2021-12-28 Paddy Casey - Whelan's, Dublin

I thought Covid had the last laugh, I though Covid had killed off any chance I had of going to another gig in 2021...

But I was wrong!

Somehow Paddy Casey and Whelan's in Dublin managed to put on an early gig that passed all the current Covid restrictions. So, 3 days after Christmas, I headed up to Dublin for a 6:00pm gig.

I've seen Paddy on many occasions, a lot of them during the Christmas season, so to continue on with this tradition, even in a pandemic, was a great Christmas present.

As I said, the gig kicked off at 6:00pm and was done by 7:40pm. A short gig by Paddy's standards, but everyone had to be out of the venue by 8:00pm so there was no messing around.

The gig was great, all the fan favourites were played, a few from his new double album 'Turn This Ship Around'. Saoirse Casey also played a couple of songs mid set and, as always, was great!

Anyway, that's it, that's all there was to it. By 8:00pm I was in my car and heading for home. By 9:00pm, I was on my couch watching a terrible movie! I could get used to the early gigs...

I didn't take many photos at all, but sure here's a few of them and a video of Saoirse performing 'To My Someone'.

2022-03-26 Buskers on Grafton Street, Dublin

I took a walk around Dublin today, thought I'd check out the buskers on Grafton Street. There's a fine history of busking in Dublin, acts like Hothouse Flowers , The Frames , Rodrigo y Gabriela , Damien Rice , Paddy Casey , Kodaline and a host of others all cut their teeth on and around Grafton Street. It stands to reason that some of those busking today will be successful in the future! So, who did I get to see today? Well, check out the photos below: Zoe Clarke Allie Sherlock Paul Jenkinson

Bye Bye Spotify...

I ditched Spotify Premium this weekend. Why? Well, I read an interview with Daniel Ek , the CEO of Spotify, and I profoundly disagreed with what he said and his attitude towards musicians in the interview. So I said 'F*ck it', and closed my premium account. I still do have a free account* as many bands choose Spotify to release their music, so I'll keep it for that reason. What now though? Well, I'd created a large library of music on my home server over the last 20 years or so. Every time I bought a CD, it got ripped to the server. Every time I bought digital music from Bandcamp , Google or 7 Digital , they too got stored on the server, and that was fine for home use, it worked well. But now I'd dumped Spotify, what could I do, how could I access my music outside the house? I'd played around with software called Plex a few years back, but had no use for it. I ended up doing nothing with Plex, but for this project, I decided to revisit it. I knew that i

Pete Kavanagh - Mercy Video Shoot

I've been asked a few times if I'd be interested in shooting a music video. Each time I said no because, well, I'd no idea what to do. I'm not technical behind a camera. I know the look I want, I take my photos and, that's it. I honestly don't know what I'm doing, it just works for me, sometimes (they're the photos you see!). I've known Pete Kavanagh a long time. We both grew up in the same Kildare town and know many of the same folk. Over the last few years we became friends through music. He played, I listened and or photographed. So, when he asked me if I'd shoot his video for 'Mercy', I said yes, albeit a hesitant yes, one filled with self doubt! Day one of shooting came around all too quickly for me. I'd looked in to shooting video, read up a bit on how to do it on my camera, what settings to change and so on, just so I wouldn't look clueless on set! I charged all the batteries and lights, packed all the gear away an

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