The Breakdown Rambler Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: You can see a surprising amount when the sun goes down. As they release their long-awaited debut album, Andrew Hamilton chats to Ennistymon man Fiachra O’Doherty - one fifth of Breakdown Rambler.

APOCALYPSE Now took more than a year and a half to shoot. In those 18 ill-fated jungle months, both cast and crew were tortured endlessly by tropical storms, as Martin Sheen suffered a heart-attack and Marlon Brando discovered two extra personalities and about four extra stone. All told, it was a fairly difficult production. More than five years in gestation, Witness by Moonlight is the debut album from folk-rocksters Breakdown Rambler. Five years is a long time to do anything, but a half-decade pouring over the finer details of an hour of music is an eternity. And like Apocalypse Now, the completion of this album has freed Breakdown Rambler to re- open their collective eyes, and look again on a world reborn. “Yeah, it’s an amazing feeling to finally have it. The night we launched the album, I think everyone just breathed a sigh of relief. We had just collected the CD the morning before the show so it was touch and go for a while. But we got it and we ended up selling maybe 100 copies that night. It was amazing to actually have it there in your hand, physically, and to be able to launch it on the same day,” says Fiachra.

CPIArchive2009B · The Breakdown Rambler Podcast

The Drugzilla Podcast (2009)

On their way to winning Clare People Interactive’s Clare Artists of the Year for 2008, Lisdoonvarna hardcore two-piece Drugzilla received votes from every corner of the globe. Andrew Hamilton chats to frontman The Human Jigsaw about the release of their debut album and their triumphant return home.

It’s one thing making music in your bedroom - tip-toeing your way through samples and sound-bites, piecing together your own private opus. But it’s something altogether different to take that sound on the road. After years building a large underground following around the world, Lisdoonvarna experimental hardcore outfit Drugzilla have decided to put their heads on the block. Leaving the comfortable haunts of myspace and iTunes behind (at least for a while) they are finally ready to show themselves to the world. Now, after successful gigs in the UK, Cork and Dublin, Drugzilla are ready for the real test - a night in front of their home crowd. “We played our first real gig in Dublin, which was back at the start of last year, and then we were offered a few bigger gigs over in the UK. One was a festival called I Hate Trance with some of the best extreme artists in Europe. We just went all out for that - we dressed up in stupid masks and made sure that people wouldn’t forget us any time soon,” says The Human Jigsaw.

CPIArchive2009B · The Drugzilla Podcast (2009)

The Alan Cooke Podcast

CPI 2009: If home is where the heart is, then what of the heart which is set to wander? Andrew Hamilton chats to Clare-based filmmaker and actor Alan Cooke about his multi-Emmy-nominated film, Home.

When Irish actor Alan Cooke sets down in JFK next month, he will, in many ways, be returning home. Though no relatives will be there to greet him and few creamy pints will await his arrival in the local social houses, his return to this adopted city will have no less meaning. New York City, a place where dreams are made and crushed. A city with a heartbeat and soul, a place where - if you’re willing - existence can reveal itself as a thing of no surface but all feeling. Alan’s journey in New York began more than seven years ago, when a holiday turned into a break and a break turned into a five-year-long voyage of discovery. “I had no intention of going to New York for a long period of time, I really just went over there for a break. I was working as an actor over here and I just wanted to take a break for a couple of weeks but I ended up staying for over five years,” he says. 

CPI Archive 2009 · The Alan Cooke Podcast

The Mumford and Sons Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: Folk music is officially back, and this time it’s folk with an English accent. Andrew Hamilton chats to Marcus Mumford from London four-piece Mumford and Son - leaders of this new folk revival.

The night a 17-year-girl from Hampshire can breeze onto the set of Jools Holland and leave everyone open-mouthed, you know it’s time to take notice. So when Laura Marling did exactly that, while singing folk songs that her grandparents might have thought a little old-fashioned, it was a clear sign of something very big just over the horizon. Playing drums for Marling that night was Marcus Mumford. Scarcely out of his teens himself, Mumford would soon find his own place in the British folk revival. Borrowing heavily from the sounds of the American south, Mumford and Sons have created a new take on folk music from this part of the world. “Because there are four of us, we all have lots of influences, there isn’t just one thing. Like Ted, the bass player really loves blues. I really like lot of everything from old soul stuff to gospel music, bluegrass and country. I guess the sound came from a combination of four guys who really loved their music and loved their instruments and wanted to explore the sounds. We all had a shared love for country music and folk singer-songwriters. It really is a big old melting pot,” said Marcus.

CPI Archive 2009 · The Mumford and Sons Podcast

The Dead Cat Bounce Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: The Dead Cat Bounce Podcast. From Will Ferrell to the Edinburgh Fringe, Dead Cat Bounce have been making impressions all over the comedy world. Andrew Hamilton chats to Ennistymon comedian Mick Cullinan about his role within Ireland’s hottest new comedy troupe.

You don’t need a sense of humour to survive a winter in north Clare, but it definitely helps. As you struggle through six months of constant near-darkness and that perpetual damp feeling that invades your clothing and lays siege to your immune system, a good joke, well told, can go a long, long way. Yet, when Mick Cullinan was forming his personality on the streets of Ennistymon, his sense of humour was very much in the back seat. A student of musicals and drama, his potential for comedy lay dormant. “No, I definitely wasn’t the messer when I went to school. There was a class full of messers where I went to school, so I definitely wasn’t the biggest messer in the group. I got into comedy through drama really. I did a few musicals and things like that at home before coming up to Dublin. I did a drama degree in Trinity and while I was there I met a few mates and we decided to set something up together,” says Mick. 

CPI Archive 2009 · The Dead Cat Bounce Podcast

The Donncha Ó Dúlaing Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: From Steinbeck and Gene Kelly to Éamon de Valera and Edna O’Brien, Donncha Ó Dúlaing has reached behind the public faces and shown the greats to the world. Ahead of his appearance at this week’s Ennis Book Club Festival, Andrew Hamilton chats to the Peter Pan of Irish broadcasting.

If age was measured in energy and enthusiasm, Donncha Ó Dúlaing would be a raspy teenager, full to bursting with the wonders of the world. Whether turning his mind to the great and the good or the man on the street, Donncha’s days have been constantly infused with the energy of those he interviews. His broadcasting story began almost 50 years ago when, through a mixture of persistence and boyish cheek, he became the first interviewer to reach the human side of Éamon de Valera. “I had heard back in 1965 that he was coming on a private visit to Bruree in Limerick. Being a young fella at the time, I said to myself, wouldn’t it be nice to be down there to meet him with a little tape machine. So I turned up and waited there for eight hours for him. He came in and was introduced to me and I told him that I wanted to do a series on his childhood,” said Donncha. 

CPI Archive 2009 · The Donncha Ó Dúlaing Podcast

The Cuckoo Savante Podcast

CPI Archive 2009: Whether grotesque-cabaret or lounge-punk, Cuckoo Savante are a band of many monikers. Andrew Hamilton talks to pianist Morgan Cook about crafting a new sound for music in the west.

NOW this really is a motley crew. A classically trained pianist with a jazz drummer, a funk bassist convert- ing to the electric double-bass and a Spanish singer with the voice of an angel. Stir in a frontman modelling himself on the iconic troubadours like Elvis or Sinatra and I think you’ll agree, it’s not exactly an easy image to conjure. Galway’s latest musical offering Cuckoo Savante are nothing but hard to define. Yet like a musical United Nations, they revel in their differences, celebrate their contrasts and gain strength form their contradictions. It’s always been the way. Since the band’s first breath - when pianist Morgan Cooke and singer Jamie Nanci came together to write - to their current stratosphere of sounds and influences, the band has always been united by their differences. “To be honest a lot of the songs which are still most popular date back from that time. The first night that myself and Jamie sat down we just got a lot of beer, pulled an all nighter and wrote about four songs," said Morgan.

CPI Archive 2009 · The Cuckoo Savante Podcast