Member Since: 2/27/2007
Band Website: johnnyduhan.com
Influences: My influences have changed over the years and are reflected in four collections of songs. The first of these I've just released on album:JUST ANOTHER TOWN is a portrait of the city I grew up in, written in song and story. It sings of the people and location that formed me. Its melody and poetry come from the homes, bars, dancehalls, chapels, gardens, prisons, factories, and the very streets of the town it celebrates.
It is not a nostalgic look back in blinkered pleasure. The landscape is urban, gritty and hard, and the characters are flawed and damaged.
DH Lawrence once described cities as scabs on the face of the earth before he attempted to flee back to some primitive idyll. Modern cities are indeed scabs on the face of the world, but, the way I see it, scabs are healing skin formations in the process of transforming damaged tissue back into healthy flesh. One of the greatest achievements of mankind, I believe, is that we have learned to live in relative harmonious community in vast cities all over the world in a relatively short space of time.
A spiritual dimension lies behind the ordering process that has brought this transformation about. Just Another Town attempts to illustrate some of the elements and forces that bound together the fragile community I grew up among. It also shows how youthful innocence can act as a compass to guide us in doubting times.
Sounds Like: myself, hopefully, but I'm sure there are lots of influences in the mix
Record Label: bell
Type of Label: Indie