Dead Good
Sunday morning, 4.15, the alarm goes off. It’s still dark. Normally I’m a night owl but I’m standing in for Cathal Murray on The Weekend on One, and I need to get to RTE, set up the studio and be in front of the mic, sounding halfway coherent, by 6am. Soul singer Bill Withers had a line for this hour: “The hip folks gettin’ home from the party, and the good folks just got up.”
As the country bestirs itself, texts to the programme gather pace. You get to peek into peoples’ lives: they’re out looking after the animals, or they’re awake in a hospital ward; they’re driving down for the football, expecting a son or daughter home, or just turning over and pulling up the duvet. Lots of music suggestions. Listeners have such widely varied and sophisticated tastes — play an obscure track and someone’s bound to pop up on the screen delighted to have found a fellow fan.
There’s the odd complaint too: keep it down a bit for God’s sake, we’re still in bed. Or, liven it up for God’s sake before you put us back to sleep. But what has to be my all-time favourite backhanded compliment comes in this morning: “So the best music on the radio is played at dawn on a Sunday by a disc jockey with the personality of a corpse. It’s typical of the way the world is!” Thank you, unknown texter, you’ve made my day!
Home to put the head down for an hour and then it’s time to don the other hat. Horslips have done a few gigs this summer, and it’s just been announced that we’re playing Sligo Live on October 25 — echoes of our first festival gig which was Sligo Sound in 1971, with Fairport Convention, Tír na nÓg and the Chieftains.
Anton Savage has invited Barry Devlin and me to join him on Today FM’s Savage Sunday to talk about that and a new poll of all-time top rock’n’roll riffs. Anton’s an effortlessly genial host and we have fun teasing out the ideological distinctions between Zeppelin, U2 and the Smiths.
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And then the sun is out, and Grafton Street’s a wonderland. And then there’s that semi-final. Me nerves is in flitters.
Culture Vulture
Culture Night is on Friday, September 19, and I’m helping out with RTE Radio 1’s contribution to the event — a live broadcast from Temple Bar with the RTE Concert Orchestra and guests. The first rehearsal is in two weeks so the orchestra people need to know what music to prepare, and they need to know yesterday. Aaargh! Still, it’s coming together. Producer Nuala O’Neill sighs and rejigs the running order for the umpteenth time, prays it’ll be the last, and I meet our health and safety guys to go through the risk assessment. Who knew so many things could potentially go awry? None of that stuff could ever happen, really . . . could it?
On Tuesday I find myself involved in yet more Culture Night meetings — timings, technical details, TV coverage — but it’s progressed enough to allow a couple of hours of chill time with the current obsession in our house: Orphan Black, a Canadian sci-fi TV series. Tatiana Maslany’s performances as several people revealed to be clones are amazing, and it’s sprinkled with humour, so easier going than, say, True Detective. The trick is to keep it to two episodes per sitting, if you can. Go on, you try.
The following day I bump into a fellow chorister from the Ranelagh Singers and discover I’ve missed the first rehearsal after the summer break. And our first concert of the season is just around the corner. Now where did I put that music?
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Hall of Fame
Thursday finds me in Belfast for the day with Devlin: another Horslips gig is being announced for October, so Barry and I spend the day talking to the “meejah” about how it will feel to be back on our old stomping ground at the Ulster Hall, where we called it a day in October 1980.
Actually that makes the day sound a bit . . . formal. What we’re doing in fact is catching up with old mates and swapping yarns; all our paths have criss-crossed over the years, through good times and bad. Conversations pause when there’s mention of the late and much-lamented broadcaster and musician Gerry Anderson. Belfast was my da’s hometown, so I feel a little bit at home here.
On Friday our daughter Ciara is home on a break from her New York job — family celebration time! And Saturday is a time for relaxing. That Gomorrah’s not going to watch itself!
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Horslips will play the Knocknarea Arena at IT Sligo on October 25 as part of Sligo Live festival