Been Around The World

Even Phileas Fogg would be green with envy. Dervish have packed more road and air miles under their collective belt than the most intrepid of travellers. Having stepped on more than a hundred flights over the past 9 months, they're planning on staying grounded for a couple of gigs back home, where they are embarking on a series of Irish dates in November, and down a few long overdue pints in their own pub in Sligo town, Sheila na Gig.
Cathy Jordan, Dervish's whirling one, and Brian McDonagh, the band's driving force have ground to a halt just long enough to bring hotpress up to speed on their latest shenanigans in the unlikeliest corners of the globe.
"We've been in China, Israel, all over Europe, Slovenia, Estonia, Canada, America four times this year," Brian recounts, with a certain air of travel weariness. Yet the bug has most definitely bit him, as well as the six other members of the band.
"It's been a great year," he smiles. "Both China and Jerusalem were just fantastic. We were five days in Beijing, 1 day in Xiao Ming. We even went up to the Great Wall and had a bit of a session there, hauled up all the instruments and all!"
The band's Chinese sojourn centred on a massive St. Patrick's Day Millennium festival. It was a far cry from the sessions in the back of the pub back home.
"That was a ball, and there were something like 49 ambassadors at it," Brian recalls, evidently nonplussed by the glamour and glitz of the occasion. "It was the event of the year in Beijing really, especially for the international residents there.
Cathy saw it as another chance to air the music in the unlikeliest of surrounds.
"That's the beauty of playing ethnic music from any country, that you get to showcase it in places that you'd only dream of going to otherwise," she suggests.
Cathy Jordan has little difficulty singling out the highlights of the touring schedule so far this year:
"Number 1, Jerusalem; Number 2, Estonia, and Number 3, the Edmonton Folk Festival," she lists with nary a pause for breath. "Jerusalem for the whole fact of never having been there before, and the fact that it was completely sold out before we arrived there. It was a beautiful theatre, and the response as soon as we walked on stage, we just knew it was going to be a great night.
"Estonia, we'd never played in before. They were part of a communist regime up until about 6 years ago. They have a lust for life and an appetite in them like people who've just been let out of prison. They have such joy and enthusiasm for everything. Then, Edmonton was a totally different audience. The Canadian people are so laid back, and so used to being surrounded by music. They have it in abundance there. But they're such a nice audience to play to as well. It was great to play with and see live people like Steve Earle and Mary Chapin Carpenter and Jackson Browne.
All this travelling can't but have had an influence on these musicians. Cathy in particular, voices opinions well-formed by the experiences she's had over the past (almost) decade.
"I think the influence is a subliminal thing," she avers. "Music creeps in without you realising it. Up to recently we've been very conscious to keep traditional music as traditional as possible. But it's inevitable that when you spend so much time outside of Ireland, listening to all these other kinds of music, it'll seep in somehow.
Jordan has her own plans to record a solo album, beyond the bounds of Dervish.
"I have a project in my head," she says, "which is about recording Irish songs and collaborating with musicians I've met from Galicia and Astorias and others from Canada and Louisiana. I'm compiling the songs at the minute, so it's just a matter of finding the time and travelling around to all of them. I feel it's a natural progression and I don't think there's anyone who could say we haven't dedicated our lives to traditional music. Trying something different is something everybody goes through.
As for the future, they're poised for flight to Bogota, Colombia later this month, and in January they're set to co-headline a festival in Rio de Janeiro with REM, The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Britney Spears. Then there's the film planned for late next year, based on a Barry Devlin script, a Commitments for trad music not bad for an outfit who call Sligo home!

Dervish play Vicar St. on November 19th. Their live album Live In Palma is available through all record outlets.