Last Night’s Food

Episode 35 – Last Night’s Food: How drinks and snacks feed traditional music 
This Irish Music Stories episode aired November 12, 2019
https://shannonheatonmusic.com/episode-35-last-nights-food/  

– Transcript edited by Bob Suchor –

Speakers, in order of appearance

>> Shannon Heaton: flute player, singer, composer, teacher, and host of Irish Music Stories 
>> Matthew Olwell: Philadelphia-based dancer and flute player
>> Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh: singer, fiddle player, and co-founder of the band Altan
>> John Williams: Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist
>> Nigel Heaton: young announcer for Irish Music Stories
>> Kevin Doyle:  Rhode Island-born dancer and 2014 National Heritage Fellow
>> Kathleen Conneely: tin whistle player from Bedford, England
>> Liz Carroll: master fiddle player, composer, and National heritage Fellow
>> Jamie McClennan: New Zealand-born fiddler and guitarist now based in Scotland
>> Matt Heaton: Boston-based guitarist and bouzouki player

_____

>> Shannon: I’m Shannon Heaton. And this is the season finale of Irish Music Stories, the show about traditional music, and the bigger stories behind it …

[ Music: “Free the Heel,” from Kitchen Session

Artist: Matt & Shannon Heaton ]

…like what tea and toast, and chips and cheese, are really about for traditional musicians and dancers:

>> Matthew: For me the sharing of food, and tea, and community, and people coming together to play music and to eat has always been kind of part and parcel, like they go hand in hand.

>> Shannon: That’s Philadelphia-based dancer and flute player Matthew Olwell. Like many practitioners of the Irish tradition, he’s picked up on the way that non-musical rituals, like eating and drinking, inform the music. 

Singer and fiddle player Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh tasted the importance of sitting and eating with neighbors and mentors as a kid in Gweedore in the Irish-speaking part of Donegal:

>> Mairéad: These people, we would have sat and ate with them and drank with them and had a lot of merriment and serious discussion with these people, and these people are always part of the music.

>> Shannon: From Philly to Guidor, all trad musicians and dancers have anecdotes of how food, drink, and company led to nights of song, dance, and tunes. For this episode I’ve prepared a menu of appetizing memories from Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Matthew Olwell, Jamie McClennan, and Matt Heaton.

[ Music: “Grupai Memories,” from Production Music made for Irish Music Stories

Artist/Composer: Matt Heaton ]

As I’ve assembled these tales, I’ve kept in mind Ciaran Carson’s exceptional book Last Night’s Fun. For each chapter, Ciaran takes a different tune — like Boil the Breakfast Early, The Steampacket, and the title chapter tune, Last Night’s Fun — and then he shares memories of playing these tunes. He talks about iconic musicians associated with them, feelings they evoke, and food that surrounds the memories of playing these tunes.

The book is poetry. And culture. And communion — in the keys of D, G, and E Minor.

When the book was published in 1996, I devoured it. And each time I’ve reread Last Night’s Fun, it’s fed me differently.

Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist John Williams described Last Night’s Fun — and the food, drink, music, and memories that it contains — as this quintessential meditation on the Irish tradition. In fact, he’ll often have students read the book instead of learning tunes for a while:

>> John: At a certain point I’ll say “Look, read that book and come back to me.” And some people will read it and they’ll say “Oh, my god, I got the whole picture, I got it!” and other people will read it and they’re like “I have no idea why he wants me to read this.” Usually, like, in an art and design curriculum at some point you have to read the book of tea, which is a book on aesthetics, and surrounding the tea ceremony, but is generalizable to all sorts of things in life. I think Last Night’s Fun is kind of like Irish music’s book of tea. He puts it down in words really well.

It’s a mixture of aesthetics and anesthetics. You might like that. But there’s an aesthetic quality — beauty within the art form. And then there’s this other lighthearted, jovial thing with the anesthetic.

[ Music: “Soggy’s Slip Jig,” from A Lovely Madness

Artist: Beoga ]

>> Shannon: Before I move from aperitifs to appetizers, my son Nigel and I want to thank this month’s sponsors:

>> Nigel: Thank you to Mark Johnson, Lynn Cox, Sharon Murphy, Valerie Watt, David Vaughan, Brian Benscoter, Joe Garrett, and Gerry Corr. Thanks a lot for supporting the show.

>> Shannon: Thank you so much for supporting Irish Music Stories, and for listening to the show. And now, to whet your appetite for my meatier conversations, I have a few starters from Kathleen Conneelly, Liz Carroll, and dancer Kevin Doyle. Kevin grew up surrounded by Irish music and dance in Providence, Rhode Island:

>> Kevin: We had a great house for music, because we had an upright piano in the hall. And you had this big hall when you walked in the house, and that was where we’d roll back the rug and the piano, the upright, was right there. My father of course, you know, he’d always invite everybody back, my mother used to get upset. He’d invite everyone back to the Doyle household, and he’d start cooking bacon and eggs at all hours of the morning, you know … scotch ham and everything else at that time, yeah.  

>> Shannon: And you guys were kids …

>> Kevin: And we were kids, yeah.

>> Shannon:  And it was all just coming in?

>> Kevin: And it was all just a natural thing, yeah, so we just thought that was totally normal.

>> Shannon: It was for some.

>> Kevin: It was for us!  [Laughter ]

Late nights were also par for the course for tin whistle player Kathleen Coneelly.  She grew up in Bedford, England, and after playing in sessions she and her siblings would come home and rehash the night over snacks.

>> Kathleen: We would never consider coming home going straight to bed. It was always put the kettle on, we’ll make sandwiches. And then you’d talk about the night, whether it was a dance or a session or whatever. And it was just a given that you’d have a feed of sandwiches and a cuppa tea before you went to bed.

>> Shannon: Right.

[ Music: “Little Bird Lullaby,” from Production Music made for Irish Music Stories

Artist/Composer: Matt Heaton ]

>> Kathleen: Yeah, finish the evening and sort of review it and talk about it in fun. Honest to God, you take that for granted. Now all I can do is go straight to bed. I couldn’t dream of having sandwiches and tea now! But growing up, it was part of what everyone did.

>> Shannon: It was mostly tea and sandwiches for Kathleen and her siblings. But… there was an eccentric snack that this musician called Ivan had once, in the middle of a big weekend of music.

[ Music: “Trip to Birmingham,” (composed by Josie McDermott) from Cybertrad

Artist: Matthew Olwell & Shodekeh Talifero ]

You told me a session story once.  You had gone out for tunes I think with a few sisters, and somebody really was urging you to stay …

>> Kathleen: Oh yeah! Hahaha! Well it wasn’t just me, it was all of us.  My brother had gone to a Fleadh Cheoil in Northhampton or something where he bumped into all the musicians from Birmingham with my father. And there was a French bouzouki player called Ivan Miletich.  Anyway they were all living in Birmingham, so they loved Mick and invited him up to Birmingham that next weekend, and he had a brilliant time, the tunes were fabulous in Birmingham.  It was maybe about an hour and a half on the bus from Bedford. We wanted to go – Bernadette, Pauline, and myself – and we called Mrs. Molloy.  She had a big Victorian house in Birmingham, and the boys slept on one level and all the girls slept on another level.  And there’d be a lovely simmering Irish breakfast waiting for us on Mrs. Molloy’s cooker. Black pudding, rashers, you name it.  We’d go home at wee hours, eat that, have a good sleep, and get up and do it all again. One particular night – we had to always get the bus home on Sunday evening maybe around 9 or 10 o’clock back to Bedford for work the next day – and we were having such a good time, nobody wanted to go home, and Ivan grabbed the tickets and ate them. [Laughter ]

>> Shannon: So maybe the bus tickets were a mere side dish, but the Irish breakfasts from Mrs. Molloy, those would have been more of the main event. Fried eggs, thick slices of fried meat and sausages and blood pudding, maybe a hunk of warm tomato, some baked beans, and toast to sop it all up: the Irish breakfast.

[ Music: “Ratholdran Castle,” from Trian II

Composer: Billy McComiskey

Artist: Trian ]

Having this big Irish breakfast can be part of the experience of playing music, right?

>> Kathleen: It went hand in hand.  You need the big feed after the night of music and perhaps drink. [Laughter ]

>> Shannon: Fiddle player Liz Carroll remembers the big Irish breakfast – the rashers and the pudding. Her folks had emigrated from County Offaly. And they made special trips to pick up the right cuts of meat, since there wasn’t a local Spar dealer on the South Side of Chicago:

>> Liz: My folks went shopping on a Saturday for Irish sausage – John Williams probably talked about the same thing. They went to Winston sausage to get the black pudding and the rashers. In America we always just called it bacon, I think. 

>> Shannon: But it’s different.

>> Liz: It is different. It’s thicker, it’s really more kind of a ham deal than an Oscar Meyer bacon deal.

>> Shannon: Do you think that affected the music at all? The different cuts of meat?

>> Liz: God it had to! How much grease were we all eating? [Laughter ] What really was happening?  What’s happening now as a result? It’s very funny, actually, when think about it. 

>> Shannon:  A lot of stuff is really funny, if you think about it. Like playing with your food. Dancer and flute player Matthew Olwell remembers Irish music camp with his brother at the Augusta Heritage Center of Davis & Elkins College. The mealtimes didn’t just feed their bellies.  They fed their musical experiences and friendships … even if the guys didn’t eat all the food on their plates:

>> Matthew: The meals around the cafeteria tables were often as much fun as the music because there were so many jokes and sort of shared camaraderie with people you wouldn’t see that often. And my brother and I, especially in the early years, were some of the only kids there – it wasn’t so much of a family event. So we were getting to know and meet all of these musicians and sitting around the table and eating. And sometimes a certain amount of humor surrounding the food itself was part of the experience.

[ Music: “Bodhrán and Beatbox,” from Cybertrad

Artist: Matthew Olwell & Shodekeh Talifero (voice) ]

I can remember one summer there was this ongoing joke about tater tots. And I don’t know if the cafeteria had got a bumper crop of them or what, but they just seemed like they were everywhere. They were on the breakfast bar. They were on the brunch line. I think at one point they showed up in a sort of casserole. And so, there was this kind of running gag that evolved where folks starting taking the tater tots and placing them strategically around campus.  And they would show up in fiddle cases and hiding underneath someone’s hat.  It just became this kind of out-of-control gag to see how much mileage we could get out of the tater tots. [Laughter ]

>> Shannon: For Matthew and his brother Aaron Olwell back at home, tater tots were not usually on the menu. Nor were Winston sausages and rashers.

>> Matthew: The cuisine that I grew up with, being raised by back-to-the-land hippies in Virginia, would be maybe a little different than what you’d get around the kitchen table in Ireland. And a lot of the music events that I went to early on growing up were summer camps and festivals, and the social sort of bonding that you get with people when you share a joke or you have an experience that’s not just about the music or the art or the tunes, it becomes a broader experience. And it has to do with getting to know people and kind of becoming a part of their lives in a whole different way. 

>> Shannon: Yeah. Maybe there is some sort of deeper, goofier religious aspect of it too. You know, like breaking bread together. Having it be sort of at the maybe central moment in the evening – you know, it’s when your body needs the food. But also it’s all been leading up to this mega-sharing moment. It’s the communion.

>> Matthew: Yeah. I suppose it happens differently depending on how much music there might be in one’s home community. You know, if you’re lucky enough to have a session down at the pub that you can walk to every week, you might experience the food and music intersection in a different way. For us there was a certain amount of music in the local community, but there were also these kind of once a year gatherings that would take place over a weekend or a week, and so you’d be thrown together with people in this sort of intense stew of music, and friends, and late night hijinks. That, I think because of that protracted time period, you know, it necessitates eating together. So then that becomes part of the experience.

[ Music: “Last of the Leaves,” (composed by Liz Carroll) from Half Day Road

Artist: Jake Charron ]

I can’t speak for everyone, but I know that for me the sharing of food, and tea, and community, and people coming together to play music and to eat has always been kind of part and parcel, you know, like they go hand-in-hand. A lot of the music events that I grew up going to in my home community of Virginia and at festivals involved a potluck or a sharing of food, maybe before or maybe after the tunes depending on the schedule of the day, but I think there’s something very deep about people coming together to share sustenance — nourishment, both real and metaphorical.

>> Shannon: Singer and fiddle player Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh also deeply values the social connections during meal times — with her family and community at home in Donegal. And with the family of musicians with whom she has traveled for decades.

She makes time for her band mates. And meals are a big thing for the band Altan. They seem to be a big part of where the music comes from: 

>> Mairéad: That is the most important part of our day. At breakfast we talk about lunch. At lunch we talk about — it’s kind of, maybe, you’re on the road, you’re away from home, and the nice time of the day is when we’re all together chatting and we have fantastic conversations over lunch and dinner and breakfast. And I have an extremely bad memory for most things. But when it comes to dinners, I remember all the details of everything. It’s of no use to anybody, even to myself. But it just shows you how important this is. Like I was able to even tell Daithi Sproule and Ciaran Curran the other night, what they ate 20 years ago at a certain restaurant. And I said, why can’t I think of a tune, you know, from the same era that I learnt? I wouldn’t be able to play you a tune, but god, can I remember the details of the food and you had salmon and you had steak — and it’s so silly, but it shows you how basic we are as people. Well I am anyway!

>> Shannon: I am, too. I can relate. 

So the way that you talk about traveling and enjoying meals together — some of us maybe have had the experience of, oh the food thing on the road can be a colossal headache. You know, you have to think about it, you have to organize it. And it sounds like you’ve found a way to see the opportunity and the joy in it.

>> Mairéad: Well, you see, I think, especially here in the United States and in Canada, it’s a fantastic place to come.

>> Shannon: It’s a great way to see a country.

>> Mairéad: Oh, and you meet the nicest of people. And whenever we arrive in a place we’re always saying we have to sort this out. We all agree, somehow this is part of being on the road for a long time. We all know what each other likes. And we like to sit down and just have a nice quiet dinner. And yeah, I think it’s important. Especially with a band. They’re as much your family as the family at home. And you try and make it as comfortable as possible for everyone, you know?

>> Shannon: Sounds pretty good! Beautiful meals on the road. Time together. That seems to be where it’s at for Mairéad. And it seems like a pretty good M.O.

But as we talked I learned that it’s not all about the formal meals. Even chips and cups of tea are a way in for her. Like the salty snacks she enjoyed with Dolly Parton, when they recorded a few songs together.

>> Mairéad: She loved corn chips and stuff. Like, because when she was in the studio she said the salt would help with, you know, any kind of gargle. So that was a good thing for me. Because I used to be always “ahem ahem.” And she says try this, you know, chips and stuff. So she would keep eating those in the studio. And it really helped because the salt kind of just pins down those vocal chords and gets rid of all the goo. She claimed that was the way. 

[ Music: “Silver Dagger,” from The Grass is Blue

Artist: Dolly Parton ]

Like she said she really liked grits and stuff like that. Now we didn’t sit and eat grits cause I don’t eat grits.

>> Shannon: Have you tried them?

>> Mairéad: Oh, I did, but I can’t, I just can’t, I can’t get into them. I’m not used to them at all. So she was saying whenever she goes anywhere, she brings her grits and makes her grits. Real southern, you know.

>> Shannon: Tea bags are easier to carry around.

Easier. Well, for Mairéad, maybe it isn’t about what’s easier. It seems to be about what’s lovely and bonding. And it’s been that way since she was 10:

>> Mairéad: At home you would meet, especially the fiddle players, you’d meet them at a session. The older players when you’d sit into their company and they didn’t know you they’d be very gracious and, you know, they’d listen to you and they’d encourage you and they’d buy you a drink and you’d buy them one back. And did you hear this one? And, oh, your father used to play this. We haven’t played this in 40 years and, you know, all of this. So what I noticed was when I was 10 I was playing with 80 year-olds. And they became my best pals, you know?

[ Music: “Austrian Waters,” from Runaway Sunday

Artist: Altan ]

>> Shannon: So at the session, buying the kid the Coca-Cola or offering to get somebody a cup of tea is maybe not really about the beverage itself?

>> Mairéad: Not at all. It was just, you’re part of the gang now, you know, you’re part of our — and the next time you’d meet them, you knew them. They were your friends, and you mightn’t have had a big conversation at all. But the music had said at all, you know. 

>> Shannon: It sounds really nice. And generous. All the music, and the meals, and the blackberries:

>> Mairéad: My mother was an amazing cook. Like very traditional. But had a great skill. Like we always had wheaten bread, we had soda bread, we had the Indian meal bread.

>> Shannon: Like corn meal?

>> Mairéad: Yes. And then she also made treacle bread, which was made with molasses. And then on a Friday, we always had fish, because of our Catholic upbringing. But she used to make the herrings on an open fire with the maidi prestu, what’s that in English. Um, fire tongs, long ones made by the local man. And she’d put the herrings on top of that over the turf, and the herrings would be black. But they would hold the flavor amazingly. So that was every Friday. So the house would smell of herrings for a day, but we didn’t mind. It was completely tasty and beautiful. And then in the summertime, my father would — we lived beside a river and he would get salmon. So we would have salmon, fresh salmon all summer. 

At Christmas, we always had the roast lamb on. We always had people coming in, and we’d be singing songs. I got a lot of songs from cousins. One of my cousins, who’s one of the greatest sources of songs, Nora Dever, her mommy used to write the songs with blackberry ink. And she has this book of songs with blackberry ink, which is fading rapidly. But my sister tried and photocopied it, with beautiful, you know, handwriting, and she’d write all the songs. 

[ Music: “Beidh Aonach Amárach,” from Altan

Artist: Altan ]

>> Shannon: The blackberry songbook. It’s so beautiful! And so is friendship with your bandmates. And feeding that friendship — literally, and metaphorically — that seems to be a big part of what feeds the music for Mairéad:

>> Mairéad: You know, to me, you can’t separate music from friends. Or from love. Or from, you know, communicating. It’s the same thing. You know for instance, if I sing a song, I see the person I got the song from. Even yet, you know, when I sing a song on stage, like for instance a song my father wrote, my father’s there in my head. A tune that I played, like these people, we would have sat and ate with them and drank with them and had a lot of merriment and serious discussion with these people. And these people are always part of the music.

>> Shannon: You know who’s always part of the music for me? My husband Matt. And my friends — like Jamie McClennan and Emily Smith. They play original and traditional Scottish music. And Jamie is also a very fine cook, who loves and appreciates nutrition.

When my family was hanging out with them in Thornhill, Scotland, we talked about the intersection of food and music in their kitchen:

>> Shannon: Wow. You cut mango beautifully, Jamie. What are you making here? 

>> Jamie: A massive mango salsa.

>> Shannon: We’ve also got Matt over there with the asparagus. There’s some eggplant over on the counter. Some bell peppers.

>> Jamie: So, they’re going on the barbecue. The fresh mango salsa will go with the massive piece of salmon that we’ve got, which would feed an army. Or … us.

[ Music: “Vivienne’s Jig,” from In Transit

Artist/Composer: Jamie McClennan ]

>> Shannon: This was like a ridiculously perfect setup for tunes. It was even warm … in Scotland!

>> Jamie: It’s such a lovely day today that we could get the instruments out, we could sit out on the deck, we could play some tunes. And eat this lovely fish.

We try to make pretty much everything from scratch here. We’re really against processed food — stuff that you would buy in packets that’s already kind of put together. 

>> Shannon: He says chopping onion, sitting beside a bowl of freshly cut mango.

>> Jamie: That’s right! 

>> Shannon: All this talk of good, clean food got me thinking in a different direction.

So speaking of a really nourishing food and the importance of taking care, good care of your body, should we have some drinks right now?

>> Jamie: Maybe we should open up some fine, New Zealand white wine?

[Sound of Matt cheering in background ]

>> Shannon: So we’ll be drinking some New Zealand white wine? 

>> Jamie: Yeah.

>> Shannon: So here we are in Scotland. You’ve been here for a long time. You’re a Scottish citizen. 

>> Jamie: I am, yes.

>> Shannon: But Jamie, you’re originally from New Zealand. So your keen appreciation of and awareness of food and how it fuels, do you think there’s any New Zealand DNA in this?

>> Jamie: Yes. I think there’s a tendency to believe, and it’s partly true, that the food in New Zealand is rather clean and healthy. And it’s abundant in its supply. You know, you can get good food most places that you go. Really nice clean food. And it’s taken a while over here, but I think things are slowly getting better. People are maybe being much more informed, learning and understanding maybe the food a bit more. So, I mean, you know, the ability to get a really good flat white everywhere you go is, um, it’s not great. But I’m hoping that we can improve. 

[ Music: “Sabai Sabai,” from Production Music made for Irish Music Stories

Artist/Composer: Matt Heaton ]

>> Shannon: The really good flat white, or the cappuccino, or the cortado. Or the cups of tea. Jamie, Matt, and I are all outsiders to Irish and Scottish music, so learning about the black tea ritual has been another way to drink in the tradition.

>> Matt: I do remember, you know, early, early days going to Ireland and coming over, going over to someone’s house in the afternoon, you know, sort of with the intention of playing tunes, but you’re going to have a cup of tea first. And I definitely remember, you know, them saying would you like some tea or coffee. And I’m not a big tea drinker. And asking for coffee and getting instant, and being like, wow! So it does draw up a certain memory. But it’s kind of nice to be here with a master barista serving up the flat whites too.

>> Shannon: Well I remember the first time that I went to Ireland and people would say all the time, you know, would you like a cup of tea? And initially I felt like, well no, I mean I already had a cup of tea, I don’t really need a cuppa tea. And then I kind of realized, oh it’s kind of like a thing to do.

>> Jamie: Yeah, absolutely.

>> Shannon: And it’s a ritual that is very well worn. And it tends to be the same type of tea. There’s like a consistency from home to home, from setting to setting. 

>> Jamie: If you get a cup of tea, the ritual of making it and then also just kind of sitting there warming up over it. It definitely opens you up. Yeah. People can, people have their own experiences with drinking their drink. And tea for a lot of people is that warming thing that just reminds them of, ah, a cuppa tea. It’s maybe a nice thing.

[ Music: “G Chimes,” from Production Music made for Irish Music Stories

Artist/Composer: Matt Heaton ]

>> Shannon: It is a nice thing: cups of tea and meals together. And the phenomenon that used to happen more when we were younger — and that Ciaran Carson paints so vividly in the opening of Last Night’s Fun — that end-of-session breakfast, the coda of the trad all-nighter.

[ Music: “The Duke of Leinster,” from Ten Years Of Céilí House, With Kieran Hanrahan

Artists: Mícheál Ó’Raghallaigh ]

>> Matt: If you’ve had a particularly long night of playing music, where it actually spills over to breakfast, and like some of the breakfast options, I do remember the, the first time someone offered me beans on toast. And I was pretty weirded out by the concept. I did enjoy it, oh my gosh!

>> Shannon: Well, and I remember the first time that somebody gave me a big fry, you know, I thought, wow, what is all of this food? And it’s all weird. And it’s all fried. And boy, after a long night, there is an incredible thing that happens. Jamie, talk me through the, uh, science behind that.

[Laughter}

>> Jamie: Your body gets dehydrated. 

>> Shannon: Is that it?!

>> Jamie: Your body starts thinking: gosh, I really need something in me! Ooh, salt would be good! Bacon has lots of salt in that. They just get that salt on. Yeah. It’s like drinking a cup of coffee. It uses up about a teaspoon of salt. So we all kinda maybe need more salt in our diet.

>> Shannon: More fry? Come on, Jamie!

[Laughter ]

>> Jamie: I’m trying to be good!

>> Matt: It could be a best-selling book. 

[ Music: “Demon Ducks of Doom,” from In Transit

Artist/Composer: Jamie McClennan ]

>> Shannon: There is a thing in traditional music sessions, sometimes in the bars, where you play music for a few hours. And then maybe the owner of the bar comes out with like a tray of sandwiches.

>> Matt: The sandwiches! Yeah, the little sandwiches are definitely like … it’s such a highlight because I’ve only ever experienced that when the session is really exceptionally good. You know, it’s like a reward. It’s almost like you’re flagging, right? If you really sit down for a long time to play you get hungry. It’s a lot of work!

>> Shannon: You do get hungry when you’re playing for hours. And maybe also you’re craving the continued camaraderie that the tunes launched. 

I mean I do remember like going to the Enzo’s, like going to the curry chip run after a long session in Ireland.

>> Jamie: Absolutely. Man, I remember doing that all the time.

>> Shannon: Yeah? So what’s the equivalent in Scotland?

>> Jamie: Over here, like as in chips and cheese.

>> Shannon: Chips and cheese?

>> Jamie: Chips and cheese.

>> Shannon: What do you mean? What kind of cheese?

>> Jamie: Just grated cheddar cheese on the top. Chips, hot chips, with lots of grated cheddar cheese piled on the top, so much that it’s not even melted, it’s just piled on the top. It slowly melts as you eat through it.

>> Shannon: Oh my gosh!

>> Jamie: Everybody loves it. Honestly, that’s the thing. It’s chips and cheese. 

>> Shannon: Maybe it’s just cheesy fries. But sometimes this is what gets us to more intimacy. Which is what playing music together is. Playing tunes in a session, and then getting something to eat. It’s intimate. And it can lead to friendship. And friendship can give way to even nicer music, with people like Jamie McClennan and Matt Heaton.

>> Matt: Like sessions are a situation where you’re sitting down with a bunch of people who are probably not, like most often not your family, and maybe not your close friends. They are people … you know, I mean if you’re lucky, you get to play with family, get to play with friends. But like a lot of times you go in, sometimes they’re strangers. Sometimes they’re people you only know through the music. But you’re sitting down together and you’re playing music together. Which is a really, you know, it’s a sharing of things. Um, whereas it’s a pretty rare situation in which you would sit down and eat with a bunch of people that you don’t know, who aren’t your family and aren’t your friends. Like think about, you know, every now and then you go out to a place where they serve family style. And you sit down with whoever’s at the table. And, and it’s always like, wow, I went to this really cool place. And then they have this weird thing where I was sitting with people I don’t know! You know, and, and we talked. And it was nice. And sessions are kind of like that. Like you don’t actually get to do that that often with food. And so it’s kind of, it’s an interesting meal. Doing a session is kind of like a weirdly social meal without the actual food. Unless you luck out and get some sandwiches.

>> Shannon:  Whatever you fancy — sandwiches, chips and cheese, or mango salsa — maybe it’s all even better with good company, and traditional music.

It’s been another great season of stories. If you’d like to hear another collection of episodes, please reach out. You can find me at Irishmusicstories.org. Send a note, donate, and help me know that you’d like me to keep this show going.

Irish Music Stories was written and produced by me, Shannon Heaton. Thank you to this month’s guests: to Matthew Olwell, Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, Jamie McClennan, and Matt Heaton.  Thanks as always to Matt for the production music and to Nigel for acknowledging our sponsors. Thanks again to Mark Johnson, Lynn Cox, Sharon Murphy, David Vaughan, Brian Benscoter, Valerie Watt, Gerry Corr, and Joe Garrett for underwriting this month’s show, and thanks to everybody who’s ever kicked in. Above all thanks to each and every one of you for tuning into this show. If you can share this one, or another favorite Irish Music Stories episode, with a friend, it really helps get the show out there. Thank you! And take good care, everybody!

Outtake

>> Shannon: And now would you, uh, go for a chips and cheese run after the session?

>> Jamie: Yeah. Yeah. Once you’ve got to the point of the evening where you don’t care about whether you’re eating chips and cheese. That’s when you eat chips and cheese.

[Laughter ]