Many an escapade since that first blues jam at Keele, so good it made us boke.
The unauthorised excursion to see Orbital in the SU minibus.. Your nautically themed dance routine to the Human League at Electric picnic.. Chilli dogs in the cantina of Mos Eisley Spaceport..
Seminal gigs to the street from our flat above the kebab shop on the burton road. You on the decks and me in my Aflex Palace space helmet with the effects unit I’d no idea how to work. ‘You in the street (yes, you in the street)!’, ‘Marjorie, come in from the garden’ and ‘Death Kebab’ all classics, weirding out the neighbourhood.
You engineered the first parts for this album – the acoustic guitar and vocal for Longimanus!
Cheers for that, and everything else.
Artwork – Aimée McLernon
You actually got me to start recording – braving demonic glue fumes that nearly made us go mental and kill each other in the processes of soundproofing my cupboard against the noise of the infernal machine.
Yes, I know I’m already mental.
Cheers Clare.
Much appreciation to you Suzer.
For enduring incessent, repetitive songwriting without complaint. And wise advice on matters of the heart.
‘I love the world because you’re in it.’
On Sunday night in Temple Bar, I’d scoop up my busking money and head to the The Mezz for Blues..
The place packed to the rafters with all manner of miscreant – Gaelic fans, musos, ravers, intense looking continentals, pole dancers letting their hair down after work. Them’s ‘Please Don’t Go’ hurtling along like a runaway train.
The songs just structure for the jam. You freewheeling stream of consciousness in your smokey growl – interspersed with deft lines on your battered Telecaster.
Musicians queuing up to get stuck in. No more space on the stage – band merging with the dancers. Wiley banging away on the keys like a maniac. The great John Earl breathing warmth into the room.
You said you trusted my eyes and invited me to play in JJ’s before you’d heard me play a note. Cheers for that, made me feel I was on the right road.
Artwork – Aimée McLernon
Strange times in the year of The Kalakushta Tiger.
Does Scribblestown exist on the material plane, or is it a mythical place?
I’m sure I saw you floating through the mist with a clipboard somewhere, orchestrating festivities. I may have dreamt that.
Artwork – Aimée McLernon
Memories of Damien Rice coming round, on the pull for our lovely friend. He and I trading songs around the fire, as if taking turns to serenade her. All quite courtly.
Sarah taking it upon herself to give him a lecture about smoking being bad for his voice before embarking on an impomptu display of tabletop interpretive dance.
Meanwhile, you and Colum rolling around on the other side of the room, beating the absolute bejaysus out of each other in drunken hysterics. One of you actually smacking the other round the head with the door at one stage – having the time of your lives.
In slapstick abandon you were oblivious to our heartfelt songs. We, in turn, acted like you weren’t even there. Fanastically surreal. Felt like something out of Kubrick movie.
You and Paul rest easy.
For randomly building a stage and DJ box in our front room – essential to the truly committed party house. There’s nothing like stage diving in the in the comfort of your own home.
And for dismantling and reassembling the one – armed dentist’s chair to get it up to my musical laboritory.
For keeping me well medicated and feeding me soup when I was fevered up to the eyeballs. Much appreciation for helping to keep things from falling apart. Great sign art too.
For saving me from being glassed by a psychopath in my own bedroom whilst rendered defenseless with fever and inebriation.
For staying sweet in trying times.
For lending some Mediterranean finesse to the general barbarity.
For Finnish debauchery.
For lyrical mania of the finest kind.
For having the sunny disposition to put up with me banging around upstairs recording guitar parts at all hours of the night.
For soundproofing my skylight, saving me for having to embark on a guerilla campaign against the Rathmines clock tower.
For bringing us tunes and taking us to the ball.