Incoming: A Quick Chat with Badhands

23754902_908635875957872_8071408189969508889_n

Badhands is the musical project of Dublin songwriter and musician Dan Fitzpatrick.

Badhands began as a collaborative project with producer and bass player Tom Cosgrave (The Minutes), then quickly evolved and expanded with the enlistment of multi-instrumentalist Aoife Ruth, drummer Ken Mooney, and engineer Chris Barry.

Following a couple of beautiful singles – ‘Waves’ & ‘Let Me In’ – Badhands released stunning debut album Predictable Boy earlier this month. A captivating collection of vivid, textured songs that range in tone between dark and brooding to frantic and energetic, with moments of stirring euphoria weaved in to the mix. With a strong focus on lyrics and vocals the album echoes at times the likes of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Leonard Cohen, and Villagers. A beautifully intimate record that captures the imagination and enthralls the listener.

As part of the album’s tour, Badhands will be playing a Broken Home show on Saturday, November 25 in Dunlavin, Co. Wicklow. Tickets are €5 and limited so please secure in advance (A return bus will be organised from Newbridge to Dunlavin for anyone interested). Details / Tickets are here.

Ahead of the weekend’s show I caught up with Dan, to chat about the project, touring and all things music.

Tell us a little bit about ‘Badhands’. How did it come about? And what is the inspiration/focus of the new project?

The project began a couple of years ago when I started doing some recording with Tom Cosgrave, who produced this record and plays bass in the band. I had plenty of songs but no real plan. So It started out fairly aimlessly at the beginning, recording a few solo tracks sporadically with just me and a guitar. But after a while we began to feel like we were hitting on something interesting. We gradually started working towards an album, building up the sound more and more with the involvement of Aoife Ruth, Ken Mooney and Chris Barry and the operation sort of took off fairly organically from there. We wanted to make something really textured, atmospheric and interesting sounding, but still trying to incorporate the energy of a rock n roll band.

Continue reading

Incoming: A Quick Chat With Oh Boland

Oh Boland by Sean McCormack

Oh Boland by Sean McCormack

Oh Boland shall be brewing up a storm of a mastercful raw, noisy garage pop in BRÚ House, Newbridge on Friday, December 1 – fresh from doing the same across the other side of the Irish Sea.

This is the second in a series of collaborative shows between Broken Home & I, as we aim to bring some of our favourite musicians and artist to Newbridge – of which this line up comes up trumps for both of us.

Galway trio Oh Boland are one of the brightest talents to emerge from these shores. Their early EPs are superb and their 2016 debut LP, Spilt Milk is a treasure – and one of the finest records of recent times. The trio truly provide  a masterclass in raw, noisy garage pop that is ragged but irresistible, blasts of lo-fi goodness. Tunes trash, screech and rumble rumbustiously along, while brash it is, it is supremely catchy and mashed with earworm hooks. Here in lies the brilliance of their sound, traversing the space between brash and beautifully catchy. Oh Boland create something unique and special, perfection through imperfection if you will. Just superb.

Oh Boland join Silverbacks and Luke Redmond in BRÚ House, Newbridge this Friday, December 1, for what is a rather formidable lineup – Doors @ 9pm | Tickets (€5/€7) available here.

Ahead of the weekend’s show I caught up with Niall from Oh Boland for a quick chat….

Tell us a little bit about Oh Boland. How did it come about? And what is the essence/inspiration behind the project?

Hi Barry, how are you? Oh Boland are three wholesome shrubs from the verdant plains of Tuam county Galway. Roughly five years ago, I was a gormless dropout working in my Dad’s pub filling swill for fossils. I’d known Simon and Eanna since we were in our teens and so when their band broke up we started hanging out a lot and playing at the weekends in Simon’s house. All of this is probably an intolerable cliché so with any unfortunate reader in mind I won’t elaborate much further. Yeah, that’s how we started playing. With regard to essence or inspiration, I’m not sure. At this point I guess we try to make drunken, poppy, noise music or noisy, drunken, pop music. Those are the three constants in our lives.

After a long time trying to make it work, we finally got you to Newbridge. Are you excited to bring the Oh Boland show to town?

My grandfather is from Newbridge so I’m really excited to get back to the flesh and blood. Stephen of course who’s putting the show on has worked with us on some videos and is a good friend, looking forward to seeing him. My memory’s useless but I’m fairly sure this is our first time playing with Silverbacks too. We have seen them a few times and they’re super good and I’m really excited to be playing with them too.

What can we expect from an Oh Boland show?

Hmmm. Tough one. I think it’s got to the point where we barely know what to expect ourselves. Expect a healthy amount of new material at this point for sure. We’ve a new LP almost ready to go and the live set is often how we get the new stuff together. Otherwise, you can expect a slobbery gurgling bubble-gum punk mess. There’ll be a lot of oohs and aahs and unnecessary soloing. We’ll inevitably end up sounding like a cranked up showband trying to play the national anthem, slowly going down with the ship.

On the issue of touring, you toured the US last year; it would be interesting to hear your perspective on the differences (if any) between touring Ireland and the US?

I suppose it’s the same landscape you have to navigate in both instances. Ireland is way more manageable relatively speaking because it’s such a short run. It’s the blatantly obvious issue of size I suppose. In Ireland there are really only four or five towns to play all within four hours of each other. With America or the UK, you’re looking at stupid ferry routes, 13 hour drives etc. It only takes one day or one hour to break you when you’re crammed into a car with three people fermenting at a rapid pace with little food or sleep. I love touring though. For all the brutality you get to play every night which is the ultimate reward as well as meet every manner of sweetheart and weirdo the particular town has to offer. That makes the bodily aromas and marathon roadtrips easier to swallow for sure.

You’ve shared the bill with a number of legendary bands such as the Sonics and The Undertones, did they offer any sage advice or words of wisdom? What was it like to be that close to the origins of punk?

We’ve been really lucky over the last few years to be able to play with a lot of groups that have influenced us a lot over the years. Though none of the groups we’ve played with really spoke to us that much watching them play at such close quarters was more than enough. Standing barely off the stage watching Gerry Roslie scream is something I never thought I’d ever see.

In my humble opinion, Split Milk is one of the finest records of recent years. Tell us a wee but about making the album and were you happy with how it was received?

Thanks man. Glad you like it. At this point Spilt Milk is actually quite an old record in terms of the recordings themselves. We did the whole thing over Halloween weekend 2014 amazingly. The record was made with our long standing saviour Mark Chester of Ginnels, No Monster Club and Lie Ins fame. Everything since Delphi we’ve done with him and he’s always been really easy to work with. He listens to the same stuff as us and knows how we want to sound and how to get there. As for our approach to recording we like to do it pretty quick. This is mainly due to money and time, between getting time off work and not being able to fork out heavy currency for a studio. It also has a lot to do with the sound and performances too, to be able to just bash them out really quick with little time to be precious and second guess what you’re doing. I think though there is obviously a difference between onstage and recording the heart of a recording has to maintain a similar energy to the performances onstage. The heart of everything is cut live. The three of us in a room trying to wobble through the tune as best we can. I’ll add some extra guitars and that’s it. We do most of our recording as of late out in a cottage in Carraroe out in the wilderness. So that was it, two days out there running through the ten tunes and out the door again, sadly nothing worthy of a BBC4 documentary.

As for the reactions to the LP, yeah I’m fairly pleased. We are all really happy with how the record sounds and the experience making it and though I can’t really get my head around it people have been into it and that’s been really nice.

For me anyway, the brilliance of the Oh Boland sound is it simultaneously traverses a space between brash and beautifully catchy – is this a conscious thing or did it just sort of happen?

I suppose it’s somewhat conscious, a reflection of the weird extremes in our record collections. There was never a conscious decision to cross this with that. We were just bashing out what felt good in Simon’s garage. We all love 60’s music and 70’s power pop music. So you definitely have that element, but on the other hand we also love really loud abrasive sounds and it needs to be said that we’re also pretty sloppy musicians, particularly when we were starting out. So I suppose we started unwittingly trying to resolve the two extremes in the music and being so loose as musicians it just sort of came out the way it came out. As we’ve become tighter together musically it’s become more of a conscious thing.

What are you listening to at the moment?

I am listening to The World, Flesh World, Day Creeper, The Cowboys, the new Protomartyr LP, Rays, Arthur Russell, The Necessaries, Game Theory and Terry Allen in that order.

What are your plans for the rest of 2017 and 2018? Can we expect a new record soon?

We’ve a lot planned for next year. We are planning some trips over to the UK and a European tour in late spring as well as a return to the US late in the summer. We’ve also got a new LP almost finished which is going to be called Cheap Things and you can expect that sometime in the summer too.

And lastly, in all the interviews you’ve done is there anything you’re eager to address but no one ever asks you?

I can’t really think of anything right now. Leave that one with me.

Introducing: Permahorn

15369105_210933815982090_470236118057977358_o

Permahorn are a Scottish-Serbian duo – Saint Pauly (guitar, vocals, percussion, knobs) and Jexy Pesic (bass, vocals, drums, switches) – who now reside in London.

Together, the pair deliver a beautiful, raw yet reflective and intense experimental indie sound with brooding, heartfelt songs – think somewhere between Beta Band, Pictish Trail or Arab Strab.

Debut album My Blood Carries My Dreams Away is due for release in December and ahead of which, Permahorn have shared the record’s title-track. ‘My Blood Carries My Dreams Away’ is one to get lost in. A dense, intriguing offering, opening with an unusual sort of warped, swaying where churning backward loops swirl and other distorted sounds are accented beautifully by gentle lilting vocals; it is all consuming and imbued with sense of longing and melancholy. A simply stunning introduction to Permahorn’s irresistible sound which all bodes well for the forthcoming debut record.

My Blood Carries My Dreams Away is due for release on 1st December 2017 via Shimmy-500.

Tune into ‘My Blood Carries My Dreams Away’ now.

Incoming: A Quick Chat With A.S. Fanning

A-S-Fanning-Carmelita

Berlin-based, Dublin-raised, singer/songwriter A.S. Fanning will be bringing his Irish tour to BRÚ House, Newbridge on Saturday, October 14 – and the tour coincides with the release of Fanning’s debut solo album Second Life.

This is the first in a series of collaborative shows between Broken Home & I, bringing some of our favourite musicians and artist to Newbridge – of which Fanning fits the bill for us both.

Previously the frontman and chief songwriter of Dublin bands The Last Tycoons and Porn Trauma, Fanning’s songs are often lyrically driven, taking inspiration from Irish literary tradition and folk music as well as from ‘60s psychedelia and gothic rock n roll. Fanning’s finest attribute is his profoundly brilliant songwriting and storytelling abilities, and observational eye, which enable him to depict vivid tales such as his meaty debut single ‘Carmelita’.

As a multi-instrumentalist he has played with acts such as Dublin troubadour The Mighty Stef, Berlin Industrial Electro outfit Suzies Ashes, and Irish songstress Candice Gordon, most recently producing and playing on Gordon’s debut LP, Garden of Beasts.

Support on the night comes from the equally wonderful Appo & the Disappointments & Rory Hughes – Doors @ 8.30pm | Tickets €5/€7.

Ahead of the weekend’s show I caught up with A.S. Fanning, to chat about the project, touring and all things music.

Tell us a little bit about A.S. Fanning. How did it come about? And what is the essence/inspiration behind the new project?

When I moved to Berlin I was working on my my own a lot. The Last Tycoons were still going at that point but we weren’t playing very often except for the occasional tour in Germany so I just started working on stuff on a laptop. That combined with being surrounded by electronic music in Berlin led to the songs taking on a kind of electro incarnation for a while.

I eventually stripped that back quite a bit, but I never really wanted to be a solo guy with an acoustic guitar. I always heard the songs having quite a full sound and having a kind of intensity in them, so I started building the songs around an acoustic guitar and vocal and adding in bits of synthesizers and organ and other atmospheric stuff to fill out the sound.

You’ve just returned from some shows in Ireland – how does it feel to go back after relocating to Berlin and starting a life there?

It feels kind of strange to be honest. Just because I haven’t played here very much in the last 5 years or so, and it’s a strange feeling to come on tour to somewhere I’m so familiar with, but which has obviously changed a lot in the last 5 years as well. But I feel like this album is largely about moving away from here so it’s nice to be able to come back to launch it, it feels like a sort of closing of the circle.

And on that, what are the biggest differences in being a musician in Berlin compared to Dublin? (i.e. audiences, opportunities etc.)

Continue reading

Incoming: A Quick Chat With The Burning Hell

Burning-Hell

THE BURNING HELL is the alter-ego of Canadian songwriter Mathias Kom, and the band has been on the road in one form or another since 2007, playing everywhere from the chaos of Glastonbury to the loneliness of the Arctic Circle, popping up in bars, festival tents, living rooms, abandoned bunkers, and a mental asylum in rural France along the way.

Musically, the lineup and sound of the Burning Hell has been ever-changing, running the gamut from introspective folk to hyperactive rock and roll; meaning no two Burning Hell records sound alike.

In the company of incredibly witty, humorous lyrics and a real knack for storytelling, listeners are treated to a vivid adventure through hooky, upbeat pop songs, dark ballads about pet euthanasia, and anthems for barbarians, economic conferences, and love.

As The Burning Hell prepare to release studio album #8, they have embarked on a ferocious tour across Europe & N. America, and this Saturday, September 23, they roll into Newbridge town, for an intimate and special Broken Home show, with support from local indie merchants Fresco Future.

Ahead of the weekend’s show I caught up with The Burning Hell’s Mathias Kom, to chat about the project, touring and all things music.

Tell us a little bit about The Burning Hell. How did it come about? Where did the name come from?

“Ages ago, some lunatic religious zealot handed me a tract with a shitty-looking devil on the front that said “The Burning Hell” on it in fiery letters, and it was all about how good deeds won’t save you from Satan’s jaws, et cetera. At that exact moment I had been wondering what to call this new folky recording project I had started; the name seemed perfectly inappropriate, and it’s been that way ever since.”

Your lyrics are all incredibly witty, humorous and you’ve a real knack for storytelling? Is that something that’s particularly important for you to get across when writing the songs?

“Thank you, and yes—I find it amazing how many songwriters treat lyrics as an afterthought, since to me there’s not a lot of point in singing intelligible words if they’re not going to be compelling or at least not completely asinine. To paraphrase Thumper the cartoon rabbit: if you can’t sing anything interesting, don’t sing anything at all.”

Continue reading

Incoming: A Quick Chat With Count Vaseline | Plays Broken Home This Saturday

14034830_1609223642711313_5501671496621733006_n

Count Vaseline is the new project from Stefan Murphy, formerly of Dublin rock ‘n roll miscreants The Mighty Stef, and The Count is bringing genre-warped garage sounds to Newbridge, for an intimate and special Broken Home show.

It was a dark day for Irish music back in May, when time was called on The Might Stef. Always a prolific tunesmith, it wasn’t long before Murphy introduced his new guise Count Vaseline. Falling somewhere between raw garage rock and crooning fuzz-pop – sonically a different being – the new project remains draped in his unique and intuitive storytelling ability. There’s already a debut LP, Yo No Soy Marinero – a genre-warped record that fizzes with energy, invention and brimming with weird and wondrous ideas, and full of heart – with album number two, Cascade to follow in December.

In support of his new endeavour, Count Vaseline has been playing shows across the US and Ireland, and this Saturday, December 3, he rolls into Newbridge town, for an intimate and special Broken Home show, with support from the Tallaght folk machine We Went Down.

Ahead of the weekend’s show I caught up with Count Vaseline, to chat about the new project, touring and all things music. Check the album below too!

You can find further details on The Broken Home Series here, more info on the show here and you can purchase your ticket from Eventbright.

Continue reading

Incoming: A Quick Chat With Freedom Fry

Freedom Fry Tour 2015

LA based indie pop duo Freedom Fry have been charming us with breezy, cheery indie-pop treats for sometime now – it has really been a case of charming single after single – this blogging malarkey is a real chore sometimes.

Fresh from playing SXSW the Franco-American duo, Marie Seyrat and Bruce Driscoll, embark on a short West Coast tour throughout early April with Stromae (including Vancouver on April 5th), and a date with Lilly Wood and the Prick. To accompany this news the pair have released a brand new single, ‘Break Into A Musical’. Instilled with a typically woozy, breezy and warm vibe that has marked Freedom Fry’s previous output, although imbued with a certain sense of nostalgic wistfulness. ‘Break Into A Musical’ is an undeniably endearing, lovable and pretty irresistible folk pop delight.

With Freedom Fry’s aforementioned visit to Vancouver happening this coming Sunday (April 5th in The Orpheum  w/ Stromae), it’s high time we had a chat with the duo. ‘Break Into A Musical’ is wonderful and alluring as always – check it & the Q&A below.

Tell us a little about the band. How did you both meet? And how did Freedom Fry come about?

Bruce: I have this inexplicable urge to make music with everyone I meet. I think it’s how I connect with people. So one day we were getting ready to film a video for another band I have with my sister, Blondfire, and the stylist was this French girl, Marie. We hit it off and somewhere on the set she played me a song on her phone. It was her singing in French. Doubled vocal and a ukulele. It was really charming. I thought it would be cool to write songs with her and have her sing them in French.

Marie: It was exactly four years ago. In April of 2011. And it was a Sylvie Vartan cover that I played for him. We just started dating and making music together for fun. It all seemed really natural. We were going to put out the first few songs we wrote as an EP and we needed a name.

Bruce: We wanted something memorable that summed up the French girl and American guy collaboration. Freedom Fry just seemed appropriate.

How best would you describe your sound/band?

Bruce: We’re constantly trying to change it up but in general I would use words like west coast, upbeat, percussive, organic, surfy, sing-a-long, reverb soaked, californian, and bittersweet.

Marie: We try to always write things people can move to. Even at slower tempos. I also love the 70s vibes.

You just recently played SXSW, what we’re your highlights?

Bruce: Getting to see all our friends play and spending the week indulging in all things music was what it’s all about. I think I saw more shows there in that week than I typically see in a year, which was cool. We were thankful for everyone who made it out to our shows and sang a long. When you’re up against 2,000 other bands and people decide to put you on their schedule that means a lot.

Marie: We got to see Stromae’s set at Stubbs which was a big highlight. We connected with those guys and now we’re fortunate enough to be heading out on tour with him.

What’s it really like touring?

Bruce: Honestly, most of it is waiting around for that 30-45 minutes per night where you really get to do your thing. A lot of green room and van time. Hummus, pitas and Pabst are the three main food groups. All that waiting around is why you’ve really got to love who you’re traveling with. I’m happy to be married to my bandmate.

Marie: It’s really like camping with friends except instead of singing around a fire at the end of the day you sing on a stage in front of an audience. But other than that we sometimes all sleep in the same room so we can laugh and say dumb things before we fall asleep.

What should we expect from your upcoming show(s)?

Bruce: We’re doing something much more stripped down and raw, but still high on the energy for these opening sets with Stromae. There’s no drummer this time around. Instead we’re incorporating more live tracks with Jonny Perdue who plays bass and I’m also playing a kick drum that I’ve been having fun stomping on during the choruses. The whole set is also mostly our more recent songs. Nothing from the first EP.

Who is your favourite current artist(s)?

Bruce: I’ve been liking Father John Misty and Beach House a lot. I always get excited to hear what they’ve created.

Marie: Tame Impala, Alt J and Of Montreal.

Aside from the tour, what does the not so distant future hold for Freedom Fry?

Bruce: We have more shows in LA and San Francisco after the tour that we’re really looking forward to. We’re also constantly writing and have a few fun collaborations that we’re waiting for the right time to release. Maybe down the road we’ll have another EP, or maybe even an album. We’ve got enough songs for one but I’d like to try to make it really something special if we go there.

Marie: There’s also a new music video that we shot ourselves and are really excited about.

Tour Dates:

April 5th – Vancouver, BC @ The Orpheum w/ Stromae
April 6th – Seattle, WA @ Showbox SoDo w/ Stromae
April 7th – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echoplex w/ Lilly Wood and the Prick
April 9th – Oakland, CA @ The Fox Theater w/ Stromae
April 10th – Oakland, CA @ The Fox Theater w/ Stromae
April 16th – Las Vegas, NV @ The Cosmopolitan w/ Stromae