Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy is coming to Vicar Street on November 29 for a solo show, as part of a tour promoting his new DVD Sunken Treasure – Live in the Pacific Northwest, which documents a series of shows he performed as he snaked up the west coast of the US. Mixing fly-on-the-wall-style documentary footage which highlights the isolation and monotony that accompanies intense touring, with concert footage from Tweedy’s celebratory gigs, it will also give you a good impression of what to expect. Live and solo, Tweedy draws from his extensive back catalogue, mixing songs from Wilco, Uncle Tupelo and Loose Fur, stripping them back to their bare folk roots. He doesn’t use a set list, but instead follows the drift of each show.
Just don’t jump onstage. After fielding an over-enthusiastic stage diver at a Wilco show at New York’s CMJ festival, Tweedy was grabbed by the neck from behind by another ‘fan’, and in a knee-jerk reaction he turned round and floored the guy with a punch Tyson would have been proud of. Not, by his own admission, one of his prouder moments onstage. But it does serve to point up just how worked up Wilco’s audiences can get.
Before the Spice Girls hi-jacked the concept, girl power was the domain of Scottish all-girl band The Poozies. Now that the Spice Girls are (thankfully) a distant memory, the Poozies are coming back to reclaim their crown, with a career-spanning retrospective entitled ‘Raise Your Head’ which takes tracks from the band’s three studio albums – Chantoozies, Dansoozies and Infinite Blue - as well as including a few fresh tracks from past and present members of the band. Highly-regarded in their native Scotland as one of the finest traditional groups working today, this compilation should give them a chance to reach a new audience.
Christy Moore will be performing on Later With Jools Holland on Friday, November 17. One of Ireland’s legendary music talents, Christy Moore has accepted the invitation to appear in the fabled studio on the night. It’ll be a meeting of two national institutions, with Holland as revered in the UK as Christy is here. It’ll be interesting to see whether Jools is moved to tickle the ivories in accompaniment, as he frequently is.
Congratulations are in order for Sarah Allen of Flook who will be on maternity leave when the band hit the road for their March 2007 US tour. The band is taking a break for the first couple of months of 2007, as Sarah’s baby is due in February, but they’ve made the decision to go ahead with the US tour, and are taking the opportunity to draft in the big guns by recruiting the services of former member Michael McGoldrick to deputise for the duration.
Kila are treating fans round the country to a couple of concerts in the lead-up to the mother of all Christmas bashes, the now legendary Kila Christmas party at Vicar Street on December 22. Tickets are flying out the door for what has now become one of our national institutions, along with Christy and Declan’s epic post-Christmas runs.
Before that, though, they’ll be in Cork’s Cypress Avenue on November 24, Dolan’s in Limerick November 25, and Sligo’s Left Bank on December 14. It’s been an extraordinary year for the band, which has seen the release of their stunning collaboration with Japanese Ainu maestro Oki, and a cracking solo album from Eoin Dillon, not to mention the hilarious Joy Of Pissing whose author Professor Jimmy Riddle may or may not in fact be one Rossa O Snodaigh.
Also gearing up for the now-traditional Christmas concerts, though in an altogether more sedate frame of mind, are Anuna whose Christmas concerts are on Friday December 22 and Saturday December 23, in St. Ann’s Church, Dawson Street.
Following a very successful residency by Mike Hanrahan and Leslie Dowdall at the Cobblestone, the torch is being passed to Marian Bradfield and Michele Ann Kelly, who will be joined on stage by Thom Moore (November 16), Sonny Condell (November 30) and – my own personal tip – my esteemed predecessor on this column, Sarah McQuaid (November 23). As well as being an authoritative voice on folk music, Sarah is also one of its finest interpreters, and it’s good to see that her classic album When Two Lovers Meet is once again available on CDBaby.
Both Marian Bradfield and Michele Ann Kelly are powerful performers in their own right, too, and any of the shows should be worth catching.
Also unmissable at the Cobblestone this month is Mick Flannery. Not too well known yet outside of his native Cork, that situation can’t prevail for too long, now that his songwriting skills are starting to be recognized. He has just won two first-place prizes in the International Songwriting Competition, whose judges included Tom Waits, Loretta Lynn and Sonny Rollins. His song ‘In The Gutter’ won the best folk song category, while ‘The Tender’ took first place in the lyrics-only category.
Although his gravelly voice will inevitably draw comparisons to Tom Waits, it’s Flannery's ability to weave a story into a simple haunting melody that links him to Waits. Friday November 17 is your chance to check him out.
Coming to the Cobblestone on Saturday November 25 are Rachel Unthank & The Winterset, winners of Mojo Magazine Folk Album of the Year 2005 for their debut Cruel Sister. Rachel Unthank & The Winterset defy the logic that staunch tradition and sonic adventure are necessarily poles apart. Embodying these apparent opposites, the Northumbrian/Tyneside all-girl quartet have combined integrity with imagination, winning affection from folk purists, the mainstream music world, and from left-field music circles. While in recent years, the integrity of some folk music has been compromised in the pursuit of mainstream success, the success of Cruel Sister has proved that traditional music can be commercially successful without being watered down, inspiring, for instance, Phil Jupitus to play unaccompanied mining songs on daytime BBC 6 Music. Rather than diluting folk music with pop sensibilities, Rachel Unthank & The Winterset rough it up with an disarming soulfulness.
In the band, alongside Rachel Unthank, is her sister Becky. Coming from a folk-immersed family, both girls have been brought up with their local traditions from a very early age. Singing in their own lilting Geordie accents, and lost in the stories of the songs they sing, sisters Rachel and Becky Unthank are servants of the traditions they keep alive. The Unthank sisters began their singing careers as an unaccompanied duo, but in the process of making Cruel Sister, they recruited charismatic virtuoso pianist Belinda O’Hooley and Young Folk Award Finalist Jackie Oates on viola.
Michael Rooney’s new work ‘The Battle of The Books’ will get its premier performance on Saturday November 25 in the Southern Hotel in Sligo, with performers from Ceol na nOg Sligeach, as well as Michael himself, June McCormack and Niamh Crowley. This is the first fruits of the initiative which brings together young players from Ceoltas and from the Sligo Academy of Music Sinfonietta.