• Deep Down South: 100/1, Missing Foundations & Bank Holiday Goings-On

    April 27, 2015 - By 

    This week’s column emerges just days after the announcement of what could be yet another landmark in an already resurgent Cork music community in 2015. Following February’s Block Party and Noisefest, as well as a clutch of fantastic weekends of gigging, this past week saw the announcement of 100/1, a night that sees one-hundred bands play in over twenty venues around Cork, with the aim to have the oversight of all the promoters in town working together. It’s a hugely ambitious project to say the least, but proof positive of the resurgence of Cork’s music scene that such an idea…

  • Deep Down South: Instrumentals, Jet Setters & Midweek Mixers

    April 20, 2015 - By 

    The big announcement last week as we went to post the column was that PLUGD Records and the Triskel were bringing a live performance of Arthur Russell‘s ‘Instrumentals’ to Cork, happening at the arts centre on May 22nd. The 1974 concert piece, perhaps the most important of the avant-garde icon’s body of work, will be performed by an all-star nine-piece ensemble, including original collaborators: Peter Gordon, composer and bandleader of Love Of Life Orchestra; Rhys Chatham, composer; Ernie Brooks of The Modern Lovers; Peter Zummo, formerly of The Lounge Lizards; David Van Tieghem, formerly of The Steve Reich Ensemble &…

  • Deep Down South: Birthday Record Store Day, Rumblings on Barrack St and YES to Equality

    April 12, 2015 - By 

    Hooray for Record Store Day! The one day of the year specifically designed for doing what we all love to do, crate-diving and generally enjoying our local oases of good taste. In Cork City, that only means one thing for so many of us, and that’s a visit to long-standing institution PLUGD Records. This weekend, as well as Record Store Day, there’ll be birthday celebrations ahoy for the greatest record shop in the world as it celebrates four years in its present home, the Triskel Arts Centre, operating upstairs in the city’s artistic flagship after being temporarily homeless, and even…

  • Therapy? – Disquiet

    April 9, 2015 - By 

    When talk first began of a sequel to ‘Troublegum’, the 1994 punk-metal opus that made legends of Co. Antrim trio Therapy?, your writer couldn’t help but feel pangs of uncertainty. From a band that over the course of 25 years plowed a fiercely independent furrow, and did so while thinking about ten steps ahead of the musical sentiment of the time, a move for nostalgia would be surely a massive anti-climax after producing two career-defining albums in ‘Crooked Timber’ and ‘A Brief Crack of Light’. Is it? Well… the jury is still out after a fortnight’s constant listening, which, for…

  • Deep Down South: Would Bes, Double Stars, and Limerick-Related Besiegements

    April 6, 2015 - By 

    Ireland is full to bursting of stories from its musical fringes. The Would Be’s have one of the most distinct in contemporary music; infamously turning down 14 major labels (remember when there were fourteen of those?) to follow up their debut single, praised alike by John Peel and Morrissey. Over twenty years later, brandishing a requisite amount of new tunes, the Would Be’s are back, having been coaxed out of retirement by rock scribe Tony Clayton-Lea. Cork label FIFA last week released their new single ‘Bittersweet’, backed up with a legendary John Peel Session in its entirety, and April 18th…

  • Deep Down South: Terriers – Let’s Hear It For The Boys (Album Premiere)

    March 23, 2015 - By 

    In a special two-part edition of Deep Down South this week, we kick off by exclusively premiering the brand-new record from Cork post-hardcore hunks Terriers, ahead of its release on April 4th at the Cork Community Print Shop, with Hope is Noise and Chameleon Fields in support. Since coming together in 2011, the four-piece have slowly become one of the fixtures of Cork’s gigging picture, marrying post-hardcore heaviosity and classic-rock accessibility with bro-dude humour and a sunny, indie-friendly disposition. Debut EP Girl, I’m Gon’ Do Right By You, released in 2012, showcases this blend at its infancy, boasting mathy instrumental…

  • Deep Down South: Affirmations and a Few More Gigs, There, Lads

    March 8, 2015 - By 

    To be quite frank, your writer is still recovering from an excellent few bouts of sleep deprivation on the trot, so a short one it is this week, before another gig-news binge next week. Deal? Okay. Saturday night saw about five or six majorly important shows happening in town at once. That hasn’t happened in a really long time. To be quite frank, the gig-going public was a little small until recently to be pulling in multiple directions, and if you’d told your writer this time last year that five shows in one night would do well, he’d have told…

  • Deep Down South: Mag Launch, Busy Town, Streaming Sounds

    March 2, 2015 - By 

    After last week’s column promising more music and such didn’t materialise, this week’s is a wee bit of a catch-up. However – plug, plug, plug! – we’ll kick off by putting in a shout for our Cork launch on Saturday at the Crane Lane for the mag. Issue 5 of the mag (the cover pictured) features a full-length piece on the Altered Hours, from their beginnings and debut release ‘Downstream’, to their upcoming album and time in Berlin. We’ll also have an Inbound on Leeside multi-piece groove ensemble Shookrah, among so, so much more, and it’ll be available exclusively at…

  • Deep Down South: A Word on TTA Magazine

    February 23, 2015 - By 

    Howdy.  Before we kick off, this week, Deep Down South will be delivered in two instalments. The usual news, views and general Cork nerdery will be along this Wednesday/Thursday, including overviews of everything coming up over the next few weeks as usual. But this, we’ve a column of two halves. If this half runs a bit short, it’s because your writer is a little tired from the last few weeks, but more so (and with apologies to the Print Shop lads for missing the fundraisers over the weekend), it’s because the finishing touches on the featured content of issue 5 of…

  • Deep Down South: Creative Spaces, Familiar Faces, More Festivals

    February 15, 2015 - By 

    In the aftermath of the events of the Block Party and Noisefest, as mentioned/fawned over in this column, a hugely busy early 2015 awaits Cork City and the people that populate its creative community. As mentioned in last week’s column, last week’s Structures and Strategies meeting brought artists together to discuss goals and offer mutual support, and from it has emerged Cork Creatives, a new group dedicated to similar meetups monthly. Such a step forward can only be hugely positive for everyone involved, and if the last few weeks have been any indication, working together is the way forward. Email…