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THE UNDERTONES
teenage kicks

Re-release Date: 3th September 2008

digitally remastered numbered limited edition 30th anniversary 7" vinyl reissue in a cardboard outer and inner poster booklet. on the 16th june 1978 on a wet miserable day in belfast - damian o' neill - 17 - michael bradley 18 - feargal sharkey - 19 - john o' neill - 20 - billy doherty- 19 - the undertones - derry's one and only punk band recorded the teenage kicks e.p. for (terry hooley)'s good vibrations label. the group had been going since 75 and although having built up a small dedicated following through their legendary casbah shows back home - they were more or less ready to break up (something they excelled at for their entire lifespan) as they seemed to be getting nowhere. doing an ep was deemed to be better value for money and the group felt - if nothing else - that making a record would be a final document of their own existence - something they could always cherish and be proud of and maybe one day could even end up in a similar rarities compilation lp. like lenny kaye's 'nuggets'. incredibly of the 4 songs recorded that day the title song 'teenage kicks' - written the previous summer by group leader and main songwriter john o'neill - wasn't originally going to be on the record. billy explains - "none of the rest of the group wanted to record 'teenage kicks' - i had to persuade them to do it. the reason they didn't want to do it was because of the very reason we started the group - if anything reeked of commercialism or anything obvious - we'd do the reverse of that - even if we knew it might cut off our noses to spite our face." john - "it was called 'teenage kicks' ep not 'cos we thought it was the best song but 'cos it was to be our epitaph for all those years -. at least we were the first band in derry to bring out a record of all our own songs and we were gonna leave it at that -" far from being their epitaph 'teenage kicks' ep proved to be merely the beginnings of a career that produced four albums and 13 singles. back in 78 none of this would've been possible if it hadn't been for one man - that man was john peel who first played 'teenage kicks' on 12th september 1978 and subsequently captured a nation's heart- 'teenage kicks' is virtually synonymous with john peel - the man is rumoured to have blubbered like a baby upon first hearing of the song and of course has publicly stated that it's his all time favourite song. typically modest - john o'neill tries to explain the appeal of the song - "i always think that even though i'm credited as the person who wrote 'teenage kicks' it's the actual sound of that record that makes it - the actual song's not particularly great - it's the actual sound that makes it brilliant." thanks to john peel's championing of the record (he was known to have played the song twice in one show) and boosted by fellow radio 1 dj peter powell making it single of the week - the undertones soon became the prize interest of numerous record labels and still managerless - the group opted to sign a worldwide deal with sire records (how they 'negotiated' with sire supremo seymour stein is a story in itself). sire quickly repackaged and re-released the ep culminating in the group's first top of the pops appearance. "one week we were buying these people's records - the next we were speaking to them!"

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