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Music At Maddens Podcast
Music at Maddens podcast from the snug upstairs in Belfast’s home of trad. Yarns, pints and laughs with well known faces from the trad music scene. Locals, visitors are all welcome to join in the chat - with Lynette Fay.
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Music At Maddens Podcast
Music At Maddens Podcast #008 - Three Pints and a Set List with Carlos, Sweeney and McCartin
Welcome to a new episode of Music At Maddens Podcast with me, Lynette Fay.
This week we welcome Carlos, Sweeney and McCartin to the podcast.
Carlos, Sweeney and McCartin, a cocktail of Frasier and Simpsons references, as well as commitment, drive and honesty are the secret to their success.
Their uncompromising approach to music has won them legions of fans.
Expect plenty of anecdotes and good craic as these three join Lynette in the snug.
New episodes every Monday.
Maddens Bar
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Ri-Ra
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Website: www.ri-ra.beer
McIlroy Guitars
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Website: https://mcilroyguitars.co.uk/
Dunville’s Irish Whiskey
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Website: https://dunvilleswhiskey.com/
Anzac Drinks
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Welcome along to another Music at Madden's with me, lynette Faye. This is a podcast recorded in the Snug Upstairs in Madden's Bar in Belfast, widely recognised as the home of traditional music in this city, and the whole idea of this podcast is to platform musicians from all over and celebrate our wonderful traditional music community. And you can watch on YouTube, as well as listen on Spotify and Apple that's probably what you're doing if you're hearing me talking right now and you can leave a review as well. And please do subscribe and make sure that you don't miss any of the episodes that are coming up and catch up on anything you might have missed as well this week. Now, it's very cosy in the snug there's four of us in here.
Speaker 3:We've got Dylan Carlos and Cian Sweeney and John McCartan here Now. Their music has been described as uncompromising. I tell you, these boys just get straight to it. Debut album was an instant hit and as was the follow-up, which is one of the my favorite album titles ever the one after it and I want to know how that, who came up with that and how but both albums best selling worldwide on bandcamp and have created a really, really loyal following for you as well as a trio, and it's great to chat to you today. Thank you very much for taking the time. How's it going so well behaved, because we're just ahead of a gig here in the Empire and you've just sound checked and you've come down here and then you're gigging shortly. So, at this point of the day of a process, what's it like? Are the nerves kicking in ahead of the gig or how are you feeling?
Speaker 4:It's usually around the time that I have forgotten to write a set list and we'll have to have a very quick conversation before throwing in and get a few tunes together. But yeah, generally, sound check, go for food, chat, relax we probably wouldn't have met up in a couple of weeks just run through the plan and then hit it hard from the start.
Speaker 2:Three pint quota, isn't it yeah?
Speaker 1:three is the magic number.
Speaker 3:I love the way you looked at John there when you said three pint quota isn't it.
Speaker 1:I keep pulling at the lead there every now and again.
Speaker 3:Well that's it, I suppose because there's nerves too, but nerves are good. I suppose you have to have the nerves don't you to get through. The adrenaline gets you through the gig too, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I always find I'm nervous at this point before any gig, for a whole host of reasons. First of all, you really want to do the best gig you can do and it's not guaranteed that you're going to do the best gig you can do. Several factors can come into play and stop you from doing that. But then you know you're in a new venue, a new sound man and you don't know what that's going to be like. You've sound-checked, all right, but I always find good sound-check, bad gig, bad sound-check, bad gig, bad soundcheck, good gig. So that particular venue, the music hall, you know it's a beautiful place but the stage is a little box.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:And so you're sitting up there doing the soundcheck in your own little bubble with your own monitors and you can hear vaguely that there's something else going on out in that big room in front of you. So we're waiting for that to fill up. I suspect it's going to be quite nice. But I those nerves always hang with me before a gig that this could, I could do badly, the technique, the techniques could do badly and we could do badly and we could just all do badly in general.
Speaker 3:I'm always afraid that will happen and well, I take your point right and I hear everything you're saying, but when the three of you are mentioned, there's nothing, only love for you and everything that you have done. And those two albums they're just classics already and you've such a loyal following. What do you think it is about? The combination of the three of you and the tunes you've chosen as well, and the way you play that has created that?
Speaker 1:In fairness, the tunes we chose. We made a specific decision about this album, both in terms of production, in terms of the tunes we chose and the arrangements we would make. That it would be true to what we would do if nobody else was listening. So this was never designed as an album to sell. This was never designed as an album to get critical acclaim. This was never designed as an album to have any level of commercial or critical success. It was purely designed as an album to have any level of commercial or critical success. It was purely designed as an album to please ourselves, An album of music that we would play.
Speaker 1:If we went into Kryans and Carrick and Shannon or we came in here on a quiet night and there was nobody around, those are the tunes we'd play. So we met up a couple of times in Carrick. We played through stuff that just suited us, stuff. We liked Local tunes, stuff that just suited us stuff. We liked A lot of local music and that ended up being the album. We don't play anything, only jigs and reels. We don't play polkas, we don't play hornpipes, we don't play planxes or slow airs For the right money.
Speaker 1:We will for the right money, but generally speaking we don't. So we said why would we be putting exhibition pieces and crowd pleasers on an album?
Speaker 3:that we don't normally do. I love that because sometimes you do get a slow verse thrown in and it puts the whole thing off balance. And it's there because it's obligatory and it's not obligatory, you can do the thing whatever way you want to do it. And when you said that's interesting there, cian, you just threw in local tunes. So we've got a lovely mix here of we've got Roscommon. We've got a lovely mix here of uh, we've got ross, common, we've got later and we've got calvin. So are you meeting very close to you know? Are you not too far from each other, like in, in terms of geography?
Speaker 2:well, no, I'm only 10 minutes up the fight, 10 minutes up the road from john um, but no, there's. There's great music in calvin. It really is there, always has been. Um. I'm from kittishandra, I'm lucky. There's always been a long history there, despite what some people might think, but it's.
Speaker 3:Come on, this is your chance now, cian.
Speaker 2:Come on, you fly the flag of Kilachandra Ah no, no, it's very good there's a session going there. 40 years in the town ran numerous flags. There's been a number of players have stayed and played in the town and John, like a lot of the South Leitrim music as well, would have infiltrated into Kiddershandra and you know it really has been a hotbed for music over the years and we just play the local tunes that surround us and you know there's a natural border.
Speaker 1:So South Leitrim is actually east of the Shannon when you look at it. It's the only part of Connacht that's actually east of the Shannon and that whole little area that was, I suppose, breffney, it's the Shannon-Earon waterway. That area has been culturally connected. I would be, even though I live in Leitrim and I'm in Connacht. I would spend most of my time working, socialising, playing music in Cavan and South Ulster, and likewise Carrick and Shannon. It's right on the Shannon, it's on the east side of the Shannon, but that Shannon is a great connector too. So Dylan isn't far from Carrick and Shannon. It's halfway a beating point really for a show isn't it.
Speaker 4:That's the common theme.
Speaker 4:You're a good bit for me, but our common meeting house was Carrick and Shannon Liam Cryne has. We've an awful lot to be thankful for Liam Cryne and his kind of promotion and support of music in our part of the world, like Roscommon, sligo, leitrim, cavan it was kind of the central hub and the Joe Mooney Summer School in Drumshambo. So when Keens has local tunes it might not necessarily be tunes that are written or composed or pulled from the area, but they are common session repertoire and anything that's appeared on our two albums wouldn't be unusual to be heard at the Joe Mooney, to be heard on a Saturday or Thursday night in Crines. There's this kind of collective session repertoire that has built up over the years and that's kind of what we do.
Speaker 3:And there's been such a draw to Drumshambo and especially Ulster musicians would always say that Drumshambo was definitely in the diary big part of the summer. All roads led to it, as big as Milltown. I would say Very, very much about the music.
Speaker 2:isn't it All about the music, Cian, Always, always.
Speaker 3:So tell me then a bit about yourself. Was here beside me, here, dylan, talk to you first. Uh, so fiddle. So tell me about learning the fiddle then.
Speaker 4:And was common so um one of the men that taught me a number of years ago ender mcgrady, great fiddle player from elfin in riscommon. He said that there's no real fiddle players from riscommon, they're all failed flute players, which is um very funny, but it's it's very true in the sense that it's such a flute heavy part of the world, like when I was growing up that my dad, john Carlos, his father, was a flute player, john Carlos Senior, but you had Tommy Gwyhen, john Wynne, patsy Hanley, all the kind of senior heads of flute playing in the area they were all playing and that kind of rhythmic driving style is probably what I kind of like most about music and I suppose there was a fiddle in the house and I sort of gravitated towards that.
Speaker 4:I was gently nudged towards lessons when I was a young fella, so, um, I suppose I am kind of translating the flute music onto the fiddle is probably how I describe my style and my background.
Speaker 3:So then, growing up then and playing the fiddle and wanting to play the fiddle then, how easy was that for you. Are you living in a community of musicians down there?
Speaker 4:Not really kind of just that little bit further south. There isn't an awful lot of music in our area. But I would have started off with Paddy Ryan. He's a kind of incredible nurturer and teacher of early music in our Perth world. Paddy put countless children and teenagers through his classes over the years and flew the flag for music in our area when not a lot of people were, I suppose, and he was the only teacher and then had a while with John Carty and Mossy Martin and Enda McGreevy. So the three or four fiddle kind of players that were in the area kind of learned off them all and they were all pulling from the flute repertoire and kind of the flute sound and like a session when I was younger, like you had Bolins at Ferrymount, hanley's in Strokestown, crines in Carrick and Shannon. They were all flute heavy sessions. So that kind of sound is what I grew up listening to, I suppose.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then I suppose the pairing of the fiddle and the flute, sure it's the perfect pairing, particularly from that part of the world as well. So then Cian comes in here now on flute. So tell me then about you picking up the flute and learning it. I'm going to say a few words from our host and our hostess, a couple learning it particularly here in Maddins, in the heart of Belfast. So Rí Rá celebrates the best bits of being Irish by creating reasons to talk, to meet, to grá, to bant, to hear, to be heard, to be le chéile, just that little more often. So music at Maddins dig it and digging tosse because an ish scoop, la focail, a charda for eight teams and over, and please drink responsibly a couple of focail, an ish for our, a hurry and fod creil to seo. Music at maddens. Music at maddens is sponsored by Michael Roy Guitars perfectly balanced, superb craftsmanship, wonderful clarity and tone, a truly unique sound. It's only natural to want one michaelroyguitarscouk for more details.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I would have been taught the flute by James McGovern from Cavan as well. Porrick, his brother, plays with John as well in Gerardy, so there's a bit of a link there as well. But yeah, no, I just would have always loved the flute and, for God, if I wanted to go to a session anywhere in the country, my mother and father would have brought me to it. Like you know, and um I know, as I said, we always had great music there um and some music in your family there is, uh, my brother plays, my sister plays, um, my late uncle, who died a few months back, he played as well.
Speaker 2:So uh, yeah, no, no, that's it. But uh, he would ted, sweetie, he would have been a great influence on us too. But ah, yeah, good music in Kilishundra.
Speaker 3:So plenty of family.
Speaker 3:Family sessions then, yeah yeah, we're not fighting well, speaking of fighting now, because the two of you there recently enough won the All-Ireland in flute and fiddle and it's, you know, it's just getting to that time of year where the flaw is there. It's a focus and all for the youngsters, and I was just thinking to myself. So when you've got the eye on the prize, cian, and you're going in for the All-Ireland and you're representing Ulster first and foremost, who did you have to pick off in Ulster to get to win an Ulster title?
Speaker 2:You're making it sound like a boxing match or something, is it not? Oh, an Ulster title.
Speaker 3:You're making it sound like a boxing match or something, is it not? Oh well, jeez, I never.
Speaker 2:I never took it that seriously. I think we were playing the whole week of the flag in Sligo.
Speaker 2:I never saw a boxer going on the tear the night before a match no, I kind of rocked up and if it was good enough to do it, it was good enough to do it. It was good enough to do it and if not, you know we never took it too seriously up with us, it was just a bit of crack. But there was great people, like you know, and you know you'd be very friendly with people who would have played it Like I would have played the whole time against Orla McAuliffe. You know and sure you couldn't meet a nicer girl in the corner.
Speaker 4:You're meeting them all summer. It's not like the accordion, the accordion people, all hate each other, oh yeah that's rough enough.
Speaker 2:The accordion people all love each other.
Speaker 3:Love to the flutes, no, but it's just really funny when you get to that stage. For some it's life or death and it means so much. And then there's other people like yourself just do it. If you win, you win, you don't, you don't. And I was talking to somebody else recently and they were saying well, for mummy and daddy, it was always a good focus to get us to practice, just to get us to a wee bit of discipline, I suppose in your playing as well no-transcript.
Speaker 2:Like you know, not that it was great to meet up with the local people, but like when you're away on a fly, you want to meet up with people you haven't met before and learn new tunes. That was kind of the way I kind of worked at it and know loads of people now, I suppose.
Speaker 4:Met my wife through it as well, so, oh, fantastic. And then what about you as well? Then? For the, yeah, like I, just similar to kane. People do tend to take it too seriously. I think um, it was you said it is a great thing, especially when you're under 12, under 15, to have just that focus, maybe when you don't know as many people and there isn't that social context just yet, as a teenager, for music it keeps you focused, keeps kind of the eye in, but you know, you don't take the medals out to shine them next time.
Speaker 2:You know exactly. I wouldn't have heard, and not that I had a whole lot of underage success either.
Speaker 4:I was lucky to get the one I did, but yeah, it's great for kids to give them that focus. But I think when you, as you get older, long life ahead of you, playing music and meeting people like our albums and some of the gigs we've done and some of the people we've got to know and now count as friends, is far more valuable than any win or any flyer, any competition like it it's. It's. It's nice, but it's not to be all in it all.
Speaker 3:You know, it's kind of like the when you, when you look at it that way, it is like just getting the driving licence and then away you go and get the car and see where the road takes you, isn't it? And then, john you, interestingly, you started out playing fiddle.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So who, then, would you have been drawn to, or whose fiddle playing would you have been drawn to growing up?
Speaker 1:Well, it wasn't fiddle playing that attracted me to music. My great-granduncle had played the fiddle and, like so many other families, there was all sorts of you know addiction. Played a big role alcoholism and my grandfather. By the time he was rearing his kids, he decided that music was to be outlawed, that he blamed music for the woes of his uncle. So there were no instruments allowed in my father's house, but he loved it. He had a great heart for music, as had my grandfather, in spite of the fact that music wasn't allowed in the house.
Speaker 3:But he just made this decision and that was that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and my grandmother had worked in Philadelphia when she was a child and she had brought home a gramophone. So the Christmas present every year was they'd go to Crian's shop in Balnamore and they'd buy a record for the gramophone. So they listened to music. They loved music but nobody was allowed to play any music. So my father was involved in politics and he was away an awful lot so I would rarely get to see him and the only way I would get to see him when I was a child was go away with him in the car. So while he was, my memory of my childhood is a car full of cigarette and pipe and cigar smoke. You know from about. There was about a foot at the bottom of the car you could breathe in and then just sitting with men discussing big issues, smoking in the car. That was my memory.
Speaker 1:So there was a planxty tape under the seat. I found it under the seat of my father's car and I'm sure at some stage you could. Everything was written on it, who it was and all the rest of it. You couldn't see it. It was so black with dirt and smoke and I used to listen to that tape over and over and over again and I just became obsessed with Planxty and the way that Donal and Andy's bazookies would knit through each other and that complex patterns that they would use as accompaniment for tunes. I absolutely loved it. Then, of course, I discovered that Planxty had other albums, which was amazing. So I got after the Break and the Woman I Love so Well Matt Malloy was on those. So there was, you know, the tune playing even became a bigger feature.
Speaker 1:And then I went to boarding school in Ballinasloe and at this stage I was playing the fiddle. My father had bought me a fiddle for Christmas and I was learning it from tapes and a piano accordion player, frank Kelly, who used to put a few tunes in a tape every week for me. So I went to boarding school in Ballinasloe, I was playing the fiddle down there, but I was the only musician. I was a 700. I was the only musician in the school.
Speaker 1:And I went down to Salmon's Shop in Ballinasloe and I saw Matt Malloy, stoney Steps and I was thinking that that changed my life. That tape, stoney Steps, was such a cool album. But coincidentally that led me right back to the roots of my area, roscommon flute player, and it led me to where we are today, and even when we sat down to produce Carlos Sweeney-McCartan, I said to the lads I'm going for Stoney Steps. Yeah, there's even a picture of Stoney Steps on our second album. I said that's what I'm going for, lads. I want the commitment, the drive and the honesty of Stoney Steps, and so that's what we, that was what we aimed for.
Speaker 3:Commitment, drive and honesty. That's a really kind of solid place to be coming from, John.
Speaker 4:Like if you can create that it really is.
Speaker 3:It's no wonder, then, if that was in your mind and that was the purpose you'd given yourself, that the music has landed so well. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it was just so coincidental that that path landed me right back at the epicentre of the music of my area of where I was born and raised. So you know, while I didn't get it directly initially from the people in my area, it just all came home to roost.
Speaker 3:And then, when it came home to roost, what does that feel like? That? You're now an exponent of this and now you're now bringing this music to other people, to other areas. You're playing it in different places. You know that your music will be heard wherever, thanks to the internet and technology.
Speaker 1:But there's a comfort in it. People will be asking us about our styles. We're barely aware of our styles, except that it's like your accent. I'm not really aware of my style, but I know when I'm talking to somebody from home Together. Anyway, I think we're probably a good fit in more ways than one. I always find like playing with the lads is like getting back into your own bed.
Speaker 3:It's where's this going? Where's this going?
Speaker 4:I'm happily married, john and I'm meant to be soon but there's just a comfort in it.
Speaker 1:There's a comfort that you can relax and we have the very same daft, stupid sense of humour about stuff, if you took the Simpsons references. Simpsons and Father Ted.
Speaker 2:Frasier. We are like Frasier when you think of it. The pair of boys are very deep thinkers, and I'd be just sitting having a pint and giving out.
Speaker 3:So now, here you are in front of the microphone. So who is Frasier himself? I'm kind of looking at you, john, that's what Cian says, niles grazier and Martin.
Speaker 3:I thought Cian was Eddie the dog, eddie's a great character a few words now from the sponsors of this podcast music at Madden's. Dunvilles, irish whiskey, proudly connected to its past and enthusiastically embracing its future. The spirit of Belfast is back and it's even better than ever. And I should tell you, dunvilles also sponsors Belfast Tradfest as well, and this Irish Whisky story is one of fame, fortune, tragedy and revival. It does sound epic, doesn't it? Now restored to its rightful place amongst the world's best whiskeys, dunville's award winning single malt and vintage blend.
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Speaker 3:Over 18s only, and please drink responsibly. Oh, that's fantastic, but I love that about the drive and the commitment and the honesty. So guitar accompaniment, then. The thing about it too is that guitar accompaniment, it can be so subtle but so effective. So were you always trying to emulate Lonnie? I don't know? Then Donald Lonnie ended up playing on your first album, so that must have been a big moment for you if you were emulating Stoney Steps.
Speaker 1:Well, I guess, when I did decide I wanted to play a compliment I couldn't find a bouzouki anywhere and I got a guitar. So I was listening, obviously, uh, then trying to listen to where will I get guitar playing? But arthur mcglenn being on that stony steps album, all of a sudden, like when, when I listened to mcglenn, I was going, oh my god, that's just so right, that is exactly the way it should be done. And Madeleine's approach too had honesty in it, honesty instinct and that drive as well. But you know, madeleine had this attitude. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, no need for any old nonsense in between all of that.
Speaker 1:And I was very lucky then to get to meet McGlynn a couple of times and to work with Donal Lonnie and talk to those guys, which is something that will stay with me for the rest of my life, the privilege that it was to exist at a time when those men existed and to get to cross paths with them. So I kind of ended up sticking with guitar, even though bouzouki is what drew me in, because McGlynn's guitar playing. And then all of a sudden Steve Cooney came and now there was two of them, two completely different ways. And then there's Donna Hennessy. I remember getting my first Lunasa album and hearing Donna Hennessy playing. I said you know, this is just something new again and Hennessy is just an absolute animal. You know, he is fully, totally, 100% committed to what he's doing and I love that and I wanted that Hennessy sound. I remember coming up the north here to a guitar factory looking to buy a guitar to sound like Hennessy get the same guitar and I just sounded like me with Hennessy's guitar.
Speaker 3:That's but, like you say, you have to stay true to yourself and find your own accent in it as well. You say, coming up to the north, what I call to looking about buying a guitar. You end up buying the guitar firm. You just decided to buy the whole company, so you're sitting here now. So is this episode of the podcast? Is it sponsored by Avalon?
Speaker 1:Guitars. Is that what's happening here, john? I was aware when I was sitting down. When I saw the cameras I was thinking you're going to think I did this.
Speaker 2:Now I put me drink down to the company.
Speaker 4:It's called hyperliminal marketing.
Speaker 1:It's there all the time. Yeah, that honestly wasn't my intention, but it's no harm.
Speaker 3:But then with buying a company like that. I know that you're a businessman and all three of you have got lives away from music as well. You're a teacher, you're an engineer and you're a businessman. Were you ever, I wondered you know, whenever you decided right, I'm going to buy Avalon guitars and I'm going to make something of this? Were you ever afraid of mixing the two worlds? Do you know whenever the music clearly means so much to you and that honesty is there about it?
Speaker 1:They're kind of two different things, both in terms of, uh, like, the music I listen to is is one thing and the music I enjoy playing is one thing. Then making the tools to do that is a different thing. But what really spurred me on to do that, to buy that company, was I. I always have this man to try and do something that matters and try and do something that's useful. I bring that to my playing as well.
Speaker 1:I was teaching here at Belfast Tradfest all during the week and people were asking me for loads of fancy things. How do you do this? How do you do that? I would show them and say, but don't, why would you want to? Your job is to make the music the best it can be. Your job is to be useful to the music that's happening at the moment, and all you're doing by doing that particular thing is just proving you can do it. You're not actually improving the music.
Speaker 1:So when the opportunity came with Avalon, you know it wasn't just an opportunity, it was a challenge To me. That was a business that I really admired and the guys there. I admired what they did and they had a place within the history of our culture as far as I was concerned and there was the prospect that that could fail and disappear. So really there was to me somebody had to step up and I was in a position to step up and I loved the both. I like the music, obviously, but you know when I'd be going to sleep at night. For years I've been switching on guys fixing guitars or making guitars on YouTube and just drifting off to sleep watching them.
Speaker 3:You're joking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it really was a convergence of a number of things, that what everything was just pointing and screaming at me Do you feel like you've just hit the jackpot. Now do you, I always feel like I've hit the jackpot. I've always been the luckiest man. You could believe in the family that I have at home, the support I have from my family and my wife at home. The businesses I've found myself in have always been really interesting, really challenging and been absolutely chaotic explosions of drama and then gets sorted and I've always and another bloody explosion of chaos and drama.
Speaker 3:Why do you think this trio works, dylan?
Speaker 4:Mainly the Simpsons is probably the first thing that comes to mind, I think, a very kind of consistent, common attitude between the three of us to the music we listen to and want to play. I don't want to age John, but he talks about Planxty there. I remember getting the 2004 reunion of Planckste and like my head exploded. I did not know music could sound like this and that I had kind of this worship of Donal Loney for years and years after and then getting to actually talk to the man and play with him and record with him was incredible. But this, like me and Cian, would have a very common kind of back catalogue of tunes and back catalogue of things that we list over the years. So John mentioned on a Hennessy there I was reared. On Luna say Luna, say Jada. I were the first like two albums and make them again. Age them, boss. Kevin Crawford's in good company on me, hello Riley's nervous man was the first two albums.
Speaker 4:I remember coming into the house when I was five or six and just that driving consistent rhythmic sound reels and jigs is really what kind of drew me into music. And I remember Dad brought me to see Loona in Longford Arms in 2009. And I just remember looking at Sean Smith and Kevin and killing I want to do that, I want to play and I want to play tunes, just tunes on stage. And that kind of common attitude and common, I suppose, enjoyment is definitely what Cian has as well and what John has, and I suppose that's why the whole thing has come together In terms of picking tunes for the albums. Cian will fire a tune into the WhatsApp, write what we put with that, and then I try and keep a spreadsheet of tunes and you're like what's what's good here, what works, what doesn't work, and eventually a kind of an album comes out. But it's, there's always a consensus and there's always a common enjoyment of the of the tunes and of the sets and that's, I suppose, why it works nine times out of ten.
Speaker 2:We might just say just that's a great track. You might even might even be thinking on the lines of an album. We could just be saying just that's great, and then we just something spirals from that, like you know.
Speaker 3:But throw it into the mix, because I think that's really important to do that. Whenever, as you go along and you hear something, you need to just take the moment, note it, send it on, write it down somewhere that you have it as a point of reference to go back to, because we all just live such busy lives. You'll think something came into my mind there six months ago, but I forget.
Speaker 4:And then all of a sudden, like you say, whatsapp is a gift for that exactly, and then having John's, I suppose, harmonic knowledge and the way he thinks about it, he's kind of thinking of a set in terms of a journey. It sounds a bit over-philosophical, but is Is the recording sort of changing chords like one key to the next, so that we're not just playing 15 tunes in G you?
Speaker 1:know yes.
Speaker 4:That there actually comes kind of sense to it and he can build a story and build layers on top of that. So I think it's we all have our own kind of bits and pieces that we bring and it kind of works, I think.
Speaker 3:Dylan and John have referenced people you know that they looked up to as players, as guitar players, bouzouki, fiddle players, just general performers. Would you have had heroes like that, cian?
Speaker 2:Ah well, sure, of course you know you'd have Matt Molloy, sure, christ? I wanted to be like Matt Molloy, since I was seven years of age I heard the flute, like you know, but it's funny. My father said there'd only ever be one Matt Molloy, and he was right. You know, you have to try and do your own little thing as well, but I always loved listening to matt maloy and shaleem kelly, a dervish on galray, and all these again local people, and on top of all that they're, they're just sound people like to chat they were very we're lucky to call them friends too like and play with them regularly.
Speaker 2:So you know they say, never meet your heroes, but when you do, it's nice that they're sound people too you know I?
Speaker 3:I think that's the lovely thing about this world that we all exist in that you're dealing with lovely people.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're dealing with decent people when you meet your heroes. It's a lovely moment. You mentioned Liam Kelly there. I noticed there was a clip on YouTube. I saw Was it the launch of your album? And he did a wonderful introduction. He says so, john, what's it like to play to launch your album? And he did a wonderful introduction. But he was. He just said he says yeah, he says so, john, what's it like to play with the two young lads? I was waiting for something, john doesn't look that bad for 25 we've aged him about 20 years not at all, but it's interesting.
Speaker 3:You know where you're saying your points of reference were. You know these bands and those certain albums. You hadn't heard Planksy till the reunion in 2004, yet there's John saying the original tape that he found in his daddy's car. It's brilliant. Through this podcast, you're hearing all the different points of reference from everybody, because everybody's got we're all different ages, we're all different experiences, and that happens. It's an enriching thing, I think, think so. It must be brilliant, then, whenever you're working with people who are different, slightly different generation, and that is that a challenge to where your, your new things are being brought to you no, it's not.
Speaker 1:Uh, because the the big challenge for me is when there's nothing you've been brought to me and I'm trying to find something that's going to be the next step forward for me, either in terms of trying to arrange music or just trying to improve and trying to bring new things to my own arsenal. Um, so a you know, being stuck in a rut is no good to you. It's great when you meet fellas that just have the same attitude, the same drive. Uh, fairness to Dylan and Cian when they're operating at a level of excellence that you have a responsibility to try and keep up with and make sure that you're not going to be the one that's going to let the side down. And that goes, too, for playing. But there are musicians who are older than me. Liam Kelly is older than me, I'd like to point out since he was pointed out, but you know when I get to play, when.
Speaker 1:I get to play back at you but I get to play with Liam Kelly and when I get to you know, dervish. I remember my my first summer job was painting a block of offices and I have my Sony Sports Walkman on and I listened to Dervish the whole summer and, in my view, if I could ever get to meet Dervish, that would be a dream fulfilled. If I could meet them and talk to them, it would have been a dream fulfilled. And then to be I'm heading off to England with them in the morning to do a gig. So I mean that's it's all a pinch yourself moment for me, both playing with the younger musicians, like I've during Tradfest here I've met so many kids in their teens and in their twenties who are listening to our music and want to be in my company and that's great for me because they are so good. And so it's a new challenge to try and stay as good as those youngsters and to try and stay I'll never stay as good as them, but to stay relevant to them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just such a challenge and a privilege.
Speaker 3:Oh, jeepers, yeah, staying relevant to youngsters, big challenge, big challenge.
Speaker 4:We're on TikTok now.
Speaker 3:Who's the best person on TikTok?
Speaker 2:I'm not on it, no but we manage to.
Speaker 4:Instagram is as far as we go now. We try and manage that, but no, we're not cool enough.
Speaker 3:I was going to say Cian, you should. Just. I'm looking at you, I think you need to start TikTok.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, Jesus Dylan knows the socials.
Speaker 1:I'm still reading the Yellow Pages. Seatbacks.
Speaker 3:And then, cade, as I mentioned, music's not a full-time job for any of you, but I imagine music must come into the classroom in a big way for you, does it? Oh?
Speaker 2:it does definitely. We have a good wee trad group in our school and it's great for you know, like for every school in the country school and it's it's it's great for you know, like sure, every school in the country you'll have your sporty children and your children is into different things, but the music, the music's great and it's it's the cool thing to do, definitely in our school, in a lot of schools. But, um, I know it, it does and I enjoy it. It keeps me calm too in the class. But, uh, no music. I try and do a good bit of music with the children and sure, why not? Sure it's I, I like doing it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they like listening but that's it, and you're giving them a gift as well that, like john was saying, they're just that gift, that you're giving them the exposure to the music and you don't know where it's going to take them, and that's exciting I suppose, yeah, well, you still have to go for the english maths and I don't know all of those stuff as well.
Speaker 2:but uh, I know, you know that's 16 bars and 16 bars Very good it is. It's good. Listen, the teaching's a good job. The teacher's a good job and you know it is really satisfying to see the children enjoying it and going to festivals now and playing music together with them. There's five or six teachers in our school playing music as well, so it's a bit of cracking, bit of fun. So class.
Speaker 3:And then what about you with the balance, with music and work? Then is music just the, the hobby, the past time, the solace yeah, it's a good way of putting it.
Speaker 4:I mean like I was enjoying my day job and whatever. But this is, this is a great break. Like we're very, very lucky that we get to come to things like the Belfast Tradfest and play gigs that people actually want to come and hear us, and it's like it's it's not a chore, it's not work, it's not anything resembling a job. Like it's such a nice break to get away, I suppose, from real life like this isn't. This isn't real life like this is. But yeah, it's like five days a week, you get your work done and then you can have the crack on the weekends.
Speaker 3:It's great and you've got another job, but you end up going away with Dervish as well, so you're flat to the mat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and five children at home.
Speaker 3:Jeepers and a patient wife. I was going to say are you married to a saint? Yeah she is a saint.
Speaker 1:Now, in fairness to her, adele definitely picks up a lot of slack, so she's on her way up to Belfast. Now to the apartment, and I've just had the pleasure, before we got on here, of telling her that somebody parked in her parking space she'd have to find somewhere else to park, and that I'm bringing Dylan and Lucy home tonight so the twins can sleep on the floor in the living room, and I'm heading to England first thing in the morning, so I won't be here.
Speaker 3:John McCartan, you dreamboat.
Speaker 4:We have found the three most patient women.
Speaker 3:Don't you be taking any notes from him? You're getting married soon.
Speaker 4:We have found the three most patient women.
Speaker 2:We have the floor right about my wife plays music as well, so that's a little bit of a Right. So she undersc of a. What does she play?
Speaker 3:fiddle. Very good, alright. So there you are. You can practice away at home for the gigs. So, just before you go, because I've kept you so long and you're heading off to the gig, and this has been class, the title of the second album, the one after it. Who came? You came up with that and how did it happen? Because I just think it is so one of these things, the difficult second album, what are we going to call it? Achse? The one after it. Is that how it happened?
Speaker 4:the working title was you'd mentioned, frasier. There was Toss, mythics and Scrambled Wings, but that didn't make it to the end.
Speaker 2:I thought it was Not these Clowns Again the first one didn't have a name.
Speaker 1:That's right, so it was just Carlos Sweeney-McCarton.
Speaker 2:A lot of people thought we were one person. That's why we put my name first.
Speaker 1:Somebody told me that he told his mother he was going to see Carlos Sweeney-McCarton and she said, yeah, I heard that guy. He's good.
Speaker 4:Someone came up to Cian recently and said are you Carlos Sweeney-McCarton?
Speaker 1:Because the first one didn't have a name and I didn't want then to give the second one. I was kind of thinking, would it be lovely if we could do two with no name, because it's really just all about the music, as I'm always accused of saying. Huge swearing talk, so I was just thinking tune names. Sometimes people would call an album after a tune that's on the album.
Speaker 1:Yes, and loads of times when people don't have a name for a tune, it's the one after it. We played the Galway Rambler and the one after it. So I was thinking, yeah, the one after it, and we don't have a tune called the one after it on the album. But anyway, it's just. That's just how it ended up that's how it ended up.
Speaker 3:Love it, but keeping it simple, honest as well, and that's just exactly what you've brought to the table here today in the snug in Madden. Thanks so much for taking the time to have the chats today.
Speaker 4:Really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:Thank you Thanks for having us, thank you.