The Album Club + Niall Connolly (matinee)
Entry Requirements: Suitable for ages 12+ (under 18s must be accompanied)
Album Club began as “a book club… only with albums”. In 2019, composer & musician MJ McCarthy - former member of Zoey Van Goey, as well as occasional accordionist with Aidan Moffat, Trembling Bells, Lord Cut Glass & Alasdair Roberts amongst others - gathered a group of friends from across the worlds of music, theatre & writing at The Laurieston Bar in Glasgow, to choose a record and talk about it track by track, once a month. One year later he started to wonder if this particular group of humans could, as well as talk about albums, make an album? The self-titled LP that followed was released by Last Night From Glasgow in 2022, and spent five weeks in the Scottish Top 100 Albums Chart, peaking at No. 2
“An album in thrall to the joy of dissecting music and remaking it from the parts […] a strong sense of classic singer-songwriters of the seventies in the vein of Karen Dalton, grand touches of the cinematic sweep of The Bathers, Husker Dü-esque power pop […] and Durutti Column shimmer. It all dissolves into a delirious coda of layered harmonies and birdsong and sparse, tentative optimism.” Snack Magazine
This rare live outing to support Niall Connolly will see the band - also featuring Rhona Dougall, Douglas Maxwell and Adrian Osmond - performing new material, taking their next steps toward putting together that (difficult?) second album.
A songwriter’s songwriter, Connolly is hugely respected in the indie folk scene in New York. He is the founder of Big City Folk, a collective that has curated hundreds of events throughout the city and state. Guest artists over the years include Anais Mitchell, Mick Flannery, Lucius, Susan O’Neill, Mundy, and Lana del Rey (before she went by that name).
“A masterclass in songwriting and performance” - John Platt, WFUV
‘There’s So Much More to See’ explores themes of division, love, death, grief, gratitude and resistance, all the while attempting to move past fruitless anger towards, what Nick Lowe so memorably called, Peace Love and Understanding. Spanning 11 songs in under 37 minutes, Connolly’s 10th studio album is a balm for troubled times. A master storyteller, he has consistently tapped into the emotional Zeitgeist with soul-punching honesty, dark humor, infectious melodies and mountains of touring. Twenty five years since his debut, this is his best work yet.
Access Guide and Tickets for Personal Assistants
You can view/download The Glad Cafe's Access Guide here. If you require a ticket for a Personal Assistant/Gig Buddy (at no extra cost), please contact kim@thegladcafe.co.uk.