The Gemma Hayes Podcast

CPI Archive 2008: With a new album and a new outlook, Gemma Hayes is back on form.
Andrew Hamilton chats to the Tipperary songstress about her quest for musical redemption.

JANUARY 25, 2008. Unseasonably warm rain has washed the hills of Beachwood Canyon for more than four days, creating fast-running gullies, impromptu puddles and a new whitewashed look of freshness. As the mist finally gives way to California sunshine, the rain-soaked landscape begins to shimmer in a kaleidoscope of brilliant light. A liquid horizon, an oil painting that never quite dried — Los Angeles has never looked so beautiful. Curled up before her bay window, Gemma Hayes sits to write. Still wet from her slow walk in the torrent, drops of water from her hair mingle and blotch with ink as she writes. Oblivious to the staining, she works unheeded. True confessions can bear no distraction. This is a day of self-atonement, a day for Gemma Hayes to draw a line under her musical past, her record label days, and re-announce herself to the world. She writes a letter to her fans. "It can be so hard to really connect with people. I just wanted to do something where I felt that I was really opening up to people. Just take away all of this impersonal stuff — there was so much unnecessary stuff in between me and the people that I want to reach,” she says.

CPIArchive2008 · The Gemma Hayes Podcast

The Infomatics Podcast

CPI Archive 2008: Andrew Hamilton chats to Steo from Irish hip-hop group, The Infomatics.

FIVE years is a long time to spend grafting. Touring and writing is one thing, but ask any band and they’ll quickly tell you that to be truly able to stand up on a chair (perchance in a pub, perhaps late at night) and pro- claim to the gathered punters that you are in fact a musician (hear me roar), well that takes the confidence that only an album can bring. For those with an album, music is a career. But for those without, well, music still sits somewhere between a pass-time and a handy few bob (stare at your feet, kick that imaginary tyre). An album is like a musical cherry, and after it’s popped, life really is different. So for Steo and his Infomatic, writing and touring since the early months of 2003, the temptation must surely have been mighty to dive in and announce themselves to the world with a round metal and plastic calling card. But like a Catholic virgin of old, The Infomatics decided to wait. “We started off doing something and we wanted to get it to a certain level, to create a sound of our own rather than put something out there that is half what we wanted and half something else. We wanted to achieve a certain level of something. We put out a few bits and pieces over that five years but, as far as the album was concerned, we wanted to hit with an impact. I think all of us are happier to have waited,” said Steo.

CPIArchive2008 · The Infomatics Podcast

The Walter Mitty and the Realists Podcast

CPI Archive 2008: Andrew Hamilton speaks to Colin Bartley from Limerick funksters, Walter Mitty and the Realists

EVERY scene has its characters and Limerick is no different. From the unbridled angst-grinding metal of Giveamanakick and the rock and rock euphoria of Vesta Varro to the avant-garde power pop of We Should Be Dead and the heartfelt acoustics of Eoin Coughlan, Limerick is a town with all its musical basses covered. Where then, among this ever crowded soundscape, is there room for Walter Mitty And The Realists? Where then indeed? Like a musical Moses standing atop the slow-moving ebb of the Shannon, this Limerick/Leitrim four-piece has discovered they possess the power to turn mere water into pure funk. And people are queuing to be baptised. “We’re into a lot of different kinds of music and I think the sound evolved from all that. The writing came after that and the sound changed again, you know, when we started writing together as a band. We weren’t really thinking which route to go. We were just jamming and the songs came out of that,” says bassist Colin.

CPIArchive2008 · The Walter Mitty and the Realists Podcast

The Dave Rotheray Podcast

CPI Archive 2008: Andrew Hamilton spoke to Dave Rotheray of The Beautiful South about his new project, Homespun.

IF 20 odd years in the music business has taught Dave Rotheray anything, it’s the importance of control. Since the summer of 1989, when Paul Heaton asked him to join the fledgling Beautiful South, Dave has been one part of a big team, a musical company-man. It’s the natural order of things. Bands by definition are often more about compromise and conciliation than full creative freedom. And in bands, more often than not, you’re going to lose more battles than you win — doubly so when you’re the chief songwriter in a a band with two chief songwriters. Now, as a resurgent Rotheray prepares to launch his third album under the Homespun moniker, he holds all the cards. Despite the presence of heavyweight musicians such as Tony Robinson (Super Furry Animals), Claire Mactaggart (Portishead) and Gary Hammond (the Nina Simone band), things are finally getting done Dave’s way. “It starts with me on my own. I have a mate called Alan, who lives down the street from me, and when I’ve written something new, I play it for him on tape or whatever. That tends to be the song. I get all the others up for a weekend and they get all their bits down, including the singing of course,” he says.

CPIArchive2008 · DaveR2021

The Drugzilla Podcast

CPI Archive 2008

In early 2008, Andrew Hamilton spoke to London based Lisdoonvarna musician, The Human Jigsaw, about the massive success of his speedcore outfit, Drugzilla.  

LISDOON is famous for a lot of things. There’s the wells, drenched in the slow sticky stench of sulphur and chalybeate. Then there’s the matchmaking, with its dancing and cajoling, and the sweet molasses scent of the porter in the taps. Then, of course, there is also the real festival — the one with Christy and Rory Gallagher, and yes, I suppose, its fair share of porter too. The latest shot at success to emerge from Lisdoonvarna, however, is flavoured with the sickly sweet taste of Buckfast, and despite already boasting a huge worldwide audience, has gone largely unnoticed in Ireland. In the 12 short months since Lisdoonvarna duo The Human Jigsaw and Manimal came together to form Drugzilla, the pair have collected a huge following through Myspace, and all this before they play a single gig or release so much as an EP. “The whole thing has been a huge surprise. We started it as a laugh to just see how things would go and then, the next thing we know, there are more than 20,000 friends on Myspace and 50,000 listens. It’s great. We just have to see how far we can take it,” says The Human Jigsaw.

CPIArchive2008 · Drugz2021

The Pier 19 Podcast

CPI Archive 2008

IT’S tough carrying the weight of a town. But that how it’s been in Galway of late. Ask any Galwegian (imported or regular) what the City of Tribes means to them and they’ll likely as not name two things; the craic and art (and yes, maybe also the Buckfast). Yet for a place so synonymous with the arts, the music scene in Galway has lived a fairly charmed life of late. In the dark days of the ‘90s and ‘00s, cover bands ruled the roost, and the Galway scene began to fade — being replaced by Cork, Limerick and even Sligo as the music capitals of the west. Though things have started to improve, the people of Galway still await their musical messiahs. With just the Saw Doctors and The Stunning (and we all know where they really come from) to show by way of mainstream success, each great new musical hope has been saddled with 20 odd years of expectation. One such band is Pier Nineteen. “The Galway scene has definitely bounced back in the last few years. There is some good stuff around, some really good local bands. It’s been the strongest it has been since the days of The Stunning,” said Dave.

CPI-ARCHIVE 2007 · The Pier 19 Podcast

The Ken Bruen Podcast

CPI Archive 2008

BREATHLESS, he pulls his bike to the curb and glances one way, then the next. No one had seen, he was sure of it. With a school-girl giddiness belying each of his 30 odd years, Ken Bruen has a single moment of doubt — six times is enough. A seventh would just be vanity. Yet heedless of his own warning, he mounts his bike and pedals his way back down London’s Charing Cross Road. And there, as he knew it would be, centred in the Soho vista, lies the giant arched windows of Foyle’s bookshop. A sublimity in glass. “Shadows of Grace, a novel by Ken Bruen, I wonder what that’s about,” says an elderly woman to her husband. In that moment, Ken Bruen knew he had finally made it. But good news can travel slowly, and back home in Galway his father had other ideas. “I wrote my first novel when I was 26 and I’d say it sold about five copies. I wrote two more mainstream novels after that, which got good reviews but didn’t sell.

CPI-ARCHIVE 2007 · The Ken Bruen Podcast