Rusted Rail is still keeping track on Galway music scene

Groove Tube with Cian O’Connell

Though they can feel slow-moving and static at times, local music scenes are constantly transitioning; there are fortunes and vicissitudes that come with a career in music now versus one twenty years ago.  Keith Wallace, founder of one of Galway’s longest running independent music labels, is as qualified as anyone to speak on the evolution of the city’s musical landscape.

Having previously managed Flirt FM, Keith started Rusted Rail in 2006 as something of a passion project. The label has championed albums from acts like So Cow, The Declining Winter and Keith’s own group Loner Deluxe.

Its latest release, Shelter from the Shadows, is a haunting fourteen-track LP from Swedish-born, Galway-based dreamfolk artist A Lilac Decline.

Rusted Rail is a staple of Galway’s music community and, as it continues to endure and expand, it offers an invaluable insight into the underlying ethos that drives the city’s arts scene.

“I knew a bunch of people who were making music and didn’t necessarily have an outlet for it,” Keith says of starting the label.

“I just thought that could be a gap I could fill. I was inspired by different record labels and by that whole idea that if a town has a record label then that label reflects and documents the music scene in that town. That was one of the initial ideas anyway.

“Aside from the impact of the pandemic, I think it’s probably the healthiest that the music scene in Galway has ever been. This is looking at it from a span of twenty or twenty-five years since I started going to gigs when I was a kid.

“It was hard to find gigs back then because Galway used to be just riddled with cover bands. There was no real stage for anyone that was making original music at all. Just before the label started, from around 2002 onwards, certain things started happening in Galway.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App

Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.

Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.

Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite  HERE.

Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.