Ricky Dineen


Ricky Dineen is an Irish musician best known as the co-songwriter, guitarist, and at times bassist with the post-punk band Five Go Down to the Sea?, earlier known as Nun Attax, later as Beethoven. A self-thought musician, Dineen wrote most of the band's music, developing an angular guitar style influenced in part by The Mekons, The Fire Engines and Gang of Four.
Nun Attax / Five Go Down To The Sea? were active between 1978 and 1985, and released three EPs, including Knot a Fish in 1983 and Singing in Braille in 1984 on Creation Records. His career peaked in June 1989 when he reformed with FGDTS vocalist Finbarr Donnelly as Beethoven for the EP Him Goolie Goolie Man, Dem, which was featured as "Single of the Week" by the NME in 4 June 1989. The band's success was however cut short when Donnelly accidentally drowned on the 18th of that month. After, Dineen returned to Cork where he still lives.
Five Go Down To The Sea? were hugely influential on later generations of Irish bands, and are widely credited for the often quirky and deadpan approach of Cork bands that followed in the 1990s and 2000s. Dineen currently writes for and plays guitar with Big Boy Foolish.

Career

Nun Attax / Five Go Down to the Sea?

Dineen grew up in Churchfield in Cork City. He formed a band in 1978 with school friends Philip and Keith O’Connell. He met vocalist Finbarr Donnelly in 1978, when they bonded over a shared interest in UFOs and music. Until then Dineen had been a hard rock and Pink Floyd fan; Donnelly introduced him to post-punk and bands featured on John Peel's BBC radio show.
Dineen has been active on the post punk scene since 1978, during which time he has recorded for Reekus Records, Kabuki Records, Abstract Sounds and Creation Records. Nun Attax developed an early live following in Ireland, becoming scene leaders in the punk movement that grew around the Arcadia ballroom, managed by Elvera Butler and Andy Foster. In 1981 three of their songs were featured on the live compilation album Kaught at the Kampus, alongside tracks by Microdisney, Mean Features and Urban Blitz. The album was recorded on 30 August 1980, and released by Reekus Records.
In 1983 they renamed as Five Go Down to the Sea? and recruited Úna Ní Chanainn on cello to play the bass parts. The band's sound changed significantly around this time, moving away from their punk roots towards a more Captain Beefheart and surreal sound. They recorded their most acclaimed EP Knot a Fish later that year. It was described in 2001 by Cathal Coughlan of Microdisney and The Fatima Mansions sas "was just incredible...completely different to Nun Attax...it wasn't like a rock band anymore, it was...bizarre but coherent. Nothing when on for longer than two and a half minutes... a completely focused attack of extreme Cork eccentricity."
The band moved to London that winter, where they built a live following across England. They released two further EPs, The Glee Club and Singing in Braille. Dineen was unhappy with the Creation recording and said in 2014 that while he liked the Foster, the band was trying to do something that they weren't suited to and that they "were trying to be over the top a bit...and it was a disappointment". The band went into hiatus in 1985, although Dineen and Donnelly stayed in London and played a number of gigs with a drum machine early in 1986, but without industry interest.

Beethoven

The two reformed as Beethoven in 1988 and released the Him Goolie Goolie Man, Dem EP on Setanta Records the following year. In his review for the NME, writer Steven Wells awarded the record “Single of the Week”, and said that "The centrestone of this jewel of a record is the kidnapping, tarring and feathering, mugging, shagging and destruction of "Day Tripper". Before they could build on this success, Donnelly accidentally drowned 18 June 1989 while swimming in Hyde Park's Serpentine Pond, aged 27. Dineen had been out with him that day, and they had planned to meet up later in the evening. He later said, "If you went out for the craic with your friends on a Sunday afternoon and one of them didn't come back, it's surreal-like. Even though we were both 27, you're still young. It changes your whole life because we went from planning our future, thinking we were going to be in England for a while, to the next minute being on the flight back to Ireland." Their planned second single was never released. Grief stricken and with the band at a sudden end, Dineen returned to Cork shortly afterwards, where he "drank way though the 1990s" until his career revived in the early 2000s.
Nun Attax /Five Go Down to the Sea? / Beethoven have steadily grown in popularity since. In 2001, the Irish documentary producer and broadcaster Paul McDermott released "Get That Monster off the Stage", a radio documentary about the band. The well received compilation album Hiding from the Landlord was released in April 2020, accompanied by a twenty-page fanzine with contributions from Elvira Butler, Cathal Coughlan of Microdisney, Pete Astor of The Weather Prophets, Gavin Friday of the Virgin Prunes, and writers John Robb, Kevin Barry, Declan Lynch and Cónal Creedon.

Big Boy Foolish

Dineen currently plays guitar in Big Boy Foolish with guitarist and vocalist Liam Heffernan, and in the occasional Five Go Down To The Sea? memorial band And NUN Came Back, along with Heffernan, vocalist Tom Healy, bassist Humphrey Murphy, and drummer Ian Walsh.
In June 2020, Big Boy Foolish released their debut single "Horsey!", which was described by Mike McGrath Bryan of The Evening Echo as continuing the band "along a grinning, black-humored trajectory".
A second single, "Up the Airy", is planned for later in 2020.

Discography

Nun Attax
Five Go Down to the Sea?
Beethoven
Big Boy Foolish

Citations