15 August
Lillies Bordello Dublin,

9 September
The Forum, London,

11 September
Dublin Castle, London

23 September
Arthurs Day, Venue TBC, Dublin

9 October
Karrera Klub Berlin, Germany

If you would like The Rags to play in your town, city, country, universe then email info@therags.com.

Related show

• Artist: The Rags
• Date: Saturday, September 11th 2010
• Time: 8:30pm
• City: The Rags in London
• Venue: Dublin Castle
• Country: United Kingdom
• Add to Google Calendar | Download iCal

• Artist: The Rags
• Date: Saturday, October 9th 2010
• Time: 5:30pm
• City: The Rags in Berlin
• Venue: Karrera Klub
• Country: Germany
• Add to Google Calendar | Download iCal

‘BIN BAG’ – ACOUSTIC from The Rags on Vimeo.

NEW GIGS ADDED
Two gigs have been added in recent days. The Rags will perform at the ‘Captain’s Live’ event at Captain America’s, Blanchardstown on Sunday 4th July. For more details and to apply for free tickets click here. The Rags will also perform as part of the Guinness Arthur’s Day celebrations on Thurs 23rd Sept. More details will be released closer to the date.

BUY THE ALBUM ONLINE
You can now purchase ‘A National Light’ on CD or download by visiting the SHOP page.

REVIEWS
The album has been picking up positive reviews since its release. You can read some of those that have surfaced online here, here and here.

NEW BLOG POST
Daniel offers reflection on the recording process and how it feels now that ‘A National Light’ is finally out.

There are things we undertake in life without ever contemplating the effect it might have on our character, outlook and ambition, from the moment we begin until the moment of its completion for better or for worse we are owned by what we desire.

Making a record has taught me this.

On beginning this process we had a clear vision of what we wanted to achieve and how we would achieve it along the way. However that vision got blurred and the components of our initial design replaced many times before we felt comfortable with where we were headed and even then uncertainty plagued us.

The process of making an album may have been different had it not been for the group involved, we who have always been strangers to convention knew best. No, for us I believe it could only have gone this way. We seemed to nurture each and every folly along the way and in many cases it worked, we were seduced by every detail, run ragged by superfluous whims that led us through budding groves capped by dark dead cul-de-sacs and we loved it.

When I look back over that vast expanse of time I remember very little, just brief snatches of insignificant moments that seemed to cling tighter to my memory than the events that changed the course of the process altogether.

One of these moments in particular I can recall. It was a walk I took alone along the cliffs beside the house we had rented for recording in Kerry. The sun hung on the last rung of the day and I was pent up as a result of some trivial altercation that erupted during a guitar take. The orange light seemed to assuage the pensive inclinations of the waves and sooth its flow sounding a hypnotic rhythm on the rocks that poured water on the fire inside me and I lost all my apprehension to the sea. I am not entirely sure why this above over things has stayed with me but it has.

Other memories that have endured the passage of time have been my journeys between the three rooms from which I worked on the lyrics for the record. My work would not cease in transit and streams of words would gush through my head all bidding for inclusion. Once settled I would pour over lyric sheets tying myself in knots to find what I knew I had in mind. I remember the middle 8th from the song ‘A National Light’ it was late and I had spent the weekend in my uncle’s house to finish the song and after a fruitless day I carelessly rearrange a group of words I was working on and it fell into place. I went away for an hour or so to let my ears and mind rest and on my return the feeling I got when listening back is the feeling that for me makes my life worth living.

The point we are at now is somewhat surreal. I know we are here but I am not at all sure how we got here or for that matter where here is. The completion of the record and its subsequent release has robbed us of control and now as we emerge from the secluded wilderness that this process has been it seems ironic that we have arrived at the point we left to get here. The beginning.

Daniel

Ian invited Daniel and Noel in to play two acoustic tracks and talk about the album on Tuesday.

You can watch the interview and session below. Daniel and Noel perform ‘A National Light’ and ‘Owner Of A Loveless Life’ from the album.

In the first of a series of specially recorded acoustic tracks, Daniel performs ‘Love is a Lie’ live and acoustic. Filmed by Will McConnell/Bandwidth Films.

Ahead of the release of our debut album on Friday May 28th we present our new song ‘A National Light’.

A National Light by The Rags

The Rags release debut album ‘A National Light’ on May 28th 2010.

Led by vocalist and songwriter Daniel Anderson, The Rags have built a passionately devoted following on home shores for their sophisticated blend of melodically inventive guitar-pop and razor-sharp lyrical expressiveness.

The album is preceded by the release of the single ‘A National Light’ on May 14th; the album’s Joyce-sampling, Yeats-referencing title track which wonderfully articulates a redemptive call to arms by means of a fantastical apparition. “I had a dream that there was blood in stream and the heads of the parliament drowned–face down, Gucci suits and blank cheque books burst the banks of the Liffey and we owned the city”. ‘A National Light’ cuts deep into the carcass of Irish society to unearth the crushing beauty still stitched in the fabric of its modern mechanisms: “Pearse was smiling at Joyce recoiling, By the granite of his grave Oscar prayed”.

The feelings and sentiments of which are expressed on these tracks are underpinned by a unifying sense of purpose. The sordid narrative observed amid the swirling web of sinister guitar hooks and throbbing drumbeats of ‘A Murderous Chant’, the deceptively danceable Wildean-themed elaboration on superficiality ‘A Mirror To A Woman (Is A Bullet In A Gun)’ and the quiet desperation at the heart of the delicately psychedelic ‘Owner Of A Loveless Life’ provide the foundation for a remarkable modern pop record. ‘A National Light’ laments the spirit-crushing travails of modernity while shining a benevolent beam of consolation on us all.

Tracklisting
1. Uniforms & Neckties
2. Love Is a Lie
3. A Murderous Chant
4. A National Light
5. Owner of a Loveless Life
6. Memories Are Rife
7. A Mirror to a Woman (Is a Bullet in a Gun)
8. Bin Bag
9. Gatling Gun
10. Bury the Queen
11. Razors & Ropes
12. Pennies for Thoughts

We are deranged
We’re pallid and grey
The youth and today is a tasteless display
With no indication of any style
Just uniforms and neckties
Haircare and Saturday nights
Where the lords of a miserable life
Are bitten by their own design
In uniformity’s aisles, where vanity cried:
‘Cover your own backsides’

Oh you’ve gotta go and get a job—another hole
You work until your body decides
It’s had enough of the mind
That traded time for a bottle of wine
And the best leather jacket in town

You fell from that social scene
And you were dressed in those drainpipe jeans
And through a crack in the head
You were forcefully fed
Some information that made you turn green

Oh you’ve gotta go and get a job—another hole
You work until your body decides
It’s had enough of the mind
That traded time for a bottle of wine
And the best leather jacket in town

Jealousy’s the crime and the maladies mine
Love was a drug that I never understood
And ye hope:
If we let go, it might just leave us alone
Our time was never really well invested
Or thoughtfully spent, keeping abreast of the rent
And when I walk home, it’s usually alone
That way I won’t lower the tone
When I kick and I scream and I punch at the air
And I speak to the heavens about losing my hair
We only get a moment, only get a moment
They’ll give me three seconds and leave me with nothing

Oh you’ve gotta go and get a job—another hole
You work until your body decides
It’s had enough of the mind
That traded time for a bottle of wine
And the best knitted jumper in town

Daniel

Robert Frost

Alexander Pope

Dubliners – Luke’s last performance

The Dead

James Connolly