Category: Music
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Burning Inner Light: Fergal Bunbury’s Tribute to Low
I first became aware of Low in 2000 when I heard Dinosaur Act. It was a bit late, I know, but I guess I was busy. I loved its stately, funereal tempo, the fuzzed up, almost glitchy, guitar, the extreme dynamics, the burning intensity and the soaring harmonies and I’ve listened to and loved them…
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I Am Not Afraid: Circuit Des Yeux’s ‘Walking Toward Winter’
The words of Circuit Des Yeux’s song ‘Walking Toward Winter’ that are printed on the sleeve of their 2021 album, -io, are not quite the words that the band’s leader Haley Fohr sings. This is what moves me most about this song, and the bar is high. Other affecting elements of ‘Walking Toward Winter’ are…
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Keanu Is King: Voodoo Queens Feature, HP, 1993.
The Voodoo Queens were definitely one of the first bands I interviewed for Hot Press. I met them in the Rock Garden, Autumn 1993. I remember I interviewed them at the same time or maybe just slightly before someone writing for a local Riot Grrrl fanzine and I thought her questions were better. She knew…
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Dublin’s Still Alive: Wormhole / Jubilee, HP, 1995
This is a short review I did of two fantastic bands in The Attic in Dublin, where I went as much as I could. I used the opening paragraph of this piece as an introduction in sleeve notes for You Never See The Stars When It Rains, the 2021 Wormhole anthology pictured below. I have…
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Beautiful Son: Adam Duritz Interview, HP, 1994.
I met Adam Duritz backstage at the SFX in Dublin late 1994. His band was huge in the States and growing here. I loved August and Everything After and I was kind of on my own in Hot Press about this. Colleagues and friends thought the band and album was terrible. That’s why I open…
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Bono Can Bend Someone’s Ear: The Thrills’ Let’s Bottle Bohemia, HP, 2004.
Reviewing the Thrills’ second album in HP was awkward because I didn’t like it and one of the band lived on the road I grew up on in Ballinteer. The Thrills were known as a Blackrock band but in a prior live review I’d mentioned Ballinteer because it felt important to do that. I didn’t…
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A Dark And Unforgiving Set Of Songs: Pulp Live, HP, 1998.
I just learned, from Tony Clayton-Lea’s Twitter, half an hour before posting this piece, that Pulp are playing St Anne’s Park in Raheny next June. This is complicated! God, I loved Pulp. I reviewed for Hot Press this 1998 headline festival show just outside Galway, which was one of the best and bravest performances I…
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Pantheistic Joy: Nick Drake’s Made To Love Magic, HP, 2004.
Brief intro as this is a brief piece. I love Nick Drake. Surprising, right? His is music that it is always the right time to put on. When Sharon and I lived in Malawi in 2006-07, we had Pink Moon with us and my memories of travelling mountain roads southwards in a little dodgy Corolla…
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Sex & Death & Rock’n’Roll: Neil Hannon Interview on Casanova, HP, 1996.
I interviewed Neil Hannon in person twice in early 1996 for this piece. Once in the Mean Fiddler on Wexford St, where, if I remember correctly, which is debatable, he was about to support Gene. And again in Setanta HQ somewhere in London, the first time I ever got to go to London. On the…
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Glad The Pixies Bit The Dust: Breeders’ Last Splash, HP, 1993.
In 1993, I gave Last Splash by The Breeders 12/12, a Hot Press double six, as indicated in the final para of this brief review. The powers that be in HP were like: nope—this is a kid. (I was.) But they didn’t remove the line saying why I couldn’t deduct any points (“this record was…