Fans of Paul Weller got a close-up look at a different kind of changing man during the mod-father’s last Belfast show. Ironically, though, the musician getting all chameleonic on their asses wasn’t the headline attraction.
Called up at the last minute to provide support (“I got a text message that afternoon, four hours later I was up on stage at the Ulster Hall”), Eamonn McNamee told one punter keen to know who he was to call him Elvis. Six months previously, the answer would have been Slim Memphis. Before that, simply Eamonn from The Throes.
As we find him now, bolt upright, and pumped with caffeine in a South Belfast coffee shop, he’s happy being Eamonn, just Eamonn. But such is the frenetic manner with which he puts the world to rights, don’t be surprised if he’s performed a deed-poll somersault by the time the bill arrives.
The last time we met up with the Ballymena boy, he was lead singer of the aforementioned Throes. In keeping with the say-hello-wave-goodbye curse of Hit The North, the issue in which the band was featured had barely landed in the shops when news came through that, following a fractious show at Belfast’s Empire, The Throes were no more.
“I didn’t actually sack them on stage,” says Eamonn. “I just confirmed it. I thought I’d told them at our last practice. Maybe I wasn’t clear enough.”
Wasting little time, his next move saw him strap on a harmonica, adopt a stage name (“I’d a Memphis Slim record in the house and thought that nobody here would have a clue who I was referring to), and attempt to hone his act in various rural backwaters.
Judging that a success, he quickly reintroduced himself to audiences in Belfast and, since then, has been providing a rare, impassioned and charismatic presence in a generally anaemic scene. And beyond the scene as well.
“I worked in HMV over Christmas and kept getting into grief with the bosses,” he reveals. “They insisted on playing mediocre rubbish like James Blunt and Coldplay and I was trying to slip other stuff on when they weren’t around. Nine times out of 10, they’d catch me. But I did get away with a few things. I got to play the whole of Richard Hawley’s album one afternoon. Sold three copies of it in half an hour. Which shows you that if you expose people to quality, they’ll go for it.”
If James Blunt fans should best steer clear, so too should anyone who, on stumbling across a boy and his guitar, assume that they’re in for standard singer-songwriter fare.
“I was watching the nominations for the Brit Awards last night. Did you know that there is a Brits School?” he says in disgust. “It’s this hell-hole that churns out people like Katie Melua. They interviewed a couple of the students and they were going on about how they were going to work hard, do their home-works, and then qualify as singer-songwriters. I sat there thinking ‘what the fuck?’ Do you do modules on trauma and heartbreak and smack habits? It’s like KT Tunstall. I watched her on a Bob Dylan tribute doing ‘Tangled Up In Blue’ and she looked so pleased with herself. You don’t wink at the fucking audience and grin when you’re singing ‘Tangled Up In Blue’.”
Singer-songwriters have given themselves a bad name, he feels. “Look at Jack Johnson. That’s why I don’t think of myself as one. I play on my own.”
For how much longer he’s going to do this in Belfast is a matter currently under discussion. Eamonn plans to brush the place’s dust from his shoes as soon as he can and then make a bee-line for London.
“I’ve somewhere to stay,” he says. “Hopefully I’ll have something recorded by the end of the month, and I’ll take that over with me. I’m not making any big plans; I’ll just get my head down and see what happens. I’m tired of this place. I’ve spoken to too many people; it feels like time to move on.”
We can only wish him well going underground.
Pics: Amberlea Trainor