Happy Birthday To Ross

Time to wish KKM’s resident photographer a very happy birthday! Ross hits the big 26 today, everyone was out celebrating in fine form on Saturday night so if you see him in town, college, online don’t forget to wish him happy birthday! Hell, we might even sing happy birthday to him on the Sound System podcast tonight…. you never know!

Scuba Dice In Lyrath House Tomorrow

They won last year’s Battle Of The Bands and gained national media attention through their participation and loss on You’re A Star (RTE) and this weekend Scuba Dice coming home to perform in Lyrath House.

It is surely a far cry from taking to the stage at the back of The Zoo, playing to a handful of people. This weekend sees the You’re A Star train pull into Kilkenny with Scuba Dice topping the bill in their home town. Joining them tomorrow afternoon for the all-ages affair will be Andy Bennett, Alan Kavanagh and Maeve O’Donovan, all participants on this year’s TV talent show.

Tickets are 20 bucks and available from Rollercoaster, Resistance and Lyrath itself. Doors open at 4pm and copies of Scuba Dice’s new single are being given to the first 500 ticket holders with copies also available for sale on the day. The hope is that sales of the single from tomorrow will help the lads push ‘Made’ to the charts. If you’re going tomorrow, why not come back to KKM and let us know how the gig went. We won’t be there, unfortunately, but wish the lads all the very best in tomorrow’s show and in the future.

They’ve come a long way since winning the competition (BOTB) in November and have a good future ahead of them. You can visit their MySpace here. Doors should open at 4pm with the first act on the stage by 5:30 (according to ScubaDice.com anyway).

9th One Take Sessions Tonight

We’re back in action on the live scene again with the One Take Sessions which this week (only Sessions for April) features Rob O’Connor (Acrojunk, Waterford), Ian Doyle (Chaplin, Wexford), Tortured Artists Social Club, Dave Johnston (Dublin). You’ll find out more about the acts and get a clip of Dave in action on this post on OneTakeSessions.com.

As always, its free, its four fantastic acts and its on in iD (formerly The Widows) on Parliament Street (opposite the Watergate Theatre) and it all kicks off at 9:30. The perfect way to launch your weekend in the company of extremely talented musicians and bands. We’re fully booked for both May 10th and May 31st but if you’re interested in playing in June, now would be a good time to let us know before the slots are booked out.

We’ll also be back in the studio on Monday night to record the 14th Sound System Podcast which will review tonight’s performances. If you’re around Kilkenny, thinking on visiting KK this evening, stick around and join us in iD for the One Take Sessions, love to see you there.

Guggenheim Grotto Get iTunes Single Of The Week

Fair play to Shane, Kevin and Mick - The Guggenheim Grotto have scored single of the week on iTunes with ‘Philosophia’, the opening track to 2005’s ‘Waltzing Alone’. While the album has been available in Ireland for just over 18 months it has only recently been released in the US thanks to UFO Records and has been going down fantastically well in the past few months across the water.

Philosophia’, the opening track from The Guggenheim Grotto’s debut album ‘…Waltzing Alone’ has been chosen as the iTunes Single of the Week for the week beginning April 17th.

The promotion is a huge honor as only one song out of the millions of tracks in the iTunes library is chosen each week and made available to download for free.

‘Philosophia’ will be featured on the main iTunes USA homepage, the music homepage and more.

I spoke with drummer Shane Power last week who is delighted so far with progress in the US, their deal with UFO working out very nicely, gig attendances on the up and up, sell out shows around the country, TV appearances for the music - the whole works.

We first enjoyed the company of The Guggenheim Grotto back in May 2006 and again last August bank holiday weekend for their first and second appearance in Kilkenny and time permitting we’ll squeeze in a third one this year as the lads play a limited selection of Irish dates before returning for yet another big stint in the US.

If you can, check out their official website or MySpace and stay tuned to KilkennyMusic.com for details of an upcoming gig. We’ve been penciled in on their tour mailing that went out today and we’ve everything booked but we’re not going to make it official quite just yet…. You have to love teasing…. but you also have to see these guys live!

As a treat, enjoy an early version of ‘Portmarnock Beach Boy Blue’, available for download free from GuggenheimGrotto.com on the ‘Lifetime In Heat’ EP.

Guggenheim Grotto - Portmarnock Beach Boy Blue

Official: Kilkenny Source Festival Canceled

Speaking to a most credible and respected source tonight it turns out that The Source Festival, which has run in Nowlan Park over the past few summers and featured acts from Bob Dylan to James Taylor, Rod Stewart to The Flaming Lips, Violent Femmes, Girls Aloud, Shania Twain, Paul Simon and many more acts will NOT be taking place in 2007 but hopes to return in 2008.

The festival is organised by Aiken Promotions and in more recent times has hit a few snags with stories of monies owed to local authorities over planning for the festival but seemingly it just couldn’t come together this year. That’s not to say it is the end of the festival at all but Peter Aiken is due on the Sue Nunn show on KCLR tomorrow morning (Wednesday) some time between 10 and 12 to shed a bit of light on the topic.

The fear of course, I think, is that the event might not come back at all. I was a bit disappointed when Bob Dylan returned again last year (not that he’s a bad performer or anything but it seemed rather close) but to pull the festival altogether will be a major disappointment for music fans all over Kilkenny. Still, every chance those fears will be laid to rest tomorrow when we can find out a little more.

Out of interest - if you were to book the festival, who would you have on the bill? Or who would you have as a support act? Will you miss the gig this year at all? Or had you even remembered that it would be coming up?

Sound System Breaks 3,000 Downloads

The KilkennyMusic.com Sound System Podcast has broken 3,000 downloads and at time of writing sits at 3,035. I guessed when we were recording tonight’s show that we were around the 3,000 mark but it is always nice to see the figures behind it. Hopefully the podcast numbers will increase as well with our plans to maintain a weekly podcast (we’re gradually bringing the time down to 30 minutes.

It was March 13th when we broke 2,000 downloads which is just a few days over a month ago so a thousand downloads in the past month I reckon is good going for us. The podcasts were a bit sporadic but we’re finding our feet with the new scheduling we’ve done for the shows which will hopefully mean more quality and more enjoyment for your listening pleasure - as always, recorded from our top secret location high in KKM Towers.

Our thanks for continuing to listen to the podcast - hello also to those of you listening in Aberdeen as you always do as those of you in the UK and the US who’ve been tuning in. If you want to send us your music, dont’ forget you can give us a shout on MySpace or mail your music to podcast AT kilkennymusic [dot] com or soundsystem AT kilkennymusic [dot] com, any way at all will do so long as we get it!

We don’t guarantee that we’ll play it of course but if we like it, it’ll go in.

Sound System Podcast #13 Unleased

Before we ever got into the podcast recordings (back in October last year) myself (Ken) and Ross were cutting a 30-second intro for a KCLR show we were doing last summer. Now, at the time we let the mic run and I think the 30-second intro ended up being about 20 minutes long. Once the two of us get going, neither wants to shut up.

So, we bring you the 13th Sound System Podcast, perhaps cursed with the gift of the gab given the range of banter that goes on - anything from the gigs last weekend to next, cats in trees, Waynestock, Veg Met 2007 (new vegetarian metal festival we might be starting)…. the list is a strange and endless one.

Anyway, this I think is the quickest turnaround for a podcast - recorded by 8:30pm, bounced and online by 10pm and sent to the site around 11pm, go team! Check it out now on SoundSystemPodcast.com, subscribe via iTunes or play it directly below.

KilkennyMusic.com Sound System Show #13

Slave Zero Support Hatebreed Tonight

Ross has wished the lads luck tonight but from all of us at KilkennyMusic.com to the lads in Slave Zero, best of luck tonight with the support slot to Hatebreed. There’s going to be some serious metal on show tonight in the Temple Bar Music Centre (you might barely make it if you leave Kilkenny now - or if you’re in Dublin, try get to the show tonight) and the lads have been warming up over the past two weeks with shows in Kilkenny and Carlow (see my notes here).

The gig itself is open to 14 year olds and upwards, with no alcohol being served during the gig. The Acacia Strain are the main support act tonight but Slave Zero will be out in force to represent for the Kilkenny metal and music scene, tip o’ the hat there.

The gig has been moved from the Ambassador to the TBMC so it is quite possible there are still tickets available, going at €23 from usual ticket outlets nationwide. As such, we’ll be including ‘I Fear For You’ from Slave Zero in the next KilkennyMusic.com Sound System Podcast which should be released tomorrow (Tuesday).

Music For Your Surfing Pleasure

As we finally get to sift through the back log of things that need doing for KilkennyMusic.com (in the online world anyway), we’ve added some more tracks for you to the MP3 player on the homepage (that would be the one right above the news articles).

So, as of today you’ll also be able to listen to

• Panda Radical - Where’s The Remote
• Ghost Town - Witch Doctor
• Slave Zero - I Fear For You
• Ground Of Run - Visions Of Obscenity

So there’s two metal tunes in there for you metal fans (I’m sure there’s at least ONE in Kilkenny….) thrown into the recent mix. We’ll be back with more, don’t you worry.

Gig Highlights For The Weekend (14/4)

There’s a few gigs on this weekend and in case you missed the press coverage or news online here, Sub City are NOT playing in Cleere’s with KilkennyMusic.com tonight, contrary to what might still be advertised in places. Further to that, Waiting To Explode certainly won’t be there either (they’re appearing on May 12th).

What else have we got? Well, some of the KKM crew, myself included, are off to Slave Zero’s warmup show in Carlow shortly, which hits the Vinyl Bar on Tullow Street - but hell, thats not even Kilkenny.

If you’re looking for something this weekend you’ll find Double Vision on in ID (Rory Gallagher Tribute), Blood Sugar across the road in The Zoo (Red Hot Chili Peppers tribute) - both of which are on tonight. Saving J perform tomorrow night (Sunday) in Paris Texas, while the Underground hits this weekend as well in The Zoo (4pm Sunday) and you’ll have the usual bit of live music going around the town in Lanigans, Langtons, Eddie Murphy’s (Thomastown)….

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