The Old Blog Node

Tongues Times Two -exploring bilingual benefits

2011-12-19T22:18:00.000-08:00

I heard a report recently on bilingualism which stated that two thirds of the world's children are growing up speaking more than one language. My granddaughter in Chile is one of those children. Spanish is her first language but her communications in English are first rate. She is four years old and she will tell you that she speaks Hola in Chile but in Ireland she speaks Hello.

There are some echoes here of my own fragmented bilingual childhood. My parents were native Irish speakers from the edge of Connemara. I started with English but there was a lot of Irish in the mix. This was fine, grist for the language mill, during the early years but it got murkier when I went to school.

Like most Irish people of a certain age, I was taught by people schooled in Munster Irish. When I would bring home some of the Irish words learnt in school, my parents were often baffled. Stock expressions like Conas ta tu? (How are you, Como esta?) were greeted with scorn in our house. Seafoideach (foolish, silly) was a term they often used about my school Irish. I was taught the more traditional Connemara greetings such as Ce chaoi bhfuil tu? (What way are you?) or Bail o Dhia ort (God's blessing upon you). My parents were surpassingly modest people but their fluent and eloquent Irish was a great point of pride. It was vital to their personal identities shaped by a deep sense of belonging and longing for a place where their hearts took root.

But the mixed messages caused considerable confusion in my young mind. And, when you consider the compulsory nature of learning Irish at school in those days, it was easy enough to acquire a dislike for the language. My friends knew that my parents were native speakers since it was rare around the Liberties in Dublin to hear anyone speaking Irish. Schoolmates assumed I had some kind of inside track in mastering the language but it seldom felt that way to me.

It took many years and a type of Irish immersion program at Drimnagh Castle CBS before I earned the gold fainne that marked Irish fluency. At the Castle, almost everything was taught through Irish -even Spanish. Brother Guilfoyle was our Spanish teacher and he spoke both languages impeccably. With a cool, intellectual demeanor, and dark, wavy hair, he looked like a Spanish aristocrat.

I arrived at the Castle with a flood of other Corporation scholarship boys where our class was launched into a grand experiment. We were told that we'd be taking the Intermediate Certificate examination in two years instead of three. We all did very well but nobody had thought about what we would do in our third year. This was long before the concept of “gap years.” So, instead of pressing on for the Leaving Certificate, we were compelled to take the exam a second time, gaining the utterly useless distinction of double honours in many subjects.

Then, in our fourth year, I was deeply disappointed to discover that Spanish was not going to be taught for the Leaving Certificate. It was one of my strongest subjects and I wanted to continue my studies. I found that the Dublin Spanish Society offered an advanced Spanish class. For those last two years I studied the formal, Castilian version of Spanish. However, classes were geared towards conversation and I only managed a pass in the Leaving Certificate exam.

Forty years on, my rusty Spanish was barely enough to keep up with my granddaughter’s growing fluency. When she was almost two years and in that phase where children create their own rules, this episode unfolded in the backyard of my son’s house in Chile. She took charge of game involving all of us. Pappy and Granny were sent to their positions. Then, she looked at me, paused briefly, and pointing to another corner of the yard said:
“Y Usted, alli.”

This can only be translated as, “And you, sir, over there.” Now, there were two remarkable elements to this communication. One, she had not yet settled in to calling me granddad, a term that acquires new resonance when you are the subject. Granddads often have to settle for supporting roles in the Great Granny Shows,especially with the first grandchild. And two, this formal use of Usted is very rare in Chilean Spanish but it had been drilled into me by Brother Guilfoyle and the tutors at the Dublin Spanish Society. So, she had heard the word and used it to instruct me with delightful precision.

The research on bilingualism suggests that, apart from cultural benefits, it is very good for the brain to hold more than one language. It activates an executive function that otherwise lies dormant in monolingual people. Most children spend the first few years ardently studying the languages spoken around them. Our granddaughter was only six months old when we went on a tour of Pablo Neruda’s house in Santiago, La Chascona. She was riveted by the guide’s talk as we went through the house, hanging on his every word in Spanish and English, preparing the pathways in her brain.

I never thought of myself as bi-lingual growing up with English and Irish but those old rigidities have been eroded in contemporary, multi-cultural Ireland where immigrant children who already speak one language can tackle English and Irish equally. My granddaughter was recently enrolled in a Scuola Italiano in Chile to add another language to her repertoire. I am quite sure that she will be well equipped to speak the truths she will seek in her Irish and Chilean lineage.

Songs from the Bee-loud Glade

2011-11-22T21:42:00.001-08:00

San Francisco Bay Area singer-songwriter Kyle Alden has released a strong and stylish new album based on a challenging assignment –setting some of Yeats’ poetry to music. Alden toured Ireland in 2010 with The Gasmen and reacquainted himself with W.B. Yeats, his poems and the places he lived. He was only briefly over-awed by the prospect of working with Yeats’ prodigious oeuvre and focused on adapting the often fully-formed lyrics into songs. It was a pragmatic and creative choice not to tinker with the texts.

Alden steers away from most of the usual suspects in the poems although the much-melodified The Lake Isle of Inishfree and The Song of Wandering Aengus are included. It probably helped a great deal that he approached the poetry from a fresh perspective –he didn’t have Yeats drummed into him for the Leaving Certificate.

He mixes it up nicely with song genres, so there are ballads, country-ish, folk, folk-rock, and blues-influenced tunes in the mix. There’s a striking simplicity to the arrangements, with no over-production or overreaching. He gets sweet and sensitive musical assistance from Athena Tergis on fiddle, Mike Marshall on mandolin, Cormac Gannon on bodhran and Susan Spurlock with complementary vocals.

He opens with Brown Penny, a lively ballad with fine ensemble playing. Running to Paradise has lovely, subtle fiddle fills from Tergis and this compelling line,
There the king is but as the beggar.
Colonel Martin has shades of some well-known saga ballads with a mellifluous guitar solo. It’s a grand collection of images and symbols, with sailing, infidelity, a rich man giving away money, a very Yeatsian concoction. The Lake Isle of Innisfree gets a refreshingly different treatment from the popular sentimental version. There’s some Greek-style mandolin from Marshall for starters and Tergis offers some deeply lyrical embellishments.

The Song of Wandering Aengus gets a cheerful country and western shading with steel guitar flourishes. The Valley of the Black Pig has a solid folk rock groove to it with lovely lilting percussion from Cormac Gannon. It’s a song that would have worked well for The Waterboys in their heyday. Coincidentally, Waterboys founder Mike Scott has just released his own song-cycle homage to Yeats, with completely different poems chosen except for Aengus and Inishfree.

Alden digs into some tongue-twisting lines, like this one from Valley of the Black Pig:
Dewdrops slowly,
dreams gather,Unknown tears.

Or this, from The Mask
It was the mask engaged your mind
And after set your heart abeat,Not what’s behind.

He has some fun on The Pilgrim with its Fol-di-rol, rolli-o and the Sha-la-la, la la la lines on The Cap and Bells. The Blessed is another mini saga, the story of Cumhaill and Daithi with the,
Secrets of god in his eyes.

Alden has crafted a notably imaginative album. There’s persuasive power and control in the singing. The tunes and texts are are well-matched and the arrangements and playing are top drawer. It’s a sharply sweet suite of songs.

Hayes and Cahill at Skyland Church

2011-10-09T15:16:00.000-07:00


Martin Hayes and Denis Cahill playing at Skyland Church, in Los Gatos, October 6, 2011

There’s something so right about Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill playing music in a church. The setting confers a certain level of respect on the proceedings. The acoustic qualities are usually flawless and it’s a great listening environment with none of the background conversational buzz that mars many Irish music events.

The duo have played in churches a number of times over the years bringing their own sacred forms to the holy houses. They have played in Skyland Church in the Santa Cruz Mountains before and it was easy to see why they would return to this splendid and intimate venue. Although the tuning gods were in a mischievous mood all night, it had little impact on the brilliant performance and the audience enjoyment. And, the tuning breaks meant getting to hear some of Haye’s pointed and playful remarks which, like the music, requires careful listening.

They played a series of serpentine sets, where tunes ebb and flow like rolling waves. Hayes has been working more in combinations with other musicians. In 2010, a collaborative project with Peadar O’Riada and Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh produced the album Triur Sa Draighean. All the music was composed by O’Riada who lives in Cuil Aodha, a west Cork parish that acts like a principality, Hayes noted. Two reels from this recording were featured, Jearoid and Barack Obama. Hayes was a supporter of Obama’s run from the Presidency from early on -I suspect the President’s command of nuance appealed greatly to him.

Perhaps the highlight of the evening was the performance of the great slow air, O’Carolan’s Farewell to Music. It was dedicated to Apple founder Steve Jobs who had died the previous day. Hayes played with a soaring solemnity, a concert hall focus and his trademark lonesome touch. It was a moving and soulful tribute to Jobs, who like Hayes, thought deeply about the creative process required to produce good cultural products.

Here’s an extract from a talk given by him at ‘The Inside Track’, a seminar on traditional music held at the Glór Irish Music Centre in Ennis, County Clare, in November 2003.

As a professional musician I have to grapple with what the value of traditional music is. I haven’t much interest in religion, but I do have a deep interest in spirituality. I have had to try and rationalise what my position in music is – why I do what I do, other than to make a living, because that would be, in a way, a kind of a misuse of it. But I’ve often felt that the only clear thing I can offer as a performing musician is to actually enliven the spirits of the people that are there with me for that period of time.

The full talk is published in the Journal of Music and it should be read and studied by anyone with aspirations to understand Irish music traditions -or any other traditions.

Hayes would shy away from the idea of converting people to the music -he would even cherish his right to be irreverent. But there is no denying it contains sublime and transcendent power, if you can respond to it. The woman who organized the concert, part of the Music and Arts Committee at Skyland Church, spoke about how hearing him play ten years ago changed her life. I count myself very lucky to have had opportunities to talk with him over the years I’ve been writing about Irish music.

When I started this blog three years ago, I intentionally launched with a Martin Hayes interview. The encore for the Skyland evening included Coleman’s March, one of the most beautifully contoured tunes in their endless repertoire, and one I asked about in our interview:

The tune that really captivated me from early listening is Coleman’s March. It’s an elegant tune with one magical, mysterious turn –like a flash of O’Carolan in a Moore’s melody. I asked about the part and the tune: “It’s almost a repeat but not quite. I’ve found it’s easy to screw it up on the night –did I play that part or not? I found a song version of the tune called Going to Mass Last Sunday in Northern Ireland. There is some version of it in old timey American fiddle playing. But where we heard it was on an old 78 of Michael Coleman, and it was a B-side or something. It was a real jaunty melody that stuck in my head but at the same time I could never imagine us playing it like that, in strict march time. So we stretched it out a bit.”

Listening to Hayes and Cahill’s music makes it easier to accept that the universe is constantly expanding and to hope that our species will evolve towards being more tolerant, thoughtful, compassionate and creative despite the current fractured, bitter and divisive political climate.

Ten years in with Molly's Revenge

2011-10-06T14:10:00.000-07:00

Molly’s Revenge are stalwarts of the San Francisco Bay Area Celtic music community. This is their tenth year together and their tenth album, hence the title. Their live performances are marked by a joyous attitude, tasteful playing and imaginative arrangements.

Their sonic signature is a rich hybrid, with Scottish, Irish, Cape Breton, Californian and many other musical strands woven into the tapestry. The album demands your attention right from the opening track, Bart’s Rant, three feisty tunes by piper David Brewer. The Pepper Set opens with Paddy Fahey’s, a vintage, twisty tune, from fiddler John Weed who gets a grand groove going with Brewer on whistles with Pretty Pepper, a Jerry Holland composition.

Digerspolskan is mellow Scandinavian jig, a delicate, spiraling melody. The League Set, opens with whistles and bouzouki before Weed kicks it up a few notches on the fiddle and the whole gang rides into the sunset firing on all cylinders. The Bonfire Set is a fiery compilation featuring some tunes from piper John Dally.

The Statia Set opens with Stuart Mason’s jaunty guitar on Statia Donnelly’s. Weed’s fiddle takes over on Sliabh Russell and Aaron Jones (who produced the album) joins on a guizouki. Lochrosque is another Scottish-Irish blend with a mixer from Donegal (John Doherty’s) and a closer from the pen of Jimmy Keane of Bohola called The Charleston, a sturdy and striking tune. Doctor David MacDonald is another set with that unmistakeable Scottish lilt and tilt.

One of the pleasures on the Molly’s albums are their song selections. Moira Smiley deserves great credit for this and she guests with the band once more on vocals. Horo Johnny is a delightful song she got from the singing of Niamh Parsons. Lorelei is a sweet Pogues song (yes, there were quite a few especially from Phillip Chevron) delivered with siren soulfulness. The album closes with The Boys of Barr na Sraide.

The Rambling Suilor has Pete Haworth on the vocals and his composition The Admiral’s Waltz is a subtle beauty. He is affectionately known as the Admiral but, having kept the band ship-shape for all these years, he is retiring from active duty this year. He will be missed but the band plays on. Like a great whiskey, Molly’s Revenge is refined yet bracing. And, like all well-aged spirits, they are certainly old enough to be out on their own and that’s exactly where they are.

Aged Ten Years
Molly’s Revenge with Moira Smiley
MR-10, 2011
www.mollysrevenge.com

Streetwise songs from Mick Fitzgerald

2011-09-24T16:13:00.000-07:00

Mick Fitzgerald finds that Dublin streets are generous with their
stories and songs if you watch and listen

Dublin singer-songwriter Mick Fitzgerald continues to produce hearty and crafty albums. Streetwise is his third top-notch recording in recent years. It’s a different mix of songs than his previous albums with live performances, old recorded songs, old unrecorded songs, and a rare cover of a song written by someone else.

I asked how the album come together?“The live songs were recorded in Germany and some more of them will be on a vinyl album being released there. I just started to think about some of my old songs and EMI let me use In the Morning which was recorded in 1974. I had loads of new songs and held back a few -I nearly have enough for another CD-- so I decided to clean out the basement and save a lot of new songs for a later release.”

A few of the songs were rescued from the scrapheap of memory, words and tunes that were lost. Does that happen a lot in your songwriting?“I found a few songs that were never recorded or even sung in public and I wondered why I had left them alone. I write in bursts, so I could produce ten songs and then I would get months of nothing. Sometimes, lonely little verses appear in long overlooked plastic bags...”The opening songs fall into that category. Letter to Dublin is a sweet a capella segment that slides into Ballad of Munroe, a blue-grass number with Gerry O’Connor working the fiddle and banjo.

Dropped My Guard has a lovely cello and viola arrangement. Very George Martin-ish, I noted."Yes, that’s the first time I arranged strings and now that you mention it, it does sound a little George Martin-ish. But it had been recorded a while with just me and guitar before I added the strings. I wanted to be just simple.” Where did Fly, a grand folk-rock anthem, come from?"Fly is the first song of mine I ever sang in public many years ago. It was also recorded on a Wild Geese album called In full Flight.”

Black Jack Davy, an energetic gypsy song was recorded live in Germany. The other live recordings are The Pride of Inchicore, a new song that sounds like an old standard, and The Last of the Iron-Arsed Pub Balladeers, a clever mash-up of familiar trad refrains.

Breathe is the one song not written by Fitzgerald. It’s a classy song from Danny Carnahan, an expert blend of words and tones. Is it one that has been on his radar for a while?“Danny sent me some songs since I wanted to record one of his. And Breathe stood out. I made the arrangement as simple as possible and Brigid Heffernan's backing vocals really make the song. He has recorded so many of mine, including 1971 from this album which was called Summer Nights earlier."

Here's the song uploaded to Soundcloud with permission from Fitzgerald and Carnahan.

Breathe by Mick Fitzgerald, from Streetwise, 2011 by Irish Blogman

Mick Fitzgerald is a bit of a renaissance man and a dedicated performer. His book of short stories, Session, was published last year. He has an active schedule as an actor on stage, on television and in independent films. And, he recently released a spoken word recording of old Irish folk tales collected by Thomas Crofton Croker in the 1820s. Croker's book, Fairy Legends and Traditions, was translated and published in Germany by the Grimm Brothers.

How did the delightful Enchanted Lake recording happen? I wondered if the chance to sing, and act, and tell old stories in one sitting was too much to pass up?“This idea came from my agent and a group of people in Munich. They asked me to read some of the folk legends and sing in Irish. I sang "Turus go Tir na nOg" which I got from my mother who sang it on Irish Radio in the 1930s. It was lovely to find a way to record it. My pieces were recorded in Munich in a day and then they brought in the harpist. Yes, it was lovely to act in front of a mic. I was in my element.”

Streetwise is another solid achievement from one of the country’s hidden treasures, a diamond that has finally been found -to borrow a phrase from one of his own songs.In Fitzgerald’s world, the streets are all named and teeming with stories waiting to be sung.

Edited version of an interview that appeared in Irish Music Magazine, October 2011

Playa Playing –A Burning Man 2011 movie

2011-09-15T20:24:00.000-07:00

Burning Man 2011 as seen by a NASA satellite

Playa Play by Mark Inglis from Thomas Clancy on Vimeo.

Mark Inglis is an Irish designer who lives and works in Italy. He went to Burning Man in August and made this short film using his iPhone. Lots of people have cameras at these events but not everyone has his eye for the compelling image and a matching soundtrack. The film captures the wonder and playfulness of that extravaganza of personal expression and communal creativity that is the annual Burning Man festival.

Mark is also my wife’s nephew. He and his partner borrowed our bikes for the trip (and that is the absolutely right word) which make a cameo appearance here. So, while we’ve never gone to Burning Man, our bikes have and some year soon we too will go. Now you can enjoy the festival without leaving home by watching Mark’s home-away-from-home movie.

A riff on The Guard

2011-08-14T17:15:00.000-07:00

A jovially racist cop with a taste for
drugs and Disney,
but a heart of gold, just like his hookers
-not the Connemara variety.

An urbane Black FBI agent who
never saw Yu Ming is Ainm Dom,
but can curse like a mother-f*#@.

The untamed landscape of Connemara
with lunar rocks, abandoned bogs
and deserted holiday homes.

Philosophizing drug-dealers,
a thug with qualms, and
an equivocating sociopath.

A solo papparazzo with a
penchant for crime-scenes.

A real cowboy IRA man,
a Culchie and Western.
A dying mother wondering
what she missed with amyl nitrate.

A boy with a bike,
a dog, a derringer, and
a nuanced view of the FBI.

Kalasnikovs and Glocks
alongside a blunderbuss.
A shootout in Spiddal,
and for a few Euros more
some death scenes for the ages.

Far less bloody than In Bruges but
plenty of scabrous, acidic, hilarious dialogue.
And, a more noble, mysterious end
for Brendan Gleeson.

The Guard is truly a film with a bit of everything, recommended.

The Highlands & By-ways of Scotland

2011-08-09T20:11:00.000-07:00

A collection of photographic memories from a trip to the Scottish Highlands in June, 2011.

A Moment of Madness, well-spent with Brendan Begley & Caoimhin O Raghallaigh

2011-07-30T19:34:00.000-07:00

Any music that takes its title from the proposition that “A moment of madness is better than a life of logic,” is going to be wild ride. And, when the performers are elemental natural forces of the tradition named Brendan Begley and Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh, all the promises are kept. Begley plays energetic accordion and O’Raghallaigh keeps pace with sinuous virtuosity on fiddle and sonorous hardanger fiddle. The sound mix is so intimate at times, it’s hard to tell which is which.

Right from the opening notes, you feel the ground moving beneath you. Two shifty polkas are followed by Cronin’s Slippery Jig. Prepare to have everything you think you know about tempo, rhythm, pacing and momentum in traditional music shaken and stirred. No percussion instruments are featured but when the players have inner drummers that dabble in quantum theory, coherence and control are assured.

Sean Keane’s/The Ardgroom Polka move from depths to heights with casual eloquence. Listen to the deep earth tones Begley draws from the slow airs, An Chead Mhairt den Fhomhair/Na Gamhna Geala -it’s like a soundtrack for the Lascaux Cave. O’Sullivan's March is a shape-shifting synergy.

Much of the music here derives from Sliabh Luachra, that mysterious, mystical zone in the Kerry-Cork borderlands with a rake of tunes from the playing of Johnny Leary and Dennis Murphy. It’s not too far-fetched to assert that some of these tracks may have been recorded in a parallel universe, where time takes on different hues. Some of the audible clicks may even be quare quarks.

One of the great slow airs An Buachaill Caol Dubh is overtaken by a speeding On Book Hill: Quail Dove before a dead stop: then I Wish I had Kerry Cow dances mesmerizingly into the rearview mirror. Another set closes with a warp-speed version of I’ll Tell My Ma, one of a number of tunes that they drive right up to the edge of the cliff.

Tonn Cliodhna is a short suite composed by Begley with help from his daughter of that name. It commemorates a currach journey he took from Donegal to Rathlin following a voyage attributed to St Colmcille. (Begley might be to only man who could defy that old Irish curse and dance in a currach.)

O’Raghallaigh has sometimes provoked ultra traditionalists by asking, what if we stopped playing tunes? But this bit of controversy is elided in his partnership with the deeply melodic playing of Begley. He is clearly in the vanguard of young Irish traditional players. His participation in The Gloaming with Martin Hayes and Iarla O’Lionaird puts him squarely -in a round peg kind of way- among the usual avant garde suspects.

They close with the P and O Polka by Christy Leahy which starts slowly but is soon engulfed in shimmers and shivers before it fades out into deep space. This music serves to reminds us that we are hurtling through space on a watery rock at about 67,000 mph. It’s good to think about that every so often and you couldn’t have better company for the meditation than Begley and O’Raghallaigh.

A Moment of Madness,

IrishMusic.Net, 2010.

Other music by these artists:

Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh
Where the One-eyed Man is King, 2007
http://www.stateofchassis.com/

Triur sa Draighean, 2010
with Peader O’Riada and Martin Hayes.
www.peadaroriada.ie

Brendan Begley
It could be a good night yet.
http://brendanbegley.com/

Begley is also a member of The Boys of the Lough
 http://www.boysofthelough.com

The Johnstons Reunion Concert

2011-07-02T19:37:00.000-07:00

Mick Moloney, Niamh Parsons, Lucy Johnston and Paul Brady playing at the

Tommy Leddy Theatre in Drogheda on Saturday, June 25, 2011.

The Johnstons were one of Ireland’s most innovative and influential bands in the 1960s and early 1970s. When they regrouped for their first live performance in forty years it was a major happening, to use one of those Sixties terms. Lucy Johnston, Mick Moloney and Paul Brady rewound the years with tremendous style and substance. They were joined in joyfulness by Niamh Parsons, a significant vocal presence in her own right. The combination was magical and moving, and you could heat all the homes in Drogheda with the wattage emanating from the stage.

The band has a large collection of recorded music to choose from and everyone of the 900 people in attendance -none of us getting any younger- was familiar with the whole catalog. They opened with a couple of rousers, The Alamo and The Dublin Jack of all Trades, a cracking song that is not heard much these days. Next came the dark Child ballad, What put the Blood?, a song that got its spookiest treatment on Christy Moore’s Traveller album.

Parsons took the lead on Fir a’ Bhata, a fine Scottish lament, from the group’s white album. The Beatles had just put out a white album so why not us, Brady explained. He sang Paddy’s Green Shamrock Shore, a song to which he has squatter’s rights if not outright ownership. Moloney gave a succinct and eloquent review of Ewan MacColl and his role in the British folk revival before they launched into The Tunnel Tigers. McColl also wrote The Travelling People, the song that shot The Johnstons to prominance in 1965. (They got the song from Liam Clancy on a visit to the Johnstons family pub in Slane.) It was delightful to hear them perform it again and, this time, Lucy got to sing lead. Her voice was remarkably pure and strong, undiminished by time, and belying her admission that she hadn’t sung a Johnstons song in forty years. Michael Johnston joined in a number of songs on vocals and guitar.

Brady and Moloney showed their mature chops with some octave playing on mandolins. Other crowd-pleasers included Leaving London, borrowed from Tom Paxton, The Curragh of Kildare, and Robert Burns’ Ye Jacobites by Name. Hey, That’s no way to say Goodbye, one of their finest Leonard Cohen covers, was the most electric performances of the evening. They bowed out with Gordon Lightfoot’s Bitter Green and Spanish Lady from the vast repertoire of the late, lamented Frank Harte.

The reunion concert was initiated as way to honor the memory of Adrienne Johnston who died tragically young thirty years ago. The proceeds for the evening will go to scholarships in her name for young musicians in Slane and surrounding areas. A second beneficiary from the concert is the Human Development Foundation Mercy Centre, an agency in Bangkok, Thailand that Mick Moloney supports. The theatre is impressive despite it unusual location at the end of a small industrial park and across the road from a Tesco superstore. The opening acts were high quality especially Coscan and the Carolan Brothers. And, the next generation of Johnstons, three young women with lively voices, delivered a delightful a-capella version of The Apprentice.

Colin Irwin believes The Johnstons never got credit for being a vital bridge between The Clancy Brothers, The Dubliners and later groups like Clannad, Planxty, the Bothy Band, and, even, Horslips. The group were highly regarded by fellow musicians but I think their influence on people who were listening largely to pop music in the sixties -like myself- was immense. Their covers of pop songs may have drawn us in but soon our ears were opened up to hear folk and traditional music. They made the music accessible to a broader audience while being respectful of the traditional sources.

It was inevitable that someone’s favorite Johnstons song would not be included in a two-hour concert. The one song I was waiting for never arrived, Hello Friend from the 1971 Colours of the Dawn album -still their finest record, in my view. The song was written by Peggy Seeger (McColl is often wrongly credited) during the Enoch Powell fuelled anti-immigrant fever in Britain. It is a poetic (if sometimes polemical) perspective on immigration. Twenty years on, it became deeply relevant in the Irish context when large numbers of immigrants arrived, travelling people who often got short shrift on the hundred thousand welcomes. I thought it should have been re-released then as a public service reminder and maybe it still could be as the economic decline opens up the temptations to scapegoat others.

The closing lines still have resonance:

Yours the fear and ours the shame
But our goal is still the same
In the end, this will be our native land.

Paddy O’Brien, Tune-Catcher

2011-05-04T20:50:00.000-07:00

The Sailor’s Cravat

Paddy O'Brien – Button Accordion 
Tom Schaefer – Fiddle
 Paul Wehling – Bouzouki
 Erin Hart – Vocals

 New Folk Records and Clo Iar-Chonnacht, WCM000

Paddy O’Brien is one of the great keepers of the flame in Irish traditional music. Despite –or paradoxically because of – living outside Ireland for many years, he has retained a profound attachment to the music and cultivated a deep and fertile furrow around St Paul, Minnesota, with his playing, mentoring and teaching. He is held in high regard by his fellow-musicians and is one of the great Irish tune collectors with many rare and unusual tunes lodged in his head.

This album has been knocking around in O’Brien’s world for a while. He gave me a copy when I interviewed him some years ago and it has never been out of my listening rotation. Some of his insightful quotes from that interview are included in this piece. When I visited O’Brien and his partner Erin Hart, I found that we shared a love of baseball: he roots for the Twins and I’m a long-time supporter of the Oakland A’s. (Baseball, a team sport that revolves around a series of one-on-one contests, provides some of the best cultural insights into the United States. And, like traditional music, it does not easily yield its secrets.)

O’Brien’s story is all the more remarkable because he did not grow up in one of the Irish music hotbeds. A native of County Offaly, he had to travel far and wide in search of the music, spending time with older players and absorbing the companionable oral traditions.

I myself clicked into the music the first time I heard it when I was nine years old. I couldn't let go of it--still can't.

His early influences included, among others, Joe Delaney and Dan Cleary in Offaly, Donegal fiddler John Doherty, Paddy Fahy and Eddie Kelly from Galway, Frank McCollum of Antrim, Seán Ryan from Tipperary, and Johnny Henry from Mayo. One thing he learned well from listening to and playing with the older masters was how to prune notes so the tune could blossom and bloom.

I have for years been doing things with the tunes, never really accepting them the way they were just because I never heard them played any other way. I try various things as I develop individual tunes, especially tunes I know a long time. There's always something new to discover.

I had that experience with The Sailor’s Cravat where I seemed to hear some new combination, harmony or turn every time. Music enters our consciousness in a complex way (at least five parts of the brain are involved, according to current theories). And, with O’Brien’s music the heart and the brain are instantly engaged.

Paddy Fahy’s subtly complex melodies feature strongly on this collection along with a sprinkling of Sean Ryan tunes and O’Brien’s own compositions. He opens with a fine tune pairing, The Singing Kettle /Sean Ryan’s, a ramped-up reprise from the Chulrua album of the same name. He follows with two Sligo jigs, Michael Coleman’s / The Rose of Lough Gill, and you hear the first of many compelling “turns” from one tune to the other. The title track comes next, The Sailor’s Cravat / The Maple Leaf, a couple of rousing reels and another smooth switch.

A couple of tracks offer robust hornpipes, The Groves and Murdoch Henderson / The Low Level. O’Brien clearly has the measure of these memorable melodies supplying just the right amount of momentum. On another track, Kitty, who took a clinking in a previous tune title, takes a solid, rambunctious ramble before two of Paddy Fahy’s twisty tunes take over. There’s a fierce blast from the Sliabh Luachra side with three rattling polkas, The Peeler’s/Joe Bane’s/Dick Tobin’s, each more intricate than the one before.

Two more perfectly paired reels are McCollum’s / The Gosling while The Cat in the Corner / Paddy O’Brien’s are another crafty combo. He closes the album with The Silver Spire / Sean Ryan’s, a lively pair of reels with sweetly-executed turn.

It's the choice of tunes, and how they are matched together, really, that determines the pace and speed at which they should be played. This in turn allows the notes to breathe, or make their musical statement. If tunes are played too fast, it can choke the phrasing, if you're not careful. It's all about interpretation, which is so important in getting the feel and emotion out of Irish traditional music.

There are three big songs on the album with Erin Hart demonstrating a fine set of pipes on The Flower of Magherally-o, The Generous Lover and Molly Bawn. And the accompaniment from Tom Schaefer on fiddle and Paul Wehling on bouzouki are both sensitive and compact.

Paddy O’Brien plays with exquisite specificity. His tunes turn in unison, reciprocating and accommodating like long-term partners. He reminds me of those experienced, cagey baseball catchers calling the pitches, subtly signaling his colleagues, and controlling the dynamics from behind the box. And, he’s just as quotable but a tad less enigmatic than the most famous of all catchers, Yogi Berra.

T with the Maggies takes the biscuit

2011-04-28T22:54:00.000-07:00

T with the Maggies
Moya Brennan, Mairead Ni Mhaoinaigh, Triona Ni Dhomhnaill & Maighread Ni Dhomhnaill.
Compass Records, 7 4550 2.

T with the Maggies is a spirited vocal collective featuring four of the very best female Irish singers. Mairead Ni Mhaoinaigh of Altan would be the most familiar to younger admirers of Irish music. But she was only a wee girl back in the days when the other three first established their credentials: Moya Brennan from Clannad, the first big crossover Irish group; Triona Ni Domhnaill (the T of the title) of the legendary Bothy Band and other combos; and her sister Maighread Ni Dhomhnaill. She may be the least well known internationally but if you polled Irish singers, Maighread would rank high among the finest Irish voices of her generation. Fittingly, her album credit says simply Vocals, Yardstick.

This is the first recorded collection for the “group” but they have being singing together informally for many years. All have deep roots in Donegal, home to one of the most endearing and unique musical strands in the Irish tradition. Donegal music -like its Scottish cousin- can be intensely moody and airy. A hint of a melody goes a long way in that canon. Most of these songs are in Irish and Donegal Irish is arguably the most sensuous and expressive of all. The four native speakers certainly make that case beautifully on this album.

Wedding Song is the perfect introduction, a shimmering, rhythmic round of sound. Domhnach na Fola (Bloody Sunday) is a moving new lament for those lost in the Bloody Sunday massacres in Derry. Thugamer Fein an Samhradh Linn (Summer, Summer) is a perfect fit for the album. Noirin Ni Riain has a fine version on her Celtic Soul album where she describes as it a hypnotic song and one of the oldest melodies on the planet.

On the anthemic Mother Song, one of the few songs in English, each one takes a verse in her own way. Oganaigh Uasail (Young Gentleman) is a Maighread Ni Domhnaill song that closes with an a capella flourish. There’s a rippling, jinky version of a classic Altan song, Cuach Mo Londubh Bui. Biodh Orm Anocht (Be With Me Tonight) is laced with percussive Clannad touches. Their voices are even more dramatic unaccompanied. Listen to A 'Stór, A Stór a Ghrá for a crystal clear sample.

Ceol an Phiobaire (Music of the Piper) may be the most beautiful piece on the album with a melody that meanders and lingers. A spare and sweet Farewell, Farewell from Richard Thompson fits snugly into the Donegal style. They close with An Mhaighdean Mhara with Triona redeploying some delicious piano riffs like those she used with Nightnoise, that marvellous collaboration with her late brother, Micheal, Billy Oskay and other Portland musicians.

Along with the vibrant vocals they play keyboards, harp, fiddle and composed a number of the songs. Manus Lunny of Capercaillie co-produced the album so the arrangements are fluid and melodically layered. He knows a thing or two about fine women singers from his years working with Karen Matheson.

The group were first assembled by Maighread’s daughter, Roise, who was fascinated that the four of them could have completely different interpretations of the same songs. She calls them Donegal Divas whose music incorporates a sense of family, sisterhood and enduring friendship. They all began singing as children in their various Donegal homes where, as the song has it, “...your hearts are like your mountains.” The voices are sublime and inspirational and every bit as big as those mountains. The Maggies are singers to a T.

Recreating an Irish Republic

2011-03-14T20:24:00.000-07:00

Irish election results that seemed like pie-in-the-sky even a couple of months ago produced a new coalition government between Fine Gael and the Labour Party. Fianna Fail got a swift kick in the ballots for their comprehensive mismanagement of the economy: the Soldiers of Destiny looked more like Refugees from Fate.

My recent two-week visit to Ireland coincided with the final stages of the general election campaign, the momentous election and the very predictable aftermath. It was an intriguing time to delve into the current Irish cultural context. People were fully engaged with the politics and the issues. Many had read Michael Lewis’ perceptive analysis in Vanity Fair, When Irish Eyes Are Crying. Lewis had already written about the financial crises that brought Greece and Iceland down but Ireland, as always, had its own variation:

Even in an era when capitalists went out of their way to destroy capitalism,
the Irish bankers set some kind of record for destruction.

The Celtic Tiger, Lewis says, was a massive Ponzi scheme where the Irish decided to sell and buy the country from one another, with money shoveled at them by European banks and investors. He wondered, as many commentators did, where was the rage, where were the street protests?
I had weighed in beforehand with this short, sharp letter to the Irish Times, on February 15.

Dermot Desmond’s political reform proposal (February 12, 2011) aspires to change “...the pervasive culture of secrecy at the heart of politics in Ireland.” Where do these secretive tendencies come from if not from the many years of power and influence exercised by the institutional Catholic Church in civic affairs and in education? The Church has been the very model of non-accountability, lack of transparency, and authoritarian decision-making. The nation’s governance has continued to operate in a righteously anti-democratic mode, a virtual theocracy rife with paternalism, contempt for people and their intelligence, inner circles where irrationality reigns, and a corrupting love of power and its trappings. If the people of Egypt are ready to try a more democratic and secular form of government, is it not time to give it a go in Ireland?

I was keying off a set of proposals from one of Ireland’s richest men prominently covered in the Irish Times but I thought it was worth reiterating some of the residual destructive effects of the Church’s “Moral Monopoly” (Tom Inglis’ brilliant formulation) on Irish political life. Dermot Desmond is no saint and some of his ideas seem self-serving. He’s one of the famous tax exiles, rich people who made their money in Ireland but elect not to pay taxes by moving their business offshore.

The second publication that was being discussed was Fintan O’Toole’s book Enough is Enough. His commentaries and analysis in recent years have been sharp sticks poking the outgoing government, speaking truth to the powerfully deaf. The book exposes five myths that Irish people have come to believe about the country. The founding myth is that Ireland is a Republic. The reality is that it has always fallen well short of the liberty, fraternity & equality ideals especially in economic terms. Then, there are the twin myths of Parliamentary Democracy and Representation. Both are extremely limited in Ireland but were available for purchase during the heydays of Fianna Fail rule.

And, finally, the evil twin myths of Charity and Wealth. The first was a fiction fostered by the Chuch to rationalize their undue influence on Irish education, health care and social policy –that’s the virtual theocracy. The second was a delusional by-product of the greed and hubris of the Tiger era –most of this occurred in the inner circles of government, regulators, property developers and bankers where an exuberant irrationality reigned. These are the people who built unwanted hotels and ghost estates, enduring open wounds and scabs on the landscape.

O’Toole proposes five decencies that could be revived or re-established to benefit the common good: Security, Health, Education, Equality and Citizenship. He’s not holding his breath for these shifts to happen under the watch of the new government but he is hopeful that steps could be taken towards long-term, radical change.

The guarded optimism comes from the character of newly-elected representatives (TDs) to the national parliament (the Dail). The Labour Party won more seats that ever before. The leadership are mostly parlour socialists –over-eager to taste power before retiring, according to some commentators- but some of the younger TDs have other ideas and values. They are less likely to accept that the welfare of the wealthy should be government’s main priority and more likely to believe that the poor, working-class and middle-classes deserve government support and protection. Labour also has two openly-gay TDs to its credit.

There are some new women representatives but still not nearly enough and the one woman with relevant experience, Joan Burton of the Labour Party, was passed over for one of the finance ministries. The Alpha Gobshites (Paula Meehan’s term) are still wildly over-represented.

Some campaigns tapped more primal feelings like this

Id Pro Quo slogan. He was not elected, however.

The Green Party were wiped out in the election for their participation in the outgoing government. Some of their views will surely be taken up by the new independents. There are 19 Independents in the new Dail, including five who make up the United Left Alliance. Sinn Fein also had their best electoral outing and their new representatives are less narrowly nationalistic and perhaps even left-leaning. (Gerry Adams topped the poll in Louth but he remains a very polarizing figure.)

Mick Wallace is one of the new Independent TDs who topped the poll in Wexford. He is one-of-a-kind. A long-time community activist and a property developer but not one of the fly-by-night, tax exile kind. Here’s his account of his first week in the Dail.

Luke “Ming” Flanagan was elected in Roscommon-Leitrim. He’s also a dedicated community activist -young Irish politicians paid close attention to Barack Obama’s preparation for the Presidency. He’s a supporter of legalizing cannabis. One wag noted the in contrast to Fine Gael’s Five Point Plan, Ming had a Five Joint Plan.

Shane Ross was also a poll topper in the Dublin South constituency. He’s a columnist who has been outspoken about the banking and development madness. Expect him and the other independents to be a constant thorn in the side of the new coalition government.

O’Toole proposes revitalizing the powers of local government by restoring their revenue-gathering authority and allowing for funding priorities to be determined at city or county levels. Successive Irish governments have tried –largely unsuccessfully- to decentralize some administrative functions from Dublin to other parts of the country. Reinvigorating local government would be a much more effective approach to decentralizing and it would allow TDs to focus on national interests not on “parish pump” issues.

This would be a great time to make the separation of church and state a reality, if leaders could muster the courage to face down the clergy. Start by eliminating the Catholic Church’s role in the management of schools at primary and secondary levels, and in teacher training colleges, and reduce Church influence in health care and social legislation. It would be good for the government not to favor any religious establishment and, paradoxically, it might well be beneficial for the church to compete on a level playing field for people’s spiritual allegiance.

The aftermath of the Celtic Tiger will be a classic example of the privatization of profits and the socialization of losses, leading to austerity for the vast majority and further cosseting for the tiny (wealthy) minority. In O’Toole’s most recent column, he states:

Public attitudes to politics are there to be reshaped. If TDs behave with modesty, self-respect and diligence, citizens seem ready to stop regarding them with the old mixture of deference and contempt.

It’s time for the new Irish leaders to grasp the nettle of opportunity.

Back to the Center

2011-02-03T20:43:00.000-08:00

It’s time I steered this blog back towards its original mission. Here’s the first of a series of album reviews that have been brewing away in what passes for my creative process.

Catnip from Portland

The gorgeous, creative and elegant cover of this album proclaims its essence. Brongaene (Bronnie) Griffin is a very gifted fiddle player from Portland, Oregon, which is home to another fiddle player you may have heard of –Kevin Burke. Griffin’s interest in Irish music developed as a teenager although she was already an accomplished player of Old Time and Bluegrass tunes. She studied fiddle with Burke which led her deep into the heart of brightness in the Pacific Northwest.

Burke introduced her to producer/guitarist Gerry O’Beirne and this assured and delightful recording is the fruit of their cooperative labors. Griffin is cheerfully a cat person and this provides a readymade theme for the album. The Cat in the Fiddle Case and The Fisher’s Hornpipe are jaunty, jovial openers with a lively interplay of fiddle, accordion, harp, bouzouki, and guitar.

Not only does Kevin Burke play on the album but he also revives the old art of recitation. His rich, Hybrid (an obscure English Prep school attended by many Irish immigrants) accent is deployed to great effect on feline verses like The Cats of Kilkenny, Edward Lear’s The Owl and the Pussycat, and Walter De La Mare’s Five Eyes. He gets the ball of wool rolling with The Cat of Cats by William Brighty Rand,
“…Cunning, and old,

and sleek as jam,

the everlasting cat.”
This flows into two jigs, The Orphan and The Stray Away Child, cunning and sleek in their own way.

Gorby and the Rats is not about the fall of the Soviet Union but a verse from Obeyd-i-Zakani, a 14th century Persian poet, praising a smart cat who ambushes drunken rats in the wine cellar. This naturally progresses to In the Tap Room & The Foxhunter, two sweet sinuous melodies played with a languid precision.

Tail Chasers is a fine twisty jig from Elizabeth Nicholson who plays harp on the album. (Harps seem to be making a welcome comeback in Celtic music and if you want to hear where it’s headed, listen to Starfish by Catriona McKay.) Sport came to Griffin from Nancy Conescu who is also featured on the recording. Written by Peadar O’Riada, it could be a second cousin to the old Connemara song, Cailleach an Airgid. This is followed by a fine set of slides from O’Riada’s Sliabh Luachra territory with O’Beirne’s guitar briskly driving the tempo.

No Irish music-based album is complete without a Carolan tune and Planxty Hewlett is a sound choice. It’s enlivened by some sweet counterpoint playing on fiddle and accordion backing from Johnny B Connolly, another Portland luminary. There are more study tunes (The Cat in the Corner/The Cat’s Meow/The Campbells Are Coming) and swaggering polkas (I’ll Buy Books For Maggie/Eileen O’Keefes/The Bike Trip) to savor. Totem is a wistful, well-rounded waltz for Griffin’s late sister, Margaret, to whom the album is dedicated.

The album goes out in a blaze of shimmering rhythms with some Lunasa-inspired sets, one titled Copy Cat, 250cc To Vigo and Mick O'Connor's (by Michael McGoldrick), followed by The Wedding/Trip To Herve's. This is a spicy and fluid debut album with first-rate playing, arrangements and selections. The cats may have Griffin’s tongue but in this case it enhances her eloquence.

Three Colours Ginger

Brongaene Griffin with Gerry O’Beirne and Kevin Burke

Loftus Music

Dingle Dazzle with a side of Kiwi

This new album from Jon Sanders is a delightful product of an inventive musical mind with finely honed melodic sensibilities. Sanders composed most of the tunes here and he is a fixture in that vibrant musician’s community around Dingle –for six months of the year. For the rest of the time, he relocates to New Zealand, where he is part of another lively musical scene. You can probably guess which period is spent down under and which is over and above in The Kingdom.

He has been called The Bard of the Bouzouki and the Duke of Uke, by Mike O'Hare of West Kerry Live. Indeed, about half the album was recorded in Southern climes and half in Dingle. He’s played and recorded with Tim Edey, Mary and Michael Black, Brendan and Seamus Begley, Eilis Kennedy, Frankie Gavin and Steve Cooney to mention just a few.

Big Ben is delightful opener that strings you along sweetly with highs on the fiddle and slow lows on the viola and cello. It’s not the London landmark, however, but the Benachie range in Scotland. He follows with a short symphonic piece, Love in the Time of Cholera, with shifting textures and moods that reflect the epic novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Monkey Mind plays with that old Buddhist warning –Don’t believe everything you Think. Sanders is very cool and composed in person, as if he’s taken a few courses at the school of Zen detachment. There are clues elsewhere in the CD such as In the Now, with a soaring concert flute and percussive flights of fancy. And the title track, Twigs of the Neem Tree, is a guided meditation through an intricately simple melody.

Nuke the Blues is a duet with Tim Edey on guitar. They build up a serious head of steam, playing off, alongside and with each other. Brendan Begley’s Polkas are taken through their paces. Sanders has found that the old Irish harp tunes adapt quite well to the tenor ukulele and he offers O'Carolan's Draught here. Imagine how much easier it would have been for the master harpist to schlep a uke around the Irish great houses.

Sanders follows the Andy Irvine path in some respects and he certainly logs the musical miles just like him. There’s an Eastern European version of the Sally Gardens, Sarangi Gardens, a joyous bit of adventuring that veers off into Django Reinhardt territory. He enlists a variety of instruments, such as an Indian harmonium, to follow the music back to its roots (the film Latcho Drom tells the full story of the westward journey of Romany people and their music). There’s a side-trip to Inverurie in Scotland, a sweet song with words by Dave Alley and more swooping fiddle from Toni Geiling.

Santa Cruzin’ is inspired by the diversity of cultures and languages Sanders found in Santa Cruz where all the world’s a beach. And it’s all here in this very mindful set of musical meditations: jazz, folk, trad and everything else that’s hit his travelling ears. It goes in, it goes round and round and it comes out sounding bright, bold and brilliant on this album.

Twigs of the Neem Tree
Jon Sanders
www.jon-sanders.com

On Deck:
T with the Maggies, Triona Ni Dhomhnaill, Maighread Ni Dhomhnaill, Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh and Moya Brennan.
Le Gealaigh (A Moment of Madness), Brendan Begley and Caoimhin O’Raghallaigh.
Soldier’s Songs, The Irish Abroad and Soldiering, Captain Mackey’s Goatskin and Stringband (aka Jimmy Crowley & Mairtin De Cogain).
The Sailor’s Cravat, Paddy O’Brien, Tom Schaefer, Paul Wehling and Erin Hart.

Snow was general all over Ireland

2010-12-02T23:49:00.000-08:00

Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

This is the climactic finale in James Joyce's short story, The Dead, from Dubliners first published almost 100 years ago. It came to mind immediately when I saw this satellite photograph of Ireland unexpectedly frozen and snowbound. Was Joyce foreshadowing the dreadful pre-Christmas weather or are some weather patterns simply long-term, multi-year cycles that bypass our temporal perspective?

That great story has special meaning for me because the churchyard where Michael Furey is buried exists in the non-fiction world. The cemetary is just outside Oughterard, twenty miles west of Galway. My mother and father are buried there alongside earlier generations of Clancys and Geoghegans.

Dude, you lost your country -again! **

2010-11-23T21:09:00.000-08:00

I THINK it is possible to argue that both trade and diplomacy are culture for slow learners, that what happens with music and books, with painting and poetry, how they move and spread, how they do not recognise borders, how they find translators, is a blueprint for what happens later with goods and services and with treaties between governments.

- Extract from author Colm Toibin’s speech at the Ireland Literature Exchange on November 18th, 2010, to mark the milestone of 1,500 books by Irish authors in translation.

There is an unending torrent of bad news about Ireland these days. Most of it chronicles the political, economic and regulatory ineptitude that turned the Celtic Tiger into an emaciated Garfield almost overnight. But running through the dire coverage has been a thread of sanity and solidity about Irish cultural work summarized beautifully by Colm Toibin.

Here is the nugget of good tidings in all the gloom: Ireland is well on its way to being culturally post-national, globalized and diversified in a way that few other national groups can claim. Culture has a power and primacy that transcends mere material factors. By all accounts, cultural activity is thriving in Ireland with theater, readings, exhibits, & concerts all drawing people. Artists are even making creative use of unused or underused retail spaces for shows and commentary on the economic downturn.

Tom Inglis was one of the first scholars to explore this theme in his 2008 book, Global Ireland: Same Difference. He has always been a very prescient analyst of Irish affairs. His 1987 book, Moral Monopoly: the Catholic Church in Irish Society, revealed the detrimental effects of the social and political control exerted by the institutional Church and foreshadowed its catastrophic fall from grace.

Working with Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of culture as capital, Inglis argues that many Irish people have become thoroughly globalized in their cultural interests while retaining a distinctive sense of being Irish. It’s contradictory but the Irish love a good paradox.

It’s a condition I recognize intimately. I’ve lived and worked in California for almost thirty years but I still feel fundamentally Irish. I use a certain set of social skills that are commonly found among Irish people: a willingness to converse with a people, young and old without distinction; a flair for recognizing names and faces; skills in working with groups and organizational politics; a sense of humor and, especially, the ability to laugh at yourself. I’m drawn inexorably to poetry, music and writing by Irish artists and I don’t feel the least bit deprived of a global perspective.

Inglis describes the striking example of Irish traditional music being touched by an early version of globalization. Sligo fiddler Michael Coleman emigrated to the United States in 1914 and was the first Irish musician to produce a large body of recorded music on 78s. These records made their way back to Ireland in the 1930s and 40s, becoming a major source for repertoire and enshrining the Sligo playing style is the gold standard to the detriment of other regional styles.

The Arts have a way of changing human thinking about justice, ethics, morality and spirituality that is evolutionary in scope and momentum. Poets are the ultimate, if unacknowledged, legislators as Percy Bysshe Shelley argued years ago. Poetry rarely needs a passport to slip from one country to another. Recently, I wrote about Irish poets (from the state-within-a-state of Cork) reading at a bookstore in Berkeley with only a minimum of cultural contextualizing.

++++++

Toibin talks about the “slippery” nature of cultural influence. One powerful example is rarely mentioned: the role of Irish traditional musicians who live and work outside Ireland. Their vital influence as cultural ambassadors throughout the world cannot be over-estimated. Music may be particularly useful as a mechanism for elusive cultural transformation since it bypasses language or mental barriers. Irish fiddler, Kevin Burke has this evocative quote on his website: “Music is a release from the tyranny of conscious thought.”

There are a string of fine illustrations of Irish musicians bringing the music with them to faraway lands. Joe Cooley carried with him a rich musical habitus, like a tortoise shell. He was a star in the various Irish communities where he lived and worked. But his appeal as an artist took on new dimensions during his years in San Francisco (1965-1972) where music fans and hippies came to listen to, “the only music that brings people to their senses.”

Kevin Burke was born cosmopolitan -his accent is a delightful mash-up. He was born in London, spent some of his childhood in Sligo, and has lived in Portland, Oregon for thirty years. He is one of the great musical collaborators. He will work with anyone who is attuned to higher musical qualities, genres and nationality be damned. Over the years, he has nurtured and developed a musical community in Portland with his playing, teaching, recording and –most recently- producing albums for his own Loftus Music operation.

Another fine example of this phenomenon is Offaly-man Paddy O’Brien in St Paul, Minnesota. He has lived there for over twenty five years and, like Burke, has fostered and contributed to a rich scene that centers on Irish music. O’Brien has taught a generation of young musicians and exposed other players to the vast repertoire he carries in his heart and head –over 5,000 tunes and variations. His quiet, modest but passionate devotion to the Irish musical legacy has deeply influenced a wide range of other musicians.

O’Brien has a great story about his visit to Moscow with one of his bands, Chulrua, in 2008. Unbeknownst to him, he had acquired a very high status in Irish music circles in Russia based on a record of his from the 1970s. He had almost forgotten the album but it had circulated in the underground traditional music community in Moscow and he met players who had learned their basic Irish tunes from it. This is a unique illustration of Toibin's point about how a small bit of culture can seep through the cracks of a monolith.

The career of Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill are another illustration of this cultural crossover. They make their homes in the U.S. but spend a lot of time travelling and playing in Ireland. They can fill concert halls all over the world. This week, for instance, they are premiering a new work by David Flynn in the National Concert Hall in Dublin with a full symphony orchestra.

Donal Lunny has been innovating and inspiring for over forty years in Irish music. He spent a few years recently living and working in Japan where Irish traditional music is hugely popular. This is also true of Germany, something that is generally considered a side-effect of the co-option of each nations’ traditional music for fascist purposes during World War II. These are examples of specific taste and discrimination in the globalization process.

In my neck of the woods, Shay and Michael Black have helped to nurture an Irish music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area. Shay’s Sunday night session at the Starry Plough is a kind of pilgrimage stop for all visiting Irish musicians. Shay is part of a broad network of Irish artists based at home and abroad. This week he sent me a commentary from Stephanie Courtney, who has produced plays with the Wilde Irish company in the Bay Area, on the artistic resurgence in Ireland. Here’s a brief quote:

I have never been anywhere in the world where theatre and art are such a vital part of everyone's every day life and the worse the Irish economic crisis has gotten, the better the theatre and art becomes. People don't want to be alone, they don't necessarily want to drown their sorrows, and they want to see their troubles and their world reflected back at them in a place where the experience is shared and a new sense of community (which was lost during the Celtic Tiger) can emerge.

+++++

Many of the far-flung Irish are deeply tied to the country with strong connections to family and old friends. We visit regularly and, in Tiger times, we were gouged as if we were tourists. It pains us to hear and read about the mis-management and utter lack of accountability in the country. Some of us would like to have even a symbolic say in the direction of the country. What happened to the proposal to allow Irish citizens living abroad to vote for a representative in the Senate? It’s not a priority right now but let’s hope it has not dropped off the radar completely.

I don't think that the Irish have lost their country. A lot of the hand-wringing about loss of sovereignty is reminiscent of the patriotism that is the last refuge of scoundrels. Does any small country really have significant autonomy in the globalized economy? Cultural capital is different from the other kind in one critical respect: you can't put it in the bank and hoarding it for purely personal use is fruitless. You have to spread it around, spend it, to enrich yourself and others. Now, that's priceless.

** Thanks to the Professor of Pop for the great title and the nudge for this piece.

Susan McKeown sings through the cracks

2010-11-18T10:40:00.000-08:00

Susan McKeown is nothing if not fearlessly eclectic. Her homebase is clearly the Irish song tradition but she has strayed widely and deeply. Her musical education included operatic training (brief, aparently, but she learned a few things about dramatic songs and their presentation), busking (always great preparation for the business of entertaining audiences), leaving Ireland for New York before the Tiger times, and embracing world music years before it became a popular and profitable side-trip for musicians.

Even by her exalted, adventurous standards, the new album Singing in the Dark, is a reach. It’s a musical exploration of the work of poets whose lives or families were touched by mental illness, depression or substance abuse. Drawn by the Irish traditional flair for cloaking melancholic stories in seductive melodies, McKeown set out to transform dark and difficult words into lyrics she could sing and swing.

She launches into Theodore Roethke’s In a Dark Time which provides immediate and persuasive proof of the concept. The music releases the redemptive aspirations embedded in this and the other poems. There is often a strong correlation between madness and creative pursuits and the album explores this interaction. Many of our best writers and musicians were driven by their own demons or, at least, had demented chauffeurs. Roethke poses this question:

What’s madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance?

Ireland, like many nations, has ambiguous attitudes to mental illness. It was common enough years ago to find people who were “away with the fairies” or "cracked" in some way. They were generally accepted and protected, at least in rural communities. But the condition also carried massive amounts of stigma and every county had a mental hospital where afflicted people were locked away. Often the location was a simple code: “She’s over in Ballinasloe” meant only one thing in Galway.

Some will remember the national brouhaha that ensued from the publication of Saints, Scholars and Schizophrenics by Nancy Scheper-Hughes in 1979. In retrospect, it seems like a very mild episode of airing our cultural dirty laundry. Suicide is another tragic manifestation of these issues and among young Irish people it has reached epidemic proportions. It raged during the boom years and it does not seem likely to abate in the current straitened times.

One question that should be asked more frequently is: How much of the mental illness and depression in Ireland is really a legacy of many years of child abuse, the "gift" that keeps on giving?

And, somewhat down the scale, many Irish families lived with members who were visited by the Black Dog of depression. The ravenous dog was often fed a steady diet of the other black stuff by fathers who struggled but that rarely saved wives and children from sharing the suffering.

Borrowing from Irish poetry has been an irresistible urge for many musicians. Yeats’s poems have been adapted by many composers and singers. Melanie O’Reilly has converted some of Nuala Ni Domhnaill’s poems on her albums. (McKeown has one on this album, The Crack in the Stairs, translated from the Irish by Paul Muldoon.) John Spillane and Louis de Paor have fused poetry and music on albums like The Gaelic Hit Factory.

I first heard McKeown on Lowlands over ten years ago and following her career since has been an intriguing and rewarding journey. She had made six albums during the 1990s and her ambitions radiated through every one, including Peter and Wendy, the first of many collaborations with the late Johnny Cunningham. Here’s two snippets from my review of Lowlands in Irish Music magazine, September 2000.
Lowlands features carefully chosen songs with tasteful and varied arrangements, all of them beautifully delivered by McKeown. It’s a shining collection of some of the best music from the vocal traditions of Ireland, Scotland and England which enhances her growing reputation as one of Ireland’s pre-eminent female singers.
Perhaps the most dramatic performance on the album, and the only non-traditional song, is Dark Horse on the Wind, an eerie indictment (and darkly prophetic too in light of recent scandals) of the hype and hypocrisy of the 1966 commemoration of the 1916 Rising written by the late, lamented Liam Weldon.

A Winter Talisman from 2001, is a marvellous record of her time touring and playing with Johnny Cunningham and Aidan Brennan. Sweet Liberty in 2004 has her singing with Taureg women in an extraordinary fusion on an old lubin, Oro Mo Mhile Gra (A Thousand Times my Love). Blackthorn, Irish Love Songs, issued in 2006, is full of delights: song geneaologies by McKeown and the late Tom Munnelly and Dana Lyn’s fiddling as the extra voice on the album. More recently she featured on Absolutely Irish, a recording of performances by many of Ireland’s finest players produced by Mick Moloney in New York.

She has recorded klezmer music with the Klezmatics. Her first album with that band, Wonder Wheel, won a Grammy in 2006. And a second album exploring the Yiddish and Irish vocal traditions, Saints and Tzadiks with Lorin Sklamberg, was released last year. Singing Klezmer songs requires vocalistics since they are melodically and lyrically convoluted. It must have served as great preparation for the work on her new album.

There are a few real torch songs on the record. Mad Sweeney is a very old poem which McKeown adapted and arranged. She wrote the music for The Crazy Woman by Gwendolyn Brooks, a classic jazz quartet treatment with sinuous piano lines by Sonelius Smith. There’s a hair-raising rendition of Leonard Cohen’s Anthem. And, one of the funniest songs draws on Hayden Carruth’s poem, Good Old World Blues.

A Woman Like That (Her Kind) by Ann Sexton gets a muted rock arrangement and has been released as a single. Sexton took her own life in 1967, the same year as Chilean singer Violetta Parra whose classic ballad of affirmation, Gracias a la Vida, is sung with pure passion by McKeown.

It’s a deeply moving and uplifting recording. McKeown has impressive command of her voice with tone, phrasing, power and feeling always in balance. But she willingly takes risks with her singing, rising to every challenge, and she can live with the odd flaw, the cracks that light up her work. She has plenty to say about the album, which was seven years in the making, and her fluid explanations are worth a close listen.

Mother’s Christmas Cake

2010-10-13T20:35:00.000-07:00

Mam’s Christmas Cake Recipe

Three quarters pound of butter
Two cups of brown sugar
Three to four cups of flour
Three teaspoons of baking powder
Two teaspoons of nutmeg
Two teaspoons of cinnamon
One teaspoon of salt
Ten eggs
Half to three-quarters of a can of Guinness
One cup of chopped almonds
Two cups of raisins
One cup of dried cranberries (or chopped dates or prunes)
Two cups of ‘glaced’ cherries
Two cups of candied fruitcake mix (must include candied lemon peel)
Half cup of chopped candied ginger

Method
Two large mixing bowls are needed. I soak the dried fruit for a few hours in water. Cream the melted butter and sugar in one bowl. Beat in the eggs and salt. Sift the flour with the other dry ingredients in the second bowl. Drain the soaking fruit and toss them with the flour, coating them so that they don’t sink in the final mix. Add the candied fruit, cherries and nuts. Add this to the liquid batter and stir to distribute. Add the Guinness and more flour as necessary. The batter should be liquid but solid enough to hold the mixing spoon upright.

Transfer the cake batter into two greased 9-inch diameter spring-form pans, lined with buttered wax paper. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 350 degrees for one and a half to two hours. Cakes are baked when a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean (no liquid residue). Cool in the pans for 30 minutes then place them on a rack to cool completely. Wrap the cakes in cheesecloth and store them in airtight tins.

Cakes should be “brandied” at least once a week for six weeks or more. This entails unwrapping the cakes and drizzling about half a cup of brandy over them. Whiskey or bourbon works too but brandy is my favored spirit. The best commercially available cake I’ve found is produced by Trappist monks at Gethsemani Farms in Kentucky and they favor bourbon.

If the cakes seem dry, make a series of bore holes with a wooden skewer to ensure the brandy penetrates into the cake’s DNA. However cakes should be ‘rested’ from the brandying process for at least two weeks before cutting and eating.

My fruit cakes are undecorated –I never could master the hard white icing that mother coated over the layer of almond paste. At least one of these cakes is divided among a select group of friends at Christmas time each year. The other one can last into March if eaten judiciously. It is best with a good cup of strong Irish tea, my mother’s way, but it goes well with any favored holiday tipple.

Four things to like about poetry

2010-10-06T11:26:00.000-07:00

Magnified particulars

Pithy universes

Refracted insights

Glimpses of galaxies

These thoughts emerged from a fruitful bout of insomnia after hearing four Cork poets read selections from their work last night at Moe’s Books in Berkeley. Moe’s is one of the last remaining bookshops on a painfully deteriorating Telegraph Avenue. The flagship Telegraph bookstore, Cody’s, closed its doors two years ago. Sadly, today brought news that Patricia Cody, the woman who actually kept the business going for over twenty years, died in Oakland.

There must be a poetic term for a group of poets reading and touring together, so I posed the question to each of them. The responses are metaphorical but drawn from their readings.

Gerry Murphy, “An aspiring collective.”

Leann O’Sullivan, “A fractious clan.”

Billy Ramsell, “An ungodly team."

Patrick Cotter, “A tome of worms.”

Leann O'Sullivan has just won the prestigious Rooney Prize for promising young writers. She certainly offered some powerful poetics and her fair share of wise and wonderful Cork cultural commentary at Moes.

Kevin Burke plays Berkeley

2010-10-04T17:12:00.000-07:00

Kevin Burke in the rapture zone

Kevin Burke was comfortably at home in Berkeley this weekend playing a solo house concert. It was an intimate gathering sprinkled with a fair share of musicians and long-time Burke fans. Burke was born in London to Sligo parents and picked up the fiddle at an early age. He listened to and learned from the masters who were active in London at the time: Bobby Casey, Sean Maguire, Brendan McGlinchy, Roger Sherlock, Raymond Roland and Tommy McCarthy among others. Burke opened with a tune from Finbar Dwyer, another of the London stalwarts, who was an accordion player from West Cork. He was also a closet fiddle player, Burke said, noted for playing it the wrong way.

Burke is a brilliant, impeccable and subtly passionate player. He could not play fiddle the “wrong way” no matter how hard he tried. He is a courteous and gracious entertainer. He concluded a sweet speculation about the origins of Bill Monroe’s tune, Evening Prayer Blues (from Across the Black River with Cal Scott) by saying, “I have no facts but plenty of stories.”

His other wide-ranging observations included: “Bretons are still getting used to the idea of being French, although they drink and smoke just like them” and “Bob Dylan wrote All Along the Watchtower but he never sang it the same after hearing Jimi Hendrix’s interpretation.” This commentary was a sidebar to his explanation of the ubiquity of Micheal Coleman’s influence on Irish fiddle players, including himself. He lamented that the glasses needed for reading the set list turns his fiddle into a magical mystery tour.

Burke is one of the best kind of legends, as I noted in my 2008 interview in Irish Music magazine. He is a vastly experienced, dedicated professional who is too busy playing the music he knows best and exploring every intriguing thing his ears encounter. He is one of the ultimate collaborators and he referred jovially to his checkered past. He was the main fiddler in the great Bothy Band. He partnered the late Micheal O’Domhnaill for many years and his most recent collaborations with Cal Scott have produced two wonderfully engaging albums. He still plays with three bands: Patrick Street, Open House, and the Celtic Fiddle Festival. (Unless I’m greatly mistaken, he even gigged with old-timey legend Uncle Tom Cobley in the seventies.)

It would be impossible to pick a particular highlight from the evening. But if I had to choose, it would the hornpipes Caislean na n-Or and Bobby Casey’s. These were first recorded on If the Cap Fits over thirty years ago. The original recording on Mulligan Records was re-mastered and released by Compass Records Group in 2008. It is one of those keepers from the 1970s, now seen clearly as the golden age of creative ferment in Irish music. Burke was joined on the record by an all-star cast: Gerry O’Beirne, Paul Brady (on piano), Jackie Daly, Peter Browne, Micheal O’Domhnaill and Donal Lunny who produced the album.

It is still a pulsating, rapturous work with an amazing, ground-breaking final track -eleven tunes in sixteen minutes. Burke recorded this in one take (“naked fiddle,” he called it) and Lunny integrated the other instruments into the final mix. Martin Hayes later became known for his long sets -often longer than sixteen minutes- but Kevin Burke deserves a doff of the cap for blazing the trail.

Burke’s latest album with Cal Scott is Suite released on his own Loftus Music label. The centerpiece is The Irish Session Suite, ten tunes arranged into four movements by Scott, with Burke playing fiddle alongside the violin, viola and cello. It’s a tasteful, faithful and sophisticated translation of some well-known tunes into a classical setting.

The album represents more welcome advances for the cello in Irish music. As if that were not enough, Burke brings Beoga into the house. The group is one of the best of the next generation Irish bands and one I’ve admired for a while and they bring sweet and sparkling support on a number of tracks.

Parallel Dublin Childhoods

2010-09-26T21:33:00.000-07:00

A reflection on Gerard Smyth's The Fullness of Time

In his book of new and selected poems, The Fullness of Time (Dedalus Press, 2010), Gerard Smyth sounds like someone who grew up on my street. Some of this is simply a set of formational experiences in a shared space and time around the Liberties, one of Dublin’s oldest communities. Nevertheless, it is surprising that so much of what feels like personal experience turns out to be a communal cultural enterprise when seen in the rearview mirror of memory.

The era has passed and Smyth has just a tinge of sadness for it in Smoke:

It vanished without ceremony

the way all things do -matter and spirit

time and the places time passed through.

Ultimately, our childhoods are, in Neruda’s words,

Es casi nada y casi todo / Next to nothing, close to everything.

-I Ask for Silence.

There’s a good number of Dublin poems in this collection that are --along with the poetry of Paula Meehan and Michael Hartnett (“the Haiku master of Emmett Road”)- forays through the twisted spirals of the city’s DNA. The cultural influence of recently-arrived country folk in the 1950s is underplayed in many accounts. But they were re-making some of the old places and populating the newer suburbs -Kimmage, Crumlin, Drimnagh, Walkinstown- with their rapidly assimilating children. My father, mother and I lived in Kimmage for a short time before moving in to Ebenezer Terrace in the Tenters.

My father worked on the buildings in those new developments, cycling out to the sites and returning at the end of long, hard days. I think of him often with deep gratitude, sitting at my desk

..counting down the office hours. -Putting on the Grey Suit.

My parents remained almost umbilically attached to their roots in Connemara but, like Smyth’s parents, they were sometimes “..afraid of the city with its emblems and gestures.” However, living with a daily awareness of country life out beyond the city limits gave some of us a different perspective. I’ve always considered myself bi-cultural in an Irish context. Smyth writes about visits to his rural roots as “the idyll for a city child in summer.” This bridging of rural and urban life prompts Thomas McCarthy to call it the “intriguing duality” at the heart of Smyth’s poetic work.

Smyth is one of a dying breed -a lifelong newspaperman. He has spent his career at the Irish Times, a paper that was a huge influence for me and many of my generation. It opened our mind’s eye to a city, country and world beyond our immediate experience. I reveled in the irreverence of Myles Na Gopaleen, John Healy’s fearless political writing, John Horgan’s diligent, hopeful coverage of Vatican II, and the urbane Quidnunc. Smyth must have been enthralled and drawn in by all that too.

He was admonished to “stray no farther than the streets I knew by name.” I may have received the same warning but I’m afraid it fell on deaf, adventurous ears. In any event, I knew the names of every street and cul-de-sac within two or three miles of my house, so my oyster was large. It extended from St Stephen’s Green to the Phoenix Park, from Sundrive Park to the Museum of Natural History, from Guinness’s to Harold’s Cross, and from Saturday matinees at the Green Cinema to “fillums” at the Leinster or Rialto picturehouses. At certain times it ranged as far as Rathmines or Terenure for robbable apple trees.

Our parlour was less used than his but our house also had one of those terrifying World War II gas masks. I knew the synagogue that much later, surprisingly, became a mosque. I wonder if Smyth heard the story that circulated in my childhood. A bomb landed near that synagogue in one of Germany’s errant bombing raids on Dublin during the war. Many believed the building was the intended target, as if the German pilots could have had street-level knowledge of Dublin’s Jewish community.

Smyth mentions some of the smells of the area, such as The Hot Bread of St Catherines. It was an area rife with smells. Elgy Gillespie, who lived in the Liberties for a number of years, recalls the “... Guinness’s coffee-like roasting hops, Jacobs yummy sugar-butter, the Liffey’s not so yummy low tide.” I would add Devlin’s Sweet factory off Cork Street, the John Player tobacco factory on the South Circular Road, and Burdock’s original fish and chipper in Weaver Square.

The Dublin we grew up in was a series of small towns that morphed over time into a less soulful big city. It was a place where people’s faces were books you could read, lined with profound prose and unforgettable poetry. Smyth knew and studied many of those faces.

He shows a passionate and expansive interest in all forms of artistic expression, especially music. Leonard Cohen, Chopin, Johnny Cash, Van Morrison, the Beatles, Roy Orbison. Shostakovitch, Avro Paart, Jimmy Hendrix, Miles Davis and Zozimus make appearances. He dips into the traditional side too. In Squeeze Box, he honors Paddy Traynor,

With his turf-cutters strength
he shook melodies from the accordion.

And this line from In the Brazen Head,
Swilling songs from the cup of tradition
nicely nails the limits of the pub ballad scene –for every clean, tasty draft there’s a mess of backwash.

One poem is inspired by a collection of Erich Hartmann’s photographs from 1964 wherein he sees

.. again my father’s city
of bad old days that were better by far.

Erich Hartmann's photograph of Sean O'Conaire,

one of the great Connemara sean-nos singers,

in a Dublin pub sometime in 1964.

He is a meticulous observer, taking a clear-eyed perspective on the past. An Evening Walk in Maryland poignantly describes one of his father’s retirement routines. His pride in the Republic gone,

..my father became a tired old man
coping with the scarcity of divine help.

There is a line of social psychology theory called the geography of time. First posited by Robert Levine based on extensive cross-cultural research, the concept is that there are different time perspectives and most people have tendencies towards either a past, present or future time orientation. Smyth’s collection could be read as a poetic disquisition on this approach. It's also one of those generational things. Time seems endless and vast on one side of forty but cramped and compressed thereafter.

As Paula Meehan has pointed out, our relationship to time has shifted. Smyth's writing shuns show and flash, embracing instead substance and simplicity. He works with a crafty precision and quiet authority, steering his poems unerringly into deep waters. He explores the seeds of the present and the future by looking back. His book is a trove of treasures, the sorrowful and joyful mysteries of the fullness of time.

Sources

The Fullness of Time, Gerard Smyth, Dedalus Press, Dublin 2010.
http://www.dedaluspress.com/poets/smyth.html

Intimacies -Poems of Love, Pablo Neruda. Translations by Alastair Reid. Harper Collins, New York, 2008. http://www.harpercollins.com/books/Intimacies-Pablo-Neruda/?isbn=9780061492167

A Geography of Time, Robert Levine. Basic Books, New York, 1997.
http://www.amazon.com/Geography-Time-Misadventures-Psychologist-Differently/dp/0465026427

Phillip Zimbardo from Stanford university has also written on this concept and here’s a pithy, graphic exposition of his ideas:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/06/the-geography-of-time.html

The Liberties, edited by Franc Myles with Elgy Gillespie’s updated chapter will be reissued in 2011 by Workman Press, Dublin. Keep an eye on:

http://www.workman.com/products/

Paula Meehan’s writing is featured and analyzed in the Spring/Fall 2009 edition of An Sionnach, a Journal of Literature, Culture and the Arts, guest edited by Jody Allen Randolph.

Carson’s Kit & Caboodle

2010-08-18T21:31:00.000-07:00

Ciaran Carson is one of those writers whose words often strike deep, piercing settled assumptions and ideas. Carson’s bag is stuffed with rich and varied life and work experiences. He is a poet, musician, teacher and arts advocate and he comes armed and dangerously enlightened in every one of those roles. Much of his work is available at Wake Forest University Press.

His latest offering in the Journal of Music -where he is a regular contributor- is titled The Raw Bar. It’s not a piece in praise of sushi but a meditation on the art of listening to music, particularly in live settings. Carson argues that paying proper attention requires a capacity to be in the now and participate in the music-making process. He notes that the act of recording live music often interferes with present pleasures, the play of music-makers who, as he said in his classic book, Last Night's Fun,
“...understand that time itself is a chameleon, so they mark it and they keep it, and they syncopate it.”

And later listening to recordings on headphones, he says, is deeply inauthentic giving:
“...the illusion that the music is in your own head and not in the world.” Music, like poetry, happens with people in a room. I’ve never been able to listen to music on the new personal audio devices and this Carson comment nails the major objection. At the risk of sounding fuddy-duddy, I can’t understand why so many people choose to traverse our cities locked in I-Pod isolation. It's sad that the music in their heads trumps the music and communal nature of urban life.

I haven’t been listening much to music, Irish or otherwise, in recent times. I’ve been wondering if it’s some kind of sabbatical or a more permanent condition. I was simultaneously startled and heartened to see Carson confess that he doesn’t listen to music much these days either. I draw no comparisons between his educated ears and mine but this observation speaks to me:
“I find it difficult sometimes to distinguish the playing of one band from that of another.”

Only a few musical pieces have commanded any of my attention lately and most of it is not that new. Here’s a short selection for the record

Lumiere by Eilis Kennedy and Pauline Scanlon, a lyrical miracle from two vivid voices.

The End of Desire by Jennifer Berezan, a Country and Eastern, mindful collection.

Mick Fitzgerald’s crafty and seductive songs.

Lau’s super-charged Live album.

Kila & Oki, one of the finest fusion albums of recent years.

Across the Black River, a tasty and polished work by Kevin Burke and Cal Scott.

Buille by Niall Vallely Paul Meehan & Caoimhin Vallely, featuring some blazing blues concertina.

And here's some more on Carson from the archives. A re-edited version of a review first published in the Irish Herald, San Francisco, May 2000.

The Honest Ulstermen

Review of The Twelfth of Never by Ciaran Carson; Wake Forest University Press, 1998, and The Weather in Japan by Michael Longley, Cape Poetry, Jonathan Cape, 2000.
I first came to Carson’s poetry through his prose. Last Night’s Fun (North Point Press, 1996) is a masterly piece of work, arguably the finest book ever written about the mysteries of the music-making process. His new book of poetry, The Twelfth of Never, continues in that vein. He uses tune titles –notoriously misleading in the Irish tradition- for many of the poems, and poetically plagiarizes many old ballads, twisting and turning familiar lines into a darker tapestry such as this from The Rising of the Moon:

The pale moon was rising above the green mountain,
The red sun declining beneath the blue sea,
When I saw her again by yon clear crystal fountain,
Where poppies, not potatoes, grew in contraband.

Carson writes like a man possessed. The Twelfth of Never reads like it was written in one passionate, pellucid night when the words flowed freely and his magpie mind couldn’t be stopped. And, as if living in the North was not strange enough, Carson writes of his forays into Japanese culture in a number of poems where he finds,
The labyrinth to which I hadn’t got the key.

Poetry is, at its best, an intellectual con game. The poet hopes to trick us into thinking anew about things or rethinking familiar things by sleight of word. Carson riffs, raps, trips, traps, rocks and rolls our perceptions in his poetry. In The Display Case, Carson seems to express some regret that his oeuvre is nearly all in English, not his native Irish language. But this is English writing that could only emerge from an Irish consciousness,
Where everything is metaphor and simile (Tib’s Eve).

Carson’s poems are odes to complexity, a dissection of that hairball of historic proportions, that nest of co-dependent hostilities that is Northern Ireland. And discussion of Northern Irish poetry is no less fraught with difficulty, a minefield sown with words.

Both Carson and Longley are distinctly Northern Irish. Longley describes being there as living in three places at once: one partly Irish, one partly English and one that’s “...also its own awkward self.” Each covers the touchstones of Northern identity and the struggle of people to lead normal lives in the mayhem, including their own efforts to play an artist’s role in a society given more to ideology than to introspection.

Famous as the artists that stayed home, laboring in the bloody northern field. Both served long stints with the Arts Council of Northern Ireland before retiring in recent years to focus on their writing. As John Hume has noted (Arguing at the Crossroads, 1998), Northern artists were mainly responsible for keeping alive the flame of diversity and multi-culturalism during the years of strife and political polarization.

In All of These People, Longley ruminates:

Who was it who suggested that the opposite of war
Is not so much peace as civilisation? He knew
Our assassinated Catholic greengrocer who died
At Christmas in the arms of our Methodist minister.

The North, despite George Mitchel’s valiant efforts to impose some American pragmatism, remains an immensely complex place where words can and do explode –just think of the recent haggling over “decommissioning.” As Fintan O’Toole noted in the New Yorker (The Meanings of Union, April 27, 1998) the crafting of agreements in the North will require the skill of a poet, not the words of a pragmatist.

The ancient words of Persian poet Rumi seem particularly pertinent to the current impasse in the North of Ireland.

Out beyond ideas of
Right doing and wrong doing
There is a field.
I’ll meet you there.

And if the Catholic and Protestant diehards ever make it out to that field, they’ll find Michael Longley and Ciaran Carson waiting to have words with them. High kudos to them for these collections. I can think of no two better Irish people to lead the charge of the write brigade across the field of new Irish dreams.

Final Thoughts on Excessive Cupitalism

2010-07-12T21:50:00.000-07:00

One of the true beauties of the World Cup: Diego Forlan's goal

for Uruguay against Germany in the third place game.

Spain were consistent, if less than exciting, in their World Cup saga. They won every game by a goal and had four successive 1-0 wins in the knockout stages. Their final victory was certainly hard-fought and equally hard to watch (think Spanish Inquisition with the Dutch as the chief torturers). The record number of disciplinary cards attest to the tenor of the contest. Andres Iniesta, one of Spain’s best players throughout, took the goal beautifully but Spain as a squad won the Cup almost by attrition.

Iniesta was one of the very few players in the final with a claim to player of the tournament. Most of the players with real claims were on the field in the third-place game on the previous day: the superlative Diego Forlan of Uruguay and German over-achievers Bastian Schweinsteiger and young Thomas Mueller. Forlan won the Best Player and Mueller won the Golden Boot. (The other item that needs a solid Golden Boot, as the Prof notes, is the weird and wavy Jabulani ball.)

Why isn't everyone having as much fun as me?

Thomas Mueller poses the abiding question of the tournament.

It’s hard not to speculate what might have happened for Germany if Mueller had played in the semi-final against Spain -still the most mysterious capitulation of the competition. In the absence of any better hypotheses, I think it eroded the team chemistry to have Mueller sitting out on an undeserved yellow card. He played with such fiery, intelligent exuberance and swash-buckling team spirit. It didn’t seem to cross his mind that Germany might not win the whole thing.

It was a tournament where karma, that great intangible in all of life’s adventures, was glaringly visible. Here’s my karmic black list, in sequential order by taint:

France for everything,
Holland for clogging Spain and deflating one of the world’s great football traditions,
England for mis-placed hubris,
Italy for not knowing the jig was up,
Argentina for over-reliance on the hand of god, and
Brazil for believing all their divine-right publicity.

There was some well-crafted prose but very little poetry in this football World Cup. Germany offered a certain kind of vigorous, rapid-fire poetics on their best days. Dunga had mixed results trying to squeeze unbridled, individual creativity into a structure with Brazil. His failure to get the most out of a talented, experienced squad is almost a mirror-image of Capello’s misadventures with an over-hyped and under-talented England squad.

Cupitalism and Das Kupital were some of the little jokes concocted with the Prof (well, we had to find something to amuse ourselves while watching the England games) when we were persuaded early on by Germany’s fresh-faced football. You could have blown me over with a single vuvuzela when I read this moving tribute by the Irish Times rugby correspondent, Keith Duggan:

Back when Mandela was locked up in isolation in the ANC leader's wing of Robben Island, the most popular book in the prison library was Karl Marx's Das Kapital. But the other book the prisoners all wanted to read was written by Denis Howell, a Labour MP for Birmingham Small Heath who, in 1968, wrote definitively on an obscure subject. It was called Soccer Refereeing. The Robben Island football players wanted to imagine their private league could aspire to the rules and regulations of the world beyond that island. They wanted to abide by the same rules as Pele and Charlton and Cryuff, as the best in the world, wherever they were. Tomorrow night the best of the world will play in their city, in their stadium and before their eyes. For all the flaws and waste of the World Cup, that is surely worth cheering.

Fear of failure seemed to grow exponentially as the competition went on and ruined the footballing possibilities. But, underneath all the karmic noise, Puyol and Iniesta were working on some good vibes. Puyol has been building on a meeting with the Dalai Lama some time back. And Iniesta, after scoring the decisive goal, displayed a shirt to honor -not his girlfriend or Jesus- but the memory of an old comrade, contemporary and rival, Espanyol player Dani Jarque, who died suddenly last year. Perhaps it's not surprising that in those final games where time often seemed to stand still or slow down imperceptibly, Spanish-style, Buddhist sympathizers like Puyol and Iniesta would finally penetrate the time-space continuum on the field to score the winning goals.

And, one final piece from Tom Humphries brings us back to ground zero on the South Africa World Cup experience. He doesn't use the term Cupitalism but he writes acutely about the phenomenon.

Football Fan Photos
Here's a great series of photographs by Charlie Russo of fans watching World Cup games in various locations around San Francisco.

And may the best team win...

2010-07-04T22:47:00.000-07:00

Wait, we're not finished here.. Spain's new nightmare

The best team is going to win this World Cup and that is great for the game. I expect to see the two best teams so far in the final, Germany and Holland. Spain have not looked terribly convincing (or convinced) as a team. I further expect the Germans to win it all as their all-for-one ethic seems more well-rooted than the Dutch -who may have peaked with that gritty comeback against Brazil.

And, in case you missed it, here’s a classic Tom Humphries match report on the Dutch dismantling of Brazil. Many observers at the game were not sure how they climbed back into the game but when I watched it again that evening, it looked as if the Dutch had blunted the Brazilian momentum and gained a little themselves even before half-time. The Dutch resistance was the most severe test for the Brazilians who were sucked into their own hubris, seduced by illusions of inevitability.

But if perchance Uruguay beats the Dutch on Tuesday, my long-range prediction from October 2009 is still viable:
I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that the World Cup winner will come from the South American qualifiers and it may not be Brazil.
Of course, I was thinking Chile or Paraguay not Uruguay. They were the last team to qualify for the Cup in a playoff against Costa Rica and now they’ll be last one to exit. They have a very solid team, with the dazzling work of Forlan and the new “hand-of-god” Luis Suarez up front. Except for the rampant German attackers, this striking pair have shown the best form.

There is still a brittlemess to the Dutch strike force. Van Persie often looks aggrieved whenever he doesn’t get a pass from a colleague and when Robben’s on the ball, he has some justification. Miroslav Klose, on the other hand, is fullsome with support and appreciation for his teammates. And Spain are over-reliant on David Villa who is not likely to get many chances from Germany’s captain Lahm -who has the appearance of a busy and vigorous accountant.

Bastian Schweinsteiger has been a revelation. At this stage, he’d get my vote for player of the tournament. He’s been commanding, creative and tireless in the midfield for the Germans. He flummoxed his English opponents and bamboozled the Argentines.

It has been interesting to observe the reaction of authorities in the countries that have departed the competition. The French have treated it as a national disaster with cabinet meetings, hearings and the rapid resignation of the football Federation President. Here’s one slamming-the-stable-door-after-the-horse-has-bolted comment by a French sociologist:

“Why do we ask so much of them?” Dhorasoo asks. “A society where the football player becomes an example and a model for young people, isn’t that a sick society? What about our professors, our politicians, our intellectuals and resisters of all kinds? Where have they gone?” The rest of this analysis can be found here.

In England, there are fewer chances for younger talent in a culture of fear, according to this piece in the Irish Times. Where are the young English players comparable to Thomas Mueller (the German “ball-boy”) who is playing like an exhuberant kid but making very manly contributions to his team. (He was flat on the ground when he flicked to ball through to Podolski who passed to Klose for the terminal second goal against Argentina.)

England are sticking with Fabio Capello but will he be given the time and resources to revamp the entire footballing infrastructure? Germany’s game plan for this World Cup was hatched four years ago after the disappointment of the semi-final loss to Italy. Will English fans, media, administrators and the Premier League take such a long view? Veteran football reporter Brian Glanville has stated: “We have no divine right to win the World Cup, I don’t think we’d ever have won it anywhere else but in England.”

Dunga was fired apparently before he got off the plane in Brazil. Lippi, the Italian manager, went sailing after his return but was refused entry at a number of Italian island ports.

Finally, here’s an excellent corrective piece by Patrick Hruby on why the U.S. should not pursue the delusion that getting top athletes playing soccer will be the way to win a World Cup. There is one argument he doesn’t mention which is that football is ultimately a free-form team sport. With two periods of uninterrupted open play, coaches can rarely change or influence things during the game. Once the starting whistle blows, players interpret and implement the game plan with the help of teammates -or not. It’s a game that constantly reminds you about the flaws in the Big-Man theory of history -something that is devoutly followed in U.S. sports mythology even in consummate team games like football.

Just look at how many Big Men have fallen by the wayside in this World Cup: Maradona and Messi, Kaka and Robinho, Capello and Rooney, Eto’o, Lippi and Cannavaro. Brazil should have been especially wary of this temptation since they fell prey to it in the 1998 World Cup final believing that they could not play without the talismanic (but freaked-out on the day) Ronaldo and lost to France.

And look at the lesser-known good players who have surprisingly proved to be big men in this competition: Schweinsteiger, Klose and Podolski of Germany, Forlan of Uruguay, Van Bommel for Holland, Villa of Spain, Honda for Japan, and, perhaps the bravest of all, Asamoah Gyan of Ghana. Football is an unforgiving game. And it is particularly unforgiving to players and coaches who forget that it is so fundamentally a team game. Individual performances count but if they don't add up to something more than the sum of the parts, the team loses.

Tom Humphries gets the lead out

2010-06-30T22:51:00.000-07:00

The written coverage of the World Cup has been so-so. The Guardian's team are grand, the New York Times has been making an effort, even my local paper the San Francisco Chronicle has a man in South Africa. Only the Irish Times has been holding back. Well, no longer. The man who famously foreshadowed the Roy Keane meltdown in Saipan in 2002 is finally on the case. Yes, I'm talking about Tom Humphries. The author of Laptop Dancing and the Nanny Goat Mambo and Booked! V. Carefully Selected Writings -two of the best books written from inside sports journalism. Humphries has an acute eye for the sharply revealing details and writes with irrepressible energy and momentum -like Brazil on a good day.

He arrived in Johannesberg over the weekend and his erstwhile employer managed to put him into a hotel where he is the only journalist. This would ruin the life of many daily writers but it's all grist for Tom's mill. If, like me, you've been wondering about the air-brushed perspective offered in much of the television coverage of South Africa, here's Humphries first corrective communique.

Das Cupital

2010-06-27T21:27:00.000-07:00

A number of questions and issues were resolved this weekend as the World Cup moves into the knockout rounds. Germany's real goal is to enjoy themselves while winning the Cup. Argentina are also having some serious fun with it and Maradona’s help from on high may be as powerful as the last time. England’s prolonged, delusional national nightmare is finally over. The best that can be said is that their departure was marginally less ignominious than that of France and Italy. The U.S. and Mexico are not quite ready for World Cup primetime -yet. But expect both to be serious contenders in four years time in Brazil.

Football is often described as a cruel game. Landon Donovan recycled this mantra after the loss to Ghana. It’s usually more accurate to say it’s an unforgiving game which was surely true of that match. Ghana made the most of their limited opportunities in front of goal and both goals derived from U.S. defensive lapses. But the U.S team earned a great deal of new respect with their performance by winning their group in ultra-dramatic fashion and giving England an enduring lesson in how to maximize your assets while down-playing your weaknesses. England, of course, got this exactly backwards.

England too know all about the unforgiving nature of the game after the humiliation by Germany -the blowout in Bloemfontein. The gulf in ability, thinking, pace and motivation was glaring. England were ponderous and pedestrian. Germany played with panache.

Sadly, many English supporters, players and the manager-who-should-have-known-better did not understand the gulf that has opened between England and top performers at the international level. Klinsmann and Lowe assert that the new German style draws heavily from Premiership football -quick, direct, high-pressure. But England seem to be the only team that fail to draw the lessons. Many Premiership players have been excellent in the tournament so far -Maschereno and Tevez for Argentina, Carvalho for Portugal, Howard and Dempsey for the U.S., Kuyt and Van Persie for Holland, Skrtel for Slovakia, Kevin Prince Boateng and even Wigan reserve goalkeeper Richard Kingson for Ghana. Wayne Rooney was over-hyped and under-achieving. He played and looked like the version of himself that ends up bearded and living in a caravan in the Nike ad. Not the way that story was supposed to go...

And, it will get worse before it gets better for England. The English Premier league is awash in money (and debt) but it has brought no benefits to the national team or the Football Association. It may be the best professional league in the world but it’s heavily staffed with non-English players. The lack of young player development and interest in professional coaching are just two of the issues that bedevil English football. Trevor Brooking and others are predicting a long spell in the footballing wilderness for England. Alf Ramsey must be rolling over in his grave, muttering “England are ten years behind the times.”

Credit for "Cupitalism" must go to the Prof of Pop who issued a predictive piece before England made their exit stage rear and more recently has offered a delicious analysis of Capelloism. I'm just latching onto his sweet through pass into the public domain.

Germans kick-start the World Cup on Day 3

2010-06-14T22:08:00.000-07:00

Joachim Loew, the current German manager & his predecessor Jürgen Klinsman

Jürgen Klinsman is responsible for the stylish turn taken by German football. He brought a new, California surfer dude-based cool to the team four years ago in Germany and Joachim Loew continues the tradition this time. They flamed out in the final stage so they have some unfinished World Cup business -very, very bad news for every other nation with final aspirations.

On Sunday, they took off just like in 2006, playing incisive, attacking and exciting football. Klose and Podolski renewed their deadly striking partnership and Mueller -always a menacing name for a German striker- brought some tricky touches to the party. Klinsman was on the ESPN panel for the game grinning and purring about how the Germans are enjoying themselves.

Talk about cognitive dissonance: who said the Germans could enjoy themselves playing football? And, more specifically, if the Germans transmogrify into a flashy powerhouse who are we going to love to hate? Fortunately, my friend and game-day colleague, the Prof of Pop, has the answer: the French are the new Germans.

The German makeover provides delicious proof of the benefits of diversifying the gene pool. Last time they introduced two players with Polish roots. This time there are also a Turk, a Tunisian, one Bosnian, a Ghanaian and -the ultimate borrowing- Cacau who is Brazilian and scored the German’s fourth goal.

Ghana are the only African team so far to make a serious showing. The team displayed exuberant skills, a team approach, and attention to defensive detail. Serbia played some quality football and spurned a number of good chances. Note to Serbian center-half Lukovic on the red card for hand-holding a Ghana player: there’s a time and place for everything...

I suffered through the England-U.S. game on Saturday at Henry’s in Berkeley. The crowd was enthusiastic if not knowledgeable. It was a singularly rhythm less contest. In fact, this recreation in play bricks has more momentum than the actual game.

And with at least two more serious injuries, England and Capello may want to ask FIFA for a do-over on the squad. Marina Hyde in the Guardian argues that Capello finally assumed the England manager role on Saturday. Prior to that, apparently, he had been managing the England fantasy football squad?

And in other news..

Sales of the irritating vuvuzelas have taken off in England according to reports today. Well, English supporters will need to do something to drown out unpleasant realities...

Irish government sources were quick to deny that political asylum has been offered to English goalkeeper, Robert Green...

Haiku Predictions for the World Cup

2010-06-10T20:31:00.000-07:00

As Niels Bohr (and later Yogi Berra) said, “It’s difficult to predict, especially about the future.” (For a more extended analysis of this attribution read this piece.) This is exponentially more true about World Cup competitions when Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle runs rampant -except when Brazil, Germany or Italy do well.

Since, I don’t twitter -at least not intentionally- I thought I’d use an older short form to present my predictions. So, here are my enigmatic, paradoxical, and convoluted haikus. You’ll need to read between the lines.

Will Brazil falter or thrill?
Can Dunga samba
So far from Ipanema?

Graceful, rampant, skillful Spain
Backboned by Barca
Will they climb to a semi?

Messi, Tevez, Higuain
Are their goals enough
To sideline Maradona?

Robben, Van Persie, Sneijder,
After the great years
Will we get only Dutch treats?

Pity the couth Capello,
Preaching suave and cool
To Rooney, callow fellow.

French karma died in Paris
When Henry handled.
Viva San Patricios!

The Germans are never out
of it –Jack Charlton.
But finally ballaxed?

Chile’s mysterious coach
Bielsa –can he
Make the country quake with joy?

U.S. reaching for the ring.
Nuance and nuance
Attend to that blessed thing.

Aged champions defanged
Que sera, sera
To fading prima donnas.

Kanu, Drogba, and Eto’o
So many great ones
Now we are all Africans.

World Cup Illuminating Preliminaries

2010-06-07T21:54:00.000-07:00

“I might live in Europe but I sleep in Africa...”

Samuel Eto’o of the Cameroon and Inter Milan gives a serious, mindful interview to the Guardian. Like many African stars in the European leagues, he continues to suffer mindless racist taunts from fans while playing twice as hard as some of his teammates. His work and dedication during Inter Milan’s European Cup winning campaign this season was exceptional -I particularly admired his stint at left back during the second leg semi-final game at Barcelona.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jun/08/samuel-etoo-world-cup-2010

Oh, I’m missing Dunphy, Giles & Bill..

I was planning to see some World Cup games in Ireland this summer but that did not work out. One thing I’ll miss is watching the fractious camaraderie between Eamon Dunphy, John Giles and Bill O’Herlihy on RTE. This working lunch with Mary Hannigan of the Irish Times (a grossly underrated football journalist -could her gender have something to do with it?) catches the flavor of their post and apres-match interactions.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2010/0605/1224271911320.html

The Burden of Dreams..

One measure of how soccer has snuck into the mainstream media is that the New Yorker saw fit to cover the U.S. soccer team in a recent issue. This video give a taste of the article.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2010/05/video-world-cup.html

Next thing you know, NPR will be giving some serious airtime to the competition. Not that I’m complaining, since I happen to believe that it will be a new day for U.S. foreign policy when soccer is as popular as American professional “football” -that spectacle masquerading as a team sport and, secondarily, blurring the lines between bull-headed thinking and the promotion of democratic values abroad. Following soccer encourages an appreciation for nuance in all things: an attachment to American football induces a blind faith in raw physical prowess -strength, speed and power. U.S. soccer was seduced by this belief for many years but as U.S. players acquire the more subtle, softer skills of the game, the team has significantly improved.

One of my first football coaching instructors -a man named John Jarman- used to say, “Soccer is played with the inside of the head,” while he pointed to his expansive forehead. “But rugby is played with the outside of your head,” as he brushed his hand lightly over his hair. The same charge could be leveled at American “football” where only specialist bench-warmers get to kick the ball. ‘Nuff said.

Prelude to the World Cup

2010-06-02T20:55:00.000-07:00

Every four years, I consider applying for compassionate leave between mid-June and mid-July to properly savor the football World Cup. My employer would find the request laughable but maybe less so than in previous years as interest in the beautiful game grows rapidly in the U.S. This is the sixth consecutive World Cup appearance for the U.S. soccer team and they have earned due respect in the world. If they could consistently play as well as they did last year in the first half of the Confederations Cup final against Brazil and in the second half of their recent game against Turkey, they would be serious contenders.

Thanks to France, I am unburdened by national expectations in this World Cup although I am hoping that Thierry ennui engulfs the French and their ungracious, lame-duck coach. I support any team that plays the game beautifully (Brazil, Spain, Barcelona). I admire teams that play the game effectively and sometimes beautifully (Italy, Holland, Chelsea, Inter Milan). I respect teams that have aspirations to beauty but could be more effective (Argentina, Arsenal). And I have great regard for managers who can motivate squads to become more than the sum of their parts (Martin O’Neill at Aston Villa, Roy Hodgson at Fulham, Guus Hiddink with various teams, and perhaps Fabio Capello with England?)

The World Cup is a crucible of individual and national drama (sometimes all rolled into one –remember Roy Keane’s Hari Kiri walkout on Ireland in Saipan in 2002?) I was spoiled by the brilliance of the 1970 World Cup when Pele and that great Brazilian team set the gold standard for genius and teamwork. The Dutch disappointment in 1974 still rankles. Ireland’s loss to Italy in 1990 was partially compensated by our win in 1994 at Giants Stadium. Then, 1998 was the first time we loved the French since, about, 1798. In 2006, we once more rooted for France until Zindane lost the head and we settled for Italy.

I endured years of football deprivation in the 1980s and 1990s before the great game was “rediscovered” by the American public. Sadly, this period of suffering incorporated the final stages of the 1994 World Cup including one of the most boring finals of the modern era (goalless after extra time and decided by a penalty shoot-out.) It was a big thrill to see some games live at Stanford for the first and only time even if there were no classics (the Sweden vs Romania quarter-final came close).

Not having a national interest in this World Cup can be a relief for anyone wishing to enjoy the competition (did I mention Saipan?). Instead, I find myself hoping that the U.S. will do well (maybe at England’s expense –old habits die hard); that Chile, my son’s adopted home, will surprise people; that Messi makes the most of his world stage appearances unless his childish manager sabotages everything; and, that ultimately, Brazil or Spain or the Dutch dark horses win the Cup but only if the better angels of their footballing spirits prevail (yes, I’m talking to you, Dunga.) Like many other post-national soccer supporters, I would love to see a skillful and organized African team play well-enough to get to the semi-finals or beyond but this does not look likely.

My own coverage will be decidedly post-national and pro-football. I dislike the jingoistic coverage that runs rampant during World Cups when “fans with typewriters,” to borrow Eamon Dunphy’s dated description of football scribes, seem to take over the media. For quality coverage read the Guardian or the Irish Times or tune into the BBC. Interest in soccer has always been strong in the cosmopolitan San Francisco Bay Area, my neck of the woods. I look forward to my Cup running over for a month and watching some games in the company of old and new friends at various locations in the East Bay and the City and following local coverage on SFgate.

Inter play with the Mind

2010-04-28T18:01:00.001-07:00

Inter Milan’s extraordinary victory over Barcelona in today’s European Champion’s Cup semi-final was a triumph of mind over matter. Inter’s manager Jose Mourinho was minutely mindful and winning did not seem to matter much to the Barcelona players.

I support teams that play the game beautifully like Barcelona and I wrote admiringly of their wonderful win in this competition in 2009. However, I respect teams that play the game effectively and sometimes beautifully like Inter Milan. In today’s second-leg game in Barcelona, effectiveness won handsomely over useless beauty.

The obvious conclusions will be drawn about Mourinho’s mental strategizing -and he will do nothing to discourage even the wildest speculation. What might go unappreciated, however, is the the long-distance nature of his mind games with Barcelona. Last summer, before a ball had been kicked in the European Champions league, he signed Wesley Sneijder from Real Madrid and traded Zlatan Ibrahimovich to Barcelona for Samuel Eto'o plus truckloads of cash (about 46 million Euro).

Sneijder has been an inspiration and creative powerhouse for Inter -he almost single-handedly demoralized Chelsea in the previous round. Eto'o played with determination and diligence in both games against Barcelona. Ibrahimovich is a two trick pony, neither of which was very useful against his former teammates. I think he has been a Trojan Horse for Barca, and, for Mourinho, the gift that keeps on giving.

He has disrupted Barcelona’s highly efficient attacking pattern. How many high crosses were played into the box today in hopes that Ibrahimovich would be on the end of it? For a team that never wastes a pass in any other part of the field, it was distressing to see such profligacy in the opponent’s penalty area. Johan Cruyff’s picaresque jab at Ibrahimovic (that he has good technique for a bad player but bad technique for a good player) must have rattled around Barcelona’s manager Pep Guardiola’s synapses a few times last night before he finally, and belatedly, replaced him. Barcelona won the possession game by a couple of miles, as they always do, but possession that does not produce penetrating, forward passes around the box is just prettiness.

The second point to be made about Mourinho’s mind games is that they are much more successful if waged with the opposing players rather than the managers, who stay on the sidelines during a game. This was clearly illustrated in the games against Chelsea and Barcelona. Barcelona engineered the red card dismissal of Thiago Motta but seemed utterly unable to capitalize on the man advantage. For Inter, it just brought a more intense strategic focus to the defensive priorities.

There was one mysterious moment on the broadcast I watched (in an Oakland pub that shows the games but without sound). Guardiola was instructing Ibrahimovic on the sideline and Mourinho appeared to say something to both of them. Pep did not look pleased. Without extrapolating too much, I think the Special One said “I can’t believe you gave us 46 million for him...” That seems harsh but I’m told it sounds sweet and true in Portuguese.

Kilkenny Reunion 2010

2010-04-14T18:43:00.001-07:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Kilkenny reunion2010

View more presentations from tomaclan.

The Power of the Pattern

2010-03-08T21:05:00.000-08:00

Photo by Juliet Clancy

A personal history of engagement with Irish traditional music, Part II

The 1970s became a blazing heyday for Irish folk and traditional music led by The Dubliners and The Johnstons with young editions of Paul Brady and Mick Moloney. They were covering songs by Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen and singing about George Jackson and Angela Davis. It was ear-opening and mind-altering stuff. (And that memory confirms something I’ve heard Martin Hayes assert: that in Ireland, the 70s were really the 60s.) Planxty followed, blowing down the remaining walls between folk music and the staid old house of trad. Into the new space, rushed a whole slew of contenders: the pioneering Clannad, the short-lived, inventive Skara Brae, the blossoming Chieftains, and later the Holy Trinity of Planxty graduates –Christy Moore, Andy Irvine, and Donal Lunny.

The 1970s also brought the landmark radio programme, The Long Note. I was an avid listener, learning all the while. I was also fortunate enough to make an annual visit to Feakle in County Clare for a few years and experience the wonder of seeing Martin Rochford –on fiddle and pipes- in his natural habitat. Mary Bergin was often around too with her lively whistle playing. Rounding out the decade was the Hidden Ground album by Paddy Glackin and Jolyon Jackson, the most artful and innovative deconstruction of traditional melodies of its time.

The 1980s seemed like a never-ending musical wasteland and not just because I had moved with my family to the United States. The decade has not improved much with age or retrospection but I can summon up a few highlights. Shortly after arriving in the U.S., I heard Kevin Burke and the late Michael O’Domhnaill playing in Spokane, Washington. Again, the music seemed to be seeking me out, reminding me that other good things -besides family and friends- were being left behind on the home turf. My sisters, Marie and the now departed Margaret, kept me supplied with tapes and later CDs from Christy Moore and Paul Brady. There was a rock solid concert by De Danann at the height of their powers with Dolores Keane and Mary Black at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco. Towards the end of the decade, Christy Moore gave a riveting performance at the same venue. (Years later, in his autobiography, I read that he had ingested enough illicit stuff on that visit to win a couple of Olympic medals.)

The 1990s brought forth another flowering of the tradition with bands like Altan coming into their own after some lean years. In my neck of the woods, the San Francisco Celtic Music Festival was held every spring for ten years, bringing all the great and budding talents of the 90s to the dock of the bay. This was where I first heard thrilling live performances by Seamus Begley and Steve Cooney, Solas, Lunasa, Kila, and Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill.

Living in the Bay Area presented plenty of opportunity to meet and talk with musicians of all sorts. I met Michael Black back in the 1980s when we were both studying at U.C Berkeley. We had grown up in close proximity on Dublin's south side but our paths had never crossed on the home ground. We had music and soccer in common and having a friend who is a working musician is very enlightening. He was one of the inspirations that got me writing about music for the Irish Herald in San Francisco in the late 1990s. The Bay Area is a hotbed of musical activities and influences. And those forces often coalesce into amazing performances at my local club, The Freight & Salvage Coffee House in Berkeley.

Moving into the new millennium, with a few years of writing about traditional music under my belt, I was fortunate enough to talk with some major figures in the music such as Tony MacMahon, Martin Hayes, John Hoban, Karen Casey, Iarla O’Lionaird, Paddy Moloney, Susan McKeown, Paddy O’Brien, and the late Liam Clancy. This provided me with many sources of continuing insight into the depths of the tradition.

The continuity of tradition is often a political or social artifact. If you dig into the customary practices and patterns, at any given point, there are almost always major shifts underway. In fact, “change within continuity” has been the dominant pattern in many Irish cultural forms and traditional music is no exception. At times, over my years of exposure to the music, the changes often seem to be more visible than the patterns of continuity –modernisation winning out over the older modes, as it has in many areas of Irish life.

Musical tastes are notoriously subjective. Not every Irish person is going to have a passion or appreciation for traditional music. Not everyone takes up Breandan Breathnach’s challenge to love the music because it is ours. Once musically-minded people are exposed to a wider range of music, it is likely that they will acquire a broader musical palette. But if the music does appeal to the spirit, and you’ve had some exposure to the roots of the tradition, there is no going back to pop, rock, or easy listening music. I once saw the latter category rendered as “Bog Eisteacht” in a Galway record shop –God between us and all harm, as my mother used to say.

My relationship to the music still resonates in a unique way. And the renewal of spirit I experience when listening to Irish traditional music –preferably in live performance- is deep sustenance. Irish music becomes part of my mental furniture in that same mysterious way that some poetry does. Looking back, it’s difficult to discern whether I was curiously circling the music or was the music enfolding me, patiently awaiting a welcome?

I have tried to understand the various ways that I found myself, in Ciaran Carson’s phrase, in and out of time with Irish music. There were moments when the whole delightful dance of the music might have passed me by for a more receptive heart or mind. I came at last to acknowledge and appreciate the great gift of the Irish traditional musical heritage. The ancient patterns, like a powerful evolutionary force, finally won me over.

Sources and Further Reading

Paula Meehan is a poet, writer and teacher who has published a number of fine collections of poetry. Her poem The Pattern can be found in The Man Who Was Marked by Winter. Her most recent collection, Painting Rain, is available from Wake Forest University Press.

Ciaran Carson is a poet, writer, teacher and musician. His writing about Irish music and musicians makes essential reading for anyone seeking greater insight. Last Night’s Fun is the best book written from inside Irish traditional music. Carson's work is also available from Wake Forest University Press. He writes a regular column in The Journal of Music, a very stimulating publication that started with an Irish slant but has since graduated to a global musical perspective.

Tony MacMahon is a musician, writer and former radio and television producer at RTE. The Journal of Music has recently published a few extracts from MacMahon’s forthcoming autobiography –writing deeply informed by his years spent in the inner sanctum of the music.

Another seminal book on the music is The Blooming Meadows by Fintan Vallely and Charlie Piggott. It’s a grand set of powerful profiles of Irish traditional musicians.

For more on Irish Showbands see this amazing archive of a uniquely Irish musical and social phenomenon.

Christy Moore’s book One Voice, My Life in Song is a beautiful, painful and loving chronicle from one of the greats. It has the words to many of his songs.

The Power of the Post
A postscript to Power of the Pattern, April 12, 2010

In this post, I wrote about John Clancy who was a big influence on me in childhood and adolescence during summer visits to Galway. I spoke about his formative role in developing my musical interests but his influence was much greater than that. He was a key role model in how to be a sensitive and considerate man long before such New Age qualities were widely valued. He was smart and he had intelligent instincts. He was strong-willed, resourceful, fair-minded and playful. He was just a few years older than me, well-placed to be a force for ill or good with a younger lad. He never once took the low road with me.

I lost touch with him over forty years ago. He came through Dublin on the emigrant trail. We had a drink, a parting glass, and I saw him off on the night ferry to Liverpool down on the North Wall. I got snippets of news about him over the years but I never knew if he continued to sing and play music. I was not sure where he was or how he was until last week.

I discovered the Irish Showbands website as I finished the post. The site was created by Gerry Gallagher. It’s a remarkable repository of the Irish showband, country, pop, and folk music scene from the 1950s through the 1990s. The site features summaries of over 1,600 bands and thousands of photos. It was there that I found three photographs of the Olly Moloney showband from Tuam, Co Galway. John had played with the band and he was in the photos. The photos had been contributed to the website by Sandra Clancy. So, I wrote to Gerry Gallagher and asked who is Sandra Clancy and is she related to John? He wrote back immediately to say she is John’s wife and he sent on her email address.

I emailed Sandra and she also responded quickly. Sandra and John have a very successful farm in Scotland where they have lived happily for many years. She asked for a phone number so that John could call me sometime. And, that was how I came to talk with John Clancy once more this weekend.

It’s difficult to really catch up with someone after such a long time –it’s impossible to convey the accumulated details of your existence, the inner layers of life. John was gracious and thoughtful. He had read the piece on the blog and remembered some things just as I described them; he had forgotten the evening with the old musicians Matt & Pete Conneely that was so seminal for me; and, he recalled some other shared adventures that had slipped from my memory. He continued to play music over the years, professionally and personally: the patterns never lost their powerful pull for him.

He said that my summer visits to Galway had meant a lot to him too. My city background and schooling brought a different dimension to life in the small village where my parents were born and raised. I was always accepted and deeply respected by John and many others in that community and, more vitally, I learned something about respecting and accepting others.

This virtual reunion is a fine tribute to the power of the internet. Most of the time, blog posts are sent out in hopes that someone will connect with your stories or experiences. It is very gratifying –and unusual- to have a blog result in re-connecting with a long-lost person of influence from your past.

The Power of the Pattern

2010-03-07T20:02:00.000-08:00

Photo by Juliet Clancy

A personal history of engagement with Irish traditional music, Part I

In her poem The Pattern, Paula Meehan puts these words on the tongue of a stern but beloved mother,
“One of these days I must teach you to follow a pattern.”
It is one of those Meehan poems that have always held a special resonance for me. It explores a daughter’s ambivalent appreciation for the mother’s sacrifices and the regretful recognition that some gifts are only fully acknowledged after the parent is long gone. It’s a bittersweet narrative on the parental patterns we actively reject and the others that continue to influence our choices in life, often in unconscious but powerful ways.

The poem prompted some reflection on the cyclical nature of my own engagement with Irish traditional music. Here I offer a few notes from the story of my stuttering trip into, away from, and then back to Irish music. I’ve never had much of a gift for dancing (and I never developed any musical ability beyond the small gift of appreciation) but this is generally a tale with a happy progression: two steps forward, one step back.

Irish traditional music offers a very satisfying circularity to performers and listeners, a pattern of predictable parts and repetitions, which is nonetheless deeply engaging. How could it be otherwise since the music survived for hundreds of years in the most unpromising circumstances? It had to be rich enough to capture the imagination of a people well schooled in oral traditions. And it had to be sufficiently stimulating to stir the souls of countless musicians with varying degrees of competence and brilliance. The most talented players find ways to push the envelope of their inheritance, exploring the edges of possibility. More recreational players find satisfaction in the customary practices and in the camaraderie of group performances.

My interest starts in the 1950s -my first decade on the planet. I was too young to recognize the underground stirrings of that dark period in Ireland but my family circumstances gave me some vital, formative experiences with Irish social, cultural and musical changes. I grew up in a truly bi-cultural, even bi-coastal, family. My parents were native Irish speakers and they retained an almost umbilical connection to the place where they grew up, Glengowla, just west of Oughterard on the edge of the Connemara Gaeltacht. I was born in Galway and spent some of my early years there.

Later, after we moved to Dublin, I began to hear traditional music on Radio Eireann. A Job of Journeywork and Ceili House were some of my parent’s favourite programmes. I can remember the reverential hush that would fall in the living room when Seosamh O hEanai or any Connemara musician would come on. I was lucky enough to spend all the (retrospectively) glorious summers of my childhood in their homeland. There I witnessed the casual integration of music into everyday life. Many people sang including my aunt on my mother’s side. My uncle, Josie Geoghegan, sang and taught me songs such as Roddy McCorley and The Boys from the County Mayo. (Josie achieved a measure of regional fame in later years as a fiddle-maker.) Neighbours played accordion and fiddle, and tin whistles were abundant.

But the most talented of the local musicians was a young man named John Clancy (no relation to me) who was a few years older. He played guitar and sang but he had many talents: as a teenager, he made his own electric guitars. We began to jam together after the long summer days of working in the fields or on the bog. By now, my radio listening habits had expanded to Radio Luxembourg and the American Forces Network broadcasting from Germany. So, I knew many of the hit songs of the day by Roy Orbison, the Byrds, the Rolling Stones, and The Animals, and I had figured out how to sing a bit of harmony.

John soon signed up with a local showband called The Blue Notes. The bandleaders were two brothers who played trumpet and saxophone –de riguer at the time in showbands. Their tastes ran to jazz and American popular songs and were rather out of step with the interests of dancehall audiences who desired covers of the current hits. John brought me into the band so that he and the drummer, Marty Coyne from Cleggan, could play cover versions of the latest hits –at least some of the time.

Although John and I were infatuated with rock and popular music, other sounds were also tickling our ears: Bossanova from Brazil, blues from players like Long John Baldry, country singers Marty Robbins and Roger Miller, and the early Bob Dylan, always lurking at the edge of our consciousness. We also went to hear the adventurous Greenbeats who played some gigs at the Hotel Oslo in Salthill, fittingly located across the road from the Seapoint Ballroom where the big-name showbands played.

John had a better understanding of the roots connection behind all of this music. One day when I had made some disparaging, adolescent remark about traditional music, he decided I needed some further education. He arranged a visit to two respected local musicians, Matt and Pete Conneely. They were probably in their sixties, batchelors and fiddle players. We spent the evening with them as they wandered through their repertoire of tunes while John accompanied them respectfully on guitar. I was overwhelmed by the emotional charge from this face-to-face exposure to the music.

Afterwards, I realized that I was a participant in a sort of traditional communion, a passing on of some part of an ancient legacy that had been sustained and sustaining through centuries of cultural oppression. It was a profoundly alluring experience, a deep tilling of the ground of my musical appreciation. Later in the sixties, in the midst of a passionate engagement with Motown (including much of the music that featured later in Roddy Doyle’s The Commitments), I was equally captivated by Sean O’Riada’s television programmes where he explored the music sitting at a harpsichord. I was also swept away by the drive and energy of some Sliabh Luachra slides on an early Chieftains record, which pulsed like a Phil Spector arrangement.

But in that liminal space in Galway, during my childhood, I witnessed the loss of the Irish language, a harbinger of greater cultural and social changes. Far away, in Dublin, my parents spoke more Irish to each other than did any of their kin in Glengowla. Most of the people my age in and around Oughterard couldn’t wait to get out of there and there was little interest in traditional music among my peers. John Clancy finally got his fifteen minutes of fame with the Olly Maloney Showband from Tuam but it was too little recognition and too late. He headed for England in the late1960s and, as far as I know, broke away from the patterns.

Mam’s Christmas Cake

2009-12-21T20:58:00.000-08:00

The author with mother and father & sister Marie chewing
his shoulder, sometime B.C. (Before Cake)

Every year, in the run-up to Christmas, I make a couple of fruit cakes to honor my mother. Fruit cakes with almond paste and white icing were one of my favorite things at the holidays. My mother made Christmas cakes and plum puddings each year and I can remember shopping for the ingredients with her in Meath Street, the heart of The Liberties in Dublin back then and now a window into multi-cultural Dublin. She got exotic items like angelica for the cake and suet for the plum pudding, –a food item I did not know much about as a child, which was a good thing.

Mother was Mary Geoghegan before she married Patrick Clancy. Both of them were from the same townland, Glengowla, just west of Oughterard in Co Galway. She spent some time working for ‘gentry’ in Dalkey and acquired a few refined tastes –coffee, meringues, and good fruit cake.

My mother died a few years after I had moved to the United States, much too young. When I first tried to make a fruit cake like hers, I found that the country that loves mom and apple pie despises fruit cake. Even California, often maligned as the home of fruits and nuts, disdained fruit cake. I tried a few different recipes but none of them worked and the key ingredients were hard to find. I searched for years before finding one that worked consistently.

When I finally found the recipe, it was in an unlikely source: a Christmas Cookbook by John Fouts Gardenhire, an African American man who collected many of his family recipes and published them in Oakland in 1991. The collection of recipes was on sale in Café 817, a splendid slice of Italy in downtown Oakland next to a great Oakland institution, Ratto’s.

When I read the Fouts’ Christmas Fruit Cake recipe, I knew it was a winner. The recipe featured candied fruit peel, glace cherries, and required “brandying” the cakes for weeks. That was the clincher. My mother was a teetotaler but her cakes were “cured” with whiskey in this manner. My father was almost a non-drinker but he got a bottle of whiskey each Christmas from a building contractor he worked for and it was used to cure the cake. One of our family moments at Christmas dinner was watching our ma nod off from the alcohol in the cake and the boozy brandy butter for the plum pudding.

The cookbook is studded with little stories and family lore from the Fouts Gardenhire clan. His mother, Carrie Bell, was a good cook but had no love for the process. His father, Shirley Richard, loved cooking and taught all his children. The cast of aunts was endless and their names grace many of the recipes: Maude, Ann, Bert, Emma, Verda and Hazel.

But the best story of all is appended to the recipe for Uncle Jay’s Hors D’Oeuvre. Uncle Jay once walked from San Diego to Del Mar to apply for the job of chauffeur at the mansion of a local industrialist. The man was surprised to see him and asked how he heard about the job. Uncle Jay said that he had seen the magnate’s ad in the San Diego Union. The man was big enough to say: “If you saw that ad and walked out here to apply, you’ve got yourself a job.” The ad in the paper read: Chauffeur wanted, whites only need apply.

But Uncle Jay wasn’t finished with the interview. He asked the big man what kind of car he had. A Packard and a Cord, replied the new employer. Jay told him he would only drive a Rolls Royce. The men went out that day and bought a Rolls. Uncle Jay worked for the family for many years as a driver and a cook.

That story may be apocryphal but I imagine it is one of thousands of similar family legends told in African American families for years in the United States. And, it is a story that reached a new, long overdue, climax on January 20, 2009, when another courageous, smart and highly qualified Black man entered that other white house in Washington D.C.

Clancy’s Christmas Cake Recipe
(Adapted from the Fouts’ Christmas Fruit Cake)

Three quarters of a pound of butter
Two cups of brown sugar
Three-four cups of flour
Three teaspoons of baking powder
Two teaspoons of nutmeg
Two teaspoons of cinnamon
One teaspoon of salt
Ten eggs
Half to three-quarters of a can of Guinness
One cup of chopped almonds
One cup of raisins
One cup of dried cranberries (or dates or prunes)
Two cups of ‘glaced’ cherries
Two cups of candied fruitcake mix (must include candied lemon peel)
Half cup of chopped candied ginger

Method
I soak the dried fruit overnight in water. Two large mixing bowls are needed for assembling the cake mix. Cream the melted butter and sugar in one bowl. Beat in the eggs and salt. Sift the flour with the spices in the second bowl. Drain the soaking fruit and toss them with the flour, coating them so that they don’t sink in the final mix. Add the candied fruit, cherries and nuts. Add this to the liquid batter and stir to distribute. Add the Guinness and more flour as necessary. The batter should be liquid but solid enough to hold the mixing spoon upright.

Transfer the cake batter into two greased 9-inch diameter spring-form pans, lined with wax paper. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 350 degrees for one and a half to two hours. Cakes are baked when a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean (no liquid residue). Cool in the pans for 30 minutes then place them on a rack to cool completely. Wrap the cakes in cheesecloth and store them in airtight tins.

Cakes should be “brandied” at least once a week for six weeks or more. This entails unwrapping the cakes and drizzling about half a cup of brandy over them. (Whiskey or bourbon works too but brandy is my favored spirit -and it doesn’t have to be premium.) If the cakes seem dry, you can make a series of bore holes with a wooden skewer to aid the distribution of the brandy. Cakes should be excused from the brandying process for two weeks before cutting.

My fruit cakes are undecorated –I never could master the hard white icing that mother coated over the almond paste layer. At least one of these cakes is divided among a select group of friends at Christmas time each year. The other one can last into March if eaten judiciously. It is best with a good cup of strong Irish tea, my mother’s way, but it goes well with any favored holiday tipple.

A Modest Proposal for Moral Compensation

2009-12-08T20:15:00.000-08:00

FIFA president Sepp Blatter indicated earlier this week that Ireland may receive "moral compensation" after the team’s loss to France in a World Cup playoff.
–The Guardian, Dec 2, 2009.

Dear Mr Blatter:

Irish soccer fans were greatly heartened by your offer of “moral compensation” to alleviate the injustice of Ireland’s exclusion from the World Cup in South Africa next summer. I know some Irish soccer people were none too thrilled by your comments but let’s give Liam Brady and Richard Dunne (of whom, more anon) the benefit of the doubt for moment, shall we? If your offer is well-meant, it’s going to require some swift action and out-of-the-six-yard-box thinking.

I am happy to tell you that there is a simple and elegant solution available. FIFA should permit England to bring two extra players to South Africa next summer, Shay Given and Richard Dunne. Let me explain and deal with some of the possible objections.

I know, Given and Dunne are Irish players but how many “English” players have appeared for the Irish team over the years? Isn’t it time England showed some magnanimity and returned the favor? Turnaround is fair play still, right?
It strengthens the English squad in two key areas. Given is a better goalkeeper than any of the current home-grown choices and is in top form. Richard Dunne is also playing with great consistency, more than can be said for almost all English defenders with the honorable exception of John Terry, and he scores goals.
Think of the delicious mental conundrums this would cause for many Irish people next summer. Instead of taking secret or not-so-secret delight in every misfortune that might befall England, they would have to expand their national interests and sympathies.
Likewise for English fans. True, many would be overcome by rampant ambiguity. If the seeds of nationalistic doubt are sown in the minds of, say, the typical Millwall supporter, some of them might not bother traveling to South Africa? That, surely, is a consummation that you devoutly wish for, in your heart of hearts?

Shay Given, in particular, deserves to be in the next World Cup. He’s one of the game’s top keepers. He comes from Donegal, the most northerly part of the South and the most westerly part of the North of Ireland. It’s practically a land onto itself up there, where even the Irish spoken is exotic, almost foreign.

But more importantly in this discussion, that region of the world is home to a class of goalkeeping royalty. Given’s predecessor guarding the Irish nets was Bonnie Prince Packie Bonner who earned 80 caps for the Republic and appeared in two World Cups. Pat Jennings, the Crown Prince of Northern keepers, played 119 games for Northern Ireland and also played in two World Cups. His royal Shayness with 102 caps (and counting) for Ireland is a good bet to surpass both of his illustrious compatriots but may not play in a World Cup unless you, Mr Blatter, can exercise some poetic reasoning.

There is an intriguing precedent for having a non-national player guest in the English team. In 1960, the German Bert Trautmann, a former prisoner of war and long-time goalkeeping stalwart for Manchester City (Given’s current club), played for England. The Football League allowed non-English players to represent the Football League in a representative match for the first time.

Furthermore, this whole issue is already on England’s agenda. There has been feverish speculation for almost two years about the prospects of Arsenal’s Spanish goalkeeper, Manual Almunia, applying for British citizenship to fill the void in the English goalkeeping ranks. Mr Almunia has even ventured this post-modernist rendition of his attitude:
“I would prefer to hear the Spanish anthem than the England one. But it's also true that the time of patriotism and really feeling a national anthem has somewhat gone out of fashion.”
I suspect Given and Dunne could take a lesson from this kind of enlightenment and suck it up during the English national anthem. Or the anthems could alternate, thus giving everyone on the squad a chance to share some Zen moments of non-attachment.

Even the strenously nationalistic Scottish Football Association is considering Rangers Spanish striker, Nacho Novo, as a candidate for Scotland. So, you need to get the FAI and the FA leaders into a closed-door session and make them an offer they are sure to misunderstand. I trust that you can expand their thinking.

You could have the meeting in Ipswich where I am certain that Mr Roy Keane could find a suitable woodshed. He may even offer his considerable powers of persuasion, if knocking of heads was required. Mr Capello would undoubtedly be equally keen to contribute: each would bring a unique mode of discourse to the session.

You are no doubt familiar with the Fantasy Football phenomenon where fans pick players from various team and track their performance weekly. Here’s a golden opportunity to institute this thrilling concept at the World Cup. I should note that more vengeful fantasies are being mooted. A lot of Irish fans would say, “Don’t suspend Thierry Henry, make him play in goal for England –we already know he can handle the ball in the box.”

But let’s not bother with such small-minded and mean-spirited ideas and instead vigorously pursue the only fair option on the table. Let me say, in conclusion, that this would only be a temporary transfer of these two players. After the World Cup, Don Giovanni gets his key players back for the Euro Nations Cup 2012 qualifiers.

Yours in sport,

The Irish Blogman

Now, check out the montage at the top for the new Anglo-Irish World Cup team.

Digital wizardry by Dave Mackie.

Dublin After the Rare Oul Times

2009-11-26T18:28:00.001-08:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Dublin After the Rare Oul Times

The slide-only version is above. The soundtrack version is here with October, one of the hand-crafted, mysterious songs from Mick Fitzgerald's album, Damage Limitation.

Ecstasy, Agony and Ennui at Croke Park

2009-10-15T03:43:00.000-07:00

It was more than thirty years since I had set foot in Croke Park. All of the times I had been there as a child and a youth, I was on foot standing on the Canal End or Hill 16. I don’t think I sat for more than two or three games in the Cusack Stand as an adult. It was a marvellous and magic moment going back to the stadium for the crucial World Cup qualifying game against Italy on October 10. My brother and I had seats high up on Hill 16 with a panoramic view. The mood was cheery but tense. The 1-1- tie with the Italians at their home fixture was earned against 10 men and it was almost too much to think we could do it again or even beat them.

I have a rich trove of memories around Croke Park, My father took me to gaelic football and hurling games as a youngster and I went regularly as a teenager. I remember the ripe juicy pears wrapped in tissue paper that hawkers would sell outside the stadium. The streetside merchants also sold flags, paper hats and rosettes in county colours. The hats would run in the rain and you’d be marked with your team colours for days. I also recall the agony of divided loyalties when Dublin and Galway played for All-Ireland football glory during the sixties. I had to cheer for Galway but it did not enhance my standing among my Dublin friends.

I even had one of those odd childhood souvenirs grabbed during a hurling game. It was a broken shaft of a sideline flag, splintered by Kilkenny’s Eddie Keher during a tussle with some unlucky opponent. For Irish people of a certain age, even if you were rarely in Croke Park, you likely would have pictures in your head from the vivid descriptions of Michael O’Hehir. He provided commentary on all GAA games for many, many years -play-by-play and colour all rolled up into an urgent, eloquent, and erudite delivery. Many of us can still visualize a “schmozzle in the parallelogram.”

When I last attended a game in Croke Park, the notion that you would one day be watching a soccer game there would have been the height of heresy. The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) as a sporting organization held a long-standing historical antipathy to soccer. For many years, GAA players -all amateurs- were forbidden to play soccer (that English game) and no soccer could be played on GAA fields throughout Ireland.

But the modern GAA has shown itself to be a very flexible and entrepreneurial organization. Tom Inglis recently argued that the GAA has taken over some vital community functions which were heretofore performed by the now largely discredited institutional Catholic Church. Some years ago the GAA removed the ban on soccer from its rules, just in time to avail of a financial windfall hosting Ireland’s international football games while Lansdowne Road was being refurbished and rebuilt. (Dublin wags often called it the Grab All Association.)

That is how I could be sitting on Hill 16 rooting for the Irish team with 70,000 others. The team started brightly with a clever and deceptive free-kick by Liam Lawrence to his clubmate Glenn Whelan who curled into the upper left corner as Buffon watched in horror. It was a top-notch set piece that sparked the audacity to hope in many Irish fans. But Italy quickly equalized from a corner and Andrea Pirlo began to run the midfield with precision and decisiveness. Ireland practiced pointless possession while Italy's possession was rife with intent. This pattern continued for much of the second half with both teams ready to settle for the draw.

Until the 86th minute when substitute Stephen Hunt sent a sharp free kick across the Italian box where center-half Sean St Ledger provided a classic diving header to score a second goal. There was a millisecond of stunned silence before we all went crazy, jumping up and down, crying and laughing, hugging total strangers -it was like a weekend at one of Berlusconi’s mansions. Unfortunately, the Irish players were momentarily overcome with unbounded joy. And, as any student of the game knows, that’s risky against the Italians who have an eternal patent on the devastating counter-attack. Sure enough, they launched their most incisive series of passes in the whole game and equalized once more. This time the silence was long, deep and anguished.

This result meant that Italy won the group and Ireland came second assuring them of a playoff spot. The final game against Montenegro four days later was thus moot. Only 50,000 showed up for the match and most of the excitement was beforehand as Shay Givens and Kevin Kilbane were saluted for earning their 100th Irish cap on the night. Apart from Richard Dunne’s powerful header that rebounded off the crossbar, there were no highlights. Midway through the second half the crowd performed a few rounds of the Mexican wave --a sure indicator of extreme boredom at a European soccer game. A cloud of acrid smoke wafted over Hill 16 during the second half but there was no fire visible anywhere and certainly not on the pitch. Player’s minds had begun to drift off towards the weekend games for their clubs, who, after all, pay their handsome salaries.

So, over those few days we experienced a typical lifetime for an Irish soccer fan: three minutes of ecstasy laced with dread, three days of agony and recriminations, and an endless ninety minutes of ennui. And as if that was not enough, we may have a repeat dose in November when Ireland faces off against France in a two-legged playoff. The uncertainty and anguish is enough to make Kerry or Kilkenny fans of us all with satisfying Croke Park experiences guaranteed.

2009-09-24T22:16:00.000-07:00

Mentioned in Dispatches

So, I go away for two weeks to the southern climes and come back to find out that I’ve been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle in Jon Carroll’s column. Does this count towards my Warholian fifteen minutes of fame? Or, is it one of those “If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound if there is nobody around to hear it” deals?

Either way, it is flattering to be recognized by one of my favorite writers, a man who was blogging before blogging-time began and whose almost daily output is informative, entertaining, crafty & arty. And, a writer who has responded every time I’ve sent a note or comment on a column -a generous and oddly chivalrous act. I’m not even upset at the line about “.. Tom Clancy -not the writer, the other guy.” I used to take umbrage at stuff like that but I found it had too many unwanted side-effects.

2009-09-17T18:34:00.000-07:00

Changing Lanes in Buenos Aires

My first visit to Buenos Aires last week coincided with an impending national crisis –Argentina’s possible failure to qualify for the World Cup in 2010. A couple of days before I arrived, Brazil had beaten them comprehensively on their home ground and a day later Paraguay trounced them 1-0 in Asuncion. The media was full of criticism of the team performance in these crucial games and even the revered Maradona was blasted on radio and TV as the dreaded outcome loomed large. There are two games left for him to produce a miracle and ensure a trip to South Africa next summer. This time he will need both of God’s hands.

Update, October 15: Maradona got all the help he needed yesterday clinching the fourth spot in the group with a late 1-0 win over Uruguay. I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that the World Cup winner will come from the South American qualifiers and it may not be Brazil. Chile and Paraguay will be serious contenders and Argentina may be a more coherent force in nine months. The final word, for the moment, on Maradona goes to the brilliant Tom Humphries in the Irish Times.

********

I was attending a conference on Perceptions of Contemporary Ireland at the Fourth Symposium of Irish Studies in South America. The Irish influence in Argentina is one of the least known stories of the diaspora -distance, language and culture produced a growing separation over generations. Many of the Irish names have been absorbed (Che Guevara had Irish ancestors) but I spotted O’Brien, Sullivan and Hurley on businesses in the city. And the mausoleums in the city´s main cemetery, Recoleta, are laced with Irish names.

Buenos Aires is a clean, well-lighted place for looks and books. The economy is making a gradual recovery from a near total meltdown in the early years of this decade but it is hard to believe that the clothing, shoe or jewelry industries are suffering. The people are confident, self-possessed, and strikingly well-dressed. It was quite incongruous, therefore, to see barefoot children begging on the Avenida Florida, one of the city´s prime shopping districts, wandering among the snappy suits and dresses.

My perceptions of Porteños, as BA residents are known, was influenced by travelling around in taxis for a few days. It’s a city of many narrow ways and some broad ways –it boasts the widest street in South America, Avenida 9th de Julio.

But the lane markings on the streets are mere suggestions. Taxi drivers favor straddling the lines, keeping their options constantly open. If a sliver of space opens up in an adjacent lane, it's filled immediately. Use of indicators is considered a sign of weakness and almost guarantees a sharp cut off.

The time-space continuum takes on new meaning on the Buenos Aires streets. If there is space, two lanes become three, three will elide into four and so on ad infinitum or the sidewalk. And none of this is as chaotic as you might expect. There is uncertainty and tension but somehow the traffic maintains a kind of fluid equilibrium, a sort of controlled recklessness.

*******

The Irish economy in the Celtic Tiger era fell victim to a sort of uncontrolled recklessness at the hands of Irish political leaders, according to Fintan O’Toole of the Irish Times. He was the keynote speaker at the symposium and the time-space continuum in Tiger Ireland was one of the themes he explored. O’Toole was, as ever, analytic and provocative. One of the worst features of the Tiger era, in his view, was the amount of bad art it produced: boy bands, the post-Riverdance shows, and sundry other crass, commercial projections of Irishness. He is hopeful that, paradoxically, the more dire economic straits may produce better art and more vibrant creative expression in Ireland in the next few years. He was not very confident that economic equilibrium will return to Ireland any time soon and he has been particularly critical of the government's proposed legislation for dealing with toxic assets (see Nama proposals and, more recently, this article.)

It was a curious sensation for me, an older Irishman who lives in the U.S., to be mulling over the state of Irish culture in Buenos Aires with a roomfull of people who consider themselves Irish while retaining strong identities as Argentinians, Brazilians, Chileans and other nationalities. They all seem to have mastered what O'Toole described as one of our great artistic qualities -the ability to hold two or more contradictory concepts in our minds simultaneously. All the drivers in Buenos Aires appear to have that same gift as they change lanes rapidly and seamlessly.

Richard Thompson -Rocking and Rolling with Empathy

2009-08-02T22:33:00.000-07:00

If life is a doctoral program in empathy, Richard Thompson will be one of the few who earns the degree. With a seemingly endless capacity to write sharp, dark, witty, and richly compassionate songs, he is one of the most enduring singer-songwriters and, in his erudite English way, utterly endearing.

He was at the top of his considerable abilities in a recent show at the Rio Theater in Santa Cruz. His collection of songs are rivaled only by the likes of Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell. (Martin Carthy, ignoring chronology, slyly suggests that Bob Dylan should be called the U.S. Richard Thompson.) His voice is vibrant in the upper range, compelling in the lower reaches, and completely distinctive. Using his natural gifts to the utmost, he’s the Andy Goldsworthy of singer-songwriters. His guitar playing is widely admired and he has written a few film scores in recent times. (The DVD of Grizzly Man has a riveting feature about writing the movie music with Thompson and director Werner Herzog trading insights). Somehow, he has resisted the chains of the music business for over forty years and maintained his quirky sensibility and musical integrity.

Thompson is the last artist you could accuse of simply working through his back-catalog. He delivers all his songs, new and old, with a rare intensity and the Santa Cruz show was another fine showcase for his dedication. He opened with Valerie, jumping right into the some intricate guitar work. The show was sprinkled with some other favorites: a plaintive rendering of Galway to Graceland; a full-throttle version of 52 Vincent Black Lightning; and, a very moving Walking on A Wire.

He sang a few songs from his latest album, Sweet Warrior. Dad’s Gonna Kill Me puts us inside the head of soldier struggling with the ambiguity of involvement in Iraq: it’s a nuanced anti-war song. Sunset Song is a very lyrical work and Johnny’s Far Away is a modern sea shanty with a Thompsonian twist. The Hots for the Smarts is a relatively new song, which he dedicated to all those smart women out there or, pause, all the women who think they are smart. With Thompson, you have to watch for the windup and the bitch.

He’s a consummate and engaging entertainer. His deliciously sly introductions can sometimes be missed. And he relishes the audience interactions. “We love you, Richard.” a woman called out after a couple of songs at the Rio. A longer pause, “I'm too English. I just don't know how to respond to that.” Later he ribbed the audience about the lack of “interpretive dance” for his slow songs, something he has come to expect in Santa Cruz.

He also sang Wall of Death, surely one of the first Buddhist pop songs, with these timeless lines?

You can waste your time on the other rides
This is the nearest to being alive
Oh let me take my chances on the Wall Of Death.

Thompson is not a Buddhist but he openly acknowledges the spiritual dimension in music. He has been a practicing Sufi for many years. Sometimes, he comes across as a recovering cynic, a gentle soul with a few mean streaks. He has a killer smile that shades imperceptibly into a smirk, and vice versa.

His two children from the marriage to Linda Thompson, Teddy and Kamila, have made the most of their genetic and cultural musical inheritance. Kami was a special guest at the Santa Cruz show and sang sweetly with her dad on Heart Needs a Home, the Sandy Denny classic Who Knows Where the Time Goes and Persuasion, one of the most delightful love songs in the Thompson canon. Here he duets on this song with Teddy.

Any given Thompson show will hold only a fraction of his oeuvre. This show did not have Turning of the Tide, Dimming of the Day, or No More Gypsy Love Songs. Or Beeswing, one of his most beautiful pieces, a contemporary song in a ballad form. Christy Moore gives it a stirring performance on his album, Burning Times and says, “It chills me to sing this, makes me happy and sad.”

Thompson has mastered the compressed language of the folk tradition in his song-writing. This mastery is vividly illustrated in one of my favorite Thompson songs, Burns’ Supper. It’s a surprisingly uncovered song although Linda Ronstadt and Ann Savoy have a fine and faithful version on Adieu False Heart. This is a brilliant piece of distilled emotion, a man ruminating on self-imposed loneliness, finally finding a shard of empathy for himself:

What a new-found friend is honesty
To see ourselves as others see
To see the shy boy inside the man
Is that all I am? Just starved of loving.

***************

Richard Thompson returns to play in the Bay Area later this year in December. Check out the Villa Montalvo website for details.

Singing in the lane: the music of Mick Fitzgerald

2009-04-19T17:17:00.001-07:00

Memory Lane was one of the longest, most traveled thoroughfares in Ireland until money shortened our attention span. One curious effect of the Tiger economy was that people once permanently mired in the past suddenly began living in the present. It wasn’t exactly a mass conversion to Buddhism, since many elements of the plastic prosperity were purchased on what used to be called the “never-never” plan.

Mick Fitzgerald has been in and around the Irish music world for over thirty years. He must have felt a few times that his shot at fame (we won’t mention fortune) was also on the never-never. But singing and song writing got into his blood and he found the Irish song-stream to be profusely inspirational. His first solo album, Light Sleeper from 2003, stitched together a set of old songs with some crafty new ones –it was a memorable, if belated, debut for a singer-songwriter. His new record, Damage Limitation, follows the same pattern and it’s a more polished but equally powerful creation (available from Claddagh Records).

The lanes of Dublin were the most mysterious, explorable parts of the city when I was growing up. They were full of life, not all of it savory. Lanes were where kids stole apples and later, kisses. They were dangerous places too. I was robbed and roughed up as a kid in the lane where Vicar Street now stands. Lanes were a favorite prowling ground for pedophiles (the defrocked kind).

On the new album, Fitzgerald opens Conquistador with these lines,
An eight-year-old Conquistador
Running barefoot down the backlane
And the sun shone that day like it never shone before.
The little adventurer was wary of the dangers but,
..his trusty wooden sword, keeps his enemies at bay.

Fitzgerald’s songs explore the mysteries and enigmas of memory. I had spent all my childhood summers, often barefoot, in a small village near Oughterard in Co Galway. When I went back in my twenties, I realized that rain was a constant in that Connemara climate. Yet, most of my memories were of glorious, golden days.

He seems to be channeling –consciously and otherwise-- the whole history of Irish music. And not just the Irish tradition, he watches and listens intently to a broad river of musical influence –folk songs, rhythm & blues, rock & roll, reggae, jazz, country & western, the whole polyglot palette. He is doing his creative committee work over the ages with fragments and samples borrowed artfully, as I noted in my interview with him in the May issue of Irish Music magazine. This sense of being timely and timeless is strengthened by his voice that manages to be as fresh as a waterfall and old as the hills.

On the first album the song Where the Green Rushes Grow covers the familiar territory of Irish emigration:
Dragged our bodies up the gangplank /Stood on deck to wave goodbye /
Drank a health to friends and neighbours /Wiped a tear from Ireland’s eye.
It goes on to describe some irritations of exile life in Britain:
Traffic here goes on forever / Nothing finished or begun /
Dogs and cats fight for the garbage / People curse in many tongues.
Fitzgerald set this song in the mood of 1957 but when I first heard those lines, I thought they described some of the frantic parts of Irish experience under the sway of the Celtic Tiger. It's as if time overtook the setting of the song and gave it a new resonance.

His attention to the past is not nostalgic. He has no time for those fake emotions. Here’s the bridge in that same song:
Until you’ve nothing left but stupid songs and bleary eyes /
And you drink yourself back home until the day you die.
Or this from The New Roads of England,
But beauty is nothing when money is tight / Now I’m ploughing the new roads of England.
Beauty and balance took a beating in Ireland when money was flowing and plenty of new roads were ploughed. So the times caught up with that song too, or, as the Bard has it, past is prologue.

Danny Carnahan, Berkeley-based singer-songwriter, has been a long-time champion of Fitzgerald’s music. He had this to say about his writing: “He has the poet's eye for detail, lingering on small things and letting the listener globalize to enrich the meaning.” The details are often powerful and poetic. Here’s some examples.
A thin girl with a Walkman / Has turned her back on school. (It Gets You in the End)
The only time he leaves you / Is when you need someone near. (You Don’t Have to be Famous)
The old man stood up and he gazed at the train /
And the child in his eyes came creeping again. (October)
Old memories can creep up and catch you unawares /
Old houses can be sold but you can still dream of the stairs (Old Comics).

Pat Egan from Chulrua has recorded a number of Fitzgerald’s songs and he also admires the poetry of the lyrics. He told me, “Part of me is in some of Mick’s songs.” Fitzgerald does recreate the cultural and emotional terrain of certain periods of life with his songs.
See her after twenty years in a shop somewhere /
Stands beside you for a moment, then she isn’t there (When we left School).
This is a chance meeting with an old girlfriend who has no idea who you are. So they manage to be specific and yet generalizable, local but worldly. In our interview, he described the revelations that sometimes accompany song writing: "That’s what I was feeling all those years ago...or yesterday."

One of his finest songs (and it’s a challenge to pick out one) is Postscript from the first album, a tribute to Johnny Keenan, a brilliant former bandmate who departed long before his time. This epigraphic picture of youthful confidence and power would be hard to best:
We could panic still waters, we could slow down the wind
We could make or break hearts with our eyes…
Keenan, says Fitzgerald, Shone like a diamond / that never was found.
For a good while, his own songs were in danger of meeting the same fate. His songs are like diamonds, packing a lot of light and beauty into a small space.

His songs invite a kind of time travelling. Some are imaginative recreations of events that could have happened over a hundred years ago: Amidships and The Ballad of Will Johnson from the new album. Others already have a long tail. His best-known song, Rathdrum Fair, traveled to the U.S. with Carnahan in the late 1970s, entered the North American folk circuit, and came back to Ireland for a holiday in 2000 where Fitzgerald heard it sung by a Scottish busker.

Mick Fitzgerald’s music tells us why it’s important not to forget musical histories. The instrumentation is playfully nostalgic with doo-wop singing, plaintive saxophone, aching accordion and mandolin playing. It’s respectfully retro: the new album cover has him posed with one of those old boxy microphones that Elvis, Buddy Holly and their ilk used to wrestle with.

He’s probably best characterized as a reluctant romantic, a man with a generous heart, feeling the ongoing rush of time. He’s making an impression later in life when at least you are more appreciative. The boy in the song, Conquistador, grows old:
And the years just fell away / and faded into sand.
This is echoed in a recent rumination on aging and memory by another Irishman known as a wielder and welder of words:
“... As the memorable bottoms out
Into the irretrievable.”
(In The Attic, Seamus Heaney).

Playing in the street with The Gasmen

2009-01-25T20:38:00.000-08:00

The band in their natural habitat,

aka The Boys i lar na Sraide

The Gasmen are band of Irish musicians based in San Francisco. Their new album Clement Street (Gasmenmusic, 2008) presents all the best of their music: it’s lively, varied, engaging and entertaining. When I was growing up in Dublin, a “gas man” was someone quirky, funny, a bit of a character and, in a city overrun with characters, only a few got this prized title. With six in the mix, the Gasmen are ensuring that the band is much more than the sum and fun of its parts.

In true Californian fashion, everyone brings something unique to the band’s music. Vincy Keehan from Galway is a founder member and a long-term stalwart of the Irish scene in the city. He sings, plays mandolin and guitar and composes songs. His song Argentina draws from the little-known Irish contribution to that hybrid South American nation. (Argentina has two branches of Comhaltas, the organization dedicated to preserving Irish music and culture.) The Knotted Cord and Sheehan’s are two rattling reels Keehan recalls from 1970s sessions in Gort, Co Galway.

John Caulfield, from Dundalk, plays fiddle, mandolin, and sings. He has played in a number of bands in the U.S. and Europe. He combines the Wild Rose of the Mountain and The Star of Munster for a grand set, a mixed marriage between an American old time tune and an Irish trad staple. Caulfield also sings two unusual songs: The Dreadful Wind and Rain and Georgy Barnwell. The first is reputed to be one of the oldest known folk songs, a cheerful piece about sororicide and a rare form of musical cannibalism. (It is old enough to have been sampled by Bob Dylan from Paul Clayton back in the early 60’s to make Percy’s Song, according to the resident brains trust at the Mudcat Café .)

Barry O' Connell hails from County Cork. His rich and rumbling low tone on the accordion grounds a number of the tracks: The Silver Vale/Grainne’s Jig; The Boogie/The Controversial; The Maho Snaps/The Cat’s Meow; a robust set of hornpipes, The Liverpool/Plains of Boyle/Jolly Beggerman; and, from his own terra cognito, Johnny Leary’s Polkas, a rousing sidetrip to Sliabh Luachra. He has a fine voice too, soloing on The Kilnamartyra Exile with session-stopping passion and conviction.

Cormac Gannon from Mayo plays bodhran and sings. He works in a song called Up Mayo, composed by Padraig Stevens, that he learned from the singing of John Hoban, Castlebar’s ambassador to the wide world. Gannon organizes the band’s affairs and no doubt often has reason to recall with regret the name of their first album in 1998, Minding Mice at Crossroads.

Vinny Cronin on flutes and whistles began playing with his dad, Paddy Cronin, the well-known fiddler and his uncle Johnny Cronin. The Boys of Ballinamore/The Monks of the Screw are tunes Cronin learned from his father. Kenny Somerville represents County Fermanagh. He started out playing guitar and singing at Bundoran, in County Donegal. He sings a lovely version of The Hills above Drumquin written by Felix Kearney, paired withThe Belltable, a Stockton’s Wing tune.

Clement Street particularly The Plough and Stars is the epicenter of the current Irish music scene in San Francisco. The pub, where Sean Heaney has been holding down the fort for years, was featured in a Feilte music program on TG4 before Christmas, Ireland's Irish television channel, and showcased many of the Bay Area's Irish musicians including the Gasmen.

This is a completely enjoyable album with very solid performances, good set selection and a generous twenty tracks where songs and instrumentals get fair play. It opens with that old standby The Jug of Punch which the Gasmen performed in a scene for the Oscar-nominated film Milk. And it closes with all the members heading home from Clement Street, lilting into the sunset.

Molly’s Revenge -Playing the music of all the Western Shores

2008-11-22T14:52:00.000-08:00

Published in the December issue of Irish Music magazine

For any band, seven albums in eight years is pretty prolific. The California band, Molly’s Revenge, now hold this distinction with the release of The Western Shore, another benchmark in their fine body of work. It is likely to greatly expand their regional reputation in the San Francisco Bay Area where they are big audience favorites at festivals and shows. Their live performances are marked by joyful energy and imaginative playing –qualities that appealed to John Doyle who produced this album.

The band is Pete Haworth (bouzouki, vocals); John Weed (fiddle, vocals); Stuart Mason (guitar, mandola, vocals); and, David Brewer (highland pipes, whistles, bodhrans & uilleann pipes). Joining them, to great effect, on the album are Moira Smiley on vocals and accordion and Fraser Stone (Old Blind Dogs) with perky percussion. I met with Haworth and Brewer during the Sebastopol Celtic Music Festival in September for a lively interview.

They have a richly hybrid sound, a kind of Scottish-Irish mash-up -and California, they quickly pointed out. The album grabs you by the ears right from the title track, opening with a pipe anthem written by Brewer. How long did it take to develop that sound? “We’ve been together in this combination for almost five years,” Haworth said. “We’re pretty settled right now. We don’t want to play the melodies straight because lots of players do that. We try to arrange things differently, swap in and out on different instruments. And you spend a lot of time on that when you work on a CD.”

Were they working on the album before John Doyle came along? “No, we had run into John at various concerts and events, and he was in town with Athena Tergis and Mick Moloney. I plucked up the courage to ask him if he’d produce a CD for us and to my surprise he said yes,” Haworth said. Brewer could not say enough about Doyle’s role. “John is like a flow of consciousness of great ideas for Celtic music arrangements. We had made good musical progress on each of our CDs but then to have John joining the team for this album, it was something else.”

Haworth was equally effusive. “It was really a phenomenal experience. We’d send John MP3 recordings of our arrangements and he’d reply with suggestions and ideas. We took all his suggestions and thought we were all ready to go. But then we went into the studio and I’ll never forget that first day. We played all the tracks through and John was standing there with his mandola playing along. We get to the end and he’d say, ‘Ok, Pete I want you to do this here. We’re only doing that twice, not three times. Stu, you drop out here. David, how about a little counter-melody here.’ And he’d play all the parts on his mandola. And we’d say, ok give us fifteen minutes but John would say, no let’s do it right now. He was like a whirlwind. Some of the stuff he came up with was really simple and other things were a lot more complicated. He’s just an incredible musician.”

How did Moira Smiley become involved? “We’d known Moira for quite a while,” Brewer said. “I was part of a Celtic Christmas tour about four years ago with storyteller Tomaseen Foley. Then later we ran into her at one of those booking conferences. She sings with a group called Voco.” Haworth noted that her singing brings another dimension to the band and gives him a break from the singing duties. They recalled that one song, I’ll Weave my Love a Garland, didn’t appear until the night before they finished recording.

Brewer took up the story. “John decided we needed one more song. So we sat around until two in the morning, as Moira kept throwing out all these songs, and John kept saying no, that’s not going to work. She dug way back into her past to come up with that one. But John’s arrangement of it is lovely, especially those dreamy chords at the beginning.” Smiley does a lovely job on I am a Youth that’s inclined to Ramble, one of those twisty songs she learned from the singing of Paul Brady. John Weed’s fiddle motif is memorable.

The album has some fine song selections. “I had come up with list of songs I wanted to do,” Haworth said. “But I was not feeling strongly about any of them. The Regular Army-O was one that I definitely liked from Mick Moloney’s O’Malley’s Block of Flats. The tune is one I remember the Dubliners doing as a song I loved called the Hot Asphalt. And Sean Doyle (John’s father) does a version called Let Mr. Maguire Sit Down.” This is one of three extra tracks available for downloading from the Molly’s Revenge website.

Haworth does a rousing turn on The Mickey Dam, from the song encyclopedia of the late Frank Harte. “John suggested listening to Frank’s recordings which are jammed full of great songs. He did a lot of the arranging for that song and the tune at the end is one David came up with.”

Air Tune is a completely infectious Liz Carroll classic. It opens with catchy alternating fiddle and whistle, and luscious layers of accordion and uilleann pipes fill out the arrangement. “That’s a great tune. Liz’s version is faster than the way we played it. It goes down really well, a kind of palette cleanser on the album.”

The Miss McGuinness set is another nice change of pace. Haworth explained, “The first tune, Paddy Taylor’s, is one we put together for an earlier album, Raise the Rafters. We were trying to get Cillian Vallely (Lunasa) to play on it. But it didn’t work out, so we carried it forward for the next time. John Weed has been going over to Donegal for the Frankie Kennedy School for a few years and bringing back all these Northern fiddle tunes. There’s two on this track and more on Northern Shore.”

Emmet’s Hedgehog is a set sourced from Johnny Connolly, Niall Vallely and David Munnelly, musicians who know a thing or two about melodies. Haworth agreed, “I’d love to get them all playing with us.” Three’s a Crowd is a rollicking set of hornpipes and slip jigs with pipes in front but the band not far behind. The last tune is another terrific Brewer composition.

Murphy’s Greyhound starts with a slow, sweet interplay between guitar and whistle. Then it builds, propelled by Mason’s rhythmic guitar work, into a phenomenal groove with the whole ensemble getting in on the act. Brewer said that Stu must have been anxious as a guitarist to have Doyle producing. “I know if a highland piper was producing, I’d have been sweating bricks. So there had to be a lot of pressure on Stu but he really rose to the challenge.”

Brewer is a live-wire performer on stage and I asked if he had ever whacked Pete with the pipes? “Actually I have, and I’ve come close at other times,” he confessed. “We’re pretty much a full contact band. I live for the performance, so I really get into, rocking out. I get into a zone where I don’t really know what is going on around me. I’ve stood on John’s fiddle and knocked things over.”

I’ve never heard a band where the Scottish pipes are so well integrated into the sound, especially in concert. How do you do it? “On the technical side, I use a pick-up on the pipes. It’s a saxophone mic that clips onto the chanter. I don’t mic the drones because they carry well anyhow. It’s got a very smooth sound. Another factor, is a lot of pipers that come from the competitive side of piping use a really hard reed that make the pipes sound very loud. I don’t like that much and I use a softer reed that gives a sweeter tone and helps it blend with the fiddle a little better.”

Haworth noted that it can be challenging blending in the pipes. “But I’ve always thought of the bagpipes as being an extraordinary instrument from the emotional perspective..” Brewer laughed, “That’s why we get along so well.” I wondered if the pipe influence accounts for the Scottish fondness for beautiful and robust tunes. “I think it’s the whiskey,” Haworth commented.

They’ll be sampling some of that whiskey or whisky in January when making their first appearance at the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow. They are one of the bands invited to play at the great annual mid-winter musical extravaganza. Making new connections with a wider audience is an exciting prospect for a band that is passionate and deeply engaged with the music. The Western Shore is an impressive calling card. This bunch of out-of-the-closet musicologists are a great bet for a seriously joyous, masterly musical experience.

2008-10-30T21:15:00.000-07:00

Five Takes…
Albums recently in my ears

Ships in the Forest, Karen Casey, Compass Records

Karen Casey’s artistic growth continues unabated on this new album produced by Donald Shaw. Her voice has been a unique instrument from her early days with Solas –lofty, soulful, pure and passionate. Caoimhin Vallely, on piano, performs some genetic engineering on a number of tunes, ably assisted by the cut and thrust of Kate Ellis’ cello. Black is the Colour is reworked as torch-song. Casey calls it the Nina Simone version and Vallely works the left hand like a Dave McKenna disciple. Anti-war songs get the royal treatment from Joni Mitchell’s The Fiddle and the Drum to Johnny I Hardly Knew You with a shivery concertina motif from Niall Vallely.

In The Moment, Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas, Culburnie Records

If there was such a thing as crossover in this hyper fragmented music market, this album would have gone platinum by now. It’s stuffed with smart and joyous melodies, many of them original compositions. The interplay of the fiddle and cello is a tonic for the ears and balm for the musical soul. Fraser is a key node in the Scottish and Irish music scene in Northern California –a lot of the best players have passed through his sphere of influence. Haas, for example, was one of his many students at his Valley of the Moon Fiddle Camp.

There’s nothing parochial about the music on this album. Two tunes were written on airplanes, the bouncy & spiky Between and the smooth and sinuous Giga de Tenerife –written on the inside of a certain kind of bag found on flights. Another was written by the pair in Salamanca (a city already attached to a famous Irish melody). The jaunty, jovial Trip to Pakistan written by Niall Kenny is another exotic adventure. John McDonald’s is a beautiful tune Fraser heard on a recording by the band Ossian where the cello tiptoes soundly around the fiddle lead. The cello anchors all of these tunes but inspires flights of Fraser fancy on the fiddle.

The album closes with Rob Fraser's Welcome to San Francisco, a tune Fraser wrote for his father on one of his visits to San Francisco to play bass with the San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers (a group of about hundred players that Fraser typically introduces as “.. looking like an orchestra but it won’t last.”) It’s a fine upstanding melody that I think would make a great anthem for a future united Ireland. Let’s face it, we’ll never agree on one within the island, so why not take a masterly muscular tune written by a Scotsman who lives in Northern California: it’s a diasporic delight.

Spooked, Marley’s Ghost, Sage Arts Records

Often described without hyperbole as a one-band music festival, Marley’s Ghost reach exalted heights on this album. The band, Ed Littlefield Jr., Mike Phelan, Dan Wheetman and Jon Wilcox, have played together for more than 20 years and it shows in their playing and camaraderie. For them, genre’s just another word for plenty left to choose. There are gospel songs and spirituals delivered with secular zeal, some cowboy and western ballads, a(nother) Dylan song, some old-timey Americana, and a campy but moving tribute to Johnny Hallyday by Wilcox. Produced by Van Dyke Parks, with art by R. Crumb, it’s a rich, filling and spicy gumbo.

Changing Trains, Mozaik, Compass Records

Andy Irvine and Donal Lunny go back a long way in Irish music –you could say they were the backbone of the music revival over the last 40 years. The opening song, O’Donoghues, chronicles the early years with Irvine’s characteristic loving and inclusive lyrics. It includes this revelation about the late great Ronnie Drew:
We thought he was Dublin through and through / But he blew in from Dun Laoghaire.

In Mozaik, these stalwarts are joined by Bruce Molsky from the U.S., Nikola Parov from Hungary and Rens van der Zalm from Holland to create a cross-cultural powerhouse. Their first album in 2004 was called Live from The Powerhouse, recorded on tour in Australia. This one takes up where they left off, exploring all the byways of their various traditions.

Andy Irvine is an unrepentant romantic. His summer love song The Wind Blows Over the Danube is a lyrical novella with operatic moments. The Humours of Parov is a Lunny tune exploiting the mysteries of 9/8 time with the Bulgarian daichevo horo and the Irish slip jig, Lunny, who is already the Jimmy Carter of Irish music, also sings on this album and a fine, rough-hewn trad voice he has too.

Across the Black River, Kevin Burke & Cal Scott, Loftus Records

Fiddler Kevin Burke has had many wonderful musical partners over the years: the late, great Micheal O’Domhnaill, Ged Foley, and his bandmates in The Bothy Band, Patrick Street, and the Celtic Fiddle Festival. His collaboration on this album with composer and multi-instrumentalist Cal Scott brings a new dimension to his musical teamwork.

I had the great pleasure of seeing Burke and Scott perform last summer in Limerick at Dolan’s. It was a magical evening with some of the most seamless duet playing I’ve ever witnessed. Scott’s guitar dances around the fiddle parts, leading, filling, following and fleshing out the melodies. They open with The Surround & The Red Stocking, quirky tunes that play right into Burke’s hands. That’s followed by the Green Fields of Woodford with Mike McGoldrick on flute paired with the delectable Seanamhac Tube Station by John Carty.

The Long Set was the first group of tunes the Scott and Burke worked on together, a 10 minute set. (Burke has at least one of the patents on long sets, check out his early recording If the Cap Fits recently re-released by Compass.) It’s a great trip, ending up in a soundscape like that occupied by Paddy Glackin & Jolyon Jackson on the classic Hidden Ground album in 1980.

Burke handles waltzes and slow airs with finesse and delicacy. Paris Nights and The Lighthouse Keepers Waltz, both composed by Scott, are right in Burke’s lyrical wheelhouse and he gets lovely support from Johnny B Connolly on accordion. A Bill Monroe tune, Evening Prayer Blues, gets a forty shades of bluegrass treatment. The album closes with For Johnny, a lovely tune written by Phil Cunningham as a tribute to his late brother Johnny, another of Burke’s partners over the years.

Links to other recent reviews:
Far from the Hills of Donegal, Oisin McAuley & Honk Toot Suite, Eamonn Coyne & Kris Drever

Mischief, Beoga

2008-10-26T14:37:00.000-07:00

Outside the Box: Billy McComiskey delivers a beauty of an album

Published in Irish Music Magazine, November 2008

Billy McComiskey’s new album Outside the Box is graced with two glowing profiles, one by Earle Hitchner and the other by Mick Moloney. Those are pretty hard acts to follow –Hitchner has been writing with elegance and insight about Irish traditional music for years (in the Irish Echo and the Wall Street Journal) and Moloney chooses his words as precisely and expressively as he picks the banjo. Moloney plays on the album along with Liz Carroll, Joanie Madden, Athena Tergis, Matthew Bell, Brendan Dolan, McComiskey’s son Sean and Myron Bretholz who compiled the tasty liner notes. The ubiquitous John Doyle produced it –serious talent never sleeps, apparently.

The first striking feature of the album is the very big sound, almost like a ceili band. How did he achieve that with just a few players –no more than five on any track? “I think it just happened that way playing with musicians of that caliber. The accordion tends to lend itself to that sound, that fourth voice. And John Doyle is just such a huge musical presence. I don’t know that I’d describe it as a ceili band sound. That is a very distinct sound and I love it. In fact, we had our first ceili band from Maryland going over to compete in an All-Ireland competition this year. They are all young players, a whole other generation, it’s just marvellous.”

I asked him for a quick tutorial on the button versus the piano accordion? “The piano accordion is actually an American instrument. The nice thing about accordions is they vary from culture to culture. If you go to Switzerland, the left side sounds like a little tuba. In Mexico, there’s no left side on it at all. If you go down to Louisiana and hear the box played there, they only have this one diatonic scale so you don’t really play in key but in modes of that key. What the Irish discovered, pretty much by accident, is that if you have two diatonic scales beside each other a half a tone apart, it lends itself to the phrasing of the music. What I play is called a B/C accordion. It makes the music sound Irish. So accordions tend to make the music sound like where the player is from.”

The piano accordion came about when someone got fed up with all the different keys and tunings of the box, McComiskey said. Putting a piano keyboard on the accordion solved those problems. “There are some fine players on the piano accordion in the Irish tradition. Alan Kelly in Ireland is a beautiful player and Jimmy Keane in Chicago. What the very good piano accordion players do is they play like a button player does, giving the music a great lift.”

I asked McComiskey to tell us a bit about the late Sean McGlynn, a big influence on him. Are there any recordings of him? “Sean was from Tynagh in Co Galway. There are a couple of field recordings on collections of Irish music from the East Coast from Rounder Records. There’s a track with two hornpipes on the new CD I got right off that recording. And there’s a set called The Colliers that I first heard him play on accordion at his house while I played piano with him. Sean was famously studio shy. He was just not inclined that way, he was a musician’s musician. I remember he came back from Ireland once after meeting the great Finbar Dwyer and I asked how did you get on with him. All he talked about was what a great player Dwyer was. It dawned on me that he didn’t even bother playing a tune for Finbar.”

McGlynn lived in Boston, then moved to Long Island where McComiskey first met him as a youngster. He remembers New York in the 1960s being inundated with Irish musicians, some of the greatest Irish musicians of all time. In time, McComiskey moved on from Brooklyn and got involved in an emerging Irish music scene in Washington DC. He played in a trio know as the Irish Tradition with fiddler Brendan Mulvihill and singer-guitarist Andy O’Brien.

He met his future wife Ann Caskey at a wedding in DC and relocated to Baltimore, her hometown. What was the Irish music scene like when he arrived? “There was one Irish musician when I arrived a man named Paul Levin who played the pipes and flute. He was Jewish and he loved the Chieftains and the Bothy Band. He was a gentleman, a scholar, and a schoolteacher.” He helped a lot of people get into the music, McComiskey said, including Martin O’Malley, the current governor of Maryland. “Paul helped him get his band together, O’Malley’s March. My son Sean plays with them now.” Levin was also one of piper Eliot Grasso’s first teachers. Baltimore now has one of the finest Irish music scenes in North America, according to McComiskey. “It takes an awful long time for that to come about. It has to start at some point. There's been an Irish community in Baltimore for quite some time. But the Irish Traditional Music Community is relatively new, not more than thirty years old. Irish immigrant musicians of years gone by were more inclined to move to New York, Boston or Chicago where the musicians congregated.”

Many of the tracks on the album are McComiskey’s compositions. I asked about writing new melodies in a tradition with an abundance of good tunes. “Daithi Sproule kind of simplified it for me one time. He said, you make up a tune and you learn it. Then you realize that some part of the tune sounds like another one, and you disguise that.” Sounds like a CIA approach to writing music, I mused. McComiskey finds it gratifying how new tunes start to get picked up and played by other musicians. “I know this flute player, Martin McCann from Co Tyrone, an Irishman who learned to play music in Maryland. He went back and forth to Ireland and he came back one year and told me about this tune being played by flute players called The Flowers of Brooklyn. This was something I’d made up years ago and I’d put it in an oddball key, E flat or such. But the flute players were all playing in D or G.” He also mentioned the time he and Liz Carroll were listening to a session in Ennis jammed with fine young musicians. Every so often during the night, Liz would go “Ohh, they’re playing my tunes.”

The album opens with Keogh’s and Maggie Lynns’, a fine set of reels with a shimmery rhythm. Grainne’s Grace is an extremely beautiful lullaby with Athena Tergis on a 5-string violin. The Ballinakill/The Broken Bridge hornpipes set has that classic two-thump piano intro. McComiskey’s son Sean plays on that track with an accordion that his father used on his first solo record many moons ago, Makin’ the Rounds. Brendan Dolan is the piano player on this and a few other tracks and McComiskey says he is a magnificent young musician, and a great ensemble player.

The last track, Frances Keegan/The Ring Finger/The Maid I Ne’er Forgot has a lot going on. McComiskey goes head-to-head with John Doyle for speed, power & energy –a very impressive display. “That’s a kicker,” said McComiskey. “It’s just on the edge of my comfort zone, right in the groove where you can feel the difference between a Volkswagen and a Porsche. We’re really starting to pull away. John’s a bit of a genius, and brilliant to work with.”

McComiskey is very pleased with the album. “I really like that rich sound you were talking about. I wasn’t interested in making a vanity recording. I wanted the music to sound as I hear it. I was in no rush to make it. Once John had approached me about making an album, the support kind of fell into place.” He is one of those real musicians with a day job so he needed some funding and grant support. “You don’t achieve that kind of quality without some help and support and I’m very grateful for all the help that came my way.”

McComiskey is absolutely a musician’s musician and on this album he rises to the occasion with fiery grace and soulful spirit, spurred on by the best of musical company. He may be outside the box but he is firmly ensconced in the Irish tradition.

Hayes and Cahill –Recalibrating the tradition

2008-10-23T16:11:00.000-07:00

Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill have been at the very center of the Irish music zeitgeist for many years. Their new studio album, Welcome Here Again (Compass/Green Linnet, GLCD 1233) consolidates their position at the heart of the tradition. Their first record in nine years has been patiently awaited by admirers. For most fans, the absence of a recent recording is no great burden –provided you can see them perform live once or twice a year. Their approach to the music and the business feeds latent Buddhist traits in us all.

There has been a recent trend towards relatively unadorned, stripped down melody playing. Donal Clancy’s sweet and simple acoustic guitar album Close to Home (Compass Records) from 2005 was the first on my radar. Across the Black River (Loftus Music) by Kevin Burke & Cal Scott and In the Moment (Culburnie Records) by Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas from 2007 are ripe with rich, robust and original melodies. Even Lunasa, masters of the well-turned set, pared back a few of their favorite tunes to the bare essentials on the recent album, The Story So Far (also on Compass). Welcome Here Again is in that same mold.

I asked Hayes and Cahill if this was a trend they had noted when I interviewed them before their performance at the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, California on April 10, 2008, the second of their two concerts at this venerable venue. Hayes demurred at the notion that they were picking up on some common vibe but he responded in this way: “In the end of the day, no matter how many twists and turns this music goes through, no matter how many different directions, it comes back to the basics again. I think it has to do that every now and again. Especially with the younger musicians, I’m finding that too. The younger generation of players are quite happy to get into the meat of the tunes. It’s good because the real strength of the music is in the melodies, in the actual written music that we have.”

The status of their album has been a standing question between Hayes and I in recent years. Could he recall when they started work on the recording? “We did each track bit by bit over a few years. There was no plan, really. And if you don’t have a big plan you have to bite it off in small chunks. So, some of it goes back a long way. I liked those little things but you put as much work into those tiny little pieces as you would into an extended set. And I eventually gathered them all together a month or two before Compass wanted them and said: For once I want to hear how these tracks sound all together. And, I was quite surprised that it all hung together very well as a record.”

And what were they hoping to achieve with the sound on the album? “We wanted to sound like what we do. We didn’t want to change our core musical identity. And we also didn’t want to reproduce any of the other albums. We didn’t want to do something that wasn’t fundamentally traditional either. I didn’t want to depart from that world. So even though there isn’t a huge amount of change in the album, yet it took a good deal of effort to nudge it an inch or two in a slightly different direction. Ultimately, with all the efforts, I think you come back to trying to get to the heart of the tune. And sometimes you have to just play them. It’s a question of can you reveal them, more than what can you do with them."

Hayes used a tuned-down fiddle and the viola on some of the tracks and it gives great textural depth to the recording. How did that come about? “I have a fiddle tuned down. When I was younger, I used to try anything to explore the different sounds. And when I tuned it down, I just loved the tone of the instrument. It was very sweet and warm and that sound when you’re playing is very encouraging. It inspires you itself. Plus traditionally, in Baroque music, instruments were tuned down. So the fiddle isn’t as loud but it resonates more, right up close. I enjoy playing it. Half the time I didn’t know which fiddle I’d pick up to play a particular tune.”

How did they deal with the challenges of playing tracks from a studio album in live performance? “Our live performance is sort of it’s own thing. Whatever happens, happens. They go a certain way. The live show doesn’t vary hugely from night to night, it kind of gradually changes. No two nights are the same –I might like it to be- but some tune will fly and another one won’t. There’s not much you can do about that. You have to feel it out every time.”

“And you have to do it that way for two reasons,” Cahill added. “One, there’s only two of us, so you’re very exposed up there. And if you don’t let it flow, and get in the habit of doing that, you run the risk of becoming your own tribute band –sounding like somebody doing a version of Hayes and Cahill.”

Hayes said that a lot of material from the album has slipped out of the live show but, happily, that was not the case at the Freight. A number of their extended sets were anchored by some of the sinuous slow airs: The Dear Irish Boy and The Wind Swept Hill of Tulla. One of the new pleasures of Hayes & Cahill live from now will be noting how they turn these gorgeous tunes –savored solo on the album- into new milestones in the sets.

I’ve always wondered how they prepare for concerts. Cahill responded: “You have to have a framework and you have to keep it in your head. I think of it as being like one of those chairs you need to assemble –you can put the screws in place but don’t tighten them. Because if you do, it may not fit and you’ll end up with one leg hanging too high in the air. Each piece has to work like that.”

The tune that really captivated me from early listening is Coleman’s March. It’s an elegant tune with one magical, mysterious turn –like a flash of O’Carolan in a Moore’s melody. I asked about the part and the tune: “It’s almost a repeat but not quite. I’ve found it’s easy to screw it up on the night –did I play that part or not? I found a song version of the tune called Going to Mass Last Sunday in Northern Ireland. There is some version of it in old timey American fiddle playing. But where we heard it was on an old 78 of Michael Coleman, and it was a B-side or something. It was a real jaunty melody that stuck in my head but at the same time I could never imagine us playing it like that, in strict march time. So we stretched it out a bit.”

The melody got a full workout during the Freight & Salvage Fiddle Festival in August when Hayes & Cahill played with some of their favorite string co-conspirators, Natalie Haas on cello, Alasdair Fraser and Bruce Molsky on fiddles. Martin opened with his stretched out variation, everyone joined in and then Molsky supplied the old-timey version. It was a show-stopper in an evening full of fiddle highlights.

The Windswept Hill of Tulla is a master class in High Lonesome playing, it’s almost painfully beautiful. Where did that come from? “It’s a grand old time waltz. You might have danced to it years ago. We played around with it, changed the phrasing and it grew into something completely different, more of a minor type of thing.” This tune is a delightful example of something precisely described by Micheal O’Suilleabhain: “..there are tunes which are dance tunes –which have a metre-- but the musicians are able to pull the rug on the rhythm and it collapses into a slow air.” (Irish Times, June 4, 2008).

This is a track along with The Galtee Hunt and The High Jig where Cahill takes minimalist accompaniment to new heights. His playing becomes a sub-sonic shadow to Hayes’ fiddle on Mulqueen’s. It’s an amazing musical symbiosis. In their collaboration, it often seems like Cahill has the map in his head but Hayes knows the roads and backroads and the negotiated journey is always worthwhile and wondrous.

Their playing is often marked by transcendent moments where Hayes seems to enter an all-consuming physical state while Cahill goes to some still center of his being. You can almost visualize this listening to the longest set on the album, The New Post Office. (By contrast, another great Irish fiddler Kevin Burke, drifts off into a kind of rapture, as if he were having an out-of-body experience.)

Welcome Here Again is a study in the riches that remain to be mined in the Irish traditional canon. Hayes and Cahill are refining the state of traditional music with this extended exposition of the Less is More principle. This is quantum music played with a bonsai sensibility, centrifugal explorations of notes and the spaces between, pulsing with possibility.