Dublin Band ‘Primed’ To Split

There’s a few people who didn’t see this one coming as conversation on the forum suggests but progressive rock Dublin band Primed, certainly no strangers to Kilkenny having a massive fan base here. If you’re looking for a bass player you might want to give Leon a shout. Here’s his official statement…

It is with a heavy heart that i have to announce that after over six years as a group Primed have disbanded. This split is totally amicable, and to say this has been a hard decision to make would be an understatement to say the least. I will post an official response from the full band in the next few days. I would like to thank everyone who has helped or supported us in any way over the years, mere words can not describe the debt of gratitude we have for all of you.

Needless to say, I will continue to endeavour to pursue a career in music, and i am open to offers from any bands seeking a bassist.

Thanks

Leon

It wasn’t all that long ago that they were seeking out a keyboard player to expand the band on the back of last year’s ‘Octavia Dies’ release but thats all been laid to rest. Pity to see another good band bite the dust but these things happen, and happen a good bit as we’ve seen in the last year or so (including the departure of Clergy and New York Fashion Week).

Enjoy a track from Primed below, here’s ‘Grief’ from Octavia Dies.

Video: Eamonn O’Connor - Before We Suffocate

Eamonn O’Connor is down to play the One Take Sessions on May 8th which, by my guessing, is our tenth Sessions night, nice to hit the double figures on that one. The months seem to be racing by in the year so far so it won’t be too long before we see Eamonn in action. To whet your whistle and all that craic, here’s a preview of Eamonn in action with The Super Human Crew on TG4 almost a year ago.

Catch Eamonn live supporting Peter Doran in The Stables in Mullingar this Saturday followed The Tiki Sunday Special in Cork on the Sunday, The Guinness Store House on the 16th, the intimate surrounds of Phil Grimes in Waterford on the 22nd (love that place, good pints too) and the Wexford Song Club on March 27th.

Enjoy A Free Gig At The One Take Sessions

Just a polite reminder to all you good folk that we’ve got four great acts on tonight in ID in Parliament Street, admission free as a bird as always, kicking off at 9:30pm. On the bill are Jack O’Leary, Pacifix, Inconclusive and Ross Kearley.

Fancy a chat with any KKM heads, we’ll be there…

Podcasts On The Up - Now Its Up To Us

The downloads on the Sound System Podcast are on the up. The first podcast was pushed out to the web in mid October last year, completely new territory to us all and it took until middle of the first week of February to produce 1,000 downloads - thats an average of 250 a month (for the sake of argument) but as we are one month on from the last reading of the stats we’ve had an additional 850+ downloads. If we could get that kind of delivery every month we’d be laughing.

How do we do it?

More podcasts!!! Don’t forget that we also take submissions for the Sound System Podcast for tracks that you would like to play. If you’re brave enough to want your track reviewed and critiqued by the resident engineer and angry dwarf man then do, email us a track to podcast@kilkennymusic.com and we’ll get it in on the play list. Doesn’t cost anything to get included and it can only be a good thing to have your music heard!

Pacifix, Ross Kearley, Inconclusive, Jack O’Leary Tomorrow Night

Yep - four acts tomorrow night including the Pacifix (tipp), Ross Kearley (waterford), Inconclusive (Drogheda) and Jack O’Leary (Kilkenny). All the details are spread over on OneTakeSessions.com but it should be another great night.

We’re really enjoying doing the free music nights and working with more acts and bands. We’ll be changing the way we deliver the finish recordings to the bands (yes - if you play, you’ll get recorded and mixed), myself and Daw having a word about it tonight and hopefully now that we’ve (only today) added to our equipment list by picking up a Sony ICD MX-20, its a digital dictaphone, we’ll be carrying interviews from the One Take’s as well, spice up that particular podcast.

Which reminds me, we really are due an actual Sound System Podcast this month, outside of the One Take Sessions.

Take a listen to highlights from the previous One Take Sessions below.

KilkennyMusic.com Gets A Facelift

Aye, we changed the look of the site around last week as we’d changed the software backing the site but this is the actual look we’re going for and sticking with.

To you’re right you’ll now see what the latest is on the video channel, currently Ross’s Gigotos shoot from a few years back, finally having made its way to the digital world. There’s a few bits missing from last week including the music player (restores itself tonight), the artists area (also tonight), the gallery and the gig guide.

The gallery is actually in place on the server but whatever happened prior to launch (something wild I reckon) its not kicking out the images the way it should be and I’ll apologise for that one! Ross has a bucket of photos to get online here including shots from the recent David Thompson and Jack O’Leary gig in The Zoo while I’ve got a stack from the Irish Blog Awards to share as well, along with some more from Ross for that matter!

Anyway, we’ll keep you posted - that’s the main thing!

We Made It Back Alive

Well, we made it back alive, just about!

I’m of course talking about the 2007 Irish Blog Awards which we arrived at in force on Saturday night in the Alexander Hotel (well fancy) in Dublin. Myself (Ken), Daw, Ross and Mickey Boo hit the big smoke, arrived in time to knock back some beer in the Mount Herbert hotel before taxiing over to the awards show for just before seven. Of course, had we realised there was a free bar (thanks Damien) we might have been there a lot sooner!

Needless to say, we didn’t win the award for best music blog but in fairness, I didn’t think we would and major congratulations to Niall Byrne for doing so - fair play man and nice to meet you. We ran into quite a few people up there and had a pretty good night. Once the awards were over we made tracks for The Lower Deck to catch Laminate and a few other bands playing, nice to catch up with the lads there again.

With the awards night over, the night pretty much became a KKM staff night out. Ross (in a private MySpace blogpost) summed it up right by saying it was the first time in about a year and a half that the four of us had actually been out together, on the beer and relaxed and not working. Any other weekend or time the four are around there’s something to be done - but not Saturday night. We had tried the staff party before with a load of other people as well when we turned one last September but Daw had missed out - this time there was going to be no missing out.

As luck would have it, along arrived the ever-mentioned star of the Sound System Podcast Jimmy (Jimmy Danson, T-Rigger, T-Rock, Trig, The Trigger, Cuddly Bear) Trigger and Nearly Dead Bob along with Triona and Lola to make the KKM foursome an eightsome. Four bands, plenty of drinks, a night time English lesson for some Dublin scumbags (who now politely know what an adjective is - VERY long story), pretending to be trains, and all the other madness that goes on in between - it was a great night.

Although we didn’t win we met some great people, picked up some good feedback, and represented well for Kilkenny. People outside of KK now know we exist and we’re only going to get bigger - and busier around the site if I’ve anything to do with it. Figure I’m going to drop a couple of blogs for a while and really concentrate on where things matter - right here!!

I would go into all the detail of the night but for fear of court cases, humiliation or anything degrading, we’ll keep it for passing conversations in the street or pub talk. Needless to say though, I’ve managed to post some photos to my flickr account and there’ll be a few more lurking around MySpace or Bebo or here in the gallery (once I switch it back on - I PROMISE its coming!!).

Thanks a million to everyone who voted for us, got us there and helped us on the way. We’ll do it all again next year and start pushing the site even more on the national front!

Oxegen Sells Out In Record Time

If you weren’t quick enough to act for the pre-registration or general public sale - you’re too late! Oxegen 2007 has sold out, and here’s the lowdown.

The Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Weekend of the Year sells out in record time.

Thousands of music fans are looking forward to being part of Ireland’s greatest rock n roll weekend festival this summer after getting their hands on the hottest tickets of the year.

The festival’s stellar line-up, which includes The Killers, Snow Patrol, Muse, Razorlight, Arcade Fire to name just a few, ensured a phenomenal demand for tickets when they went on sale this morning. Within one hour and ten minutes all tickets were completely sold out.

‘Unbelievable reaction OXEGEN is up there with the likes of Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds festivals. It was a lottery for tickets this morning, we could have sold three times the number such was the demand,’ said Eamonn O Connor, Managing Director of Ticketmaster.

More than 100 of the world’s hottest bands, artists and DJs are set to play at OXEGEN which is taking place at Punchestown Racecourse, Naas, Co Kildare on Saturday 7th and Sunday 8th July 2007.

Saturday’s line up features Snow Patrol, Muse, Scissor Sisters, Kings of Leon, Interpol, Amy Winehouse, The Fratellis, MIKA, Wu Tang Clan, Tori Amos, The Goo Goo Dolls and The Gossip, as well as Erol Alkan, Booka Shade, M.A.N.D.Y, Justice and Dr.lektroluv.

Sunday will see The Killers, Razorlight, Arcade Fire, Daft Punk, The Kooks, My Chemical Romance, Bloc Party, Babyshambles, James Morrison, CSS, and Klaxons take to the stage along with Deep Dish (with special guest Cedric Gervais), Frankie Knuckles, Datarock and Cagedbaby.

Several of the artists on the bill picked up prizes at the NME Awards in London last night, with Muse voted Best British Band, My Chemical Romance collecting Best International Band and Klaxons voted Best New Band.

More artists will be announced in the coming weeks, with the final festival line-up confirmed in early May.

The two-day outdoor festival is set to be the highlight of the summer for the 80,000 music fans that will attend across the weekend.

Sooo…. who’s going?

The KKM Lesson For The Day

Just because something works on the internet for you, and works in your office for you, and works on you laptop for you - doesn’t mean it works everywhere else!

That’ll be €2.99 from every reader and member for that lesson. Cheques made payable to myself please.

Oxegen Vs Electric Picnic - What’s Your Cup Of Tea?

So is it going to be tent burning at Oxegen or will you wait and pack the basket for the picnic on the first weekend of September?

The lineup is gradually being announced over the week for Oxegen and already we’ve seen The Killers will be headlining the Sunday night, Daft Punk and Bloc Party on the cards for the same day along with Arcade Fire. Saturday sees Muse, Snow Patrol, Kings Of Leon, Interpol (bringing tears to some members eyes! ), Tori Amos and more.

But what about the picnic? Will you stay loyal and head to Stradbally, pack the bags instead for the racecourse, or do both festivals this summer? Both ticket prices have gone up, Oxegen now going to cost you around 200 bucks for a weekend ticket before you made a run to Lidl for extra toilet roll and packets of Mars bars or whatever the equivalent might be. Rumour has it that Radiohead were going to be making an appearance at Oxegen - but rumour ALSO has it that the Beastie Boys and possibly Bjork are going to represent at Electric Picnic.

Decisions, decisions! What’s yours going to be?

« Previous Page — Next Page »