Author: Webmaster

11th Jan – Harbour Bar, Bray, Co. Wicklow 8.30pm

14th Jan – Slattery’s, Capel St. Dublin 8pm (Main act for Dermot Lambert’s Gigland Series sponsor – Hot Press)

Audio Fiction is the eclectic blending of rock, power pop, and moody emotional musings spun into a sassy and ‘delightful’ package.

Audio Fiction’s last EP, “Songs in the Key of Orange Alert,” embodied the sound of 1980’s retro chic, made cool. Lead singer Mimi gives a “coquettish delivery that recalls the ballsy pillow talk of Blondie’s Debbie Harry” (Irish Voice); others have described the band as a “cross between Blondie, No Doubt and The Pretenders” (GO NYC Magazine). Audio Fiction’s upcoming debut album will embrace, enhance and explode their sound.

Since Audio Fiction’s early beginnings in 2003 playing bar mitzvahs and funerals, the band has been making a name for itself throughout New York City and the nation, putting on gazillions of energetic live shows, and releasing its first EP to wide national acclaim. With the addition of Metropolitan Opera violinist Kat, whose frenzied virtuoso performances give the band a unique edge, the established musicianship of lead guitarist FERG, the tight melodic bass lines of Jay, and the driving rhythmic beats of drummer Mark, the band has finally come into it’s own.

Audio Fiction is a melting pot of races and national origins, comprised of Dublin-born Mark O’Toole (drums), fellow Irish-native FERG O’Sullivan (guitar), Filipino Jay Young (bass), panhandler of Texas that is, Katherine Fong (violin), and native New Yorker Mimi Ferraro (lead vocals).

Reviewers, fans and people who know good music describe Audio Fiction’s sound as throw-back power-pop-rock-punk, a la the Pretenders, Blondie or Garbage, with catchy riffs and deceptively serious lyrics. Audio Fiction prefers a more metaphorical description: they offer you cotton candy, then kick you in the teeth, all while you’re dancing. And where else can you get virtuoso violin playing in the middle of a rock act? One thing is for sure ‘They put on a kick-ass live show!” according to Gothamist.com

In the last seven months, the band has been featured in The Village Voice, Curve Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, GO NYC Magazine, She Magazine to name but a few. In his rare moments not playing drums, Mark has become a favorite of the New York gossip columnists from the New York Post’s Page Six to The Daily News Rush & Molloy columns, getting snagged for everything from his appearance in HBO’s new “Taxicab Confessions – New York, New York” (continually aired across America and soon to be aired by Ch4 in England), to a run-in with The Strokes and Drew Barrymore. All this press has garnered the band a bit of notoriety, grassroots interest, and headline gigs at New York City’s top venues and beyond.

Audio Fiction hopes to build on this success. The band are hard at work in the studio working on their debut album to follow up on the success of their EP, and will tour Ireland in January, and the Northeast US after the release of their debut album in early 2006.

This past spring Audio Fiction were spun on 85 college radio stations in the Northeast US as part of their radio campaign to support the EP.

www.audiofictionband.com

www.myspace.com/audiofictionband

Chris and Co. are an essential live act to catch and are finally playing at Crawdaddy on the 20th December. This summer they’ve already displayed there unforgettable performance at the Hard Working Class Heroes Festival, the Fringe Festival and the Dublin Electronic Arts Festival. Their music blends electronica, folk and rock, in a way that leaves one breathless.

Showcasing the rising song-writing star of Chris Morrin, ably supported by his multi talented MuckyKids, The show is a mad mix of humour, angst, wit and barely contained chaos, a definite must see…

VENUE: CRAWDADDY
DATE: TUESDAY 20TH DECEMBER
DOORS 8PM
ADM 8EURO
SUPPORT: Niall James Holohan

18 year Dublin soul singer / song writer Laura Izibor has been making waves on both sides of the Atlantic with a style of soul that harkens back to Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin and contemporaries such as Lauryn Hill, Alicia Keys and John Legend.

Laura won the 2fm song contest in 2003 at the tender age of 15, which lead to her signing with Jive US last year on her 17th Birthday after worldwide a&r interest, making her one of the select few of Irish artists to sign directly to a US major label. She is writing the album 100% herself and is also on co production duties. The album will be released in early 2006.

Tracks from the album are online @ www.myspace.com/lauraizibor and a live TV performance is available @ www.lauraizibor.com

Laura headlines Crawdaddy at the Pod on Saturday 17th Dec, tickets from www.ticketmaster.ie

Last year (on Christmas Day to be exact!) Irish Independent label Trust Me I’m A Thief Records became the first record label in the world to release a record on Christmas Day! It was actually an internet only release that was uploaded to their site at 2:00pm on Christmas Day. It was a two track Split Single available in MP3 and Windows Media Audio featuring “Schroedersound” & “Beautiful Unit”, priced at €1.75 – with cover artwork available to donwload for free.

This year they are planning on doing something similar!

At 2:00pm GMT on Christmas Day they will be releasing another “Split Single”. It will feature two tracks again, one from “Jape” and the other from “Stanley Super 800”. In keeping with the seasonal thing, the Jape track is called ‘Eatin Turkey To Make Music To Eat Turkey Too’ and the Stanley Super 800 track is called ‘Dark Angel’.

This year the release will be only available for a limited period. The plan is to remove it from the site and kill it on Valentines Day, and it will never be made available again.

So, if you want to support Irish music, while Irish Music works hard on Christmas Day to support you – log on to www.trustmeimathief.com between 2:00pm on Christmas Day and download the Trust Me I’m A Thief Christmas Release Part Two!!

You will not need a root kit, there is no DRM built into the files, its a mere €1.75, it will play on any device. So on Christmas Day while the big turkeys from the major labels are getting their chins soaked in goose greese and reflecting on the profits of another year of tangible sales, Trust Me I’m A Thief will be busy and working hard to bring you music that you won’t see splatered all over the Christmas Balls and Holly in the windows of all major record stores.

For More Information on all TMIAT matters contact Brian Mooney on info@nulltrustmeimathief.com.

Friday 2nd : Dundalk / Spirit Store Tickets €13
with boss volletti
George’s Quay, Dundalk, Co. Louth
+353-42-9352697

Saturday 3rd : Limerick (upstairs) in Dolan’s
with boss volletti
Dolans Pub – Dock Road – Limerick
tel – 061-314-483
fax – 061-312-963

Friday 9th : Barfly London
with lowgold + Everything On Black
Nearest Tubes: Camden Town (5 minutes walk)
or Chalk Farm (3 minutes walk)
get tickets

Tuesday 13th : Galway, Roisin Dubh
For bookings, press or information about upcoming events,
contact gugai
P : +353 91 589202
E : gugai@nullroisindubh.net

Wednesday 14th : Cyprus Avenue
Caroline Street,
Cork
Phone: 00 353 21 4276165
Fax: 00 353 21 4276158
E-mail:
Ger Kiely: ger@nullcyprusavenue.ie

Thursday 15th : Sligo / Left Bank (formerly The Garavogue)
St, Sligo
Doors: tbcpm
Ticket price: €tbc / €tbc (conc)
Ticket information: 071 9168518 or felip@nulloceanfree.net

Friday 16th : Dublin / Whelan’s
Christmas Show with Stars Of The City

Saturday 17th : Mullingar / Stables
with local support
Dominick Street,
Mullingar
info@nullstableslive.com
tel: +353 44 40251
mobile: 087 7733565

Friday 30th : Oldcastle

Major International Comtemporary Music Festival to be held in Maynooth

Sounds Electric ’05 is a 3-day festival of electro-acoustic and instrumental music taking place at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth from 2-4 December 2005. This will be the biggest festival of electro-acoustic to be held in Ireland

The festival will bring a host of leading international composers and performers to Ireland for the first time ever in a diverse series of concerts, workshops and seminars. A major focus of the festival will be the Csound programming environment. Csound is an incredibly powerful and versatile software synthesis programme that can transform a personal computer into a high-end digital audio workstation, creating an environment in which the worlds of sound-design, acoustic research, digital audio production and computer music composition combine to form the ultimate musical instrument.

World-renowned authority on electronic music, Dr. Richard Boulanger will speak at the festival. Boulanger is Professor of Music Synthesis at the Berklee College of Music (USA), the world’s premier institution for the study of contemporary music, and has recently published the definitive textbook on computer music, entitled: The Csound Book.

Featured guests include the internationally acclaimed electroacoustic composers Rajmil Fischman, Jim Hearon and John ffitch. Rajmil Fischman is a contributor to the Composers’ Desktop Project, conductor of the Keele Philharmonic Society, and Professor of Composition at Keele University. Jim Hearon, composer, jazz performer and programming, and conductor of The California Wind Ensemble has made several recordings of computer music in his own right. Using computer-based instruments he performs with dancers and filmmakers. He currently lectures in Music Technology at the University of Hawaii. Mathematician and computer scientist, John ffitch is Chair of Engineering, in Mathematical Sciences at the University of Bath. He won the Adams Prize for Mathematics and is an active contributor to Csound.

“This year&acutes Sounds Electric will be the highlights of the new music calendar in Ireland and will have a lasting impact on Irish contemporary music.” (Victor Lazzerini)

For further information contact Fergal Dowling, Sounds Electric Press Officer Email contact@nullear.ie or telephone 01 8575159

Festival Programme

FRIDAY 2nd December
CONCERT I – EAR Ensemble, The EAR Ensemble in concert, playing works for ensemble and live electronics by Fergal Dowling, Victor Lazzarini, David Stalling, Rory Walsh and Elaine Thomazi Freitas, Aula Maxima, NUI Maynooth, 8.00pm, €15, €10 (concession)

SATURDAY 3rd December

Keynote Speech
10:30 R. Boulanger (Berklee College, USA)
Csound Seminars I
2:30 Victor Lazzarini (Ireland), “TclCsound, a Csound Frontend and Tcl/Tk Wrapper”
3:00 Simon Schampijer (Germany), “RAViC — Real-Time Audio Visualisation in Csound5”
3:30 Alan O Cinneide (Ireland), “Introducing PVSPITCH: A Pitch-Tracking Opcode for Csound”
Talk
4:30 Rajmil Fischman (Keele University, UK), “Real and Virtual landscapes in Electroacoustic music”

CONCERT II – CSOUNDBITES
Music selection from submissions in response to an open call for works using the Csound language, Music Department, NUI Maynooth, [time tbc], €8, €5 (concession)

CONCERT III – Dance and Multimedia Improvisation

This exciting encounter between different art forms in response to the use of technology in a performance environment, will bring together international artists working with various media to improvise, in an adventurous crossover between discipline, and will create a unique and stimulating audio-visual experience. Aula Maxima, NUI Maynooth, 8.00pm, €15, €10 (concession)

SUNDAY 4th December

Csound Seminars II
2:30 Steven Yi (USA), “The blue Composition Environment”
3:10 Rory Walsh (Ireland), “ICE: the Integrated Csound Editor”
3:40 Adalberto Vidal (Argentina), “‘Strings Formulas&acute and their Application in Csound Score Generation”
4:10 James Hearon (USA), “Csound in Realtime Performance
using the pvs and fltk Opcodes”

Talk
5:00 John ffitch (University of Bath, UK), “On the Development of Csound 5” CONCERT IV – Selected Works
Second concert of ‘tape&acute music selected from open call for works, Music Department, NUI Maynooth, [time tbc], €8, €5 (concession)

CONCERT V – Interactive performance & Live Diffusion

Electronic concert of interactive music by Richard Boulanger and live diffusions by Rajmil Fischman, Aula Maxima, NUI Maynooth,8.00pm, €15, €10 (concession)

Featherhead is a group/ umbrella name for a series of projects / gigs being instigated by composer/ musician Trevor Knight (Auto da Fe, Philip Lynott band, Paul Brady, Mary Coughlan, Juliet Turner, Roger Doyle, Camille O’Sullivan and many more) Since 1990 he has concentrated on writing music for theatre (more than 40 productions) including world-wide success with Catalpa (by Donal O’Kelly)

Featherhead (the band) will be performing at The Sugar Club, Leeson St. on Sun 11th December at 9pm. Tickets Euro 15.

The inspiration for this first concert will be the poetry of Dorothy Parker, which has been set to music by Trevor. The music incorporates many styles, such as vaudeville- rock, circus- jazz, electronic-folk. Dorothy’s acerbic wit will be transformed and hurled into the 21st century. This follows on from a highly successful theatrical show called “Just a little one” based on 3 of Dorothy Parker’s short stories which was directed by Trevor and performed at this year’s Kilkenny Arts Festival and included 4 songs which form the basis of this new show.

Trevor will be joined by Susan Rowland (vocals), Garvan Gallagher (bass), Ken McDonald (drums) and Conor Brady (guitar).

John Walsh Music wins gold and Best-in-Show at the International Davey Awards.

John Walsh Music (JWM) has been awarded Best-in-Show in the commercials category of the International Davey Awards. The honour, which is the highest bestowed by the International Academy of the Visual Arts (IAVA), was awarded for JWM&acutes composition for the VHI Healthcare television commercial “Guardian Angel”. John Walsh Music was also awarded two golden Daveys: one for the above advertisement and one for the Dairygold advertisement entitled “Sunbeams”.

The winners of the 2005 International Davey Awards were announced recently in New York by the IAVA. John Walsh Music was among five companies, chosen from over 2,000 entrants, to receive the award of Best-in-show. Nominees for this award are chosen from the gold winners in each category, JWM&acutes other entry Dairygold “Sunbeams” was also nominated for this honour in the same category.

The awards were judged and overseen by the IAVA, a member-based organisation of leading professionals from various disciplines within media, advertising and marketing. Among its members are executives from companies such as Yahoo, Sotheby&acutes Institute of Art, Wired, Adweek, MTV, HBO and Estee Lauder.

John Walsh was delighted to receive these honours and sees them as a great addition to the ICAD award previously won for his work with the Irish Defence Forces advertising campaign.

The Davey Awards is an international creative award focused exclusively on honoring outstanding creative work from the best small firms worldwide.

Entrants included advertising agencies, interactive agencies, production firms, in-house creative professionals, graphic design firms and PR companies from around the world. For more information on the Davey Awards go to www.daveyawards.com

SONGBIRDS THE FIRST LADIES OF IRISH SONG presented by Fil Campbell

Celebrating the lives and music of Delia Murphy, Bridie Gallagher, Mary O&acuteHara, Ruby Murray and Margaret Barry.

RTE1 Television, Sunday nights, 7.30pm, starting Sunday 20th November.

Accompanying CD now available in record shops nationwide and at www.songbirds.tv
A DVD of the programmes will be in the shops on Friday 9th December.

Music produced and recorded by Tom McFarland.

This new music documentary series, coming to RTE television in Ireland in November, presented by folk singer Fil Campbell, is a nostalgic tribute to several of Ireland&acutes best-loved singers, whose songs formed the musical soundtrack to the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s for many people. The individual programmes will focus on the life and music of The Songbirds of those years. Each programme will feature several of the songs popularised by these singers, performed by Fil Campbell and her special guests, including John Sheahan (The Dubliners), Tommy Sands, Finbar Furey, Sean Keane, Steve Cooney and Laoise Kelly.

The series is being aired on RTE1 on Sunday nights at 7.30pm, starting on Sunday 20th November. There are 6 programmes in total, 5 of which will be shown before Christmas. The order in which they&acutell appear is:

Week 1 20th November Ruby Murray
Week 2 27th November Margaret Barry
Week 3 4th December Mary O&acuteHara
Week 4 11th December Bridie Gallagher
Week 5 18th December Delia Murphy

The 6th programme which is a general overview of what links the singers, the songs they sang and the music business at the time when they were starting off will be shown in the New Year.

These singers were radio stars of the pre-television era in Ireland and as such pre-dated the whole folk revival that followed in the 1960s. They went on to become international stars and played a key role in popularising what were indigenous Folk songs. It is all the more surprising that the more popular recordings of songs from this era were predominantly by women, considering the social climate in the country then.

Additional contributions from musicians, archivists, historians and family members will ensure that this engrossing series will acquaint viewers with the major influence that these artists had on Irish music and popular culture, a legacy which still endures.

For further information about the individual Songbirds and about the programme in general visit www.songbirds.tv .

An Irish tour is planned for early in 2006 and international screenings of the programmes are being discussed.

Adrian Crowley takes time out from the recording of his fourth album for a few gigs around Ireland and London.The new album features Domino records artist, James Yorkston among others and was engineered by Steven Shannon.

Last month saw Crowley heading off on a short headline tour in the UK accompanied by the above mentioned James Yorkston and sharing the bill with the now legendary Fence Collective.

Since last Summer Crowley has toured in the USA with ex- Galaxie 500 duo, Damon and Naomi (where he recorded an hour long radio session at WNYC for WFMU, New Jersey). Crowley also was invited to tour with Domino Records artists, HOOD on their extensive tour of Spain and Portugal.Ryan Adams namechecks Adrian in a recent issue of Rolling Stone as one of his favourite underground songwriters around. Adams showed up at one of Crowley’s recent show in Philadelphia apparantly having been a fan for some time.

Lastly, Adrian has been asked to appear on the next Rough Trade Shops compilation. The theme is ‘Songwriters’ and compiles the legendary London shop’s favourite songwriters of all time. The record due for release in the coming months will also feature tracks by Elliott Smith, PJ Harvey, Tom Waits, Daniel Johnston, Folk Implosion, Catpower…and others. Crowley is the only Irish artist to be featured.

The song chosen is ‘Girl From The Estuary’ which is taken from 2001’s ‘When You Are Here
You Are Family’ recorded by Steve Albini.

Adrian has been invited to open for James Yorkston in London on 18th December at the Luminaire for a special Christmas show.

Upcoming gigs:

Wednesday November 30th – Cyprus Avenue, Cork with Adem
Thursday December 1st – Roisin Dubh, Galway with Adem
Monday December 12th -Whelans, Dublin with Jose Gonzalez
Sunday December 18th – Luminaire, London with James Yorkston.