Asterix The Great

Here come the lovesick blues again, big style. She’s impossibly pretty, bouncing around in her punky, oxblood boots. And there’s the guy in the corner, gauche and speechless, a composite loser. Let’s develop the drama some more. The girl’s going away to college in two weeks. Now the guy has a deadline, but he still can’t articulate himself. He’s dreaming about calling her up, giving her the whole romantic spiel, but you know that his plans are woefully doomed. Oh, well, at least a good song came out of it.

The new song by Asterix, ‘She’s So Young’, is in the great tradition of hang-dog anthems. Think of REM’s ‘Don’t Go Back To Rockville’, or Radiohead’s ‘Creep’. Let’s add a bit of Edwyn Collins at his most vulnerable, or maybe Vic Godard stumbling through a sad and sorry tale, and you’re in the right zone. You’ll probably like it. And maybe after digesting the pain and the detail in the song, you’ll wonder if the story has a factual base. Did this babe in the Doc Martins actually wreak some proper damage around the Magherafelt area? You put this query to Donal and Vincent, the two Asterix singer-guitarists, and immediately they’re transported back to another age, when young hearts ran free and tongues were frustratingly tied.

“The song is about a 17 year old girl,” Donal sighs. “It’s an old enough song, so I was younger at the time.” “That’s when you were 41,” Vincent deadpans. “I fancied her,” admits a blushing Donal. “And I just wrote a song about it. It was just sort of wishful thinking in a way. She went out with me a couple of years later, so it worked. That was after the song was written, but she didn’t know about it. It was on my own merits.”

So does she know that she inspired a fine artistic moment? “She’s still gorgeous,” Donal splutters. “She’s in England now. She wouldn’t piss on you now . . .”

“She kissed me on the cheek once,” Vincent interrupts. “And he came flying over to make sure he got one as well. She was leaving to go to England, and he...” As he mimes out a struggle between two fanciful young men, we change the subject to the long and erratic career path of Asterix. They’re more than eight years on the go, with patterns of inactivity and personnel spread across the sea (bassist Frankie is still finishing off a media course in Sunderland).

Things only picked up at the end of last year when the ‘Laura Loves’ EP came out, voicing another swooning affair, recalling the clipped style of Lou Reed and graced by a cool trumpet solo. “We couldn’t believe the reaction we got,” Vincent insists. “We hadn’t expected anything like that. We all sat back and looked at ourselves and thought, maybe we should keep this going.” Y’see, these people have sensible jobs and responsibilities. Donal is a maths teacher and Vincent is a chemist, allowing him to rightfully claim “I push drugs, legalised, like”.

So far, their rock activities have been pushed into holidays and weekends, but there’s a growing pressure for them to give up the day jobs. Good things came in the wake of their performance in the Bacardi Unplugged finals (they didn’t win, but ‘Laura loves’ was song of the night). They played some shows and sessions in London, including an IMRO showcase. And they also shared a bill on the Gerry Kelly Show with Boyzone, winning the affections of a 75-year-old grandmother, who rated the boys from Co Derry over Ronan’s posse. Showbiz, eh? The rising fortunes of the band owe something to the efforts of Peter Fleming, boss of Schism Records, and bassist with Scheer. When he’s not fulfilling those duties, he’s been fixing up sundry problems with Asterix, sitting in on sessions and plugging the requisite holes. “Since Christmas,” Donal says, “Peter has played in every position in the band except singing. And I reckon he’s angling for that.” Neat songs, humour and steady temperaments are all subsumed in Asterix. You’ve got to admire their gall.

‘She’s So Young’ is now out on Schism Records Website http://www.d-n-a.net/users/scheer

• Stuart Bailie