23.01.08 A New Years Message

Hi everyone, Sinead here, well into 2009 but wishing you all a very happy, healthy, fulfilling and so on new year. It seems to be hard times everywhere these days so hopefully all of you can find some way to survive, make money, feed your children, heat your homes and have a minute to enjoy life. I suppose it is time to look at the things that are free in life like walking by the sea or in the woods, hanging out with friends chit chatting, going to the local park to play with your kids or your mates, go for a run or a brisk walk, listen to music, go to the library and get some books to read. Its all good for the mind and the spirit and its all basically free. When things get better which they probably will eventually there will be plenty of time to go back to buying things outside of the necessaries like food and clothes and so on. in the meantime, look for the free things in life and start thinking about exchanging stuff with friends like books, music, clothes you dont want.
I had a great holiday season, full of family life and love, presents for the children, christmas dinner and lots of flopping around on the sofas playing games of cards and so on. It was great and very relaxing with no stress. After i finished the Proms in late November in Rotterdam, i was just glad to get home because i had been away for quite a long time. I enjoyed singing at the proms, especially with the orchestra, but honestly it is not something i would do again because it kept me away too much from my home and my children.
This year i am concentrating on writing new songs on my own, co writing with some other people and demoing the songs before going in to record them 'properly'. I am really excited about how its going; its going to be a guitar based electric kind of record, I think. mostly songs about love, in some way or another. I have been doing some writing and demoing with Marco Pironni (ex adam and the ants) and chris constantinou who plays bass. I have known Marco for years, he played on various songs in the past, including Mandinka and Jump in the River, and I feel very comfortable working with him and Chris. I have also come up with some songs of my own and now i have to work on getting my voice really into shape so I can make the record I want to make. I suppose it is going to be early next year before it gets a physical release but, in the meantime sometime later this year, I will start making some of the stuff available through the website or somewhere appropriate.
EMI is going to release a deluxe package of 'I do not want what i have not got' sometime probably around the end of April. It is supposed to mark the 20th anniversary of the record and 'Nothing Compares to You' even though it is really only (only!) 19 years since it came out but really who cares. There will be an extra cd of some unreleased tracks and b sides and hard to find mixes on so on; John Reynolds is the one who has compiled all that stuff and my manager Fachtna is just talking to me now about what things I might do around the record release. Its kind of funny for me in some ways because a lot of what happened at that time is completely gone from my memory for some reason; I know that when 'nothing compares' really took off it was a kind of a crazy time and I was whizzing here, there and everywhere, doing TV shows, endless interviews, etc. I am sure I was really overwhelmed by the whole thing even if i didnt really realise it at the time. So, if I do some interviews around this re release I am going to have a hard time when they start asking me how it was!
I am also looking to do some shows this year, although not too many. I think they will be acoustic shows with just myself, Steve cooney and Kieran Kiely, like last years shows. I want to do live performances because of course I love to play and sing live and also it is good to feel the audience reactions. but, I have to say, my priority this year is to write and record and get stuff down so we can have an album to release early in 2010. if I can do that and be proud of the content, as well as enjoying the live shows, then I will believe that creatively i will have had a good 2009.
There is nothing else really at the moment; keep an eye out here for more info and some exclusives, I hope, that can maybe keep you musically satisfied for a while. There are some interesting ideas about collaborations and individual projects that are being floated around at the moment so once we make decisions on those things I will let you all know. til then, be safe, be happy, be inventive.
Much love to everyone, Sinead.

29.10.08 Opening night in Belgium
'so, the night of the proms shows began in antwerp, belgium, on oct. 23 in a huge venue called the sportspaleis. 16,000 capacity which of course made me very nervous. that was on top of the nerves i was feeling cos i was singing troy from the lion and the cobra for the first time in twenty years. I had two days of rehearsals with a full orchestra and everybody, robert, the conductor, franck, the orchestrator, and jan, the producer/promotor of the proms, were all very encouraging and enthusiastic and that gave me some confidence. anyway, there should be a version of troy from the second night for you to hear on the site. I also sang dark i am yet lovely, or solomon, as i call it, from theology and nothing compares 2 U with the full orchestra. the crowd seemed to like all three and i actually really enjoyed singing them, especially troy cos its been so long and i am a different person now, obviously. another highlight of the proms for me was the fact that there were members of the harlem gospel choir performing also and i was totally amazed by their voices and by some of the solos they did. its very humbling to be singing on the same shows as them. antwerp itself has some lovely buildings and i went for a stroll around the museum of beautiful art and saw some nice work. not an awful lot to do in the city so i have been catching up on some tv documentaries as well as keeping up to date on the us elections.'

16.10.08 The Proms

Hello everyone,
I am going to be spending a fair while, over four weeks, in belgium and holland up to nearly the end of November. I am doing a thing they have every year called the proms. Its a big deal with an orchestra/big band and this year, besides myself, the guest performers are going to include the american band, live, simple minds, midge ure and a number of local artists. You can see the whole line up if you go the ticket sales site, they should have a full listing there.
I am going to be doing three songs with the orchestra - dark i am yet lovely, troy and nothing compares. i am really looking forward to it although i have to say i am quite nervous, especially about performing Troy. It's years since i have done it and my voice is not as young as it used to be! plus, my feelings are quite different now, i was probably quite angry when i used to sing it years ago. I can remember doing it at pinkpop festival in holland, just me and acoustic guitar. I think flea from the red hot chilli peppers was standing at the side of the stage, watching and listening. I believe its on youtube somewhere....anyway, i am looking forward to the proms although i am going to be missing my home and my children. There are lots of shows in antwerp, arnheim and rotterdam and when it is all finished, near the end of november, i will go back home and do nothing for a while! If any of you are at any of the shows, enjoy yourselves and gimme a big shout.
Sinead

30.05.08 Summer shows

"Hello Everyone, Here are my summer shows. I'll be joined onstage by guitarist Steve Cooney who played on and co-produced the 'Theology' Dublin Sessions disc; together with multi-instrumentalist Kieran Kiely from my 2007 touring band on keyboards, accordion, whistles and guitar. Hope to see you somewhere along the road. Sx"

30.May.07 A new message from Sinead

Hi everybody....sorry I've been off radar, but the past few weeks have been wild, wild, and wild. Now that I can catch my breath...I'll fill ya in.

Ok, so last I wrote while? I was in London rehearsing for touring with my band. Talk about baptism by fire!!! The first gig we did was the evening of Sunday May 6th before a capacity crowd (4,500 they tell me) at Dublin Castle...right here in me very own home town..yikes!!!

It had been what seemed like forever since I had played a set like this with both lot's of my older songs and half of Theology mixed in. At John Reynold's ? prodding? (my long time collaborator, MD, and ex-husband) we even did "Never Get Old" and "Jump In the River" which I've never performed live before....you coulda heard me knees knocking from the stage.

I had so much fun and the crowd literally brought both smiles to me face and tears to my eyes. After the show I whispered to my manager Bruce that it felt like I had been in my kitchen for five years and then when I stepped out its door I found my self standing on stage in front of a huge crowd! I loved it and am looking forward to touring and eventually getting to every major city in the world though it will take a minute or two.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I just wrote and recorded the title song for a really cool film, a fable called 'The Water Horse' which they tell me is gonna open during this coming Christmas. I wrote and demoed it last November just before I delivered Yeshua. The actual recording was produced by Daniel Lanois and took place over the few days before the Dublin Castle show.

Daniel wanted to rent a house to use as the recording studio...so of course I opened me big mouth and volunteered my own place figuring it would let me stay closer to the kids...little did I know how much gear they had untilit seemed that half the house was full of road cases and wires snaked everywhere. It was cool though and here's a few pics we took.

This is me listening to Daniel between takes...notes neatly jotted down on my hand

Daniel trying to be me....

The production team, Dickie Chappell (seated) Tony Mangurian and Daniel Lanois

So I'm off to do pre-album release promotional stuff in Italy, Germany, and France....back home to perform on both the Late Late show and Graham Norton...before blastin' off to America for ten days which'll include small acoustic shows in LA and NY and a World Cafe live show taping in Pittsburgh.

Seems the big problem I'm facing right now is trying to explain to my wonderful three year old son why Mummy doesn't sing the 'silly songs' in her shows...bless him...he has no idea that mummy sings for no other reason than the love of it...and I wanna keep it that way as looooooooong as possible.

See ya soon....

XXX---Sinead