IT has been a wonderful couple of weeks for live music and celebrations in Limerick city, a huge show from The Coronas at King John’s Castle, album launches from Limerick acts, particularly Hermitage Green who reaffirmed their “band for the big stage” credentials at the Milk Market.
IT has been a wonderful couple of weeks for live music and celebrations in Limerick city, a huge show from The Coronas at King John’s Castle, album launches from Limerick acts, particularly Hermitage Green who reaffirmed their “band for the big stage” credentials at the Milk Market.This Friday the story continues with the exciting prospect of Little Green Cars and Cathy Davey performing Live at the Big Top.
Little Green Cars as teenagers played some of their earliest gigs in Limerick as part of Arthur’s Day celebrations in 2011 playing Dolan’s and Nancy Blakes.
While Calvin Harris’s Milk Market DJ set got the headlines, Limerick Post reviewed Little Green Cars and was “impressed with great harmonies and well defined material, the current release ‘Down to The River’ being a case in point. Watch this band.”
The quintet signed to Glassnote (US) and recorded their widely acclaimed 2013 debut ‘Absolute Zero’ with producer Markus Dravs. That album changed everything, taking the school friends on tour everywhere from Europe and Australia to Russia and the US.
Having written on the road, the quintet returned to Dublin in early 2015 to co-produce the new batch of songs with Rob Kirwan. At Kirwan’s Dublin studio the band experimented with sounds, adding electronics, mastering reverb, bringing in a cellist and learning to play the toy-like Omnichord.
Now all in their early 20s, Little Green Cars are a different band but are the same five friends who met every Sunday as teens in singer Stevie Appleby’s garden shed to start writing songs.
Those changes, their shared experiences and individual ups and downs are documented in ‘Ephemera’, a grown up album about growing up.
Two deaths, relationship break-ups and over two years on the road touring are some of the key events that inform ‘Ephemera’.
Stevie Appleby and Faye O’Rourke, songwriters and interchanging lead vocalists, watched their love lives fall apart. All five in the group questioned who they used to be and who they had become, not least guitarist Adam O’Regan, whose father passed away.
“It’s a transitional album,” says Stevie. “Lyrically, it’s all about change – the end of some eras, new beginnings, learning from the past and looking to the future. ‘Ephemera’ means things that are important to you, but only for a short time. That could apply to music or relationships or even a particular day.”
A dozen songs share the band’s myriad of growing pains; restlessness, regret, love, heartbreak and hope.
‘Ephemera’ is out now. Little Green Cars return to Limerick to promote the album with a headline show with support from Cathy Davey Live at the Big Top, Limerick Milk Market this Friday 13. www.dolans.ie
