Dreams In America - 2010

10.2.2010

I'm allergic to nostalgia. Long nights reminiscing about the good old days are a bit of a yawn to me. Much more excited by the good now days, the next song, the next gig, the seed of the next record....

And yet, perhaps it's ok to press the pause button for a moment, and reflect a tiny bit on experiences over a period of time. Not dwell too long; just feel it again, pay respect to the places and the people. Say thank you to life for bringing me here. Say thank you to all the people who have shared the journey so far.

It was in the Colony restaurant in 1986. A laneway down by Bewleys in Grafton Street in Dublin held this restaurant run by Niall Carey. I played there once a week. It was one of 3 or 4 residencies I was doing in Dublin at that time. After 3 records and no real progress, I was running out of road on the island. Yet I felt something in the new songs, something in the sound I was making, that drove me to believe, if only......

That night in the Colony, there were four people at two tables. Two couples. I sang my heart out for two hours; old songs, new songs, gave it everything, as always. When finished, one of the men at a table asked me over to say hello.

His name was Michael Jaworek, and he was honeymooning with his wife Debbie. Michael was, and still is, a much respected promoter in Washington DC. He gave me his business card; the first time anyone ever gave me such a thing, and told me he would get me a gig anytime I wanted to come to America.

This simple moment lit a little spark within me. Hope.So many people were struggling in Ireland. It was unbearable for any of us to leave family, friends, familiarity. None of us wanted to go. But what was the choice? I joined the ranks of Irishmen and women taking the boats and planes in search of possibility. In the late '80s there were 100,000 of us in New York alone.

In heading to America, I also chose to acknowledge the utter newness of this adventure, by taking on a professional name, Luka Bloom. Hey, why not? This is for the songs. Let's see what's out there. It felt like the last throw of the dice.
'Hi, my name is Luka Bloom. I'm over from Ireland, and would love to sing in your club'.

This was my introduction to the music world of Washington DC, New York, Boston, and Baltimore. Up and down the east coast on the Amtrak train. 'ALL ABOARD"! Indeed.

Dylans in Georgetown,DC; The Red Lion on Bleecker Street in New York, various bars in Boston.....For two years I jumped from one to the other, writing and singing non-stop.

Coming into New York in the late 80s was overwhelming. AIDS, crack cocaine, wheeling and dealing as ever - too high, too fast, too big... It was terrifying for a young man from the plains of Kildare; and it was utterly fantastic. I realised one day that New York was as shocking for a man from Iowa as for a man from Kildare. I told myself to take a chill pill and give it time. It began to feel familiar. I walked and walked for hours, endlessly fascinated and thrilled and exhausted and scared and overjoyed.

Some of the clubs had acts performing from 8pm until 4am every night, a new act every hour. I deliberately worked the midweek nights, to build up my own crowd, and little by little it began to happen.

Over a period of two years I was taken in by the people in the Village. They minded me. They said thank you for bringing us these songs. And I began to experience that which is a cliché to many, but the reality for so many of us; a sense of hope and belief that maybe there is a place in this world for these songs. And it started in New York.

In one intense period in early 1989 I met the people who became my managers, booking agent, record company, publishers for the next five years. All in the Red Lion, Under Acme, Urban Divide, The Knitting Factory, even CBGBs. Tom Prendergast, Glenn Morrow, Michael Hill, Frank Riley, Kenny McPherson, Paddy Doherty.... to name but a few. I still call you my friends, and I thank you - for they were magical days and nights.

Suddenly, life was different. Everything changed after Riverside in 1990. Calls came in from Australia, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, The UK, and of course, Ireland. Those days in New York changed everything. They opened the door to the world. It still amazes me.

Some of it was tough. In pre-email, pre text and cell-phone days, contact with home was sparse enough. And there is only so much you can share in letter or phone. It aches to be away from the ones you love, but that is life for many of us. And hopefully, we do our best when we get back home.

Twenty years later I decided to honour those times with a record. It is not a 'best of', with tracks lifted from old records. I chose to revisit songs from the last ten albums since, and bring them back to life with new versions. Sometimes it's a song I don't like the original recorded version anymore; sometimes it's just a new feeling for a song. Sometimes it's the words, sometimes it's the rhythm, and sometimes it's just the sounds on these guitars. This is raw. It's in my living-room. You can hear the guitar strap creaking off the wood; the fingers banging off the body. Hopefully you can feel the warmth in the room. It's about the songs, the sound of these strings, and most of all, the words.

And, though I claim to be allergic to nostalgia, it is about the memories also, and they are so good. There were a few little moments when I felt like a king; just so happy to have arrived at a place where it was normal to be singing, not struggling to be singing. What a relief. I had this dream, and struggled with it. And in New York it became a reality, so strong that twenty years later the fire still burns stronger than ever.

It's good to remember all this. It's good to be grateful. It's good to say thank you to the places and people who opened their hearts and minds to the songs of a Kildareman. Ye brought me to the foot of the mountain, and I'm still trekking....

There is one 'new' song on this record. It is in fact, a very old song called Lord Franklin. I sing it in honour of my friend Micheál O'Domhnaill, whose version of the song was, and still is, the definitive one for me.

And finally as this record is about the last twenty years, I felt it would be nice to include a few live tracks.
'I hear her, like Lorelei', and 'Love is a Monsoon' were recorded in the National Concert Hall in Dublin with members of the National Concert Hall orchestra in August 2009.

And Sunny Sailor Boy is from AB in Brussels in March 2009. Brian Masterson engineered my first ever record TREATY STONE in Dublin in 1977. We've done a few together since, and here we are again, giving it a lash. Life is good.
See ye down the road,

Luka