This is the blog of Matteo Cullen, PhD researcher, musician and teacher. The blog is a new space where the PhD research topic - Irish rock music of the 1970s - will be debated, argued, streched out and banged about. In addition, other college issues and initiatives will be tracked to some extent - academic training, grant applications, day to day issues. Let's not overlook the key focus, however: 1970s IRISH ROCK MUSIC. I should say at this point that this page will deal with key figures from Ireland's rock history and culture - Van Morrison, Phil Lynott and Rory Gallagher. Unfortunately, the debates engaged in here will probably be of no great interest to the general reader, since they are highly academic. I won't be going into major detail in areas such as autobiography, and people looking for an accessible read on their favourite Irish rock artists should probably start by visiting fan sites, or buying a good biography. I would personally recommend the following biographies for the focused, interested individual:
Van Morrison: Rogan, Kevin (2004) No Surrender: Van Morrison. A critical account of Van Morrison's career by a man who isn't afraid to, well, critique. Engaging book, well researched, significantly more in-depth than previous Rogan book on Morrison. No rationale given for continuous comparison of Van Morrison with Ian Paisley.
Rory Gallagher: McAvoy Gerry and Pete Chrisp (2006) Riding Shotgun. Twenty years on the road with Gallagher means that McAvoy is in a privileged position to discuss Gallagher's professional life. Only Tom O'Driscoll could rival that! There's a bit of mythbusting, as McAvoy reveals the regimental approach to professional affairs adopted by Gallagher in the post Taste era - no doubt coloured by his experiences in the Taste set-up. The strengths of McAvoy's work lie not only in the first-hand account it provides of life on the road with an icon of Irish rock, but also in the provision of a constructive account it gives of the development of rock culture in Ireland, and the life of professional musicians in the 1960s and 1970s. Jean-Noel Coghe's biography is also worth a mention, though I suggest it merits 'for collectors only' status. Interesting photographs in it, however.
Philip Lynott: If I'm not mistaken there are more biographies of Lynott and Thin Lizzy than Gallagher and Morrison. (I could be mistaken...) A key biography is Putterford(2002) Phil Lynott: The Rocker, Omnibus Press. Detailed and written from a rocker's perspective - employs the classic 'rise and fall' narrative, but not in an essentialising way - it has plenty of facts and figures, interviews and quotations from key actors in the Thin Lizzy story. Well complemented by 'My Boy' the book co-written by Mrs Philomena Lynott and Jackie Hayden which details Mrs Lynott's life in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and her experiences, both positive and negative, as life of a rock icon.
A drawback of the rock-personality biography (genre) in general is that they rarely meaningfully consider the music itself (consider Allan Moore, John Covach, Alan Walser). None of the above contain dedicated musicological analysis, consider issues of sociomusicological context (Derek B. Scott) or adopt exploratory methodological paradigms (Portia Maultsby, Deryck Cooke)...oh well.
Feel free to post a comment here on these biographies, if you have read them, or please suggest others which are key. I plan to attach a forum to this page where issues can be debated in full.
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