THE BOMB SQUAD (Hank Shocklee), Sugar Club, Dublin, Tonight PUBLIC Enemy are a rare enough hip-hop act with a production team that get as much praise as the MCs — largely down to Hank Shocklee of the […]
Gigs of the week: April 3-9
Sting and Paul Simon, 3Arena, Dublin, Tuesday YOU have to feel for Art Garfunkel and his loyal fans who packed into Vicar Street a few weeks ago, singing iconic Simon & Garfunkel songs without […]
Gigs of the week: March 27-April 2
NICKY MINAJ, 3Arena, Dublin, Tuesday, & Odyssey Arena, Belfast, Wednesday BAR Kanye West, Nicki Minaj is the most divisive figure in hip-hop right now, even if she’s not at Glasto headline status just yet. Minaj is another […]
Just for the record: Paul Oakenfold on 25 years of Perfecto
WITH any given pop culture movement there’s always a ‘back in the day’ — a nebulous chain of events that ignite a scene and help forge the myth. Then we get the year-zero pinpoint events […]
Gigs of the week: March 20-26
MORRISSEY, Odyssey Arena, Belfast, Tuesday ASIDE from his role as one of the last great iconic frontmen, Morrissey’s greatest talent these days seems to be keeping us all guessing. After Morrissey bowed out before Christmas […]
Gigs of the week: March 13-19
2 MANY DJs, Olympia Theatre, Dublin, tonight, 11pm-late, €29.90 (tickets) Any time there’s a retrospective about music at the turn of the millennium, the resurgence of guitars generally rises above all the other chatter – as […]
Hit the ground Running: Vann Music interview
POP music is full of brilliant eureka moment stories — but we’re not sure how many classics are composed in the bathroom. But Aaron Smyth of Dublin new wave electronic act Vann Music had a Radox […]
Gigs of the week: March 6 – 12
LIONEL RICHIE, Odyssey Arena, Belfast, Tuesday (Tickets) / 3Arena, Dublin, Wednesday (Tickets) LIONEL Richie’s latest tour is dubbed All the Hits All Night Long — but has Lionel played any other type of gig in […]
Gigs of the week: February 27 – March 6
CHOICE MUSIC PRIZE, Vicar Street, Dublin, Thursday, SOLD OUT Say what you want about the irrelevancy of the BRITs for actual music — you know we won’t be here this time next week talking about all […]
Taking up space: Public Service Broadcasting interview
In an era of nanosecond attention spans and click & dump music listening habits, it takes some brass neck to bring out a concept album. But living up to their name, English duo Public Service Broadcasting are out […]
Gigs of the week: February 20-26
JAPE, Roisin Dubh, Galway, tonight (tickets); Dolan’s, Limerick, tomorrow (tickets) and Cyprus Avenue, Cork, Sunday (tickets) We know it’s early days yet, but Richie Egan didn’t hang about this year before dropping an album that’s sure to […]
House nation: Interview with Joey Negro
In this climate of reissues and retromania it’s easy to turn your nose up at major labels wringing pennies out of dormant rock acts with best-ofs or anniversary releases full of leftovers. Retrospectives in dance music generally […]
The Mothership lands: Octave One interview
ONE of my biggest thumbs up of 2014 was my first ever trek to Roermond in the Netherlands for the dance festival Solar Weekend — with Detroit techno legends Octave One a chugging, soulful highlight […]
Hitting the bullseye: Interview with Matador
GAVIN Lynch may have spent the last few months banging out techno at festivals worldwide and taking the controls as a resident at ENTER. in Ibiza, but the Dubliner is crashing back into domestic life […]
Ain’t misbehavin’: Interview with Annie Mac
THINGS move quickly in the world of Annie McManus. Within a week of this interview for her latest Annie Mac Presents compilation and club gigs in Belfast and Dublin, she’d sold out the Twisted Pepper and […]
Moo Kid 