conor j. o’brien

“As adept with the long pause as he is with the awkward silence…”*

Compiling the singles reviews for The Ticket, I must admit, is one of the easiest and more pleasurable of my weekly chores. But I do sometimes approach the Irish releases with some trepidation. Mediocre music is mediocre music. So even if I once queued behind the bass player for service at the bar in Whelans, it doesn’t exactly sweeten the deal for me. Read the rest of this entry »

“I took things quite seriously the first time around. Back then, I’d have been really nervous doing an interview like this…”

CONOR J. O’BRIEN
Ex-Immediate man returns with a new band, Villagers, and a new EP called Hollow Kind

Your first band, The Immediate, did something that few bands ever do: you walked away from success.
(silence) I suppose, but it depends on how you define success.

You were in an enviable position, let’s say. Other bands would have killed to swap places with you.
Sure, but that’s still a very subjective judgement. Given that we broke up, we obviously didn’t feel that we were in an enviable position. Besides, things are always more complicated than they appear from the outside. It didn’t feel right anymore. It started to feel forced. Read the rest of this entry »