At home with Alison Curtis

Ever wondered what it would be like to live with a member – quite literally – of rock royalty?

For Today FM tastemaker Alison Curtis, domestic life with a Future King Of Spain (bassist Tony Hegarty, to be precise) has its ups and downs.
‘I’m one of the rock widows, as my friend Danielle would say,’ she observes, referring to Future Kings Of Spain’s recent (and successful) Asian tour. ‘The first few days (when Tony is away) suck. I always miss him terribly, then after that you really get into it, and you appreciate your space, and you get sloppier and take over the whole bedroom. They were away a lot in the spring, but not so much now because it’s festival season. Still, he’s good at keeping in touch while he’s away…better than I would be anyway. When I go anywhere, I just disappear off the scene altogether’.
Alison hints that behind Tony’s rock-star exterior lurks the makings of a great househusband.
‘I guess the regime would be to gut the place every once in a while and clean it, but sometimes we might let it slide. He’ll kill me for saying this, but Tony would definitely be tidier than I am. He subtly drops hints about my cooking every once in a while so I think he prefers to do that too. I do think that he reckons he’s better at cooking than I am. He’s more domestic, but then again he would probably be at home more than I am. I’m not a home that much; you know yourself, there’s something on in the city every night’.
Despite Alison’s well-worn status as a gal-about-town, she has surrounded herself with what can only be called the best in home entertainment. ‘We’ve got lots of Fusball tables and dartboards and stuff,’ she laughs. ‘I’m more partial to the magnetic darts lately. John Walshe (FM104) got me this ‘Peer Pong’ table, which is a ping pong table with a space where you can leave your beer on top!’
As high priestess of the Smithfield Massiiive, Alison maintains that her ‘home comforts’ come in handy for entertaining the locals.
‘Ollie (Cole) is on the corner next to us, and the Bell X1 boys are on the street over,’ she says of her Smithfield location. ‘Once we had everyone back to ours after a session in the Cobblestone and it turned into the Olympics – two people on the Fussball, three on ping pong, four on the darts. I’m so competitive, so I have to have these games around’.
Of course, Smithfield is not just a handy place within which to cock an ear to the Irish music scene. ‘You don’t have to have obnoxiously expensive cab rides everywhere,’ she observes. ‘It’s also pretty handy for work. It’s the first time since I moved here that I’ve lived in an area where lots of people hang out. I was living in Glasnevin and Drumcondra and no-one was around me’.
It’s all a far cry from the girl who arrived in Ireland with a mere 15 CDs on her person.
‘I was travelling around Europe for three months, and I had a knapsack which had three pairs of grotty trousers in it. I forwarded a box to a friend of mine here from home and when I opened it, I didn’t pack in anything useful; a bathrobe and a few pictures…that was it’.
‘I had about 15 CDs in a soft-pack, and now my collection is just embarrassing,’ she maintains. ‘There’s 1000 CDs there, and that’s after a clearout! I was in a huge house in Glasnevin and now I’m in a smaller apartment, so I needed to downside during the move. I was actually very military about it.’
The CD collection, not surprisingly, has all the markings of a hardcore music fan.
‘I have a lot of the re-issues, the albums that have been re-mastered, I’ve wrangled the back catalogues, like AC/DC and the Blondie box set,’ she says. ‘I have lots of new stuff from independents in the US and UK, like the Kill Rock Stars label. I send them e-mails and they mail me the hard-to-get stuff. Having said that, I do buy at least 5 a week, and they’re usually the older ones or buying stuff I already have. I bought the Daisy Chainsaw’s ‘Eleventeen’ on the weekend, and something by Gossip, an all-girl band on Kill Rock Stars. I don’t have a lot of vinyl, I was thinking about it the other day and my collection made me really sad. It’s like under 30, I’ll have to start collecting vinyl.’
Though she, not surprisingly, displays an insatiable appetite for music, she is decidedly less enthusiastic about DVDs.
‘The whole DVD thing is not catching on with me,’ she concludes. ‘DVDs really passed me by, which is strange because I used to be a huge video fan. I know this sounds really girly, but I don’t understand DVD players…like, how many machine options do I need? I need play, forward and stop, and that’s it! Still, I just got the Cheers box set. I have all the TV ones; Six Feet Under, Sopranos, and Sex & The City of course! I also got Lost In Translation recently. It was one I specifically requested’.
‘Specifically requested’ indicates that her job as Today FM’s Last Splash presenter holds plenty of blagging opportunities. ‘I won’t lie about the freebies,’ she responds. ‘We keep these hours for a good reason'