• Quarter Block Party 2015

    February 11, 2015 - By 

    FRIDAY The excitement is palpable throughout the city’s creative communities in the run-up to the Block Party, and even before your writer gets to his relatively late start on proceedings, word filters through that the Structures and Strategies meeting will lead to more events in its vein, a forum for local creatives to air ideas and exchange thoughts. People’s gears are grinding already, it seems. We’re waiting outside the Gate Cinema for a few minutes and the small group outside is already conjecturing about what they’ll see out of charismatic American performer Kate McGrew (below), as well as plotting and…

  • Deep Down South: Like Light to a Fuse

    February 9, 2015 - By 

    Cork City has been a fuse waiting to be lit. All this time, exciting, inimitable, indomitable people, have been creating, and facilitating, providing space, trying, and failing, learning, and improving, and resolving to do better. Coming together, helping each other. This weekend was a light to that fuse. The Quarter Block Party didn’t just meet or even exceed expectations, it utterly transcended them. A huge and varied multimedia programme, spanning music, art, theatre, discussion and good vibes, it delivered on all fronts. There’ll be a review with all the details and critique either tomorrow or Wednesday, and your writer will…

  • Deep Down South: Farewells, Returns and Festivals

    February 2, 2015 - By 

    Some news that sadly flew under a lot of radars locally in the excitement running up to this week’s absurd amount of good stuff (which we’ll get to!) was the announcement of the impending passing of sludge/doom lords FIVEWILLDIE on the 20th of February, after their final show/tenth-anniversary show at Mr. Bradley’s. We’ll have a farewell feature in the coming weeks in this space, but suffice to say, a band around which a lot of live activity revolved over the years, such as Pyre Pro, Limerick’s Bad Reputation and the Siege of Limerick are going to be sadly, sadly missed,…

  • Deep Down South: Few Gigs There, Lads

    January 26, 2015 - By 

    Irish metal has been having a few years of exponential growth, with the rise of all-dayers like The Siege of Limerick and bands like Primordial, Murdock and Coldwar representing the island’s riff community on the world stage, and quality stuff materialising from the woodwork everywhere, from Ilenkus and Kawtiks to veterans like For Ruin and Mael Mordha. But at the forefront of all this has been Limerick prog-metal monoliths Shardborne, coming to the Cork Community Print Shop this Saturday care of PYRE Promotions, with Ealadha and Mannequin Republic in tow. Launching upcoming LP ‘Living Bridges’, the instrumental quartet’s combination of…

  • Deep Down South: More Block Party, Doin’ Pana, and a Bail of Riffs

    January 19, 2015 - By 

    Quarter and the Makeshift Ensemble‘s Block Party last week announced the newest additions to their Block Party festival, happening across North and South Main Streets on February 6 to 8. Added to the multidisciplinary arts weekend’s lineup are psych heavyweights The Altered Hours, shoegaze outfit Elastic Sleep (pictured), as well as Tandem Felix and Fierce Mild. Irish Times journo Jim Carroll brings his Banter series to The Vision Centre @ St. Peter’s on the Saturday. The first session – Inside the Miracle of Sound – will see Jim speaking to Cork musician Gavin Dunne about getting his start in the business,…

  • Interview: East India Youth

    January 15, 2015 - By 

    Featuring photos by Joe Laverty taken in New York, Mike McGrath Bryan talks to English electronic musician William Doyle AKA East India Youth about his Mercury Prize-nominated debut album, Total Strife Forever, plans for the future and more. The crossover between indie and electronica has always been strong, but with the disparity of genres and tastes these days, was it more difficult to make the transition from Doyle and the Fourfathers than you’d imagined? No, it was quite easy, if a bit gradual. I’d already started recording things by myself at home when I was 14, long before that band – and…

  • Deep Down South: New Years and Noisy Block Parties

    January 11, 2015 - By 

    To say that 2015 sees a massive year ahead of Cork City’s music scene is an understatement. An ever-changing, ever-adapting beast that has taken several setbacks in stride over the past few years and seen bands and venues lost, found and regrouped, built to the point where the real capital is in many respects set to become the intriguing prospect it is. This year alone sees new records from post-hardcore hunks Terriers (below), alt-rock cornerstones Hope is Noise, death-pop merchants The Vincent(s), and the debut album from much-loved psych-rock outfit The Altered Hours (pictured), adding to their already-varied and exciting discography.…

  • Festivals: Quarter Block Party

    December 12, 2014 - By 

    Cork’s varied and vital cultural communities have always been a pillar of life in the city, but the past year or so has seen exponential growth, despite setbacks. Next year looks set to be a cracker, with a bumper crop of albums and EPs in the pipeline for release, and the announcement of  the Quarter Block Party festival, taking over the venues and businesses of North and South Main Street for a weekend, from February 6th to the 8th. Run as a collaboration between The Makeshift Ensemble (the force of nature behind the Quarter arts all-dayers at the Triskel) and…

  • Interview: The Magic Numbers

    December 2, 2014 - By 

    Currently on the road around Ireland, including tonight’s Cork show at the Half-Moon, indie/pop quartet The Magic Numbers are touring in support of this year’s album ‘Alias’. TTA sat down for a quick chat with bassist/vocalist Michele Stodart to get caught up. TTA: Fourth album ‘Alias’ released this past summer, how have you found the reception to it? Michele: I think the response has been great so far. The proof is at the gigs, where everyone’s singing along to songs from the new album. That’s such a rewarding feeling. Coming back from a long hiatus, and being between a lot…

  • Cork Music Trail: Ones to Watch

    November 18, 2014 - By 

    It would seem that MTV have remembered what their (previously-orphaned) acronym stands for, turning their attention away from mouth-breathing reality-show nonsense, and on to music, of all things. With the announcement of the Shepard Fairey-directed Rebel Music calling attention to youth subcultures around the world and the transcendent tunes that soundtrack their lives, the idea hits that the floundering music-channel grandfather has either finally realised the error of its ways and is earnestly trying for relevance, or has just been subject to the law of diminishing returns. Either way, the cable & satellite success story of the 1980s wobbles its way to Cork…