The re-issue of SJ’s 2003 debut album Lancelot is now available!
Visit the Shop page for links to buy the CD or download.
You can also download a beautiful free digital booklet.
Enjoy!
Lancelot redux – April 20th 2013
10 years ago I released my debut album.
The performers on the album were people who were very present in my life at that time: Josh Johnston, who I’d met recently through an IMRO songwriting workshop; Stewart Agnew, a fellow Louth singer-songwriter who’d been good enough to bring me on my first ever tour as his support; Stewart’s bandmates, James Mackin and Sean McGeeney; my own bandmates in Reynardine, a folk band I was in at the time; and my beautiful future sister-in-law, Gillian Durnin.
Producing the album was Derek Turner, an ex-Honeythieves guitarist who was managing Stewart, booking the Spirit Store and running Tumbleweed Studios, mecca for north Louth’s rich emerging alternative music scene. He was a huge mentor figure for me at that time. Our engineer was Tumbleweed’s resident Jason Varley.
The press loved it. Hot Press gave it 8/10 and called it “highly intelligent and literate, yet admirably accessible”. It was a really happy time.
Lancelot has been out of print for many years, but will be reissued on CD and iTunes this Saturday, April 20th for Record Store Day. The CD will be available exclusively through CD World, Drogheda, my own local, still-surviving record store.
Links to purchase the CD and download internationally will appear on the site over the next week or so, as will a beautiful free digital booklet, courtesy of original album artist Neil McAvinia and the good folks at Once Upon Design.
New music!
Spent the last couple of days in the studio with amazing Irish singer/songwriter, electronic musician and producer Bill Coleman. Very excited about how the new stuff’s sounding!
Spirit Store, Easter Sunday …
… I’ll be opening for the amazing Jack L.
In the works is a headline show, also at the Spirit Store, and news of some new recordings.
Stay tuned!
Posted in News - general
Drogheda Singing Gathering
Fantastic review of Drogheda Singing Gathering, Ireland’s biggest traditional singing festival. Not only was I honoured to be singing a few songs, but I got to hang with this extraordinary gentleman all day as well.
Martin Carthy is a huge hero of mine, and it was wonderful to have the job of hanging out and driving him around. The festival also featured The Voice Squad, The Unthanks and amazing local singers like Stuart Carolan (if you don’t know who his grandmother Mary Ann Carolan was, you’d better find out!), Sunday’s Gate Quartet, Drogheda Traditional Singers, Goilin Club singers, the amazing M Quinns senior and junior and the others from the Stray Leaf in Mullaghban.
Already looking forward to next year. More information on the festival can be found at https://www.facebook.com/TheDroghedaSingingGathering
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This Saturday …
SJ will be playing Ardee this Saturday night as special guest of the extraordinary Sharon Shannon.
Surf’s up!
Film-maker George Karellas used “Blood And Bones” to soundtrack this cracking clip of some serious surf on the Atlantic coast.
First show of the year!
Click the image for details on SJ’s appearance at Drogheda Bandstand Project’s Big Music Weekend at the Barbican, Drogheda on January 12th.
For the day that’s in it:
Advent
We have tested and tasted too much, lover-
Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.
But here in the Advent-darkened room
Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea
Of penance will charm back the luxury
Of a child’s soul, we’ll return to Doom
The knowledge we stole but could not use.
And the newness that was in every stale thing
When we looked at it as children: the spirit-shocking
Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill
Or the prophetic astonishment in the tedious talking
Of an old fool will awake for us and bring
You and me to the yard gate to watch the whins
And the bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables where Time begins.
O after Christmas we’ll have no need to go searching
For the difference that sets an old phrase burning-
We’ll hear it in the whispered argument of a churning
Or in the streets where the village boys are lurching.
And we’ll hear it among decent men too
Who barrow dung in gardens under trees,
Wherever life pours ordinary plenty.
Won’t we be rich, my love and I, and please
God we shall not ask for reason’s payment,
The why of heart-breaking strangeness in dreeping hedges
Nor analyse God’s breath in common statement.
We have thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages
Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour-
And Christ comes with a January flower.
- Patrick Kavanagh
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Something seasonal for ye!
17th century Advent carol, originally in twelve verses in the Pepysian collection.
This four-verse version I learned from the Oxford Book of Carols.
Posted in News - general
