Articles by James Goulden
Irish songwriting talent was on show in the Sugar Club with the debut solo album launch night of Oliver Cole last Saturday. Conall O’Breachain and John Duignan, both friends since childhood and also members of support band We Cut Corners, set the bar high with their performance. Five years ago, they proclaimed that they were…
State caught up with Pilotlight a couple of hours before they took to the stage in The Button Factory to launch their debut album, The Post War Musical…. It’s a collection of songs that has taken the four guys (Andrew, Gavin, Mick and Terence) nine years to get to the point of release. Following
Back in 2005, four guys based out of Monaghan called Mike Got Spiked released their debut album Caveat Emptor…. It was a slice of alternative rock with influences from metal to ska to jazz. A year of mostly unrewarded hard work of trying to get the album into the Irish media and played on
On a frosty night on the last night of her current European tour, Regina Spektor appears onstage in the O2 as the opening act for David Gray. She sits down in front of her Steinway piano and for the next hour treats us to her own blend of classical folk-pop. Her voice also serves as…
For someone who was the recent winner of a major music industry award, Speech Debelle has had a tough ride, with the knives seemingly out from the moment she picked up the cheque. Many of the crowd who arrive into the basement of the Academy on Abbey Street to see her make her Irish debut…
Thirteen years ago, a curly long haired young female singer was selling tens of millions of albums around the world and became the biggest selling debut female artist in history. Fast forward to 2009 and Beyoncé Knowles is performing a cover of Alanis Morrisette’s’ ‘You Oughta Know’ to a crowd probably not old enough to…
The Academy 2 is dark and very loud. New York’s Chairlift are in the middle of a mini-European tour and bringing their brand of arty indieness to Dublin. Local Dubliners, Tidal District, open things with a short set packed with two singers, a violin and a pretty impressive mohawk amongst other things. They have a…
With just a couple of days to Christmas, Coldplay became one of the first bands to play Dublin’s newly revamped Point Depot. The venue’s rechristening under the corporate banner of the O2 should have been a sign that Coldplay too, are now a huge corporate entity. Having easily sold out two nights in the O2…
