From Foggy Notions magazine. Words by Leagues.
Dinky Loop’s Dancefloor Degree is up there with Cansei De Ser Sexy’s Let’s Make Love, Uffie’s Pop the Glock, and Spank Rock’s Bump as one of the grooviest songs of 2006. Yet unlike our Brazilian, French and American friends, Dinky Loop is virtually unheard of bar, ooh six hundred or so MySpace chums. Dinky, sadly, has no hip record label to support him. Nor has he been subject to lavish media coverage. Not yet, that is.
Dinky is from Cork and his story is full of twists of fate, wrong turns and happy accidents.
“The first band I was ever in was called A Little Death- sixteen-year-old boys with guitars. I was the only one of us who hadn’t been in a band before and I got the short straw- bass! So, as soon as my brother bought me my first bass and I had mastered the two note bass line to The Velvet Underground’s Heroin I became the bass player. Though we were promising and took the music extremely seriously we were mates more than anything and when our drummer, Ciarán, who was far and away the most talented and the best of us in pretty much every way, died suddenly, we hadn’t the heart to carry on.”
A Little Death sent a music video to the late, great Uaneen Fitzsimons at RTE’s No Disco programme. “It meant a lot that Ciarán was finally on the telly. A Little Death was officially over,” laments Dinky.
The talented Dinky soldiered on, “made some pretentious films, wrote some plays and the kind of novel that you line the bottom of a drawer with.”
After scoring a fancy screenwriter job and settling down to the good life, it soon dawned on Dinky that music was what he wanted to do, for better or worse. Pursuing his Velvet Underground fascination he formed Sunday Morning, intended more as an open-door collective of friends rather than a written-in-stone band. The first member on board was Jules- “a star discovery from the film and theatre days.”
Attempting to write and record a double a-side single every month, Sunday Morning gathered a little momentum. They even scored a glowing singles review in the Irish Times “before they discovered that our single releases weren’t quite releases as such, but blank Tesco CDs with Sunday Morning stickers on them!”
A third Sunday Morning member was added, simply referred to as T- “another singer and all-round musical talent like Jules.” This third member toppled the balance of happy funky positive music away from Dinky’s miserablist tendencies.
“It didn’t take a genius to spot a slight bi-polarity emerging in Sunday Morning. And so Dinky Loop was born. Sunday Morning would be the sad grooves and Dinky Loop was free to explore the good times!”
And so they have. The beauty of Dinky Loop’s songs lie in their simplicity: a good bass-line, witty lyrics, an addictive loop, a clear melody, and strictly no show-boating. Dinky Loop is fresh. Join in the fun.
(The Dinky Loop track Dancefloor Degree is featured on Kool Drool’s compilation Foggy Fairytales Vol ii. issued free with Foggy Notions Number 97/Vol 1.)
Healthy Multiplicity
11/01/2007
Dinky Loop/Sunday Morning Chat to Drop D
By Cian O Callaghan
Sunday Morning were minding their own business, mining their melancholia to fashion simple, beautiful, downbeat tunes; the low key grooves framing their crystal clever lyrics, when something strange began to happen. At first it may have went unnoticed, but over time it became all too real for the band not to take heed. A pervasive happiness had infiltrated their music! An entity growing stronger all the time, an entity that would eventually split the psyche of Sunday Morning in two, an entity that is Dinky Loop.
I asked Dinky if their music was an indie approach to making pop or was I being a moron. He assured me that yes, I was being a moron. Thankfully he took the time to fill in the blanks for Drop-D.
Drop D: Can you tell me a little about the background to the formation of the group?
Dinky: The Sunday Morning project began about two years ago as an easygoing Belle and Sebastian type collective of friends playing and writing together occasionally. When one of our of tracks 'Avenues Lined With You' was played by Donal Dineen on his small hours program we began to take things more seriously. It became increasingly apparent that the recurring collaborations mostly involved a fabulous vocalist, Jules, and when we were approached to do a 2fm session we drafted in a talented all-rounder, T, so we wouldn't be doing too much overdubbing. The session lineup was Jules, T and myself and seeing as we clicked so well that's how it remains today. We were still Sunday Morning until February of this year when we noticed we were writing two very different types of song- hence we also formed Dinky Loop to run parallel with Sunday Morning.
Drop D: Dinky Loop are an offshoot of Sunday Morning. How does the sound of the two projects differ?
Dinky: The short answer to that question is Dinky Loop are primarily happy grooves and Sunday Morning tunes are fairly sad ol' grooves. The common link is simplicity as far as possible. Although we do tend to develop the melodies further in a musical direction in Sunday Morning which is probably where the sadness comes from and develop the vocal harmonies further in Dinky Loop which probably gives the Dinky Loop tracks a lighter, groovier touch.
Drop D: I'm often struck by how un-melodic much contemporary pop music is. Strong melody is a big component of the Dinky Loop/Sunday Morning sound, yes?
Dinky: Although we do concentrate a fair bit on the lyrical side of things and the groove end, the single most important driving force behind what we do is a dictum from the Bernard Sumner (barney from New Order) school of rock: bow down before the melody.
Drop D: How important has Myspace been to generating popularity for the band and getting you're songs heard?
Dinky: The Myspace angle is tricky. By and large it can come across as more of a friends/dating site with music certainly often less welcome than a budding musical outfit might wish for. On the other hand we have made connections with genuine musical lovers on an industry level (Foggy Notions/Kool Drool/DJ Pishy in Venezuela/Brian K - a DJ for an underground college station in the states) and on a personal and friendly level that is- in the immortal words of Ron Burgundy: good news.
Drop D: Is you're music an indie approach to making pop music or am I just being a moron?
Dinky: In all fairness, like, obviously, you're kinda just being a.
Drop D: Do you find the Cork music scene a fertile ground for producing music?
Dinky: We can't speak for other bands and we wouldn't be too quick to say that we were part of any scene but Cork as a vibrant, angry, romantic and cultural city remains a significant factor in what inspires us to make music.
Drop D: I heard Tom Dunne playing 'Dancefloor Degree' about a week ago. Is momentum in interest for the band picking up at present?
Dinky: You would like think it is but when you're this closely involved in a project it's generally hard to form an objective view on momentum. All we've got to go on is about 20,000 or so plays on Myspace which is encouraging but by no means enough to bring a band onto any general radar.
Drop D: Do Dinky Loop/Sunday Morning play live?
Dinky: We have only played live for radio sessions and while we're still so caught up in recording the double debuts of Sunday Morning and Dinky Loop that's likely to remain the case for the foreseeable future.
Drop D: You're recording at present. Can we expect any releases from Dinky Loop/Sunday Morning soon?
Dinky: Currently we have two tracks ready for a proper studio workout (home recorded thus far) - a Sunday Morning track called 'No Dreams No Dopamine' or a Dinky Loop track provisionally entitled either 'Calm the F**k Down' or Is It Just Me or is Everything Suddenly Empty'.
Drop D: What's next for the band?
Dinky: A brilliant plan. that's what we need- a brilliant plan. or so The Monkees once said.