Stephen Ryan - vocals / Electric guitar
Stan Erraught - guitars / backing vocals
Peter O'Sullivan - bass
Bernard Walsh - drums
Influences
The late and very great John Peel, The Blades, Richard Thompson, Alex Chilton, Stipe, Berry, Buck, Mills, The Replacements, Big Star, The Byrds, The great great great Flying Buritto Brothers, Mike Watt, Mitch Easter, Don Dixon, Let's Active, The Choclate Watch Band, Tenants, Guinness, Charlie at the Baggot, Jeff at the Underground, Geoff Travis, Mac, The Horde, The Happens, The Norseman and the dole.
4 guys in 1980's Eighties Dublin with a fondness for the black stuff and all of the above.
Also, everything that came after them from Athens, Georgia and beyond.
The Stars Of Heaven debuted with a 7" single 'Clothes Of Pride / All About You' released on local indie Hotwire records. John Peel picked up on the record, played it to death, invited the band over for a session and they hooked up with top English Independent Rough Trade, home at the time to The Smiths.
Their first release for Rough Trade was 'Sacred Heart Hotel' a mini album. The first side comprised their first Peel session ,the second side some new tracks. Their Byrdsonian harmonies and jangly guitars went down well with the alternative set who at the time were engrossed in American bands like R.E.M. and The Replacements. They followed this up with 'The Holyhead' e.p., a glorious record which showed the band moving away from their Byrds blueprint. Rough Trade compiled 'Sacred Heart Hotel' and 'The Before Holyhead E.P.' onto one album 'Rain On The Sea' for European release. Their live shows at the time showed a fondness for obscure classics by Alex Chilton, Richard Thompson, Gram Parsons and many others who as time passed have gained a fame of their own. It would be nice to think The Stars contributed to a new set of people discovering these artists.
Their only full album proper 'Speak Slowly' was released in April 1988 on Rough Trade. Produced by Paul Barrett (with 4-5 tracks remixed by Stephen Street), 'Speak Slowly' is fondly regarded by many of the bands fans. The CD version included tracks from the 'Before Holyhead e.p.' and a re-recorded 'Clothes Of Pride'. The band also contributed The Flying Burritto Brothers track 'Wheels' to the soundtrack of 'Planes, Trains and Automobiles' and played at the premier in Dublin. If you watch the film closely you can hear them on the radio in the third hotel room.
The band recorded more sessions for the BBC and RTE but had their links severed with Rough Trade. Quickly picked up by Mother Records the band recorded three tracks for release as a single with their idol Mitch Easter. Then they broke up.
The compilation 'Unfinished Dreaming' brought together all the material in the Mother Records vaults as well as the best material from their radio sessions and their debut single. It weighed in at 73 minutes long.
PRESS RELEASE FOR THE REISSUE OF THE ALBUMS
THE STARS OF HEAVEN ALBUMS
‘Speak Slowly’ and ‘Sacred Heart Hotel’
SPECIALLY REMASTERED WITH EXTENSIVE SLEEVE NOTES
Also available on ITUNES
Catalogue : INDCD 50
Artist : Stars Of Heaven
Title : Sacred Heart Hotel / Holyhead EP
Release Date : 21st October 2005
Catalogue : INDCD 51
Artist : Stars Of Heaven
Title : Speak Slowly
Release Date : 21st October 2005
The Stars of Heaven were always a class act on the Dublin music scene, a band set apart from the others with different songs, different influences and a whole different take on making music. I was always slightly heartened by their gigs: they were a bit shambolic really and to a band like ourselves who could already whip a crowd of thirty or forty people into a light sweat, they seemed no real threat, or so I thought. Yet coming out of those gigs you couldn’t help but find yourself name checking songs and discussing solos, lyrics and arrangements that were like nothing else we then knew.
After a while you started to wonder just where on Earth the Stars had come from? They were incorporating influences like Gram Parsons long before anyone else in Dublin or for that matter London. They were alt. country long before Jeff Tweedy had even thought about it. When their songs started to gradually drift onto the radio I honestly thought nothing would stop them. Sacred Heart Hotel had a quality about it that suggested timelessness, fading grandeur and deft elegance. It sounded, from the moment it was written like a song that had always existed.
It came as no surprise to us then when Rough Trade records came banging on their door or when the late John Peel started to champion them. The Stars had a certain nous about them, a certain effortless grace that was almost unique. They had moments of fragile, startling beauty in their songs that sometimes mightn’t have translated to a live arena but which held those who listened bewitched and in their thrall forever. Steven would joke that not many people came to the shows, but all who did were journalists. Journalists and life long fans.
These were the days of The Underground gigs in Dublin, a tiny venue that became the centre of a thriving music scene. I was lucky enough to see the Stars there and once the doors closed and the band started to play it was like time and place disappeared. The wonderful power of music and the wonderful power of a truly great band. Some Sundays at this time we even played them in five a side soccer. My memory is that we were at least their betters on a football pitch if nowhere else.
In retrospect I’m not that surprised they didn’t make it. The only word they understood in ‘music business’ was the music one which is how it should be. The business part we have discovered since is an ugly place and the Stars were too good for that. Yes they didn’t make it, but that was never really the point. The point was the songs, the lyrics and the places the music took you to. And that was one place were the Stars did make it and perfectly too. They weren’t called The Stars of Heaven for nothing. - TOM DUNNE, TODAY FM
UNFINISHED DREAMING (compilation) Press Release
Catalogue : INDCD 14
Artist : Stars Of Heaven
Title : Unfinished Dreaming
Release Date : 23rd April 1999
After many years of searching through masters and compiling sleevenotes Independent Records finally released a compilation of material by legendary 80’s Irish indie gods The Stars Of Heaven called ‘Unfinished Dreaming’ on the 23rd April 1999. Featuring tracks gathered from BBC sessions with John Peel and Janice Long, RTE sessions with Dave Fanning, their debut single for Hotwire Records and the final recordings they made for Mother Records with seminal American producer Mitch Easter, the album consists of 26 tracks and is 73 minutes long. There are also sixteen pages of extensive sleevenotes and photographs from the band denoting their memories of each song.
Highlights include the often talked about ‘Micheal Stipe’s Bottom’ which has now been given a proper title ‘Easier This Way’, Neil Youngs ‘Drive Back’, Richard Thompsons ‘Calvary Cross’ and a hilarious ode to then superstar roadie Ken Binley entitled ‘Sorry Ken’.
Also included is a Peel session version of their contribution to the ‘Planes Trains and Automobiles’ soundtrack ‘Wheels’ and an early Fanning session version of the Erraught penned ‘Smalltown Reel’ which was included on The Great Western Squares album ‘Almost Sober’.
The songwriters in the Stars Of Heaven were Stephen Ryan and Stan Erraught. Ryan’s new band The Revenants release their second album (in five years) ‘Septober Nowonder’ on Independent Records in Ireland and Blackburst in the U.K. in May. Erraught can now be found in the Great Western Squares who are demoing their third album.
The Stars previously released two albums ‘Sacred Heart Hotel’ and ‘Speak Slowly’ on Rough Trade as well as one e.p. ‘Holyhead’ (Rough Trade), one single ‘Clothes Of Pride’ (Hotwire) and a compilation album ‘Rain On The Sea’ (Rough Trade)
Full track listing ; Sacred Heart Hotel,,Talk About It Now, Every Other Day , 28, Unconscious, Wheels , I Can't Seem To Make You Mine , Calvary Cross, Still Feelin’ Blue , 2 O'Clock Waltz , The Northern Isles, Easier This Way, Telescope, Drive Back, Sorry Ken, City On The Hill, Poison River, So Far The Only ,Radio Panic, Ammonia Train , Smalltown Reel, Sing Me Back Home, Elderado, Clothes Of Pride, All About You.
