Northern Irish treasure Foy Vance emerges from the studio to play dates in Belfast and Dublin in the coming months, including a special show at The Academy in May.
Ironic that Bangor-born Foy Vance is one of the Grey’s Anatomy soundtrack alumni who’s been forgotten, yet he really is up there with other Bangor-born Grey’s Anatomy alumni. ‘Be With Me’ is a languid, bluesy track which has the confidence of a man with nothing to prove. The song sounds like it was made purely for fun, and therefore all the more relaxed and passionate for it. Bodes well for the forthcoming album.
A one-night stand entitled Orchestral Manoeuvres In Belfast in which the Ulster Orchestra gets its oh-so-refined freak on with three of Ireland’s most popular performers.
Duke Special tops the bill on March 9 when Belfast’s refurbished Ulster Hall opens for business with a celebratory Do You Remember The First Time? knees-up.
You’ll be hard-pressed to find a musician in Norn Iron next week as anyone who can bang, blow or strum an instrument clears off to Washington DC for the Rediscover Northern Ireland Arts & Culture Program.
Expect Crawdaddy to be awash with Foster’s and VB-swilling Antipodeans when You Am I mainman Tim Rogers and former Reptile-in-chief Nick Barker join forces for a Dublin date.
Foy Vance, Bap Kennedy, The Four Of Us, The Winding Stair and Tom McShane are among the artists set to re-interpret Van Morrisson's classic album Astral Weeks at a special event next month.
Annual article: The arrival of Channel 6 was a boom – but music programming on television in 2006 was challenged by reality TV game shows and, increasingly, by YouTube.
With 2009 entering its final months, it’s time to take stock of the quality of northern releases thus far. If this year’s batch of stand-out records have anything in common, it is their determination to break boundaries and confound expectations
Driving By Night have been on the go since the early '90s, but they've yet to get around to that tricky first album. But with an appearance at SXSW confirmed, things might finally be happening for the Belfast outfit.
Seven years after his last solo LP, David Holmes lost his father. That trauma, and working on the Bobby Sands-era drama Hunger, seem to have brought a new humanity to his work.
