Pantisocracy - The Panti Personals with Panti Bliss Athena Media

The Panti Personals S2 E 8 - Xona

To close Season 2 of The Panti Personals we've a man that Panti Bliss can look up to, even while wearing high heels! It's 6 foot 7" Afro Irish soul singer and songwriter Xona - aka Jordan Onubogu. Xona was born in Lagos but calls Mullingar home, and has now made London his address. He tells the story of how he changed his name to his middle name Jordan, when he came as a ten year old to Ireland and started school. Then, he wanted to fit in and be the same as all the other children but today, as a confident Black Irish performing artist, he has returned to using his birth name. Xona shares with love the story of how his mother, a single mum, made sacrifices and worked hard to make a better life for her children in Ireland. He talks of the challenges too of being the gay kid in a church based Nigerian Irish community and both Panti Bliss and Xona swap their 'coming out' stories.
Xona, accompanied by the gorgeous farmer/musician Colm Conlan, performs two of his songs live for the Queen - 'This Could Be Us' and 'Slow Dancing' both from his recent EP 'In My Head' and you hear the EP version of the title song during the show when he shares his story of writting the album during the pandemic.


To find out more follow Xona on twitter https://twitter.com/xonatheartist

Transcript: https://www.happyscribe.com/transcriptions/f9605b61c5164697975696ef1ddb2165/edit_v2?share_code=3a8e06689ededc3f7ab8

The Panti Personals is an independent podcast produced by Athena Media, made by Helen Shaw and John Howard with additional research by Dara Shaw.
Our theme music is Knots by Lisa Hannigan - used with her kind permission.
To find all the shows, and see videos of the performances, go to www.pantisocracy.ie

The Panti Personals S2 E7 Edel Meade

Edel Meade is a jazz singer turned contemporary folk artist, She hails from Clonmel but has made Limerick her home and her latest album 'Brigids and Patricias' tells the stories of what it is to be a woman in Ireland from myth to misogyny; with songs about the true, though still unbelievable story of Bridget Cleary, whose husband burnt her to death saying he believed she was a changeling, and a powerful spoken word piece called' Long Way to Go' about gender violence, which chimes with an Ireland which has just mourned Ashling Murphy.
With the announcement that Feb 1, St Brigid's Day, will become a new Irish national holiday from 2023, Panti Bliss explores why Edel is so fascinated by Brigid and how she is a cross between the pre Christian Celtic Goddess Brigit and the Christian saint,much loved in Ireland, who is so associated with the arrival of Spring, the feminine and womanhood, and why the new national holiday chimes with the public debate around gender violence. 'It's going to become ireland's women's day' says Panti while Edel connects it to social justice, seeing it reaching beyond the male and female, towards aspirations of fairness, equality and justice.

Edel tells Panti Bliss her family roots, in Co Tipperary, are in farming not song but her will to sing was shaped by a couple of incredible nuns in her schools who encouraged and gave her confidence. A career path to journalism brought her to Chicago but instead of radio she studied the blues and came back to take a degree in jazz music and spent a decade performing as a jazz artist. She is a vocal coach, now teaching people to sing, in the University of Limerick, and her lockdown was spent developing new strings to her bow; learning to play the tin whistle, sing sean nós and play Irish traditional music. She's a committed life long learner and her track in 2022 sees her finally touring with the album, and getting to the Smithsonian in the USA to research cross over between Appalachian music and Irish traditional music there.

In the show Edel performs live two of her songs for the Queen, accompanying herself on the gorgeous grand piano.
Hear her sing 'Song of the Seal' and 'Not For This World'
Other songs included are some of her jazz numbers
God Bless The Child
Blue Moon
SideWays ( from her jazz album Blue Fantastia)
and Song for Bridget Cleary and Long Way to Go from the album ' Brigids and Patricias)
You can find out more about Edel on www.edelmeade.com
And you can see her perform in gigs at The Belltable, Limerick on 10th Feb & at Riverbank Arts Centre on 12th Feb.
Transcript of the Show: https://www.happyscribe.com/transcriptions/16768da75d5143be9703a8e7cd95827c/edit_v2?share_code=4e7d678f466f20e97e8c

The Panti Personals is an independent podcast by Athena Media, produced by Helen Shaw, the digital editor is John Howard and our theme music is Knots by Lisa Hannigan, used with her very kind permission.
You can find all the shows on www.pantisocracy.ie

The Panti Personals S2 E6 Zapho & Senita Appiakorang

To mark the beginning of a new year of twos our Queen, Panti Bliss, is with a winning twosome, two boss women from the X Collective, co founder Zapho, aka Ele Breslin and her fellow singer and songwriter Senita Appiakorang. The X Collective is a coming together of new Irish music talent and ambition, founded by Beslin and her partner Emily Shaw, and is now a creative, collaborative network of about 100 artists, musicians, singers and writers across the country. Zapho and Senita came together with Toshín, Gemma Bradley and Chloe Agnew to release the song WB in April 2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9YCgz5bJr4 and previous;y Zapho and a former Pantisocracy guest Tolu Makay recorded and released 'Collide' with Jenny Browne https://bit.ly/2X1cQmZ . Senita has also just brought out a new song with another Pantisocracy pal, Jess Kav, the powerful 'Ascension' featuring Toshín https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTzBNS-R0uk.
In this episode Zapho and Senita share their stories and each perform a song for the Queen accompanied by their X Collective mate Louis Younge. Zapho sings 'Tell Your Mother' a new song she's written about coming out and it gets a release on Mother's Day this March. Senita shares a pulled back version of song she and Jess Kav will release shortly called 'Benefactor of Love' which is part of the Sister Fenix collaborative partnership she and Jess have created.

You'll also hear some excerpts in the podcast of:
Shookrah & God Knows - I'm Right Here (Samantha Mumba Cover)
Shookrah - 'Notions'
Zapho - 'Peoples'

Find out more about the X Collective : https://www.oicheevents.com/thexcollective
Find out more about Zapho https://www.zaphomusic.com/
And Senita on Twitter https://twitter.com/Appiseni

Transcript https://www.happyscribe.com/transcriptions/20c7a7e166af4a0ba6c7efef7f9e2a17/edit_v2?share_code=b1b31721385be5558bba

The Panti Personals is an independent podcast produced by Athena Media, the series producer is Helen Shaw, the digital editor is John Howard with research by Dara Shaw. We record in Camden Recording Studios Dublin and our theme music is Knots by Lisa Hannigan, used with her kind permission and support.
You can find all the episodes on www.pantisocracy.ie

The Panti Personals S2 E5: Niamh Regan

For our final show of 2021 we've a warm hearted conversation with the acclaimed Galway singer-songwriter Niamh Regan, who shares stories of love and loss, grief and re-found happiness with the Queen confessor, Panti Bliss. Niamh comes from Kilrickle, a small village near Loughrea, and her debut album Hemet was nominated as best album in both the Irish Choice and the Irish Folk Awards. Hemet is named after the Californian homeplace of Niamh's husband Wesley Houdyshell, who is himself a musician and whose family are the fun force behind the band Hippie Cream.
Nimah performs three of her songs for Panti Bliss live in Camden Recording Studios - Love You Senseless and Happy Again from her forthcoming EP 'In The Meantime' and the poignant 'Freeze Frame' from the Hemet album.
To find out more about Niamh Regan and her music : http://www.niamhregan.com/
Other music you hear in the show includes:
All the Things by Hippie Cream
from the Album Trying to Turn a Unicorn Into a Horse
Transcript: https://www.happyscribe.com/transcriptions/4a18d9062659403d8e86ace7c0149512/edit_v2?share_code=71c83691400940ed0de0

The Panti Personals is an independent podcast by Athena Media. The series producer is Helen Shaw, the digital editor is John Howard. Additional research by Dara Shaw.
Our theme music is Lisa Hannigan 'Knots' courtesy of Lisa Hannigan.

The Panti Personals - S2 E4 Nealo

Panti Bliss in conversation with the hip hop artist Nealo ranges from dog love to Dublin, from leaving law to following his heart, and from becoming a Dad to why cannabis should be legal. Nealo performs three of his songs, with his good mates Rachel MacAuley and Adam Shanahan, live for the Queen, and shares how lockdown brought time to write, but also time to assess relationships and future. Nealo ( aka Neal Keating) hails from Clonsilla and began his music and stage career with the hard core punk band Frustration but after a sideways trip into law he found his heart and home in hip hop and mixes music with professional dog walking! In this conversation he shares some ups and downs, his joy at being a father and why he wrote a song for his mother, Rosemary.
Music you hear in this episode includes:
Nealo 'You Can't Go Home Again' ( live with Rachel and Adam)
Nealo 'Under The Weather' ( live with Rachel and Adam)
Nealo 'All The Leaves Are Falling' * from the album
Frustration 'Last Will and Testament' * from previous recording
Nealo 'Rosemary' ( live with Rachel and Adam)

You can find out more about Nealo and his album 'All The Leaves Are falling' here: http://pantisocracy.ie/nealo/

Transcript of the episode :
https://www.happyscribe.com/transcriptions/ba975926343a43e98f85163775b16d2b/edit_v2

The Panti Personals is an independent podcast by Athena Media - the producer is Helen Shaw, the digital editor is John Howard and the studio is Camden Recording Studios.
Our theme music is Lisa Hannigan's Knots- kindly provided by Lisa with permission to use on the podcast.
You can watch videos of the show's performances on www.pantisocracy.ie and find us in all podcast places including youTube.

The Panti Personals S2 E 3 SIVE

Panti Bliss is with alt-folk artist Sive in this episode of The Panti Personals. A proud Naas native Sive's voice and music is transformative, often called 'dream folk', and beyond her creative and artistic life she uses music and song as a community musician in choirs whose members include those with dementia and care home residents. During lockdown, while some of us were binging on Netflix, she co founded a social enterprise called Embrace Music, using music to make a positive difference in the world, and wrote a song cycle for the hospice movement 'Murmurations'. She's a climate warrior or worrier and says if you're not concerned about what's happening in the global environment you're not paying attention to the world. In this up close and personal conversation Sive shares three songs with Panti - one of her latest 'I Think Before I Speak' and one of her old ones 'If I Had A Home To Go To' as well as a beautiful ballad 'Tenlach' - an old Irish word for home and hearth.
Other music you hear in this episode includes:
Sive - 'We Are Moving' ( from her first album)
Murmurations - 'Better Days to Come'
Murmurations - 'Blackbird's Lament'
Murmurations - 'The Dawning' (from The Irish Hospice project).
as well as a clip from a recording with one of her community choirs.

You can find out more about Sive and her music : https://www.sivemusic.com/about
and you can support her on patreon where she shares a new demo every month - patreon.com/sivemusic.
Sive has a gig in Clonacody House in Tipperary on 21st December with Mike Hanrahan and Emma Langford, and will be taking part in a First Fortnight event in the Riverbank Arts Centre in Kildare on the 15th Jan.

Transcript of the episode :https://www.happyscribe.com/transcriptions/e8603252b02f444e9fde29a5c5630c42/edit_v2?share_code=87cfc10b3d45687c12ac

The Panti Personals is an independent podcast by Athena Media, produced by Helen Shaw and mixed by John Howard. We record in Camden Recording Studios in Dublin.
Find out more and see the videos from the show on www.pantisocracy.ie