FOR SOME a great night out is heading to a club, and hearing and dancing to a DJ cut up, mix, and spin beats and music to the wee small hours. For others there is nothing like watching a band, live on stage, pouring heart and soul into everything they do.
Not everything though has to be an either/or choice. Sometimes you can have the best of both worlds - a DJ mixing line on stage and a live band together. Galway has such an entity. It is called Rhythm Scheme and since last October, its monthly residency in Kelly’s Bar, Bridge Street, has been drawing full houses.
Rhythm Scheme is DJ Byrno (Jonathan Byrne ), guitarist Des Foley, and drummer/percussionist Edward Martin, and taking inspiration from The Japanese Popstars and Soulwax, they cook up a heady brew of music and transmit an infectious energy from the stage to the dancefloor.
The dynamic trio
Rhythm Scheme first took shape as a duo of Byrno and Californian Edward Martin, and both had a fair amount of experience to bring to the table.
“I’ve been DJing for 12 years,” Byrno tells me. “My background was in live music and I was involved in the NUI Galway Music Soc. I had a large record collection and people used to ask me to DJ at their parties. Eventually DJing became my job for many years. I was lucky to be able to do that. More recently I wanted to do something that was more live music based, and one night Edward approached me and said ‘I have an idea’.”
Edward had holidayed in Galway years before coming to live here and the city made a lasting impression on him. “I came here during Rag Week a few years ago,” he says. “I had no idea what Rag Week was, all I thought was ‘Galway is insane! It must be like this all the time!’.”
Edward took up drums seriously in his early teens, spending hours listening to favourite songs and trying to play along with them. “I was trying to hear the songs through the eyes of a drummer,” he says. He cites his inspirations as Rush’s Neil Pert, The Police’s Stuart Copeland, and No Doubt’s Adrian Young.
Later he played drums in a number of “screamo bands”. “I would be surrounded by Marshall Amps and walls of sound so I had to beat the drums really hard to get heard,” he says. “I beat the s**t out of them.”
Des Foley was also in his teens when he took up his weapon of choice - the guitar. He taught himself to play through learning songs from guitar tab sites on the internet. His early inspirations were virtuoso guitarists Steve Vai and Joe Satriani.
“Both are very technical players and studying their style helped a lot,” he says. “It can be strenuous to learn but well worth it. I don’t play in that style now, I look now more towards songwriting and how the guitar can work with that, but it still influences my playing.”
On stage
So what can a person expect to see and hear when Rhythm Scheme take to the stage in Kelly’s?
“We play everything from M83 to The Beastie Boys to drum’n’bass,” says Edward. “It’s a musical roller coaster. There is no musical snobbery, all styles are welcome.”
“The Japanese Popstars are friends of ours,” says Byrno. “They have been very supportive. We took one of their tracks, ‘Let’s Go’ and it’s kind of become a Rhythm Scheme signature tune. It’s also gotten The Japanese Popstars’ seal of approval.”
Generally Byrno selects the music, then sends it to Edward and Des who come up with their own parts, leading to something that is far more than a DJ set and a cover band.
“A lot of the tracks do not have guitar parts so I have to come up with something original; to accompany it,” says Des. “It’s as enjoyable as it is challenging. The challenge is to figure out what guitar parts will work with a track and to try and bring something original to the music. I also want to move around on the stage as much as possible, and get off the buzz of the crowd.”
“I use the decks as an instrument,” says Byrno. “I chop songs up and switch them around. It’s a real learning curve for all of us.”
Des says: “When we are on stage, everything flows into everything else. It’s almost non-stop and that’s unique for bands. A DJ doesn’t stop when on-stage so Edward and I don’t stop either.”
“We are a live band primarily,” says Edward. “Anything we write or a song we work on, we always ask ‘Can this song work live?’ and ‘How can we make it better live?’”
Byrno reveals that the band is currently working on developing original material and in the future may work with various vocalists. In the meantime catch the dynamic trio each month in Kelly’s.
Rhythm Scheme play upstairs in Kelly’s Bar on Thursday June 14 and the special guest will be The Japanese Popstars’ Decky Hadrock’s new project Sirkus Sirkuz. Tonight in Club Carbon, Eglinton Street, Byrno and Edward will be performing a DJ/percussion set. See www.facebook.com/RhythmScheme1
