This Friday night is Culture Night and it marks the beginning of a fantastic opportunity for teenagers to borrow a musical instrument from Dublin City Libraries and Girls Rock Dublin. “GRD Gear Library”is the gear loan service designed for teenagers under 18 and launching on Culture Night with “Instrument Carousel” in Pearse Street Library. 

On September 20 at 6pm, 16 teenagers will take over Pearse Street branch in a fun and loud experiment involving electric guitars, basses, synths, keyboards ukulele, glockenspiel, pedal effects and drums.

By moving through different rooms and engaging with GRD coaches, participants will learn a song on each instrument, and finish by performing the song together. It’s open to teenagers of all genders. Book your place here: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

From Culture Night any teenager who is a member of Dublin City Libraries can borrow their preferred instrument for three weeks with their library card. The GRD Gear Library is a collection of instruments, amplifiers and musical accessories that Girls Rock Dublin use for their summer camp and events and are now making available through Dublin City Libraries all year round. Take a look at the instrument gallery at www.girlsrockdublin.com/gear-library then call into Pearse Street library and borrow what you need.

The collection is made up of donated gear from people in the community who value the work of Girls Rock Dublin and from purchases made from funding received from Reverb.com. The library is an ongoing project and donations of gear are welcome through www.girlsrockdublin.com

Following the release of their debut album, Reasons to Dream, Whenyoung return with their new single ‘A Labour of Love’. A wall of chiming guitars packs a heart-rending punch as Aoife bares her soul in the lyrics and the elegant spoken word break in the third act. The exciting new video will be split into six episodes released across the band’s social accounts. Split into a non-linear time line, it tells the story of heist gone wrong in a style that pays homage to the band’s favourite filmmakers such as Tarantino and Jean-Luc Godard.

The culmination of years of playing and writing together, Reasons to Dream showcases Aoife Power’s (bass/vocals), Niall Burns’ (guitar) and Andrew Flood’s (Drums) ability to craft spikey yet melodic songs which delve lyrically into everything from love and insecurities to pacificism and the gap between the haves and have-nots in society today.

“Reasons to Dream is a presentation of our collective experiences of life since we have moved to London” The band explain. “We've trundled through many jobs, flats, neighbourhoods and rehearsal rooms learning, practising, maturing and cultivating whatever it is we do along the way. We've gone from knowing nobody to making close friends, from finding it lonely to finding it welcoming.”

Alongside previously released singles ‘Pretty Pure’ and ‘Never Let Go’ it features brand-new tracks such as the touching ‘Labour of Love’ and the evocative ‘Blow Up the World’, based on a line by the French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. Elsewhere the band demonstrate a beautiful ability to mix a darker lyrical slant with tunes made for cutting shapes in darkened rooms. ‘You’re Grand’, for example, is a classic piece of driving jangle-pop masking lyrics about staying up all night as an escape from anxiety and insomnia.

The album marks the next milestone in a journey that started for the band when they first met as teenagers in Limerick, Ireland. They eventually all found themselves in London and the band that was to become Whenyoung was formed, inspired by a mix of the music they all love and their collective interest in cinema and literature.