I was born in London, May 2nd 1972. My earliest memory is sitting on a bench in the dining room of a Kings Cross B&B staring down at my shoes, which kept slipping off my feet because I had lost my laces. The B&B was the first place we stopped after moving north of the river from Brixton in 1974. Two pictures hung on the walls of the various places we lived that stick in the mind. The first was a Sacred Heart of Jesus; you know the ones with a red light bulb on a little ledge just beneath the picture of Our Lord baring His burning heart for all to see. The other was a huge framed photo of Elvis circa 1974 resplendent in a white rhinestone encrusted jumpsuit slashed to the midriff, guitar slung about his hips, jet-black hair, bronze skin, a little overweight but not yet the bloated grotesque he would soon become. In our home Jesus was God; but Elvis wasn’t far behind. My father is an Elvis fanatic. As a seven-year-old Irish boy in 1957 he hustled his way into a cinema to see Jailhouse Rock and was hooked. His love of all things Elvis rubbed off on his children, my brother Larry and I would grease up our hair, tape a hairbrush to a broomstick then rock out like little muthas, much to our parent’s amusement. I was more than a little jealous of my brother as he had straight thick hair while mine was kinky and almost Afro-like. It doesn’t matter anymore; these days we are both bald. A defining moment during my childhood occurred one Sunday evening at my grandmother’s house. It was approaching six in the evening and it was time to leave for church, the BBC were showing the Elvis movie Loving You from 1957 and Jesus just couldn’t compete, I didn’t want to go to the stinking church! ‘Who do you prefer?’ my grandmother asked ‘Elvis or Jesus?’ ‘Elvis’ I said, much to my grandma’s disgust. To church I went despite my protestations. At five years old I was beginning to show a little artistic flair so my teacher got me to depict the Sorrowful Mysteries of The Rosary to be displayed in the church during Easter week. I took to the task with relish; I particularly enjoyed drawing The Scourging At The Pillar and The Crucifixion. The blood, the whip, the nails, the crown of thorns and the foreboding black sky over Golgotha; Jesus' suffering really inspired me. I was working from my imagination and what I’d seen in the epic TV series Jesus Of Nazareth starring Robert Powell. I believe this is when I started developing a messiah complex. Soon followed my first Holy Confession, then first Holy Communion, then I became an alter boy. Where would it all end? Luckily I didn’t get buggered. After fucking up my GCSEs I decided to leave school. A very creepy priest encouraged me to go to Lourdes (place of miraculous healings at the foot of the French Pyrenees where The Blessed Virgin appeared to a peasant girl named Bernadette) to chaperone disabled children. I went not once, not twice but eight times over the next five years. Why? I needed healing. I began singing in the church choir, encouraged and inspired by the parish priest, Father Pat Brown who had one of the greatest tenor voices I have ever heard. Had he not chosen the cloth he could have made a million pounds singing his arse off. In 1990 I met Mother Teresa and sang for her when she visited our church. She gave me a Missionaries of Charity medal, (she was handing them out like lollipops) which I wore around my neck for a year or so. The first time I gave a girl oral pleasure, the medal kept getting in the way. Maybe it was God’s way of letting me know I shouldn’t have been rug munching outside of Holy wedlock. Somewhere along the line I lost the medal and sold my soul to sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. I was around twenty-one years old when I crossed over to the dark side; my faith had deserted me but the guilt remained. To hide the black stain and alleviate the self-loathing, I began drinking heavily, taking any drugs I could get my hands on and trying to fuck anything that moved. (pretty normal twenty something behavior) I had become a narcissistic, selfish cunt and quickly realized I had failed miserably in my quest to be Christ-like so I thought I’d have a crack at being Elvis for a while; naturally this didn’t work out too well either. I began spilling everything I had into music and started playing gigs. In 1995 I formed the band Dream City Film Club with Andrew Park, Laurence Ash and Alex Vald. We signed to a record label in 1996 and made some records. Sometime during 1999 the group imploded in a hail of fists and forked tongues. My hair began falling out. I carried on making records as a bald solo artiste; three in all for the Beggars Banquet label. Due to modest record sales apathy and indifference began to set in and the label dropped me in 2003. Feeling bruised by the whole music industry experience, I was uncertain of my future and feeling more than a little sorry for myself when I met a beautiful woman named Alaina and fell in love. She helped me to turn away from wickedness and has taught me that misery begets misery. Nowadays I don’t take myself too seriously, I’ve stopped trying to attain the unattainable and I try to enjoy being me. I am older, hopefully wiser, happier and definitely fatter. Last year I made another record entitled Undertaker Songs, which will be released sometime during 2006. I also indulge my penchant for loud rock ‘n’ roll by making music with my brother Patrick, we call ourselves Saint Silas Intercession. Michael J. Sheehy March 2006
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