Shellshock Rock – the John T.Davis short documentary film that gives this epic triple CD and DVD compilation its name – has assumed mythical status since it was first briefly released in 1979. Not surprising perhaps, given that it was initially banned from the Cork Film Festival, went on to win awards around the world, and yet has never really had a proper commercial release until now, a mere 41 years later.
Thankfully it more than merits all the hype, being a brilliant piece of filmmaking, quite unlike anything before or since. Yes, it’s a perfect 45-minute snapshot of the original punk rock scene in the North in the late 70s, but somehow Davis and his tiny team manage to make it a whole lot more than just that, through an inspired mix of music, interviews, archive footage and, best of all, pure silence. The usual clunky narrative voiceover would have killed it stone dead. Instead Davis just lets it all play out, the local brass band murdering ‘Good King Wenceslas’ crashing straight into ‘Big Time’ by RUDI, some old-school native Belfast chancer raising his hat to The Outcasts’ ‘You’re A Disease’, a brief helicopter ride zooming us straight into The Undertones onstage in Portrush with the inevitable ‘Teenage Kicks’.
Everybody looks so young, everybody looks so thin. And near-ghostly, all chalk-white with lips bright red due to whatever way Davis had to shoot and light his subjects. Belfast, suitably enough, looks like a bomb site. Yet amongst the wreckage the heart of the city beats loud and clear, never more so than in the dreamlike sequence where we end up with Protex at The Pound and a blistering near-dub ‘Strange Obsessions’. And, in one heart-stopping clip, the two lost Colins, Cowan and Getty, both gone way too soon, both fleetingly restored here in the prime and the time of their lives.
The Outcasts at the Ulster Hall, Belfast, 24.04.1980
Shellshock Rock the movie tends to overshadow the three CDs here, though there is more than enough in the exhaustive 74-track collection to satisfy even the hardest of hardcore Ulster punk fanatics. As with the film, all the big names from The Undertones to Stiff Little Fingers via RUDI and The Undertones are present and correct, but it’s more in the relative footnotes where the hidden nuggets are to be found. Reflex Action anyone? Stage B? The Tearjerkers? Or perhaps more likely those outfits such as Big Self and Ruefrex, neither of whom make the cut with Davis, but both displaying here all the qualities – a deep groove and a raging fire respectively – that would in time propel them far beyond their native shores.
Shock Treatment at the Ulster Hall 24.04.1980
Or maybe even Shock Treatment, my very own small contribution to the Belfast punk rock wars of the late 1970s. For a brief period it was everything to me, then it fizzled out as it did for nearly all of the acts on these three CDs, and off I went to London to try my hand at the writing game. That worked out well enough in the end, but a part of me listens to our near-hit ‘Mr Mystery Man’ here and cannot help but think of what might have been. I listen now to all these songs on Shellshock Rock and I watch the movie of the same name, and I think of all that has happened in the intervening 41 years. And it can seem like another lifetime, far far away. And it can feel like only yesterday.
Barry McIlheney
(Barry McIlheney 1960-2025 RIP. He was the singer in Shock Treatment. He was the ex-Editor and Publisher of magazines such as Smash Hits, Empire, Q, Elle, Mojo, and The Face. Barry passed away unexpectedly on May 26. This review appeared in Issue 2 of Dig With It magazine in 2020. Love and condolences to Barry’s family and friends. He was a great writer, raconteur and a champion human being.)
VARIOUS ARTISTS: Shellshock Rock: Alternative Blasts From Northern Ireland 1977-1984 (Cherry Red Records)
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