Good Vibrations (record label)

Good Vibrations is a Belfast record label and store. Founded by Terri Hooley in the early 1970’s, Good Vibrations started out in a small derelict building on Great Victoria Street, Belfast. It is now located on Winetavern Street, Belfast.

Terri’s main objective in starting the company was to introduce punk bands from Northern Ireland to the rest of the United Kingdom, as he did not believe Northern groups were given enough attention.

The label’s first recording was for a local band called Rudi, a single called “Big Time.” Hooley would later sign groups such as Victim,The Shapes, Protex, The Outcasts, and The Undertones. Although the Undertones were to become the most famous of all these bands, Hooley was unsure, at first, whether or not he should sign them.

“I wasn’t sure about them because nobody liked them. People crossed the road just to spit at Feargal Sharkey.”

Later, when the Undertones' Teenage Kicks came out, he “hustled it around every record company in London and they all hated it. I came back to Belfast and cried my eyes out. That night John Peel played it on the radio and said, ‘wasn’t that the most wonderful record you’ve heard in your life?’ and played it again.”

Good Vibrations made sure that all its bands got signed onto major labels. The company also put on concerts around Northern Ireland, hiring hotel function rooms, church halls, youth clubs, and any other available ‘venues’. Good Vibrations hosted the first ever International Festival of Punk and New Wave at the Belfast Royal Ulster Hall over two nights in 1980 featuring almost the entire roster of the label's bands and other punk acts such as The Saints.

Many listeners were brought to Belfast by the Good Vibrations’ DIY independence and Terri’s persistent determination and desire to see local music recognised nationally. Despite growing popularity, though, Good Vibrations filed bankruptcy in 1982, just as the first wave of British punk had officially died. Bands that had gone to London, such as Protex and Rudi, went back to Terri – and Belfast. Hooley’s friends later got him a shop called Vintage Records, Co. just around the corner from Good Vibrations.

Discography

Albums

* BIG1 The Outcasts - Self Conscious Over You LP
* BIG2 V/A - Ulster On A Thin Wire LP (Unreleased)
* BIG3 The Nerves - Notre Demo LP
* BIG4 Protex - Listening In LP (Release originally cancelled, finally issued in 2001)

Singles
* GOT1 Rudi - Big Time / No. One 7" (Pink or white wraparound sleeve, 3000 pressed)
* GOT2 Victim - Strange Thing By Night / Mixed Up World 7" (Pink wraparound sleeve)
* GOT3 The Outcasts - Just Another Teenage Rebel / Love Is For Sops 7" (White wraparound sleeve)
* GOT4 The Undertones - Teenage Kicks 7" (4 track EP, most in white wraparound sleeve, also very rare yellow, green, pink & blue sleeves. Reissued several times, firstly on Sire)
* GOT5 Xdreamysts - Right Way Home / Dance Away Lover 7" (White wraparound sleeve)
* GOT6 Protex - Don't Ring Me Up / (Just Want) Your Attention / Listening in 7" (Wraparound sleeve, reissued as RT/GOT1)
* GOT7 V/A - Battle Of The Bands 7" (2 x 7" in orange gatefold sleeve. Rudi, The Outcasts, The Idiots, Spider)
* GOT8 Ruefrex - One By One / Cross The Line / Don't Panic 7" (White wraparound sleeve)
* GOT9 The Tearjerkers - Love Affair / Bus Stop 7" (White wraparound sleeve)
* GOT10 The Moondogs - She's Nineteen / Ya Don't Do Ya 7" (White wraparound sleeve)
* GOT11 Tee Vees - Doctor Headlove / War Machine 7"
* GOT12 Rudi - I Spy 7" (4 track EP)
* GOT13 The Shapes - Blast Off / Airline Disasters 7"
* GOT14 PBR - Streetgang The Big Day 7" (1-sided flexi-disc)
* GOT15 Andy White - Six String Street / Travelling Circus 7" (Also 12")
* GOT16 Cruella De Ville - Drunken Uncle John / Those Two Dreadful Children 7"
* GOT17 The Outcasts - Self Conscious Over You / Love You For Never 7"
* GOT18 The Bank Robbers - On My Mind / All Night 7"
* GOT20 Rain Saints - Caroline 7"
* GOT21 Four Idle Hands - 99 Streets / Friday Man 7"
* GOT22 PBR - Streetgang Get Down (Before You Fall) / Come Alive For Me 7"
* GOT23 Tiberius' Minnows - Time Flies / Cuckoo 7"
* GOT24 Four Idle Hands - Four Idle Hands EP 12" (4 track EP)
* GOT25 Glam Slam - The Leader EP 7"
* GOT26 Preacher John - The Mountain 12"
* GOT28 Tiberius' Minnows - Oh June / The Way I Feel 7"
* GOT29 The Beekeepers - Howl EP 12" (4 track EP)
* GOT30 PBR - Streetgang This City / Talking To You 7"
* GOT31 The Mighty Fall - Kick It In The Head 7"
* GOT32 Ten Wheels For Jesus - Everybody's Making Money (Out Of Me) / I Gave Up Waiting 7"
* GOT33 Heat The Beans - Hallucinate 7"
* GOT34 Tiberius' Minnows - The Love EP CDS
* GOT36 Payola - Stick 2 Fingers Up EP CDS
* GOT37 Twinkle - Aphyd EP CDS
* GVI GOT1 The Bears - Insane / Decisions 7" (Wraparound sleeve)
* GVI GOT2 The Jets - Original Terminal / Block 4 / The Iceburn 7"
* GVI GOT3 Static Routines - Rock 'n' Roll Clones / Sheet Music 7"
* GVI GOT5 Strange Movements - Dancing In The Ghetto / Amuse Yourself 7"
* GVI GOT6 Zebra - Repression / 931 12" [http://www.vinylnet.co.uk/record-label-discographies.asp link]

ee also

* List of record labels

Footnotes