Andy McCarroll and Moral Support - Zionic Bonds

Back in 1982 this popped onto my radar when I found the album in my little Christian bookstore. It was this Irish band that steered me in U2's direction and in short order I picked up October, and then quickly snapped up Boy as well, but it all started with this Andy McCarroll album. I pretty much played this to death. It was a strange, quirky, overly preachy but wonderfully endearing album ... and it has not aged well, but it still sounds awesome nonetheless.

At the time I had no idea this was actually released in 1980, and it was rebranded from Moral Support to Andy McCarroll and Moral Support and released in North America in 1981. By the summer of '82 this along with my U2 albums Boy and October and Toto IV were in constant rotation. The U2 records are their own story, with each album was recorded onto a 90 minute cassette, and it lived in my car. What this has to do with anything is still to be determined. Think of it as a placeholder to be referenced if necessary.*

For several months I played this constantly. Admittedly Andy McCarroll's nasally voice could be irritating, but it was also perfectly suited to the new wave punk the band was playing. The first side kicks it off with a banger, "Sin" and just drops one after another and closes with "I Am Human" a lyrical sledgehammer has his voice was so far back in the mix it was really hard to hear.

Side two opens with an instrumental, "Cyan City" that I've always liked, and I still find it cool that a bunch of kids decided to include a pop instrumental on the record. It's very good. The closing song "20th Century" is my favourite song on the album. Partly due to nostalgia and partly due to the memory of me and my buddy Marcel playing the song with his band in my basement. I played lead guitar, and he played bass and we sang backing vocals. I still have a recording of it somewhere ... I'm reluctant to hear it as in my memory we sounded like the record. It's a really great song, and musically you get the sense that the band may have been able to evolve musically given the chance ... 

The band was from Northern Ireland, and over the years I've read various accounts of what happened to them. One article more or less put the blame for the band's demise on bad management, others but said it was on the Church for not accepting them ... who knows. They did run in the same circles as U2 at the time and one of them managed to break out.

I think the answer is actually more pedantic. Timing. This kind of robotic voiced new wave punk had a shelf life and when this first came out in 1980 it was already running on fumes. When Pilgrim America licensed this for North America in 1981 there may have been gas in the tank, but they really weren't going to get far. Still I ate it up ... and moved on. There was no follow up and the band eventually faded into memory.

This doesn't negate or cheapen the band's legacy. Far from it. Andy McCarroll & Moral Support may have been a one and done but I suspect they were foundational to a lot of young people who wanted to hear music that spoke to them and wasn't afraid to express their faith. I know they have a special place in my musical heart.

A number of years ago GMI a small company out of the Netherlands put this out on CD. I can't remember how I found it, but I did. It didn't stay in print for long.

I still get a kick out of whoever did the proof reading as the track lists on the cover differ from those on the record. Yes, I still have my record, but I lost the jacket and liner notes in the great crawlspace disaster back in the mid '90s ... I leeched most of the images from thriftstoremusic.blogspot.com

*it wasn't necessary. A good editor would have just deleted all of the extra nonsense.