Dublin Opinion

[ Photo from Dave Murphy & Friends MySpace ]
Dave Murphy is one of those Dublin institutions who has never really been on the media’s radar - and most likely prefers it that way. I was reminded of him during January when Kevin Courtney paid a nice tribute to him in the Irish Times (as if to prove my first assertion wrong straight away). All the nicer a tribute as DM is still alive and well and bringing his weekly singer-songwriters night into its 21st year - the article marks the 20th anniversary of the night in question.

Now, I have never actually been to DM’s singer-songwriter night* but I do have ear-witness accounts from survivors (eh Conor ??). And one can’t argue with the number of more than competent singer-songwriters he has nurtured over the last 20 years - a sort of Socrates with a six-string. I will quickly pass over the old ‘Led Zeppelin caused Heavy Metal’ type polemic that could link him to being a catalyst for all those buskers that you used to have to almost step over at one time to get down Grafton St. (after all - they were there before the night began - and Interpol are fairly close to pinning it all on Mike Scott anyway). To be fair to DM, he did do the general public a service by taking 90% of them off the street at least one night a week. I will also conveniently gloss over Dave’s own comment in the piece (which was an impression I also had in the good old days of the variety of gigs on offer in Dublin’s venues) :

I was walking through town, and seeing all the posters for upcoming gigs, and it struck me, they all came through the International

For once, I won’t be an auld curmudgeon. To prove which, I’ve come up with a few of the DM & Friends night’s best ‘graduates’ in tribute to the man and his influence. First up a bloke who started off singing in pubs in Offaly, but luckily was never handed the country to run (like another I could mention..) MUNDY. Here he is before he got mixed up with that Steve Earle fella and mega-stardom :

I once had the experience of finding a CD by the following artist among the 15 or 20 CDs in the corner of a French supermarket (in with some very strange bedfellows). Here’s Damien Rice getting all intense and Thom Yorkesque in a setting that more resembles the International than the first video (from his clobber also looks like he just finished a shift on Grafton St. in November) :

And from the same nothalfbad TV show (Other Voices) perhaps my own personal favourite from among those that passed through The International, Damien Dempsey. Singing, like Dave Murphy himself, in the Dublin accent that God (or Frank Stapleton) gave him (ears peeled for a great intro) :

Banjo accompaniment by Rob O Geibheannagh btw (should be made compulsory that, banjo accompaniment).

A pity that the 20th anniversary gig in Vicar St. came to nothing - due, I suppose, to the mess a certain profession (named in big letters over the door of the current pub Dave’s night is based in) have gotten the world into. Maybe they should all head down to Dingle and celebrate the anniversary down there instead - and cut out Ticketmaster and the bankers.

Anyhow - more power to DM’s elbow and his larynx. And may he go on transmitting the craft for a good few years yet.

* 1/ I have only ever been, at the maximum, 37% singer-songwriter at any given point in my life 2/ I never had the patience to sit/sift through all the grit to get to the diamonds performing upstairs in the International (where it was based when I lived in Dublin)