Cork musician: 'I taught guitar to Cillian Murphy...people were saying he was gifted'

Cork musician Mark O’Leary, who recently re-released his track, Laundromat, recalls the glory days of music in his native city in the ’80s and early ’90s.

Mark, who says his musical tastes are eclectic and particularly likes electronic music, recorded the track in a former launderette in Douglas Street, keen to convey the sound of the machines as well as voices.

It was originally commissioned by a curator in a gallery in Varna, Bulgaria, for a multi-media exhibition.

After attending the Music Institute in Los Angeles, where he studied music formally for the first time, having been somewhat self-taught, Mark returned to Cork and got a teaching job in the former Wright Music Centre.

He recalls being there on “a wet, windy Saturday afternoon when this guy in a parka comes in.

“I was wondering who he was. The class was a bit unruly. I told the guy that two of my students were going to be starring with Marlon Brando in Divine Rapture (which was being filmed in east Cork in 1995 but was never completed).”

This piqued the guy in the parka’s interest, who turned out to be Cillian Murphy.

At the time, Mark says the future Oscar-winning actor, “was a handy guitarist. Another guy I was teaching was a very handy bass player. I managed to get them together and hooked them into the same sphere. They put a band together.”

Mark remembers Cillian’s “aura and presence. People were going, ‘this guy is gifted’.

“Having taught him, I could be prejudiced, but the band was at that mezzanine level between Fontaines DC and U2. He could have had that.

“The band broke up. Cillian got into acid jazz and then into acting. The acid jazz ship had sailed. He starred in Disco Pigs. His timing was good. He’s a determined guy. I’m determined myself, having got to Los Angeles. When I came back to Cork, a couple of things came my way, but a lot of the time, it was hustling.”

Mark says he was in a band called Mandrake Root (which had a number of incarnations) with the journalist and broadcaster, Cork-born Brendan O’Connor.

“We had a couple of gigs lined up and needed a singer. I was the bassist. Someone knew Brendan O’Connor so he came along dressed like Morrissey, and sang. He was self-effacing but he was brilliant.”

On the subject of his own career, Mark says that Laundromat was part of his release of the album Markets in 2013/14. He recorded the sounds of the Coal Quay traders and of shopping malls for it. “It’s a local perspective on the experience of shopping with voices interacting.”

Asked who the audience is for the 11-minute-long Laundromat, Mark says he and his producer are looking at galleries interested in this type of audio experience.

The Cork man, who says he played guitar on one of the earliest demos of the band Interference, was only in fifth year at the time.

When the band decided to move to Dublin, he had to bow out to stay in Cork and study for his Leaving Certificate.

He was only 17 when he went to Los Angeles. He made a lot of friends in the music business there, including John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

When Mark came back to Cork, he worked at various jobs. He worked for a businessman in London but returned home. He speaks of the Cork music ‘renaissance’ in the late ’80s and early ’90s that included the bands Burning Embers, Emperors of Ice-Cream, Sultans of Ping and The Frank and Walters.

“Back then, Cork was the centre of the music universe. I don’t think it is now. But I’m appreciative of having experienced it and playing in Sir Henry’s.”

Mark says that “while it’s embarrassing to say it, I was a bit of a child prodigy when I was at Críost Rí. I was writing about all sorts of stuff at six or seven. They couldn’t believe it at the school. They thought I had something put in my ear. I was put into a corner and told to write (on a subject).

“I did very well at primary school but not so much at secondary school. I went to Douglas Community School which was fantastic. I won Munster medals for soccer. Academically, the school wasn’t the best for me. I really didn’t thrive academically but I did in other areas. So many teachers there were fantastic. They still influence me to this day, especially the ones teaching English literature and art. I’m a bit of a poet. I don’t push myself as that. I write the liner notes for my albums.”

In these notes, Mark wrote about “the last vestiges of what were called ‘the shawlies’” in his Markets album. In his CD 4 Urban Landscapes, Mark writes about The Echo sellers on the streets of Cork in his liner notes.

“Echo is a piece where The Echo boys’ (street newspaper vendors) voices are manipulated and processed against an ambient backdrop of Patrick Street. This is influenced by American composer Steve Reich who inspired me for many years with his tape pieces Come Out and It’s Gonna Rain. There is a call and response scenario being developed.

“It is important to distinguish the subtle contrast between The Echo boys, one of the voices is earthy, perhaps the soul of Cork, and implicit in the other voice is a more refined boy soprano texture.’

Clearly, Mark is attuned to Cork, from the recording studios to the streetscapes.