Holy Spirit Level.
-Artwork by Binman
(photo - photo booth,
Limerick Train Station)
Released: March 2nd 1992 Ireland
Formats/Reg: Cassette
Track Listing :
1. Holy Spirit Level
2. Longines
3. Judith
1. & 3. Written by Niall Quinn,
2. Written by Andy Gallagher.
Recording Details: Recorded at Xeric Studios, Limerick January 1992.
Engineered by Ralph Lindheim.
The Hitchers:
Andy - Vocals, Guitar, Keys;
Niall - Drums, Vocals.
Hoss - Bass;
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With the benefit of hindsight
-this would have been a good time to change our name, put The Hitchers thing to
bed and get ourselves a brand new moniker for our brand new sound. The line up
was decimated. Ben was gone since before Christmas 1990 and Eoin before
Christmas 1991. So Andy had taken on both guitarist roles and was now moved over
in front of the lead microphone as well. I thought about quitting drums and moving into the front-man job myself, but it
was still only two years since I'd been in The Cranberry Saw Us and I really,
really didn't fancy it.
So we kept the name and just one song -'Knife' -a song that never really got the
recognition it deserved -despite it being the strongest indicator, from those
early days, of how the bands sound would evolve. I think we had a crack at it
for the F&G sessions but it never made it. Must root that out actually. Holy Spirit Level was recorded
and put out on a sub-shoestring budget. We couldn't afford shoe string. The
three of us were on the dole and servicing debts from the 5 piece days. We spent
most of the recording time concentrating on Holy Spirit Level rather than the
other two but Longines came out quite well despite not getting the attention it
deserved.
Judith suffered from the same problem Blame It On His Hormones had a year and a
half earlier -namely it was written too recently to have been considered for
recording and we should've learned our lesson. We hadn't worked out how to
resolve issues in the song like it's vocal overlaps, lack of pauses for breath
etc...
Bizarrely we were happy enough with it at the time to put it on
the Limerick Rocks 92 compilation ahead of either of the other two which strikes
me as a bit daft frankly.
Probably the most important thing with Holy Spirit Level was that it came out at
all rather than what it did for us career wise -though it did pick up repeat
plays from Dave Fanning and those who'd cover for him like Pat O'Mahony. If we
hadn't got something concrete out at that stage we'd possibly have wound it up
altogether.Niall 2006 |
