Witches Club/Fairy Fort Number III

Poster and photo by Takashi Kumagai

This was probably the busiest Fairy Fort so far - there was a photo exhibition by myself and Aaron; a spud barbeque; the mysterious disappearance of a large bag of charcoal; delicious rice krispie buns (made by Suzanne); more (mostly ineffective) lights than ever and three acts -

High Quality Potatoes, an improv act originally composed of Jimmy, Takashi and I but when Jimmy had to pull out due to being stranded in Belmullet Ger kindly stepped in. We were pretty ridiculous, but nobody threw charcoal at us so I guess that's a sort of success. Aaron took some great photographs:

Brigid Power-Ryce played an excellent set - her vocals have this eerily lugubrious tinge to them that was perfectly suited to the surroundings, compounded by her oddly off-tempo 12-string guitar strum. When I first saw her play live I just couldn't get into it, but with each successive performance I've liked her more and more, and am definitely a fan now... I took a couple of photos only, cos I'm very conscious of the noise the shutter makes at the Fairy Fort.

Peter Delaney has always been one of my favourite Irish musicians, one of my favourites full stop. (He also takes mighty photographs) He's miles away from a lot of stuff I would normally listen to - jauntily strummed melancholic sea chanties, just him and a ukulele mostly. He cuts a pretty unique figure when you see him perform, and completely draws you in, till suddenly you realise you're leaning in and listening intently. I somehow never realised how dark his lyrics often are, though they're usually tempered by a poetic sweetness, and sung in such a way as to lull you into thinking you're listening to something upbeat and carefree - "The Guest" is a good example of this. It's an eight minute ukelele epic and I've been listening to it on his myspace daily for the last two weeks. Goes one chorus:

"You've been by my window/
Howling in the night woods/
Perched above my front door/
You steal into my bedroom"

before reverting back into the simple, carefree sounding ukulele riff. It's a completely disarming and haunting song, and it's only a demo - I can't wait to hear it finished. Again, I only took a couple of photographs; I must get a quieter camera...

Some photos of the exhibition - Aaron's photograms and my miscellany:

I should have taken more, and taken them better.

Miscellaneous shenanigans -

These last were mostly taken by Aaron.