Little Black Boat – New project

hiya, heres a link to a sneak preview of a project with cellist Kate Ellis called Little Black Boat. it developed from an improvised piece we did at a show of mine in Wolfsburg Germany. These recordings were live to a minidisc in a hall last week. The violinist is Adrian Hart who also played on Song of a Thousand Birds as it is improvised you will hear the odd bum note (always from me hahahaaa) such is life and spontaneity. We will be taking this on the road too. hope ye are all well…
http://www.myspace.com/littleblackboat
declan

21st January 2006 Barcelona

- I awoke to be surprised by Turlough announcing that i didn’t snore .I took off to show me ma the sites around Barcelona (she flew in with us as she was on one of her round the world travel jaunts..bad news for Turlough’s liver.)We walked across to the Apollo where we were playing as it was right across from our hotel. Wow what a cool place…me and Turlough were still recovering from being treated so well by the promoters when Sergio almost disappeared through the ceiling of the balcony. he had his hand in a cast already. we nicknamed him ‘lucky’ from then on.We were in the middle of the bill between lots of rock bands, some of them were fantastic. (lo;muêso) were great .I was worried about how we would go down with a cello and acoustic guitar but it went out the window as soon as the lights went down. what a great audience. I felt privileged to play. GReat response. I ended up singing One bedroom apartment with out music and they sang along which was very cool. My voice was a bit shaky by the end as i pushed it too hard. but the spirit was there. there is a video and audio recording of this which should surface soon enough on the net. Afterwards i was talking to people and signing cds and discovered there were Clann ZU fans from peru there.All the people treated me and Turlough so well. we were spoilt. Afterwards the promoters and a bunch of their friends went out on the town. I tagged along. We left a club at 6 and just made it to the airport bus a few minutes before it took off. very funny.All in all me and Turlough had a brilliant time and i can’t wait to get back to play in spain. Right now i have to work on some more music for the 90 min german show .PANIC!

Instore

I did an instore at Tower records in Dublin yesterday. THere was a mix up and Calexico were supposed to play the same time as me but went on after me instead. Two songs in and the microphone gives out and dies, so i got in the middle of the crowd and sang without a pa, just me and shruti box for a couple and just voice for one. I did a version of a clann zu song, at least the first vocal part of ‘Bethlehem to Jenin’. I have been sing ing that and the last half of one bedroom apartment with just voice at some shows. A nod to the past. People like them to i think. Me sisters were there and brought some food from a chinese meal they had before hand. I was dyin with hunger and hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Its hard on days i am singing i have to be strict with what i eat..no dairy, no sugar, loads of water, no coffee etc. A pain in the arse but it makes a big difference if i am singing for 90 minutes. After the show i went to a ‘rock Jihad’ at the international bar where they were playing Dead Kennedies and Bad Brains all night..oh yeah…

20th January 2006 – Barcelona

20th January 2006 – Barcelona – Me and Turlough got into Reus airport in the morning. I had been explaining that i always get stopped at airports and given the third degree by airport police. He thought i was joking till they took my passport and then his and ran us through every interpol list and god knows what on their computer. I think they have this vision that if you have an Irish passport you should have red hair white skin and freckles. I told Turlough to smile or we would get the rubber glove treatment. Fortunately he realised I wasn’t joking. We had a show to do and it could be uncomfortable after a probing by the policia. Finally they let us go after everyone else had collected their bags and we were the only ones left in the building. We exited into the arms of (a very worried looking) Sergio and Sonia the promoters for the show. Onwards! the first show was at FNAC in the center of barcelona, i didn’t know what the hell this was but everyone told me it would be great. it is best described as a mini auditorium with great acoustics in a shopping mall. People play all the time. As soon as we started the room was full. We had a brilliant sound and apart from fucking up curfew we played well. my voice felt good. Someone recorded it, so no doubt it will appear on the net somewhere. I really wished i could speak more than a few words of Spanish. Afterwards we hit the town for some food and craic (irish for fun not the cocaine)

it’s snowing

25th November- mmm it’s been a while since i’ve written here. I have been ironing out the live show. In the last month i’ve played shows with different cellists plus some on me own. It’s been unusual in that some of the shows you could hear a pin drop. I’ve never experienced that before and it is strange but very welcome too. I suppose because some of the songs are fragile and sparse people treat the atmosphere of the show in the same way. It’s been interesting as well having people fly in to the country from major record companies to check out the live shows. Very very strange… i take it all with a healthy dose of salt. I cycle everywhere in Dublin and have been knocked off me bike by cars two nights in a row and now my back and neck are a bit fucked. I have been writing new songs to keep me sane during the cold and dark that is a Dublin winter. I am very happy with them. I’m enjoying trying them out live too. Starting to get the recording itch, but i’m going to wait till i have a whole load to pick from.Its snowing outside as i type…time to pick up the guitar and see what happens.

Ukraine

6th October – Well the cd is online now and people are nice enough to order it. I can’t thank ye all enough for ye’re support.Blackbird song is still getting a spin on Irish radio and BBC northern ireland are giving it a great lashing altogether which is great. Im locked away practising makin the live show ship shape. Rehearsing with Turlough on cello over the next few weeks. There is a chance i might be playin on a few Irish tv shows which will be hillarious. im enjoying the shows a lot, each one is getting better and better and i’m learning quickly what works and what doesn’t. Can’t wait till i can afford to take more musos out with me. Im just back from the Ukraine where i spent two weeks on aship with a load of insane animators from around the world. best craic i’ve had in a long time. A million thanks to all the awesome people i met along the way and thanks for putting up with my 7 7 words of Russian and 3 of Ukranian. Awesome country awesome people. Spasibo!

Kiev

2nd September - I have a pile of new books sitting in a corner whispering –read me …readme… . I am off to the Ukraine on the 19th for 10 days as part of an animation Festival I have a film in. They hold it on a cruise ship that goes down the Dnieper river from Kiev to Oddessa and Sebastapol on the Black sea. It stops in various towns along the way to play the films. they asked me to come along…i din’t have to think twice. Kiev? Fuck yeah…

Ronan O Snodaigh

31st August 2005 – Played at the Crawdaddy supporting Rónán Ó Snodaigh. what a great show! It was weird before hand as there was a lot of record company people supposed to be there which didn’t eventuate. i Don’t like thinking about any of that when I’m playing. the songs should be the songs, no more no less whoever is there. I had a ball. All the time spent on these songs is paying off. IT’s all a big experiment. i have never played on me own before this year. And now i can’t imagine it any other way, sure guest musicians at various shows but at the core it should all work with just me voice and a guitar. Me voice was flyin and i really really enjoyed meself. Thanks to everyone who showed up and made it such a great night. Rónán was on fire and his bodhrán playing went supersonic. People jaws were on the floor. he got me back up on stage in the middle of his set to play Apple tree which i fucked up the guitar on but no one seemed to notice. It’s weird playing it on acoustic with no delays or anything. I have to work on that one.