10 Years of Rain

March 15, 2017

Last September my debut album "Wood" turned 10 years old. I gathered up some of the original guys who played on the album and had an anniversary show in my favourite home town venue, The Stables in Mullingar. The concert was captured for posterity by the talented and lovely folks at Kerbute Productions.

We're going to be releasing individual songs from the night over the next couple of months, but right now I'm delighted to share the first in this series. I thought we'd start off with something with a little bit more energy than is usual in my songs. I do hope you enjoy. This one is called "Rain" ... It was a lot of fun.

Please share as far and wide as you can and help the musics to reach new people. Thanks!

...and here, if you're curious, is the same song, played on the same stage, from about ten years earlier...

↞ Newer Post: A fascination with Hally

Older Post: Anthem ↠

Go Slow – Live on the lake

December 14, 2016

It's less than two weeks to Christmas. I'm sitting in a coffee shop, surrounded by Christmas lights. On the radio - "I don't like cricket - I love it". A painted snowman wearing a black top hat stares at me from the window with two uneven black eyes. Today is Wednesday and I've made an arrangement with myself to make Wednesday website day. Tell me why is it hard to make arrangements with yourself?

This week I want to share a song that I recorded last month in Switzerland... This song has been in the air for a year or more now and has taken a long time to come together. Some songs are like that... tricksy, crafty things. I can't say for sure if it's done yet, or if it's as good as I think it should be. Sometimes it's difficult to tell what a song is. But with this one I must be patient. That is the central theme of the song... to be patient with things as they unfold... that every step in becoming is important, that it's not good to rush things.

This was filmed on the lake in Brienz, Switzerland, which is one of my favourite places in the world. Filmed on an iPhone by my friend René, a guitar maker, a Jedi of wood and an altogether wonderful human being. He filmed with the phone in one hand and an oar in the other. You can hear the oar cut the water has we slowly turn around to take in all the mountains behind us. Hope you enjoy the song - if you do, please share on your Facebooks / Twitter / take a screen shot, print it out and put up on your fridge ... however you can make the songs travel is good 🙂

Go Slow

"Noise, when the lights go out in your playground mind.
Noise in the dance club that's your heart sometimes
and there's noise in your muscles aching to climb
but there's quiet underneath this that you're trying to find

Go Slow, Go slow, good change will slowly come
Go slow and know that this is your becoming
Yours alone

Well a man gets lost in the stories that he tells
Be kind with the names that you give to yourself
and I know that you're running to be more than you are
don't the stars have their rhythms , it's the same in your heart

Go Slow, Go slow, good change will slowly come
Go slow and know that this is your becoming

In your rise, in your fall, in your dusk, in your dawn
In your changing mind, in your animal heart
Go Slow...

Go Slow, Go slow, good change is slowly coming
Go slow and know that this is your becoming"

↞ Previous Post: Leonard Cohen

Next Post: Lazarus – A Resurrection Story ↠

The Great Trade

June 22, 2016

Introducing "The Great Trade"

For the past couple of years, in fits and starts, with great bursts of creativity quickly followed by long periods of distraction or working on other things, songs have been coming together for a new project called The Great Trade. These songs have been co-written with my friend Brian Murphy, a fellow Mullingar native who has contributed electric guitar and lap steel on my last two records.

The first beginnings of this project came when we were on tour in the UK and Holland in 2013. We were both looking for a way to play some shows outside of Ireland and somehow this tour came together. The entire tour lasted about three weeks I think and in that time we spent a lot of time together in vans, trains, hotel rooms, back stage areas and coffee shops. So much of being on tour involves waiting. You're always waiting for the show to start it seems. Hurry up and wait. We filled these spaces with chatter and dreamings and wandering conversations. Out of some of these conversations came songs, or the beginnings of songs, the outlines of ideas.

It was interesting to be kicking around song and melody ideas with another human being for a change. It was exciting and had a speed and energy that I don't often encounter when working on my own. This was the first signs of something coming together. There was a feeling, still is, that we could write some good songs together and more importantly enjoy challenging each other to write well.

: The Great Trade

: The Great Trade

After this 2013 tour I went on to write and record my "Outlines" album and then tour that. Brian has been busy with his other original project "Arrow in the Sky" and playing guitar with the band Cronin. In this way the time gets filled. We grabbed some time here and there in 2014 / 15 but have really turned our attention back to the project this year. In April we recorded our first video with the help of Mark Bennett and Darragh Glennon. The song is called "Blackberry Wine" and was inspired by a book I read about the life of Billie Holiday. I hope you enjoy:

Please let me know what you think. Does it sound different to my solo stuff ? If you have a moment to share the track on Facebook / Twitter so other folk might here it that would be super!! Songs get lonely too you know. Share it aboot.

Good wishes and thanks for reading

~ Peter

Blackberry Wine (Lyrics)

Meet me in the after-hours We'll drink blackberry wine
There's a place not far from here I think you're gonna like
Caroline has fixed a little something for your mind
I've picked a dress to match your eyes
You're gonna sing tonight

Let's go to the good time house where the wine never spills
Let's go to the good time house where nobody sees in
INTO this LOW HEAVEN

Pull the sheet from the piano they wanna hear you sing
Fly on up there don't be frightened, show a little skin
Try anything you like
Little Bird don't be shy

Let's go to the good time house where the wine never spills
Let's go to the good time house there's no such thing as sin
DOWN in this LOW HEAVEN

-solo-

Fire cracks, opera echoes, Suzie cuts the deck
Horn players all blown out just blown in from the night
Here on top of the world
Little bird why so still

Let's go to the good time house where the wine never spills
Let's go to the good time house where nobody sees in
I won't hit you too hard honey no just a little sting
HERE in this LOW HEAVEN

↞ Previous Post: Wedding Bells & Glaciers

Next Post: First Champions ↠

Sugar Rush – Dublin, June 20th

June 15, 2015

Live in Munich last month.

A week from now, I play The Sugar Club in Dublin city. I last played this beautiful venue in 2006, almost ten years ago, for the release of my first record "Wood". It's crazy how much has changed since then. It's a whole new cast of characters, a whole new bag of atoms, instruments and songs! I was 22 years old then and bringing my very first record into the world. It was a good night and an exciting time. I must have been nervous as hell because I remember breaking a string on the very first song! I never break strings.

Live at the Sugar Club at the Wood album launch, September 2006.

Sadly, two of the musicians that played on that night in 2006 have passed away in the last years - Vinny Baker (who was my musical mentor and great friend, and who produced the album we were launching that evening) and Cani Bruton, a fantastic bassist and long time friend who played on my first two albums. Both are hugely missed and have left deep holes in man peoples lives. I'm sure some of their spirit will be in the music next week. In fact, recently I had the opportunity to acquire one of Vinny's acoustic guitars, It's a stunning instrument and I'll be playing it next week, trying to do the great man proud!

The Late Greats. Two hugely talented and deeply missed friends -Cani Bruton & Vinny Baker.

The venue is beautiful with a great vibe and warm, clear sound. I've seen some great shows there in the last years. Among them Jazz singer Gregory Porter (one of the most amazing singers I've ever heard in the flesh), fellow Irish songwriter Rhob Cunningham, and most recently the mind-bendingly good Snarky Puppy. The room has the feeling of a classy old cinema or theatre, with it's comfortable tiered seats, oval tables and wood pannelled walls.

The Sugar Club

For this gig on June 20th, I have the good fortune to be joined by the stupendously talented Nicky Brennan on electric gutar and Darren Sweeney on Bass. We'll mostly be playing songs from the "Outlines" and "Overhead the Stars" records, along with a couple of brand new ones that I'm enjoying playing recently.

With a week to go I'm starting to feel that usual mixture of and excitement that comes with putting on a big show. On a Saturday night in our Capital City... I'm not nervous about the performance, the stage is where I feel the most at home and comfortable... the most relaxed. The songs are in good shape after two months of touring here and abroad. The guitars have just been re-strung. I've done good advertising, having put probably more money than is sensible into postering in the city and online stuff too... I've individually reached out to almost everyone I know and told them of the gig.

But yet, there is still the worry. The nervousness comes from that little voice in my head that Steven Pressfield calls "resistance". Resistance appears whenever you try something bold, whenever you create something, whenever you go out on a limb... For me the voice says things like "

1. Nobody's coming to your show.
2. Nobody cares what you have to sing about.
3. Bob Dylan already wrote all the songs.
4. Everybody is going to see the Script instead.
5. Acoustic guitars are stupid.
6. Art is stupid.
7. Why don't you get a real job.
8. Nobody's coming to your show."

But that's not real, it's just the resistance talking, the fear. As an artist you can't let the fear get to you. Instead we do the show, we keep believing, we make the art, we sing from our f**king hearts and no matter what we a never ever give up. That is the only thing that matters. To have the chance to sing to people and to bring some joy to their evening is a very special thing and I'm thankful for that.

I'm so excited to sing some songs with friends in the Sugar Club next week.

Hope you can be there with us and bring all your song loving friends along.

Tickets on sale through ticketmaster.ie and tickets.ie ( with the latter being the slightly cheaper option)

Best wishes

-Peter

Tour Announcement: Ireland 2015

March 19, 2015

Up Close & Personal Promotions Present:

Peter Doran Irish Tour 2015

Mullingar Singer-Songwriter Peter Doran takes his new album "Outlines" on the road from April -June with a series of intimate shows across Ireland, with all roads leading to a headline show at The Sugar Club in Dublin on June 20th. Read More

Exceptional Irish Songwriters: Damien Rice

February 11, 2015

In this series I take a look at some of my favorite Irish songwriters. Some you may know, others you may not. With any luck you’ll make some new musical friends along the way… Please enjoy… Mr. Damien Rice

Damien Rice - Manhattan.
photo by Lisa Carpenter Photography

There Once Lived a Beast and Beauty

I remember it well... The first time that I saw. He was wearing a duffel coat the color of sand, hood-up like a monk. It was a winter night in Mullingar and Damien Rice was opening a show for a songwriter called Hally, who had just released an album called "A fascination with Poppy". I was around seventeen years old, with a great love for music, but no particular interest in songwriters. But something about this Rice guy caught my attention. It may have been his intensity? his voice? the songs? Probably all three. There was a sense of mystery about him, a story... That story was that he had walked away from a band seemingly on the edge of success (Juniper), travelled around Europe, and even spent some time living as a farmer in Tuscany. So far, so romantic. Read More

The Songwriter’s Guide To Album Release Day:

October 24, 2014

Today is the 24th October 2014. This is the day that "Outlines" my fourth studio album, is available for the first time in digital stores the world over. You'll find it on itunes, amazon, spotify and a host of other places that albums go to wait for hungry music-lovers (OR music-hungry lovers!) to come along and snap them up. Read More

The World is Wide

September 3, 2014

"The World is Wide" official video (By Lucy Jones) coming this month... Listen to the album track and see stills from the video below:

Lucas and Zakk Baker in the Official Video for "The World is wide"

I've got a friend called Lucy. Lucy is a video maker, and a saint. Last year at a show, she heard me play a song called "The World is Wide" and she was struck with the idea to make a video for it. Well I'm delighted to tell you that she's done it! She followed through and turned the idea into reality, and it looks beautiful. Read More

A Film-Maker, A Songwriter and a Grandmother walk into a Room…

August 25, 2014

Written by Peter Doran for peterdoran.com. Sign up for free newsletter here

Last month I had the pleasure of spending a day with Myles O'Reilly, an Irish Film-Maker whose work I've been a fan of for a long time. I knew that good things would come from the day but the resulting 11 minute film is greater than I could have ever wished for. I am so excited to share this with you:

"Brilliant 11 minutes. So much more than a music video. Bone-marrow Irish but some how also Universal. So Fine." - @Stilpix via Twitter

Have you heard Alela Diane?

August 21, 2014

"Your eyes were green, your skin was darker than the colour of my own. We took a shower in the dark. Your Mother wasn't home. O I think of you sometimes. Of the snow, and that Colorado Winter Blue."

Alela Diane

Every now and then I come across a song or an artist that entirely captivates me. A voice or a mood that calls me in and holds my attention with force. It happens rarer than I'd like, but that's what makes these things special. Music like this isn't to be found at every turn, and when you do find it, or it finds you - be thankful, and devour it. Read More

Meet the Muse:

August 14, 2014

Things are busy in Doran-Ville at the moment. "Outlines" is finished, artwork, videos and shows are all on the way. But this weekend is a very special one for me on a personal level. My good lady Therese and I will celebrate our 12th anniversary as a couple. This is starting to get serious!

Excuse me while I bite your head off.

Diving with a clear mind + Album release dates

July 23, 2014

Written by Peter Doran for peterdoran.com. Sign up for free newsletter here

Swedish high diver Arvid Spangberg at the 1908 Olympic Games from the fourth Olympiad.

I was chatting with a friend recently, let's call him Brian - because that's his name - we were listening to my soon-to-be-released album "Outlines". I told him that I was starting to feel a bit stressed out about what to do next. The recording process had been so natural, organic and peaceful the whole way through, but now that the record was done I was starting to feel overwhelmed about next steps. Read More

Exceptional Irish Songwriters – Rhob Cunningham

July 16, 2014

Written by Peter Doran for peterdoran.com. Sign up for free newsletter here

Photograph by Tristan Hutchinson

In this series I take a look at some of my favourite Irish songwriters. Some you may know, others you may not. With any luck you'll make some new musical friends along the way... Please enjoy... Mr. Rhob Cunningham. Read More

Video: Live From a Dublin Café

July 9, 2014

Written by Peter Doran for peterdoran.com. Sign up for free newsletter here

New songs "Things You're Dreaming of", "Always Kind" & "Tug", filmed live in Dublin May 2014.

A few weeks back, I played a show at Bewley's Café Theatre, one of my favourite venues in Dublin. Musicians With Cameras, the good people behind the "Every Little Thing" video, were in the crowd on the night and made this short musical film:

"From the opening swaying notes of ‘The Things You’re Dreaming Of’, Peter Doran’s music seems to fill the venue as the soft ambience of shimmering guitar backing the songwriter’s gently performed vocal. With the camera work cutting from Doran and his band performing to reactions from the captivated crowd, the musician’s clear talents are visually conveyed to great effect." - The last Mixed Tape Blog

Enjoy the Video? Feel like being awesome?...

Help us get the music to more people by sharing the video on Facebook / Twitter / etc. Grab it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Thiu_o-SpRo

I hope these songs bring you some kind of joy. ~PD

Credits:

Filmed at Bewley's Café Theatre, by Luke Byrne and Stephen Allen, Thursday 29th May 2014. Edited by Stephen Allen
All songs by Peter Doran. Performed by Nicky Brennan (Electric Guitar), Darren Sweeney (Bass) and Peter Doran (Acoustic Guitar & Vocals)

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the songs and the video! Would you like us to do a show in your town? Write to me at peterdoranmusic[at] gmail [dot] com or use the comment box below. I will get back to you.

“Outlines” – New Record is DONE

July 2, 2014

Written by Peter Doran for peterdoran.com. Sign up for newsletter & get free music here

Here, in this little house, we made a record.

"Outlines", the fourth album from Peter Doran is due for release this Autumn.

My fourth album, "Outlines" has crossed the finish line! The album was mastered on Monday by Roger Seibel of SAE Mastering, in Arizona. Roger did an amazing job and the record sounds absolutely gorgeous! I chose Roger because he has mastered albums from many of my favourite singer/songwriters including Bill Callahan, Alela Diane, Laura Veirs, The Decemberists and Elliot Smith. He's pretty much the man for this genre of music. Read More

Casey Black – “I’ve spent my whole life”

June 25, 2014

Written by Peter Doran for peterdoran.com. Sign up for newsletter & get free music here

Every now and then a song comes along that completely grips me and won't let go. Read More

Shooting the Lighthouse: Video Day 1.

June 11, 2014

Written by Peter Doran for peterdoran.com. Sign up for newsletter and get free music here.

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On shoot for "The World is Wide" Video - Photo by Lucy Jones, June 8th 2014.

I'm feeling a bit hyper and caffeinated this morning. Last night was another late one. It came after a long but enjoyable day of trekking and adventuring with Lucy Jones and John Hennessy of Kerbute Productions (Video-makers extraordinaire). It was day one of making a video for a song of mine called "The World is Wide". The song is about two children with adventurous hearts. We spent the day at Howth, a picturesque village on the outskirts of Dublin. Read More

Tea, Chocolate, Music, Books.

June 5, 2014

My mouth tastes of dark chocolate and green tea. I'm at the kitchen table listening to Jeff Buckley's "Grace" record, a life-shaking album if there ever was one! I'm not feeling in full-blown essay mode this week, but I'd like to share some of the interesting things that have crossed my mind, eyes and ears in the last week or so: Read More

The Story of Sleepless Street

May 28, 2014

My second album "Sleepless Street" celebrated its fourth birthday this week. If you haven't heard it yet, now is the perfect time to discover it... For a little while, "Sleepless Street" is available as a free download over at bandcamp.com.

> CLICK HERE TO GET SOME SLEEPLESS STREET IN YOUR LIFE <

Name-your-price Download of "Sleepless Street" at Bandcamp.com

Please share this music with anyone who might enjoy it. That's what it's there for after all.

Things You’re Dreaming of (Rehearsal Video)

May 23, 2014

With a show coming up next week in Dublin, we took to the serious business of rehearsing... The day was bright and warm, a day for playing outdoors. So that's what we did! Nicky had a camera, so we decided it would be a fine idea to make a video. You can check it out below. If you enjoy it, and we hope you do, please share it on your preferred social media platforms ! The Song is "Things You're Dreaming of" and will be on the new album "Outlines" which is comes out this Autumn. Read More

Exceptional Irish Songwriters – Emmett Tinley

May 15, 2014

In this series I take a look at some of my favourite Irish songwriters. Some you may know, others you may not. With any luck you'll make some new musical friends along the way... Please enjoy... MR. Emmett Tinley "Remember what was beautiful, not the dark inventions of your burning sorrow" - Polichinelle, The Prayerboat.

BALLAD OF A TIN MAN Emmett Tinley is one of my favourite Songwriters. Irish or otherwise. He makes insanely beautiful music and has a voice that simply soars ... I first heard this voice was on an album called "Polichinelle" by "The Prayer Boat". Emmett was the band's singer and principle songwriter. It's a gorgeous record, stunning. In my opinion there are no weak songs on Polichinelle, and it contains a number of absolute gems. Read More

The Rattle in your Puzzle Box

May 7, 2014

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Recently, I went through a bit of an Alan Watts obsession. He got me thinking about the self, the ego and all that good stuff. A lot of these ideas spilled out into a song called "Puzzle Box". The finished song will be on my new album "Outlines" which is coming this September. For now though, for a taste and a tease, I thought it would be fun to give you a glimpse of the song in raw form. Read More