• Putting Their Back Into It: We Meet Small Northern Irish Festival Our Back Yard

    April 24, 2017 - By 

    If there’s one thing the island of Ireland isn’t lacking it’s a well-attended and well put-together summer musical festival. But in the North – beyond the sway of Stendhal and Sunflowerfest – there’s still some scope for expansion; a little leeway and growth for annual showcases that put affordability and community at the heart of their manifesto. One such festival currently spearing their own thing is Our Back Yard, a festival that embody the “small but massive” mindset spearheaded by legendary NI DIY festival Glasgowbury. Ahead of its return to Gilford – just outside Portadown – on July 1, we talk to…

  • Whose Subconscious Is This Anyway? – An Interview with Bob Gallagher

    April 21, 2017 - By 

    As you may well be aware from his directorial work on some of the best music videos to come out of Ireland in the past couple of years, Bob Gallagher is not a man to shy away from the unusual or unexpected. Perhaps best known for his Radar award winning video from 2016 for Girl Band’s ‘Paul’ (as well as ‘Pears For Lunch’, ‘Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage’ and ‘In Plastic’), Gallagher has also worked with artists such as SPIES, Floor Staff, James Vincent McMorrow, Naoise Roo, Participant, Saint Sister and Myles Manley, creating visual accompaniments that veer from the…

  • Primer: Clea van der Grijn

    April 25, 2017 - By 

    Cléa van der Grijn – Reconstructing Memory (Image Courtesy of Heike Thiele) Ahead of the opening of Clea van der Grijn’s Reconstructing Memory in Limerick City Gallery of Arts on April 27th, Rebecca Kennedy speaks with artist on voyeurism, love letters, self-censorship and the intersection between life as an artist and motherhood. Who is your favorite artist and what facet of their practice do you find fascinating? Sophie Calle. I think she’s a very interesting person. It’s like her life is recorded in snippets of film. I think I live vicariously through her work. I love that she spies so un-intrusively…

  • 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,…

  • Up and At Them: An Interview With Thor Harris

    April 20, 2017 - By 

    Thor Harris is a percussionist extraordinaire best known for being the pulsing, rhythmic heart of avant rock legends Swans. Yet he is also a carpenter who crafts his own instruments, an artist and a staunch opponent of the political right. The latter of which got him in a bit of trouble when his tongue-in-cheek video dubbed ‘How to Punch a Nazi’ saw him suspended from Twitter. Though the incident may have been a shock to the Austin based musician it highlighted his particular brand of philosophical, social commentary and political outrage. On April 28 he’s bringing his group Thor &…

  • Preview: An Act of War – TANK at the MAC

    April 14, 2017 - By 

    In 1965, an American scientist lived with a dolphin for ten weeks to try and teach him to speak English as part of a NASA-funded research project into human-animal communication. Condemned as an elaborate circus trick, these lessons remain a controversial episode in the space race between the two Cold War superpowers. The critically-acclaimed, Fringe First award-winning TANK rips this history apart to explore the difficulties of bridging cultural divides, the politics behind the stories we tell and what happens when you inject a dolphin with LSD. Ahead of its two-night residency at Belfast’s the MAC across April 20-21, Brian Coney talks…

  • Keeping a Certain Distance: An Interview With Neil Hannon

    April 13, 2017 - By 

    With the release of their eleventh record Foreverland last year, Neil Hannon’s The Divine Comedy continue to deliver witty, literate pop that still dents the album charts twenty years after their commercial peak. Jonny Currie catches up with Neil Hannon ahead of his show at Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter next month to discuss touring routines, growing old with your audience, and the importance of pop stars keeping their distance from fans. The Divine Comedy play Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival on May 3. Go here to buy tickets. You’re playing at the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival next month. When was the last…

  • Inbound: Foreign Owl

    April 11, 2017 - By 

    Foreign Owl is a band whose members have found their musical home in Derry by way of a protracted route through the Southern prefecture of Fukuoka, Japan and the mean streets of Burt, Donegal. Members, Eoghan Donegan (Guitarist/Singer), along with brothers Míchéal (Bass/Singer) and Ciarán McCay (Drums/Singer) struck up a friendship after meeting at Japanese drumming (Taiko) classes in Derry. What started out as a mutual appreciation of film, soon germinated into a real desire to express themselves through music, inspired by their surroundings, art and Japanese culture. Along the way, Radio Foyle’s Stephen McCauley has championed the band by…

  • Interview: Paying Tribute to The Sad and Beautiful World of Sparklehorse

    March 27, 2017 - By 

    On Saturday, April 8 we will co-host a special, two-part event at The MAC as part of Belfast Film Festival celebrating the life and music of the sadly-missed Mark Linkous AKA Sparklehorse. Following a screening of Alex Crowton and Bobby Dass’ new documentary ‘The Sad & Beautiful World of Sparklehorse’, the evening will also feature a Q+A with the filmmakers, as well as a live, one-hour performance ‘A Night of Sparklehorse’ with Tom McShane, Peter Sumadh AKA The Mad Dalton, Richard Davis AKA Heliopause, Pixie Saytar, Jake Lennox and Brian Coney. Ahead of the one-off event, we chat with the organisers and…

  • Q+A: Dublin’s White Collar Boy on SPECTRUM & Debut LP Permanent Haze

    March 9, 2017 - By 

    Set to play their first live show of 2017 at new-fangled Dublin festival SPECTRUM on Saturday, “post-nothing” duo White Collar Boy talk to Brian Coney about progression, their forthcoming new album and the importance of festivals like SPECTRUM. Go here to buy Full Weekend Tickets to SPECTRUM or here to buy Tickets to the White Collar Boy gig. Your debut album, Permanent Haze, is set for release later this year. How was the writing process for the release? Most of the tracks on the record have been kicking around for the past few years and slowly developed into more finished cuts at our space…