Dan Hegarty talks interviews, Ash and which lost gem he would recommend you listen to first.
I've often wondered what it's like doing a promotional tour for an album or a book. After the last few weeks, I certainly have an idea. It has hardly been a promotional 'tour', but I've had plenty of conversations and interviews about this project that I started, which eventually gave birth to my book about overlooked albums, Buried Treasure.
The interviews started with The Irish Examiner, and the gentleman Dave Fanning on 2fm, then things promptly grew legs from there! Covering music through any medium can bring mixed results, but Buried Treasure received an awful lot more coverage than I had expected.
Talk about a learning curve - this has been like climbing a cliff face at times! Firing questions at guests is something that I've done for more than 20 years, but being at the receiving end of them is quite different, and sometimes trickier than I had ever appreciated. It's strange walking into other radio stations; it's almost like you're some sort of impostor or spy! I found it fascinating to see how different stations are set out, and how they work. That's the 'radio anorak' side of me...
The list of albums that I 'should have included' has grown considerably. Anyone who is into music has their sacred albums or songs that were somehow overlooked, and I've been introduced and reintroduced to many of them. The main question has been 'Are you going to do another book?'. I haven't even tried to answer it, mainly because Buried Treasure took a very long time to complete. If I had to place a bet on it, I'd go for yes - but I don't gamble.
One of the albums that featured in the book is Ash's Twilight of the Innocents. When they released it in 2007, they announced that it would be their final album. They weren't breaking up; they were just going to change how they brought us music. What they did was give us a single a week with their A to Z singles project.
Late last year Ash announced that they had made their peace with the album format, and were working on the follow-up to Twilight. Kablammo will get its official release on Friday, May 22, and they will play five Irish dates to support it. Along with that, they confirmed an acoustic gig in Tower Records (Dublin) on Friday, May 29. I'll be doing a Q&A with the band before they play, so feel free to come along, and fire some questions at them.
One of the most common questions that I've received relating to the book has been, 'Which Buried Treasure should I listen to first?'. It all depends on taste, but starting with Compulsion's 1996 album The Future Is Medium or the brilliant My Sanctuary by Autamata would be a pretty good launching point.
Dan Hegarty
Buried Treasure by Dan Hegarty is available from all good bookstores, and online here
