I love them and I think you should love them too. I’m talking about the Southern Tenant Folk Union. Not only do they have the coolest name in the record shop. They also play the best bluegrass this side of the Atlantic.

If you like your bluegrass steeped in Earl Scruggs-style pyrotechnics, these guys may not be for you. However, if you can handle great songwriting, exciting playing and an approach that marries musical brain to musical muscle, you’ll make a little space in your heart for them. I’ve been a believer from the word go. I saw them first when they were touring here in support of their debut album. Time has been hard on them since. The hardcore bluegrass audience is small. It takes a huge amount of dedication to keep a band like this together. So, although I was shocked to find the sole remaining original member on last year’s The New Farming Scene was Belfast-born banjo wrangler Pat McGarvey, I wasn’t altogether surprised. Happily, he has replaced one crack troupe with an equally talented collective. After moving from London to Brighton and then on to Edinburgh he teamed up with some of that city’s best traditional and bluegrass musicians and made one of last year’s best records. Alternately bleak and joyous, it was recorded live in a room the way records ought to be made – with minimal separation between the players and a bunch of warm microphones picking up the atmosphere along with the musicians.
The band are set to return to the studio later this year to record a new album. Before they do, they’ll be making a trip to these shores for an 11-date trek starting in Omagh’s Strule Arts Centre Wednesday February 9. The tour continues with a visit to the Flowerfield Arts Centre, Portstewart, the following evening. On Friday February 11 they visit the Balor Theatre Ballybofey, Co. Donegal before heading south for a Saturday evening show in the Glens Centre, Manorhamilton. Sunday February 13 sees the band in Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh. The following evening it’s off to north Cork for a performance at Kilworth Village Arts Centre.
Their only Dublin show of the tour is at the Mercantile Hotel, Dame St, on Tuesday February 15, where they’ll be joined by guests. Wednesday February 16 takes the band north of the border for a gig in Arnie and Sharon’s in Cookstown. They play St. John’s Arts Centre, Listowel the following evening before high-tailing it back up north for a Friday night gig in the Ards Art Centre, Newtownards. The tour’s final show is in the Market Place Theatre in Armagh on Saturday February 19 where you can also get yourself a cajun dinner if that’s your kind of thing.
If you’re into banjos, check out thebanjoproject.org. Here you will find details of a film looking for funds via the kickstarter website. One of the most maligned instruments – less than a tenth of a second on Google gets you close on half-a-million banjo jokes – it is nonetheless an indispensable part of Irish traditional music, American folk, early blues and jazz. Not to mention country and bluegrass, where it still holds its own.
Narrated by Steve Martin, The Banjo Project documentary brings together contemporary players in all styles, among them Earl Scruggs, Pete Seeger, Bela Fleck, Taj Mahal, Don Vappie, Cynthia Sayer and Ralph Stanley. Filmmaker Marc Fields, Professor of Visual and Media Art at Boston’s Emerson College, has been working on the documentary for almost a decade now. Ever since hearing banjo virtuoso Tony Trischka’s World Turning album, in fact. He has amassed over 350 hours of footage, filming contemporary players as well as dredging up a vast amount of archive material, some of which can now be seen online at the project’s website. Fields hopes to see first broadcast next autumn. Happily, the great wealth of material which won’t make it into the broadcast edit will still ultimately be available online.
The time is nigh and the hour is upon us as Temple Bar Tradfest hits the capital’s favourite streets of sin once again. The pubs of Temple Bar and the rest of the ‘Cultural Quarter’ will be awash with bodhráns, banjos and the shrill trill of fiddles from Wednesday January 26 until Sunday 30. Clannad, initially scheduled to make one ulra-rare appearance at Christchurch Cathedral, will now be playing three (still admittedly pretty rare) shows at the venue from 27-29.