Culture That Made Me: Cork DJ Shane Johnson picks his touchstones
Shane Johnson, Cork DJ and producer, is playing as part of the Magic Nights By the Lee, at Lee Rowing Club. Picture: Jed Niezgoda
Born in 1970, Shane Johnson grew up in Bishopstown, Co Cork. In 1988, he started DJing with Greg Dowling. As Fish Go Deep, the duo also began releasing music.
Their residency sets at Sir Henry’s nightclub in Cork in the 1990s have attained legendary status. The bi-weekly podcast of their long-running radio show has clocked more than 5 million listens.
He will perform with Martin Roche (Get Down Edits) at Cork’s Lee Rowing Club, Saturday, August 9, as part of a series of club nights that will also include Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip (Fri, Aug 8) See: www.magicnightsbythelee.com. Johnson also plays Eden in Ibiza on Sept 5.
I loved by the Jesus and Mary Chain. I was drawn to the sheer antisocial aspects of it. You're a teenager, what are you gonna do? Play music that sounds like barbed wire. The album was tremendously exciting. Listening back with the ears I have now, underneath all the distortion, I can hear stuff like Phil Spector. There are actual pop songs in there, but they're buried beneath this obnoxious sound, which appealed to me.
by Dexys Midnight Runners was such a different record to what came out of UK pop music on its release in 1980. I started listening to it a few years later. The references were back to black music. The band had a look and an attitude that grabbed me.
On the album’s first song, Kevin Rowland runs through a list of Irish writers, including Oscar Wilde, Sean O'Casey, George Bernard Shaw. That sunk in subconsciously – you didn't hear too many Irish references in British pop music around that time.
My dad [Bill] was into jazz. He had a great hi-fi system in the front room. I love jazz now, but as a teenager, it was an annoyance, not what I wanted to hear. The first genre music I picked up on was hip hop. I got into the Def Jam stuff, coming out of New York – Public Enemy, LL Cool J, Eric B. & Rakim.
Public Enemy’s first album, was a different sound. The lyrics are political and anti-establishment, which appeals to teenagers. It was eye-opening – Chuck D was giving you the news from the streets as opposed to the TV.
The first time I was in Sir Henry's was my brother's 21st birthday around 1984. It was a fancy dress party. I was massively underage, but I got in because I was in disguise. It was my first experience of the lights, the music, all these people smiling and dancing.
I've held that memory as a DJ. When you're looking down on this heaving mass of people, everyone having the night of their lives, you feed into those experiences and memories yourself as a DJ. Sometimes you can get complacent as a DJ.
You must catch yourself when it's great, keeping in mind it’s not always as good as this. Since leaving Henry's, Greg and myself have had plenty of good nights elsewhere, but it's hard match nights we had there.
Mike Pickering, from the Haçienda in Manchester, was the first DJ Greg Dowling and myself brought over to Sir Henry's. He was massively influential. Greg and myself had been trying to figure out the mechanics of DJing. To see someone more experienced, on another level in terms of his selection and the way he put music together, up close was inspiring.
In the late 1990s, we brought Joe Claussell over to Sir Henry's. He was a big DJ in New York. He had a way to frame songs – he'd play a song you wouldn't think is a song for the dance floor, but the context he played it, with the song he played before and after it, turned it into a song that made sense on the dance floor.
That was eye opening – the epitome of a great club DJ is taking a song, making it their own, using context all the time.
Around 1983, I got a ticket for my favourite band at the time – Human League at Cork’s City Hall, but they cancelled the gig. There was a storm. Their gear hadn't arrived by ferry. I was inconsolable. My older sister, Gina, took pity on me. She brought me down to the Regional Tech, where a Dublin band, Tokyo Olympics, were playing. I've a memory of the wise arse on the door saying to my sister, “Do you want a family ticket, love?”
I bought a box of 10 Major [cigarettes] for the occasion. My older brother, Billy, was at the gig. He was bumming fags off me for the night. I remember the band being great. They made one album, I relistened to it recently. It holds up well.
In 1984, I went to see The Smiths at the Savoy. One of my siblings brought me along. That was amazing – to see the fervour of the crowd, Morrissey on stage in his pomp, flowers everywhere, sticking out his back pocket. Just being overwhelmed by the experience, the noise, the slight edge of danger, not sure what's gonna happen. That's what gives live music and clubbing the real edge.
I’ve been to tons of memorable gigs at the Cork Jazz Festival. On a Sunday night, for after-hours, where you'd get musicians still hanging around playing little sessions in the Metropole Hotel, my dad always slipped me in with a friend or two to catch impromptu gigs there.
One year stands out. I was with a good friend, Joe Corcoran, who's since died. We sat in one of the small rooms, to see Art Farmer. He played flugelhorn and trumpet. He would have been almost 70. He played the most sublime set.
I saw The Second Woman in Cork Midsummer Festival with Eileen Walsh playing the same scene repeatedly – with different actors, a hundred actors – for 24 hours. It's a seven-minute scene. It changes depending on what the other actor brings, their attitude, and how she reacts.
My wife and I went up to Maureen's for a pint after an hour and a half of it. Having discussed it, we got into it again for a couple of hours. Then left in the early hours of the morning and came back the next morning to see how things were going. It was a fabulous experience. It shows what you can do with theatre.
Geoff Dyer is such a funny writer. His interests resonate – the way he talks about men and their obsessions. There's nobody like him. He’s invented an entire category for himself – it's not memoir, biography nor travel. It's bits of all these things.
He has an amazing eye. His recall is phenomenal. His latest book, Homework, a memoir of his early years, is painted so vividly. It's a beautiful book to immerse yourself in. I enjoy his writing so much.
is a movie from the 1970s featuring Gene Hackman and Al Pacino. People in the know say it’s a great unsung movie, directed by Jerry Schatzberg.
Both actors are the best versions of themselves. Sometimes Pacino can be too big, but he was contained in it. Hackman is always brilliant. They play two interesting characters. It’s great.
- Fish Go Deep’s current single, features Elaine Dowling on vocals, and is currently available on various platforms: https://li.sten.to/fishgodeep
