Occasional Albums Thing 016 - Mike ‘Sport’ Murphy “Daylight In The Swamps 1997-2003”

Sometime in the late 1990’s (possibly the early 2K's) while on tour in the USA my brother Miles was in a van with our friend and ace guitarist Michael Ferentino. To entertain themselves they were listening to tracks from a pile of sampler CD’s they had acquired from who knows where. Amongst all the forgettable flotsam and jetsam they discovered two songs, “Slay And Eat” and “Beatles, Stepping Off The Plane”, on a pair of samplers from the Washington (state not DC) record label Kill Rock Stars. Both songs were by the enigmatically named ‘Sport’ Murphy whom Hunt and Ferentino decided was the worlds greatest songwriter and they vowed to track him down.

A few E-mails and phone calls later it turned out that ‘Sport’ Murphy was the former singer with East Coast punk band The Skels, was now resident in Long Island, NY and had a full length album available via Kill Rock Stars, “Willoughby” (yes, it’s titled after that episode of The Twilight Zone, “A Stop At Willoughby”). A year later (2000) he released his second album “Magic Beans” and in 2003 the quite superb “Uncle”.

“Daylight In The Swamps” is a compilation of tracks from this period released by New Jersey label Fake Chapter, who were friends of Miles and Michaels. They told everyone they knew about Sport and 20+ years later he’s left such an impression things like this happen.

All the tracks on this comp come from those 3 albums (Sport did make a 4th album, privately financed and released in 2018, “A Room Of Voices”, but none of that appears here). The compilers have managed not to include any of my favourite ‘Sport’ songs (turns out the compiler may have been Sport himself so that now somehow makes sense) from each album, I guess that just means we have different ears.

By now you want to know what this sounds like, right ? Imagine an alt.Vegas lounge singer with the warped lyrical chops of Tom Waits and Nick Cave and you’re kinda close. Opening song “The Night Surrounds” (dedicated to Neil Innes so there’s another influence into the mix) from “Willoughby” sets the scene well. It’s a languid, I hesitate to call it a, ballad but loaded with razor sharp lyrical barbs like “And someone will be hearing, and presumably enjoying, something written by Paul Anka”. All this set against the most hummable of tunes.

Sports third album “Uncle” is represented here by just 3 songs which to me is doing it a huge disservice. The Uncle in question is Sport himself who grew up with his nephew Petie as though they were brothers. “No Fair” (see below), “Shoo Fly Shoo” and “Bad Guest” are all great but any ‘Sport’ Murphy compilation that looks over “The Lost Children”, “The Late Days Of Summer”, “What Are They Doing In Heaven” and “Paul Lagrutta” (the story behind that one is entertainment enough for anyone), oh and the marvellous “You Lousy Stinking Scumbag” which is 13 seconds in length and features the title as its only lyric but sung most melodiously, I have to question the compilers sanity (Sport ?). Petie, or to give him his full name Peter Vega, grew up to be a firefighter, operating out of Ladder 118 in Brooklyn. He was lost doing his job on September 11th 2001, his body was recovered on New Years Day 2002. “Uncle” is a superb record, a man with a shattered heart pouring his feelings out for a lost brother. I’d recommend it to anybody.

In October 2009 a gang of us travelled over to Dublin to see Sport play at a venue called The Joinery (I say venue, it felt like being in a derelict house) and if you’re interested you can find some videos I shot that night on my YouTube channel at https://youtube.com/@russh29?si=aFZvcEv5iHa6OEaa. Mike “Sport” Murphy is a precious talent. I don’t know if he’ll ever make another record but if he does get some more recognition off the back of this compilation then maybe…I haven’t “spoken” with Sport for some time now…maybe I should remedy that…

No Fair - https://youtu.be/O4JKaik02TU?si=Wv7gT-2qsOiQ6rA-

(If you were at all interested to know what my favourite Sport songs are they would be “Definitely Sunday” from “Willoughby”, “Pulling Out Of Rachel” from “Magic Beans and “The Lost Children” from “Uncle”, should you decide to investigate ‘Sport’ Murphy further)