 to the show. Shopping time in Belfast City Center. For more information, go to the outlet at Highland video dot com or give us a call on 0 7 4 9 1 25 thousand Michael McIntyre in Belfast. Is Highland radio with Paul McDevitt. It certainly is and you're welcome back Monday night sessions and as I said to you, we can't praise the music enough that we hear up here. So thanks very much. And if you know someone who fancies a slot, we are booked up. Jimmy, where are we now? We're up right until sort of May June. End of June now. There you are. So if you know someone wants a wee slot, let us know and we'll see if we can do, you know, we'll do our best, but it's getting busy. And that's the way we like it. Don't get me wrong, you know, but if you're doing something and you think it might be a couple of months away, well listen, get in touch and we'll take it from there. All right. I'm delighted to welcome this man's came down from Belfast first, but he's staying around here, which is nice too. Sean McCulloch. Sean, you're very welcome. Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Jimmy. It's nice to have you here. I got your music and had a listen and it just blew me away. Absolutely, you know. Pleased to hear that. Once again, as I say, but you're part of it. I want to go back, Sean, the band, the Longstay. Yeah. Are they now defunct or what? No, no, the Longstay is a Forever Entity until one of us crooks, I think. Okay. Three boys meet at uni, about to go home, having a last cup of tea. What are you doing tonight? Playing guitar, really? And then from there, on earth, a couple of original songs and from there, then very much developed the habit of recording. An album. So we did an album that played the death right across all the analog stations back then, pre-digital. Cool FM, downtown radio, they really, really went radio one. Jerry Anders was very good. Jerry was amazing to us. He picked up on a track called Moody Day and he played it to the point that people were complaining and that made him play it even more. And I said, you don't want to do it with Jerry Andersen. He didn't want to do it with Jerry Andersen. He was class. Get on his wrong side. He would just keep going. He got his musical taste sometimes, you know, left a lot to be desired. He was funny. Do you see when he did listen to a song of his, you were going, ah, it's actually very good. He was a quality musician. He was. He was a bass player, you know? He was, is right. Sadly, must he? Oh, he was pretty good. I remember wearing a silver suit, like you do that to go to a radio show, don't you? He was just unique, you know? Oh, clearly. Well, my wife wouldn't let me do it all the time. Listen, about yourself, Sean, as I say, I want to thank you for making that journey down. It's been my pleasure. Really. I've been busting to see you, boys. I've been shooting to get on the show for a year and a half, so I have. I'm only joking. No, these are very popular and you do great work, supporting local talent. We appreciate it. We enjoy supporting it and it's a delight when I'm wanting to sit here and say it all the time. Sean, you're, as a solo artist, when you're out playing, is it covers or your own or a mixture? No, for pretty much my reason to be was always to play songwriting choices, so it was always me on stuff rigidly. Yeah. But not that long, but two years ago, I was down here once somewhere down in Dunfunni and I noticed there was no music in one of the bars, Molly's bar, run by a good friend of mine now, Oren, and I said, what's going on, Oren? He says, oh, there was, you know, a PA blew you up. I said, well, have you ever stuck in me a shout on occasion to do covers? And that led to about 20, 30 gigs. So could I just say a quick hello to Oren, Geoffrey, Catherine, Peter and all the bar staff? Great, we bar there in the centre of Dunfunni, who have been very supportive of people like me. I'm a friend, Davey from Belfast. Excellent. But generally speaking, no, I would be going to singer songwriter nights, singer songwriter festivals and organising stuff in Mentorn, Young Kids, in the field of Belfast. And how is that seen as a popular? Boyant, as Boyant, as you're seen is down here, Belfast is absolutely hyphen with incredible, and I mean incredible talent waiting to be tapped into. I've been out there, my daughter used to go, sort of, like most weekends on a Friday night and back in a Saturday or whatever, and I was blown away by the talent in the pubs, you know, absolutely. I mean, the cover guys are playing, you know, same equality, but like yourself, I think, you've been impressed, I listened to the guys earlier on there, they were tremendous, but your ears really prick up and they play their own stuff. Oh, within a doubt. So you'll get that in Belfast in abundance. I mean, there's the kids, they're 12, 13, 14 writing songs, you go, what? And that is. And then similarly, there are people who've been around a long time like me writing quality stuff, and you don't have to scratch too far to find them. They have to be encouraged, you know, and support it. And what you're doing is there, you know, yeah, yep, yep, of course. But the workshops that you're doing and all, I've got time for that. I think that's just, you know, give somebody something they'll click in their head and they could spark off for it. And do you know what, even if they never make it famous, if they can take a guitar, they can sing a song, they can have a bit of a crack with that, that'll carry them anywhere in life, you know. Absolutely. But on a show, we're going to talk and talk more, but we're going to go for a piece of music first. So first up, you're going to do first. Well, appearing on Highland radio is a great thing for me because I spent so much time with Donegal. Yeah. And I've written the songs themed around Donegal. Oh, excellent. This song I wrote with a put friend of mine called Jim Johnson, a young song writer called Michael James. And it's about the Wild Atlantic Way titled The Wild Atlantic Way. We'd love to hear it when you're ready. I'm ready for you when you're ready. Where? You go first. On a western road, the stained amongst the winds, it was scurling. Very much indeed. And is that featured on, it doesn't feature on your UEP? Well, it's a much performed track. I've even performed it up in mullies there. I'm done Fannahi to break up and add a cover tracks. But it's one of my targets this year to put out along with another track on a little EP to give myself a bit of a target. This current EP you have High Tide. Oh, High Tide was written, High Tide, the title track of that was written about literally a high tide on a supermoon in Port Nabila. How long ago, how long was that? I put that out about four years ago. Four years ago. And you record that up in Belfast? Record that in Belfast. Me and My Studio. Oh, your own show? Me and My Studio. Very good. And the first track there that has the first collection, it was recorded by a very well-renowned recording artist called Joe Gowdy, who plays called Joe's Gowdy. You record people like Ash and help discover, you know, Ash Tim Wheeler and those boys. I do, I do. So he recorded that album and then I recorded the second album by myself. Very good. A bit of a sound engineer and video engineer as well. A IT man in our past. See, when you're an IT guy, you kind of turn your hand. I think Jimmy probably is the same though. You'll turn your hand at just about anything. I'm only in fairness, you're not. I'm not an IT man, as Jimmy will vouch for. And how long were you at that, Sean? 30 odd years. Well, I straight out of uni and then I worked for American firms. I worked in only Intel and Microsoft plants around the world. Excellent. So it took me everywhere from Japan to Germany. You traveled with it? Yeah, I traveled with it. It was a great experience. But at the end of the day, I was sitting at a desk typing and a case near my feet teaching. But yeah, it was. Have you retired from it now, Sean? I'm more or less retired from it. I'm a frustrated joiner at heart. I like a hammer and a saw in my hand. Good man. I like to hit things. Making things, Sean, or just sitting around. Making things mostly. Yeah, I've had a wee spell making furniture. Tables and beds and wardrobes and standalone self-taught. I like to stay busy, Paul. Of course, and why not? During lockdown, you released a couple of singles to see here. And what way did that go for you? Well, the long stay boys and I used to get together every Friday night. We tried to maintain that. During lockdown, you know yourself, you get a little isolated. A couple of Zoom sessions and we just come up with the idea why don't we try and release something. Just using the equipment. Now, when I say you can't release something using Zoom, but you can certainly work it all out. Can I do a little couple of live takes and then everyone goes away with a bit of IT kit, records their own pieces, sends it to me and basically my job was assembly and approval. But using that, we released a track which was counter the space risk. As in, why would you go to space for materials and all that money being spent instead of staying here, plant trees and, you know, get rid of plastics and spend your time. You know, it was a manner of protest song. And we were lucky to be able to use David Atmer's voice on that. He had, he had done a WWE conference and asked to be included in any media facing stuff to try and get the message out about. I was going to say had you paid for that? So we were able to sample, we were able to sample his voice and use his voice. So that made it to number one in an independent radio station. It's nothing really to write home about, but I've never been number one. It's not devoid. The track's called Space Race and it got the number one. And then the second track we released was called Sometimes and it also got the number one. So that was our lockdown. I was kind of a lockdown undertakens. It brought you through that in the sense because of the fact that you've been performing for so long. So many people have said the same. Some people just didn't embrace it at all and, you know, come back afterwards. They put a lot of people, and then a lot of people learnt new skills from that. Look at the workplace now. Probably about 50% or 60% of people are still able to work from home. That's directly as a result. That's about the lockdown. So maybe that's not all positive. Well, it's one of the flexibility that's come out of it, you know. Exactly. Well, as I say, you're among the many towns because I'm looking here and at Middleton it says you're a film maker as well. Yeah, for a long time I've wanted to make wee documentaries. One of the documentaries I'm making at the minute is about my father's boxing club. He took over a boxing club after the original founder was shot dead during work duties, during the Troubled Up in Belfast. Oh, who's that? A fellow called Terry Cafferty. So he established the Ligonier boxing club, which is a North Belfast boxing club, where I'm originally from in 1972 and a year and a half later, he met his death. My dad had been a boxer and had a long history of being a boxer. His uncle was world champion, Rinty Monahan. Rinty Monahan was your father's uncle. And his own father Harry from Port Rush was four-time Northern Irish champion. In the years whenever they used to have the weekly shows in the Ulster Hall. He was quite a famous man too. And my dad was a boxer and towards the end of his career, he came up to Ligonier and kind of helped out and he was asked to be the lead trainer. Fifty years later he's still doing it. He's still doing it. So my job is to try and document that and try and capture people over those fifty years who helped him who are no longer here and have been lucky to kind of interview them. You'll appreciate you guys doing the interviews. Have been lucky to interview these people and have archives now. And the ultimate plan is to put together a film and endear it. Now we've organised a script there called NVTV, Northern Visions Television. Which is a community-based broadcaster. So they're going into partnership with me. And we're going to be putting snippets of the film out and then the documentary eventually. But I also document sessions with singer-songwriters. So I interview and do snippets of their songs and get their history and the background and why they're into music and why they're into music. Kind of like what you're doing here. I get what you're coming for this brilliant. But I love it. So again, I re-studied there recently into the post-production PGCE in audio and visual post- production. More just to say it was on the right track and was doing things right. And tell me why did you do that? There was a Queen's University. Just took six months. You know, and it was condensed down to six months from normally a year of course. But I absolutely loved it. And I just firmed up a lot of the skills I already had and it's kept me going. Excellent, Sean. Excellent. That's the first time I've heard anybody doing sort of documentaries and stuff. And what you're capturing there is something that, you know, we're losing. Absolutely. There are people who aren't here anymore. And I've got the gold on camera and their story on camera that wouldn't have been captured had I not had that interest. And these are people, these are people who, you know, live modestly, don't live for fame or anything but they're there. And I have to say that for a lot of boxing clubs and I know a lot of boxers locally and I know the worker goes in and there's not a lot of support and places for the boxing, not as much as other sports. They've got to be self starters and self funders in many ways. There's no money in it and everything they do, they put back into the kids community sometimes makes an assumption that these guys are actually getting something out of it. They're getting sheer pleasure and passion out of it. And that's why they're still doing it. We're going to take another track, Sean. We're going to go for a commercial break. What are you going to do? Whatever you want, I can do you a song about traveling to an island like Tori or Gula or Aaronmore or I can do you a long stay song. That's totally up to you. Do that one and we'll do a long stay one now. All right, after this break don't go away. Do you suffer from high cholesterol? 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Heglet Falti, Thor, Agus Crine, a tag doll of Vian or Valti Pobli and Hondye have been a gunter, saloonie, a usagin, not a uberian or in the Baltician. To Corlea Cundye when the Nal, a curgivny, the unri tolin, Agus the Horry, the frigrakti, a te oru Falti, Agus Crine, a tag flesse, a tion of Malti Pobli, a yarushir. Agus Bohor, Shaw, Yenu, Suladassi and Shasur Nadeh in the Nen, Golua and Mian Wartu. Go on Corlea Cundye when the Nal, we have sloth a shud or fad, a uber, shaw, jante, acu, yenufein. Corlea Cundye when the Nal, a caus inch, a bubble, Agus Argynb, black to. Yeah, welcome back. It's ten minutes after nine o'clock on a Monday night. I hope I find you well this Monday night and delighted to be in the company of North Belfast singer-songwriter and a man no stranger to Donnie Goll, it's Sean McCawley. And Sean, a quick run-through in his next song. Yeah, Paul, it's a song about traveling the islands. I mean, all my years of coming to Donnie Goll, you find yourself going to Golua and Tory and Arranmore and Arran Island and I was advised for people. But this song was written with a young 14-year-old time. Yeah. You sit down to write a song with a 14-year-old you think in yourself, you might have to teach me a few things, but one of the first times I've been met absolutely equally by someone who really impressed me and this kid was called Connor Marcus, who went on to perform in the kids' voice over in England and got the semi-phenals and so he and I wrote this song and just say hello to Connor. And he's, you ever tell me he's from Newcastle County Downey? He's from Newcastle County Downey. And once you're doing that, I think he's still doing music. Good. I think he's still pushing for it. Well, what I like about here is there's nice people come on, you know when they say to me, you know who inspired you, such and such a singer. She's never heard of him. So I take note and then I go down and Google and you wouldn't believe in many people as you know, absolutely musical ears. So this song was inspired subliminally by a poster of the waves washing over rocks but also in the history of my listening, I listened to a lot of Paul Brady. So you might hear something like that. Excellent. When you're ready. Well, I've been waiting for years now to take you to the islands where I spend time as a boy. Time is a young man. Time is a grown man. Time that I loved. I want to visit and to take you to places where I've been before. She's selling seashells on the seashore. And he's over there. He's drunk and he's lying on the floor. There's a man on a squeeze box playing old shanty songs of captains and treasures. And things now long gone. The journey will take the long boat. The Fishermen you will stand out on the bow. Look over the waves as the mist hides the islands from view. I want to take you to places where I've been before. He's selling seashells on the seashore. And he's over there. He's drunk and he's lying on the floor. There's a man on a squeeze box playing old shanty songs of captains and treasures. And things now long gone. I'm on the journey to the island. So the young fella wrote the she's selling seashells on the seashore. And he's over there, drunk and down on the floor. There's a man on a squeeze box playing old shanty songs. There were castles and treasures. And things now long gone. And that's that kid just come up with it like that. So I was blown away. Brilliant, absolutely. Amazing? Absolutely. Where someone's so young and obviously, well, in fact... That's what happens. It's where it sparks. Who inspired you? Me, I grew up listening to Trissy Chapman, Bruce Springsteen, probably. The king of all for me, Bob Dylan. A lot of soul music. I love soul music. And tell me... Reggae music. Oh, same as that. But tell me a Paul Breedy fan, obviously. I love Paul Breedy. And I've only recently taken to play on the songs because not everybody can sing Paul Breedy songs. They're very high in the vocal. And I try and do them exactly like he does. That's good. Well, as I say, hey, the current... Oh, that's right. It is current. Your EP is current at the moment. People want to get it at so-and-so on Bandcamp. Yeah, you can get it at Bandcamp. If they want to look in on The Longstay, My Bigger Project, or Jamoc, The We Said Project that I work on, you'll find them all on Spotify, on YouTube. The Longstay has a website called TheLongstay.com, and everything kind of pivots from there. I'm very easy to find out about. And if you're searching YouTube on My Name, or on Spotify on My Name, you will find stuff by me up there. Sean McCauley with an A. And an A. Mike Olly. That's right. It's a double C. You tend to find that around the north west of Webat. You do? Well, come here. As I say, it's been an absolute delight. When are you getting down around here again? I'm not quite sure. I've got a temporary closure, and they tend to open coming towards middle of March. And then I would imagine Oran and the Lads will be given something of a menu, and they'll probably shout at me, and I think they've already shouted at my mate, because he's a wee bit better than me, to give him a couple of cases. Well, come here. A final track first, if you don't mind. Yes, I want to do a wee Sammy Reggae song. And it's about life, and it's about, kind of, where you take all your memories and you put them in boxes, and you kind of categorise things in your life and reflect on them later. It's called Box of Life.