It’s time for the singer-songwriter fraternity to move over and make room for the new generation of Irish guitar bands. Director, Marshal Stars and The Blizzards are just three of the acts who feature on the debut compilation from Faction Records, the new label which aims to promote and nuture the brightest stars of the Irish underground.
Faction records is to release a new compilation of Irish acts, Faction 2, next month, featuring ten up-and-coming artists including The Flaws and Television Room.
Marking the start of a nationwide tour, and kicking off the first night of a weekly residency at Voodoo Lounge, the Faction records inaugural bash lived up to the promise of the label's first release, Faction 001.
That the Irish music industry is in its healthiest state for a while is, by now, a given and it’s probably time to stop congratulating ourselves and start figuring out where it goes next. The answer, at least according to new label Faction, is to start thinking bigger than the DIY own-label approach that has dominated of late.
Director whose debut album We Thrive On Big Cities recently got to number two in the Irish charts, are emblematic of the extraordinary evolution of the indigenous music industry in recent years.
For the weekend of November 25 and 26, all musical roads will lead to the RDS in Dublin for the Music Ireland ’06 event. Jackie Hayden talks to the show director Ollie Upton about what’s in store for us at this major annual attraction for musician and music fans alike.
Paul Nolan talks to Neil Hegarty, author of Waking Up In Dublin, a new book which offers an outsider’s view of the music scene – and more – in the capital
This fortnight s postbag brings another serious dilemma from an unsigned Irish band. Last year they recorded a demo and it aroused some record company interest.
With reports of President Robert Mugabe’s demise having proven premature, the ongoing oppression of the Zimbabwean people has resulted in worse levels of homelessness and poverty than ever before.
(N.B. This is a work of faction. All names have been changed in order to protect the guilty from certain incarceration in state mental institutions or correctional
facilities.)
And a nation weeps! The three Spanish goals that went in one after the other drooped the heart and mind. The ISEQ Index probably lowered by five points. Travel agents have ulcers where they once had digestive tracts!
Formed out of the ashes of The Marshals, Television Room are set to release their debut single and play a smattering of live dates in the coming weeks.
Politician, law & criminology professor, activist, abortion information campaigner and labour party candidate in the forthcoming european elections… all this and Ivana Bacik once served a pint of vodka to Perry Farrell, shortly before he fell over on stage at Glastonbury.
Their placards are invariably visible at bin-charge protests – and, indeed, virtually any other street protest you care to mention. but do the SWP – and other left-wing parties frequently demonised by mainstream politicians really have something meaningful to offer?
When Patti Smith came up with Rock N Roll Nigger in the 70s, she marked herself out as one of the most articulate and confrontational performers of her generation. On the eve of her visit to Ireland, the High Priestess of American Punk Poetry talks to Peter Murphy about art, music, the people she s lost and why she ll never give in to political correctness
A fresh generation of bands is tearing up the rule book and redefining what it means to be Irish. To celebrate this new wave of talent, we catch up with the best of them.
Albert Reynolds has, it seems, wilfully wrecked a coalition government whose achievements were numerous and real, possibly endangering the peace process while he’s at it. BILL GRAHAM wonders why, and ponders the repercussions of the foolhardy actions of Harry Whelehan’s No. 1 fan.
Berkeley (pictured) and The Immediate, two Irish bands on the Supremo Recordings label, have announced that they will be playing a series of gigs in their homeland.
DO YOU WANT NAILS OF FEEDBACK DRIVEN THROUGH YOUR BRAIN? DO YOU WANT YOUR EARS TO BLEED? THIS IS HARDCORE AND IT'S THE MOST VITAL ATTITUDE IN ROCK'N'ROLL, FROM LOU REED TO THERAPY? VIA NICK CAVE, FUGAZI AND... CHRISTY MOORE. OR SO SAYS GERRY McGOVERN, WHO ALSO ADVANCES THE THEORY THAT 'HARDCORE IS GENERALLY FOR HARD WHITE MEN'. SHOOTING GALLERY AWAITS YOUR RESPONSE!
Darina Allen, eat your heart out. New York chef ANTHONY BOURDAIN has done it all, from chopping out lines to chopping off fingertips, along the way dealing with the Mafia, Madonna, a dead man in a freezer and the palpitating heart of a cobra. STUART CLARK hears about cooking as rock'n'roll. CATHAL DAWSON serves up the pictures
Rumours worked, both commercially and artistically, because the mature rock audience of the time, especially in the USA, craved a more sophisticated sound than they’d grown up with.
Not content with bringing you the cream of new Irish and overseas talent, this year’s Hard Working Class Heroes festival has rounded-up some prominent industry names to participate in its workshops and panel discussions.
Famously opinionated Dubliner and textbook Renaissance man, ULICK O'CONNOR still has plenty to say about everything – even if RTE, he claims, don’t want to hear about it. following the recent publication of his first volume of diaries, the great man offers his views on marriage, drugs, the North, art, corruption, wild times in the Chelsea hotel and more.
Words: OLAF TYARANSEN
In the wake of the IRA’s complete cessation of violence, the Unionist community must engage in a process of re-defintion – because while they have been clinging to the last vestiges of the British Empire, the world around them has been transformed. By Bill Graham.
At a time when public disillusionment with politicians is arguably at an all-time high, Cork Fianna Fail MEP BRIAN CROWLEY continues to buck the national trend by commanding a huge personal vote. But then, this is not a man who fits easily into any obvious political mould. A former rock singer and still a passionate music fan, he has survived a near-fatal car crash and learned to live with a permanent disability resulting from an earlier life-changing accident in his teens. Here, the man many tip to be a future President of Ireland, talks candidly to JOE JACKSON about matters personal and political. Pics: COLM HENRY.
Who was it that said that beauty is a double-edged sword? True, it could be all too easy to denounce Mainline as six pretty boys, looking for all the world like a band of spruced-up Fonzies. Luckily their sound tells a different and much more substantial story.
The Vampire’s Assistant could pass for a Bosco Halloween episode. This is, contrary to the crummy production design, meant to be an epic tale of good versus evil.
Larry Gogan, Cormac Battle, Jenny Greene and Dan Hegarty are among the panel of experts lined up by RTÉ 2fm, to offer advice and assistance to musicians and bands at The Music Show.
The IMRO Showcase Tour returns for its 17th year in spring 2008, and hundreds of Irish acts are expected to join the race for a highly coveted slot at one of the nationwide series of gigs.
As both the vocal and focal point of The Radio, Caroline Lee Baker dresses tomboy by day, black clad bohemian by night. But for the HP fashion extravaganza she goes for an all-out homage to 60s style icon Twiggy. Later for those heels though.
"An end to the war, which means of course the forswearing of armed struggle on all sides, would be most welcome, wether or not it is accompanied by an immediate alleviation in the economic conditions of the working class."
Why the ultra-rich, and their media mouthpieces, don't like the thought of lowly proles sticking their noses into the ruling class's financial jiggery-pokery...
Bearing in mind the chequered history of his predecessors, Eamonn McCann reckons Pope Benedict XVI may be letting himself in for a hell of a lot more than he bargained for.
The people Northern Catholics should be looking to for support are Northern Protestants. And the Protestant working class should ensure in their own interests that the Catholics don’t look to them in vain.
A very eminent British QC was passing through town recently so we finished up in the Dungloe Bar listening to the Jim Armstrong Band singeing the ceiling with John Lee Hooker, Eddie Boyd and Eric Clapton (eh?) numbers, and getting drunk. Us that is, not the band, necessarily.
ANDY DARLINGTON reflects on how the role of women-in-rock has changed from making tea and sandwiches for the boys to demanding – and more often than not gaining – access all areas.
