Dave Fanning

The Magnet Bar. Pearse Street. Late 1980. The Atrix play. Swirls of image and lyrics, vectors of vivid and deft poetics layered across the kaleidoscop(...)

 “The music echoes in the emptiness. It reminds us where we came from and where we’re bound.” David Mutti Clark was referring to the blues in his(...)

“I came from England in 1978 as I thought there was a great opportunity in Dublin for punk to flourish, but instead I was confronted with a narrow-min(...)

It’s a tribute to the enduring enthusiasm and professionalism of Larry Gogan that news of the veteran RTÉ star’s retirement from 2FM after close to si(...)

By any yardstick a 61-date world tour is going to be gruelling, not least on the back of a 51-show tour only a year earlier. But the home stretch is w(...)

In 1993, Albert Reynolds was elected taoiseach, the beef tribunal finally ended after a gruelling 226 days, Niamh Kavanagh won yet another Eurovision,(...)

I miss mixtapes sometimes. I devoted years of my life to making them for myself and for girls who, I imagined, would surely fall in love with me after(...)

The Rolling Stones have announced a summer 2018 gig in Ireland. Here are some prominent gig-goers’ recall the bands 1982 and 2007 Slane conc(...)

How do pop music and its media handle sudden sorrows? When Dolores O’Riordan died unexpectedly last month, at the age of 46, it felt like the life of (...)

As if more proof was needed that this country has a, well, complicated relationship with alcohol, it is provided on the Pat Kenny Show (Newstalk, week(...)