• A Musical Celebration of Stevie Martin

    On Saturday, March 4, Derry’s Nerve Centre will host a Musical Celebration of sadly-missed singer-songwriter Stevie Martin AKA Rainy Boy Sleep. With all profits in aid of Pieta House, And So I Watch You From Afar, Making Monsters, The Wood Burning Savages, John Deery & The Heads, Furlo, Waldorf & Cannon, Rosborough, Susie-Blue, Shoot The Messenger, August and Allie Bradley will all perform in honour of the late Northern Irish artist, who passed in August last year. Tickets for the show are £12 and can be bought here. Doors at 7pm. Photo for the Thin Air by Joe Laverty

  • The First Time: Stevie Martin (Rainy Boy Sleep)

    As anyone who has ever had the pleasure of chatting with him – no matter how briefly – will know, Stevie Martin AKA Rainy Boy Sleep was a truly endearing and incredibly humble individual. For a musician so respected – for an artist with a head always bustling full of ideas – Stevie never neglected that wry smile and extraordinarily sound demeanour that he effortlessly carried around the country and beyond, guitar case & towering dreams in tow. Late last night word started to circulate around Stendhal Festival of Art in Limavady that, having been reported missing for three weeks just a few days ago,…

  • SOAK, Rainy Boy Sleep + Rosseau @ Roisin Dubh, Galway

    It’s a bright Friday evening at the start of the summer and as the first act of the night, Derry two-piece Rosseau (below), quietly take to the stage there is an immediate sense that the crowd here tonight are feeling that atmosphere of warmth. The room is quietly fluttering with an eagerness to be enveloped by some of the best music the North Coast has to offer. Having formed roughly six months ago and only releasing their debut EP at the start of June, Rosseau’s tender guitar and drum combo is still very much in its germination phase with only…

  • The Thin Air Top 100 Irish Tracks of 2014 (100-75)

    Twelve months, a billion tracks (probably) and a ridiculously impressive crop of new, emerging musical talent the island of Ireland over: yes, 2014 was been very generous indeed on the ol’ new music front. In a year when (the altogether sonically disparate) Girl Band and SOAK signed with Rough Trade, Adebisi Shank broke hearts in parting ways and Hozier “did a Kodaline” by going positively stratospheric – more on that later – innumerable lesser-known acts have also been slogging away in the garage, creating some of the very best sounds here or anywhere else on the face on the planet. In the first of a two-part feature,…

  • Watch: Rainy Boy Sleep – Ambulance

    Considered by many to be one of the country’s brightest and most promising young songsmiths, Northern Irish singer-songwriter Stevie Martin AKA Rainy Boy Sleep has unveiled the video to ‘Ambulance’, the first track taken from his forthcoming debut album, Waiting Games. Having been busy supporting the Waterboys on a few Irish shows – not to mention performing at this year’s Glastonbury – Martin has delivered quite a slick, infectious little package, the song’s earworming refrains and airy disposition gelling nicely with the accompanying video, which features the young songwriter going on a bit of a journey. Waiting Games will be released via Universal…