‘Hot Scary Summer’ by Villagers is set in the rare heat of a Dublin evening. Two lovers leave the house, bound for the cobblestones and the crowds. But while they are kissing al fresco, there is a sense of unease. The singer watches “all the pretty homophobes looking for a fight” and his joy ceases. He thinks about his life of pretending. He also realises that the affair is over. The two men have run out of commitment, their emotions are all used up. He sings about being “half a person, half a monster”.  It is the most affecting farewell. ‘Hot Scary Summer’ breaks your heart.

The sadness is deeper because the gay ballads of Ireland have always sounded like this. Almost fifty years of covert love, about shadows and disguise and fear. Conor addresses this on his new songs while he sings out for the gift of courage and he even tries to empathise on the lyric of ‘Little Bigots’. His current album, ‘Darling Arithmetic’ was inspired by a friendship with John Grant and the latter’s monumental song ‘Glacier’. Conor vowed to be more open about his own life experiences. So there is tenderness and quiet rapture as he writes about all the phases of a relationship. Many of the songs have a universal value, regardless of sexuality. But on a handful of these tracks we also hear what it’s like to be out on the margins, less than a fully realised human.

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It must be 1978 and I’m in English class with Frank Ormsby. This is a good thing. He will enthuse about Louis MacNeice and TS Eliot. He will share our dismay as we read about Tess d’Urberville and her trysts with the eternally wet Angel Clare. Frank has thick rimmed glasses, a fringe and a Fermanagh accent. Sometimes he bins the syllabus and reads us lesser-known Irish poets or he fetches something out of The Honest Ulsterman, a publication that he’s edited since 1969.

These moments don’t do much for our exam capacity but we like it. Frank gets into raptures over the words, the style and the sentiment. When he’s like this, he’s barely conscious of his pupils. Next, he picks a moment in a story about a devout student who levitates during an exam and has to resort to filthy blasphemy to descend. We laugh forever. Our systems have been altered by punk rock, Embassy Regal and Mundie’s Wine. Our limbs are solid with excessive time on the sports fields. We can parse any number of Latin verbs but we can barely talk to a woman. We think Frank is OK.

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I’ve just spent a good hour with a needle and some wool, tending to my favourite shirt. It’s not something I habitually do, but the garment needs some care and I couldn’t manage without. We’ve done 15 years together. A John Smedley special in apple red. The unimpeachable Dorset style in fine, Merino wool, with the turnback rib cuff and the collar that always sits just so.

 
Me and the shirt have done formal meetings and fierce parties. We’re travelled a bit and met interesting people. Even when the going has been messy, the shirt has sustained a fibre of grace, even when the wearer was lacking. It’s a shirt that gives everybody a bit of a chance.
I bought my first John Smedley shirt about 1986 in Camden. I seem to remember getting it in an early Reiss shop, but such details are elusive. But I’m sure it was a navy short sleeve in sea island cotton, and I soon added a red version of the Isis design. We went to warehouse parties and north London dive bars. It was accompanied by a black MA1 jacket, selvage Levis, Doc Martin shoes and  eventually Weejun loafers.

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Back in the day there was File Under Easy listening. They were not afraid to rock and the teenage Nathan Connolly played his guitar slung low and turned up high.  Colin Murray was their cheerleader / manager and F.U.E.L. released a tune called ‘Closure’ that showed promise. Somewhere in my archive I have a photo of their singer giving me the finger from the Nerve Centre stage, supporting Snow Patrol in May 2000. Innocent times.

Nathan got his call-up papers to the Patrol shortly after. But he must still have the urge to rock, hence his new project, Little Matador. They play their first show at the Goat’s Toe in Bangor. Dave Magee, sometime F.U.E.L. stalwart and LaFaro shaker is on guitar. Likewise Troy Stewart from The Windsor Player. Gavin Fox from Turn is the bass guy, while Paul ‘Binzer’ Brennan bashes the skins.

They’ve surely put in the rehearsal time and have worked plenty on the album, but that hasn’t excused Nathan from party time at Voodoo until 6am on gig day. You might say that it adds to his appeal: paint the words LOVE and HATE on his knuckles and he’s a ringer for Robert Mitchum in ‘Night Of The Hunter’, all hooded eyes and cool wastage.

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This shot of Conor J O’Brien was taken on Gordon Street, Belfast on Sept 10, 2010. He had just soundchecked at the Black Box and I’d interviewed him for my Radio Ulster show. The ‘Becoming A Jackal’ album was four months old and was already imprinted in my soul. I was reading Herman Hesse and wiring up my own connection between Steppenwolf and the Villagers’ story of lupine dread and alienation. I was quite lost. No point in trying to say this much to the author. He had heard many other compliments and was playing it courteously.

We had met briefly in 2006 during his time with The Immediate. I liked their album ‘In Towers And Clouds’ but it was over-fussy and too many heads were involved. The live shows were turbulent but not always in the best sense. I guess I must have seen him perform with Cathy Davey but I became a proper fan at sxsw in March 2010 when he seemed to materialise at potent moments, singing about lonesome vigils, rituals, zombies and exile. Elsewhere on Austin’s Sixth Street, there was mass fakery and music with little heart. Meantime Conor was there with his battered Spanish guitar, singing a quiet, true commentary.

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