PIXIES, Live at the Marquee, Cork, Wednesday and Iveagh Gardens, Dublin, Thursday. Back in 2004, the Pixies’ comeback was an even bigger deal than the Stone Roses’ return a few years ago. They had imploded […]
Hysterical romance: Grace Jones – The Frog and the Princess (1985)
The funniest passage in Grace Jones’s autobiography I’ll Never Write My Memoirs recalls the time producer Trevor Horn called her in a huff to get her ass to the studio, just as she was setting […]
Gigs round-up: July 1-7
Faithless and Le Galaxie, Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, Dublin, tomorrow, €14.65 On paper it looks like Faithless could get their ass kicked on Le Galaxie’s home turf, as no amount of festival overkill can kill off enthusiasm […]
Boy’s in the hood: Schoolboy Q: By Any Means
Compton rapper and frequent Kendrick Lamar tag teammate Schoolboy Q is set to release his fourth album next month — the follow-up to his 2014 major label debut Oxymoron. Oxymoron was a gritty, doped-up street album full […]
Gigs round-up: June 24-30
SIGUR ROS, Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, Dublin, Sunday. The last time we had some glacial Icelandic tuneage up at Kilmainham it was Forbidden Fruit highlights Kiasmos. But this time we’re not expecting anyone from Sigur Ros to be […]
An intense Swansong: The Glowing Man
The Glowing Man is Swans’ heaviest piece of music in years — a strong claim considering their infamy as one of the ugliest, most eviscerating, intense and transcendent guitar bands ever. The track is the half-hour […]
Gigs round-up: June 17-23
FOALS, Belsonic, T13, Belfast, Thursday. Back in February I wondered whether the 3Arena would swallow up Foals a bit too much, diluting their intensity and sabotaging frontman Yannis Phillippakis’s stagediving buzz. T13 may be another […]
Interview: Sugarhill Gang on how they made Rapper’s Delight
You’re probably never more than 24 hours away from hearing a Sugarhill Gang song. Even 10 minutes before a conference call with Wonder Mike, Master Gee, Hen Dogg and DJ TDynsaty, their song Apache is […]
Gigs round-up: June 10-16
SLAYER & ANTHRAX, Olympia, Dublin, Tuesday, SOLD OUT & Live at the Marquee, Cork, Wednesday, €44 Apart from AC/DC, you won’t see a higher concentration of headline band T-shirts than at a Slayer gig. Slayer are the most […]
It goes again: Death Grips – More than the Fairy
Industrial noise-rap crew Death Grips only gave away fifth new album Bottomless Pit last month, but they’ve already released a new track out of nowhere – More Than the Fairy, featuring legendary Primus bassist Les […]
Gigs round-up: June 3-10
BRYAN FERRY, Olympia, Dublin, Wednesday and Thursday, €71.50-83. It’s been a few decades since Bryan Ferry was considered part of the art-rock avant-garde, but behind the smoking jackets, white suits and bow ties lies one […]
Forbidden Fruit returns for city takeover
We’ve nearly ran out of Irish cliches for the weather this week, but there’ll be plenty more over the weekend as Forbidden Fruit returns or what’ll be a sunny festival at Dublin’s IMMA. All the […]
Beauty through tension: Kiasmos interview
The very mention of techno music used to bring the establishment out in a rash. In its early years, techno and wider club culture was simply a byword for hedonism and anarchy, an extrapolation of […]
Sonny Fodera interview: ‘A lot of the rawness and purity of house music is being lost’
There’s been a lot of hot air in the last few years about the house revival that’s taken over the charts, festival fields and every shopping centre playlist around Ireland and the UK. In an […]
John Stanier interview: ‘Math rock is a pretty gross term… really unsexy’
Check any random definition of the term ‘math rock’ and Battles will probably pop up somewhere. It’s been a catch-all shorthand term for the band over the last 15 years, with their flitting rhythms, overlapping […]
Moo Kid 