Sunday the 14th June, will mark the 25th anniversary of the passing of the late, lamented musician Rory Gallagher.
With the current lockdown restrictions, understandably, events have had to be curtailed for the occasion; with the postponement of the unveiling of a statue outside of the Ulster Hall in Belfast, and the annual Rory Gallagher four-day music festival, in Ballyshannon, Ireland plus other planned tribute shows.
However, like the musician’s own ability to improvise, the day will be marked by Rory followers around the world.
Read more: NEWS UPDATE - 25th Anniversary of the Death of Rory Gallagher
There are two NI Rocks Shows uploaded each week on Rock Radio NI. These are the playlists for those shows for the month of May – all of which are still available from the On Demand Player. There are tracks by over 150 different artists on the Shows this month. Playlists for April were published previously and these Shows are also available via the On Demand Player – http://www.rockradioni.co.uk/news/rrni-updates/3757-ni-rocks-playlists-for-april-2020.html
This month the Friday NI Rocks Show included a new interview with Merv Goldsworthy from FM, plus a repeat of the interview with guitarist Gus G from Firewind. All interviews can be found here - http://www.rockradioni.co.uk/interviews.html.
Firewind released their latest album via AFM Records on 15th May, and guitarist Gus G was my guest on the Friday NI Rocks Show to talk about the album, simply entitled “Firewind”. It is the band’s tenth studio album if you include the 1998 demo that was released, and the first with new singer Herbie Langhans. The interview with Gus G was originally included on the Friday NI Rocks Show on 10th April with one track from the new album, but was repeated again on 15th May with three tracks from “Firewind”. The interview can be read here - http://www.rockradioni.co.uk/interviews/3749-ni-rocks-interview-with-gus-g.html
“Undress Your Madness” by Pretty Maids was one of my favourite albums of 2019 and the song “Serpentine” was probably the track of the year. When the album was released in November, singer Ronnie Atkins was in the midst of a battle with cancer. A few months later he has made good progress and Pretty Maids have just released the album “Maid in Japan – Back to the Future World” through Frontiers Music. I had the opportunity to chat with Ronnie via Skype on 3rd June. We chatted about the recent Pretty Maids releases, his ongoing battle with lung cancer, the impact of Covid-19, his involvement in the Nordic Union project and more.
You can hear that interview on the Friday NI Rocks Show from 5th June which is now available from our MixCloud page - https://www.mixcloud.com/NIRocks/interview-with-ronnie-atkins-from-pretty-maids-on-the-friday-ni-rocks-show-5th-june-2020/
Read more: NI ROCKS Interview with RONNIE ATKINS from Pretty Maids