The last days of disco

When I heard that No Disco was being cancelled last week my first reaction was, "What a shame!" followed by "Why?" You just get used to all these awful fucking video shows which they fill chock-full of bollocks, and obviously that wasn’t the way that No Disco operated.

It’s a programme that’s interwoven into the early years of my Irish adventure. Because Donal Dineen was involved, there was an adventurous playlist and he gave my early videos a chance which helped build a bit of an interest. It was a large part of the reason that my first gig at Whelan’s was such a success. The place was packed. It blew me away then and still makes me smile when I think about it now.

Later on Donal Dineen and Donal Scannell came over to New York to make a video for ‘Late Night Radio’. "Can you get a camera?" "Yes." "Okay, we’ll arrange a flight." That was the budget!

After Donal Dineen left to do his radio programme, there was Uaneen Fitzsimons who was also a really nice, positive person and very sincere about her music. I remember hanging out with her and some of our friends when I went over to do this David Gray/Orbital double-header in Barcelona. To be honest, that was a bit of a weekend of madness! I remember being in a nightclub with her, dancing to the remix of ‘Please Forgive Me’ and telling everybody how bloody marvellous it was! We were totally cabbaged and didn’t stop laughing all night.

The romantic simplicity and naivete of the show mirrored my own career at the time. They got to play things they wanted to play. There was room for manoeuvre. It didn’t have that horrible, "This is just one more cog in a corporate wheel" feel to it. 90% of the time that’s what you come up against with TV. There’s some sort of exclusivity about being allowed to be involved in it. They were a bit more adventurous in the old No Disco days.

People say that my early appearances on there were "a good career move", which I suppose they were. It let some sort of oxygen into my music making at a time when I was finding it hard to get an audience or the time of day anywhere. As important as it was, I never thought of it like that. It was fun! We came to Ireland and found these people who really liked the music and really liked us.

There was a real scene. The Donals were indicative of the kind of person that was around – young people thinking in a completely different, European way. Hence the whole explosion of culture that Ireland has seen in the ten years since I’ve been going there regularly. It didn’t matter whether you ended up in Ri-Ra or were chatting on the train to Galway to play The Warwick, it was a laugh and we all made friends.

And that’s the way it remains. Donal, and everyone I’m close to in Ireland, continues to provide a massive input into whatever I’m doing next. I don’t know whether they’re going to replace No Disco with something equally interesting or, as is so depressingly often the case, a duller, watered-down version.

It’s a terrible shame that it’s heading off the screens. I hope wherever they scatter its ashes something wonderful and rather unexpected will grow. - David Gray