I haven't myself, but if you read the book Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson there's a brilliant part towards the end where these two mortal enemies want to make each other an object of necrophilial affection really really badly and they've got their blades drawn and are ready to kill but then the owner of the place they're at steps in saying 'no blood spilled at my place' and hands the both of them pipes and they duke it out piobaireachd-style with minimal blood loss.
I've been to several "competitive" sessions. Some are friendly and result in masses and masses of tunes being played, the other type result in the quality of the music being lost in a "who can play the fastest or come up with the longest most complicated sets. These are not fun for the other musicians or any audience. I don't suppose they're much fun for the "competitors" either - but some people just feel the need!
However, I do agree that a session with better musicians tends to make me concentrate harder and usually play bettern - but occasionally it can panic me when they're musicians I've not met before! But I usually come away with a lot of ideas and a long to learn list!
Oh crikey crikey crikey. What a terrible terrible thing to let yourself get dragged into. How many times do I have to point out the dreadful oxymoron of "music competition".
Repeat after me:
"Session playing is ensemble playing"
"Session playing is ensemble playing"
"Session playing is ensemble playing" ...
I agree Michael. It's hard enough when everyone is friendly and supportive. That kind of competitiveness would take all the fun out of it for me and serve to intimidate me so much, I'd probably never go back to another session if that behavior happened frequently.
I've been dragged into that macho crap in the past - not my idea of fun these days - I'd probably let the other guy win. My fun comes nowadays, not from showing off, but from being a part of the ensemble and trying to help make the session a friendly democratic place where new players can feel welcome, and at ease to play their own tunes. If there are a few experience players there as well the thing evolves naturally in that they will know tunes that the newbies don't know and so I'll join them. As for playing fast, yeah, yeah, I can do that ok, but then you start to drop ornamentation, and thus the "soul" of the tunes.
This is slightly different but I hate the way some musicians and singers are "competing" with each other to get their tunes, sets, songs "in". This happens a lot at mixed sessions and at folk festivals. The whole thing can get quite aggressive and gladitorial. A few months ago, there was a nice "tune session" started up and a woman approached us saying "We're going to have a few songs here. You instrumentalists aren't going to get your way all night!" which immediately got everybody's backs up. I've also seen singers entering a festival bar en masse and hijacking "the tunes". Some musicians do this too, of course, and "push their way in" with obscure sets in strange keys and/or unorthodox instruments. You know the type-they'll turn up at all sorts of different sessions, maybe because a regular session won't have them.
Ok, I've had my rant and I agree that Michael's way is best.
I was at a session the other night. Two top musicians started playing and swopping tunes at about 9pm and decided to knock it on the head at about 5am the next day.
Yer right though - the exchange of tunes is a good thing, and is a different animal from musical competition.
A good session is like a good conversation, and sometimes in a conversation everyone shares a view or an experience, and sometimes the speaker is out on his own and is the first to put a new view - like playing a new tune.
Competitive macho music is like an argument between two meatheads (who may be very educated/clever, but are only interested in contending that their view is right).
"Session playing is ensemble playing"
"Session playing is ensemble playing"
"Session playing is ensemble playing" ...
Too lowly myself to present a challenge.
Ensemble playing with better musicians is what I lke best, whether the better musicians are happy to play with those not so great, well it depends. I'm very grateful to those that don't mind.
I think that a new guy at a session who challenges you will always be a new guy at any session and won't be asked back because no matter how good he (she?)is, nobody likes a show off.
I compete with myself every time I pick up my instrument. Those with whom I play continually challenge themselves, and me, in the way they approach a session, a performance, or even practice. There's hardly anything better than having a player be so "on" that it raises the level of others. It's empowering for everyone involved, and I've experienced a transfer of that energy, even when they were not the friendliest people - because the music was played well. I've also participated when strong individuals dominated obliviously-unaware of what anyone else contributed, and they brought the music down, void of balance, lacking connection.
I'm fortunate to have friends involved in coaching and competing at the highest levels of athletic endeavor, and it is apparent by the comments some musicians make about sport, that they appear to have no appreciation of how similar the learning, training, and performing aspects the two activities share. Perhaps the terminology throws people off, it isn't easy to tell. But, it takes intensity, consistency, and patience, to be successful in either area. If you don't like calling it "competition" - don't. But pushing one's self to be a better player, to practice, to anticipate playing with others, to learn from them, to go with the flow and lift the music, and test yourself, even if that means sitting out on tunes, is good when balance exists.
Privately encouraging another player who puts it all out there is a great way to create an environment that allows individuals to recognize and arrange the components that keep them motivated to learn, share, and push those around them.
Ensemble playing with people of any standard is what its about.If people only liked to play with their betters, then no one would play with anyone, besides, who's to judge who's better anyway? That way leads to travellers leaving their fiddles in their hotel rooms when they should be joining in
Re Music and Sport: I find it astonishing how dissimilar the learning, training, and performing of the two activities are. Perhaps the terminology confuses people. We both use the word "play", but where one is "play against, the other is "play with".
Good comments Stevie C. THere's absolutely nothing wrong with trying to be the best musician you want to be, same as wanting to get a PB for 10k every time you race one (as I did till recently). Athletics IS about competition. Against yourself or your clubmates/peers etc. And it's all the better for it. But playing a load of tunes with music friends is, as has been pointed out above, like having a musical conversation. And you can play tunes fast if you want, if you know the person you're gonna play them with will play as fast as you - and that has its own energy. But it's still different from competing against another player - that just seems naff to me.
michael: it depends on the sport. In the only sport I've ever really done seriously, rock climbing, I'd say the interplay between participants wasn't so different from playing music together.
The ideal atmosphere is one of mutual encouragement; even when there's some implicit competition, it's more out of a desire to do the best one can - the proximity (and active participation) of a person of greater abiliity can encourage someone to "play out of their skin", to reach a new level by absorbing some of their attributes.
I guess that the real difference is that rock climbing has much more definable goals (you reach the top of that boulder problem or not) whereas music is ever subjective. Perhaps this explains the usual lack of explicit encouragement to be found in sessions (it's rare in my experience that people actually congratulate others on a well played set of tunes) whereas it's ubiquitous in climbing. It's lovely when it happens though, like a kid being given a sweet...
The whole subjective nature of the music thing (and the lack of any feedback) means it's very easy to disappear into your own head, and think you're somewhere or something that you're not (or at any rate some others might not think you are) which is maybe the perennial fuel for the usual "session-conflict" discussions.
I find it difficult, anyway. In the end, you just have to trust yourself... but you see some others that trust themselves, and cringe, thinking that you yourself might be like that to others. Session insecurity!
Not where I play. We like congratulate and encourage. None of this "tune ends, silence, pints picked up" nonsense. And if you think you should treat the challenge of a tune like the challenge of a wall, you are wrong again. Like as if it's a good thing to deliberatly find the hardest route up the wall/tune. And is if the goal is to get to the end/top. Come on now, this metaphor is a bad one
Hi, newbie here. Love this site! What a fantastic resource. I really appreciate the insight these discussions give.
I find that ensemble playing is a bit like a race - sometimes a sprint, other times a marathon – except that it’s absolutely imperative that you stay in a dead heat and end in a tie.
Actually michael, in rock climbing, the goal is to find the easiest way to flow up a particular problem. You know you're going right when something previously hard becomes effortless, and the energy that before you were putting into just hanging on you can now devote to the smaller things (that are nonetheless important), such as grace, style, and planning ahead.
Of course there are crucial differences (e.g. you're not climbing in unison with someone else), but I don't think the metaphor is too bad.
Cooperation sure... but you're not moving in synchrony, so you don't have that kind of immediate interplay that you get in a session.
And really the kind of rock climbing I was thinking of when drawing the analogy with sessions was bouldering, where you've got something of a similar, informal, congregation of mostly like-minded people coming together to have good crack and a play together.
Lead climbing with ropes is more akin to a solo performance with a backing musician - you're reliant on the other person (probably couldn't do it without them), but the essential responsibility is yours.
michael gill wrote: "...And if you think you should treat the challenge of a tune like the challenge of a wall, you are wrong again. Like as if it's a good thing to deliberatly (sic) find the hardest route up the wall/tune. And is if the goal is to get to the end/top. Come on now, this metaphor is a bad one (sic)"
michael - Actually, the goal is to get back to the bottom, something every climber knows full well. And why would it make any difference how a person regards or approaches learning or playing a tune? The proof is in the music. Motivation is a personal, subjective, thing. Players come from mindsets of anger to get the most of lilting, happy-sounding tunes, and happiness harnessed to play the saddest, mournful, slow airs. One great power of Irish traditional music is the diversity of community upon which it thrives and the various approaches people use to learn the tunes, dance, i.e. language spoken within. That's my last word on this one. No point being perceived as "competitive."
... just like it's extremely easy (and rather painful for those listening) to fall over yourself and collapse into a jumble of jarring notes when playing a difficult tune...
I was going to mention the piping duel in Kidnapped, or was it Catriona, but I see that micelfife beat me to it.
Stevenson describes how each one threw the tune back at the other with ever more variations or twists, in such a way that you feel pretty certian he had witnessed such a scene himself. I've seen that happen once or twice with fiddlers, all in the best of fun, it's great. I guess it wouldn't be so great if it went on all night, but it didn't so it was.
Don't worry about all us limp wristed politically correct democratic wussies. You've got a good point - maybe we didn't pick it up right. I've been in sessions where the competitive edge was *not* friendly but deliberately one-upmanship stuff. I know I've gone with that crap but I wouldn't now. That's what *I* thought you meant.
Looks like we've got wires crossed, when what you meant was just that you swapped a bunch of tunes with someone in a friendly, but maybe positively competitive ding dong. Probably the reality is not so far different from what some have described here, just that we all need to speak the same language.
Poor Jim, everyone's taking you up wrong.
I know exactly what you mean but with my limited repetoire I've never experienced the standoff you describe. Once I've played my Fig for a Kiss, that's it, stand off over
How do you get this "ensemble playing" going with a room full of session-remedials who only know 10 tunes?
Isn't stale sessions one possible reason that some musos enter into these competitions.
I am a session-hog and relish entering into any musical competition whatsoever. My speciality is marathon sets, but I do play marathon sets of "standard" repertoire so can put a tick in the box for encouraging "ensemble playing".
Hey Jim would that large man be a piper? Do you remember Johnny as well. I often to give him a lift home from the session sometimes with his brother Brendan and they would fight like cats and dogs in the back of the car. One night we all went from O'Donoghues to the late show in the Stephens Green Cinema with a bottle of whiskey, great craic - were you there?
Jim I know who that big man was, his name was Tony O'Leary from Wexford - a great fluter in his day but the drink got to him. He was a pal of Christy Barry and we all used to hang out in Doolin many, many moons ago.
How was Hughes Friday were you there. Are you off to Milltown - see ya there maybe
cheers
don't know Jim, last heard he was living in a caravan in Milltown but that burnt down! Sad really. I've been to Hughes on Friday and played a few tunes with you and the gang (hey maybe I'm one of the strange characters - I love listening to Micheal O'Reilly on his magic concertina though. You'll have to fill me in on that salute? cheers
beat that !
Re: beat that !
I haven't myself, but if you read the book Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson there's a brilliant part towards the end where these two mortal enemies want to make each other an object of necrophilial affection really really badly and they've got their blades drawn and are ready to kill but then the owner of the place they're at steps in saying 'no blood spilled at my place' and hands the both of them pipes and they duke it out piobaireachd-style with minimal blood loss.
# Posted on June 30th 2004 by micelfife
Re: beat that !
I've been to several "competitive" sessions. Some are friendly and result in masses and masses of tunes being played, the other type result in the quality of the music being lost in a "who can play the fastest or come up with the longest most complicated sets. These are not fun for the other musicians or any audience. I don't suppose they're much fun for the "competitors" either - but some people just feel the need!
However, I do agree that a session with better musicians tends to make me concentrate harder and usually play bettern - but occasionally it can panic me when they're musicians I've not met before! But I usually come away with a lot of ideas and a long to learn list!
# Posted on June 30th 2004 by Tarrantella
Re: beat that !
Oh crikey crikey crikey. What a terrible terrible thing to let yourself get dragged into. How many times do I have to point out the dreadful oxymoron of "music competition".
Repeat after me:
"Session playing is ensemble playing"
"Session playing is ensemble playing"
"Session playing is ensemble playing" ...
# Posted on June 30th 2004 by llig leahcim
Re: beat that !
Ok. Session playing is ensemble playing.
I agree Michael. It's hard enough when everyone is friendly and supportive. That kind of competitiveness would take all the fun out of it for me and serve to intimidate me so much, I'd probably never go back to another session if that behavior happened frequently.
# Posted on June 30th 2004 by Andee
Re: beat that !
I've been dragged into that macho crap in the past - not my idea of fun these days - I'd probably let the other guy win. My fun comes nowadays, not from showing off, but from being a part of the ensemble and trying to help make the session a friendly democratic place where new players can feel welcome, and at ease to play their own tunes. If there are a few experience players there as well the thing evolves naturally in that they will know tunes that the newbies don't know and so I'll join them. As for playing fast, yeah, yeah, I can do that ok, but then you start to drop ornamentation, and thus the "soul" of the tunes.
# Posted on June 30th 2004 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: beat that !
I always beat that. 'tis how I play the bodhràn.
Joe
# Posted on June 30th 2004 by Joe Quinn
Re: beat that !
This is slightly different but I hate the way some musicians and singers are "competing" with each other to get their tunes, sets, songs "in". This happens a lot at mixed sessions and at folk festivals. The whole thing can get quite aggressive and gladitorial. A few months ago, there was a nice "tune session" started up and a woman approached us saying "We're going to have a few songs here. You instrumentalists aren't going to get your way all night!" which immediately got everybody's backs up. I've also seen singers entering a festival bar en masse and hijacking "the tunes". Some musicians do this too, of course, and "push their way in" with obscure sets in strange keys and/or unorthodox instruments. You know the type-they'll turn up at all sorts of different sessions, maybe because a regular session won't have them.
Ok, I've had my rant and I agree that Michael's way is best.
# Posted on June 30th 2004 by Johannes J
Re: beat that !
I was at a session the other night. Two top musicians started playing and swopping tunes at about 9pm and decided to knock it on the head at about 5am the next day.
# Posted on June 30th 2004 by Piano Accordion
Re: beat that !
Swapping tunes is a bit different to competing with each other though. Swapping is the backbone of the diversity of a good session.
# Posted on June 30th 2004 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: beat that !
Swopping/swapping - mmm.
Yer right though - the exchange of tunes is a good thing, and is a different animal from musical competition.
A good session is like a good conversation, and sometimes in a conversation everyone shares a view or an experience, and sometimes the speaker is out on his own and is the first to put a new view - like playing a new tune.
Competitive macho music is like an argument between two meatheads (who may be very educated/clever, but are only interested in contending that their view is right).
"Session playing is ensemble playing"
"Session playing is ensemble playing"
"Session playing is ensemble playing" ...
Dave
# Posted on June 30th 2004 by showaddydadito
Re: beat that !
Too lowly myself to present a challenge.
Ensemble playing with better musicians is what I lke best, whether the better musicians are happy to play with those not so great, well it depends. I'm very grateful to those that don't mind.
I think that a new guy at a session who challenges you will always be a new guy at any session and won't be asked back because no matter how good he (she?)is, nobody likes a show off.
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by Cath
Re: beat that !
I compete with myself every time I pick up my instrument. Those with whom I play continually challenge themselves, and me, in the way they approach a session, a performance, or even practice. There's hardly anything better than having a player be so "on" that it raises the level of others. It's empowering for everyone involved, and I've experienced a transfer of that energy, even when they were not the friendliest people - because the music was played well. I've also participated when strong individuals dominated obliviously-unaware of what anyone else contributed, and they brought the music down, void of balance, lacking connection.
I'm fortunate to have friends involved in coaching and competing at the highest levels of athletic endeavor, and it is apparent by the comments some musicians make about sport, that they appear to have no appreciation of how similar the learning, training, and performing aspects the two activities share. Perhaps the terminology throws people off, it isn't easy to tell. But, it takes intensity, consistency, and patience, to be successful in either area. If you don't like calling it "competition" - don't. But pushing one's self to be a better player, to practice, to anticipate playing with others, to learn from them, to go with the flow and lift the music, and test yourself, even if that means sitting out on tunes, is good when balance exists.
Privately encouraging another player who puts it all out there is a great way to create an environment that allows individuals to recognize and arrange the components that keep them motivated to learn, share, and push those around them.
just opinion, of course
all the best,
steve
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by Stevie C
Re: beat that !
Ensemble playing with people of any standard is what its about.If people only liked to play with their betters, then no one would play with anyone, besides, who's to judge who's better anyway? That way leads to travellers leaving their fiddles in their hotel rooms when they should be joining in
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by llig leahcim
Re: beat that !
Re Music and Sport: I find it astonishing how dissimilar the learning, training, and performing of the two activities are. Perhaps the terminology confuses people. We both use the word "play", but where one is "play against, the other is "play with".
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by llig leahcim
Re: beat that !
Good point Michael. I'll have my fiddle with me at Sandy Bells on 20th July, are you going to be there?
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by Cath
Re: beat that !
Good comments Stevie C. THere's absolutely nothing wrong with trying to be the best musician you want to be, same as wanting to get a PB for 10k every time you race one (as I did till recently). Athletics IS about competition. Against yourself or your clubmates/peers etc. And it's all the better for it. But playing a load of tunes with music friends is, as has been pointed out above, like having a musical conversation. And you can play tunes fast if you want, if you know the person you're gonna play them with will play as fast as you - and that has its own energy. But it's still different from competing against another player - that just seems naff to me.
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: beat that !
Ah yes, the happy, warm, fuzzy, loving world of music... heh heh.
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by Stevie C
Re: beat that !
Fuzzy music? Not if we can help it!
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by Cath
Re: beat that !
After a few pints of the black stuff it all gets fuzzy to me....
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: beat that !
michael: it depends on the sport. In the only sport I've ever really done seriously, rock climbing, I'd say the interplay between participants wasn't so different from playing music together.
The ideal atmosphere is one of mutual encouragement; even when there's some implicit competition, it's more out of a desire to do the best one can - the proximity (and active participation) of a person of greater abiliity can encourage someone to "play out of their skin", to reach a new level by absorbing some of their attributes.
I guess that the real difference is that rock climbing has much more definable goals (you reach the top of that boulder problem or not) whereas music is ever subjective. Perhaps this explains the usual lack of explicit encouragement to be found in sessions (it's rare in my experience that people actually congratulate others on a well played set of tunes) whereas it's ubiquitous in climbing. It's lovely when it happens though, like a kid being given a sweet...
The whole subjective nature of the music thing (and the lack of any feedback) means it's very easy to disappear into your own head, and think you're somewhere or something that you're not (or at any rate some others might not think you are) which is maybe the perennial fuel for the usual "session-conflict" discussions.
I find it difficult, anyway. In the end, you just have to trust yourself... but you see some others that trust themselves, and cringe, thinking that you yourself might be like that to others. Session insecurity!
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by rog
Re: beat that !
Not where I play. We like congratulate and encourage. None of this "tune ends, silence, pints picked up" nonsense. And if you think you should treat the challenge of a tune like the challenge of a wall, you are wrong again. Like as if it's a good thing to deliberatly find the hardest route up the wall/tune. And is if the goal is to get to the end/top. Come on now, this metaphor is a bad one
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by llig leahcim
Re: beat that !
Hi, newbie here. Love this site! What a fantastic resource. I really appreciate the insight these discussions give.
I find that ensemble playing is a bit like a race - sometimes a sprint, other times a marathon – except that it’s absolutely imperative that you stay in a dead heat and end in a tie.
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by fidkid
Re: beat that !
Actually michael, in rock climbing, the goal is to find the easiest way to flow up a particular problem. You know you're going right when something previously hard becomes effortless, and the energy that before you were putting into just hanging on you can now devote to the smaller things (that are nonetheless important), such as grace, style, and planning ahead.
Of course there are crucial differences (e.g. you're not climbing in unison with someone else), but I don't think the metaphor is too bad.
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by rog
Re: beat that !
Welcome to The Session, fidkid. We'll look forward to hearing from you in the future!
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: beat that !
Surely you're going to hope for cooperation when rock climbing. Aren't you people attached to each other by ropes?
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by Cath
Re: beat that !
Cooperation sure... but you're not moving in synchrony, so you don't have that kind of immediate interplay that you get in a session.
And really the kind of rock climbing I was thinking of when drawing the analogy with sessions was bouldering, where you've got something of a similar, informal, congregation of mostly like-minded people coming together to have good crack and a play together.
Lead climbing with ropes is more akin to a solo performance with a backing musician - you're reliant on the other person (probably couldn't do it without them), but the essential responsibility is yours.
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by rog
Re: beat that !
michael gill wrote: "...And if you think you should treat the challenge of a tune like the challenge of a wall, you are wrong again. Like as if it's a good thing to deliberatly (sic) find the hardest route up the wall/tune. And is if the goal is to get to the end/top. Come on now, this metaphor is a bad one (sic)"
michael - Actually, the goal is to get back to the bottom, something every climber knows full well. And why would it make any difference how a person regards or approaches learning or playing a tune? The proof is in the music. Motivation is a personal, subjective, thing. Players come from mindsets of anger to get the most of lilting, happy-sounding tunes, and happiness harnessed to play the saddest, mournful, slow airs. One great power of Irish traditional music is the diversity of community upon which it thrives and the various approaches people use to learn the tunes, dance, i.e. language spoken within. That's my last word on this one. No point being perceived as "competitive."
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by Stevie C
Re: beat that !
I'd think it'd be extremely easy, if somewhat painful, to get back down to the bottom, Stevie... ;)
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: beat that !
... just like it's extremely easy (and rather painful for those listening) to fall over yourself and collapse into a jumble of jarring notes when playing a difficult tune...
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by rog
Re: beat that !
Metaphor stretching! Metaphor stretching! *smirk*
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: beat that !
we lav it, gavnor.
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by rog
Re: beat that !
I was going to mention the piping duel in Kidnapped, or was it Catriona, but I see that micelfife beat me to it.
Stevenson describes how each one threw the tune back at the other with ever more variations or twists, in such a way that you feel pretty certian he had witnessed such a scene himself. I've seen that happen once or twice with fiddlers, all in the best of fun, it's great. I guess it wouldn't be so great if it went on all night, but it didn't so it was.
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by Bren
Re: beat that !
Jim, Jim! JIM!
Come back out of that dumb corner, fur fox ache!
Don't worry about all us limp wristed politically correct democratic wussies. You've got a good point - maybe we didn't pick it up right. I've been in sessions where the competitive edge was *not* friendly but deliberately one-upmanship stuff. I know I've gone with that crap but I wouldn't now. That's what *I* thought you meant.
Looks like we've got wires crossed, when what you meant was just that you swapped a bunch of tunes with someone in a friendly, but maybe positively competitive ding dong. Probably the reality is not so far different from what some have described here, just that we all need to speak the same language.
# Posted on July 1st 2004 by Key Maniac Lad
Re: beat that !
I've done music and I've done rock climbing.
I never broke any ribs while playing music.
(then again I never got into any fights while rock climbing)
Dave
# Posted on July 2nd 2004 by showaddydadito
Re: beat that !
Poor Jim, everyone's taking you up wrong.
I know exactly what you mean but with my limited repetoire I've never experienced the standoff you describe. Once I've played my Fig for a Kiss, that's it, stand off over
# Posted on July 2nd 2004 by MollyB
Re: beat that !
How do you get this "ensemble playing" going with a room full of session-remedials who only know 10 tunes?
Isn't stale sessions one possible reason that some musos enter into these competitions.
I am a session-hog and relish entering into any musical competition whatsoever. My speciality is marathon sets, but I do play marathon sets of "standard" repertoire so can put a tick in the box for encouraging "ensemble playing".
# Posted on July 2nd 2004 by geoffwright
Re: beat that !
Hey Jim would that large man be a piper? Do you remember Johnny as well. I often to give him a lift home from the session sometimes with his brother Brendan and they would fight like cats and dogs in the back of the car. One night we all went from O'Donoghues to the late show in the Stephens Green Cinema with a bottle of whiskey, great craic - were you there?
# Posted on July 2nd 2004 by MollyB
Re: beat that !
Jim I know who that big man was, his name was Tony O'Leary from Wexford - a great fluter in his day but the drink got to him. He was a pal of Christy Barry and we all used to hang out in Doolin many, many moons ago.
How was Hughes Friday were you there. Are you off to Milltown - see ya there maybe
cheers
# Posted on July 3rd 2004 by MollyB
Re: beat that !
don't know Jim, last heard he was living in a caravan in Milltown but that burnt down! Sad really. I've been to Hughes on Friday and played a few tunes with you and the gang (hey maybe I'm one of the strange characters - I love listening to Micheal O'Reilly on his magic concertina though. You'll have to fill me in on that salute? cheers
# Posted on July 5th 2004 by MollyB