THIN LIZZY. NIGHTLIFE. 1974
The Creation of the Cover Artwork and the Thin Lizzy Logo.
It was full year now since the success and critical approval of Thin Lizzy’s classic album ‘Vagabonds of the Western World’ and we all, including myself, bathed in its reflected glory.
I was damn proud of my cover artwork and the band were damn proud of their work too, so the next release had to be bloody good to follow that important and seminal album.
Unfortunately, everything went from success to sheer chaos as the band disintegrated for all kinds of reasons. Eric had had enough of the relentless touring and walked off stage at a critical time, Philip if I remember correctly had contracted hepatitis and was out of action and very down as I know from the phone calls I received around that time and it really looked like game over for the band with Brian Downey, a most likeable, inoffensive and patient, gentle soul, a brilliant drummer and Philips quiet, wise left hand -and old schoolmate from Crumlin days, wanting to quit too.
In the middle of all the chaos of that time Eric was gone for good, Brian nearly went too, the record label, Decca, had dropped them and now they were in total limbo and in disarray with Gary Moore, a genius in his own right, standing in for Eric.
London Calling
At that time in 1973 and 1974 I was spending a huge amount of time in London, living with Philip and Gale in West Hampstead, renting a flat in the same house above Frank Murray and his partner Ferga and renting a desk in London on Wardour street, so I was there for a lot of the drama and turmoil, not that Philip ever looked in trouble or anywhere like crumbling, he was absolutely sustained by a passionate self-belief.
All throughout this difficult period I watched fascinated as Philip kept his cool, made music, wrote songs and partied with myself, Frank and the ever-present Tom Collins, a superb photographer and one of the wittiest guys I have ever come across.
If anyone ask me a what I remember about that period all I can think of is the four of us cracking endless jokes about nothing, hanging out, having a few smokes and generally just having great craic and a bit of rúlyabúla. But behind this facade of bonhomie, Philip was a man driven, writing endlessly, running lyrics by me as I am a huge reader and know my literature and poetry.
Not that he needed any advice from me, he was a superb lyricist and could string words and phrases beautifully himself. That easy, genetic Irish and Black facility with poetry and words, was beautiful to observe at that time -but much later it was awful to watch the deterioration of these literary abilities as his mind and drive were absolutely destroyed by hard drug use and too much booze, but that’s another story for another day.
Turmoil and New Directions
I’m going to have to make a confession to you: Yep, I love Nightlife and I think it is such an underrated album, even by Lizzy fans.
Most reviews and commentators prefer to think of it as a stop-gap recording, a transitional work, there to fill the space between ‘Vagabonds’ (or Vagabongs as we called it later for obvious reasons) and ‘Fighting’ but it was even then a hugely important album for Philip and Thin Lizzy.
At that time they were being managed by another lovely guy, Ted Carroll, who also ran the now-famous ‘RockOn Stall’ mentioned in ‘The Rocker’ and had overseen the success of the Vagabonds album.
By now Ted had had enough of the business and the endless band personnel disagreements and exited while still remaining friends with everyone but it was showtime now.
There had been a period of absolutely turmoil after Decca decided not to renew their recording contract and the band were in limbo and Philip spent his days around this time looking for a replacement for Eric Bell, and hustling with Ted Carrol for a record deal which Ted kinda gave to him as a parting gift.
Now with his new managers Chris Morisson and Chris O’Donnell -two great guys by the way who went thru hell and back to help him, then and much later, and a new record deal with Phonogram-Vertigo, Philip and the band looked as if they were sorted, a least for the present.
Between the swings and the roundabouts Philip found Brian Robertson, a wild young 17 year old Scotsman who played with great energy and flair and later, at the last moment, added in the laidback, laconic and later iconic, Scott Gorham.
I took to the two of them immediately and they certainly gave Lizzy a brand new sound, the twin guitar Lizzy sound so familiar ever since started back then and was refined by what seemed endless rehearsing and gigging.
Working Artist
Towards the end of the magical endless summer in London I headed back home to Dublin and my family, with a couple of excellent art and design commissions and a few bob in my arse pocket.
With the most vicious recession in living memory in full flow this was manna from heaven for me. Anything I was asked to do back then I did and delivered without any complaints.
I was still turning out tons of new artwork for UK and Irish magazines and I had well-paid advertising commissions for top London ad agencies and a few in Dublin too. Looking back now I am amazed at my own output for this entire dysfunctional period.
Politically the UK and Ireland were in turmoil.
Somehow in the midst of this craziness I was beginning to recover financially -remember I had a family to feed and every commission was a joy and a relief too so when Philip phoned me to ask me to start working on his new album, Nightlife, I was absolutely thrilled.
I was doing quite a few album covers around this time, working for the likes of Breton Celt harpist Alan Stivell, Led Zeppelin, Sutherland Bros and Quiver, Hackensack, Planxty and many others as well as magazines like Music Scene in the UK and Man Alive in Ireland.
I was doing a series of fashion drawings for new upmarket clothes shop in Dublin called ‘Mirror, Mirror’ which I just loved. I was even writing and illustrating a fantasy series with a female warrior as the hero for a soft porn London glossy magazine while producing a comic strip series and production drawings for a comic book print campaign and a related TV commercial for a well-known UK ad agency.
That same over-productive year I started writing and drawing my one and only comic strip titled ‘Nuada of the Silver Arm’ for the Sunday Independent newspaper that ran for 12 episodes in 1975 before it was cancelled for allegedly displaying a slice of ‘prehistoric porn’. More of that on another day.
Somewhere in the middle of all this I produced twelve huge paintings for the Coffee Dock in Dublin, the cover and a few interior illustrations for Philip’s new book of lyrics titled ’Songs for While I’m Away’ and almost twenty drawings for an animation series for a London movie production company.
I was so overworked, stressed, under enormous financial pressure. It was dangerous and mentally extremely challenging but somehow I got through it all, I kept myself fit by playing a game of football every lunch hour in a local park but really I was pretty well glued to my desk day and night -but it was all about survival back then, same as now.
Ask any artist and you will hear the same story, you don’t turn down work, you grab it with both hands.
Every commission could be your last.
Nightlife Phone Brief
Anyway, back in Dublin Philip called me and ran the Nightlife album past me and asked me to come up with an idea for the cover.
When I say he ‘ran the album past me’ I mean just that, he played a few tracks to me over the phone and gave me the lowdown on the stories behind each song. Remember there was no such thing as a mobile phone back then and everything was by fixed landline telephone or courier to the UK, no such a miraculous thing as email, no WhatsApp, no Facetime, no Zoom calling -just a hand-held black Bakelite dialup telephone.
I honestly don’t really remember everything from those calls but two to three things stood out:
Number one for me was the actual title track, Nightlife, which I still love. It’s a real slow bluesy number and full of light and shade, telling the story of a man at home in a sleezy, dangerous underworld and of course that’s where my cover idea of a large, skulking, predatory Black Panther came from.
Along with Nightlife, the wonderful title track which I loved, and still love, the classic ’Still In Love With You’ plus the uncredited and stunningly beautiful guitar work of Gary Moore, who at the time was not credited as he had left the band by the time of release.
Many, many years later, at a ‘Vibe for Phillo’ gig in Dublin Brian Robertson got up on stage and played this slow jazz-blues number and the hair stood top on my head it was so beautifully played. Fellow Celts Gary and Brian had so much in common and both I still regard as two of the greatest Irish guitarists ever -alongside Rory Gallagher of course.
There are a few more interesting tracks to note, the most obvious being ’Philomena’, dedicated to his mom, and the track is a cool piece that is very Irish in its thinking and approach but where, maybe for the first time, we hear the new Thin Lizzy sound with the twin guitar harmonies and the short, sharp cord changes that would be the bands signature for the future.
What the album lacked for me personally was a real Thin Lizzy hard-driven rock number for all the hard core headbangers -like my own fav Lizzy track ‘The Rocker’ -or ‘The Boys are Back in Town’. Instead it is a cool album but more jazzy, slow blues style with Philip and the band taking their cue more from Black American blues laced with Irish poetic lyricism than metal crowd pleasers.
I have no doubt that at this point Philip saw himself as a real lyricist and blues man rather than a wild rocker but the gigs and the crowds later forced him in a different direction, towards a much heavier rock and roll sound, for me this album is a repository of happy memories as I watched Philip, Brian, Robbo and Scott slowly grow into the music and create a new sound, a distinct Thin Lizzy sound, that came to a head with the hugely successful Jailbreak and the hit single that still rocks football stadiums today, from the USA to the UK ‘The Boys are back in Town’.
Next: The creation of the imagery and artwork for Thin Lizzy and Nightlife.