Can anyone recommend a good “Live” session cd? Complete with pub noise, clapping etc.
Something that I can find on the internet and buy fairly easily. Good flute and whislte are a plus. Thanks a bunch.
Maybe not quite what you are looking for but a "must have " album none the less.The crowd are well oiled up and the music is incredible…
The obvious recommendations are Music at Matt Molloy’s and Live at Mona’s. The first is widely available, the second can be had from http://www.liveatmonas.com/. I’d say Mona’s is more consistently good, but Molloy’s has about five brilliant tracks on it.
There’s also an older CD, Paddy in the Smoke (or just In the Smoke, depending on which version of the album you get) of some sessions from the 60s that is pretty nice.
Music at Matt Molloy’s is very decent. It has lots of pub noise, for sure. Some of the old Dubliners’ recordings have a lot of drunken revelry going on. (I’m thinking most of them do.)
Tony
I saw Live at Mona’s here, http://celticgrooves.homestead.com/CG_Ourceau_Patrick_Mona.html
But that seems like a different one than the one you’re talking about. Is that right?
Nope, that’s the same Live at Mona’s. The CD’s website (and the CD itself, for that matter) just doesn’t emphasize the fact that it effectively stars Patrick Ourceau (and to a slightly lesser extent, Eamon O’Leary). He leads the session there, organized the recording project, and appears on most of the tracks.
The album definitely gets my vote for best of 2004. (Though there are a couple of albums from last year I’m very interested in but haven’t heard yet.)
Great, thanks guys.
Eamon’s my neighbor. 
I was down at Mona’s the other day and Eamon called me over and made me sit in. 
Live at Mona’s is great. It has more piano on it than you usually hear at Mona’s. There is an absolutely stunning version of A Poor Man’s Labour Is Never Done a song I know from an old Oisin album (which is where the singer, Steve Johnson, learned it. They call it “When I was a Young Man”), and I think Steve does a better job of it than Oisin.
I was going to ask you if you ever made it to Mona’s. I’m jealous.
Though I have gotten to play in sessions with Patrick a number of times at places closer to home. I love his fiddling.
How about Tony MacMahon’s and Noel Hill’s 2 duet albums? You hear people dancing to the music and people whooping on these two, and the music is very nice. Kitty Hayes’ album is recorded infront of a small Live audience too, that one is yummy stuff. All 3 CDs should be easily gotten online through ITM CD shops.
I suggest Box Maestro Joe Cooley’s ‘Cooley’ album-recorded in a Pub,just weeks before Joe passed away.
My favourite session recording of all times:
Maiden Voyage
Recorded in Pepper’s Bar in Feakle
with Siobhan Peoples, Kevin Crawford, Tommy Peples, Pat Marsh and others.
You could look at ‘the Sanctuary sessions’ (Custy’s will have it). or the CD of the Diver’s Night’s benefit gigs for the Burren Subaqua group.
A lot of these things are being done more or less locally for fundraisers etc, most have very nice stuff on them. The Cumar concert CD is lovely too. We did one ourselves for fecksake, for the Clare Cancer centre, Jackie Daly, Conor Keane, Kitty Hayes, and others including myself and a bunch of singers, that’s no longer available but if you go looking you’ll find there’s a lot more hidden away in local shops here.
Peter, we’ll have to put you on the spot as our man on the scene, since many of us do not know all the local shops you refer to, nor have access to them. Which if these live session CDs is full of great piping?
Thx,
djm
Jimmy Carrigan is on the Sanctuary session, I am not sure about the Diver’s, Spillane I think, he’s also on the Doolin coast an cliff rescue services fundraiser (but that’s not live). Custy’s has that sort of stuff. Lisseycasey GAA has a nice one too with loads of lovely concertinaplaying. Then there’s Ceol na mBan for the Clare Haven project, all female musicianers and live too but no piping.
Cooley, by Joe Cooley. A wonderfully raw and exciting album, and plenty of ruckus in the background.
Jesus. Seems like alot of links to online stores have been popping up lately and I’m drowning in the selection. I’ve decided I will be buying a CD a week until I have to start saving up for my SWAP to Ireland. Trouble is going to be digging my way through all the stuff. Thanks again.
Cooley, by Joe Cooley. A wonderfully raw and exciting album, and plenty of ruckus in the background.
Oh yeah. If you want to know what the big hairy soul of Irish music is like, that one’s a must-have. Listening to the first track – full of crowd noise, hollering, clinking of glasses, etc. – a friend of mine said, “My god, I can feel the cigarette smoke in my throat.” It’s kind of a mysterious album as well, in the same way old photographs are mysterious. I love the ceili band track where you can hear a woman in the crowd saying “I haven’t seen him dancing in years.”
Another fave of mine (for different reasons) is “Irlande” by Frankie Gavin, Aidan Coffey, and Arty McGlynn. Hot, hot, hot. It’s recorded live in France and they’re all going a hundred and fifty million miles an hour and tight as a dovetail joint, just beautiful playing.
Indeed! If the original post hadn’t mentioned “session” as part of what he was looking for, I’d have mentioned this one myself – I voted it one of the top five Irish albums ever a few years back, and nothing I’ve heard since would change that.
Possibly, in a wry way, an appropriate observation. Cooley, a lifelong smoker who was never without his fag, says somewhere else on the recording his voice isn’t what it used to be. Two weeks later he died of cancer of the throat.
You may also want to look into the live albums of the Lahawns.
