MUSIC: Aslan mark debut album’s anniversary

LEGENDARY Dublin band Aslan will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of their album ‘Feel No Shame’ with a special Live at The Olympia show on Sunday, March 18.

The band will be taking to the stage over the St Patrick’s bank holiday weekend to mark the fact that their debut album was released in 1988.

Christy and the lads will be dusting the cobwebs off some of the songs from the album on The Feel No Shame Tour that have not been played in a very long time.

 The band are very excited about the Feel No Shame Tour and are delighted that a Dublin date is happening as part of it.

They have a lot of things planned to celebrate Feel No Shame’s 30th anniversary, including a new single which is being released in January.

Aslan, who took their name from the heroic lion in CS Lewis’s series of books chronicling the fictional land of Narnia, (Aslan is the Turkish for ‘Lion’), emerged from the working-class areas of Finglas and Ballymun in Dublin’s Northside, in the mid-1980s.

 They released a demo single, ‘This Is’, in the spring of 1986, which was a huge hit and became the longest ever play-listed single on Ireland’s pop radio station, RTÉ 2fm.

 In the summer of 1986 they played a series of rapturously received shows in the UK and Melody Maker noted, ‘Lucky the label that signs this band!’.

Janice Long at BBC Radio 1 recorded Aslan in session and went on to air it for an unprecedented three times in the subsequent weeks.

At the end of 1986 Aslan walked away with The Stag/Hot Press,’ Most Promising New Band’ award and signed to EMI.

 In 1988 they recorded their debut album, ‘Feel No Shame’ which shot straight in to the numbr one spot of the Irish charts and remained there for weeks.

Within a couple of months, it was certified Gold.

Then in August 1988, just as the option for their second album had been picked up, Aslan infamously implode.

 Five years and a day to the last time they gigged together (on July 11, 1993) they played what was supposed to be a one-off charity gig in Finglas.

The spark was reignited and Aslan landed a new record deal with BMG. The first fruit of the deal, their single ‘Crazy World’, entered the charts at number four and stayed in the charts for  three months, becoming one of the most played songs on Irish Radio for the year.

Crazy World also won the ‘Single of The Year’ in 1993’s Hot Press Awards.

A few months later the follow-up single ‘Where’s the Sun’ reached number three.

But it was ‘Feel No Shame’ that will always be their best-known legacy.

 The latter part of 1994 was spent touring consistently in Ireland and recording their album, ‘Goodbye Charlie Moonhead’, which was released in Ireland at the end of 1994 and charted at number one, going on to be certified Gold weeks later. Then in 1995 the band were dropped, the victims of boardroom changes at BMG.

 Undeterred, Aslan went into the studio under their own steam and began recording a new album, ‘Here Comes Lucy Jones’ in April 1996. Released in October 1997, the album went into the Irish chart at 14 and Aslan were nominated in seven categories of the 1997 Hot Press readers’ poll.

‘Shame About Lucy Moonhead’, a compilation of the best of Aslan’s recorded work on EMI, was released in July 1998, shot into the Irish albums charts at No.1 and has since turned double platinum.

In March 1999 Aslan played 5 sell out shows in Ireland’s most prestigious intimate venue, Vicar St, during which their live album and video concert movie/DVD ‘Made in Dublin’ were recorded. 

Both shot to No 1 in their 1st week of release. The album turned platinum within 3 weeks and remained in the top 10 for 8 weeks.