THE SOUL TRAIN

Last February marked the tenth anniversary of the death of Fergus O’Farrell, the Cork-born singer, writer and leader of his band, Interference. Born with muscular dystrophy, he died after a well-documented struggle with the disease. His music and his spirit –which are formidable in equal part - are captured with elan in Michael McCormack’s film,... Continue Reading →

MORTYFIED

In their pomp – and they did have a regal period physically draped in ermine – The Sultans of Ping released three albums using three different versions of their handle. That aside, they’ve never had issues with the question of identity: they’ve long known what they are and, maybe more importantly, what they are not.... Continue Reading →

THE SAWDOCTORS: ACTING THE SHAM

Ah, revisionism and nostalgia: you’d want to be careful when that pair collide. Last Monday, the Irish Times newspaper carried a fine, first person memoir by Conor Pope to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the release of The Sawdoctors’ second single, ‘I Useta Lover’, one of the more distinctive Irish pop songs of the 1990s... Continue Reading →

GIDDY-UP

Photo : Greg Canty Within the distinctive history of popular music in Cork, it’s far too easy – and maybe even stipulated by order of The Knights Of Cool - to over-look the achievements of the most outwardly successful of all those local bands who entered the fray during the 1990s: Rubyhorse. An easy-to-read, un-fussy... Continue Reading →

JONNY REP and BALLINCOLLIG

The suburb of Ballincollig, to the west of Cork city, is known to many because of John Spillane, the gentle Cork songwriter with a delicate hand who, on his 1996 album, ‘The Wells Of The World’, commemorated the village with two chords and a sting. ‘Johnny Don’t Go To Ballincollig’, he warned on that record’s very... Continue Reading →

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