During its one and a half year
life span Love Street played mostly the Protestant Parochial Hall of
South Dublin and Wicklow and had a residency in Stella House(now the
Sportsmans Inn) Mount Merrion for almost a year every Saturday
alongside guest bands from Britain and Eire such as The Fortunes, The Taste
and Them.
The residency ended due to the owner (Dave Whitren) of the venue
becoming tired of the Love Street requirement to rid themselves of the
copious quantities of beer (reason for breaking up earlier) they had
taken on board at the 2 hour-long break (22:00-00:00) each week. He
was heard to say "those Love Street boys spend more time in the
toilet than they do on the stage"
The single Venus was the Shocking Blue song later made popular by
Bananarama and was coupled with Stephen Stills' song Rock 'N' Roll
Woman (our preferred side) released by Pye on their Rose label. Due to
the success of the single the band was invited by Pye to record an
album. This was recorded over a few weeks in early summer 1970 in
Trend Studios on their brand new 8-track recorder.
The single reached number 6 in the Top Irish Singles chart as
published in Spotlight and stayed there for about 3 weeks in 1970. The
band broke up in July 1970 due to personal differences. The album
included On the way home (Buffalo Springfield), Your Song (Elton
John), Roosevelt and Ira Lee (Creedence Clearwater Revival), She's
Gone (Walker), Tears in the wind (Chicken Shack) and more.
Unfortunately, the band split before the album was released much to
the consternation of Pye Ireland who proceeded to attempt to extract
the cost of the recording (£500-a lot of money then) from the
individual band members who pleaded penury and got away with it! |