Simeon's Song by St.Simeon & the Stylites

St.Simeon & the Stylites are: Roger O'Shea, Dan Crowe, Eoghan Hough and Ben Simmons. We formed in the North Donegal and have subsequently bounced around Ireland and the Uk for the last 4 years playing pubs and small festivals. In 2016 we ran a fundraiser for this album and now it’s finally ready. Here’s a wee summary of the tracks and a few interesting facts.

Simeon’s Song
-The guitar solos on this are improvised
- We used to play this as a medley where it segwayed into a version of Edwyn Collins’ Girl Like You
- There’s an early version on youtube with a loony home made video that we are quite proud off. It features our original Drummer Marc Grady (aka Alypius Stylite) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR2OqshBtFw

Fire & Forget
- We have plans to do a vocal version in collaboration with another band ..
- A good portion of the percussion on this is played on one of those naff little ceramic drums people bring back from Morocco. It's a Bolero
- The bass is played on a ‘dead on ‘67’ Danelectro Baritone tuned A - A

Cave Canem (Bye Bye Sue)
- Built on a Beguine rhythm
- The harp sound in the verse is a made by threading a piece of cardboard through guitar strings at the bridge
- There's an early and live version on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tH7fIjJeT0

Tannoy Cry
- One of our regular collaborators Oli Steggles plays the tasty whammy-bar infused riff in the chorus
- That is Roger doing the Mongolian throat singing in the bridge and outro
- An early version was remixed by one of those DJ men they have now. It won a competition and we got to go to a redcarpet thing and met La Roux. True Story. https://soundcloud.com/b-side-project/tannoy-cry-sr-simeon-and-the-stylites-original-artist-entry-b-side-project

An Intentional Stance
- Our very first song when were a rural donegal three piece intent on jazz bothering Tom Waits vibes
- Vocals were recorded in a car in a field in Cambridgeshire. You can hear the sumptuous leather seats squeaking at 2.58
- It’s got Bouzouki in it

Aonair Abhaile
- Old tune that was supposed to the prototype song for a new genre called Goblin- trad (trad for Goblins) We NEED to revisit this.
- There’s a live recording on youtube from way back in 2013 when it was called Apathy Groove https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um3NELSkOQ4
- Lesson learned - More Bodhran required in future projects

The Wolf Fear
- The Morse code at the start is not a sample .. its played on a shitheap 1970’s Tiesco
- There is a terrible early version of this online. We hope you don’t find it
- Lyrics written by an angry teenaged Roger after he read The Outsider by Colin Wilson... Go figure

The Wanderlight
- Lyrics by an Australian poet called Henry Lawson. Shout out to the cambridge troubadour Banjo Nick for introducing us (check him on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ALsqSDKqrU)
- We made the Bouzouki sound like an Oud (or something you’d pull out of a tree in the congo) with our old cardboard-through-strings trick
- This is a new song and we haven’t actually played it live yet

Big thanks to family, friends and strangers who've helped and supported us - Especially those who prepurchased this release via fundit.ie and have collaborated with us over the years.

stsimeonstylite@gmail.com
facebook.com/St.SimeonandtheStylites

We -- St. Simeon and the Stylites -- are a band.
We make noises with stringed and thumpable instruments. Variously and on different occasions these have included; Guitar, Bouzouki, Upright bass, Drums (various), Keys (organ,piano etc.) and on the odd occasion a duo of fiddles

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