Site-specific projects

Muldoon's Picnic has a particular interest in linking songs to the places they are connected with. We also enjoy performing and recording in unusual or historic venues.

For one such project we focused on the well-known (in Glasgow) song "Kelvingrove" ("Let us haste to Kelvin Grove, bonnie lassie, O", etc). It's based on the early nineteenth-century collection The Harp of Renfrewshire, credited to one John Sim, but later claimed by Thomas Lyle. The tune is that of the traditional song "The shearing's no for you, bonnie lassie, O". We arranged that song ad recorded it near the site of the West End's first museum, Kelvingrove House (demolished in 1899), in what was then the West End Park, or Kelvingrove as we know it today. We also recorded the Sim/Lyle song in Kelvingrove Museum. 

Here are some notes on the history of the song and its many incarnations.

Our next site-specific project will turn the attention to Glasgow's other river, the Clyde. For the Year of Coasts and Waters, we aim to make high-quality videos at several points along its course, including on the water itself, telling some of the many stories about this historic waterway. Watch this space!