• Sorcha Loughrey Hoey: Shake off the Shackles and Shimmy

    March 8, 2018 - By 

    My foray into performing proper began with my running and hosting Burlesque shows in Dublin. Not content in the sidelines, I then began to perform myself. I have always had a penchant for glamour and ‘fancy dress’ since I was a child, so this was a way of my incorporating that into adulthood as well as trying to resolve my own body dysmorphia and learn to see myself in a different light. I truly believe my experiences as a performer have changed me as a woman. It allowed me to tour universities, youth clubs and women’s groups giving talks on…

  • Fan-Girl Power: Feminism and Female Fandom

    March 7, 2018 - By 

    In a recent interview with The Guardian, Kim Deal of The Breeders claimed that “misogyny is the backbone of the music industry.” The events of the past several months have started long overdue conversations about gender equality in creative industries. This misogyny does not stop with music industry professionals or artists, though. Female fans – especially those in their teens – are regularly subjected to sexist stereotyping and derision. Language of madness is frequently used to describe female fans. Fangirls are apparently “hysterical” most of the time – a term that harks back to the Ancient Greek notion of a…

  • Women of Note by Rebekah Fitch

    March 8, 2018 - By 

    I draw a lot of inspiration from artists who can create an entirely new world from their music. Their art becomes more than the songs, almost like an alternate universe that acts as a physical manifestation of their art, extrapolating and illustrating it in different artistic mediums. I think that this is something that’s done in an incredible way by so many female artists. People like Florence and the Machine and Björk. It’s exciting, it transports you, and it pushes the boundaries of their art. These are also women whose age can never define them, which I think is such…

  • Caroline Cawley – A Promoter’s Perspective

    March 6, 2018 - By 

    Caroline Cawley reflects on her time working as a promoter for Club AC10 and DJing in Dublin. She currently lives in the UK and plays in two bands, Dystopian Future Movies and Church of the Cosmic Skull.  Whilst holed up in my room (one ear of my Walkman secretly inserted), gazing out across the rolling Sligo fields and ‘studying’ for my Leaving Cert at the turn of the millennium, the idea of playing my favourite slightly left-of-field alternative rock tunes to a bopping audience would have seemed like an unattainable dream. But ask and you shall receive. After leaving university…

  • Niamh Farrell – A brief History of HamsandwicH

    March 6, 2018 - By 

    “So, what’s it like being the only woman in band with all guys?” This question is one that I have been asked time and time again, over the many years I have sang in HamsandwicH. It’s a question that always confuses me. Whenever I am asked, the answer is always “No different I’m sure, to a band with all guys or all girls. We are just a bunch of friends having a laugh and making music.” And yet I have often felt that wasn’t the answer they were looking for. They want something maybe more along the lines of: “Oh,…

  • Women as bitches and how we got here – Rosemary MacCabe

    March 7, 2018 - By 

    “Women are awful bitches, aren’t they?” It’s an often-heard phrase, especially when discussing blogger-focused forums – which I do, pretty often. As a sporadic blogger and one-time “social influencer” (a term that means, essentially, that I’ll take money to promote products online, which may be distasteful but honestly, wouldn’t you?), I have a vested interest in said forums – not just because they occasionally talk about me, but also because it’s an industry from which I think I will never be entirely removed. What’s that they say? Once a media shill, always a media shill. It’s a fast-moving world online.…

  • In Between Days – Transitions with Keeley Moss

    March 7, 2018 - By 

    I can think of no bigger honour than being asked to contribute an article for International Women’s Day because not only is it a cause that I wholeheartedly support but in the wider world there are still some people who refuse to accept me for who I am. This I know because my own band just split up for that reason. But more on that later. I’m legally a woman, and my birth certificate states that I’m female. I’m also trans. I began transitioning as a desperate necessity when I found I could no longer live another day suppressing my…

  • What does it mean to win? – MayKay on Repeal the 8th

    March 7, 2018 - By 

    What does it mean to win? Do we all know? Do we all agree? Have we all challenged ourselves to question what it is that we want to personally achieve here? Do we want to be the loudest? Do we want to have the last word? Or, do we want to repeal the 8th amendment? I am not of course talking about the many resilient, brave, inspirational women who have trudged through the mud for our right to choose for longer than we know. I am not talking about the amazing women who have joined them over the past few…

  • Final Acts Announced for It Takes a Village

    March 7, 2018 - By 

    With five weeks to go, the final acts have been announced to play the inaugural It Takes a Village. Taking place at Trabolgan Holiday Village in East Cork across April 13-15, the following bands, musicians, poets and performers will join the likes of Young Fathers, Andrew Weatherall, Fujiya & Miyagi, Talos, The Altered Hours (pictured above) and a host of others: For full details, line-up and tickets, go right here.

  • Album Premiere: Zombie Picnic – Rise of a New Ideology

    March 9, 2018 - By 

    Progressive instrumental post-rock four piece Zombie Picnic release their new album, Rise of a New Ideology today. This follows up on the Limerick outfit’s 2016 debut LP, A Suburb of Earth, and is available on a limited run 12″ vinyl through Bandcamp and Burning Shed. Ideologically, it’s an ambitious work that’s inspired by political figures & commentators, and the most respected names in science fiction literature. As with acts like King Crimson, the finest progressive bands are unconfined by the box in which modern prog rock & post-rock artists find themselves trapped; Zombie Picnic’s sound is imbued with the kind of exploratory, trippy experimentalism found in classic psychedelic & space rock that’s been dragged forward a millennia,…