Doing it yourself: How three Cork indie artists are making a go of music
L-R: Big Boy Foolish's Ricky Dineen, Sarah O'Moore and Thomas Kitt - three artists making a go of music on the independent level
“We hadn’t given it much thought at all, and then the pandemic came along,” confides Gurranabraher man Ricky Dineen on the beginnings of Cork post-punk duo Big Boy Foolish.
“We were creating at home, exchanging bits of music, and it was coming together nicely, so we said we’d put out a record digitally.”
Existing primarily as a home-studio project, Dineen and bandmate Liam Heffernan (also an actor, best known for playing Blackie Connors in Glenroe), both veteran musicians of unparalleled Leeside punk pedigree, recorded their ideas and sent them to each other remotely, with Dineen recording scratch instrumentals, and Heffernan singing and later adding finishing touches.
“At the start, I was using an old analogue machine, a Boss, and it was quite good. It was quite punchy. Liam eventually got [Apple recording suite] Logic Pro, so eventually, I had to succumb to buying a MacBook just so that everything was in the same format going back and forth. Sometimes I'd go down to Dingle where Liam is living, sometimes he'd come up here, and we'd go through it physically in the room... learning it as we're going along, like.”
delays in production amid surging demand for the vinyl format - a common issue affecting indie album launches since the pandemic.
“It was about four months after sending the masters, I kept following up and they kept saying it'd be a few weeks... it's fairly stressful. There are the hidden things, too, like the cost of sending a copy to the US for an order on [indie music platform] Bandcamp, I'd grossly underestimated it. People asking online will there be copies in record shops in their locality — like, how am I going to get them up there?”
Big Boy Foolish have also released classic Cork song, 'The Armoured Car', as a single. Written in the 1920s by balladeer Sean O'Callaghan, it tells of Connie Doyle’s famous harrier hound.
- Big Boy Foolish's debut album, Stall the Ball, is available now across digital streaming platforms, Bandcamp, and on 12" vinyl via Cork record shop Bunker Vinyl.
“When it comes to being an artist, or writing your own music, you have to suss out what exactly your values are, what you’re doing it for in the first place, what your moral compass is,” says Sarah O’Moore, a singer and songwriter hailing from Glanmire, and currently residing in Berlin, via a stay in Bristol to study music at the city’s BIMM college.
The influence of the latter location is all over upcoming single ‘Forget What It Was’, an exploration of domestic abuse that draws deep from trip-hop influences to frame a voice heavily influenced by classic American soul and jazz.
For O’Moore, music is a means of expression and social critique, with upcoming debut EP ‘Social Paralysis’ written, recorded and refined in the artist’s home with a computer and a microphone, before being mastered remotely via an online collaborator.
“Covid pushed everybody towards this digital world - I didn't meet with musicians. Of course, there were restrictions in place, so it was just kind of more of a means of just recording your tracks on Logic and sending them over.
“I was working with a producer [I found on a digital platform], funnily enough in Peru. I had all the music written - lyrics, melodies, structures, and then he made the songs come to life. You can do a lot online, find collaborators, negotiate prices per track of mixing (individual tracks or instruments) or mastering (the final audio touches for release and radio play).”
With that being said, another task that faces musicians is cutting above the ongoing noise presented by social media and the increasing churn of SEO-driven content on streaming services.
The task of reaching listeners via a specialist music press that’s been fragmented by digital transitions, audience expectations and sustainability concerns has been a challenge for O’Moore, living as she does between countries, cultures and musical genres.
“For myself, personally, it's been on a stop-start basis, and it's been quite repetitive. You could be disheartened because you could be reaching out to a hundred people, and sometimes nobody's gonna get back to you, but you repeat the process again, and sort of change your pitch… looking to places that are interested in sharing new music, and upcoming artists.
“The most important thing to take from being an independent artist is to know how to navigate it all yourself, and how to set up a strategy, instead of getting somebody to do that for you, because they may not always be around.”
- Sarah O'Moore's next single, Forget What It Was, releases on May 4 across digital streaming platforms, with debut EP Social Paralysis to follow on May 28.
“I do think everyone is an inherent creator in life. Life is art, and I definitely have that bug!” laughs Thomas Kitt.
Less preoccupied with the grind of music-making is the West Cork-based musician, whose recent single ‘The Little Robin’, a folksy meditation on the circular nature of existence, marks a return to songwriting as personal self-expression following significant life events.
"I love music. I need music in the background to exist. That has come way more, actually, in my later life - influence goes in and comes out," he says, going on to cite Jape's Richie Egan, Villagers' Conor O'Brien and Canadian songwriter Feist as important references. "It's very much channelling.”
Creativity is a consistent theme for Kitt, and he had a network of friends to call on to help with aspects of his electronic press kit, a common occurrence in a DIY music climate largely reliant on collaboration and mutual assistance.
“From what I've seen for the people who've done it, they've basically done the research, all these planning processes that they go through, and long-term planning, I've never had that capacity... but what I do have is... I experience life, and then songs come to me.”
That same mutual assistance sustained Kitt through the single’s recording process, enlisting family, friends and connections to help muck in, but immersing himself properly in a studio environment in order to learn on the job, before sending to prolific musician and producer Seán MacErlaine for mastering.
“On the production level, my cousin Éamon Brady, he's built a studio called The Orchard in Kildare. I tried, once upon a time, to learn Pro Tools, and get the home studio... I just didn't have the full level of interest. I would have thought I might have been lazy or something, but when I'm not working, I'm processing, which is work!”
When asked about how he views the hard yards of putting music out and getting it heard, Kitt is happy to embrace the process. “I don't consider anyone's ‘up against’ anything, because there's so much room for music.”
- Thomas Kitt's 're-debut' single, 'The Little Robin', is on digital streaming services now.
