Songwriters 2006 CD
The Third Annual Live Songwriter Showcase CD
Recorded Live. 25 June, 2006 in the Palace Loft, Athlone
The public is invited to the release party for the 2006 Midland Songwriters Live CD at 9pm Tuesday, January 23rd in The Shack Pub, Athlone. Featuring six local artists, this CD marks the third year www.songwriter.ie has released its live recording of the annual songwriters night.
The midland songwriter's cd is a nonprofit project conducted every year to showcase local talent who write their own songs. With 17 tracks, the 2006 CD is by far the longest songwriter.ie CD to date.
"You get a lot of music on this year's CD," says Sean Lightholder, one of the event organisers, "We usually pick just a couple of songs from each performer, but the recordings just sounded so good this year, we went ahead and squeezed as much music on there as we could."
Helge Wehder, the local sound engineer who handled this year's recording, managed to set up a full digital live recording studio in The Palace Loft for the concert. He says he's happy with the result.
"Recording people live is quite difficult, but live performances have an energy to them that studio recordings don't," Helge says. To help him capture the recordings perfectly Helge had to move a massive 24 channel digital mixing desk into the Palace Loft for the night. "Yes, it was heavy - it took three big lads to carry the main desk up the stairs - but I think if you listen to the CD you'll see it was worth the effort."
Local music has never sounded better. Listening to the CD, one could be forgiven for thinking it was a studio recording. The guitars sound fantastic, the vocal performances are clear as a bell and you may find yourself singing some of the songs after a listen or two.
"We're really happy with the CD this year," Lightholder continued, "there is so much talent here; these people should be on the radio."
The artists on the CD are very different from one another. From Peter Doran, whose debut album is currently climbing the Irish charts to Bill Sherrif who made his performance debut on the night, the CD demonstrates that a well-written song can come from anyone, anywhere.
"My only aspiration in writing music is just to keep writing songs," says Bill, who has been writing songs since the 1960s when "the missus bought me a guitar to keep me off the drums."
Obviously, not every songwriter is looking to be another Damien Rice or Paddy Casey. For many of the artists on the songwriter's CD, just getting the opportunity to play their own songs for an appreciative audience is success enough.
"Ireland must be the best place to find a singer songwriter," says Deborah Jane, a Mullingar songwriter who also appears on the CD, "there's so many out there. In that sense, it's not really the best place to try to make it as one - there are so many people around trying to do the same thing."
The Songwriters 2006 Live CD is a taste of what the music industry is missing, honest original songs played live by the people who wrote them. This year's CD features Athlonian performers Ciaran Flynn, Makewait, Bill Sherrif and Mark White who are joined by Mullingar artists Peter Doran and Deborah Jane. The CD will be available for just 10 euro at the release party in The Shack as well as at local music shops and online from www.songwriter.ie.
The next songwriter night is slotted for the end of April 2007.
