I'm pretty sure I first met Ireland's Niall Connolly in 2003/2004 at the now defunct Cafe 111 in Brooklyn. He was just visiting NYC then and we both got very drunk. It was a great craic as he might say. But he's much more than someone who likes the black stuff ... having released some great music over the years, which has been spun much on Harris Radio. He's got a big gig happening this Saturday and you'd be daft to miss it.
Photo by Cory Treadway
Indie Sounds: So, you have a big gig coming up on the Saturday, the 19th, 7pm at the Rockwood. Tell us about it? What can fans expect?
Niall Connolly: I love the Rockwood Music Hall. I will be playing their newer stage two venue with Brandon Wilde (Black Bunny, This Way) on bass and harmonies, Lenny Monachello (the All Night Chemists) on drums and the great wandering Bolton guitar player and songwriter Warren Malone on guitar and vocals.
Warren and Brandon are beautiful, beautiful harmony singers and now that we're mostly playing electric the melodic core has a punkier edge too. In the writing process, the lyric always comes to me first. It is a privilege to be able to surround the words and flesh out the sound with such great musicians.
IS: I presume you'll be playing songs from your latest album - Brother, The Fight Is Fixed. What's the story of making that? And what's in the title?
Niall: Yes, and I actually quietly released a follow up to that one in May. Super Cool Fantastic is nine dark folk songs recorded in two days in Brighton Beach.
Brother, the Fight is Fixed was recorded and produced by my friend E.W. Harris in 2010. It was crowdfunded through Rockethub by fans from San Francisco to Sydney. The title, Brother, the Fight is Fixed is taken from the song A Child is a Child.
Download Super Cool Fantastic @ iTunes.
Download Brother, the Fight is Fixed @ iTunes.
IS: Back tracking, what's the musical story of Niall Connolly and how you ended up in NYC?
Niall: I started playing music when I was fifteen with three of my childhood friends. I played bass in grunge band called the Whumanz. We made a lot of noise and had a lot of fun. I went to college and studied English and Psychology. I worked in Germany, Holland, France and Cyprus and learned how to play some guitar. I wrote a lot of songs. I played a lot of bars and street corners.
In 2000, I was robbed of my entire summer's wages in Barcelona. I went home to Cork and enrolled in a music, management and sound engineering course at Coláiste Stiofáin Naofa. This was a real turning point for me. I learned an unfathomable amount about music, event management, and well, life, in two years there. Most importantly, it was there that I learned if you want music to be your job, you have to treat it like a job. I met some amazing musicians.
In August 2001, I released my first album, Songs from a Corner in Ireland. I toured Ireland and Europe with it. I followed that up with 2003's As Tomorrow Creeps from the East, which recorded to 2-inch reel to reel in Cork and Kerry. This was the album that helped me quit my nice pensionable job as librarian in Cork City. It also helped me get some great support gigs with Evan Dando, Lambshop, Willard Grant Conspiracy and Thin Lizzy! Yep, that Thin Lizzy.
With the release of The Future Tense in 2007, I started investigating options for playing more in the U.S. I was eventually awarded an 01 performance visa, which allows me to perform legally in this fine country. The process was fraught with difficulty and delay. It is likely that said process was not helped by the fact that I share my name with a former IRA member who was caught, allegedly training FARC guerrillas in Colombia. He later escaped prison and is currently wanted by Interpol.
So here, I am, carving out a living though music. Last year I played just under 300 gigs. I truly do love living in New York City.
IS: So you have this thing called Big City Folk. What is it?
Niall: I have been involved in organizing and hosting events for the last few four years. Big City Folk is an umbrella title for the collective of musicians and regular events that I host. We book multiple events, 'invite only' song clubs, like "The Wednesday Night Song Club" at Ceol, full gigs, monthly songwriting challenges and an open mic at the Path Cafe. We have worked with literally hundreds of musicians, poets and comedians from around the world. Currently, Big City Folk hosts 20 gigs a month in NYC.
We also do a monthly in the round songwriter session the first Saturday of the month at Caffe Vivaldi. Myself, Warren Malone and Casey Black toured in this format in Ireland last spring.
Big City Folk aims to foster a listening environment and welcoming community, primarily for songwriters but also poets, comedians and storytellers, to gather and share our creativity, to trade information, get inspired and make friends. We operate on the ethos of sharing rather than begrudging, a rising tide raises all ships, kind of a thing.
IS: And what's next for you musically?
Niall: This morning I'm working on a song for our monthly Path Songwriter's Challenge. The longer picture, I'm playing and writing all the time, I'm enjoying working with so many great musicians and so many different styles of excellent songwriters. I feel I am writing my best work right now and I am very excited to see where it might take me. I start work on my next studio album in December.
Comments