Top ’gear

Headgear isn’t even a vaguely familiar name to most readers simply because Daragh Dukes has been spending his time quietly honing his sound in the studio rather than gigging live. The fruits of his endeavours can finally be heard on the charming and cpativating new mini album, Where This Good Life Goes, a record that is making significant ripples over the pond in Blighty.

Dukes was originally born in Dublin and moved to Castleconnell, Co. Limerick at the age of four. After completing his Leaving Cert, he took the boat train to London and didn’t look back for a couple of years. He shared a flat in Tottenham with Neil Hannon and had Cathal Coughlan as a neighbour.

“I had a band called Fat Buck which I’m not proud about,” Daragh admits. “It was real Smashing Pumpkins style straight rock band. I was trying hard for it not to be like that and I was attempting to write something interesting, but once you get live musicians in it’s funny how you can go straight back to what you didn’t want it to become.”

“I just couldn’t continue doing a thing which sounded like a carbon copy of something else so the whole thing with this was to try and get away from emulating anything. Hopefully, I’m getting closer. I specifically made this record quite broad. I’d rather make something that takes a lot of listening rather than anything immediate or disposable.”

A glance at the credits reveals that a certain Pat Shortt plays clarinet and saxophone on the album. The same Mr. Shortt who is best known from D’Unbelievables and for selling out more nights in Irish theatres than Christy Moore. “I don’t know if people know about this but Pat Shortt is an unbelieveably good musician,” Daragh reveals. "He is a neighbour of mine who just lives down the road and I’ve known him for years. He plays buckets of instruments.”

Where This Good Life Goes was partly recorded in Limerick, London and Dublin with Simon Kenny of Schroedersound (formerly Schroeder’s Cat). “I love the fact that I can just go down to Pat’s house with a mike and my machine and he’ll be cooking food for the kids but he’ll blow a line and it’ll end up on a track in five minutes,” Dukes says. “The thing I am trying to do as much as I can is to make the whole process as organic as possible. I think it’s important not to get somebody wafted in your face immediately. Discovery is very important.”

The reasons Dukes chose London for a launch pad were dictated by finance. “I didn’t do anything here because I had very little money. So with our limited budget, which was nothing, I thought how can we get the most imapct. I put out some 7” singles through the Rough Trade store. It’s amazing. It’s like some market or something like that. People go in there and ask for the freshest thing they can get. Previously you had to send demos to people, but if you get them to stock your record it’s the same thing if not better. I really didn’t think I would get such a response from going into just one shop.”

The response to date has seen sessions recorded for Sean Rowley on BBC 1 (who put out the mini-album through his Diamond Head label) and Zane Lowe for XFM. Last week Headgear played Rough Trade’s Cherry Jam club, which was filmed for a new Channel 4 series called Music Night.

Daragh is also involved with a new label called Marthadigsmusic, which will release a single by London band Dead Bodies at the end of the month.

“I think it is a good time to be making music,” asserts Daragh. “There is definitely more solidarity amongst people just doing their thing and it is a bit more punky now in that people are making it all at home and keeping total control. I think that is really excellent. Now there is a good mix of empathy with a slight sense of competitiveness.”