On paper, The Men Who Stare At Goats… is a wonderful film concept, with potential in the mystification and bemusement departments on offer. So what has gone wrong with director Grant Heslov’s adaptation of Jon Ronson’s 2004 book of the same name? It’s hard to put your finger on it because what you are looking

Stephenie Meyer’s ubiquitous vampire novels are already becoming the gothic horror Harry Potter, a humungous franchise that will sweep peripheral talents into its coven. Such was the swelling anticipation for New Moon, the follow-up to Twilight…, that music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas seems to have been allocated a blank cheque to cherry pick from

In what could well be remembered as a slip-up of Spinal Tap proportions, Depeche Mode’s David Gahan wrapped up a recent show in Peru with the words “Thank you very much, Chile!”. It’s fair to say that a good portion of the 30,000 fans in the Peruvian captial Lima on Tuesday (October 13) were a…

In a departure from the rough-edged kitchen-sinkery of This Is England and Somers Town…, Shane Meadows shoots and scores in the mockumentary genre with this silly but soft-centred rock biz spoof. Paddy Considine (the name may not ring an immediate bell, but the face certainly will) is the swaggering Le Donk, the kind of

We Irish really are a lucky bunch, despite what the papers would have us believe. The Pixies reform, allowing a new generation to experience their pop-grunge mastery, then decide to celebrate the 20th anniversary of landmark second album Doolittle… with a world tour that begins in Dublin, allowing them time to rehearse as well as

State finds itself in the wedged – think a can of sardines, in a vice, at the bottom of the ocean – but infectiously merry confines of Bruxelles off Grafton Street. Pints of the peaty black stuff are meandering their way into our hands and gradually making the usually on-the-ball State feel all fluffy and…

The silly title/great album dynamic has frolicked amid rock music for many years now, with the likes of Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness and Attack Of The Grey Lantern… all proving the old adage – what’s in a name. Danish arty types Mew are heavyweight (and I do mean heavy) proponents of

State is cold and damp and beginning to feel slight fatigue. That all ends about half way through VILLAGERS, who huff, and puff and blow the house down. -Has it stopped raining?’ squints Conor O’Brien, peering out through the Crawdaddy tent at wind and rain and grey. -Oh dear’, he concludes.
-Oh dear’ is right.…

The best way, we always find, to ease a delicate head into day two of the Picnic is a trip down to the rear of the Main stage to the spoken word area, dubbed the Mindfield. We’re just in time to hear the godlike timbre of John Snow (himself off Channel 4 News) MCing his…

You would have thought setting off for Stradbally on the morning of Electric Picnic at 9am would see you arriving to minimal queues, cramped camp sites or general fuss. Not so. It turns out most have taken today off and have themselves set up and tucking into a celebratory beverage in their foldy-upy chairs by…

Even a band as composed as Low must have rubbed hands with excitement at the prospect of playing a cathedral in downtown Kilkenny. The furrow they have tilled is entirely their own; telekinetic harmonies, distortion without sounding metallic; dark to light and back again, all within the blood-red lyrical themes that colour their glacial folk-rock.…

-It’s fucking hot up here!’ The arena at Treptow is a sea of wringing black t-shirts and Teutonic fever by the time Trent Reznor and band are half way through their set. It doesn’t let up one jot throughout a crisp and streamlined set that cherry picks from the frowning industrialist’s 21-year career. We use…

It’s good to see Manic Street Preachers being cut a bit of slack these days. It was getting a bit too popular to sneer back at the once-sneery Welsh trio. That was probably down to radio overplay and the release of one or two misfiring records, namely 2001′s Know Your Enemy and Lifeblood… in 2004.

Listening to Unknown Pleasures, Pink Flag… or other post-punk staples, a fan of that genre would be forgiven for wishing they were back in that seminal era. Late 70s north-west England, downtrodden but full of visceral doggedness and a music scene that throbbed defiantly. Awaydays, a new indie film based on Kevin Sampson’s 1988