MY CULTURAL LIFE DAVID KITT

Musician David Kitt has just re-released his 2006 album Not Fade Away on vinyl, while his electronic LP Ooops! Pop, under the New Jackson alias, is out now. Kitt is playing in Kilkenny tonight and Cork tomorrow.

BOOK SKELLIGS HAUL

I’ve been dipping back into Skelligs Haul by Michael Kirby, grandfather of my friend Claireban and legend of where I live in the Ballinskelligs, who lived to the ripe old age of 99. There’s something magical and inspiring about the way he saw and heard this part of the country that can really enhance your interactions with it if you allow yourself to be enchanted by his bright and brilliant and often hilarious mind equally dextrous in English and as Gaeilge.

FILM THE ZONE OF INTEREST

I thought The Zone of Interest was such an incredible piece of art that resonated so clearly. In terms of TV shows, we finally said goodbye to Curb Your Enthusiasm after 12 seasons. Season 12 is pretty hit and miss, and maybe the shtick is a bit played out at this stage... but the season finale was clever, I thought, and I will always love Larry and be grateful for the good times.

RADIO VESPERTINE

Having national treasure Donal Dineen back on the airwaves, sitting in for Ellen Cranitch on her Vespertine show, was such a treat. Why this man isn’t locked in for such a gig is a mystery to me. Congrats also to Cian Ó Cíobháin for 25 years of ATT on Raidió na Gaeltachta. What an incredible feat of consistency and public service to us all. I’ve also started the new Serial podcast about Guantanamo Bay.

EVENTS GUGGENHEIM

The last great overseas gallery I visited was the Guggenheim in Bilbao last October. It was a timely viewing of Richard Serra’s The Matter of Time, what with his recent passing. I really enjoyed the Jan Groover exhibition at Kutxa Kultur Artegunea in San Sebastian and Half Shy, the recent exhibition of paintings by Zsolt Basti at the RHA. I was also very impressed by the recent Metronome event at the NCH. That Studio space has massive potential and is probably the best sound I’ve heard in Dublin for an electronic performance.

Take Five and Paul Desmond on alto sax. To this day he’s one of my favourite soloists. And Vinnie Burke, a great bass player. He did a thing called the Unison Blues. There was The Oscar Peterson Trio with the Night Train album and Ray Brown on bass.

Why did Gary Moore leave the band in 1971?

We got complicated. That’s why

Gary left. He told me we were getting too complicated and I said: “Sure that’s what we set out to do.” We were playing country songs with heavy rock and blues and three-part harmonies – and people didn’t think you could do that. Then along came The Eagles.

The whole Skid Row thing was phenomenal, in as much as we played with The Allman Brothers Band, Iggy and The Stooges and Frank Zappa in the Fillmore in San Francisco in 1970, 1971.

Zappa was great. But we thought we were as good, to be perfectly honest. We had no ego problem at all. I know I’m great.

We were playing the Whiskey A Go Go in Los Angeles and in the audience was Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and Jon Bonham of Led Zeppelin, as well as Ron Wood and Rod Stewart.

What did Led Zeppelin think of this rough-and-ready Irish trio? They obviously liked what they heard, because we hit it off with them. Jon Bonham asked us where we were staying in LA and I said we were waiting to get paid and we hadn’t got anywhere to stay. He turned to his manager Peter Grant and said: “I’ll pay for them to stay with us.” So, we stayed with Led Zeppelin in their hotel in LA. I think they had taken over the whole hotel. I thought we were definitely going to take off as a band. But once Gary Moore left, that was it.

What happened next?

I was back on the dole in Dublin, on Gardiner Street. I remember the first day I was in the queue to get my dole – and at least I had a good f**king leather coat on – and I went to the hatch. There was a pencil with a bit of twine around it, so nobody steals it. The lady says: “Name, please?” All the lads behind me were killing themselves laughing. “Do you not know who that f**ker is?”

I was living in a room in North Great Charles Street. I hadn’t a juice to me name. The landlord said to me: “I don’t mind what you do as long as you don’t cut your wrists in the toilet.”

How do you look back on Skid Row’s first album?

I’d stand by any of the songs on that album. It’s a timeless classic.

Is your song After I’m Gone about mortality?

No, it’s a jazz thing in 10/4 time – which was very complicated then – and is more to do with when you’re somewhere and you have to leave. And then you say to someone: “When I’m gone, you’ll be sorry.” That’s the way life was at the time in the late 1960s.

Lynott, Moore and Bridgeman are all dead. You’re 78 years of age and still trucking.

How’s life?

I couldn’t be better. Here I am, looking at the window at the sun. I live 10 minutes from Dunboyne, 10 minutes from Maynooth, 10 minutes from Kilcock – and I’m in the middle of nowhere. Phil, Gary, Noel – and many others I played with – are all in a great rock and blues band in heaven.

Brush Shiels will perform at Remembering Pat Farrell 3Olympia Thursday June 6. Ticketmaster.ie

We stayed with Led Zeppelin in their hotel in LA. I thought we were definitely going to take off as a band. But once Gary Moore left, that was it