'An infrequent conversation between fans of music, some of it long-lost’
Brian Reddin’s recent television documentary, ‘How Ireland Rocked the ‘80s’, was a fond, archive-driven spin through the decade in which emerging new groups could be routinely found in every townland and village of the country. For the record, I commissioned ‘How Ireland Rocked the ‘80s’ for RTÉ and was the editorial representative across it. This... Continue Reading →
To my mind, far too much contemporary music writing – and indeed arts coverage in general – has become identity politics by another name. Show me your Amazon, Spotify and Twitter history and I’ll tell you who you are, what you’re thinking and who I think you should be, basically. Maybe it’s always been thus and the growth... Continue Reading →
In December, 1992, the Cork-born showband singer, Tony Stevens, sustained multiple injuries when the van in which he was travelling back home after a show in the West of Ireland was involved in a serious road collision. He spent the best part of a year recovering in hospital, endured many subsequent years when he was physically unable to... Continue Reading →
The death was announced earlier today, after an illness, of the Belfast-born musician, arranger and producer, Pat ‘Fitzy’ Fitzpatrick who, although he never enjoyed a profile as a solo performer in his own right, was a highly-regarded musician and a much-loved figure on the Irish music scene since the late 1970s. Having studied at the Royal College of... Continue Reading →
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgKC3dAJueU While The Blades pre-date the wild record company feeding frenzies on Dublin’s trading floors from the mid-1980s onwards, they too came pre-packed with the familiar, set-piece blessings from the usual sources, in this instance RTÉ television and radio and Hot Press magazine, both of which had pushed them on from early. And while its... Continue Reading →
The Blackpool Sentinel 
Recent Comments