Monthly Archives: May 2010

Alabama 3 Bound For Limerick


Alabama 3 have put up a notice on their website and another on MySpace to say that they’ll be supporting Bob Dylan at his Thomond Park gig in Limerick this July. They’ll certainly be a welcome addition to the lineup as their musical mixture of blues, country, dance, gospel and rock should definitely get the crowd warmed up. In any case, the band are no strangers to Limerick’s shores as they’ve visited the Treaty City before and I was fortunate enough to see them play Dolan’s a few years back. I love their first album, Exile on Coldharbour Lane (1997), with its songs about Tennant’s lager, victims of rave culture and a fine version of a John Prine song. That album also contains a tune that many people may know as the intro to The Sopranos TV series, Woke Up This Morning. Their music has continued to be used to soundtrack TV shows and feature films and 2010 has seen the release of the band’s seventh studio album, Revolver Soul. So, unless someone’s taking the piss, Alabama 3 will join Seasick Steve and David Gray as support to Mr Zimmerman in Limerick this Independence Day. Here’s their take on Folsom Prison Prison from a Dublin radio show called the Strawberry Alarm Clock


Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash cover) – Alabama 3

Image courtesy of Alabama 3′s official site

Have One On Me


Season 36 of Later with Jools Holland reaches episode four this week. I’m mostly looking forward to the performance of Joanna Newsom (pictured above, top middle). I really liked her first two albums, The Milk-Eyed Mender and Ys, but I’ve yet to get into her third and latest release, Have One On Me. This could be due to it being a triple album with fourteen of its eighteen tracks being longer than six minutes in length. She’s definitely worth checking out, though. Also on the show is a singer from Benin in West Africa, Angelique Kidjo (top left). Her latest album is entitled Oyo and it includes songs that inspired her growing up in Africa. Most of these are by such soul icons as Aretha, Otis, James Brown and Curtis Mayfield. Following on from Laura Marling’s appearance last week are her fellow London folk-poppers, Mumford & Sons (bottom right). Their debut album is Sigh No More and it was released a couple of months ago in the States following its October release in Britain last year. The final three acts are much more established and each of them is renowned for their onstage antics as much as for their music. Both Courtney Love (top right) and Iggy Pop (bottom middle) have both been known to perform without the need for shirts and Love will be letting it all hang out with her band Hole while Iggy will be talking about reissue of the Stooges’ Raw Power. Ozzy Ozbourne (bottom left), meanwhile, is more of an animal lover and once bit off the head of a bat at one of his shows! It should make for some interesting viewing and listening

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All Change


The more eagle-eyed regular readers amongst you might have noticed some changes around here over the last few days. I’ve been meaning to change the theme for a while now, but nothing really grabbed me until I saw that WordPress had put up this new one called Twenty Ten. It’s got a simple look and has a customisable header, background and loads of other stuff. Let me know what you think

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Songs & Crazy Dreams from Paul Brady


“I hope he’s in good form tonight”, my friend John said to me as Paul Brady and his band took to the stage at the University Concert Hall in Limerick last Thursday night. John’s been a fan of Paul’s music since he was still in short pants and remembers buying many of his albums when they were first released. He’s seen him on numerous occasions while this is my first time seeing Paul in concert. He’s in Limerick tonight in support of his new album Hooba Dooba and he gets things going with a couple of songs from the album. I’ve been listening to it on his site and it sounds like one of his best efforts in a while. I’m not too taken by tonight’s opening numbers, particularly as the sound at the outset is less than impressive. It’s a bit too trebly, lacks warmth and all the different instruments are lost in the mix

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