• Irish Tour: Buzzcocks

    November 8, 2016 - By 

    2016 sees punk celebrating its 40th anniversary, with bands such as The Undertones and The Damned having already passed through the Academy’s doors this year in celebratory mood. Heck, even the British Library have gotten in on the act by curating an event to mark the milestone of a time when the disgruntled youth of the mid 1970’s finally found a voice via this raucous counter-culture. Having witnessed the Sex Pistols in London during the early part of 1976, Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto travelled back to their native Bolton and formed Buzzcocks. With the release of their debut Spiral…

  • HamsandwicH @ Live at St. Luke’s, Cork

    November 2, 2016 - By 

    Well, that was the best mass I’ve ever been to. St. Luke’s, a former Protestant church just on the northside of Cork City, is quickly becoming one of the premiere live venues in the city. Having entertained with the likes of Lisa Hannigan, Villagers, and Lynched in recent times, the church is building a reputation as a unique host of essential Irish artists. Combine that with the fact that it is the Jazz Weekend, in Cork and you have the potential for quite a raucous evening indeed. Offering support for HamsandwicH tonight is acoustic singer songwriter Sarah Buckley. A local,…

  • John Carpenter @ Vicar Street, Dublin

    October 25, 2016 - By 

    Not entirely unlike that scene in Wayne’s World where Wayne and Garth declare themselves all but contemptible in the presence of Alice Cooper, the sense of collective unworthiness when John Carpenter quite literally struts out on stage with his band in Vicar Street tonight is tangible. Hands down one of cinema’s greatest auteurs – a fiercely single-minded master of both sound and vision – the 68-year-old has accumulated very few naysayers over his genre-spanning, critic-slaying, five-decade career to date, a fact that is comfortably underlined by the idolatrous energy in the much-loved Dublin venue tonight. But from those first ominous ripples of the main title to his 1981 dystopian classic Escape…

  • Irish Tour: Sleaford Mods

    October 24, 2016 - By 

    In the latest installment of Irish Tour, Jonny Currie and photographers Dee McEvoy and Aidan Kelly Murphy capture the return of Sleaford Mods to Dublin and Belfast. Mandela Hall, Belfast Photos by Dee McEvoy Behold, hear the voice of one calling: prepare ye the way of the Mods. The prophecy of Divide and Brexit has been fulfilled. The importance of securing entry to key markets clogs up our newsfeeds. Meanwhile two blokes called Jason and Andrew have signed a record deal with Rough Trade this year that should project their hard-worn, under-heard music to the wider audience it deserves, without compromise. Sleaford…

  • Cate Le Bon @ Black Box, Belfast

    October 21, 2016 - By 

    Four albums in, Cate Le Bon is making her long overdue Belfast headlining debut with the rest of her band, having previously only been here for a solo set supporting Manic Street Preachers a few years ago. Her guest appearances on the works of fellow Welsh artists the Manics and Neon Neon have brought extra attention her way, but her solo career has been on a gradual rise on its own terms, and with this year’s impressive Crab Day making waves, it’s as good a time as any to make up for that absence. Le Bon’s music has undergone something…

  • Holy Fuck w/ Wastefellow @ Whelan’s, Dublin

    October 18, 2016 - By 

    It may be four years since Toronto quartet Holy Fuck last graced these shores – and six since they last treated us to a headline show – but they certainly haven’t lost their ability to bring in a crowd, if tonight’s packed out Whelan’s is anything to go by. Perhaps this being their only Irish date this time around has helped attendance, not to mention their formidable live reputation, but it’s heartening to see people haven’t forgotten about them in their absence, and with a long awaited and steller new album Congrats under their belts there’s a palpable excitement in…

  • Beat Root: Chris Wood & Trembling Bells

    September 17, 2016 - By 

    The contrast between the caustic avant-rock of Metá Metá and the acoustic, traditional folk that opened day three of Beat Root could not have been starker. Fiddlers Conor Caldwell and Danny Diamond have been playing together since their teens, though their professional collaboration as a duo is relatively recent. The duo presents material from its album, North (Claddagh Records, 2016), a reimagining of traditional tunes, beginning with the bouyant number ‘The Further in the Deeper’ by Donegal fiddle legend John Doherty, with the duo swapping the melody and rhythmic roles back and forth. A set of reels, ‘Drunken Wagn’er/’Over the…

  • Beat Root: Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh & Metá Metá

    September 14, 2016 - By 

    Back for its second year, Beat Root, Moving On Music’s festival of roots music, offered a program as diverse as imaginable, from harps, fiddles and thundering rock to singer-songwriter mastery and psychedelic folk.  Traditions, and the bending of them, were the constant dualities at play across four evenings of uplifting music, that taken together, amounted to one of Belfast’s best music festivals of the year to date. Though often associated with formal recitals, the harp can be one of the most expressive and one of the most thrilling of instruments – just think of Colombian Edmar Castaneda or Shetland islander Catriona…

  • Sestina @ Clonard Monastery, Belfast

    September 5, 2016 - By 

    The men of Sestina, Northern Ireland’s unique early ensemble are striding out on their own tonight, leaving the women, for now, in the wings. For this gender imbalance you can point an accusing finger, into the distant past, at various Papal decrees that forbade women singers in the church.Not good news for aspiring female singers of the time, though we should perhaps spare a thought for the promising young male altos, who were castrated in order to preserve their angelic voices. Today, happily enough, Sestina relies on natural talent as opposed to radical surgical manipulation for results. This concert, in the magnificent…

  • Altan w/ Kern @ Feile An Droichead

    September 9, 2016 - By 

    It’s undoubtedly something of a coup for Feile An Droichead to have persuaded Altan to play at An Droichead, a much smaller venue than is customary for the legendary group. Few trad outfits can boast the sustained activity and international appeal of Altan, who have been thrilling audiences around the world for three decades. The band will be celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2017, but in truth, an Altan concert at any time is a celebratory event and tonight is no different. First up, however, is Kern. The Louth trio has been together for nearly three years and its dashing…