Sometimes being well ahead of the posse just means that you’re seen as a bit of a maverick, or worse again, a musical misfit. Sometimes though, if the posse catches up and recognises what has been going on, you achieve semi-legendary status as a tastemaker.
In the introduction to the brochure for this year’s Open House Festival – if you would call it a brochure, it’s more of a tome, a little design marvel – Kieran Gilmore writes “The most exciting music at the moment is coming out of the American roots scene. It’s been bubbling under for some time and is now breaking out in all sorts of unlikely places.” You can only admire his restraint. If it was my festival I would have had to add “AND I TOLD YOU SO!”
Having ridden ahead of the waves on the stellar impacts of musicians like Kate Rusby and Seasick Steve in introducing them to Irish audiences in previous Open House festivals, the question bubbling under now has to be which of Mr. Gilmore’s introductions are going to float our boats to the same extent this year. The festival kicks off with a Solas concert and a screening of Nuala O’Connor’s documentary on Donal Lunny on the evening of Wednesday September 26, but it’s on the Thursday that all hell breaks loose and mayhem erupts all over Belfast (with a little foray as far as Derry this year) for the subsequent four days.
As always, the festival is a mix of old faces and people you probably won’t have run across yet but who will, by this time next year, feel like part of the soundtrack to your life. The big guns this year include the above mentioned Solas; Mozaik, who play the festival marquee on the Thursday night where the Old Crow Medicine Show play on the Friday. Steve Riley And The Mamou Playboys, the undisputed kings of Cajun music, will be in the marquee on the Saturday evening while the legendary Seasick Stevewill be popping vocal chords there on the Sunday night to close out the festival.
Elsewhere you’ll be able to catch Liz Carroll and John Doyle who play in the John Hewitt on the Sunday evening and a double bill of Crooked Still and the Dukhs who are in the Black Box at the same time. Bad planning? No, sirreee, just too many goodies to pack in. Oh to be Padre Pio for the day. You’d live with the stigmata to be able to be at any two of those gigs at the same time.
Central to the Open House experience, though, are the underground discoveries, being dragged up onto the cold light of a Belfast evening for the first time, and this year the spotlight will be falling on a motley collection including Lurgan’s punk-blues duo Mudlow; the ‘no more mister nice guys’ of bluegrass – the Earl Brothers, the Pine Leaf Boys from Louisiana; the Destroyers – billed as Borat meets the Prodigy – from Birmingham (West Midlands not Alabama); Charlottesville Virginia’s Hackensaw Boys and the Mountain Firework Company who are Brighton-based but with Belfast in their blood and a strain of DNA that snakes all the way across the southern states of the US.
Somewhere in between all this there is still room to push in a return visit from the Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir (who aren’t actually a choir, don’t really play gospel, aren’t from the mountains but may well be agnostic) whose debut at the festival last year left the audience dazed but ecstatic. There’s also a show, specially commissioned to mark the 30th anniversary of the King’s passing from amidst our ranks called Elvis – the Bluegrass Years which features Jim Brown and the Broken String Band.
As always, there’s an artist in residence, and this year it’s the iconic Tim O’Brien who will be cropping up all over the city in sessions and jams, and who will be joining forces with Arty McGlynn and John McCusker to open for local-boys-done-good At First Light, who take over the Black Box for the afternoon of Sunday 30.
If you aren’t afraid to drop with exhaustion, you could also try to pack in a few sessions as there are an outrageous number of them dotted about the bars of the city centre - and again, as in previous years, there are a few interesting films to be caught if you feel the need to chill a while.
If you want to get into training for all that genre-defying mix-up, you could do a lot worse than toughen yourself up with one of Hayseed Dixie’s August shows as they make a flying visit here for shows in Galway’s Roisin Dubh on Tuesday August 7, Dublin’s Tripod on Wednesday 8 and Belfast’s Empire Music Hall on Thursday 9. The guys are touring with their latest offering Weapons Of Grass Destruction which features versions of – saints preserve us – Cliff Richard’s ‘Devil Woman’ and the Scissor Sisters’ ‘I Don’t Feel Like Dancing’. It’s nasty work, but someone’s got to do it.
Also undertaking a spot of genre re-assignment, although possibly more genre blending than genre bending, is Emer Mayock who along with Donal Siggins on guitar will be teaming up with Breton wooden flute player Jean-Michel Veillon.
Regarded as one of the world’s leading exponents and innovators of the wooden flute, he is largely responsible for pioneering its use in Breton music by initially developing techniques found in Irish flute playing and by subsequently absorbing Indian, Balkan and even Native American influences. His playing, characterised by its energy, depth of expression and technical virtuosity, continues to exert a huge influence on an entire generation of musicians.
Renowned for her effortless mastery of a clutch of instruments including flute, whistles, uilleann pipes and fiddle, Ms. Mayock is no stranger to teasing out the linkages between different styles of playing. She has worked with some of our own best-known musicians, and has also explored innovative musical collaborations outside Ireland with Chinese composer Jia Daqun, London-based musician Nitin Sawhney, Italian baroque ensemble il Giardino Armonico and Greek singer Eleftheria Arvanitaki amongst others.
The trio will be touring under the Music Network aegis during the middle part of September, kicking off in Listowel on Wednesday September 12 with a show in St. John’s Art Centre, before heading up to Ennis where they play in Glor the following evening. Friday 14 finds them in the Ionad Culturtha in Baile Mhuirne, and they then cross the country for a Saturday show in Christ Church Cathedral, Waterford. On Sunday September 16 they move on to the Dunamaise Arts Centre in Portlaoise, before taking a well earned day off.
The tour's Dublin date takes place in Music Network’s own beautiful performance space in the Coach House, Dublin Castle on Tuesday 18. On Wednesday 19 the trio head to the Mermaid Arts Centre in Bray, before snaking back cross-country to Castlebar for a show in the Linenhall Arts Centre on Thursday 20 September. The tour draws to a close with a show in the Church of Ireland, Clifden on the evening of Friday 21 September.