news
News Archive
Tue 02/02/10
Greetings
On my way home from a magical start to the year in Glasgow with the great Danny Thompson. I've been listening to Danny's music for 35 years and finally got to sing with him on Saturday. He put together a show to celebrate the life and songs of his mate John Martyn; and to allow other singers share in the fun and the lovefest that was the Fruitmarket on Saturday night.
My old buddy Ollie Jennings from Galway emailed me and asked me to put the Sawdoctors forthcoming tour in Australia on my website. Happy to do so; Ollie is a giant of a man and The Sawdoctors are a great band who are a hell of a lot of fun. Byron Bay in March, am I envious?....
By the way, Ollie gave me my first gig in Galway in 1977 in Leisureland. I was the opening act for Kate and Anna McGarrigle. What a night; and how sad to lose Kate so young. 'Some say the heart is just like a wheel.....'
Luka
The Saw Doctors - Australian Tour - March 2010
Thursday March 4
PERTH, FLY BY NIGHT
1 Holdsworth Street
Freemantle WA 6959
Box Office: 9430 5976
http://www.flybynight.org
Saturday March 6
Sunday March 7
PORT FAIRY FOLK FESTIVAL
NEAR GEELONG, VICTORIA
http://www.portfairyfolkfestival.com
Tuesday March 9
TASMANIA, REPUBLIC BAR
299 Elizabeth St
Hobart, Tasmania 7000
Box Office: 6234 6954
http://www.republicbar.com
Thursday March 11
MELBOURNE, CORNER HOTEL
57 Swan Street
Richmond 3121
Box Office: 9427 9198
http://www.cornerhotel.com
Friday March 12
FERNTREE, GULLY HOTEL
1132 Burwood Hwy,
Ferntree Gully, VIC 3156
Box Office: 9758 6544
http://www.ferntreegullyhotel.com.au
Sunday March 14,
CANBERRA, SOUTHERN CROSS CLUB
Top of The Cross Auditorium
92-96 Corinna Street
Woden, ACT 2606
Info: 6283 7200
Box Office: 6283 7289
http://www.cscc.com.au
Tuesday March 16
SYDNEY, MEAN FIDDLER
Cnr Commerical and Windsor Road
Rouse Hill, Sydney 2155
Box Office: 9629 4811
http://www.meanfiddler.com.au
Wednesday March 17
SYDNEY, METRO THEATRE
624 George Street
Sydney 2000
Box Office: 9550 3666
Ticketek: 132 849
http://www.ticketek.com.au
Friday March 19
BRISBANE, THE HI-FI
125 Boundary Street
West End, QLD 4104
Box Office: 1 300 843 4434
http://www.thehifi.com.au
Saturday March 20
BYRON BAY,
BANGALOW BOWLING CLUB
Byron Street, Bangalow
NSW 2479
Box Office: 6687 1265
http://www.sawdoctors.com
http://www.facebook.com/sawdoctors
Wed 30/12/09
'Button Factory County Sessions' celebrates the magical music tradition of County Kildare
Tuesday 12th January 2010
Hosted by Luka Bloom
Featuring
Frankie Lane (Dobro & Vocals)
Dabheoc & Andrew Rynne (Whistles & Vocals)
Mícheál, Enda & Eithne Ní Chatháin (Fiddles/Sean-nós dancing & singing)
Tom Touhy (Vocals) - The Honda 50
Noel Heavey - Vocals
Christy Moore - Vocals
Ann Egan- Poems
Venue: Button Factory, Temple Bar, Dublin
Doors: 8pm
Show starts: 9pm
Tickets: €17.50
Available on-line www.tickets.ie
Wed 16/12/09
Greetings one and all,
What a strange, wonderful, sad and beautiful year it has been. Ciaran MacMathuna, Liam Clancy, John Martyn......just three huge names which roll off the tongue. Names belonging to men who are no longer with us, men who in different ways have had a huge impact on my life in music and song.
Rest in Peace to all the heroes no longer with us in body. Your spirits live on with us, and we are better people for having shared life here with you.
As I look back over this year, I'm a bit gobsmacked by the number of shows I've played in 2009, and how much fun they all were; how different they were.
It really is tough to select shows which stand out for me this year. The first (of 2) show in Byron Bay in Australia, The Stone Mountain Arts Centre in Brownsfield Maine, The City Winery in New York, AB in Brussels, the old church in Ottersum in Holland, the tent in Dzogchen Beara, Ryston in Newbridge, the old mill near Bern, the courthouse in Tinahely..........If I am forced to select a stand-out moment for me this year, it would be singing for the first time with an orchestra, in the National Concert Hall in Dublin. This was an immense privilege, and I was thrilled at how well the songs translated both in the room and most of all, with these incredible musicians. We are all very keen to repeat this experience, and somehow, we will.
But to be able to keep doing this, writing and singing for and with people, in different parts of the world, is just fantastic. So I find great moments in every gig; this makes it hard to choose one.
Anyway, again, thanks to everyone who made these gigs happen; to everyone who played with me; and most of all, to the people who came, and who sang the songs with me.
I heard four particularly beautiful records this year, by Melody Gardot, Julie Feeney, Sting, and most of all, Elbow. For the first time in years, I've become a fan. I love everything about Elbow; their experience, their commitment, their playing, and most of all, their great songs and amazing singer Guy. I met them in AB Brussels before I ever heard them. So when the music hit me it was in a very satisfying and personal way. Maybe I'll get to do a show with them someday. You never know.....
I didn't read much this year, but I am currently loving John
O'Donoghues first book of poems just rereleased, and I've just started Colum McCann's award winning novel 'Let the great world spin'.
Nor did I see many movies, but I found The Anvil story hilarious and very moving.
And Waveriders was touching as well; a movie telling the history of surfing from an Irish perspective. Lovely.
So many people in the world, on so many creative journeys. Its good to be here at this wild time in human history.
At the end of the year, I am putting finishing touches to a record which will be released in March.
Now it is time for sleep, winter walks, visits to friends, turf fires,
songs.....but mostly sleep.
Thank you so much to all the people who worked with me in 2009.
Thank you so much to all the people who came to the many shows in 2009.
Thank you so much to all the people who bought records in 2009. It helps me keep the music flowing.
Thank you so much to all the people who contacted the website to say hello.
Everything will be new in 2010.
Until then, I wish you all the peace and love and happiness you
deserve in this, and all seasons.
Luka
Mon 07/12/09
News in today that Luka has been nominated in two categories for an Irish Music Award 2009
Top Solo Performer in Concert (US, IRE, EU, UK)
Top Solo Performer in a Pub Venue (US, IRE, EU, UK)
http://www.irishmusicawards.com/
YES!!
LukaTeam
Mon 16/11/09
I've always wanted to write songs for film, and last year I got an opportunity.
Frauke Thielecke, a Hamburg-based film maker asked me to write a song for her beautiful short film 'EVENING SONG". I wrote a song called Hanging On for the film, and below is the list of awards the film has won in the past year.
It's all good!
Luka
Studio Hamburg Young Talent Award "best shortfilm", Hamburg/Germany 2009
Grand Prize of the Jury / U-Frame Festival, Porto/Portugal 2009
Silver Medal / Brno Sixteen Filmfestival, Brno/Czech Republic 2009
Audience Award "Golden Moon" / Filmkunstfest M-V, Schwerin/Germany 2009
Best Performance: Heinz W. Krückeberg, Busho-Budapest Short Film Festival/Hungary 2009
Best Acting Award “Alexis Damianos”: Heinz W. Krückeberg, Naoussa International Film Festival/Greece 2009
Thu 22/10/09
Luka's special guest in the Jazz Cafe in Camden town London on November 14th is Rebecca Collins. Rebecaa is a gifted songwriter from Waterford and she was Luka's opening act for his German tour in 2008. http://www.myspace.com/rebeccacollinsmusic
Sun 18/10/09
Special Offer for Luka Bloom Concert in Ballymaloe House.
Sunday 29th November €150 B+B per person sharing
This includes dinner at 6.30pm in Ballymaloe House
and concert in The Grain Store at 8pm.
Reservations: 021 4652531
thegrainstore@ballymaloe.ie
OR
Tickets €20.00 Concession €15.00
Booking 083 3631468
OR
Early Dinner at 6.30 and Concert €60.00
It is necessary to book for dinner.
Contact 021 4652531
Mon 12/10/09
Greetings all,
Having mostly toured Germany in November\December for 20 years, I requested a spring tour in Germany for 2010.
So it is with great joy I announce the following!
Luka.
Karsten Jahnke Concerts presents Luka Bloom in Germany in April 2010:
14.04.10 Braunschweig
Brunsviga
15.04.10 Düsseldorf
Savoy-Theater
16.04.10 Köln
Kulturkirche
17.04.10 Worpswede
Music Hall
20.04.10 Buchholz
Empore
21.04.10 Kiel
KulturForum
22.04.10 Hamburg
Fabrik [21:00]
23.04.10 Berlin
Quasimodo
26.04.10 Ulm
Roxy
28.04.10 München
Ampere (Muffathalle)
29.04.10 Mainz
Frankfurter Hof
30.04.10 Backnang
Bürgerhaus
01.05.10 Freiburg
Waldsee
Tue 29/09/09
Hope to see you there!
Advance one-day tickets (€12) and weekend tickets (€16) are available at http://www.ticketmaster.ie/
Tue 01/09/09
Tuesday 1st September 2009
Greetings one and all!
Australians may be pleased to hear that ABC will televise Luka's Basement show in Sydney in April on September 10th at 11.30pm.
Thanks Rena for the correction!
All the best
LukaTeam
Sun 09/08/09
Lovely interview with the Moore lads in today's Sunday Independent.
ENJOY!
LukaTeam
Brothers striking a chord
Christy Moore and Luka Bloom have inspired and guided each other through lives filled with music
By Andrea Smith
Sunday August 09 2009
'HEIGHT!" says Christy Moore when asked which of Luka Bloom's qualities he would most like to have. "And hair," he adds, as both brothers dissolve into laughter.
Christy and Luka, aka Barry Moore, are the oldest and youngest of their family, respectively. It's clear that they have an easy, warm relationship. They're also very close to their brother Andy, and sisters Eilish, Anne and Terry,
"I was born in 1945, and everything was going grand until 1955, when your man turned up," jokes Christy. "All of my memories of childhood are very positive, until 1956 when Daddy passed on."
Andy Moore Snr, died aged 41, when Christy was only 11 and Luka was a year and a half. He died under anaes-thetic, while having an ingrown toenail removed. He was a great man, say his sons, and very involved in politics.
The music in the house came from the brothers' "amazing and inclusive" mother Nancy, who passed away in 1992. All of the Moore children learned piano, and went to voice teachers for singing lessons. The brothers began singing and playing guitar while young.
After school, Christy worked at the National Bank for three years. When there was a bank strike, he took the opportunity to go to England to play in clubs. "I had a wild and wonderful time in England, with no bank manager looking over my shoulder," he says, adding that, at the height of his banking career, he was regularly sent home to shave, change his shirt, or wash.
Luka recalls being a boarder at Newbridge College, and having a guitar hidden there. He wrote songs from an early age, and enjoyed the romantic sense of having this brother out there in the big world, publicly doing the thing that he would have loved to do.
"I'd say Christy was my hero then," he says. "Even to this day, I still get that same sense of excitement when I know I'm going to be seeing him. I'll be thinking of all the things I want to talk to him about in relation to gigs I've been to and artists I've seen."
Once, Christy came over from England to bring his two younger brothers on an ill-fated camping trip. Luka was sick all the way in the car, it rained incessantly, and they forgot the tent poles. They had to sleep in the van, and came home after only one day. Other trips home were better. "Every time I came home, Barry always astounded me with the progress he'd made with the guitar," says Christy. "He was playing chords at 14 that I didn't even know existed."
As he got older, Christy brought Luka over to England during the summers, and would get him to do a couple of numbers at the folk clubs he played. The great reaction he received gave him a taste for life on the road. "He started going down too well," laughs Christy.
At 17, Luka played support to Planxty, and recalls one gig on the Aran Islands where the equipment went up to the venue in a donkey and cart. After a stint at college, he recorded three albums as Barry Moore, but didn't have much success with the second and third.
After struggling for a while, he decided to do something dramatic, and gave himself the name Luka Bloom as fresh start and a way of forging a new identity for his music.
"I showed a lot of potential in the beginning, but then I got nervous and it went pear-shaped," he says. "Some people thought that changing my name was to do with Christy, but it wasn't. It was to do with myself and my own ability to get to a place where I was writing songs and playing music that people wanted to hear."
Once he became Luka Bloom, his career soared, and he has become very successful, particularly abroad, with a great following around the world.
Christy has recorded several of his brother's songs, and says he wishes he had the same prolific drive to write. "I've been to his gigs and listened to his albums, and it frustrates me that he doesn't get more airplay," he says. "I was aware of a respect for his work abroad that has never broken through here in Ireland. He has a really good following here, but it's never gone mainstream and I think that the quality of his work entitles him to be mainstream."
In their personal lives, Christy is married to Val and has two sons, Andy and Padraic, and a daughter, Juno. Luka has been separated for a long time, and has two sons, Robbie and Tom.
"Christy has been unbelievably inspiring to me," he says. "He was always trying to open doors if he saw I was struggling, but he always did it discreetly. Christy is always phenomenally helpful and generous to people, but he gets embarrassed if people know about it."
Given Christy's astronomical success, does his younger brother ever look at the huge sell-out runs in theatres, and think, "I wish that was me?" "Do I wish that I was doing 10 nights in Vicar Street?" he asks. "Of course I do. Do I celebrate the fact that Christy is doing it? Absolutely, because he deserves it."
But then again he says, he gets to do great gigs himself, and will shortly headline the ESB Beo Celtic Music Festival at the National Concert Hall, alongside Paul Brady and Sharon Shannon.
As most people will know, Christy has overcome a few personal battles in life, including those with alcoholism and depression. Without elaborating, he says that Luka has been a great support to him on a personal level.
"Barry has steered me and guided me in ways that have been wonderful," he says. "It has been a great strength for me in my life to know that if I needed him, he's always there for me. I love being around him. I like going for a walk with him, like talking with him, like listening to him singing. And I really like the way he cooks dinner."
www.christymoore.com
Eleven Songs by Luka Bloom is out now.
www.lukabloom.com
Luka and special guest Eddi Reader will perform at the NCH on Saturday, August 22, as part of the ESB Beo Celtic Music Festival, which runs from August 22-29. Bookings (01) 417-0000 or online at www.nch.ie
Thu 06/08/09
Listen to Luka sing 'Fire' on NPR.org
Wed 29/07/09
News today that may interest you all. The World Cafe segment with Luka Bloom will be aired Tuesday August 4.
More info and links to listen @ http://www.xpn.org/xpn-
mp3 file is here:
http://www.xpn.org/podcasts/musicians_life/ml_luka-bloom.mp3
http://www.xpn.org/music-artist/musicians-life
ENJOY!
LukaTeam
Thu 16/07/09
Sunday with David Norris on Newstalk -
Luka will be on this programme talking to Tom Dunne (who is standing in for David Norris) on Sunday the 9th of August at 9am Irish Time.
Repeated on the 11th August at 10pm.
There will also be a podcast. www.newstalk.ie
ENJOY!
LukaTeam
Thu 09/07/09
Greetings from a warm and pleasant Costa Del Bog - where it is indeed summertime, and the living is somewhat easy, and happily so after so many miles....
After some down time, I am beginning to prepare for a few festivals in Trowbridge in the UK, Ostend in Belgium.
And most of all, for the concert in Dublin's National Concert Hall on August 22nd with orchestra and some of the musicians from Eleven Songs. Eddi Reader will be my special guest. It will be quite a night.
While on tour in the US, I went to Philadelphia, the home of XPN Radio Station, where I recorded a show with David Dye for World Cafe. Here is the news regarding the broadcast of the show.
I hope it turns out good, and see you down the road,
Luka.
World Cafe
Broadcast Notification
The World Cafe will be rebroadcasting the Luka Bloom session on Tuesday, August 4th, 2009.
National Public Radio’s World Cafe with host David Dye can be heard on nearly 200 stations nationwide. Fans can find their local station by scrolling to the bottom & choosing their state under "Find a Program Broadcast Time" at the following link:
http://www.npr.org/templates/stations/schedule/?prgId=39
…or worldwide they can listen online to the WXPN/Philadelphia stream Monday through Friday, 2pm to 4pm Eastern Standard Time by going to:
http://www.xpn.org/listen-live/listen-live
Late in the day of broadcast, the audio will be available on the National Public Radio website if permission has been granted for this session:
http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=39&agg=1
