The Virgin Sacrifice
by Kingmi Baby
It is a sad fact. There are millions of great bands throughout history that have existed in obscurity. For every band that makes it big, there are thousands that don’t. This can be for different reasons: the lead singer could be an insufferable asshole that a lot of people don’t like, maybe people don’t connect with the band at the time, or maybe the band is so damn weird that it scares the majority of people off. The Virgin Prunes are the latter. But just because they aren’t the most fondly remembered band in history, does that mean that they didn’t influence the world in their own way? The thing that makes these Virgins so interesting and influential isn’t quite their career, but the career of some of their closest friends that helped to carry their creative torch.
The story starts with three young men in Dublin in the late ‘70s: Fionan Hanvey, Derek Rowen, and Paul Hewson. Their world was that of a working class neighborhood with a bleak future for young men such as themselves. Their solution was to create their own world, something that they could control and escape in. This resulted in the creation of the Lypton Village. This group of boys with their friends and family started this art collective/gang, whichever way you want to put it, with the purpose of escape and creation. One of the traditions of the Village was to rebaptise the members with a different name that fit that person’s true identity. The three original members became Gavin Friday, Guggi, and Bono Vox. Then with members from the Village, they split apart and formed two different bands. Bono Vox shortened his name to Bono and started U2, which went on to slowly conquer the world, and Gavin Friday and Guggi went on to start The Virgin Prunes, which focused more on an avant-garde direction.
Early on, the two bands played shows together and contributed a lot to one another. When you listen to the Virgin Prunes and early U2 this becomes very apparent. They even swapped songs such as “11 O’Clock Tick Tock” on multiple occasions. They went their separate ways, both musically and philosophically, and they both built their own audiences and had their own messages. The Virgin Prunes continued to focus on the shock and art side. Even though they were never a mainstream act, they did develop a small but loyal, cult-like following. Many acts today credit them with being a major influence. Acts such as Bjork, Billy Corgan, and Nine Inch Nails.
The point of this article is to bring up a band that, while not achieving grand international fame, was possibly one of the more influential and impactful bands of the last 40 years. They were a band that didn’t compromise, and expressed their unique ideas, and while it might not have resonated with a large audience, it did a lot of good. Now, have the opinion you want about the Virgin Prunes. You could say they are the Ed Woods of rock music; that listening to one of their albums is like watching a bad horror movie. You could say they are an Irish Bauhaus and that goth music wouldn’t be the same without them.
I hear them and think that this music is real and uncompromising, and yeah, it’s weird, but without it some really great acts wouldn’t be quite the same. I guess the moral of this story is that if you have vision with your music or art, be uninhibited. Even if you never get amazing recognition, it is important. Time changes and so do tastes, so keep doing what you’re doing, and as long as it is a full hearted honest effort, it will resonate with someone, somewhere, and that could cause some big ripples.
Category: National News, On The Scene
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