Luka Bloom
Enmore Theatre, Sydney, November 20

Reviewed by Bernie Brian

This was Luka Bloom's first concert in Australia but judging by the audience response he already has many fans here. He has built his reputation on two acclaimed albums, Riverside and Acoustic Motorbike and his appearance in the television series on contemporary Irish music "Bringing It All Back Home".

Luka is a solo performer whose trademark is his thunderous and exhilarating acoustic guitar playing, his fine voice and his warm and passionate delivery.

His songs reflect the experiences of so many exiled Irish people who have left for far shores in search of a new life, dreams and love. This is reflected in his song "Dreams in America". As he writes there is always the hope of a "reunion in the progress of time".

Bloom has just returned to Ireland after many years absence trying to establish his individual identity away from the shadow of his brother, Christy Moore, and the stultifying effects of Ireland's theocracy.

While his songs mainly reflect personal experiences and are not overtly political, he is not shy to express his concerns about sexism, bigotry and environmental destruction. He does not see his music, however, as a force for change but as a comfort for people in a cruel world.

During the evening he dedicated a song to young Irish gays and lesbians and sang about the destruction of Ireland's natural beauty in pursuit of the tourist dollar.

Bloom's influences are many and varied. During the night he performed covers from the Waterboys, Prince, and the rap band LL Cool J.

In full bloom

An Irish singer-songwriter pulls up roots and finds his guitar plucking fingers turning green.

In 1998 Luka Bloom discovered an extra finger. Lo and behold, it was a green one.

"I would have to say it's been a fantastic year," said the Irish singer-songwriter, best known in Australia for his seductive acoustic interpretation of LL Cool J's "I Need Love" released earlier this decade. The most amazing thing happened to me. I discovered the garden." With a Dubliner's gentle lilt, he makes it sound like a fairytale adventure. Because I travelled so much I would never allow any plants or anything in the house, because I'd come back from a tour and be devastated to find they had died. A while ago I took a look outside at this little green patch at the back of my house and I suddenly realised, Jesus, this place is a mess. I got down on my knees and got into it. All of a sudden I started to plant things, and, Jesus, they started growing."

Did he experience the non-gardener's fear of the big, green unknown?

"Absolutely. That's part of the condition that we contemporary urbanities, live in. We assume that, because our lives are so removed from nature, we have no clue as to how to become involved in anything like an ecological process. It's quite a shock to the system, but I now understand why when people get into this stuff they spend the rest of their lives cultivating it. It's worse than golf. I planted about 500 things thinking about 20 of them might survive, and now I'm living in a miniature rainforest."

Luka Bloom was born Barry Moore (brother of legendary folkie Christy) 40-odd years ago and raised in a small village 50 km from Dublin. He released a series of albums as Moore and in other bands before pulling up roots, changing his name to Luka Bloom (after the song by Suzanne Vega and a character in James Joyce's 'Ulysses') and settling in New York. After a series of solo albums and dozens of one-man-and-his-guitar tours - including a mindblowing Australian debut in front of 1,500 people at the Enmore theatre in 1993 - Bloom "drifted home" to Ireland. While an artist such as Paul Kelly says his environment has little to do with his songwriting, Bloom takes a different approach. He credits the rural surroundings in County Offaly - where he wrote his new album "Salty Heaven" - as having a sizeable impact on the path the songs took.

"The writing process is absoultely affected by the environment you are in," he argued. "I would never have done a song like 'I Need Love' had I not been living in New York. I found that going back home and being around the places I grew up in has had a very obvious effect on the way I write. It's in the whole nature of the songs, the feel of the songs, the atmosphere, the mood and the lyrical content. I think I've finally had to resign myself to the fact that whilst I'm perfectly happy to be in a city and live in a city, the part of me that is most creative comes to fruition when I am in the countryside. It's just the way it is."

Not that Bloom deludes himself with the romantic notion of the Irish songwriter in velvety fields - armed with quill, paper battered guitar and Guinness - plucking timeless meldodies and heartbreakingly beautiful couplets from thin air.

"I discipline myself because I have to, because basically I'm a lazy git," he said. "If I don't go away and leave myself with absolutely nothing to do but write, I'll sit around and doss all day. I'm basically a frustrated corner boy and if I could make a living standing on a street corner talking shite to people all day long, I'd happily do just that. The closest thing I can get to making a living without having to actually work is to write songs, but I have to force myself to go away: no TV, no faxes, no computers, nothing. Just myself and my songs. That's when you can get into the good stuff."

Luka Bloom plays the State Theatre on Saturday October 17 and Monday October 19, and Brisbane's Tivoli on Tuesday October 20. Salty Heaven is out now through Columbia/Sony.

- Peter Holmes

Sydney Morning Herald - Friday, 16 October 1998

Bloomin' heck

If you think putting an athlete up front of a rock group is trouble, how about mixing folk and rap? The perma-sleepy-eyed Irish singer Luka Bloom (playing the Enmore Theatre tomorrow and Sunday) was sidestage during a show by herbal hip hop act Spearhead at a big Irish outdoor festival, standing alongside REM's Michael Stipe - as you do. He takes up the story. "They're just blowin' people away, and I'm just standing there completely mesmerised," Bloom told Stu Spence this week. "So when Michael Franti [Spearhead's lead man] turns around, sees me standing there, he was so fired up, and he goes, "Welcome back onstage your hero, our hero, LUKA BLOOM!" Bloom's reaction? "No f---in' way!" A very large bass player from the band named Warrior changed Bloom's mind. "He just kinda walked offstage, with a big smile on his face and pulled me onstage. I'm like ... do you know when someone's smiling and you know it's pathetic, you know they have that smile, but they've also gone to the toilet in their trousers." The smile remained, no rapping ensued, the gig finished, Bloom went and hid. How did he recover? "It was perfect. People were coming up to me going. 'Bloom, nudge, nudges, wink, winks. You were really wasted, weren't you?'"

www.smh.com.au/news/0005/05/html/sit.html

The Age - Monday, 8 May 2000

Irish singer defies easy labelling

Luka Bloom's ringing, open-tuned acoustic guitar playing, distinctive songs and clear voice have won him a strong following in Australia.

"You know, it's a complete mystery to me," he says, laughing. "I just don't get it with you Australians. You've got no taste at all."

The Dublin-based singer-songwriter is determined to pursue his career without the support of a major company. Despite critical acclaim and popular appeal, he has found himself dropped by two labels, Sony and Reprise, in recent years.

Undaunted, he will go it alone, dealing through agents in America and Europe. He has decided also to do without a manager and talks of "collaborative rather than controlling relationships". "I feel that the world has changed enough now that, really, if you are careful and if you are determined enough," Bloom says, "... the possibilities exist for people like me to be heard."

The youngest of six children, his brother is the revered Irish folk singer Christie Moore. He recorded earlier as Barry Moore but bloomed as Luka, taking his stage name from a song about child abuse by Suzanne Vega and a character in James Joyce's novel Ulysses.

He was last in Australia after the release here of his fourth album, Salty Heaven, in late 1998. The CD was finally released in the United States earlier this year and Bloom has just made his first countrywide tour of America in several years.

"It was exhausting and daunting," he says, "but it was pretty exciting to show up in San Francisco and Chicago and Denver and all these places and find good numbers of people wanting to come and hear the songs and have the record."

Bloom's fans may have other favorites but his biggest hit was a 1992 version of LL Cool J's rap recording, "I Need Love". He cites it when discussing a new project. He has been recording other people's songs for release later this year.

"Some of the artists are people you might expect me to cover, like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Robbie Robertson. But I'm also doing songs by U2, Radiohead, Abba and the Cure, which are very, very challenging."

He reveals just one of the songs likely to be included - "Make You Feel My Love" from Dylan's latest album, Time Out of Mind.

"The trick is not to in any way emulate what is already there but to interpret in such a way that it sounds completely fresh."

Luka Bloom plays the Melbourne Concert Hall tonight.

- Larry Schwartz
www.theage.com.au/entertainment/20000508

The Age - 1 December 2000

Luka Bloom

To support the release of his seventh album 'Between The Mountain And The Moon', Luka Bloom (one of Ireland's most profound singer/songwriters) is once again heading our way to perform his contemplations of simple epicurean pleasures, longing and belonging.

Intrigued by these vast but often overlooked themes, I asked the beguiling songwriter about his desire to reflect on the places he's been and the place he calls home. "I have this saying that goes 'no matter where you go - there you are'!"

In a warm Irish lilt, Bloom clarifies his point. "I am obviously affected by my environment but not consciously or deliberately, I just know from experience that my lyrics and the sort of music I play is very much affected by where I happen to be; be it in an intense urban environment like New York or an intensely rural environment like the west of Ireland. Whatever the environment, it is not just going to affect me personally, it's going to effect the nature of the music comes out."

Ever since the sleeping success of his 1992 album 'Acoustic Motorbike' (and spawning an unlikely hit in reinterpreting rapper LL Cool J's I Need Love), Bloom has industriously assembled a formidable body of work, ranging from collections of his own intimate ballads, to masterly interpretation of the work of others. Now, Bloom seems to be content to be seen as a musician in the purest sense - as a simple communicator. "In some way people like myself remind us of the richness of human interaction," he suggests. "There is something very special about a person who is a troubadour who tells stories and writes songs from a particular part of the world coming to another part of the world and expressing themselves."

Quizzing Bloom further on the importance of this communication there's a dour concern in his voice about the price we have paid for the modern world's giddy ride of post-modernity. "People's experience of the world has changed utterly. Even though obviously much of modern life is beneficial I think some really high quality aspects of human life have been diminished. The basic simplicity of conversation is probably one of the greatest art forms that have been lost, people worry about other art forms like music, painting and poetry and so forth, but I think all those are thriving. The real art form that has been damaged in contemporary life, I think is the quality of language. Even though people have more technological means of communication, in many ways people experience less." Bloom elaborates on his observations. "In a world where people are being bombarded with tele-visual images and technologically driven sounds I find myself increasingly drawn to simplicity, the simplicity of what has worked for people for many centuries. Up until a hundred years ago there was actually no choice, communicating to each other verbally in person was the only way that people interacted, they didn’t phone each other or email each other. That’s how songs were passed down and why they had so much importance." It's why he is drawn to the notion of the man and his guitar travelling the world telling a story? "It is a great blessing to have an opportunity communicate directly to people with the songs has passed through me," he confirms. "It is a fabulous way to live life."

Turning to other aspects of his song writing I asked Bloom whether he felt that he was drawing his focus away from his signature acoustic guitar in favour a rich palette of orchestration apparent on 'Between The Mountain And The Moon'. "What I feel really is that my voice is coming more to the fore. I have become a bit more confident as a singer in recent years. I'm very happy about that. When I first came to Australia I guess I would have been known as a thrashing guitar player who wrote songs. I have had to work at my singing. I want to become more and more a singer in the world."

On the surface Bloom's graceful and impassioned songs seem draped in a folk style. Bloom, though, is quick to distance himself from such simplistic pigeonholing. "I don't really have any ideological problem in being called be a folk artist other than such categorisation tends actually limit the audience’s choices. If they are not looking for are particular artist people tend to head for a category. I think that is very unfortunate. I almost wish that these things were done purely alphabetically." Concluding our conversation, I suggest that his alphabetical approach is astute as ‘Bloom’ sits very nicely near the front of the record store. "Now ya talking!" chuckles Bloom like a puckish schoolboy.

So even though our lives may to be refracting in all directions, it is heartening to know that a pure dulcet voice and clear ringing strum can still be intrinsically bonded to real sense of community. One of Bloom’s recent songs Perfect Groove reflects this potently: 'I love it when different people / come and gather around / they dip into a different world / there's a singer in town'. Could it be that simple? Quite possibly.

Luka Bloom returns to Adelaide to play at the Norwood Concert Hall on Sat 16 March, 8PM as part of the 2002 Adelaide Fringe

- Jeremy Green
www.dbmagazine.com.au

Sunday Herald Sun, Melbourne - Sunday Magazine - 17 March 2002

Luka the Irish

Australia's adopted troubadour

He might be able to reduce grown men to tears, but Luka Bloom will always be in the shadow of his older brother in Ireland. Lucky for him, then, that Australians appreciate his "stadium folk for the bedroom". Jane Cornwell reports.

Luka Bloom

Music: Norwood Concert Hall

The Irishman and his resounding guitar, which are known to a devoted few and deserves greater recognition, treated Norwood Concert Hall to an invigorating two hours of natural charm and elevating performance.

Bloom puts not a strum wrong. His brogue soars through every facet of love, while his guitar sings a chiming, heavenly accompaniment. Jumping from inspired covers to toe-tappers and whimsical ballads, Bloom can even make lesser works live. Banter with the audience and sly commentary complete this consummate showman whose rich vocals will ring out for days to come.

*****
Live Review by Ben McEachen
www.theadvertiser.news.com.au

Time Off - Music Site - Tuesday, March 19, 2002

Luka Bloom

Irish singer-songwriter Luka Bloom is one of music's most-amiable chaps and has plenty to say during an interview for his forthcoming Australian tour. Just don’t mention the weather .... "Don't be annoying me! What is it, 30º down in Brisbane?" a chilly Luka Bloom asks from his Dublin home, albeit in the midst of a 35º-plus Queensland heatwave.

"Oh, that's a bit too much," he remarks, "but I'm really looking forward to [the tour]. I'm delighted I'm going back to the Tivoli and I'm delighted I'm also going to the Byron Bay Festival. This is my first ever Australian festival and I don't know how that's happened but I'm quite happy this is my first one - I believe it's a great festival."

So you'd be part of the roots component, then?

"I don't even know what 'roots' means. Maybe roots, these days, means someone who can play a bloody instrument!"

Bloom has only just returned to touring after an extended Christmas break.

"My gigging year begins with a month in Europe and then I take a week off and then head to Australia. I don't work at Christmas time. I find everyone in Ireland becomes a performer at Christmas time and they don’t need some guy up on stage singing songs. I go back to work in January when everyone's depressed."

Now a familiar face in Australia, Luka Bloom enjoys similar popularity in Europe where he plans to blow out any cobwebs before touring here.

"My two luckiest countries in the world, funnily enough, are Holland and Australia. I also enjoy playing in Belgium, Switzerland and Germany. I would very much like to go to South America - I'm always open to possibilities."

Bloom's tour is his first since recording his new album Between The Mountain And The Moon, his debut independent release. In fact, he says it was a totally different recording experience because he 'had to pay for it'.

"At no point did I have enough money to finish it off completely. This was done in 24 sessions over two years."

But do you wish you'd gone independent sooner?

"If I hadn't signed with Warner Bros. in 1990, my first record "Riverside" wouldn't have been released in Australia, so you wouldn't be talking to me now. My experience with Warner Bros. was hugely positive and had a positive impact on my working life. My experience with Sony was a complete disaster, but what it did was brought me to the point of realising that I needed to be in an independent world. That requires a certain amount of responsibility, which is something I’ve always run away from.

By the time "Salty Heaven" was done, I had no choice. I'm really glad it happened because I'm really enjoying this way of working. You'll never see me on Top Of The Pops but I have a healthy working life and I also have a life outside music. I like it."

Luka Bloom plays The Tivoli Thursday Mar 28 and the East Coast Blues & Roots Festival at Red Devil Park, Byron Bay, Mar 28-Apr 1. Between The Mountain And The Moon is out on Shock Records.

- Matt Connors
© 2001 Time Off Pty Ltd.
www.timeoff.com.au/archive/1064/stories/4.htm

The Age - 22 March 2002

One-man band

What happens when the tumult and the shouting dies down? What happens when, after nearly a decade of accolades and deeply appreciative audiences, you suddenly find you no longer have a contract with a multinational record company and your audiences are starting to thin out?

In the case of Luka Bloom, aka Barry Moore (younger brother of Irish folk singer Christy Moore), whose three albums for Reprise Records - Riverside (1990), The Acoustic Motorbike (1992) and Turf (1994) - were critically acclaimed around the world, you take stock, set up your own record label and quietly go back to doing what you always did. You see, "the Luka Bloom years" were one of those freaky things that sometimes happen in the record industry.

Moore had already released three albums in his native Ireland. He changed his name (mixing the title of a Suzanne Vega song with the surname of the hero of Joyce's Ulysses), caught the zeitgeist and was overwhelmed by his transient popularity. He admits his success was always based on "the fact that I was a live performer who made records more than a recording artist who did shows".

He recorded one album, Salty Heaven (1999), with folk label Shanachie (Sony 1998), then set up his own label where, over the past two years, he's recorded a fascinating album of cover versions of songs from the likes of Abba, the Cure, Radiohead, U2 and Joni Mitchell - it works because of his reinterpretations - entitled Keeper of the Flame (2000). It was, he admits, a peculiar process.

"I set out to challenge myself to learn songs by artists I'd never even listened to before," he says. "I knew nothing about the Cure. I knew very little about Abba, except for what I had heard on the radio. I certainly knew very little about Radiohead. I wanted to see if I could reinterpret that material in a raw, simple way with my guitar and ensure the songs retain their integrity. I probably bought about 200 CDs, and I spent weeks and weeks trawling through them."

"It also was my first move away from a major record label. I wanted my first record to be one that I didn't have a huge emotional involvement with. That was the perfect way for me to learn about the music business. I now feel enormously liberated."

Then, happily abandoning all inhibitions and restrictions, he recorded a collection of his own songs, Between the Mountain and the Moon (2002), a tour de force that combines traditional Irish music with Bloom's distinctive acoustic style and uses both string and brass arrangements - elements he had previously never considered. And Bloom knows the album is important to his career.

"I didn't realise it was important when I was actually doing it," he says, "but by the time it got to the point when it was done after two years of work, I realised this was a very special recording experience for me. This is also the first record where I feel like a singer, as opposed to a guy thrashing a guitar."

Luka Bloom plays at the Concert Hall tonight and the East Coast Blues and Roots Festival at Byron Bay over Easter.

- Bruce Elder
www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/03/22

Revolver - Free Weekly Music Magazine, Sydney - 25 March 2002

In our arts section this week we chat with Luka Bloom, the Irish folk singer making the most of his 'second life'.

full bloom
Portrait: Trent Dalton

The good folk of Newbridge, County Kildare, Ireland, were holding a singing competition in the local cinema. It was a bone-cold night, December 1960, and five-year-old Barry Moore was shaking in his duffle coat when he claimed his prize for a stirring rendition of Irish ditty 'My Singing Bird'.

"I won a Christmas pudding," says singer Luka Bloom, recalling the first really big moment in his first life - the life before Barry Moore changed his name, beat the booze and escaped to America. "It was the first time I'd sung in public. And that was the first time I realised that you got rewarded for doing this. I'ver never really stopped ever since."

It's midnight where Luka's calling from - his isolated property 60 km south of Dublin. He often does interviews at midnight to accommodate southern hemisphere journalists. But he likes talking at midnight anyway. It's peaceful, he says. He mentions that it's snowing outside. The moon is bright and he expects to wake up to see snow on the mountains surrounding his home.

This is the second life, a life of relative comfort borne from writing tender Irish-folk albums such as Riverside, The Acoustic Motorbike, Turf and Before Sleep Comes, and pushing each one with a tour somewhere, anywhere.

"Happy days," he says.
And happy days are here to stay for the 50-year-old Irishman, just weeks from a tour of his beloved Australia. "Mad bastards with suntans" is how he describes Australians. "I lived for five years in America and I feel a stronger bond between the Australian psyche and Irish psyche than with America. The Irish psyche has had a much deeper influence in Australia than in America; you just don't need to scream and shout about it. You're very happy to be Australian. You don't particularly want to rule the world, except maybe in sport, and that's OK." Australia is the first country Luka is touring to promote his new album, Innocence, and he wants every show to be unforgettable. "I'll make sure that I'm happy and I'll make sure that I'm in a good space in my head," he says. "The very least the people who have gone to the trouble of buying tickets deserve is that the artist wants to be there."

"You've heard the stories. Some artist comes to Australia at the end of a world tour and they're exhausted and they want to go home. F--k that, you know. The audience will forgive a lot, but if the audience senses the guy doesn't want to be there, then they'll be really p--sed off."

Luka learned to perform in his first life. The youngest of six children in a musical family, Barry Moore followed his brother Christy to the folk clubs of England in 1969.

"He (Christy) did a runner. Part of his punishment for doing that was he had to put up his 14-year-old brat of a younger brother coming over to England for two weeks' holiday in the summer. I'd go out to these clubs where Christy would get s--t-faced and sing songs to people that liked them. I'd sit there waiting to go to bed. But after a while I got to enjoy it."

The music came quickly to Barry, and so did the drink. "I never really tried to avoid it. Avoid wasn't in my vocabulary. And it wasn't for a long time after. " The drink plagued him until 1983, when he saw a concert by Irish supergroup U2 that changed his life. Bono and the boys gave a electrifying set, fuelled more by passion than by whisky and Guinness. The concert inspired Barry to swear off booze and focus on his music. This moment of clarity coincided with a support slot on a tour with The Pogues, led by modern music's most gifted drunk, Shane MacGowan. "He didn't really like me that much. I wasn't drinking anymore and he wasn't interested in me. And that's fine. That was OK."

Barry's mind was set. What's more, he had plans to step out of Christy's shadow by changing his name. In 1987, Luka Bloom - a name borrowed from Suzanne Vega's song Luka and the character Leopold Bloom from James Joyce's Ulysses - moved to Amercia and began his second life.

"It was the start of a beautiful time," says Luka, that Kildare voice making the sentence sound like the start of a bar-room legend. One to raise a tea cup to.

Luka Bloom plays The Tivoli (ph. 3852 1711), Fortitude Valley, on Mar 24, and The East Coast Blues and Roots Music Festival (ph: 02 6685 8310), Byron Bay, on Mar 26 and 27.

- Trent Dalton
www.brisbanenews.com.au

db Magazine - Issue 353 - 9-22 March 2005

Luka Bloom

"I'm in Ireland, and it's not too shabby now I must say," enthuses Luka Bloom down the line in his engaging brogue. "Spring is here, the daffodils are up, the birds are singing." How can he even contemplate leaving this bucolic idyll? "Ah, I'd only leave to come to Australia, that's the only reason I'd leave," he chuckles.

Once we've dispensed with the pleasantries and discussed Adelaide's less-than-stellar summer ("Ah, but you'd need some rain though. It's a dry little corner of the world. And me, I get irritated when Irish people complain about the rain; we've got the best climate in the world, if you don't mind a little rain and grey") we get on with the reason for our chat: the new album 'Innocence' and his imminent Australian tour. Or we would, except that Bloom has a bit to say about his homeland.

"I was in the US for five years, but I've been home quite a while now - nearly ten years. I'm well settled, I won't be living in America again, that's for sure," he sighs. "It's going to take years for it to recover from this madness."

It certainly seems that Ireland has been a mite more sensible place to be over the past five years or so.

"Sensible? 'Sensible' and 'Ireland' are not two words I've ever heard in the same sentence before," he muses. "Actually, maybe 'sensible' isn't such a bad word to describe it. I think we're very confused: I think we like to think of ourselves as very liberal, very pro-European, very anti-war, very peace-loving, but the reality's somewhat different I think. People don't vocally in any way support the Bush war, but despite the unbelievably protests against it we've still kept the government that supported it. I sort of suspect that deep down most Irish people are quite happy to just take the dollar and keep quiet about things." He chuckles darkly. "Does that sound familiar?"

While Bloom's politics are clearly strong, he's wary about bringing them into his music per se - although he still hardly fits the stereotype of the tortured, personally confessional singer/songwriter.

"Well, I don't really think of my songs as being personal," he explains. "I think my songs are more universal than personal, and I think the personal side of them is only important to me in any way while I'm actually writing them. I'm certainly not a 'political' songwriter in the way that someone like Billy Bragg is, but I believe ultimately in the triumph of the human spirit, and I think it's challenging to be in a world where people are so dogmatic, so arrogant, so self-righteous... It's important for me to believe in the essential simple things that I really believe in. I think people find it so hard to see the brilliance within themselves, and I think ultimately what I'm about is transforming the ordinary: making the ordinary extraordinary, that's what my songwriting's about. I rarely tackle the big issues of the day, I'd rather tap into people's spirit."

- Andrew P Street
dbmagazine.com.au/353/iv-LukaBloom.shtml

X-Press Magazine - Issue 943 - 10 March 2005

Luka Bloom

With his 10th album Innocence in the can, Irish singer songwriter Luka Bloom plays The Fly By Night Club on Sunday, March 13. The well-travelled and articulate songsmith has decided to commence his world tour in Australia to make amends for having to cancel his 2004 tour, due to a persistent throat condition. Luka Bloom spoke to Chris Havercroft about touring, his new release and rap music.

Luka Bloom is no stranger to Australian audiences. This week he makes his seventh trip to these shores as a performer since 1992. Bloom is also well aware of the notion that many bands that do tour 'down under' generally arrive after an extensive tour elsewhere and with the travel involved to get here, many entertainers are exhausted and burned out by the time they are required to perform. The affable singer/songwriter is well aware of the rigours of the trip and generally arrives a few days early to settle in and relax as a way to ease into the tour. It is Bloom's aim to be as healthy and rested as he can when he plays his shows for the people of a country that he is very fond of.

"I love your country. After having lived in America for a while and then making the decision to come and start working in Australia, I really thought I would find it incredibly different. Actually from the very first time that I came here I felt a sense of belonging and a sense of connecting with people much greater that I have experienced with any other place in the world. I don't know exactly what to put it down to, because certainly the climate is very different and the food is very different. I think what I am going to say is that it is the Aussie black sense of humour and I think Irish people really connect with that and really understand it." Although proud of his country of birth, Bloom is not interested in touring the world as a 'professional Irishman', it is his songs, and not his nationality that he hopes interests people. Bloom does not consciously attempt to present any kind of deep sense of Irishness.

In his case it is just innate. His accent is unmistakable as is the way he sings. On the other hand he doesn't try to disguise it either. "When I come to play a gig, I don't seek out the Irish community. I like to think that my songs can appeal to people whether their backgrounds are Greek or Vietnamese. I don't actively seek out people that are going to relate to Irish culture. If I want to play to Irish people there are plenty of them at home and I can play to them all day and there is no problem. Touring is as much an experience to me as it is to the audience. I learn from doing these gigs and I learn from going to Germany and playing to a German audience or coming to Australia and playing to Australian people and I am very grateful to come here and be affected in some way by visiting this country."

While Bloom may agree that a fellow who is about to turn 50, naming his 10th album Innocence, may be skating on thin ice, he also sees it as a declaration of intent. "When people have been singing for as long as I have been, it's very easy to go into automatic pilot and to just churn out songs and to do what you are used to doing. I always want to keep this interesting and I always want to keep this challenging and there is a certain kind of creative energy that you have to hold onto. If I ever lose that then I really hope I have the good sense to stop doing this because I think it's a bit of innocence and wonder at the world that makes my work interesting, certainly for me and hopefully that translates when I make records and when I sing to people in concert."

Bloom would insist that he is far more interested in "the phenomenon of the ordinary" where he writes about people's daily lives, rather than venting his spleen about political issues. It has served his art well, but at times he has not been able to resist the urge to dabble in a bit of political commentary through song. Even when raising awareness on issues through his songs, Bloom is concerned with telling a tale through music more than grandstanding on an issue for the sake of it.

"I'm more interested in a good story than a good cause and that's just the way that it is. And yet having said that every now and again something comes along that utterly moves me, such as the work that Christina Noble does with homeless and abused kids in Mongolia and Vietnam. I don't set out to write political songs but every now and again something happens like this fucking stupid war in Iraq, and I will if I need to vent my own anger by putting something to song. But I am a little bit wary of it because I don't ever want to take the stage with a guitar in one hand and a manifesto in the other."

The song that first bought Bloom to the attention of Australian audiences was his cover of I Need Love. A song originally penned by a rapper LL Cool J. His gamble, that an Irish fellow with his acoustic guitar taking on a rap tune written by a guy from the Bronx paid handsome dividends as the tune gained airplay throughout the world and kick started Bloom's career. Bloom's attempt at rap was not so much borne out of being a fan of the genre, but more from the fact it was music that he could not avoid as he was living in New York at the time.

"It was not a music form that I was particularly interested in, although I am glad I picked the song I did. There are people who work in the hip hop and rap area who I am definitely intrigued by, particularly people like Michael Franti of Spearhead, who I am a great admirer of and I totally respect and acknowledge a lot of incredible work that these people do but I couldn't pretend that it is a form of music that I am particularly intrigued by. I just happened to be living in New York, I didn't want to be perceived as just another Irish ballad singer in New York so I decided to do something that would shock people a little bit and it worked."

- Chris Havercroft
www.xpressmag.com.au/archives/2005/03/luka_bloom.php

The Sunday Mail - 20 March 2005

In the frame

One of the side benefits of the East Coast Blues and Roots Festival is that it enables a significant group of artists to undertake tours here. While most of the festival has long since sold out, side shows spread the musical magic outside the Byron Bay region. In the coming days, southeast Queensland is to be blessed with comparatively rare shows by Irish singer/songwriter Luka Bloom, London-based acoustic blues aficionado Eric Bibb and fast-rising Irish group The Frames.

Bloom is rightly proud of his latest album, his 10th, titled Innocence - so much so that he's devoting the next couple of years to supporting it. "It's the first album that I've released in a while that I really want to get out there and sing the songs and give it a good old lash," he chuckles down the phone line from his new rural home-base outside Dublin. "What's interesting about this album is that I recorded it here in my living room. I brought in some really great musicians and some really good equipment on loan from the Windmill Lane Studios. It worked out really well but maybe it's just because of this group of songs. There's something very intimate and personal about the record that I'm hoping Australians will really like. It's not always easy to take people with you but you gotta do what you gotta do. The worst thing is for people to walk into a show being performed by an artist like me and finding that the act is on auto pilot and singing by numbers. The punters need to know that an artist is still fired up; still changing; still trying to make the show more interesting."

Luka Bloom plays The Tivoli in Fortitude Valley on Thursday...... and is appearing at the East Coast Blues and Roots Music Festival.

- Ritchie Yorke
www.thesundaymail.news.com.au

Luka Bloom @ Tilley's, March 16

Ok. I'm going to try and be objective. But oh. Luka, Luka, Luka. Warm, endearing, unashamedly romantic Luka. Once again he entranced and beguiled a fully receptive Tilley's crowd. It must be said that at this gig of gigs, even the most cynical of cynics would have melted into a gooey mess on the floor.

Promoting his new album 'Innocence', the audience was captivated with every touching, funny, earthy song and every cheeky, self-deprecating word Luka said in between. Both new and old music was as usual hearty. Personal, often revealing stories and earthy heart-felt narratives. Beautiful musings about love, renewed friendship, life experiences, random meetings, random incidents and world events. Songs to his girlfriend and songs written for his brother, Christy Moore, were amongst the rawly honest mix. With an enduring musical catalogue behind him, he impressed all with his sincerely expressed songs. Together with his witty, loveable Luka-isms and his simply performed music, he charmed all present.

No doubt, the audience there in the warmth of Tilley's, would heartily agree that seeing Luka Bloom perform live is always, without fail, an unforgettable experience.

- Annie Colquhoun
www.bmamag.com

Émigré's Anatomy - Luka Bloom

Irish singer-songwriter Luka Bloom started off life with the name Barry Moore, and took his by now well-known alias to avoid constant associations with members of his family.

Not that he was trying to hide from anything insidious - just that when your brother is Irish folk legend Christy Moore, it’s hard to escape from such a massive shadow.

So he took the name Luka Bloom ('Luka' from the Suzanne Vega song of the same name, and ‘Bloom’ from the main character in Joyce’s Ulysses) and set about carving his own niche in the musical world, an odyssey which has just seen him release his tenth studio solo album Tribe.

"We were all singers in my house, and I was writing songs from when I was about 12," Bloom explains of his musical heritage. "I performed them at home, and at school and at concerts. We did pretty well on a televised competition with school when I was about 14. It’s all I’ve ever done - I’ve never had a job. My son’s about 24, and I’m always telling him that I still haven’t worked out what to do when I grow up."

"It came down to not having a choice really, and I really did struggle for a long time. But I was inspired by so much music: things like Neil Young, Bob Dylan, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell - basically just sad bastards with guitars. That’s the sort of stuff that got me going."

I was forced to head over to the States pretty early on out of pure desperation. In 1986 Ireland was a pretty grim place, and a lot of people were emigrating. There were no job prospects, no employment and no interest in songwriting. I gave myself two years to make it work, after which I was going to go and get a ‘normal’ job. Luckily right as that time elapsed things started happening, and the rest is history."

While Bloom travels the world as part of his job, he has always had a significant rapport with Australian audiences - one which began when his cover of LL Cool J’s 'I Need Love' was a smash hit here in the early 90s.

"That song hit the Top 20 in eight different countries," Bloom recalls. "I remember my first tour to Australia was in 1991 [Nov 1992], and now this is my ninth [8th] tour coming up! That really created an audience for me here in Australia, and I just keep coming back for more because I love it down there. Australia is my blessed land."

"There were other countries like England where I couldn’t get a gig, and then I arrived in Sydney for my first gig and there were 2000 people there! I couldn’t believe it! I’d only just arrived in the southern hemisphere and I was dying of jetlag, and it was just like ‘Who told these people? This is not supposed to happen to me! I’m supposed to struggle and scrape for two years in each country, and then get invited to do a theatre or a club’. I really had an immediate audience down there - things really do happen upside down in your country!"

Luka Bloom plays The Tivoli Thursday 22 March. Tribe out through Big Sky Records/Shock.

- Steve Bell
www.timeoff.com.au/mag_27_06_66c.pdf
www.ourbrisbane.com/reviews/2007_03_07_2_luka_bloom.htm

BMA Magazine - Issue 272 - Mar 08 - Mar 21, 2007

WHO LUKA BLOOM
WHAT ACOUSTIC WONDERMENT
WHERE TILLEY'S
WHEN MARCH 19, 20 & 21
He’s fresh out of the recording studio with the album Tribe and I’ve got to love a man who describes his latest release to me by admitting that, "I’ve always had a fascination with pretentious music." After a history of eclectic musical endeavours ranging from a stint with The Violent Femmes to an entire album recorded for insomniacs, Luka has returned with his latest little nugget, a collaboration of his own vocals alongside the instrumental delights of Simon O’Reilly. "To be really honest, I have no idea how to market this album," Luka explains. "It’s a little bit of everything. There’s an ambient, trippy kind of feel to it, but then it also gets quite unexpectedly political." We can expect a few guest performers on Tribe, including Luka’s own 22 year-old son who is, like his father, "a beautiful singer". Known for his infectious personality and intimate shows, Luka is a favourite amongst the Tilley’s music crowd. Okay, so I think my mum’s got a bit of a crush on him, but if you like witty Irish banter and acoustic delights, then Bloom is your man.

CAITLIN CROUCHER
www.bmamag.com

Daily Telegraph - March 09, 2007

Perry's frock star status

Troubadour life

Irish folk singer-songwriter Luka Bloom describes himself as a solo troubadour. Touring Australia for the eighth time in March, Bloom is well-known to local audiences.

"I like the feeling of being a troubadour," Bloom told Insider. "There aren't an awful lot of people left in the world who do this thing that we do. We tell our stories and sing our songs and connect with audiences in a way that's a completely different energy than when a band connects with an audience. This is very intimate and personal and I guess it's a troubadour's life."

Bloom has been playing music for more than 30 years. His real name is Barry Moore.

"Luka Bloom is like a brand name," he explains. "I've gotten used to being called it but it's not what's on my passport."

- Jonathon Moran
www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/

db Magazine - Issue 408 - Mar 23 - Apr 3, 2007

Features:
Luka Bloom

Irish singer-songwriter Luka Bloom is no stranger to Australian audiences thanks to the popularity of his regular live performances. A rare musician indeed, Bloom has constantly changed his persona and continues to do so on his new album 'Tribe' - written in tandem with Dubliner, Simon O'Reilly - suggesting something new musically whilst further investigating his well known political beliefs. With its suggestion of both ambient and film music, the new album could perhaps be best described as introspective and subliminal in feeling - an idea with which Bloom concurs when chatting prior to his latest round of concerts from his home in Ireland.

"That is an interesting way to describe it," he suggests. "It's the kind of record that I have wanted to make for years. I've always had a bit of a strange affection for pretentious music and electronically driven tunes, soundtrack music and ambient music. You know, certain kinds of work that I've always loved to listen to but which I have always wondered whether I'd have an opportunity to make such a record myself - one that dips into this area of music. You know, very removed from the life of a singer-songwriter."

The collaboration with Simon O'Reilly, according to Bloom, "Came about due to my hearing an instrumental album that he had created about 18 months ago and I just loved it. I loved the textures of it. I loved the way he constructed the tracks on it. So I thought that I really wanted to meet this guy; and I went and met him and we really hit it off and decided to try to collaborate. We had one conversation about the nature of the record we wanted to make and we never spoke about it again and we never even once sat down in a room and played music together," Bloom admits.

From listening to 'Tribe' I suggest to Bloom that perhaps he and O'Reilly were trying to create a whole musical landscape within each song. "Well," he laughingly replies, "that's precisely where we wanted to go, actually. Simon is a visual kind of musician and he writes a lot for film and so he was able to create these kinds of landscapes for me to work with and that is what made it really exciting for me.

"So I would wait at home for the post to arrive with his music. He would send me a CD with like ten or twelve tracks every month or two and I would work away for weeks and weeks just trying to make sense of what I had been listening to - trying to find my way in. I completely created all the melodic links."

In short, O'Reilly gave Bloom the mood, as it were..."Yes, it was the first time in my life where I completely handed over the responsibility for the creation of music to somebody else and there is a fair bit of trust involved in it but he's a great guy and it was really nice working with him."

As with his last album, Bloom's new one will be launched here in Australia "And I'm bringing a wonderful Irish woman, Sabrina Dinan, along with me. I think Australian audiences will really, really like her. But basically I will come to Australia armed with my repertoire and that's what I do. You will only get to hear a couple of the songs from the new album because I don't really want to travel alone with a laptop... So there are a couple that work really well solo."

Asking about his constant need to change and experiment, Bloom explains that first and foremost, "It has to be an interesting journey. The easiest thing would be to keep strumming my guitar and writing the same kind of songs but I think I would die of boredom. I have to be challenged. I don't want to be put in a box or a particular category - file under 'folk'. In fact file under 'Irish folk'. It's a narrow niche audience and I have always tried to push out the envelope. That's the joy and beauty of the life I have. I can explore all sorts of possibilities."

Luka Bloom plays at the Governor Hindmarsh on Mon 26 March with Sabrina Dinan.

'Tribe' is out now through Shock.

www.dbmagazine.com.au/408/iv-LukaBloom.shtml

Australian Musician - Issue 408 - Mar 23 - Apr 3, 2007

LUKA BLOOM-DREAMS IN AMERICA
E-NEWS FEATURE STORY

Celebrating 20 years in the music business, Irish troubadour Luka Bloom has released a brand new album called 'Dreams In America'. It features 14 beautifully recorded re-interpretations of tracks from previous Bloom discs. In a preview of the interview appearing in the upcoming Spring issue, here's a taste of the chat between AM's Greg Phillips and Luka Bloom.

AM: You have a new album out. It's being promoted as both a celebration of 20 years of Luka Bloom as well as a tribute of sorts to America. Do places effect your songwriting?

LB: Completely and totally. There were changes that took place to my songwriting as a direct result of going to America. I would never have thought in my wildest dreams that I would incorporate a form of rap into my arsenal of songwriting until I found myself in New York with rap everywhere. When Is decided to have a crack at LL Cool J's 'I Need Love', it just bought a whole new dimension of songwriting which has stayed with me on and off. Then when I am at home I tend to be influenced somewhat lyrically and musically by the traditional music I hear in Ireland. So I like to think that everywhere I go, something happens to me that finds it's way into my music.

AM: A song in every city?

LB: Maybe not every city, but every landscape has something to offer. That's for sure.

AM: Given the title and the fact that you were re-recording songs, 'City of Chicago', and 'Irishman in Chinatown' would have been obvious choices for this album in a title sense, did you consider those at all?

LB: I think the title of the album is maybe causing you to see too great a connection with America with the overall album. The reason for the title of the record is not really to celebrate America. It's to celebrate a particular moment in my life that happened to be in America where things kind of took off for me and where dreams did come true and I never really wanted to make a record celebrating my life in America. There are quite a few songs on this album which were recorded and written here in Ireland. But there are a few well known songs of mine like 'You Couldn't Have Come at a Better Time' and 'Exploring The Blue', 'City of Chicago" that didn't go on the record because I never wanted it to be anything like a "best of'. Some of the those are already pretty well covered. I wanted this to be about taking songs I had previously recorded and freshening them up. Maybe there were songs that were hidden away on records, that people wouldn't be too familiar with, that I felt justified that they should be given a second opportunity to shine.

AM: You've said before that you are not into nostalgia, but I'm sure a lot of your fans are. Fans traditionally get attached to songs. They remind them of times and places in their lives. Apart from the praise, do you also expect any flack?

LB: Because of songs that were left out?

AM: No, because they have grown to love the original versions.

LB: Well I have no way of knowing what songs are special to people in that way. It is very important when making a record that I make the record that I want to make. It's none of my business whatsoever what people think of it. I have to do the best I can. My intention with this was not just to lift tracks off old albums but to make a new record which was very fresh and that's really what I set out to do, rather than give people some sense of familiarity. And also to ask people to listen to some lesser known songs, hear them in a different way and maybe get more from them. At the end of the day it is really none of my business what anyone thinks of it. I just do the best I can and hope that people like it.

AM: When you write a song, it's at a certain period in your own life and things change. Is it possible to grow out of a song?

LB: Most definitely and you have already named one. I never sing the Irishman in Chinatown. What happens with some songs is that they have a great deal of urgency and excitement about them for a particular moment. I can remember singing An Irishman in Chinatown in New York in 1989/1990 and it was perfect. Within 3 years I was absolutely sick of it and it meant nothing to me. I actually think it is appropriate to stop singing songs at that point because there is something hypocritical about singing and to be excited about something that doesn't effect you anymore. You now there is a pretty good version of that song on the album Riverside and that is the only place for that song for me now. There are other songs like 'Exploring the Blue', 'The Man is Alive' and 'City of Chicago' and I sing them every show and I never get tired of them. There's a song 'Black is the Colour of My True Love's Hair' which I have been singing since I was 14 years old and I keep finding something new in the song and I never get tired of it.

www.lukabloom.com

You can read more of this interview in the upcoming Spring (September) issue of Australian Musician

www.australianmusician.com.au/news/1130-luka-bloom-dreams-in-america