Neachtains

I dropped into Galway's best pub, Neachtains, last week for a couple of pints.

I was welcomed in the door by Tom Waits' Rain Dogs playing at a slightly louder volume than you'd expect. Waits doesn't do background music and, even if he did, it wouldn't be Rain Dogs. This album, along with it's predecessor Swordfishtrombones, marked the end of Waits bohemian, crooner persona and heralded his junkyard, bone machine shouty one. The persona he maintains to this very day. 

Then I saw another musical hero of mine, John Martyn. I grabbed my pint and asked him if he minded if I joined him. He didn't seem to.  

We talked about his life and music and I told him how much I admired how he'd re-invented the folk genre with his unique jazz inflections and deliberately slurred vocal style. I reminded him that we'd met, years ago, in Kendall, when he was wearing a kimono and showing large Bacardi and dribbles of coke the very smallest of respect. He was literally throwing them over his neck. 

He laughed and told me, veering - within a single sentence - between a Scottish, Irish, American and London accent, that he vaguely remembered the occasion and asked me if I'd buy him a pint of stout and a short while he went to the toilet. I assured him I would, with absolute pleasure.

As he got up and walked to the toilet it struck me that John Martyn, the singer, was confined to a wheelchair after having his right leg amputated below the knee a couple of years ago.

It's a great pub Neachtains. You just never know who you're going to bump into.