Interviews
The Irish Times - January 26 1996
Barry's Musical Baggage
SOMETIMES amid all the potentially soul destroying hype, self interest and marketing which dominates the record industry, it sure does help to be reminded that what finally matters is the music. That's what was so sweet about seeing Noel Gallagher of Oasis paying homage to his hero, the composer, Burt Bacharach, on television at Christmas. Gallagher even proudly admitted that his own song, Half The World Away, has a chord progression which was, eh, "borrowed" from Bacharach's This Guy's In Love With You, which he also described as "the best love song ever written".
Barry O'Mahony, singer songwriter with the Irish band Luggage, also pays loving homage to his musical influences which, as, with many newish bands, also, stem from the Sixties and Seventies. In the press release for the EP Comical Life he lists the following "The Kinks, Roxy Music, The Sex Pistols, Stax, Scott Walker, Dusty Springfield" before adding, tantalisingly, "that doesn't give you the full picture, but it's a start".
Believe me, he's not kidding. In fact, the moment you walk into Barry's newly built Dublin city centre apartment the first thing that strikes you as totally anomalous, in terms of the relatively minimalist decor, is a set of 14 ceiling high wooden shelves containing "roughly 3,000 albums
And these "are only part of my collection", he says, almost bash fully explaining that he "left the rest at home".
Joe Jackson
