The Saw Doctors Sun 16th Dec Plug Sheffield

[jazzamatazz]

The Saw Doctors is a group of songwriting musicians

 

from the West of Ireland, hell-bent on celebrating,

observing, recording and sometimes poking fun at

their own locality, accent and idiomatic use of language

whilst dressing their songs up in their favourite sounds

and styles from their years of musical fandom.

Formed in Tuam, really a small market town but in fact

a tiny city of two cathedrals, in the late 1980’s, originally

with Mary O’Connor as the main singer and later based

around the songs and singing of Davy Carton, Leo Moran,

Padraig Stevens, John ‘Turps’ Burke with no little

contribution from the late Paul Cunniffe (who had

written and sang Davy’s previous band, Blaze X’s,

repertoire with him)

The Saw Doctors were discovered by Mike Scott of

The Waterboys on a stormy Wintry Tuesday night in

Galway city, plying their trade with more gumption

than virtuosity in the back of The Quays Bar, blue

banger slates clattering down treacherously on the

narrow, deserted streets outside leading to where the

River Corrib meets the Atlantic Ocean.

 

Scott took an unlikely liking to the unlikely bunch of

raggedy and fashion-unconscious triers and offered

them the support slot on what was, at that time, the

most revered up-coming rock and roll tour of the country.

Things must’ve somehow pleased the Scot along the

way and in Sligo, before the tour was completed, he

offered the itinerant songsmiths the six-week Spring

tour of Great Britain, starting in February 1989.

Padraig’s coy acceptance of the offer came in four

words ‘We’ll pencil it in.’

With Pearse Doherty, the bassist since the start of the

Irish tour, in his last year in Science in Galway

University and Davy working as a fitter and the

father of three young boys, the youngest awaiting

holy water and a name, things were not pure and

simple. The philosophy adopted was – ‘Let’s not

end up looking back in twenty years time telling

people in a pub what we could have done wan time’

 

That decided, Pearse’s mother smuggled his good

bass down from Donegal (his father didn’t know

he was in a band) and Pearse packed his science

books with the rest of his gear so he could do some

study along the way(!!!) Davy asked for six weeks

off work and was promptly told by his boss that if he

took six weeks off he could have every week afterwards

off as well. Davy courageously chose to take the six

weeks and flew over to London a couple of days later

than the rest of the band, Christopher having now been

christened, for the start of an epic escapade.

 

Mike fulfilled his tour-time offer and produced the

band’s first single, ‘N17’, which features the then

Waterboys’ saxophonist, and now Saw Doctors’ bass

player, Anthony Thistlethwaite, in the outro; it was

a feat of indescribable dimensions how a man could

play a sax so well after being in the pub all day.

 

The single got on the radio a handful of times and a

second single was to be released to fulfill the two-record

deal with Solid Records. With Philip Tennant, whom

they had met through Mike and who had engineered

‘N17’, now on the producer’s perch, they went to the

haunted Loco Studios in Wales and put down three

tracks – ‘It Won’t Be Tonight’, ‘I Useta Lover’ and

‘Sing A Powerful Song’.

 

After debates, theories and ****-talk, it was eventually

decided that ‘I Useta Lover’ would be the second

release from The Saw Doctors. They plugged away at

gigs around Ireland and scored an early afternoon slot

at the coming-of-age Irish festival of its time, Féile, in

Thurles, in County Tipperary,in the August of 1990,.

The Welsh ghost must have brought them luck for that

Sunday evening they learnt that ‘I Useta Lover’ had

somehow entered the Irish single charts from where it

slowly climbed, taking seven weeks to reach the Number

One spot and remaining on top for the following nine

weeks. The Saw Doctors were now known the length

and breath of the country and beyond.

 

Things got fast. A Channel 4, Steve Lock directed,

documentary, ‘Sing A Powerful Song’, was shot in

Manchester and at their homecoming gig in the Gaelic

Football Stadium in Tuam, and it aired in both Britain

and Ireland. They made their first trip to The United

States in 1991, a journey they have made almost

eighty times since.

 

Through the nineties they chalked up well-received

appearances at numerous prestigious festivals

including Witnness, Oxegen and Slane in Ireland,

Glastonbury, T in the Park, the London Fleadh in

Britain as well as at its Fleadh cousins across the

Atlantic in New York, Chicago and San Francisco,

and garnered a reputation for being a powerful and

exciting live band, playing diligently through Ireland,

Britain and the USA, with the odd trip to Australia,

Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Holland,

France and Belgium thrown in. A handful of singles

briefly dented the UK Charts through the nineties, the

three most successful breaking into the Top 20 –

‘Small Bit Of Love’, ‘To Win Just Once’ and

‘World Of Good’.

 

With four studio albums in their record shop section,

‘If This Is Rock And Roll I Want My Old Job Back’,

‘All The Way From Tuam’, ‘Same Oul’ Town’ and

‘Songs From Sun Street’, The Saw Doctors went

where no band had ever gone before and bravely

entered the new millennium. Upheaval in the line-up

saw long-time drummer John Donnelly and long-time

bassist Pearse Doherty move on, joined shortly

afterwards by keyboardist Derek Murray and the

team-sheet took a while to settle again, with first

Jim Higgins and then Fran Breen occupying the

drumstool and Kevin Duffy pressing the black and

white keys. For a number of tours a brass section

with Danny Healy on trumpet and Richie Buckley

on sax augmented the show, as well as the addition

of Mouse McHugh on backing vocals. They released

their sixth studio album, ‘The Cure’, recorded in

Cuan Studios in Spiddal, near Galway and were

presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at

the Meteor Awards of 2008, with the line-up of

Davy Carton, Leo Moran, Anthony Thistlethwaite,

Kevin Duffy and Éimhín Cradock.

 

 

 

 

Throughout the noughties The Saw Doctors gained

an ever-increasing and enthusiastic following on the

Irish college scene, ensuring a young and lively

new audience in their home country. In 2008 they

filmed a documentary, “Clare Island to Cape Cod’,

the centerpiece being their, by then, eagerly

anticipated annual August appearance at the Melody

Tent in Hyannis, MA revolving on the stage,

surrounded in 360° by banks of loud and sweaty

Summertime fans.

 

With their distinctive version of ‘About You Now’,

The Sugababes’ hit, a chance cover from the ‘

Rockin’ Roulette’ section of The Podge and Rodge

Show on Ireland’s national TV station, RTÉ, The

Saw Doctors scored an Irish Number One in October

2008, their first Number One since ‘Hay Wrap’,

seventeen years previous.

 

Over the following year and a half this squad

recorded the band’s seventh studio album –

‘The Further Adventures Of The Saw Doctors’

which is probably their most consistent collection

of songs to date, barely making it into the

‘record shops’ before the concept of an album,

and the outlets that sell them, veer dangerously

close to becoming obsolete.

 

The end of 2011 brought another surprise hit for

the band - having included a verse and chorus of

'Downtown' in the show-closing 'Hay Wrap', the

band noticed that, like 'About You Now', 'Downtown'

captured the imagination of the audience, making it a

potential contender for the Christmas single. On a

long-shot, producer Phillip Tennant got in touch with

Petula Clark's manager and a recording session was

arranged in London where the old 60's classic was

re-vamped and recorded - 'The Saw Doctors featuring

Petula Clark'! The lively duet made it to number 2 in

the Irish singles Christmas chart and actually made it

to number 1 in the i-tunes section of the count.

 

The beginning of January 2012 saw Éimhin passing on

the drumsticks to Mayo man, Rickie O'Neill, the first

green and red blooded member in the annals of the team;

Éimhin and Rickie had been working together towards

the end of 2011 on making the transition as smooth as

possible, and smooth it was - Rickie already having put

in storming performances at The Glasgow Barrowland

and The Manchester Apollo amongst other shows on the

December leg of the British and Irish tours.

 

Loved and revered by their loyal fans, many of

whom have been recruited by already fan friends,

or friends of friends of fans, if you know what I

mean, and often reviled by haughty urban-based

media style council as being too rural (Tuam!),

painting pictures that the begrudgers believe, from

their lofty perspective, don’t exist in the real world,

The Saw Doctors continue with a resilience and an

effervescent energy that has them lined-up for a six

week coast to coast adventure across North America

this Spring.

 

In their own words…..

‘Born into a repressed, catholic, conservative, small-town,

agrarian, angst-ridden and showband infested society

we’re trying to preserve the positive elements of our

background and marry them to the sounds which have

culturally invaded our milieu through TV, radio, 45’s, fast

food restaurants, 24 hour petrol stations and electric

blankets’

 

http://www.thegigcartel.com/artists/profile:8

 

http://www.the-plug.com/events-and-tickets/live/saw-doctors-0

https://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/events/304673279587038/

 

---------- Post added 13-12-2012 at 22:21 ----------

 

some tickets will be available on the door

[Hemibr]

Anyone interested in keeping the vibe going (cos there sure as hell will be one !!!) post concert ?

 

Flynns on Trippet Lane ?