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songwriter

A fascination with Hally

March 29, 2017

I first came across the artist known as Hally sometime around the end of the 90’s. I saw him play at the small “Stables” venue in Mullingar, which was at that time, a kind of musical church, with a different preacher passing through every weekend. I don’t remember the exact year but it was one of the earlier shows I had attended at the venue. A friend of mine had invited me along to the show, he was keen to see the opening act… some guy that had once been the lead singer with a band called Juniper. That was the first time I ever heard the name Damien Rice. It was the first time I heard those songs. First time I had heard songs of that power in real life.

That was the beginning of my years of enchantment with Damien and with the singer songwriter genre as a whole. In truth the name of Hally only stayed with me because he played that first time I heard Damien. That was it. The name Hally remained there, lodged in some corner of my brain, frozen in frost, preserved, but rarely visited. I had no reason to think of the man. For 17 years I moved through my days happy and Hally-less. Then, earlier this year, a friend of mine sent me a link to a video … “check this out, I think you’ll like it…” and there he was again, this Hally, with his face painted white, dressed in a striped jumper and waistcoat, singing about beach balls and handstands:

 

 

My friend was right. I did like it. It turns out that this was the first song of a proposed 52 song project called “Peeling Onions”. The project will run throughout 2017, with one new song & video being released every Sunday. I had never heard of such a thing! What a wonderfully ambitious project ! I loved how Grand the whole thing was, the very idea was seductive. My main thought: Could it be done?. Well so far so good… At time of writing the project is in it’s 14th week, and each week, as promised, a new piece has been released online. It’s been at different times dark, playful, explosive, wild. The quality has been consistently high and the music eclectic. There is a jazz element running through many of the tracks. Some are spoken word, some are half sung – half scatted. All of them are interesting and fall left of field. Already this is becoming an impressive body of work.

In the years of Hally’s “absence”, his time away from live performance, he was still writing, still learning. He spent some years in New York City at the beginning of this century where he became more and more interested in the recording side of the music business. Here, he made his first steps on the road towards becoming a record producer. Upon returning to Ireland, Hally studied Music and Media technologies at Trinity College Dublin and eventually set up his own “Arthouse” studios in Naas, Ireland. This has been the headquarters for the Peeling Onions project for these past months. I had the pleasure of hanging out with him there for a few hours recently, drinking tea and eating biscuits and laughing about the ups and downs of a musical life.

 

 

Equally impressive as releasing a new song each week, is the fact that each one has an accompanying music video. These videos are made in collaboration with visual artists, illustrators and creators the world over, many of whom Hally met during his time in New York. Some, I believe are compiled from footage sourced online that is in the public domain, spliced among footage that Hally and team hally have produced themselves. Whatever it takes to get it done. As this project is developing in real time, and there is still some way to go, Hally is always looking for people to collaborate on these videos. So if you read this, and that’s your world, and you think you’d like to be involved with this project, do reach out to Hally on Facebook.

The latest song from the project “White”, is one of the strongest so far. The production and instrumentation is of the highest quality as always. The song opens with the line “White powder falling out my nose, my clothes have been the same for almost a year”. “White” is accompanied by maybe the strangest video of the bunch to date. It was taken down by facebook for excessive nudity. As Hally told me over the phone “It’s not in the least bit sexual”… The video, as with almost everything in this project, is challenging… it pulls you out of your ordinary day and makes you shift your thinking in the way that only art can. You can watch all the skin and nudey parts here:

 

His is an unusual musical world and this work will not be for everyone. But I’m very excited to see and hear what’s coming down the track. This is a brave and Grandiose project and I for one applaud it! and I really hope that it reaches the audience it deserves.

 

Click here to check out all of the songs at Hally’s Youtube channel

The first of four album release concerts is happening on Saturday April 8th at Dublin’s Unitarian Church. It’s a full band show for Hally & I’m honoured to have been invited to open up the show. If you’re in the area do come along. I’m planning on playing a bunch of new songs too.

Tickets, €15, are available here.

 


Older Post: 10 Years of Rain ↠

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.

Go Slow - Handwritten Lyrics


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”

–

–


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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

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Songwriter’s Journal – August 26th 2014

August 27, 2015

I write every day. I write digitally and in a physical notebook. I write to keep track of thoughts & events, conversations & dreams. I write so I don’t forget. I write to help process things. I write to wake  up. As far as habits go I think it’s a good one. It’s another form of documenting, just in the same way as a song is, or a movie is, or a poem is.  This little Journal Romance has been blossoming now for almost two years. Long may it continue. The following entry is from one year ago and was written in a period of creativity and excitement right before the release of “Outlines“.

I hope there is some small insight or value in this to you dear reader:


Tuesday, August 26, 2014

ALCOHOL: 1 whisky
ENERGY: 7
MOOD: 8.5
WAKE: 6:52 am

It is a grey day, not pretty, windy, not inspiring. But it is a day all the same and I will be thankful to have it before me. For some reason I woke up pretty early this morning, before 7am. It was still quite dark then – these days are getting darker and darker – but I felt strangely awake for such an early hour.

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

In the Beginning.

January 15, 2015

Young Peter with curly hair & dirty Cheeks

I’ve been told that when I was very young, I would sometimes sit in the field behind my Grandmother’s house, hitting on plastic bottles and singing “Let it be” by the Beatles. Mrs Byrne, a retired music teacher who lived next door to my Grandmother, would tell my Granny that she saw some ability in me. I have no memory of this, but it’s a nice picture to have. 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

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

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

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

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