Julian Gough

How very strange, whilst looking for something on the net I came across Julian Gough and it brought me back to my first ever gig. Toasted Heritic in Galway when I was about 15.

I said to Julian this is my first ever gig and he said "Something to tell your grandchildren about"

God I feel old now :)

Naomi

Not Patrick's sister? If so, how're ya Naomi. No grandchildren yet, I trust...

What was the venue, by the way? I can't remember. (The fact they let in 15-year-olds narrows it down, but, being Galway, not a lot...)

No I haven't a brother called Patrick, I was up visiting my sister and she brought me. All I can remember is that it seemed to be in the back of a pub, if I remember rightly we had to walk down the side of the bar and in a back door. God know how she got me in because I did not look 18 and I'm sure I should have been 18 but she knew lots of people so she may have pulled some strings so to speak.It was a long time ago 1988 I think.

No grandchildren yet ... and lets hope not for a long long time yet!

Naomi

Hmmm, sounds like the Róisín Dubh...

!988, holy shite, that was the year we brought out our first album. I'm amazed you can remember that far back. I can't! Well, I can, but it feels like a memory from a previous life, somewhere in the Middle Ages. Pre-mobile phones. Pre-internet.



So if you're not my friend Patrick's sister... you're not by any wild chance Stephen King's daughter Naomi I suppose...


Hope life is working out well for you. Ain't it great to be alive? I was writing something for Hot Press the other week, about drugs back in those days, and was reminded of how many people I knew back then died or went nuts.

It's tough being young when the world is changing that fast. No signposts. Impossible to know which warning signs should be obeyed and which ignored till it's too late.

Ah afraid not .. My sister is called Rachel and she was living in Galway around that time. In fact she's just moved back there.

I know what you're talking about with the whole drugs scene, when I moved to London in 1992 it was so common to hear someone has overdosed/died. The whole world of drugs is exciting dark and alluring and it's just luck, I think, that I never got involved with anything serious. You're right about the signposts the ones that try and point us in the right directions when we're young aren't the fun looking ones.

I'm a counsellor now and a drugs worker so I thank something everyday I'm alive, well and survived the dangers of youth!

Naomi

Ah, Rachel King! Wonderful person. We were, and are, all tremendously fond of Rachel.

Did she by any wild chance get married a couple of years back, up in Leitrim or perhaps Cavan, with Tim Redfern and my brother and others in attendance?

Hi Julian, yes she did, she got married in Sligo. I wasn't at the wedding myself but heard it was a great affair!

I was talking to her tonight, it's her birthday, and she thinks the gig I was at was across from The Róisín Dubh somewhere where the band or some of the band lived either behind or above the bar.Ring any bells?

Naomi

Ah! Yes, yes, it was in Clogs. An astonishingly awful bar, up Bourke's Lane (a tiny dead-end alley off Dominic Street).

Clogs was part of the Galway Centre for the Unemployed. They were all part of the same rambly building. The front door was for the Centre for the Unemployed, the side door (up Bourke's Lane) was for Clogs. Given that Clogs was run by professionally unemployed people for amateurishly unemployed people, it was never the most businesslike of businesses. It must have been the only pub in the history of Galway to go bust.

I have a rake of stories about Clogs. I might do something about it in the blog...

Wish Rachel a happy birthday from me, and I'm sure all the other Heretics would like to add their own best wishes. God, I remember that cottage she used to live in, near CJs in Salthill. Gareth Allen lived there too, back when he was designing the sleeve for the first Toasted Heretic album (so, yes, 1988). You could always visit that house through the open front window, any time, day or night, and someone would be up for a chat or a cup of tea or a 3am adventure, usually ending in injury.

Especially during the Urban Climbing craze. Example: Ski, at great risk to his life, climbed Galway Cathedral, finally scaling the copper dome at 4am only to be greeted by Dec Moore, already up there and having a picnic: "Will you have a beer, Ski?"

Miracle any of us are alive.

In fact... it's all rushing back now... that wasn't a Toasted Heretic gig, it was me and Declan Collins playing "The Songs of Toasted Heretic" in Cloggs. We wanted to try out some new songs, but Neil was off squatting in London. So you heard several songs which were only ever played that night, and never again.

Also, we wrote "LSD (isn't what it used to be)" sitting on my doorstep in the alley in the sunshine before the soundcheck, and played it for the first time that night. (My front door was straight opposite Cloggs front door. And was thus green up to hip height.)

Good version of "LSD (isn't what it used to be)" on the View here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aS_6BfN1_k&feature=related

And the original video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGMztx7jZuI&feature=related

If you can handle that amount of nostalgia.

I think we played it one verse longer on the night, but I trimmed it later... Or maybe we just repeated choruses. Can't remember now, but I know we played it long that night, we were so pleased with it.

That might have been a full band gig, actually. I have a cassette at home with a Clogs gig from around then - the one that led to losing my job in Supermacs Eyre Square (I didn't want to pull a sickie, so I phoned in and said I had to play a gig. My first experiment in career suicide.) So Naomi, if you want an actual recording of your first ever gig - and if that was the one - it could be arranged. But I have to warn you that any nostalgia you have about it might not survive the experience.

We did a full band gig in Clogs? My memory, sheesh.

Wow .. I’m speechless , that has brought back some buried memories!!! I remembered all the words, Oh I loved that ‘tape’ Songs for swinging celibates. Rachel bought it for me for Christmas and it was well played, it was on the tape recorder all the time, how did I manage with out an MP3 player? Anyway it was so well played it eventually broke, as tapes were known to do, but during its life it was played alongside The Queen is Dead and Inflammable Material and many other greats.

Breffni a copy of that gig would be great , I would really like to think it was the one I was at. All I can remember was it was summer and really hot, I think August but I could be wrong. I even remember I was wearing my ‘Smiths’ T-shirt, isn’t it strange what sticks in your mind. I am blessed/cursed whichever way you look at it with a great memory. I’ve been to hundreds of gigs over the years, well maybe not hundreds but a hell of a lot and I think, as with anything, that first time is always special!

So was it worth getting sacked for? ;)


Naomi

That's some memory you've got. August 5th 1988, I've just checked with the cassette. Timeless classics like Can Love Redeem, Peruvian Anteater, Cellarful of Blues, plus a bunch of numbers that were new at the time and ended up on Charm and Arrogance (including the title track, which was provisionally called Everyone Wants to Shag Julian Gough). I'll try to get a copy made for you.

I don't know if the gig was worth losing the job over, but the pangs of regret seem to have faded.

...and happy birthday to Rachel from me too. The last time I saw her was in Dublin, a few years ago.

I've been enjoying this chat so much I've mentioned it on the blog

http://www.juliangough.com/journal/

Breff, I linked your name to your Trinity page. VERY impressive. Every time I look, you've got another couple of letters after your name. It's like Sesame Street for grown-ups. "Today's letters are P, h, and D..."

hey guys would love to get a copy of the tape if possible

my first memory of seeing Toasted Heretic was supporting The Waterboys in Seapoint in 1986 I think. Seem to remember you all wore tuxedo or did I make that up ?

Padraig

No, tuxedos all round. Typical Heretic perversity, we were supporting Mike Scott and Anto Thistletwaite in their raggle-taggle gypsy-chic, so we had to be the opposite to annoy their audience. We never bothered wearing tuxes again.

We never bothered supporting anybody again either. Arrogant feckers that we were. Played a lot of multi-band lineups and festivals, but we turned down support slots from then on. Which may help explain how we remained so, ah, niche a product.

Breff nearly dislocated his arm carrying his amp home that night, too. We were too poor to hire a taxi.

Where the heck did we get five tuxedos, it now occurs to me? Breff, does your magic memory recall?

No idea where we got the tuxes. But it wasn't only my amp (Dec's amp, more likely - I didn't get an amp until years later), it was all our gear that had to be lugged back to my house. We asked some of the raggle-taggle entourage if they could possibly give us a lift (it was about a 5-minute journey - by car), but I think they didn't want to further burden Mother Earth with an unnecessary car journey. Instead of the anticipated rock 'n' roll debauch after the gig, the night finished with instant coffee in my kitchen. The way I remember it, among all the Hot Press journos, TV presenters, proto-Macnas-heads and other hangers-on, the only people who actually acknowledged our existence were BP Fallon and Mike Scott.

Not too surprising though. We weren't a very serious proposition as a band at that point. It was about our third ever gig, and we didn't even have proper drums - Neil used his mail-order drum-machine. At least we didn't have to manhandle a drum-kit down the prom and up Dalysfort Road.

Oh God, Dec's amp was a tank. But I think you'd also borrowed something immense that towered over us like a cliff.