Joe McKenna-Guitar/vocals,
Anna Marie Tully-Violin,
Declan Legge-Guitar/Percussion/Keys,
John Rigby- Bass
Influences
Van Morrison, Oasis, Christy Moore, Dave Matthews, David Gray, Embrace ah shit I don't really know its just comes out like it does you tell me for christ sake.
Right then, here we go. I am incredibly bad at updating things on myspace. Due mainly to my hectic home life (my wife will disagree with that but then again that's what wives are for) and also in part to plain laziness. Its been about 4 years since I last wrote anything to this section of my page and I suppose alot has happened since then that may in part be to do with music and also act as some sort of therapy session for me (if in fact anyone ever reads this). So yeah, my name is Joe McKenna and I am singer and songwriter. I was born and raised in west Belfast in the North of Ireland. I left home in 2000 in search of..............in truth I don't know but I had a guitar,a work ethic and a courage I can only describe as blind. I never had any real intention of trying to become an artist within music at all, although my family does have some talented people within it we are not a musical family. I always loved the feeling that engulfed me when totally imersed in a song, it frightens me in the best possible way.
I moved to Brooklyn New York in June 2000 to sample life abroad and see where the road would take me so to speak. Within 2 years I was doing the rounds of nearly every open mic night New York had going. Within 3 months of that I was signed to a small production company and started to believe the stars where about to shine for me (I had been writing songs for 4 months at that point). I think I may well have seen the inside of every major record label in New York and collected more free CDs than I can count (free CDs is the record label equivalent of 'get the fuck outta my office asshole',lol). Anyway to make this short I split with the company and was left in a real downer. Was that it, its over, do I suck. luckily I have made very good honest friends along the way and they never let me forget how talented they find me and how much my songs have meant to them (I still to this day do not handle praise very well, it just seems alien to me to accept it, but thats in my head I guess).So I kept on gigging and enjoying my music as much as I could until I decided it was time to go back home. My girlfriend was pregnant and New York was not my ideal place to raise my first child. I moved to Dublin with my girlfriend (now wife) and tried to give myself a fresh musical start. I won songwriter contests and gigged around alot plus recorded and released an EP with a great friend and fine producer Declan Legge of BigSpaceStudios. I was doing well but something was not right. I had lost my sense of enjoyment, I had become a man trying to prove that he had not failed rather than an artist trying to develop more and more. Music became work and so I did what I felt was the best thing to do. I stopped playing and wrote only when I felt it totally necessary. It was the right choice and did me the world of good. Now I would love to tell you a great Rocky type success story but thats just not how its gone. I get a lot out of life just raising my daughter and enjoying myu life but lately I have noticed that the less I play and gig (I gig rarely) the more I feel hungry for and audience. I am in a very healthy state of mind and I want to use that well.
You may not know me nor even care about any of this but the message i am trying to convey is this. I thought I had lost it, lost the love of music. But the truth is I was merely relearning what it is I enjoyed most in the first place. The sense of acheivement that every single song, audience clap and positive response gives me. In the next few months I will be posting new demos up on this page. So please let me now what you think. One Love.
Fuck being a rock star, just be happy you can step onto a stage and give people something would not get otherwise. That's my own advice to myself.
..This profile was edited with Thomas' myspace editor™ V2.5
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The Annesley House North Strand (Fairview) Dublin 3
The Hootenanny Launch Gig
2 Stages 7 Acts
Collaborations on the night from…
Matthew Devereux (from The Pale) Keiron Black (from The Amazing Few) Wally Page Stephen and Tony Boylan Mick Duffy and Niall O’ Shea Alan and Breda Trimble Q and more…
Kicks off at 8.30pm Admission: 5 Euro
Everyones welcome along-it's gonna be a great nite full of fun+frolicks, so come along+join us for lots of Hootenanny Maddness!!! Emma, Q and Co. at The Qube Studio:)
hey joe, how are things?any gigs comin up?would love to catch you live.i stumbled a across an EP of yours a few years ago with passenger and bright eyes on it and thought it was bril.will u drop me a comment or message wit any upcomin gigs plz.cheers man, Shane
Ha! No prob man! What's that, kind of a tutorial thing is it? Is that the thing with Ruth-Anne from IMRO? Yea that would be great if you could email me some acoustic demos? I'm dying to hear some more of your stuff! My email is colmtuite@iol.ie
