Being in a band is really fucking cool. Releasing an album is even cooler. Cool in an unexpected way, like Eamonn Dunphy is cool.
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I spend most of my time licking other bands arses, asking them for supports and telling the same stupid stories of what I’ve appeared on and been played on. Realistically they don’t give a shit. The only question that matters when talking to other musicians is “Is this bloke a knob head or not?” When you’re at the bottom of the food chain, you try and suck information from other musicians.” How did you get on Alison Curtis? Have you got Sinister Pete’s email address?” It’s no way to hold a conversation. More appropriate questions would be “Where did you buy your nice shoes?” or “Is that bloke in corner with you ‘cause he’s about to get sick?” Now they’re questions with answers that matter.
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One of the coolest things for a while was getting a call from someone in TV or radio asking me to come in or telling me that I’m gonna get played. It happened about3 times in the past 12 months and on those occasions I’d walk back to my desk in work, clear my throat a little and say something like “that Dave Fanning is gas isn’t he?” My middle aged colleagues would then give each other a confused glance and before they can go back to crunching numbers I’d lose control of the volume of my voice and blurt out “I’m playing on his show tomorrow!!!!” They found it rather amusing for 5 minutes. I would then ring my mother who disapproves of me not having a proper career and ask her if she thinks Dave Fanning is gas. More often than not she is unaware of who it is I’m talking about but feigns enthusiasm. At the end of these conversations she asks if there are any promotions coming up in work. The enormous problem with being a rock-star for half an hour is that every time you miss a call or receive a text message for the next 6 months you hold your breath and think, it’s Jonathan Ross. More often than not, it’s somebody besides Jonathan Ross. It’s like being in love with a girl who is out of your league – you find an endless supply of hope that good things are going to happen as you wait for her to return your call. With the release of GO and Four Foolscap Pages in the next few weeks I expect to be spending time staring at my phone, wondering if its working and dreaming that my hot date is going to call to arrange a date.
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What is very flattering is when someone you don’t know says they like your music. I try to do it to other musicians as often as I can. I always start with “I just want you to know that I don’t want anything from you” (I have to admit that this is a weird way to start a conversation). If you’re a musician and I ever approach you and I don’t say this then I’m usually looking for something. There is a lot of music out there and if someone has sat through a song for 3 minutes (or album for 40 minutes) without turning it off and has formed an opinion about it then they have connected with you. You’ve made an impression. I know it’s not really me they’ve listened to but just somebody singing words that has some meaning to them. I find that other people’s songs are all about me. I think the same thing about pop culture as Lily Allen in Fear, I was really happy for a while but “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” and bizarre as it may sound when Blur say “I feel heavy met. I feel pins and needles” I know what they mean. In terms of my songs, Alan Jacques in ..Limerick.. has, for some reason, gone mental for me and his praise has kept me going over the past few months. I recorded an acoustic set and did an interview with him for the Limerick Indo and was invited to headline a gig in Dolans on March 26th (http://www.limerickindependent.com/entertainment/entertainment/canavan-to-give-a-bit-of-himself-to-the-city-/) . Rob O’Connor in Beat FM has picked it up as well and I’ve been down for a chat and a song (http://www.irishbeats.net/2009/03/interview-with-brian-canavan.html) . Phantom FM (aka Fight Like Apes radio) won’t touch it with a barge pole. I emailed Dan Hegarty in 2FM, told him I loved him for a while and asked him if he’d play my songs. He replied and very politely told me that I wasn’t what they usually played on the show. He said that I was more of a daytime radio artist and that he had passed the album onto his colleagues. So it turns out that I’m not as indie as I thought I was. Despite the odd shit, fuck and bollix, I am as mainstream as Ant and Dec. I must ring my mother.
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I am beginning to think that my lifespan as a musician is getting shorter and shorter. I wonder is all bands feel like this at times. The album is released and the certainty I had that people would regard it as new and interesting is now waning. If I thought that I could have written better songs and recorded them in a different way then I could excuse it. But in reality this album is as good as I get. I’m glad that I can say that because it means that I won’t tell people in 5 years time that I wish I’d done things differently. One of the few things I can cling to is that I believe that many bands need luck in order to be successful. When Radiohead first released Creep, it reached 78 in the single charts and it was an Israeli radio station that pushed it and the success in Israel spread. The bad luck I’ve had has balanced itself out over the years. I sent the original demo of Carol Vorderman into the Ray D’Arcy Show about 4 years ago. He played it everyday for 2 weeks. Then he played another song I wrote for 2 weeks after that. I was too full of myself at the time to capitalise on that success. On another occasion, after being out of work sick for a year, I was picked from a hundred thousand applications and was a contestant on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Fortunately I was wise enough to realise that just being one of the ten on the show wasn’t worth a shit. I fingered fastest and got to play with Gaybo. I got to see the €125,000 question but didn’t know if a shaddock was a fish, a flower, an animal or a fruit. Doing that cool. Not because I won €64,000 but because I really wanted to do it. I played and I won. You make your own luck but you’ve got to know it when you see it
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By the way all that cash was gone in 12 months and a shaddock is a fruit. GO and Four Foolscap Pages are released on April 7th. I have a Pay What You Like gig on 7th April in Whelans supported by Bill Coleman - free in and you put whatever amount you want in the jar after the show. If you don't like it then don't pay