Having made certain members of the State team go all swoony at this year’s Electric Picnic and flown the folk flag at the Mercury Music Prize, Rachel Unthank & the Winterset come back to these shores for another visit in February.
Dates are:
Tue 3rd DUBLIN The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College
Wed 4th BALLYMONEY…

It’s been quite a first year for everybody here at State – launching a magazine, running cover stories that included REM, Interpol and, yes, Abba as well as winning awards all over the place. But now our work is done (for now) and we want to celebrate and spread the love. So this Friday we’ll…

If you’re already making plans for next summer’s musical activities, Bodytonic may have just come up with the solution. In the next step of their ever expanding empire, they have teamed up with Nightflight to launch the Airbound Festival. The only catch / huge plus point (depending on your point of view) is that it’s…

Once tipped to be the next big thing in garage rock by those crazy folk at the NME, The Datsuns have settled down to the more achievable aim of life as fine power pop band. New album ‘Head Stunts’ is already with us and the band have just announced three dates for February, namely:
Wed…

The cat’s finally out of the Britpop bag as Blur today ended speculation and announced that they will be reuniting with guitarist Graham Coxon for a show at London’s Hyde Park on July 3rd next year, with a headline Glastonbury appearance also being mooted.
“It just felt it was right again”, Damon Albarn told the…

Irish blood, English heart would seem about right as Morrissey announces more Irish dates for the spring of next year, this time in support of his new album ‘Years Of Refusal’ (and if you haven’t seen the cover yet, do yourself a favour and check this out).
Dates are as follows:
INEC Killarney – 28th…

Last night State Magazine picked up its second award of the year, following the nod at October’s Irish Web Awards for Best Music Site. This time it was the turn of Art Director Simon Roche (that’s him celebrating), who was named Designer Of The Year at the PPAI Magazine Awards at the Four Seasons.
According…

Well there you have it, the end of another year. As usual the debates have already started to rage about the merits of this album versus that album (not least already on this very site) and far be it for us not to add fuel to the fire. In the pages of this month’s issue…

Like the majority of hip-hop artists in the current climate, Kanye West doesn’t live in the real world, or one that any of us would recognise. And like his colleagues, he is faced with the challenge of not only keeping it real, but which reality to reference. That problem, however, has rapidly faded as West…

Today sees the launch of the new schedules for the first six RTÉ Digital stations – 2XM, Choice, Junior, Gold, Chill and Pulse. Of most interest to the State community will probably be the dance and electronica orientated Chill and Pulse stations and of course the alternative 2XM.
Although there are still a few gaps…

See, we told you that you’d love Florence & The Machine, didn’t we? When we tipped Florence Welch and company as one of our potential giants back in the summer one of the things we brought attention to was their extemporary choice of cover versions.
To celebrate the release of their next single -Dog Days’…

This Friday be prepared to switch off your radios, put away those i-Pods and put down the guitars as it marks the fourth annual No Music Day. Dreamt up by ex-KLF honcho Bill Drummond (let’s face it, who else?), NMD encourages us to avoid all forms of music for twenty four hours in order to…

They met at Mali’s Institute for the Young Blind, married, made a succession of cassette albums and ended up recording the offi cial theme for the World Cup, supporting Scissor Sisters and appearing at the Lollapalooza festival. Safe to say, the story of Amadou & Mariam is not that of your average band.
The dilemma…

Having just come off the road with Slayer, nu-thrash heroes Trivium bring their Into The Mouth Of Hell We Tour…er…tour to these shores for four dates next month with shows in Derry (4th), Belfast (5th), Dublin (6th) and Cork (7th). Given that the UK and Russia only got two dates each we must be doing…