‘I don’t feel truly normal’

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

IT’S NOT every musician who can say she has a friend and mentor in Tom Waits, or that she baby-sat for his children, but the American born, Manchester based singer, guitarist, and songwriter Jesca Hoop certainly can.

Rich Hall to play The Laughter Lounge in March

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

THE GROUCHY, deadpan, comic genius Rich Hall, the Edinburgh fringe favourite and Perrier Award winner, is back on the road and will be coming back to Galway next month.

‘Let us go then, you and I…’

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

INSPIRED BY TS Eliot’s The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, Waterdonkey Theatre’s new show, Love Song, receives its premiere at the Town Hall next week, running from February 10 to 13.

The wizard gets funky

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

THE WIZ, a funk-soul retelling of The Wizard Of Oz, will be staged by the Galway University Musical Society as part of this year’s NUI, Galway Múscailt arts festival.

Queen of ‘folkabilly’ Nanci Griffith returns to Galway

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

FOR MANY years Nanci Griffith has straddled the fine line between folk and country with a unique style of playing and singing she has christened ‘folkabilly’

Her confessional songwriting style and lilting vocal delivery has won over audiences on both side of the Atlantic and she has worked with Emmylou Harris, John Prine, Mary Black and The Chieftains.

See Gogol’s The Government Inspector at Druid

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

KHLESTAKOV IS a lowly civil servant from Saint Petersburg. He could do with some money so imagine his luck when, in a small provincial town, he is mistaken for a high-ranking government inspector.

Michael Jackson’s guitarist to play Campbell’s

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

WHEN MICHAEL Jackson performed his heavy-rock classic ‘Beat It’ in concert, the woman playing guitar for that incendiary solo was Jennifer Batten.

Grooverider to hit the GPO

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

GROOVERIDER, THE godfather of the British drum’n’bass scene will be spinning the decks at the GPO on Friday February 12.

Legendary piper Paddy Keenan @ The Crane

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

PADDY KEENAN, the great piper and former Bothy Band member, returns to The Crane Bar, Sea Road, on Wednesday at 9pm.

David Kitt @ Róisín Dubh

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

David Kitt (pictured), the Irish singer-songwriter who recently began working with Tindersticks, returns to the Róisín Dubh on Friday February 12 at 9pm. Tickets are available from the Róisín Dubh and Zhivago.

Win Youth In Revolt goodies

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

YOUTH IN Revolt, starring Michael Cera, Steve Buscemi, and Ray Liotta, opens in cinemas tomorrow, and we have three film tie-in goodie bags to give away.

Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

JAPANESE POET Hisa Kagawa will be the featured reader at the 2010 Over The Edge Poetry Book Showcase at Sheridan’s Wine Bar, near St Nicholas’, on Friday February 12 at 8pm.

Ms Kagawa will be just one of a host of readers featured at the event. The showcase is an annual retrospective of the year just past and every Galway-based poet who published a new collection during 2009 will read three poems from the collection in question.

City museum to host poetry booklaunch

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

THE MUCH admired American poets Annie and Ted Deppe will read from their new poetry collections at the Galway City Museum this Saturday at 1pm.

Poet Eva Bourke and NUI, Galway, lecturer Adrian Frazier will launch the books. Eva will launch Annie’s second book, Wren Cantata (Summer Palace Press) while Adrian will launch Ted’s fourth collection of poetry, Orpheus On The Red Line (Tupelo Press).

James Lisney - Chopin for the people

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

“THIS IS someone who can really give the mechanical box of wires and wood a singing soul.” So said The Daily Telegraph about the British pianist James Lisney.

Gabriel Fitzmaurice to read in Gort

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

THE POET and musician Gabriel Fitzmaurice will lead an evening of verse and song at the Gallery Café, Gort, on Sunday February 7.

Gabriel Fitzmaurice was born in Moyvane, Co Kerry, in 1952. He is the former chair and literary advisor of Writers’ Week, the Writers’ Conference in Listowel and his publications include poetry in English and Irish (The Wrenboy’s Carnival: Poems 1980-2000), translations, essays, and edited anthologies, such as Come All Good Men and True: Essays from the John B Keane Symposium.

Bob Quinn to screen new documentary in Áras na nGael

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

THE FILM-MAKER Bob Quinn will screen his documentary Fly Tippers, depicting the life of a group of Connemara people living in London in the 1980s, in Áras na nGael.

Cinema Review - Edge of Darkness

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

It has been nearly eight years since Mel Gibson has been in front of the camera and his performance in Edge of Darkness is stellar, it’s just a pity that there were too many conspiracies and cover-ups squeezed in which were confusing and annoying at times.

Edge of Darkness, which is based on a rather successful BBC mini-series of the same name, is a thriller which is more about the characters and the drama than about the action, which is what I like. It is definitely gritty, but director Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) should have taken a step back and, dare I say it, simplified the many weaving plots as there was just too much to keep track of. In saying that, the film was entertaining, with plenty of ‘edge of seat’ scenes.

Thank You JD

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

IT IS a story that has been told before but, given the recent news, is worth telling again. In the classroom of a Galway school during the winter of 1966, there was a French teacher of a somewhat volatile nature in that the pupils never knew what was coming next.

Homespun consolation and ecstatic utterances

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

ALICE TAYLOR is best known for her memoir To School Through The Fields which, on its publication in 1988, rapidly became the best selling book ever published in Ireland.

Tea’n’Turps booklaunch

Thu, Feb 04, 2010

TEA’N’TURPS, the new book by artist Lynda Cookson, featuring interviews with 12 artists on their life, work, and inspiration, will be launched this evening.

E-paper

Read this weeks E-paper. Past editions also available from within this weeks digital copy.