TeamHorseTales

Late 80s/early 90s I attended mainly rock gigs as that’s what I was used to hearing from my big brothers’ record collections. Though there was a shift in my tastes to more maverick and risky bands than they would have entertained as I moved up to Belfast as a student. But around the time of my 18 th birthday I persuaded my brother to take me to see Heart, along with his girlfriend. This was the Brigade tour and I’d seen the Wilson Sisters in the videos for their hits from the previous album. I remember being slightly taken aback when Ann appeared resplendent in military style jacket. The concert was in the by now very familiar King’s Hall and at the peak of their powers the band played to a packed house, Ann Wilson still has an incredible voice to this day. The next concert I’d attend was a very special one. I’d been a fan of Prince since I was 12, when Purple Rain became a massive success. By 1990, he’d released the classic run of albums (Purple Rain, Around The World In A Day, Par...

My blogs are now going to recall as much as I can remember from the gigs and concerts I’ve been to over the years. Whilst the last few years have seen me venture out a LOT less than I used to, I’ve seen in excess of 150 artists since my first outing in 1984. Some gigs I can’t recall anything about so they’ll get a cursory mention, others will have a lasting memory or detail I’d like to share and maybe you’ll have been to some of these shows too. I thought long and hard about how to go about this, and I reckon the best way is to go chronologically. That way you get to see how my musical tastes and ability to withstand different genres came to be. So, let’s begin… The first proper show I’d been to, outside of maybe some of my big brother’s band, was an all-star outdoor festival at Ramore Head in Portrush. Indeed, it was my brothers who were heading to the concert on a rain sodden July day when 12 year old me decided he wanted to tag along. After much persuasion I was allowed to go. On ...

The second Team Horse release was a 5 track e.p. entitled 'Here Come The Hurricane', which was a line from a Simple Minds song, fact fans. I think Jim Kerr actually sings "Here Comes The Hurricane" but I liked the sound of 'Here Come' better. Feeling much more confident that there was an actual audience for this sound I really went for it again in terms of creating something downright nasty sounding. It was at this point in time I found out about a website called Echoes And Dust. They'd reviewed And So I Watch You From Afar and 'Gangs' had actually been selected as their album of the year. I figured I should send my CD to them for a review and lo and behold, the site's chief Dan Salter wrote some lovely words about the e.p. I didn't know it at this point, but this link would be massive in the reshaping of my musical 'career'. A fair amount of the songs I recorded over the years all pointed to one thing. Sometimes it would be blatant...

Boosted by recent higher profile gigs with ASIWYFA I found myself supporting the legendary Japanese psyche band Acid Mothers Temple, in the Pavilion bar. The gig was put on by the lovely Darren Smyth of Strange Victory. I’d never heard of these dudes before and was intrigued to find a group of long bearded gentlemen ensconced in this tiny upstairs bar prepping themselves for the show. The prepping consisted of burning off CDRs of their back catalogue, which matched my own recorded output of being vast and numerous. So we had something in common! I had a special ‘treat’ for the audience that night. I had lined up the piece of music by David Rose, known as “The Stripper”, to play over the PA as I collected up my gear. This also included me putting on a ridiculous dance routine of swinging leads and instruments about as I packed up my stuff. It got the biggest cheer of the night. I never did it again mind you! I also found myself supporting the American artist Josh T Pearson, for his ac...

  This blog is going to be slightly different from my regular ones. What happens next in my musical journey is very much shaped by my dalliance with one particular band. I want to devote a blog to covering the good times I spent with And So I Watch You From Afar. To this day, ASIWYFA remain one of my favourite bands. The band have continued to be a presence on the live circuit and despite line-up changes still release intriguing and ever evolving music to tantalise. Through my association with Echoes And Dust website, I’ve reviewed several of their albums. I first noticed ASIWYFA when they played as support to We Are Knives, another Belfast band with incredible musicians. I didn’t know what to expect from them as their band name initially felt kind of pretentious, albeit the lyric from a Deftones song. It became apparent though, that the instrumental post rock the band were creating was right up my street. I’d been listening to the likes of Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky and ea...

  My listening habits are wide ranging, always have been. I grew up listening to a lot of indie, rock music and metal. In the early 90s I found myself being drawn to edgier bands like Jane’s Addiction and Ministry. I also loved hip-hop and funk and soul. There were three bands that would shape my recording output remarkably. First, The Magnetic Fields. Their triple album ‘69 Love Songs’ was the inspiration for the double albums I’d put out over the years. The main man behind that group was Stephin Merritt, who had been recording under various names over the years (The Hyacinths, Future Bible Heroes to name a few). I thought this was a brilliant idea and there was scope for me to do that, given my desire to make music from genres that I’d never tried before. The second band I found myself listening to around this time was Jesu. Justin Broadrick was part of the industrial metal band Godflesh and I came across his work from his remix of a Pelican track that was just stunning. Droning ...

The year is 2006 and the creative juices are in full flow. Feeling strong and inventive, fully in charge of what direction I wanted to progress into, the latest album looked towards Tom Waits for inspiration, entitled ‘Innocent When You Dream’, after one of his songs. This was a full-on Dream Pop album, heavy on keyboards and slamming distorted beats with a shoegaze element. The harmonising I had employed on ‘…Our Black Hearts’ still appeared on some tracks. I’d started to use the violin bow on the guitar now which was an added feature making for a lovely fuzzy tone. The resin powder clogged up the strings something rotten though! The track ‘Baby I’m A Star’ not only nabbed a Prince title, I decided to sing in a falsetto/Camille voice. Another new trick I developed in this album to go along with the “shimmer” (see earlier blogs) was the “twinkle”. This trick consisted of firing high piano notes through a delay pedal to make lovely Disney magic sounds. These sounds went to create a very...