A taster of Cork’s vibrant student music scene
By Méabh Ní Chonaill (Contributor)
Coming together for a stellar night of music on February 15th, three Cork-based acts showcased the variety and pure talent of Cork’s student population. UCC’s Kane’s Basement and Violet Club were joined by MTU scholar Noah Synder onstage at The Roundy. Although all three acts are post-Covid performers, the effects of the pandemic are barely to be seen “After two years of having nothing on, people are so willing to come out and give us support. There's a lot more people creating as well who had that time in lockdown to hone whatever they had.” states Cormac McCarthy, lead singer of Kane’s Basement. To see the wealth of talent and music that the city has to offer, one need only visit the various music venues throughout the city on any given night “You could go to a different band twice a week if you wanted to. There's always something on, in Fred Zeppelin’s or the Spailpín [Fánach]” advises Violet Club bassist Isaac Wolfe.
This particular gig highlighted the supportive and close community that populates these gigs. First to take to the stage was soloist Noah Snyder, a Kilkenny native studying music in MTU. Entertaining the audience with a mixture of originals and covers, Synder’s vocals shone through, accompanied by his guitar as he sailed through his set, seeming relaxed and at home on the stage. Part of the joy of performing for him, he says, stems from the relationship between audience and performer. “I love being on stage and I love interacting with the crowd. I love being able to kind of tap into a little bit of charisma.”
On the topic of his musical influences, Synder takes inspiration from the greats such as Jeff Buckley and Led Zeppelin when songwriting “As far as harmonic stuff, and musically, I love Bill Evans, Red Garland, and Keith Jarrett. They would be my favorites.” Singing of love, loss, and fun, Synder’s originals showcased a more personal and vulnerable side to the musician as well as his laid-back nature before jumping into fan favorites such as “The House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals.
Upon arriving in Cork, Snyder discovered the vibrant music scene. “It was totally a new world for me, like when I moved down here. I mean, there's metal gigs around, you can see Jazz in Crane Lane Monday nights, the 115 jam on Thursday nights. I mean, there is just so much more variety. There's something there for everybody, which is rare”. Snyder has put himself out into the midst of the gigging scene as he hopes to pursue music as a career, meaning that he is now only at the very beginning of his journey. “ You have to take the first step, and once you do that, then the door is right open, but nobody's gonna hold your hand. So you have to put yourself out there initially”.
Hoping to release his original music on Spotify at some point in the near future, Snyder’s future plans centre around performing and playing. “Really what I want to do is just perform and play my own music on stage and hopefully people enjoy it as much as I enjoy playing it”.
Following Snyder onstage are Violet Club. They joke that they are well versed in controversy after their impromptu practice on College Road last year, a decision which would prove to garner them some very useful publicity. “That’s how we got a lot of gigs at first, we blew up kind of off that” laughs the band’s bassist, Isaac Wolfe. The group’s line up of Paidí Brennan (guitar), Isaac Wolfe (bassist), Sean Brosnan (guitar), Sammy Hovhannisyan (drums), Dan O’ Donovan (trombone) and Grace Campbell (vocals) took to the stage to perform some of their new material along with fan favorites.
The group formed in September 2021 with members Isaac, Paidi and Sean meeting in Brookfield accommodation at UCC. “We were starting the band and Sean and Paidi were asking me: we’ve guitar, a singer, bassist, do we have anything else? And I was like oh my roommate Dan plays trombone” explains Isaac. The addition of the trombone led to them adding on the trumpet, played by Florrie McCarthy, who whilst no longer officially playing with the band, delighted the crowd by joining the band for a song or two during their set. One cannot discuss Violet Club without mentioning the group’s frontwoman Grace, who joined the band after meeting them at UCC Music Societies’ “Speed Date For a Bandmate” event. The band instantly clicked, says Grace. “The next night, we never sang together before, and we just played a song, it was a Fleetwood Mac song and it was actually unbelievable”. Going on to perform many gigs around Cork and beyond over the course of the next year, their repertoire consisted of covers. “We were a cover band for a year and a half and we all kind of got sick of playing Party in the U.S.A”. The band, now joined by Sammy Hovhannisyan on drums, have plans to record their first EP imminently and performed newly composed originals on the night, such as “Between the Lines” and “Take Two” onstage.“We actually love playing the originals, it’s so much fun.” smiles Grace. The transition from covers to originals seems to have gone more than smoothly for the band as their songs hold an unmistakable Violet Club sound, whether that be due to the trombone, Grace’s vocals, the groovy feel to their music or all of the above elements combined. “It was hard to get into it first though with the originals because we were used to the covers scene and they’re very different markets. People actually judge you over these songs, we used to play Mr Brightside.” admits Isaac.
The band plan to continue gigging, not just in Cork, whilst also balancing their day to day lives. Grace, now a teacher, jokes “I teach through the day and sing at night, I feel like Hannah Montana.” There can be no doubt but that the band will continue to see great success as they invite more and more fans to “join the club”.
Last on stage but by no means least are UCC’s Kane’s Basement. The funky four-piece consists of Cormac McCarthy (vocals and guitar), Tom Murphy (bass), Neil O’Connor (drums) and Patrick Kiely (lead guitar). A relatively new band, three of the four members originally performed in a band called Glass Pants before recruiting Cormac as their singer and forming the band Kane’s Basement we now know. Even after one practice session, it was clear to the members that the potential was there, says Cormac. “The chemistry was off the charts, some people say..After the first day we were like, oh we’ll have to do this again, it was a bit like a date really”. Since then the band has released two singles: “Rosalind’s Song” and “Afterparty” and are on track to record further songs. Taking a strategic approach to releasing their music, the group hopes to accumulate a solid following before releasing a debut album “You want to have a decent-ish following. You don’t want to put in all that work for it to fall flat on its face.” points out drummer Neil O’Connor. As regards their songwriting process the band prefers to collaborate, each contributing their respective thoughts. When working on “Afterparty”, front man Cormac began the writing process. “I had that opening riff for about 4 years and I used to play it over and over again, trying to get something going with it and then I brought it to the band”. The song was met with enthusiastic applause by the bands' fans who recognised the opening notes and immediately joined the band in song.
Onstage the band seem to have limitless energy and an unfiltered joy for performing. From the audience’s perspective, the band are having the time of their lives, with frontman Cormac and bassist Tom jamming to their own beat. From whipping out a saxophone for a song, sporting a fabulous faux pink coat and crowd surfing, McCarthy put on a show. The band certainly display great promise having recently qualified for UCC’s Battle of the Bands final and with their fanbase growing, Kane's Basement are set to scale even greater heights in the future.
These three acts can often be seen around the city, playing or supporting other bands on and off stage. Each shows a different side to Cork's growing gig scene and with acts like these at the forefront, the future of Cork’s music scene looks promising.
