Wide Awake in Dublin

A comprehensive guide to the Dublin music scene is something that has, in all fairness, been well overdue. Neil Hegarty’s Waking Up In Dublin explores the contemporary music scene in Dublin with a considerable amount of skill, taking in the post-rock axis of the Jimmy Cake and the Redneck Manifesto alongside more orthodox combos like The Thrills and David Kitt, together with self-contained outsider movements like the jazz scene and the burgeoning folk faction.
What was Hegarty’s view of the Dublin music scene before he wrote the book?
“Well, I approached the commission very much from the point of view of a layman,” he explains. “I knew a bit about the music scene, but I’ve never been a music journalist, and in that sense I was an outsider. I guess what really struck me was how full of energy the scene was. It’s just so diverse and so full of confidence, and that’s something I hadn’t really realised before.”
As indicated by the book’s subtitle, A Musical Tour Of The Celtic Capital, one of Hegarty’s chief strengths lies in his facility for travel writing. He treats the subject matter very much as a voyage into uncharted territory - a point emphasised by his willingness to stop interviewees mid-sentence and elicit details on any esoteric or obscure details that might have arisen. Did Hegarty come away from his travels feeling that the capital has a unique soundtrack?
“I think an interesting thing I found was the sheer number of styles being fused together,” he replies. “I’m thinking about a band like the Jimmy Cake, who merge traditional rhythms with more contemporary sounds. Now, on the face of it, it’s the kind of thing that could happen anywhere, but I do think that there’s an indigenous rock movement within Ireland that has its own identity and its own stylistic idiosyncracies.”
As Hegarty himself outlines in the book, the Dublin music scene of today bears scant resemblance to the A&R man-infested, stadium rock-polluted circuit that thrived in the aftermath of U2’s ascendance to rock’s premier league. Indeed, it could be argued that in terms of diversity, the capital has never been so well-served, with all manner of genres flourishing, from the most corrosive garage punk to ambient electronica.
With such a wide-ranging palate of musical styles from which to extract his subject matter, did Neil make any unexpected discoveries in the writing of the book?
“Well, I think that if you look at the jazz scene, for instance, it’s remarkable to note just how much it’s matured over the past few years,” he muses. “A decade ago, the jazz scene was really small, but now it’s grown into a sophisticated movement with a really discerning and knowledgeable audience. Also, Irish musicians these days are very supportive of one another. That’s definitely a new development!”
Finally, who is Neil’s favourite band in Dublin at the moment?
“Oh, I’d have to go for the Jimmy Cake,” he enthuses. “What’s most exciting is that they’d still only really starting out, because they’re the kind of band who could go on to achieve anything at all.”

Waking Up In Dublin is available now, published by Sanctuary