Captain Kennedy <captainkennedyband>

Out To Lunch Arts Festival ReviewIl y a 299 jours
 
Stuart Bailie Review of our Black Box gig....

Stuart Bailie (BBC, founder of the Oh Yeah Music Centre and former assistant-editor of NME) wrote a nice little review of our recent gig at the Black Box as part of the "Out To Lunch" Arts Festival.............

"I'm at the Black Box in Belfast on the third week of 2009, but I feel like adjusting my watch back to 1969. The mood is mellow and sweet and folksy. There are many young men with facial hair, and the dress is somewhere between Amish settler, Montana farmboy and Brokeback wrangler. I know that I've seen this look before and heard similar sounds in the past. And then it comes to me. I'm thinking of Robbie Robertson and The Band, getting it together in Woodstock, 40 years ago.

The Band and their pal Bob Dylan had gone to ground to escape the drugs and the intensity of their wild years. The music started sounding more downhome and mysterious while the famous Basement Tapes were an insidious answer to the hippies and acid-eaters of the West Coast.

Such reverberations are resumed in Belfast in the music of Jackson Cage, who add more recent influences like The Jayhawks and Ryan Adams to their deal.

From Lurgan, Captain Kennedy are well immersed in the "old weird America" that writer Greil Marcus covered in his book Invisible Republic. They take their name from a Neil Young song but they're also fit to sing old Dixie down. Excellent vocals. I likes 'em.

The Lowly Knights are fixing to get increasingly popular this year. They're also aware of how an act can get trapped in a look, a scene and a style. "They're selling waistcoats half price in the Rusty Zip," says Cazi, with just a little alarm. Form an orderly queue, young men."
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Roll Ramona from our new EP on our Myspace now....Il y a 457 jours
 
Arite dudes! We've just uploaded a brand new song from our forthcoming EP "Factory Whistle Call", recorded with Ben McAuley at Start Together and due for release in late September/October.

You can hear "Roll Ramona" on our Myspace now!

http://www.myspace.com/captainkennedy

It'd be great to hear some feedback!!!
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BBC Acoustic Session Tracks added! Have a listen.Il y a 523 jours
 
Hey! We've just uploaded three songs we recorded live for BBC Radio Ulster's Across The Line programme earlier this year to our Myspace.

http://www.myspace.com/captainkennedy

You can hear Good Action, Caroline and Hard Time Wakin' on the site now.

Hope you enjoy the acoustic loveliness!!


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What the Press have saidIl y a 1040 jours
 
The Irish News: “Sweetest Friend walks a fine line between pop balladry and indie soul and would be playing on daytime radio stations right now if there was any justice in the world.”

BBC Across the Line: “When you’ve got the Americana sound as polished as these guys do, it’s no surprise it goes down as well as a Mississippi Mud Pie!”

Alternative Ulster: “Sweet, simple, Dylan-influenced songs about drinking and the minutiae of life”

Americana-UK: “I was so impressed with ‘Sweetest Friend’ that I played it on my radio programme this morning before I’d got round to reviewing the EP for this site. 8/10”

Sounds XP: “If you’re into anthemic, bluesy rock then you’ll be hard pressed to find much better than this.”
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Irish News EP ReviewIl y a 1178 jours
 
By David Roy
The Irish News
1/9/06


Captain Kennedy have just issued their new Sweetest Friend EP, and it's very good indeed. Four tracks of sweet, slightly countrified, melodic goodness played on acoustic guitar, bass and drums with some deft electric solos and a touch of piano and harmonica thrown in for good measure.

Singer Ciaran Lavery has a great voice that's just husky and cracked enough to sound lived in, while still tuneful enough to do these songs justice - part Richard Ashcroft, part Paul Westerberg and all good.

Opener "Sweetest Friend" walks a fine line between pop balladry and indie soul and would be playing on daytime radio stations right now if there was any justice in the world. Similarily, "Hard Time Wakin" is a catchy strummer that hammers its hook home relentlessly. It breaks down nicely in the middle, leading off into another solo and another chorus just in case you were thinking of forgetting what the words were.

Take Care of Me is a proper countrified ballad with a slow easy tempo and brushed drums. A little bluesy guitar cuts through occasionally, just to keep things lively.

The final cut, "Mississippi", boasts a Replacements style melody and some mean harmonica action, even if the lyrical content is a little on the cliched side. Still, if they handed out tickets for people writing songs about American towns they've probably never even been to, the courts would be overwhelmed and The Thrills would be in jail.

Anyway, you can hear all four songs on the band's Myspace page at http://www.myspace.com/captainkennedy
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