Piano keys and key rings, the sounds they make. This place in my head. Knock knock, who's there, I don't know, leave me alone.

Doorbells. Down driveways and out on the streets as daylight fades and night begins. A stream of words. She stares ahead, standing outside the cinema with arms folded, and she says, "Our motorbike gang is so going to beat up their motorbike gang." Words and deeds. The music in my crash helmet was really coming from my head. That cat looks funny. My head said that at the wrong time.

Band: Sack.

One of Morrisey's favourite bands. They toured with him, and he included one of their songs on a compilation CD he put together for the NME in 2004. They make most other bands sound as if they're paying too much attention to the advice of the squirrels who live on their heads.

Website:
http://www.sacktheband.net

I went on a tour of the laboratories down the road. People in white coats conducted experiments with test tubes and smoke. "They're making a children's book," the tour guide said. We all had to duck when something exploded. When the smoked cleared, one of the men in white coats walked from the lab. His coat wasn't white any more, and he looked dazed. "It's not finished yet," the guide said.

I went to a garden party in the afternoon. There was a long table covered by a long white table cloth. An afternoon of food, drink, the song of the birds and the shadows on the lawn, a woman in a red hat slowly floating away. I took a cup of tea from the table, but just as I was about to drink it, a man in a white coat arrived and said, "I wouldn't drink that if I were you. It's not finished yet."

The shadows moved across the lawn. We looked out over the fields and someone said, "Should we have done something about the woman in the red hat who floated away?"

The day isn't finished yet either. There's still plenty of time to help her. Although there's a fair chance something will explode if we do anything. She seems happy in the tree anyway.

Band: The Immediate.

They're a new band from Dublin. They make most other new bands sound as if their only musical influence is listening to tennis.

Website:

http://www.theimmediate.tv

I autographed a box, but I accidentally wrote the name 'Dracula', and people blamed me when a greyhound fainted at a wedding. The real Dracula is learning how to throw the javellin, and it's making people very nervous.

Melanie from down the road was in a shampoo ad, and ever since then she's had an imaginary friend on her shoulder telling her how great her hair looks. He says things like, "Have you seen the way everyone is looking at your hair? I just heard someone say, 'Wow, look at her hair.'"

Dracula is following her around too, talking about how great her neck is, but he ran out of things to say fairly quickly, so he just copies what the imaginary friend on her shoulder says, like, "I just heard someone say, 'Wow, look at her neck.'"

When they were watching professional wrestling, the imaginary friend on her shoulder said, "Your hair is so shiny... Are they just acting?"

"Well of course they're acting," Dracula said. "Any idiot could see they're acting."

"Are you calling me an idiot?"

Half an hour later they were standing on the lawn. Dracula had a black eye, and his right arm was in a sling. She said to him, "He says he's sorry he said he's seen plenty of dead people who could throw the javellin further than you."

"That's okay. I'm sorry I said I'd lost toes that knew more about hair than him."

"He accepts your apology."

They went to get ice creams at an ice cream parlour in town. Dracula stole some spoons, but she wasn't very impressed by that, so he took them back.

Band: Rocky De Valera and The Gravediggers

Rocky de Valera is Ferdia Mac Anna. Eamon de Valera is dead, so he can't complain about the use of his name, but he'd be rolling over in his grave if he was still alive. The Gravediggers had a brief career in the late seventies, and they're back. My hands think they're better than having twelve fingers.

Website:

http://www.rockydevalera.com/

Standing in a valley with vague ideas of our own grandeur. We're in a valley, motionless, wearing clothes brought to life by the breeze and this is grandeur.

We'll sing a song in a pub where a traditional band play. The song we sing will be sung in Eng after our Irish attempt descends into blaming each other and fighting and tearful apologies, and the long and short of it all is very short: we're drunk again.

The English song comes to an end in the study, with a woman we met in the pub. She holds a glass of whiskey as she paces from one end of the room to the other. If the rabbit and a piece of cotton wool got mixed up in transit, and I've been looking after a piece of cotton wool for the past few weeks, who's the bigger fool? And does that question make any sense? And if not, is the answer 'I am'?

"A haze of bright colours, everything we now know (she walked to one end of the room as she said this, stopped to take a sip of her whiskey and turned around) would seem to be predicated upon (she stopped at the other wall and turned around again) the fact, which in many ways is (she has no idea what she's talking about -- it's just something to accompany the walking) I thought it was a light bulb myself."

She put the glass down and got out her cigarettes.

My Cigarette Lighter, by me. That was the play I performed. A review in the paper said the rabbit was probably with a group of people by the mouth of the river, watching the ships go by as they form a plan to break into a department store at night. The review also said that the people in the pub were talking about us in Irish, and laughing a lot.

I put down the paper. When the rabbit's owners called to collect him that morning, they asked where he was, and I said, "A haze of bright colours, everything we now know would seem to be predicated upon the fact, which in many ways is, and always has been, and will be until they discover a way to get his head out of the bucket, I thought it was a light bulb myself, and I was right."

The rabbit was standing behind me all along. I refused to turn around. I stood there, in a dignified silence to accompany the standing. The idea I have of my own grandeur is vague enough to survive being outsmarted by a rabbit.

Band: The Plague Monkeys.

Album: Surface Tension.

Maybe not a great album, but there are certainly some great songs on it, especially 'Bloomsday' and the single, 'White Feathers'. The band were often compared to The Cocteau Twins. Carol Keogh and Donal O'Mahony went on to form The Tycho Brahe, which became Tychonaut. Carol Keogh also sings with Automatta.

Click here for the band's page on Irish Music Central.

Tychonaut's website:

www.thetychobrahe.com

Doom. Doom. Or ducks. Ducks. But the ducks have little scythes and black coats. If just one duck had the scythe and the coat, then I might be worried, but they all have them, and it's unlikely that all of them are the grim reaper.

There are long things. There are short things too. Some things are long and some are short. Some go around and around in circles. Some just build little houses and stay there until they think you've gone to the off-licence to get a bottle of vodka and a few Camel cigars because you think, "I'd look good smoking a cigar." So you buy them with the vodka, and a few hours later when you've stopped laughing at a joke about a milkman and a Great Dane, you light a cigar, lean back, and in the mirror in your mind, you look good. You look as if you could be doing this every night. The mirror doesn't show the three-legged dog you'll be looking at to pass the time tomorrow. And the little thing with its head in its house and its body sticking out is thinking, "Is he gone?" Yes, he's gone, but the ducks are still there.

Band: That Petrol Emotion.

Album: Babble.

That Petrol Emotion were formed by members of The Undertones in the mid-eighties and they split up in 1994. My hands think this album is better than having eleven fingers. The lead singer, Steve Mack, went on to form The Marfa Lights. The Undertones have re-formed, without their lead singer, Fergal Sharkey.

Fansite:

http://www.esmark.net/tpe/tpe.htm

Go home slowly, slowly go home and let the world slip away through your fingers, goodbye world...

"What are we going to do now?"

We could bring the world back and watch it slip away again. It's either that or look at the three-legged dog.