Close Menu
    What's Hot

    Hundreds turn out for fundraiser in aid of sick children at popular Cork amenity

    June 2, 2025

    Liverpool’s €129million bid for Florian Wirtz rejected by Bayer Leverkusen

    June 2, 2025

    Tomorrow’s Killygordon 5K to raise funds for Multiple Sclerosis Ireland

    June 2, 2025
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Trending
    • Hundreds turn out for fundraiser in aid of sick children at popular Cork amenity
    • Liverpool’s €129million bid for Florian Wirtz rejected by Bayer Leverkusen
    • Tomorrow’s Killygordon 5K to raise funds for Multiple Sclerosis Ireland
    • Ukraine and Russia agree to swap bodies of 6,000 soldiers killed in war
    • Music legend Brush Shiels picks his touchstones 
    • Ukraine and Russia end latest round of direct peace talks in Istanbul
    • McConalogue officially reopens Rathmullan Pier after €4.5M works
    • Larmour returns to full training as van der Flier, Ringrose and O’Brien to be further assessed
    • Demos
    • Politics
    • Money
    • Buy Now
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Local Europe NewsLocal Europe News
    Subscribe
    Monday, June 2
    • Home
    • Features
      • Typography
      • Contact
      • View All On Demos
    • Sports

      Liverpool’s €129million bid for Florian Wirtz rejected by Bayer Leverkusen

      June 2, 2025

      Larmour returns to full training as van der Flier, Ringrose and O’Brien to be further assessed

      June 2, 2025

      It was not right – Max Verstappen takes blame for crash with George Russell

      June 2, 2025

      Despite distractions and defeats, Mayo do what Mayo do

      June 2, 2025

      ‘I think we’ll be fine’ says Cork City’s Seani Maguire before jetting off for mid-season break

      June 1, 2025
    • Typography
    • Sports
      1. Politics
      2. Money
      3. View All

      Tomorrow’s Killygordon 5K to raise funds for Multiple Sclerosis Ireland

      June 2, 2025

      Ukraine and Russia agree to swap bodies of 6,000 soldiers killed in war

      June 2, 2025

      Ukraine and Russia end latest round of direct peace talks in Istanbul

      June 2, 2025

      McConalogue officially reopens Rathmullan Pier after €4.5M works

      June 2, 2025

      Liverpool’s €129million bid for Florian Wirtz rejected by Bayer Leverkusen

      June 2, 2025

      Larmour returns to full training as van der Flier, Ringrose and O’Brien to be further assessed

      June 2, 2025

      It was not right – Max Verstappen takes blame for crash with George Russell

      June 2, 2025

      Despite distractions and defeats, Mayo do what Mayo do

      June 2, 2025
    • Buy Now
    Local Europe NewsLocal Europe News
    Home»Top News Stories

    Music legend Brush Shiels picks his touchstones 

    LEN EditorBy LEN EditorJune 2, 2025Updated:June 2, 2025 Top News Stories No Comments7 Mins Read
    Music legend Brush Shiels picks his touchstones 

    Brush Shiels plays at Connollys of Leap in June. 

    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

    Brendan “Brush” Shiels, 79, grew up in Phibsboro, Dublin. In 1967, he formed Skid Row, Ireland’s seminal rock group, which briefly included Phil Lynott on vocals, and Gary Moore on guitar. 

    The band released two acclaimed records, Skid and 34 Hours, before disbanding. He fronted a show, Off Yer Brush, on RTÉ television for two seasons, 1986-87, and he has released several solo albums. He will perform at Connolly’s of Leap, Co Cork, 6pm, Saturday, June 14. See: www.connollysofleap.com

    Save the Last Dance for Me 

    We lived in one room on the Phibsboro Road. Beside us was a pub, across the road was another pub. We had no radio. Seven nights a week, people came out of the pub and would sing for another two hours. Some fella used to sing, “If I can help somebody as I pass along … Then my living shall not be in vain” again and again. Right at the railings, about a yard away. That’s how I learned Save the Last Dance for Me and all these songs – from people singing them outside.

    After that, we got a radio. I started listening to Saturday Club with Brian Matthew on BBC. I remember hearing the very first Beatles live programme, Too Much Monkey Business. It must have been ’63. The Beatles had harmonies and a sound I’d never heard before. I loved them for that.

    Bob Dylan 

    I couldn’t believe Bob Dylan when I first heard him. To this day when I hear Like a Rolling Stone, it has the same effect on me. I’ve learned hundreds of Bob Dylan songs. I love Desolation Row, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall and Mr. Tambourine Man. 

    I still have the same fascination for his use of lyrics and symbolism. Until he arrived, it was Elvis, Cliff Richard, songs like Take These Chains from My Heart, and The Beatles were all kiss me quick numbers and meeting girls. 

    When Dylan came along, it was a different way with words. I never looked back from that. He was my biggest inspiration.

    We Gotta Get Out of This Place Funny enough, I started off on the guitar because of The Shadows and that sort of stuff. Then around 1965, I started to hear other things. There was a baseline in The Animals’ We Gotta Get Out of This Place, something about it influenced me. It spiked my interest – what you could do with the bass.

    Chuck Berry

    There was a bookshop up the road. It had a box of music magazines, all the same, called DownBeat. I got them for next to nothing. They were about jazz in America, like Duke Ellington, Count Basie. 

    My mind went back then to this film I saw when I was about 12 called Jazz on a Summer’s Day. It was about the Newport Jazz Festival. This film had a big effect on me. It had all the greatest jazz musicians in America at that time in it. 

    In the middle of it all, this guy Chuck Berry came on, and he does Sweet Little Sixteen. When I saw Chuck Berry I realised that’s the only way to do it.

    Brush Shiels.

    Night Train

    The jazz thing was always in the back of my head. I was interested in why the jazz scene was so big in America. A lot of it was hard to follow. I could follow them singing the melody, but once the solo came in and went off on a tangent, I didn’t really understand it. Then I read in one of these magazines – I became an expert after reading 72 DownBeat magazines [laughs] – that Ray Brown, the bass player with the Oscar Peterson Trio, was the man to listen to, and the album to listen to was Night Train. That Night Train record changed my life. That’s where I went next.

    Unison Blues

     DownBeat magazines also said, “There’s a great bass player called Vinnie Burke. Have a listen to him.” He had a track called Unison Blues which is the origin of the Skid Row way of doing things. A lot of the ideas about playing, I got from Vinnie Burke, his bass lines stood out. 

    The sax, the bass and the piano playing the same line in unison gave it a particular sound, which, ultimately, I could hear in Cream and Jimi Hendrix. Lucky enough I came across Gary Moore when he was only 15 and he knew exactly what I was talking about.

    Phil Lynott 

    Phil Lynott performing with Thin Lizzy at Cork City Hall in 1982. Picture: Irish Examiner Archive 

    The first time I got in touch with Phillo, I got the bus out to his house. I knocked on his door. I went in to say hello to him. He told me he was listening to The Velvet Underground. I said, “Forget about that.” Then he said, “Paul Simon’s I Am a Rock”. I said, “No, if you want to come along, we’ll try this Jimi Hendrix thing, which is going to be the next big thing.” A couple of days later, he sang Hey, Joe, and that was the start of it.

    Phillo had film-star appeal. Back in the 1960s, he lacked a bit of confidence, but the potential was unbelievable because he had everything else you needed. But life being the way it is, now he’s gone. Somebody said to me once, “How well did you know him?” I said, “Well, he came on my honeymoon with me.” That’s how close we were.

    Led Zeppelin

    Skid Row loved Led Zeppelin. We were playing in the Whisky A Go-Go in Los Angeles in 1970. Who turns up only John Bonham, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood. We’re playing away and John Bonham wants to get up to sing, and Robert Plant says, “I’ll play drums.” So, the two boys got up. These lads from a band called Slammer – I knew them – took photographs and bootlegged the gig. You can still get it on YouTube. You can’t buy it. The sound was just noise, but it’s up there.

    John Bonham 

    Led Zeppelin in 1973: From left to right, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Bonham (1947 – 1980), John Paul Jones. (Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images)

    John Bonham had a particular way of drumming that we hadn’t heard before. It was thunderous. It sounded like an elephant stampede, like a wildebeest with an outboard motor on its back. Carmine Appice from Vanilla Fudge had a similar style. It was the start of all these great drummers like Ginger Baker, the way of doing it with the two bass drums, even though it had been done years before in jazz. It got lost along the way, but very fast playing made a comeback.

    Charlie Parker 

    Charlie Parker – one of the great saxophonists, one of my biggest influences solo-wise – was in this café once, and Hank Williams’ I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, was playing. Somebody asked Charlie Parker, “Why do you keep putting that on?” He says, “It’s the words, man.” Like he’s soloing all night. He’s no problem soloing. So, when somebody is singing something like that, and he has felt that bad himself, and put it into words, he wants to listen. A lot of sad songs are about when somebody puts into words what we’re all feeling. There’s beauty in it.

    News Source : Irish Examiner

    Brush legend Music Picks Shiels touchstones
    LEN Editor
    • Website

    Keep Reading

    Hundreds turn out for fundraiser in aid of sick children at popular Cork amenity

    Another milestone win as Armagh continue down the road

    Young woman who died after Cork City Marathon is named

    Sex while trying to conceive is becoming a chore rather than pleasure 

    How to deep clean a bathtub for a sparkling soak

    How to keep your knees in good shape for lasting joint relief

    Add A Comment
    Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

    Editors Picks

    Music legend Brush Shiels picks his touchstones 

    June 2, 2025
    Latest Posts

    Subscribe to News

    Get the latest sports news from NewsSite about world, sports and politics.

    Advertisement
    Demo
    Facebook X (Twitter) Pinterest Vimeo WhatsApp TikTok Instagram

    News

    • World
    • US Politics
    • EU Politics
    • Business
    • Opinions
    • Connections
    • Science

    Company

    • Information
    • Advertising
    • Classified Ads
    • Contact Info
    • Do Not Sell Data
    • GDPR Policy
    • Media Kits

    Services

    • Subscriptions
    • Customer Support
    • Bulk Packages
    • Newsletters
    • Sponsored News
    • Work With Us

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

    © 2025 Local Europe News
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms
    • Accessibility

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.