Heavenly Worldliness: spotlite on Horslips

Once again, the great library of Horslips videos on You Tube spark another Blogger to a posting or two. Here at Recent Horslips, Gary Brady of Childs Hill London has a chance to watch the opening number from the phenomenal set in Dingle, December 2005, that was Horslips on RTE's Other Voices.

Gary also revisits The Book of Invasions with his impressions of then and now and a link to Amazon.

Here's hoping that naming calls, btw, because my own CD cover of Book of Invasions has no CD in it, which means that the CD has been 'spending the night' over at a friend's house (i.e. its doubled-up in another cover) and I don't want to tell you how many CDs I'm going to have to check!

Podunkian Music Club spotlite on Horslips!

The Horslips - King of the Fairies

Perhaps they were just a decade or so ahead of their time, since the Horslips first blazed the trail in North America in the mid seventies, the likes of the Boomtown Rats, Pogues, Hothouse Flowers,The Cranberries and of course the all dominating U2 caught the fancy of the world, let alone North America.

I won't quote the whole blog because the idea is that you'll go over there for a visit! And that's an AllGoodeThings video there as the lead to the article.

The Rock Doctor: Horslips - play 'Dearg Doom" Live.

Reeling from the news that Marvel Comix has axed Captain America, I am very happy to discover this:

The Rock Doctor: Horslips - play 'Dearg Doom" Live.

That's me in the audience for all of three or four seconds. Yeah, it's a year on now, and I'm finally pretty stoked about it.

Eamon Carr and Richie Buckley on YouTube

Remembering the STARDUST - "Molly Malone"

Johnny Fean & Steve Travers Headline Ballyshannon Folk Festival

From the Fean and Travers Newsletter

Great news just is is that Johnny & Steve have been asked to Headline this years Ballyshannon Folk Festival, more news on that as the year progresses. They have also been rehearsing with ACE Drummer & Percussionist "Blendi Krasniqi" who is going to perform with them on all of their gigs this year, including the Galway and Ennis gigs above. Full bio on Blendi to follow.

Also: Fean and Travers at Mall Theatre in Tuam, Co Galway - March 2nd

Johnny Fean and Steve Travers in Tuam

Irish rock legends to play The Mall Theatre
From the Galway Independent

Johnny Fean and Steven Travers, legendary players on the Irish rock scene, will play The Mall Theatre in Tuam on Friday 2 March.

Johnny Fean is best known for being one of the world's top guitarists when he played with Horslips, who at the height of their fame inspired such luminaries as Rory Gallagher to take up the guitar.

Along with Steven Travers, a former member of the Miami Showband and one of Ireland's best bass players, the pair have come together to create a musical experience that mixes furious paced rock, grass roots blues and some Celtic rock classics.

More at the link.

Amazon Review of The Book of Invasions

Horslips: Their Best Album

Unlike the other Horslips albums I have reviewed on Amazon, this album gains force from its accrued impact, rather than its individual tracks. Like "Táin," "Book" is meant to work as a unified single piece of music, as the subtitle defines it. Songs are chapters in a book, verses of a poem.

Instrumental and sung passages alternate in the three movements of the album from Geantrai--cheerier songs-- to Goltrai-- laments--to Suantrai-- songs of sleep or dreams. These unify as in storytelling various "branches" of the tale and classify them in ancient Irish categories of narrative craft and intent. It's a "Celtic symphony," therefore, in the ebbs and crests of the musical representation and the lyrical explanation of the energetic clashes and couplings the Book of Invasions (Leabhar Gabhala) relates-- the tribes who landed in pre-Christian Ireland successively to fight over its land and its wealth.

More at the link.