Paddy Garrigan profile picture

Paddy Garrigan

About Me

Faster than a sleeping bullet, more powerful than a ukelele, capable of drinking warm beverages in a single bound: Paddy "Wainscot" Garrigan is a singer, musician, writer and exceedingly amatuerish cyclist. Best known for playing guitar and singing in The Pier Group and The Wierdstring Band (and for doing anything but play guitar in The Wisemen), Paddy has contributed a myriad of instruments to ensembles such as Dan Haywood's New Hawks, Moonstone, The Gokarnas, The Puma Sutras, Colonel Blimp & The Amazing Exploding Bananas, and Sonic Tradition. He also performs as a solo artist, and occasionally as a solo group. Where possible.

Due to an unusual series of operations during the early 1990s, Paddy is in fact half-timbered in the Mock Tudor style. Two thirds of his left hand side (and one third of his right) is covered in faux-wattle & daub. Never one to let adversity stand in his way, 'Wainscot' used his convalescence as the opportunity to acquire new skills, starting by learning to play the spoons and having a feature archway installed. Within years, he was impressing audiences with his mandolin and piano playing, not to mention the delightful conservatory he'd had installed around the back.

Now entering his third decade, Paddy is pleased to show off his virtuosity and manual dexterity on guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, banjo, bazouki, mandolin and what he terms 'other shit'. Recording in his own bedroom (nobody else would let him use theirs), he brings his unique perspective to light on the world through the medium that means so much to him: music.

Paddy Garrigan recently relocated to Colton, near Greenodd in Cumbria. It's extremely windy near my house, within and without.

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 14/02/2006
Band Website: www.paddygarrigan.com
Band Members: Patrick Brendan Garrigan, with occasional assistance from the universe and it's muses.
Influences: Richard Thompson, Vetiver, Neil Young, Led Zeppelin, Half Man Half Biscuit, The Velvet Underground, The Grateful Dead, Fairport Convention, Barry Took & Marty Feldman, Goldfrapp, Chuck Berry, Atkinsons of Lancaster, Frank Zappa, Yossarian, Bert Jansch, Morissey's scriptwriter, Martin Carthy & Dave Swarbrick, Tony Garrigan, The Incredible String Band, Kinky Friedman, The Smiths, Ian Jesse, The Watersons, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, The Specials, Chris Wood & Andy Cutting, Charles Bukowski, The Pooka MacPhellimney, Elmore Leonard, Sean Maguire (the fiddler, not the Nineties pop icon), Pelvis Arsely, The Memphis Jug Band, Johnny Cash, The Band of The Coldstream Guards, Joe Keane, Jack Powers, Phil Spector, Joni Mitchell, Jerry Lee Lewis, Hodgsons Chip Shop, The Yorkshire House, Jamesons, Flann O'Brien, Susanna Clark, Neil Gaiman, Guiness, The Dubliners, The Albion Band, Super Furry Animals, Devendra Bernhardt
Sounds Like:

"Paddy Garrigan is a musical polyglot who could get a piece of music out of a stick of celery": Howard Byrom, Lancaster Guardian [ December 2006 ]

....And I only had to give one CD away to get that quote, too! One recent reviewer said 'Half Man Half Biscuit meets Fairport Convention'. One can only imagine what that meeting might be like, although I'd certainly be up for watching it, and perhaps even helping to get the beers in.

Other insight and enlightenment may be achieved by checking out the music of any or all of the names given above as 'influences', as well as such friends (or should that be 'family'?) as Wierdstring, The Wisemen, New Hawks and so forth.


Record Label: SpagBol
Type of Label: Indie

My Blog

Tour of Welsh Wales and other forthcoming delights

Hello one and all, I'd best be brief - I'm typing this at work and people will stare. Firstly, West Britons will be doubtless delighted to hear about the Wierdstring Band's tour of Wales. This year, t...
Posted by on Wed, 05 Nov 2008 04:52:00 GMT

Swimming, Beer and Mud

Evening all -So much to say, so little time. Perhaps the strategy of only writing a blog entry once a year hasn't paid off so well. Where to begin, I wonder. Hmmm. Let's have a look.Having spent much ...
Posted by on Sun, 03 Aug 2008 15:20:00 GMT

Back to earth....

Well, my fellow Wierdstringer Mr Bentley has already written a pretty comprehensive bloggish account of our adventures and related shenanigans at Solfest last weekend, so it seems silly to duplicate h...
Posted by on Thu, 30 Aug 2007 07:02:00 GMT

Media & Life round-up

As many previous posts have mentioned, much of my recent life has comprised spending 3-4 days per week performing & playing at festivals across these isles, followed by 4-3 days of re-acclimatisin...
Posted by on Thu, 23 Aug 2007 02:41:00 GMT

Beads and Beading

Right, just a wee plug for a website I've been making for a while. Those of you with a vested interest in hobby crafts or jewellery making (you know who you are, I shan't name names) may be highly int...
Posted by on Thu, 09 Aug 2007 03:23:00 GMT

Some musings on recent history....

As you may or may not be aware, I've been spending a hideous amount of time arsing about in fields recently. This may sound either tedious or simply agricultural to the layperson, but I assure you - i...
Posted by on Wed, 08 Aug 2007 10:00:00 GMT

Hazy

Well, in common with my other Wierdstring brethren,I am beginning to recover from the excesses of the weekend at Knockengorroch festival, which is my first proper festival this year. Five days of deba...
Posted by on Wed, 23 May 2007 08:20:00 GMT

....thank you for the music

Dear God, but it's been a busy old time recently. Music? Is it music you're after. Jaysus. I have music coming out of me arse at the moment. I shall leave you, dear reader, to judge for yourself the l...
Posted by on Mon, 23 Apr 2007 02:30:00 GMT

In the mean time....

Well, as tends to be the case round these parts, progress on the new recordings is almost as fast as I'd anticipated. So, to keep all those tongues hanging out of your mouths salivating like a small w...
Posted by on Thu, 16 Nov 2006 06:51:00 GMT

Marking time

Evening all. Some news, chez Pad:I've been working on new material. Some of this will get posted up here in due couse (I'm aiming for the next couple of weeks, although previous time-keeping form sugg...
Posted by on Thu, 02 Nov 2006 03:03:00 GMT