Local Heroes: Red Radar

Hello.

The lovely people from Red Radar let me go back in and shoot another video with them. This time I got to recommend some of my favourite Irish music at the moment, including James Vincent McMorrow, Laura Sheeran, Fight Like Apes and Bipolar Empire, all of whom I've managed to catch live the past few months and was suitably impressed by.

Joey Kavanagh from REDradar on Vimeo.

I also gave a shout out to The Casanova Wave, who I recently caught supporting Go Panda Go, but sadly that piece was a victim of the cutting room floor.

James Vincent McMorrow - We Don't Eat (Adventure Club Dubstep Remix) by Adventure Club Dubstep

Jenny Kelly - Fight Like Apes by anhuber1@gmail.com

Take Me Where She Sleeps by L A U R A S H E E R A N

Here's A Daisy For Good Luck... by The Casanova Wave

Feel That You Own It by Bipolar Empire

Just Another Hurricane

Hot on the heels of Strictly Pleasure, comes another pop gem from Dublin pop prince James O' Neill, aka Bitches With Wolves.

Hurricane bears similarly high-end production to its predecessor and, with rumours abound of an even better track called 'Hercules' on the way, dare I speculate that an album might materialise this year?

Hurricane by Bitches With Wolves music

Local Heroes: The Strutts

Last week, I ventured along to The Pint on Dublin's Eden Quay to get my fix of live music. There was a clutch of great bands playing but my primary concern was to see four-piece The Strutts in action and they certainly didn't disappoint.

Delivering a rousing set of sprightly guitar pop, their performance possessed a warmth that goes some way to explaining the ardent breed of supporters they attract, but was also underpinned by a resolve to impress that hangs the right side of ambitious.

I can happily report that The Strutts' energy and verve, which serves them so well in a live setting, is equally present on their eponymous EP. Singers Liam Gardner and Daragh O' Connell's tuneful vocals are wonderfully complementary and it's little surprise to learn that they've performed acoustically as a duo in the past.

However, the addition of bass and drums affords them a fuller sound best felt in the latter half of 'Easy To Forget', which descends into an instrumental jam that's tailormade to set audiences busting moves on the dancefloor.

The Strutts' trump card is perhaps their knack for pegging down a catchy pop hook. Tracks like 'Down', where cascading harmonies are pitched against a backdrop of jangly guitars, remind of The Beatles' early material but more contemporary influences are felt elsewhere.

Gardner's snarling delivery on 'People Talk' is reminsicent of Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner, and this track for me is the standout on an accomplished EP by a Dublin band whose star is firmly on the ascent.

The Strutts - People Talk



The Strutts' eponymous EP can be downloaded from iTunes here.

Local Heroes: Bitches With Wolves

Bitches With Wolves (aka James O' Neill) is someone I've posted about on the site before. As I said previously, James represents a breed of popstar of which we haven't really seen the likes since Samantha Mumba inexplicably 'pulled a Houdini' from the charts and our hearts.

The colourful costumes and high-energy performances are all well and good, but James's trump card is his flair for pegging down a contagious pop melody.

Last year, Broken Hearts became Bitches With Wolves' biggest hit to date and there's every chance that new single, Strictly Pleasure, will achieve similar success.

A fine slice of electropop that sees risqué lyrics pitched against stabbing synths and pulsating drumbeats, the track is sure to get an emphatic reception when Bitches With Wolves play Whelans, Dublin on February 3rd.

Bitches With Wolves - Strictly Pleasure



Bitches With Wolves - Broken Hearts



[Image: Peter Fingleton]

Local Heroes: Heathers

Although their 2008 debut album, ‘Here, Not There’, made Heathers (Blackrock sisters Ellie and Louise MacNamara) darlings of the Irish music scene, it wasn't until their track 'Remember When' was featured in a Discover Ireland advertisement last year that their music began reaching a mass audience.

For their sophomore release, due later this year, the girls have expanded on the simple but effective formula of tuneful harmonies and guitar accompaniment to more intricate arrangements, adding percussion, electric guitars and cello into the mix.

I was lucky enough to catch the girls debut some new material at a gig before Christmas and can happily report that the new material is pretty special. A live version of one of the tracks, Find A Way, has surfaced online and is every bit as good as I remembered it being:



Here's another couple of tracks of theirs I really love:

Heathers - Margie



Super Extra Bonus Party featuring Heathers - Comets



[Image: Sara Devine]

Welcome To The Neighbourhood

Over the next few days, I'm hoping to do a number of posts about Dublin-based bands. The Hype Machine recently revamped their site and applied various labels to each of the blogs they list and it got me thinking about the kind of music I post on the site.

One of the tags applied to my own blog is 'British' and, when I think of it, it's very true that I tend to post about a lot of UK acts, but rarely about the equally talented musicians I regularly encounter gigging around the fair city of Dublin.

The 'Local Heroes' series, which I hope to intersperse with (more regular) posts about artists from further afield, is my attempt at kickstarting a habit of sharing some of the glittering gems the Emerald Isle has to offer.

Should I fail, well I guess this post is going to look a bit embarrassing in a few weeks' time. If not, who knows, maybe The Gods of Hype Machine will consider bestowing an 'Irish' label upon my plot of cyberspace next time they stop by?