'An infrequent conversation between fans of music, some of it long-lost’
Has any Irish band announced itself as spectacularly as An Emotional Fish ? The Dublin four-piece were, I’d argue, the last of the great major label indulgences in emerging Irish music, the poster child’s poster children for that mad, unprecedented decade from 1985 onwards. Rarely has so much coin been invested in any Irish band for so little commercial... Continue Reading →
Courtesy of RTE It was inevitable, I suppose, that so many of today’s tributes to Larry Gogan would eventually lead back to the rogue answers he was given for decades on ‘The Sixty Second Quiz’, one of the recurring features of his long-running radio career. In one respect, that quiz - routinely stuffed with as... Continue Reading →
I’ve written at length about my old school, The North Monastery which, on many levels, dominated my upbringing on the northside of Cork city during the 1970s and 1980s. For a number of us, The Mon provided a structure and an order during a period when much of the area around us was just dilapidated... Continue Reading →
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQxC0DYlrEg Whatever about the balming and transcendent powers of music, maybe best felt in my own case by the magic of Prefab Sprout, Van Morrison and The Blue Nile, I owe a long-time debt to one Irish songwriter and musician who physically rescued me from the havoc and harm of the other side. During the... Continue Reading →
One of the more interesting, eloquent and barely referenced bands to have emerged from Northern Ireland during the 1990s are Catchers, who first took shape within the Portrush-Coleraine-Portstewart triangle on the Derry coastline and rode in the Setanta Records colours, for whom they made two fine but often over-looked elpees. And in many respects their... Continue Reading →
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