STRICTLY GLOBAL

Hey Irish folks, St. Patrick's day is right around the corner, so time to sport your Orange or Green.  Oh the silliness of religious wars during the holidays...  Put it aside, grab a glass of liquid steak, aka Guinness, nosh on some cornbeef, party like a leprechaun, and take a gander at some cool indie bands rockin' over in Ireland.

Such as 9Lies.  After releasing their debut album Behind It All back in 2006, they've cornered everything in the market that any indie band would strive for.  Their song "Blind" was the theme song for US show Our Prisoner.  Their song "We R1" was used in the video game Trucker 2.  They've played around the world from Poland to Brazil.  Their song "Slippin Away" was chosen by ASCAP for "Excellence in Song Writing" at L.A.'s Music Expo.  And they recently hopped onto UK's label Maddie Records!

Super new and already making waves throughout Europe is Dublin's own Reader's Wives, an indie rock troupe formed in 2008.  They basically formed after songwriter Niall James Holohan produced an album of his best 12 songs, and sought out like-minded musicians to build on that sound.  Eighteen months later, Reader's Wives was a strong bunch,  producing the critically acclaimed EP Secrecy & Sex in November of '09.  Just this week in fact, they released their US debut EP Victor's Mother Juliet.

And another highlight of current Irish indie rockdom is Sixteen Layers, who've been doing some extensive overseas touring abroad with our neighbors to the North...(that was a mouthful- so in other words, they are currently touring in Canada.)  They actually formed back in 2006 under the name Alligator, but changed it in 2008 before releasing their debut album I Am No One.  Last July they won the Dublin leg of Indie Week in Ireland, where they then were invited to perform in Toronto for Indie Week Canada last October.  And yet even cooler, Sixteen Layers had their lives taped for the good part of 2009 from pre through post creation of the album Crawdaddy, which created the documentary Into The Hurricane.