Sea change for Celtic Thunder after Damian McGinty’s big ‘Glee’ win

Emmet Cahill

The new fame that Damian McGinty is enjoying on The Glee Project begs the question -- will the youngest bird leave the nest of the wildly popular Celtic Thunder show?

I’m not sure how that will play out, but the show has endured the departure of some players and the addition of new members over the last year.

Emmet Cahill, fresh from his win as the 2010 John McCormack bursary for the most promising young tenor, and recognition as most promising young singer at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, has joined the ensemble.

He has been a multiple prizewinner at the National Feis Ceoil singing competition in Ireland. Cahill is 20 years old and hails from Mullingar, Co. Westmeath.

He starts his Celtic Thunder journey on the recently released Heritage with his rendition of a Phil Coulter song “Kindred Sprits,” which Phil Coulter, musical director of the program, wrote especially for him.

Cahill also steps up to join Damian, George, and Keith in the fast-paced traditional classic song “Galway Girl.”

Neil Byrne is a talented vocalist and musician who began his affiliation with Coulter after a mutual friend invited him to play at a function for Coulter. He began working with Coulter and was honored when asked to play bass guitar in his backing band.

From here he was picked to record backing vocals for the Celtic Thunder debut DVD, and subsequently play lead guitar in the live show. Since then he has toured America and Canada extensively with the show. He shows off his guitar skills in a dueling guitar number “Whiskey in the Jar” with Keith Harkin.

Celtic Thunder promises a fall tour called “Storm,” a compelling show that tells the story of a land struggle and cultural differences through the vibrant dynamic of musical theater.

The show bursts forth onto a nighttime, flame-lit scene with an energetic, highly primal dance number to an underlying Celtic beat.

“Storm” is a turbulent, raucous stand off between the darkness of gypsies, and the resolution of the settlers both fighting for the same piece of land.

Sounds like True Blood in kilts! For more information, log onto www.celticthunder.com.

Dublin (Ohio) rocks with Irish festival

I’m back to work writing, but I don’t feel rested. In fact, I need another vacation after spending the weekend at the Dublin Irish Festival in Dublin, Ohio.

In fact, as I type this, I am a mile above the earth on a plane ride home and I have just asked the stewardess for band-aids for my blistered feet.

I am not joking. For 24 years, the first weekend in August has been reserved for what is now the world’s second largest Irish celebration. Think of an Irish party genetically engineered into the cotton candy of a state fair and you start to get the vibe of this unique weekend.

More than 100,000 guests crowd seven stages to see 65 acts and more than 535 performers. Getting to the stages means wading through a sea of Irish and Celtic vendors, food merchants, and craftsmen.  I know this will sound like a cliché, but there is truly something for everyone.

Covering everything that transpires over more than a half dozen stages (never mind the half dozen tents dedicated to spontaneous Irish seisiuns and storytelling) is impossible; ingesting it all is akin to drinking from a fire hose.

I attempted it nonetheless and was promptly rewarded with two blisters on each foot. Yet another hardship that the Pulitzer Prize committee will overlook, but I’m not bitter!

In these pages I have railed numerous times about the bland, unimaginative entertainment offered by Irish festivals I have attended throughout this fine country.  I mean, how many versions of “Fields of Athenry” and “No, Nay, Never” can a human being endure in one day?

Hats off to this festival committee in Ohio.  They had a fantastic assortment of music for every palette along with the standard fare that are such crowd pleasers.
Here’s an example of something you wouldn’t see anywhere else. A totally unique presentation in Celtic music was given by Robert Mouland, who performed on a number of period and antique instruments. These include the cláirseach (wire strung harp), the baroque flute (c.1795), the baroque violin (c.1760), the English guitar (c. 1770), and the union pipes (an early form of the modern uilleann pipes).

His music explores the transition from the dominance of the wire-strung harp tradition to the more modern songs and melodies that comprise the traditional music of today.

And one other thing before I get off my soap box – organizers welcomed the Scottish in this community under the Irish festival tent, and that encouraged some spirited Highland gamesmanship and drew crowds that probably wouldn’t come to a regular Irish festival. Well played! I was so inspired that I bought a kilt -- more on that next week!

The committee spared no expense assembling the cream of the crop from across the nation under the hangar-sized Celtic Rock tent. Our old pall Keith Roberts from the Young Dubliners represented the West Coast, and his band delighted the crowd with a rarity -- they played their classic album With All Due Respect: The Irish Sessions in its entirety.

His voice ragged from the road, Keith gave everything he had and the band matched him as he ran through a furious set that included “Tell Me Ma,” “McAlpines Fussiliers,” “Streams of Whiskey” and Weila Wallia.” In an impossible feat, the Dubs claimed Shane MacGowan’s “A Pair of Brown Eyes” as their own and have created a version that far eclipses the original. Hear it for yourself by logging onto youngdubliners.com.

The white hot music continued with a paint-peeling set by Philadelphia’s Barleyjuice.  Kyf Brewer has an elegantly wasted look to him, a cross between Bruce Springsteen and Keith Richards if you could squeeze the two of them into the same kilt.

The band barnstormed through their catalog that included “Whiskey Maid,” the title track to their brilliant album (and Irish Voice album of the year) Skulduggery Street, the lonesome waltz “Prettiest Girl at the Fair,” and the mischievous “Rocky Road to Dublin.”

The set highlight was “Weekend Irish,” a caustic track that pokes fun at the cheesy Irish festival rituals of drinking green beer and wearing cheap plastic shamrock necklaces that are made in China.

One of my favorite acts of the weekend was Goitse, a group formed by students of the traditional music and dance at the University of Limerick that combines traditional melodies, modern rhythms and new compositions to create a sound that is vaguely jazzy and definitely Irish!

Áine McGeeney is a vibrant fiddle player and a gal that could give the Corrs a run for their money in the looks department. She has a sweet voice that some may recognize from her time touring with the Lord of the Dance show.

She is joined by James Harvey, who has claimed four All-Ireland banjo titles in a row and a further three on the mandolin, Tadhg Ó Meachair, a gifted keyboardist, bodhran player Colm Phelan, and multi-instrumentalist Conal O’Kane from Philadelphia.

The band meshed well together and delighted the crowd with funny stories from their road trips. For more information on the band, log onto www.goitse.ie and check out their YouTube and Myspace links while you are at it! Mark my words: this is one to watch!

To beat the heat, I retreated to the shade of the Whiskey and Dart tent. You wouldn’t think those things go well together and you would be wrong!
Whiskey sommelier Robert Sickler walked us through six shots of Bushmills finest. Drinkers got an education on single malts and why whiskey manufacturers borrow their barrels from bourbon and sherry makers to get those smooth fruit and vanilla textures.

We were treated with spirited Scotch-Irish bagpiping and sing-alongs of traditional Irish and Scottish ditties with each sip. I could have stayed there all night, but I let my liver talk me into taking a rest and checking out Liz Carroll’s spirited tent at the Dublin stage.

She is a fiddler without peer who charmed the crowd with her nervous schoolgirl-like banter.  With a bow from her dancer, the roadies wheeled a pair of Irish harps onstage.

A radiant Moya Brennan emerged with her band in tow, which included daughter Ashling Jarvis. With her high cheekbones, spiked hair and alluring dark eyes, Jarvis resembled Chrissie Hynde in her Pretenders heyday as she strummed her guitar and added honeyed harmonies to her mother’s legendary voice.

The First Lady of Celtic Music was in fine form, pleased as punch to show off her great new disc, Voices and Harps. She recorded the album with Cormac de Barra, who anchored the band through a set that included “Down by the Sally Gardens,” “She Moved through the Fair” and “Harry’s Game.”  The interplay of the two harps was truly spellbinding and a highlight of this festival.

“Cormac and I have been working together for seven or eight years,” Brennan says of her musical partnership.

“He’s the best Irish harp player without a doubt and we’re just such pals. We started to work in my studio and before we knew it, we had an album.” Seeing the easy musical chemistry between them was a real thrill!

Dressed in matching black hats, Ray Ban sunglasses and punk ska attitude, Chicago’s the Tossers shook the Celtic Rock tent to the rafters with a furious set that included tracks from their excellent release, On a Fine Spring Evening. They mixed old standards like “Rocky Road to Dublin” with originals like “Katie at the Races” and “Teehans.”

The band has been touring with Flogging Molly and revealed during a backstage conversation that they are in pre-production for a new album.

The Dublin Irish Festival will be celebrating its 25th anniversary next year, and the festival organizers are promising to bring the party to new heights to mark the occasion. That gives you 50 weeks to set forth a plan to be there!
You will not want to miss this! Now excuse me -- I must take a vacation from my vacation now!

Moya Brennan busier than ever

Cormac DeBarra and Moya Brennan

When you’re known as the First Lady of Celtic Music and you live on an island so rich in sonic heritage, you can imagine how full your dance card can get. That’s the case with Moya Brennan, sister of Enya, lead singer of Clannad, and partner in an endless parade of projects.

“I think I’m getting worse in terms of getting involved in too many things,” Brennan says with a laugh. “ I love music and I just love getting involved in this.

“I think it improves me as a person, and I bring my realm to whatever the project is as opposed to shying away from something that scares me. It opens my eyes to new things.”

Her latest project is Harps and Voices, a gorgeous collection of songs driven by the brilliant harp work of Cormac DeBarra, a member of Brennan’s touring band and a much-sought after producer and player that has worked with the likes of Ashley Davis.

The intoxicating combination of Brennan’s ethereal voice and phrasing with the rich tones of an Irish harp is sheer joy. “She Moved Through the Fair” and “The Streets of Derry” are just some of the gorgeous songs on Harps and Voices.

“Cormac and I have been working together for seven or eight years,” she says. “He’s the best Irish harp player without a doubt and we’re just such pals. We started to work in my studio and before we knew it, we had an album.

“John Reynolds, who used to be married to Sinead O’Connor, mixed it. He was so great --just came in and gave his opinion and applied himself lightly.”

Harps and Voices comes on the heels of Brennan’s album with T with the Maggies, a collaboration with Altan’s Mairéad Ní Mhaonaig and other traditional singers from Donegal.

“It is great fun -- it’s a miracle we get any playing done because we are so busy laughing,” Brennan says.
“We know each other since the seventies and it’s amazing that we haven’t done anything sooner. Myself and Mairead from Altan are busy so it’s hard to get together.

“We grew up with the same songs, we know each other so well. We didn’t want to appear like four mature women trying to be Celtic Woman on a beach of Donegal, and I don’t think it comes off that way.”

Harps and Voices is not just a winning CD, it’s also an educational movement and celebration that Brennan has spread to Ireland. She and DeBarra recently hosted a workshop and invited the public to Donegal to partake in lessons and collaborations with harpists and vocalists.

“We just had 10-15 people to keep it personal,” she says. “It’s a lovely idea to work with the songs. We had seven harps up on the stage and it was a magical moment. Some wanted harp and some wanted just the voice.
“We would love to plunk ourselves down in America or Europe. I’d love to develop this workshop concept elsewhere.”

Brennan will be coming to our shores in the coming weeks and will make stops at places like the Dublin, Ohio and Milwaukee Irish Festivals and will be joined by both DeBarra and her daughter/guitarist Aishling. For details on where these concerts will take place, log onto www.moyabrennan.com.

As if that weren’t enough on her plate, Brennan reveals that she’s gotten the old band back together, so you can call off those prayers for a Clannad reunion!

“I’m recording a Clannad album at the moment,” she says nonchalantly. “We keep saying we’re going to do it. We did a special event in January for a trad fest in Dublin. We were only meant to do one but it sold out in a few minutes so we added two more and the shows were just brilliant.

“It’s good fun and everyone is behaving. We meet again at the beginning of August to sort out everything we recorded. I’m beginning to love so many of these songs!”

Can’t wait to hear some new Clannad classics!

Barleyjuice roars in New York City - VIDEO

Barleyjuice

Barleyjuice will be rocking the Big Apple next week, a rare opportunity to see one of the most ferocious live acts working today.

The band plays in and around their native Philadelphia and points south and west, yet lead singer Kyf Brewer loves the challenge of playing in the city that never sleeps.

“New York is a beast,” he says with a laugh. “It’s very hard to get people to come out to see us and we are grateful when they do. The heat is on and there’s always extra pressure to deliver the goods  in New York. In that city, you have to compete with everything going on in that island at any given time.”

Barleyjuice’s album Skulduggery Street was named album of the year in these very pages last year, an honor bestowed on the band for crafting a brilliant Irish American rock tour through a fictional town. Brewer has been thrilled with how fans have embraced this concept album, which can sometimes spell the kiss of death for some bands (remember the KISS album The Elder? Didn’t think so…)

“The response has been really good,” Brewer says. “A lot more people got the concept of what this was about. People saw how it tied together and they saw it as a nice package.”

Seeing Barleyjuice live is a thunderous hooley altogether, with the roguish Brewer whipping his band through a mix of originals and fierce trad instrumentals.

“We just worked out the trad melody, which has been a very intense piece,” he says. “We mashed four or five obscure trad tunes together, really complex. We have a new fiddle player, Shelly Weiss, who adds a new level to us. She’s classically trained and makes the rest of us look like mooks. We have to bring our best game on.”

Brewer, an actor and voice-over artist, lends his gravel-coated pipes to the Drunken Ambassador radio program on CollegeUndergroundRadio.com, which is required listening for fans that like their Celtic music with two shots of rock!

“Drunken Ambassador is still building,” Brewer says. “We need critical mass; we need to build on the good word of mouth that the show is getting. We just got a great push from the Young Dubliners encouraging people to listen to it.

“At first I had trouble playing known songs because I had to pay royalties. The positive in that is that I get turned onto great music no one has ever heard. There’s this band called the Chelsea Kills which is great – young 17-year-old kids who sound like the Faces and the Stones.”

Barleyjuice is not to be missed! Check them out on Thursday, July 28 at Klub 45 in Times Square before they play the Great American Irish Festival in Utica, New York.

For more information, log onto www.barleyjuice.com

The cross with a prize inside

Through a confluence of events not worth getting into right now, I find myself sleeping in my parents’ bed tonight. As I peel back the covers I look up above the head board and catch a glimpse of the Last Rites Crucifix.

It’s a beautiful vintage heavy walnut with a brass Jesus hanging in agony, as is the custom. Like a box of Cracker Jacks, our Savior is hiding a prize inside! But this is a prize you don’t want to open anytime soon.

When you grab the base of His feet and slide him up the cross, a small compartment reveals itself with a pair of candles, a small vial of holy water, and a yellowed instruction sheet that guides the reader through the sacrament of Last Rites.

Ghastly is the word that comes to mind as I inspect this -- it’s like the Grim Reaper’s utility belt. I can’t imagine a circumstance where I’d get to use this.

God forbid I wake up one day and my wife is cold to the touch beside me. I’m sure I’ll be wrestling with shock and nausea over having slept with a dead body all night.

Necrophilia ain’t my bag and I’m certain I’ll be busy in the shower with the steam on trying to get the dead cooties off of me while I await an ambulance. I’m not going anywhere near my wife’s cold, dead forehead to make the sign of the cross with holy water, and it is now that I thank the Lord once again that she is Jewish and doesn’t believe in the cross to begin with.

For the benefit of my wife or anyone else who wanders into my bedroom and finds me cold and/or unconscious, it is my last will that you call 911 immediately and use those paddles to shock my fat, pasty white arse back to life.

Of course, modesty prevents me from sleeping in the nude, so you won’t have to worry about covering me up in any way. Now is not the time to be running around the house looking for a Bic lighter and fumbling with the candles to perform a ceremony best done by a priest!

By the looks of things, it looks like many people agree with me. I went on eBay to find out how much these things are worth, and there were pages and pages of entries for crosses never used.

I wonder aloud what my parents have to worry about? They never miss Mass, are the most decent people I know and I think the church of my youth would crumble were it not for my mother’s keen organization skills in her Rosary Society work.

I assume it is a foregone conclusion that they will be greeted with open arms in heaven and if they are not, heaven is not a place I want to be. Who am I kidding? If they don’t get in, there’s no shot for me!

Come to think of it, I’ve seen this type of cross hanging in the houses of my aunts and uncles as well. I guess this goes back to an ancient Irish custom of time being your own worst enemy when you are born or when you die.

When my kids were born my parents insisted on an immediate Baptism, lest they be taken from this earth prematurely and left with the stain of Original Sin on their souls. A worried look and furrowed eyebrow was what you got when you announced that the February baby would be christened when the weather breaks.

As for Last Rites, this cross seems to indicate that there is a rush to get things done at the end of your life as well. I always thought St. Peter would greet you with the book of your life at the pearly gates when you met your end, which makes me think that I have all the time in the world to receive Last Rites.

I am so riddled with sin that St. Peter’s gonna have plenty of material to go through before making a final judgment on where I will spend eternity!

(Mike Farragher has just released a book of humorous essays called "This Is Your Brain on Shamrocks". For more information, log onto www.thisisyourbrainonshamrocks.com.)

Luka Bloom sings for Dalai Lama

Luka Bloom

Christy Moore’s kid brother Luka Bloom has been taking higher and holier ground down under. The artist formerly known as Barry Moore, who has just returned from his second trip to Australia in two months, sung for His Holiness, the Dalai Lama.

“About 11 years ago, as I was reading a book by The Dalai Lama, I became intrigued by the story of his exile from Tibet in 1959,” he writes.

“It made me reflect on all the Tibetan people who also left, and continue to leave 52 years later. This in turn made me think of all the Irish people who were forced to leave their beloved homeland over many generations to escape oppression.”

He says it was the connection between the Irish and the Tibetan stories that inspired him to write “As I Waved Goodbye.”

During this tour he met with Aileen Barry, originally from Glanmire, Co. Cork, Lynn Bain, and Mark Howard. They had images from His Holiness's life they wished to display in a large slide show, before His Holiness spoke and asked Bloom for permission to use the song.

Since Bloom was planning a tour there, he decided to sing the song live throughout the two week set of homilies from His Holiness! So it was fine.

“Singing ‘As I Waved Goodbye' was a divine feeling,” Bloom reports. “Knowing people were watching images of His Holiness's life while hearing the song was amazing.

“As we walked off the stage, we met His Holiness. He briefly held my hand and thanked me. I thanked him. And away he went, to bring his presence, and his teachings and his life, and experience, and compassion and kindness to all these people.

“Just being in his presence for a brief moment, filled me with joy.”

Bloom’s mind might be in Australia, but his latest album is called Dreams in America, a fantastic collection of re-imagined classics. For more information, log onto www.lukabloom.com.

U2’s ‘360 Tour’ claws for sale?

U2 on tour

U2 are planning to sell at least three of their four-legged, 29,000-square-foot steel claw structures from their current tour as permanent venues of their very own.

The record-breaking tour finally comes to the tri-state area on Wednesday, July 27 at Giants Stadium before ending on July 30 in Canada following a two-year stretch on the highest-grossing tour of all time.

For anyone who has seen the show, and I would suggest you see the lads on this leg if you haven’t already done so, you will know that a key component of the tour, the alien-like claw structure, becomes part of the show itself with its pulsing lights and eye-popping special effects.

According to Billboard.com, the band is hoping to put the stage to good use after the tour's completion.

"It's certainly our intention to see these things recycled into permanent and usable ventures,” tour director Craig Evans told the magazine. "It represents too great an engineering feat to just use for (the tour) and put away in a warehouse somewhere."

It remains to be seen precisely what purpose the claws will serve, but Evans is confident that they will find a new lease of life.

"They're something you can put up on a waterfront and become an instant skyline icon,” he added. "We know that the inquiries will keep coming in.

“They can carry weights no other structure can consider, and since they're already developed and designed you can probably complete (a venue) in a one-month period instead of a two-year build period."

The band has been making some amazing music under that claw and taking chances with their set list that other big bands wouldn’t dream of doing.

They are sprinkling snippets of the music from their Spider-Man soundtrack into the set. Moviegoers watching Transformers: Dark of the Moon heard their new song “North Star” in the soundtrack, but not before 75,000 fans at the Sun Life Stadium in Miami.

No details on where to purchase this multi-million dollar slab of pop art. Maybe eBay?