That’s what your job is all about: trying to lift people up. It’s what I try to do

Who: Jack L (Dublin)
Latest record: The Story So Far (Dara)
Online: myspace.com/jacklukeman and jacklukeman.com
Our favourite video: This cover of Tom Wait’s The Piano
Where we met: Vicar St
Why we like him: because he’s the man! ;)
Behind the Scenes: while we were waiting for Jack L to be ready for the interview in the Vicar St, we could hear a gospel choir rehearsing. We didn’t know they were playing with Jack L that night, so it sounded pretty surreal!

We really feel the climb. It’s not that all of a sudden there’s thousands of people there

Who: We Have Band (London, UK)
Latest record: WHB (Naive)
Online: myspace.com/wehaveband and wehaveband.com
Our favourite video: Honeytrap
Where we met: Harcourt Hotel
Behind the Scenes: the interview was supposed to be done before their gig, at the hotel that they were staying at. Unfortunately we went to the wrong hotel (!) and of course waited for them to come and pick us in the wrong reception…When we realised there had been a misunderstanding we ran to the right hotel and made our best to save time, but it was very late anyway. Luckily for us, even if at that point they had only 5 minutes left, the band was soooo nice and still wanted to do the interview. Cool!

[The record] Sounds much bigger than I would thought it would…

Who: James Vincent Mc Morrow (Dublin)
Latest record: Early In The Morning (Burning ropes / EMI)
Online: myspace.com/jamesvmcmorrow and jamesvmcmorrow.com
Our favourite video: Follow You Down To The Read Oak Tree (as plaid on The View)
Where we met: Doyles Pub, at the Ruby Sessions
Why we like him: we were captivated by his voice and melodies since we first witnessed one of his gigs.
Behind the Scenes: we were introduced to James after one of his very first gigs, in Whelans back in 2007. He had opened for Jack Savoretti that night, and, even though at the time he had yet to sharpen his talent, his performance was way more intense than Savoretti’s! We’ve been waiting for his debut album to be released for so long, and now we’re so excited to finally have it!

You can’t argue with Kool Keith...

Who: ChoiceCuts co-founder Loughlin McSweeney (Dublin, IRL)
Latest concert they organised: Hypnotic Brass Ensemble @ Button Factory, Dublin
Online: choicecuts.com
Where we met: ChoiceCuts office
Why we like them: for the passion they put into their job. respect, man!
Behind the Scenes: other than organising concerts, ChoiceCuts work includes also other tasks such as designing websites. When we arrived to their office they were working on the Electric Picnic website (!). And despite our attempts, they didn’t want to reveal the super secret line-up of this year’s edition..aaargh! :)

I think that is always a good idea to bring in as many ideas as possible rather than just have five people who have exactly the same few all the time…

Who: Jamie and Angela from Xiu Xiu (San Jose, California)
Latest record: Dear God, I Hate Myself (killrockstars)
Online: myspace.com/xiuxiuforlife and xiuxiu.org
Our favourite video: Boy Soprano
Where we met: Whelans
Why we like them: for the “OH!” of I Luv the Valley, OH!

Behind the Scenes: during the interview it came out that we had seen the band in Naples in 2004 and Jamie commented that he definitely remembered that show. We both agreed that the place where they played was amazing. It was an evocative underground location, very hard to compare.
The day after, we searched the Internet in order to find the name of this place and we found this: “Q: Describe the most memorable live show you’ve played.
A: In 2004, Jamie and I [former Xiu Xiu member Caralee McElroy] played in Naples, Italy in the basement of this ancient building. We were literally playing in a Roman aqueduct. The floors were so slanted that my keyboard stand wouldn’t stay up, so one of the people told me to use some stones to balance it. When I went to the pile I realized they were all chunks of the building with beautiful mosaics on them. I was like these?!” and they were like “oh yeah that’s just trash!”. I guess they have so much old culture there that that kind of stuff doesn’t faze them.”
Cool, insn’t it? :)

I really strive to make the arrangements sort of weightless…

Who: Great Lake Swimmers (Toronto, Canada)
Latest record: Lost Channels (Nettwerk & (weewerk))
Online: myspace.com/greatlakeswimmers and greatlakeswimmers.com
Our favourite video: Pulling on a line
Where we met: Crawdaddy
Why we like them: We loved interviewing Tony! So many stories, so many unusual themes compared to the interviews that we usually do. Very inspiring.

I love the concept of documenting time, of stopping time

Who: Bob Dixon (Finglas)
What does he do: freelance photographer, mostly focused on music photography
Online: bobdixonphotography.com and myspace.com/drbobdixon
Our favourite photograph among his: this one
Where we met: The Back Loft
Why we like him: He portrayed some of our favourite artists, and did it pretty well! :)

Behind the scenes: This interview was done just a few minutes before the opening hours of the Back Loft, La Catedral Studios, where Bob was holding an exhibition of his work. It took a little longer than expected, so we ended up filming also when the first visitors started to arrive. The background noise you can hear in the second half of the interview is them stepping around the exhibition hall. Of course, we couldn’t stop them..! :)

Because [the Dublin music scene] is so small everything can get old quite quickly. So yes, I think people are eager to hear and see new things

Who: One Day International (Dublin)
Latest record: Blackbird (FatCat, 2009).
Online: myspace.com/onedayinternational and onedayinternationalmusic.com
Our favourite video: Not over you
Where we met: Whelans
Why we like them: So many artists we interviewed recommended us to check out One Day International. the first one was Vyvienne Long, then Lisa Hannigan and so on. we’ve been chasing them for months and the night we had this interview it was actually the first time we saw one day international in concert. It was magic.

Behind the scenes: first of all, we have to apologise with One Day International. This interview was done back in April. For some reason, it took us so long to put it online (the same happened with the interview with Frightened Rabbit, done in February and hopefully online next week..). That said, here is the real behind the scenes: after interviewing the band we bumped into Dominic, Vyvienne Long’s good friend who had provived us a location to interview vyvienne last year. we chatted with him a little and it turned out that One Day International’s cello player was his flatmate at the time of Vyvienne’s interview! so, Eimear, does this livingroom look familiar to you? :)

Everybody’s gotta label you something…I don’t really pay much attention, honestly, to it. [...] I try to just make sure that whatever I do is timeless…

Who: Mayer Hawthorne (Los Angeles)
Latest record: A Strange Arrangement (Stones Throw)
Online: myspace.com/mayerhawthorne and www.stonesthrow.com
Our favourite video: Maybe So Maybe No
Where we met: Crawdaddy
Why we like him: because of his unique ability to dig from classics while keeping his own attitude and skills. Class!
Behind the scenes: As you can hear, Mayer had a sore throat on that night but he did not let us down and agreed to still do the interview…perfectly run by our featured guest Jonas

Living your life in opposition to other things…I don’t think it really helps to obtain a great, happy existence

Who: Glen Hansard (Dublin, Ireland)
Latest record: Strict Joy (Anti)
A good chat about…: In part II Glen talks about how he feels about being titled “The Godfather” of the Irish scene, the TV show “Other voices”, and the evolution of bands.

A good chat about…: In part III we ask Glen how he feels about his present, past and future between The Frames and the Swell Season and a different irish band that he’d like to play with for a day…

Online: myspace.com/theswellseason
Our favourite video: star star**
Where we met: Odessa
Behind the scenes: We met Glen by chance the night of Mark Geary’s concert at Odessa. He popped up on stage to duet with Mark on a couple of songs, and it was so good! After the show we decided to give it a try and ask him for an interview. We thought he’d say no. We were wrong. And happy.