As she gears up for her forthcoming Irish tour, my talented predecessor in the Hot Press folk slot Sarah McQuaid is celebrating some much deserved airplay success. Based on playlists from 146 folk radio DJs in the US and Canada, the folkradio.org chart for the month of February 2010 shows Sarah as the No. 1 artist and her recently released double CD as the No. 1 album.

Bringing together her first two albums, When Two Lovers Meet and I Won’t Go Home ’Til Morning, the double CD was released in North America in time for Sarah’s first-ever US tour in February and March. It was a rubber burning, train track pounding affair that took in 20 shows in 23 days, including legendary venues like Boston’s Club Passim, upstate New York’s Old Songs and Nashville’s Bluebird Café.
“Neither album had been released in the US before,” Sarah explains, “Rather than try to bring both of them out at the same time, we combined them into one. I’m delighted with the result! The tour was exhausting and I won’t have much time to draw breath before I head over to Ireland. However, the whole thing was a great buzz and I made some brilliant contacts, particularly in Nashville. I’m hoping to spend a week there later in the year, doing some co-writing with people I met during this trip.”
Sarah is currently criss-crossing Ireland, her gigs here having kicked off with an evening in Listowel. Thursday April 8 sees her in McCarthy’s Bar in Dingle; a long hack up the West coast to Sligo finds her in the Tobergal Lane Cafe on the evening of Friday April 9. The following evening takes her to the Grand Hotel in Waterford, while on Sunday April 11 she’ll be participating in the Lobby Sessions at An Cruibin in Cork. Kilworth Village Arts Centre will be the venue for her gig on Monday April 12.
After that rarest of things in a Sarah McQuaid tour schedule – a night off – she’s back in action on Wednesday April 14 when she appears at the New Music Club in Brazil’s Cafe Bar, Clonmel. Friday April 16 takes her to Belfast where she’ll be appearing in No Alibis, the specialist crime fiction bookshop.
Another coastal dash sees her in Wexford, at the Arts Centre on the evening of Saturday April 17 before she returns to Dublin the following evening for the final show of the trip in Dublin Unitarian Church on St. Stephen’s Green.
I was in No Alibis myself recently. I don’t normally play the press card but when I found out that Richmond Fontaine (well Willy Vlautin and Dan Eccles from the band) were playing there and the show was long since sold out, I buried my shame in the back garden and blagged my way in on the strength of interviewing the guys.
Willy was primarily there to promote Lean On Pete, his new novel. But there was a pleasant surprise: with a reading completed and a couple of beers sunk, Dan and himself took to the stage.
It’s always a little disconcerting to witness a band you dearly love play a stripped down or acoustic version of themselves. Happily, any worries I had about this being some kind of perfunctory run through were quickly blown away. What they lacked in numbers they more than made up for in intensity.
Now normally, I love Paul Brainard’s pedal steel playing with the band. However, I hardly missed it as Dan Eccles picked up the parts, using a swell pedal on his Telecaster to get that high lonesome keening. Having played a long set, the guys didn’t stint on the encores either and when they sensed that the crowd still hadn’t had enough they took a few requests from the floor as well.
As regular gigs around the country increasingly resemble the Marie Celeste it was really encouraging to see a bookshop packed to overflowing with genuinely enthusiastic music fans. Could it be the gig of the year? So far it’s looking that way.
Scotland’s favourite adopted North Louth woman, Nuala Kennedy was back in Dundalk recently for a gig which also served as a hometown launch for her new record Tune In, which is now available on Compass Records. She’s an adventurer in traditional music and loves to mix it up so the album features collaborations with Bonnie Prince Billy and Norman Blake (the Teenage Fanclub one, not the Bluegrass legend from Sulphur Springs – although nothing would surprise me). Unfortunately neither of her guests made it across for the gig but you can still go out and buy the record.
The Cherrytree in Walkinstown continues to pull out the stops with some great gigs and later in the month one of my own favourite performers, Kevin Montgomery, plays there as part of an extremely short Irish jaunt.
He lands in Limerick for a gig in Dolans on Tuesday April 20 before coming up to Dublin for the Cherrytree date the following evening and then heads North for a gig in Mainstreet at Ostlers in Omagh on Thursday April 22. Final gig of the trip is in a spa, which might seem a bit unusual for most musicians but for Kevin who plays more than his fair share of house concerts and has a penchant for weird and wonderful venues it’s not too unorthodox. If that’s the gig for you, it’s on at the Blaney Spa and Yoga Centre in Omagh on Friday April 23.
Also making an appearance later this month at the Cherrytree are Mick Hanly and Arty McGlynn. Both are well worth seeing solo, so together it should make for a fantastic gig when they appear there on Saturday April 24.