Come in and sit down, Billy Bragg, the Bard from Barking, Essex, is putting the kettle on...
With his hand on his heart and his finger on the pulse, Billy Bragg is a real rough diamond and a welcome threat in pop's rich tapestry.
Back with another volume of Woody Guthrie songs, BILLY BRAGG talks to Siobhan Long about supersonic boogie, the act of collaboration and why Tony Blair s Labour Party still has his respect.
It's Day Two in the Hot Press Chatroom and after hosting an exceptional crop of chatty musicians yesterday, we welcomed three new interviewees to be grilled by the public.
SJ McArdle injects a welcome bit of grit into proceedings, offering a Billy Bragg style viewpoint and singing with such world-weary authority that it’s a crying shame he’s the one having to battle it out on a small indie label.
The task of exhuming a number of folk legend Woody Guthrie’s unused lyrics and setting them to music would be a daunting prospect for most artists – but not Billy Bragg, the self-styled Bard of Barking. The guitar-slinging socialist has teamed up with acclaimed US country-rockers Wilco to do just that. Interview: Colm O’Hare.
This would generally be the season when the new, interesting bands give up and leave it to the big guns to slug it out for the Christmas number one.
Milk Kan, however, sound as if they like a challenge, as well as a good scrap.
Others have made this point, but ‘Bling Bling Baby’ really does sound like The Streets rewriting ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’, before veering off down a punk rock alleyway.
‘Real Fake World’, meanwhile, bounces along like Billy Bragg fronting the Clash and ‘Kill All A&R Men’ sounds exactly like you might suppose it does. It’s ridiculously early to be talking about the next Arctic Monkeys I know, but Milk Kan are already looking like they could provide us with a lot of interesting times in the year ahead.
Billy Bragg’s larynx, sexual politics, and Jilly Cooper paperbacks. What’s it all about? NICK KELLY finds out when he beams himself up to the planet DUBSTAR.
To mark the occasion of the release of a near definitive punk compilation, GEORGE BYRNE fondly recalls the days when pogo was go-go and gabba gabba was hey.
RTÉ's Other Voices have announced more acts for next year's show, including Christy Moore and Declan Sinnott. Plus, your last chance to get tickets for the recordings....
Taking his cue from a wide range of left-of-centre practitioners – from Billy Bragg and Ray Davies to Jonathan Richman and Ian Dury – this Dublin singer-songwriter has come up with a hugely engaging and highly tuneful collection of numbers. As debuts go, this is a hell of an arrival.
Widely credited as the pioneers of the genre which has become known the world over as alt. country, Wilco have redefined their own musical parameters in recent years, concentrating on the alternative and ditching much of the country influence that characterised the classic albums of Woody Guthrie material they made with Billy Bragg. Personally, I find the new Wilco more than a bit frustrating.
Dundalk’s Spirit Store is one of the leading folk venues in the country. On evidence of its inaugural night, The Tall Poppy Club sees looks set to be the jewel in the crown. Also: Steve Earle and Billy Bragg, old dogs with new tricks.
"When it’s not swinging, her mood is mostly downbeat, melancholy and soulful. Her greatest asset is her smoky voice, reminiscent of Ella Fitzgerald with a pop sensibility."
Billy Bragg's larynx, sexual politics, and Jilly Cooper paperbacks. What's it all about? NICK KELLY finds out when he beams himself up to the planet DUBSTAR.
England, Half English is the usual blend of the personal and the political, sung in the same familiar drawl, but with enough arch humour to save it from disappearing up its rear
From frontman with incendiary collective Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy to his current incarnation as hip-hop zen master, Michael Franti has remained one of the true radical voices of the US underground.
Infantile, sneering and utterly, utterly wonderful, the magnificently titled Casual Sex In The Cinexplex proved the begrudgers wrong when it sailed effortlessly into the UK top 30.
Kirsty MacColl has added another string to her bow with a new album heavily influenced by Cuban and Brazilian music. She told Niall Stanage about the album s genesis, the break-up of her marriage to Steve Lillywhite and why there s no Left in Britain anymore .
He's one of the most distinguised and individualistic figures on the folk scene, an artist who is not afraid to take risks or challenge convention. Now John Spillane has written a moving paean to Ireland - and to his mother.
Comic book genius Alan Moore, who was also the original author of the big screen Jack the Ripper yarn, From Hell, has now turned his attention to fellow visionary/madman, William Blake. Peter Murphy reports
In the past, many Irish people suffered from an inferiority complex about their own culture – about the language, music, film and literature of this island. But music is one arena where things have changed dramatically. Report: Jackie Hayden
Almost unheralded, in "Raintown" Scotland's Deacon Blue have made one of the year's outstanding albums. Despite extensive critical kudos, however, the first two singles from the album - "Dignity" and "Loaded" - failed to make any inroads into the charts. A third single, the excellent "When Will You (Make My Telephone Ring)" looks as if it might enable Deacon Blue to prise open the door. Nevertheless the band must be perturbed at their relative lack of success to date.
After suffering from a particularly nasty bout of 'difficult second album' syndrome, GOATS DON'T SHAVE have come up trumps with a record that's destined to take them way beyond their present cult status. PAT GALLAGHER tells COLM O'HARE how they managed to avoid becoming the world's first folk techno band and why doing-it-yourself is definitely the best policy.
Joe Jackson sneaks a peek at Wayne Studer’s new book Rock On The Wild Side, which gender-bends its way through three decades of gay imagery in rock music from Jimi Hendrix’ first kiss to George Michael’s shuttlecock.
Does ABSINTHE really make the heart grow fonder or are the Conservatives right in calling for its ban? STUART CLARK and his showbiz chums check out the drink that s taking clubland by storm. Pix: CATHAL DAWSON.
Whether with THE SMITHS, ELECTRONIC, THE PRETENDERS or in brown trouser mode sharing a stage with PAUL McCARTNEY, GEORGE MICHAEL and NEIL FINN, he remains, by his own admission, the best JOHNNY MARR-style guitar player around. GEORGE BYRNE meets the cat others like to copy.
Paul Weller has a reputation as one of the most truculent men in pop, with a deep-seated dislike of the promotional process. But with the release of his latest solo album Illumination, the man who once led The Jam and the Style Council agreed to put himself in the firing line. Looking back over a career that's studded with success, he's reflective and forthright - but the anger that inspired much of The Jam's finest output still burns
Deciding he d achieved as much as he could within the confines of the music scene in Ireland. Barry Moore changed his name, packed his bags and took off for the USA. There, as Luka Bloom, he was fjted for his live performances, awarded a major international record deal and his debut album, Riverside, given the four-star treatment by Rolling Stone. On a visit home, he tells Bill Graham about his emigrant s success story and explains how a man who was regarded as a folky in Dublin came to cut a rap track in New York.
IT WAS straight out of Reservoir Dogs. Six men, all in black, most in suits, lope onto the stage, a cigarette nestling between fingers or dangling from
the side of the mouth. You half-expect them to open with 'Stuck In the Middle With You' and drag out a member of the Garda Siochana from the side
of the stage with a gag in his mouth and the contents of an extra-large can of Castrol GTX dripping from his fettered uniform.
June 1998, the World Cup is in full swing and the Saw Doctors are on their tenth visit to the US of A. Leo Moran of Tuam’s finest kept a diary. Now read on . . .
Suited and booted á la The Hives? Or socks on cocks á la Chilli Peppers? No, tonight’s headliners North Horizon take a somewhat more laidback sartorial approach: they all wear woolly hats.
But of course the clothes don’t mean a thing if you ain’t got the tunes, more of which later. Because first band up on an interestingly varied bill tonight is youthful three-piece The Hollow. Despite being together for only two months their front man’s haughty vocals and the slightly dark, understated rock with echoes of the likes of JJ72 and Interpol suggest there might be better to come once they gain experience.
Even with the explosion of F.G.T.H. 1984 saw the rebirth of ‘the song’ (and songwriting) and the return of rock’s most rudimentary and potent instrument, the guitar.
The boys are back in town for Galway s Big Beat and SHAUN RYDER is back in the saddle. I m actually now becoming some sort of poet-film-directing-intelligent-motherfucking-artist-luvvy-darling sort of guy and it s wonderful, he tells PETER MURPHY. Pics: Michael Quinn
The Christy Moore Interview by Bill Graham
Christy Moore is out on his own. He can't be limited as just a folk singer or a popular artist. Rather he's increasingly an Irish national fixture with an influence far beyond the mere entertainer's reach.
Over the hills and far away, Chumbawamba come out to play! They get knocked down. But they get up again. They get dropped by Indie One Little Indian, and then get signed up by Capitalist major EMI. Then the Tub-Thumpers Anonymous go on to score the most unlikely hit single of 1997. So what now for Alice Nutter and her chums? ANDY DARLINGTON reports.
Over the hills and far away, Chumbawamba come out to play! They get knocked down. But they get up again. They get dropped by Indie One Little Indian, and then get signed up by Capitalist major EMI. Then the Tub-Thumpers Anonymous go on to score the most unlikely hit single of 1997. So what now for Alice Nutter and her chums? ANDY DARLINGTON reports.
1998 Bloom With A View
John Walshe talks to Luka Bloom on the eve of the release of his fourth studio album, Salty Heaven, about his return to Ireland, the inspiration behind the songs, older brother Christy Moore and the latest generations of the Moore dynasty.
Luka Bloom doesn't look 43, when I walk into the room in the Berkeley Court Hotel where our interview is to take place, he's standing in front of the window, guitar strap around his neck and an acoustic six-string in his hand - he strums it and I'd swear that he's 12 years of age. Every time he plays on stage the look is the same, one of wonder and even serenity.
John Walshe talks to Luka Bloom on the eve of the release of his fourth studio album, Salty Heaven, about his return to Ireland, the inspiration behind the songs, older brother Christy and the latest generations of the Moore dynasty.
Pics: Colm Henry
Andy Darlington travels to Manchester to meet the Stone Roses, an outfit who’ve progressed past the point of being just a band to become something altogether bigger...
From “Outspan” to Glen Hansard, from Grafton Street to Hollywood – and onwards to Lisdoonvarna 2003. A portrait of The Frames as a most unusual band. Part one of a two-part special feature by Peter Murphy. [Main Photos: Mick Quinn]
Seka/Sister is a marathon collection of 22 songs from a plethora of artists (both well known and obscure) in aid of a women and children's refuge in Croatia.
Seka/Sister is a marathon collection of 22 songs from a plethora of artists (both well known and obscure) in aid of a women and children's refuge in Croatia.
Such a strange and contradictory year. Mixed fortunes complemented perfectly by a bizarre range of listening choices. A disc for every mood, and every memory.
THESE TWO compilations have been released to commemorate the tenth anniversary of promoter Vince Power's hugely successful annual celebration of Irish music.
Fancy taking a trip down to Dr John’s bayou, with Andy Weatherall’s decks appeal, Nick Cave’s religious fervour, and Johnny Cash’s outlaws as your inlaws?
Ani diFranco is not one to rest on her laurels. This, her twelfth album, was recorded only a matter of months after Little Plastic Castle, which was released last year to huge critical acclaim.
It's been called the "Exploding Plastic Inevitable Turnip", but don't let that put you off: the Flat Lake Festival is rapidly becoming a highlight of the folk calendar.
THERE WAS a time when the magical words "for charity" were the guarantee of any old tat selling a million but nowadays, cynicism being what it is, there has to be musical substance to the good intentions.
Dublin-based singer-songwriter ERIC ECKHART scored with his debut CD Lost And Found. Originally from West Virginia, USA, he reflects on life back there from his temporary base in Berlin.
Alternative country is mourning the death of former Wilco multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett. But will his estranged band-mates step in to finish his uncompleted masterpiece?
‘That’s entertainment’ was the message of the year but not as Paul Weller intended it, for in 1986 popular music was closer to mass entertainment as Declan McManus’ pater knew it than any year since Elvis Presley swivelled his hips on the Ed Sullivan show.
Ireland s recording studios are busy creating the masterpieces that will dominate the charts over the coming year but there are still good deals on offer from some of our most respected establishments.
colm o hare reports.
Budget cuts almost spelled the end of Other Voices. But the team behind the Dingle music institution rallied around – with the result that this year’s line-up is arguably among the strongest in the history of the show
That’s the philosophy behind Cross Border Media, a label which has had a remarkable impact on Irish music since its foundation just three years ago. A special report by Colm O’Hare and Jackie Hayden
Colm O'Hare turns over a new leaf or two from the huge variety of publications on the shelves this Christmas, from rock biographies to more general Irish published works. So, for those of you who like your entertainment between the covers, read on . . .
