Oh yes, there's more...there's alot more!! World class Irish indie bands continued....

Graham Hopkins, who is currently on a world tour with The Swell Season may well be one of Irelands most celbrated drummers at present. His history as one of the cutting edge drummers of his generation in bands such as The Frames, Hailte,Therapy? and The Swell Season/Once tours and soundtracks have, of late, found him becoming a main feature in the worlds elite 'percussion' magazines and publications. But like many of Irelands top musicians, songwriters and sound engineers he is not sole talent in a family from a nation who are exceptionaly prone to inheriting rampant musical and creative genes.

  In the depths of county Kildare another member of the Hopkins clan has risen to take his place among the current new generation of top musicians and songwriters currently coming of age . Michael Hopkins (Grahams younger cousin) is the next family member with a very generous slice of that creative celtic genepool and he's currently swimming in the stuff along with fellow band mates and musicians Andrew Lloyd and Ronan Kilduff. Planet Parade is the name of the three piece fronted by Micheal on vocals and guitars. With Andrew on drums and Ronan on bass, even though the band have been jamming in and out of various projects together scince big cousin Graham was still keeping time for 'Therapy?', their self financed ep 'Ghosts to People' is their very first public release ( in September 2009) and the boys have been touring with the indie Irish elite ever scince.Indie rock -that sways and swings between progressive to new wave rock faster than you can blink- empowers a truly powerfull sound as sharp and precise as any of the worlds finest and after just a few of months of touring for the debut ep they are already casting their own 'very big musical shadow' for future generations to want to stand in.

 I was walking home the other day and while crossing a road I was suddenly knocked flying by a little green car. Thankfully this particular vehicle was made out of a hundred decibels of musical joy and was actualy on my mobile and not the road, as I was, in fact, watching them perform acousticly on Balcony tv . The track was 'In The Arms Of My Daughter part 2' (featured below) and they belted it out like true 'Grafton Street' masters (ie Hansard, Christopher, Kila etc) with a nicely rocked up version also belting out from their MySpace too and debut ep too. Musicaly these teens have very quickly come of age and form the backbone of yet another generation of Dublin talent set to explode in true talent and creativity and Little Green Cars are currently comprised of the multi vocal and instrumental talents of Dylan Lynch, Donagh Seaver O'Leary, Stevie Appleby, Aoife Kelly, Utsav Lal, Adam O'Regan and Faye O'Rourke. Their sound shifts in style and complexity from song to song and at though at times it may somehow seem to touch on and embrace elements of the Eagles it surpasses it with the compositional skills of Supertramp entwined with Keane or Radiohead while keeping a sharp folk rock edge laying somewhere unique to itself between The Frames and Horslips while being interjected with moments of subtle funk and jazz rock...there's even a tiny hint of The Stranglers on 'Me, A Marrionette' while 'Spiders Legs' bares echoes of a vivid Kate Bush dream while deeply inhaling her 'Night Scented Stock'- So hows that for an almost un-generable and un-boxable sound. Their debut ep (volume 1) was released in April as a CD via CD Baby and as a download via iTunes while 'Volume 2' looks set for release soon.
  There's little doubt that the collective talents of Little Green Cars will form the creative driving force of future generations of future artists...just as bands such as Horslips, Thin Lizzy, Rory Gallagher, U2, and The Frames etc have formed a succesion of home grown mentors leading up to today.

 Another name to have shared the stage and vocals with the Little Green Cars line up has been that of Fluer Moriarty. After recently finding her long lost childhood friend Aoife McCarthy via the internet the pair met up to form yet another unique band called 'BoWlegged'. For some strange reason their 'debut video' for the track 'Red Lights' (below left) kept conjuring images of 'UFO' or 'Space 1999' in my mind...But was it because of Fleurs sixties style and sharp dance moves in those boots and the figure hugging mini-dress? ( ...as there were certainly no silver jump suits or purple 'bobbed' wigs in sight! ) or was it because of the use of kitchen implements to create the kind of spacerock styled guitar intro that was first mastered in the post war era jazz clubs of Paris before finding its way into the pre synthesized musical armory of Spacerock and Trance rock founders 'Gong' in the sixties psychodelic scene - before being emulated in the end credits of the sixties sci fi series?
  Either way, the psychodelic intro stepped up through the gears into an avant guard poprock monster that made full use of the sharp end of Fluers Korg synth with a vocal edge that was at times reminiscent of a very young Sinead O'Connor in the days leading up to her 'Lion and the Cobra' debut. Even though the band has not yet released enough material to make a full judgement on the true extent of their abilities there is something special that stands out about them...and there is something about those dance moves that draws you back again and again - just to make sure that what you've just seen realy happened
( which is also just long enough for those psychodelic synth rock hooks to start taking a permanent hold too...).
  An album release looks set for the new year and you get gain an interesting taster of whats in store via their MySpace here...

There's an awfull lot more Irish Supergroups on the way soon ...so in the meantime you know what to do, follow the links, support them and buy it.
  All songs and videos remain the sole property of the artists themselves with the exception of the Little Green Cars Balcony TV performance which remains the property of (and appears with thanks to) Balcony TV.
 Reviews and articles remain the property of Mairtin O'Riain and Martin Ryan -theryanoriain22.com with permissions for featured artists and the occaisional psychopath. 2009