The Model

Yasmina Rahmoune interviews Moxie ahead of tonight's gig with Beoga

Beoga will be playing The Model on the 14th of April with support from Sligo’s own Moxie. In the run up to Moxie’s Model debut, I (Yasmina Rahmoune) got the chance to catch up with the boys and ask them a couple of questions.

*How did the band form? *
We formed at Sligo live in 2011 after years of meeting each other at certain festivals. We felt a spark between our playing and decided we needed to do something more.

*How did you come up with the name of the band? *

We were looking for a name for a while actually. We were originally going to call ourselves “Aurora” but settled on “Moxie”.
Describe your band and your style of music in one sentence.
Fresh and exciting melodies with seamless harmonies and intricate rhythms blended into a crisp and vibrant sound.

*With today’s teenagers it’s all about pop, hip-hop and rock n’ roll. Why did you make the decision to stick to trad music? *
A lot of our music is baseline trad with a strong jazz / contemporary and new-age bluegrass influence. We try and keep the music up-lifting and lively so we do this by introducing new music into our own.

*Who inspired you growing up? *
Artists such as Lúnasa, Beoga, Béla Fleck, Punch Brothers, Herbie Hancock and Mairtín O Connor inspired us hugely down through the years when growing up.

*If you could perform with any musician who would it be? *
If we got the chance we would love to play with the Punch Brothers, as their arrangements of music are utterly outstanding.
What gives you the most inspiration to write music?
Our main inspiration to write music is to be more emotionally connected with notes, chords, rhythms and dynamics.

*How do you prepare for the show? Do you have any odd rituals you have to do before going on stage? *
We prepare for the show by meeting up for as many practices as possible before the show. No odd rituals unless you count warming up on our instruments and doing practice techniques.

*What is the plan for Moxie in the future? *
We don’t have any particular plan as such, but to releasing a few albums and touring the world would certainly interest us

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Dark Room Notes - One Day to Go

It’s Friday! One day to go! I’m excited now and can’t wait to perform tomorrow. On Tuesday we finally stopped looking at the film as a series of random scenes with pet names like ‘Cliff’ and ‘Parabola/Curve’ and start viewing it as a whole piece again. We’ve played the film through a few times and will do so again this evening. Yesterday I finally got my head around what patches I’ll be using. I’ll be using four synthesizers. Four synthesizers equals tens of banks with hundreds of patches! Too much choice! I decided to limit myself to a few patches. I think it helps with the cohesion of the sound throughout the film. Getting lost in the machine is sometimes fun but here I need to focus on the melodies more. I think it’s important that the sounds become familiar too. Ferrie will mainly be focusing on the guitar but will dabble from time to time with a synth. So that’s it! Almost done and dusted, nearly out the gap. Come on down tomorrow! We’ll see ya there!

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Dark Room Notes - When dinosaurs fight to the death it's noisy!

“Hello”
“Ferrie, it’s me Ronnie, I’m ringin’ ya from a payphone”
“Huh”
“I know! Weird, ya just stick a Euro in and dial the number, anyway my phone is dead so could ya ring the gate I’ll be there in 5”

It’s Friday the 18th. I’m bikefull and have been phoneless for 3 days. I finally get it and it dies.Ya need to have your phone synced with gate or something in order to ring it and get in I dunno. Anyway, I’m in the studio and it’s business as usual. Now I mentioned that the jigsaw had been finished the last day. Well not quite. A few steps back. Nothin’ major. The main dinosaur fight scene, the long one, just wasn’t right. So we scraped it and replaced it with this kinda noisey intense piece. It’s odd but with a lot off synthtastic improv we’ll be fine. The ‘Back to the City’ scene is also undecided. There are two possible pieces that fit it so we tinker with both. We reckon a loop called ‘Mezz’ works best. Done. Go, Move, Shift.

There’s this ominous piece in the opening credits that will also suit the ‘Cave’ scene too. That’s one thing we’ve noticed when composing this soundtrack. If ya bring a piece of music in later in the film from an earlier scene, when it works, it works! It brings strands of the movie together and towards the end it brings a kind of closure. Everything comes full circle. We leave the studio at midnight.

It’s Saturday the 19th. It’s the afternoon. It’s matchday! Come on Connacht! I long to be down the West! We do a few hours before lookin for a Pub with the elusive SKY RED BUTTON! We find a sports bar we don’t like and watch the game. The commentary is off but we can here the United commentary! Baddest of bad buzzes! Two hours later, game over, well beaten, on bike, back to studio. It’s Saturday so Ferrie treats us to a bottle of Lidl’s finest Red. Not so fine. Maybe let it breath for a day or two…

Where were we, where are we. The ‘Parabola/Curve’ scene. Well that’s a lighthearted slapstick one. So we go with a kind of jolly techno number and Ferrie throws in one of those long snare build ups before yerman flies through the sky off the bamboo. Haha! the snare rolls really add to the comedy factor! We leave the studio at midnight.

Sunday Bloody Sunday. I bumped into a few messers late on Saturday night and went messin’. I’ve some head on me now! We hit the studio around four. Well now that long Dinosaur scene is no longer workin! Ah flac it anyway! Ferrie digs deep into the bank and pulls out a ruckus like riff! It has an 80’s industrial like beat and is very repetitive in a Krautrock like way. It fits! Like the other piece it just needs a lot of synth wailing and screaming over the top and it’ll be right good. It’s one of the longest and noisiest scenes in the film. It needs to be noisy. When Dinosaurs fight to the death it’s noisy. We also decide on new music for the ‘Back to the City’ scene. Again a kind of light minimal techno groove with an ominous arpeggio synth rumble that slowly filters up to add to the intensity.

So just a few days to tidy up what we’re doin’. We are on top of things, in the drivin’ seat. Who’s taking the horse to France? We are! I must say I’ve grown quite fond of Bessie Love who plays Paula White over these last few months. Some doll I tell ya! What a cutey! Anyway it’s home time. Outta here!

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More News from the Dark Room

So Tuesday evening and we’re back in the studio. A few more small scenes to do. The match is on but we need to work and they’re through anyway aren’t they? I arrived with milk for the tea and some biscuits. “Put them away!” barked Ferrie as he pulled a six pack from his bag! “Nice move!” I chortled. So we cracked open a beer each and settled in to the nest. We start with a piece that Arran wrote. It’s a real nice piano piece. Damn it’s emotive! So anyway Maestro Ferrie messed with the sound, threw on a few arpeggios and effects and what came out the other side was something epic! It’s such a big sound that we feel we’ll have to use it more throughout the Film.

Now back to that scene where he goes up the steps, in the window and has a fight with yer man. We’d tried a few different loops there and nothing had settled. Finely got one! it’s a kind of a minimal techno little ditty. It has a slow bounce and suits a man climbing in a window.Hang on a minute, is this jigsaw nearly done? I think we’ve got something for every scene! Yes! So now we just have to edit the loops to fit the scenes and then we can concentrate on the performance. (When I say we edit I mean Ferrie edits, I just say things like “Put that there”.)

“Hey Ferrie?”
“Yeah?”
“We’ve done some serious work here”
“Indeed we have, it’s half time and there’s a pub not more than a skip away”
“Let’s get the second half”
“Let us”.

Ole Ole Ole Ole!

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Notes from a Lost World in a Dark Room

Ronan Gaughan of Dark Room Notes gives us an insight into the making of a specially commissioned soundtrack for the classic silent movie The Lost World, which will be premiered here on Sat November 26th.

OK we’re making a soundtrack to a silent movie. How do we do that? I dunno? Never done this before. What do other people do? How do we make a synthesizer sound like a dinosaur? How do we pace it? What tempo and key should we use? These are some of the many questions we asked ourselves when we took on this project last year. We hummed and hawed for a while and didn’t really get going on it till about April this year after we had finished recording our second album.

Oh yeah we chose “The Lost World”. The original 1925 version. Why? ‘Cos it’s fun and has lots of Dinosaurs! We had looked at a few other films of that era and had found them a bit slow moving and heavy going. “The Lost World” is an action movie! It’s funny, it’s sad and was groundbreaking for its time. It was the first movie to use stop motion special effects. When I look at it I try to imagine being a kid and walking into a cinema to watch it in 1925. It must have been incredible! As well as the dinosaurs the film also contains shots of animals like Bears, Monkeys, Leopards and Crocodiles. Most likely it would have been the first time this kid would have seen these animals for real, not just a drawing in a book! Oh by the way this film was the first ever in-flight movie! Aboard an Imperial Airways flight from London to Paris in 1925. Now that blew some kids mind I tell ya!

So back to creating the music. How? Well for the first while we all stood at our Synths and doodled aimlessly. Going nowhere. We created a few sketches. “Yeah that’s alright, actually mah, nah that’s rubbish” we moaned. It nearly broke us. So we left it for a while and then a bit more. Forward a month or two and a new approach. We started to create loops on our sequencers and also tried out inserting some loops that already existed. Bang! Yes! Foot in the door! This is how we’ll do it! Very quickly we had the first five scenes done.

November the 10th I make it. Well nearing the end now. All major scenes have been taken care of. Just a few smaller ones to do which have turned out to be the toughest. Making music to parts were nothing really happens. When dinosaurs fight ya hit the loud beats button, throw in a few sci-fi arpeggios and conjure up some synth rumbles. When there is a conversation piece it’s not so obvious what to do. We’re getting there though.

On the night of the performance myself, Ronnie Gaughan, and Ruairi Ferrie will be performing the soundtrack. Due to other commitments Arran Murphy will not be playing with us. She has supplied us with a few tasty pieces of music for a few scenes though! We’ll be using lots of Synthesizers a Drum Machine and a guitar. The loops will be triggered and we’ll be toying them live, bringing sounds in and out and adding effects.

So we’re hitting the studio later and I’ll keep ye posted on the turning of right and wrong corners and of steps both forward and back.

Keep posted to the weblog for regular updates from Ronan.

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Sligo Live Festival Club @ The Model

The Model played host to Sligo Live’s Festival Club at the weekend and what a weekend it was! Phew! Over 1800 people wandered between three stages filled with incredible live music including the following local, national and international acts:

Maurice Lennon, Seamus Begley, Tim Edey, Sam Lewis, Rozi Plain, Mairin Mannion, Ollie Alcorn, Eoin Glackin, Sharon Conway, Rura, The Young Folk, Rachel Sermani, The Bonnie Men, The Staves, The Dirty Beggars, Therese Thellman, The JPTrio, The Unwanted -Rick Epping, Seamie O’Dowd, Cathy Jordan, and last but definitely not least Admiral Fallow. This array of exceptional talent was hosted by the gracious and lovely Nichola McEvily. Well done lady!

We had the talented (charming and gorgeous) Friel sisters from Glasgow leading a rousing trad session on the restaurant stage .. hard to get them to stop for two reasons: One, it was so good I didn’t want to ask them to stop (even at 2.30 am). Two – we all know that trad musicians could generally play all night long if let. Unfortunately, I could not let but I do believe the music continued in other corners of Sligo until the wee hours of the morning.

On the main stage we had Hayseed Dixie on Friday night, Sligo’s own top rockers The Odd Sock’s Revival on Saturday and the brilliant Barley Mob on Sunday night followed by DJ Barra Cassidy.

All in all an incredible festival – I didn’t get to see any of the other music which took place all over town but it will keep Sligo buzzing for a long time to come. Well done to festival organisers Rory O’Connor, Shane Mitchell and Deirdre Melvin for the café and acoustic acts. Three cheers!!!
Sligo Live
The good folk at Sligo Live are collecting photos from the events and I believe there’s a pair of festival tickets 2012 to be won. Just e-mail your pic to photos@sligolive.ie.

Now … some time to recuperate but not for very long as Sligo’s next big event is just around the corner: Sound and Vision will be upon us from November 17th to 27th. Hooray!

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Sligo Music Industry Day

Only Two days to go!!
Calling musicians from all backgrounds and levels, music promoters, agents and managers! Sligo Music, in association with Sligo Live and The Model, is delighted to present a jam-packed Music Industry Day with panels and workshops focused on helping you to get your music out into the world, be it live or on record.

The Industry Day is aimed at anyone seeking no-nonsense advice from more established industry players.

Contributions will come from First Music Contact, IMRO, Fund it, Music Generation Sligo, Jim Carroll (Irish Times), Niall Byrne (Nialler9), Una Mullally and Ger McDonnell with many more to be announced.

Topics covered will include home recording tips, digital distribution, how to get a gig, how to promote yourself, and how to get your music heard. The event will also feature live showcases during the day and into the night. For more information on the complete programme as it’s announced keep an eye on this page, and the Sligo Music twitter and facebook accounts

Registration for the Industry Day is now open via The Model’s online booking system here: Sligo Music Industry Day

This is a subsidised event so tickets are just €15, which includes lunch. Tickets may also be bought in person from The Model, or over the phone on 071-914 1405.

Date: Thu 27th October 2011

Times: 10am – 4.30pm

Venue: The Model, Sligo

Cost: €15 (incl lunch) 


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