Musician Conor O’Brien of Villagers notes John Ashbery as a touchstone for his art and offers a realization of the meaning of Ashbery’s poems.
Culture That Made Me: Conor O’Brien of Villagers reveals his touchstones
Duke Ellington, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Christy Moore feature among the singer's selections
Conor O'Brien of Villagers musician music band group
SUN, 04 DEC, 2022 - 21:00
By RICHARD FITZPATRICK
Conor O’Brien, 39, grew up in Glenageary, Co. Dublin. He formed Villagers in 2008. Both their first two albums were shortlisted for the Mercury Prize. In 2021, the band released their fifth studio album Fever Dreams.
Villagers are on a nationwide acoustic tour, including a performance Sunday, Dec 11, at the Everyman Theatre in Cork, as well as Dec 12 at INEC Killarney, and Dec 17 at Source, Thurles. See: www.wearevillagers.com.
Radiohead
My first ever show was going to see Radiohead. I was 14. It was in the RDS. It was all downhill after that – seeing Radiohead playing OK Computer. Nothing quite lives up to that.
I was around 12-ish when I started getting properly into music. I found The Bends around that time. That summer of 1997 I was playing guitar and learning all of the OK Computer bits.
Then my older brother surprised me with tickets to see them. I still get goosebumps thinking about it. It was an incredible show.
Christy Moore
Growing up, there was a Christy Moore Live at the Point album lying around the house. I wore it out. I didn't grow up in a trad environment.
I was listening to indie guitar music. But I remember hearing his cover of that Pink Floyd song Shine on You Crazy Diamond. Maybe that was my way in. I was just learning guitar when I found it. His natural rhythm on that album, and also the mixture of humour and then sudden seriousness.
The cocktail of that inspired me. It’s a great album.
Duke Ellington
When I was growing up I rejected all the big band and jazz albums in my parents’ house. I thought it was not my thing. It was only a few years ago a friend of mine, who I grew up with, came back from Berlin over Christmas and stayed with me. He’s a big techno fan, but he was obsessed with Duke Ellington as well. We listened to him pretty late at night. Since then, I've gone on a massive binge.
I got an email yesterday saying I spent some crazy amount of minutes listening to Duke Ellington on Spotify this year. He had to rail against so much in his life, but he did it with grace. There's a real grace to his music and a real adventurousness, but also a deep, old-fashioned discipline, which I'm interested in, knuckling down and working hard on one particular thing.
Beck
The first album I bought was Beck’s Mellow Gold. I remember buying the cassette tape, and then getting into trying to make music like that. It sounded accessible. It sounded messy and like something you could make yourself, which was inspiring. I had a lovely moment 15, 20 years later where I was doing a Beck show in The Barbican. He arrived. He didn't know the chords to one of his songs. I remember I got to show him the chords in the soundcheck. I don't think he realised how big that was for me. It was a very Beck thing to do – to ask one of the musicians to show him his own song.
Pavement
I saw Pavement recently in Vicar St. It was like going back in time. They were a big band for me. They were just as cool as ever. I guess their humour and the surrealist bent appeals to me. I also saw them at Primavera last year. There was something emotional about that gig. They ended it with a Native American folk song. It kept repeating over and over again, and I was crying. It was very nice.
Other side of perfectionism
Pavement feel accessible. I'm a perfectionist by nature. When I hear musicians who are not being perfectionist, who are sloppy with their art, it always inspires me. That's a gigantic hurdle to jump over – to try and make something leaving the mistakes in a bit. It’s a cliché, but it's important to not try and make art for the sake of some imagined audience that you're trying to impress.
Pavement are a good example of making art for yourself and for the fun. The by-product of that being that it's actually awesome music for other people as well.
The Happy Prince and Other Tales
My first memory of being into reading was my oldest sister would read me Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince and Other Tales. I was about eight or nine. I’ve returned to those stories. They're amazing. They're allegorical, softly didactic. There's morals in them, a soft Christian undertone, but they're also complicated and weird.
There’s a lot of death and decay in them too, which I was fascinated by and terrified by as a child. It stuck in my brain, the way dark stuff can stick in your brain when you're growing up. It’s important for kids. It’s good to have stuff that isn't just sugar-coated.
John Ashbery
In college, I studied postmodern, American poetry like John Ashbery. I hated it. I remember telling my tutor I was going to write my final-year essay, basically explaining why it was all complete bullshit and elitist. I started out explaining why it had destroyed traditional literature in the mid-twentieth century and by the end of writing it I was really into it.
With John Ashbery’s poetry, it’s exploring how to express the inexpressible, which is basically what art is for me. When you have a thought or a feeling and you know that words will never do it justice, you'll never be able to express that to anyone else. That's when you write the song, and that's what John Ashbery was trying to get at, in an interesting way.
Once Upon a Time in America
It's an Ennio Morricone kind of world for me. So my favorite film if it came to a push would be Once Upon a Time in America by Sergio Leone. It blows my mind every time I watch it. I’ve watched it so many times. Obviously it's got the Morricone score. I got to see him do it live before he died in Dublin, which was amazing.
Curb Your Enthusiasm
I was a big Seinfeld fan. I have lots of friends who just hate Seinfeld. I was always defending it because it's so stupid, and so ridiculous. Curb Your Enthusiasm is even more stupid. I find it's hilarious.
On Being with Krista Tippett
There’s a hippyish, holistic podcast called On Being with Krista Tippett, which I got into during lockdown. It was a good thing for me. She interviews lots of different types of people – authors, creative people, wellbeing coaches. All that world. She's got an open mind about it all. It’s an interesting podcast.