SUMMER 2008 FESTIVAL NEWS:
Bushplant have been invited to play as part of Hawkfest, the annual Hawkwind Festival, in Devon over the weekend of 25-28 July.  Mary will be taking a 2 month sabbatical in Spain to brush up her Spanish, but will fly in especially for the gig, while the rest will be knocking on doors all along the M4 and M5...  Lineup includes Hawkwind themselves, arguably the best band in the world, ever, Tim Blake, Tits of Death , and as ever rumours of an appearance by Lemmy.
 

June 2008:  Well, it might have been a slow start, but things are warming up again - the band will be very busy this summer, quite apart from planning yet another album...
After a stunning gig in Kilkee last week, they return to the wilds of West Clare on the 8th June for a long Sunday afternoon playing the marquee at The Roadside Tavern as part of the Lisdoonvarna 'fringe' - whatever that is! 
There's a memorial gig in the Barge Rooms on the 19th to commemorate 'Moses' Mannion, an old friend and a great fan of the band, and then in a further sally out west they headline the Ennistymon Family Festival where stablemates Kohima and The Buzzmonkeys will also be astonishing all and sundry.
In between all that, they will be continuing with their Back to Brandons summer gigs on the 13th June, 11th July and 15th August.  All Fridays, but don't worry about the 13th - it's bad luck to be superstitious...

That gig in Kilkee...

May 2008:
A quiet year so far due to the many other commitments of the individual members, but the beat goes on with the band returning to their spiritual home with a series of summer gigs in Brandons, see the Places page for details.

Ginger Jam Music Xmas MegaBash
at the Old Ground Hotel, Ennis
Sunday 23rd December, Rockin' the Solstice!
8 till late

It's nearly the night before Christmas - you've shopped until you've dropped,
Racing around like a lunatic, it's really time you stopped.
So naughty or nice, just don't think twice,
Cos your cork is gonna be popped!
...*groan*...

This year the Bushplant Christmas bash will be held in the Old Ground Hotel , Ennis, one of the finest relics of old decency and the perfect place to be for that old-time Christmas feeling.
With a full line-up of supporting acts, you can finally unwind, let your hair down, dance until the early hours and forget about the horror of it all for a little while...

Show starts at 8:00 sharp, tickets only 10 euros.
featuring Buzzmonkeys, Kohima, Snowdial, Trevor Hansbury's TNT
Buy online - click the button and get your name on the door!
Numbers are limited so don't leave it too late...

Just one click and you're sorted!

November 2007 Ginger Jam Music have gone global and finalised the arrangements to have their catalogue distributed to online music stores all over the net, so now you can buy any and all Bushplant tracks from these great online stores:

 

September 2007 - Finished with the King's sessions, the band are embarking on looking a bit further afield this autumn with gigs lined up all through September in Ballyvaughan at the Burren Coast Hotel, McHugh's Bar in Liscannor, and McGann's in Doolin, just for starters.  And Mary's back in fine form too!  Watch out for some Friday nights coming up in Baron McHughs in Ennis.

Don't miss the Ennistymon Family Music Festival, where Bushplant and Ginger Jam stablemates Buzzmonkeys will be rocking the town at this FREE open air gig on Main Street, Saturday 22 September 2007.  Buzzmonkeys on at 2:30, Bushplant at 7:00, it's gonna be brilliant!

July 2007 - Gig for Dave Riordan, in Doolin was a rocking roller of a night when the band gave old friend Dave a stormer of a send-off.
Says Andy: "Dave was a great friend of all of us in the band and the scene in general - anything positive like saving the planet and having a good time doing it was part of his thing - and much more, he was a lovely man. He is a big loss to 'the tribe'.  He always said that he would get us a gig in Doolin though!"

Pity about the Mantua gig, the band couldn't make it due to other commitments, and the music segment of Amazen had to be cancelled due to policing and security difficulties.

June 2007 - News just in that Bushplant are to appear in an as yet un-named festival in Dublin, featuring newly signed band Orphan Code, sometime next year.  More news on this as it arrives...

May 2007 - 'Clare Now' Magazine interviews Mick Hanrahan, ex-Stocktons Wing, IMRO ex-Chairman and he speaks fondly of the band -

"I met up with Gerry Molloy at school. We sat beside each other and spent years writing songs. Gerry had a band called Effigy and I joined up.
He was an amazing guitarist and still is. Gerry Molloy is one of the unsung heroes of Ennis.
Effigy never reached the heights of U2 but the members were undaunted. Later we had a band called The Natural Disaster Band that featured a young Maura O'Connell, my brother and Gerry Molloy.  There were a fair few people tuned into music, loads of musos and bands. They were open to all kinds of music. Gerry has since gone on to form Bushplant, who are a great band."

FESTIVAL NEWS 2007
Catch Bushplant in the wild!

State of Mantua 2007,

Music & Arts Festival, Roscommon.
13-14 July 2007

AMAZEN MUSIC FEST,
ENNIS

with The Undertones, The Walls, The Revs
21 July 2007.

The Clare People - Mark Keane, May 2007

Good things come to those who wait.  Ennis-based Celtic rockers Bushplant have been a fixture on the county's live music scene for over 15 years, and a firm favourite with their loyal band of followers.  Now, after a hiatus from the recording studio since the mid-90s, they've returned with a new album, titled Janus, to be launched in Ennis next week.

Buoyed by a new sense of musical self-discovery, and a presence on the world wide web that's getting hits from across the globe, the new release marks something of a new age for the timeless combo.

"It's great to have it out," admits drummer Andy Palfreyman. "We've been putting it together for a while now and finally we're happy with it."

The album is a typically heady fusion of trad-rock, freaky-folk, dirt-pool rhythm and blues and Cajun grooves; in other words, the same potent elixir that has made Bushplant their name and helped them keep their popularity down through the years.  Other musical fads have come and gone, but the Plant have remained steadfastly locked into their own unique, good-time groove.

The music has remained resolute, and members Palfreyman, frontman Gerry Molloy, bassist Joe Keane and fiddler Mary Custy are as tight as ever, but other major changes have been implemented.  Gerry Doyle, the brains behind the band's label Ginger Jam Music, has been a key figure in the process, by developing the band's web presence and raising their profile.

"The website has introduced the band to new fans all over the world," says Dubliner Doyle.  "Another popular site is CPU.ie which streams independent Irish music, and the band have consistently been in the top 10 of hits.  I know Bushplant are taken a bit for granted in Clare, so it's great to see others really excited by the band."

A fervent admirer of the new DIY age, Doyle had helped marshall the band into the digital era and Janus will shortly be available for sale on iTunes and other online stores.  While he admits that the band exists outside the mainstream, he still feels there are plenty of other other avenues to exploit.

"It's hard for a band like Bushplant to get onto national radio stations," he acknowledges. "But the record is already played on Internet stations, and places as diverse as California and Lanzarote. There's great goodwill for Bushplant."

The goodwill may be there, but the good luck has gone awry in recent months with the news that fiddling fulcrum Mary Custy will be laid up for the foreseeable future with an untimely shoulder injury. Still, it hasn't derailed the band's plans and the launch in The Barge Rooms will be a celebratory occasion.  The album title, incidentally, is a typical piece of mythology-inspired mysticism beloved of Bushplant, as Palfreyman explains.

"Janus is the Roman god of begininngs and endings, who could look forward as well as back.  We like to think that the music looks back to our Celtic roots, but is also inspired by new rock and dance sounds."

Bushplants rhythms will hope to reverberate for a few more eras yet.

Comments, complaints or suggestions about the site to the webmaster,  alacrity@bushplant.com