The Goo 1
AUG-SEPT 23 Dave rarely went further than the loc
al. Substack by Paul Page from Whipping Boy paints a good picture of Dublin at that time. ‘Transport’ represents to us that 80’s Dublin, uncaring but exciting, more industrial than the cosmopolitan city it is now. Every generation has their own version of Dublin. If Dublin had the Coliseum in the middle of it, they wouldn’t have built roads around it. Dublin city is a bit more functional in that way. And that functionality, that pragmatism is also what has stripped Dublin of some magic, replaced the night blooming cereus with a neon light for a hotel. Who is taking all the joy out of life? We are. The march for progress, this year’s earnings review, that 10% productivity goal. Accountant knees up mother brown, big sing along festival bands. The greed for more, not just for your own 15 minutes of fame, but to take everyone else’s 15 minutes away. Years ago it was smoking that was knowingly sold, now it’s people’s data and their attention to social media fuelled by the world’s rainforests. Do you read much of Pat Ingoldsby? I think he’s Dublin’s greatest poet and an inspiration to many. Pat Ingoldsby is a great poet with great insight into those small personal moments in your life. We dip into his poetry a lot, and wonder sometimes if there is a snobbery towards him. The more time goes by, the more sense his poetry makes, just exactly like it should do. He seems to be an outsider who doesn’t play the game and we like that. Your music is released only through digital, have you been tempted to do physical formats? Is there a reason why you haven’t? Vinyl does look and sound great and there is a “cool” around it but that also makes it boring to us. The rawness that used to surround vinyl has been replaced with the cool polished artefact, the xerox has disappeared, bring on the DIY and the mismatched typeface. The reason we like digital is that we can just do it ourselves, with no planning, just do it. That’s exciting. We both kind of like the idea that if these streaming companies disappear then our music disappears too. If you drop an Mp3 in the forest does it make a sound? Things come and go, first it was vinyl, then tapes, then cd’s, Mp3’s, and now back to vinyl and tapes (which are great). In the end there will just be Youtube, or maybe a format that decays a small bit every time it is played, so that after 20 listens it will be gone. THE POP THING SNUCK UP ON US Transport and Tarantino Calls take a slightly different direction than most of the other songs on the record, less pop and a bit more dub/ techno. Is that something you’ve been playing around with for a while and was it a conscious thing to throw it into the mix? It’s more the other way around, we were playing around with those sounds and the pop thing snuck up on us. Some of the songs were going to be on the last album, but didn’t fit. So this time we became obsessed with keeping them onboard and doing a ten song album, as in, no instrumentals, just songs, get rid of them in a way. It’s interesting that you noticed that. More and more, we’re looking for a way to stretch out the sound, maybe not have as many words in the songs, just a line here and there. That’s why they close out the album, a look down the road. It feels like a Joe Strummer sample in Tarantino Calls or am I hearing things? To me Strummer re-wrote the music book, was he an influence? No, it’s not a Joe strummer sample, but we love the idea of hearing different things that might or might not be actually there. Drums, bass, reverb, echo, ghost sounds, all these things are exciting, it’s something we’re becoming increasingly interested in. We both love The Clash, London Calling and Sandinista are brilliant albums. Strummer’s natural aversion to conformity wouldn’t fit so well into today’s uplifting Hootenanny musical world. A lot of today’s music is performance art in a way, it can’t be divorced from the performance. The technical ability to play or sing it is part of the value. If music reflects the arena it’s played in, as David Byrne suggests, how have stadiums, and festivals changed its meaning? London Calling is a great piece of music, would the audience be punching the air, holding each other aloft, spitting out the lyrics, “ A nuclear era, but I have no fear, cause London is drowning, and I, I live by the river”. You are curating your album launch and have endless powers to bring back people from the dead or re-unite band - who would be the 5 bands on the line-up with you? Magazine (First two albums, with Because You’re Frightened and A Song From Under The Floorboards) Public Image Limited (Metal Box only, and their theme song, maybe twice) Bob Marley and the Wailers (Soul Rebels, Catch A Fire, Burning), B52’s (Just the Ricky Wilson hits), The Clash, The FalL. And we wouldn’t play, we’d be too embarrassed, and probably very, very, Rowley Birkin drunk. And You Can’t Dream That is available on Bandcamp. PAGE 17