The An Emotional Fish first appearance in Italy was in 18 october 1990 at "Garage Prego Club" (now named "Rainbow") in Milan, showing a great live performance. They came back to Italy during the Simple Minds Real life tour in 1991.
They attracted significant attention, also thanks to Whelans charisma, despite they were only supporting the scottish band. They took part in our Rockheads Festival in 91 together with artists such as Ramones, Billy Idol and Iggy Pop.
Paul Evans of the Rolling Stone magazine wrote: A poetic fervour and stupendous sound inspires the celtic spirits of these four musicians. There are allusions to that disillusion Lou Reed has transformed into arts in the lyrics of their songs, and the assertive bass played by Enda Wyatt remembers the big underground band from Athens, Georgia, The Pylon. Gerard Whelan is a passionate singer both when he whispers and sings rock; there are all the topics - loneliness, rage, simpathy, identity crises. All their songs are intense and provocative.
Next, An Emotional Fish hit the road in support of their debut album. In the beginning of 91, the group toured Europe for a month, moving next to the U.S., where it spent two months wowing audiences with incendiary live shows. Fast forward to autumn 1991, when the group arrived at Ballyvourney, a little Gaelicspeaking village outside of Cork City, Ireland. AEF had come in order to get away from tour buses, airports, late-night club gigs, and radio, and to experience country life first hand. Theyd also brought their guitars it was there that "JUNK PUPPETS", the groups second album, first took root.
Alan (The Jesus And Mary Chain, Shakespears Sister) Moulders name came up quite a bit at talk session in The Hooded Cloak, a little pub that had become the bands local hang-out. Some telephone calls were made, letters and cassettes were exchanged, and Moulder agreed to co-produce the upcoming album with the group.
"Wed settled on Alan about ten minutes after meeting him," David Frew explains,. "Hed listened to the demos, had loads of ideas for sounds and little arrangement bits here and there, and also talked good sense. Im sure that the record company would have preferred someone more mainstream, a name producer, but we stuck to our guns and won out. The results, speak for themselves, I guess."
"JUNK PUPPETS" was recorded over an eight month period at The Church Studio, Townhouse III, and Westside Studios in London. 0f the thirty-five songs demoed for the album, 17 were recorded, with 11 making the final cut. Dave Stewart (Eurythmics) co-produced four songs with AEF, with Clive Langer (Madness) handling the co-production on one cut.
Gerard reckons that, "JUNK PUPPETS is a better record simply because its got a better collection of songs. But weve also learned from the debut. This time we took our time, trusted our own ideas, brought in other instruments, experimented with sounds, and, also, we had Alan to keep it all together. Right now were just happy that the thing is finally going to see the light of day2". But what is "JUNK PUPPETS" all about ? Gerard: "Ive always been a bit of a daydreamer, probably too much at times. I could never write a political song or a song that has a go at religion. Im writing from the world that I know and from the places that Ive seen. Recently, Ive been reading loads, of folklore stuff, loads of Yeats. Ive always been fascinated by legend. And that Baudelaire poem thats on the record acts as some sort of theme, probably. Translated roughly, it means that stuff like scorpions and tarantulas might be scary and horrible, but that ultimately theres nothing scarier or more horrible than boredom. Most of the songs are all about personal politics in a very vague and general kind of way. If God Was a Girl is about sex-roll stereotypes and that silly notion that weve still got, particularly in this country, that woman is mans servant. Careless Child i
