In A Fortnight: April 17 to 30, 2016

In A Week is our look back at Hozier highlights and happenings from the previous week. This edition covers a two-week period.


News

Prince

Prince’s death on April 21st caused disbelief and shock for Hozier and his band mates.

Alana named her new cello, Princello, in Prince’s honour.

Got a new cello 🙈😍🎻🎶 #newcello #princello #2cellos #tyroneguthriecentre #retreat

A photo posted by Alana Hart-Henderson. (@lanihendy) on

No, Prince, NOOOOOOOO!!! Wow, that's a big one for music. #rip #ripprince

A photo posted by Rachael Lampa (@rachaellampa) on

Alex mentioned one of his favourite Prince tracks.

‘I Wanna Be Your Lover’, man. Ain’t gonna be a party without that one.


Prince – I Wanna Be Your Lover (Official Video) by Prince-Official

Causes

Before leaving the USA recently, Hozier reminded us about Cherry Wine fundraising efforts. #FaceUpToDomesticViolence

Llamau is auctioning an original Hozier sketch as part of its fundraising campaign to help young people and vulnerable women facing homelessness across Wales. The Celebrity Illustrating Homelessness event will be on May 16, 2016 in Cardiff, but you can bid on the sketch in advance (by May 12.) Here’s how.

Hozier sketch for Llamau

 Chart News

Arsonist’s Lullabye topped The Hollywood Reporter’s Top TV Songs chart for March after it appeared on the March 6 episode of The Walking Dead. The chart is calculated on Shazam tags and streaming information from Neilson Music.

Along with its 305,000 Shazam tags, “Lullabye” garnered 21,000 downloads and 1.4 million U.S. streams in March, according to Nielsen Music. The song sold 9,000 downloads in the first tracking week after the episode aired (ending March 10), marking a 3,074 percent gain in sales and its best sales week.

 


Appearances

Tracks of My Years

Hozier  picked 2 songs a day and had a little chat in between on each of 5 episodes of Tracks of My Years. Recorded last December, these segments are available to listen back in full on BBC iPlayer for 30 days. You can catch Hozier’s segment around the 2:10:00 mark each day. Or, you can hear all of his selections in this handy Spotify playlist we made for you!

Dublin Music Shops

Hozier stopped by X Music while Musicmaker reminisced about their long friendship.

 


Zaska Single Launch

Hozier’s old friend Max Zaska hosted his single launch at The Sugar Club in Dublin on April 23. The day before the launch Hozier posted about how much fun he had playing with and watching Zaska.

Current and past members of Zaska’s jazz-funk ensemble took the stage to perform an encore of Lauryn Hill’s Doo Wop (That Thing). We call this ferocious supergroup the #zasquad. On vocals: Hozier, Karen Cowley (Wyvern Lingo), Jess Kavanagh (BARQ) and Keith Fennell, with Tommy Gray (drums) and Neil Dorrington (bass), both from BARQ. Rounding out the band were Paul Kiernan (trumpet), Oisin Murtagh (saxophone) and Mark Flynn (piano).

There was so much joy on that stage that there was major FOMO from friends who were away. There’s a second video here and you can see more about the Zaska single launch in the Friends section.

Band Projects

Rory Doyle with Bell X1

Rory was back behind his drum kit for Bell X1’s appearance at Vicar Street in Dublin.

BELLX1

A video posted by @amandabyrne68 on


Life

Hozier returned to Dublin where rabbits became a recurring theme.

Dublin airport runways’ grassy verges are home to many rabbits. Singer James Vincent McMorrow was concerned for their well-being and Hozier painted their doom, prompting us to compose a haiku.

Later, Hozier took in Lake Street Dive at Whelan’s, at once complimenting them and casting dark clouds over pet rabbits.

Hozier has been a fan of Lake Street Dive for some time, sharing their cover of I Want You Back and gushing over their live performance. It’s fantastic that he’s at home and able to catch them live once again.

Had a great gig at @whelanslive and met this @hozier guy backstage. Only in #Dublin

A photo posted by Lake Street Dive (@lakestreetdive) on

Rory Doyle and Hozier made the journey to Kerry to visit Alex Ryan. It’s great to see them together again!

Alana Henderson continued her writing retreat at the Tyrone Guthrie centre, improvising a vocal booth with a cello case and discovering piano.

Lorraine Barnes stretched more than her creativity over the last fortnight.

Mia Fitzgerald was still in Los Angeles and was working on writing new music.

Writing #music #la

A photo posted by Mia Fitz Music (@miafitzmusic) on

Rachael Lampa gave a vocal master class in Nashville and took her tiny hands fishing.


Friends

Pure M has opened nominations for your favourite Irish artists. Although this is not a voting competition, the Pure M Awards team looks at your nominations. So, if you follow Hozier’s Friends, why not show them some support?

Zaska

Zaska released the video for the Got to Go single on April 18. It was shot and edited by Patrick Ryan of Lagoon Pictures and features the song’s vocalists Keith Fennell and Nicola Hegarty. The drummer on this track is Dylan Lynch from Little Green Cars, who, like Hozier and Karen Cowley, has played with Zaska in the past.

Zaska and pals brought the funk to the single launch at The Sugar Club on April 23 to fantastic reviews.

It’s rather difficult to properly examine what we had just seen, other than saying it was the funkiest, most professional and ultimately, the funnest gig of the past year. Max Zaska should be a very proud man right about now.

Zaska and company closed their set with a cover of Prince’s Kiss before their incredible reunion encore. Zaska will be headlining Down With Jazz on June 1.

Little Green Cars

Over the last two weeks, Little Green Cars have played 11 shows, moving up the US east coast, into Canada, and then back down into Ohio. Life on the road has brought them surprises, a stint as guest DJs and illness. They have had great responses from audiences and, for some, life got better as a result.

The band channelled an emotional performance of The Factory in Boston in tribute to their friend Katie Farrell who recently passed away.

Adam O’Regan from Little Green Cars previously produced the videos for The Song They Play Every Night and Easier Day. 

This time, Adam co-directed, edited and filmed the lush video for They’re Cutting Down The Old Oak Tree by Bleeding Heart Pigeons which was released on April 21.

Wyvern Lingo

Wyvern Lingo played a set at LinkedIn Live Lounge, are back in studio working on demos and announced a date for Interlude Fest this June. Coming up this week, Wyvern Lingo are excited to be opening for one of their favourite bands, Hiatus Kaiyote.

Saint Sister

Madrid has over 100k streams on Spotify, Blood Moon was used in a BBC documentary on Greece’s migrant children, and Saint Sister returned to Dingle to play St. James’ Church again and drop into the South Wind Blows. Harpist Gemma Doherty celebrated her birthday and they announced they’d be playing The Great Escape festival.

BARQ

Three-quarters of BARQ were on stage for the Zaska single release. These past two weeks also saw them in RTÉ studio with Dan Hegarty performing Gentle Kind of Lies, and announcements for Saturday at Longitude and the Carlow Arts Festival in June.

Ruby Amanfu

Hozier tour backing vocalist, Ruby Amanfu is featured alongside Jack White (they have collaborated before) on Don’t Hurt Yourself off BeyoncĂŠ’s latest album, Lemonade, that was released on April 23. Billboard had a chat with Ruby about the experience and she caught up with Mia Fitzgerald in Los Angeles this past week.


Hozier’s Guitars wants to hear from you.

With Hozier’s tour over, we want to know what kind of posts will sustain you over the hiatus. Please answer 3 super-quick questions to let us know what you’d like to see. (It will take you less than a minute, we promise.)


Thanks to all of our contributors with special thanks to @literarypengke and @Megn0481.

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Featured image: Jessie Dormer

In A Week: April 11 to 16, 2016
In A Week: May 1 to 7, 2016
2 Comments
  1. Omg that was great – love reading about what Andrew, the band and his friends are doing! Thank you HG

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