Folk column: No sleep 'till Picnic

Kíla, the band that never sleeps, have released ‘Leath Ina Dhiadh A Hocht/Half Eight’ as a radio single (you can get it on iTunes too). Described by Ronan as a ‘morning cocktail song’, it is about getting up at half eight in the morning after an amazing night, with the sun just up and shining on the remains of the party from the night before. It comes from their latest album Gamblers' Ballet, which they are releasing on Friday August 10. They aren’t having a launch as such, as they’re far too busy touring and playing as many festivals as they can manage to get to, including the Festival of World Cultures in Dun Laoghaire on August 25, which you could probably think of as a default Irish launch if they weren’t playing at the Electric Picnic on Sunday September 2.
The album contains some live favourites, including full band versions of a couple of tracks – ‘Seo Mo Leaba’ and ‘Duisigi’ – that first surfaced on Ronan’s solo album ‘Tonnta Ro’. There are also a number of tracks that show just how much the band have got their groove on, from the jazzy ‘Her Royal Waggeldy Toes’ to a groovy version of ‘Electric Landlady’. Does all this make Kila the P-Funk All Stars of Irish traditional music? Very possibly. Very possibly indeed.
The Tall Poppy Club, Dundalk’s singer-songwriter launch pad night, celebrates its first anniversary with a gig on Wednesday August 15. Although the club normally features three or four acts performing in the intimate surroundings of the Spirit Store’s back room, the birthday bash moves it up to the main venue and calls back 10 of the night’s favourite acts from the preceding year.
There has always been a vibrant music scene in Dundalk, and with the opening of the Spirit Store as a venue, that scene found a natural focus. Now, seven years on, you can walk in on any given night and meet one of an increasingly eclectic mix of musicians. As the venue built a solid place in the hearts of touring musicians though, something kept niggling at venue manager Derek Turner. That something was the need to reflect the local scene, to re-focus the place on the community of local musicians who had always breathed life into it, and to give them a platform where they could perform and start to build an audience for local music.
The Spirit Store being what it is, that has never been the whole story, and the Tall Poppy Club, as tended by its MC and guiding light Stewart Agnew, has always scattered the 10-10-20 on a few exotic blooms from further afield. Held in the ‘back room’ the performances are unquestionably intimate, and that closeness to the audience can be nerve-racking, but it has pulled performances out of people that I honestly don’t think they knew they had in them.
For me, the joy of the Tall Poppy Club is that in one evening you can conceivably come across a local singer performing live for the first time, an established favourite and some stray wanderer from halfway around the world, and the whole evening still hangs together with a satisfying oneness. One year on, almost 50 performers have taken to that tiny stage.
A CD, First Year’s Growth will also be launched on the night featuring tracks from many of the acts who have performed during the year. As with the night itself, the approach is quite broad-church, from the rootsy Americana of Urban Country Divide through the more mainstream singer-songwriter approach of Lisa Hake or S.J. McArdle to the straight down the line pop of Stewart Agnew.
Damien Rice has announced that he’ll be playing a show in Castlebar on Thursday 23 August, which is the day before his Marlay Park show in Dublin. His vocal chords will have been well warmed up with a couple of shows at the V Festival in the UK the previous week, so it’s good to see him throw in an extra show just because he can. After Marlay Park, he hits the road again in the US and Canada (including an Austin City Limits gig which sees him join the ranks of Kris Kristofferson and Willie Nelson) before swinging back to the UK for a cluster of dates in October, many of which have already sold out.
From Wednesday August 8 to Tuesday August 14, the Feakle Traditional Music Festival will celebrate its 20th year with a vibrant programme of music, song and dance. Firmly established as one of the best of its kind in the world, the festival attracts genuine music lovers from all corners of Ireland and the world, proving that you don’t need to have huge slick venues if the mix of musicians is right. The Festival is noted for bringing together musicians from other traditional backgrounds, as well as providing a platform for local musicians to demonstrate their musical heritage. Over its 20-year history the Festival has been instrumental, not only in the promotion of the distinctive East Clare music style, but also for making the region an essential stopping-off point for visiting musicians.
Although they will readily admit that they are challenged in terms of their infrastructure, festival organiser Gary Pepper acknowledges that the 20th year had to be marked with an even more vibrant selection of performers than usual, and many of the acts playing will be established favourites from the festival’s back pages, including Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill, Seamus Begley And Family, Mary MacNamara, Vincent Griffin and the Tulla Ceili Band. Key visitors this year are legendary box player Joe Burke, all female band Líadain and singer Eleanor Shanley and her band.
In recent years, the Festival’s opening ceremony has evolved to become a platform to honour and pay tribute to local musicians past and present. This being a somewhat special year, the festival has opted to honour not just the cream of the local musicians, but also many of the visiting musicians who have been associated with the festival, through the issue of a special limited edition CD, entitled Reeling Through The Years. The album is a combination of tracks taken from recordings of concerts and sessions at the Festival throughout the years, and will be sold exclusively via the festival’s website and at the festival office.
The festival’s posters have become collectors’ items amongst regular attendees, and the full 20 years of posters will be on exhibition in Feakle Community Hall, together with an exhibition of work featuring musicians by local artists and photographers. Contributors include Christy MacNamara and Dennis Cahill, both of whom are musicians themselves.
Fiddler John McEvoy and flute player John Wynne, who previously played together as part of Providence, will be launching their Clo-Iar Chonnachta released album Pride Of The West with a show during Kilrush’s Eigse Mrs. Crotty festival on Saturday August 18. The album features a number of new compositions, as well as a selection of Sligo/Roscommon-inflected tunes. They are aided and abetted on the record by Arty McGlynn, and he’ll also be on hand on the night as they share the bill with Patrick Street.