DUKE SPECIAL
LIVE AT THE WORKMANS CLUB, APRIL 25th

**Tickets on sale tomorrow at 9am** 

Duke Special has announced an intimate date at The Workman’s Club in Dublin on April 25th.  Tickets €17.35 inclusive of booking fee are on sale tomorrow, Saturday 18 February at 9am from Ticketmaster outlets and online at www.ticketmaster.ie 

The Dublin show will be part of a tour to celebrate his first "commercial" album, entitled "Oh Pioneer", since "I never thought this day would come" in 2008. 

"Standing on the edge of recording a new album is a daunting task. Behind you are the sessions and songs you have recorded previously, some popular, some well known, some dear to your own heart but not celebrated, some completely overlooked...  ahead are other peoples' expectations, your own hopes for the record, the worry of shitty reviews, paying the bills and so on but... I love the adventure.

"Wooden Fingers Puppet Theatre Company, The Bank of Ideas, a banned Iranian children's book about a fish, a pirate who wants to retire, a bar man who hears people's stories whether he likes it or not, the human condition and late night conversations with friends on the roof of the 'Oh Yeah' building about your dreams are just a few of the ingredients to go into "Oh  Pioneer".

Duke Special is an artist aptly named. Dynamic, musically ambitious & bracingly eccentric, with his inimitable style and lush musicality. Hailing from Belfast with a sound that is self-confessed “hobo-chic”, Duke Special - AKA the endlessly inventive Peter Wilson - is once heard, never forgotten.

Blissfully at home in his own alluring genre of beautifully bruised romanticism, Duke Special inhabits a world unlike any other - a world filled with vaudevilleesque sensibility, sing-a-longs and addictive melodies. “My sound is a bit vagabondy, but pure and soulful too,” he explains.

His critically-acclaimed 2006 album  ‘Songs From The Deep Forest’  achieved platinum status in Ireland and received plaudits across the board. His 2008 follow-up,  ‘I Never Thought This Day Would Come’  was  recorded   between Wapping, London, Champaign, Illinois and Culleybackey, Northern Ireland, and was produced by long-time collaborator Paul Pilot and mixed by Nick Terry. This was a more immediate and visceral collection than its predecessor, with many moments of beauty and hope juxtaposed with a dark, brooding edge - the trademark twist of the Duke. It was an album for sleepwalkers, skeletons and gravediggers, for those who have fallen so far down they can taste the soil between their teeth. 

Duke Special’s immense creative talents have seen him involved in projects as diverse as writing the theme tune for Sesame Tree (the Northern Ireland edition of Sesame Street where he also got to sing with The Muppets) to writing the music for and appearing in Deborah Warner’s critically acclaimed 2009 production of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children at London’s National Theatre, starring Fiona Shaw in the lead role. 

Tickets for Duke Special live at The Workman’s Club are on sale tomorrow,
Saturday 18 February at 9am from Ticketmaster 

For more see: www.dukespecial.com / www.mcd.ie / www.ticketmaster.ie