GUEST BLOG: The Ghost Post takeover!
Sister Ghost is the project of Derry artist Shannon Delores O'Neill. Having taken part in our talent development programme Scratch My Progress in 2015, Sister Ghost has built a reputation as one of Ireland's most rousing new rock acts, winning Best Live Act at the NI Music Prize in 2019. O'Neill has also been recognised for mentoring and encouraging other female and gender expansive musicians to perform in the Irish scene, having set up the Girls Rock! NI chapter in 2016.
The Irish artist has recently released her long-awaited debut album Beyond The Water. Recorded in Los Angeles with the producer Brad Wood and below she brings her Ghost Post to Oh Yeah.
Hello you spooky Oh Yeah blog readers,
I'm writing to you on a sunny day by an open window to the soundtrack of birds, two devilish goats play-fighting and some distant 80s music playing on a radio somewhere. I've spent this particular morning like many self-managed musicians, updating merchandise listings on my website, sending emails and scheduling meetings, thinking about a future event and all the cogs needed to make that particular wheel turn, merely a week after the completion of a previous event that took many weeks of stirring the cauldron to bring to life.
I think by now we all realize that much of what we see on social media is a sugar coated vision conveyed to the world and we don't often see Instagram posts or perfectly edited TikToks of just how much energy goes in to the creative path if you choose it, or those nights interrupted by stress dreams or the self-doubt that looms in the never-too-far-off shadows. The inauthenticity of the way we're communicating nowadays is something I often think about and I struggle with accepting at times, so I guess what I'm saying is that this blog entry won't be a polished little marketing pearl, it's just me and my two cents on things.
Admittedly I've started this by remarking on the less exciting side of being a musician but I do still subscribe to the idea that there can also be so much reward on that same path; moments that make the work completely worth it, settling the balance again. I've been performing and writing music in different bands since I was 12 years old and I'm extremely grateful to have experienced so much good over the last 10 years with my solo project - Sister Ghost - most recently with one such balance-settling moment of getting to play to almost 20,000 people at arena shows with Snow Patrol. It was nothing short of a dream fully coming to life, entering the unseen backstage world witnessing what goes into an arena-scale production, all the while pinching myself, affirmed in the knowledge that I was trusted to be a part of it.
I know, and many within my ghoulish circle know, how hard I've worked and fought for all the opportunities that have come along so far. It's true that you really do have to chance your arm with people when you can, because nothing happens if you don't seek it out or do something about it, even if that means being told no, or more often just ghosted, fucking loads of times.
Even after that incredible opportunity of late, things still feel like an uphill battle to be heard and not just for me - I see so many artists as well struggling for tangible support with tour planning and funding, management or label support and recording costs. It seems like every week there is a new story about how an arts venue or organisation has had its funding cut or a renewal refused, which trickles down and has a real life impact on artists. A glaringly apparent state of our local government and their utter lack of real support for the arts here, and that's becoming a hard pill to swallow year after year. What's being paved for the musicians coming up after us? Perhaps they will revolt and create positive change, pushing the dinosaurs out once and for all!
I’ll close on a more personal note, finding myself on the precipice of something completely new with Sister Ghost: the creation of what the critics like to call 'the difficult second album'. Bringing my debut album Beyond The Water to life, in such a bucket-list way (recording in LA with Brad Wood, Jeff Friedl and Emily Lazar) is a chapter I’ll never forget and it is an ongoing privilege to see people enjoying the album as much as I did making it. I must now begin the cycle again.
I have a shelf of notebooks filled with phrases and conversations, ideas, names and themes, grievances, joys, hopes, dreams, losses - all parts of a puzzle waiting to be pieced together in whatever this next body of work becomes. Beneath the fear there is excitement, and like ol' Neil say's, it'll all be "just another line in the field of time”, so I'm gonna trust and enjoy the process.
Stay Spooky,
Shannon/Sionainn/Sister Ghost x
Check out Beyond The Water here https://sisterghost.bandcamp.com/album/beyond-the-water
