After toiling ceaselessly for the best part of a decade, The Guggenheim Grotto’s Kevin May and Mick Lynch are sending the name to the dugout and bringing on a substitute. From now on they’ll be known as Storyman. The change of moniker, mind you, hasn’t been their biggest announcement this week. May and Lynch have signed on the dotted line with Cabin 24 Records and publisher Secret Road Music Services.

Cabin 24 is owned by independent singer-songwriter Ingrid Michaelson. They first met her when she invited them to join her on a US tour in 2010. Ingrid’s musical director and producer Chris Kuffner was so impressed he presented the group with a plan of action and an offer to co-produce their next LP, This Time Round. Secret Road are heavy hitters too: passionate about music and enthusiastic about Storyman. They have a very talented roster, including Josh Ritter, Rachel Yamagata and, of course, Michaelson. Their aim is to make Storyman’s music a regular feature on your television set.
Sporting super-tight trousers and taking their cues equally from O Riada and T-Rex, Horslips, it may be argued, did more for the young people of Ireland than the GAA and Pope John Paul II put together. Forty years on it’s hard to get across just how much of a shock to the system these spandex clad psychedelic warriors represented. They’re part of the great Irish rock continuum that also includes Thin Lizzy and the Boomtown Rats.
Horslips never officially split and, after what they referred to as ‘the longest tea break in history’, reformed for a concert in Derry in 2004. They haven’t looked back and since making a full-blown comeback in 2009 have played regularly. Next month, they release a two-disc retrospective while Mark Cunningham will publish Tall Tales, the first full-scale biography of the band.