It is now 12 years since I sat in my tiny bedroom, in my tiny flat and started my own (at the time) pretend business.
I was 22, after 1.5 years of Property Economics where I was being groomed to take over my family’s business and be my Dad’s heir apparent. I wrestled and then followed my talents into a night time Computer Science Degree in Trinity College. I was now unemployed, depressed and broke (…Creep by Radiohead on repeat on my ‘Discman’!) and needing to do something. And do the s*** out of it. So, In order to avoid sinking further into my Playstation and the gloomy recess of my brains, I bought myself a book called HTML in 24 hours (I’m the guy purists hate) along with a couple of Java books. These were my tools and this was the beginning of my affair with technology’s coupling with design and creativity. Dell, Paintshop Pro (Hadn’t figured how to ‘get’ a copy of Photoshop) and Liechtenstein.
I would get out of bed every morning and be at my bedroom desk by 9.00 (took about 15 seconds). Once there I would pretend that I had a job, that I was at ‘the office’ and it was there I would learn everything to do with technology, creativity and design. This was the key to ‘me’, the computer brought together everything I adore: music, design, creativity, literature and technology. My other song at the time was ‘E-bow the Letter’ by REM. Like him or not Michael Stipe is one of the most original lyricists of our time and Pattie Smith (even though I hated the book Kids) provides some of the most haunting backing vocals ever. Anyway, as I’ve never been that good at naming anything I decided that I would call this pretend company ‘ebow’. I didn’t really like the name, kind of do now, but I wanted something nondescript to call the company as I had no idea what it was going to do and didn’t want to pigeon-hole it with a descriptive name. I wanted it to be something I could grow into whatever it or I wanted to be. The only thing I could think of was to base it on Virgin and the nearest thing to me at that moment was E-bow the Letter.
ebow, ebow, ebow…you’ve left me staring at walls and ceilings, lost me sleep, ruined my relationships, broken so many of my friendships, called me aloof, arrogant, aggressive, quiet, cocky, shy, obnoxious, had me robbed, ridiculed, loved and revered. Everything I want to be and everything I hate all rolled into one fantastic, exciting, resilient and robust wonderful little business that so many great people and so many great ideas have come home to roost at….from the GAA to IMMA to a Rolling Stone to Bob Dylan. Recessions; Dot Com Crashes and Property Booms you have been worth every minute of the 12 years you’ve kept me in your cross-hair. Thank you (not least for the fact I can wear a Stones tee to work and cycle right up to my desk on my bike) but for every bit of a pleasure that you have been.
“Comes in bells, your servant, don’t forsake him
Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart”
So, people say it’s important and so in celebration of the 12 years I have decided to write about the 12 best things that have happened or been done in, to, or by ebow…why are we making a big deal of 12? Well apart from the fact that we’ve survived the last 2 years to make it to 12 there are all sorts of other 12s that make it way better then 10: 12 Apostles, 12 months in a year, 12 days of Christmas, 12 Monkeys, the 12th man and, of course, the 12 times tables (that I never can remember) that and because God knows how my teens are gonna turn out (if they were anything like the last one it should be interesting…)
So! Here we go….
Number 12:
Opening our first bank account with a cheque for the minimum £250 that I needed which I scrounged off my Dad. He has finally joined the board after 11 years (I reckon it was revenge for me not joining his – thanks Dad. Legend.)
Number 11:
Getting a phone call from Budget Travel a year later to say we had been recommended and would we pitch for their web work. Myself and Colin O’Kane did the pitch. Pretending to be the sales guys; thinking there was no way they would hire us as we were too young, we gave one of our best pitch performances to date. Since then Budget Travel (and The Office of the President of Ireland) have been the clients longest on our books. It was a sad and awful day when Budget liquidated and we were extremely lucky to survive it.
Number 10:
Opening an ebow office in Creative Inc’s old office in Temple Lane South, Temple Bar. To date I still think they are the best design agency in Dublin. I had seen in the window of their office a few years prior. I decided then that I would eventually house a business there. They designed my Old Man’s logo and stationery at the time. We do it now though. Rocky Grennel – the first graphic designer I ever remember meeting worked for them at the time. Years later he designed the current ebow logo and coined the Fresh Thought Daily strapline which is now More Fresh Thought.
Number 9:
Getting a phone call from the Sunday Indo to say they wanted to do an article on us – just so happened we were located nearby on Pembroke Street and the Journo didn’t want to walk too far, we had only been open a few weeks.
Number 8:
Getting the good natured piss taken out of me in an article in an article by the Sunday Business Post. I had said that in the future I wanted to open an office where I could “bring creativity to the people” using plasma screens and graphics etc. I like to think I stuck with it and then did it. I deserved the piss taking for using the line though 
Number 7:
Hiring Aoife Clancy. Sabina Bonnici (although Sab you’re a terrible ball buster when you get going). Marc Wiseler from Google. Kerry Deffley (KD you complete me). Great Britain’s Queen Lydiarrr Pincombe. Sine Gaughan (who worked for one of my favourite UK agencies ‘Dave’). Des McDonnell (Genius). Ross Mulcahy (Genius). Peter McKenna (Genius). Lucifer DeVille (Lucy Devin). Elva Carri (ebow in it’s purest form: ambitious, clever and charming). Ciara Meaney (the first person to call me creative and the only person to tell me I was good enough to be Creative Director of ebow. Small, deadly and a threat to my Spotify subscription she now lives in London and is shit hot). Farrel Kavanagh and Ciaran Adamson (Albert and Einstein!). Donald Douglas for showing me one of the first websites I’d ever seen www.webfactory.ie and telling me that that’s what I should be doing and not to be an Auctioneer.
Number 6:
Sharing a bag of chips at my desk with Pattie Boyd when we hosted her ‘Through the Eyes of a Muse’ show. Also selling her the idea in her gaff in South Kensington. One man in a Pink Floyd tee shirt with Lydia Pincombe (my sidekick) and a neck like a jockeys bollox. George Harrison charmed and wrote ‘Something’ for her, Eric Clapton charmed and wrote ‘Layla’ for her; I did a mock Irish jig for her coupled with my best diddley-i accent. Three men – one legend!
The day the cool furry invites went out I was in London. I put on Layla and…….I cried (only for a second though). The reason the show happened was I had been at home playing Layla, badly, on my acoustic and remember a great picture I’d seen of Eric Clapton with a Pignose amp. I emailed her website to buy the picture and thought f*** it I’ll see if she fancies a show, her assistant mailed back and to date it is has been our most successful show and one of my personal crowning moments. Another great piece was just as she went on Ryan Tubridy’s morning show she was looking at me and Ginny her assistant and started bobbing her head up and down to the “daddle daddle daddle-daaaaaaa…” bit of Layla. Things like that, for a Beatles and Clapton nut like myself, make all the stress worth it. Fantastic.
(Also up there was sitting with Bob Dylan’s photographer in his New York studio leafing through 15,000 pictures of the Master for his Rolling Thunder show in Dublin…!)
Number 5:
When people tell me they love the place. When they say they love the gallery and the agency and would love to work here. It happens all the time and I never really know how to react because I know no different. I’ve never worked in another agency but I do know that I love that they love it. I try my best to reply to everyone who asks to work here personally. It’s not always possible but please know I see *EVERY CV* that comes in these doors and take each one as seriously as the next.
Number 4:
Getting hired by Audi. They make my car. Cool eh!? Lucky them
Number 3:
Working with The GAA and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, amongst other amazing Irish brands (Hairy Baby, Coolmore, Aras an Uachtarain, AIBMS to name but a few). The pitch day in the GAA with Aoife Clancy goes down as mine and her best performance. It was genuinely one of the best days I’ve ever had in work. I mean, to win The GAA, that was just amazing.
Number 2.
Sharon Murray. Sharon joined me fresh out of college at the reception and is the longest serving person in ebow. She is now my Design Director, soon to be on the board, yet still answers the phone no matter how many employees we have, still keeps me functioning; she’s loyal, smart and remarkably talented. Her design work on IMMA is one of my favourite design pieces that we have completed and her hair is *fantastic*. Two feet on the ground and a quiff in the air: Shazmo. Should something go wrong and I have to run the show from a shed then I know she’ll be there, tucked in beside the Flymo with her Macbook designing the shit out of it and keeping me on the rails.
Number 1.
Easy. It just has to be opening the main studio, and my office, at 1 Castle Street. I stared the building down for years, waiting for my chance to offer it a light – and light it we have. The place where we also house Gallery Number One out the front. Where we’ve hosted shows with Ronnie Wood and Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue. Where the GAA’s Nickey Brennan and Co. come to meet us, where we have made a Dublin landmark and where I hope, most of all, we have been relevant. Relevance is judged by the fact that you have taken the time to read this. Because you’ve read this I have completed the first thing I set out to do: become relevant. That’s what I’m hoping 12 years of this does. Creates relevance. And that is the very bestest thing a guy could have in the wholest widest weirdness of this worldness….Relevance.
Dave.
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