What a Time To Be Alive

East Durham, NY, February 21st, 2025

 

We went to a protest in Albany on President’s day and one sign read ‘There’s not enough space on this sign to list the reasons I’m here.” There’s so much wrong, it’s hard to write right now. It’s frightening the speed at which things are unravelling. You know all this. I hope you and yours are okay.

 

I’ve been back in the studio a few times with Len in recent weeks. I put out the new single ‘To Be a Stone’ on Bandcamp a couple of weeks ago.  It will be everywhere else on February 28th. We’ve also been working on some other recordings. If you’ve been to a gig in the last six months you may have heard some of them. I even played piano on one new song. I don’t really play piano but I love it nonetheless. It pushes my brain in a different direction. I’ve fumbled through a couple of songs live on piano over the years but this song, ‘Happiness and Pain’ is the first song I ever wrote on piano. My wife said it was the saddest thing I’ve written. There’s been some stiff competition in that category over the years.  I’ll share the basic outline on Patreon before I chicken out.  Winter is a good times to record because there are fewer gigs. Of course, it’s a bad time too as money is tighter for the same reason. It definitely feels good to begin working on a new collection. I am working VERY slowly but all going according to plan, this should eventually become my 10th album.

 

BROOKLYN, NYC, ROCKAWAY, MONTREAL

I am very grateful to have a busy March ahead of me including gigs Bitter End, NYC, my Montreal debut at Casa del Popolo, and opening for Cork legends the Frank and Walters in Brooklyn. Full details for all gigs can be found on the events page.

 

This my phone. I dropped it on way home from a gig last week. Once I got home Clare helped me locate it with her phone.  I then borrowed her phone and drove the 45 minutes back to where I had dropped it. I dialed it and to my huge relief I heard it and saw it light up in the middle of the road …just in time to see an SUV drive right over it.

I brought it to Ocean t-Link Boost Mobile Phone Repair in Rockaway, the guy looked at is and said, ‘It’s not so bad’ and fixed it within a couple of hours for $90. Woo ha.

Thanks for reading, thanks for listening,

Niall