Do You Believe In The Power Of Rock & Roll?

An evening with John Robb

21st Sep 2024

21:00 - 23:00

The Greyhound Bar, Tralee


Tickets:

The first half of the evening follows John Robb’s journey from the late 1970s, when he was first caught up in punk’s high-octane thrill, to the present day, via the early days of the rave scene, the birth of electronic and techno, and myriad bands that spun off on their own idiosyncratic paths.
The second half will feature a conversations with special guests, Paul Smith of Blast First Records and Spider Stacy of The Pogues.

John Robb

John Robb was the first person to write about Nirvana, he coined the term Britpop (let’s not hold that against him !) and documented the Stone Roses’ rise out of Manchester before anyone else was interested. He was at every pivotal gig, and has interviewed every key player in the business, including Jordan, the queen of punk, founding father of new American rock Steve Albini, goth-rock guitarist Daniel Ash, infamous Oasis co-founder Noel Gallagher, and music greats like Lemmy and Poly Styrene.
John grew up in Blackpool before punk rock came along and saved his life and he formed The Membranes – the highly influential post punk band whose current albums keep pushing forward with added choirs and textures and are critically acclaimed. Starting out making DIY zines John quickly moved into writing books and journalistic articles on music and culture, his music and culture website louderthanwar.com is currently the 5th most read music and culture sites in the UK and at the front of diverse modern culture. He is a constant on TV and radio commenting on music, culture and politics and one of the UK’s leading in conversation hosts who has his own successful youtube channel and his own books & music festival in Manchester every year called ‘Louder Than Words’.
Few others have witnessed first-hand so many important moments of the last forty years of rock history. Here, they come together to form the essential history of a personal quest to document the ever-changing soundtrack of the modern world.

Paul Smith

Paul Smith is founder of alternative record label Blast First which he set up in order to release Sonic Youth’s music in Europe, going on to not only release a host of other US guitar bands such as Butthole Surfers, Big Black and Dinosaur Jr. but also a diverse range of acts from the likes of Pan Sonic to Sun Ra,

Aside from Blast First and it’s successor Blast First Petite Paul has worked with a diverse range of artists from the literary and music worlds including Ken Kesey,  J. G. Ballard, , Iain Sinclair, Nick Cave and Bill Drummond.

 

Spider Stacy

Peter ‘Spider’ Stacy is a musician, singer, songwriter, producer and actor, best known as a co-founder of The Pogues along along with Shane MacGowan, Jem Finer, and James Fearnley, he appeared on all of their recordings, playing tin whistle and singing.

This is a seated show so tickets are limited and will take place in the Greyhound Bar Tralee.

Doors at 8:30pm, with John and guests taking the stage from 9pm, tickets are €12 available from Eventbrite

 

This event is supported by Kerry County Council through their Arts Act Grant.