Few bands in history have attracted an avalanche of slippery rockspeak semantics quite like Pere Ubu, and frontman David Thomas’ seminal musical mobius trip has variously (and aptly I guess) been proclaimed as the statelier emanations of jazz-punk, post-punk (via either Detroit or New York scenes), Dadaist art-rock, demi-no wave, pre-Pixies rumbling, avant-garde and just about any hip, broad church you care to mention.
Veteran producer Hal Willner has revealed the preliminary line-up for this July's Rogue’s Gallery concert in Dublin, which will feature top artists performing sea chanteys and pirate ballads.
Akron singer-songwriter Tim Easton has just settled in Alaska, a place where people “go mad or die”. Thankfully, he’s still alive and sane enough to tell the tale.
Irish acts have always excelled at blowing hot and cold, but they've never been too good at playing it cool, never had the kind of urban avant-garage tradition that fosters a Sonic Youth or a Pere Ubu.
You can count on it happening at least once a year – an album so singular it cuts through arbitrary notions of taste and unites disparate audiences in a brief consensus.
Acclaimed music writer Simon Reynolds has revisited the post-punk era with a fascinating set of interview transcripts. He talks about prising choice quotes from Phil Oakey, David Byrne and, after a tense stand-off, Pere Ubu’s David Thomas - and explains why the internet has taken some of the fun out of music
Beatles-fixated guitar bands may not be exactly what the world is waiting for right now but local lads, Pugwash, carry it off with such aplomb that it’s hard not to succumb to their charms.
They've been called the last of the great punk rock bands, and although that's an accolade which smacks of revisionism, it does give some hint of The Pixies' colossal impact. In fact, you can still feel some of those aftershocks resonating through Nirvana, Bowie, JJ72, Fight Club and selected vodka ads.
They may have been dismissed as your typical goofy American oddballs, but as Craig Fitzsimons discovers when he meets THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS co-conspirator JOHN LINNELL, there’s definitely some sort of method to their madness.
IN HIS intro to the rather splendid anthology Poetry With An Edge, Bloodaxe Books mainman Neil Astley maintained that it's not tried and trusted forms of poetry such as the sonnet which get tired, but the practitioners of those very forms.
IN HIS intro to the rather splendid anthology Poetry With An Edge, Bloodaxe Books mainman Neil Astley maintained that it's not tried and trusted forms of poetry such as the sonnet which get tired, but the practitioners of those very forms.
First, the facts. Everything Picture is 102 minutes of music spread over two CDs, an audacious debut from an encouragingly unconventional Newcastle-originated quintet with a long and tumultuous history of in-fighting.
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.
They were the coolest band on the planet – until the backlash started. Now The Strokes have released their most ambitious album yet. Can they leave their past behind?
They love Ireland and Ireland loves them. As the Arcade Fire ramp up for world domination, the band talk about love, death, war and making music in churches.
SAME LABEL, same country of origin, same release date, different acts, same effect. On the evidence of the treasures currently being produced by the Constellation label, Canada looks like becoming the post post-rock capital of the globe.
SAME LABEL, same country of origin, same release date, different acts, same effect. On the evidence of the treasures currently being produced by the Constellation label, Canada looks like becoming the post post-rock capital of the globe.
WELCOME TO the car smash. The Birthday Party were, like all the great bands, a good five years ahead of the pack: it would take that span of time before another remarkable 4AD act, The Pixies, would smash through the vapidity of the ’80s, eating rock ‘n’ roll’s carcass alive and spewing chunks of it back up into grotesque new configurations.
