Archive July 2012

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Bap Kennedy Number 1 in local chart

 Bap Kennedy's album "The Sailor's Revenge" is currently at Number 1 in the local Americana chart .

Livedate 04 Aug 2012 - Portrush (solo ITR)

Bap Kennedy plays Portrush Playhouse In The Round with Anthony Toner & Ben Glover

The Mighty Shamrocks reunion tour

 BAP KENNEDY'S FAVOURITE BAND, THE MIGHTY SHAMROCKS REUNION TOUR IS TO TAKE PLACE IN AUG 2012. 

BLOG FROM BAP...

"If you’d told me in 1981 I’d be sharing a stage with The Mighty Shamrocks and singing with them I’d have been blown away. Well here we are in 2012 and that’s what is going to happen my friends. 
Mickey Stephens the Shamrocks singer and songwriter had that thing I’ve been looking for. I wasn’t sure what it was but it seemed like his words were simple but effective in a poetic kind of way. It made me think about the kind of songs I wanted to write. And of course the singing and the melodies were just compelling. To my ears his voice was Bob Dylan filtered through John Lennon. Mickey made me think about the importance of the words and I went in search of wordsmiths who could teach me. The greatest teacher of all was Hank Williams who showed me the power of deep simplicity. There are others of course like Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed, but the penny dropped in Randalstown, Northern Ireland. There were many all night sessions in Mudd Wallace’s Homestead Studio, when he would play us the ongoing recordings that were to become the fabled Mighty Shamrocks one and only album “Paddy” (named in honour of their deceased drummer Paddy McNicholls)
I saw Mickey in the studio early one morning back in 1981. He was cradling a half full bottle of red wine and had a deranged look, like a mad poet. He was leaving and we were arriving. It was a fleeting moment and I’ve haven’t seen him since; and as far as I know he has no memory of it.
…Well Mickey I’ll be seeing you soon.
All the best,
Bap"

Their album "Paddy" is available to purchase

Bap Kennedy blogs about Terri Hooley, Good Vibrations, The Mighty Shamrocks & The Hardjets....

 When I was barely out of my teens I was in a band called TEN PAST SEVEN.  We recorded a song called CRACKIN UP that was featured on the TUBE TV show. It came out on GOOD VIBRATIONS early 1983. While we were in the studio the Producer MUD WALLACE played us some songs by a band called THE MIGHTY SHAMROCKS who were making a record there at the same time. We were a juvenile power pop band but this was music by men. They sounded like cowboys from another planet, world weary and sophisticated. And they had pedal steel. Not the kind you hear on cheesy country songs but soulful, cool and epic. It went deep into me and I wanted to make a record like that.

 
 I took a cassette copy of the record with me to London in the mid eighties when I left Belfast in search of the big time. I turned on many people over the years to this great lost record and as the decades rolled on the MIGHTY SHAMROCKS were always somewhere in the back of my mind, wherever I went in the world.
Fast forward 30 years and finally the great lost record is about to be released on GOOD VIBRATIONS and the movie of the same name about the one and only TERRI HOOLEY is storming the film festival circuit before a worldwide release . And I’m working with MUD WALLACE again, this time producing the newest addition to the GOOD VIBRATIONS stable, the lean mean and hungry HARDJETS. They’re playing their first gig today Friday 6th July at the OH YEAH CENTRE at 5pm.  And the circle is unbroken. Amen
 
...More news to follow
 
Bap