Cheryl's Healing Harmonies! 24/6/13

Image compliments of Patrick Duddy Photography

Cheryl-Ann McEvoy is a new young talent whose name is becoming increasingly known in the City’s Music scene. Cheryl started playing as a result of having an operation on her hand. She used the movement and practice as therapy in her healing.  

“It was about three years ago I started playing guitar. I had an operation on my hand and it was really just to make my hand start to move. My daddy’s guitar was always sitting around the house and to start with I tried to play it and played the same old ‘Smoke on the Water’ or ‘Teenage Kicks’ and then I thought that I really did want to learn. I kind of fell in love with it. My daddy’s been everywhere with music so it’s always been running in the family. Then coming to the Tech in September 2010 brought out my confidence. I was able to get up in front of people and start singing properly. Started writing songs, the Tech gave me the confidence to start writing. Now it’s like the yin and yang, everywhere you see me there’s a guitar somewhere, it’s pretty much everything that I do now.”

As any proud father would Cheryl’s dad went out to buy a guitar as a present to encourage her but it wasn’t quite what Cheryl expected. “My first guitar, I cringe about it all the time, was pink! I hate pink! Anyone that knows me, knows I hate pink. It was pretty cringy but I got up and sang with that then. That one actually got broken by accident and then my daddy gave me his, it’s really old so that meant a lot to him that I was playing it.  My daddy thought it would be class, because I was a girl to have a pink guitar. I came down one morning, a Christmas morning and it was sitting there. I was like ‘Aw, that’s nice, it’s pink but it’s nice’. It was a lovely guitar, just pink but I ended up with his and I still have his now, it’s the only one I use.”

Cheryl’s attachment to the guitar her dad gave her grew when the original owner of the instrument passed away last year. “The guitar belonged to a friend of his, Seamus McBrearty. He was a golfer so the guitar just sat about the house. He sold it to my daddy and the next thing was he died then, last year. There would be a bigger emotional attachment to that. That guitar is the only guitar I can write with, I couldn’t write with anything else, I get memo blocks. It’s the only one I can actually put music to songs with.”

Like many students leaving school Cheryl was faced with the decision of heading off to uni or staying at home. She chose staying at home and concentrating on her music. “Rocket ship was written on the back of an envelope. I was playing on going to uni this year and my acceptance letter, the envelope that was in it was huge, from Cambridge like so it was one of those big letter saying ‘Do Not Bend’ and all that. I started getting idea in my head and I’ve always had a thing for rocket ships and I thought ‘Right, I’m going to write a song about a rocket ship’ and it just sort of came out. At the minute, here in Derry there’s a lot going on for music, there’s a lot of people being seen about like SOAK and different people. It’s not somewhere at the moment that’s being overlooked in the music scene. People are still making it big, look at The Clameens now making a start. It’s that process of going from your home town and getting there from your home town is far better than trying to find it somewhere else. It means more if you’re coming from your home town I think.”

Studying music at the North West Regional College has seen Cheryl’s song writing and confidence come on leaps and bounds. She’s now in a band and will soon be releasing an EP.

“Studying music now, first year of music finished, second year next year. It was class, the amount of people I met and the amount of musical ideas that have come out of Tech were amazing. Started writing a lot of stuff too for the band that we’re in ‘Don’t Get Personal’ , I’m kinda the front woman of that. There’s a lot going on. I’m going into the recording studio soon so we’ll get that EP out as soon as possible.

I do a lot of cover stuff and that’s how I fund my own stuff. I bought a wee home studio, especially for writing, maybe not for recording and doing my EP on but anytime I write something I would record it straight away.  My gigs are funding that, I don’t do any full original gigs yet because I want to have a full set that I’m able to do. I do a lot of stuff my own way and use the open mic nights to play my own tunes.”

Cheryl is running an open mic night for singer/songwriters and musicians similar to herself every Tuesday Night in Masons. It will offer a platform to people like Cheryl who may not have enough material to fill an entire gig with original music but who still want their music to be heard.

Seneron Restores Order! 17/6/13

Image compliments of Paul Brown

Local grunge metal group Seneron will soon be launching their new single ‘Dead Stare’ after the release of their 2nd album ‘Order Restored’. The group have seen massive acclaim globally boasting tour date and media campaigns reaching the far ends of Europe and America. Ivor Ferris, bass player explains how he first got into music. “I started playing when I was about 13 or 14, a friend of mine in school got me into playing music. I just really started from there listening to rock music. Got into Nirvana, grunge music and the scene. Then from that at a young age the same group of people at the age of 15 or 16 started playing bands and writing music, just trying to have fun playing and see what comes of it. Trying to get into bars were you’re too young and should be doing something else. From that I went to education to do music, did my degree, went to the tech and did a HND in Music Production so I was trying to incorporate music as a love into a sort of business aspect. So as well as playing it I’ve worked on the business side of things doing promotion and the managing side as well. I don’t do any of that now because it’s too much tasking and effort and I like to have some free time these days after working long hours.”

Before Ivor reached his destination of Seneron’s line-up he had already racked up years as a performer, even dabbling in the business side of things.

 “I’ve played in loads of bands, cover bands, original bands, toured all around the UK & Ireland and all over Europe as well. I suppose whenever you start music you never lose it. You just have to keep playing, opportunities come up such as the one I’m working at now. You take it when it’s available and see what happens and then something catches and people like it. You see what happens with it. I try to keep myself busy playing and writing and do a lot of the press side of things, I enjoy meeting new people. 

We’re all from Derry and been together about 2 years now. We’ve all grown up with each other, playing in bands in and out through the years. I play bass, the rest of the guys play in a band together anyway and decided they wanted to do something with their own music, and they asked me to come along. We got together and after 6 months wrote some songs, it was sounding well so we played some shows. Two years have passed and we have 2 records out.”

They’ve gigged and toured substantially since forming but Ivor and the group have the dream of making playing music the number 1 earner. “Aspirations for me now are to try and survive in the music business. It’s hard these days for anyone to try and survive the music business in order to live off, create a career, create an income, most of the time it’s done as a side project. You have a good time but you don’t really see that aspect of it, turning it into a money making exercise which is kind of what we’re trying to do now in terms of touring with a band, merchandise, selling T-shirts and CDs, everything like that and create a fan base. There’s a lot of mechanics to it. A lot of it’s actually quite boring actually apart from getting up on stage and actually playing for an hour or half an hour. If you’re sensible about it you can try and make some money. There’s a lot of bands on the scene now making money.”

The group’s success took a major leap forward after the support and backing of Globe Metal Promotions got underway. “We got a European management deal with a company called Globe Metal Promotions. They promote mostly metal bands, hard core bands all over the world but they’re based in Russia. We’re currently working with them which has turned out very well.  It’s exciting, they’ve got a lot of mainstream press in Europe for us. We did an interview for what would be the Russian equivalent of Kerrang and that’s going to go to press next month. It’s an interview with the band so we did a Skype interview for that. We were warned that it was a very exclusive interview and that we need to do well. It’s very interesting; we do a lot of European press now, to see the language barrier because they say certain things, they like to talk about beer a lot we’ve discovered. A lot of the German press, they approach it big and most recently we were over in Belgium and France.”

Bringing it back to the grass roots Seneron will be doing a local launch of their single but they got more than they bargained for when a free video opportunity came their way. “At the moment we’re promoting our second record ‘Order restored’, that’s out now and we’re promoting our new single which is called ‘Dead Stare’ which will be out on the 15th July. We’ve also recorded a video, we’ve been working with director Marietta Alvarez in partnership with the Nerve Centre, she’s a student at the Nerve Centre and they asked us if we wanted the video done and we’re releasing the single anyway so it was very cost effective and great to do. We recorded over 2 days and it was very good. Our idea was to have a comedy element to it, we do a thing called ‘LARPing’. We’re trying to so something different because there are that many music videos out there these days of people just playing. We have the performance element in there but we wanted to do something different. Hopefully, it’s going to be released in a couple of weeks time and people like it. We’re really happy about it and really excited about it, we’re going to get an American music channel, they’re going to go out it on, it’s like local TV in the States. There’s lot happening outside of Ireland because for us the music isn’t really mainstream.”

The band will be playing on Friday night at Masons as part of the highly anticipated Music City Festival. Have Facebook at the ready for updates on up and coming gigs but if you don’t catch them visit their SoundCloud on https://soundcloud.com/seneronband for some grungetastic heavy metal.

Turn up for the books! 10/6/13

 

Image compliments of Christine Donnelly

The Turning is an up and coming pop rock group featuring local boy Luke McLaughlin as front man. The group formed as the result of a match making effort on the part of Robert Stephenson, their manager. David (Dave) Bardon on Guitar, Louis Gilbert on Bass and Ruben Kenton-Harris on drums had found themselves without a singer and Luke seemed to fit the bill. Dave said: “He was Luke Mc in Ireland, he still is Luke Mc he likes to think, playing gigs in Ireland going round playing acoustic stuff. We were in a band in London, originally called ‘The Pieces’ and it kind of imploded and nothing really went through.” “We knew our current Manager Robert who we meet through various competitions and he sort of took us under his wing and we knew him for quite a few years and he kind of helped us out. Eventually when we split up and we told him we were looking for a singer and he knew Luke.” added Ruben.

Luke explains: “I was signed to Robert and all by that point as an acoustic act. I was getting managed as a solo act but then he paired me up with these guys.” “He flew Luke over to meet us and we had a few rehearsals and everything went well and here we are today. It was fate I think, we get on so well and the music interest is spot on so it goes really well.” Said Ruben

Louis raises a very important point, “The only problem is that Luke is in Derry and we live in London.” The band have managed thus far to travel between England and Ireland to practice and record. “At the moment he comes over when he’s got holidays and we’ve got free time. This is our first time here, we only got here yesterday. Enjoying it. Eventually I’d imagine Luke will come to London or we’ll work something out. If we’re going to take it seriously and gig a lot harder, have a base in London, it’s three on one!” said Dave.“If we’re making all the effort of going between different countries to play then we may as well take it seriously.” added Luke, who has found himself doing most of the travelling to London.

What would happen though if Luke wanted to stay in the city you may ask? Louis said,  “I’d kill him! I don’t know, I think it’d be quite hard to lug the three of us out here. I don’t know. Where would you stay? We could find some sort of accommodation. “We saw a little island when we were flying over between Ireland and England, Isle of Mann, maybe we could just settle there and meet half way.” said Dave.

The guys are all still quite young and excluding Luke are currently studying at college. “We’re all still in college doing our first year of A levels doing a bit of Music Tech and loads of other subjects. Said Ruben.  “We’re going to go flat out as much as we can until these exams are over and then we’ll take a complete year off and just go for it. But any gigs and that, we’re up for it up until about three weeks before exams.” said Dave.

When it come to the song writing in the group both Dave an Luke work in partnership. Their latest single ‘Magazine Street’ saw Dave contribute to writing about somewhere he’d never even laid eyes on! “The new single is called Magazine Street, it was obviously myself that came up with that. I came up with the name. I had a massive poster from a gig in masons. It was Jerry Dammers, the fella that used to be in The Specials but does DJ sets now, he was playing in Masons. I had this big ska poster on my wall and just turned left and the poster was there saying Magazine Street and I thought, name for a song. I wrote the name down and that lay for 6 months and I wrote a riff and that lay for about 6 months. I had the first line.” tells Luke.

“He just thought about it, I made it a song. He had the first line and a riff and I said, ‘well come on then let’s finish it.’ I’d never been to Magazine Street and so I didn’t know what it was but I thought about magazines, newspapers and thought about what could work well words wise. I sort of just made up an image in my head. I think it worked well because I didn’t know it and he does know it. I can make up a little magical place.” said Dave.

The guys will have new material coming out soon with two singles and an EP in the pipeline however Luke isn’t keen on the term EP.  “We’re not calling it an EP, if it’s a vinyl it sounds cool. I could go home and make an EP in two hours like.” said Luke.“What he’s trying to say is that we’ve got a single coming out with a B-side, which is a single. Then we have another one coming out in July and then we’ve got a little EP coming out in October, it’s got 4 songs on it.” said Dave.

The guys are going to be playing in the Gweedore Bar this Friday which will one of only a few chances to catch them locally as they’re going to be touring in England too. You can check out they’re new video of the single ‘Magazine Street on You Tube, it’s a really catchy up beat tune. You’ll find links and updates of what’s coming up on their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/TheTurningOfficial?fref=ts .

Paul Tully: New Man from Strabane! 3/6/13

Image Compliments of CG Photographics

Paul Tully of Strabane is proving to be another great talent well worth keeping an eye on. His singer songwriter style and great lyrics are to be showcased in his coming EP this Summer. With a single also due out next month things are really starting to become exciting for Paul musically. His song writing didn’t initially take off until Paul began playing piano and guitar he says,  

 “Just started playing when I was about 14 or 15 in local bands back in Strabane, kept playing from there, started writing songs and then that broke. I kept writing songs and been doing that ever since. At school, there’s a lot of brass band in Strabane so I started playing trombone, done piano, I got into that way. Started to gain interest in guitar and that kind of thing then and started writing songs from there.”

With most multi-instrumentalists there can be a preference of which instrument to write with and it seems Paul is no different.  “At the minute I like sitting down at the piano but it’ll change, it just depends what’s coming out at the time and then if there’s a good song there you’d work on it then, it’s usually the piano, sitting down at the piano. Whenever there’s an ad during the break of a show I’ll sit there and see if something comes out. It’s one of the two, sometimes it’s the guitar, sometimes the piano, at the minute it’s the piano. The trombone got neglected a while ago, after school finished I did it for a few more years and I haven’t done it since. You have to do stuff at the weekends ya know and I’d rather be rocking out than playing in a brass band, came down to that eventually.”

Paul sums-up his musical style using some other massively successful singer/songwriters as examples of influences that have encouraged him along the way. “It’s just sort of acoustic music, it’s very Ryan Adams, Glen Hansard, they’d be the biggest influences for myself, I don’t know if that comes through, for me, that’s who I’d look up to. Damien Rice too, when that ‘O’ album came out that was a big turning point, I think everybody listened to that. That’s what made me think, ‘I want to go down that path’ so that’s how I’ve ended up writing the kind of music I do. At the minute I’m into the likes of Tom Waits stuff on the Piano so I be looking at him and seeing what he’s doing. Things like, I haven’t done it yet but he’d change up his voice and stuff like that. I haven’t got that far yet but if the songs start getting monotonous or you feel like you want to go somewhere else, why not? Change it up a bit.”

Something that has been picked up early from his idols by Paul is the importance of being adaptable as a performer and not being afraid to change things up. “It’s always an avenue to look at when you see these guys change it up, you write a certain type of song and all right, that might be good and they sound good or whatever and you’re happy with them but after while you might want to change it up. If it’s only you with a piano, it’s only you on your own. So it’s things like and that seeing what they’re writing about and they’re always writing about their own experiences. I just try and be honest with myself, if you can honest about yourself and your life and try and write songs about that people can relate to it. If people can relate to something it’s happy days, if they can’t relate I don’t think there’s much point.”

In his writing Paul expresses a lot of emotion and delves into the stories of his own life experiences as many writers do. Not so much now, but when he was younger Paul was sometimes weary of sharing that part of himself with others. “When I was younger, I used to a lot. I think everybody goes through that a bit but then once I got over that the song just seemed to grab people a bit more. If you’re really lying it on the line, don’t get me wrong, you can’t be too specific but I try and be as honest as I can without being too specific, keeping it general again there’s more for people to relate to. People might like it or not but that’s the way I’m feeling, if that song seems right doing it that way rather than sugar coating it with a pile of nice adjectives, the hardest thing is getting the simple language.”

A great deal of the aim for his music is the achievement of good honest and simplistic lyrics in order to make the music more accessible but also more relatable. “That song, Reign Down Your Love On Me, very honest. I suppose when you’re younger you’re reckless and you do things you don’t intend to because you’re young, you burn bridges, do some stupid things. The first line is ‘Forgive me for all the things I’ve done’. That was just wrote down on a note book, on the iphone, or on a book when I was away and then I just put some music to it. I think people can relate to that, I've got my own specific thing but you say that opening line it can mean a while lot of different things to different people, and I think that’s important to connect with somebody otherwise what’s the point?”

For anyone who’d like to take a listen, and I advise you do, links are available from www.facebook.com/paultullymusic  for Soundcloud where you can hear the already mentioned ‘Reign Down Your Love On Me’ amongst many other tracks. However, Paul is holding his cards close to his chest on the remainder of the EP so you’ll have to sit tight and grab a copy later in June or July. “My friend, Peter Doherty in Strabane, we sit down, we might not have the world’s best equipment but Pete’s a whizz at that, he’s great. It’s all about getting the vibe and if you get what you want to say across. You can get lost in all the technology of it. I think if you have something to say it’s best to get it across. I think there will be 4 or 5, maybe 5 or 6, you get your money’s worth anyway. There’s one more track to record and then another we guitar and voice song but the single ‘Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine’ that’s getting finished up now, should be out next much because it’s nearly finished, we just have to get covers and all that sorted.”

Paul will be performing at a few up and coming festivals locally but they are to be confirmed so watch online for further updates.

Acclaim For The Clameens! 27/6/13

Image Compliments of Haarala Hamilton Photography

Fresh young talent and dare I say the best indie rock band the City and even the North West has to offer, The Clameens. There single ‘Follow’ has gone from strength to strength being used on a national scale by a number of companies on promotions of the City of Culture.

 “Boat Magazine from London had a promotional video about Derry because of the City of Culture about how good Derry is, they used our songs for the promotion. It was used again in the Irish Times & Discover Ireland when Derry was listed as one of the top 5 destinations to go on holiday and live, the track were used in the back ground. 

We’re really excited now because they’re also going to be used in a BBC documentary about City of Culture at the end of the year. They’ve emailed us and asked to use the track.” said Hayden.The group have only been together a year as the final line-up took a little time to master as guitarist and vocalist Sean tells. “It was myself and Hayden did it from the start but we thought we were lacking something so we brought Ethan, Hayden’s younger brother who is only 15, into the piece but we still felt we were lacking something. I had joined another band in this time and met Ryan and asked him to come join The Clameens and that’s really how the final line up was formed. It was like a jigsaw puzzle.”

Ethan Diver is the youngest member of the band playing lead guitar and vocal also, though he’s quiet he’s thrilled to be playing. “It’s fun to be doing that much at such a young age, having the experience, it’s class.”

The experience is going to continue as the guys have been picking up more success locally and further afield particularly in the last 6 months. Ryan, the bassist of the band think a lot of it has been as a result of adopting a manager. “It’s finally starting to pick up pace now since January, the ball has just been rolling since then. Once we got Mark on board. Once we got Mark on board as manager some things really began to push on. He on the ball, he knows, he’s really committed.  Where you’d hear a lot of managers would use their artists he supports us one hundred percent. He just wants us to be the best band that we can be. He’s not in it for money or anything.”

It turned out that for at least one member of the group, Sean, Manager Mark Holden was the final piece in the puzzle to their growing success. “We actually got mark by accident. We went into the studio to record a single and we rang Mark for advice for studio he gave us the studio which was the Blast Furnace with Rory and he came down and gave feedback, ‘Sounds good, you should do this or do that’. Eventually he was just giving us advice after a wee bit then I think one day we just called him manager and he was just the manager then. He never said ‘I want to manage you’, he just fell into it. He was the other jigsaw piece.”

Having heard the single ‘Follow’ and subsequently fallen in love with it the coming single seems like something keeping an eye out for. Hayden suggests that there was a lot of hard work involved before the singles came along. “We were practicing for ages before hand and came up with the first track ‘Follow’ which we recorded and we just released that on Soundcloud for free for people to listen to. The last single called ‘She’s got my Heart’ will be coming out in mid June time. You’ll be able to buy it off itunes and stuff like that. That’s our next big thing and what we’re really looking forward to it now.”

Taking a different approach, the group have decided not to have a launch of their single but instead to push it to online audiences in order to make it the most accessible to everyone. “We wanted to do something outside the box, a lot of artists now do videos and single launches, some people will think, ‘You’re not doing a video, you’re not doing a single launch, you’re not really pushing it’ but we wanted to focus more time on pushing it online and pushing it to a wider audience. We’re focusing on going back to the studio now too again.” said Sean.

As with any group the support they get a home can go a long way to setting them up with a future. The Clameens have expressed massive gratitude towards those giving a helping hand. “We really appreciate the help everyone’s been giving us like Stephen McCauley, I think he’s played the single every show that he’s done in the past week. We only gave it to him to play it before the release and I think he’s played it in every show and everyone that he’s done now this we. We were very humbled because we didn’t expect that. He’s said a lot of lovely things and Mark Patterson has said a lot of lovely things and Micky Bradley too.

The guys have just finished the gigs they’re playing as part of the North by North West festival but are playing more this summer. You have the chance to catch up with them this weekend at the Carnival of Colours festival in St Columb’s Park this Saturday, where they’ll be playing as part of a fun filled family festival. Fear not if you can’t make it as they will also be appearing at the Stendhall Festival outside Limavady this summer too.

There will be lots more information on up and coming gigs on their Facebook. You can find links here to their Bandcamp page were you can listen to some of their tunes or even their YouTube channel for teasers on up and coming tracks. Get a listen to the single; I played it on repeat for a whole hour!

Messin With the Music! 20/5/13

Image compliments of Denis McLaughlin.

Messin With The Music is a music project which aims to bring together young people in a week of musical workshops to encourage music creation and performance. Denis McLaughlin, one of three facilitators of the project explains a bit about MWTM.

 “We’ve been running it now since 2011, it’s run maybe 3 or 4 times a year, it’s funded by the Arts Council and run in conjunction with Greater Shantallow Community Arts with Olly Green. The idea is to get young people aged 14-17, bring them together. 

When we ask for applications we also encourage non instrument players as well and stuff like that as well as instrument players so they can do a bit of peer to peer learning. It’s been going on this week, we’ve been doing different workshops on songwriting, arranging, chord progression and then they’re split into 3 groups each with a facilitator. The stuff that they’ve learned and stuff that they already know, they can learn from each other. At this point now they’ve created a song, their own original piece so that’s why you do the songwriting, chord progression, give them the tools they need to pick from.

 The main thing, from doing it in the past and doing it now it that you can see there’s a need for it. The young people that do it have nowhere to go and they just want to practice and rehearse and things like that. Friday we set up our showcase, like a rehearsal if you like, they got to do a bit about sound.”

The young people also played at the launch of the Earhart festival at Ballyarnett Park yesterday which was the main performance for the groups but there’s more in store. “On Tuesday as part of Amelia Earhart Day they’ll be playing in the Guildhall Square so it’s that opportunity of getting them on the big stages as well and get a bit of a buzz for it. The ones we have in now are 14/15/16, that kind of age.” Says Denis.

The social aspect is also very important and has been incorporated into the week to encourage the young people to mix and share ideas. “As much as us doing the workshops we’re always keen to give them decent breaks were they can mingle together for the social aspect because we have them in groups but then sometimes we like having half hour breaks where they’ll go and play with different people, people they know, people that are interested in this or that, they might come together and start playing. The whole thing is about giving them a platform to get involved in music.”

The project was started to encourage young people to develop themselves through music and it continues to do so. Denis and all those at the MWTM project aim to see the young people take the skills they’ve gained into the future. “When we first started it, it was summertime and it was something for the kids to do during the summer, we were working in a disadvantaged area and taking kids from socially deprived areas and thought we’d like to do some music stuff with them. There’s a lot of sports stuff and all going on but there wasn’t much music, we know there’s loads going on now with the City of Culture but back when we started it there wasn’t that much going on musically. We hope that with the people they might meet here they’d go on to do something, strike up friendships or some people come here that have already done a bit of work together, they know each other and have had a wee jam and for them it’s a focused week and they can start creating some stuff and setting stuff in stone. By the end of it we’d hope they’ve learned a few things from us, from themselves and they’ve added some more strings to the bow for stuff to be moving on with.”

Luke Lafferty is just 16 and is playing in one of the bands. “ I’ve always had an interest in music being brought up with my dad who liked to play his guitar every so often. It was like, you know what, why not pick up the guitar? I’ve been playing since I was eight but properly the last two years. My dad would have taught me songs to start off with and then I would have eventually just taught myself from there. I’ve always wanted to be in a band and this is the first opportunity I had to actually get band work. I used to be really shy, I could never get up on stage and talk in a big crowd of people but the fact that this has made me come up on stage and sing, this is my first time even getting to play guitar here even though I’m a guitarist. I’ve been able to sing in front of big crowds in the Guildhall which I never would have done before until I came here, it’s gotten me over so much stage fright.”

I had the pleasure of listening to another on the bands  who as of yet do not have a name but comprise of Niall Doherty, 15 on keys, Caoimhin McFadden, 17 on lead guitar and vocal, Gavin McCafferty, 15 on Yukulele and vocals, Jessica Doherty, 15 on Rhythm guitar and vocal. It’s hard to believe the group have only been together a week and have already put together a great orginal track called ‘Summer’, though that name could change. Jessica Doherty has been able to enhance her skills by taking part. “Last year my music teacher said I should go to a songwriting competition and it just seemed to go from there. I’ve got on really well, I’ve been writing songs for everything and find it really easy now to write. I started off on piano so it’s easier for me to write for piano accompaniment. These workshops are hard to find, what they’ve offered with the workshops like improvisation and I’ve developed my guitar skills. I’ve enjoyed working with other people, seeing things from other people’s point of view and sharing ideas and opinions.”

Niall tells of how the group may even stay together after the week is over.  “It’s good because mostly I’d play on my own but get to play with other people so it’s different, better as well. It gets people that don’t normally get the chance to play with other people in bands and stuff so it’s good experience. We’re thinking now of keeping that band together as well.”

In just one week three new young bands have been created on the music scene in the City. If you’re going to be around the Guildhall Square on Tuesday get a look at what these young bands have been able to achieve in just one week. It goes a long way in showing what that talented people of this City are capable of!