What are you currently listening to?

[Aidan]

It's posible that he has someone else running his MySpace and website so don't write him off yet

[Nat_a_lie]

Brendan O'Shea, Be Here Still

and in the car, Mark Dignam, Box Heart Man

But soon, it will be ALL BELL X1 ALL THE TIME because I will be going to see them NEXT FRIDAY in Orlando!!

[shiv]

I want to see Bell X1... they are meant to be amazing live... I'm learning to play their songs on the guitar now  ... I dont think they're giging in Ireland until they've released a new album.

[Aidan]

I want to see Bell X1... they are meant to be amazing live... I'm learning to play their songs on the guitar now  ... I dont think they're giging in Ireland until they've released a new album.

Have you heard that song of their's that goes 'back when Rory sang the blues and Ronan was still selling shoes', it's not on Flock, it was a B-side to their single 'Bigger than Me' - it's a great track that I came accross on Shawn's Paddy-Whacked Radio podcasts.

And that brings me to what I'm listening to now - there's a track from excellent Donegal band 'Red Rose Cafe' playing right now from one of the podcasts. Shawn's podcasts are amazing, full of 'undiscovered gems' - he has a great taste in music. If you haven't done so already, go to pwradio.net and download the podcasts and you will be sure to find some great Irish indie music and interviews and studio/field recording sessions. (The track by Ise in our jukebox is one of Shawns recordings which I prefer to the CD version).

[bmc]

Nats said: Barry McCabe arrived today, so that's who's playing right  now."

Where did I arrive? What's up? Why does nobody tell me anything...!!

I presume you're the same Nats as on the Horslips forum. Happy to meet you...

What am I listening to these days - well, not a lot of Irish artists to be honest.
In no particular order:
* Alison Krauss
* The Cruzeros (great band from Canada, came across them on CD Baby. Check them out if you get the chance - www.cruzeros.com
* Robert Plane & Alison Krauss
* Buddy Whittington [John Mayall's current guitarist]. Nice player
* Jeff Healey
* Sally Barris (another find on CD Baby. Cross between Mary Black and Dolly Parton
* Sugar Blue (played with him again in London - he of the "Miss You" riff on the Stones record. Very modern sounding blues)
Peace
Barry

[MadNats]

Nats said: Barry McCabe arrived today, so that's who's playing right  now."

Where did I arrive? What's up? Why does nobody tell me anything...!!

I knew by phrasing it so it would raise curiosity, so I was just making out you were in my living room playing.....I am always claiming that Horsilps are playing in my living room too when I play the DVD and then I always fall asleep so then I say sorry to Barry for falling asleep was he was playing, that's probably why he stood me up  .  (Of course I am nuts).

Did you not read my reviews all over the place ?  When I went to Ireland I took your CD and the Indulgers and I thought it would be enough as I planned to listened to the radio, but little did I know that the stations when travelling are shyte.  Honestly RTE and all that is rubbish. (Sorry Jim ouch....) I want music, not muppets talking all the time.  So to cut a long story short, it was you then it was the Indulgers and then you and so on for 4 days.  I left a review on CD Baby I think with this story...  .  So yeah I know your CD pretty well now... I won't need to mime and pretend when I go see you....(actually can't remember any songs by heart without it being played, I mean I would not be able to recite one single Horslips song back to back.  I am such a fraud...shhh don't tell the others)

[bmc]

Hasn't terrestrial radio in general gotten really bad over the last while? I think they are too afraid to play anything that might annoy someone - and the end result of all that will be no one listening (while people find the edgier channels via the internet). 

Glad to hear "Beyond The Tears" kept you from going insane.

[MadNats]

Glad to hear "Beyond The Tears" kept you from going insane.

Are you  having a "laff"    LOL LOL LOL

[MadNats]

We are currently in our Funky Fun Bar and listening to Tryal/Host..



What are you listening to ?

[MadNats]

So now that Tryal is finished, am onto the next one..ohh I should mention I am onto the vinyls... have this sweet gramophone look alike in my garage bar.... So  now I am listening to ... ARE YOU READY FOR THAT  the most underrated hippie album of the 70's... The Unfortunate Cup of Tea by Horslips...

What are you listening to ?

[bmc]

Did you know that there is quite a strong similarity between "The Snakes' Farewell To The Emerald Isle" and the second part of "Can't You Hear Me Knockin'" by The Stones. How did I notice that - well, I nearly played the riff from "TSFTTEI" one night (sort of by mistake) when  I was playing "CYHMK" with Mick Taylor. Now, there's a bit of info everybody needed to know, right??
Peace
Barry
P.S. Rumour has it that Johnny is also a Mick Taylor fan. The plot thickens....

[MadNats]

ohh well I'd love to do a compare, but I don't have any Stones things...to compare with... I'm one of those strange people "Stones or Beatles", guess which one I am... Did I ever tell anyone about me writing a letter to Paul McCartney, whereby on the envelope I wrote "pls Mr the Postman, deliver this letter to this gentleman, who lives near Cambletown, in Scotland" ?  Well you would not know  that because I would never dare tell anyone, but am drunk by now....

You know, I've got all these Beatles books and magazines and stuff...and will never get rid of them..

But the Snake's Farewell...hmmm I just love it...and it has nothing to do with the fact that Barry D. is wearing a tank top.....I hate those... 

Anyway Barry Mc, I might just see you in Dublin end of August, or else, later in the year in a foreign country...

[loralee]

Last February myself and a fellow Horslips fan Donnacha Kavanagh became obsessed with TUCOT (The Unfortunate Cup of Tea) and wrote a series of letters back and forth that eventually become part of the fansite.

My late night Providence Rhode Island and business travel assessment of the album goes a little something like this:

TUCOT is an uneasy album of shadows and furtive ghosts. And over these many years it's also become a crafty old medium, capable of summoning the ectoplasms of a aural past. That funky horn-riff of "If That's What You Want" has Richard Roundtree stalking mean streets again as Martin Scorsese frames the shot of Harvey Keitel leaving the strip club. Or Snakes' Farewell, a deceptive slice of cool sophistication complete with a rattler's tail intro, calling up a wary, nocturnal mid-decade moment in the universal urban scene.

Even that flash of Camp, a major aesthetic force of the era, showing its thick ankle and unshaven leg in several of the tunes and the album artwork itself. The bit of vaudeville dialogue, complete with sentimental piano dripping along in the background; the clink of china and parlor patter in the rollicking rendition of the album's eponymous traditional tune; that monster's growl introducing the little B-n-D farce of High Volume Love. And are you sure that isn't Columbia and Magenta, unaccredited on the sleeve notes, as the female backup singers on that same song?

Half-insane girls in the shadows, devil's laughter everywhere, moans in the next room, prayers and rosaries, a monster's silhouette in the cottage window, faceless enemies around every corner..."you got to run, you got to hide, you got to get away..."

Then, finally, there's Everything Will Be Alright, ending the album with a song that hints at the album that might have been if the band had had more time to light a few more candles and dispel some of the darkness gathering around. It opens with birdsong, an ambient dawn chorus recorded after an all-night session of hard work at the Rockfield recording studios in Wales. According to Eamon Carr "We walked over fields to a brook. [Fritz Fryer] was interested in getting the sound of the stream."

To me the birds are reminiscent of the various sounds that bridge the songs on The Beatles' Sgt Pepper, and perhaps it is no mere coincidence that Fryer, the producer, came from a beat group background himself which included sharing the bill with the Beatles during their Cavern Club residency. With his passing, Fryer's obituary highlighted the "eccentric" qualities of his work -- a word often applied to the Beatles sense of play in their music as well.

But beyond connections to the Beatles (and theirs is another ghost haunting the proceedings -- Horslips was planning to use Come Back Beatles as a B-side for the album's first single.), the birdsong establishes the song's key theme: music's perseverance and its redemptive power.

The whole essay at the link and Donnacha's analysis is more 'in tune' than mine. We were both fortunate to have the songwriter himself confirm our late night online fan-obsessed interpretations of his lyrics.

[Mairtin]

Just got a tip off from Bill Colemans blog about a friend of his called Gary Dunne whose debut  'Simple Truth' was released mid April along with a fan focused video this month.
   His music is excellant ...it's like a funked up Neil Young with some (Bob Geldoff Live aid 85 styled 'just send in yer bleeping money' ) classic Celtic attitude in the vocals.
       Gary's from Port Loaise and the four star review from Hot Press on his MySpace page sums his songs up perfectly.
         Excellant stuff!!

http://www.myspace.com/garydunne

               
 

[Mairtin]

A little more on Gary Dunne and an excellant live rocked up and extra deadly performance of 'American Folk Song' at eistmusic here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPy5HjoUgyo 
 that should rock up your weekend quite nicely..
    Love to all
          M