Connections: E is for ...

John "Irish" Earle (1+) Connecting in 1979. Tenor & Baritone Saxophone.

Tenor & baritone sax player on Desperate Character, and part of Graham Parker's Rumour Brass, along with Ray Beavis on tenor sax, Chris Gower on trombone and Dick Hanson on trumpet. They featured as a unit on several albums by Shakin' Stevens. He also connects via the Rumour with guitarist Martin Belmont. Paul Brady used the whole Rumour Brass on his 1983 album True for you, as did Liam Sternberg on Rachel Sweet's 1979 album Fool Around. That album also featured the "Stiff Chorus, forever anonymous" ... what are the chances that KM might have been one of them?

Anyway, another anonymous writer recalls that John is "a sound fellow, great sense of humour and pissed off that in Dublin he's only remembered for his bit on Thin Lizzy's Live & Dangerous. He was about the only one that didn't get to re-record his part on that 'live' album.". John has even appeared as a guest musician with tribute band Thin Az Lizzy! In the early eighties with Dick he played with the Climax Blues Band and guested for Swedish boogie-blues outfit Sky High. John also played with Ray and Dick on Rory Gallagher's 1990 album Fresh Evidence, and with Ray on Mike & the Mechanics 1986 album. Other obscure appearances include sax on an album by Valerie Lagrange (Les Trottoirs de l´Eternite, 1983) and being part of a strange sounding prog-rock outfit called Gnidrolog way back in 1972. Recently John has played a bit in his native Ireland with the Ben Provo band in Galway.

Lu Edmonds (3+) Connecting from 1979. Songwriter & Guitar.

A man of many instruments and bands, he has appeared with the Damned, the Edge/Belvederes, Three Mustaphas Three, Shriekback (with Simon Edwards), 3 Mustaphas 3, the Mekons, Public Image, Billy Bragg's Blokes, Tuvan throat singers Yat-Kha, Laurie Anderson, the Waterboys and one gig with Thomas Mapfumo. The man is a genius.

Born in Hertfordshire, he acquired the name Lu while auditioning for the Damned. As Captain Sensible later related, "We'd say 'Are you the greatest guitarist in the world?' If they said 'No' we'd put the phone down on them. If they said 'Yes', then there were five or six more questions they had to answer. The next one would be 'Do you like Eric Clapton?' If they said 'No', they were on to the next and so on. Some of the people who came for the actual auditions were really dreadful. After two or three, we thought 'We'll have to liven this up a bit'. They'd put the guitar on, plug in and we'd all pull our trousers down. If they didn't mind that, then we'd start gobbing at them while they were playing. This one guy was really grooving on it. He was shrieking with laughter while he was playing, doing this tricky routine while we were naked and gobbing at him. We said 'That was marvellous. We'll definitely put you on the short list'. By the next evening, we said 'We've gotta get that lunatic back'.

That was how Robert Edmunds acquired the name of Lu and got a job in The Damned. He had no previous experience and was, at the time, living in a cupboard under the stairs in a house in Cromwell Road, London. The Edge was formed when guitarist Lu and drummer Jon Moss left this brief and unrecorded incarnation of the Damned in 1978. With the addition of keyboardist Gavin Povey (who had played with Lew Lewis) and bassist Glyn Havard (whose long career has included stints with the Yachts), the Edge fell together, and became Jane Aire's backing band (aka the Belvederes), also playing on Desperate Character in 1979. Lu played guitar on this and the unreleased Real sessions two years later along with Pino Palladino, Jools Holland, Rico (ex-Specials) and Dick Cuthell.

He co-wrote Mexican sofa, Falling for faces and The real ripper. He was also with her on that disastrous Irish tour along with Terry Woods , Gavin Povey and Jon Moss - "We did studio stuff and then went on what was for her a very difficult tour around Ireland, the ballrooms, because she had a very bad case of stage fright -- around 1980. We had Terry Woods playing with us. It was a really bizarre bunch, with muggins here on the guitar. We did the ballrooms, from Lochrae to Letterkenny, all the way down to Cashel, Limerick, Dublin. Frank Murray was tour managing it, who was the Pogues manager later, and before that he was Thin Lizzy's tour manager, so it was really Irish. It was great. We went to Strand Hill with Planxty's manager who ran a pub and who put the gig on there." More recently Lu played bouzouki on the BBC sessions album (What do pretty girls do?). He has been known to play the guitar, bass, piano/keyboards, and some more esoteric instruments: bass-pulur, bozok, bouzouk, saz, cümbüs (he even builds his own), oud, Norwegian flute, tüngür, drums, and bagpipes; now throat sings. He can also speak at least six languages fluently, including French, Russian, and Turkish. Told you he was a genius. Read the excellent fRoots interview from April 2000.

Simon Edwards (5) Connecting from 1986. Bass guitar.

Simon joined Shriekback (connecting with Lu Edmonds) in 1995 and plays bass on Naked Apes And Pond Life. Prior to Shriekback, he played on the albums First Of A Million Kisses by Fairground Attraction (linking with Roy Doddsand Mark Nevin), and Laughing Stock and Spirit Of Eden by Talk Talk. He also plays alongside Martyn Barker on a number of the records, most notably on Joseph Arthur's album Big City Secrets. Simon has also been touring with Billy Bragg's Blokes. His link to Kirsty is as bass player on the BBC sessions album (What do pretty girls do?), and also on the track Last day of summer. Going way back, he also links tenuously by playing on Tracey Ullman's version of You caught me out.

James Eller (4) Connecting in 1989. Bass guitar.

In 1981 he worked with Nick Lowe, Billy Bremner, Martin Belmont and Paul Carrack on Carlene Carter's albums. Belmont and Eller also played on Carrack's solo work of the same era. Other appearances included Thrashing Doves, Clive Langer & the Boxes (also featuring the Rumour Brass, Bette Bright and the Banshees' Budgie) and Adult Net, the band formed by Brix Smith after the Fall. Bette also fronted her own band - Bette Bright & the Illuminations (Captain of your ship), featuring Eller on bass and the future Lightning Seed main man Ian Broudie on guitar (in another hidden connection, Ian would later work with Pete Glenister).

Eller played bass on Free world, Mother's ruin, Fifteen minutes and Don't come the cowboy from 1989's Kite album. Billy Bragg used him on Don't try this at home. He then joined up with Matt Johnson's The The from 1989 to 1995 - he was joined by Johnny Marr, David Palmer (drums) and Phil Todd (tenor saxophone). Gavyn Wright plays Arabian fiddle on the Mind Bomb album! Marr had known Johnson, since 1981. "I just started to like him as a guy from the start," the guitarist explains. "So I followed his progress with keen interest. Also, David Palmer had played with Matt on "Infected", and I was intent on getting a group together with David. We had first gotten together around the end of the Smiths and talked about forming a group. Then David and I went to see a couple of bands with and eye on finding a bass player, and we went to see Julien Cope's band. When I saw (bassist) James Eller, I said, 'That's the guy for me.'"

At the time, though, Marr wasn't quite ready to form a group of his own. Matt Johnson contacted him about forming a group with the very people Marr had earlier considered for a band. "Matt pulled in David Palmer, James Eller and me independently, so the three of us found ourselves together and figured it had to be the most natural thing in the world." Recent work may include bass on Lene Marlin's album (I don't speak Swedish so I can't be totally sure). It certainly includes British rock singer William Topley.

Engine Alley (1) Connecting in 1994. Rock Band.

Engine Alley Engine Alley formed at the latter end of the 1980's in the shape of Kilkenny boys, Canice Kenealy (Vocals), Brian Kenealy (Guitar) and Eamonn Byrne (Bass). Moving to Dublin in 1989, they recruited drummer Emmaline Duffy-Fallon and the line-up was completed in 1991 with the addition of Ken Rice (Orchestra) from Kerry on Violin. While living in Dublin they took their name from a gray barren street in the heart of the Liberties, an old part of Dublin's south inner city. They quickly established a loyal following with their generally manic live performance and colorful appearance. Their debut album A sonic holiday was produced by Steve Lillywhite and featured Kirsty on backing vocals on the track Song for someone. 1996 the band decided to take a break. Canice and Brian pursued separate musical and non-musical endeavors while Eamonn landed bass duties with The Lord of the Dance show. In early 1998 the lads felt ready to reconvene and along with Paul O'Byrne (drummer from Brian's interim project, The Valleys), played a "triumphant return gig in April in The Da Club. That gig found the collective engines in fine form with Canice as irrepressible and compelling as ever and band locked into a fresh accomplished groove, onwards as ever."

Ernesto Estruch (4) Connecting in 2000. Piano & violin.

Session man on Tropical Brainstorm, playing piano on Treachery, violin on Here comes that man again and supplying backing vocals on Mambo de la Luna and In these shoes?

Connections: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W

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