• The Libertines w/ The Courteeners @ 3Arena, Dublin

    July 13, 2015 - By 

    A rose by any other name right? 3Arena may be the pre-eminent venue for the most popular acts visiting the city but it must be a logistical nightmare. The sound is far from perfect for The Courteeners breed of indie rock. The sound has been primed for stadium rock which the lads fill out admirably but it’s at the detriment of any musical subtlety. Instead each song is awash of boom-bah drum noise and the sometimes faltering vocals of Mr. Liam Fray. Luckily it’s not so muddy that they lose the sing along spine that give their most popular tracks…

  • Oh Yeah Centre Summer Camps

    July 9, 2015 - By 

    Interested in music journalism and photography? Like the idea of learning how it works by actively creating your own magazine or blog, complete with photos, reviews, news and features? Oh Yeah has teamed up with yours truly, The Thin Air, and Carrie Davenport Photography to provide hands on learning in publishing. Over the course of five days participants will work together under guidance from our experts to deliver what will be a fun, colourful, engaging Zine and blog that you will produce and publish at the end of the week. Both elements will come together at the end of the week…

  • Ken Camden – Dream Memory

    July 9, 2015 - By 

    You know, Ken Camden, from Lahndan Tahn? Bit of a spiv, sells knockoff jeans and bootleg t-shirts. Once did CDs n’all, but no one cares ‘bout them no more. No wait, that’s Camden Ken. Better instead to concentrate on the name of the album. Dream Memory as a title, along with the striking artwork, does a much better job of setting the scene for what can be heard inside. However, positioning his listener in a suggestible other-worldly location with a couple of words and a picture only partially paves the way for just how exquisite the next 45 minutes of their life might…

  • Stream: Girls Names – A Hunger Artist

    July 9, 2015 - By 

    Having just returned from a string of European dates, Girls Names have unveiled ‘A Hunger Artist’, the latest single to be taken from their forthcoming third album, Arms Around a Vision. Assumingly taking its title from Franz Kafka’s 1922 short story of the same name, the track – quite possibly our favourite Girls Names effort to date – sees frontman Cathal Cully confront a life lived “hand in mouth.” Elaborating, he said, “Most guitar music now is just a playground for the rich middle classes, and it’s really boring and elitist. We’re elitist in our own way, in that we’re on our own…

  • Watch: Come On Live Long – Speak Up

    July 8, 2015 - By 

    Shot by Mercedes Arturo & Nico Casavecchia in (deep breath) Brooklyn, Buenos Aires, Bangkok, Beijing, Barcelona, Berlin, Tigre, Tierra del Fuego, Niece, Mar del Plata, San Jose, Copenhagan, Cannes, Ko Pha Ngan and London, Dublin’s Come On Live Long have unveiled the sprawling, rather spectacular video for their seven-minute new single, ‘Speak Up’. Watch it below.

  • Track Record: Gav Icon

    July 8, 2015 - By 

    With his Sixties sensibility and a penchant for garage and punk rock, Gav Icon, DJ and frontman from Gavin and Thee Icons selects his favourite records from the likes of Black Lips and The Cramps to The Sonics and Ramones. Photos by Ste Murray. Black Lips – Good Bad, Not Evil  The Black Lips are one of Garage Rock’s modern greats, with a live show that would make GG Allin stop and say, “Ah, Jesus that’s just too far lads”. They there are what a rock and roll band should be. This album has the tracks ‘O Katrina!’, ‘Bad Kids’, ‘Lock and Key’ and ‘Veni…

  • Desaparecidos – Payola

    July 8, 2015 - By 

    Bright Eyes, and by extension their central member Conor Oberst, are the sort of group who elicit a strong reaction from people. There are those who think him a Dylanesque wunderkind whose every word perfectly summarises all the emotion that their teenage selves never could, others see him as an obnoxious, overgrown perpetual adolescent who needs to get over himself rather swiftly. There is also a decently sized camp who are indifferent until he lets his frustration loose in the rawest manner. Of the three groups, the one who’ll be most satisfied by the man’s latest venture, the long awaited…

  • Bookmark: JR Ryall (Pastry Chef at Ballymaloe House)

    July 8, 2015 - By 

    In this installment of Bookmark we head to the famous Ballymaloe House in Cork to meet pastry chef JR Ryall, to discuss the cookery books which helped to shape his culinary art and culture. Photos by Melanie Mullan. The Ballymaloe Cookbook – Myrtle Allen Myrtle Allen’s seminal book, first published in 1977, contains the collection of recipes from which I trained when I began working at Ballymaloe House. This book is full of witty and eccentric stories that highlight the fun and mischief, the highs and lows and also the challenges of running a restaurant kitchen. It captures a particular time…

  • Watch: His New Atlas – Saints

    July 7, 2015 - By 

    Having confirmed his arrival last summer with his stirring single ‘His Young’, Northern Irish singer-songwriter Eoghan O’Hagan AKA His New Atlas has returned with his strongest single effort to date, ‘Saints’. Accompanied by a video courtesy of Maverick Renegade, the song sees a heartfelt performance from O’Hagan merge with a impressively-layered, almost symphonic backdrop, resulting in four minutes of building and subtly beatific brilliance.

  • Label Mixtape: Merge Records

    July 7, 2015 - By 

    Started by Laura Ballance and Mac McCaughan of Superchunk in 1989 as a vehicle to release their own music Merge has moved from small-town record label to one of the most respected and successful indie labels in the world. Based in Durham, North Carolina, and never feeling the urge move to a more “hip” city, Ballance and McCaughan captured an NC Sound at a time when Grunge was taking off in the North-East of the US. What really makes Merge stand out is their ability to gauge the zeitgeist of what was coming next. Whether it was Arcade Fire’s global…