MacD on Music: Rising Up

Irish music and risings have been deeply interwoven for the last century or so, for obvious reasons, and this year has seen the release of two albums that have, well, absolutely nothing to do with that particular rising except in the name of the album/artist. Still, it’s a handy lead in for this article so let’s just go with it.

Earlier this year saw the release of Paddy Nash’s new (and second Enchilada-less) album ‘Still We Rise’ (available now in Cool Discs). This was preceded a few weeks before by the release of ‘Crossing The Bar’ by Donegal-based Charles James & the Rise (also available in Cool Discs).

I was chatting to Charles recently about the history of the group and the making of the album: “I started getting into music when I was quite young. We ran a pub, The Drunken Duck, back in the ‘90s, so we used to have a lot of the big bands coming through and I was exposed to a lot of music from a young age.

"My mother would’ve sang in choirs and stuff like that. That’s kind of where I got into it, and my brother would’ve wrote a wee bit and that inspired me to start writing in my early teens, so I’ve been writing songs for coming up to twenty-five years now, playing in different groups over the years. I played in Spring Tides for a while, around Inishowen, Donegal, Derry direction, and I’ve been running this project, Charles James & the Rise for about six years now, on and off.”

“The Rise was a concept that I had. We never intended to tour the album, to be constrained by how many people were in the band when we made the record. Some of the songs have eight or nine people on there, between brass and strings, and then the full band. The idea was to go into the studio and take the songs where they wanted to go then worry about playing them live later.”

One such player on the album was Waterboy (and proud owner of TRAMP’s ‘Bimbofication’ EP) Steve Wickham: “It was some buzz having Steve there. We have Des [McGonigle] as our full time fiddle player. He played on our first EP in 2019 but when we came to put the fiddle and mandolin down, Des wasn’t working at that time so we, jokingly, said to our producer ‘What about Steve Wickham’ and he said ‘I have his number.

"I could send him a text’. We sat around a half a day and thought ‘no chance you’re gonna get Steve Wickham on your record’ but, you know what, you don’t ask you don’t get. Steve happened to be about that week so he came up and spent the day in the studio with us in Attica and tracked fiddle and mandolin for six or seven of the tracks.”

I asked if he’s happy with the end result: “I am. We’re working on the second record now, and with the first one, there was a bit of getting them out of my system, some of the older tracks that never made it to the studio. I feel like we made a cohesive record and I’m definitely proud of it.

READ MORE: MacD on Music

"I’m really happy with the end result. It’s such a buzz to hear it on vinyl, but I feel like the band, now, since we made the record, all the guys who played on it are now in the band full time, so we’re now touring as a full five piece and it feels like we’re finding a groove with the songs and with the new music. It feels like we’re establishing our sound now, which is great.”

And that’s it from Charles James. His debut album ‘Crossing The Bar’ is available now in Cool Discs.

Now, onto other business. Last Friday was a great day for new music. First of all, we got the much-anticipated debut EP from The Suite. ‘Square One’ is out now on all good streaming platforms and it has most definitely been worth the wait.

The other new release came from Roe, with her song ‘New Year, New Me’, a track about “how we convince ourselves that we’ll be better at the end of every year, about the unrealistic goals we place in front of ourselves that we’re destined to fail” and is also available on all good streaming platforms.

Now, we move on to gigs. This Friday will see five of Derry’s finest up-and-coming bands take to the stage for what is sure to be a brilliant night of music when Our Space presents their Christmas Cracker in the Nerve Centre, featuring Growing Pains, Sunset Theory, the Backroom Bandits, Waiting Room Magazines and Sandemos. Tickets are available at nervecentre.org and are £2.50 each (plus booking fee) with doors at 6.30.

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And lastly, the gig of gigs: Stendhal. One of the highlights of the musical calender, every year Stendhal brings together the best local and not-so-local artists and bands for an incredible weekend of music, art, comedy and more. Applications to play at next year’s festival are open now at stendhalfestival.com and the festival is scheduled to take place from July 2nd-4th.

Finally, time for the socials. Stendhal can be found on Instagram @stendhalireland, Our Space @our_space_shipquay, Sandemos @sandemosderry, Waiting Room Magazines @the.waitingroommagazines, the Backroom Bandits @thebackroombandits, Sunset Theory @sunset_theory_doire, Growing Pains @growingpains_band, Roe @roemusic, The Suite @thesuite.band and Charles James & the Rise @charlesjamesandtherise.