Conference tallis::celt

541.0. "Irish Music Industry" by AIAG::GAVIN () Thu Mar 30 1989 13:42

A publication called "Insight on the News" had a two page article, March 6, 
1989 edition, on the growing music industry in Ireland.  It is included below.

From the Contents section:  "Bringin' in the Green  Rock music is a vital
Irish commodity, and the government is helping musicians to keep the Emerald
Isle as their home base."

The article, pp. 56-57. :

ROCK'S SIREN SONGS FROM IRELAND

Summary: Once upon a time in Eire, rock musicians had to leave their land to
turn local success into international stardom.  But now the world of rock
treks to Ireland, where abundant artists play in schools and on streets.
Dublin has empowered an official to aid in championing the Celtic-influenced
pop music scene.

One summer in the early 1970s, a half-dozen guests were seated around the 
dining table at Bargy Castle, a family home-cum-hotel in County Wexford,
Ireland.  Coffee had just been served, and the castle's proprietor, known
simply as the colonel, announced that a great treat was in store: After-dinner
entertainment would be provided in the dungeon by his son, who was at the
moment setting up an electric guitar and amplifier.

The colonel boasted that his son, like all talented Irish rock singers, soon
would become so popular that he would have to base his act in England in order
to pusrue an international career.  The guests retreated to the dungeon, where
they spent the next few hours listening to Chris DeBurgh.

More than a decade and a half later, Chris DeBurgh is best-known in the United
States for his multimillion seller "Lady in Red," is wildly popular in Norway
and South Africa and has had an album go platinum in the province of Quebec
alone.  He has not, however, based his act in England, and such a move seems
unlikely.

DeBurgh is the elder statesman of a new breed of homespun and home-based Irish
pop artists who could assume the mantle of just about any land they like yet
choose to retain their Irish identity.  They include the likes of Sinead
O'Conner, U2, and the Pogues, plus a score of rapidly ascending stars such
as Hothouse Flowers, the Waterboys, the Fountainhead, Mary Coughlin, Enya,
Clannad and In Tua Nua.

These artists are so successful that they are being spoken of in terms usually
reserved for real estate developments.  Their profits are soaring, and their
worth is skyrocketing.  They have become a spectacular growth industry.

An Irish government estimate places its number of world-touring rock groups
at several dozen, with as many as 700 bands waiting in the wings.  While such
an estimate would be both unlikely and unreliable coming from most any other
national government, in this case the figures are credible.  The pop music
phenomenon has become so pressing in the republic that the government has
established the position of popular music officer under the auspices of the
government-run Irish Arts Council.

"It's the first time there has been an officer for popular music in these
islands," says Keith Donald, the holder of that new job. "I don't know if any
other country has ever done it, but it makes sense here.  Ireland produces so
much music it's out of proportion to the population.  There is such a tremendous
reservoir of music in this country, you could walk into any school classroom
and find a musician or maybe even a band."

The groups are springing up from the schools and out of the neighborhoods.  They
are being discovered in youth centers, or as in the case of Hothouse Flowers,
entertaining on street corners.

The music of this modern Irish renaissance is unlike much that graces the air-
waves in the United States.  "Liffeybeat," named for Dublin's major river,
features an odd combination of the ancient and modern.  The rock and roll drums
are there, but so are traditional bodhrans.  Flutes are paired with uillean 
pipes.  Fiddles, bouzoukis and mandolins accompany electric guitars, and tin
whistles are hooked up to echo machines.

The haunting Celtic tunes are far removed from the straightforward chords found
in, for example, Bruce Springsteen's pop hits.  But perhaps the most distinctive
element of Celt-rock is its lyrics.  They relate unusual and sometimes mythlike
stories.

Sinead O'Conner's "Jackie" tells of a girl's refusal to accept the news that
her sailor boyfriend has drowned during a storm at sea.  The singer protests
that the sailor knows the sea like the back of his hand and will soon come
sailing home.  She spends the rest of her life patrolling the shore, awaiting
Jackie's return. When she dies, her ghost continues the vigil.

On a lighter note, the Waterboys sing of a string of bad luck with women in
"A Bang on the Ear."  The storyteller relates his history of failed romances,
from school days on, and harbors a measure of love and anger for each lost
companion.  A ladylove named Crystal from Canada did hail:

	We crossed swords in San Francisco.
	We both lived to tell the tale.
	I don't know now where she is,
	But if I had her here
	I'd give to her my love
	And a bang on the ear.

The Song "The Long Acre," from In Tua Nua's album of that name, laments the
economic and emotional hardship suffered by Irish farm families.  The chorus
describes the band's horror at the poverty:
	Oh, I can't believe it!
	In this day and age...
	We're in the Third World!

The musical phenomenon is nothing new in Ireland, says Niall Stokes, editor
of the Irish arts magazine Hot Press.  "There always was good music here.
Ireland is a place where you can hear absolutely fabulous music from people
who have just brought their fiddles down to the pub.  If you talk about aptitude
in people, it's definitely here.  The basic soil was always here for making
great music, and that's been fertilized over the last few years more effectively
than it was before."

If the soil has been fertilized in the last few years, that is because it was
weeded and plowed over the past 30, suggests Timothy O'Keefe, a professor of
Irish history at the University of Santa Clara, Calif.  "Ireland has 
traditionally been known for certain cultural exports, but there has been very
careful attention since the 1950s to develop the arts in Ireland.  This has
produced an internal flowering."  For instance, the government does not tax
rock musicians, among other artists, for income derived from their creative work.

The most remarkable result of all this cultivation has been the development of
Ireland's best-known band, U2.  The group is arguably the hottest in the world
of rock and roll.  Although U2 has been around for about 10 years, it hit the
big time in 1987 with "The Joshua Tree," an album that sold more than 16 million
copies and spawned a 15-country tour and a feature-length film about the tour.
The bands latest effort, a tour album titled "Rattle and Hum," has been selling
thousands of copies a week for several months ans has been called by some
critics the best concert album ever made.

The group has made such an impact that readers of Rolling Stone voted it not
only 1988's artist of the year, but also the best band, with the best album,
single and video.  In addition to massive coverage in music magazines, the group
has been the subject of stories in numerous other publications. And it has been
credited in Ireland and abroad both with launching the current music explosion
and with paving the way for artists to retain an Irish identity.

"In the past," says Stokes, "when Irish bands got to the point where they could
look to an international career, like Thin Lizzy or the Boomtown Rats, they
always thought they had to move to London to make the career work.  But U2 has
proved you could base yourself in Dublin and achieve success.  It has been an
inspiration to musicians that a band based in Ireland can make such an impact."

In fact, Dublin suddenly has become the place to be.  Music scouts arrive with
great regularity to scour the pubs and street corners, says Stokes.  The Irish
recording industry also has grown strong and healthy.

Eleven years ago, the director of Windmill Lane Studio could not get a bank
loan to set up a recording studio, says Donald.  Money was obtained from other
sources, and Windmill Lane became famous as the studio used by U2.  It later
received government funding, from the Industrial Development Authority, to
provide international-standard recording and video facilities.  And last year,
he adds, two men got 800,000 Irish pounds (about $561,000) from the government's
Development Capital Corp. to set up a recording studio.

The Arts Council, in the person of Donald, is keeping close tabs on the
development of homegrown rock bands.  Last year, the attention got downright
scientific.  It set up a national concert tour of government-funded performing
arts centers.

"I tried to find out how many bands should be invited to compete on this
sponsored tour," says Donald.  He set up a selection committee from pop music
insiders. "They came up with three league divisions taht we could place bands
in." Division 1 consisted of international-standard groups accomplished enough
to play anywhere in the world.  Division 2 was reserved for ones poised just
below that needed a bit of grooming.  Division 3 described groups that would
be in Division 1 the following year.

"There were about 12 to 15 bands in each category," says Donald. "And these
would all be bands that you and I wouldn't have heard of yet.  And that's not
to mention the 400 bands that sent in demonstration tapes to a recent television
competition."  The popular music officer reckons there are a large number of 
groups taht did not enter either of the recent competitions but will do so in
the future.

What does the government plan to do about all these musicians? "I am preparing
a report on every aspect of the pop music industry," he says.  "It's due out
in June."

Although Stokes notes that he does not think the government should take control
of the music industry, there is much to be gained from an official interest..
"Our musicians are a national resource, like oil and metals," he says. "There
is an increasing appreciation from the goverment that our music is a national
asset.  This shows that the whole thing is being taken seriously."
						- Susan Katz Keating

    re -1
    
    Keith Donald played saxophone with the popular Irish band 'Moving
    Hearts' they have since split up...but talk of a *reunion* tour
    and album is rumoured. This band IMO were the original of the *ones
    that got away* species.
    
    Niall Stokes editor of Hot Press music magazine which had to be
    bailed out some years back after going bust trying to expand into
    the British market. Some of the people that came to their aid were
    U2. This caused a lot of bad-feelings last year when Sinead O'Connor
    referred to Hot Press as U2's *magazine*. Hot Press are still going
    strong and recently successfully broke into the British market.

    - Dave K.

    It's great to see that someone who actually had all the right 
    qualifications got the job.......
    
    Two people who deserve most credit for this explosion in Irish
    traditional/contemporary music are Sean O'Riada, whose pride in
    Irishness and sense of adventure laid the groundwork, and Donal
    Lunny who took it, and is still taking it, upwards and onwards......
    
    The Gods may not have had much left over when it came to bestowing 
    "material" gifts on Ireland, but I reckon She was first in line when 
    it came to creativity..........
    
                  Biased.......never???
                                       

    Clannad has been around for quite a long time; they have been touring
    longer than the boys from U2 have been playing and probably have been
    around longer than Chris DeBurgh, so calling DeBurgh the "Elder
    Statesman" is something like a slap in the face to Clannad which Bono
    admits, was one of the bands he grew up on.  
    
    Andrew