Trust me, you stand to benefit from David Kitt, Somadrone and Sunken Foal in your life, stuffed by a three-course meal and Dublin: The Movie. Taking place in the Sugar Club this Sunday 1 March, all this and more is yours for €20…paidback triple with a cosy feeling come summer that your squids helped hoist that banner, run this film and put a smile on the face of many an arts, movies and music fan. That’s the idea but it’ll only happen if you go…
Do you know, I’ve gotten into some great bands through these interviews from Jaguar Love and LITE to King Crimson…my mum’s CD collection came in handy for that last! Loving Brian Deady’s contribution this week, he makes some delightful observations…
Drop-D: Can you pigeonhole your tastes into one particular genre or do your preferences spread through an array of influences?
Brian: I couldn’t put all of my influences in one particular box/hole. The obvious influences would come from 70s/80s soul and funk. Curtis Mayfield, early Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, The Brothers Johnson, and Prince, but when it comes to trying to figure out what you’re influenced by, really you have to go way back. The music around me growing up was imprinted like a musical genetic code and is still with me. I would have been absorbing what was on the radio, the telly and my parents’ records: Pop, Country, Rock, the theme tune to Chips, Abba, Elvis, Roy Orbison, Glen Campbell, it has all influenced me.
Drop-D: What triggered your musical infatuation? Was it a certain band/person/style/age?
Brian: I listened to a lot of the vocal groups like The Drifters, The Four Tops, The Chi Lites, Earth Wind and Fire and was amazed by that sound. My neighbour two doors down from us was older and slightly more guitar based in terms of taste, his whole family were musical, my brothers and I would knock around and listen to The Beatles and E.L.O., even then it sounded really fresh to me. It happened many other times after, on a summer evening when I was 15, up in my room recording songs off the radio I heard Aint Nuthin But That G Thang [Dr. Dre - Ed.] breeze in and it changed how I heard music. It keeps happening, every now and then music sounds totally new all over….
Read the full Soundtrack over on Drop-D.
How many times have you fallen in love with a record only to discover, much to your horror, that the band have broken up? Such is the fate of unsuspecting Irish indie music fans who have not yet discovered Green Lights – this Friday 27 February sees the band’s final performance with good friends The Funeral Suits in Whelans.
Born in a student gaff in Monaghan, Green Lights began in 2006 with guitarist Colin, drummer Daniel and a lot of bad songs. Of which, some (Fold, Threading Ice, Glove Box) survived and make up the live set list.
After about a year of Colin and Daniel jamming away, synths player Nigel moved into said gaff and the line-up of Green Lights was complete.
Colin: We had no bass and we liked it that way.
Drop-D: That’s quite surprising though, Green Lights seem like the kind of band who would have a bassist. And I hadn’t realised you were knocking around for a while…you seemed to just emerge last year in a flurry of EPs, Small Curious Things followed by Time To Tell The Parents.
Colin: We did release quite a bit in 2008. It annoys me to see great bands not getting their material out there. Sure, it costs money but it’s so much fun to do. They were like mini projects that kept me busy when I was unemployed.
Nigel: Yeah it’s much more rewarding if you do all the press release, photoshoot, managerial stuff yourself. Less people to get pissed off with!
Drop-D: It’s quite unusual for Irish bands to produce so quickly though. I’m not sure if it’s entirely financially-driven either, there honestly doesn’t seem to be enough good material to keep releasing….
Colin: Well I think it’s because we live together? Also people can forget about bands very easily in Dublin. I’m not too sure. I do think a lot of bands are scared to fork out money on what can be quite daunting project. My advice is go for it, regret it later!
Nigel:Colin will admit he can be quite prolific with the songwriting if Daniel and I lock him in his bedroom and only give him Sugar Puffs until he writes something new!
Drop-D: So what spurred the advance from bedroom band to really hitting the live circuit?
Nigel: Back in the middle of 2007 we decided Dublin was finally ready for a big onslaught from us and so we started just taking whatever gigs we could get, ranging from support slots to club nights and even barn dances…
Colin: It was hard starting out mind…coming from Monaghan where there are zero bands apart from The Flaws, it was almost impossible to get gigs. Then we started showcasing with the brilliant Garageland which proved a great starting point for us, met lots of people and bands and it got easier….
A sneak peek at the artwork for Disconnect 4‘s new single The Rise due out this March. As I’m sure you know, Galway-based D4 make energetic indie-pop infused with darker threads of new-wave and more than a smidgen of emo histronic. Woooo, more rousing tunes for our late nights, we need young blood on the dancefloor that can hold its weight above the dismissal of generic indie.
In February Disconnect 4 go into the studio with Cazals member Martin Dubka to record a four-track debut EP due for release in June. The Rise will be released as a download-only single, followed by a tour with the fabulous Ghostwood Project in late March but keep your eyes peeled for other dates in Belfast and Dublin.
Interested in music artwork? The Ambience Affair have issued a last-minute call for artists to get involved with the design of their upcoming EP Fragile Things which is scheduled for release on 9 February.
Burgeonmaster Nialler9* posted on the Facebook campaign to get Jape‘s Phil Lynnot to the top spot on 25 December. The song, recently faved by Hot Press towers’ powers in the OxJam issue, is one of the sweetest tracks from Richie Egan’s recent Ritual album and depicts Philo looking over Dublin during a lunar eclipse. Lovely stuff and a wonderful tribute to the mainstay of Irish rock.
Join the campaign group on Facebook (if you must!) or even better, get to the savage Tripod gig on 18 December where Cap Pas Cap and The Vinny Club go head-to-head against the Crumlin header himself. That’ll put some egg in your nog.
Details of Phil Lynnot single TBC.
In continuing with the theme of decent folks doing good work, it’s time to turn an eye towards fledgling digital blog label Indiecater. An off-shoot of MP3Hugger, mysterious Kevin’s daily music review blog, Indicater arrived with the summer solstice of this year with the announcement of a compilation album of overlooked Irish and international tracks. At about €3.50 a pop, the digital archives contain original artwork and mp3s, user-friendly circumvention of the higher risks of releasing in physical format. Check out the bandcamp stream players.
Drop-D: Can you pigeonhole your tastes into one particular genre or do your preferences spread through an array of influences?
