Flatpicking fiddle tunes: Jerusalem ridge
This is the Monroe tune ‘Jerusalem Ridge’ which I learned from Chris Walz in Chicago back in the late 90’s. This was a ‘first take’ so as always, it’s warts (mistakes) and all included!
Can’t find my way
Here’s a song from about 12 years ago called ‘can’t find my way’ I recorded it at Mark Reddy’s studio back in 2007.
Simon Farrell is playing bass, I’m doing singing and guitars, David Lawless is on drums and Anne Marie Redmond on backing vocals.
Lyrics:
City lights, faded dreams, misty, as the morning brings
A place crowded and yet… so lonely
Then I stop to think of you. Sky is turning black to blue
And I do know in you. I will find my peace.
A face beside me I awake, and feel beside an empty space
How is it this world can keep on turning?
Over crowded city streets, an over crowded sky that weeps.
Its rain is like my tears of mourning…
Chorus:
I wanted to escape, so I pushed you away
It was my greatest mistake, now I can’t
Find my way… find my way.
I reached for you and touched your hand,
The promise of a distant land
Though it glitters, there is no gold and so
I become a waking dream, quiet words I tried to sing
No one ever hears me when, it gets lonely.
Your name is whispered in the air, kept a locket of your hair,
Tired but afraid to sleep, because you’re in every dream
Wired awake, watch t.v., the caffeine crutches carry me
In the small hours when, I can find no peace.
Chorus
Bridge
No return post no call back, when I started should have turned back.
Just keep swinging, one day you’ll hit something.
But you can’t break your hand on air, and I won’t stay if you don’t care.
Why such a bad day, When its so sunny?
Getting the final touches on the 2016 effort up at Sonic Studios
I’m back in with Al and Simon Farrell at Sonic this week to put the final touches on the 2016 album which is about 8 songs long(ish) [can’t recall].
With any luck you’ll catch a few of them at some point on the air, outside of that they are always available to pirate or rip off etc. That’s about the best you can hope for sometimes!
Wayne’s 50th! Saturday 7th January
For those of you who know the Harmonica player Wayne Lietch, I’ll be playing at his 50th birthday this Saturday! He’s the guy who often sits in with the Tin Box Company when we play shows around Knocklyon. Looking forward to it!
Return to me (one of my old dance tunes)
I don’t often let people know this, but I loved (and still do love) dance music. In particular I was a fan of house and techno back in the mid 90’s. In the early 2000’s during what I would call some of my ‘dark days’ where I didn’t do much other than sit around pissed off and writing music I produced a lot of dance tunes.
They aren’t my best work by a long shot but it was a genre I had some fun with so figured I’d post a tune or two up here. This one and another written for my friend Robert O’Boyle called ‘buglars delight’ are probably my favourites.
I did a ‘bluffer gig’ at the Grand Social
So I was at the Grand Social getting ready to play with the Louisiana 6 when I saw a lady getting plugged in and as I was by the stage dropping off the upright I asked her ‘do you want a bass player?’. She said ‘yeah sure, come on up’.
With nothing other than that she ‘played the blues’ we did an impromptu show together and Louisiana 6 guitarist Morgan Baker filmed a minute or two of it.
Old Joe Clarke & Bill Cheatum
This is a fiddle tune medley I have played in various places and with lots of people. This is a video from a gig we did at the Conwy Bluegrass Festival in Wales about 9 years back. Tom Hanway and Karl Deeter was the act and then we had Neil on another banjo and Joe on mandolin. Both great players. The crowd are great too, they always give a bit of an applause to guitar flatpickers too (so I’m totally biased!).
Guns n’ Roses are coming back to Slane (bluegrass ‘sweet child’ cover too!)
I heard the news about the gig which will be 25yrs after the last time they played in Slane. For that reason I thought I’d post a video of a song of theirs we have covered in one of the bands as a bluegrass tune for ages.
Johnny Cash, I won’t back down with a lesson tagged on
Johnny Cash did a nice version of the Tom Petty tune ‘I won’t back down’, here’s a version of it and at the end I go through how to play it as well.
Thursday’s in Delaney’s Knocklyon
I play with the Tin Box Company most Thursdays in Knocklyon in Dublin 16. The gig goes from 10pm until midnight and we have the odd guest too. In general the line up is a bluegrass band featuring a five string banjo, mandolin, upright bass and one or two guitars.