A line-up that changes regularly means Patrick Street needn't worry about keeping their image or sound fresh, writes Siobhán Long
How could a mass marketer package Patrick Street? The band's multiple personalities, formidable itineraries and hugely diverse musical partnerships are hardly the dream of PR gurus fixated on the gospel of single messaging. Somehow though, it's unlikely that Patrick Street is overly exercised by such trivialities. Fact is, Andy Irvine, Kevin Burke, Jackie Daly, Ged Foley and newest member, John Carty are far too busy traversing continents to worry too much about whether airbrushed images of themselves are gracing the Sunday supplements in advance of their forthcoming tour.
Patrick Street was a traditional Irish super group like no other. Unlike Planxty or The Bothy Band, their membership since inception back in 1986 has been fluid enough to welcome a swathe of interim members, from guitarists Arty McGlynn and Gerry O'Beirne to piper Declan Masterson and fiddler James Kelly.
The band's core membership has remained constant throughout: Jackie Daly, renowned Sliabh Luachra box player; Andy Irvine, singer, mandolin and bouzouki player whose dance card has stretched from Sweeney's Men to Planxty and Mozaik (not to mention a multitude of collaborations with musicians from Paul Brady to De Danann); and Kevin Burke, fiddle player with The Bothy Band and The Celtic Fiddle Festival.
Ged Foley, guitarist and singer, stepped into the breach on Arty McGlynn's departure in 1996, and the band's impending Irish tour will see the christening of fiddler, banjo and flute player John Carty, 2003 TG4 Traditional Musician Of The Year.
Interestingly, for a band with an unmistakeable Irish identity, four of the five current members were born in the UK. Jackie Daly's north Cork roots have unquestionably forged a significant part of the band's identity, while Burke and Carty bring strong influences from the Sligo and Roscommon fiddle styles of their parents' home place.
Foley's experience as both a fiddler and Northumbrian smallpipes player, along with the apprenticeship he served with Scotland's The Battlefield Band, prepared him well for the eclectic environs of Patrick Street, and Andy Irvine's reputation as a virtuoso musician capable of tracing filigree patterns with both mandolin and bouzouki around everything from Sligo reels to double-jointed Romanian dance tunes truly sets him apart.
Small wonder then that Patrick Street enjoys only sporadic incarnations, in between its members' manifold alternative musical existences.
Andy Irvine is sanguine about a career that sees him swapping musical partners with the alacrity of a casting couch starlet.
"I don't seem to have a problem with that!" he declares. "There will always be some rehearsal before a show or a tour and I can switch hats quite easily. The odd time where one or other of the bands might share a song in their repertoires, I have been on the verge of going into the wrong arrangement. But it's never quite been the repertory actor who dried up in the middle of a Thursday matinee and hissed at the actress playing opposite him, 'what's the line?' To which she responded laconically, 'I don't know dear, what's the play?'."
Irvine is a man who seems wedded to the road. No sooner had he completed the phenomenally successful Planxty reunion tour than he was back at the airport, ploughing a distinctly solitary furrow. An antidote to the mass adulation of the Planxty reunion perhaps?
"The buzz from the Planxty concerts was a big adrenalin rush," he admits. "I think I felt a little bit anti-climactic after we got back from playing the Barbican in London. I moped around the house feeling a little bit underdone.
"It didn't last though, and I went off to Denmark and played teeny gigs with a Danish band called Sula, which I really enjoyed. The road becomes your home and your way of life and it's hard to give it up. I know and love a lot of people round the world and I will always feel the need to visit them again.
"Can I survive without it? Well, I'm really enjoying trying! Sitting in the early spring sunshine here in Leitrim, I don't really want to be anywhere else at the moment. I have just booked myself for three weeks in Norway, Faeroe Islands and Iceland, however."
Kevin Burke's attitude to Patrick Street's sporadic existence is that of a pragmatist whose milometer is well into its second circuit around the clock. As far as he's concerned, the band has thrived because of its relatively minimalist approach to live performance.
"From the outset we decided that Patrick Street would not tour continuously because we were all quite aware of what the rigours of the road can do to bands," he explains.
"I think the solo work and our work with other groups keeps the Patrick Street projects refreshing for us. After nearly 20 years of touring and recording, our repertoire is quite large so it's usually great to be able to reacquaint ourselves with some of the older material - and our diverse work between Patrick Street tours and recordings often brings new ideas to the band."
Ged Foley is equally comfortable with Patrick Street's intermittent existence as with the constancy of the solo performance. "I actually play in two bands with 'a sporadic existence' - Patrick Street and The Celtic Fiddle Festival," he notes.
"I enjoy playing in different musical combinations, whether band, trio, duo or solo. Playing in the bands frees me up both financially and musically to do other things. It allows me to maintain a few different repertoires and stops me becoming jaded. I play the way I play.
"The only difference between any of my musical ventures is largely repertoire. What makes Patrick Street Patrick Street is the combination of people I am on stage with. I enjoy it and it is great fun. I look forward to every tour, especially this upcoming one with John Carty as part of the band."
Burke and Foley play more extensively as a duo, and as members of The Celtic Fiddle Festival than as part of Patrick Street, and Burke enjoys the challenge of the solo performance more than ever these days. Stripping the music back to its bare bones occasionally is a refreshing alternative to the full band sound, he maintains.
"Solo concerts have also been occupying a good portion of my time lately," he says.
"I started to realise that most people who listen to Irish music today, especially in US, have probably forgotten, if indeed they ever knew, that 40 years ago, when I was developing my musical interests, this kind of music was typically played unaccompanied.
"The great groups of the 1970s and 1980s brought a style of instrumentation and arrangement to the fore which has become 'the standard' but I thought it might be interesting for many to be reminded of what it was that inspired those bands before they felt moved to bring it to a wider audience."
Andy Irvine views the band's impending tour as a reflection of the rude state of health in which traditional music finds itself today, unlike much of British folk music which is subject to more than its share of derision at home.
"It's wonderful to see the state of traditional music," he enthuses. "It has probably never ever been stronger. It may be looked back on as a Golden Age. It's also great to know that bands I played in like Planxty had an input into its achievement, though I'm sorry to see that accompanied singing has not quite followed suit.
"As for English and Scottish folk music being derided, there are a lot of new bands coming out of these places with new ideas for old traditions, such as Dalla from Cornwall or Ffynon from Wales. English music is often thought of as Morris Dancing and Scottish music as White Heather club stuff. You have to dig a bit deeper! Having said that, I can think of a few performers and bands playing Irish music that are derisory."
Patrick Street embarks on their Irish tour on Apr 21 in Matt Molloy's, Westport, then Spellman's, Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon; Barry's, Grange, Co Sligo;Róisín Dubh, Galway; St John's Arts Centre, Listowel, Co Kerry; Halfmoon Theatre, Cork; Dolan's Warehouse, Limerick; Whelan's, Dublin; Carrick-on-Bannow Community Centre; and the Watergate, Kilkenny
