Things get worse before they get better

“I tell you what, it’s been fucking mental,” comments Charlie Mooney on the level of press interest in Desert Hearts’ first album.

“I got up yesterday, turned my phone on and next thing I know I was being interviewed by Uncut. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do,” he smirks, “just not in my y-fronts in the bog.”

So, we find ourselves at the launch of Let’s Get Worse at The Limelight in Belfast. And, while outside it’s very much a nasty winter night in February, indoors thoughts have already started turning towards the thaw.

It’s been such a long time since a band based in Northern Ireland managed to tag a major, nationwide release on a respected label that it’s little surprise that so many acts here seem to conduct themselves with an air of insular fatalism.

The fact, though, that Charlie, Roisin and Chris are sharing the same umbrella as The Strokes, and that their debut record has turned out to be so very special, should act as a galvanising influence on the rest of the pack. Let’s Get Worse is a great LP, but it’s also a challenge to the various duffle-boys, web-heads and indie veterans in Belfast to start getting their arses in gear. From now on there aren’t going to be any more excuses.

I’m optimistic. One reason why is taking place four hundred meters away.

Sketchy runs every second Wednesday night in Auntie Annies and, at a time when the number of Belfast venues prepared to accommodate live local music has atrophied to practically fatal levels, it’s the one place where a pulse can still be felt. And while it’s faint, vital signs are surprisingly good. Run by Ninebar International members Richard Dale and David O’Reilly, the club alternates between gigs, fat with different acts, and nights when guest DJs are given carte blanche to spin whatever they want.

Since it started, Sketchy has played host to practically every worthwhile performer in Northern Ireland. Hedrock, Foam, Torgas Valley Reds, Kidd Dynamo and many, many more have all squeezed onto the venue’s small stage to play to the kind of regular crowd unlikely to be found in any other place on any other day of the week.

Northern bands are often referred to as singing from the same power pop hymn sheet as The Undertones and Ash (as if sounding like The Undertones could ever be construed as an insult!). One night sitting through a bill at Sketchy would show that this is as unfair and lazy an assumption as the one that posits all Dublin bands as glorified buskers. In the next few weeks beats crews The Sirocco MCs and Spree will pay the club a visit, while the recent set from Peel-faves, and Slint-obsessives, Tracer AMC is being talked about as the best Sketchy performance ever. From straight edge noiseniks to ’80s-fixated electro boys to lo-fi singer-songwriters to drum and bass chanteuses – it may not always be brilliant, but it does make for provocative viewing.

Tonight Sketchy provides the space for the Desert Hearts after-show. While the gig itself is taking place, though, it’s keeping regulars entertained with a ‘Ladies Night’ bill dominating the decks. So Maeve Quigley brings along some S-Express, The ‘South Belfast Wrecking Crew’ (i.e. various reprobates from Go Commando and Wicked, Wicked Cowgirls) get all indie on our asses, and the residents from ‘Bring Yer Own’ (including H.P’s Helen Toland) get in some practice for the upcoming launch of their ‘Howl’ club by playing a bit of Joe Dolan.

Meanwhile, back at The Limelight and the brooding Some Days Better, The Dudley Corporation and Torgas have been setting the scene for Desert Hearts. By the time the trio appear the audience is flecked by a fair proportion of the band’s contemporaries, many of whom have no doubt seen them pounding around on Belfast stages God knows how often. And they’re magisterial. Lyrical, evocative and clear-eyed confident. Desert Hearts look every inch the band that’s just delivered the goods.