Archive News
Exciting days for Lost Chord with launch of new CD
Date Published: {J}
Galway based synth-rock quintet Lost Chord launch their debut EP at the Róisín Dubh on Thursday next, January 28. Lost Chord began as a one-man project but lead singer David soon began to add other members.
“It started off with me just playing on my own with the laptop,” he says. “Then, at a random house party in Galway – lots of drunk talk – me and [guitarist] Fuz said we’d start playing together.”
David and Fuz played some shows as a duo and then augmented the line up with bassist Darren and drummer Yoseph. Their newest member is Aidan, who plays synths and electronics.
“It was the two of us playing for a while,” David recalls. “We really wanted a drummer and eventually it came together but there was no putting ads in the paper. It came together bit by bit.”
When it comes to rehearsing it’s very easy for Lost Chord to organise themselves.
“Me, Fuz and Aidan live together,” says their front man. “Darren, the bassist, and Yoseph, the drummer, live together. If it was one house, it’d be one big happy family!”
When it came to looking for gigs Lost Chord landed on their feet. David had played some solo shows at the Róisín Dubh and then he and Fuz played at Strange Brew, the venue’s weekly alternative night.
“We’ve been so lucky with gigs,” says Fuz. “We’ve gotten some phenomenal supports. Even from the very early stages; me and Dave got Islands, Port O’Brien. As a band we had the New York Dolls, the xx and Fujiya & Miyagi. It’s stupid, like!”
The xx were one of the breakthrough acts of 2009, making many critics’ end-of-year lists and having their debut chosen as album of the year by The Guardian newspaper. Tickets for their Galway show last year were snapped up quickly. Opening for the London band at that gig was a coup for Lost Chord.
“That was Aidan’s first gig with us,” Fuz recalls.
“A baptism of fire,” adds David.
“It was very exciting, even just watching them sound check at the start. I’m a very big fan,” says Aidan.
Lost Chord’s guitarist had a different experience of the night, perhaps encountering how some bands react to fame.
“They were a no-go [area],” says Fuz. “We were in the same room with them for over an hour, with sound checks, and I’ m fairly sure we didn’t say anything to them. It was just a definite no-no.”
“I think they’re naturally just quite shy,” Aidan says in defence of the xx. “Even on stage they don’t really interact. It works for them.”
So how do Lost Chord approach songwriting, given the fact they’ve gone from a one-man band to a five-piece outfit?
“It’s different for different songs,” says David. “Sometimes I’ll come in, sometimes we’ll write one together. We wrote one on Shop Street. We had no money for beer so we just went busking.”
“It was the one and only time!” counters Fuz. “We were just jamming away and we came up with one.”
So did they make enough money for a six-pack?
“We did – and cigarettes as well!” laughs David.
“I tell you what made us the money was doing a cover of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme music,” adds Fuz, who is resolute about not becoming a fulltime street performer. “We’re not hardy enough to be busking at this time of year!”
Working behind the bar in the Róisín has allowed David to learn a lot about stagecraft, seeing what works (and what doesn’t) in the live arena.
“If you’re seeing a band every night of the week, which I was when I was working fulltime, you really start to get sick of anything that’s in any way normal,” he says. “Even a band you thought was good; maybe they start to lose freshness.”
For more, read page 28 of this week’s Connacht Tribune.
People’s living conditions less than 100 years ago were frightening. We have come a long way. We talk about water charges today, but back then the local District Councils were erecting pumps for local communities and the lovely town of Mountbellew, according to Council minutes, had open sewers,” says Galway County Council archivist Patria McWalter.
Patria believes we “need to take pride in our history, and we should take the same pride in our historical records as we do in our built heritage”. When you see the wealth of material in her care, this belief makes sense.
She is in charge of caring for the rich collection of administrative records owned by Galway County Council and says “these records are as much part of our history as the Rock of Cashel is. They document our lives and our ancestors’ lives. And nobody can plan for the future unless you learn from the past, what worked and what didn’t”.
Archivists and librarians are often unfairly regarded as being dry, academic types, but that’s certainly not true of Patria. Her enthusiasm is infectious as she turns the pages of several minute books from Galway’s Rural District Councils, all of them at least 100 years old.
Part of her role involved cataloguing all the records of the Councils – Ballinasloe, Clifden, Galway, Gort, Loughrea, Mountbellew, Portumna and Tuam. These records mostly consisted of minutes of various meetings.
When she was cataloguing them she realised their worth to local historians and researchers, so she decided to compile a guide to their content. The result is For the Record: The Archives of Galway’s Rural District Councils, which will be a valuable asset to anybody with an interest in history.
Many representatives on these Councils were local personalities and several were arrested during the political upheaval of the era, she explains.
And, ushering in a new era in history, women were allowed to sit on these Rural District Councils – at the time they were not allowed to sit on County Councils.
All of this information is included in Patria’s introductory essay to the attractively produced A4 size guide, which gives a glimpse into how these Rural Councils operated and the way political thinking changed in Ireland during a short 26-year period. In the early 1900s, these Councils supported Home Rule, but by 1920, they were calling for full independence and refusing to recognise the British administration.
“I love the tone,” says Patria of the minutes from meetings. “The language was very emotive.”
That was certainly true of the Gort Rural District Council. At a meeting in 1907, following riots in Dublin at the premiere of JM Synge’s play, The Playboy of the Western World the councillors’ response was vehement. They recorded their decision to “protest most emphatically against the libellous comedy, The Playboy of the Western World, that was belched forth during the past week in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, under the fostering care of Lady Gregory and Mr Yeats. We congratulate the good people of Dublin in howling down the gross buffoonery and immoral suggestions that are scattered throughout this scandalous performance.
For more from the archives see this week’s Tribunes here
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
SLIGO 0-9
GALWAY 1-4
FRANK FARRAGHER IN ENNISCRONE
GALWAY’S first serious examination of the 2013 season rather disturbingly ended with a rating well below the 40% pass mark at the idyllic, if rather Siberian, seaside setting of Enniscrone on Sunday last.
The defeat cost Galway a place in the FBD League Final against Leitrim and also put a fair dent on their confidence shield for the bigger tests that lie ahead in February.
There was no fluke element in this success by an understrength Sligo side and by the time Leitrim referee, Frank Flynn, sounded the final whistle, there wasn’t a perished soul in the crowd of about 500 who could question the justice of the outcome.
It is only pre-season and last Sunday’s blast of dry polar winds did remind everyone that this is far from summer football, but make no mistake about it, the match did lay down some very worrying markers for Galway following a couple of victories over below par third level college teams.
Galway did start the game quite positively, leading by four points at the end of a first quarter when they missed as much more, but when Sligo stepped up the tempo of the game in the 10 minutes before half-time, the maroon resistance crumbled with frightening rapidity.
Some of the statistics of the match make for grim perusal. Over the course of the hour, Galway only scored two points from play and they went through a 52 minute period of the match, without raising a white flag – admittedly a late rally did bring them close to a draw but that would have been very rough justice on Sligo.
Sligo were backable at 9/4 coming into this match, the odds being stretched with the ‘missing list’ on Kevin Walsh’s team sheet – Adrian Marren, Stephen Coen, Tony Taylor, Ross Donovan, David Kelly, David Maye, Johnny Davey and Eamon O’Hara, were all marked absent for a variety of reasons.
Walsh has his Sligo side well schooled in the high intensity, close quarters type of football, and the harder Galway tried to go through the short game channels, the more the home side bottled them up.
Galway badly needed to find some variety in their attacking strategy and maybe there is a lot to be said for the traditional Meath style of giving long, quick ball to a full forward line with a big target man on the edge of the square – given Paul Conroy’s prowess close to goal last season, maybe it is time to ‘settle’ on a few basics.
Defensively, Galway were reasonably solid with Gary Sice at centre back probably their best player – he was one of the few men in maroon to deliver decent long ball deep into the attacking zone – while Finian Hanley, Conor Costello and Gary O’Donnell also kept things tight.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Date Published: 23-Jan-2013
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