Eventually they told us off the record that he had died. Then the school blocked us from using the rooms but we were able to keep the drums as it was assumed they were ours. We used a local prefab in Loughlinstown eventually. The electrical circuit was so bad that our fingers would stick to the guitar strings, at times even making it impossible to play, but it was the only space we could get. We had tried kitchens, sheds, the outdoors & bedrooms but we were quickly moved on. Being in the bands that followed over the next few years really opened things up & any innocent beginnings dissolved into a much fuller experience of life. We were underage, in clubs & pubs playing to fairly big crowds not to mention the people we attracted at the prefabs & the sessions we had there, I mean everyone had a go at singing while we played. It was a real good time. I for one couldn’t even play a bar chord when we ended up doing some shows supporting Aslan who are a band in Ireland with a big following.
After visiting a few countries, I first moved to London in my early 20s, again I don’t know what year or age precisely. I was in a pub called the Boogaloo in High Gate, Shane MacGowan was there & we had a drink & a short chat. I had my guitar with me & a presenter from a London radio station, Resonance FM, asked me to come on his show & play a few songs, which I did. The next week I played a gig in The Fiddler’s Elbow in Kentish town. The place was empty except for two tramps with a dog each & a couple of friends. The dogs violently fought & one of them walked up on stage and drank from my pint while I was in mid song, so it was clear that things could go either way from the start.
Variety was the attraction
for me,
endless variety. I can’t be around people I know all the time. I need a lot of time to be on my own. You can easily keep yourself to yourself when you want to, or be a part of something big & busy when it suits. You can literally play in a different area every night, let alone a different venue. Age means nothing. The venues can never be exhausted either as they regularly change hands. The large influx of people keeps the audience fresh too. It’s a really tough place to be though and the quality of life in real terms is not good. It can also be a really shallow place if you get caught up in the way artists tend to be valued. It’s a losing game as far as I can tell & I want no part in it. I’ll stick by anyone who sticks by me but I avoid cliques which I think comes from growing up in a community based environment such as Dublin. Ireland in general suffers divisions, right down to a road dividing an estate. To some people, being from Dublin isn’t Irish enough, that kind of tribal mentality is also something I want nothing to do with.
London was exactly what I needed it to be. Being solely a gigging artist, it seemed natural for me to be there. After a few years of wearing myself out, I went back to Ireland. Lived in Bré, County Wicklow, then Dublin City Centre for a spell before heading for the sticks where I rented a thatched cottage in Tinahely, also in Wicklow. The closest place to the cottage was a pub called ‘The Dying Cow’. An Elderly couple ran the place, sometimes they didn’t come out to serve, so you’d just play cards & forget you were in a pub with no beer.
From Loughlinstown, again, I visited a few places & moved back to London. But this time around it has been a lot more difficult in every way possible.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116