{"id":15956,"date":"2024-01-24T13:02:38","date_gmt":"2024-01-24T13:02:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/?p=15956"},"modified":"2024-01-24T13:02:38","modified_gmt":"2024-01-24T13:02:38","slug":"musician-of-the-month-shortsleeve-conor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/2024\/01\/24\/musician-of-the-month-shortsleeve-conor\/","title":{"rendered":"Musician of the Month: Shortsleeve Conor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Shortsleeve Conor was born in Lisbon, but started playing in Aberdeen when I was a 21-year-old pizza chef. One Sunday, after finishing the close, the team headed over to a pub nearby called the Prince of Wales. We walked through the double doors to be met by the most joyous music I\u2019d ever experienced. Fiddles, banjos, guitars, loud chattering, singing, tin whistles, flutes, pints pouring and a saxophone. I fell in love with trad and folk music right then.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>My family is Irish, though I grew up in the U.K. on the Wirral, so I already knew the music but hadn\u2019t really experienced it. I was at that time a DJ playing house and disco. Now I decided folk music was something I wanted to pursue. The next week I brought my guitar to the session and asked if I could join in. Everyone was really nice and I think I sang Raglan Road or something. I listened to lots of the Dubliners, the Pogues, Margaret Barry, Hamish Imlach and the Fureys around that time.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Shortsleeve Conor - Loneliness, you don&#039;t scare me (Official Video)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bPYyWreeVdg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>There was a fella who played in the session called Sandy Cheyne, who I now know is an artist and brilliant banjo picker. He soon showed me it was more useful to play a five-string than a guitar in this environment, because there are so many of the latter to compete with.<\/p>\n<p>He encouraged me to adapt old Scottish tunes to be played on the five-string banjo. Sandy had a huge influence on my musical direction. I started listening to all sorts of country music and learnt about the roots it had in Scottish and Irish.<\/p>\n<p>I listened to lots of on musicians like Bob Dylan, Dock Boggs, Ola Belle Reed, Jean Ritchie, Doc Watson, Clarence Ashley, Nathan Abshire and too many other names to mention. But it was the trad session approach to music which had the biggest influence on me.<\/p>\n<p>I learned how to entertain a crowd, often using humour in the songs. It also showed me how to be vulnerable with my writing. Things I like to talk about in my songs are non-traditional relationships, mental health issues, class politics and the end of the world. Also love. Lots about love.<\/p>\n<p>I moved to Lisbon to study in 2021 and did what I always did when I moved to a new place: looked for the music. Funnily enough the only Irish trad session in town was a five-minute walk from my new home.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Shortsleeve Conor - Starting over (Live @ Camones)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/u3GynLgWGug?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>By then I had a few songs under my belt and wanted to take them to some open mics. I was then introduced to a musician called the Mighty String at the city\u2019s oldest open mic in a nice venue called Camones. We decided to do some terracing \u2013 where you busk to tables at restaurants \u2013 and became mates. He sat me down one day and told me I need a new name. Conor Riordan was too difficult to pronounce over there and he\u2019d always noticed I wore short sleeve t-shirts. Shortsleeve Conor was born.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m a really lucky person. When things are not meant to work out they usually do. So when I moved to Lisbon I wasn\u2019t expecting there to be a blossoming folk music scene I could jump straight into. But I soon made a great group of friends, who all happened to be excellent musicians.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m also really lucky that I didn\u2019t have to pursue the Shortsleeve project too hard. Gigs just seemed to happen and the response was generally encouraging. But there was always <strong><em>one problem question: \u201cHave you got any of your music online?\u201d I didn\u2019t and I didn\u2019t really have a plan to<\/em><\/strong>. But I had a friend who had just decided to start a record label to capture this special moment in the city\u2019s cultural history.<\/p>\n<p>Cheap Wine Records was founded by Lee Squires with the ambition of promoting Lisbon\u2019s folk music scene. It also aims to nurture future talent, showcasing their work so they can tour and go on to bigger things. Shortsleeve Conor was one of the first projects, so again I was very lucky.<\/p>\n<p>The album \u2013 \u2018Whatever that means\u2019 \u2013 was put together at Estudio Roma 49 in Lisbon, with my friends and fellow musicians coming together to make it happen. The same goes for the production, marketing and funding. This community-led approach to the music made me feel right at home. It\u2019s the same mindset as being back in the Prince of Wales, sitting in a circle playing tunes over a few pints. Only now I was blessed with a hot Portuguese sun, instead of the freezing North Sea winds.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Shortsleeve Conor - Come by the Hills (Live Session)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/D7Wbxbeihl0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m writing this the day the Doomsday Clock moved 90 seconds closer to midnight, the closest it\u2019s ever been. It doesn\u2019t feel like there\u2019s a lot going on in the world to be happy about. But being from northern England I have to find what\u2019s funny in everything. It takes the edge off. That\u2019s why in my writing I contrast the rise of fascism with not being able to get a parking space in my song Pink Champagne. That\u2019s why my song about being in an abusive relationship is so upbeat.<\/p>\n<p>I like to write about these things, but to add some humour into them. It helps because I also really struggle to express how I feel, which can be really frustrating when I\u2019m in a relationship. I\u2019m only at my most vulnerable when I\u2019m telling an audience how I feel about someone who should have heard it first. I really try to leave nothing to the imagination with lyrics.<\/p>\n<p>Now my album is out I don\u2019t really know what to do. I hope to use it to travel with my music and meet new people. When we started this record project the Mighty String asked me to write down what my long-term goal was for the album. I said I\u2019d like for it to be well appreciated in a small but enthusiastic audience so I could disappear into anonymity without worrying about it too much and become a furniture painter or something. Then in forty years I\u2019d like for it to be rediscovered and for it become a country classic so I can go on tour with it globally in my seventies.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/artist\/6ADSdM6jftxVdFfurCjrAo\">Follow Shortsleeve Conor on Spotify.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-15958 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/01\/IMG-20230908-WA0013.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1200\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Shortsleeve Conor was born in Lisbon, but started playing in Aberdeen when I was a 21-year-old pizza chef. One Sunday, after finishing the close, the team headed over to a pub nearby called the Prince of Wales. We walked through the double doors to be met by the most joyous music I\u2019d ever experienced. Fiddles, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15957,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1244,1432,1586,1876,1878,3388,5559,5560,6263,6310,6325,7440,8114,8367,8368,8922],"class_list":["post-15956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-camones-lisbon","tag-cassandra-voices-musician-of-the-month","tag-cheap-wine-records","tag-conor","tag-conor-riordan-shortsleeve-conor","tag-folk-music-scene-in-lisbon","tag-lisbon-folk-music","tag-lisbon-folk-scene","tag-month","tag-music","tag-musician","tag-prince-of-wales-aberdeen","tag-sandy-cheyne","tag-shortsleeve","tag-shortsleeve-conor","tag-the"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}