Blue Fred

"There's no resisting this stuff unless you're a tone-deaf, stone-hearted, know nothin'... Judging on tonight's showing, here are the most underrated band on these shores and the real hope for 2007. Blissed out, loved-up and goddamn down and out funky, Fred we love you." NME, January 2007

Chalk it down. When I logged onto Fred's website and heard the Cork band's six year old track "Wondering Geologist", I was transformed there and then from one who was in the dark to a Fred fan. Just one song. That was enough.

Now the band have just released a really sweet, peppy, well-crafted new single "Good One". It was launched last Saturday 16th June at the Opera House in Cork, with support appearances by Oppenheimer and Hooray for Humans and DJ's until 2.00am. If the rest of their forthcoming album is half as good as this single, well, it will be great.

Fred have been causing more than little flurries of excitement on the Irish music scene for some time now. Their 2005 album "Making Music So You Don't Have To" was called "the best album of the year so far" by Dublin's live music venue The Village.

Fred, who are cult heroes in Cork, are recently back from a trip to the US. They were the only European band chosen to play at the Verge Music Conference in Boston in mid-April and were the talk of the prestigious 3 day event, leaving with several bookings for the end of 2007. After that they played at Arlene's Grocery in New York and secured a worldwide publishing deal.

Fred's music has been used as the theme for comedian Des Bishop's last TV series "In de Hood". They were selected as Rising Artists by influential DJ Tom Dunne of Today FM's Pet Sounds.

They even have a Kerryman in their presence. He's guitar player Jamie Hanrahan from Tralee.

"Well," says singer and manager Joseph O'Leary, "it's like this, you have to have one Kerryman and Jamie, to give him is due, is fairly useful." High praise from a Cork man!

They are coming to Fitzgerald's Bar in Castlegregory ("the one with the room out the back"' says Joseph) this Friday night 22nd June. It's an excellent chance for their Kerry fans to see them again and for the uninitiated to hear just how brilliant they are.

For more information please log onto www.fredtheband.com and www.myspace.com/fredtheband