Windings’ free show to mark fine new release

Groove Tube with Jimi McDonnell – tribunegroove@live.ie

The rock/alt-folk outfit Windings will play Róisín Dubh next Thursday, May 26, to celebrate the release of their excellent double A-side single, Stray Dogs and Helicopters.

Founding member and Limerick native Steve Ryan is actively involved in that city’s music scene, working with Music Generation, a project which helps young people find their feet as musicians.

“Basically, I run songwriting workshops and, I suppose, the correct term is ‘band-incubation workshops’,” he says. “Young people and teenagers come to this building we have. There’s a room set up and if anyone wants to be in a band, we’re there to give them advice and show them how to do it. Everyone who works here, we’re all in Limerick bands.”

Stray Dogs and Helicopters were both produced by Naive Ted, who also works with Music Generation.

“I asked him then if he’d be interested in producing one of our singles,” Steve says.  “I had a song, really only the bare bones, and I was eager to get it released. I gave it to him and said ‘look, do whatever – go mad on this’. The results were amazing, we were delighted.”

The result, Stray Dogs is a disconcerting track that reveals Naive Ted’s subtle influence. Steve also credits his Windings bandmates, Patrick O’Brien, Matt Gavin, Brian Meaney and Liam Marley.

“That song is 10 years old, and it’s been floating around in different versions since then,” Steve says. “I just never had the right kind of crew to record it, I guess. This line-up is the same one that made the last album by Windings. I felt like we could definitely tackle this song now – and the lads breathed new life into it.”

Helicopters is a great track too – there’s a squall in the middle that, for this writer, brings Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew to mind.

“Really? You’re not the first person to say that,” Steve responds. “Now, I can’t admit that I know a lot about him. I know the legend, rather than the actual musician. Someone actually texted me when it came out: ‘I think Helicopters could be your Bitches Brew’. I didn’t know what to write back!”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.