Ballroom # 61

Friday 23rd of February
The Lower Deck
Doors 9pm, €8 in, Free CD-r to the first 100


Groom


GROOM began life as a solo project for guitarist Michael Stevens, when his previous band, Settler, disbanded in 2004. Starting as a kind of folky-electronic two piece with friend Fiachra McCarthy, a short album, entitled "Stitch", was released in Summer 2004. Fiachra had to then leave the band, and Wil McDermott, also of Settler, electronic wiz Liam Dunne, and drummer Brian O'Higgins joined. They immediately began to chastise Mike mercilessly for his dress sense while helping to forge a unique, countrytronica sound characterised by folkish songwriting and electronic bleeps. Continuous gigging, however, has since sculpted the sound into the gentle guitary-keyboardy-rock monster it is now, with Michael's taciturn vocals at the centre, as always.

http://www.groomtheband.net
http://www.myspace.com/groomtheband


Angel Pier


Fully formed in January of 2006, it all began with the intention of pinning melancholic melodies to a gothic groove. Thrown together by a mutual friend at a chance meeting one night in Whelans in Dublin, Darragh (vocals, guitar), Paul (bass) and Mark (Drums) quickly found the intended direction and began pursuing refinement. With the heart now a solid groove recalling the Stone Roses and the Cure, Canadian guitarist Luke was bolstered on and compelled to comply. His classic blue's rock sound, which lies somewhere between the Pixies and the Beatles, sat comfortably on top of the straight rhythm guitar and looping backbone. The instruments combined to create a discordance that surround the classic pop induced melodies of the song-writing, underpinning the darker lyrical content within. With high, melodic vocals that lie somewhere between Thom Yorke and Jason Lytle soaring over the top ANGEL PIER was born.

The sound could be described as confrontational, disjointed, dark, melancholic, unhinged and uplifting. It's up to you, really, you have to decide if you're gonna take off or dive in.

ANGEL PIER have recently recorded an EP with Kieran Lynch (U2, HAL, Elvis Costello) undertaking production duties and will be available online and from selected shops from January 11th 2007.

http://www.angelpier.com
http://www.myspace.com/angelpier

House of Cosy Cushions


Some time ago house of cosy cushions was based in amsterdam - They loved playing the cactus song on the ship of fools - Main man Richard moved to dublin in the summer of 2005 - formed a new irish band that's dying to play - ep 'palace for the lost ones' is out now on seadog records and the debut album 'instinct' will be re-released at some stage - New songs are currently floating in new - as so then is a new album with the irish band - but in the end of the House of Cosy Cushions about playing live and letting the animal in us sway and sing.

http://www.myspace.com/houseofcosycushions

LPX

LPX consists of Leigh O'Gorman. He has been creating differing types of electronic and guitar music and has been performing in the area of sound engineering, production, and computer music for approximately five years now, but it was only in January 2004 that he performed live for the first time.
In April 2005, Leigh created The Electric Fix - a collective of artists, musicians and alternativist people which was officially launched on the June bank holiday weekend.

He released his debut EP, "Easy Music for Difficult Ears", on the Electric Fix label in November 2006 to glowing reviews and has since released "Experiments in Dub and HiFi" as a free internet release on the Alphabet Set website.

http://www.myspace.com/lpxireland