Articles by Simon Roche
Author of 163 posts.
Simon is State's Art Director as well as running his own graphic design studio (Smoke & Mirrors) out of Copenhagen, where he has tolerated pickled herring and very pretty girls for almost five years. He spends his days designing album covers, magazines, books and maps and can often be found eating the local roasted hot dogs and pursuing his quest to find the perfect pint of Classic.
Website:http://smokeandmirrorsstudio.dk/
The famously long Danish winter only really ended five or six weeks ago as the temperatures struggled to reach above 10 degrees, but you wouldn’t know that today as its pure blue skies and temperatures in the mid-20s that greet the opening of the gates at Roskilde 2010 – now in it’s 40th year.
Though…
Another festival celebrating 40 years, Denmark’s Roskilde Festival is one of the best organised of the big festivals and boasts a famous friendliness (they call it the -orange feeling’ after the colour of main stage). 75,000 people have made 2010 a sell out and while the four-day festival proper kicks off today the truly hardy…
On the hottest, sunniest day of the year so far you might think you should be out on the streets at the opening night of this city’s legendary Distortion festival, not crammed into a small, dark room on the other side of town awaiting New York’s newest hyped band to come on stage.
What initially…
While not exactly over-hyped, the debut from The Drums comes on the trail of the Brooklyn four-piece appearing in an array of -Ones to Watch’ lists at the start of 2010. The cheery first single -Let’s Go Surfing’ was a welcome sunny jaunt in the midst of the bleak midwinter and with the height of…
10 years. 10 YEARS. That’s how long it has been since Courtney Love put out the almost perfect rock album Celebrity Skin… and proved she didn’t need Kurt Cobain’s ghost for her rock credentials. Behind all the loudmouth behaviour and garish David LaChapelle photos was someone who could actually nail (careful now) the very essence
Doves as a band rose literally from the ashes of Sub Sub, the more dance-orientated group that brothers Jez and Andy Williams, and Jimi Goodwin formed together in 1989. They had released some well received singles but their studio caught fire in 1996, destroying everything they owned. Their reconstruction turned into the Doves as we…
Danish magazine Soundvenue has just published the full line-up for 2010′s Roskilde festival, which takes place near the Danish capitol from July 1 – July 4.
Full coverage of the festival, day-by-day, will be here on State.ie.
Afenginn
Matias Aquayo
Analog Africa Soundsystem
Arriba La Cumbia
The Asteroids Galaxy Tour
Alice in Chains
Bad Lieutenant…
Doves have a released a video for their new single ‘Andalucia’ from their best of, b-sides and rarities double album The Places Between… which was released this week. An enjoyable few sunny moments with a group of flamenco dancers and players. Also, to mark the release of the album there are four mini documentaries about
Despite being a well oiled machine, State… is also prone to bursts of spontaneity. It was a balmy night in the German capital when a quick glance at the listings revealed a gig by Manchester’s I Am Kloot, mere hours away. Footloose and fancy-free we S-bahned it over to Kreuzberg and the fantastic Lido venue
We took a little trip to keep up with Yeasayer’s tour as it hit Malmo and Copenhagen. A pleasant surprise was the support band, who happened to be one guy – and he was also manning the merch stand. Hush Hust – a tall and skinny, retiring, bearded type who, together with some backing tracks,…
German electronic maestro Ulrich Schnauss has been producing his own albums since 2001 when Far Away Trains Passing… came out on Berlin’s City Centre Office label. Heavily influenced by My Bloody Valentine and other shoegaze bands such as Chapterhouse and Slowdive, his own output has always been every bit as atmospheric and spatial as the
The death has been reported of Mark Linkous from Sparklehorse, who apparently committed suicide yesterday, Saturday 6 March. Since 1995 Linkous has recorded as Sparklehorse as well as some producing stints with Daniel Johnston and on Nina Persson’s first solo album as A Camp. His own last album was 2006′s Dreamt for Light Years in …
State’s Faces of 2010 would not be faces at all, merely names, if we didn’t have some truly great photographers in our ranks who, out of pure passion for these bands, went out and shot them for us.
The creativity and quality of the photographs being produced by young photographers in Ireland today who are…
It’s been about two years since Yeasayer released their impressive debut All Hour Cymbals…, which tied psych and folk together and then threw in a sitar as well as some gospel sensibilities along the way. Basically, it was not worth categorising but broad in reach and in its musical arrangements. The band have an
