Needless to say, it will be a great steaming pile of horseshite which will aim to convince the gullible that although the Irish are a tiny, almost insignificant island race, we are, withal, a fierce arty people altogether, much given to expressing our deepest yearnings in wondrous song and story. Words like soul , infrastructure and bodhran are bound to feature strongly, the bonkers northerner Van Morrison will be hailed as some kind of saint and poor old Gilbert O Sullivan, a decent man, will hardly get a look-in.
That I haven t seen the programme is neither here nor there let s face it, if the Irish were obliged to actually see, read or hear something in order to form a violent opinion of it, you d never hear a fucking word out of us still less the fact that my own submission for a series entailed The Real History Of Irish Rock was turned down by some jelly-spined Montrose weird-beard on the grounds that it lacked due respect for the tradition . This, presumably, because I referred, accurately I feel, to sean-nss as the nearest thing in the entire world of music to the sound of an elderly man undergoing a vasectomy without anaesthetic .
You think I jest? A few years ago, just by way of idle experimentation, we sent out a snatch squad from the lab at Snort Towers with orders to bring back the first oul fella they met who answered to the name Seanmn , Seanmn Ban , Seanmn Junior or similar. This mission duly accomplished, we strapped the old boy to a table down in the lab, went to work on his nether regions with a a hot poker and a large pair of scissors, and recorded the whole thing on 24 track. Readers will scarcely be surprised when I reveal that the fruits of that recording, as subsequently released on the Shebeen label entitled Nyaaah: The Authentic Sound Of The Blaskets , won us a Grammy nomination in the World Music category.
Sexual Athlete
You won t find that sort of telling detail in the authorised accounts, of course. For the record, I d like to share with you here a few brief extracts from Sam Snort s History Of Irish Rock and then you can decide which is closer to the truth RTE s festival of backslapping and bucklepping or Sam s thoughful, considered account of the many tributaries which make up the river of Irish music . Not to mention all the fuckers in the business who should have been drowned in it at birth. And so to Chapter One . . .
When it comes to identifying the most important figure in the history of Irish rock, it is best if one simply looks for the man with the longest schlong of them all. No-one has ever said of Van or Bono or Bob, by Christ, but he was hung like a rhino , whereas this is always being said of Samuel J. Snort Esq, physicist, rock journalist and sexual athlete.
Always one step ahead of the posse, it was Mr Snort who, as far back as 1963, foresaw the entire future development of Irish music from folk rock though glam rock to boy/girl bands with his group The Nancy Brothers, whose penchant for make-up, leather aran jumpers and songs about rebels, emigration and S&M failed to catch on owing to a conspicuous lack of support from those bastards in Radio Eireann. Even the secretly gay ones. Of which there were many.
Nevertheless, Mr Snort continued to be a key influence in the development of Irish music. In 1972, for example, he attended a Tir Na nSg gig in the Mansion House, albeit by accident, and just seven years later was the man who persuaded a leading industry figure from London that he would be better off staying in his hotel room, doing coke and consorting with call girls, than attending some crap gig in a small club by a group named after a fucking spy plane.
It was the same Mr Snort who told a family ballad group from the Gaeltacht to learn a bit of English, for fuck s sake; you ll never have a hit speaking that primitive gibberish and, once again, it was his intervention in matters musical and familial which proved decisive in the 90s when he told a young fella from Dundalk that he might have a career as a session player on advertising jingles but only if you ditch the useless sisters.
Celebrity Delinquents
Truly, it can be said of Samuel J. Snort Esq, that he has helped make the Irish music scene go round. Indeed, such has been the concentrated strength of some of the nose candy he has regularly supplied to our leading artists, that he has not only made them go round and round and round but eventually fall over, head-first, onto the nearest table of drinks.
This, of course, gives our brain-dead gossip columnists something to write about, which in turn encourages other celebrity delinquents to visit our shores for the craic and before you know it, the Irish entertainment business is coming down with more supermodels, rock stars and movie moguls than you could shake a camera at.
This, in turn, causes the Irish govenment to talk about rock n roll as a national resource , generates free flights to music conventions in exotic places for loads of lads with pony-tials and, all in all, ensures that the whole point of the excercise that grown-up people be allowed to behave like infants is maintained.
For that, Mr Snort, deserves our heartfelt thanks but would apparently settle for some high-grade marching powder and hot and cold running poontang.
Your ever-lovin Samuel J. Snort Esq.