Hi my name is Enda and I have been involved in bluegrass for over twenty years, in various bands & bluegrass festivals both in Ireland, England and a four month stint in Australia, met some fine bluegrass musicians there after joining a bluegrass club in Melbourne.
"Fair City Grass" was formed in 2000 in Mother Reilly's bar at the Uppercross Hotel Rathmines Dublin. It began initially as an informal bluegrass jam session, the aim was to find musicians who found this music fun to play and attract the ones who had some experience of it, plus willing to give their time & develop an authentic bluegrass sound.
Eventually through my prompting the hotel owner to install a pa system which other bands could share, he did so. That encouraged us to take a more hands on approach to the sound.
In fact Jody Smith our present guitarist who was studying jazz at the time put a fine jazz band together for a weekly gig.
We had a weekly gig there for four years but now it’s a fortnightly one since the non smoking ban.
We have undergone various changes in personnel since then, but now we are back to almost our original band with the exception of a very new & very young and talented 5 string banjo player, Patrick Kiernan.
We had a number of good banjo players over the years such as - Tony Melon, Jimmy Kelly JohnnyHulme (Manchester/Baker's Fabulous Boys),& Conor Daly who can be heard on our Demo cd. We also had a number of bass players & guitar players who helped us out from time to time, such as Tony Melon, Karl Deeter, Eddie Walsh and Cathal Cusack,to name a few.
In addition to our Mother Reilly residency we have played at some corporate gigs, barbecues, pub gigs, the Rotunda theatre,Chief O Neill's theatre, Dunmore East Fest., Athy Fest., & The Johnny Keenan Banjo Festival.
We have a demo cd out and it got some airplay on 'Roots Freeway' R.T.E. 1 recently, of which a copy can be had at our fortnightly gig - Mother Reilly's Rathmines, Dublin.
MySpace Layouts
