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On The Record

Jim Carroll

Music, Life and everything else

Monthly Archives: May 2007

Tune of the Week – “Big Chief”

This is what a bank holiday weekend sounds like, people

Who are you calling random? Better links than you’ll find on your local golf course

Blogledge Nialler9 has just unearthed a top quality recording of Leftfield’s performance at Homelands in 2000. Click through now and enjoy some heavyweight, stomach-pumping bass. Going to the Garden Party? Prepare for your big day out with this 20 minute …

Do you want to see The Good The Bad & The Queen, !!!, CSS, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and dozens more for free?

It may be time to move to Tuscany in that case. A few weeks ago, there was a discussion here (well, here) about ticket prices for Irish festivals and mention was made of Italian festival Arezzo Wave. Well, it’s back. …

Rock the Vote – the latest

Stop groaning already. They haven’t gone away, you know. Or maybe they have. Read on…

The view from Fairview

Most Saturday mornings, I go for a cycle. The route stays the same: leave the house in Fairview, up through Marino, along the coast road and out to Dollymount. It’s a route punctuated with regular sights. Like the bright orange …

Happy birthday Miles

Miles Davis would have been blowing 81 candles off a cake today were he still alive. Pitchfork pay tribute to the genius with a video extravaganza. Watch and enjoy as you listen to the election count on the radio. And …

Business of bling taken to new high

If you were one of those indignant at the notion of paying €551.75 to see Barbra Streisand in concert this summer, look away now. The Social is a five-concert series which will take place in New York’s East Hamptons this …

Foot on the gas for music label takeover

It’s squeaky bum time for EMI label employees and acts at the moment. The decision by the EMI board to recommend the £3.2 billion (€4.7 billion) takeover offer from private equity firm Terra Firma means Coldplay, The Beatles and Gorillaz …

Ready for a Thrill-seeking summer

Two Irish EMI-signed acts are preparing to remind local live audiences that they’re still very much in business in the coming weeks. Cathy Davey spent 2006 writing songs for a new album which will see the light of day over …

Right up your alley

More from the returns department: Marble City giants Engine Alley will be playing their first Dublin show this century in June. A mainstay of the Irish music scene during the early and mid-1990s with their theatrical approach to Bowie-pop, the …

Tune of the Week – “Stress”

Imagine if Bernard Herrmann decided to make an acid house banger…

A requiem for a city

While Friday’s election count will inevitably have its share of must-see moments, “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts” was truly the most extraordinary four hours of TV I’ve seen in an age.

The young folks versus the old folks

There’s a very interesting contrast to be made between the excellent general election campaign run by Older & Bolder and the awful, dreadful, cliched drivel which continues to be foisted on us by those eejits at Rock The Vote. Rock …

Proof that at least one of the Smiths had sole

What you are looking at a pair of runners designed by Johnny Marr, former partner to that singing monstrosity Morrissey and now guitar-slinger for hire (currently employed by Modest Mouse). They are in “luxurious” dark blue leather with black accents, …

RTE’s digital switch-on – the scoop
  • Media
  • May 21, 2007, 09:04

2fm’s Mark McCabe kindly took the time to fill in some of the blanks about what he is working on regarding the Montrose digital mission (and he also addresses Twenty Major’s fears about Damien Rice): I am responsible for 3 …

Winners and losers
  • Media
  • May 18, 2007, 12:07

It’s interesting to note how yesterday’s JNLR figures impact on some individual shows as opposed to the station’s market share and reach. Going up: Ray D’Arcy (Today FM) – up 4,000 listeners Tom Dunne (Today FM) – up 3,000 listeners …

Artists still rolling up for summer shows

Just when you thought there was absolutely no room left for anyone else on the Irish summer festival bandwagon, along come 50 Cent, Elton John and Sister Sledge looking to get onboard.

The end with Immediate effect

The announcement by The Immediate at the Trinity Ball last week that they were calling it a day took most observers by surprise. The band released their debut album, In Towers & Clouds, last summer and it received huge critical …

Caning it in the Big Apple

On The Record’s New York readers can be amongst the first to catch new work by Galway’s Cane 141 this week. The Michael Smalle-fronted group have collaborated with artist Róisín Coyle on a music and visual installation called Lost At …

Un Belize-able sounds

The Garifunas are coming. The story of Garifuna culture, as told by Andy Palacio and his collective of musicians from Belize, goes back to a time of shipwrecks and slavery. Garifuna culture arrived in central America when two slave ships …

Spin time again
  • Media
  • May 17, 2007, 17:42

The latest JNLR figures have just been published for the period April 2006-March 2007. I can imagine that, as happens every three months, there’s some frantic head-scratching going on amongst radio station chiefs up and down the country as they …

This is the best election EVER

Just when you thought Election 2007 couldn’t get any more GUBU, along comes Ivor Callely and his Teddy Bears Picnic stunt. It seems On The Record’s favourite ex-junior minister decided to enlist the help of some people wearing teddy bear …

Tune of the Week – “Jake Summers”

It’s a blogspiracy and this is how it goes.

Here comes the Blastmaster

Big up the Choice Cuts crew. They have just announced Dublin and Cork shows featuring KRS One and Marley Marl. The hip-hop legends play The Village, Dublin on June 21 and The Savoy, Cork on June 22. Taking it to …

Hands up who wants another summer festival!

The latest fest to add some names to its line-up is Mantua, the two-day arts and music jam in Co Roscommon. There’s a live stage, an Alphabet Set stage and the Rootical stage with more sound systems and bass than …

Livin’ the life, lovin’ the (non-Irish) music
  • Media
  • May 16, 2007, 09:52

You are an Irish radio station called 2FM. Better still, you are an Irish radio station called 2FM with a public broadcasting remit. OK, you do your best to forget about the public broadcasting remit because it’s a bit of …

More fun than cycling over Ivor Callely posters, it’s the links. Enjoy responsibly

You may think that Fight Like Apes are a blogspiracy such is the amount of blog love coming their way of late. But they’re real and they rock like apes. For lines like “you’re like Kentucky Fried Chicken but without …

The gang of three becomes the gang of four

Irish Times political correspondent Mark Hennessy is now also in the blogging business.

The difference between Oxegen and Electric Picnic? Chips

Seriously, this is what it comes down to. Chips. French fries. Wedges. You won’t find them inside the walls at Thomas Cosby’s Stradbally Hall estate (anyway, who needs chips when you have Pieminister?), but there are chips galore at Punchestown. …

History lessons

This is how they used to do it. A dig through the RTE archives has unearthed this series of TV and radio clips from the station’s coverage of past general elections. There’s some fascinating bits and pieces, including behind-the-scenes coverage …

It’s a Shocka

It’s probably the first time that hair gel has made the headlines since “There’s Something About Mary”.

New Order split – On The Record not convinced

Can we have that in writing please? Bassist Peter Hook confirmed the news that New Order have split. “Well, yeah, me and Bernard aren’t working together”, he said during a radio interview. “Bernard went off for a break with Electronic, …

Ding-dong as Oldfield fumes over freebie

Poor Mike Oldfield. It seems that no-one told him that his “Tubular Bells” album would be given away free with The Mail On Sunday. From the sound of his letter to industry trade paper Music Week slamming EMI Records for …

More sell-outs?

Paula Flynn’s cover version of “Lets Dance”, currently featuring on TV ads for a certain brand of bottled water, kick-started an interesting debate over at the On the Record blog about the ins and outs of musicians singing for their …

Tune of the Week – “Solta o frango”

Apparently, it means “release the chickens” in Portugese. There, you learn something new every day round this way.

Festival of the summer! Sister Sledge! Fight Like Apes! Flushing loos!

Just when you thought there was no way anyone else would bother trying to get into the summer festival groove, along comes Castle Palooza. Castle Palooza will be held on August 4th and 5th at Charleville Castle, Tullamore, Co Offaly …

TV Jools
  • Media
  • May 8, 2007, 16:38

Look, making a music TV show is easy. You get a band or bands. You get a camera or cameras. You point one at the other. You press a red button (is there some reason why the record button is …

The boys in the bubble

David Blaine did it. Keith Duffy commentated on other people doing it for TV3. Now, US rock band Cartel are also about to do it. They are about to live in a very large, transparent plastic bubble for a few …

C6 swaps porn for pop

With Channel 4 axing Popworld and RTE’s new summer season blanking rock and pop again (two shows are scheduled on sculptors, but that’s a different kind of rock), there’s less and less new music on our screens. While some feel …

Still flocking off

Earlier this year, Bell X1 parted ways with their Island Records paymasters, despite the band flogging over 60,000 copies of their last album “Flock” in Ireland alone. Many of those customers will be picking up the band’s first post-Island release …

Ulster says oh yeah

New institutions are all the rage this weather in Northern Ireland. All eyes will be on Stormont next Tuesday, but music fans may be just as interested in tomorrow’s (Saturday May 5) open day at the prospective Oh Yeah music …

Tune of the Week – “Strings Of Life”

Back in 1987, a Detroit buck called Derrick May created this tune. From the get-go, this was a stone-cold classic, a track which would survive the twists of time and espcially the many attempts made to butcher it.

Rocking the vote

Today’s Blogorrah features a selection of videos from the Rock The Vote campaign. I really hope that someone checked that all those “celebrities” and “stars” featured in these vids are on the relevant voting registers. By the way, are young …

Yo! Yo! Yo! Clipse are coming to town.

The greatest duo in hip-hop today are hitting Dublin next month. Clipse play Vicar Street on June 13. Tickets now on sale. That’s as good a result as this. UPDATE – gig now moved to July 04. No reason given. …

Never trust a hippie (part 2,567,822)

It seems that the Glastonbury Festival, the fest that likes to think it’s the first and last word in peace, love and harmony, has been caught up in the middle of some dodgy spam shenanigans. According to The Registar, people …

It’s not just the banks who want your SSIA cash
  • Babs
  • May 1, 2007, 14:30

Hearing that the country was awash in cash, Barbra Streisand has decided it’s high time to visit Ireland. She performs at Castletown House, Celbridge, Co Kildare on July 14. It will be a posh affair, per the press release. “A …

How many members of Aosdána does it take to write a letter to The Irish Times? (*)

It’s the Tuesday morning clickathon! A collection of random links designed to keep you away for at least five minutes from doing something useful. Like answering the door to your local would-be TD. And sticking his leaflet in your green …