Girl on the Run.

For the record, Dundalk alt. rockers Take The Money And Run have absolutely nothing to do with a 1969 Woody Allen film or a 2000 Juliet Turner song. Their somewhat ubiquitous name actually comes from a lyric on Radiohead’s turn of the century LP Kid A, an iconic record that has ended up giving TTMR more than just their moniker.
“We’re all very much influenced by Radiohead,” says front-woman Sarah Edwards, “and on Kid A you can hear all those samples – the last half year or so we’ve really gotten into synths and Kaoss pads and hammerhead on laptops.”

Indeed, since forming just under two years ago, TTMR have tackled pretty much every instrument they could lay their hands on, from cornet to shaker, flute to banjo, making for a truly unique set up.
“We played a lot of gigs last summer, and our sound just started to change. Now we have the piano, the synth, the lads are really into their gear and all their crazy pedal rigs. One of the songs on the EP is like shards of metal being put together. But whatever we record, we like to make those same sounds live as well.
“We get really involved in stage layouts too,” she beams, recounting one particularly special show at the end of 2009. “The theme of the gig was superstructures, so we made these buildings out of cardboard and wire and painted them in white and UV paint and then had UV lights all over the stage with these massive buildings in the back. It looked really good. It’s nice when you go to see someone and they’ve put effort into the look of the stage because it’s a real performance then, it makes it a bit memorable. I was at Florence And The Machine in the Olympia last year and she had all those flowers and bird cages and I thought it was amazing!”
While The Smiths, Joy Division and Ryan Adams all grace her Most Played list, Edwards is also keen to cite Dubliners and Choice Music Prize nominees Codes, who TTMR frequently support, as her favourite homegrown music makers.
“They’re absolutely amazing live, they’ve got this complete wall of sound,” she enthuses. “They’ve got such an epic dynamic.”
Still, the the Dundalk fivesome say their career highlight was launching debut EP loud. pretty. sad. in their home venue of the Spirit Store this month.
“Originally we just went in to record three tunes,” Edwards recalls. “We’d been battering two of the songs around for years – but in the end there was one new track we had to put on.”
Debut EP in the bag, what’s next for the feisty singer and her multi-instrumental bandmates?
“An album is obviously the goal eventually. First we need to start gigging like mad. An album is a serious undertaking, a real body of work. We’ll try out different sounds and styles of music and see how it goes from there.”