31 July 2009

GAVIN FRIDAY


I'll get to the music in a moment. But first, a rant:

The last couple of days have been absolutely horrible. First off, I still have no job, and giving the climate of the area, I'm not thinking I'll have one anytime soon. So, having to watch my budget closely, it didn't help when my PC finally gave up the ghost.

It had crashed back in November, but I managed to get it up and running again after a few days. This time, that's not an option. A huge portion of the hard drive is apparently not functioning. Nor is it recognizing the CD/DVD drives, or allowing any downloading or saving of anything.

So, I go to get the cheapest replacement I can find, and bring it home to find out that the replacement is dead, too. It won't even turn on. After I bring it back to the store, I'm told the mother board wasn't working.

I bring a now exchanged, and pre-tested tower home, and yipee, it works!

That excitement is a bit premature, though, since the only PCs available anymore are Vistas. I had never used a Vista system before, though I had heard many a horror story. Now, having used this for all of one day, I can honestly say I fucking hate Vista.

Maybe it will grow on me in time, but at the moment, I can barely stand looking on the expensive piece of crap. I've had to get rid of about 3/4 of the applications I used on a daily basis before. I can't use my older version of Roxio. I can't use my audio capture device. I can't use my video capture devise. And everything that I can still use, if I click it to start, it immediately tells me there's an unknown program trying to run, do I want to allow it? Why the hell isn't there an option for "always allow this program to run"?

Alright, I feel a bit better now that I got that off my chest. And at least all this time off has given me the time to finish a book of photography I'd been considering putting together for ages. If you're interested in such things, it's available over here. The website will only allow you to view the first 15 pages, which is a shame because those are the most traditional shots. Most of the more interesting images (such as the cover cyanotype) come later on in the book.

Not that I'm trying to say my photos are anything incredibly special. I wouldn't even come close to Anton Corbijn, who took the shot of Gavin here. (I've always been a fan of Corbijn) But I was a photo major back in the college days, and have been at it ever since.



Gavin Friday (born Fionan Hanvey) is an Irish musician who's been on the scene since the seventies. You may not know his name, but chances are pretty good you've heard some of his music. Have you seen In America? He wrote the score for that. Have heard the In the Name of the Father soundtrack? He's on that. Heard Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet soundtrack? He's on that, too.

Gavin first cut his teeth as a professional musician in the Dublin goth band The Virgin Prunes. They lasted for nearly a decade, before Gavin ventured out as a solo artist. The rest of the band went on for several more years as The Prunes.

Interesting side note - The Virgin Prunes were good friends with a young band called U2. In fact, the kid (Peter Rowan) who appeared on so many of U2's album and single covers is the younger brother of two of The Prunes (Guggi and Strongman).

The solo albums that Gavin has released since the eighties are hard to categorize. They can't even really be called solo albums, as he is nearly always accompanied by The Man Seezer (Maurice Roycroft), even when he doesn't take credit.

Here's a few tracks of his from places other then his albums:

(files expired)

Gavin Friday - "Baltimore Whores" From the Rogues Gallery (buy) compilation, which also includes some fantastic performances by Nick Cave, Bryan Ferry, and many others.
Gavin Friday and The Man Seezer - "Apologia" (2 Meter Sessie) From the 2 Meter Sessies, Volume 1 compilation. The original version is on Each Man Kills. . .
Gavin Friday - "For Annie" A reading of the Edgar Allan Poe classic, from the tribute compilation, Closed on Account of Rabies.
Annie Ross and the Low Note Quintet - "A Thousand Years" Written by Gavin and Seezer for the soundtrack of the movie Short Cuts, though they don't perform on this recording.
Gavin Friday - "Sybil Vane's Suicide" B-side of "Falling Off the Edge of the World" single.
Gavin Friday and Bono - "Billy Boola" From In the Name of the Father. The same two also perform the title song on the soundtrack.

Gavin's "solo" work:

Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves, 1989 (as Gavin Friday and The Man Seezer)
The Boxer, 1990 (soundtrack - as Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer)
Adam 'n' Eve, 1992
Shag Tobacco, 1995
Peter and the Wolf, 2002 (buy) (Gavin Friday and the Friday-Seezer Ensemble, with a book illustrated by Bono)
In America, 2002 (soundtrack - Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer)

Man, has it really been seven years since he put anything new out? He's been out of work longer than I have. I'm guessing he's not stressing over Vista, though.

4 comments:

Caroline said...

New Gavin Friday album will be released next year :-)

DeadBilly said...

Fantastic! Thanks for the news.

mangue said...

Great to read about new work coming from Gavin.
In the mean time here you can find a very old (1987) "solo work" from him:
http://justincrash.blogspot.com/2009/04/you-cant-always-get-justice-and-money.html
This is the 7", I have the 12" but no clue (yet) how to get it on the net.
Enjoy it, it's great!!

DeadBilly said...

Thanks for the music. I didn't have that one yet. Nice musician line up on it, too.