Saville (1995 Session)

From Dublin, Saville were Ken O’Duffy (vocals / guitar), Tosh Flood (electric guitar / moog / piano / backing vocals), Vin Duffy (bass guitar / backing vocals) and Joe Fitzgerald (drums). The band was originally called Nijinsky. Ken was previously a member of The Experiment and The Believers and is currently a solo artist and has just released a new single’Calypso’. Tosh is a member of The Divine Comedy. Joe Fitzgerald manages among others The Pale and Sack. Engineer on this April 1995 Fanning session was Anto Timini. Saville released three albums; ‘Is Anybody Happier Today?’ (2000), ‘Somnambular Ballads’ (2003) and Nostalgia (2000). The two latter albums were released on Reekus records. The photo is by Tom Lynch.

Dull Empty Nothings (1995)

Love Is A Heracletian Fire (1995)

Piece Of Glass (1995)

Two Junes (1995)

The Divine Comedy (1990 Session)

We havent yet figured out if this is a session or a demo so we thought we’d ask the internet. Update: Thanks to a comment from Gripper it sounds like we have a Fanning session! What we do know are that the two tracks were played by Dave Fanning in 1990 on his RTE 2fm show. At the time The Divine Comedy were Neil Hannon (vocals & guitar), John McCullagh (bass) and Kevin Traynor (drums). History would like us to forget this chapter in Neil’s discography but we like it, let’s hope the lawyers agree. Thank you to the folks at ashortsite for major assistance digitising the recording which required azimuth adjustment to make it sound as good as it does.

Timewatch (1990)

Rise & Fall (1990)

Hot Press Unsigned Irish Music Act 1991 Public Vote

It’s too late to submit your vote but you might be interested to see who was on the shortlist for the Smithwicks / Hot Press Public Vote Award as published in the 12th December 1991 edition of Hot Press magazine. Votes were not restricted to the listed bands.

The Divine Comedy – Hot Press 20th Sep 1990

The latest episode of ‘Pimp my iPod‘ looks at labels one of whom, Setanta released the debut album from The Divine Comedy in 1990. Neil Hannon has I believe since distanced himself from the album but I just came across this review in an old issue of Hot Press and I know of at least one reader who will be interested.

Toasted Heretic / The Divine Comedy (Melody Maker 1/2/1992)

Here’s another post of interest from that 1992 issue of Melody Maker. This time it’s a live review of a gig in Borderline, London and the featured acts are Toasted Heretic and The Divine Comedy.

The Divine Comedy (No Disco – Acoustic Room)

I posted this on Twitter a few days ago but I might as well lash it up here. A reader graciously sent me a VHS with 4 hours of TV from 1994 and it contained a few gems more of which anon. This little ditty features Mr Neil Hannon aka The Divine Comedy performing ‘Three Sisters’. And that’s Donal Dineen of TodayFM ‘Small Hours‘ fame at the end. Do yourself a favour and check out his TodayFM show midnight – 2am Tuesday to Friday because TodayFM have decided to cancel it. The final show is on December 1st 2011 so no excuses.

The Divine Comedy (Dave Fanning 1996)

In 1996 flush with the success of hit single ‘Something for the Weekend’ Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy dropped into the RTE studios for a chat with Dave Fanning where he played a few tunes for good measure. Many thanks to the excellent ‘a short site‘ for providing this recording, a high quality version of which can be found here. If anyone has a copy of the 1989 Fanning session we would love to hear it.

‘Becoming More Like Alfie‘

Interview Part 1

‘When The Lights Go Out All Over Europe’

Interview Part 2

‘Songs Of Love‘