EAMON SWEENEY meets LLOYD COLE to talk about his forthcoming Dublin gigs, the changing face of music, and why he doesn t want to write songs for a while.
It doesn't feel like 15 years since Lloyd Cole first appeared on our radios and telly screens with his catchily wistful odes to girls with *cheekbones like geometry and eyes like sin* ('Perfect Skin').
You could give Lloydie the lot. Coffee, kicks, kickers, knickers and caffeine to boot. He's shed all those and even a surf-riding chorus. For what? For what else! A bon mot with this bon mott.
Laughing in the face of a global music meltdown, Colin Devlin has temporarily exited The Devlins to release a solo album Democracy Of One and strike out on a world tour.
He may be destined to remain the quietly-sung, lesser-known anti-hero of contemporary American songwriting, but Cass McCombs is now accustomed, if not suited to the role.
He may have a touch of the singer-songwriters about him, but there's no whining, no introverted self-absorbtion, and no miserable-ism surrounding New Yorker David Mead.
Niall Stanage pays tribute to a remarkable young woman whose passion for music made her one of the most widely respected and genuinely loved people in the history of Irish music
Summer time, and the record stores are going to be full to bursting with some cracking albums across all genres. John Walshe examines the hottest album releases set to hit the shelves
Establishment rules O.K.! That’s the message to be drawn from ’85s long playing output!
In a year which has been yawn-inducing rather than epoch-making, it speaks volumes about the state of the art that the year’s best buys were reissues of one sort or another by Echo And The Bunnymen, Velvet Underground and The Doors.
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 Annual appears at this end, thankfully, to have been one without any movements, bandwagons or charabancs, with Frankie carrying that can for everyone.
Johnston is a folk troubadour of the hard travellin’, dusty roads variety, offering wry observations on the ups, downs and sideways of life as we think we know it.
For a man who was working in Galway nightclubs and renting damp rooms in dilapidated hotels at the turn of the decade, PERRY BLAKE hasn t done too badly since. After releasing two acclaimed singles for Polydor, he s now set fair to emerge as one of Ireland s brightest new
songwriting talents.
OLAF TYARANSEN hears his intriguing story.
For a man who was working in Galway nightclubs and renting damp rooms in dilapidated hotels at the turn of the decade, PERRY BLAKE hasn t done too badly since. After releasing two acclaimed singles for Polydor, he s now set fair to emerge as one of Ireland s brightest new
songwriting talents.
OLAF TYARANSEN hears his intriguing story.
The tears have stopped falling – because those who bitterly mourned the demise of The Go-Betweens soon discovered that what they got instead was a double-helping of the weird genius which had inspired the band in the shape of solo albums from Grant McLennan and Robert Forster. With both of them releasing new records and working on a film script together, everything seems to be coming up roses. Why Lorraine Freeney even got to see a breathtaking reunion gig . . .
A House are really good! That s just one of the shocking claims Graham Linehan makes in this award winning article based loosely on an interview he did with the band.
Occasionally one gets a hardy annual, but 1985 has been more of a hardly annual, than anything. Jazz hardly raised its head above the rafters, and only Wynton Marsalis brought forth a thing of beauty in ‘Hot House Flowers’. Miles Davis got worse, and sadly Philip Larkin, a great jazz critic, died.
Glasgow on the morning of the release of Deacon Blue's second album, "When The World Knows Your Name", is bathed in sunshine boasting a skyline view of the drive from the airport that is in sharp contrast to the image entrenched on the cover of the band's debut album "Raintown". Bright and sharp, the morning reflects the initial impressions of the new record, the bustle of the first rush-hour of the day reflecting the urgency of the opening tracks, "Queen Of The New Year'', "Wages Day" and "Real Gone Kid".
Tales of high profile solicitor Gerald Kean's astonishing ability to make truckloads of money - and spend it - have become the stuff of tabloid wet dreams.
’85 was a good year for music, though not for albums. The most interesting 12-inch singles came from John Lydon and Afrika Baambatae’s Time Zone project and The Bomb Party with ‘World Destruction’ and ’Ray Gun EP’ respectively.
What links Richard Harris with Linda Ronstadt, Art Garfunkel with The Supremes, and Frank Sinatra with er, Ghost Of An American Airman? Why, the music of Jimmy Webb, of course, one of the most widely-respected songwriters of all-time. Here he talks to JOE JACKSON about his friendship with Richard Harris, his encounters with Elvis and his deep-rooted love of Irish music.
Following the unprecedented success of her song ‘Only A Woman’s Heart’ in 1992, Eleanor McEvoy could have taken to her easy chair and basked in the accruing glory and the mounting royalties, stirring only to attempt to rewrite that song every couple of years.
Formed by Eoin McEvoy and Frank Kearns, CWN had the big sound and bombast of acts like Simple Minds and Big Country but, eventually, not enough hits to fuel the machine. Now the re-release of their debut Urban Beaches, plus bonus tracks, and the first release of the cancelled No Shelter give pause for a re-evaluation.
In a popular music world that has become increasingly schizoid and fragmented, it was appropriate that the best records came from those folk who have always boasted independence and individuality.
With last year's Swoon Prefab Sprout managed to divide critical opinion into two distinct camps: those who regarded Paddy McAloon as a modern-day Al Stewart, self-consciously sensitive, a wimp, and others who felt that 'Swoon' was the glittering emergence of a major new songwriter. I'm firmly in the latter category.
Like its predecessors, this double CD features some of the finest Irish and international artists in a pared-down, mostly unplugged setting, letting the songs do the talking
“And now we havf ze results of ze ‘elseekni jooury” … burble, squeal, zeekzrrzzsngtum … oops, we’re sorry, we’ll write that again … the result of the Hot Press jury, who wish to profusely thank David Byrne for all those pints he bought us in the International Bar last week – even if he did rather endanger his chances with all those neo-structuralist musings about The Bogmen.
“I’ll bet it sounds like Simon and Garfunkel meets The Smiths,” sneered a friend as I headed deckwards with the cheap looking monochrome sleeve tucked safely under my arm.
