• 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…

  • Festival Preview: Right Here Right Now

    April 27, 2017 - By 

    Eimear Hurley caught up with Cork Opera House C.E.O. Eibhlín Gleeson and Brian Hassett of Coughlan’s Live Promotions to find out about Cork’s newest festival, Right Here Right Now, which will showcase a range of artists currently making music in the city. Following a number of successful collaborations between Cork Opera House and Coughlan’s Live Promotions over the past couple of years, the two organisations have joined forces to put together this unique festival which will take place from April 28–30 all under the roof of the Opera House. The idea for the festival came to Eibhlín when she heard singer-songwriter…

  • Two’s Company: Meet Cork’s Alliance Promotions

    April 19, 2017 - By 

    A pair doing stellar work on the live gig front Leeside, Gordon O’Keeffe and Arlene Murray of Cork based Alliance Promotions sit down with Eimear Hurley to talk about their work in the Cork music scene First off: how did you guys get into music promotion? Gordon: I’ve been doing this for nine or ten years altogether. I started off in the punk scene. More and more people started coming until there wasn’t enough room in Fred Zeppelin’s anymore.  So we looked for bigger venues and it progressed from there. Alliance as it is now started about five years ago,…

  • Home Suite Home: An Interview with Peter Wilson AKA Duke Special

    March 2, 2017 - By 

    Having recently successfully completed a Crowdfunder campaign to ensure its release, Peter Wilson AKA Duke Special and Ulaid recorded their collaborative show The Belfast Suite across two nights at Analogue Catalogue Recording Studio in Rathfriland, Co. Down. Eimear Hurley catches up with Wilson to delve deeper into the project, as well as his own speckled, genre-spanning career to date. Over the course of your career to date you’ve been part of many diverse and fruitful collaborations. What is it that sparks your interest in collaborating with a particular artist? And what do you think makes a successful artistic partnership? I guess…