History
In 2005 music that Dennis O'Hagan, who holds in both Irish and U.S. dual-citizenship, had been posting and distributing freely online started gaining attention in both Europe and the United States. When the Dublin, Ireland arts magazine Pro Bono Publico asked in early 2006 if they could feature his "Unabashedly Political Song" on their DVD magazine (the demo version of the song was published in their first volume, O'Hagan decided that it was time to put a name to the project, and Voodoo Loons were born. O'Hagan's original concept for the Loons was that it would be the name of a project rather than a "band" much like in the way that Karl Wallinger's World Party operated. The idea was that Voodoo Loons on one night may be just O'Hagan, another night it might be a trio, or a quintet, etc.
The Voodoo Loons name was born out of O'Hagan's experience working in Mississippi and Louisiana in the days following Hurricane Katrina. Working as part of the Red Cross Disaster Response team, he encountered "walking dead": folks wandering around in a state of shock hoping to find loved ones who had been washed away by the storm. A local cajun had referred to them as "voodoo loons", meaning they were under a spell of delusion or craziness, etc. (the reality was usually post-traumatic stress).
In early 2006, due to an ever increasing volume of downloads on both the Voodoo Loons website and new MySpace page, O'Hagan decided that it was time to record a proper album. He initially recruited his old school chum Bill McCarthy on drums, who recommended Chris Hooks for bass, and that became the core band.
The Loons spent the remainder of 2006 working on material for the debut album. The bulk of the music consisted of songs that O'Hagan had already recorded demos of, while a few others were written during this period. A crucial agreement among the band, though, was that each member had free rein to create their own new parts to even the existing material, so that the resulting sound would arrive naturally and not as a result of O'Hagan's previous vision of the songs as captured on the demos. In the summer of 2006. the band decided to road test the material, and was invited to play several U.S. festivals. However, McCarthy's mother fell ill with cancer, and the band limited their appearances to that summer's MidPoint Music Festival. The band's MPMF set kicked off in legendary fashion, with O'Hagan's guitar amp bursting into flames during their first song. A backup amp was quickly employed, and the band went on to deliver an enthusiastically received and well reviewed set.
Read more about this topic: Voodoo Loons
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