CPI Archive 2008: WHETHER you view it as a great experiment - concocted by a crack team of mad musical scientists – or the accidental result of unprotected innovation in sound, The Jimmy Cake is the beautiful freak of Irish music.
With undoubted passion and an unbridled sense of experimentation, the band managed to at once break every rule, while at the same time stay true to the values of their craft.  Over the last eight years they have turned all perception of Irish pop on its head, proving that different can be popular and have shown themselves as much much more than a group of classical virtuosos on a slumming mission. In the early days of the Jimmy Cake the band was really only an experiment. No one expected to turn into anything like it did. We had no lead singer, no singer at all in fact and with some very unorthodox instrumental groupings,” says Jürgen.

The Jimmy Cake Podcast

CPI Archive 2008: Reluctant heroes. Andrew Hamilton chews the fat with Leo Moran from the Saw Doctors. THE air was thick and bitter-sweet as Peter O’Toole climbed the 17 steps from the floor to the stage of the Kodak Theatre in Los Angles on a May evening in 2003. More than 40 years in the business, and with seven Oscar nominations already under his belt, you might have thought the overriding emotion would have been one of joy, satisfaction at very least. Yet, as O’Toole finally grasped his honorary Oscar, the reality of the situation came into focus - he would never win an Oscar for real. Many of the same emotions clouded a Dublin stage in December as the Saw Doctors claimed their Lifetime Achievement Meteor Award. “I said at the time that we were going to treat it like a milestone and not a tombstone and I’ll stick to that. It is a double edged sword to get a lifetime achievement award. But you have to take what you get in terms of the media and awards. All the people who have got that award in the past are still there, still alive and kicking,” said Leo.

The Saw Doctors Podcast

CLASSICAL pianist, pop-minimalist and trad troubadour - Meadhbh Boyd is very much her own woman. Painted since birth on a rich musical canvas, this multi-instrumentalist straddles genres with ease - always mixing, always shaping.
Her music may be difficult to categorise, not sitting too snugly into any pigeonhole, but it sounds different and original. And that, for Meadhbh, is the most important thing. “Ya I suppose that musically I am in a bit of an identity crisis right now. But I don’t think that it is a negative thing necessarily. Maybe it might be- come a negative thing in the future - people like to know what you do and what you’re up to - they like putting people in a box. At the moment I don’t think I necessarily fit into any of those boxes. But you work with what you’ve got. You have to work it, you have to find your comfort zone and be bold. You have to have some neck and confidence.”

Unseen Sounds: The Meadhbh Boyd Podcast

CPI Archive 2008: As he prepares to embark on his musical odyssey, Andrew Hamilton has a questions and answers session with Moyasta singer songwriter Mark James.
AH: First of all Mark, what got you into music? Mark: When I was a kid my parents were into old rock and roll - 60’s and 70’s rock and roll like Dylan and Hendrix - all the obvious ones. They were really into music and I can remember myself and my brother sifting through their records and pretending to be DJ’s. We would listen to their music for hours.

The Mark James Podcast

CPI Archive 2008: THEY say you should never meet your heroes. That’s true perhaps, but as Tony Reilly from 28 Costumes (the Cossies) will surely testify, it can sometimes pay to follow your hero around Austin Texas for a week and then ring up his wife one morn- ing for a chat.That bizarre scene, which unfolded at last years South By Southwest Festival (SXSW), allowed the Cossies to make their American television debut on the Jay Leno Show and have a brief encounter of the best kind with the Flaming Lips. “We went to SXSW last year and we have always been huge fans of the Flaming Lip. I remember when we were starting off the band we always used to talk about the bands who would influence us and the ideology of the music that we wanted to make. One of those bands was definitely the Flaming Lips. So Wayne Coyne has always been a huge hero for us,” said Tony Reilly.

The 28 Costumes Podcast

CPI Archive 2008: The Jon Kenny Podcast
After battling illness and a crisis of style, Jon Kenny is back and ready for road. Andrew Hamilton chats to the Limerick comedian about about turning back to front for his new, stripped down show.
IT’S often said that life begins at 50. That along with a cake and an extra handful of grey-hair; the turning of the half-century brings with it a new sense of freedom. Like somewhere, somehow, a mystical reset button has been pushed and the past is wiped clean. The future becomes once again undetermined. In the Summer in 2000, with the d’Unbelievables clearing all before them, you might have thought that the future seemed anything but undetermined for Jon Kenny and Pat Shortt. Ongoing success seemed assured, as Ireland’s greatest comedy double act carved out their place in history. It was in those months however that Kenny was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma - and in a blinking, everything had changed. After battling through his illness, Kenny reemerged in an entertainments world that he no longer recognised and was forced to build again from scratch. The intervening years have seen him gain much critical acclaim as a theatre actor, musician and singer - but they also seen a more surprising change - the reinvention of his first love and the forging of a new comic talent. It’s been almost like starting from scratch, but I guess I’ve been in lucky in a lot of ways with this one. I wanted to take a lot of the stuff out of the set and just deal with myself,” said Kenny.

The Jon Kenny Podcast

CPI Archive 2008: The Travis Podcast
YEARS before Hendrix stole his flaming guitar trick from Pete Townshend’s bag of musical tricks, the scene had already been well set. Whether recording overdubs in toilet cubicles or ritually sacrificing your instruments at the end of each show – a band’s first instinct has always been to gather near the chaos at the edge of reality. No guitar player begins life wanting to write songs about broken love with happy endings. Similarly no young drummer ever imagines a future playing slow foxtrot beats while his lead singer drones on ad nauseam about one thing or another. Put simply, the first inclination of any band member is always to rock. It is perhaps this primal musical instinct which has led Travis to take their new album Ode to J Smith in a totally new direction. “It’s definitely a more raw album. Totally. I think it’s been a reaction to spending two years making the last album with that melodic pop thing that we do very well. I think we wanted to do the same as we have always done except to do it a lot quicker,” said Neil.

The Travis Podcast

CPI Archive 2008: Unseen Sounds: The Serious Mischief Podcast STARTED life as west Clare’s first reggae covers band, Serious Mischief have taken the long route to composition and original music. After a decade in the shank, the Lahinch five piece are branching out and are expanding their unique musical canvas. Serious Mischief go into the studio next week to record their debut album. Still centred in reggae, the album promises to be an infusion of different styles, sounds and attitudes. “It’s unique music all right, and it’s not necessarily all reggae either. There is all sorts of influences on the album - we are not strictly sticking to that genre. But reggae is where we are coming from so that might be the most apparent,” said Jon.

Unseen Sounds: The Serious Mischief Podcast

CPI Archive 2008: Anointed since conception, karate rockers Fight Like Apes are about to fulfill their musical destiny. Ahead of the launch of their debut album next week, Andrew Hamilton chews the fat with head monkey, Maykay.
FIGHT Like Apes are a band of contradiction. Too filthy for pop, too sugary for punk and too technologically inept to be takes seriously in the world of electronica. Devoid of a category they invented their own, and are now the undisputed kings of the world of karate rock. Yet the contradictions don’t stop there. Whether through their live set (all head-butts and handstands), general image or lyrical references to cutting people with glass, the Apes have garnered a reputation, in some quarters at least, for being that bit aggressive. That image is something they were keen to ad- dress when putting together their debut album. “People will hear a different side to us in this album. I think that songs like ‘Tie Me Up In Jackets’ and ‘Knuckle Head’ are a bit of a new side to us, something that people maybe haven’t seen yet. I mean, those songs were written a long time, back at the same time as ‘Jake Summers’ or ‘Digifucker’, but they are different,” says Maykay.

The MayKay Podcast

CPI Archive 2008: REARED in Miltown Malbay on a steady diet of trad and roots, J Healy was a soul destined to sing. From his earliest days, playing on the accordion at the feet of his father Jack, his life has been propelled forward by sounds and words. Trad was his first love, but it wasn’t until years later when he would discover the music that would truly drive him forward. Word by Andrew Hamilton.  
“I grew up in a house full of music. My dad played the button accordion and a lot of trad music. He played the piano and the accordion as well, he gigged all his life and just loved music. I started off playing guitar and bass and a bit of banjo and the fiddle. When I left west Clare to go to college in the NCAD in Dublin I saw Rory Gallagher on the TV one night. I was blown away. He had the whole lot: the passion, the power, the image, the balls and the honest," said J.

CPI Archive 2008c

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