Julian Gough

Hi Julian Gough. An old Toasted Heretic fan here from the metropolis of Tullamore in County Offaly. I just had to google your name after seeing you on The Late Late. Seeing the band perform Galway & Los Angeles again after all these yeaes was just brilliant. That song is shockingly under rated. It’s a unique classic and should feature in any of those best of Irish rock thingy’s they bring out every now and then.
I also remember you performing a song on an art’s programme once on RTE presented by Mike Murphy. What was that song? You said in an interview you just rang RTE and told them you had this song that would fit perfectly into that show and they should put you on tv and they said ok, why not?
Anyway, congratulations on the book. Toasted Heretic, a damn fine band.

Hi Paulie,

I'm delighted you enjoyed Galway and Los Angeles, and I hope you enjoy the book.

The song we did on Arts Express, with Mike Murphy, was "Abandon The Galleries". And yeah, we did ring up RTE and say we'd written a song about the commodification of art, and that it might fit their program. Sure enough, they were about to run a piece on art auctions, and the record prices then being set by impressionist paintings (as people who were then making ephemeral fortunes in the Japanese property bubble recycled their wealth into trophy art), so they had us on.

Declan has just shoved a bunch of old Heretic clips up Youtube, but I don't think he's uploaded that performance yet. Although (I just went and looked), he has put up a live version of Abandon The Galleries (from the Now In New Nostalgia Flavour tour, 18 months ago). Live in Róisín Dubh in Galway... Crude, live, one camera:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7cr1VU_-7c

Which reminds me, I never got round to putting up all the old Heretic lyrics. Must do that soon.

Here's Abandon The Galleries, anyhow...

Abandon the Galleries

Now that art is a game designed to bring
Wealth and fame to wealthy and famous investors
How sad if perhaps it should collapse
On the startled heads of these poor bastards

Midday sunflowers, starry night, cue taxfree corporate delight
Buy now, last few remaining, in Gainsborough everybody's gaining.
Abandon the galleries.

But should there be no further bids
And should rich men cease to believe
All they'll be left with is paint on some canvases,
A room full of art and a heart full of grief.
Protect the rich from plunging prices,
Existential midlife crisis,
Protect the collectors from their art,
Protect the collectors.

My site traffic counter tells me there's been a lot of visits to this page this week (the good lord alone knows why), so I thought I'd add these links for the various versions of "Galway and Los Angeles" available on Youtube...

The second version of the original video (slightly muffled audio, I think it was uploaded from an old VHS tape). There was an earlier, artier version of this video, which I prefer (one long take of my mouth singing, it gets hypnotic, and the lips, when closed, start to look like a leaf or an old sofa after a while), but I don't know where to find it. Brian Shanley shot the original, but the record company freaked out and wanted another version, so we shot some stills of photos by Aengus McMahon and cut them in to make this second version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BxIvxUvfIE


Toasted Heretic playing "Galway and Los Angeles" live on the Late Late Show (RTE 1 television), 2007:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlSa21EmHkw&feature=related


Toasted Heretic play "Galway and Los Angeles" live in Róisín Dubh, Galway, 2006, on the Now In New Nostalgia Flavour tour (Very dodgy one-camera version!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BtXFOSw650


While I'm at it, this is our most popular video on Youtube... Toasted Heretic do "Stay Tonight" (off Charm & Arrogance), on the Den with Zig and Zag... in which I stand on Zig, and throw a lot of dollars in the air, Declan speaks fluent Guitar, and Zig and Zag provide rather lovely backing vocals...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4mWrMOm51E&feature=related