THE OUTCASTS Band Description:

Belfast, 1977. Not exactly a city begging for a gentle little pop career. The Outcasts turned up right in that noise: a punk band with no patience for polishing, and no interest in sounding "nice" while everything around them was busy falling apart.

The classic core is basically a family argument with guitars: Greg Cowan on vocals/bass, Martin Cowan on guitar, Colin "Getty" Getgood on guitar, and Colin Cowan on drums. Early on they even had a singer (Blair Hamilton) for about five minutes, then Greg stepped up and the band sounded like it meant it. The name? Greg Cowan says they earned it by getting banned from five clubs in a single week. That is the most Belfast punk origin story imaginable.

They played their first gig in May 1977, mixing their own stuff with covers of The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned, and The Ramones. You can almost hear the point of it: not "influence" as a concept, but influence as a boot in the ribs. Fast. Loud. Done.

And yeah, the lyrics had teeth. When your hometown is living inside the Troubles, "social and political" is not a graduate thesis, its the air you breathe. The Outcasts did not stand at a safe distance and comment. They spat it out in two-to-three minute bursts and moved on.

The early run is singles first: "Frustration" (1978), "Justa Nother Teenage Rebel" (1978), then "Self Conscious Over You" (1979). That same title also names their 1979 debut album, released on Terri Hooley's Good Vibrations label. If you have ever held a Good Vibrations record, you know the feeling: small operation, big nerve, zero corporate perfume.

There is a great detail that makes them feel real: almost 1800 people crammed into the Ulster Hall for one of those Good Vibrations-organised nights, the kind where the room looks one spark away from either a riot or a choir. It was filmed, too, so it is not just nostalgia lying to you.

They even took The Glitter Band's "Angel Face" and kicked it into the UK Indie Chart in 1982 (No. 21). That is a properly perverse punk move: grab something shiny, scrape it down to the bone, then grin while it confuses everyone.

Then the gut-punch: drummer Colin Cowan was killed in a car crash. Greg called him "the core of the band" - and you do not say that lightly. The turnout at the funeral pushed them into a thank-you gig at the Harp Bar, and the crowd reaction basically dared them to carry on. Punk is romantic until it is not.

The next phase does not "evolve" so much as lurch (in a good way). "Blood and Thunder" (1983) came out on Abstract Records and hit the UK indie album chart. By the time they put out the "Seven Deadly Sins" mini-album (1984) on New Rose, they were leaning into swampy, rock & roll grit and even covering David Bowie's "Five Years". Some people hate that turn. I kind of love the stubbornness of it.

The Outcasts never became the clean, export-friendly version of Irish punk history. Fine. They were better as a band you discover like a bruise: you do not remember exactly when it happened, but you remember the feeling.

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