Paddy Cullivan has been living in the Rialto suburb of south Dublin for over a year and a half, in a first-floor apartment with a balcony. So why Rialto and why this place?
Paddy says: “Rialto has a village feel to it and a buzz about it all the time. You hear people talking in Old Dublinese. But it’s also probably the cheapest place in Dublin to live, apart from the Sandyford Industrial Estate. These apartments were originally built in 1878 by Guinness for their workers. My other half is a superb interior designer so we did lots with it. With the balcony it has a kind of New Orleans or Brooklyn, New York loft feel to it.”
Paddy grew up in a Georgian house on the northside of central Dublin. “I like old-fashioned things. I can’t abide those modern toytown developments. Going into them makes me feel the same as if I go into a church, I find something crushing the breath out of me. Most of them are soulless,” he reckons.
I wonder which persona really dwells here, Paddy Cullivan or Clint Velour? “Oh I’m definitely Paddy here,” he insists. I ask him if he ever has to practise Clint in front of a mirror. “Not at all. I invented my alter ego in NCAD back in 1995, so it’s all part of me now. That’s why I still take pleasure in abusing student audiences.”
This is a little disappointing, as I expected to barge in on incisive debates tackling world problems. “When I’m at home,” Paddy explains, “such debates generally take place between me and my dog Tyson. Otherwise I tend to leave it all at the front door and use the apartment to hide from people I don’t want to meet. It’s dangerous out there, with people like Aidan and Des Bishop always hanging around, so you have to be careful. Or, you could be decapitated by a haircut just walking down the street these days.”
But I find it hard to accept that he can watch TV, of which he admits to viewing a lot, without finding ideas for his political satire? “Of course, but it’s not really something I have to work at. Once you assume that frame of mind you see material all over the place, not just on TV, but out and about.”
Anyway, the latest issue to engage the 15-years-old “but fit as a fiddle” Tyson is Live Earth. “These things are supposed to be about raising awareness. In reality they’re more about raising record sales and massaging egos.” They’re in agreement on this one.
When not confronting Tyson with the issues of the day Paddy can often be seen shouting at the telly. “I shout at the TV constantly, especially Questions And Answers and when politicians like Michael McDowell used to be on. I think we should all be in full dialogue with our TV sets. I’m probably one of the few people who think that 1984 would be a good thing. I find Big Brother essential viewing. It’s a great psychological study of the death of the British Empire. I tend to watch TV very late at night and very early in the morning. Other than that I watch DVDs mainly.”
He also has a vast collection of records, mostly in storage. “There’s probably up to 4,000, ranging from Velvet Underground to Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Justin Timberlake, hardcore trance, punk, whatever. Although I like the new album by Battles, I’m not a huge fan of the new rock stuff. I tend to feel that rock is now in its fourth reinvention and I’ve heard it all several times already. The same stuff keeps coming around again and again. I also tend to take a while to catch up. I think I was about 12 years late with punk. But I have all the Zeppelin albums. As Jack White said, ‘Don’t trust anybody who doesn’t like Led Zeppelin.’”
Yet this is not the place to come expecting rip-roaring music sessions in progress in the wee small hours? “No. It’s the same problem for anybody with close neighbours, trying to find ways to make noise quietly. Although I often take my guitar out onto the balcony, otherwise I have to consider the other people around. People like me can’t afford to book into Grouse Lodge and hang out there until we get dropped by the record company.”
Cullivan is particularly fond of radio. “I love Marian Finucane. Any kind of round table relaxed discussion appeals to me, although I hate experts. They always have some agenda or other,” he believes.
He hoards books, with, he claims, “tons” in storage. “I go to Hodges Figgis every Sunday and buy four or five new books. My latest favourite is God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens, but I often go in just to buy one book and come out with eight. I like the Lonely Planet guides. I find I learn more about the history of a place from travel books than from history books”, he says.
As for DIY, he’s very keen. “My dad was a DIY enthusiast, and I did a lot of the work on the apartment myself. I seem to have spent most of my life carrying stuff up and down stairs.”
Cullivan is currently getting his ass in gear for the forthcoming Electric Picnic Leviathan debates at Electric Picnic. “There’s one debate each day, one on Climate Change, one on Romantic Ireland’s Dead And Gone and the third asks Has Rock’n’Roll Any Business In Politics? The debates take place at 6 o’clock, and at 10 each night the Camembert Quartet follow Jinx Lennon for a rock set. So I’ll be busy.”
Although not a fan of visual arts, his apartment is adorned by a large map of Ireland. I’m reminded of all those films of Hitler slavering as he contemplates world domination. Does Cullivan’s map have the same use? “It’s actually something I did for a Leviathan show looking at how Ireland might be in 2016, like we ceded independence to Cork since they were always complaining about the rest of us. But the analogy with Hitler is not entirely wrong, since the first Camembert Quartet album was called Music Is War,” he says. “And I am 25% German,” he adds as an afterthought.
So what would make him consider moving? “Michael McDowell and the government’s inept handling of the property boom. I’d like to get it together in a cottage in the country like a proper ‘60s rock star. Somewhere like Donegal,” he confesses.