protagonists, pictured above, were Kit (Chris) Wright (on the right) and Nigel Hamilton (ex Cobra & The Tearjerkers). The pair, with other musicians, enjoyed a moderate amount of success in their short time together, including recording RTE and Downtown Radio sessions and they had several record releases on the Scoff Record label, founded in 1978 by Deke O'Brien (Nightbus) with Stepaside manager Johny Lappin, which was based in Dublin. You can hear one of these recordings below, with Kit on vocals, which was released under Nigel Hamilton’s name in 1981. Kit Wright “I am on lead vocal and guitars, Nigel played drums and guitars. We co-wrote the song. Nigel did the guitar parts and I wrote the lyric and melody. The song is was about living in Craigavon. Nigel took the credit for the recording and I took the full songwriting credit as that was what I wanted to do rather than performing. I finished the backing vocal in Lombard Sound Studio in Dublin the night of the Stardust disco disaster”.
Also in 1981 the band recorded five tracks at the now defunct TMW Studios in Crumlin. In total five tracks were recorded with a line up of Kit Wright, vocals, Colm McCarron, bass, Colin Bell, drums, Howard Fleming, sax and BJ Hogg vocals. Nigel Hamilton & Davy Ewing provided guitars. The tracks recorded were ‘Bombs Away’, ‘Charm & Personality’, ‘For So Long’, ‘Mr Nice Guy’, & ’Rewind & Erase’. All tracks were Wright/Hamilton compositions.
Sadly, two of those featured on these recordings are no longer with us. B.J. Hogg became an actor after his stint as a musician and his best known for his role as Big Mervyn in the BBC sitcom ‘Give My Head Peace’. Among many other roles, he also played the title role in the Oscar-nominated short film ‘Dance Lexie Dance’ and appeared as Addam Marbrand in Game of Thrones. He died at home on his 65th birthday on 30 April 2020 after a short illness.
Drummer on the demo, Colin Bell, or ‘Dinger’, who, upon leaving school had went straight to London on the invite of his close friend and fellow Portadown drummer, the rather more famous Les Binks. Binks played with Judas Priest from 1977 to 1979 and many other artists. Colin’s pinnacle was playing drums on the Leo Sayer hit ‘Moonlighting’ but the session work wasn’t paying the bills and he returned home a few years later. Sadly Colin passed away with cancer in his late 40s.
If anyone has any further information or photographs of this band, then please DO get in contact via spit77to82@aol.com