Singer and songwriter Bobby Aherne talks about the origins of his art-pop act, No Monster Club – and why you might spot him walking down the street and humming into his phone.
Bobby Aherne says in his younger years he was against the idea of being in a band. It seemed stupid and he was shy. Embarrassed, even.
But he wrote some songs anonymously, loaded them up to MySpace, and gigs and albums followed.
He took the name No Monster Club from an old folk legend, he tells Martin Cook in this episode of the Music at Marrowbone Books podcast.
The legend was “about the London Monster, this creep, who used to go around harassing people”. People formed a group to stop him.
Aherne’s songs usually come from fragments of tunes. If you spot him on the street, and he looks like he is on the phone, he might just be humming and making a recording, he says. “There are hundreds if not thousands of them on my phone.”
Ellen Be, and the band Cozinha Preta, brought a message of cultural awakening and ancestral power.
The government should tell communities directly about plans for new asylum shelters, some activists and politicians say.
The current skirmish is over a Manna base at Junction 6 in Blanchardstown.
