Culture That Made Me: Brian Kerr on Rory Gallagher, Aslan, and Michael D Higgins
Brian Kerr will speak at the Mindfield area of Electric Picnic.
Brian Kerr, 72, grew up in Drimnagh, Dublin. In 1986, he became manager of St. Patrick’s Athletic, serving for a decade before taking up a technical director role at the FAI.
In 1998, he led the Republic of Ireland to gold medals at both the under-16 and under-18 European Championships.
He managed the Republic of Ireland football team (2003-2005) and the Faroe Islands (2009-2011). He will be interviewed at Electric Picnic’s Mindfield stage, 2.40pm, Saturday, August 30.
- See: electricpicnic.ie
I developed a taste for Rory Gallagher early on. I saw Rory several times in the National Stadium and the Carlton in Dublin.
He was magic — the power of the music, his personality, his charisma. You could see he loved playing and entertaining. His live gigs were a shock to the senses.
There was such beauty when he abandoned the electric guitar and played acoustic guitar and soft tunes. His voice was so gentle, yet he could hold the audience, amidst the madness, and the loudest of songs like .
He was amazing. I loved him. I’ll never forget him.
I saw Paul Brady when he played with The Johnstons. I always liked the lyrics of Paul Brady’s songs. He was a great tunesmith.
I love his style of guitar playing, his early stuff, and .
He adapted with the times as well, moving away from folk music, to becoming a rock star, although he wouldn’t describe himself as that – his songs became rocky enough.
Gilbert O'Sullivan’s is one of the greatest pop songs of all time. He has great songs.
He was a personality. He was odd-looking — the get-up on him. I had the short-sleeve jumper style myself for a while, but I never got Gilbert O'Sullivan’s sideways cap or the bovver boots — the big boots with ankle covers on them.
He’d the look of a coal miner on the cover of that album . A great artist.
I saw Philip Lynott knocking around because I ran teams in and played for Crumlin.
He was a charismatic person, tall, a fine-looking fella.
He looked so cool, like in the video, that's what I remember of him. I remember him gigging in the early days.
There was a magic about his style, the way he carried himself, the fact he was from Dublin, and he was black.
Growing up, there weren’t many black lads around Drimnagh or Crumlin.
I love his solo work, songs like , , , and , which was used as theme music for .
I’ve been at a few U2 gigs.
I remember seeing U2 at the old SFX in Dublin. They were about to break big in America.
It was around December 1982, coming up to Christmas.
The SFX was a small hall. It was sensational — the fact that the hall was so small and they were on the edge of breaking through to the big time.
One of the best gigs I saw was The Blue Nile, who haven’t done many gigs.
I still play The Blue Nile, especially when I want to enjoy myself.
I met Paul Buchanan. He played Vicar Street one night.
The lads on the door worked with me on the Irish team. They brought me in to see him.
He says to me “You're the football bloke.” I was taken aback.
What a wordsmith, what a musician.
I got Aslan to sing for the senior Ireland team in 2003. I knew [guitarist] Billy McGuinness. I said “Come out and play a few songs.”
A lot of players — the likes of Steve Finnan, Gary Breen, Kevin Kilbane — didn't know who they were.
The truck arrived with their gear to the Portmarnock restaurant hotel — the whole shebang, the big speaker system, the desk, the works.
They did an hour and a half. About 30 lads there, with their arms folded, with faces that said: “Right, go on then — entertain us.”
Billy said he never saw Christy Dignam as nervous in his life as he was before the gig.
Christy came out and he said “This is like playing in your grandma's parlour.” But after that, the lads were all converted. It was sensational.
I’ve probably read five books on Muhammad Ali, one of my heroes. My father was a boxer.
As a kid, my dad got me up in the middle of the night to listen to his fights on the radio. My dad didn't approve of him because of his brashness.
My dad was old-style — you had to have good manners; you’d lift the rope and let the opponent out and never be too cocky.
Whereas I loved him — his style, the codology and the poetry.
When he made the stand and he didn’t go to the Vietnam war — that endeared him more to me.
Richard Morton Jack’s biography of Nick Drake is a tome. I read it intently. Nick Drake was a singer. He died in 1974, only 26.
He became a cult figure after he died. He only released a few albums, including . It’s beautiful, gentle, soft music.
He was reclusive. He never wanted the limelight. He composed the music in his bedroom. A quiet fella, but interesting.
He travelled to France and hung around with famous people, but he didn’t want to be famous himself. The book is very interesting.
I enjoyed Michael D. Higgins's book, , a collection of his writings for the magazine.
My daughter bought the book for me. The articles go back to 1983. It’s very good — it’s almost a commentary on the history of its time, including Italia 90.
The articles are beautifully written with references to music, poetry and politics. His social conscience and love of the arts sticks out. His brilliant intellect is in there and a bit of madness as well.
As a person, I love him, and that he loves the League of Ireland.
A book my hairdresser gave to me is by Hunter Davies.
It’s an illustrated history of football and the working classes and where football started. It goes up to about the ’80s.
The pictures in it are fantastic, and the stories in it are good. It’s great.
I enjoyed my own documentary, . I had reason to talk to Christy Moore one day to get clearance to use some of his music in another DVD project.
When I got to speak to Christy, he said “Jaysus, I was watching that documentary, . It was one of the best things I ever saw on television, but I won't be going walking with you.”
What happened was they dropped me out of a helicopter at the top of several mountains in the Faroes and they started filming me walking. I got so exhilarated by being up so high in this unbelievably scenic place, I started running.
