all at sea again : the bunnymen story

Journalist Mick Sinclair and I traveled to Dublin to do a cover feature for Sounds of one of my favorite bands, Echo & the Bunnymen, in the company of their publicist Mick Houghton.

The Bunnymen was adamantly a band, not Mac plus a backing band. and when they did photo shoots, they generally did them as a band.

For the photo shoot we headed out from Dublin to the small harbor town of Howth in two taxis. I was in the first cab with Mick Houghton and a very beautiful, chill and mellow Ian McCulloch, while the other Mick followed behind in the second cab with Will, Les and Pete.

On a fairly grey and overcast afternoon, our taxi arrived at Howth, and the three of us wandered around looking for locations. Some thirty minutes went by, with no sign of the other cab, so we started taking photos, with Mac first clambering up on the rocks and looking imperious, buttoned up against the wind in his long black overcoat, and then posing by the old boats with peeling paint in the little harbor. 

Eventually, the other taxi arrived. I never did find out why they took so long, or whether Mick Houghton dropped the taxi driver a tenner to get lost on the way, but the rest of the band weren’t best pleased, and we didn’t take any group shots that afternoon in Howth. However, we did eventually wander the streets and bridges of Dublin together and snap some memorable images, and Mick and I were privy to three intense and rollicking sold-out Bunnymen shows at the packed subterranean club McGonagles, the floor of which literally bounced up and down while the band soared to ever-increasing heights.

A terrible place for live photos, but a great place to see the Bunnymen.