At home with...Francesca Brown

Putting Cork on the rock-and-roll map of the world is something of a mission for Francesca Brown right now. As the brains behind the hugely successful Cork Rocks series of gigs, she just might succeed in her quest.

In fact, such has been the success of the gigs – held at an Cruiscin Lan on the last Friday of every month – that she has been credited with re-igniting the live scene in Cork, which had suffered somewhat during the '90s dance boom.
But all this hard work takes its toll and our encounter with Francesca takes place early on a Saturday afternoon, where we find her recovering from a rather late session the night before.
“I’m a bit of rock chick, I’m afraid” she laughs. “I went to an EP launch for the band Exit: Pursued By a Bear last night. Then we went to an after party and ended up staying out ‘til six.”
If things go to plan, there might be many more late nights out for Francesca. She has been quoted recently as saying that Cork is poised to become the next Manchester or Seattle. Does she really believe that? “The Cork music scene is a goldmine of talent right now,” she says. “I think I’m a very good judge of music and there are about 10 bands here who could become huge if they got the chance. It hasn’t peaked yet – but it’s going to explode in about six months time. I really do believe that. Just wait and see.”
The Cork Rocks gigs started out by accident, as she relates: “Myself and Ger Buckley, the lead vocalist of Eve of Mind, were talking and bitching about the fact that no-one bothers to come to gigs anymore. We thought that if we could package an event, have a few bands on and charge a fiver in it would encourage people to come. If you give people a good night they’ll come back – which is what happened.”
She believes strongly in encouraging and nurturing talent rather than opting for instant entertainment value: “When I go to see a band I see potential, even if it’s raw and unproduced. I love the fact that you can find the genius behind the band if you look hard enough. You have to be a shepherd and not a sheep to appreciate good music and people need to realise that. Too many people read that this band or that band are great and just accept it at face value. There are a lot of bands out there getting coverage that don’t deserve it. I could mention who they are – but most people know who I’m talking about.”
Cork bands have sometimes been on the quirky side, going right back to outfits like Five Go Down To The Sea, Microdisney and more recently Sultans of Ping FC and The Frank and Walters. Does she have any theories as to why this might be the case. “Cork people are different,” she explains. “They think they’re better than say Dublin bands and have a kind of a ‘fuck you’ attitude and this confidence is reflected in the originality of the music.”
The fact that she had never set foot in the southern capital until relatively recently makes her obsession with upcoming Cork talent all the more intriguing. The daughter of an Italian mother and an English father, she has lived in Amsterdam and Cologne among other places, before arriving in Cork about three years ago.
“The first Irish people I ever met was in Cologne. I worked in Irish bars and hung out there. They were from Cork and they were the coolest people so I decided to move here.”
Home for Francesca is a cosy apartment in a modern block in the centre of Cork city. “I’ve made it my own by filling it with all my clutter, mainly things I’ve collected in my travels in all the countries I’ve lived in,” she says.
“I love art and sculptures. I’m a big Salvador Dali fan – I’ve a large print of his Reflections of Elephants on the wall. And there’s my alien lovers sculpture – an alien woman and an alien man. I got them in M M M Mad!, a shop I that sells crazy stuff here in Cork. I’m a big candle person, especially large white church candles, which I love to light when people are around.”
Music is her work. So not surprisingly it takes up much of her leisure time too.
“I go through phases of listening to different kinds of music. I listen to The Doors an awful lot. They’re one of my favourite bands. And I love Bob Marley and Bowie. My mother was a big fan and I grew up with stuff like that. As for as Cork bands, it would mainly be Eve of Mind – they could be the biggest band in the world. But if I had to pick one all-time favourite album it would probably be Joni Mitchell’s first album, Song To a Seagull. The fact that it was written before she was famous makes the songs all the more real to me.”
A self-confessed movie buff, Francesca collects DVDs, especially older classics, and is a regular cinema goer.
“The best movie I saw in the cinema recently was Walk The Line. It was a real movie and one that hit home for me. I like stuff like Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange. A nice one I saw recently was Panic in Needle Park – it had a very young Robert De Niro in it. It’s a ‘70s version of Trainspotting, set in New York.“
“I read a lot too. A book I read recently was Frederic Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathrustra, it has unbelievable imagery. I like Paolo Cuehlo’s The Alchemist – another book everyone should read – and The Little Prince is a beautiful book. It will change your life.”
Finally, given her propensity for travelling, does she expect to remain in Cork?
“For the moment yes, but when Eve Of Mind and some of the other Cork Bands are touring the world, I’ll be travelling with them (laughs).”