Tarantic music in Lisdoonvarna for Haven

IN shades of yester year, Lisdoonvarna this weekend plays host to a music festival. Nine bands will take to the stage over two nights to entertain music lovers from all over the county and to raise money for charity Haven.
Behind the festival is Dublin born Jonathon Fitzgerald, a regular visitor to the North Clare village.
“My dad lives in Clare. When our band started, Sons of Gingerbread, Peter Curtin in the Roadside Tavern let us play in his pub. Since then, I’ve been helping him out sourcing music and he’s been holding gigs. Together we managed to set up a bit of a music scene there and there is great music appreciation there,” Jonathon explained.
This weekend’s festival takes place in the Pavilion and features music from Absolutely Curtains, Cujo Family, Niwel Tsumbu and Loudest Whisper, Sons of Gingerbread, Elastic Affair, New Secret Weapon, A Band Called Wanda and Trevor Hansbury with the Tezers.
On Sunday night, there will be music in the Roadside Tavern with performances from Jonathon’s Sons of Gingerbread among others.
The weekend festival is a celebration of a charity CD that will be launched later this year, Tarantic Maxim.
“The name comes from Tarantic, which isn’t even a word. It comes from Tarantism, which was an affliction in Italy in the 15th and 16th century whereby people would spontaneously burst into dance and it was attributed to being bitten by a tarantula. On this CD, the tarantula is the music and once you are bitten by it you just have to dance. Maxim is a general truth or principal and this is our maxim. We want to celebrate or dance and use music to alleviate sorrow,” explained Jonathon.
“There are a few bands on the bill for the weekend that aren’t on the CD but they are of the same ilk. The idea is to have the craic and enjoy the music. Things are bad in the country so why not have a bit of craic when you can,” he continued.
Jonathon got the idea of making an album for charity and contacted a number of bands with what he considered particularly good songs and proposed a win, win situation.
“These bands, they all have remarkably good songs and they weren’t signed so we decided to do this charity album so they could get exposure and we could raise money for a great cause,” Jonathon outlined.
“It is something fresh and new and hopefully it will set a bit of trend. Hopefully, there will be more and more people releasing music independently because it is much cheaper to do now. I want people to appreciate that there is a lot more to the Irish music scene than people realise and that there are interesting things going on in music in Ireland rather than just the known acts,” he added.
Jonathon is also asking anyone interested in designing an album cover to contact him through the Tarantic Maxim Facebook page.
“We want to see what people come up with. If it is good we’ll use it and hopefully the artist will get a bit of exposure,” Jonathon concluded.
Details of the line-up for Friday and Saturday night are also available from the Facebook page.