ONE OF the few broadcasting bright spots in an otherwise grim past few months has been the emergence of the Cork-based No Disco as a long-awaited and much-needed outlet for videos regarded as too left-of-centre for Beatbox. It was on this show that the Smithwicks/Hot Press Awards – shortlisted video for Sack’s ‘What Did The Christians Ever Do For Us?’ was first shown in all its grainy glory. With a budget of £26, a significant proportion of which went towards the fruit consumed by the band to capture the seedy, fall of the Roman Empire decadence to best effect, this promo clip was an excellent example of imaginative use of zero resources and it’s to No Disco’s credit that they picked up on it immediately.

Even more startling was the subsequent interview with the band where lead singer Martin McCann spoke frankly about his homosexuality. Anyone who’d ever met Sack – either in their present incarnation or during their years as Lord John White – was never in doubt as to Martin’s sexual leaning. He’d been openly out for several years but there’s a considerable difference between his gayness being known in musical circles and sitting there discussing the subject for ten minutes on national television.

“I was actually quite nervous on the programme,” he says, supping the first of several pints of stout in The George. “When Donal Dineen asked me the question ‘Well Martin, what’s the story about this whole gay thing?’ I was stunned into silence. They stopped the cameras while I gathered my thoughts and then rolled away again. It was half ten in the morning and we were stone cold sober. No Disco? No Gargle! But I’m very glad I did it anyway, even though I felt much better in hindsight than I did at the time. It was all a bit sudden like!”

Although Zrazy have been flying the flag on behalf of lesbians for the past few years the incidence of gay men in the Rock sphere of Irish music has been remarkably low, given the statistical likelihood of there being far more. Philip Chevron of The Pogues and long gone electro-Pop duo Biazarre are the most notable musicians who’ve come out – despite the usual salacious industry gossip concerning cabaret superstars and country crooners – so there’s an inevitable media focus on an act with a gay person in the ranks. However, Martin doesn’t think his sexuality has presented an obstacle to Sack’s progress as a band.

“I certainly don’t think it’s been a hindrance,” he says. “At one stage I may have thought that everyone was ignoring us because I was gay but then I realised ‘Nah, it can’t be’. People have always been open-minded and laid-back in Ireland and I’ve always been gay . . . everybody I know knows me for what I am so I don’t think it’s hindered the band in any way.

“On a personal level I came across right-wing skinheads a few months ago. They approached me in the street, just across the road from here, spat at me and gave it the whole ‘Fuckin’ queer, you watch your back’ routine. It occurred to me then that maybe they’d seen me on No Disco talking about being gay and that was why they’d confronted me, but that kind of thing doesn’t bother me. I enjoy being spat at anyway. They didn’t realise it but I got the horn actually! (laughs). They have to be closets anyway. To hassle someone because they’re gay must mean they have a problem.”

Indeed, Martin McCann goes further and states that, on the whole, he’s hardly encountered any homophobia within the music industry.

“I hate to say it but I’d love a bit of a reaction now and again,” he admits. “The incident I mentioned with the skinheads was kinda good in a way because it really brought to my attention that there are right-wing fascists out there who hate me and want to kill me but other than that . . . no.

“I’ve been in bands for so long, Sack, Lord John White and my first band Aiken Drum – which was a 3-piece electronic outfit . . . cliché! cliché! – and I was out from the off. We had a track on a Hot Press EP that was released in 1986 called ‘The Hearing’ which was about me coming out. It felt really brave then, it was great to be gay and it was also in vogue with Bronski Beat, that whole bomp-bink/bomp-bink electro disco thing. But I soon got sick of that and wanted to be in a real band.

“I have been heckled the odd time down the country but I handle it the way a drag queen would handle it, I suppose. Y’know, hit them with something like ‘If your cock is as big as your mouth I’ll see you outside’, that smartarse sort of thing. We’re quite a punky band in terms of attitude anyway, so it’s quite easy to deal with that kind of heckle on the few occasions it’s arisen. In general there hasn’t been any hassle though, I think the music speaks for itself and nobody gives a shite that the lead singer is a queer.”

Equally Martin has found that his colleagues in Sack have never let his sexual preferences interfere with the music-making process. He’s gay, they’re straight . . . now get on with it.

“They’re too straight actually,” he says with a grin. “We get on very well as people and sex doesn’t come into it. Well, it does occasionally when the slagging matches start and they’re always on the lookout for men for me. Even after all these years it’s a bit weird when you’re in the van and the lads start going ‘Martin! Martin! Look at him! Look at him!’ or someone comes into rehearsals and says ‘You wanna see the bloke I saw this morning’. It’s the feminine instinct in them all . . . lurking there!

“I never had to face the situation of being in a band and then telling the other blokes that I was gay. I’ve been out since I was about eighteen and when John and Tony asked me to join Lord John White I said ‘Look, there’s something you should know. I’m gay’ and they said ‘We know’. Everybody knew I suppose, so they never had a problem with it.”

Nicky Wire of Manic Street Preachers may have scrawled the slogan ‘All rock ’n’ roll is homosexual’ on his chest to good effect but there is a laddishness inherent in 99% of bands. Does Martin feel that being of a different sexual persuasion prevents his full participation in the more gung-ho aspects of playing rock ’n’ roll?

“But I am a lad! I’m not Boy George, man! I’ve always gone my own way after gigs, y’know? We’re all great friends within the band but after we finish a gig in America or England I want to do my own thing and go my own way, and that doesn’t bother them. They’re chatting to girls and I go to gay bars to meet my own circle of friends: that’s the way it’s always been. Sometimes one or two of the lads would come with me because I want them to see what some of these places are like, particularly the seedier and more sordid ones. Family Solidarity, heh! heh! heh! Nah, it’s nothing like that. It’s all very clean-living. There’s an incredibly wide range of clubs and bars, in London particularly, but I’d only go to a couple which cater for a certain crowd. Like, I wouldn’t go to an effeminate club. Ah like mah men tuh be real men!” (laughs).

Given the bargain bin orgy which captures the essence of the song and the overall feel of ‘What Did The Christians Ever Do For Us?’, it does come as something of a surprise to find that the lyrics were in fact written by guitarist John Brereton.

“Yeah,” says Martin. “That opening line ‘Bring him to me/I can’t get enough of that tender Christian flesh’ is quite gay and the automatic assumption people make is that I wrote it, but that’s how it works so well. I know John really well and I’m sure that when he’s working on a lyric he’s thinking ‘Martin’ll love this’. Like, we have a song called ‘Colorado Springs’ which is about how the state of Colorado still refuses to recognise homosexuality. He actually penned that for me “I’ll use my body in my own way’ – and it’s kinda nice when we’re working on new songs and I’m handed a lyric. It’s like ‘Oh, a pressie for me’.”

Given that Sack play a thrilling hybrid of punky dance with plenty of lyrics guaranteed to set the most peculiar trains of thought in motion, does Martin find that people are surprised to find a gay man fronting this riveting racket, that there’s almost a stereotypical gay musical style to which he doesn’t exactly conform?

“To an extent, yes,” he admits. “I’ve found that when I’ve been in bars and meeting people and I say that I’m in a band that they almost always expect it to be like the Pet Shop Boys, so I usually nip any disappointment in the bud by saying ‘Nah, you wouldn’t like us’. I didn’t want to be in that almost caricature Soft Cell/Erasure gay band syndrome, which is why I broke up my first band and joined Lord John White.”

As an adamantly gay man how does Martin view the recent splurge of publicity given to lesbian chic, with kd lang and Cindy Crawford on the cover of Vanity Fair and sapphic sub-plots surfacing in Between The Lines and most notably Brookside?

“Ah yes, Brookside,” he laughs. “Lesbians have been around for as long as gay men so it’s fine that they’re getting more media coverage. When we were in London recording the album Brookside was on and everyone was down in the TV room to see what was happening with the lesbian affair. All of our band, Moonshake who were recording there as well, engineers, tape ops, the whole lot all waiting for ‘the kiss’. I’m sure if I hadn’t been in the room the flutes would have been out and they’d all have been pedalling away! I was having a great time slagging them with ‘How do you see anything erotic in that?’ It was funny, although I have to admit that I thought that scene was quite touching.”

One consequence of their lead singer’s frankness concerning his sexuality has been that the question inevitably arises in virtually every Sack interview, even the ones in which he doesn’t participate.

“I have no problem with that happening because I’m so comfortable with who and what I am,” says Martin. “If I was in the closet I’d be shitting myself but that’s far from being the case. It comes up all the time and I can kinda understand the rest of the band maybe getting a bit pissed off that every interview eventually comes round to my sexuality and what I get up to with men.

“I don’t put myself forward for every interview because I’m quite nervous to begin with and am afraid of maybe being a bit too honest for my own good. When the question comes round to my sexuality and I start going ‘Yeah, men! Big hairy arses! Great swinging bollocks!’ that’s just me being myself. I mean, I hope that by doing interviews I’m encouraging people to realise that being gay is not a horrible thing. It’s great in fact, and I wouldn’t want to be any other way.”

We salute!

Zrazy: For coming out loud and proud with their wonderful lesbian pagan funk.

David Norris: For campaigning so tirelessly and effectively – and taking the enormous personal risk involved in bringing his case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Ger Philpott: For his enormous commitment to AIDS education and awareness, through AIDSWISE.

Suzy Byrne: For her involvement in the vital collaborative work of gays and lesbians in GLEN and her unabashed ‘outness’.

Mick Quinlan: For his tremendous work with AIDS Action Alliance over the years and his tireless, public commitment to gay causes.

Emma Donoghue: For giving Irish lesbians a voice through literature, and for acting as a highly articulate spokeswoman for the new generation on TV, radio and in the press.

Fr Bernard Lynch: For bringing a level of honesty to an institution blighted by hypocrisy, and for his work with those affected by AIDS.

Bootboy: For the best regular column on gay themes and by a gay person published in Ireland (and possibly in Europe!).

Kieran Rose: For his outstanding work on behalf of gays in Cork and on the national stage, as co-chair of GLEN.

Nell McCafferty: For her undiminished commitment to feminism and all it entails – and for the best speeches bar none!

THOSE WE HAVE LOVED

Boy George

The Pet Shop Boys

Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Sandra Bernhardt

Dusty Springfield

Ru Paul

Allen Ginsberg

kd lang

Derek Jarman

Janis Ian

Marc Almond

Erasure

Melissa Etheridge

Morrissey

Tina Turner

Elton John

Edith Piaf

Cliff

Bob Mould