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aortal



Last Updated: 10/30/2009

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Status: Single
City: Rialto
State: Dublin
Country: IE
Signup Date: 4/10/2006

Blog Archive
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Thursday, July 31, 2008 
well we been working away rehearsing and recording both new and old material... so the good news is this album will really represent the best of all three members of this band...bad news is you're gonna have to wait until spring 09 for the album and single launches!!! why?..well because we really want to satisfy everyone, the people who've known us for a while on here will love the amount of new material on the aortal cd and those of you who are new to us will get a bunch of new tracks alongside one or two reworked versions of songs that james was doing before this line up...so hopefully everyone's happy with that!!
will definitely post some demos of new tracks and some live stuff really soon to give you something to look forward to...and the BURN music video looks amazing from what sean kavanagh (the director) has shown me so far, so that'll be up on youtube as a 'taster' of the album look and sound over the next few wks too... (we just got one more scene to add in!)...
hope yer all well and hope to see yez at a gig soon!
message us anytime!
:-)
respect as always
james

AORTAL
Friday, July 04, 2008 
dont worry there's a place for you in our next music video!
we're about to record a single version of our song FAILURE and about to shoot the music video to accompany it...
we want YOU to tell us why you reckon your a complete and utter failure and we'll put the most successful failures in our vid!

FAILURE IS SUCCESS!

post your replies here!! :-)

AORTAL
Thursday, July 03, 2008 
FIRST CUTS by Jackie Hayden

The trio AORTAL used to be known merely as James O'Toole and band.They offer a full on punk-pop sounded boosted by the much-travelled O'Toole's impressive vocal range and the no-nonsense rhythm section of Conor Friel on bass and Enda Roche on drums. 'Failure' should be a hit if it's released as a single and there's any justice left in the world. It's country-stomp opening heralds a track that bridges the gap between superior Beatles pop and Mica by way of garage-punk and odd slices of metal. For the AOR-ish 'In Light' O'Toole's vocals soar with breathtaking ease. 'Sorrow' is more mellow and reflective, allowing O'Toole to float about a string-driven soundscape. Definitely one act for the majors to pay serious attention to.


Pick of the Fortnight- AORTAL
Sunday, June 08, 2008 
james here...i'm meeting up with sean kavanagh, who directed the IN LIGHT video for us tomorrow to check out the location for the BURN music video and to make a start on the sets we need to create the 3 rooms each representing a  band mamber's personal hell...i just have to finish some of the vocal on the audio track and we're ready to shoot!
we've also rounded up a gang of some of the singers i know to help re record FAILURE and give it a real crowd gospel sound...cant wait to get going on that...
it will be the first single release off the album and should be ready to put out sometime in august....

Sunday, May 04, 2008 
last year we released some tracks as 'jamesotoole+band' but really this upcoming album will be AORTAL's debut album and will feature 5 or 6 brand new tracks alongside completely re-worked and re-arranged versions of some of the songs we're been playin live and that may have featured on james' album...
really excited about the prospect of this album and the work of collaboration on arrangements and mixes etc...
will keep eveyone posted over the next few wks as to how we're progressing...
and to keep everyone going until then we're putting out the song 'burn' as a music video...with a gig in crawdaddy on july 2nd!
Sunday, March 09, 2008 
Hosted By: THE ACADEMY
When: 19 Mar 2008, 21:30
Where: THE ACADEMY (formerly spirit)
middle abbey st
dublin, Dublin|124
Ireland
Description:
THE ACADEMY

Click Here To View Event
Wednesday, February 27, 2008 
the second track off our next album and probably our next single 'BURN' is on its way...we recorded the basic drums tracks last week and yesterday conor and i added the guitars and bass....just have to do the vocals later in the week when i get a break from buskin and then conor's gonna mix it....

even better news is that sean kavanagh (myspace.com/skavanagh616) the director of the last vid may be in line to do a music vid for this song too....

will keep yez posted!

james

AORTAL
Sunday, February 03, 2008 
"The aorta (pronounced "ay-OR-tuh") is the largest artery in the human body, originating from the left ventricle of the heart and bringing oxygenated blood to all parts of the body in the systemic circulation"

the band needed a name....at first we used my name cos i was playing solo for a while...then conor came along...then enda....and then it was a band with a name that sounded like a solo act...we were due a change....

AORTAL.... makes sense...it implies of the heart but in a visceral way...

james
Sunday, February 03, 2008 


by conor

 

It all began on 25th January 2008. We were all at my house early so we could fix the trailer up to load the gear into it. We loaded all the gear in and began tying the flight cases down, we put them so tight that they couldn't move at all. Anyways… Ronan, my brother was doing the driving to the gig. So he arrived and we finally hit the road.

 

Couple of miles later we stopped for petrol and snacks…(how exciting) back to driving.

 

Now the fun happens!! We are driving up some random road close to kilkenny and the lovely Garda pulled us over at a checkpoint. Turns out the car we are driving didn't have the new insurance disc in it. So some big cross-eyed garda came over and took Ronan out of the car, he told him "I can take this car off you if I want"…"but ill let ya go".. ahh what a waste of f**king time. Back on the road again.

 

We arrive in Kilkenny to see posters of us all over the place.. in nearly every shop window… looked pretty cool…. After looking around the town for the venue..we eventually found it. We drove around the back to park up the trailer because were 4 hours early, not my fault at all. ;-)

 

We got some pizza (the best pizza ever I might add) in a local pizzeria. Then we headed back to the venue to begin loading the gear in. Once we had everything in and sound checked we got to relax a small bit. But of course Enda did tune his drums for around an hour.. ya gota love it tho.. Enda and myself were out the front smoking and noticed the strip club that opened the same night, and there was a protest outside by nuns. Tre funny…Enda, me and Ronan went down to have a look at the protest and that's when some guy offered me a machete to buy.. not random at all..ha ha. They all went back up and chilled out in the venue with James and Madde… then guess who walks in?! Machete man.. and decided he wanted to sit with us all night. Scary! Well he did offer to buy us drinks.

 

Couple of hours past, 10 more cigarettes, couple of pints and then the support act came on. He wasn't too bad, had a couple of good tunes. Then a whole 9 people turned up due to a gig on the other side of kilkenny. Damn them they stole our fans!! ;-)… so it came time for us to shine.. we got up on stage and broke into our set. Sound was great but the crowd not that big. But for the people who did come we were good...

 

We came to the end of our set and finished up. We began packing up the gear fast because all we wanted to do was to get back to Dublin no too late… so we set off on our travels after loading the trailer. We had a nice relaxing drive home, no police this time. We reached Dublin around 2am or so.

 

Overall it was an experience. Some good some bad and some evil..ha ha ha ha ha….

 

Much respect,

 

Conor


yeah the strip club opening across the way was like something from 'Father Ted' especially the nuns with the handwritten signs 'slappers out!'...
and was expecting that the car would be pulled over by cops.....gang of dublin musicians in a car with a trailer headin down the country!

James
Wednesday, January 16, 2008 
you can watch it on the myspace profile page...

or go to youtube and watch it full screen!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qCP-Kly-Rw

james-conor-enda