A to Z of N. Ireland Punk Bands

The Singles were a three piece Powerpop band formed in 1979 who hailed from the Lurgan /Portadown area.

The initial idea for the band came from Marty and Macker. A mutual friend suggested Barry as a 3rd member and after a short meeting, he joined, giving a line up of Barry Tipping (guitar, vocals), Martin McClatchey (bass, vocals) and 'Macker' McMullan (drums and vocals). From the outset the band decided that they would only perform their own original material.

The Singles gigged extensively all over Ireland, touring with the likes of Dexys Midnight Runners and Joe Jackson in venues as diverse as the small, but legendary Harp Bar in Hill street to the 1,000 capacity Ulster Hall in Bedford Street. In the south of Ireland they played venues such as Cork City Hall and the Angels Club in Dublin, to name just a few. They also shared the stage with a lot of local bands too, including The Sweat, The Setz, Victim and The Tearjerkers.

They were one of only a handful of local bands that were more aligned to the 'Mod Revival' scene than to the Punk scene. They demoed numerous tracks at Hydepark Studios, Templepatrick with top local producer George Doherty. One of these sessions resulted in a one-off single, the excellent T.V Deceives c/w Send For Sorrow, which was released on local label Mint Records in 1981. The Single received a lot of local media coverage via Downtown Radio and they even appeared on Good Evening Ulster, the local Ulster Television tea time News show, which was hosted at the time by Gloria Hunniford. Macker recalls their TV appearance thus “This came about via Mervin Solomon’s son I think. Mervin senior being the then owner of our the record label, Mint Records. We were supposed to play TV Deceives, our current single, but being the anarchists we were (lol) we stupidly decided we would perform our latest song "Don't Apologise”, instead of promoting the single (yep...idiots lol). When they had finished filming, the crew and the shows producer brought us into the control room to view the recording. He quite proudly asked what we thought, (aways a mistake) to which Marty blurted out "The sound is crap!”. Total silence, then all the crew disappeared leaving us with a quite annoyed producer. To be fair the sound was crap. To add insult to injury they aired it before we got home to see it, so we never actually saw our only appearance on telly as The Singles. None of us even had video recorders at the time! Naturally, we got it in the neck from all at Mint Records”. The band split 1982 and haven’t played together since.

In the intervening years, interest by collectors in the band’s only single was such that the track “Send For Sorrow” duly appeared in 1998 on the Teenage Treats Vol. 4 album by Xerox Records. This was a bootleg album, part of a collector’s series of obscure Powerpop singles. Then in 2003 a collectors label in the Netherlands called Low Down Kids obtain 8 unreleased recordings by the band from 1981 and released them together with both sides of their single as a limited edition album entitled “Send For The Singles”. There were only 100 copies of the album pressed.
After the band dissolved in 1982 the three members went on to pursue other musical projects. Marty and Mack worked on some experimental music for a time, then Marty went on to form Sontiche. Mack switched to keyboards and got together again with Barry and they promoted themselves as a duo, Shadow Talk. The pair went on to achieve some success on the mainland after signing to Magnet Records and worked with producers Peter Henderson (Supertramp, Rush, Paul McCartney) and later with Nigel Gray (Police, Souxisie and the Banshees). They were later joined by old band mate Marty for their live gigs with Graeme Robinson (Dubstar, Vicious Pink) on drums.
The duo scored a minor hit with the single, “People Watching People”, in 1983. ‘Macker’ later played with the Desert Seeds. After a life-threatening illness in 2010 Barry Tipping reinvented himself as Six Miles North and in 2011 released the album ‘Still Waiting For The Reevolution’ which was released by Silver Tree Music, an indie label formed by Barry and Kyle Leitch.
And that was the story, until, in 2020 Spit Records tracked down some old demos which the band had recorded in the summer of 1981 at Clive Culbertson’s No Sweat Studios in Dervock. Spit Records loved the tracks so much that they issued a limited edition 7” vinyl Single (see below for the A side). The tracks being Some Kind Of Dead c/w On A Long Day, Which sold out in a matter of weeks.
2020 also saw Cherry Red Records issue a triple CD and DVD box set of N. Ireland bands entitled Shellshock Rock. The Singles had two tracks featured on the compilation, TV Deceives and the preciously unreleased track I’m Only Asking.
There has been much renewed interest in the band. So much so that there is talk of a possible reunion show and even some new recordings. Watch this space.

Sady bass player Marty McClatchey passed away suddenly on Monday 24th August 2020.