© 2009 JOHNNY BRENNAN
[email protected]
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage
and retrieval systems—without the prior written permission of the
author.
978-1-907179-43-3
A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the National
Library.
Published by ORIGINAL WRITING LTD., Dublin, 2009.
Printed by Cahill Printers Limited, Dublin.
This book is dedicated to all the musicians it has given me
so much pleasure to play with over the years, especially in
Dublin, Zagreb and Cáceres.
... and the next thing I remember is waking up slowly and painfully. The world faded in as my eyelids drew back and as soon as they went as far as they were going to go for at least six or seven hours, the hang-over kicked in. “Oh my God! What the fuck ...” I mumbled (the ‘was I drinking’ part of the sentence never made it out of my cerebral cortex) and turned over in the bed, trying to get comfortable enough to fall back asleep for another couple of hours. I was still in my clothes. As I lay there the horror of the night before slowly revealed itself to me.
Actually, it all started out very civilized indeed. Brian’s old friend-of-a-friend from Galway was in Dublin for the weekend, they were going out for a few scoops and I managed to include myself in their plans. We met in Brogan’s about seven or eight. I had been in town for most of the afternoon and had my fiddle with me just in case a session broke out somewhere, but that hadn’t come to pass.
OH FUCK! ME FIDDLE!!
I sat up and looked around the room and saw that my fiddle was on the chair in the corner. “Oh, thank fuck!” ... and thank fuck it was in my line of sight, otherwise I’d’ve had to get up and trawl around the flat looking under dirty clothes, beer cans and pizza boxes. Sitting up hadn’t done me any good either. As I’d looked around there was a slight delay before my sight caught up with the movement of my head, it was worse than I thought ... wine! Or worse again, whiskey!
Brogan’s had filled up to a ridiculous extent by around halfnine. Everybody was standing packed together like on a rush hour Japanese metro. Except they were all holding pints under their chins and close to their chests, trying to shuffle around for the poor bastards that were trying to find their way to the jax. Even the cunts lucky enough to have a seat were being towered over by the mob and having drink spilled down the back of their necks by the shuffling hordes.
It being a Saturday night there weren’t too many sessions going on anywhere, all the pubs being full anyway, so we couldn’t avail of our God given right as musicians to have seats either reserved or commandeered. We finished our pint and got the hell out of there fairly sharpish. We walked up Camden Street and eventually settled on the first place we came across, ‘O’Neills’ or something like that. No seats of course but oxygen to breathe and room to breathe it, plus it worked ‘til two. We were sorted.
We’d started out with stories of Brian’s and Whatsisname’s fresher days and their madcap antics, which in all fairness were fairly fucking madcap. Whatsisname was a bit of a dork and talked too much. I didn’t really take to him but he kept up with the pints and got a round in when his turn came so I couldn’t really complain. I think it was about here that the first whiskey was introduced. I think I can even remember the order, a Guinness, a Bulmer’s and a Bud, with a Jemmy, a Powers and a Jack D.
“Can none of youse have the same drink, no?” said the barman.
Jesus Christ! The next round, we had port and brandies with the pints and after that I don’t remember. I’m not sure it really matters. Shit! Port and brandy! That would explain it. The jax wasn’t going to be happy to see me this morning!
Towards the end of the night (or as much of it as I remember), Whatsisname told us that while his mother lived in London during the seventies she shagged George Best, the legendary Northern Irish footballer. George was playing an away fixture with Man. Utd. and when they met in a nite-klub he was definitely not on course to make training on Monday morning and may even have not made it back to Manchester for the home game the following Saturday.
Brian had heard this story before, (as did anyone who ever drank with Whatsisname, or for that matter, with Whatsisname’s father, who refers to Bestie as George Second-Best) he also knew Whatsisname’s ma and could independently verify that for her age she was still a bit of a MILF and thirty years ago would’ve been right up Bestie’s street ... blonde ... big tits ... locked! This was fucking fantastic. His mother shagged George fucking Best!! I knew fuck all about football but you don’t have to like boxing to know who Mohammed Ali was, plus Bestie was a legendary drinker and womaniser so his fame stretched far beyond the boundaries of football. We discussed Whatsisname’s parentage for a while, the timeframe didn’t match but we carried on regardless. Whatsisname couldn’t play football either but could drink. How awful is that? to inherit your parents’ worse traits and to be forgotten by their worthwhile ones. Whatsisname tried to prove that he could play football by kicking the shit out of his week-end bag under the bar. After the third kick proved conclusively that he couldn’t by falling backwards in slow motion as only drunks can do, crashing into some suit’n’tie guy at the bar beside us, spilling drink all over the shop.
“It’s alright,” I said, “this is Georgie Best’s son.”
Whatsisname dragged himself up off the floor, laughing like a hyena.
“Well, he has his father’s drinking problem,” said the suit, not at all impressed.
We laughed our heads off as Whatsisname got up almost as slowly as he fell down.
“I am not fuckin’ Georgie Best’s son.”
“Who are you fuckin’ then?”
“Yer oul’ one ... gobshites.”
... and the next thing I remember is staggering homewards, I thought about getting a kebab but found that I’d no money left. ‘Bed’ I thought, ‘sleep’.
When I woke up again it was nearly eleven. I dragged myself vertical and finished off the best part of a litre of milk in under ten seconds, then sat down to assess my state. There was a session in Dev’s and one in Fitzer’s. I weighed my options and decided on breakfast first. Half way through breakfast I got an SMS from Brian, and I quote ‘devs or fitzers?’ I called him to discuss the matter.
“How’s the head?” I asked.
“How’s yours?” he replied, his voice heavy with insinuation.
That sounded suspicious.
“Why, what did I do?”
“Ah, nothing really, you just seemed worse than I was.”
“I’m wrecked, man, and in bad need of a cure.”
“As I said, Dev’s or Fitzer’s?”
“Are we playing or drinking?”
“Well, both I hope.”
I laughed, “You’re a hungry cunt.”
“Hey,” he said, sounding a little more excited, “what do you think about the Galway thing?”
“... Galway thing? Refresh me memory.”
“I fuckin’ knew it. Paul was telling us there’s a fleadh thingy or something next week and he can get us travel expenses and a place to stay.”
That’s right! Whatsisname was called Paul.
“Yeah, sounds great. What about drink?”
“Ah sure, we’ll sort that out down there.”
I sighed. I knew what that meant. It meant drinking like fucking lunatics all week-end and then getting a bar bill at the end that was equivalent to a small mortgage.
“Listen, we’ll talk about it later.”
&n
bsp; “What d’ye mean later? We talked about it in the Royal and we said we’d do it.”
“We were in the Royal?”
“Ah, for fuck’s sake ...”
“Listen, I’ll talk to you in, wha’, an hour and a half?”
“Alright, Dev’s or Fitzer’s?”
“Wha’?”
“Dev’s or Fitzer’s?”
“em ... playing or drinking?”
“Both.”
“Ok, Dev’s.”
I hung up and turned back to my sausages, which were cold by now, and thought about it all ... Galway ... the Royal? How the fuck did they let us in there in the state we were in? … Oh yeah, Paul, that was his name ... Georgie Second-Best ... I’d better get a move on.
Hangovers are a strange beast. Every type of drink can give a different variation on the same theme. My drink of choice for example, Guinness, usually gives an easy smooth drunk and a nice mellow hangover, if any. Unless of course you get a dodgy pint, which in the centre of Dublin on a week-end night is more probable than possible, and in which case, you could feel the next day like you’ve feasted on a cart of rotten fish that Molly Malone herself would’ve turned her nose up at. Of course, you always have the dodgy sixteenth pint to blame which was, only incidentally, poured down on top of fifteen perfectly innocent ones.
But today I wasn’t suffering from a Guinness hang-over. Last night we fortified our beer with spirits, and as far as I remember, a wide variety of spirits, all the colours of the rainbow. Oh no, this was an entirely different kettle of fish. The flies nesting in Molly Malone’s armpits would’ve turned their noses up at this. Actually, with a hang-over of this magnitude you can never be quite sure if you are actually hung-over or still drunk. Though you’re probably, technically and legally, a combination of both.
It felt like there was an engine churning away in my lower chest area or upper stomach, my legs felt a little weak, like they could give way at any minute, and I had to put effort into staying upright. But let’s not focus on the negative, there were also some positive elements, a kind of elation, a sense of relief, like a pressure cooker that had had its steam released. The organism had taken a self inflicted beating, had survived and been reset, ready for another. I had two options, to stay in bed and cover my head and wait for the churning uneasiness to pass, which could take the whole day, or the alternative was to continue drinking. It would take maybe two or three pints to get the body back on par, steady the nerves, drunk enough to ignore itself, feel OK again. Today was Sunday so I opted for the latter.
When I arrived in the city centre I went to the first shop I found open to buy a pint of milk. I badly needed to replace my precious bodily fluids and milk always seemed to work for me. They had no pints so I had to get a litre and because I had a litre, I had to drink a litre. I stood outside the shop and lowered it back, glug, glug, glug, until my teeth froze. Dublin was fairly busy and I wondered if there was some event later on in the city. As I walked along the quay I could see the big blue gates of the Guinness factory further up the stinking Liffey. I blessed myself and hurried on to my Sunday morning place of worship. The breakfast of sausages and two-day-old-bread had revived the remnants of last night’s fun from the bowels of my stomach and intensified the churning feeling, but now that I’d lowered nearly two litres of milk I felt full and stable. Solid foundations had been laid, the house would be sturdy.
I arrived in Devlin’s a little before half-twelve. The session table was towards the back of the pub, through the punters, away from the bar on a one-step rise with a window looking out onto a cobbled lane. The large low table was big enough to seat six or seven musicians around it, including neck, elbow and bow space. There were four bodies currently surrounding it, with instruments and empty cases scattered around them. The session supposedly started at twelve but not a note had been played yet. It seemed it had been rough Saturday nights all round.
“Hey, hey, Foy the boy, are you sitting down for a few tunes?”
“Good morning, lads,” I said. “Jaysus … it’s Mick Mac, Dave an’ Buck and give the girl a bone! ... ah sure I’ll sit down a while and see if you’re any good.”
Dave, Buck and old Mick McFadden, plus some young fella’ with a guitar who I only knew to see … should be good. Dave and Buck, both session veterans around the Dublin scene, were in their mid-thirties I guess and Mick Mac was in his fifties at least, but the young fella’ stopped me being the baby. Mick was a bit of an oul’ moan, usually giving out to everyone for playing too fast or playing modern tunes and the like, a bit of a seniority complex if you ask me, but he had a great set of pipes that shook the walls when the drones kicked in. Buck Rogers was a bit mad, culchie-mad! He had red hair, red cheeks and the makings of a big bulbous red nose. A one-man ceili on the box, who flopped about like a freshly caught mackerel when he played. Dave, on the other hand, was clean cut and polite. I think he had a proper job, but he was also a fine fiddler, a great laugh and a decent skin, which is about the best thing I could say for any man.
“Wha’, you’re goin’ to audition us at our own session? Ye cheeky bastard.”
“Ah, I’m only kiddin’ yiz. No sign of Brian?” I replied and asked.
“Don’t tell me that cunt’s coming in, is he?” said Buck delightedly, and “He’s probably asleep in a ditch somewhere,” mumbled Mick, both over-lapping each other.
“Yeah, he should be on his way,” I replied.
“Great,” said Dave, “there’ll be tunes played today so.”
“You’d better get a move on,” I said, “or the gig’ll be over, there’s a lot more idlin’ than diddlin’ goin’ on around here.”
Traditional musicians are very relaxed about starting a session off and then two hours later, can’t be shut up. Nobody wants to seem too eager. Instruments are extracted from their flight cases, or plastic covers, or pillow cases and placed on the table. Then they’re caressed, oiled, tuned-up, sucked and blown, but not played, not just yet. Meanwhile stories are told, job-stories, wife-stories, on-the-way-into-town-stories, but on Sunday morning/afternoon it was usually Saturday-night stories. Dave was telling Mick about some woman he’d tried and failed with the night before. Mick wasn’t very interested and neither was I, so I went for a pint. Mick, Dave and Buck were on coffees and Cokes but the young fella’ had a pint in front of him so I wouldn’t feel like a total dipso with my black, creamy breakfast.
But, you see, Mick, Dave and Buck were obliged to be here every Sunday and were paid relatively handsomely for their troubles. They knew what it meant to start drinking this early and knew better. On the other hand, we (me, the young fella’ and soon, Brian) were guests, here for the craic and the tunes, day-trippers, and were thus allowed, nay, expected to treat the Sunday-morning-session as either a recovery-from, or continuation-of, the previous night’s debauchery.
In the course of a story about one of the Rowsome family, a tune was mentioned and then demonstrated by Mick and the spell was broken. We agreed to listen as Mick played the whole tune and then the young fella’ joined in and we were off. Mick’s initial Galician polka turned into a couple of standard polkas so we all joined in and the punters whooped and clapped for about twenty seconds before turning back to their business. Both Mick’s fingers and pipes were in great form and the young fella’ knew how to back him. I hadn’t tuned my fiddle, choosing instead to rosin my bow, but luckily it was close enough and the noise was beautiful, two fiddles, pipes, guitar and button box. Savage!
The polkas were a bit hectic for a first set but went down well. We accepted our applause by politely ignoring it.
“Start one off there,” said Buck to me, “I’m sick of listening to these cunts.”
“Alright,” I said, “I have ‘Last Night’s Fun’ in me head, then ... emm ... what’s that one ... emm ... G, then something else.”
“I’m glad we’ve cleared that up,” said Mick and we laughed, but I didn’t know the names of most of my tunes and neither did they and n
obody cared. They say that if you know the names of all your tunes then you don’t know enough tunes, so I was OK on that front. I launched into ‘Last Night’s Fun’ and the hang-over took over. It more or less played the tune for me, and played it well I must say. Dave joined in on the ‘G’ tune, risin’ her up, and the young fella’ was great, powerful yet unobtrusive backing with every chord adding more flavour to the tune. For the last tune of the set I stuck on an old standard and everyone joined in. Nice tempo, great tune, great musicians, that’s why God rested on the seventh day, he came here to listen to us. Buck wasn’t that great on the box in all fairness, but Mick and Dave were masters of their instruments, I was solid and the young fella’ was savage altogether. We finished the set and the crowd went wild.
“Good man Foy,” said Buck, “what the fuck were you drinking last night? Hey?”
“Whatever,” I smiled.
“What was that second tune,” asked the young fella’.
“I’ve no idea what it’s called but ‘Peter Street’ play it,” I replied.
“Great tune,” he said.
“It is indeed, I’ve heard it played with a nice fourth part too.”
Irish music is very rigid in its format. Maybe I should explain for the benefit of the uninitiated. Jigs are in 6/8 time, which is rhythmically like saying ‘rashers an’ sausages, rashers an’ sausages’, and reels are in standard 4/4, which is ‘pint o’ Guinness, pint o’ Guinness, pint o’ Guinness’. Most tunes have two parts, each of eight bars in length. The first, or ‘tune’, being played in the low register and the second, or ‘turn’ going up to the higher octave. The first part is played twice and then the turn is played twice and that is called one ‘round’, then you go back to the start and play it all again. After a tune is played for about three or four rounds you then jump into a different tune, then it would be called a ‘set’ of tunes. The tune changes have to be signalled by someone making eye contact with everyone else, or with some form of primitive vocalisation. There is a lot of scope for confusion here as only one musician knows what the next tune is, unless the set has been pre-agreed upon before starting, or he manages to shout out the name of the tune, but this is not always the case. Usually sets have three tunes, each played three times. Unless the tune is especially long and has three, four or more parts. ‘The Gold Ring’, for example, has eight parts and usually only gets played twice and even then, on its own and not part of a set. These are not strict rules, just conventions.
The Good Servants Page 1