Finding my music-mojo.com
I’ve mentioned before I was never much of a muso. In my youth I favoured cheesy pop, and you don’t get cheesier than the Eurovision Song Contest. In Cavan I’d watch the contest alone. Afterwards, I’d rarely hear the winning song again as, by then, it was so un-cool the songs never charted (a win in today’s contest can launch global careers, like Italian rock band, Maneskin).
Come with me to London, where I’m a young advertising executive. I hid my Eurovision fandom as it didn’t sit well with the edgy image I tried to cultivate. At the time, the buzz was about incoming technology, particularly: The Information Super Highway. Everyone was talking about this global library wherein you could access information from anywhere in the world via a desktop computer. In meetings about this cutting edge tech, I nodded enthusiastically while inwardly thinking, "that’ll not catch on, people will still visit libraries for research."
Then the World-Wide-Web arrived. And with it, internet cafes popped up on every London street corner. So popular were they you had to pre-book, with browsing time limited to an hour. One Saturday afternoon I popped into a café to search for Eurovision; to see if I could access information about beloved contests from my childhood.
By my second coffee I still hadn’t figured out how to browse the WWW – my time was ticking. Eventually, a super-savvy tech assistant noticed my frustration and pulled up a chair next to me. He took the mouse, “click on this icon to bring up the search engine…” I felt a dent in my pride and interrupted, “thanks mate, I’ll figure it out.”
He was determined, “No worries, I’ll get you up and browsing.” The cursor popped up in the search bar, “Now, what do you want to search for?” he asked, his fingers hovering over the keyboard. I paused, with Eurovision on my mind, but it didn’t come out of my mouth, “Erm, NEW ORDER,” I lied, unable to admit the truth to Mr Uber-Cool.
He literally lit up, “You’ve got great taste in music, mate – me loves NEW ORDER.” Painfully slowly, info about a band I knew were cool, yet whose music I knew little of, began to load upon the computer monitor. Then he blindsided me, “It follows you’re a JOY DIVISION fan too?” I’d vaguely heard of them, yet stupidly answered, “Oh yeah, brilliant band…” I felt my face redden as he began to engage with me about a band I knew nothing about. The muso had me rumbled, he knew I wasn’t there to search for NEW ORDER.
Now I’m home, I’ve developed a liking for All kinds of everything, musically. The creative energy within Cavan’s local music scene has piqued my interest and I’m finding my music-mojo. I enjoy the eclecticism of musical styles I hear on our vibrant arts-scene. Also, I met a local man, who’s literally a walking encyclopaedia of musical knowledge. My chats with him are enlightening; I’ll simply ask, “Tell me about 1972?” And he’ll immediately reel back the years to give me an in depth retrospective of that year in music (in his appraisal, 1972 wasn’t a great year; with Gilbert O’Sullivan singled out for a slagging).
Right now, I’m writing this from a local venue that’s filling fast. The excitement amongst the gathering fans of a popular tribute act is palpable.
The collective chatter from the crowd creates a humming rhythm that has its own musicality. “How-are-ya Gerard, we have you hooked!” shouts a woman I know; as my friend and I search for a seat. The doors opened at 7pm, we arrived at 7:10pm and couldn’t secure two seats together. And still they pour in, to standing room only.
Country/rock music was never on my radar, until I returned to Cavan and it seeped into me via friends and family. It’s as much about the camaraderie and community as it is the music (although the writer in me appreciates a good country song story-lyric).
The evening was a toe-tapping sing-a-long sensation. And as I stood at the side to watch the audience wave their phone lights in tribute to the finale, I got to thinking: they were not JOY DIVISION, but the crowd was full of ‘JOY WITH NO DIVISION’ – that’s a good name for a tribute act.