Every Christmas my husband and I go up north. We spend a night in Minneapolis on the way, and have often been lucky enough to get to hear Paddy O’Brien playing button accordion at a place called Kieran’s (sp). He was always playing in a quiet backroom with a strangely small audience while an Irish rock band played in the big front room. This time he was up in the front room with all the drunk people shouting. We were lucky to get a seat where we could hear him. Then the waitress told us that pretty soon there will be no traditional Irish music there at all. It will just be that Irish rock or whatever it is called. So this might have been the last time we got to hear Paddy O’Brien.
I never spoke to him before, but I thought I would this time. So I thanked him for the times we had heard him play and told him it sounded like we should say goodby to him. He was very nice. He won’t be playing regularly anywhere else but he’ll still perform here and there I guess. I don’t think this is a big tragedy for him, but it is for the people that won’t get the chance to hear him play.
It is so strange to me that so many people didn’t realize what great music was being played in that backroom. And in the noisy front room, the people at the best table right in front of the musicians were shouting very loudly and not listening to the music at all. I can’t exactly blame the restaurant I guess, because the rock music definitely has a much larger audience. I just don’t understand why. Sigh.
A couple of years ago, I saw Paddy play at a house concert here with his band Chulrua. Fine, fine show in a wonderful low key setting.
I bought a couple of Chulrua cds and they’ve been among those I listen to most often ever since. Paddy is a great exponent of playing at a human pace, not real slow, but at a speed that lets the music and the listeners breath.
Last year, at christmas, we chipped in and bought our whistle teacher the Paddy O’Brien library of Congress tune collection - something like 10 cds of collected tunes. At the Chulrua show he’d introduce a tune and say something like, first we’ll play it the way most people do, then we’ll play it they way they do in ____ village in Cork and then we’ll play it the way they do in the next village down the road!! I still tell my teacher - just tell us how to play it - it’s good to know there are 50 variations but I can’t cope woth that now.
You know, I have thought that he played at a somewhat slower pace than I often hear, but I just wasn’t sure. It’s good to hear that my listening was right in that respect.
Last time I felt that I was having quite a bit of trouble telling when the tune changed—I can’t figure out why. I think there is something special about what tunes he puts together but I don’t know enough to tell what it is. He would often play a hornpipe followed by a reel. The reel was faster, so yes I could tell that. But the tune sounded the same to me. If he played 3 reels in a row, I often was lost. But I have not been really listening for that long. Anyway, lost or not, it was great to listen to.
One tune he played was a Portuguese waltz! and it was just the most beautiful thing.
Your teacher is very lucky to have received such a gift! I’m sure it was well-deserved.
Well, I’m not sure what the right term would be really. The music I’m calling “Irish rock” is played by live bands, they are really loud and have drums and guitars and keyboards, there is often singing, and it has a sort of Irish sound to it—like maybe they will be singing with an Irish accent or …well, I’m not sure what else makes it sound Irish—it doesn’t sound that Irish to me. The tunes I don’t think are really traditional because I have not noticed the musicianship level to be that high—they just aren’t playing that many notes. If the tunes were traditional but fast or with loud accompaniment or different instruments I would be sorry about that but would still listen to it probably (if Paddy O’Brien wasn’t there), but this stuff isn’t like that. The songs could be traditional, but they are screamed out. I like loud rollicking singing but this seems to have a lot of stamping around—oh, I can’t describe it very well. I have heard of U2 but I haven’t actually heard them, so I can’t compare. Doesn’t dubh know that Bono fellow?
I shouldn’t really insult this music because it could be not bad for its type. I just don’t like the type. And we only pass through there once a year so I haven’t listened to them carefully. After trying to describe it I think I will listen next time and figure out what they are doing. You can expect a better report next January!
Last summer at a local Celtic festival we saw the Glenngarry Bhoys. I think they’re Canadian. They clearly understood traditinal music but delivered a rocking, good-time show. They used both traditonal and contemporary instruments - big drum set - great highland piper (think Peter Townsend in a kilt with pipes!) - accoustic and electric guitars and fiddles. Great fun.
How often I have experienced this. A lull in the rhythmic pieces and out comes a low whistle or some such and then rises a plaintiff air. And as the plaintiff air rises so the hot air and the clatter and the chatter rises. And every penny in every heart drops but they cannot hear it for the peoples’ pain is so great that they cannot hear sadness.
Music for most is a kind of aural wall paper. At best, music is a culturally sanctioned representation of an ecstatic orgasm they will never have and need not hear.
Its to do with mortgages you see, the emasculation of personal emotive power and a loss of childlike spirituality.
But, my dear Cynth, at the end of the rave, I do not really understand why either.
I think this is a good description too. I guess at a bar-restaurant, too, people aren’t necessarily there because of who is playing. They may have just made a date to meet some friends there regardless of the music. Concert-listening behavior is probably what I was expecting, and that isn’t really reasonable in a bar setting where there are people present for different reasons.
It’s true, you can’t blame people for doing what they do when they go out to drink and socialize. It’s simply a case of different strokes … and it seems the majority of folks one finds in US venues that support live ‘Oirish’ music are the partying type. And they buy lots of beer, and bar owners like bands that turn a profit.
It’s just the way of the world, alas. Though I personally would have wanted to strangle the unwashed at the front table, because I would have been Human No. 3 in that bar who was dying to hear Paddy … He’s wonderful.
So I’m sad, too. But I give him credit for playing regardless. If you really love to play, the music is all there is anyway.
(though it is nice to be able to hear yourself once in a while!)
That partying thing being associated with Irish music is strange. I have gone to a number of places that sounded like they had real Irish music and it was the same sort of deal. Real Irish music does make you want to jump around and scream sometimes but I think it was the drink that was making these people do that. They weren’t jumping and screaming in the right places .
I’ll call the people at the front table unwashed! They were ridiculous. Even if there was no music they were screaming way too much. But to sit not 5 feet away from someone playing music and be that loud, they were barbarians.
I felt sorry for Paddy O’Brien. I think he could hardly hear himself when he announced the names of the tunes in the microphone. But then I think he knows what the deal is with playing in a bar like that and he has many other admirers, so I don’t think he would take the rude people personally. It just made me mad!
I personally think it is possible to socialize, have a wild time time, get yer rocks off and still appreciate live music and behave in a way that allows others to appreciate the music. It can all be done on the same night, at the same place with the same people.
I am not a bar type but I have experienced this variously such as in pubs in Whitby and Durham and Dingle as well as in Rozelle.
Music is so easily obtained these days that people tend to take it and musicianship for granted. Imagine what it was like in days before CDs, tapes and vinyl - before recorded music. Imagine!
You can expect a better report next January!
at the front table, because I would have been Human No. 3 in that bar who was dying to hear Paddy … He’s wonderful.