Congratulations to Adrian Crowley who won the Choice Music Prize for Irish Album of the Year 2009 for “Season of the Sparks”.
Lovely quote from Adrian’s speech, as reported by Hot Press and from Nialler9′s video: “this award is such an inspired idea and I hope it encourages everyone who is making music to be proud to be making music in our little country”.
Congrats to longtime OTR fave Adrian Crowley, who has signed a worldwide deal with Chemikal Underground. His new labelmates will include The Phantom Band and Mogwai.
The label will be releasing “Season of the Sparks” in the UK and elsewhere in November.
You can catch Adrian at the Kilkenny Arts Festival this coming Saturday when he supports Low in St. Canice’s Cathedral. More Irish and UK dates to follow.
Big thanks to everyone who has linked to this blog in the last few days to plug our offer of a free download of Adrian Crowley’s “Long Distance Swimmer” album. The more people who hear this album the merrier.
In no particular order, I owe an Avoca mince pie to Damien, Una, The Chancer, Valentina’s Room, State, Off Her Lovely Rocker, MP3 Hugger, Ruan @ Nick Thinks, Ronan @ Swear I’m Not Paul, Aoife @ Sweet Oblivion, Gardenhead @ Asleep On The Compost Heap, Peter @ 2 U I Bestow, Donal and anyone else I may have left out (if I’ve omitted you, please let me know in the comments below).
And big thanks too to everyone who has already downloaded it (if you have yet to do so, the album is here). The offer is still good for today so add the album to your iTunes right away. Believe me, it goes really well with walking around the shops wondering why everyone has gone totally mad.
Thanks to all the blog readers who contributed to our Review of the Year post over the last few weeks. We had a massive response and you’ll find some of those views expressed in the Readers vs the Writers feature in today’s Ticket – music writers here, readers here and movie writers here and here. For those who are interested in looking at even more lists, my own Top 20 albums from 2008 list is after the jump below
If you haven’t done so already, don’t forget to download Adrian Crowley’s “Long Distance Swimmer”, available free via On The Record until next Thursday. Fellow bloggers, please feel free to spread the word on this.
And finally, today is the very last day for entries to our totally awesome competition where you can win 30 of the best indie releases of 2008. 30 awesome CDs for the Christmas? You know you want to. Here’s a track from one of the CDs you can win – Vampire Weekend doing “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”
This time last year, Adrian Crowley released his fourth album, “Lost Distance Swimmer”. The album received rave reviews, got shortlisted for the Choice Music Prize and gave him a mighty push. Sure, we even pressganged him into penning a few on-the-road diaries for this blog.
To mark the album’s anniversary, Adrian is giving “Long Distance Swimmer” away for free for one week via On The Record – you can download the album here.
At present, Adrian is finishing work on album number five which will be released on April 24 next on Tin Angel. To coincide with the giveaway, we also have a brand new song, “The Wishing Seat”, from that as yet untitled album – the video is below. Enjoy!
If you want to see Adrian live, he will be supporting Cathy Davey this month at Dolan’s, Limerick (17); Electric Avenue, Waterford (18); Cyprus Avenue, Cork (21); Tripod, Dublin (22) and Roisin Dubh, Galway (27). In January, he will be supporting James Yorkston at dates in Crawdaddy, Dublin (22), Speakeasy, Belfast (23); Roisin Dubh, Galway (24) and Cyprus Avenue, Cork (25).
And finally, here’s the video for new song “The Wishing Seat”
The final installment of Adrian Crowley’s diary from his recent adventures on tour these past few weeks. This time out, we’re in London, Cardiff, Belfast and Birmingham via trains, taxis and flight 666.
Adrian will be playing dates during July at Dublin’s Crawdaddy (July 4, his first Irish show with Emma Smith on violin and Vince Siprell on viola), Cork’s Cyprus Avenue (16), Limerick’s Dolan’s (17), Galway’s Roisin Dubh (18), Dundalk’s Spirit Store (26 ). He also plays the Electric Picnic at the end of August.
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More from Mister Adrian Crowley as he travels the lenghth and breadth of the big island to the right of us supporting Silver Jews and Vetiver. In this installment, our hero takes a spin from Coventry to Cambridge, meets the coolest 12 year old in Manchester, has trouble finding his way out of the venue in Glasgo, hears a possible shaggy dog story of the tightrope-walking Chinese bull mastiffn and goes in search of the best single malt whisky in Aberdeen.
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We’re big fans of Adrian Crowley and his excellent “Long Distance Swimmer” album round these parts so we were delighted that he accepted the invitation to join our On The Road club. Adrian is currently doing UK shows supporting both Silver Jews, Devon Sproule and Vetiver so expect more posts from him in the weeks to come.
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