Brian McCartan, who you might know as The Casanova Wave, has been described on these pages as "one of the finest up n' coming electronic musicians in the country" and you'll get to see exactly why we bestowed such signifcant praise on the Waterford man when he plays the Meteor Camden Crawl Dublin this weekend at the entertainment.ie-curated Upstairs at Whelan's venue.
Joy of Being, McCartan's debut album, was released last year to a slew of rave reviews and we caught up with him to talk about that and his performance at the Crawl.
Hi Brian, we've been big fans since we saw you at Hard Working Class Heroes in Twisted Pepper a few years ago. Do you remember that particular gig?
Yeah, Hard Working Class Heroes is a fantastic event every year. I think if you ask any musician who's played they'll tell you it's a highlight of the year. The atmosphere is just great, always, and to see so many people out on the streets and in the venues to soak up the music, and local Irish music at that, is something special.
Reaction to your album The Joy of Being was pretty unanimous in its praise. You must have felt a sense of pride in that?
I do, i feel very proud of that. You know, it was something I had in me that I really wanted to do, that sound and that sort of atmosphere that's on the album. I worked really hard at writing those songs and spent quite a bit of time at it, and it was an incredibly cathartic experience. It may not sound like it, maybe it does I don't know, but each one of those songs is about something or someone particular to me. And getting that album done helped express, in terms of music, what I wanted to say about all that. I still listen to it sometimes, and it reminds me of everything I wanted it to remind me of, which I guess is what I had hoped it would do when I started it. The positive reaction then of people who've heard it, or who've come to see me play live just really cements it as a great experience, creating and playing the songs on that album.
You play a lot of different roles on stage, at least you have when we've seen you, playing every sound that comes out of the PA system, which seems pretty complicated to us. Have you ever had that disastrous gig where everything goes wrong, you miss your cues, repeater peddles don't work, etc.?
No, nothing that disastrous yet. I've had particular things stop working, just before I'm about to go on stage. I used to play an electric drumkit live, but I stopped using that as it would often just stop working when I needed it to! But I guess you just need to be flexible about it.
It's funny, that reminds me of something my friend Deen, from Skinny Downers, said to me while I was in Berlin this weekend. He was playing a gig there recently, and it was a fairly shambolic set up, speakers and monitors just kept blowing and not working while he was playing, and he kept stopping between songs to try and fix them. And this German dude came up to him and said in this really pretentious voice "you know, its not about your sound, it's about your PERFORMANCE"... and we were laughing about what a complete and utter douchebag he was! I thought it was hilarious, I can only imagine how completely frustrating it would be to hear that in a situation like that. I mean, "FUCK. OFFFFFFFF!!"
We're heading into festival season now, have you anything else lined up beyond Camden Crawl?
At the moment, no, I'm keeping a low profile. I'm trying to think what I want to do next, musically. Im working on new songs from time to time which I play live too. 'Joy Of Being' was just something particular. I need to figure out what I'm really pissed off with and absolutely in love with at the moment, and start making music about that! But there will certainly be some gigs around the country while I do that.
Are there any other acts you recommend we check out at this year's Camden Crawl?
Well, Im definitely excited about hearing the new stuff from O Emperor, I haven't seen them around in a while. Sleep Thieves, Low Sea, Orquestra and Adultrock too. I haven't seen Holy Roman Army before, but I'd like to see them, I like their stuff. And have Cloud Castle Lake made an album yet? Im very bad at keeping up with these things. If they have I wouldn't mind catching them live, I've played a few gigs with them before and I like them.
The Casanova Wave will play Upstairs at Whelan's on Saturday 4th May as part of Meteor Camden Crawl Dublin