KING KONG COMPANY, Dolan’s, Limerick, Tonight, €12.
Waterford act King Kong Company have been around since the 90s with a lengthy split in between, so younger fans are only catching them this time around. The six-piece pretty solid on record — but live is where it counts. They’re a riot of synths, wiry guitars, horns and dubby bass, with a wild theatrical slant. Expect ape masks, megaphones, an electro/brass take on the Dr Who theme and their own female version of Bez who veers between dancing with a cardboard box on her head and jogging on the spot in a crash test dummy onesie.
HOOKWORMS, Whelan’s, Dublin, Tonight, €15
Drone-rockers Hookworms should’ve been in Dublin a few weeks ago for the Reverberation psyche festival, where they’d have slotted in nicely beside other superbly-named acts like Woven Skull, Wild Rocket and The Cosmic Dead. Hookworms are a vis- ceral mass of wiry synths, low frequency bass rumbles and frantic vocals, and a handy self-explanatory album called The Hum.
LUMO + OUT TO LUNCH, Bar Tengu, Dublin, Tomorrow (€10) and Sunday (€12)
It’s a bank holiday weekend, so you’ve an excuse to double-drop two nights in Tengu. Last week I joined the mass Purple Rain singalong circle for the Lumo crew’s last-minute Prince party, and I guess tomorrow’s ‘Purple Edition’ will include plenty more where that came from, along with the usual selection of disco, hiphop, soul, funk and classics from the vault you never knew were dancefloor gold. On Sunday, Out To Lunch runs well into Monday, with a show that starts at 6pm. The night features San Francisco crew Honey Soundsystem (pictured) playing live and DJing, and Brooklyn’s Octo Octa of 100% Silk fame. There’s also a discussion about “reclaiming the queer dancefloor”, with Honey Soundsystem, Byron Yeates (Alice), John Leo (Pussys Club), moderated by Tonie Walsh.
SPOOKY GHOST, Whelan’s, Dublin, Tuesday, €15
Dubliner Gerry Leonard will never get another cheer as big as the one he got when David Bowie introduced him in The Point in 2003, as his guitarist and musical director of the Reality tour. Leonard played on Heathen (2002), Reality (2003) and The Next Day (2013), becoming Bowie’s ‘wing man’ — and the partnership began when Bowie saw him play with his Spooky Ghost project to 50 people in an NYC coffee shop in 2002. Spooky Ghost is a world away from the maximalist Bowie theatrics — his fragile, abstract guitar washes and half-whispered vocals are a pretty, mesmerising mix.
Moo Kid 