“Punk really changed my life in a way that I never expected. I’d probably still be married to my first wife if it weren’t for the Outcasts.”
So says Terri Hooley at the start of Outcasts By Choice, a documentary account of how the titular Belfast spiky-hairs helped change the question from “Protestant or Catholic?” to “Sex Pistols or the Clash?”
Forty years after running riot in The Harp Bar, the writers of such terrace chant classics as ‘Just Nother Teenage Rebel’, ‘The Cops Are Coming’ and ‘Frustration’ are still playing dodgy (in the best possible way!) venues all over Europe and enjoying the camaraderie of being in a band.
The doc proudly displays Hot Press’ 1979 review of their debut Self Conscious Over You album, which according to Declan Lynch: “Works completely on its own terms, makes its own rules and mistakes, and justifies this completely.”
Infamously banned from five venues in a week –“It was cartoon violence; it wasn’t people stabbing other people,” they insist – one of their hairiest gigs was in a Dublin dive-bar called The Magnet where a full-scale riot was initiated by the infamous Black Catholics gang who also gave U2 a hard time.
One thing’s for certain; you had to brave/stupid and run faster than Usain Bolt to walk round a war zone with peroxide hair and pink trousers.
A fascinating story brilliantly told, Outcasts By Choice screens for one-night only on Wednesday October 5 in the Dublin IFI. Bag yourself tickets here.