YOU probably know how shit Mountjoy is said Loaded magazine journalist, Martin Deeson, taking the stage at the end of Tuesday night's Vox'n'Roll session, "but I'm going to fill you in on some of the details." An unannounced addition to the evening's entertainment, Deeson had arrived in Dublin on Friday to cover the In the City convention but found himself in no position to enjoy the entertainment after being arrested for vandalism and locked in Mountjoy jail for the weekend.
Hours after his release, Deeson mounted Whelan's stage and extemporised on the conditions in which he spent his weekend, as well as on the penal system in general. One member of the audience was affronted enough by the graphic testimony from which references to few bodily fluids or illegal substances were omitted to follow Deeson to a nearby car park and barrack the writer, who worked in offender rehabilitation before becoming a journalist, for "spoiling" a good night out.
A good night out Vox'n'Roll style can, however, entail just such, plumbing of the depths. Gerry O'Boyle, the man behind Filthy McNasty's pub in London, first began his Vox'n'Roll readings last February. Inspired by the burgeoning "yoof literature scene, O'Boyle attempted to "take writers and turn them into performance artists".
As it happens, when O'Boyle staged a season in Dublin this weekend, the recipe was a little more complicated. There were certainly some who were celebrated for their books, but also several whose ability to draw crowds was based largely on activities other than rending and writing.
Local contributors included Ronnie Drew and Shay Henley, but the festival also featured some of the best known international names of the entire In the City event, as well as a good measure of those who have very obviously set their hearts on being considered infamous.
AS THE only woman on what was a roguishly macho bill, Carolyn Cassady had won a place as an honorary good ol' boy through her association with her late husband, Neal Cassady, and his longtime travelling companion, Jack Kerouac. When this pair of Beatnik saints lit out for another carefree benzedrine pilgrimage across the US, it was Carolyn who was left behind, literally holding the baby. Cassady, calmly delivering a Diary of those times, offered a sobering second take on the Beats manic egotism.
Melvin Van Peebles, the ground breaking black film director, treated the audience in wild, free flowing Beat style, to the genesis of his film career, which involved heading into the Mojave desert, finding an isolated dune and masturbating while leaning on the warm hood of his car.
Roddy Doyle read from The Commitments but also offered a new character from a work in progress, a loud mouth who claims not only to have been there when his parents met, but also to have shaken hands with JFK, spat at Franco and perhaps most disturbingly, to have had carnal knowledge of Peig Sayers.
On Sunday night, Derry born Nick Cohn shared the bill with Mr Nice, Howard Marks. The legendary hell raiser Cohn's dive into the underbelly of urban life including a memory of the Derry snake that made him decide to become a rock critic seemed a detached and literary exploration compared to the stories told by Marks.
The preternaturally charming Marks lead a wheezing verbal trek that climbed high into Afghanistan to meet with saintly hashish farmers, sailed into a Neapolitan mafia eating house in New York, before running bang into the hard edge of the American penal system in Terre Haute, Indiana, convicted on drug dealing charges.
While Terre Haute prison was obviously no cocktail party, it might have offered some welcome respite to Cocteau Twins member, Simon Reymond. The musician read a piece on his ethereal synthesiser band's experiences as guest act on a bill of loud, macho guitar rockers. The results were predictably disastrous and Reymond and his colleagues left the stage early, after a bout of mud slinging became a bit too literal for comfort.
Jah Wobble, who played in one incarnation of John Lydon's PIL, told the audience that he had come to represent William Blake, a comment that drew cheers from the unusual crowd. Wobble, dressed in a double breasted suit of ultramarine silk printed with golden nuts bolts and screws, read a selection of Blake's poetry, including On Another's Sorrow, the basic "vibe" of which, Jah reckoned, remained sound:
"Can I see another is woe/ and not be in sorrow too?/ Can I see another's grief/ and not seek for kind relief?
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