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This video doesn't appear to get a mention on this site (after search of site) but Matt Molloy features prominently so I include it here. It is interesting on so many levels so is worthy of it's own topic.

It was Tom McElvogue that brought it to my attention. Starts at 15:30

https://tv.nrk.no/serie/slaatter-og-ree ... 19-02-1978


H

https://soundcloud.com/holmesflute/sets/holmes-flute

Thanks very much for pointing this out. "The Bothy Band" material is great, but I'm delighted - and know some other people who will be too - to see the much-missed Ollie Conway [ RIP ] featured in the early part of the programme.

kenny wrote:Thanks very much for pointing this out. "The Bothy Band" material is great, but I'm delighted - and know some other people who will be too - to see the much-missed Ollie Conway [ RIP ] featured in the early part of the programme.

Tom McElvogue has just mentioned to me that members of the Bothy Band did not know of the video's existence until he informed them so it's reaching where it matters too.

H

https://soundcloud.com/holmesflute/sets/holmes-flute

Good to see this. For pipers there's a glimpse of Liam O'Flynn playing with Matt and Junior for the dancing at 13:03 minutes in. Matt's playing a R&R in this video. Does he still have it, and is the serial number known?

Steampacket wrote:Good to see this. For pipers there's a glimpse of Liam O'Flynn playing with Matt and Junior for the dancing at 13:03 minutes in. Matt's playing a R&R in this video. Does he still have it, and is the serial number known?

Feel free to cross post if there is a broader interest. I just post here because I just post here, nice observations from Kenny and Steampacket.
H

https://soundcloud.com/holmesflute/sets/holmes-flute

Hi "Holmes" - just to explain, Ollie Conway was "mine-host" at Conway's Bar in Mullagh, where I heard some of the best Irish music I've ever heard in my life during the Willie Clancy weeks from 1980 until it closed a few years back. A most genial host, a fine singer, a great set-dancer, and all-round nice fella. He's buried in the graveyard in Mullagh, and next week some friends who knew him from those days and I will go to his grave and pour him a wee dram to toast his memory. Once again, many thanks.

kenny wrote:Hi "Holmes" - just to explain, Ollie Conway was "mine-host" at Conway's Bar in Mullagh, where I heard some of the best Irish music I've ever heard in my life during the Willie Clancy weeks from 1980 until it closed a few years back. A most genial host, a fine singer, a great set-dancer, and all-round nice fella. He's buried in the graveyard in Mullagh, and next week some friends who knew him from those days and I will go to his grave and pour him a wee dram to toast his memory. Once again, many thanks.

Thanks Kenny,

It's great that Ollie has (had) friends that feel this way. Good on yer' that you still pay homage.

I'm sad that I never met him in Mullagh nor did I ever go to "Willie week". I did have good tunes in Milltown M but usually out of season, always memorable.

(As I say it was T McElvogue that shared this streamed video with me, I merely posted it here)

Best wishes

H
https://soundcloud.com/holmesflute/sets/holmes-flute

A short flash of the dancers in Gleeson's near the start as well. A few familiar faces there. Spent hundreds of nights on that little stage playing for dancers, years after this was filmed ofcourse.

Ollie Conway and the Mullagh set, Denis Doody. Interesting as well to see the man ringing the bell in the street in Ennistymon. Lovely bits. Nice bit of nostalgia. Junior, Molloy and Flynn are playing in McCarthy there aren't they?

When on the site, there are other programs in that series worth a look for example this one with the three Russels playing (Gussie and Micho onthe flute), Liam O'Flynn explaining the pipes. Loads of stuff to explore.

It's fantastic.

Apropos of a recent discussion here about where to rest an "anchor finger" and pressing and using keys on the footjoint, note the OP has a photo of the footjoint aligned so as to be able to use the three footjoint keys, while Matt has the footjoint rotated around so that the keywork is facing away from the player and quite unusable, something many trad players do.

15:32
I had all those wonderful albums, bought or borrowed.

16:30
Very interesting to see the recording process used. There are three main ways I've seen things recorded
1) have everyone play together and recorded together with fairly distantly-placed microphones, like symphony orchestras are often done. Problem is all the sound bleeds together and you can't pull out individual bits.
2) have everyone play at different times, layering track over track. This is how most recordings are done.
3) sort of a middle ground, which the Bothy Band is doing, having everyone play together but each player is in an isolated booth, so that at a later time bits can be "punched in" to fix things.

Also interesting to hear the raw recording of the pipes, before the processing one hears on albums. Not only does the engineer play with the EQs to get the sound he wants, but also pipes are nearly always heavily compressed (on raw recordings the Db meter goes all over the place, after compression not).

pancelticpiper wrote:I
Also interesting to hear the raw recording of the pipes, before the processing one hears on albums. Not only does the engineer play with the EQs to get the sound he wants, but also pipes are nearly always heavily compressed (on raw recordings the Db meter goes all over the place, after compression not).

I always felt the Bothy Band albums didn't do justice to the sound of the pipes; they sounded muffled and muddy to me compared with the crisp brilliance of Liam O'Flynn's pipes on the Planxty albums, which have always stood out to me as some of the best-sounding recordings of the pipes I've heard (albeit not realistically balanced between the chanter and regulators). Whoever they had at Polydor doing the Planxty recordings did a nice job, and it's strange that the Bothy Band albums didn't sound better because Donal Lunny was in both bands and knew how it could have sounded.

Thank you for posting... love the history!

bradhurley wrote: I always felt the Bothy Band albums didn't do justice to the sound of the pipes; they sounded muffled and muddy to me compared with the crisp brilliance of Liam O'Flynn's pipes on the Planxty albums, which have always stood out to me as some of the best-sounding recordings of the pipes I've heard.

For sure what jumped out at me was the nasal edgy sound of Paddy's pipes as being recorded raw as opposed to the extreme smoothness of them on the albums.

We'll have to differ because I've always thought Liam's chanter sounded too nasal and raw on the early Planxty albums, more nasal that I assume it sounded in person. Seems like they were going for a raw earthiness in Planxty, a more polished product with The Bothy Band.

I sure know what you're talking about. Paddy's pipes on Na Keene Affair sound like they were recorded in a bathroom down the hall, distant and muddy and vague. I never felt that on The Bothy Band albums. Listen to the beauty of the pipes in The Blackbird.

I will say that this is something I have personal experience with, having spent hundreds of hours in the studio recording my pipes on various studio gigs. Studio recording engineers always get a good sound out of my chanter, never as raw/nasal as the early Planxty Liam, never as muddy/distant as the Na Keene Affair Paddy. It's all about the mic, the best sounds have been from mics costing tens of thousands of dollars.