'An infrequent conversation between fans of music, some of it long-lost’
I was flattered and a little awed when I was asked to contribute a few words to accompany the re-issue of Whipping Boy’s magnificent 1995 album, ‘Heartworm’. I never intended the sleeve notes to take off like they did and I’m not sure if the band or the staff at Needle Mythology, the record label... Continue Reading →
The Underground Bar on Dublin’s Dame Street was a lap dancing club the last time I passed it by but, in its pomp, the downstairs dive was a centre of excellence for some of the best new bands to emerge in Ireland from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. Sack, Power of Dreams and Into... 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 →
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJO6-oaPEsY There were a few of them, back in the dark ages, that you’d think twice about looking crooked at. Declan Jones from Blue In Heaven, all seven foot odd of him in his leather keks and his Chelsea boots, was one. Half of Whipping Boy, a couple of The Gorehounds, Dave Lavelle from The... Continue Reading →
The evolution has been gradual and not without its difficulties and now, you’d think, it’s complete. It’s been almost twenty-five years from ‘this is not a song about politics’ to ‘this is a song for all the broken and the walking wounded, for all the isolated and secluded’ and, in the decades since, The... Continue Reading →
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