Talk Me Down – The Dead Heavys

Everybody in the Nite by The Dead Heavys is one of the songs that I’ve liked the most in 2012. Here’s another song by them. It’s Talk Me Down and the live performance was filmed in Cranfield house in  Waterford here in Ireland. I love the production on this song. I really think 2013 will be a big year for them.

Their Twitter page is @TheDeadHeavys.

Roísín O covers ‘Dog Days Are Over’ by Florence and the Machine

Here’s a great version of the Florence and the Machine song Dog Days Are Over performed by Irish singer Roísín O who recently released her new album The Secret Life of Blue. Roísín is also currently touring Ireland promoting her new songs. More details here.

100 Cover Versions #95: Jaime Nanci covers ‘Love is a Battlefield’ by Pat Benatar

Just a few more songs left on my 100 Cover Versions list. It has been great to do and the part I enjoyed the most is discovering new voices in music that a few months ago I haven’t been aware of at all. One of those singers is Jaime Nanci. I have previously featured his covers of Babooshka and Am I Blue.

Here is one more song sung by Jaime. It is his version of Love is a Battlefield by Pat Benatar. I  have loved the original version since I first heard it first in the mid 1980s and still do today. Love is a Battlefield was released in 1983 in the U.S. and got to number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 but wasn’t a hit until 1985 in the UK.
There is many blues or soul versions of pop classics but no one I know reinterprets them or is as respectful to the original as Jaime.

Jaime’s version of Love is a Battlefield was recorded in Ballinacurra house in Kinsale here in ireland. It was produced, mixed and mastered by Pawel Grudzien who also plays piano on the recording. Bass is by Dave Redmond and drums by Abel Benito. 

I look forward to featuring other songs by Jaime and his band from now on on this blog too.

100 Cover Versions #94: This Club covers ‘My Lovin’ (Never Gonna Get It)’ by En Vogue

In 1992 En Vogue released their album Funky Divas which featured the great hit singles Free Your Mind, Giving Him Something He Can Feel and My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It). That year those songs really represented the sound of MTV too. Earlier on this list of cover versions i featured En Vogue’s cover version of Yesterday which was also taken from Funky Divas.

Here is a cover of My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It) by the four piece irish pop band This Club. It’s a really fun version and I know that Irish pop music needs more music artists like This Club.

Here also is their very poppy single  I Won’t Worry.

Two Songs from Roísín O’s new album ‘The Secret Life of Blue’

One of the best new female singers that I heard over the past year or two is Roísín O. I have seen her play as support artist in both Vicar Street and the Olympia music venues here in Dublin and each time she was super. Her own songs are lovely as are her choice of covers. She has released her new album which is called The Secret Life Of Blue and it was great to see her album featured prominently in Tower Records yesterday. If you live in Ireland her album is also on sale in HMV, Golden Discs and Celtic Note as well as on download through ITunes.

She has played several solo gigs in the past in venues in Dublin and in October and into November she goes on tour throughout Ireland promoting her new album.

The tour dates are:

• Friday October 19th – Cyprus Avenue, Cork.
• Sunday October 21st Dolan’s Limerick
• Thursday October 25th John Daly’s Mullingar
• Saturday November 3rd Monroe’s Galway

Her website is RoisinO.com and her Twitter page is @RoisinOMusic

Here are two songs from The Secret Life Of Blue album.

Here is How Long.

and the second song is Here We Go.

Fade 2 Forever EP – Le Galaxie

Le Galaxie recently released their five track EP Fade 2 Forever. The five tracks on the EP are Love System (featuring Elaine Mai), Heart 2 Heart, The Nightcaller (featuring Laura Smyth), Heat City and Gotta Go.

Here are two of those songs.


The first is Love System featuring Elaine Mai.

and the second is a live performance of The Nightcaller featuring Laura Smyth.

If you live in Dublin Le Galaxie play a DJ set at the Mother club night on Saturday 11th August.

Their Fade 2 Forever EP is available to buy on ITunes here.

Everybody in the Nite – The Dead Heavys

Here’s a song that was recommended to me through Twitter yesterday. It’s Everybody in the Nite by the Irish band The Dead Heavys. I liked this song straight away. It’s has a definite 1970s rock influence which is such a classic sound.  

There so many different genres of music in Ireland now. We are renowned for our pop acts and singer songwriters but I love hearing international influences from past decades in new music too. 

The Dead Heavys play the Spraoi festival in Waterford on August 4th, The Indiependence Festival in Mitchelltown, Cork on the 5th and Shortts in Waterford on August 11th.

They are on Twitter at @TheDeadHeavys

Thanks to Margaret O’Brien for posting link to the song on her Twitter page @MargaretWriting

100 Cover Versions #54: Jaime Nanci & The Blue Boys cover ‘Am I Blue’

Many years ago I used to live in Galway where I worked in an Irish retail chain store. Back in the late 1980s most shops didn’t open on a Sunday so almost every Sunday morning I used to go and listen to jazz in a pub near Shop Street with one of my house-mates. The song I most remember being performed each week in the pub was Summertime which is a real jazz standard. All of my friends know that I am not a pub person and for a long time jazz music reminded me of pubs and that Sunday morning routine.

However! This year Jaime Nanci has reinvented jazz music for me because of what he and his band The Blue Boys do with the songs that he sings. I have already featured one of their songs on this list which was their version of Babooshka by Kate Bush and here is a second song by them which I really adore. It’s their version of Am I Blue which was first written in 1929 and featured in the film On With the Show. The beginning of this song is sung without any musical instrument. I think he is just super. After all these years I’m starting to get jazz and blues now, it allows you to be sad or happy or both at the same time.

Here is Am I Blue by Jaime Nanci and the Blue Boys which was recorded in Whelans in Dublin in February 2012.