Thursday was the downpour, Friday was the recovery and Saturday is the sun-lashed finale. The fields of Ballymully Cottage Farm embrace the heat as the welly boots are retired to the campsite. The Stendhal Festival organisers are visibly relaxed and the extra footfall (over 10,000 people attending) is proof that this has been a restorative win – a great weekend in spite of funding cutbacks, messy weather and a populace that has been mugged by grim economics. Now they all want to party and Stendhal is willing to oblige. Continue Reading…

Timmy Stewart, one half of Black Bones and a regular Dig With It contributor, puts together a playist to mark gigs this weekend in Liverpool, Todmorden and London. Here are some of the current favourites he has packed for the trip.

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Cathal McNaughton walks through the documentary I Dream in Photos with a fragile, abstracted air. He tugs often at the fraying bill of his baseball cap. With his beard and denim shirt, he looks like a wayward act from Domino Records. He has a severe story to share with you. Continue Reading…

Two years ago, Acoustic Dan gave us the Smick Folk album, a screeching, scatological picture from the disadvantaged slopes of Belfast. There were many ‘c’ bombs and a loathing of grift culture at Stormont. When he sang ‘The Well Below the Valley’ he drew a line back through Christy Moore and Planxty to an older, weirder Ireland. Continue Reading…

Alicia Raye, profile

May 30, 2023

Alicia Raye’s brand of R&B and pop is up to the brief, with hooks that you’ll have spinning around your head all day. But before this, she was the girl that sounded like Rihanna. “I was on a couple of other artists’ songs doing backing vocals,” she explains. “I remember one of my friends starting this rumour where he took a video of his song and said, ‘Can’t believe I got Rihanna on my track’ and people believed him somehow. And then he said it was really Alicia Raye, and put my handle out there. That’s when people really started paying attention.” Continue Reading…

Tina Turner charted in 1989 with ‘The Best’, a song that had previously been recorded by Bonnie Tyler. The song was then adopted by Johnny Adair and the Shankill UFF. ‘Simply the Best’ was the motto on their shirts when 50 paramilitary members joined the Orange Order protests at Drumcree in 2000. Johnny had a matching shirt for his Alsatian dog, Rebel. Continue Reading…

“More strobe!” Ross shouts, as the anxiety levels rise, the beats collide and the Chalk experience jabs at the retinas and the ear canals. The Black Box is fittingly, as black as it’s ever been. We’ve been removed from the usual LED colours – that vapid wash of cyan, magenta and yellow. The Chalk method is to let it glare and keep it cranked. Continue Reading…

In Song of Myself, the opening poem from his seminal collection Leaves Of Grass, American poet Walt Whitman exclaims, “I celebrate myself, and sing myself… For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” The sprawling and expansive work explores humanity and our connection with nature and each other. And on her third album Hinterland, Naomi Hamilton channels this transcendentalist spirit. Continue Reading…

Joe Mulheron, raised in Belfast, performed with The Men of No Property in the 70s, singing about resistance and civil rights. He was inspired by radical folksingers like Woody Guthrie. He worked with Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger and some of his repertoire found its way into the Christy Moore songbook. He later relocated to Derry and opened up Sandinos in 1997, a music bar and a gathering place where left-wing movements were celebrated and furthered. Continue Reading…

A few minutes before the production of Good Vibrations at the Opera House, a white-haired guy sits down in Row H. He looks at the stage and measures the scene up there. Hey, it’s an old record shop with pegboard on the walls. There are punk badges plus albums by Bowie, The Damned and Patti Smith. The booze bottles are empty and the dingy surrounds are familiar to generations of crate-diggers. Continue Reading…