Riverfest weekender - May Bank Holiday weekend bonanza

LIMERICK is set for a bonanza May Bank Holiday Weekend with over 50 different events taking place around the city.
With Riverfest and the Great Limerick Run set to bring thousands of fun-seekers into the city this weekend, music and arts venues are outdoing themselves to stage events to cater for the thousands expected into the city.
Graffiti enthusiasts are expected to flock to the “Just Writing My Name 2” international graffiti jam taking place in “The Spot” on the Dock Road, which is to play host to a stellar line-up of international graffiti talent, including Cope 2 from New York - a legend on the international scene.
Various different music events are to take place around Riverfest and the Great Limerick Run, with the BBQ taking place on George’s Quay on the Saturday afternoon, and music being provided at various points along the route of the run, which is expected to feature over 5,000 competitors.
In a great weekend for live music, Limerick is to play host to the like of 80s legend Nik Kershaw on Friday night, and high profile DJs Dave Pearce and Norman Jay (pictured above) in separate events over the three days.
Limerick man Steve Ryan releases his new single as windings this Friday in Dolan’s, while very highly rated songstress Jennifer Evans takes to the stage in Baker Place this Saturday. Johnny Duhan brings his new show ‘The Voyage’ to the Belltable, while former member of the Ramones, Tommy Ramone, brings his indie-acoustic duo Uncle Monk to Dolan’s.
For theatre fans, the new Loft venue in the Locke hosts the last couple of nights of the excellent Language UnBecoming A Lady, featuring Myles Breen and finishing on Friday, while the Choke Comedy Improv Troupe return to the Belltable on Saturday night.
With live music also taking place in the People’s and Arthur’s Quay Parks this Saturday, Limerick will be alive with sound this weekend, prompting Laura Ryan of Limerick Co-ordination Office to proclaim that there is literally “something for everyone to do this weekend”.
“Limerick is the place to be this weekend and has firmly established itself as the May Bank Holiday festival location,” explained Laura, whose office is co-ordinating Riverfest.
“The weekend has now become synonymous with Limerick and fun and there is lots of stuff happening with close to 50 events taking place,” she added.

Nik Kershaw interview

NIK KERSHAW was undeniably one of the absolute kings of the ‘80s, no question.
Try and conjure up a mental image from the seminal music videos of the mid-80s period and you can’t look further than the strange ‘Tron’-like video for ‘Wouldn’t It Be Good’, in which Kershaw danced around in a strange, glowing suit, hair coiffed to the max.
Likewise the Bristol-born singer’s ‘I Won’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’, which featured vacuous, pale-faced children mouthing the words to the song, while the teen-idol danced around a castle which billowed smoke, on this occasion sporting a dyed blonde look.
Kershaw, who was also one of the standout performers at Live Aid, comes to Limerick this week for a ‘No Frills’ acoustic gig - his first time gigging in Ireland in more than 20 years.

“I'm very much looking forward to this Irish expedition, or exhibition,” says Kershaw, speaking from his home and stumbling momentarily over his words.
“It might be a bit of both - me making an exhibition of myself,” he laughs heartily.
A genuine legend, both of the above songs were absolute standards of the 80s era, ensuring the Bristol-born singer spent a record-breaking 50 weeks in the UK Top 50 singles chart in 1984. Both featured on the debut album ‘Human Racing’ - still a classic to this day.
However, come 1990, his star was beginning to wane, and after four albums and eight million record sales, Kershaw stepped out of the spotlight, rather abruptly.
He has flitted in and out since, preferring to remain as a songwriter and producer, working with the likes of Elton John, Cliff Richard, Bonnie Tyler and more latterly, Imogen Heap, Gary Barlow and Let Loose.
Oh, and he wrote and produced The One and Only, sung by Chesney Hawkes - a monster smash hit that no-one the planet could ever claim not to have heard.

“It was huge and it still keeps coming back to haunt me,” agrees Kershaw when asked about the song, which was sung memorably by Chesney Hawkes.
“I'm still very good friends with Ches - despite me ending his career,” he laughs. “That was a weird one, that was almost the first thing, when I decided to write songs for other people, that was almost the first thing I did, and then I stuck it on a shelf and forgot about. I co-produced it, recorded it and then forgot about it. A year later the film came out and blimey - it was mad.”

Remembering the dizzy heights of his own career, Kershaw is more phlegmatic. It is clear that he was never interested in the attention and trappings of fame, indicative of his decision to step away from the limelight, rather than become almost a parody of himself.
“Well you know, it is like the old adage - be careful what you wish for, because I wanted to make music and be known for making music, and I wanted to play in front of thousands of people, but then I was totally unprepared to deal with it, to deal with the public thing, the press and media - I just wasn't very good at it,” he says simply.
On Live Aid he laughs: “That was certainly a big moment - although I keep getting reminded about it, because for obvious reasons people want to know about it, but most of my memories from it have been.. I don't know if they are real anymore, because it has become something I talk about in interviews, and I don't know how much of it is made up and how much is real”.

While he has been keen to stay out of the limelight, the affable Kershaw has nonetheless released a studio album every four to five years, all to considerable critical acclaim, most recently on 2006’s You've Got To Laugh.
He returns this year with ‘No Frills’, which essentially documents his return to the stage, performing acoustically, solo and minus the mullet and shoulder pads.
“Saying I choose to do anything is a bit misleading for me, because there is never a plan, I have always just bumped into things, which I have been doing all my career,” he explains.
“What happened was, I got offered a couple of gigs in Dubai, little acoustic ones, and I thought, I fancy going there and I can try the acoustic thing out and no-one will know any different.
“It went ok and the next time somebody asked me, I surprised myself and said yes, and I did a load of acoustic gigs last year, and I have done quite a few this year. I'm quite enjoying it, so I'll keep going.”
Kershaw is playing a wide variety of songs, classics and newer material, possibly some very new. But surprisingly for a guy who performed in front of hundreds of thousands in Wembley Stadium and elsewhere, he still admits to the pang of nerves before going on stage.
“I'm not beyond nerves, I get nervous before every show. In some ways, especially the smaller gigs, the more nervous I get, because it is just me and a guitar - no smoke and mirrors or a band to hide behind,” he says.
“I was very surprised because I was thinking "anybody can do this" - you think there is nothing special, but you are sharing something with a bunch of people, and I am delighted with how well the gigs have been received,” he adds.

Nik Kershaw plays in Dolan’s Warehouse this Friday night, with an Eighties Night to follow.

Album review - Josh Ritter 'So Runs The World Away'

Josh Ritter
‘So Runs The World Away’
(Independent Records)

JOSH RITTER has never really appealed to me, I’ve never really understood how the Idaho singer is so popular in - particularly - this country.
Apart from some early promise shown on his second album, Golden Age of Radio, Ritter, who was spotted and adopted by The Frames when he was a fresh faced performer, has never really seemed to live up to the hype.
And what hype; movie stars herald his work, while he has been referred to as “most gifted interpreter of Americana, as an arranger and a lyricist, working today”. Or at least it says so in his press release.
Ritter’s last album, The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, left me cold. Bland and boring, it evoked Americana alright, but was of no special originality or boasting any appeal to be remarked upon.
It is refreshing then to have this opinion turned upside down by the merest listen to this rather interesting album, which took Ritter two years to make, and takes its title from a reference to Hamlet.
So Runs The World Away is that strange hybrid of beasts; an album with its roots in sawgrass and blues, incorporating modern day recording techniques and guitar effects, delicate strings and quirky touches here and there - and, if this album doesn’t really sound like a Josh Ritter album, it also certainly doesn’t sound like Mr Ritter himself.
The dark and grim Folk Bloodbath, echoing as it does Nick Cave, is astonishingly guttural and eery, while the flipside is the breezy Lark, a Gospel-influenced ditty that would be at home on the O Brother Where Are Thou soundtrack.
Ritter stretches to evoke Tweedy and co on the Wilco-esque blues standard The Remnant, while he channels Neil Young on the superb Southern Pacifica.
It is the range of sounds on this album that is surprising, with Ritter demonstrating an impressive range, touching the ethereal on See How Man Was Made, and the emotional on the charged Another New World.
It is hard to find a bum note on what is an immensely satisfying album.
Welcome back Josh, all is forgiven.
RATING 4/5 Alan Owens

Dan le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip in Dolan's last Friday

Thanks to Ken Coleman and Streetlife for the pics.. Great gig

2010 IMRO Showcase This Saturday In Limerick

NATIONAL MUSIC showcase tours can be a hit and miss affair.
Often accompanied by heavy branding and advertising, the bands can often be of a poor quality and lacking in spirit and guile. Thankfully, that is not the case with the IMRO Showcase tour, which is run by the Irish Music Rights Organisation - in association with 2FM and State magazine - and seems to have a genuine interest in unearthing the latest new music talent on these shores.
The 2010 IMRO Showcase has been touring the country since March 25, featuring the likes of The Ambience Affair, C!ties, The Minutes and Talulah Does The Hula - names to watch out for all, take it from us.
This weekend the showcase rolls into Limerick for the local leg - the penultimate on the tour before the Best of IMRO Showcase Tour 2010 gig in the Academy, Dublin, where the cream of the crop will be selected to perform.
A record breaking 800 music submissions were received for this year’s tour, and a heavyweight local line-up has been selected for the Limerick leg; Windings (solo), The Brad Pitt Light Orchestra, Nick Carswell and The Elective Orchestra and Supermodel Twins.
Now, none of these bands will be - or at least should not be - unknown to those that regularly attend gigs in Limerick, but gathered together on one stage, broadly represent some of the finest acts this city has to offer to the country.
Top of the bill is Windings - Steve Ryan of Giveamanakick’s new full-time project, which is gearing up for a single release this Friday of the rather excellent “Brain Fluid”, and Steve will play a solo Windings show this Saturday, with a full band show to come the following weekend.
The Brad Pitts are also gearing up to (finally!) release their debut album, which these ears have heard and can strongly recommend.
Completing the line-up is Nick Carswell and his Elective Orchestra, who have been somewhat absent from the local scene of late, but will be back with a bang and some new tunes this Saturday, while the Supermodel Twins are riding high since the recent release of their single Bruises, from their much-anticipated debut album.
It is rare to get four bands of this quality on one stage, so get out and support them.
The IMRO Showcase Tour takes place Upstairs in Dolan’s this Saturday, April 24. Doors at 8pm.

Dan le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip in Dolan's this Friday

THE SHIMMERING electro-pop of Dan Le Sac VS Scroobius Pip’s new album opening track ‘Sick Tonight’ gives way to a grimey, drum and bass heavy beat after about thirty seconds - Pip spitting with a certain venom: “I feel sick tonight/something in my stomach ain’t sitting right/but I gotta overcome it, keep spitting right”.

This bile-tinged opener isn’t wholly representative of what is a stunningly lyrical album that ebbs and flows, but instead frames what is an astonishingly imaginative offering, the second from the hip-hop duo, who combine this spoken-word lyricism with heavy beats.

Pip’s beat-led polemics are at the beating heart of the Logic of Chance, weaving imaginative tales and themes into the music, and shining a bright light on the ills of British society.

Pip - real name David Meads - is one half of this eclectic and exciting duo who struck gold with their first writing collaboration, Thou Shalt Always Kill, a tongue stuck firmly in cheek satirical rant on modern culture. The song struck a chord with radio listeners, and was a smash, but the duo resisted the pressure that inevitably came with such early success, signing with Sunday Best, the label founded by Radio 1 DJ Rob da Bank.

“Dan and I had known each other for ages, but not musically. Thou Shalt was the first song we wrote together,” explains Pip, speaking from his Essex home.

“There was a lot of pressure to get an album out a month or two after that - but we spent over a year working on it. We had a lot of interest from big labels at the time, and we didn't go that way, which feels right now. I think if we had gone with a major, who knows if we would be making a second album now, because the first album went down really well critically, and we have been pleased to tour it and meet the fanbase, but, it wasn't particularly a big chart success,” he explains.

Pip is very much at home discussing the ins and outs of the new record, which is an eye-opener. He doesn’t shy away from the themes present on The Logic of Chance; much like his lyrics, which are literally warts and all.

On lead single Get Better he implores the disaffected youth of Britain to try and change the aimless direction of their life; on Great Britain, he rampages his way through issues around knife-crime statistics.

“There are two or three tracks on this album that are kind of along that kind of line - (focusing) more directly on problems in society,” he explains.

"Generally I always write about society, but different elements of it, and I'll often weave it into a story. “But there was a kind of urgency to be more direct about these things on this album - we should be looking at why they are carrying knives and getting into trouble or getting coked up on a Monday night down in the pub. We need to focus on giving them more options and other things to be passionate about.

“In a way some people will feel the songs are too preachy, but we will get a lot of people who these songs have really meant something to and hit home, and that is more important. The subjects I choose to write about, I will happily put myself up as a target, for those who don't agree, if that is what I have to do to get through to those people it is helping and making a difference to. I am happy to take that hit,” he adds.

Amazingly for such a well-together duo, who seem to spar and feed from each other’s energy both on record and when they play live, the writing of these songs is done individually.

“We rarely actually sit down together with a track and work on it - it is better if we allow each other the space and the time to develop the track, rather than have one of us peering over the other's shoulder,” explains Pip.

“When Dan sends me a load of beats, I'll naturally jump on the ones that sound like will fit something I have already written - that is how we work.”

Regardless of how they record, this a winning combination - the acerbic wit and master wordplay of Pip, matched by the dancey-grimey, zeitgeist-inducing beats of Dan.

“For me it is a development from the last album, it feels like Dan and I have got to know each other's ways and techniques a lot more and we have both developed a fair bit - and yeah, it feels like a really nice progression,” says Pip simply.

“It shows slightly that a lot of it was written on the road, because there are a few more banging, up tempo tracks, but there is still more chilled out points and reflective areas, but there are more ones that go across amazingly live, so it feels really good,” he adds.

Dan Le Sac VS Scroobius Pip play in Dolan’s Warehouse on Friday, April 23.

Oliver Cole of Turn fame plays solo material Upstairs in Dolan's tonight

OLIVER COLE is in a good mood.
The former frontman with much-loved Irish indie band Turn, who broke up in 2006 after becoming the nearly-men of the Irish music scene, has just released his solo album ‘We Albatri’, and is calling into Limerick on Thursday to perform songs from it.
The affable Kells man describes the process of recording his new solo offering as a cathartic one, after the demise of the band he was in for the bones of ten years.
“I spent about three years making it - or at least, I started it straight away after I left the band,” says ‘Ollie’.
“Then I kind of went off the rails for about a year, a long-term relationship ended, and there was a crisis of confidence. I came back to it about a year and a half ago and finished the record - and I am glad I took that break, I got a fresh perspective on things.”
The album is far removed from anything Turn produced, We Albatri ringing with a pop sensibility that chimes of everything from McCartney to The Shins.
“That is something I had never done before - Turn was quite a dark band, and I didn't want this record to be dark, even though I had an awful lot of things I needed to talk about, I wanted to disguise them in hooks and good melodies and keep the listener interested,” explains Cole.
In 2008, following a chance conversation via MySpace with a German fan, and a swap of some unreleased songs for a box of sweets, Cole ended up in deep in the Black Forest in Germany, in a studio owned by Philipp Rauenbusch, bass player with multi-platinum selling act Reamonn.
Cole recorded the album with friend and producer Ciaran Bradshaw, while some old friends chipped in, including Graham Hopkins, Paul Noonan, and old Turn mucker Gavin Fox.
“That was amazing, I think if that didn't happen, the record would never been made. It was a gift from the heavens. It was a very positive time,” he adds.
“Turn was a lot more claustrophobic. We were a rock band that were good at writing power pop songs, that were inevitably really noisy - and we could never really get away from that, and as a songwriter, I didn't want to do that for the rest of my life. I want to grow up to be Billy Joel or something, turn into a proper songwriter at some point,” he laughs.
Listening to the strength of his solo record, Cole is well on his way to showcasing such ability, and his new departure has clearly lifted his spirits. He has finished a journey, but a new one is beginning.
“Yes, but this is the fun part. Ireland is a great place to travel, people are in a good mood and I'm really looking forward to it,” he adds chirpily.
Oliver Cole plays Upstairs in Dolan’s tonight.