OUR KEYBOARD player Killer was working on a bookstall and he was reading a Latin dictionary obviously way too much spare time! and he found a nice word, says Tabularasa percussionist Colin Derham, explaining his band s unusual name.
We found that it does mean a few things, but only afterwards, adds guitarist David Holden. It means a clean slate , it s kinda a philosophical term . . .
And without influences , which is bit of a contradiction in terms with us . . . interjects Colin. David mentions that Tabularasa also means taste for the drum in Indian, though according to Colin, A Hare Krishna guy told us that. I think he was just trying to sell us a book.
I don t know, I think it s plausible, says level-headed Louise Holden, lead singer and lyricist with the band. Occasionally philosophers we meet go, Oh, right, Tabularasa, and they re very impressed so we pretend that we knew about our name s meanings all along.
Besides philosophers, Tabularasa tend to get swarms of dancers at their popular Dublin gigs. Says Louise: If you re not dancing at our gigs but just listening, our songs take a bit of work because they re kinda tapestried. Like, in some songs we d start off with something that sounds like The Beatles, dipping into something that sounds a bit Brazilian and then into a bit of jungle and then it floats back to something else. So there s a lot of different influences I suppose because there s seven people in the band who all listen to different things. There s a certain element of world music . . .
Yeah, there is a bit, agrees Louise s brother David, quickly adding, but not on the Paul Simon-type front.
The point, Colin suggests, is to utilise as many rhythms as we can and keep the vibe as funky as it is. All the genres of music that we jump in and out of, be it jungle, Latin, funk, jazz, some pretty rocky bits we knock off a couple of Hendrix numbers in the gig as well they re all just based on bringing on the song, bringing on the groove, giving it a structure with a nice spread of rhythm.
Louise describes what happens at Tabularasa s unique live performances. There s parts of certain songs where a beat will come in which is recognisably foreign, or has an international feel or whatever, and people s faces light up, and they go, Hang on a sec . . . , and then it s Oh yeah, cool , and they know how to dance to that. People actually change the styles of their dancing through the gig, which is really interesting to watch.
On the recording end of things, Tabularasa feel that the kind of music that they play (some might liken it to stuff produced on the Acid Jazz label) tends to get marginalised in Ireland. It s very hard to get producers and engineers that are experienced with the type of music that we re doing, because it s not a big scene in this city, says David. Generally there s a kind of prejudice if you re not playing Irish rock or indie. We ve heard that before from record companies, saying they can t market our music because it doesn t sound Irish.
Louise sees a possible solution to the problem. What we were thinking we d like to do is that there are other bands out there playing jazz-based, souly stuff, that general direction, so we re trying to galvanise that now and pull them in and start off a bit of movement in Dublin and get a bit of excitement about it.
I don t think there s been a live funk club in Dublin, says Colin. To get the whole thing on a rotary system where all the bands played and centralise it in Dublin, would be lovely.
Louise feels Tabularasa supplies the medium through which Irish audiences can open themselves up to new musical influences. The comment people often make after the gigs is, Jesus, I didn t think I was into this type of music, but that was great normally I like techno, but that s great .
David sums up the situation: The way people think they have to take a side of the fence and not like both dance culture and live music is weird. It s very strange, and sort of typical of the way everything goes here. But we ve got a huge crowd that will regularly be at hardcore techno gigs coming to our gigs and dancing their arses off.
Tabularasa play Eamonn Doran s on 16th November.