The Sigla Blog

Tomorrow night, music fans are spoilt for choice with The National, Ane Brun, The Hold Steady, Yeasayer, The Pigeon Detectives, Black Mountain and Ain all playing in Dublin. One gig you might have missed, is New Bloods, an all girl trio from Oregon, who released their debut album, The Secret Life, (review here) last month […]

“My favourite space to create music would have to be at home, specifically this tiny room with hardly any space in it to move. Actually, the smaller the room the better the feeling of being creative! Big studios are kind of odd to record in and any experience I’ve had of them has certainly dismantled […]

“I like any space that is void of other people and most furniture. But I like the option to sit, stand, or lay down while playing guitar. Since we are on tour much more than we are stationary, I don’t have much leeway to be specific, but the most I can hope for is […]

From today, I’m delighted to say that the Musical Rooms will appear as an occasional column in The Ticket, in The Irish Times. People have been very supportive of the series since it started on the blog back in November. As I said in a comment yesterday, musicians who read it confess that it’s a […]

“The only place I like to create music is always my house in New York - I’ve never been one of those folks who’s able to pick up a guitar and write music in a moving vehicle. The room itself is compact and small, it’s recently been painted the colour purple, and it’s tucked in […]

I have it on very good authority that Stevie Wonder is playing some London dates later this year. Jim usually has advance gig news before anyone, so maybe he’s heard some insider whispering on whether the great man himself might stop off in Dublin for a gig?
My dad saw Stevie play the RDS in the […]

Last night on BBC Radio 3 Samantha Morton featured in a programme that might be of interest to anyone participating in Dreadful Thoughts. Words and Music examined various poems that have been inspired by the supernatural, with readings by Morton and Dominic West from The Wire. Poems by Yeats, Emily Dickinson, Thomas Hardy and Robert […]

Niall and Una have already flagged this, but it’s an end of a particular era for Phantom 105.2 today. Edel Coffey is finishing up on Access All Areas this morning, having presented the show since the station went on air in October 2006. One of the station’s few female presenters, AAA is one of Phantom’s […]

Maximum Joy host one of their biggest gigs to date with Portland’s Chromatics playing their first Irish date. Fronted by Ruth Radelet, theirs is the realm of dark, electro pop populated by synths, drums and guitar. Above is the video for their fantastic single, ‘In The City’. They also do a rather fine cover of […]

While writing an article about the many legged music and culture machine that is Ladyfest Cork, I discovered several fantastic bands were on the line-up. Some I already know and am fond of - Janey Mac, Party Weirdo, Queen Kong, You’re Only Massive - but two in particular have really grabbed me, both all […]

“Our favourite space to create music in is Exchequor Studios in the centre of Dublin. It’s owned by Nick Seymour from Crowded House and we’ve been lucky enough to avail of it for much of the last year or so. It’s a single room studio with loads of natural light, synths, surrounding food emporiums, a […]

Ok, the above video ‘Been so Long’ isn’t on the new Vetiver* album of covers, but I’m very excited to say that Vashti Bunyan (featured in this clip) is. She sings on ‘Sleep a Million Years’, a Dia Joyce track. The album features recordings of tracks by Norman Greenbaum (he of ‘Spirit in the Sky’ […]