It’s official. The Irish property market is on the brink of collapse. All that you have ever worked for is about be lost in the abyss of a new economic Dark Age, made more sinister and protracted by the twisted lights of perverted lending practices. The time to panic has come and gone. Your dream home is worthless now. Forget about it, it’s gone. If you can find someone to swap you a Lost Series One DVD box set for it, then grab that lifeline and grab it fast. There may, however, be a silver lining in all of this. Look at it this way. You’ve tried the path of prudence. You’ve scrimped and saved and prostituted your talent to a faceless corporation. You’ve poured your heart and soul into an inanimate lump of concrete because that’s what society told you to do. And where... Similar posts

The nice lady from the record company tells us that she’s ‘putting us through to Joss Stone now’ so we prepare ourselves. Silence. A few beeps, then more silence. Finally a well spoken, young and very English voice comes on the line. We make small talk, commenting on the nightmare of these trans-Atlantic hooks ups. She knows what we mean. Where, we wonder, is talking to us from? Without a pause she answers. “I’m in Devon.” It’s not the last surprise that Joss Stone will throw our way, but certainly the first. We had, we tell her, assumed that she was resident somewhere in the US, most probably Los Angeles. “I know”, she exclaims. “That was the rumour. I think that was made up deliberately, they wanted England to hate me so they started saying that I lived in LA. No... Similar posts

Last summer I had a long conversation with my fellow Dubliner, Damien Dempsey, for an article I was doing on his then brand new album To Hell or Barbados. I posted the Damo interview in audio but for those of you who don’t fancy the long listen, I’m making the transcript of that interview available now. Before I pressed record I asked Damo if recording our conversation and posting it on the web was okay. He said yes. I pressed the button. And hearing my Dublin accent he asked me a question: Damien Dempsey: Where are you from yourself? Irsh KC: From just by your old Rock School. I’m a Palmerstown man. DD: Ah Palmerstown, I know it well. IKC: Well speaking of the Rock School, it’s been a long time since you were there. Does it still mean anything to you after all this time?... Similar posts

Pic by Loreana Rushe Sometimes great music is cerebral, engaging the brain and gently stroking the synapses. Other times its visceral, punching you hard in the gut and grabbing you by the sex bits. Sometimes, like in the case of Deerhunter’s second album cryptograms, it can be both. In cryptograms, the American noise-rock outfit drew on difficult personal circumstances to record a record that charted a feedback driven course between suffocating freak-outs and blissful psychedelia by way of ambiguous instrumental interludes. It was wayward, challenging and one of the best albums of recent times. After touring the shit out of cryptograms the band returned home late last year feeling knackered and leaving fans worrying that Deerhunter were no more. They went into hibernation and... Similar posts