A CONVERSATION WITH SUSAN MCKEOWN   (continued)

PM: On your website, I saw a beautiful picture of you playing a harmonium at a Yoga festival. Do you practice Hinduism, or Buddhism, or something like that?

SM: No, I'm interested in them, but I'm not part of any organized religion. But I am interested, and there is supposedly a connection between ancient Irish myth and the myths of India and even Tibet. I've been reading a little on that subject.

PM: I hear that. That makes sense to me.

SM: We have a similar scale. And when you look at the language, Irish [Gaelic] is not a Germanic language, so it's no kin to English. It's more of an Indo-European language, and it's closer to Hindi.

PM: When and where did you learn Gaelic?

SM: In school. It's always been part of the curriculum. Now, at 15, you have the option to drop it if you wish. But it's part of the curriculum. If you live in the North of Ireland, it's not.

PM: Yeah, well...

SM: Oh, they're some of the warmest people I've ever met, but they're operating under a different set of rules.

PM: Are you a political person?

SM: You can't help but be, can you, sometimes? I'm not really an activist, but I do run into certain things online that I go one way or the other about. I've gotten out for particular purposes, I have strong beliefs about certain things. I'm not terribly well read, but I like to keep up with politics, even now in America, when most people are sick of it. I think one can't help but be political in many parts of one's life.

PM: It's like being spiritual. Whether you like it or not, you're spiritual, you're political, it's simply a question of how conscious one is about it.

SM: That's exactly it, how conscious of it are you. If you know something is wrong, keeping silent is condoning it. So it's up to you to do the best you can to add your voice where it needs to be heard.

PM: Tell us a little about the Irish music scene in the city, and how you like living in New York.

SM: It's a pretty vibrant scene, and I'm really glad that there is an Irish community here, and there are a couple of spots that are like cultural centers of the Irish community in New York. I don't play in or frequent the bars, really, anymore. But there is a very lively scene for people that want to be in the pub atmosphere and hear Irish songs that everyone can sing and drink and have a good time. I tend to be playing in venues now where the majority of the crowd is American. That is, after all, why I came to NYC, to play to crowds that were from all over the world, and to explore this great city. I feel very comfortable here, I've been here ten years now. I love the East Village, I couldn't imagine myself living in any other part of Manhattan. There's a lot going on here, so many people from so many walks of life, and so many languages spoken on my block.

PM: But you do not frequent and do not play the Irish bars.

SM: No. I like to play rooms that were built for music, and they might have alcohol, too, rather than rooms that were built for drinking, and they might have music as well. I'm not a drinker, really.

PM: And neither is Brendan, then?

SM: No, we'll have a little wine with a meal, beer sometimes in the summer, you know.

PM: Does he work another job besides managing you?

SM: Yes, he's actually an agent. He books me and another act called Lunasa. They're really great. I actually do two gigs. One is with my band, The Chanting House. The other is with Scot fiddle player Johnny Cunningham, which is really a Celtic show for me, and he books that as well.

PM: How is that last act billed?

SM: Alphabetically. Johnny Cunningham and Susan McKeown. That's kind of a winter tour that we do every year, so we'll be out on the road again with that in the States.

PM: What are you listening to, and what are you reading?

SM: Apart from the stuff that I have to be listening to? I'm reading The Search for the Panchen Lama by Isabel Hilton, and I'm also reading Night by Elie Wiesel.

PM: What's the Panchen Lama about?

SM: Well, I wasn't aware of this, but the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama kind of cross over, the idea is that the Panchen Lama is kind of an instructor, but also an incarnation. Can you hold on a second, Frank? Are you going, Gerry?

[She's talking to fantastic Irish guitarchitect Gerry Leonard, aka Spooky Ghost, who's done superb work with a number of significant artists here and abroad. He's been in another room, talking with Brendan.]

PM: Is that Gerry Leonard you're speaking to?

SM: Yes, it is. Are you two acquainted?

PM: Slightly. I've heard his record, and like it very much. [So Susan puts me on the line with Gerry, and we have a little chat.]

SM: All right, Frank.

PM: Actually, one of my remaining questions was about Gerry. On the tune "Johnny Coughlin," his guitar loops are awesome, otherworldly. Let's have a word on him, please.

SM: I met him here, and I guess he's been here almost as long as I have. I'd always wanted to work with him, so I was really glad when I heard this song, I knew it would be perfect for him. And he and Joannie Madden [a World Champion on the whistle], they're both master musicians. They played together beautifully on that track, but they still haven't met each other yet! They laid tracks at different times, and I think it was very unusual for her [as a master traditional musician] to be recording with ethereal electric guitar loops. But she's a total pro, I think she was out of there in 20 minutes, and on to the next gig.

PM: That happens in Nashville, too. You meet guys that you've actually written songs with, but were never in the same room together. A third guy wrote a piece of it with each of you, and then you meet, "oh, that was a nice bridge," kind of thing.

SM: Wow, that's amazing...

PM: Let's hear a little bit more about Joannie Madden.

SM: Well, she's from here, from Yonkers. She's one of the greatest Irish traditional musicians on the planet. She runs a very successful musical outfit on a major label called Cherish the Ladies, a group of traditional musicians who are all women. It's an unusual concept, because they have singing and dancing, and traditional songs.

PM: Is Lowlands getting World Music type attention as well as Celtic attention?

SM: I don't know, I don't think so. It seems that people who include Celtic in their perception of World Music are including it. There are lots of people, even writers and such, who do not include Celtic music as part of their World Music view.

PM: But, even if they don't, there's enough World Music going on in these songs and tracks that it deserves attention specifically from those quarters, in my opinion.

SM: Some people have their thing, that "we don't do Celtic" or that "this would be too Celtic a record for us." But it's received uniformly excellent reviews, which I'm very pleased about. We've gotten into some magazines that I hadn't been in before, like Pulse, and Q magazine in England, which is rather a coup. It is my sixth record, though my third solo, and the reputation continues to grow. Nearly every record has been on a different label, and each reaches more people, and you could say my profile is rising steadily. I'd never worked with a specifically Irish label before, this is my first time to work with Green Linnet Records. They have such a name in Irish music, especially in North America.

PM: What profile does this record have, or does Green Linnet have, in Ireland?

SM: They did some good publicity for it over there. Green Linnet is well known in Ireland, as the label through which some of the greatest Irish music ever has been put out and spread around the globe. They have an excellent foothold there. They have their finger on the pulse. And the record got good airplay over there.

PM: Do you get over and tour Ireland with any regularity?

SM: Well, I did last October and have several trips to make there this year, but I'm very busy right now working on recordings. So I'm not keen to set up a whole tour, but I do plan to put something together in May.

PM: You're a bold and experimental woman and artist, what tricks up your sleeve lay ahead?

SM: Gosh, there's a lot of things, and it would be hard to explain it simply. There are three records I'm working on now. The untitled Bones II record we discussed, and I hope that will be ready in January 2002. Then I'm working on two records with my friend and fiddle player Johnny Cunningham, who plays on Lowlands. One of them is an album of traditional music, straight ahead. The tour that we do each winter is a collection of songs about winter and the Celtic New Year, which happens October 31st/November 1st. A kind of festival around the darkest days of the year. It's also the time in Ireland for matchmaking, not a sleepy time, by any means. But we're also working on an album of really old Celtic lyrics, by that I mean ancient Gaelic and Scot lyrics from hundreds of years ago, some considered to have roots in pre-Christian Celtic society. That's one of the reasons I've been reading about Hindi and Tibetan religion, to find the parallels. Those are the three records I'm working on.

PM: Is the Bones II project a rock project, would you say?

SM: Yes, that would be safe to say.

PM: How "rock," would you say?

SM: Chick rock. [laughs] I've got some pretty heavy musicians, in terms of how hard they'll rock, including Lindsey Horner and a guitarist named John Spurney, with whom I've worked but not recorded with yet. And my friend Michelle Kinney, the excellent cellist. And two different drummers, one from each coast. I'm also writing music for a documentary, and a play, and am supposed to sing in a major film, I'll know more about that in a few days.

PM: Well, I do hope you find some work. [she laughs]

SM: Actually, I haven't been so busy lately, we took a little time off, and now I'm ready to take a lot of new things on.

PM: Well, I hope to see you both in the city, in the next few months sometime, in the fall.

SM: That would be grand.

PM: It's been great talking with you.

SM: Likewise, Frank. Thanks so much for doing it. Stay in touch.

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