Sat June 10th – Tae Sup wi’ a Fifer
Hosted by James Yorkston
Tickets here
Martin Simpson / Duke Special / Seamus Fogarty
“Martin Simpson has transcended borders and oceans to quietly become a superb storyteller and musician of great depth and unquestionable taste.” Stephen Fearing
Universally acclaimed as one of the finest ever acoustic and slide guitar players, and a fine banjo-picker to boot, his solo shows bear witness to an artist at the very top of his game. Whether interpreting material from tradition or singing his own potent self-penned songs, Simpson is a remarkable storyteller: captivating and profoundly moving. His own songwriting produced the poignant ‘Never Any Good’, from Prodigal Son, 2007’s Folk Album of the Year.
Duke Special is a writer, performer, singer and artist who magpies between art forms, then brings it all to a boil in the world of music and song. His creative talents have seen him involved in projects as diverse as writing the theme tune for the Irish Sesame Street to writing the music for and appearing in Deborah Warner’s critically acclaimed 2009 production of Bertolt Brecht’s ‘Mother Courage and Her Children’ at London’s National Theatre. More recently, he has joined forces with stand-up comedian Andrew Doyle and together they brought a brand new musical adaptation of ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ to the Lyric Theatre in his native Belfast, where he has also just completed a year as their Artist In Residence. As part of this residency, he also wrote a musical adaptation of Huckleberry Finn, based on songs written by Kurt Weill, which will premiere at The Lyric in 2018. He has also recently been collaborating with traditional Irish band, Ulaid, to create a new body of songs entitled Belfast Suite.
Seamus Fogarty left his home in the West of Ireland in 2009 and ended up in Anstruther performing at the legendary Homegame festival. His debut album, hailed by the Irish Times as ‘one of the best Irish albums of recent years’, was released on Fence Records in 2012 leading to a slot on the main stage of Greenman and tours alongside James Yorkston, Pictish Trail and Malcolm Middleton. Having spent the following two years touring the UK and Europe, he released an EP “Ducks & Drakes” on another Scottish label, Lost Map, in 2015. Gideon Coe from BBC6 Music proclaimed the title track to be ‘one of the songs of the summer’ while Max Rheinheart from BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction proclaimed it the work of an ‘Electroacoustic Wickerman’. A new album is due out in late spring.
‘Deep listening psychedelic folk, a peaty brew’ – The Quietus Magazine