Mullingar’s youth café has landed a major coup this week with the news that the town’s music icon - Niall Breslin - has signed up to give a masterclass in songwriting at the increasingly popular Spoutwell Lane facility.
This was confirmed by youth café development officer Marty Mulligan, who has also signed up Ryan Sheridan’s guitar player Nicky Brennan for the forthcoming series of masterclasses to be held at the café’s recording studio.
“We intend to put on masterclasses and workshops for the different aspects of the music industry, from engineering, to staging, and lighting. Bressie’s confirmed for the songwriting,” said Marty yesterday (Thursday ), although he did stress no dates had been fixed yet.
However, this little boost for the YoYo Café would have been less of a surprise to anyone who had read Bressie’s highly complimentary, and almost pride-filled description of it, and its members, on his blog earlier in the week.
“While my generation lick their wounds... a new generation is emerging . A generation faced with the unfortunate task of dragging us out of the mess our greed and stupidity got us into,” he wrote.
He spoke of how a “very good friend” had told him of his plan for developing the youth café as: “where bands could rehearse, the creative arts could be nurtured . A place where alcohol was not tolerated or accepted. A place where bullying and other such negative social issues were inexcusable”.
“When I started... musicians were perceived as wasters who fell out of bed at noon and feel asleep at 5am after four cans and a pizza. How that has all changed. Youth cafes like the YoYo Café in Mullingar promote the interests and expressions of the teenagers themselves and not what society, or their parents believe to be good, secure future. I think Ireland, as a country should follow the same mantra. We should invest in our youth,” said Bressie.
This evening (Friday ) at 4pm the first (as yet unnamed ) band to grow from the YoYo Café’s will play support to the all-girl Drogheda band Featuring X, and “very soon” the café’s Music Box recording room will be rentable and commercially viable.
As testament to the overall achievement at the café, Minister for Children, Frances Fitzgerald, has confirmed she will officially open the facility later this month.
