Communion Belfast#2 @Black Box, Belfast, 31.10.10
As promised, Bandwidth will be following Communion Belfast over the next few months, as it brings the best new music to The Black Box in Belfast city centre.
Communion Records first started this night, hand and glove with the Brighton folk-scene – and its influence stretches far and wide. Last month, Communion came to Belfast for the first time – check out our footage of that gig here.
First up, Stephen E. Caswell of Lowly Knights fame.
Rams’ Pocket Radio‘s Peter McCauley:
[Download Video]
Camera/Edit: Will McConnell
Filmed at The Black Box, Belfast in October 2010
Cream Of The Crap
Artwork by Will McConnell.
‘Cash rules everything around me
Cream, get the money
Dolla’ dolla’ bill ya’ll’
C.R.E.A.M – Wu Tang Clan.
I am not a film snob. This should come as no shock to anyone who read my ravings about Piranha 3D, but I still feel the need to assert this point, because people so often mistake taste for prejudice. I don’t dismiss a film, or anything for that matter, for being low-brow. Low-brow is just fine. And so is high-brow. And so are brows of average height. Despite this though, I do have opinions about movies and literally until today, I could never quite generalise what it is about the movies I don’t like that makes me… not like them. And then it struck me. Lightning, that is. Zapped me clean out of my fucking shoes and deposited me in the gutter outside a bar. When I came around my face was charred and my hair was standing on end and by God if there was ever a time when a man’s nerves needed calmed, it was right after every nerve ending in that man’s body was just jangled loose by a few thousand volts from the sky. So I went in to the bar and sat down. The bartender gave me a funny look, which I put down to my looking like I just tried to dig a piece of wheaten bread out of a toaster with a fork.
Babysweet Sessions’ very awesome documentary about Two Door Cinema Club has been on the band’s site for about a week and a half now.
Babysweet is of course the superhero alter ego of Gregg Houston and Hannah Vincent. The documentary is called You Think You Know, You Don’t Know and it was shot in Paris in February 2010.
I was honoured to collaborate on the shooting of it, and followed Gregg and Hannah over to France where we took a lot of photos and I ate a heart shaped brie. I even have a cameo in there.
So Kick back and enjoy:
http://www.twodoorcinemaclub.com/documentary/
The Jane Bradfords – Judicial Duel
Good things happen when Bandwidth and The Jane Bradfords team up.
This is our 3rd collaboration, after the highly appreciated 2008 video for Evening Angels Gather Here, and 2009′s Valentines Day Session, which kind of started this whole Bandwidth Session business off really.
Oh and there’s the small matter of the Christmas 2009 Bandwidth mix tape – which was curated by Deci Gallen, the JBs frontman. So. Go and check that out please.
So, yes, The Jane Bradfords, Judicial Duel – the best song ever written about the struggle to recognise civil partnerships. Really.
Black Coffee, Blue Heart
Artwork by Will McConnell.
Not only was I supposed to find a gig to review this week, I was left to organise my own date too, like some sort of amateur. Will is huffing with me after he got into some trouble on a night we went out boozing. There is only a certain number of times a bouncer can hear, ‘How about a date baby? Fifty quid.’ before he will reasonable assume the man saying that is a down on his luck gigolo, and turf him out of the bar. Will was being rather unclear, of course, because he was actually offering the fifty, to go on a date with me, for this article. Either he was too drunk to explain himself properly or the bouncers just weren’t listening, but he got thrown out rather roughly and for some reason he is holding it against me, of all people!
[Editor's Note: That's because you bought him four shots of tequila, bet him he couldn't get you a date and then pretended you didn't know him when the bouncers threatened to throw you both out.]
That’s true! Will still owes me a tenner for that bet…
Brendan Benson
I’ve been a fan of Brendan Benson for many years now. It all started with the release of his 2005 album Alternative To Love, an album so chock full of shamelessly cheerful pop riffs I couldn’t quite resist, and even in my jaded gloominess had to break into a gormless ear to ear grin every single time I put it on the cd player (it was the days of cd players).
Then he joined a band and, in my opinion, became criminally eclipsed by his louder more limelight-hungry friends.
But he’s back – and with the added bonus that its now considered cool to like him again. Not even that would put Bandwidth off.
Last September, Brendan devoted himself to a whole month tour of Ireland, taking in every major sight and sound on the way, and with his family in tow. We met up with him in Belfast, and we made friends with some lizards, watch:
Right, well after all that there was still time to head back to Auntie Annie’s, the venue, of the gig, of the reason he was there. And we got what I believe may well be an exclusive – the first video session of a song he’d been playing a bit live.
It’s a B-Side to Spit It Out called Baby In A Rug. And its wonderful.
Camera: Will McConnell / Sound: Sean Duncan
Filmed in Belfast, September 2010
IN STORES NOW#45: The Veronas
We’ve had a couple of great high profile acts on Bandwidth of late – but its good to remember that the bread and butter of this site is new Irish music – and in that spirit we’re very proud to bring you a session with young pups The Veronas from Omagh.
They drove down to Belfast all the way from Omagh on a sunny day during in the summer in search of a piano to try out two of their new tracks. The Black Box dutifully obliged (as well as keeping us well supplied with caffeine and sugar) – but the tuning was a bit off (we had been politely warned). So, we went for a walk. That, as anyone who has ever seen any In Stores Now episode will tell you, is when it really gets interesting..
Camera: Will McConnell
Filmed in Belfast, August 2010
Silences 
The Lost Brothers 
Ash 
Delorentos 
I’ve Been Taken 
This Ain’t A Hold Up 
The Dark Knight Rises, But Then So Does Hot Air. 
I Don’t Know 
