http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2011/mar/18/q-paddy-keenan/
Thanks! Not a bad interview, and decent questions. I wonder if the interviewer (Casey Phillips) is a musician. And what’s that garden pole Paddy’s playing?
Curiously, today I saw part of an interview with Davey Spillane in The South China Morning Post in preparation for a gig with the Hong Kong Symphony and he makes several points about growing up with the pipes and struggling with their awkward ways that parallel much of what Paddy expresses. . . . .
Bob
None of the rest of my siblings would go near the pipes, even though they all played them.
I’m not following. Does anyone know what he means? It looks like he’s saying that his siblings played the pipes while not going near them. Theramin pipes?
Yeah, not clear. I take it he means his siblings were made/forced to learn the pipes by dad, but unlike himself they did so only begrudgingly.
Paddy has spoken a bit in other places about growing up. It’s one thing to strap on the pipes and have a go at a tune or two, especially when left to your own devices, and another thing entirely to be serious about it and take instruction from your own Da’.
Bob
In one way, it harmed me because you forget tunes when you’re playing professionally around with a guitarist, who is charting the music. If you have someone living in Ireland who has a certain amount of your tunes charted, when you go playing, it’s really only those tunes you can play, really, unless you’re with somebody who can just follow you no matter what you do. That becomes boring, because you’re playing the same stuff.
At sessions, you play music you wouldn’t normally play at a gig. You play what you want, what you like or what comes to mind. There’s a lot more practice concerning the tunes that are in there in your head, and you’re learning more tunes from the people around you.
That’s an interesting insight. To stay fresh, he needs regular contact with ITM in its natural habitat; wild, woolly and free. Concerts are ITM in captivity.
The photo shows him playing a turkish ney - he’s a man of many talents!
Ah, thanks Michael. 
Paddy talks about a time in London when he didn’t play the pipes for a few years (“lost the pipes all together for three years”) and a friend kept them in an attic for him. What he didn’t say was that he actually threw them in a dumpster and his friend rescued the pipes and saved them for him.
Great interview indeed!
I remember Paddy talking some at Swannanoa last summer about how Finbar Furey came to stay with his family at some point; Finbar was taking lessons from Paddy’s dad, too. Apparently quite a competition arose between Finbar and Paddy – Finbar was older and more advanced, but vying for John Keenan’s approval made Paddy push himself still harder. Wow, talk about a pressure cooker!
Check Paddy’s website:
http://paddykeenan.com/grazing/index.htm
The liner notes for Cahir’s Kitchen (track 2) refer to the story of the meeting with the Beatles, the pawn shop that refused to take Paddy’s pipes and the bin which very nearly became their final resting place.
do you’s think thats too much to get onto a t shirt? 
or worth a try, at least?
Yes!!! We should totally put it on a t-shirt. With this picture:
