2018-07-07 Bare in the Woods - Borris House Carlow

I’m a big fan of Bare in the Woods. It’s a fantastic festival. After taking a break last year, Bare in the Woods changed venue this year and moved to Borris House in Carlow. It’s a beautiful venue, with incredible views. Best of all, it’s only 40 minutes from my house!

The festival seems to attract some of my favourite Irish acts. From this years lineup, I really wanted to see Peco, Wolff, My Tribe Your Tribe and MINDRIOTmt. After that, anything else was a bonus.
Unfortunately for me, the My Tribe Your Tribe set clashed with Wolff, so something had to give and I missed their set, sorry guys. Along with the others mentioned above, I did manage to catch great sets by Under Starling, The Pale and God is an Astronaut.

I first saw Peco a few years back, but I'd never seen him with the full band before. Great set to open the day with. Wolff never fails to deliver. A set full of dirty guitar driven rock. Loved it!

My favourites on the day we're MINDRIOTmt and not just because we spent the day hanging out. I've been trying to get to see these guys for the last 3 years, but something always got in the way. This time though, the stars aligned and they blew me away. What a great set.

Under Starling were new to me and they are loud, brash and they rock, I enjoyed their set. The Pale, look, if you're can't have a good time at a Pale gig, you're more than likely dead. As for God is an Astronaut, well they don't say much, but they make one hell of a noise, and not in a bad way. They were the surprise of the festival for me.

You might not hear a lot of local acts on Irish radio, but don’t be fooled in to thinking the local scene is dead. Far from it, the bands mentioned above are worthy competitors to anything the US or UK can throw at us. Go see them live, support them, buy their music.

Check out the photos below:

Peco

2022-03-26 Buskers on Grafton Street, Dublin

I took a walk around Dublin today, thought I'd check out the buskers on Grafton Street. There's a fine history of busking in Dublin, acts like Hothouse Flowers , The Frames , Rodrigo y Gabriela , Damien Rice , Paddy Casey , Kodaline and a host of others all cut their teeth on and around Grafton Street. It stands to reason that some of those busking today will be successful in the future! So, who did I get to see today? Well, check out the photos below: Zoe Clarke Allie Sherlock Paul Jenkinson

Bye Bye Spotify...

I ditched Spotify Premium this weekend. Why? Well, I read an interview with Daniel Ek , the CEO of Spotify, and I profoundly disagreed with what he said and his attitude towards musicians in the interview. So I said 'F*ck it', and closed my premium account. I still do have a free account* as many bands choose Spotify to release their music, so I'll keep it for that reason. What now though? Well, I'd created a large library of music on my home server over the last 20 years or so. Every time I bought a CD, it got ripped to the server. Every time I bought digital music from Bandcamp , Google or 7 Digital , they too got stored on the server, and that was fine for home use, it worked well. But now I'd dumped Spotify, what could I do, how could I access my music outside the house? I'd played around with software called Plex a few years back, but had no use for it. I ended up doing nothing with Plex, but for this project, I decided to revisit it. I knew that i

Pete Kavanagh - Mercy Video Shoot

I've been asked a few times if I'd be interested in shooting a music video. Each time I said no because, well, I'd no idea what to do. I'm not technical behind a camera. I know the look I want, I take my photos and, that's it. I honestly don't know what I'm doing, it just works for me, sometimes (they're the photos you see!). I've known Pete Kavanagh a long time. We both grew up in the same Kildare town and know many of the same folk. Over the last few years we became friends through music. He played, I listened and or photographed. So, when he asked me if I'd shoot his video for 'Mercy', I said yes, albeit a hesitant yes, one filled with self doubt! Day one of shooting came around all too quickly for me. I'd looked in to shooting video, read up a bit on how to do it on my camera, what settings to change and so on, just so I wouldn't look clueless on set! I charged all the batteries and lights, packed all the gear away an

IrishMJ

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