Entertainment
Little Green Cars gear up for festival show
Groove Tube with Jimi McDonnell – tribunegroove@live.ie
In a double bill that rivals Sinéad O’Connor and John Grant, Little Green Cars will open for St Vincent in the Big Top next Tuesday, July 14. The Dublin based quintet are currently working on the follow up to their hugely impressive 2013 debut, Absolute Zero. Adam O’Regan (guitar/vocals) is optimistic about the as-yet untitled release.
“It’s been great,” he says. “We’ve just been finishing up the album for the last while, and it’ll be next year before it’ll come out. We’re working really hard, we’re really excited about it.”
Little Green Cars have two lead singers in Faye O’Rourke and Stevie Appleby, with Donagh Seaver O’Leary on bass, and Dylan Lynch on drums. Who takes on songwriting duties in the band?
“There are two chief songwriters, Faye and Stevie,” Adam says. “And generally what happens is that they’ll go off and craft the song and then bring it to us and play it on a piano or acoustic guitar, in its barest form. Then the band will kick it around, it’ll go through a lot of shapes and sizes before the final product comes out and it sounds the way it does.”
Absolute Zero is a fine collection of songs, but Adam is also eager for the public to hear Little Green Cars’ new material.
“It’s almost three years now since the first album came out, which is insane,” he says. “We had it written a year before we recorded it, so all that music . . . it feels like we’ve moved so far from it, in a sense.”
Little Green Cars created a well-earned buzz with their first album. Is Adam at all nervous about how this one will be received?
“What is it they say? You have your whole life to write your first album, two years to write your second or whatever it is!” he says. “The first one was written over five years – we started when we were 16 or 17, and recorded it when we were 19, 20.”
The band are signed to the New York based label Glassnote records and this allowed Little Green Cars to tour the US over an intensive two-year period. What was the reception like across the pond?
“Obviously America is so huge, you’ve got to keep going and going back,” Adam says. “Nevertheless, on our first tour there we had an amazing response. Then, the second time, there were more faces in the crowd, and more the third time. You do definitely feel a fan-base building.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Folk duo Niall Teague and Pádraic Joyce are launching their new album What Will We Be, a blend of folk, Americana and acoustic music, this Friday, May 19, at 8pm in An Taibhdhearc.
The success of their well-received 2020 release Taobh le Taobh, as well as recent successes at the Pan Celtic and Oireachtas Song Contests, spurred the duo on to record this new album which represents many years of collaboration and musical development.
It features Niall and Pádraic on vocals, harmonies, and acoustic guitars, Maidhc Ó hÉanaigh on double bass and Neil Fitzgibbon on fiddle. The catchy title track, What Will We Be, features contributions from percussionist Jim Higgins (The Stunning, Christy Moore, Paul Brady) and haunting, driving melodies on vocals, guitar, and fiddle.
Themes of love and hope are woven through Come Away with Me which features interplay between piano and fiddle as well as rich vocal harmonies.
People, places, and broken dreams are celebrated and lamented on Martin and Tom, Guitar Gold, Memories of You and Achill Island. The influence of David Henry Thoreau’s novel Walden features on the tracks Simple and Wise and Walden, with the beauty of nature, escape and simple pleasures at their core.
The album moves from minimalistic folk ballads such as Galway Ghost to swirling, string-laden arrangements on the song Neptune, both of which are influenced by maritime tales from Galway. Much of the work on this album was supported by the Arts Council, including work with musical arranger Eoin Corcoran and the string ensemble Treo.
The album will be launched this Friday, May 19, at 8pm in an Taibhdhearc. Tickets €22, plus booking fee at Eventbrite.ie.
Dunmore is the place to be this weekend for lovers of traditional music, as the Galway County Fleadh will take place there from this Friday, May 19, to Sunday, May 23.
It is 10 years since Dunmore last hosted a fleadh and the local Comhaltas branch, which has re-formed since Covid, is looking forward to facilitating this gathering of music, song, dance and craic.
The official Opening Concert will take place in Dunmore Town Hall this Friday at 8pm with the acclaimed Mulcahy family from Limerick. Mick, Louise and Michelle are well known throughout the country, thanks to their live performances, television appearances and numerous CDs. They were the winners of the TG4 Gradam Ceoil Grúpa Ceoil Award for 2023. Tickets for their concert can be purchased on the door and a great night of music is promised.
Two days of competitions will kick off this Saturday at the town’s Community School, with more than 1,500 competitors taking part. Participants will be hoping to qualify for the Connacht Fleadh 2023, which will be held in Ballina, County Mayo, from June 23 to July 2.
Competitions for those aged Under 10, Under 12 and Under 15 will be held in a large variety of instruments on Saturday, as well as in singing and Comhrá Gaeilge. Sunday’s competitions will be for the Under 18 and Over 18 ages groups, as well as in dancing.
On both days a large entry is expected for Grúpaí Cheoil and Céilí Band competitions across all age groups.
Seventeen Comhaltas branches from across Galway will have participants in this weekend’s competitions, which will result in a large number of visitors to the Dunmore area.
Members of the public are welcome to attend the competitions, which offer a great opportunity to hear and see the talent on display. There will be sessions in local pubs over the weekend as well and everybody is welcome to attend these.
For more information on the County Fleadh, go to www.galwaycomhaltas.ie.
Music for Galway’s concert with renowned Swiss pianist Cédric Pescia which had been due to take place on April 27 but which had to be deferred, will now take place next Tuesday, May 23, at 8pm, in the Emily Anderson Concert Hall at the University of Galway.
This concert of German classics with Bach at its core, will brings the Bach element of Music for Galway’s 41st season to an end.
This world-class pianist who won the famous Gina Bachauer International Artists Piano Competition, has a repertoire that spans many eras from baroque to contemporary and he is widely known for his elaborate programmes. Cédric Pescia describes music as ‘language and movement at the same time’.
Audiences will have a chance to experience his soft, clear touch as he performs a programme for solo piano that will include classics such as Schumann’s popular Waldszenen (Forest Scenes), a suite of nine short pieces, and the penultimate of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, No. 31. These pieces will be interspersed with French Suites by Bach.
■ Ticket for Cédric Pescia’s concert are available at www.musicforgalway.ie, or by phone 091 705962 and on the door on the night. They cost €20/€18. The price for fulltime students of all ages is €6 while MfG Friends can avail of the friends’ rate of €16.
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