Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Damien Dempsey - It's All Good


Singer - feckin' - songwriters. Normally they leave me cold - and God knows we have a glut of the whingeing, self-obsessed poseurs in this city. In fact, the only way the media will take any notice of Irish music is if its dressed up in the Georges Street Arcade uniform of the pretentious wannabe troubador; misty eyed, pale and angsty sells.
This point of view was challenged for me in 2003 when I saw this documentary on RTE. You'll either love him or hate him, but you can't deny the man.






2 comments:

Anonymous said...

very much agreed, I remember seeing the documentary back then as well and it made me do the same reappraisal.
I also remember accidently stumbling on this performance on tg4, a year or so later, which I thought was great.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIx3EtYLtzo

Still no interest in the other guitar slingers though. Plenty poorly plucking in Limerick too.

cólz said...

Yes indeed Shane - for a country that constantly blabbers loudly in the queue at the chipper at how wonderful 'all the music' that comes out of Ireland, there seems to be an unwillingness to take anything seriously unless it involves whimpering in a pseudo-american accent. I reckon Damo has a long but tough career ahead, and I wish him all the best. 'To Hell Or Barbados' is a deep tune....