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Shag Tobacco

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Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves

All pictures of Gavin Friday are copyright © 1989 – 2011 of their respective photographers

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The 2nd of three events in the Bio Rhythm exhibition currently running at the Science Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin featured Gavin and BP Fallon amongst a cast of music psychologists, therapists and fellow musicians to explore and discuss the relations we have with music. And specifically for the first half of the evening, that effect of music on our emotions. Is music driven by emotion or is it emotion that creates the music? Scientists and musicians discuss!

Pictures by lib-lab

With a selection of audience members linked up to monitors that measured and displayed the bodies physical reacting to a piece of music the scene was set. The role of music was analysed and debated by the panel in the human response to music from foetus to adult with Gavin and BP often, respectfully, dissociating themselves from the panel’s more scientific views and conclusions.

Gavin’s performances bookended the first half of the event. Resurrecting his interpretation of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 40 was a welcome opportunity for those of us who missed out on the Stratford debut. Along with Kate Ellis on cello the performance soared and moved on many levels. The panel and audience reaction was enthusiastic, with some members of the audience agreeing that they hear and see performances in colours and that hearing the Shakespeare sonnet performed in this way evoked passionate reds for them. Gavin’s response: “You should see where I live.” Similarly fiddle player Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh shared the place that music brings him during performance to the pot holes on the country roads he magically escapes to while Kate conceded that she totally blanks her mind to bring her to another place.

In delivery, structure, arrangement and length, Gavin’s second piece took on some of the influence of Rzewski’s “Coming Together” which he performed with Gavin Bryars and the Crash Ensemble some years back. Kicking off with the popular theme from Coronation Street while footage of Princess Diana’s funeral mass played on the screen, Gavin – in compelling full performance mode – hunched over a table, narrated in a mix of theatre and spoken word the minute actions of an older lady obsessing manically over her mirror and spectacles. As the piece breaks for more of Kate’s emotive playing aided by a backing track Gavin flies with the character through different stages of her surrender and dislocation. This lost soul soon becomes recognisable as the housewife in ‘Kitchen Sink Drama’ only here she is more demented and at her very own end of the world, as Gavin – now alternating between a mic in each hand – gives voice to various strands of her subconscious over snatches of ‘Lonely Girl’ and Skeeter Davis’ ‘The End of The World’. Keeping with the evening’s theme its emotional punch does truly transport us to another time and place. Indeed to another world. As with the best of Gavin’s performances its effect lingers long after the audience has borne witness.

This brought Gavin’s involvement in the evening to a close. The second half was much more a case for the head over heart with a more experimental foray into the mechanics of sound, although local vibe master BP Fallon brought it back to heart and bones with a spoken word performance of his recent single, ‘I Believe in Elvis’ where in no uncertain terms he challenged the very notion of Fame. Apt closer for the evening went to the exquisite fiddle playing of Caoimhín Ó Raghallaig that uniformly seemed to bring everyone to a more peaceful and serene place. All in all the tug of music on the heartstrings triumphed over the theory when it came to the power of music to affect us. Which is just as should be.

Seen at the Science Gallery, Dublin. 16th Sept 7-10pm
With Gavin Friday, BP Fallon, Kate Ellis, Ben Knapp (SARC) with Biomuse Trio, Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh and Mike McCready (Music Xray), hosted by Gerry Godley.

See also: BPFallon.com – Hi-Fi-Sci: BP Fallon & Gavin Friday live

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And while you are enjoying the slideshow, remember it’s Gavin’s 50th birthday today… come add your wishes (no registration required).

Pictures by Eva van der Valk for GavinFriday.com, all rights reserved.

Pictures by Wout-er

Photos by Babette Ross

Photos by folie rufie

Photos by Gerry Visco

Photos by aphrodite in nyc

Photos by tibetjb

photos by cafeconflores

photos by Peddieart

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Gavin Friday was interviewed outside Nou Camp stadium in Barcelona on June 20th where he is working on the production of U2′s 360 tour, which starts on June 30th. The brief interview was broadcast in U2Valencia’s podcast. Gavin discussed his role in U2′s production, calling himself an ‘aesthetic midwife’ and in a message to the listeners he sent his greetings and the news: “Next year I’ll be sending you my own music, as I will be releasing my record, which I haven’t done in 10, 12 years.”
Download the full podcast (mp3) which also features interviews with Catherine Owens and Bono. (Fan commentary is in Spanish.) or continue for a transcript of Gavin’s complete interview.
Pictures taken during the interview.

U2valencia: Is it possible to have a small interview?
Gavin Friday: Very small, because they go on stage in about 15, yeah?
U2V: Hi. We are with Gavin Friday, best friend of Bono. We know you have worked with U2 before, on Vertigo. What are you doing now, with 360? What is your job?
GF: What I always do. I… Let’s say ever since they’ve done Joshua Tree and most tours. Because we grew up together. I’m an aesthetic midwife, you know, when the baby is in the mother, I help the baby be born. I look at all the things… they’re on stage, they can’t see everything, so I’m their eyes and their ears, and I understand the four of them very well, cause I know them 30 years, or more. And so we speak the same language. I don’t blow smoke up their ass. Do you know what I mean?
U2V: Eh… you don’t smoke?
GF: I don’t *blow* smoke up their ass. Like… I talk the truth. I’m not afraid of them either. I’m just… the truth. But also… all the different departments, it’s such a big, complex show, so I help glue it all together. And then I deliver the baby and say ‘Bono, Edge, Larry, this is the bambino. I christen the bambino 360 degrees, and Padre Friday is going now, back to Dublin to work on his own stuff.
U2V: Do you think this one will be their best tour?
GF: I don’t know… the baby is still coming out. It’s not born yet. It’s born on the 30th of June. I think it’s like most U2 things, it’s always a challenge finishing a new thing. You look at U2, they keep taking risks, and trying to get better and better. What’s incredible about this, it’s that it’s so big, but for me it’s very intimate. The audience are going to feel this intimacy like I’ve never seen at a U2 show. But what is the best, what is the biggest? I don’t know, I just love it being what it is today.
U2V: Can you say a message to the Radio Vertigo listeners?
GF: Say a message? OK, this is Mr Gavin Friday, in Barcelona. Outside the stadium, a week before the U2 tour and I send you all my love and greetings and next year I’ll be sending you my own music, as I will be releasing my record, which I haven’t done in 10, 12 years.
U2V: Can you sing for us?
GF: Sing? Sing? Sing… I still sing, but… I’m shy, you make me shy and embarrassed. What could I sing? I’m trying to think of, eh, (sings) ‘Una Paloma Blanca…’

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Rehearsals at the Irish Cultural Centre

View the slideshow large.

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Drifting and Tilting review from The Guardian: “Gavin Friday tackles Jesse – a song Walker envisaged Elvis Presley singing to his stillborn twin brother – hamming it up magnificently.”"

Photo by www.eleventhvolume.com

Photo by www.eleventhvolume.com

Photo by www.eleventhvolume.com

Nigel Richards, Gavin Friday, Jarvis Cocker. Photo by cvodb

Gavin Friday and Jarvis Cocker. Photo by cvodb

?, Michael Henry, Owen Gilhooly, Nigel Richards, Gavin Friday, Jarvis Cocker, Damon Albarn. Photo by cvodb

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Taken at Rogue’s Gallery at the Barbican in London on July 28, 2008

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Taken at Rogue’s Gallery at the Analog Festival in Dublin on July 18, 2008

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