Confessions Of A One Man Band.
Chapter 1. Turning Hay.
” I love the taste of tea in the field on a summers day
And it’s me and you dad, sitting on a bale of hay
There’s mam and the girls and a bottle of warm TK
That’s the taste of tea in the field on a summers day”.

11/3/2015 from The Bridge Tavern, Wicklow town.
Normally when you hear a story or book beginning with the words “Confeesions of….”, you tend to wet your lips and salivate at the mouth a little in the hope of a bit is scandal or something juicy… Hould yer oil there Bridie, all in good time. If I can think of anything worth salivating about, I will gladly scribble down and post for your salivating enjoyment.
I’m moved to begin chapter 1 by recalling a sunny evening in 1995. It’s an evening I often think about. It was July I’d say and I was turning hay in the Sandhole field. Farmers have names in all their fields my friends. People of the non farming fraternity often believe that farmers name their cows or cattle. Some people also believe in the act of “cow tipping”. I was approached in Sean Og’s bar one night by a couple from Dublin and I was asked about cow tipping.. Not having heard of it before, I asked what THEY thought it was.. They believed that cows fell asleep standing up and that the farmer would go out to the field after dark and “tip” the cow over so she would then be asleep lying down!!! I ask ya!! Back to cow naming for a minute though..Back in the day of a 10 or 15 cow herd this was often the case. The cows all had names (in our case there was Darky, Wobbley, Polly, Sally, Patch, Blackie, The Little Cow, and several others…) But as herds grew the personal and sentimental relationship between farmer and animal weaned. That’s not to say that farmers cared less for their animals, it just meant that naming them was not really a top priority… Just as us 2 legged animals all have numbers of one kind or another after our name from the moment we are born, our four legged friends have suffered the same fate and each is now firmly (or farmly!!) identified by a lovely pair of yellow earrings that goes with them from birth till death. Fields though, because there are not as many of them maybe, tend to have names. Now the naming of any field can depend on any number of things. It could be called after its previous owner, “Burkes Field” or its type of soil composition, The Bog Field”, or maybe it’s shape “The Long Field”… It could also be named after some tragic event.. “The field the cow died in” or its location, ” The Far Field” or if it’s near a public highway “the Car Road Field”… I could go on and on… Here’s a list of our fields for the craic..,
The Flat Meadow
The Big Field
The Báwn Field
Joining Micks
Beside Marie’s
The Field Under The House
The Well Field
Kathy’s Garden
Craan
The Waste
The Lower Waste
The Sawbench
The Car Road
The Field Across The Road
The Middle Field
The Other Middle Field
The Haggart
The Park
The River Field
Midletons.
And finally The Sandhole, which is where my story tonight begins.
So there I am with me fork in me hand, I’d say it was about 7-30 pm and the hay was almost fit to bale, except for one heavy swart in the shaded corner of the field. It was a bit green still and needed a shaking out.. or turning!!
So I’m there and i’m spreading the hay out across the field, out from the shade so it will catch the last of the evening sunshine. I hear my mother calling my name. I turn to see her coming thru the gap in the ditch…”Mmm, tea in the field” I thinks to myself .”Liam” she says, out of breath from walking, almost running, across three fields.. “The Royal hotel in Arklow has called and they want to know if you can do a gig for them tonight”? (For the sake of younger readers, mobile phones were not around then, so a sprint across fields was the only way of cross farm communication at the time. The only tweet came from the birds in the trees and the nearest thing to an I pad was whatever wireless device Dr Spock used to “Beam Me Up” on Star Trek!! )
I drove the fork into the hard ground turned in my nail boots and ran for home.. I didn’t need to think about it. I hit the field in spots!! I was 22 years old and they had just started playing gigs in local pubs. I had done a handful of gig the previous year but 1995 was kinda the year I really meant business!! It was the year that I spent a lot of time in the phone box at Downes’s petrol station armed with the yellow pages open on the “Public Houses” section, a few eircom call cards and my best bic biro. This was my office on many’s the long evening, and from there I called every pub in the 05 area selling myself as the new singer on the scene. £35 or £40 was the asking price.. A bit cheaper than the more established lads out there just to get my guitar in the door!! It wasn’t all plane sailing. I recall doing an afternoon gig on a bank holiday Sunday.. 4-6 pm, after a car-boot sale at the back of bootlaces pub in Ballycanew. The fee was £20., an hour into my set, I was handed a tenner and was asked to leave!! Devastation set in. But I bounced back the following Thursday with a great set at The Westgate Tavern in Wexford.. Back on track says you. Back to the Sandhole though.. I often recall the feeling that went thru me when my mother told me that the hotel needed me to play a gig. I know I got the call because another singer had let them down but that didn’t matter to me.. I was wanted!! I was in demand (for 1 night anyhow!) and I was on my way. Christ, I threw my Carlsbro speakers, a bag of cables and the Takamine guitar my mam bought me for my 21st the year before, into the back of an ’88 Opel Corsa. OH MAAAAN I was living the dream!! I was writing songs, doing gigs and I was on my way… TO ARKLOW!
Getting that phone call from The Royal Hotel sent a buzz thru me.. I don’t know why or what. I think I felt I had found something that made me feel like I had a purpose or a place in life or something.
21years later… When I get a call from a venue, I still get that buzz going thru me..why I wonder? All I know is that 20 years later and here I am, 15 miles up the road…
13/3/2015… 2 days later.. Im on my way to Wallis’ Bar, Midleton, County Cork. I’ll talk about Cork in another chapter, but for now I’m wondering what I’m doing on the road tonight… Well fundamentally I suppose I’m out to earn a few Euros and alongside my wife, I am doing my part in supporting our family unit. Is that my only reason? If it is, I’m in trouble, because driving to Cork for a gig just for the sake of money is a hard aul shlog and I won’t stick it for much longer. I don’t think I’m an artist in the true sense of the word.. An artist portrays him or herself thru their art.. Financial return is not part of the plan.. The art is performed for the sake and love of art and maybe the $$$’s will follow. Standing up in a bar and playing a cover after cover is not art. Yes I write songs, and a few damn good ones at that.. To perform what one has wrote is art I think. So i’m asking myself if I even love music anymore? I play it and perform it and a good night is a great night but a bad one is pure torture.. I find myself counting down the clock, then add another 25 minutes on for packing up plus the journey home time and BANG.. I’m in the sack. That’s it till tomorrow night. The idea of calling venues and cancelling gigs due to a break down or a bad flue or the death of the family cat has crossed my mind on several occasions recently but I have avoided this thus far.. And I’m just passing the Two Mile Inn where you turn right for Mogeely, and Public Image Ltd. come on the radio. Johnny Lydon is singing “Rise”.. I’m pounding the steering wheel, it’s freezing outside and I’ve got the window down and I’m singing as loud as I can.. High harmonies baby.. I feel the song is in the a key of E, my favorite key baby.. ” I could be wrong, I could be right, I could be wrong, I could be right…” It’s like a message from the great beyond… It’s epic, I’m alive, I’m a musician and a singer.. This is what I signed up for, this is what I wanted to be after I saw the Bruce special Old Grey a Whistle Test when I was 11.. I don’t know about tomorrow but right now is right now.
Sing it john…