Author: Kevin McGeary

Back in March, I gave an interview about my musical journey, and about the August gig at Manchester Academy 3, to Nathan Russel Williams of NRW Socials.

How long have you been playing?

I started learning guitar in 1997, when I was thirteen. My first guitar hero was Noel Gallagher (there’s a reason why children aren’t allowed to vote). I started writing songs the following year.

In the 2008/09 academic year, when I was getting my most immersive experience of China, I started writing songs in the language. Subsequently, I realised a Caucasian singing in Mandarin would never be taken seriously, so I might as well turn a weakness into a strength and embrace my status as a jester.

Where can people catch you playing before the gig?

I’m something of a fixture on Manchester’s open mic scene, including at The Lion’s Den, The Flour and Flagon, and Grand Central. I also host music events on Meetup several times a month.

Favourite song to sing in the shower?

I don’t really sing in the shower, I live in an apartment building with thin walls. But I have a new musical obsession every month. This month it is ‘I’m Always Here’ by Jimi Jamison.

When was the first time you played live?

I’ve been playing live since I was a beginner, but when it comes to my current schtick, self-penned songs with off-the-wall lyrics, I started performing them in China in 2012.

What are most listened to songs on your Spotify?

I don’t use Spotify, but I imagine if such a thing were calculated, the film soundtracks of Ennio Morricone would be up there, as would anything written by Jim Steinman.

What can people expect from your show?

To grin from ear-to-ear, for a multitude of possible reasons.

Favourite artists and influences

Well, although I see myself as a musician first and a humourist a very distant second, my Bachelor’s degree was in English Lit, so I think I draw more influence from Dylan Thomas than from Bob Dylan. My all-time favourite composer is Claude Debussy, my favourite of the past half-century is Morricone. My all-time favourite songwriter, it’s hard to say, but Jim Steinman is certainly up there. When it comes to my particular style, music-based humour, one of the best songwriters still working today is certainly Dillie Keane.

Your first album bought

Queen’s Greatest Hits 1974-1980

Your hopes and where you see your path in music

Continue improving at the craft and build a body of work. I don’t have any ‘ambitions’ when it comes to public recognition, so success will mean being able to work at it for as long as possible, so as long as I don’t lose or break my fingers, become a mute, or get hideously deformed in an acid attack or something similar, I will be delighted to be able to keep writing and performing. 

What was your first gig

Manic Street Preachers at the Manchester Arena, December 1998.

What was the last gig you went to?

Excluding open mics, The Kunts at Satan’s Hollow, December 2021. Since then, I saw George Borowski at The Lion’s Den, but that was more spoken word than music.

What upcoming gigs have you planned?

To go to? Kula Shaker are in town this summer. I think I’ll give them a go.

Why people should buy a ticket to your show?

Because it is inexpensive, and if you don’t like the comedy you’ll still love the music, or vice-versa.

Most disliked artist/genre and why?

I just have individual works of art that I dislike rather than entire artists. I dislike it when Coldplay try to offer social or political insight, because they never actually have any. I generally believe in WB Yeats’ principle that “we have no gift to set a statesman straight”, so don’t care for it when a singer or comedian gets too preachy, unless they happen to be a genuine expert on the subject at hand.

What does it mean to you to be playing at a renowned venue?

Everything. For most of my thirties, I abandoned song-writing for other pursuits. Those things were of great value, including an MBA, a job in a Fortune 500 company, and a book of short stories, but song-writing is what brings it all together for me.  

Though I’m still not the world’s greatest outdoorsman, the Four Peaks Challenge loomed large over the middle of this month. My exercise routine is now back to normal, but it left me semi-mobile for several days afterwards.

Output

This month I have uploaded a new Chinese song

And the demo of a new English song,

which will be on my next album.

This month’s miscellaneous cover was ‘By the Sea’ from Suede’s 1996 album ‘Coming Up’

Activities

Alas, being away for the Four Peaks Challenge caused me to lose some business, but I am doing a lot to get it back up, including employing a professional marketing agent and giving free online lessons:

Also, since this year was meant to be a prolific one for writing non-fiction, I wrote this essay about Tom Lehrer and forgot to mention it before.

Wider World

China is not a country that I am always proud to be associated with. Every Westerner I know sometimes complains about their government, but with a free press, we are able to be quite knowledgeable about what type of people our leaders are.

This month the BBC obtained data detailing China’s monstrous treatment of its Uyghur minority. In 2020, China’s ambassador to the UK denied the abuses with Donald Trump levels of immaturity.

The economic miracle has facilitated a rise in Han Chauvinism, and a nationalism which I find positively revolting. When people are so convinced that they are right, they end up behaving in ways that are utterly wrong. I am reminded of a quote from Jacob Bronowski, one of the great intellectuals of the twentieth century:

This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance, it was done by dogma, it was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave. This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of gods.

In mid-May, in the 48 hours between midday Thursday May 12th and Saturday May 14th, I completed a grand adventure for a great cause. The Lighthouse Charity supports the entire UK construction industry:

Summit of Ben Nevis, Thursday afternoon

Summit of Helvellyn, the small hours of Friday morning

Somewhere on Snowdon, Friday afternoon (at the summit I was in no mood for photographs)

Ferry from Holyhead to Dublin

Bottom of Carrauntoohil, Saturday morning

Summit of Carrauntoohil, Saturday afternoon

Meeting Irish Olympic gold medalists at the awards gala, Saturday night

When I was off booze for Lent, I did weight training at least twice a week. By the end, I was deadlifting almost double my weight. Even after all this exercise I didn’t actually get any lighter (damned Easter eggs).

This fitness will be put to a significant test when I complete the Four Peaks Challenge, for a very good cause. Things that may not be for a good cause, but are nonetheless important to me, include:

Activities

Business is good but could get better. I have made what will hopefully be the first of many video recordings of one of my Chinese lessons. It is for Intermediate reading, and on the subject of myths and legends:

I’m also delighted to announce that I am now set to be published in Litro, a first-rate literary magazine. My first article will be a review of the novel ‘Solo Dance’ by Li Kotomi, and will appear within the next few months. 

Output

Of The Kev songs I’ve written since the launch night last November, this new one (demo here) is probably my favourite. I look forward to recording it in studio:

This month’s miscellaneous cover was ‘Baila Me’ by The Gipsy Kings:

The song is in the Spanish dialect of Gitane, a traveller language that is a mixture of Spanish, French and Catalan. I’ve always wanted to be conversant in Spanish, and every day of this month I have been studying it hard on Duolingo, a website I should have started using years ago.

Wider World

Toward the end of the month, UK Deputy Opposition Leader Angela Rayner was subjected to sexism in The Daily Mail, the nation’s most popular newspaper, accused of crossing and uncrossing her legs to distract male adversaries. The following week, a Member of Parliament for the ruling Conservative Party was reported to be under investigation for watching pornography while parliament was in session. News of misbehaving politicians doesn’t interest me much. Relations between the sexes does.

One of my song lyrics contains the theory that pornography could go the same way as slavery, and our distant descendants may think us monsters for normalising it. I don’t really believe that, but I read a lot by ‘sex-negative’ feminists. In an interview, self-described ‘reactionary feminist’ Mary Harrington has argued that “a measure of sexual repression is necessary in order not to become completely desensitized to erotic stimuli.”

I recently revisited Herman Hesse’s debut novel Peter Camenzind. Having gone to an all-boys’ school and having no sisters, I could very much relate to the early passage: ‘I have always honoured the female sex as a strange and mysterious race superior to the male by virtue of its inherent beauty and singleness of being’.

If I had been alive three-hundred years ago, I may not have owned slaves, or traded slaves, but I would presumably have been in some way complicit in the trade. And I view modern social problems like systemic sexism in a similar manner. A minuscule percentage of people are serious offenders, but everybody is on the spectrum when it comes to being part of the problem.

I have read a lot of feminists who are ideologically opposed to the sex industry, including Julie Bindel, Jo Bartosch, and newly published Mia Döring. I have also read a lot by those on the opposite side of the debate, including Maggie McNeill, Laura Agustin, Camille Paglia and Brooke Magnanti.

Ultimately, I agree with a quote from another novel I recently re-read, Mario Vargas Llosa’s The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto: ‘Ideologies (like feminism) create levelling forms of oppression that are generally worse than the despotisms against which they rebelled’. That is, trying to crack down on something just because it is morally dubious is a slippery and unappealing slope.

Well, to quote a character in Alan Bennet’s play ‘The History Boys’: ‘History? It’s just one ****ing thing after another’. When I was a kid, anyone who was old enough to have fought in a world war was already of pensionable age. And I was only seven when the Soviet Union – seemingly the last great opponent of liberal democracy and Western hegemony – collapsed.

It was tempting to buy into the popular misreading of Francis Fukuyama and believe that history was over. But now it is very much back, and unlike our forebears in the first half of the twentieth century, we cannot just go and fight for our chosen cause, since weapons of war have developed to the point that using them is unthinkable.

Activities

One pupil has moved from four to eight lessons a week, so business is good. To boost public awareness, I am still holding twice-monthly free lessons via The Mandarin Club. I also did my first freelance work for a gaming company that translates instructions from Chinese. On the downside, I missed out on several freelance gigs that I really wanted and turned down several others that weren’t quite right.

Since writing is a personal passion project, I am generally reluctant to take it on as a paid job. It will be some time before I have much to show for it, but I have some essays, books reviews, and comedy sketches that I have finished writing and should make an appearance this year.

While applying for a tutoring gig, I came across a quote that I once listed as among my all-time favourites. It is by the Paraguayan guitarist Agustin Barrios Mangore: “One cannot be a guitarist without bathing in the fountain of culture”.

Though seemingly elitist, it is true that one cannot get the inspiration to create without standing on the shoulders of giants. Having been off booze for Lent this entire month, I have read on average over a novel a week. The absorption of great literature will hopefully manifest itself in weird and wonderful ways.  

Output

This month’s miscellaneous cover is ‘Angel’ by Jimi Hendrix, a song said to be inspired by a dream vision of his mother, who died when he was a teenager:

The next The Kev album is coming along nicely. I think I have an appropriate song for near the beginning

and the end

There is a line in ‘Empty Your Mind’ part 1 about helping people forget their ‘grey little lives’. But now the unglamorous lives of ordinary people are being affected by global affairs in ways that are impossible to ignore.

Wider World

At the start of this year, the UK, like much of the rich world, was already destined to face a cost-of-living crisis. Now the war in Ukraine is set to wreak havoc on energy prices. This reminds me of an extract from David Lodge’s 1988 novel ‘Nice Work’ which observes how a housewife switching on a kettle is blissfully unaware of many things:

the building and maintenance of the power station that produced the electricity, the mining of coal or pumping of oil to fuel the generators, the laying of miles of cable to carry the current to her house, the digging and smelting and milling of ore or bauxite into sheets of steel or aluminium, the cutting and pressing and welding of the metal into the kettle’s shell, spout and handle, the assembling of these parts with scores of other components – coils, screws, nuts, bolts, washers, rivets, wires, springs, rubber insulation, plastic trimmings; then the packaging of the kettle, the advertising of the kettle, the marketing of the kettle to wholesale and retail outlets, the transportation of the kettle to warehouses and shops, the calculation of its price, and the distribution of its added value between all the myriad people and agencies concerned in its production.

You can read the whole extract here.

As of this week (April 1st), utility bills here are set to skyrocket, as caused by global phenomena. Unlike a century ago, history has decided to put the pandemic ahead of the major war in Europe. Although those times are no longer within living memory, from what we know about humans and history, the world somehow muddles through and learns as little as possible.