Coventry is a dump of a place. Okay, I’m being flippant, but having spent four years of my life tucked in the nape of a city lovingly called the car park of Great Britain; I feel I’m entitled. The furthest point from the sea anywhere in the UK probably only grabbed that particular monochromatic ‘claim to fame’ name because someone [...]

Multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Hickey – better known by his stage name R.S.A.G (Rarely Seen Above Ground) – might have been a little quiet on the musical front for the last few months, but he’s been living something of the Life of Riley. His recent single collaboration with French act Bot’Ox has seen the Kilkenny native hopping between Paris and home, while [...]

We’re often spoilt for choice when it comes to gigs in Dublin, and on Record Store Day that applies more than ever. Twisted Pepper – home to the wonderful record hub Elastic Witch – went all out and crammed in over two dozen different live performances and DJ sets throughout the day. Stop All The Clocks, the evening session’s openers, don’t [...]

Who? There’s a lot to be said for hype – if nothing else we all end up listening to something new – but there’s even more to be said for going out and finding top class acts yourself. That’s probably my favourite thing about Goldenplec’s Coast to Coast Tea and Toast, which is where we were lucky enough to stumble [...]

Considering the quality of act, Darkstar’s Button Factory entry fee is more than reasonable. No ticket price is reasonable enough though, we’d suggest, to spend the entire duration of a gig chattering at the back, trying to re-enact the Harlem Shake with just three people in the bar area, or posing and screaming hilariously at the duck-faced picture you’ve recently [...]

In 1988, Eddi Reader said goodbye to Gang Of Four and hit the pop jackpot as front woman of soulful pop newcomers Fairground Attraction. The band’s debut single Perfect grabbed the four-piece an unlikely but memorable number one, propelled by Reader’s distinctive vocals and the songwriting of Mark Nevin. Sadly the band chemistry turned out to be far from perfect, [...]

Who? Wet Nuns are a guitar and drums two-piece from Yorkshire wonderfully labeled ‘blues metal’, and performing with a similar stark set up to The White Stripes, if louder and a little less charming than the Americans. Hailing from Sheffield, Robert Graham (guitar) and Alexis Gotts (drums) are loud and strained, stating their diverse influences as “women, booze, death and [...]

 Desaparecidos in The Button Factory on February 7th 2013 It’s hard not to be charmed by Conor Oberst. One minute he’s scattering the occasional light political angle over songs that largely portray the most beautiful sentiments imaginable, desolation akin to squashing your heart through a tea strainer and then trying to recover it with pair of tweezers. Then he swings [...]

  Kendrick Lamar was in Vicar Street on January 14th 2013 and we had Michelle down the front snapping away. Since we didn’t have a reviewer we thought we’d stick in a stream of his album, ‘Good Kid, M.a.a.d City’ for your listening pleasure. The crowd looked to be having a phenomenal time from the pictures and videos we saw [...]

The Joy Formidable in The Academy on January 26th 2012 If pulsating début ‘The Big Roar’ – with its ballsy eight minute epic of an opening track – was The Joy Formidable’s early fulfillment of already much-hyped potential, newly-released follow up ‘Wolf’s Law’ was expected to mark their explosive route to the next level. It’s too early to conclusively comment on its [...]