Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
IT’S GETTING FESTIVE!
CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS IN GOD’S WAITING ROOM STEP BACK IN TIME THIS XMAS
Seems to be the week for big festival reveals. Strange coincidence or maybe there’s an algorithm employed to work out the exact moment to announce such things for optimum reach? That’s how things work these days, I’m told. Bitcoin an that, dystopian futures.
Anyway, the biggest news is that AVA is back with renewed ambition - as if they were ever short on that - and a new venue. Not one to sit on their hands, after successful events at T13 and the Titanic Slipway, they’re moving to the “dystopian warehouse” of S13 in South Belfast. Sounds pretty exciting, conjuring images of Snake Plissken doing his best to get way from hordes of drooling savages and burning cars to a soundtrack of blistering techno. Tempered by the fact it’s the old B&Q on Boucher Road, but we can let our imaginations run. Anyway, with Boiler Room back on board and expanding to a two-day live stream, who’d ever try to escape? The festival and its associated conference runs on Friday, June 1, and Saturday, June 2, and early bird tickets are on sale already from just £50 at www.avafestival.com.
Speaking of AVA and dystopian warehouses, they’ve teamed up with Shine to host THEEE New Year’s Eve party at the Telegraph Building in Belfast
City Centre. The Tele’s former print room is an awesome place and the night’s headliners are Denis Sulta, DJ Seinfeld and Trance Wax (an alias of Irish fave Ejeca). Tickets, £25 plus booking fee from www.shine.net and from Katy’s Bar.
Meanwhile, Output Belfast announced this week that it’ll be back in February with another enormous line-up for the conference’s many panels, workshops and seminars. We’re particularly excited by the prospect of Everything Everything’s Jeremy Pritchard insights into streaming... and of course waited with bated breath for the gazillions of great little gigs of up and coming local bands that always accompany Output.
From one extreme to another - bands that are already well up and have been announced for next year’s Belsonic concerts at Ormeau Park. Timmy Trumpet returns after his, ahem, blast, of a show in the summer. He, ahem again, blows into town on Thursday, June 21, while Picture This are, ahem one more time, in the frame for Sunday, June 17. Of course there’ll be a load of other massive acts announced in the weeks and months ahead - whenever the algorithm decrees, in fact. Not all bad these dystopian futures, eh? God’s Waiting Room is one of the absolute best, if slightly surreal, parties in Belfast.
Curated by David Holmes, you can be sure the soundtrack will be a genre-blending selection of brilliance, delivered by Homer himself and selection of handpicked DJS from across the city and beyond.
A live performance forms the main event of each show and headliners this year have included the likes of Jane Weaver, a bingo calling extravaganza by Jarvis Cocker, Andrew Wetherall, Unloved and a swathe of other alt-indie greatness.
It all takes place in the unusual surroundings of the Maple Leaf Club in East Belfast’s Park Avenue, one of the final bastions of old fashioned working men drinking venues.
The GWR Christmas Party takes place next Saturday December 16 and features Song Sung (NYC) Live plus DJ’S David Holmes and Wah Wah Wino (Dublin). Joe Lindsay and the Belfast Music Club DJS complete the line up in Room 2, along with a very special spoken word performance from the one and only Paulo Sousa Quase Sósia.
Everyone in attendance will also bag themselves a GWR button badge and a download code to activate the clubs favourite 100 tunes from 2017 and will include tracks from all the guests that have played this year. IF you are not planning to go out on New year’s Eve, but would still like to celebrate the end of 2017, then the 70s and 80s Vinyl Disco at the Belmont Hotel, Banbridge on Saturday, December 30 could be just the ticket for you.
Taking place in the hotel’s cocktail lounge, the intimate venue will be the ideal spot to enjoy a festive party night of classic floor-filling tracks – played on 7-inch 45s as they were back in the day – from the two decades that produced some memorable disco hits.
If you would like the opportunity to enjoy a fun evening, tickets £5 (a limited number) for the event can be bought at Walsh’s Newsagents, Scarva Street in Banbridge.
So, why not gather up a bunch of like-minded friends and get along to the Belmont Hotel for a night to remember. Early shout for Portlandian space-rock outfit Moon Duo who are bringing their new album Occult Architecture Vol. 1 (out now on the Sacred Bones label) to the Black Box for the closing weekend of Out to Lunch, on Saturday January 27.
The Moon Duo sound is built around Ripley Johnson’s remarkable, fluid guitar and Sanae Yamada’s Nuggetsmeets-conny Plank keyboards and the album adds a little more electronics than usual and also throws in some high concept darkness to boot (as borne out by titles like Cold Fear and The Death Set).
As the first instalment in a two-album series for 2018, it’s an immediate and hypnotic listen and this promises to be a momentous live gig.