• Hard Working Class Heroes 2013: 10 must-see acts

    September 5, 2013 - By 

    Set to take place from Thursday to Saturday 5 October, Hard Working Class Heroes – hands down the country’s leading independent music showcase – is soon set to take place right across Dublin. Over three days and nights, 101 acts will perform at 7 venues across the city for the annual event, now in its eleventh year. From Northern Irish singer-songwriters Joshua Burnside and Little Rivers to Dublin noise pop-quartet September Girls and Cork psych-rock band The Altered Hours, the very best of the country’s musical talent is represented right across the board. Go here to check our the full schedule for…

  • Birth of a Label: Broken Melody Records

    September 12, 2013 - By 

    Having recently released their first ever compilation – featuring tracks from seven of the country’s best unsigned band including Seven Summits and Hurdles – Broken Melody Records is a brand new record label based in Belfast City Centre that has got off to an extremely promising start. We chat to the guys about the first few months of the imprint, what lies in store over and their passion for showcasing the very best in homegrown untapped talent. Hi guys. First off, could you tell us how Broken Melody Records come about and what is the “mission statement” so to speak? Broken Melody…

  • End of an Era: Sketchy Bids Farewell

    September 4, 2013 - By 

    After eight long years and hundreds of unforgettable – and, for many, forgetful – Thursday nights at the Stiff Kitten, legendary Belfast club night Sketchy comes to an end tomorrow night (Thursday, September 5). Touching on the colourful past, present and (potential) future of the club, we speak to its founder and resident DJ Rigsy about the end of a clubbing era. As the club’s final ever flyer says: one more time with feeling, eh? Hi Rigsy. The last ever Sketchy is before us. Firstly: why’s it coming to an end? Is there “why”? In short, because it had to end some time.…

  • Cut The Transmission: Fighting With Wire Interview

    September 4, 2013 - By 

    “We promise that this show will be something special.” Amicably bowing out after ten years and two stellar albums, Derry three-piece Fighting With Wire have more than left their imprint on Northern Irish music and modern alternative rock as a whole. A must-see swansong like few others, headlined by none other than Frank Turner and the Sleeping Souls, the band will play for one final time and curate Cut The Transmission at the Venue, Derry on Saturday, September 28 as part of the City of Culture celebrations. We catch up with the band’s frontman Cahir O’Doherty to learn more about what is…

  • Katie Richardson: Getting Lost In Belfast and Berlin

    September 4, 2013 - By 

    “Trying to find a time of no regret, my hungry heart has seen nothing yet.”  They say everything happens for a reason. As a real life grown-up I have found myself trying to make sense of lots of difficult and disappointing situations by using that very phrase. My reason for getting the hell out of Belfast this summer wasn’t just to escape the prospect of another couple of months of drizzle and grey skies (though it was definitely a big part of it), but to go on an adventure. I wanted to discover new creative lands, to challenge my boundaries,…

  • Gig of the week: Tweed Fest 2013

    September 3, 2013 - By 

    Our gig of the week this week was a bit of a no-brainer. Headlined by North Coast three-piece Axis Of (above) Ballymoney riff shingdig par excellence Tweed Fest returns for its fourth outing this weekend. Set to feature twelve performances from the likes of fast-rising hardcore band Lantern For A Gale, Belfast-based three-piece PigsAsPeople and sludge/doom five-piece 7.5 Tonnes Of Beard, co-organiser and freelance photographer Ciara McMullan said of the event: “It’s basically just a party. Back in 2010, Matthew Tweed and all his mates in one week managed to organise a gig in his barn while his folks where on holidays. His parents weren’t angry. In fact, his dad…

  • Live and Let Live: The Bonnevilles

    September 3, 2013 - By 

    From the timeless (Thin Lizzy’s Alive and Dangerous) to the downright ill-advised (Lou Reed’s Take No Prisoners), live albums can be tricky territory for even the most self-assured and adept performers. Throwing caution to the wind with the aim to capture their electrifying live show, garages-blues duo Andy McGibbon Jr and Chris McMullan AKA The Bonnevilles enter that territory at Belfast’s Limelight 2 tomorrow night. We talk to frontman Andy ahead of the big night about what’s in store. Hi Andy. Firstly: why a live album and why now? “We’ve wanted to do a live album for a while now,…

  • Recap: Tim Hecker, Frankie Rose, September Girls, etc.

    September 2, 2013 - By 

    In the latest installment of our weekly recap of the best in brand new music just released right across the world, we eagerly traverse and contrast urgent Northern Irish punk rock, Canadian drone, kaleidoscopic English lo-fi, American garage rock, delirious Swedish synth-pop and all kinds of everything in between. As ever, if you want to get in touch about great new music – either yours or someone else’s – hit us up at newmusic@thethinair.net and we will get listening, stat. In the meantime, sit back and enjoy our top ten tracks of the week. ___ Mons Montis – Swept Swedish trio Herman Båverud Olsson,…

  • Obituary: Seamus Heaney

    September 2, 2013 - By 

    ‘Earth receive an honoured guest..’ The opening of Auden’s famous tribute to Yeats, with its distinctive rhythm which Heaney dubbed ‘Wystan Auden’s metric feet’ seems appropriate as the poet makes his final journey back into the landscape that inspired so much of his best work. For Heaney was a poet formed out of the claggy clay of his home, not just an Irish poet, or a Belfast poet, but a mid-Ulster poet. In his work I recognise the expressions and above all the accent that I grew up with, its mix of the clumsy and the lyrical, ‘demesnes stalked out in consonants’, flooded by…

  • LAD.I.Y: Investigating gender imbalance in Northern Irish rock music

    September 2, 2013 - By 

    “Recently I had a sound engineer explain to me how to use a microphone. He told me he didn’t know how the girls on TV did it, but it wasn’t ‘the way they do it in the real world.’” Katie Richardson, Katie and the Carnival. I’ve been aware of a quiet phenomenon in the Belfast music scene for years, but it wasn’t until recently that the full picture was revealed to me. In my day job, I do PR and artist development for several local musicians. We were building a band around one of the artists and required a new…