Folk column: Million dollar Amy

Proving that what you see isn’t always what you get, indie girl Amy Millan, normally found treading the boards as part of Stars and Broken Social Scene, fired off a quick slew of dates round the country in the downtime between her other commitments.
Anyone wandering in and expecting the kind of abstract lyrical fuzz of Broken Social Scene would have been greatly surprised, unless they had taken the time to check out her excellent solo record Honey From The Tombs. Recorded at a leisurely pace over three years and featuring musicians she has been playing with since school, the record is full of country and bluegrass touches.
Live, she normally plays with a five piece band, but for this Irish trip she brought only mandolin player Dan Whiteley (who also plays a mean guitar) and the gigs were electric, proving what a great musician can deliver with very restricted instrumentation. No mean guitar picker herself, her greatest strength though is a note perfect voice, whose sweetness belies the often hard-boiled subject matter of the songs she sings.
Mining the old familiar veins of whiskey and love turned sour, her set couples her own songs with a couple of bluegrass standards, cover versions of fellow Canadian Jenny Whiteley (Dan’s sister) and even a stunning re-working of Death Cab For Cutie’s ‘I’ll Follow You Into The Dark’. She’s an extremely engaging performer whose introductions can, on occasion, last almost as long as the songs, but it’s certainly the songs you go home humming. With the middle part of the set devoted to a bunch of killer new tracks, you can’t help but hope that the next album isn’t as long in the gestation as the last.
Having, by all accounts, acquitted themselves admirably at the mudfest that was Glastonbury this year, Kíla will be reunited with their collaborator and friend, Ainu musician Oki, in the altogether more dependable surroundings of London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall at the South Bank Centre on Tuesday July 17. They will be joined for this special one off show by Oki’s band Dub Ainu. This will be their only joint date in Europe this summer making it all the more special, as they both have been busy with their own album releases and touring schedules.
Oki’s Oki Dub Ainu Band was released at the beginning of the year and Kíla look likely to release their new studio album in Ireland and UK during August. Oki joined Kíla on tour in Japan last Autumn which was a huge success ending, with a series of concerts on Oki’s home island of Hokkaido, but this will be an opportunity for the mother of all jam bands to take advantage of his full band.
After the hectic whirlwind year he has just had, you might think Duke Special would be taking it easy for a while, but after so many years of hard gigging it’s just not in him to put his feet up and trim his corns. So when lesser mortals might be off sunning themselves, the dreadlocked one will be treating Belfast to five nights of shows in the Empire Music Hall in which each evening will be themed differently.
Kicking off, fittingly enough, on Sunday August 19 with ‘Old Time Music Hall’, Monday’s show is ‘Tales From The Silver Screen’, followed on Tuesday by ‘Big Band Showtime’. Wednesday is dedicated to ‘A Symphony Of Songs’ and the series draws to a close on Thursday August 23 with ‘Vaudeville Extravaganza’. Difficult to pick any one show as a standout, they’re all seams he’s been mining for years, and the ticket price is low enough to make it feasible to go to all of them, though I guess you would want to get a wriggle on as, even in silly season, tickets are likely to fly.
Thomas Truax, the anarchic New York multi instrumentalist balladeer who toured with Duke Special earlier this year, will also be making a return visit and on Friday July 27 he’ll be taking his menagerie of eccentric handbuilt instruments back to the Spirit Store in Dundalk where he enthralled audiences during his stint there with Duke Special, regaling them with tales of ‘Wowtown’.
The Spirit Store also marks the first anniversary of it’s excellent songwriters night, The Tall Poppy Club, with a gig on Wednesday August 15. Normally held in the intimate confines of the back room, this gig moves it upstairs to the main stage, probably a very sensible decision given that some ten of the songwriters who have performed at the club during its first year will be returning to mark the occasion.
Stewart Agnew, who is responsible for keeping the Tall Poppy Club on the straight and narrow, will be burning the candle at both ends during August as he also plays his own headline show at the Spirit Store on Friday August 3. He’ll be joined onstage by sometime Rev, John McIntyre.
Having already seen them play a warm-up show in Iontas in Castleblayney, where a whole clutch of fresh songs got an airing, I’m delighted to say that this two-handed approach looks like it will pay dividends. The songs get a degree of breathing space that they weren’t seeing in a full band context and John McIntyre’s guitar playing opens up a wonderful delicacy that was always submerged in them, while at the same time allowing Stewart to concentrate on his voice which has never sounded more assured.
One of the mainstays of the traditional scene in London, Brian Rooney, originally from Kiltyclogher in Leitrim but a fixture in the Big Smoke since the early 1970s, is one of those unassuming under-the-radar characters who just get on with things, and for over three decades he has been a presence for Irish music in London.
Over the last while though he has been troubled by ill-health, and on Saturday July 21 many of the musicians whose cause he has helped will be gathering in the Corrib Rest for a Gala Night of Traditional Irish Music to mark their appreciation and support for him. Having started off on the mouth organ, the whistle and the ten-key, single row accordion before his sister bought him a fiddle aged 13, Brian, a captivating fiddle player himself, has a strikingly individual style of playing and over the years has been a beacon in the Irish music community, always being extremely generous with both his music and his company.
Most London Irish musicians cite Brian as an influence on their playing and down the years many visiting musicians have made a point of seeking him out for the opportunity to experience him and his music at first hand. Since Brian, a very modest man himself, was encouraged by friends to record and release two solo albums: The Godfather (2000) and Leitrim To London (2002) his music has been heard and appreciated by a much wider audience and he finally gained the international reputation that he deserves.