Ireland
Sub-editor & writer at Goldenplec.
Writer at State, The Thin Air, Headstuff, SubTV.
Past contributor to AU, Ramp.ie, CockandbullTV.
Top Of The Pops, August 1979: Coventry ska band The Specials have caused a minor stir in the charts with their first single, 'Gangsters', released on their own 2 Tone label and kicking off what was to be an ultimately short-lived but massively influential chapter in the UK's musical story.
Every year the GoldenPlec community of writers and photographers (70+) come together to vote on their ones to watch for the upcoming year. After pulling the votes together, we select our 'Plec Picks' for 2016. We have classical artists alongside rap, jazz, grunge and anything in between.
Sunday evening fatigue has well and truly set in. But this is Sunday at Electric Picnic. That word, 'Sunday'; its talismanic portent has no power here, not over us. Not here, at the last major festival of 2014. It's 2am, and Irish festival season is in its final throes.
Hiatus. That's a funny old word. In linguistics, it's the occurrence of two vowel sounds without a break, without a consonant stuck in there to break things up - the word hiatus itself, or 'Radiator'. That's quite the opposite of its Welsh translation bwlch.
The Flowers Of Hell is a fascinating organism - a trans-Atlantic indie orchestral group based between Toronto and London, consisting of anything up to thirty musicians crafting elements of post-rock, shoegaze, psychedelia, and classical music into an all-enveloping aural experience. The formula is simple: 'Velvets + classical = a lot of what we do.'
Who are these collectors of bones and strange noises; instrument builders and conjurers of ethereal sounds and otherworldly realms? Branwen and Julie are their earthly names; sisters named fantastically for the bane of “lumberjacks or treesnazzlers” and protector of the forest - Twin Headed Wolf.
A quote purportedly spoken by master sticksman Buddy Rich there, reprinted here for no other reason than that it's great. Buddy is one of the legends, no doubt about it, but could he do what Tommy Ramone did, like Tommy Ramone did? Probably not, but what's that got to do with this?
There are certain bands whose influence has been so profound that the weight of expectation, particularly after a return from a lengthy absence, can prove difficult to live up to. Tonight's headliners hailed from Louisville, Kentucky, a bunch of kids who loved hardcore and formed bands.
‘All Mod Cons’ is probably the most fully realised and cohesive record The Jam made, but despite its shortcomings ‘Setting Sons’ contains a handful of Paul Weller’s best songs. It is the middle album of three – ‘All Mod Cons’ in ’78 and ‘Sound Affects’ in ‘80 sit either side of it – that saw Weller, Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler on top form as they left their contemporaries in their wake.
That sound. Hearing Joey Santiago etch out those opening, prowling guitar notes of Trompe Le Monde was like hearing a sound from another planet...
Way back in 1980 Stiff Little Fingers released their second album, 'Nobody's Heroes'. The year previous they released 'Inflammable Material', one of the best albums of that era, and as fine a debut album as a band - any band - has come out with since.
Some say they invented the colour brown. They almost certainly took ownership of it.
It's just over a decade now since lyricist Pete Simonelli and guitarist Kevin Thomson came together to realise the recording project that in time would solidify into Enablers. With the addition of two new members the project led to 2004's 'End Note', and the beginning of a ...
The last time we encountered the tall, black-clothed figure of Jozef Van Wissem it was at a holiday camp in the southeast of England. The lone lute player delivered a unique set at the final ATP festival in December of last year. On that occasion he had just provided the soundtrack for Domingo García-Huidobro's film...
Fourteen years after the century turned and Steve Albini penned one of its best songs in 'Prayer To God', another seven after their last record Excellent Italian Greyhound, comes an album Shellac were in no rush to make - in hock to no label; touring just for the hell of it; hosting poker games at ATP, just for the hell of it; making a new album, just for the hell of it.
It's a restless mind that drives Kevin Parker, artistic centrifuge of Australian band Tame Impala. That's 'band' in a loose sense. Parker takes charge of every aspect of the operation; writing, instrumentation, producing, and now mixing, having picked up a technique or two from long-time Flaming Lips collaborator Dave Fridmann on Tame Impala's previous two records.