Fresh from their performances in the National Concert Hall in September and Knockanstockan Festival, October Fires are delighted to bring their live set to the Grand Social. They have recorded their latest single 'Caught In Your Design' in the stunning Black Mountain Studios which is being released in October which they will showcase on the night. In the words of producer James Darkin, the song is “Moody as F**k!”

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October Fires have been described as haunting, dark pop, weaving in and out of different genres, fusing them together to create their unique and distinct sound.   Since the band released their first radio single ‘Pray’ in June 2018 and their debut EP ‘Everybody Knows in October 2018 they have been greeted with a number of glowing reviews from Hot Press, Nialler 9. Remy, The Last Mixed Tape Barry Gruff and appeared in Joe.ie song of the day.   They have received steady radio play on RTE 2XM, RTE Radio 1, Radio Nova, 98 FM, 8 Radio, Dublin City FM, Galway Bay FM, FM104, WLRFM, KCLR FM and 92.5 Phoenix FM.   October Fires have been interviewed and performed on RTE's 'The Arena Show' with John Rocks, 98fm’s Totally Irish with John Barker and award winning DJ, Roddy Cleere on KCLR FM.  The band's name was inspired by the smoky scent in the air walking home from practice one autumn night. October has a unique vibe, with its perfect blend of beauty and eeriness, a trademark of the band's sound and their music is continually inspired by this balance.  “Weaving large-scale indie-folk, bold harmonic flourishes and an icy backdrop, October Fires’ individualistic sound comes to the fore on ‘Screaming Red’”.  (The Last Mixed Tape)  “'Pray', is a gothic pop gem that marries slow hypnotic harmonies to a jarring, haunting, yet gorgeous melody”.  (Hot Press Magazine)  "Kildare based band October Fires channel Lisa Hannigan-esque vocals on their new track ‘Pray’…Altogether, it makes for an eclectic listen".   (Nialler9)  “The vocals invoke a ritualistic incantation, free-flowing plonking piano progressions and bass add to that nonchalant care-free sense".   (REMY)  "October Fires have found the perfect blend between beauty and otherworldly eeriness"  (Barry Gruff)  "There be sorcery at work here and one listen will have you under their spell”.   (Hot Press online)     Vocals, Keys / Carol Somers  Vocals, Keys / Lisa Connolly  Bass / Eoghan O’Neill  Guitar / Eric Somers

Join us every Monday for the explosive Jazz Jam. Each week we have some of the hottest jazz players in the country get together and go off like a firecracker on the 4th of July. Become one of the lucky listeners and jump onto the exploration of the world of great jazz. The best part is there is no cost to be in the circle of fifths. Players come early!
Venue: The Grand Social  Doors: 8pm  Admission: FREE

One of Britain’s finest rising bands, The Snuts, have today unleashed a nine date assault on the UK, kicking off mid-September, including the band’s biggest show outside of their home of Scotland at London’s Scala on October 22nd. Undeniable evidence of their impressive ascent.
Venue: The Grand Social  Doors: 7.30pm  Admission: €13.50  - Get Tickets

Looking like a man from leaner and meaner times, Willie Watson steps on stage with a quiet gravitas. But, when he opens his mouth and lets out that high lonesome vocal, you can hear him loud and clear. His debut solo album, Folk Singer Vol. 1, was produced by David Rawlings at Woodland Sound Studios, the studio he co-owns with associate producer Gillian Welch in Nashville, TN, over the course of a pair of two-day sessions, for their own Acony Records label.

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The album spans ten songs from the American folk songbook ranging from standards like “Midnight Special,” “Mexican Cowboy” and Richard “Rabbit” Brown’s “James Alley Blues” to the more obscure, like Memphis Slim’s 12-bar blues, “Mother Earth,” Gus Cannon and the Jug Stompers’ “Bring it With You When You Come,” Land Norris’ double-entendre kids chant, “Kitty Puss” and St. Louis bluesman Charley Jordan’s sing-song “Keep It Clean.” Like the music, Willie can be murderous, bawdy or lustful, sometimes in the course of a single song, with a sly sense of humor that cuts to the quick. He counters a masterful bravado with the tragic fragility of one who has been wounded. “There’s a lot of weight in the way Willie performs,” says Rawlings, longtime friend and producer of Watson’s previous band, Old Crow Medicine Show. “He’s had some tragedy in his life, which has informed his art. There’s an emotional edge to what he does because of who he is as a human being. Willie is the only one of his generation who can make me forget these songs were ever sung before.”

Born in Watkins Glen, N.Y. - best-known for its race track and the rock festival of the same name which took place there, featuring the Allman Brothers, Grateful Dead and The Band - Watson grew up listening to his father’s basement record collection, including Bob Dylan and Neil Young, before stumbling on a Leadbelly album at the age of 12. Combined with having heard plenty of local string bands - featuring old-time banjo and fiddle - Willie experienced an epiphany.

“As soon as I heard that record,” he recalls, “I was hooked.”

With a voice that could quaver in the operatic style of his favorite, Roy Orbison, Willie went on to discover North Carolina Appalachian fiddle and banjo players Tommy Jarrell and Fred Cockerham, who played songs like “Cripple Creek,” “Sugar Hill” and “John Brown’s Dream” on a compilation cassette of “round peak style” music. He began to unearth Folkways albums, including the label’s groundbreaking 1952 Harry Smith compilation, Anthology of American Folk Music, which helped kick-start the ‘60s folk revival lovingly captured in the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis. He discovered like-minded souls in Old Crow Medicine Show.

“When we started that band, I found people that were cut from the same musical cloth,” he says. “They were my age, into the same thing, going down a similar road. We started sharing our influences, trading records and playing together.”

A few years down that road, Watson’s work with Old Crow is already a large part of the reason that banjo and guitar driven music is heard everywhere in the air these days. On Folk Singer, we find Willie defending his musical turf. A true solo album in every sense, Watson is now center-stage, armed with an acoustic guitar, banjo and the occasional mouth harp. Indeed, hearing Watson’s skillful and subtle banjo and guitar accompaniments and soaring vocals unadorned for the first time is a revelation.

“Part of me always toyed with this idea of going it alone,” he explains. “I had to relearn some things, how to fill out all that space.” Watson takes the skeletons of these songs and breathes his own life into them, on stage and on record.

Join us every Monday for the explosive Jazz Jam. Each week we have some of the hottest jazz players in the country get together and go off like a firecracker on the 4th of July. Become one of the lucky listeners and jump onto the exploration of the world of great jazz. The best part is there is no cost to be in the circle of fifths. Players come early!
Venue: The Grand Social  Doors: 8pm  Admission: FREE

Since forming in 2009, Crow Black Chicken have earned back-pats aplenty for their dirty southern blues sound. This power trio of Christy O Hanlon (Vocals, Guitar), Stephen McGrath (Bass) and Gev Barrett (Drums, Backing vocals) combine elements of folk,hard rock and the blues of bands like Gov't Mule to create their greasy no bullshit blues rock sound. CBC have Supported ZZ Top at The marquee in Cork, played Glastonbury twice , were picked in the top #5 blues albums by Classic Rock Blues Magazine and this year were winners of the best new band Introducing stage Skegness Rhythm & Blues fest (2019).
Venue: The Grand Social  Doors: 7.30pm  Admission: €10 + €1 booking fee  - Get Tickets

The Hardy Bucks - 3 Bucks left . The Grand Social is proud to present the Hardy Bucks! Frenchtoast, Salmon and Cowboy will be bring their Hardy charm to the Loft Stage. The hilarious trio have been busy this year selling out theaters and comedy clubs nationwide. The sensational mockumentary style show "The Hardy Bucks" ran from 2010 to 2018 has even been featured on Netflix. Get your tickets fast to avoid disappointment for this one folk, we predict it will be a sell out!!
Venue: The Grand Social  Doors: 7.30pm  Admission: €12.50 + €1 bf  - Get Tickets

Daughters - The Grand Social & U: Mack presents - Doors: 7.30pm - Adm: €18 + booking fees.
By titling their 2018 fourth full-length and debut for Ipecac Records, You Won’t Get What You Want, Daughters send a crystal clear message. The quartet—Alexis Marshall [vocals], Nick Sadler [guitar], Jon Syverson [drums], and Sam Walker [bass]— follow the same internal compass that guided them to blur the lines of fickle heavy music sub-genres in the first place and quietly ignite a cult fervor typically reserved for grindhouse phenomena.

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In fact, the best way to describe the philosophy and the sound of the quartet is simply: rock ‘n’ roll.

"I've always felt we decide what a Daughters record is,” Alexis states. “It's not a sound or an aesthetic. Daughters is the name of our group and, we will do whatever we want to do with it.”

“We’ve changed our sound from record to record since the beginning,” says Nick. “We always had a very broad interest and taste in music across the spectrum. We are a rock band at heart, expect not to expect anything.”

There was a time expecting another Daughters record might’ve been met with disappointment. On the heels of their 2010 self-titled offering, the members engaged an indefinite hiatus. One fated dinner and two sold out hometown shows in Providence in 2013 saw them pick up where they had left off. Throughout the next four years the band recorded, eventually culling down a Dropbox of 150 ideas to the ten comprising You Won’t Get What You Want. In the end, if you want a Daughters record, you’ll get it here.

Alternative and Indie at The Grand Social
Venue: The Grand Social  Doors: 4pm  Admission: €19.85  - Get Tickets

Join us every Monday for the explosive Jazz Jam. Each week we have some of the hottest jazz players in the country get together and go off like a firecracker on the 4th of July. Become one of the lucky listeners and jump onto the exploration of the world of great jazz. The best part is there is no cost to be in the circle of fifths. Players come early!
Venue: The Grand Social  Doors: 8pm  Admission: FREE

at The Grand Social
Venue: The Grand Social  Doors: 8pm  Admission: €15  - Get Tickets

Aiken Promotions proudly presents Priests live at The Grand Social, 6th November 2019. Tickets €16.50 inclusive of booking fee, available from Friday at 10AM.
Priests released their new album “The Seduction of Kansas," in April of 2019.
Entering their eighth year as a band, Priests—drummer Daniele Daniele, vocalist Katie Alice Greer, and guitarist G.L. Jaguar—remain an inspired anomaly in modern music. A band on its own label—jolting the greater music world with early releases by Downtown Boys, Snail Mail, Sneaks, and Gauche—they are living proof that it is still possible to work on one’s own terms, to collectively cultivate one’s own world.

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WATCH "THE SEDUCTION OF KANSAS"

LISTEN TO "THE SEDUCTION OF KANSAS"

http://smarturl.it/TheSeductionOfKansas

Aiken Promotions proudly presents Priests live at The Grand Social, 6th November 2019. Tickets €16.50 inclusive of booking fee, available from Friday at 10AM.

Priests released their new album “The Seduction of Kansas," in April of 2019.

Entering their eighth year as a band, Priests—drummer Daniele Daniele, vocalist Katie Alice Greer, and guitarist G.L. Jaguar—remain an inspired anomaly in modern music. A band on its own label—jolting the greater music world with early releases by Downtown Boys, Snail Mail, Sneaks, and Gauche—they are living proof that it is still possible to work on one’s own terms, to collectively cultivate one’s own world.

Priests enlisted two primary collaborators in writing, arranging, and recording The Seduction of Kansas. After playing cello, mellotron, and lap steel on Nothing Feels Natural, multi-instrumentalist Janel Leppin (Mellow Diamond, Marissa Nadler) returned to breathe air into Priests’ demos, serving as primary bassist and a fourth songwriting collaborator on The Seduction of Kansas. The band also found a kindred spirit in producer John Congleton (Angel Olsen, St. Vincent), recording for two weeks at his Elmwood Studio in Dallas. It marked the band’s first time opening up their creative work to collaborate with someone outside of their DC-based community—a decidedly less hermetic approach. Priests found a third collaborator in bassist Alexandra Tyson, who has also joined the touring band. The songwriting process found the group once again analyzing the textures and scopes of albums as aggressive as they are introspective, like Massive Attack’s Mezzanine, Portishead’s Third, and Nine Inch Nails’ Downward Spiral.

at The Grand Social
Venue: The Grand Social  Doors: 8pm  Admission: €15  - Get Tickets

R&B / Urban Soul at The Grand Social
Venue: The Grand Social  Doors: 7.30pm  Admission: €18  - Get Tickets

Join us every Monday for the explosive Jazz Jam. Each week we have some of the hottest jazz players in the country get together and go off like a firecracker on the 4th of July. Become one of the lucky listeners and jump onto the exploration of the world of great jazz. The best part is there is no cost to be in the circle of fifths. Players come early!
Venue: The Grand Social  Doors: 8pm  Admission: FREE