We caught up with Hydrophonex before going on stage to perform in Bennigan's and started by asking them to tell us a bit about the band. 
 Tell us a bit about Hydrophonex and what the band is all about? 
Sean: Me and Paul (Smitty) started about 2 years ago. Just because we been writing for years, I been writing for about 5 or 6 years. 
John: We used to play in a different band and played kinda pop punk kinda music.
Sean: We play Blues, Indie, Rock  and pretty much everything we write. 
Shane: Me and him just got together and started shown each other our songs and tried to start a band and to find a drummer and bass player.
 
So a lot of you's are kinda all over Northern Ireland at the moment and you guy's are originally from Fermanagh. So have you ever been to Derry and you familiar with the local music scene here?
Sean: Naw not at all, this is our first gig in Derry tonight. 
Shane: It's my first time in Derry actually. I don't get out much. 
I replied "there isn't much in Fermanagh"?
Shane: Just people that look like farmers and a lot of Brian McGuire's walking about.. 

Which the band all laughed, so In which I had to ask who was Brian McGuire? 
Shane: He done bass with us and we have a video of him, he has like a big black beard. 
Sean: If you look closely in the video he's not actually playing the notes right, I think that's kinda why he's gone. 

I ask the boys then did they ever play gigs in Belfast or elsewhere? 

Shane: We played in the students union in Belfast before in the Sub Bar in Students Union. 
Christopher: It's a good spot! We were on a bit early it's a lot of people weren't getting up and moving as they weren't drunk enough yet. 
Shane: it's a great sound from the place and we are actually playing Mandella Hall in March 2016. 

Is Local life influential?  
I guess with every person or situation that you come across ends up influencing what you write and how you become to perceive a story or write a song.

​How do you want your audience to feel?
I hope my music is relatable to other people, like telling a story or makes people think ‘I wonder what that song is about’
 
Challenges you face as young musicians?
I think the biggest challenge is having the confidence in yourself to get out there and start performing for all different types of people.
Major influences
Lots of bands and musicians have inspired me. From a young age folk music was the genre that’s inspired the feel to my songs.  Ben Howard, Laura Marling and Fleetwood mac etc. right now I love punk music; the feel and look of those acts inspire me.
 
Sum up your sound in three words
Slow acoustic storytelling. 

​Is Local life influential?  
The life we live is set in out locality. It’s hard not to be constantly thinking about it. The stories and the life that is lived in it always have a place in our thoughts, so they come out in our art. 
 
 
How do you want your audience to feel?
If someone came up to us after a gig and said ‘I absolutely hated that’ we’d love it, It'd mean that they actually felt something, had an opinion about our music. We believe in and care about our music; we know who we are. At least our music moved them enough to feel
something. It's the passive listening I can't stand. If someone watches one of our shows and feels nothing, we've failed.
 
 Major influences
For myself personally (Gabriel - Frontman) I'd have to say the Tallest Man on Earth has influenced my style of guitar playing and song structure. I’ve definitely learned from his stage movements to, how his body works the crowd. Other huge inspirations to us would be the War on Drugs, Villagers and Future Islands.
 
Challenges you face as young musicians?
Direction is a big one. It's hard to know where to focus your attention sometimes because there is no magic formula to success. It can be difficult deciding where to place your energy.


Sum up your sound in three words
Experimental Post Folk

Is Local life influential?  
  Aye 
 
 
How do you want your audience to feel?
Complete and Utter Majella
 
Challenges you face as young musicians?
 Money and Transport 
 
Major influences
 Dr Feelgood probably the most but we all have our own personal influences in addition which range from The Rolling Stones to Art Blakey
 
Sum up your sound in three words
 Sex Rock n Roll
 

Is Local life influential?  
 
 Greatly, as many of my songs are written about relationships I’ve made with amazing people I’ve met in this town. Derry is a beautiful city, there are so many places that have inspired my songs, places I spent my whole childhood and made my most memorable memories.
 
How do you want your audience to feel?
I hope the audience felt it was worthwhile coming out and seeing me. That they’ve have a great time. I hope people listen to my lyrics and interpret them in their own way; to get a feel for who I am as a person. 
 
Challenges you face as young musicians?
I tend to not be taken as seriously as older musicians. I haven't been in the scene long, I don’t realise if I’m being underpaid.  Most gigs are in bars or venues alike, a lot of people my age, aren’t able to see me perform. Some People don't give me a fair chance because they have established their impression of me before I start playing, they don't expect young musicians to be that good or original
 
Major influences
Glen Hansard, The Frames, Noella Hutton, Glenn Rosborough, Paddy Nash, The Villagers, Alabama Shakes, Laura Marling, Damian Rice and so many more.
 
Sum up your sound in three words
Atmospheric, acoustic folk.
 

After performing just before Christmas in Bennigans Bar in the city. George & Band have released tracks that was performed on the night with special live version tracks. Known to locals as George Hutton knows a thing or two about music as he's toured with Anúna. Plus has sang with no other than Hozier and this is his first hometown gig in 3 years. 

We see a big year lined up for "George & Band" in 2016 with gigs and more lined up which is to be announced. He tweeted us earlier this tweet so we expect big things in New Year from George.

You can download George & Band's album right here and don't forget it's s FREE. We all love a freebie so go take a listen. 

Prior to the gig I was outside watching as everyone arrived. It was a real treat to see young and old arrive together. At one stage I heard a young girl say, 'Grandad I'll wait here for my friend'. What a real family occasion it was turning out to be. There was of course the DM clad folk and the bomber jackets were out in force. Punk was back in town and The Undertones were at the fore!

From the onset at 10pm it was classic after classic and the home crowd were transported back in time. My Perfect Cousin opened the show. Young and old danced, clapped, jumped to the music. A little piece of musical heaven was happening in Derry. Immediately followed by The Girls don't like it and Jump Boys, it was a never ending river of song from the crowd.

​I had wondered how this band would sound live (my first time seeing) minus the original Fergal Sharkey but I needn't have worried. Paul McLoone was every bit the star front man and vocally gave it all (albeit with bad throat and ill health). McLoone has taken over where Sharkey left off and excels not only in his vocals but in his sheer showmanship on stage. And on the Derry stage he was no stranger. The crowd loved him. And he loved them!

On completion of I Don't Wana get over You, the lads left the stage saying the show was over. This audience were not deterred. The Undertones were not getting out of there alive if this was the case. A chant of 'olé' errupted and out walked the guys once more. We wanted more, and they did too! Michael Bradley announced that they had 'poured some Lourdes water down Pauls' throat' and so were ready to go again.

Throughout the night each and every audience member tried to help Paul outrun his bad throat. There was certainly more than just Paul McLoone with sore throats as the gig came to an end around 11.30pm. I know mine was certainly hoarse but worth it in every way.

Let's Talk about Girls rounded off the night. It rounded off a memorable night with one of the finest bands ever to come out of not only Derry, but Ireland in general. Punk will live on thanks to the wonderful music of The Undertones. Derry will forever be on the world music map, thanks to The Undertones. And many like myself will have a musical memory forever thanks to Sunday night. 

Share us your photos from the gig on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. 

So on Saturday Night I got to meet Irish musicians Moxie for the first time and they really where a fun, friendly bunch of lads with a great music talent. I remember watching Moxie for the first time when they played at Fleadh in Sligo about a year ago and I’m not usually a fan of traditional music but this is something completely different from your usual traditional music. This is a band from west coast of Ireland that bring mixture of traditional roots with a bit of everything really they are worth a listen.  

Moxie are currently touring across the UK and Ireland with the final date of promoting their new album in Bennigans Bar in an intimate gig which went down really well with the crowd. The new album "Planted" is out now to buy and last night they performed some of their new tracks from the album and I caught up Moxie before they went on stage and they tweeted before coming to Derry on their excitement coming back to the city. 

So I started by asking Cillian and Patrick when they arrived to Bennigans Bar. So Hi Cillian and Patrick, Welcome to Northern Ireland. So I believe this is your first gig in Derry? 
Cillian: 2nd actually, we played at North Atlantic fiddle convention that was here 3 or 4 years ago. Yeah so we only started a short while and we played at that and was a great gig actually, it was kinda earlier days though and i guess we are kinda more developed now and doing a lot better now so we are here in Bennigans now and it's great" 

So you've played quite a few gigs across Northern Ireland and in Belfast too? 
Cillian: Yeah we played some great venues like Blackbox and Duncairn Arts Centre too. It's been really good and we've always had some nice receptions like whenever we play up in likes of these places it's really good. 

For anybody that doesn't know of your band, tell us a little bit about you and how Moxie came together?
Cillian: Down through the years we were always meeting up at festivals and playing sessions, we kind of got to know each other more and came familiar with each others tunes and we tried to meet up with each other at festivals and find quiet spots to play music and we'd stay their for hours and hours. Then myself and Ted where thinking over a period of months, which must have been after the festival period over the summer that we have to do something with this. We have to form a band so that is kind of how it started and we kind of did a few rehearsals and it kinda escalated from their.
Patrick: Yeah we did and it's been great. Good old journey, it's 5 years actually from today, Sligo live is on now, it's around that but it's been a long time. 
  

So you are playing here in Bennigans Bar in Derry Tonight, what do you think of this bar is it any different to anywhere you'd play back home?
​Patrick: No I don't think so, I mean this is a nice warm pub atmosphere around Derry. Some of the spots are kinda like this that we do play in Ireland.
Cillian: Generally it's just as friendly, as their is a lot of friendly people around and it's just nice atmosphere  

So for anybody that hasn't listened to Moxie it's something I describe as a mixture of everything from Jazz, Rock and with a local Irish traditional flavour, So was that intentional or was that something that just happened when you came together? 
Patrick: I mean we have all grown up from a very young age listening to Irish music likes of Beoga, Dervish, but recently we broadened our minds and started listening to a lot of Jazz, lot of bands like Snikey poppy, Bill Lawrence and all those people in Jazz. 
Cillian: It's not even particular Jazz it's bands across a load of different genres, You (Patrick) Like a lot of electronica dance music. 
Patrick: and I like Rock aswell. 
Cillian: Josh in the band he is the keyboard and box player he plays a lot of funk and listens to a lot of funk and it comes a lot whenever he is playing and when he is rehearsing with us it comes out and it changes it again like if one person is listening to Jazz, then their might be a few chords that come from jazz. He might bring a riff in from funk and then their is the whole traditional style element rather than traditional melody's. As most of these days it's most of our own music. 

So I continued my interview with Moxie and asked about their debut album. 

Your debut album "Planted" is out now and I watched the video for the single of the same name "Planted" last night and it's really quite a cool video. Tell us a bit about the story and background of that and your new album? 
Patrick: Think we kind of planned to tell the story of a rebirth of our version of Irish music. 
Cillian: Paddy is right in saying that, it was kind of a rebirth and styles within the Irish music scene and we just kinda wanted to stamp it down especially with the theme planted but I think the video came out so well is because we are involved with a hugely talented videographer called Peter Cline. He has worked on numerous projects over the years from surf documentaries to working with many music groups and large scale filming sets and he is just a very creative guy and and i think we are all as a band we are all very open minded. So any ideas he had for us we were all kind of really accepting of that and likewise with us towards him. We'd a lot of ideas with him and we just kinda shaped it from there.   

So you been touring for quite a while around the UK and Ireland and you just came back from Newcastle. So how was that over there? How was your music received over in the UK? 
Patrick: Well we just got back actually as you say from Newcastle just yesterday. The reception over there was pretty well, pretty good I must say. It was our first time to be in Newcastle and Josh was their with a different band Beoga. The band player from that is our manager so he got invited over to fill in for one of the guys. It was his second time over there. 
Cillian: But even last night really well organised gig and lovely people and a really nice atmosphere around and everyone was friendly like here where we are right now you couldn't beat it. Great reception for such different music like a lot of people haven't heard I think they received it quite well. A success I would say.
We played in Manchester and Carlton Irish Club in Liverpool and St George's Hall and last night in Newcastle. I think of places in England like they would be costumed to traditional like folk music even English folk music and there is a big Irish traditional music scene over there. So even coming from that and listening to Moxie I think it must been quite a big difference. I can personally say that Moxie is not traditional in sense as it's too open minded to be called traditional music not that traditional music isn't open minded but i think it's completely different genre to be honest with you.    

Tell us what you've got planned next and where we can see you perform next? 
Cillian: Next big gig is in Sligo in 5th on Teeling on Stephens Night and i think their is another few dates here and there but it's kind of a mix really and the next big tour is March 2016 in Australia. I think it's a month long and we are really looking forward to that and we are delighted to have the support of Culture Ireland, Which they have been really great to us. 
So the album is out now and where can we find your music and new album to buy? 
Cillian: It's available to download on I Tunes. 
Patrick: It's also on Soundcloud where you can listen to some of the tracks. 
Cillian: Some of the EP Tracks are up on Soundcloud too and you can go to website Moxiemuso.com 
Thanks Moxie for talking to us and we wish you all the best for the future. 

I watched the band perform in Bennigans Bar and this band had the place up dancing and know how to put on a great show and it's a band to watch in the next year or so as I expect big things for these talented guys. 
So you can get the brand new "Planted" album on MoxieMuso.com and listen to some of the bands tracks on Soundcloud too.
​Some links below to listen to some of Moxie's music. 

One of Derry's most popular musical talents Soak Aka Bridie Monds-Watson has been nominated for a top music prize.
The 19 year old singer from Derry has received a nomination for the Mercury Music Prize for her album "Before We Forgot How To Dream".   

​After her nomination she received she took to Twitter to express how she felt about being in the running for the top music prize. 

To celebrate her nomination for Mercury Music Prize than no other to go out and have a nice tasty pizza as Soak Tweets a photo.