• Chelsea Wolfe, Robyn G Shiels – Auntie Annie’s, Belfast

    May 7, 2013 - By 

    And so it goes. After many years playing host to thousands of bands from every corner of the earth and providing a hugely important platform for innumerable local bands and artists, Auntie Annie’s, one of Belfast’s most loved music venues, breathes its final breath tonight having announced its imminent closure. As is only to be expected, the scene is a strange contrast of sorts: downstairs in the main bar the atmosphere is one of ecstatic – if not naturally hesitant – celebration; upstairs, a significantly more mournful mood takes hold in advance of one final night of pining, transatlantic folk.…

  • Rams’ Pocket Radio announces album launch show

    May 7, 2013 - By 

    Lisburn singer-songwriter Rams’ Pocket Radio AKA Peter McCauley will perform a special show at Belfast Stiff Kitten on June 7 to mark the release of his new record, titled ‘Béton’. Supporting McCauley on the night will be Katharine Phillippa, Nathan Connolly of Snow Patrol, David C Clements, Gareth Dunlop, ASIWYFA and Owen Strathern from General Fiasco – all artists who have collaborated with the musician down the years. More acts are expected to be announced soon. Tickets for the show are on sale on Friday, May 10, priced £6 and are available from Shine and Ticketmaster. Stream ‘Cavities’ by Rams’ below.…

  • Radio 1’s Big Weekend line-up announced

    May 6, 2013 - By 

    The line-up for BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Derry/Londonderry has been announced. Set to take place over three days later this month – from May 24 to May 26 – Calvin Harris, Biffy Clyro (above) and Bruno Mars will headline the festival, set to take place in Ebrington Square. Two Door Cinema Club, Vampire Weekend, Kendrick Lamar, Everything Everything, Frightened Rabbit and alt-J are also amongst the extensive, six-stage line-up. Check out the full line-up below. Tickets for the festival have been allocated. Friday, May 24 Main Stage Calvin Harris Chase and Status Dizzee Rascal Rudimental Live Pete Tong…

  • The Thin Air launches

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    Hello! You are very welcome to The Thin Air – a brand new, Belfast-based music and culture website focusing on independent artists, releases and happenings across the country and much further afield. As you might expect, it’s still very early days – there is still quite a lot of categories and content to go up (we can’t wait to show you everything we have in store) – but in the meantime, we hope there’s enough to keep you occupied. In particular, there’s a whole range of features and album reviews to be devoured from our ever-growing, hugely passionate writers and…

  • And So I Watch You From Afar to play G Session

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    North Coast post rock quartet And So I Watch You From Afar will play their first G Session in four years on Friday, May 3 at Draperstown’s Cellar Bar. The intimate appearance comes only a few days after it was announced that the band would headline one day of the annual “small but massive” festival. Supporting the band on the night are Belfast-based noise rock three-piece PigsAsPeople and all-female post-punk band Vanilla Gloom. Check out ‘Big Things Do Remarkable’ by ASIWYFA below.  

  • Forbidden Fruit

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    Headlined by Kasabian on the Saturday, June 1 and Primal Scream the following night, Forbidden Fruit Festival – set to take place on the grounds of Royal Hospital Kilmainhaim, Dublin – will also features a whole host of eclectic talent; everyone from Chic to James Blake to Four Tet and Crystal Castles. Homegrown acts including Tieranniesaur, Fight Like Apes and Le Galaxie are also set to perform. Progressively establishing itself as something of a contender to Electric Picnic’s one time insurmountable might, the whole thing will take place over four stages over the June Bank Holiday weekend. Tickets for the…

  • Sgt. MCA’s Lonely Beastie Boys Club

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    A year on from the tragic, altogether untimely death of Beastie Boys rapper Adam Yauch aka MCA, the boundlessly creative, wonderfully thoughtful Dave Frecknall has only gone and re-imagined Peter Blake’s legendary cover for the Beatles’ 1967 LP Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band to feature characters associated with the Beasties Boys or referred to in a whole host of their songs. Awesome. Check out Dave’s frankly ingenuous creation and reference guide below! R.I.P. MCA.  

  • Will Self

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    As much renown for his towering intellect and vocabulary as he is for his increasingly ambitious literary work, 51-year-old writer and journalist Will Self is, equally, widely recognised as “that clever guy from Question Time and/or Shooting Stars“. Ahead of his talk at this year’s Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, Brian Coney happily risks becoming fully aware of his own intellectual impotency in discussing Self’s beloved London, the oft-misunderstood approach ‘psychogeography’ and the author’s latest, arguably most accomplished novel, the Man Booker Prize-nominated Umbrella. You have, of course, recently published Umbrella. At the risk if being too general, what type of…

  • Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival 2013

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    Having gone from strength to strength over the last decade and a bit, Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival has all but cemented its reputation as the most versatile and wholly immersive arts festival in Northern Ireland, if not the whole island of Ireland. As it prepares once more to dominate Belfast night-life and enthrall thousands across ten days of lovingly-selected, boundlessly exciting music, art, comedy and everything in between, Brian Coney sits down with CQAF organiser from day one, Sean Kelly, to discuss what’s in store and how the country’s most loved annual arts festival came to be. ______ Hi Sean.…

  • Good Vibrations Reopening

    May 3, 2013 - By 

    Off the back of ever-growing, much deserved success of Good Vibrations on the big screen and coinciding with Record Store Day 2013, Belfast “Godfather of Punk” Terri Hooley re-opened his legendary record shop (“recurd shap”) upstairs in Bigg Life Community Arts, 89-93 North Street Belfast on Saturday, April 20. Terri, in usual dry yet upbeat spirit, casually stood at the till selling vinyl and discussing his soon-to-be, slightly begrudged appearance on the One Show. Of course, at such an early stage of the shop’s latest incarnation, stock was slim in comparison to certain high street alternatives but considering it’s the…