released May 20, 1999

Artwork by Binman and EFG Media.
(Photo Eric Fitz)
Released: by Murgatroid Independent Recording Company
May 1999 Ireland & UK
Original Release Format: CD (Mur CD10)
Track Listing :
1. Liver**
2. For The Want of Some Better TV*
3. Even At Your Bravest*
4. Sure*
5. It's A Context Thing*
6. I Can't Breath In Outer Space*
7. Popstars By Christmas*
8. 4.30 ...Two Down*
9. Human Skull*
10.One Last Song*

All titles written by Niall Quinn except 6. written by Hoss Carnage;
Recording Details: Recorded at Xeric Studios, Limerick August 1998.
Engineered by Fergal O'Neill. Mixed by Pearse Gilmore.
The Hitchers: Andy - Vocals*, Guitars, Keys; Niall - Vocals**,Drums,12-string guitar; Hoss - Bass; Eric - Guitars.



The Hitchers first album 'It's All Fun & Games 'Til Someone Loses An Eye' took from February to June 1996 to record. In stark contrast to such extravagance it's follow up 'For The Want Of Some Better TV' took less than two weeks, had few overdubs and no guest musicians. Compared to 'Fun & Games' which was over 45 minutes in playing time it's also a very short album -it's ten tracks barely topping the half hour mark. It had been planned as a twelve or possibly even fourteen track album. But The Hitchers were under pressure to complete the recording as it was now common knowledge that Xeric Studios were about to close. Xeric was a high quality digital 48 track studio with some fine equipment. But in an era when more and more people were accessing good quality, affordable digital home recording units -one can only guess that keeping punters coming through Xerics door in a city of Limericks size was going to be as easy as basing a champions league football team in the Aran Islands.
So the album length got trimmed in order to allow more time be spent on the reduced number of tracks.

"It was in some ways a very different recording process to 'fun & games' and in a few ways very similar. We didn't toy around with drum sounds nearly as much as we did at the start of the first albums sessions. I pretty much knew how I wanted my kit to sound now anyway so I knew what I was after. We got all the drum-tracks, most of the bass-lines and even a few rhythm guitars down by the end of day two so from then on it was a familiar pattern - guitars by day, off-licence by tea time, vocals by candle light and nightclub by 1AM. I remember one evening I was in the booth sitting up on a high stool recording hand percussion. We had all the lights off and I'm pretty hammered while recording this track with a rainmaker (approx 4' lenght of 4" diameter bamboo with pebbles/seashells/sand inside to make it rattle) that one of my brothers got me. We got to the end of the track and I'd guess that, like me, everyone was saying to themselves in the dark "Yeah that was a pretty good take, that'll do" when next thing there's this almighty whallop from somewhere. I have a disembodied memory of them finding the light switch, illuminating the booth to find the high stool on its side, my legs sticking up in the air and -recorded for posterity, me muttering AAAH FUCK!" Niall Quinn 2001


NME Album review June 22nd 1999
The Hitchers : For The Want Of Some Better TV
Nobody can resist a bittersweet love story, so when Hitchers singer Andy Gallagher barks, "She broke my heart so I ate her liver/ And dumped her putrefying carcass in the river", it gives you a warm glow inside. This is the second album from Limerick's The Hitchers, formed by original Cranberries vocalist Niall Quinn, and it's an album that, against your better judgement, you'll find hard to hate. And that's despite wanting to baulk at the too-chirpy-by-half punk-pop anthems, never mind the lyrical whimsy. But there's a good old-fashioned charm to folk stompers like 'One Last Song', which come on like a cross between The Pogues and Stiff Little Fingers. Doubtless if you heard any of these songs more than twice in one week they'd drive you insane, but then, if they drive a generation of angst-ridden adolescents to cannibalism, they'll have served some purpose.