• Metronomy – Summer 08

    August 15, 2016 - By 

    I remember the summer of 2008 pretty fondly, with a cracking European Championships, a family trip to Australia and the release of the Dark Knight refusing to be overshadowed by the Russian invasion of Georgia, Nickleback’s ‘Rockstar’ dominating the airwaves and the impending doom of the move to “big school”. Despite my adventures, it was an even busier summer for Metronomy’s Joe Mount, who was making a step into the big leagues of his own: with the impending release of his second album under the Metronomy moniker, Nights Out, Mount was becoming more involved with the London scene than the Devon nightlife that inspired his band’s…

  • Dinosaur Jr. – Give A Glimpse Of What Yer Not

    August 9, 2016 - By 

    “All I know is that we play hard and a lot of this shit is not fun. Playing is great but the way we live is not the life of a rockstar.” Henry Rollins’ classic tour diary Get In The Van is an hilarious and often harrowing reminder of how deeply unglamorous life on the road was for Black Flag and their hardcore and college rock contemporaries. The leading lights of that scene eventually found financial reward from their sterling work in the pre-Nevermind era, with greatest hits tours by Jane’s Addiction, The Pixies and the Replacements finding them before huge audiences that were simply inconceivable…

  • Beyond the Wizards Sleeve – The Soft Bounce

    July 13, 2016 - By 

    Erol Alkan’s hugely influential club nights at London’s Trash seamlessly blended dance beats and guitar rock, bearing witness to “I was there” type early live performances from LCD Soundsystem, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Bloc Party before it’s closure in 2007. Over the past decade Alkan has collaborated with acid-house pioneer Richard Norris (also half of 90s techno duo The Grid) as Beyond The Wizards Sleeve, combining their shared love of psychedelic pop to deliver critically acclaimed ‘re-animated’ edits of tracks by the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Interpol and The Chemical Brothers. Debut album The Soft Bounce sees the duo exploring their 1966-meets- 2016 sound over a…

  • Mudhoney & Bog Log III @ Black Box, Belfast

    June 9, 2016 - By 

    It truly is silly season on the live circuit, and circumstance would have it that the same night grunge godfathers Mudhoney returned to Belfast would be when the granddaddy of them all, Neil Young, decided to play his first ever date in the city. Mudhoney have never been about huge arenas though: the demise of Mark Arm and Steve Turner’s previous act Green River came when he didn’t match the ambitions of the stadium hungry band mates Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard, and while the later dominated the 90s as the founders of Pearl Jam, Arm and co.’s Mudhoney provided…

  • Lisa Hannigan @ Black Box, Belfast

    June 9, 2016 - By 

    Despite initially making her name singing with Damien Rice throughout the height of his fame, it wasn’t until the end of that creative partnership that Lisa Hannigan really came into her own, beginning a solo career that saw her notch up impressively high profile TV appearances – none more impressive than an appearance on The Colbert Report – during a time when Rice had faded into the shadows. Although no new studio albums have been forthcoming since assured debut Sea Sew in 2008 and more mature follow up Passenger in 2011, she’s continued to expand an already impressive CV by…

  • PORTS – The Devil is a Songbird

    May 26, 2016 - By 

    ‘Luck’ is a funny old thing, especially in the often unforgiving world of music, although at the start of 2013, Derry’s Little Bear seemed to very much have it on their side. A bout of acute laryngitis in Two Door Cinema Club’s Alex Trimble saw Little Bear step in at the eleventh hour to replace the Bangor indie-poppers at 2013’s Other Voice’s Festival, and their show-stealing set paved the way for massive critical acclaim and a set of huge shows in Belfast’s Limelight and their home town’s Nerve Centre. Luck seemed to turn the other way fairly promptly though, as the band watched the support act…

  • Twin Peaks – Down in Heaven

    May 16, 2016 - By 

    If the stage-diving garage rockers The Orwells seem determined to re-live the late 60s anarchy of the MC5 and The Sonics, their fellow Chicagoans Twin Peaks seem happy to champion the more genteel sounds of that era. Guitarist Clay Frankel has spoken of the how a trilogy of 1968 records, The Beatles’ White Album, The Stones’ Beggar’s Banquet and The Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society were key influences in the recording of new album Down In Heaven, and the folkier pastures of the British bands’ work has seemed to guide Twin Peaks to deliver a fine set of bittersweet, summery guitar pop just in time for…

  • Shonen Knife w/ Leggy @ Black Box, Belfast

    May 2, 2016 - By 

    Japan’s Shonen Knife are currently celebrating their 35th anniversary with an extensive tour, which took in Belfast’s Black Box as part of the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival. After a number of Japan-only releases in the early 80s, the Osaka group’s brand of infectious pop-punk eventually won western admirers including Sonic Youth, John Peel and Nirvana, and the band’s 90s peak saw them serve as an opening act for the UK leg of the Seattle band’s Nevermind Tour, as well winning gaining regular MTV airtime and slots on the Lollapalooza tour. Now on album number 20 and buoyed by the return…

  • An Interview with Northern Lights: Ben Glover, Malojian and Matt McGinn

    April 29, 2016 - By 

    Under the collective guise of Northern Lights, three of the North’s very finest singer-songwriters in Ben Glover, Stevie Scullion AKA Malojian (pictured) and Matt McGinn are gearing up for the second half of their touring dates right across the country. Each unto their own a revelatory craftsman of folk and Americana, their teaming up is most definitely an inspired proposition. Ahead of more dates at the start May (see below), Caolan Coleman chats to the threesome about the birth and impetus of the Northern Lights project, their individual trajectories and endeavours, as well as their plans for 2016. Wednesday, May 4: Roe Valley Arts Centre,…