The Horslips Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: In a special extended interview, Andrew Hamilton, chat Johnny Fean about the rise, fall and eventual reformation of Horslips.

Johnny Fean was the first kid in Ireland to hear The Supremes. The year was 1961 - Kennedy was in the White House, a fledgling RTÉ was getting ready for its maiden broadcast and, in the small townland of Rineanna, something special was brewing. Factories were being built; factories which needed workers and workers who needed homes, shops and family. The Clare goldrush had begun. The Feans were one of dozens or maybe hundreds of families who made their way to Shannon in 1961. They came in search of a new life and found exactly that. Foreign investment meant foreign children and, for a teenaged Johnny Fean, this meant a vast melting pot of music. “My dad was a great jazz fan and he had a lot of recordings - a lot of 78’s and old recordings. Because he worked in the airport, he used to get a lot of records from the pilots coming in from America so I had access to a lot of great stuff. I was the first-born in the family and the very early days would have been me listening to the likes of Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole as a baby,” says Johnny.

CPIArchive2009D · #110 The Horslips Podcast

The Spider John Koerner Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: On a balmy summer evening in 1959, John ‘Spider’ Koerner first turned Bob Dylan onto folk. Andrew Hamilton chats to the legendary American about life as a musical maverick and being a blues man in a folk world.

There were never fans inside the Ten O’Clock Scholar. Even in August, the Minneapolis heat would besiege the walls of the grotty student haunt, mingling and scheming with the whistling steam of endless coffees, bewitching all who entered with the twin lures of free love and marijuana. To those inside, the sun-stricken world would slowly dissolve and melt, almost becoming translucent under the weight of heat, noise and smoke. It was in this den of 1960’s Americana, that John ‘Spider’ Koerner first met Bob Dylan. Koerner, an engineering student with a talent for folk and blues riffs and a voice built to frighten, liked the young Dylan - and slowly began to introduce him into his world. Starting, of course, with the music. “I had no idea about music or anything until I went to university in Minneapolis. I was there for a year and a half as an engineering student. A friend of mine invited me up to his house to listen to some music and it was folk music. He had a few records and could play himself and it was really interesting. He loaned me his guitar and a folk music book and somehow, within a few weeks, I was able to play a few tunes. That was the beginning of it,” says Koerner. 

CPIArchive2009D · #109 The Spider John Koerner Podcast

The Red Stick Ramblers Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: Andrew Hamilton talks to Linzay Young, fiddler and head vocalist in Louisiana Cajun and swing band, The Red Stick Ramblers.

Along the clay banks of the Mississippi River, just south of Baton Rouge, the catfish still burrow in the mud. Encased in their silt-walled fortress, four sets of razor teeth await anyone - opportunist fisherman or farmer - who fancies a cheap meal. Yet for those who get lucky, the taste of the catfish is sublime. In an odd way, this treacherous standoff between man and beast is analogous to the world of Cajun music. Both wild and beautiful, comforting and dangerous, it’s something even the most experienced of musician can’t quite control, even if she wanted to. “I grew up in the Cajun area of Louisiana and I was instilled with a pride and an appreciation for the culture and the music since I was very young. It’s not just the music, it’s the whole way of life - the hunting, the cooking, the family, all of it. My folks were all country people, very very traditional and everywhere we go we try and instil a feeling of that into people. We try to let people know that it’s not just the music - it’s a whole way of life that we life,” says Linzay.

CPIArchive2009D · #108 The Red Stick Ramblers Podcast

The Clive Barnes Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: Andrew Hamilton chats to Clive Barnes about burning his musical influences and the lap-slide guitar that saved his life.

The 1990s were the decade of the Irish singer-songwriter. From Paddy Casey and David Gray (he’s wishes he was Irish, you know) to the Devlins and Damien Rice, this cult of whinging Paddies - each crawling over the other to be first to share his broken feelings with the gushing public - almost took over the world. It was a musical bubble, inflated by ego and endless hot air, pumped to within an inch of good taste. And when it finally popped, there would be no soft landing. Yet for a time, the youngsters of Ireland abandoned the rock bands which had served them so well in the past, trading their distortion pedal for a harmonica and a hard luck story. In 1999, right at the peak of the singer-songwriter mania, Clive Barnes had already smelled a rat. After trying, and failing, to make an impact doing what everyone else was doing, he decided to call it a day. He left Dublin broken, and returned to his native county to regroup. A sailor, cast on the rocks by the beguiling whingers, destitute and depressed, ready for a new way home. “I had been playing on the whole singer-songwriter scene for a while and for some reason all of that just didn’t sit too well with me. I was just getting worse and worse up there. I was pretty much destitute so I decided to move back to Wexford and have a think about things again,” says Clive. 

CpiArchive2009c · #107 The Clive Barnes Podcast

The BellX1 Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: Ahead of the launch of his second solo album, Andrew Hamilton chats to BellX1’s Dave Geraghty about the value of sunshine and the highs and lows of going it alone.

Nothing can grow without sunlight, but in the dark there is space for much to fester. From the dark recesses and hidden corners of his ultra-moody debut album Kill Your Darlings, Dave Geraghty has emerged anew, ready to step into the light. After spending much of 2007 recording in a long forgotten sub-suburban lair, the BellX1 man decided to take a different tack when putting his latest album, The Victory Dance, together. “The first album was pretty much put together in this little room that I was renting out. It was underground, there was no daylight and the toilets kept backing up. It was pretty grim and it didn’t bode very well for nice, sunny, bright energies to be flowing,” he says. “But this was totally different. It was June, we were in this lovely gaff with this great flowing lawn out the front and a river running right down beside the house. It was beautiful. And that did add to the album. I think this time I was able to share in the joy of making the record. 

CpiArchive2009c · #106 The Dave Geraghty Podcast (2009)

The Stereo MCs Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: Before the Chemical Brother and Fatboy Slim, there was Stereo MCs. Andrew Hamilton chats to Nick ‘The Head’ Hallam about birthing an entire genre and the battle with PolyGram Records which almost ended his career.

1992 was the year of Stereo MCs. After conquering the UK, and with their third album Connected selling hand over fist, the fathers of British electro hip-hop crossed the Atlantic and were welcomed with open arms. But all was about to change. The sale of Island Records to PolyGram had brought an end to the world’s first great independent record label, but it had also called a halt to the gallop of Stereo MCs. The band was too edgy, too different for PolyGram - and in the blinking of an eye their career was to enter freefall. “America was amazing. We went there so many times and played many weird gigs. I remember playing a lowriders show in Los Angeles with Hispanic people in cars jumping in the air. There were loads of Spanish rappers on the bill with us. We did some weird shows but it always worked for us somehow. It was interesting, exciting. But then it all went a bit pear-shaped, just when Island sold out to PolyGram,” says Nick.

CpiArchive2009c · The Stereo MCs Podcast

The Lightning Seeds Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: Band member, producer, solo artist — Ian Broudie has done it all. Andrew Hamilton chats to the brains behind The Lightning Seeds about the different strands to his musical bow and the conflicts that live in his musical machine.

Over 10 months, spanning 1978 and 1979, Liverpool punk band, Big in Japan, produced one EP and wrote just seven songs. As news of their breakup filtered out across Merseyside, there were no tears. In fact, few in the music fraternity batted an eyelid. Yet, it was the most important event in Liverpool’s music history since the formation of The Beatles. Big in Japan were the typical band that launched 1,000 bands: a super-group in reverse, as John Peel might have said, and from their numbers, decades of music would be forged. There was Budgie, later of The Slits and Siouxsie & the Banshees; Bill Drummond who went on to form The KLF; Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes To Hollywood; and Ambrose Reynolds of Nightmares In Wax. And then, of course, there was Ian Broudie. Along with his solo records and work under the name The Lightning Seeds, Broudie continues to launch band after band through his work as one of Britain‘s most sought after producers. In recent years, people like The Coral, The Subways and The Zutons have all received a point in the right direction from Broudie. “Producing is always a collaborative process and it’s different every time. I know that sounds vague but that’s what makes it so great - that’s why it’s an art form. That’s why I love it, I suppose. I’m a music junkie, me, I’m always listening for that new song that you just can’t stop playing and I always wish I was in that band. That’s always been the inspiration for me, both as a producer and as a record-maker myself,” he says. 

CpiArchive2009c · #104 The Lightning Seeds Podcast

The Mail Order Messiahs Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: Though separated by hundreds of miles, Mail Order Messiahs (MOM) have been making music together for eight years. Ahead of the launch of their debut album later this month, Andrew Hamilton talks to MOM frontman, Mike Liffey.

The back streets of Dublin move with their own innate tone and rhythm. From the early morning hum of traffic, to the clatter and bang of heel on cobble, the city sings itself awake each day, and lulls itself asleep at night. It’s a melting pot of sounds - some heavy and abrasive, others sweeter and more welcoming, but all providing something that is aesthetically beautiful. You see, as the Mail Order Messiahs have discovered, beauty can reside in the most unusual of places. Sometimes you can’t help but find it, even when you’ve stopped looking. “We like to use bits and pieces of sound that we record from all over the place. One day we were recording in a studio on Abbey Street in Dublin and you tend to see life in all of its wonderful forms on Abbey Street. “We really wanted to get some general street noise for a song so we set up a mic on the street, but we happened to stick the mic out there at a time when some couple seemed to be in the middle of disintegrating. It was a drug-related fight and it went on for around 15 minutes but when we listened back to it, there was something in the voices and what we had recorded. It’s hard to describe exactly what was appealing about it but we used little snippets of it on the end of the song and they seemed to work. It’s not the central part of the song but it does make it better," said Mike.

CpiArchive2009c · The Mail Order Messiahs Podcast

The Rory Grubb Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: In the end, the sea will take all of us. Andrew Hamilton chats to Clonlara singer/songwriter Rory Grubb about the release of his second album and his unwitting musician collaborations with the Atlantic Ocean.

Salt-bitten and wind whipped, the surge of white horses flows ever ashore. The night is deep, the moon’s slender shimmer a mockery of sunshine as the storm-swell devours all light and all sound. All that endures is a glimmer of gold, a tiny fragment of warmth and music from a small country cottage. The gulls, those foolish enough not to seek refuge in some sheltered inland cove, crouch together in the nooks and crannies of the old sea wall. Tonight, the Atlantic is angry. Yet inside, Clonlara singer/song- writer Rory Grubb works on unperturbed. Lost in writing and playing, the drum of the ocean is no concern of his, or so he thinks. But eventually the ocean will wear away even the strongest rock, and unannounced, begin to slowly work its way into Rory’s thoughts and words. “I didn’t realise it when it was happening but listening back to it months after, I notice this maritime feeling going through the whole record. It’s definitely there in the lyrics a lot and, to be honest, I’m not really sure how it got in there. I recorded the album in a cottage by the sea, which probably helped, and I was living beside the sea when I wrote a lot of the songs, so I suppose that’s how it got in there. When you’re seeing something every day, I guess you can’t help making these connections and drawing parallels without even realising it. It’s like it snuck in there without me realising it," he said.

CpiArchive2009c · #102 The Rory Grubb Podcast

The Declan O'Rourke Podcast (2009)

CPI Archive: Andrew Hamilton chats to Declan O’Rourke about birthing album three and slaying the beast that is writers block.

From the age of 13, when an Australian priest handed him his first guitar and said 'play', Declan O’Rourke has always had a song in his head. It was with him during his adolescent years in Australia and when he moved home to Ireland, he was accompanied on the plane by his six-string and a notebook for scribbling ideas. Through all the ups and downs, his one constant was his creativity and his ability to write. In many ways, it was his best friend - a companion who always made him feel better, a brother who would never let him down. Or so he thought. Riding high on a wave of popularity, 2008 should have been another golden year for Declan O’Rourke. From his home in Kinvara, he could survey the world and think - with some justification - that it was his for the taking. Yet just as it all seemed at its most promising, disaster struck. His friend had deserted him. “It was frustrating. It was scary actually. When you are writing all the time for 10 years - averaging about a song a month - and all of a sudden it stops, that’s tough. So you let a few months go by and call it a break and then the time since you’ve written your last song gets longer and longer," he says.


CpiArchive2009c · #101 The Declan O'Rourke Podcast

The Spiritualized Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: In a candid interview, Spiritualized frontman Jason Pierce speaks to Andrew Hamilton about his brush with death, his search for elusive music perfection and his life as a selfish musician.

In June 2005, Jason Pierce died. On stage at the Meltdown Festival, alongside Patti Smith and Kevin Shields from My Bloody Valentine, his lungs began to fill with fluid as a double pneumonia slowly took control of his body. Over the next two weeks, his heart stopped on two separate occasions as the fight for his life swayed one way, and then the other. After a mammoth struggle, the Spiritualized frontman pulled through and, just two years later, completed the band’s sixth major release, the appropriately titled ‘Song in A and E’. “It’s hard to tell really but I would say that one didn’t really influence the other at all. It seemed more like the illness was an inconvenience to the record and its completion. But it’s hard to tell how much that gap in time affected the final record. I mean, the record was all written and more or less recorded when I got sick and all I really did when I was well again was put down the parts that were already formed anyway - I had sheet music put together for string parts and horn parts which just hadn’t been recorded yet,” he says. 

CpiArchive2009c · #100 The Spiritualized Podcast

The Candi Staton Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: Though best known for a series of disco super-hits in the ‘70s and ‘80s, deep in her soul, Candi Staton has always been a gospel singer. Andrew Hamilton finds out why.

Montgomery, Alabama, 1955 - the civil rights movement simmers slowly under the surface as racial tensions begins to erupt on all sides. Yet in this cauldron of hate and fear some of the most influential music of the last hundred years is forged. Candi Staton was just 11-years-old when the boycotts began in Alabama and North Carolina. She and her sister Maggie were plucked, quite literally, from the cotton fields and whisked off for a career in music. Once free from the confines of rural Alabama, the last thing that she wanted to do was go back. “As a child I had limited knowledge in terms of music. We didn’t have any TV, we had radio back in the day when I was growing up in Alabama and my parents let me listen to three stations - the gospel station, the rhythm and blues station and the country station,” she says. “My knowledge of music was so little that my desire to sing had to be a gift from inside of me - it’s something that God put there. So I could listen to the radio and try to sing like the people who I heard and that’s how I got started. I was singing all the time and that is how I got invited to sing in church and to become a professional singer. It was so exciting - the rural part of Alabama was so boring so when we got to move around and sing in different places it was just amazing. Singing was the most exciting thing that I could ever think to do so we just got better and better at it because we didn’t want it to stop. “We got more and more invitations to sing because we thought if we didn’t we’d have to go back into the cotton fields with my father and we did not want to do that.” Throughout her mammoth career Candi Staton has produced 19 albums covering soul, R&B and disco. But, no matter what she was singing, her heart was always with her humble roots and gospel music. “It was always the foundation. It’s what I started with, it’s what I heard around the house, it’s what my mother used to sing to me,” says Candi. “I remember Bobby Womack and I used to do shows together. He was raised pretty much the same way as me and he had a little boys gospel group and I had a little girls gospel group. We would look at each across the church in the old days, make eyes with each other and mess with each other. So years later when we would get ready for tours, Bobby and I would sing gospel before we would get on the stage to sing R&B. It was just something in us that wanted to come out.” 

CpiArchive2009c · #99 The Candi Staton Podcast

The David O'Doherty Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: David O’Doherty returns West as one of the hottest properties in world comedy. Andrew Hamilton chats to the if.comedy award winner about his love hate relationship with the City of the Tribes.

Before they “got” David O’Doherty in the big comedy halls of Edinburgh, Melbourne and Montreal - the diminutive Dub was already at home in the west of Ireland. Maybe it’s something to do with the salty air coming in off the Atlantic - or more likely the higher concentration of fortified tonic wine in the drinking water - but O’Doherty has always found a welcoming home on the stages of the west. Well, almost always. It’s true that Galway was the site of O’Doherty’s first headline gig. It was also his destination (albeit, he never actually got there) for his first appearance on our TV screens as a very amateur cyclist trying to circumnavigate the N6. But Galway was also the location when a very young David O’Doherty first died on a stage - an experience which gave him more than you might expect. “One of my headlines was in Galway and it has always been special because of that but if was also where I had one of my first ever gigs outside of Dublin, back in the really early days. I played in the old Comedy Club in the GPO in Galway and I died on my ass so, so badly. If we are talking about the glory moment when it all goes well, there were also moments of total, total darkness - sitting in the Imperial Hotel thinking ‘what the hell am I doing’. So really early on Galway was burned into my consciousness. I don’t know did I say to myself that night that one day I would be back and not die on my ass but I’ve always enjoyed going back ever since. I think at a time around 2002 and 2003 when people weren’t really getting me in other parts of the country, people were getting me in Galway.” 

CpiArchive2009c · #98 The David O'Doherty Podcast

The Pearse McGloughlin Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: Andrew Hamilton chats to singer-songwriter Pearse McGloughlin, the driving force behind Walkperson.

After serving his apprenticeship in bands like Socialite and Thy Swan Army, Pearse McGloughlin has decided to go it alone. Well, sort of alone. For the last number of years, Pearse has been working and making music with an ever-growing and evolving set of musicians, loosely tied together under the moniker Walkperson. So where exactly does Walkperson stop and Pearse McGloughlin begin? “It’s an interesting question really. For the Lahinch gig it will be me going under my own name, but there are different musicians who will be with me for some of the other gigs. Walkperson is a fairly loose term. I swing between being Pearse McGloughlin and being Walkperson. At the moment I’m Walkperson but at other times there would be a few different talented musicians involved. It’s hard to say sometimes where Walkperson stops and Pearse McGloughlin begins,” he says.

CPIArchive2009B · #97 The Pearse McGloughlin Podcast

The Julie Feeney Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: Renaissance woman: Composer, conductor, actor, artist and singer-songwriter - Julie Feeney has a solid claim to be the Renaissance woman of the Irish arts scene. Andrew Hamilton chats to the Choice Music Prize-winning Galway woman about her latest album and finding her classical feet in a rock and pop world. 

I think Kermit the Frog said it best - sometimes, it’s just not easy being green. While the similarities between our Kermie and Julie Feeney might not be immediately apparent, the two, surprisingly, do share some common ground.
Like Kermit, Feeney is a bit of a one-off. As a classically trained musician, composer and vocalist, her CV might well have been rejected from rock and pop circles with one word stamped across the cover letter - overqualified. In the recent past, you see, classical and pop music have had a slightly stodgy relationship. And like young teens at a disco, they have stared at each other from afar, each unsure of what to make of the other or what, if anything, to do next. There, in the middle of that dance floor, stands Julie Feeney. “I have always felt in an odd place. I’m like the girl who was really, really tall or someone who is tiny, or whatever. It’s about getting to that point when you can say to yourself, this is actually the way I am. I’m 6 foot 7; that’s the way I came into the world,” she says.
 

CPIArchive2009B · The Julie Feeney Podcast

Fish Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: Believe the Untruth: Jerry Fish and the Mudbug Club are back and ready for road. Andrew Hamilton chats to Gerry Whelan, aka Jerry Fish, about commando recording, herbal remedies and why he likes working with inferior musicians. 

There was a moment in 2002 when the considerable musical talents of Gerry Whelan were almost lost to the world. After 14 years and three albums, the big UK or US break that would have transformed An Emotional Fish into a household name seemed all but lost, floundering somewhere over an ever more distant horizon. Yes, it wasn’t always easy to be An Emotional Fish. Their early thunder was stolen when they became unwitting scapegoats of a BBC Radio 1 corruption scandal. Then, when Whelan and Co finally managed to re-gather some momentum, their image was tarnished by their constant labelling in the media as U2 impersonators. Add to this a three-year legal wrangle with their German record company and what you have is more than a few reasons to call it a day. But music has a way of pulling you back in, just when you think you’ve finally broken free. “I think the catalyst for Jerry Fish was the birth of my daughter. With An Emotional Fish, it wasn’t so much a full-stop as a series of commas and then a full-stop. An Emotional Fish came to an end because of a dispute with a record label and being in court for three years or more. So that was a mess. It was hard to know could we go ahead and make another record,” says Gerry.

CPIArchive2009B · #95 The Jerry Fish Podcast

The Nell Bryden Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: As she returns from her second tour of duty entertaining the troops in Iraq, Andrew Hamilton chats about anything but politics with American country star Nell Bryden.

Outside the wind blows and the sand stirs. As the surprising cold of a spring Iraqi evening descends on the desert, the temperature inside the large makeshift canvas tent is beginning to rise. Ali Al Salem is a military airport and, like most military airports in this region, it is filled with American soldiers on their way to or from Afghanistan and Iraq. The faces in the crowd are well worn, altered by what they have already seen or misshaped by the worry of what they are about to see. But tonight is different, tonight is all about letting go. Clearly starting to enjoy themselves, the soldiers begin to sing along. On stage, Brooklyn girl Nell Bryden is starting to enjoy herself too. Caught up in the emotional release and the energy of the moment, her mind races with excitement. ‘Louder, louder, I must play louder - I want everyone to hear.’ But the feeling is temporary, burst by an indescript noise a mile or more to the north. And just like that, reality is restored. They are once again Americans in a warzone, with more enemies than friends. “For me it was all about leaving the politics to one side. I went over there as someone who wasn’t supportive of the war and I’m not someone who ever thought of themselves as a ra-ra patriot. I went there because I realised that music is a great communicator and I could do something real for these people just by singing a song. I think that a song can sometimes make everyone get onto the same human level, no matter what rank of officer they are or how long they have been in the country or what they are going through in their own life,” she said.

CPIArchive2009B · #94 The Nell Bryden Podcast

The Dark Room Notes Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: Ahead of their triumphant return west later this month, Andrew Hamilton chats to Ruairi Ferrie of Galway music perfectionists Dark Room Notes.

London’s Brick Lane is alive with people. Ancient and modern, its medieval cobblestone heaves under the weight of Bengali traders, Bangladeshi soothsayers and graffiti artist such as Banksy, D*Face and Ben Eine. Each plying their own particular art, each carving their own path. Around the corner from the lane, in a small room with no windows, another group is doing its own thing. As the temperature rises in studio, Dark Room Notes are a band on a mission. Fourteen days to record 14 songs can mean only one thing - pressure. But sometimes, a little pressure is no bad thing. “That was Ciaran Bradshaw, our producer’s, plan. We set up everything as we would do live in a rehearsal studio or on stage. We played and played and played the one song over and over again. In most cases, we managed to get the song down that day,” says Ruairi.

CPIArchive2009B · #93 The Dark Room Notes Podcast

The Baum Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: After touring with Van Morrison in 2006, it’s taken more than two years for Swiss musician Baum to pluck up the courage to finally tour Ireland. As he prepares to visit his musical motherland, he speaks to Andrew Hamilton.

As an English-speaking musician in Switzerland, Baum has often found himself on the outside looking in. With a list of boyhood music idols plucked from the British, American and Irish charts, the rocker turned singer/songwriter has often found himself ploughing a lonely furrow in his native land. And while he has gained a measure of success in his homeland, he always felt there was more to see. As the juiciest record deals and choice gigs went to his colleagues who sing in Swiss-German, Baum began to cast his eyes westward more and more. And now, after years of preparation, the Swiss musical invasion of Ireland is ready to begin. “It first came up a few years ago when I was touring with Van Morrison. So many people in the crew and around the tour were saying that I should come to Ireland or Scotland or England. But I was thinking no, maybe my music is good enough for Germany but not for Ireland or the UK,” he said. 

CPIArchive2009B · #92 The Baum Podcast

The State Gill Podcast

#91. CPI Archive 2009: Andrew Hamilton discovers the joy of chocolate-flavoured White Russians with Dublin folkster turned electro-head, Stace Gill.

It’s not easy growing up. Things change, you change. Some of the things you loved - the things you thought you’d never get sick of - become old and boring, cast aside like a favourite pair of ripped jeans or that Bosco mug that you got with an Easter egg. Life is a circle and to grow in one direction it is often necessary to destroy something of the opposite. So it was for Dublin singer- songwriter Stace Gill. Gill’s first steps into the world of music were taken on a road well travelled. A child of new-folk, she grew up with the sounds of Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan running through her head. Yet, as she continues to work on her first album, her folk tendencies have taken a back seat as she explores the undiscovered country of electronica. “I would never consider myself to be an amazing guitarist, I mostly like to write melody and lyrics. So I paired up with an amazing guitar player and producer called Goss - he makes the beats and I write the melodies,” she says. 

CPIArchive2009B · #91 The Stace Gill Podcast

The Mundy Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: Blood on the dancefloor:  In the world of music, image and identity are king. As he tries to re-establish himself as a solo songwriter with the release of his fourth studio album, Strawberry Blood, Andrew Hamilton caught up with Edmund Enright, aka Mundy.

Everything in moderation, my grandmother used to say. A taste of this here, and a small dollop of that there, that’s all you need. It’s a pity, I think, that the music-buying public never met my gran. Over the last three years, it has become increasingly hard to see where Mundy stops and ‘Galway Girl’ starts. Through no fault of his own, the Offaly man has become shackled to hoards of partying hens, singing their way down cobbled streets. Nothing wrong with that – you can’t knock a good song – but it can have other, more unwanted, side-effects. So, as he released his fourth studio album, Mundy is an artist with an identity crisis. “It was like somebody saying that we could go down this road – a nice scenic journey - but I had no idea when the road was going to finish and when you were going to get back onto your own track,” he says.

CPIArchive2009B · 90. The Mundy Podcast

The Froud Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: Loud and Froud: Andrew Hamilton chats to Martin O’Neill, frontman for Monaghan rocksters Froud.

The last decade has seen monumental changes in the world of music. As the great labels - those bastions of Gordon Gekkoesque greed - faltered and slowly began to crumble and the Internet created a worldwide palette for artists to share and influence, the music world has been transformed on every level. One of the unforeseen by-products of this new revolution is the rise in artists finding a fanbase, not through gigging or albums, but through advertising. It’s worked for José González and The Killers, and soon it may start to work for Froud too. Having just signed a contract to distribute their music to some of America’s top advertising executives, Monaghan-based band Froud are beginning to make waves all of their own. They have just been named as ‘Artist to Watch’ by influential music website Skoepmag.com, and their debut single ‘Nostalgia’ has been chosen for distribution in Italy. “It’s great for getting a band like us into America where we don’t have to go over there and go on tour - it’s like a subliminal way of getting over there. It’s been happening more and more lately,” says Martin. 

CPIArchive2009B · The Froud Podcast