Remy's Live Music Photo Diary of 2016, Part 1

Photo: Ray Kennerney

Info: Listening to music you like is the most pleasurable thing in the world to me, you are doing it by choice, and as I get older I realise that music is one of the very few joys in life that doesn't let you down, or disappoint you. Listening to it live however is a much more heightened and rewarding experience, I'm addicted to live music, the entire process from looking forward to something, arriving, and watching it unfolding before you, no two gigs are ever the same. Add to that the endless amount of pleasant surprises, the first support act of a four act roster who you'd never heard before blowing your mind and leaving a lasting impression on you, or someone you'd heard before but never seen live sounding ten times better up there on a stage. 

2016 was an immense experience for me personally, and although I went to a lot of live shows, I constantly feel regret that I didn't get to more, I suppose there's plenty of time for that next year, and the year after, and I hope to catch the bands I wanted to go to but missed in 2017, but also equally look forward to those magic brand new experiences, of which I had many this year. Below is a (not so!) whistle-stop tour of my 2016 in photos and some notes, starting with Whelan's Ones To Watch in January, which is just around the corner again and I can't wait for it! Also a few odd snaps of the wonderful musicians we had into The Sound Feed studio over the last few months, musically, 2016 was a hell of a ride.

All photos Remy Connolly, unless otherwise specified.

January:

Whelan's Ones To Watch

Bitch Falcon

 Too Fools

 Wood Burning Savages

 Rachael Lavelle

 Silences

 Oh Joy!

 Stephen White (The Last Mixed Tape), Noël Duplaa (Not Monsters / CFIT) & Hazel Lake (The Noisey Plug / King Kong Club)

 Niamh Crowther

Half Of Me

Damsel

Gráinne Hunt & David Judge @ Abner Brown's Barbershop

Dan (Crimes Against) & Teddy (God Creative) @ Darkland's Studio

Photos: Ray Kennerney

My first Sound Feed interview of 2016 with these two wonderful chaps, also my first visit to The Chocolate Factory, but not my last.....

February: 

Interview with Frank Kearns @ The Rockschool, Sutton

Photo: Ray Kennerney

Myself and Ray headed out to Frank Kearns' Rockschool studio on the Dublin Road in Sutton on a pretty chilly Saturday morning in February. I'd interviewed Frank on the blog last year on the phone, and it was one of the most enjoyable interviews I'd ever done. Frank was in Mount Temple with the U2 chaps and used to sit in on their practice sessions in the secondary school when they were all in their teens. His band, Cactus World News, supported U2 on their first Irish tour, and the legendary Phil Lynott co-produced one of his early singles. It was a great day, and after the interview Frank drove us around the north Dublin strand and gave us the historical tour of the area.

March:

Aoife Scott album launch @ The Workman's Club

Segrasso @ The Workman's Club

One of my favourite photos of 2016, Segrasso front-man Jake Dylan Regan doing his Bod Dylan 'Saved' album cover moment, more from them later!


Red Moon Bayonets and Brass Phantoms @ The Workman's Club

April:

The Sound Feed Presents @ Abner Brown's Barbershop

Post-gig with Stephen James Smith, Enda Reilly and Fiach Moriarty
Photo: Ger Holland

Interviewing Damien Dempsey

Photos: Ray Kennerney

A couple of months before this interview happened, Ray told me there was a very slim and outside chance we'd have an opportunity to interview Damien Dempsey. I was a bit beside myself at the idea, without doing the whole 'I've been a big fan since whenever', I had been. I'd seen Damien live in Vicar Street about 10 years before this interview for the first time, was in love with 'Seize The Day', and 'Shots', his song 'Colony' (from the latter) made me more than emotional on many an occasion. And there were other little things, like seeing the photo of him and Christy Moore playing together at the front bar in Whelan's, but only in a photo, hanging on the wall in that fine establishment.

Thankfully, and though I don't endorse such behaviour, I was quite hungover on the Saturday we went out to see Damo in his house, Ray picked me outside the apartment, and we stopped on the way at a petrol station and I got a really shitty coffee, one of those Tim Horton's jobbies. We pulled up outside his house and he was bigger than he is on stage, a towering giant, he offered us tea or coffee and we both declined (Damo doesn't make us coffee, come on). I had a weird and sudden whirling feeling then, 'I'm in Damien Dempsey's living room and I'm about to interview him, shit'. 

Thankfully everything ran smoothly, knowing he had just released a commemorative album coming up to the centenary of 1916, I gave him a book on 'Great Irish Speeches' and we discussed the album and what the centenary meant to him. He was an absolute gentleman and it was a massive privilege for me and a definite highlight of the year needless to say.

May:

RUTH @ Anseo, Camden Street

Mother Mooch @ The Workman's Club

CC Brez @ The Academy

Not Monsters @ The Grand Social

Me and my boy Noël after his Not Monsters single launch

Jerry Fish Interview @ Abner Brown's Barbershop

At the end of May, The Sound Feed had the great pleasure of interviewing the legendary Jerry Fish in Abner Brown's Barbershop in Rathmines, our Aoife had a wonderful chat with Jerry, who gave us the low down on his live shows, his music career and upcoming bits and bobs.

Photos: Ray Kennerney

June:

Trick Mist & Video Blue with Participant @ Whelan's

Gavin Murray (Trick Mist) and Jim O'Donoghue Martin (Video Blue) are very close friends of Remy's Music & Film, the pair were in Dundalk band Bold Things, the first ever band to send a review submission to the blog here a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. After both emigrated to the UK (Manchester and London respectively), they began to dabble in the dark electronic arts as solo projects, with great success. The two boys came back to Ireland in the summer for a mini-tour to promote their split 7" vinyl double A-Side single, 'Crumbs Abound / Disco Nap', with support from the wonderful Participant. 

Pre-show we shared a jar or two and then did a quick interview out at the back of Whelan's, where Jim gave us a few bars on the piano....much love to these two boys.

Part 2, featuring more photos and stories to follow soon!

Remy's International Independent Music of the Year - 2016

Sunset Exotic

Info: In the same way that independent Irish music has flourished over the last four years, the same seems to be happening in music circles around the globe. There have been times when I've been tempted to stop reviewing independent music from outside of Ireland, purely based on time constraints, but I gave up that ghost in 2015. I cannot cope with missing out on the wonderful music below from our close neighbours in Wales and England, and slightly further afield in France, Holland, and the Nordic countries. Then you can throw in the massively vibrant scene in Toronto, Canada, and both coasts of the U.S., especially California, plus the peeps in the Southern Hemisphere, and it's just not possible for a music fan like me to ignore. Too much joy!

Rather than spread everything in individual posts I'm putting my favourite International Albums, E.P.'s, and singles in one place below, with our standard Spotify Playlist of the whole lot at the end, enjoy, and here's to 2017!

Remy's Album of the Year - Psychedelic Porn Crumpets - High Visceral (Pt.1)

- Perth, Australia

High Visceral {Part 1} was an album I could really get swept away with, from the storming guitar-driven opening of 'Cornflake' and its escapist psych tones, to the wild insanity of second track 'Cubensis Lenses' (below) and it's hard grunge-rock rapid riffage. Psychedelic Porn Crumpets perfectly dip their toes in the various waters of the psychedelic rock history timeline, from standard borderline garage of 60's bands like The Monks and The Count Five's 'Psychotic Reaction' through to modern sounds of tracks such as '...And The Addled Abstraction of Being' and 'Marmalade March'. 

Remy's No.2 Album of 2016 - Thanks Light - Psychonauts

- Texas, U.S.A.

Thanks Light initially caught my attention with their smouldering track and single, 'VIP', a rapid high tempo song that trundles energetically from its opening guitar riff and locomotive percussion, fast becoming one of my favourite tracks of 2016. The album commences with the moody Black Keys' sound of 'Dueling Twins', it's like a strange and highly enjoyable mix of math rock and Creedence-esque guitar slinging, a peach with a dash of Metallica and glam rock to boot.

Remy's E.P. of the Year - Twin Haus - Nothing Lavish

- Perth, Australia

Easily one of the most formidable releases we heard in 2016, a phenomenal EP from Australia's Twin Haus, here's what Noël said; "This is clearly the release of a band at peak confidence, basking in the comfort of having found their own voice. And it’s thrilling to listen to a band wield their power so effectively. While it’s incredibly clear that Twin Haus must surely be a phenomenal live proposition, this EP is the perfect translation of their chemistry and songwriting ability. On my first listen, in my notes I wrote a sentence that pretty much sums up how I feel about this EP: "These guys are not fucking around." Give Twin Haus 30 minutes of your life and that will be abundantly clear."

Remy's No.2 EP of 2016 - MNNQNS - Capital

- Rouen, France

It's a glorious trip through post-punk indie, painted by the finest 80's French sounds of the genre, an era of high interest around these parts...Second track 'Straight To My Bones' nails that era's sound with aplomb, the French post-punk period is often overlooked, but it was a highly individualistic time, drawing very little from it's UK peers, I think of the excellent Guerre Froide, Charles De Goal and Complot Brunswick as prime examples. I could listen to this type of sound all day long.

Remy's Video of the Year - Wintergatan - 'Marble Machine'

- Gothernburg, Sweden

In the history of grand romantic undertakings, dedicating over a year of your life to the invention, design and construction of an entirely new instrument must fall somewhere between using wax and feathers to get out of a tower and mounting a horseback defence against angry windmills.  But that’s exactly what Martin Molin of sonically inventive Swedish band Wintergatan decided to do, chronicling his process, over the course of the last 14 months, to build an instrument that blurs the lines between acoustic and electronic music.  The vision and dedication required to see the project through has paid off in spades as evidenced by the hypnotic and captivating video above. - by Noël Duplaa

Remy's No.2 Video of the Year - Jacob Faurholt - 'Floating in Space'

- Copenhagen, Denmark

(From the review of the album Super Glue) I was immediately taken in by the album's opening track and the beautifully animated video for 'Floating In Space'. I hear the comparisons to Band of Horses in it's solemn but ethereal tone, but also a small hint of Bon Iver's Volcano Choir. It's a heart-wrenching piece of music with other-worldly harmonies and spacial electronic keys, probably the most moving track I've heard so far this year, that feeling aided massively by the visuals.

Remy's Single of the Year 2016 - Sunset Exotic - 'Chrysanthemum' / 'More Human Than Human'

- San Francisco, U.S.A.

It's an immensely joyous experience to witness someone leap, not drift, from one genre to the other, with all of the creative investment being worlds apart. When I listen to this double A-side I don't care about 'the state' of music anymore, I'm simply residing in a place of quite heightened happiness and joy. From early beginnings there was something special about this musician, now it's gone and shot off on an untraceable tangent, we'll hear about it when it lands, but I hope it never does!

Remy's No.2 Single of 2016 - Queens - 'Her' feat ZéFire

- Paris, France

The track's intro reminded me a bit of something you might find tucked away on their compatriots St.Germain's Tourist album, but the overall mood of the track, with backing vocals and snapped beats and electric guitars veers closer to Primal Scream Screamadelica era. The rhythm and shifts in pace are intoxicating for the listener, 'Queens' is everything you'd want from a chilled out and mellow electronic track, and since it featured on our last Playlist here, is becoming one of my favourite songs of 2016.

And finally! Below is our Playlist of the best independent music from around the globe to feature on the blog in 2016, including the above mentioned acts, here's to more great music in 2017!

Video: Kingdom of Crows - Sycadia

Photo: Siska Russell

Kingdom of Crows - Sycadia

Info: Dublin act Kingdom of Crows just released their third single, 'Sycadia' (above) from forthcoming sophomore album, Despondency, which is due out early in 2017. It's a decidedly different sound to what you would have found on their atmospheric rock debut, The Truth is the Trip, which was one of our Top 10 Irish albums in 2015. Here guitarist and song-writer Stephen Kelly, and vocalist / lyricist Lucy Earley retain the elements of what they do so well, creating haunting yet inviting soundscapes, but wrap it all in a more electronic-focused sound. 

It works an absolute treat, with Earley's vocals at one point wonderfully recalling Donna Summer's 'I Feel Love', in a more restrained and pointed manner, in keeping with the overall aesthetic of 'Sycadia'. Really looking forward to hearing album number two now!

Look / Like / Listen & Follow: 

Webpage: http://www.breakingtunes.com/kingdomofcrows

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KingdomOfCrowsMusic

Bandcamp: https://kingdomofcrows.bandcamp.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kingdomofcrows