FANS of indie/alternative rock music won’t want to miss this event at The Greyhound Bar this Saturday night.

‘Do You Believe In The Power Of Rock & Roll? An evening with John Robb’ will see the writer and musician speak about his journey from  the late 1970s, when he was first caught up in punk’s high-octane thrill, to the present day, via the early days of the rave scene, the birth of electronic and techno, and myriad bands that spun off on their own idiosyncratic paths.

The second half of the night will feature a conversations with special guests, Paul Smith of Blast First Records and Spider Stacy of The Pogues.

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John Robb was the first person to write about Nirvana in the UK press, he documented the Stone Roses’ rise out of Manchester attending every pivotal gig and has interviewed every key player in the business, including Jordan, the queen of punk, founding father of new American rock Steve Albini, goth-rock guitarist Daniel Ash, Oasis co-founder Noel Gallagher, and music greats like Lemmy and Poly Styrene.

John grew up in Blackpool before punk rock came along and saved his life and he formed The Membranes – the highly influential post punk band.

Starting out making DIY zines John quickly moved into writing books and journalistic articles on music and culture, his music and culture website louderthanwar.com is currently the 5th most read music and culture sites in the UK.

He is a constant on TV and radio commenting on music, culture and politics and one of the UK’s leading in conversation hosts who has his own successful youtube channel and his own books & music festival in Manchester every year called ‘Louder Than Words’.

Paul Smith is founder of alternative record label Blast First which he set up in order to release Sonic Youth’s music in Europe, going on to not only release a host of other US guitar bands such as Butthole Surfers, Big Black and Dinosaur Jr. but also a diverse range of acts from the likes of Pan Sonic to Sun Ra,

Aside from Blast First and it’s successor Blast First Petite Paul has worked with a diverse range of artists from the literary and music worlds including Ken Kesey,  J. G. Ballard, , Iain Sinclair, Nick Cave and Bill Drummond.

Peter ‘Spider’ Stacy is a musician, singer, songwriter, producer and actor, best known as a co-founder of The Pogues along along with Shane MacGowan, Jem Finer, and James Fearnley, he appeared on all of their recordings, playing tin whistle and singing.

This is a seated show so tickets are limited and will take place in the Greyhound Bar Tralee.

Doors at 8:30pm, with John and guests taking the stage from 9pm, tickets are €12 available from Eventbrite by clicking here. This event is supported by Kerry County Council through their Arts Act Grant.

A TRALEE venue will host the debut Irish show for Baltimore avant-garde rock quartet Horse Lords this Friday, April 12.

The Greyhound Bar will host a band with a meticulous sound centred in controlled minimalism, their experimentation with krautrock, post-punk, traditional Appalachian, African polyrhythms, arcane tunings, and use of electronics.

They will be complemented by Kerry’s finest, Ten Past Seven, with the show beginning at 9pm. For tickets click here.

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Horse Lords, formed in 2010, embrace Renaissance counterpoint, covers composer Julius Eastman, play instruments specially fretted for microtonality, and organizes its music through polyrhythmic matrices.

Guitarist Owen Gardner and saxophonist / percussionist Andrew Bernstein met in the ‘00s at Goucher College in suburban Baltimore—the former steeped in global folk musics and experimental music, the latter a budding composer.

As members of the rich Baltimore music scene, notably the band Teeth Mountain, they met bassist Max Eilbacher, who has subsequently blazed a path in electroacoustic music, and drummer Sam Haberman.

From the beginning, the Horse Lords have played music defined by repetition and complexity, often at length, and presented it in ways that telegraph their concern with questioning social and political norms.

Their self-titled 2012 debut album, on Baltimore’s Ehse Records, unveiled the band’s visual aesthetic—geometric art, no photos—and single side-long piece “Wildcat Strike.” Interventions (Northern Spy), from 2016, led off with a track called “Truthers.”

That same year, they championed Eastman, a musical and social radical, at a time when his posthumous fame was only beginning to build. Even their practice of dropping EP-length “mixtapes” between their five full-length albums to date undermines standard music-biz rigueur. They have done their best to democratize their touring experience as well, hitting the road often and playing as wide a range of venues as possible.

Horse Lords emerge from a year of Covid-enforce idleness with Comradely Objects, an album assembled in a more leisurely fashion that nonetheless finds them sounding more focused and urgent. Comradely Objects  appeared on many album of the year lists including The Wire.

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