About the Showcase
It was 29 February, 2004 at the Palace Loft in Athlone. A fistful of local musicians had dreamed up a night of completely original music, they wanted to record it live and have the craic while doing it.
Long hours of rehearsal and preparation preceded the event. Even so, the 6 songwriters and 5-piece backing band never imagined the response: a packed, enthusiastic crowd cheering along into the wee hours of the morning.
Now in its third year, the Midland Songwriter Showcase is the only one of its kind in the midlands. Once a year we present a showcase of local and visiting songwriters for one night of live, original music. The night is recorded and a limited release CD is brought out to benefit local music.
What's Songwriter.ie all about?
Here you see the first, fledgling attempts at an Irish musician's collective.
We believe in two things: original music and live performance.
We believe that these two things need one another. We, as musicians ourselves, also know from experience that, while there are an awful lot of great musicians and songwriters in Ireland they are often hard to find. If you happen to be one of these musicians or songwriters you know that it's quite difficult to find an outlet where you can sit down with your instrument and play a few new tunes for people.
This is what we hope to accomplish - we want to bring songwriters together. We want to put together shows with their material and spread that music as far as it will go.
We are not out to get rich. We are not trying to make anyone famous. We simply believe that if we all get together, a lot more music is possible.
That's the craic - that's what we're after.
In a nutshell, we want to nurture the process of writing music, the ability of musicians to perform and the ability of regular folks to get their ears around that material.
We intend to make songwriter.ie a home for independent, original music. At the moment we're working on becoming an official non-profit songwriter cooperative. Check back soon for updates and, especially if you're a musician in Ireland, feel free to send us an email by clicking the "contact us" link up there above.
