Urban hyms

You may be familiar with Sean Millar, as a prominent Dublin singer-songwriter, a former member of the Cute Hoors and a current member of comedy troupe The Kevin Gildeas, but for the past four years Sean has also been working as a community artist, a role he initially adopted to “supplement the meagre income that being a critical success ensures.”

Since 1997, he’s been running songwriting workshops for various groups, including St. Dominick’s Resource Centre, Kilbarrack and the Saol project in Amiens Street.

In December ’99 he began work at the Firestation Arts Centre, a project involving young people from the north inner-city who are trying to rise above problems like unemployment, crime and drug abuse which affect their community.

Sean sees himself more as “a facilitator” than a teacher, merely providing the tools to bring out something that’s already there, and says he wasn’t surprised by the amount of talent his pupils revealed. “To be honest, I really wasn’t that surprised,” he states. “These guys have gone through so much and witnessed so much, and there’s a huge amount of material and emotion there for them to write about. I mean, people think Martin Scorcese’s some kind of a genius because he makes films about the kind of things my class would have first hand experience of in their day to day lives.”

According to Sean, the Firestation group are younger than those he’d been working with previously, so it took a while before they would relax and open up as they weren’t used to expressing themselves and their ideas.

“I played the class all these amazing records by people like Billie Holiday and Johnny Thunders and asked them what they thought these artists had in common,” Sean says. “They couldn’t believe it when I told them that all these people were addicted to heroin. I said the other thing they had in common is that they’re all dead. And you’re alive, so you have one up on them.”

The group have since written an album, entitled Blood Music, which they recorded at Sonic Studios, and have performed their songs publicly on several occasions.

Twenty-one year old Ian Fagan is one of those currently attending the course. He says it gave him an opportunity to do something he never would have thought himself capable of:

“Sean’s a great teacher. He made us feel good about ourselves and our abilities. It took a while for some of us to get into it, but those of us who were determined hung in there, and now we’ve got a core group of about eight or nine, male and female.”

Ian recounts the process by which the group operates as a team:

“When we go to write a new song, we throw around ideas and write different phrases up on a board. Then we’d go about arranging them into verses and choruses and Sean would bring in his guitar and work out the tunes. So the songs tend to be based on real life things that have happened to us and people we know.

“‘Blood Music’ is about hanging around on the streets with nothing to do, and getting into using drugs. ‘Maria’ is about a seventeen year old girl with anorexia. ‘Monument’ was written specially about the monument which was placed in Sean McDermott Street in memory of all those who died from drug abuse, and we performed the song at the unveiling ceremony last December. We were nervous about what people would think of it, but everyone approved and thought it was a good tribute. It was very sad in a way, but it was good to get together and sing in memory of those that died. I’ve known a lot of people who died from drug abuse, or who’ve suffered because of drugs.

“When I showed my mate the CD we’d made, he said that it was a major achievement. Then I thought to myself – yeah, it is some achievement. I’d never in a million years have thought I could write a song, let alone put out a CD.”

Ian has since been writing songs in his own time and is confident that he’ll keep making music in the future:

“It was totally nerve-wracking when we first started doing the songs live, but we’re hoping to start doing a few more shows in venues around the local area.”

Sean Millar is paid by FAS to run the course for the NCCAP, and the album was funded by the Department of Justice via Probation, but he says he tends to trade largely on favours from friends and acquaintances in the music business to get access to recording time and equipment. Sean believes projects like these are arguably the most important work taking place in this country, but more funding is needed to ensure the project will gain a permanent status and that more like it are established.

Sean is keen to point out that his experiences as a community artist have had a huge positive impact on his own art. A new Doctor Millar solo album is nearing completion and the musical comedy mayhem that is the Kevin Gildeas will also be unleashed on record this year.

The album Blood Music/Up & Moving is available from the Firestation, 9 Lwr. Buckingham St., D1.