THE FACT OF THE MATTER
BY PAUL HOPKINS
BP Fallon once told me that he was to Rock ‘n’ Roll as a stamp was to an envelope. It’s also quoted in a new documentary, BP Fallon: Rock ‘n’ Rill Wizard featuring Bob Geldof, Adam Clayton, Jimmy Page, and Robert Plant which premiered at the Galway Film Fleadh on Saturday, July 12.
Anyone familiar with Bernard Patrick Fallon would have to agree with Geldof who says: “I’m amazed there hasn’t been a film about BP Fallon before.” Happenstance has it that that same weekend also celebrated 40 years since Live Aid.
Born on August 24, 1946, BP Fallon or, more affectionately, The Beep, is a DJ, author, actor, a keen-eyed photographer, and musician with two critically acclaimed albums to his name. At just 17, Fallon became a personality and broadcaster in Ireland with his own show on a fledgling Teilifis Eireann, later moving on to music journalism and photography.
In the late 1960s, Fallon moved to London to further his career. In March 1969, he scored a coup – an interview with John Lennon at the ‘bed-in’ in Amsterdam which was published in Melody Maker. The interview earned him some gravitas in the industry.
This led to a further Lennon interview and a job at the Beatles’ Apple Records, working with publicist Derek Taylor. In 1970, he appeared on Top Of The Pops miming the tambourine in Lennon’s performance of Instant Karma.
Fallon moved on to become publicist for Thin Lizzy and Marc Bolan and T.Rex. He worked with Led Zeppelin during the band’s heyday in the 1970s. During the punk years he represented Ian Drury and The Blockheads.
He returned to Irish radio in the 1980s, and in 1986 won a Jacob’s Award for his 2FM show The BP Fallon Orchestra.
In the early 1990s. I was working at The Sunday Tribune. Fallon, who was writing a column for the paper, set off for America with Bono and U2 on their Zoo TV tour and subsequently wrote a book about his experiences titled U2 Faraway So Close.
The Beep had promised me an interview with the band. He gave me the phone number of the LA hotel they would be staying in, near his deadline. I gave him an extended deadline, and he promised to file 1,500 words by Thursday 3pm. Come Thursday 3pm and no word from The Beep. By 4pm, I was still facing a blank page. I rang the hotel and asked to be put through to his room. “I’m sorry sir,” said the woman at the other end of the line, “but Mr Fallon said he was not to be disturbed for any reason.”
“But you don’t understand. I have a large hole in my paper…” I said, pleading.
“I’m sorry sir.” And then click, and nothing. I never did get that promised copy, nor indeed any subsequent explanation. I could only deduce they were all ‘partying’, with a potentially potent party mix.
In July 1988 the legendary Michael Jackson played two sell-out concerts in Cork’s Pairc Ui Chaoimh. It was one of the biggest ‘ligs’ ever for the Irish media and his wife. We all travelled from Dublin by train, aboard which the champagne flowed freely. A huge marque had been erected just outside the playing field’s main gate. And there was even more champagne, caviar and whatever you were having yourself.
At one stage I went outside for a smoke and was handed my get-back-in pass by the burly security guard. And there sitting on the embankment, looking somewhat forlorn in his always-on bowler hat and dark spectacles, was the diminutive Beep.
“Are you coming in for bubbly,” I asked.
He said: “I don’t have an invite for the pre-gig lig. Must have got lost in the post.”
The stamp and the envelope, I mused. And the man who has done more for rock ‘n’ roll single-handedly – ask Geldof, ask Jagger, ask Bono – with no pass for the inn.
“Come on,” I said. “I’ll sneak you in…” And I wrapped my arm around his shoulder and managed – not sure how – to get the two of us back inside, past the burly security man. That evening was enthralling as I boogied the night away with King Boogaloo, another of his pseudonyms as was The Duke of Earl.
These days BP Fallon spends his time between Dublin, Austin, Texas and New York City.
