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Mark O'Leary Oasis Anecdotes Mark O'Leary Oasis Anecdotes A couple of claims to fame, I did teach a chap who was in Inspiral Carpets, was he; before, during or after Noel's tenure as roadie. Never asked, but he was in the band as a transitional member. I also worked in a band with a guy who played with Paul Stacey and knew him well, Stacey is an exceptional guy; brilliant guitarist, multi instrumentalist, producer and much more, Oasis are lucky to have such a sagacious band member. Ipso facto, connections. Another minor claim, I did meet Paul Gallagher outside comet on Washington Street in the early nineties, a decent enough sort. One thing that stands out about Cillian Murphy, to an extent he was pre Oasis, but it is a credit to him and his contemporaries, they were not really influenced by Oasis, nor Blur, nor Radiohead, it makes them sui generis and confers a degree of authenticity upon them. When Oasis were nascent, Cillian, his contemporaries and myself were cultivating our own paths, finding our own ways, composing our own material. So after all.. In a mid autumns mid morning in 1995, I was teaching a teacher, Donal, very affable, tepid, modest man, very likeable and intellectually endowed. He brought in a barely audible tape of a tune that he recorded from the radio the night before, this was the first time Wonderwall was played on the radio, he recorded it with a small tape recorder held up against the speaker and brought it in to his lesson. I didn't use a capo but was able to work out the essence of it as well as the upperstructure common tones between the chords, we assimilated the gist of it, in terms of the verse and chorus, once we could get a format on that, then, the rhythm, chords were delicious, the rhythm was catch, with pauses and accents, so one needed to have a bit of strumming prowess, I was able to write out the rhythmic structure and get the strum sequence together, Donals eyes lit up, "That's what I wanted, that's all that I wanted." We had forty five minutes to get this together before the arrival of the next student, writing it into the A4 notebook, comprehensibly, after a bit of its this, its that, I have it, I have it, its this, happy with that? You got it. Later we would just transpose it down a tone to E or guys would bring a capo, Donal had a bit of ability so using barre chords with common tones was not too difficult, he replicated with ardent ardor. For the neophyte, down to E... When Be here now was released, it was the most taught album I ever had to work with, everyone had it, but it was also the most swopped, its allure was ephemeral. But the other songs did and do stand the test of time. Oasis have made many people rich; tribute bands, making fortunes, people factoring some Oasis into rational calculus of their shows, writing books, articles, merchandise, teaching their music, but then, it kind became just that little bit passe. A clever, cheeky chappie, paunch dude in a county kit t-shirt, grabbing a guitar and thinking he's an apotheosis, told to unceremoniously, "oh why don't you just..." Where as a year before if he had done that, people would simply buy pints and bring them over to him for the fruit of his labour, kebab factor. So after a period in hibernation, we have an Oasis renaissance, lavishly priced concert tickets, mass production line merchandise, albums for sale again and one has to concede, even the intellectually endowed music critics, they were magic during the initial zeitgeist, even the pseudo intellectual chaps, were reciting the words of their songs, Donal was a man of letter, well educated, well read and he had an insatiable penchant for Oasis, I admit to listening to several of their tunes and some with a degree of infallibility, will stand the test of time. If only somewhere around 1975 if the Beatles decided upon a reunion, one can only engage in the realms of speculation and hypothesis if only, but this without doubt one of the greatest Reunions of all time and when the beans are counted, as the fiduciary and remuneration rolls in it should provide a handsome dividend. Post Cardiff these are early days, ostensibly, what manifests and metastasizes in terms of a synoptic Oasis revival emanating from the reunion is titillating. |
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