Fire The Scriptwriter

Category: The Album Diary

The Album Diary, days one to 65

Day one
Wednesday August 24

First, much of our time for the foreseeable here will be days of continuing to record our debut album and as we said a Diary or so ago, we won’t be chronicling that day by day or session by session. Instead we’ll wait until the album is done and then give a little (or not so little) rundown on how the recording of each song went. So expect whole chunks of days with little or no Diary content and assume we’re either in the studio or just doing not much of anything at all. Assume we’re in the studio.

But first we have to get there and we drive through Ireland today from the south and we’re back home by 1pm. During that last little leg we have a chat about this thing we do when we just turn up and play and decide to call it the Now Hustle.

Day two
Thursday August 25

Right. We’re going to have a nice few chilled non playing days and/or go into the studio. Not so. Maja decides she wants to carry right on playing and announces she’s found an open mic in Dublin tonight, which would make it our first ever Dublin appearance. Oh. OK. Yes. Lets. It’s at a place called Ma O’Reilleys in Rathmines in the southern area of the city, a little way from the main touristy hustle and bustle of Templebar.

We drive up there, all packed up with our usual car supplies. I’ve never gone on such a mission for an open mic before. Yet another first I suppose. We find Ma O’Reilleys and it looks really quite small from the street. But once inside, it goes back and back, as so many bars in Dublin do. And then, past the quite small initial bar area, you descend a small flight of stairs and there’s the wide open venue area. All old style, charming uneven floor and large upturned barrels for tables. You know the thing. Then, past the stage, the venue continues on the right hand side with even more seating and tables. These places really do go on and on.

We’re introduced to host Dave, otherwise known as Chef, and with that, we’re on the list and all set. Before it all starts, we chat to a few people and it’s generally a really welcoming atmosphere. In contrast to at least one open mic you may remember us playing in Hamburg where, while it wasn’t quite unwelcoming, the performers just didn’t mingle too much and we barely spoke to anyone. Here, as I expected really given my extensive experience of the Irish open mic scene, there really is a sense of community as we watch so many interactions going on all over the place. And some of them come and say hello to us. Berlin was a bit like this too to be fair. We also chat to a guy sitting behind us who’s never played an open mic, but would like to and is here tonight to see how it all goes down. It’s really cool to be able to give him a few pointers and, hopefully, a little encouragement for his own future performances.

When our turn comes, Maja heads to the stage and I hang back somewhere in the middle of the room, guitar on. Our wireless is all plugged into the mixing desk and we’re ready to go. As Maja’s standing there, one of the earlier performers sees me all primed and comes up to me to ask when I’m going on. Now, I say. I’m with her. ‘Oh, I really didn’t realise. OK.’ With that, I can see the very real interest with which he is now regarding us, one performer on stage, the other essentially still with the audience. And it begins. Maja holds the stage for a while as I charge all around the place. Then I make my way to the stage and it’s Maja’s turn to come out and roam. Then, when we hit a gentle part of our two song set I spot an empty stool at a large table near the stage with six or seven people sitting round it. I gently wander over to their table and sit down and join them, still playing while Maja continues to do her thing. Then, as we explode, I’m up again. Then we’re both on the stage, then exit stage right, exit stage left to continue to work the venue. Yep. We certainly are giving an account of ourselves at our first Dublin appearance and our first Irish open mic.

When it’s all over, we head back to our seats, greeted all the way down the venue. And especially at the back as our virgin open mic friend exuberantly receives us. When the time comes to leave, we’re called over by a few guys who are clearly among the top music dogs around here. First, they just want to say great show. Second, they eagerly want to tell us about another open mic in town we really should check out. At the Eile in Templebar. Brilliant. Thanks a lot lads. We’ll check it out.

Day three
Friday August 26

Right. Time to call Roy, our prospective Irish booker, or whatever it is he’s thinking of doing with us. Remember him? He’s the guy who said he saw us in our last show at The Trap. The 3 Arena booking guy who said he could get us big shows and we should call when we get back from Europe. It’s with some anticipation that I’ve been waiting to make that call and the time is now. I call from my English number, the number that’s on our cards. No reply. Oh. That’s anticlimactic. It happens. OK. A little later I call from my Irish number. The phone is answered and I introduce myself as Mark from The Diaries. The line cuts. I call again and get an engaged tone. OK. Phone issues. So I send an SMS. Mark here, guy you saw and asked to get in touch. Phone issues. Call me when you get the chance. I am paraphrasing here. I’ll tell you now, that message is never replied to and no call comes. This is disappointing to say the least and we’re having trouble getting our heads round it. We have to conclude that Roy’s been round the town for ages talking himself up and basically acting the big I Am. Then when he’s introduced to someone and actually has to deliver, he’s essentially and inadvertently had his bluff called. Now the time has come and he can’t actually follow up and deliver on anything he’s always said he is. Meaning the guy’s a bluffer, an imposter, a fraud and a general spouter of hot air. It becomes clear what’s happened. I’ve called on my UK number, the number on the card and he’s recognised it and ignored it – Oh damn. I can’t talk to those guys. I have nothing and I’m just going to be exposed for the charlatan and big talking wannabe that I am. Then, when I’ve called on the Irish number, he’s quickly realised I’ve got him and hung up in a panic. Now he’s been found out, backed into a corner and he has no idea how to respond. So he doesn’t. Maybe he’s decided he doesn’t like us afterall, you may be thinking. Maybe. Well, the big man, or an actual real big man, would take the call, apologise, say he’s decided we’re not quite for him afterall and wish us luck. But no. The second he’s been asked to step up and stand behind his words he’s gone and hid behind them instead. Pathetic. And yeah. As we absorb his failed contact with reality, initially very disappointing. We really thought we had something here. But all along, that little token of promise we’ve been carrying around with us for the past few weeks has turned out to be a forgery all along. Oh well. We carry on.

We do that immediately with Maja talking to the Songwriter Collective running that open mic we were told about at Bar Eile. We’re on the list for this coming Wednesday.

Day four
Saturday August 27

We haven’t yet done it but we have had a go at trying to couch surf on our tours, but ended up doing the hostel/hotel/camping thing. But we’re on the system so if you’re asking you really have to be offering as well, and we are. This afternoon we receive our first guest, an American living in Dublin and having a bit of a bike travel around the country. At around 4pm we’re very happy to welcome Quirk to our house and he’s a fantastic guest and the three of us just get into it with a lovely lazy afternoon. It’s pretty cool when we take him out back to show him where he can park his bike and also to introduce him to our back garden. He’s totally blown away when he sees what this place is. An enormous gravel and moss expanse dominated by two old style 19th century ruined mill buildings, in between which you walk to come to the river at the bottom of it all. Yes, it is a spectacular setting to be living in and to have as your own private garden. And fantastic to experience the wonder of it through someone else’s eyes.

After that, we settle a bit, then it’s drinks in the garden in the shadow of ‘our’ mill buildings. Then a roast dinner before we head out to introduce him to some of the wonderful nightspots of Clara, in tonight’s case, The Trap and then Nigel’s Place. He’s found us by reading this very Diary and decided he just had to see our world for himself. So yeah, before we go out we give him a live blast in the kitchen of I Like You (Better When You’re Naked). Out into The Trap and the regulars do us proud, especially when I introduce Quirk for the first time and one of our friends sings back at me, ‘I like you better when you’re naked.’ Yep. He’s now seen it for himself. It really happens.

Day five
Sunday August 28

After a great night last night, which continued back at ours until sometime around 3/4am, we’re all off to bed. We knew Quirk was off this morning by 7:30am. We said goodbye last night. No way we were getting up that early. We come down to a wonderful bottle of wine sitting on the kitchen table. Class. He could have presented it last night and had us say thankyou and everything, but then we all know it would have been opened last night – what else would you do? But no. He clearly wanted us to have it to ourselves and us alone, so he’s just dropped it silently into being. Thankyou very much night. It was amazing to meet you and what a wonderful night.

Day five
Wednesday August 31

Another day, another Dublin open mic. This time at Bar Eile just south of Templebar. We get there early because we intend to do a bit of a hustle around Templebar. This is intended to be a Now Hustle, so we may get a show or two or even three in before the open mic tonight. Just imagine that. Turning up to an open mic for the first time and telling people you’ve already played three shows that day. Afterall, we managed to play four times by around 8pm in The Hague in our one day there, so Templebar? We’ve really got this, right?

Wrong.

I really don’t want to get into writing detail about this. Bottom line. It took us around four hours and six kilometres of walking and hustling to discover that Templebar is not the place for us. Not a single sausage could be found. Sure, original gigs do happen plenty around here. But for a Diaries’ Now Hustle, that dog just don’t hunt. Everywhere, and I mean everywhere, was coverbar city or just not suitable for us – a lot of bars with lots of different little sections and alcoves. Lovely for hangouts, not so lovely for creating an all in it together show atmosphere. That’s not to say the day went off without its mild interest in what we were doing, but to actually get in and play somewhere, just no. Like Galway, we discovered that Templebar is just too bang on tourist and cover oriented with so many bars having booking agents, or their music just totally tied up. And with it being a Now Hustle, we carried our gear around for those six kilometres without getting the relative rest of a gig. We’re hurting by the time we hobble back to Bar Eile. OK. At least we’ve learned a lesson from another crash and burn. Let’s just do a nice open mic, introduce ourselves to these lovely people and go home.

We do indeed find a friendly and welcoming crowd, and a few familiar faces from Thursday at Ma O’Reilleys. One of them, singer/ songwriter Mark L’estrange, runs his own podcast interviewing creative people including songwriters. We get talking to him and he really likes our story and asks if he could do an interview with us there and then. Brilliant. Yes. He’s as delighted as we are as he says he’s never done of these live and in situ before. So we do our first ever interview as an open mic is going through its soundcheck.

You can hear that here:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1HNfnzlTVgJkA6JamzPSl3
And see Mark’s Spotify site here:
https://open.spotify.com/show/5TCdO32br6Kphg2cCTnmiq

As for this being an open mic, it isn’t actually called that, instead it’s called the Songwriter Collective and is run by email with all the performers already arranged to play and is in a function room above the pub meaning that while it is actually open to the public, it’s not so much advertised or set up as such. This is a place for songwriters to come together, play their songs to each other and maybe try out their own new material in a forgiving and supportive environment. Cool. We’re down with that.

When our turn comes, we blast into I Like You (Better When You’re Naked) with Maja on the stage area and me running all around the place. She will have her turn out here of course as we develop and get into our thing. Only, tonight is one of those nights and we don’t. Halfway through I sense something’s wrong. The guitar’s tuning seems off. Then, as I’m pondering this, the top string just goes. It just goes. Bang and it’s broken. I stop, then Maja, confused, stops, and I say, ‘Sorry guys. A string has just broke.’ Then someone points out that no it hasn’t. Instead, the string bridge pin – the thing that holds the string – has come loose. Oh. OK. I pop it back, retune, and we’re off again. We just about limp to the end of the song when I see that it’s come loose again and, like our painful walk that got us to this venue in the first place, I barely limp along to the end. I do this by trying to stay away from the E string as much as possible. That done, I try to get the pin back in again but it just ain’t happening. I’ll say now that this is all happening live on stage with an expectant audience and I want to get the show back on the road, like, now. So it’s fair to say my presence of mind to do the right thing isn’t quite right. The right thing would be to calmly take the peg out altogether, detune the string, then put the peg in, just like you were restringing a guitar, and tune up again. All sorted. But no. I’m trying to get it in with the string fully tuned up. I even start to try to hammer it in with the capo – gently-ish. But hammering and generally making banging noises all the same. Do not try that at home. Or at an open mic with an audience of musicians watching. No-one will lend you a guitar. Or something like that. Another thing that could happen is your string bridge pin could totally break in two.

So that’s all we get to do and I am not a happy bunny. In the heat of the moment, all I can think is, one broken guitar. In the middle of a show. But it’s only a pin thing, but still, apart from the guitar, that’s one broken performance and we’ve come all this way, walked all round what is essentially the capital of Ireland’s music scene for no result, and now this. Not even a full account of one song after driving – and walking – all this way.

But yet again, we discover we only need one song to make an impact and that sometimes it really can all be about just making that three or so minutes happen. After we’ve stayed to enjoy the rest of the performances, we have a steady stream of people coming to greet us and say how much of an impact we had tonight. A standout is someone who says, ‘You guys had us pinned to the wall.’ OK. We have managed to make it all worth it.

Day 25
Tuesday September 20

It’s that time again, with Maja taking a 10 day trip to visit Sweden. So take it that not much is going to happen in Diaryland until at least the first days of October.

Day 37
Sunday October 2

Maja’s birthday and we decide this is going to be done with a day out in Athlone. And we really do Athlone quite well, hitting all the bars we’ve seen and hustled and really liked the look of. Sean’s Bar, the first place we hit, remains the highlight of what is a great day. Apart from anything else, this is possibly the oldest bar in the world; no-one actually knows for a fact the oldest, but Sean’s Bar dates back to the 900s and, at the very least, is acknowledged as the oldest bar in Europe. And what a place. The main front bar, while wonderfully appointed, feels like a trip back in time, complete with a part of the original ancient wall mounted behind glass. The bar staff are knowledgeable, proud of their place of work, and enthusiastic to answer questions and engage in discussion about the building and it’s history, or anything else you care to chat about really. Including guiding you through the drink options. Yes, they really know their stuff in here.

Then, if you pass through the bar, there’s is plenty more to explore as the place has expanded and expanded through the years. It just goes on and on, right out back and up a flight of stairs and into a whole other bar. Empty right now, but also with a great selection and all set up for a birthday party for later. We hi-jack the party decorations and take a few photos with Maja, making it look like all this was laid out for her.

After Sean’s Bar, we also take in Peddlar Macs, a huge and cavernous live music venue which we have almost all to ourselves right now. So we settle in at the bar, chat to the bar staff and watch the football. Then it’s off to The Dark Horse. This is a venue we’ve always very much wanted to play, but anytime we’ve been here, there’s been either no manager around or the staff has simply been too busy to really be able to try to talk to. It’s like that today as well but anyway, we’re not on the hustle. Instead, we settle in as punters only and enjoy the attentions of the very friendly and accommodating staff. While here, it’s time for lunch/dinner, and that’s provided with a simply amazing nacho plate. Three bars and Athlone, you have served us very well today. We might have visited more places, but with the footy on, a few bars were too rowdy for our purposes here today, so we very happily take what we got.

Now for the train back to Clara and once there, we continue with the day, first dropping into Dolans. We’re there, enjoying a quiet pint and chatting with a few of the regulars when Maja gets a gentle tap on the shoulder. It’s someone saying a friend of theirs has recognised us from seeing us live. That friend has only ever seen us on video, was too shy to come herself, and we’re now being asked if we could go down into the next bar room to meet her and get some pictures. Absolutely. Down we go – it’s a split level bar, so a few steps down. We meet the friend who says very little and doesn’t even look at us that much. We happily pose for pictures with her. Then everyone else with her wants to have their picture taken with us too. We’re only too happy to do that as well. That done, it’s us who gratefully offer our thanks, and we head back up. ‘The price of fame eh?’ says one of our companions. Yeah. Apparently that happens to us now.

After this, we go to The Trap to finish off. There, word of Maja’s birthday gets around and she’s pulled into dancing with a whole bunch of people before having Happy Birthday sung for her. What a wonderful way to round off what has been an absolutely fantastic day.

Day 41
Thursday October 6

We decide to take some time out from recording to go hustling again. You might remember we checked out Mullingar some time ago, so today we go to do it for real. When we arrive and park, we see a pub straight across the road and go and introduce ourselves. The place is called Columbia, and the manager is outside the main bar under some kind of alcove and organising the slightly outdoor seating area. We have a quick chat with him and immediately he’s like, ‘Yeah sure. Come back at eight. We have a comedy night on. You can play before that if you want.’ Job done.

Out and back into the town and we think about places we saw last time, and decide to go for a bar called Dolans. We go in and it’s all a slightly older crowd. The guy behind the bar, who’s called Kian, is a supervisor rather than a manger, but in a rare departure from convention, he says no problem. Go for it. Brilliant. He may well have been prompted by the locals’ reaction to us turning up with a guitar because as soon as we walked in, they perked up and asked if we were going to play for them. ‘If the boss will have it,’ I say. Cue Kian.

We start to set up and people start to ask what we play. When we say it’s poprock and our own originals, some disappointment goes up that we’re not trad. One guy actually finishes his pint and walks out in some level of protest or disappointment, but everyone else stays, fuelled by a quite strong sense of curiosity.

As soon as we start, we feel their polite curiosity turn to, first something approaching acceptance, then, among some at least, maybe even a gleeful enjoyment. We’re doing well if there’s ten people in here, but almost all of them are tapping their feet and some are trying to sing along. Yes. Early walkout notwithstanding, we have won this little crowd over.

We play our four songs and then finish with all good wishes being called out. Now we head to a bar called Dalys. It’s a little after 7pm and if we can get a quick yes, we can fit another gig in before Columbia.

In Dalys we meet barmen Dan and John who say the manager is around somewhere. We wait a while, with Dan in particular being very interested to hear what we’re about. But time ticks by and there’s no sign of the manager. We’re asked if we can come back another day, but no. We’re doing Mullingar today and no idea when we might return. It’s clear the manager is far too busy to see anyone and time starts to press us to get to Columbia for eight. We thank Dan and John for their time and interest and head on over.

Once in Columbia, we’re led through the bar to the comedy room, which is in a small beer garden, meaning it’s outside. Oh OK. Cool. Maja is wearing her most flamboyantly colourful jacket meaning people assume she’s a comedian. Well, she is here to perform so it’s good she stands out. But no. We’re here to do our thing before the comedy. While Maja sets up, I go back out into the bar area to tell people who we are, what we do, and to let them know we’re about to start. I succeed in pulling a few people in, one of whom is a fledgling singer songwriter himself and really keen to check us out.

It’s not quite 8pm, but the small beer garden is now about as full as it can be so we might as well start. All I can say is we just rock the place. We’re all over it, with Maja at times totally dominating the stage and then the whole space. By the time we’re finished, after five songs and an encore, we’re totally spent and it feels the audience isn’t far behind us. I think we’ve set it all up pretty well for the comedians now. Come in and do your thing. We were planning on sticking around for some of that, but we think it’s the right time now to just say thankyou and make an exit and head on home. No more hustling for tonight. So that’s what we do.

Day 42
Friday Oct 7

Another day, another hustle. And why not? Let’s just keep going. Dublin today, or more accurately, the outskirts of Dublin, as we decided after our Templebar debacle. And to be even more accurate, Dalkey. A wonderful looking small town we discovered last Friday on a drive and walk around after a city based errand. It’s a really lovely looking, high end town, full of images you might see on a postcard and restaurants for that special occasion. And it fits into our thoughts of hustling out of centre Dublin towns to try to attack Dublin that way rather than penetrate the centre which, as we discovered, is already pretty sewn up. If we can build a reputation in Dublin out here, maybe that could carry us into the centre.

We start at the top of the town, planning to work our way down. We do that very quickly because every venue says no, although we do get a few invitations to come back some other time. This isn’t quite as brutal a rejection as it may seem. In some places the manager wasn’t around, while a few have other things going on tonight so experimenting with something brand new and unseen isn’t really on their agenda. Fair enough.

We get to the end of the road – literally – and all that’s left to try is the Dalkey Duck. We go in and meet the manager, Joel, just as he’s leaving for the night. He has his coat on, backpack. All ready to go. But he stops and is happy to have a little chat with us and listen to our pitch. Very simply, he says, ‘I likek it. Have a look around. See where you think and go for it.’

And so we do, setting ourselves up in the centre of four sections of a very alcoved bar. So we’re not really playing to any section, but are instead able to wander about and have a go at all of them. And yes it works. We really work all the areas, pull most people into seeing what we’re about, and yes, they very much talk to the hat afterwards. Dalkey, and especially Joel, you came through in the end. Thankyou very much.

Having exhausted the possibilities here, we’re not entirely sure what to do next so we decide to head on home, but avoid the motorway for a while to keep an eye out for potential places. In this way we find ourselves driving through the village of Sallynoggins, which has one huge pub, seemingly situated behind a petrol station. We go and park up and walk in with all our hustling gear. When we do this, we do this ready to go, even if the car is right outside and it’s the only place in town/the village.

We go in and the place really is absolutely cavernous. There’s a bar at the far end, not much tableage in between us and it, and all the way off to the left are some stairs leading up to another raised level which could be a huge stage if they chose to play it that way. It looks like the place could hold a few thousand people all standing and staring at that stage if someone were to take on that challenge. As for the locals, they really aren’t taking advantage of this enormous place they have and most action is around the bar with high tables there, and people sitting around the actual thing. We go and are directed towards a guy called Dylan who, like Kian just yesterday in Mullingar, is a supervisor rather than a manager. But, just like Kian, he very quickly and easily says, ‘Cool with me guys,’ and points us to the actual stage area, across from the bar and in the corner, to the right of the front door as you come in. We go and set up over there and almost immediately, stage lighting comes on and bathes us. But we have no intention of staying here for our show.

As we set up, a few regulars are very interested to hear what’s about to happen, and a few in particular really want to hear our story and totally love it. They’re sold. The whole place then starts to take note as me and Maja set ourselves up in totally different areas of the bar, and signal to each other that we’re ready. And bang, off we go. This is a really special show which at times sees us being almost 20 yards apart and working totally different parts of the bar at the same time. I concentrate quite a lot on the high ‘stage’ area to the left which has six or seven young guys hanging around a table next to a pool table. Oh, they love that. And even more when Maja comes up to join me and we really do turn this area into a stage from which to perform to the whole populace from up on high. Then we go back down and generally just meander and prowl all over the huge floor, then at times into the more intimate feeling bar surroundings. And of course we give our new friends plenty. Dalkey might have been a tad of a letdown, although it got salvaged in the end, but Sally Noggins is what’s made today’s trip out here truly worthwhile. It really is one of the big and memorable ones for us.

Day 46
Tuesday October 11

A momentous day today as we receive the email we’ve been waiting for. It contains an attachment of our first mixed and mastered, ready for release album track. I Like You (Better When You’re Naked). This goes straight up on around 15 platforms through an online distribution service. It’s been a long, hard studio road to get here, but The Diaries are finally out into the real world.

Day 49
Sunday October 16

Maja:
We’re still feeling a little bit tired from the emotional roller coaster it’s been to host our couchsurfer friends and from losing our shower and replacing it with visits to the swimming pool. But today, it’s time to go gigging again. Or at least try to.

As the evening draws near the rain continues to fall. I mean we’re no strangers to rain here in Ireland, but this is something spectacular. Last night I woke up at 3 AM to the biggest skyfall I’ve experienced so far. It wasn’t like pitter patter, it was like, SPLASH! And as the evening draws near, it’s picking up again. We load the car up at around 7 pm, and have to run from the house to the parking lot just to avoid the equipment from being destroyed by rain. As I set out on the road, the rain is absolutely smashing down. It’s just picking up more and more. I have the wipers on max and wish they could go faster as I struggle to drive 30 m/h on a 100 km/h dark country road. This is by far the strongest rainfall in which I’ve ever driven.

As we arrive at the Pull Inn in Pollagh, the rain shows no sign of stopping. We park up next to the door, grab our gear, and run in through the door, not having any idea what’s going to await us inside.

The pub is packed. It’s a small pub but it is absolutely packed and some people are even standing without any barchairs close by just having a pint. And now everyone is looking at us. We’re smiling as the most common question gets asked ‘Are you going to play here tonight?’ ‘Maybe, we’re just asking for permission first’. And with that we make our way into the bar, and ask the bargirl. She runs to ask her manager for permission. As she’s doing this, the owner of the bar, Gary, walks in through the entry doorway. ‘Oh, The Diaries! How are ye doin? Ye playing tonight?’

Now we are.

We start setting up, which is now a very quick process with minimal equipment. Mark goes away to tune up the guitar, and I connect our PA to a plug socket I find in a corner somewhere and turn on our wireless equipment for my microphone and Mark’s guitar. When Mark comes back from tuning we do a short line check for the levels, ‘one, two’. Then we’re off. It’s literally this simple nowadays. If we use the toilet and ask for some water at the bar which we usually do, the whole thing takes maybe five minutes. It’s incredibly smooth and quick and everyone is so used to it taking more time so we’re always met with impressed surprised faces.

And off we go. I Like You (Better When You’re Naked). And the crowd of maybe 20 people is shouting, cheering and bobbing along. It just continues like this. And when I hit the money notes, the big notes that continue for a really long time, I can hear how the crowd is just exploding into applause, going harder and harder with their shouts the more I carry on. It’s amazing. Just such a confidence boost for me.

In this manner we do four songs, and an encore. Then, as we get ready to do the hat, thinking we’re done, we get convinced to just keep going. Forget the encore. Just keep going. This is coming from Gary, the owner, and everyone is cheering him on. We have to do this.

It’s a bit much for me vocally to keep up only playing big songs like this, but we go for it. Another three songs. And oh my god. I wish we had been recording this. This is just the best gig so far. The cheers are deafening, the crowd are completely getting into it. It’s like we transformed this little countryside bar into the coolest rock concert on earth. That’s what it feels like.

As we finish, I’m also screaming yeah, at the top of my lungs, with my hands in a victory pose over my head, totally embracing the explosion of the pub.

As we’re packing up to leave, something that’s never happened to me before happens. A stranger comes up to me, shakes my hand and tells me ‘You are an amazing singer.’ Thank you so much. No-one ever praises the singer. I think it’s just assumed that they know they’re good because if the band gets praise, that means the singer gets praise as well. People don’t really feel the need to tell the singer specifically that they were amazing. So to finally be told this, is amazing to me. Wow.

Mark:

All that stuff Maja just said about singers rarely being singled out for praise is, in my experience with many fantastic singers I’ve worked with, absolutely true.

Now into the car we go. And the rain has stopped. If it hadn’t, we would have gone straight home, probably at super slow speed again. But as it is, after a show like that, let’s just keep going. And we feel like going safe. So Ferbane it is to target Hennessy’s, where Fionulla was such a supporter of ours. But when we get there, the place is totally empty, apart from one guy who looks at us like we’ve just dropped out of the sky before suggesting we try Gleesons down the road. Everyone’s in there, he says, and he’ll be popping down himself soon.

So we go and have a go at hustling Gleesons. The manager’s up for it so we set up, introduce ourselves around the bar, and hit our first song. It feels OK, but just kind of a little bit off. We finish to a smattering of applause and we hesitate a little as we think of what to play next. This isn’t our usual kind of exuberant flow. As we’re just deciding on Rock’n’Roll Tree, the manager, says, ‘Sorry lads, this just isn’t the place for it tonight.’ Oh. OK. It happens. He sounds apologetic as he continues, ‘Some old university friends are in here for a catch up after quite a few years and they really just want to talk rather than have loud music going on, and they came in here because it was quiet.’ You know what? Fair enough. But it’s still not a nice feeling to have to go and meekly take your gear down after being told to stop playing. We do it with good grace, and a few of the guys in here are kind enough to make a point to tell us they were really enjoying it and it’s a shame we’re having to leave. Again. OK. Great. Thankyou very much.

So we head back off to the car, passing Hennessy’s on the way. As we do, the guy who directed us to Gleesons comes out. We stop and chat to him and he introduces himself as Tommy. He’s massively surprised we’re not playing and says he was on his way to see us. We tell him what happened, and then he tells us what just happened to him. It seems he was a bit too shocked to say anything earlier on. He’s been following us online through our Youtube videos for some time, he says. He’s been into all our adventures across Europe, especially Germany, and just assumed we were a German based band. Then, out of nowhere, on a ridiculously quiet night in his local, we just walked in the door. This European internationally travelling band he’s become a fan of. He just had no idea how to react. It seemed too surreal and simply not possible. And now he’s equally shocked to hear that not only are we actually based in Ireland, but just a few miles down the road from him in the tiny town of Clara. He’s also quite disappointed that, once he’d got over his shock, that he had the opportunity to see us live, and now we’ve been stopped from playing. We tell him we’re thinking of heading to Banaher now, the next town further down the road. We can’t guarantee him a show, but would he like to come with us. Yes. Yes, he would love that. As we get in the car and set off, he says, ‘I feel famous now. I can’t believe I’m actually in the touring car with The Diaries.’ Oh wow. We really can’t let him down. This hustle has to work.

I am delighted to report that once we get to Banaher, we decide on the large, well lit and lively looking corner bar, named for some reason, The Corner House. We arrive just 20 minutes before closing and once he hears we’re only looking for a short show, the manager in there is well up for it, and all the regulars are equally keen. After what I’m sure has been a lovely but quietish evening, they now have the prospect of some live music to round it all off. We give them exactly what they had no idea they were looking for. Or probably they even weren’t, but here it is. Diary Shaped, Pollagh warmed up, Ferbane rejected, and fully up for it now. And this lively and happy crowd is with us every step of the way. Up front, mingling very nicely, and euphoric in something like disbelief, Tommy is almost acting as cheerleader. A few nights ago we had it really big at Sallynoggins. What’s happening here tonight is just all different kinds of levels of special. And as I said, The Pull Inn happened earlier on too and it’s so easy to forget that. A gig of that magnitude, almost wiped from our memories just an hour or so later by even more epic events. What an amazing turnaround, and what a rollercoaster night.

After saying a triumphant goodbye to The Corner House as we’re clapped and cheered out the door for the second time tonight – a night which also included a bar telling us to stop, just to remind you of that – we drive a wonderfully satiated Tommy back home, receiving his thanks for a memorable night, and seeing him off with warm hugs as he joyfully walks home. I really think this is one night that will stay with him. It certainly will with us.

Day 50
Monday October 17

After Dalkey and Sallynoggin, we return to Dublin tonight to tackle Maynooth. Or so we think. It looks like a largish town, but we discover it mainly has just four or five bars on the edge and that’s it. And none of them are suitable for us so we bypass our first target and head to Leixlip.

We don’t find much there either. We see a bar with just a few people in it having a very quiet time and think, why not? We’re met by a lovely manager and I’m really sorry, I didn’t record or remember her name. She says they have bands in the back bar and we’re welcome to set up and play there and see what happens. There’s no-one in the back bar, but we’re here, the staff are up for it, so we decide to just settle in and treat it like a rehearsal, although yes, just like any other show, we really go for it. The difference being that tonight, Maja mainly sings to just me as we wander all over this vast shiny polished floor we have all to ourselves. A few people meander through on their way to the back garden, or to the toilet and back, and they give off positive vibes, but no-one stays. Now and again a member of the barstaff comes and joins us in mildly perplexed but enjoyable curiosity. We play five songs to absolutely no fanfare and declare ourselves done. Maja also says her voice can take no more, so that’s it for tonight. This is our Dublin trip for today.

Then we walk through to the other bar. We think we’re heading straight for the door and out, but no. A group of guys call us over to their table and all get their wallets out and put money in our hands. Oh wow. We have the hat handy, so in it goes. Thankyou so much. Then another table, then another until we’re comfortably over our average take for a show. This really is unbelievable. The Diary adventure has seen many surprises and unexpected twists and turns. In its own strange way, what we experience here tonight is right up there.

Day 52
Wednesday October 19

We think we’re going to hustle Tullamore tonight but when we get there we realise we’ve made the rookie mistake of forgetting to check if there’s any live soccer on. Oh well. Back home and back into recording. Just as we get started, the phone rings and it’s Peadars in Moate, asking if we could play tonight. Well, yes, we could. We stop the session there and then and head on out.

This turns into just the most amazing gig. As soon as we walk in the door a cheer goes up from around the bar. There are 15 to 20 people in here, a lot of people in such a small space. We play five songs, then yes, a big encore call. Then another encore call, which we also play, then we say thankyou very much, and goodnight. But no. The calls keep going up and up. We don’t do third encores. But tonight is going to be different. As we’re insistently packing up, one of the regulars grabs the bar keys and locks the front door. ‘You’re going nowhere now,’ he says triumphantly. We’ve been kidnapped. The ransom: More of our own original songs. Is he joking? Is he serious? We take it as a good natured prank, but hey, if someone wants it that much, you really might as well just give it to them anyway. So yes. Of course we do. Encore? Not really. Let’s just carry on. We must do OK because they do actually let us out. Thanks guys.

Day 53
Thursday October 20

If you’ve been with us from the beginning, you’ll know that we’ve been pretty much living on Maja’s savings and other associated finances for some time and always knew it wouldn’t last forever. Way way back when, when Maja first floated the idea that we really go for this and just keep going as long as we could in a full time capacity, she said that if and when the time came, she would get another job in the same industry and we would just keep on going. Well now that time has come. With that, we start to discuss what this actually means. A big part of us wants to stay in Ireland and keep this as a base and travel and tour around like we have been doing. A lot of the kind of work Maja does can be remote working, often fully remote working and we have discussed this kind of thing a lot and at times kind assumed this was what would happen if and when the time came. But why not open up to possibilities as well? We’re only considering major cities where we could really make The Diaries work, but those cities kinda go hand in hand with tech jobs as well so the synergy really is there. The big ones pop out effortlessly. London, New York, Tokyo, Clara. Why not? If it’s remote, the opportunities then become where we make them. So London, New York, Tokyo or Clara it is with our preferences half leaning towards just staying here and branching out, and half towards London because, well, I have a history there. And Maja really fancies fully experiencing real London rather than the lockdown London she saw the first time around. We did get our week or so there back in December, but even then, it was clear things hadn’t yet got properly swinging again.

So yeah. It’s that time.

But first, we hustle.

Athlone.

First stop is Flannerys where we had a really cool little impromptu session one day. The lady behind the bar is reticent, saying there’s no point and that no-one will give anything here, but she’s also resignedly like, if you want to try, go for it.

So we do. It quickly becomes clear that some of the tables just want to talk, so after a fast start, we reread the room and just go for a gentle set. This produces one of the biggest hat takes we’ve ever had.

Now we head to Careys where we meet a rowdy English crowd just coming out. When they hear we’re going to try to play, a cheer raises up and they walk in with us. The bar lady looks up, sees what we’ve brought in, and is well up for it when we say what we want to do, especially seeing we’ve just brought a whole crowd of at least 10 people back into her bar. Then the mood changes as our new ‘friends’ ask what we’re going to do. As soon as we proudly say it’s all our own songs the mood changes. They are not interested. At. All. Dismayed disappointment turns to aggression. ‘You’ve got to play some Irish. You’ve got to play songs we know. Nope. We’re doing our thing and you’re going to love it. No. We’re out of here. Come on. We’re going. That’s the apparent leader of the group. A few of the ladies really want to stay and see what we have, especially when we realise we have seconds to rescue the situation and so start up with Naked. Of course we do. Two or three of the ladies love it, but I think the leader guy just doesn’t want to be seen to have backed down or changed his mind, especially when he made up that mind with zero information other than knowing what we weren’t going to do. Come on, we’re leaving. His aggression has transferred to them now and it becomes more insistent and impatient and yes, maybe even threatening, as they get more and more into us, calling the rest of the group to come and join them. The mister ain’t having it. This has become almost a challenge to his authority and he just can’t have that. He doesn’t quite grab them and pull them out, but he looks like he certainly wants to and it may well only have been a matter of time. The ladies look at us almost with apology, or maybe more, disappointment on their own part. Then, cowed like naughty children, they follow their master out into their night of fun.

As soon as they’ve gone, the atmosphere in the bar changes dramatically. It had started all cheers, giggles and smiles. Then descended into something quite dark, a new experience for us. Now it’s just quiet. Just five or six people dotted about the place quietly having a drink. We don’t really know what to do. We certainly can’t continue with the raucousness we started with in a vain attempt to win that drunken, narrow minded English crowd.

Now we meet Bridget, the manager, and Joe, the regular hanging out with her at the end of the bar, and they ask us to continue, but maybe give them something a little less lively. We start and immediately everyone turns their backs, a few people start talking at normal volume and one guy shakes his head and walks out. We get halfway through – what song it is I actually can’t remember – and I do something I’ve never done before. I stop playing mid song and say to Maja. Come on. It’s clear we’re not wanted here. Let’s go. Without acknowledging anyone, we just start to pack up.

I could not have begun to have predicted what happens next. Bridget and Joe begin the protest, saying we have to carry on. Please. The few guys in the bar join in and ask if we could. Oh. OK.

So, totally unplugged now, we stand in front of the bar and take it down a few other notches, choosing to play our most gentle versions of our most gentle songs. Breakthrough, Smile Is Going Round, Wide Blue Yonder. Each time we’re met with something like, is that really your own song? This is a new, quiet kind of wonder and what had started off very tense, then descended into just fraught, is now possibly our most chilled gig ever. Followed by another great result for the hat, which Bridget kicks off by dropping in a 20. Everyone else in the bar follows her lead. Then Bridget goes even further, asking us if we would have enough original songs for a 45 minute set. Yes, we would. So she asks if we could play a gig in her other place, The Canal Turn in Ballymahon, a couple of Sundays away on Oct 30. Yes we could. We leave this venue in a state of shock. What an absolute mash up of emotions and experiences that was.

On the way home, we decide we’re not done. We’ve always wanted to play Paddy Ryans of Horseleap, the one bar in a one bar, well, street. Is it even a village? This is the bar that doubles as a general store. Go in the left door, bar. Go in the right, store. Then the store and the bar are run by the same person who just operates from behind the counter, then bar top.

We go in and see the lovely Brida, who’s said no a few times, but has always been encouraging, saying it could work if we were to turn up on the right night. It seems tonight is the right night and she gives us the nod. It’s still a quiet enough bar though and we don’t intrude too much. We kinda get things rocking a little, but for the most part we play our songs somewhere down the middle of the road, erring on the side of gentle. It works and the whole place is totally with us the whole time.

By the time we’ve finished and are in the car home, we’re looking at our most successful hat take for a night ever. And it’s been physically the easiest gig day we’ve ever done. We can often feel wrecked after one show. As we joyfully drive home, we almost feel like we haven’t played at all. Really. Did tonight even happen?

Day 54
Friday October 21

We’re planning on going out again tonight but we really are feeling a bit tired. Also, Maja doesn’t feel great in her voice so we leave it. We don’t even hit the studio.

Day 55
Saturday October 22

Yesterday is explained as we discover Maja is sick and will be deep into next week, meaning we have knock the gigs on the head for a while. But with an actual longer show in the book now, we want to start looking at bringing back a few songs we’ve not played for a while; we’re not looking at doing a smash set for The Canal Turn, rather a well paced 45 minute show. So we intend to look at a song called Run, which got bumped from the album but which we think still deserves a live chance. Then there’s Fire and Beanie Love which we’ve not played for ages. After that, we want to get onto writing a few unfinished but promising songs. Make Me Shine kinda fits that. It’s only been played once – in Antwerp when we still didn’t yet feel fully comfortable with it. Also, it still hasn’t totally been fully learned. What we did in Antwerp was a little bit of a mess of a jam and an imitation of what it was supposed to be, so this still feels like a new, unfinished one.

Then there’s A Thousand Doors. This has been floating around for ages. It began life in Sweden, then we knocked it around in our first hotel in Hamburg, but it still didn’t quite come together. But all that considered, we have high hopes for it. Enough that it even has a place on the album. We have a whole load of other new songs coming up in various stages of development. Among them is Give Me The World, a metal type song. I’ve wanted a metal type song in our repertoire for ages and this could be it. , so this will be coming up too. With all this considered, for the first time in ages, we prepare for a week of rehearsing and writing.

Day 57
Monday October 24

Just because we feel like it, we go into The Trap and organise a gig for Tuesday November 1. So that’s two full set gigs coming up now. With Maja far from 100 per cent, we reinforce our thoughts that it’s time to step back from intense gigging and hustling and get back to developing ourselves again for a while.

The album is also going far into back burner territory as Maja has to get on with the next stage of whatever it is she’s going to do. This process starts today with the first feelers going out to say she’s back on the market, along with all the admin that goes into that. With that, the recruiter calls start coming in. Our studio is now a full on tech job hunting office.

Day 60
Thursday October 27

It’s starting to look like a remote thing might be the most viable with Maja needing a visa to go, well, anywhere really. New York, Tokyo, London. Clara would still work though. But yeah, once the possibility of those cities start to get into you, especially with their respective music scenes, most of all London, which I know very well, and more importantly, on which I’m known at least moderately well, you do start to get a bit of an itch.

Day 63
Sunday October 30

After quite an intense, non musical week, we have a gig tonight. That one Bridget asked us to do at The Canal Turn in Ballymahon. It’s a full 45 minute gig and we really wanted to have some of our new songs ready for it – Give Me The World, A Thousand Doors, Make Me Shine. And yes, Beanie Love which isn’t a new song, but which we really haven’t been playing much. But rehearsal just hasn’t happened this week. We have enough to do it though anyway. We’ll just have to go and see what happens, although it’s fair to say neither of us really feels fully ready for a full set right now. Just as we’re getting ready to leave, we get a call from a bar we’ve never played in before asking if we’re available tonight. Oh wow. That’s a development and a slight level up. The phone’s starting to ring this end now. Unfortunately – or fortunately because it’s pretty cool to be able to say it to be fair – I have to say that we’re already booked tonight, sorry.

We make the 30 minute drive to Ballymahon and expectantly enter The Canal Turn, expecting the metaphorical bunting to be laid out for us. It seems we misunderstood the date, or simply didn’t check it or nail it down enough. Bridget isn’t here, neither is anyone else really. Just four or five guys hunkered down at the bar. And the manager has no idea anyone was due to come. We say we must have made a mistake and maybe it will be sorted out during the week and he might see us next week. Let’s see how that goes. I would like to say we’re disappointed and have a dejected and extra wasted journey home but we’re really not. We didn’t feel at all ready for this one and the drive out has given us a little break and the scenery to look at of what, for us, is a lovely new town.

Day 65
Tues November 1

The Trap tonight and since Sunday we’ve managed to somewhat get a few of those new and newish songs together. So tonight will see the first outing of Give Me The World, the first confident outing of Make Me Shine, and the first outing for a while, and the first outing in here, of Beanie Love. We’re much more up for this one than we were for the show on Sunday and we’re hoping to have a good turn out, especially as we can barely leave the house without someone asking when we’re going to play again. And we can certainly barely enter The Trap without someone asking where our guitar is. So yes, we have high hopes for tonight, especially as it’s been deliberately arranged around a big live soccer game with us all set to go on as soon as it finishes. For the first time in ages, we’re all action before leaving the house as we prepare our full setup. We’re going all out for this one. Two speakers on poles. The backdrop. Mixing desk for better sound, and greater and more varied range of wireless equipment. Even a mic stand for me for when I feel like returning to the stage area to give my backing vocals a bit more thump.

We reach the doors of the bar and are all anticipation, and yes, a little bit nervous. Because, what if no-one’s here? This feels like when you have a birthday party booked and are waiting to see if anyone actually shows up. We stop, take a deep breath, and enter.

Well guess what. Nobody’s shown up. Damn. People say hi in their normally friendly way when we walk in, but apart from there’s barely a ripple. No-one seems to know we were coming. All we have is a few guys around the bar and a few others only mildly interested in the last minutes of the soccer. And there we are, standing with two trollies and wondering what to do next.

It doesn’t take long for people to realise we’re there to play and the interest levels suddenly go up a few notches. We feel like we’re intruding really, but insistence rises that we should do something now we’re here so we decide to forget about the full setup and just go for it for a little while with the one speaker. Not a full show. Three to five songs for the people who are here, then we’ll call it.

Just as we’re getting ready to start a whole bunch of other people walk in. The guys that work at our local Centra. Oh wow. They came. Antoinette, Lorca, Aoife, Karen, Caleb. Then a girl walks in with a few guys in tow and they quietly sit just off to the side. As we begin, that girl sings along with a few of our songs, clearly knowing some of they lyrics of even some of the verses. The guys with her look a little bemused, like they’re out of place, and we’ve never seen any of them before. We barely speak to any of them all night either and the girl seems a little shy, but it really seems to us like she knows who we are, I can only guess from videos she’s seen online, and has connected with us enough somewhere to want to be here tonight and has told some friends they should come too. She really looks like an actual fan. Yes, we ditch the plans to play three or four songs and bale. People have proper come out to see us. They get the full show. Then, when we’re finished, our friends from Centra want even more. We’ve already done our few encores so really shouldn’t. But, unplugged, we go and sit at their table and play a few of our more gentle songs that we don’t feel we have the opportunity to play live so much. So they get Breakthrough, Wide Blue Yonder and Insanity.

The Album Diary, day 70

Day 70

Sunday November 6

Way back at the beginning when we were trying to decide what kind of act we would actually be, we came to the idea that we would play in bars that either didn’t have regular music at all, or bars that mostly had cover music. With that, we knew we were going to be a high energy pop act, which would mean veering very directly into rock territory with an acoustic guitar while attempting to keep hold of the total pop element. The act itself would also have to be fearless and pretty much in your face with the aim being to basically overwhelm whatever room we were in. Be bigger than the room. Always be bigger than the room. With that, we felt we would be able to walk into totally indifferent, or even hostile environments and win them over with songs they immediately connected with, combined with sheer force of performance and personality. This was our vision right at the beginning months before we had a single song. If we ever told anyone of this plan, if we were lucky, we were just ridiculed. So we very quickly realised we should just not talk about and get on with doing it.

We had our first early and undeveloped thoughts about this concept in March 2021, less than four weeks after we’d first met. We moved to Ireland a couple of months later in May, then had to detour almost immediately to Sweden, where we stayed until late July, all the time still not managing to get to any kind of songwriting. Once back in Ireland from Sweden we began working out in our new Irish home studio almost every day. At first we were working just from my own back catalogue of songs. But then on August 6, we finally wrote our first song together – All Kinds Of Wonderful. Ten days later we wrote our second song, I Like You Better (When You’re Naked). Three months after that we played our first gig, then we were onto our first European Tour, starting in Berlin at the end of November. All this from a standing start in August, working from a template developed in March.

I’m recapping all this first of all because it simply seems a good time to be doing it, but second, because tonight is the night of our show at The Canal Turn. By now we’ve done a lot of shows following the exact plan we set down almost two years ago, a plan that was shot down by everyone we were forward enough to mention it to. I think I’ll also say here that by the time we were preparing for our very first show, ridicule had turned to begging, at times aggressively so. Meaning people were really strenuously, for our own good, advising us not to attempt it. ‘I’m begging you not to do this,’ was one exact line we heard. While another new friend, who would later become quite a keen supporter and admirer, was almost aggressive in his assertions that we absolutely had to put some covers in our set. I should add that that aggression was directed in our own interests as he desperately tried to sway our intentions. 

For some reason, The Canal Turn is almost the exact identikit audience and demographic I had in my own mind when I was thinking and talking of all of this. A middle aged, musically conservative audience of perfectly pleasant people, but the kind of crowd who would only react to music in a vociferous way if it had the words Caroline and Sweet in the title. All the right words, not necessarily in the right order. And tonight, we here to play at least a full half hour rather than the usual 15 to 20 minutes we play. Nine songs. An actual full-on original show to a full-on committed coverband audience. If they’ll let us get through it.

Yes, they’re sceptical at the beginning but, to be fair, ready to give us a chance. But oh man, they very quickly have no idea what’s hitting them and they are absolutely loving it. Hands in the air, fists pumping, trying to sing along, shouting out ‘More’ after every song. Oh, the whole lot. I’ve just gone and had a listen to it all to see if it actually fits my memory of it, but it does and so much more. The impromptu, made up as we went along setlist goes like this:

I Like You (Better When You’re Naked)

Six Sense Lover

Make Me Shine

Rock’n’Roll Tree

A Thousand Doors

Fire

Give Me The World

The Cat

—–

How You Rock’n’Roll

Oh, and Freefall and Beanie Love to start but we forgot to press record at the beginning so the above is what we have.

We’re not far in before they’re loudly thanking bar manager Martin for booking us. But when A Thousand Doors comes, I still feel a bit uncertain as everyone starts talking over this tender song. But that’s probably more because this is the first time tonight they’ve really had the chance to. However, as the song develops and begins to enter epic territory, it really starts to feel epic as heads turn and the clapping along with us begins. By the end it’s just huge and there’s a call for a standing ovation, matched with, ‘You’re brilliant.’

This is followed up with another slow burn – Fire. After which the place really loses it with calls of ‘Number one. Number one.’ ‘I’m Your number one fan,’ ‘I want a record deal’ It almost feels like everything we’ve been doing has been building up to this show. Yes we’ve won hard audiences over before, but this really feels like an audience that was simply not there to be won over, but has totally crossed over to the other side with us.

After this, it’s a total sprint to the end, complete with encore, which we oblige. Give Me The World is a bit rough, but fair enough, a brand new song, and I wasn’t sure about that as we began, but yes, they’re totally up for this one too. Then The Cat is a tad rough to be fair but still smashes it. Then How You Rock’n’Roll sends them off happy. We kind of simultaneously pack up and talk to people, and all around the sense if of joyous disbelief joined with hugely vociferous and insistent hugs and handshakes, with calls to Martin to have us back. And indeed Martin himself is very gracious and appreciative.

As we walk out of the door, having waved at the bar one last time, the whole place erupts in applause, and this is the sound that accompanies us right to the car, where we settle into the seats in disbelieving jubilation and the relief of job totally smashed and done. Oh wow. Yes, yes, and just yes.

Yes there are a few rough spots, but tonight’s recording could almost be put up as a live album. Now, there’s an idea. I literally thought about this as I was writing that line. Then I mentioned it to Maja just as I’d finished this entry. And you know what? We’re doing it. It really feels right. Tonight’s show is such a good representation of where we are at this time and what we’ve done up to now. And it’s an excellent example of reactions from audiences who have never heard us. While it may only contain ten songs, we’re going to leave every bit of audience participation on there because really, they’re the tenth track.

The video of the show isn’t the best spectacle because we really couldn’t get a good angle for the camera, but you can see the whole thing here:

The Album Diary, days 82 to 115

Day 82

Friday November 18

We decided right at the beginning we weren’t going to write a day by day account of this next thing, but now it’s concluded, we can at least finally let you in on what’s been going on. October 20 was when we realised we would have to move onto the next stage of this thing, something we’d known was possible right from the start. That next stage being Maja re-entering the workforce so that we can keep this thing going. We wrote about this way back in the summer of 2021, revealing that Maja was and is a cloud engineer, a very highly sought and well paid profession. Well now she’s returning to allow us the possibility of continuing. But really, before things got real a few weeks ago, she had already said to me casually, one day while swimming in the local pool, ‘Would you like to move somewhere like New York or London? Maybe even Tokyo?’ We actually started mulling over the possibilities there and then while swimming laps. It’s actually happening now. After a long four week period of applications and interviews, today an offer was accepted and agreed and the job starts in London in January. So that’s it. We’re moving to London. Maybe even as early as next month.

The past few weeks, everything has been on hold as Maja has been preparing and attending online interviews. Now that process is complete, we now start looking for an apartment in London and getting this whole place packed up. How all this is going to happen, we have no idea just yet, but it is going to happen.

Everything on hold means all album production ceased, along with hustling gigs pretty much. This was why we were kind of relieved actually when the we arrived at The Canal Turn for the first time and discovered the mix up of dates. We’d managed no rehearsal and weren’t entirely sure how on our game we would have been. Having it replaced for the following week allowed us to get on it again and ensure we were able to put in the performance we did.

So we know we’re going to London, but for a while there were very real possibilities of a few other cities. Tokyo dropped in for a while, as did Amsterdam. New York was never a fully viability due to Visa requirements. But there was also the possibility of a remote position, meaning we could have stayed right where we were, although if that had happened, sometime next year we still would have probably aimed at a London move. 

London’s a huge place, so you might be wondering just where specifically. Shoreditch. We’d already decided that if we were to move to London we wanted to live in Shoreditch, one of my absolute favourite areas of the city. Along with Camden, it’s the creative capital of the capital. Full of one-off shops and the coolest venues with so many of them open to original music. And, being so central and well served by all kinds of public transport, it’s very well connected to all the other music scenes around the city. Plenty of other cities, and indeed London areas, may have their own cases to make, but I would say that Shoreditch is the best place in London to be if you’re a songwriting act. Which would make it the best place in the UK. And if London is the best place in the world to be doing this, which many – myself included – believe it is, then that makes Shoreditch the single best place in the world for The Diaries to be.

It’s totally central and somewhere I actually fantastised about living in from time to time when I used to live in London. It seemed an unattainable location actually. So Maja was looking at maybe working somewhere in Soho, or maybe the financial district, which is just down the road from Shoreditch, with Soho being a little further away but still a perfectly comfortable commute. 

While going through the process, one day Maja began musing about where the UK’s equivalent of Silicon Valley could be. I had no idea. I’d never had cause to think about it really.

So we looked into it. Do you want to guess where we discovered it was? I’m sure you have. Yep. Shoreditch. The roundabout next to Old Street tube station, which I’ve always looked upon with such fascination, even has a nickname. Silicon Roundabout.

What was that I was saying about Shoreditch being the best place in the world for The Diaries to be? Tomorrow the apartment hunt begins. And right now you really can guess where we’re looking to move to.

Day 85

Monday November 21

It’s starting. The plan is to drive to London with a full car load. The rest of everything we have will be put in storage in Dublin, and then a removal company/person will take that to the apartment in London that we don’t have yet.

But first we have to make sure that what we’re planning on taking with us can actually go with us. So today the car is brought into our back garden, then we identify the essentials and pack the car to make sure it does actually all fit. It does. We’re on. Right. Time to get boxes and get this whole house packed up and ready to go.

Day 90

Saturday November 26

Maja realises that, with Christmas happening with my family, if she wants to visit her family in any near future, it has to be now. Within minutes of that, she’s booked a flight leaving this Monday and returning Sunday December 11.

Day 92

Monday November 28

So that’s Maja off to Sweden and me on my own for a little while. 

I think I’m going to get into quite a lot of things, including songwriting, some album recording – mostly drums and bass – and Diary catchup. But the day after she leaves I get sick and have basically have the first week wiped out. Once recovered, I get into songwriting, completing Without A Gloria, Talk About The Weather, and The Beanie Shop. We also have a song in this batch called Moving To London which I get a good look at as well. 

And yes, during this time I do what I can about packing and preparing, but there is an awful lot we will have to do and decide together. And of course, I have no idea what Maja wants to do with her own stuff with regards to taking, storing or taking to our favourite charity shop. So I can’t do anything about that at all. But I’m satisfied that, by the time she gets back, I’ve done everything I can during her Sweden break.

Oh, and that charity shop. For local knowledge, it’s across the road from the Mace petrol station and has become one of our favourite places in Clara. Run by volunteers, including Lisa who becomes a very good friend of ours, it’s a wonderful shop and something of a drop-in place for a chat and a cup of tea. I want to name a few more names, but I know I’ll miss people out so I’ll leave it at Lisa who becomes our best friend there and a big supporter of The Diaries.

Day 105

Sunday December 11

Maja’s back from Sweden which means if we start tomorrow, we have exactly one week and a day to pack everything we have and leave the place as we found it when we first moved in. This will be a big planning job as we decide what we want to take, what to throw away, and what to give to the charity shop.

Taking our stuff to the storage unit in Dublin will ultimately take four trips, and we end up taking three carloads to the nearby rubbish/recycling centre. The amount of stuff you accumulate in a little over a year and a half. And we consider ourselves streamlined and definitely not hoarders. 

Day 109

Thursday Dec 15

A visit to Tullamore just because, and we take ourselves to our favourite coffee shop, The Riverside Cafe. We first came here in our first two weeks in Clara just as such places were allowed to open, but only for outside consumption. We heard the story then of how it was a fledgling business with a big heart. Well, it’s still here and we’ve continued to come from time to time. We have a chat with the manager today and tell him we’re leaving Ireland next week so this will probably be our last visit. We give him a card, and with that, he goes behind the counter and comes back with a present for us. A wonderful bag of Coffee Perfection coffee bags. This is a family run coffee company from County Meath. What a lovely gift and something to remember this fantastic cafe by. Thankyou Tullamore. We’ve loved our regular visits here. But I’m not best pleased at myself for neglecting to get the manager’s name. But thankyou to you too.

Day 110

Friday December 16

The ladies at the charity shop are well aware of our shows having seen various videos. They’ve often asked when we were going to play locally, but as you know, we generally do the Now Hustle so have no idea when or where until the day or even the minute. So we promised to do a show for them one day. It’s not been so easy to get calendars to match, we understand, so today as we’re out and about we decide to just go in and offer to play for them today. We go in and it’s Lisa and her friend Rosie looking after the shop. Of course we want to play for everyone and anyone, but we really wanted Lisa to get the chance to see us, and now here we are. She’s delighted to see us and to that we’ve said we’re going to play but the shop has to close in the next hour or so and then that’s it for Christmas. Oh wow. We’ve only just caught them in the shop’s very last hour of the year. OK. We’re on it. We make a quick dash home to get the guitar and return as soon as we can. Now it’s on and among all the racks of clothes and toys and general charity shop bric a brac we do our thing with Lisa and Rosie joyfully bouncing along. It really is one of the most fun songs we’ve ever done. Just the four of us in here, but vibe is almost blowing through the walls. We play four or five songs before finishing with Beanie Love. This has been a very impromptu set which we’ve made up as we’ve gone along and this particular song has been last by accident really. But they go crazy for it, telling us that’s our show stopper, encore, show closer, everything. Wow. OK. You kind of have a feeling a song is good, and have faith in what you do, or at least try to, and we’ve felt good about this song from the beginning. But to get such emphatic feedback is amazing. We’ve given them I Like You (Better When You’re Naked) How You Rock’n’Roll, Six Sense Lover, Rock’n’Roll Tree and The Cat, and they’ve chosen Beanie Love as their favourite out of the lot of them. You really know nothing about your own songs most of the time. You often find out where the best ones are by listening to your audience. 

Thankyou very much ladies. We really have got just under the wire here as they are getting called away and have to close the shop, almost as the last notes of Beanie Love are still reverberating around these four small walls. 

Tears are shed as we hug and say our goodbyes before walking back home down the road, ecstatic at the show we’ve just done and the sheer fact we were able to do it. We truly didn’t want to leave Clara without Lisa having seen us play. We also can’t believe the sheer last minuteness of it. And this show might only have been for just two people in an empty charity shop, but oh it felt epic.

Of course, anyone who’s ever moved house knows that however long you think anything is going to take, or however much you think you have to do, multiply it by five or maybe even ten and you might, just might, be half way there in your estimation. And oh is there a lot a lot a lot to do. Just overwhelming at times, but keep going. One foot in front of the other. One car load after another. One box packed after another. It’s pretty much the same with recording actually. As I’ve often said, approach any day in a studio and you’re like, oh today we’re going to get that, that and that done, and maybe some of that and that. If you’re lucky, you might be there till midnight and get half of one of the thats done. So it is here. Which means we feel like we have hardly any time to do anything at all outside of what we’re doing to get all this done in the first place. Which explains why the charity shop show, that was so important to us, only just made it under the tightest of wires. And why we feel up against it to even think about playing a last goodbye show in The Trap. But it would just be wrong not to. And of course we want to hang out in there a little and have a drink or two with so many of the people who’ve been with us since the beginning, were at our very first show, and have become friends and simply part of our community, or rather, we’ve become, or at least tried to become, part of theirs.

With that in mind, we head off into The Trap for a Friday night out. During general mingling we chat to Jimmy, one of the bosses. Somehow he hasn’t heard that we’re leaving but we’re actually glad about that as it means we’ve told him ourselves. But it’s still mad to see the way his face falls when we do so. ‘You’re going to have to play here before you go,’ is his immediate reaction. Fantastic. Exactly what we were thinking. This is also a good place in which to tell you what our actual leaving plans are. 

We have an 8:30am ferry on Wednesday from Dublin which means we want to be on the road by 5:30am at the latest to absolutely ensure we arrive by 7:30. We’re banking on having a few last minute things to do that morning, maybe bits and pieces we can’t do until the last minute, including a few checklist things our landlord has asked us to be in place to ensure easy takeover. So we’re planning on being up by 4am to give ourselves an hour and a half in the ‘morning.’ Which essentially means that although we’re technically leaving Wednesday morning, we’re really leaving very late Tuesday night. All this is to say that a night out Tuesday is out of the question. And with The Trap having music Saturday and Sunday, the only available night to have a last show is Monday. And that’s exactly what we settle on.

Apart from telling Jimmy, a few other people hear the news for the first time tonight, while there are other people who already know and come to say hello, have a chat and generally say nice things about what we’ve achieved in our time here, from playing our very first show in The Trap to the two European tours to our continuing travels playing around Ireland. All from scratch and all from our base in our house in Clara which we used to do exactly all of this.

The overriding sentiment is that we’ve made a big impact on the local community, that we really have been taken into the hearts of so many people here, and that we will very much be missed and people are very sorry to see us go. One person tells us that we actually can’t leave, going on to almost asking us not to. Then, for us, there’s a huge moment when someone else tells us we enhanced Clara. Oh damn. Enhanced Clara. I can’t think of a bigger compliment and that one just about floors us.

And there are a couple of friends who’ve begun their own songwriting efforts which we like to think we’ve inspired. During the evening, they ask if we would mind if they covered I Like You (Better When You’re Naked). Oh wow. Lads, of course not. Go for it. It’s an honour to be asked and we look forward to hearing it.

When we first arrived and first started thinking about playing live, we discussed at some length where we would play and if we would even think about playing locally. The thought being we might want to keep this kind of to ourselves as far as the local community was concerned, and maybe there was a little feeling that if we didn’t go down well, then that could impact our experience here. Can you imagine getting to know people, making friends and then getting booed out of your first show? I really did feel quite trepidatious going into that first one. Indeed, one guy said if we weren’t good he’d throw things at us – said in jest, but really… And another person, who we’d come to get on very well with said they couldn’t hang around after we started. That person stayed till the end, said I Like You (Better When You’re Naked) was the best song she’d heard in years, and became a firm supporter of ours. So yeah, I really felt there was a hell of a lot riding on that first show. I don’t think Maja felt quite the same and indeed, she really didn’t have any nerves about it at all which blew me away quite frankly. And as that particular evening went on, it became clear these were not words of bravado, but a statement of matter of fact. Conversely, in our first conversations about whether or not we should play around here, right down to where we would like our first show to be, there was an underlying arrogance, or at least confidence. No. Arrogance. And it was me who voiced it. I thought it was important our first show was in Clara and that people here knew what we were doing and that we would be seen to do it. I had the idea that Clara could develop a sense of ownership of us. That this was where we started. That, in some kind of sense, the people of Clara could grow to feel some kind of ownership of us, or at least feel a part of our story, and if that was to be the case, there was an importance that this had to be where it all began. Not just from living, writing and working here, but also to be the place where we first ventured out into the (spot)light. And so we did. And here we are, last show in Ireland booked, in the same place we played our first show anywhere. The Trap. As we hear the thoughts of people who have become our friends and supporters, people who we are going to play for again on Monday, our last night out in Ireland, at least for now, it’s clear that everything we said to ourselves at the beginning, with breathtaking arrogance to be fair, has come to be. This is the birthplace of The Diaries and we have also very much made it our home. There can be no doubt. Clara totally has a place in our hearts and we know we will miss it very much.

Day 113

Monday December 19

The night of our last show in Ireland – for now. And as you know, it’s the same venue we played our very first show in just over a year ago on November 5 – The Trap. You can read about that particular show in The Tour Diaries Prologue.

Just as the contrast between where we are now and where were were that day is enormous, so it is between tonight’s show and the last one we played. In The Canal Turn, we were facing a sceptical crowd that we really had to win over. Here, they are on our side as soon as we enter. If anything, they’ve been waiting for us and a cheer goes up as we walk in the door. They even know a lot of our songs. This is a home fixture. But more. A goodbye home fixture.

It’s possible we’ve never had so much expectation. Laksmi, Berlin maybe. And the return to Peadars in Moate was also a bit special to be fair. But The Trap. That’s different altogether. You might think that would allow us to relax a little. Of course it’s nice to walk into a place and people know what you’re about, but relax? Not at all. You simply can’t be complacent. If anything, you have to go for a show like this even more; unlike any other show we’ve ever done, tonight I’m feeling the tingle of responsibility that I don’t want to let down. More than anywhere else right now, this is our crowd and we really truly have to give them what they came for. Oh, that’s another thing. As you know by now, our general model is to essentially ambush. There’s none of that tonight. This time, people are ready and waiting for us. And they expect. We have to deliver.

We really wanted to get into The Trap at some point in the weekend for our last weekend in Clara and we did that on Friday. As for the rest of the weekend, we were just so busy packing and organising with the clock very much ticking against us. Oh, there’s been so so much to do and there still is. It just feels never ending. But tonight we get a bit of a respite as we head across to The Trap again to play our last show at what will definitively be our last night in the bar.

I wrote a blow by blow account of our last show at The Canal Turn so I won’t recount a full show again, but what I will say is that the turnout does us proud and that we hear so many comments that are so heartfelt that I really don’t want to put them in here. But what comes across from everyone we talk to tonight, before and after the show, is how much they love that we just put ourselves out there. That we include the audience. That we don’t just stay on the stage, that we move around the venue and take the show to the people. We also hear that our presence has been positively felt about the place, in here and out and about. And of course it’s great to see that the songs do indeed hit home as we play them in here for the last time. And yes, when it comes to the two song encore, we do indeed finish with I Like You (Better When You’re Naked), a song who’s very popularity, it feels, was born in The Trap.

As we come to our last few songs, off duty bar staff Adam and Amy, who’ve wonderfully come out tonight to see us, approach us in a rare moment when we’re both on stage, and present us with two amazing bouquets of roses. At this, the whole place erupts in a spontaneous applause which becomes the longest sustained applause we’ve ever had. I can’t speak for Maja here, but I feel, in that moment, that they’re not just clapping tonight’s performance. They’re clapping for us, The Diaries, for everything we’ve done to get to this point. And maybe, clapping for all of the performances we’ve done in here with The Trap being the place we’ve played more than any other; tonight is our seventh live appearance in here. And it’s the first place we ever played, which by extension makes it the first place we played in Ireland, and it now becomes our last show in Ireland. 

With that – maybe it’s people seeing their last chance – as we finish, there’s a clamour for autographs on our very own Diaries beer mats. So much so that, as Maja sets herself up at a table to be able to write on them, a queue forms. An actual queue. For autographs of The Diaries. 

It should be mentioned, mostly as a silent thankyou to the people who came out for us tonight, that we don’t do the hat for this show. But bar owner Angela is totally on hand for us with free drinks, and our friends here help keep us topped up after that as well so that’s still a result.

During this aftershow glow, people insist we return someday, and we fully and truly agree. Now we have a wonderful wonderful post show mingle around so many of these people who have become our friends. However, there are still some we’ve been on nodding acquaintance with for a while but have never really spoken to properly. That changes tonight in quite a few cases.

When the time comes for us to leave, we do so with the applause of Clara ringing in our ears and accompanying us out into the night. 

Oh, we are going to miss this place. 

We moved here in May 2021 and so have been here just over a year and a half. It has course been covered in The Diaries, but it’s worth mentioning again here that the total catalyst for the move was Brexit; once me and Maja had become an item and saw a future for ourselves, we knew that Maja couldn’t stay and work in the UK and I couldn’t move to Europe and live and work there. So we needed a solution. That’s where Ireland came in; it was in the EU so Maja was OK there, and owing to its border with the UK’s Northern Ireland, a Common Travel Area was created meaning I was OK there as well. Once that was decided, we then further decided to make the most of the move, seeing it as an opportunity to find a detached house – in a countryside area we thought, because this would make it the most cost effective solution. The idea then was to use that house as a base to write songs and have a place to rehearse and record any time day or night, a concept that would have been financially far out of reach in London.

As you know, that’s exactly what we did. We had different ideas of what would happen next, one of the possibilities being to keep the house in Clara and use it as a base to return from European and world touring. Then the London move and opportunity came up, and here we are.


Clara, and all at the Trap, thankyou very much. 

Day 114

Tuesday December 20

Our last day in Ireland. And our last day of packing, organising and cleaning. It feels like we’ve been doing this forever and there’s still a ridiculous amount to do. It doesn’t feel like we can get it all done today, but we have to. Tonight we leave. Well, actually tomorrow, but as we’ve been saying and thinking, we’re going to be up at 4am, planning to actually leave by 5:30am so that really counts as Tuesday night.

After last night’s amazingness, I’m up at 8am and on it straight away, although yes, there is a mid morning break and slump before we’re up and properly at it again. The flowers we received from Adam and Amy last night are on proud display and we even manage to get a few photos of the flowers in different parts of the house.

When we started this process, we really thought we’d get more or less finished with a day or two then left to chill. Oh how funny that is. We haven’t even managed a buffer day. Instead, we’ve feel up against deadline the whole time and we don’t even get a respite from that today as the job just goes on and on and on. Finally finally finally, as 2am rolls round, two hours before we have to get up again, we declare ourselves totally fully, truly done. We even have the car packed. Now there are just those very last minute of last minute things to do that can’t be done until we’re ready to go. Which is why we’re up an hour and a half before we have to leave. Which means we get to go to bed for a full two hours. A little more than a nap. I don’t even manage that much. I don’t sleep at all. Then the alarm goes at 4am and we’re up and on it again. Time to finish up and leave. This is it.

Day 115

Wednesday December 21

It actually feels really unsettling when we truly finish everything. By 5:30am as planned, Maja’s waiting in the car, which is already started, and I close the door. For the first time ever we don’t have the keys to get back in again. This really is it. We’re out of the house and it’s no longer ours. We’re locked out. Time to move forwards. Time to move to London.

I walk away, get in the car, and we’re off. Goodbye Clara.

We arrive at Dublin’s ferry terminal around 7, then we’re onto the ferry at 8. We’ve been on the go for exactly 24 hours.

Although this is only a short crossing to Wales, we still booked a cabin. Mostly because Maja still has a long drive on the other side and we kinda had a feeling that the day before this would be a big one. Here we are and with the 2am finish, it’s all played out even more extreme than expected. We really need to sleep now and we need to sleep properly. Oh wow, the bed feels incredible and the sleep is instant and truly glorious. We then wake around 11am, not long before arriving in Wales and have a shower which feels like just the most ridiculous level of luxury. Oh wow we are now ready to be on our way again. And although it’s full on daylight and midday, we’ve really done little more than nap, so it still feels like we’re in Tuesday.

We’re expecting a drive of around five hours but our GPS takes us very much on the scenic route, during which time we suddenly find ourselves driving through the village of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. Well, it has a Co-Op, so that will do for a nice pitstop. And yes, the name of the village is on its frontage. 

Now, I always thought Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch was the longest place name in the world. I’ve just discovered it isn’t. To get the name of this place – I copied it off the net. Of course I didn’t look it up and type it, or even more ridiculous, remember it. But no. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch isn’t the longest place name in the world. That belongs to Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu. 

Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu, I’ve just discovered, and I might just have inadvertently copied and pasted this next bit, is a hill near the town of Porangahau, south of Waipukurau in southern Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand. But if no-one lives there – and no I haven’t bothered checking – that means that Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu is simply the name of a hill, while Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is the name of an actual village where actual people actually live. So by that reasoning, could it possibly be claimed that  Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is indeed the longest place name in the world and not Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu?

Of course I have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about.

Maja:

And neither have I. I just thought it was really fun to take a selfie in front of Co-Op in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

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