My goodness it's been a long time. September 24th of last year and such a lot has happened.
Since then, we've had a lot of various types of weathers, both literal and metaphorical. The country is in a bad way and the whole world knows about it but I do my very best not to listen to the news and that way I can pretend it's all grand most of the time.
I put my CD out in September and got around to thinking about publicising it last week. At the time, I did a few gigs and they went down very well to anyone who was there who was kind enough to give me some feedback. I-Tunes never picked up on CD Baby's nice offer to let them sell it for us but there you go - their loss. You can still get it - a few copies left - from my website or CD Baby and Amazon and all sorts of places on the tinternet.
Lots of stuff got closed down during the big freeze including most gigs I had planned for Christmas 2010 but the Iveagh Singers, the new 9-piece vocal ensemble I direct soldiered on and we did a gallant, some might say heroic first public performance in Dublin to 60 or so equally heroic audience members. We had come a long way and wanted to show off what we had done after all the work so we were grateful to the hardy souls who made it into the city centre on that very cold night in late November to support us. We're trying to organise that the weather might be nicer for the next one but we can't guarantee anything.
Since Christmas my imagination has gone into overdrive. I think it's the year for me to FINALLY enter the property market and buy a flat but I've also begun to think about the CD and I'm working on a bit of an adventure for the summer to take in a number of US states, performing my CD in as many Unitarian churches as will have me and getting a bit of a holiday thrown into the bargain. It's early days in planning yet but it's picking up pace as I go so we should have something to show for it. Finally, I"ll get to see Nashville, something I've been meaning to do for many years. I've also spent some money on a publicity campaign for The Shape Of Things on American radio and print media so we'll see if anything comes from that. After 10 or so years in the business, close-to-unknown UK singer-songwriter Jamie Lawson put a new song onto YouTube on New Years' Day and now it has had 33,000 hits. Last night, having never played a headliner in Dublin, he played to a really solid crowd downstairs in Whelans (capacity 400 or so). Crazy what the internet can do for you. Good song too - it's called I Wasn't Expecting That which is kind of funny too, a little bit like Obama and his Sputnik moments in Wisconsin last week. But my point is that lots of things happen because of these little crazy ideas we have around this time of the year and it can really set you up on the right note for the year. So we'll see what comes of my plans.
I've also become a bit of a recording session musician in the last while, last year recording with Ronan Swift for his forthcoming CD, last week going into the studio with Peadar King to record his second, and next month going to Grouse Lodge to record Stewart Agnew's long but eagerly awaited third CD. I'm like a little child with excitement about the latter, not to mention all the various CDs of excellent Irish music which are going to come out this year (adding to the list already featuring SJ McArdle's CD which looks like it will finally see the light of day in April). We have such a lot of really talented musicians all slightly under the mainstream radar so it's very hard to break out and say "look over here". I do wish people would look out for them.
Looks like it's going to be a great year !!!
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Friday, September 24, 2010
Welcomings And Farewells
It is now just one day till I launch my 3rd solo CD The Shape Of Things with a piano-solo concert at the Unitarian Church in Dublin. I’ll be following this up with three concerts in the South of England in early October 2010. I am incredibly excited. The tourdates are at the bottom of the blog.
The CD itself is a piano-solo CD recorded two days after the end of the big freeze in January 2010 in St. Peters' Church of Ireland in Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland. The cover was designed by Keith Mullins using photographs taken by Will O'Connell. It features 11 original compositions, a new composition by long-time collaborator David MacKenzie and a unique interpretation of The Late Traiin by Roesy. Although there was a composed structure to all of the tracks, various parts of some of the music were improvised in the studio.
The idea of a completely instrumental album had been brewing for a while. I’ve always put instrumentals into my live set as the piano and my piano style are such an important part of my sound and I know that people enjoy that side of my playing. Many people had been suggesting that I should record a purely instrumental piano album but I always resisted. I could always hear other instruments in my arrangements and love working with other musicians.
When I was considering recording a follow-up to Asylum Harbour, I spent a day recording piano with Brian Masterson who I’d worked with before with David MacKenzie and on Asylum Harbour itself. We went to Drogheda to record with no preconceptions, but to record whatever happened.
The sound grew organically from the beginning of the session which took place at the tail-end of the big freeze in the middle of January 2010. By the end of the day we had 13 tracks and that was definitely a CD’s worth so we decided to put it out as it was.
Since last years' Making Overtures course and its highly informative session on social networking, I've been trying to refine my online presence, hence this blog and trying to increase updates of the website. Occasional colleague Colin Morris suggested SoundCloud as a way of presenting samplers of my work and I'm really enjoying it. For the first time with this album, you can hear full tracks directly from my website – www.joshjohnston.com – as well as find out concert dates and more information about the music. You can already pre-order the CD directly from this website too. The CD will also be available from I-Tunes, CDBaby.com and various digital download sites across the world from September 25th or thereabouts.
Aside from the CD, my life is busy and far-reaching. I tried my hand at chamber music over the summer working with a young and extremely talented violinist Liz O'Neill and although the partnership didn't end up working out for us it was a major project for me which I greatly enjoyed the challenge of. I realised that I hadn't really learnt any new classical music in about ten years so getting myself back to the stage where I could tackle that sort of repertoire was a big project but a productive enterprise and we created a good sound. Maybe we can try again in the future. I'm not one for ruling things out.
I had the dubious honour of accompanying Miranda Sings at the Dublin Fringe Festival - great fun really and even more of a hoot when faced with the reaction of a real live theatre audience.
My newest go at directing a choir is a 9-piece vocal ensemble that I'm actually singing in (working title Chambrette Ensemble) and we performed in semi-public for the first time a few weeks back to an invited audience at one of our choristers' houses in South County Dublin. Despite premiere nerves, everybody - choir and audience - seemed to enjoy themselves and we're now deep back into work for our 'real' first performance in Dublin at the end of November. Lots of informal performances are being planned too - a film-shoot next week, Busking in October and carol-singing in December. Lots of enjoyment to be had !!! Watch out for us.
With launches and welcomings come departures. This summer our good family friends Kathleen and Andrew moved their family to Vancouver for work reasons much to the dismay of their respective families and this Sunday, good friend and fantastic musician Martin (who played bass on the Galway 09 sessions - still unreleased but which will eventually see the light of day - once the songs get finished) and enjoyed coffee and lunch meetups with me in Simons on South Great Georges Street on a regular basis, travels to Germany to take up residence and a new job. A lot of other colleagues and friends seem to have moved from Ireland this year - I'm wondering whether it's an adventure I'd like to try myself but haven't built up the courage to do it yet - situation in Ireland making it more tempting as the days go by. Strange sense of sadness to see friends moving on which you suddenly realise was last a regular occurence with the last wave of emigration in the 80's but at least we have the Internet and cheaper phone packages so it just makes it more important to have the Internet and Facebook in particular to stay in touch. Bon voyage Martin. The story will never be over.
Hope to see you at one of the gigs or on the road.
The Shape Of Things Live
Saturday 25th September 2010 @ 8pm
Unitarian Church, St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2
Tickets €10 available on the door or reserved by e-mail from
pigsmayfly@eircom.net
www.the-listening-room.org
Saturday 2nd October 2010 @ 8pm
Unitarian Chapel, New Road, Brighton, BN1 1UF
Tickets £8 available at the door
www.brightonunitarian.org.uk
Sunday 3rd October 2010 @ 7.30pm
Meadrow Chapel, Godalming, Surrey, GU7 3JB
Tickets £7 available at the door
www.unitariangodalming.org.uk
Sunday October 10th 2010 @ 8pm
Unity Unitarian Church, 277a Upper St., Islington,
London, N1 2TZ (next to the fire station)
Tickets £8 available at the door
http://www.new-unity.org
All the best,
Josh
The CD itself is a piano-solo CD recorded two days after the end of the big freeze in January 2010 in St. Peters' Church of Ireland in Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland. The cover was designed by Keith Mullins using photographs taken by Will O'Connell. It features 11 original compositions, a new composition by long-time collaborator David MacKenzie and a unique interpretation of The Late Traiin by Roesy. Although there was a composed structure to all of the tracks, various parts of some of the music were improvised in the studio.
The idea of a completely instrumental album had been brewing for a while. I’ve always put instrumentals into my live set as the piano and my piano style are such an important part of my sound and I know that people enjoy that side of my playing. Many people had been suggesting that I should record a purely instrumental piano album but I always resisted. I could always hear other instruments in my arrangements and love working with other musicians.
When I was considering recording a follow-up to Asylum Harbour, I spent a day recording piano with Brian Masterson who I’d worked with before with David MacKenzie and on Asylum Harbour itself. We went to Drogheda to record with no preconceptions, but to record whatever happened.
The sound grew organically from the beginning of the session which took place at the tail-end of the big freeze in the middle of January 2010. By the end of the day we had 13 tracks and that was definitely a CD’s worth so we decided to put it out as it was.
Since last years' Making Overtures course and its highly informative session on social networking, I've been trying to refine my online presence, hence this blog and trying to increase updates of the website. Occasional colleague Colin Morris suggested SoundCloud as a way of presenting samplers of my work and I'm really enjoying it. For the first time with this album, you can hear full tracks directly from my website – www.joshjohnston.com – as well as find out concert dates and more information about the music. You can already pre-order the CD directly from this website too. The CD will also be available from I-Tunes, CDBaby.com and various digital download sites across the world from September 25th or thereabouts.
Aside from the CD, my life is busy and far-reaching. I tried my hand at chamber music over the summer working with a young and extremely talented violinist Liz O'Neill and although the partnership didn't end up working out for us it was a major project for me which I greatly enjoyed the challenge of. I realised that I hadn't really learnt any new classical music in about ten years so getting myself back to the stage where I could tackle that sort of repertoire was a big project but a productive enterprise and we created a good sound. Maybe we can try again in the future. I'm not one for ruling things out.
I had the dubious honour of accompanying Miranda Sings at the Dublin Fringe Festival - great fun really and even more of a hoot when faced with the reaction of a real live theatre audience.
My newest go at directing a choir is a 9-piece vocal ensemble that I'm actually singing in (working title Chambrette Ensemble) and we performed in semi-public for the first time a few weeks back to an invited audience at one of our choristers' houses in South County Dublin. Despite premiere nerves, everybody - choir and audience - seemed to enjoy themselves and we're now deep back into work for our 'real' first performance in Dublin at the end of November. Lots of informal performances are being planned too - a film-shoot next week, Busking in October and carol-singing in December. Lots of enjoyment to be had !!! Watch out for us.
With launches and welcomings come departures. This summer our good family friends Kathleen and Andrew moved their family to Vancouver for work reasons much to the dismay of their respective families and this Sunday, good friend and fantastic musician Martin (who played bass on the Galway 09 sessions - still unreleased but which will eventually see the light of day - once the songs get finished) and enjoyed coffee and lunch meetups with me in Simons on South Great Georges Street on a regular basis, travels to Germany to take up residence and a new job. A lot of other colleagues and friends seem to have moved from Ireland this year - I'm wondering whether it's an adventure I'd like to try myself but haven't built up the courage to do it yet - situation in Ireland making it more tempting as the days go by. Strange sense of sadness to see friends moving on which you suddenly realise was last a regular occurence with the last wave of emigration in the 80's but at least we have the Internet and cheaper phone packages so it just makes it more important to have the Internet and Facebook in particular to stay in touch. Bon voyage Martin. The story will never be over.
Hope to see you at one of the gigs or on the road.
The Shape Of Things Live
Saturday 25th September 2010 @ 8pm
Unitarian Church, St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2
Tickets €10 available on the door or reserved by e-mail from
pigsmayfly@eircom.net
www.the-listening-room.org
Saturday 2nd October 2010 @ 8pm
Unitarian Chapel, New Road, Brighton, BN1 1UF
Tickets £8 available at the door
www.brightonunitarian.org.uk
Sunday 3rd October 2010 @ 7.30pm
Meadrow Chapel, Godalming, Surrey, GU7 3JB
Tickets £7 available at the door
www.unitariangodalming.org.uk
Sunday October 10th 2010 @ 8pm
Unity Unitarian Church, 277a Upper St., Islington,
London, N1 2TZ (next to the fire station)
Tickets £8 available at the door
http://www.new-unity.org
All the best,
Josh
Monday, May 17, 2010
Round Robins On Wednesday Night
In January, I was phoned up by one of the bookers in Bewleys on Grafton Street in Dublin to say they had had a cancellation and they didn't want to leave the venue empty for a night - did I have any ideas ? Having initially said no to the prospect of trying to drum up a crowd on my own, I remembered a very enjoyable evening I had spent in Roundstone, County Galway listening to a concert presented by the arts festival there and featuring my friend and colleague Roesy, Steve & Joe Wall, Noelie McDonnell and Luka Bloom. They all sat on the stage for the whole concert and took it in turns to sing their own songs. As the gig warmed up, they began to play on each others' songs and each of them truly enjoyed the interaction between them all, and between them and the audience. It was a great night and I wondered if I could organise something like that thereby decreasing pressure on anyone individually to get an audience and on any one person to pay the rent.
I first asked SJ McArdle and Ronan Swift, two fine singer-songwriters and good friends who I have worked with on many occasions and in whose bands I play. Ronan wrote "The Forty Foot" which appears on my CD Asylum Harbour (as sung by him) and Steve co-wrote 3 of the songs on that album too so there was no problem me knowing their songs or them knowing mine. Two days before the gig, Kate McGarrigle died and we played "Mendocino" as a tribute. We finished together with "The Forty Foot" (it only has two chords) and the evening seems to have been thoroughly enjoyed by all.
So much fun that we decided to do it again. It's happening on Wednesday evening (19th May) - again in Bewleys and looks like it's going to be a lot of fun again - this time we've even rehearsed a few covers and taught each other a few of our songs so that we can play on each others' songs with a little less trepidation. We all have new CDs to release in 2010 so there will be a good mix of the old and the new in the setlist and, by the very nature of the evening, the evening will be varied in mood, style and sound giving something for everyone.
The fantastic thing about my life (one of the many fantastic things about my life) is that every morning I get up, I seem to be doing something completely different. Two new beginnings have opened up recently. I have started a 10-piece choir - more a vocal ensemble than anything else. We've settled on the name Chambrette Ensemble after my suggestion (Kitchenette Ensemble - we're smaller than a chamber choir so what was smaller than a chamber ?) was vetoed. We're making baby steps at the moment, just moving from easy stuff to get us singing to more ambitious material but it's a lot of fun - nobody's taking themselves too seriously but entering into the team spirit of the choir with a huge amount of commitment which is very heartening. We're planning on a concert in November which seems like a good timeline to me.
I've also entered the serious learning curve of classical music promotion by working as an assistant to Conor Daly of Nota in bringing the baritone Thomas Hampson to Dublin for a recital at the end of this month. Things are really hotting up now - we're putting the programme to bed and I've never realised that so much went into getting it COMPLETELY right. The whole thing is a big undertaking and we're hoping for a sell-out. It's going to be a great gig.
And my CD is continuing apace. Recorded in January just after the cold snap, the mood of the CD is fitting to that - piano instrumentals, mostly original, somewhat lullaby-like, wintery. I'm very pleased with it. I couldn't release such a wintery album in the summer so it will come out in September (September 24th to be exact) when the days start to get shorter again.
Busy busy me - that's the way I like it.
I first asked SJ McArdle and Ronan Swift, two fine singer-songwriters and good friends who I have worked with on many occasions and in whose bands I play. Ronan wrote "The Forty Foot" which appears on my CD Asylum Harbour (as sung by him) and Steve co-wrote 3 of the songs on that album too so there was no problem me knowing their songs or them knowing mine. Two days before the gig, Kate McGarrigle died and we played "Mendocino" as a tribute. We finished together with "The Forty Foot" (it only has two chords) and the evening seems to have been thoroughly enjoyed by all.
So much fun that we decided to do it again. It's happening on Wednesday evening (19th May) - again in Bewleys and looks like it's going to be a lot of fun again - this time we've even rehearsed a few covers and taught each other a few of our songs so that we can play on each others' songs with a little less trepidation. We all have new CDs to release in 2010 so there will be a good mix of the old and the new in the setlist and, by the very nature of the evening, the evening will be varied in mood, style and sound giving something for everyone.
The fantastic thing about my life (one of the many fantastic things about my life) is that every morning I get up, I seem to be doing something completely different. Two new beginnings have opened up recently. I have started a 10-piece choir - more a vocal ensemble than anything else. We've settled on the name Chambrette Ensemble after my suggestion (Kitchenette Ensemble - we're smaller than a chamber choir so what was smaller than a chamber ?) was vetoed. We're making baby steps at the moment, just moving from easy stuff to get us singing to more ambitious material but it's a lot of fun - nobody's taking themselves too seriously but entering into the team spirit of the choir with a huge amount of commitment which is very heartening. We're planning on a concert in November which seems like a good timeline to me.
I've also entered the serious learning curve of classical music promotion by working as an assistant to Conor Daly of Nota in bringing the baritone Thomas Hampson to Dublin for a recital at the end of this month. Things are really hotting up now - we're putting the programme to bed and I've never realised that so much went into getting it COMPLETELY right. The whole thing is a big undertaking and we're hoping for a sell-out. It's going to be a great gig.
And my CD is continuing apace. Recorded in January just after the cold snap, the mood of the CD is fitting to that - piano instrumentals, mostly original, somewhat lullaby-like, wintery. I'm very pleased with it. I couldn't release such a wintery album in the summer so it will come out in September (September 24th to be exact) when the days start to get shorter again.
Busy busy me - that's the way I like it.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Last time I wrote here, it was snowing . . . . . . .
What a weird year it has been so far - and it's only April.
The prime minister of Great Britain has taken to calling his potential voters bigots and we've had four seasons of weather (and quite extreme seasons at that) in four short months. Nobody has any money and everybody seems to want to blame somebody else for that and all their other problems.
Despite still being a penniless musician, I've just moved out of my parents' house for the first time in 15 years which has proved enormously positive and enormously exciting. It's also spurred on all sorts of other opportunities. I initially went even further than I ended up settling on by going over to London for three weeks which I loved except that I had a reality check and realised that I couldn't stay. I would run out of energy and money within about a month of needing the sort of money staying in a place necessitates. Still, it was a lot of fun to catch up with people, play some of my songs, meet old friends and make new ones, go to the theatre and some gigs, and get to travel on lots of trains. I love trains.
I came back rested and having realised that two bands I was in were both timebombs waiting to happen, I realigned my priorities and have worked steadily on a number of other projects since then. I have decided to release my own third solo CD The Shape Of Things in September. It's an album of lullabies, something I discovered whilst trying to decide the order of tracks. Put it this way, they're extremely effective lullabies. Just don't listen to it while you're driving. Apart from the fact that one of the composers of the tracks I didn't write has been left somewhat upset by my level of improvisation on his tune, I've been getting good feedback from people listening to the pieces - I look forward to playing some gigs around the launch.
I'm also playing with Keith Mullins, SJ McArdle and Ronan Swift. These three guys write, sing and play fantastic music. I have a bit of a split personality - I'm a big music fan and a performer. As a fan, there's nothing more inspiring than the fact that we are in an extremely exciting time for new CDs but that's also a bit intimidating as a performer. It's all part of the challenge. My label - Shandon Records - is going to release Ronan's second CD early next year and Ronan and I are working together to start turning the cogs of self-promotion already. SJ, Ronan and I are doing a Round Robin Gig in Bewleys on 19th May - looking forward to that.
And I've taken to music promotion - working with Conor Daly of Nota, an independent classical music promoter who I've known and sung in choirs in for a long time. He's bringing Thomas Hampson to the National Concert Hall to sing American Artsong with his collaborative partner, German pianist Wolfram Rieger. We're in the throes of writing press releases - a new experience but one I'm enjoying immensely.
And I'm also busy playing accompaniments myself in exams for flautists, violinists, singers and recorder players in various schools and music schools around Dublin. It's hectic but good fun and a great opportunity to meet the professional musicians of tomorrow. Keeps you on your toes.
Possibly the most exciting gig of all was last night when I played piano for a staged reading of a fascinating play "On Religion" by AC Grayling and Mick Gordon. It's quite an intense play but really makes you think and pushes you to question spirituality, religion and faith in your own life and in the world, something that in these very dark days we need to do more than ever.
See you,
jj
The prime minister of Great Britain has taken to calling his potential voters bigots and we've had four seasons of weather (and quite extreme seasons at that) in four short months. Nobody has any money and everybody seems to want to blame somebody else for that and all their other problems.
Despite still being a penniless musician, I've just moved out of my parents' house for the first time in 15 years which has proved enormously positive and enormously exciting. It's also spurred on all sorts of other opportunities. I initially went even further than I ended up settling on by going over to London for three weeks which I loved except that I had a reality check and realised that I couldn't stay. I would run out of energy and money within about a month of needing the sort of money staying in a place necessitates. Still, it was a lot of fun to catch up with people, play some of my songs, meet old friends and make new ones, go to the theatre and some gigs, and get to travel on lots of trains. I love trains.
I came back rested and having realised that two bands I was in were both timebombs waiting to happen, I realigned my priorities and have worked steadily on a number of other projects since then. I have decided to release my own third solo CD The Shape Of Things in September. It's an album of lullabies, something I discovered whilst trying to decide the order of tracks. Put it this way, they're extremely effective lullabies. Just don't listen to it while you're driving. Apart from the fact that one of the composers of the tracks I didn't write has been left somewhat upset by my level of improvisation on his tune, I've been getting good feedback from people listening to the pieces - I look forward to playing some gigs around the launch.
I'm also playing with Keith Mullins, SJ McArdle and Ronan Swift. These three guys write, sing and play fantastic music. I have a bit of a split personality - I'm a big music fan and a performer. As a fan, there's nothing more inspiring than the fact that we are in an extremely exciting time for new CDs but that's also a bit intimidating as a performer. It's all part of the challenge. My label - Shandon Records - is going to release Ronan's second CD early next year and Ronan and I are working together to start turning the cogs of self-promotion already. SJ, Ronan and I are doing a Round Robin Gig in Bewleys on 19th May - looking forward to that.
And I've taken to music promotion - working with Conor Daly of Nota, an independent classical music promoter who I've known and sung in choirs in for a long time. He's bringing Thomas Hampson to the National Concert Hall to sing American Artsong with his collaborative partner, German pianist Wolfram Rieger. We're in the throes of writing press releases - a new experience but one I'm enjoying immensely.
And I'm also busy playing accompaniments myself in exams for flautists, violinists, singers and recorder players in various schools and music schools around Dublin. It's hectic but good fun and a great opportunity to meet the professional musicians of tomorrow. Keeps you on your toes.
Possibly the most exciting gig of all was last night when I played piano for a staged reading of a fascinating play "On Religion" by AC Grayling and Mick Gordon. It's quite an intense play but really makes you think and pushes you to question spirituality, religion and faith in your own life and in the world, something that in these very dark days we need to do more than ever.
See you,
jj
Monday, January 18, 2010
Sharing The Stage With Friends
Now that the snow has removed itself from Dublin City, my thoughts have returned to the small matter of playing music and making a living out of it - hopefully.
To this end, I drove up to Drogheda this last Thursday with recording engineer Brian Masterson for a recording session usiing the Steinway Model D Concert Grand Piano in St Peters' Church in the middle of the town. At this session, I managed to stop drooling long enough to re-record the piano tracks for "The Art Of Saving Lives", a band CD which I recorded basic tracks for last August but I also spent a good chunk of the day recording piano solo tracks for a new record of instrumentals which I think will be called "The Shape Of Things". I recorded a wide range of pieces ranging from tunes I wrote at college to tunes composed by me last week to a new David MacKenzie piece composed especially for the session. I think it went very well although I guess I'll know a lot more when I hear the disc of rough mixes that Brian has compiled for me tomorrow. I'd love to put this new collection of tunes out at some stage before the summer although I know better now than to put deadlines on these things. Life has a funny habit of getting in the way.
This Friday on 22nd January, I'm teaming up with regular collaborators SJ McArdle and Ronan Swift to perform a Round Robin concert in Bewleys Cafe Theatre on Grafton Street in Dublin. Regular readers of these missives will know how dear I hold Bewleys Cafe Theatre to my heart but this concert will be very very special - three singer-songwriter musicians on the stage for the whole gig interacting with each other and with the audience, each taking it in turns to sing and play their own songs or personally selected covers. A nice informal gig in the intimate surroundings of one of the nicest places in Dublin to spend an evening. Hope you can make it. If you can't, please feel free to invite other Facebook friends to come on my behalf !!
Then the following week, I'm off to London to have a much-needed break and also to throw some copies of my CD Asylum Harbour around and see if I can earn some new musical or music industry contacts. It's a hard industry to crack but you can't get there if you don't get out there and knock on doors. If you know someone who you think should hear it or have any valuable context or perspective for me, I'd love to hear it before my trip.
In the meantime, Happy New Year - may 2010 bring us all what we wish for and dream of.
All the best,
Josh
To this end, I drove up to Drogheda this last Thursday with recording engineer Brian Masterson for a recording session usiing the Steinway Model D Concert Grand Piano in St Peters' Church in the middle of the town. At this session, I managed to stop drooling long enough to re-record the piano tracks for "The Art Of Saving Lives", a band CD which I recorded basic tracks for last August but I also spent a good chunk of the day recording piano solo tracks for a new record of instrumentals which I think will be called "The Shape Of Things". I recorded a wide range of pieces ranging from tunes I wrote at college to tunes composed by me last week to a new David MacKenzie piece composed especially for the session. I think it went very well although I guess I'll know a lot more when I hear the disc of rough mixes that Brian has compiled for me tomorrow. I'd love to put this new collection of tunes out at some stage before the summer although I know better now than to put deadlines on these things. Life has a funny habit of getting in the way.
This Friday on 22nd January, I'm teaming up with regular collaborators SJ McArdle and Ronan Swift to perform a Round Robin concert in Bewleys Cafe Theatre on Grafton Street in Dublin. Regular readers of these missives will know how dear I hold Bewleys Cafe Theatre to my heart but this concert will be very very special - three singer-songwriter musicians on the stage for the whole gig interacting with each other and with the audience, each taking it in turns to sing and play their own songs or personally selected covers. A nice informal gig in the intimate surroundings of one of the nicest places in Dublin to spend an evening. Hope you can make it. If you can't, please feel free to invite other Facebook friends to come on my behalf !!
Then the following week, I'm off to London to have a much-needed break and also to throw some copies of my CD Asylum Harbour around and see if I can earn some new musical or music industry contacts. It's a hard industry to crack but you can't get there if you don't get out there and knock on doors. If you know someone who you think should hear it or have any valuable context or perspective for me, I'd love to hear it before my trip.
In the meantime, Happy New Year - may 2010 bring us all what we wish for and dream of.
All the best,
Josh
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Nothing happened this October
Did anyone else notice how October passed them by this year ? I organised and planned a few things in connection with Ronan Swift's debut CD and played one or two weddings and otherwise tried fairly frantically to find things to do but very little came of it. Hence, very little to blog about and that's why I haven't been kicking about here recently.
I thought maybe it was the recession kicking in to the musicians' world but since November 1st, my life has kicked off again and November look as though they're going to be busy. Calm restored.
I haven't done an awful lot with my own CD this year and I'm rather at a loss about what to do with it. It's not got obvious singles on it and touring possibilities are limited without radio play, particularly for a piano player. Instead, I've been putting the word out to other singer-songwriters and bands that I'm available and interested in playing in their bands and this has resulted in some very exciting opportunities. SJ McArdle (also on Facebook) phoned me early in the year after he co-wrote 3 songs on Asylum Harbour asking if I'd be interested in doing a few gigs with him. Since then, the promotional push for his brilliant forthcoming album Blood And Bones has kicked off in earnest and we've now done a number of gigs in different lineups from full band to duo. He has two singles out already from the album and the second one (in particular) is really super - a cover of Annie Lennox's moving song Why. You can get it from I-Tunes as well as from downloadmusic.ie and you can also see the video on YouTube. I have also been playing with Peadar King both with his own music and his Island Air project (see previous blog) and Stewart Agnew.
When Roesy and I first toured together, we were asked to bring a support act along for a whole tour by the name of Noelie McDonnell. I immediately became a fan and have followed his work since, almost putting a cover of one of his songs (Steal A Rhythm) onto my Asylum Harbour album. He is just about to release his third album on Friday (Come Alive) and it is a great pleasure and honour to be playing keys in his band for the Galway and Dublin launches of the CD. The dates are -
Town Hall Theatre, Galway, Sunday 8th November, Doors 3pm and
Academy 2, Dublin Friday 20th November at 8pm.
The album is also really good.
On that subject, it is astounding to see so many outstanding Irish albums coming out this months and over the last few years and to also see the Irish radio and television media ignore them so consistently. There are pockets but everywhere else, the radio producers seem to be completely guided by what the music pluggers are shoving in their direction and that is generally not Irish independent music. It is so hard to get heard in Ireland and interestingly also really hard to get people to gigs by bands / singers they haven't heard. I'm not complaining. This is the business I'm in and that's the particular challenge our business has at the moment. We just don't have too many friends in the media helping us and the public hear great original Irish music. Anyway, if you haven't heard of them, go seek out some new dynamic music by the likes of Ian Whitty, Armoured Bear, Julie Feeney and keep an eye out over the next few months for new releases by Ronan Swift, SJ McArdle, Noelie McDonnell, Roesy, Keith Mullins, Stewart Agnew.
Oh, and Asylum Harbour is still available too.
Cheers for now,
josh
I thought maybe it was the recession kicking in to the musicians' world but since November 1st, my life has kicked off again and November look as though they're going to be busy. Calm restored.
I haven't done an awful lot with my own CD this year and I'm rather at a loss about what to do with it. It's not got obvious singles on it and touring possibilities are limited without radio play, particularly for a piano player. Instead, I've been putting the word out to other singer-songwriters and bands that I'm available and interested in playing in their bands and this has resulted in some very exciting opportunities. SJ McArdle (also on Facebook) phoned me early in the year after he co-wrote 3 songs on Asylum Harbour asking if I'd be interested in doing a few gigs with him. Since then, the promotional push for his brilliant forthcoming album Blood And Bones has kicked off in earnest and we've now done a number of gigs in different lineups from full band to duo. He has two singles out already from the album and the second one (in particular) is really super - a cover of Annie Lennox's moving song Why. You can get it from I-Tunes as well as from downloadmusic.ie and you can also see the video on YouTube. I have also been playing with Peadar King both with his own music and his Island Air project (see previous blog) and Stewart Agnew.
When Roesy and I first toured together, we were asked to bring a support act along for a whole tour by the name of Noelie McDonnell. I immediately became a fan and have followed his work since, almost putting a cover of one of his songs (Steal A Rhythm) onto my Asylum Harbour album. He is just about to release his third album on Friday (Come Alive) and it is a great pleasure and honour to be playing keys in his band for the Galway and Dublin launches of the CD. The dates are -
Town Hall Theatre, Galway, Sunday 8th November, Doors 3pm and
Academy 2, Dublin Friday 20th November at 8pm.
The album is also really good.
On that subject, it is astounding to see so many outstanding Irish albums coming out this months and over the last few years and to also see the Irish radio and television media ignore them so consistently. There are pockets but everywhere else, the radio producers seem to be completely guided by what the music pluggers are shoving in their direction and that is generally not Irish independent music. It is so hard to get heard in Ireland and interestingly also really hard to get people to gigs by bands / singers they haven't heard. I'm not complaining. This is the business I'm in and that's the particular challenge our business has at the moment. We just don't have too many friends in the media helping us and the public hear great original Irish music. Anyway, if you haven't heard of them, go seek out some new dynamic music by the likes of Ian Whitty, Armoured Bear, Julie Feeney and keep an eye out over the next few months for new releases by Ronan Swift, SJ McArdle, Noelie McDonnell, Roesy, Keith Mullins, Stewart Agnew.
Oh, and Asylum Harbour is still available too.
Cheers for now,
josh
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
SJ McArdle - Chin Up - out now on I-Tunes and other digital stores
http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=sj+mcardle&init=quick#/sjmcardlemusic?ref=search&sid=529611215.1961134906..1
http://www.myspace.com/sjmcardle
Those of you who - like myself - like to read the sleevenotes of CDs to see who's on them will have noticed the rather consistent appearance of SJ McArdle on the Asylum Harbour CD of mine which came out last year. I met him in 2001 at a collaborative songwriting workshop. We wrote the first song on Asylum Harbour - Precious Days Indeed - at that workshop and we became good friends. I also met Roesy the same week. It was a good week.
Since then, I've appeared on two of SJ's CDs and we've sat down on numerous occasions and written together. Many of those songs joined the first song to form Asylum Harbour and others will be on the next CD which is due out next year. I've also been playing keys in various SJ McArdle gigs over the last four months and it looks like that will continue too, something I'm greatly enjoying.
Which is all in all a very long way of telling you that SJ is starting into a promotional campaign for a very long-awaited new CD which he's recorded in Nashville with producer Tim Lauer. it is not a country record but the sleeve-watchers I mentioned at the top will be impressed by the fact that it features Bryan Sutton, Dan Dugmore, Richard Bennett and Rodney Crowell on the various tracks. For work reasons, I've heard it and it's great.The first signs of the new work are audible in the super first single - Chin Up - which is available on 7Digital and I-Tunes as well as various other digital stores. The EP also features a cover of Richard Thompson's "I Misunderstood" which is great.
You can hear Chin Up as well as various other SJ tracks by going to either of the two links at the top of this update.
All the best,josh
http://www.myspace.com/sjmcardle
Those of you who - like myself - like to read the sleevenotes of CDs to see who's on them will have noticed the rather consistent appearance of SJ McArdle on the Asylum Harbour CD of mine which came out last year. I met him in 2001 at a collaborative songwriting workshop. We wrote the first song on Asylum Harbour - Precious Days Indeed - at that workshop and we became good friends. I also met Roesy the same week. It was a good week.
Since then, I've appeared on two of SJ's CDs and we've sat down on numerous occasions and written together. Many of those songs joined the first song to form Asylum Harbour and others will be on the next CD which is due out next year. I've also been playing keys in various SJ McArdle gigs over the last four months and it looks like that will continue too, something I'm greatly enjoying.
Which is all in all a very long way of telling you that SJ is starting into a promotional campaign for a very long-awaited new CD which he's recorded in Nashville with producer Tim Lauer. it is not a country record but the sleeve-watchers I mentioned at the top will be impressed by the fact that it features Bryan Sutton, Dan Dugmore, Richard Bennett and Rodney Crowell on the various tracks. For work reasons, I've heard it and it's great.The first signs of the new work are audible in the super first single - Chin Up - which is available on 7Digital and I-Tunes as well as various other digital stores. The EP also features a cover of Richard Thompson's "I Misunderstood" which is great.
You can hear Chin Up as well as various other SJ tracks by going to either of the two links at the top of this update.
All the best,josh
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