Good Vibrations (record label)

Good Vibrations is a Belfast record label and store. Founded by Terri Hooley in the early 1970s, Good Vibrations started out in a small derelict building on Great Victoria Street, Belfast. Its last place of residence was above Cafe Wah, on North Street Belfast.

Hooley's main objective in starting the company was to introduce punk bands from Northern Ireland to the rest of the United Kingdom, as he did not believe Northern groups were given enough attention.

The label's first recording was for a local band called Rudi, a single called "Big Time". Hooley would go on to sign and release groups such as Victim, The Moondogs, The Shapes, Protex, The Outcasts, The Tearjerkers among others such as Shock Treatment and The Lids whom he signed and recorded but did not release due to the limitations of his (mostly self-)financing.

Of all the Good Vibrations acts, the most famous of all would become The Undertones, later picked up by Sire Records. Ironically, Hooley was unsure, at first, whether or not he should sign them.

"I wasn't sure about them because nobody liked them. People crossed the road just to spit at Feargal Sharkey."

After Good Vibrations issued The Undertones' "Teenage Kicks", he "hustled it around every record company in London and they all hated it. I came back to Belfast and cried my eyes out. That night John Peel played it on the radio and said, 'wasn't that the most wonderful record you've heard in your life?' and played it again."

The company also put on concerts around Northern Ireland, hiring hotel function rooms, church halls, youth clubs, and any other available venues. Good Vibrations hosted the first ever International Festival of Punk and New Wave at the Ulster Hall in Belfast over two nights in 1980 featuring almost the entire roster of the label's bands and other punk acts such as The Saints.

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