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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 if
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A Love Letter to Music Venues

I was in Dublin city centre this morning for the first time in 12 months.  The last time I was there was to see Jane Willow perform in the Cobblestone Pub  on February 29th 2020.  I never, not for a moment, thought things would turn out as they did.  I was looking forward to a year full of gigs and excitement.  I think we all know how that turned out. After doing what I had to workwise, I took a spin around Dublin before I headed home.  I drove by the aforementioned Cobblestone Pub , the Voodoo Lounge , The Grand Social , The Workmans Club , The Sugar Club and ended up outside Whelans . I've had great nights out in each of those venues and in many more around the country!   Dolans of Limerick, Crane Lane Theatre and Kino in Cork,  Odd Mollies in Drogheda, the Moat Theatre in Naas, the Riverbank Arts Centre in Newbridge, the Solstice Arts Centre in Navan, Visual in Carlow...  The list goes on and on. 2017 and Helmet played Whelans.  There I am partying with them after the s
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2020 MJs

It's the end of the year, time to work my way through all the live gigs I've been to in the last 12 months, pick my best gigs, festivals, songs and so on... Seven, SEVEN, gigs I got to this year.  Yes yes, I know there are others that didn't even get to one, but when 2019 had in excess of 50 gigs, well, you can see why I'm frustrated. Enough complaining though, time to get to the 2020 MJs! First up is Best Irish Single . There were a lot of contenders this year, but for me, Cold Blue Light by Kynsy  edged them all out. Next up is Best Irish Album . Again there were many contenders, but for me, All The Leaves Are Falling by Nealo was the best.  Irish hip-hop is coming of age! Best Irish Gig is next.  This gig would win any year!  It was Denise Chaila in Dolans , Limerick.  Amazing night. I've listed to the Irish Music Industry Podcast since it launched and find it both entertaining and informative.  This year though, they produced two specials this year that deep
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