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Whatever happened to Pat Kenny?

The Late Late Show presenter didn’t exactly cover himself in glory with his recent Pete Doherty interview...

Eamonn McCann, 03 Mar 2009

Don’t believe all that scabrous criticism of Pat Kenny you have been hearing over the past fortnight for his conduct of the Late, Late Show interview with Pete Doherty. He was worse.

I am told that some younger members of Mr. Kenny’s extended family are still not back at school.

It wasn’t so much the blind focus on Kate, drugs and the Irish connection. It was the fact that he couldn’t name a single Doherty song.

A man whose mind knows no trace of ‘Fuck Forever’ or ‘Killamangiro’ or ‘Albion’ or ‘The Man Who Would Be King’ shouldn’t be allowed out, much less let loose on public television.

Would Pat Kenny, if he was interviewing Martin McDonagh, admit as easily that he couldn’t name a McDonagh play?

Kenny used to present a music programme, The Outside Track, on Radio One on Saturdays. I recall looking forward to the eclectic selection of album tracks and Kenny’s intelligent commentary.

Now, looking at the two of them there on the screen, I couldn’t help wondering, Ah, Pat, Where did it all go wrong...?

I made a dash for Mason’s the instant the interview was over to catch Scott H. Biram, a proven antidote.

Biram is the real deal, a stubbly hulk from a delta downriver of Austin, tensed over a double-mike that mangles the vocals as prescribed, wrenching blues riffs and roughneck punk from a sturdy, bruised guitar, eliding from hard-rock stentorian savagery to sweet caress of country. There’s even a waltz-time tune and a bit of a yodel, before getting back to aural assault. I’ll swear he plays lead and bottle-neck and rhythm guitar simultaneous, the meantime thudding out beats with an amplified boot. Plus, he poses relevant philosophical questions, such as, “Where the fuck have all the good times gone?”

With the economy in the grave, Scott H., alongside Kenny’s cred.

Also at Mason’s was another who force-feedbacks unfeasible sounds from an ordinary-looking guitar, Andrew McGibbon, one half (with drummer Chris McMullen) of Lurgan’s Bonnevilles, who reek of the blues and have growly songs that patrol the edge of what’s personally and politically possible, as if there’s a difference.



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Eamonn McCann

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