“The recordings remain true to me, even when
I don’t. This is what they
are; the voice of a small, insecure, somewhat lost person, living in a
small, insecure, somewhat lost country.”
Initially, we all thought that you go into a studio because you don’t
stick home cassettes on records, so we recorded in a proper studio,
but that didn’t work out. I thought it was alright, but Pete said "No,
it’s crap!", so we went to a studio in someone’s house to record it
again, taking it back down towards the cassette recorder approach. You
often start off with a first take that’s the best one, but we had to
stop a few takes because the phone rang and cars went past, so I did a
few more that become more crap because I got bored doing them over and
over, and then I got fed up with being bored and did a good one.
Though of course, I broke strings. At that time it didn’t occur to me
to bring spare strings, so the Safety Pin Stuck In My Heart EP was
recorded on a five-string guitar, in a home studio.
From 84 Tigers
Creatureart: Patrick Fitzgerald
is not only one of my favorite artists but he is simply one of the
greatest un-heard artists of all time. His music/lyrics are as raw &
poetic as it gets. This music defines the word punk, folk punk that is!
There is no music more perfectly real than music that hangs off the
sleeve while basking in the beauty of it's imperfections. When an artist
lets there creation just flow out the way it is supposed to rather than
the way he thinks it's supposed to or the way someone else thinks it's
supposed to, that's when true art has been achieved. This is exactly
what I get from listening to a Patrick Fitzgerald song & so much more! A
lot of his lyrics reflect the very decaying pop culture/capitalist
society that would need to recognize him for his music to become more
mainstream & there is something about the word mainstream & the name
Patrick Fitzgerald that just doesn't sit well in my belly. To me
personally I would love if he was a little more known but not so well
known that his very important work (truth music/music for change) would
drowned in the abyss of pop culture. My hope is that as time goes on he
will be appreciated more & more by the right kind of music fans just
like fellow folk artist Nick Drake has been or like an aged bottle of
wine.
A Musicfan: Perhaps Patrik
Fitzgerald will always toil away in obscurity - it may be his destiny to
do so. There are some people that still remember the little man who sung
of having a safety-pin stuck in his heart (I've talked to one of them),
and there are a few who have rediscovered Patrik in the nineties through
the recent greatest hits compilation "The Very Best of Patrik
Fitzgerald," myself included. Included on this comp are songs that will
either make you stand up and cheer their truth or cringe and hide. Lo-fi
acoustic janglings of lament and frustration tinged with buried
optimism.
No, Patrik was certainly not the most talented of musicians,
but he had wit and sincerity to burn and that is what will make him one
of the great unknown artists. Patrik will likely never be truly given
the recognition he deserves and no one will likely even read this
review, but if you have the opportunity to buy some music by England's
great, obscure "punk poet" do so at all costs.
"I was
fourteen and it was a Saturday afternoon and my friend was working in
a record shop in Aylesbury. I was just hanging around being annoying
probably. I didn’t have much money on me, but I was determined to go
home with a record of some description. so I was flicking through the
cheap bins where everything was two pounds or under and everything in
there was rubbish. a few copies of 'No Parlez', a bit of Modern Romance,
the usual. and then I came to a copy of 'Grubby Stories', Patrik
Fitzgerald’s 1979 debut album for Polydor. the cover was enough for me
to turn the record over to check out the song titles. I used to buy a
lot of records just because I liked the song titles, but Grubby
Stories was the only one that ever lived up to the promise that those
titles held. on the cover of the album Patrik is wearing a pair of
sandals with yellow socks and bright red trousers and he’s reading a
copy of the daily star and sitting in an arm chair. yes. and then when
I read the song titles I was pretty sure that this was going to be
something pretty special. with song titles like ‘All My Friends Are
Dead Now’, ’As Ugly As You’ and ‘Little Fishes’ how could it be
anything else.
so I took it over to
the counter and asked my friend to put it on. and for once it lived up
to the cover. it sounded fantastic. he was angry like a punk but
instead of having a full band backing him up, it was just him.
strumming the crap out of an acoustic guitar. his lyrics were
fantastic too. there was a clumsy anger to his words and voice. you
could tell he was angry but you couldn’t be sure he knew why or what
to do about it. he seemed to be angry about everything and nothing.
and most of the time just angry at himself. banging his head against a
brick wall. a bit like that little girl I saw the other week kicking
the shit out of a tree on sports day. he sounded small and lost. and
that appealed to me. the language he used was sometimes a little bit
cute, like on ‘Little Fishes’, but it always had a sour edge. I bought
the record and it became one of my favourites. it was funny and sad
and angry and shy and in a funny way a bit hopeful. From the
The Boy Least Likely To
I had recorded some demos of new material for
Polydor,
which became a vinyl EP 'tonight', which some people say charted in
Belgium. I formed a three piece group which toured the UK
occasionally, as well as playing festivals in Holland and Italy.
I started to do more diverse stuff such as songs by
Jacques Brel and poetry/ music review gigs (ghosts of individuals
with people like Anne Clark Kevin Hewick and Attila the Stockbroker,
which got me banned from a few mainstream rock venues).
I went on
to keep playing in the UK and Europe with the support of Dave Kitson
and his label Red Flame. I recorded three vinyl LPs for them, two
of which are fairly well reflected on a CD called 'Treasures From The
Wax Museum'. this material was bought by Cherry Red and is now
available for licensing from them, along with the Tonight EP.
I recorded a
CD (pillow tension) with my last group
on a Greek record label called Lazy Dog in 1994 and then moved to New
Zealand.
In recent years, my releases have been mainly
retrospective, with the exception of two releases on Beat Bedsit, an
independent UK label. both of these ('Floating Population' and 'Dark Side
of the Room') are currently available from Beat Bedsit and
through my website.
Latest News from
Patrik
I am the subject of a documentary film to be premiered at the
Raindance Festival in London in September. made by the guy who did
'Rough Cut and Ready Dubbed' (Dom Shaw). It' s called 'Improve Myself' and
is based around footage from my gig at the 12 Bar in London last year
and has an interview and stuff.
I have spoken with
Cherry Red and the idea of a second compilation has been discussed but
I doubt that it will happen. I am preparing some new stuff.
