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MCD v Prince: the cat can now chill

February 26, 2010 @ 2:20 pm | by Jim Carroll

The case taken by MCD Concerts against Prince and William Morris Endeavor Entertainment LLC over that infamous cancelled Croker gig in June 2008 has been settled. Details of the settlement have not been disclosed, though MCD boss Denis Desmond says he is “delighted” with the outcome. A good day for the MCD cat as they also added a second Michael Buble show.

Meanwhile, not to be outdone, new music from Prince. Sure, why not?

UPDATE Extracts from Ronan McGreevy’s interview with Denis Desmond from earlier today. OTR predicts: we’ll see Prince doing a few nights in the O2.

Q – Denis, what is your reaction to the settlement?
A – Delighted with the outcome, very happy, disappointed with the 55,000 people who didn’t get to see the show because Prince is a great performer. Very happy that the figures which were questioned that our figures were inflated were unfounded.

Q – Can you give us details of the settlement?
A- No it is confidential, but suffice to say we are very happy about the result. Suffice to say, we are not out of pocket.

Q – What you think of Prince now?
A – I think he is a great performer. I’m looking forward to doing some shows with him in the future. I did some in the past. It is unfortunate. I think he could do with some good advice. If I was him I’d be looking at getting himself a manager. The evidence was quite short, I was only in the witness box for three hours. Very glad we had a paper trail. Nobody contested the fact that concert had not been booked, that we hadn’t paid the deposit, that it hadn’t been confirmed.

Q – Would you work with Prince again?
A- Gladly. No hard feelings.

Q – Have you spoken to Prince? Has the cat chilled?
A – The cat has chilled.

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Talking about music is like dancing about architecture

@ 1:36 pm | by Jim Carroll

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Tell that cat to plug

@ 11:03 am | by Jim Carroll

In The Ticket today, Colin Farrell remembers his days as a hellraiser, Girls talk cults, drugs and music, next week’s Choice Music Prize bunfight is previewed, Ellie Goulding tells us why we should stick with her, Micmacs‘ director Jean-Pierre Jeunet on his world his way and Brian Boyd celebrates Kassidy as a band for Men Of A Certain Age (and slags blogs once again – yawn).

There’s New Music bumps for The Morning Benders, Toro Y Moi, First Rate People, The Cast of Cheers and Summer Cats, while there’s Music News stories on The Gathering at NUI Maynooth (which, unlike the Trinity Ball with its rather dull and predictable bill, is open to non-students), the “I Put A Spell On You” charity, single and the first rake of acts for Oxegen 2010.

Album of the Week comes from Gorillaz (someone must have signed that confidentiality agreement) and there are also reviews of releases from Two Door Cinema Club, The Knife, Alphabeat, Frightened Rabbit, John, Shelly and The Creatures, Voice of the Seven Thunders, Archie Bronson Outfit, kd LAng, Robin Verheyen and others. Plus Eoin Butler does the Shuffle with the week’s singles and downloads.

New flicks in the cinemas this week include Capitalism: A Love Story, Micmacs, The Crazies, Everybody’s Fine, Extraordinary Measures, Leap Year and From Paris With Love, and there’s also the weekly movie quiz and film news. Games under review this week include Heavy Rain, MAG: Massive Action Game, Sonic & Sega Allstars Racing and Half-Minute Hero. And don’t forget the biggest and best guide to going out in ANY national newspaper!

The Ticket: it’s going to be a beautiful night

The OTR community noticeboard is now open for business. Please feel free to plug and recommend stuff away to your heart’s content, but remember to declare an interest where one should be declared. Please note that plugs are accepted on the whim of OTR and may be edited for length/clarity/common sense. Events with a commercial sponsor are really ads and will probably not be published in this slot. I’m also cutting down on those plugs which appear every week (you know who you are) so don’t say you weren’t warned.

Finally, a Choice Music Prize plug as the countdown begins for next week’s shenanigans. The first of a couple of preview videos from the Old Hat team – I’ll stick up another one later today. Proof that musicians and comedians do not mix:

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From the “it won’t go away” department: Irish music on the radio

February 25, 2010 @ 1:36 pm | by Jim Carroll

When you cover the music beat, you become accustomed to certain stories popping up again and again. There’s the whole issue of opening times in clubland, which must be due another run-out soon. There’s the demise of the record labels, which has become an almost weekly series. And then, there’s the Irish music on the radio debate. For as long as I’ve written about music, this topic has been on the agenda in one shape or another.

The latest attempt to shove it to the top of page comes from the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Arts, Sport, Tourism, Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. This committe summoned a bunch of lads from RTE and Today FM to have a chat with them yesterday.

The radioheads were there “to discuss measures to support contemporary Irish music and nurture new emerging talent”. Per committee chairman Tom Kitt TD, “some involved in the music industry have voiced concerns over a lack of exposure for Irish musicians on radio, particularly at peak listening times.”.

From Shane Hickey’s report on yesterday’s proceedings, this involved Senator Paschal Mooney complaining about the lack of Daniel O’Donnell on Today FM and Michael Ring TD looking for a national country and western station. The station lads defended their patch. Today FM’s Willie O’Reilly pointed out that while the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland suggested an Irish music quota of 20 per cent, Today FM was actually hitting 27 per cent. 2FM boss John McMahon talked up the 20 hours of Irish festivals covered by the station in 2009.

It’s unlikely that those arguments held much water with the Oireachtas lads. After all, as was quite obvious from the demeanour of the public reps yesterday, it’s not the fact that the stations are not playing Irish music that’s the problem – it’s the fact that the stations are not playing the kind of Irish music they’d like to see the stations playing.

Look at Senator Mooney’s charge about Daniel O’Donnell and then look at the Today FM schedule. Is the senator suggesting that a commercial rock and pop station like Today FM should suddenly insert O’Donnell’s music onto its playlist as a mere gesture? Does he expect stations like Spin, Beat and Red to do the same? What about the Irish music these stations already play? In the last few days, I’ve heard a ton of Irish music on Today FM. Yes, you’re right, I haven’t heard any Daniel O’Donnell but if I did, I’d turn off and I’m sure many others listening would also do the same. There is also the issue that Daniel O’Donnell could certainly not be classed as the “new emerging talent” which the committee claimed to be discussing yesterday.

But leaving aside the vested interests which dictated yesterday’s agenda, the matter of Irish music and Irish radio stations continues to rumble on without any solution in sight. While those on the radio side will point to the huge amount of support initiatives they’re involved in, from studio sessions to live gigs, those on the other side will give out that these are broadcast outside primtime hours.

The music industry will also point to the completely tokenistic way in which Irish radio stations approach the issue of Irish language programming, with most of the shows consigned to the early weekend hours. But the radio stations will point to a lack of demand for those shows, especially when you have the likes of Raidió na Gaeltachta and Raidió na Life on the air.

Equally, when the industry clamours for a more rigorous quota system, the radio stations can point to the volume of Irish music they currently play according to the rules of that quota. And when there’s a clamour for stations to play the “new emerging talent”, the stations can point out that the vast majority of the bands and acts who compromise the “new emerging talent” sector have yet to write or record a tune which can actually stand up to plays on Irish radio stations outside of the specialist shows.

Personally, I think the problem is that radio play is just one part of the cycle. If TDs and senators really want to discuss “measures to support contemporary Irish music and nurture new emerging talent”, they need to do more than just getting Today FM to play new Irish bands. There are dozens and dozens of initiatives, plans, schemes and processes which can be taken to help this sector but, as we know only too well, these require money, willpower and drive. Much easier to just call in Today FM and RTE and give them a slap on the wrists for not playing enough country-and-Irish.

Comments (26)
“Tell that cat to chill”

@ 10:31 am | by Jim Carroll

Full report from yesterday’s proceedings in the Commercial Court as the 1.7 million action taken by MCD Concerts against Prince and William Morris Endeavor Entertainment LLC continues. There is also coverage here.

Keith Sarkisian, a William Morris exec who acted for Prince, gave evidence in court yesterday. When told by Sarkisian of MCD boss Denis Desmond’s anxieties about whether the artist’s Croke Park June 2008 show would proceed, Prince told Sarkisian to “tell that cat to chill”.

(Comments off as the case is currently before the courts)

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The Far Side – playlist for Tuesday February 23

February 24, 2010 @ 3:26 pm | by Jim Carroll

I was away due to foreseen circumstances last night so Derek Byrne took care of business with The Far Side on Phantom 105.2. Catch Derek’s own show The Lounge every Sunday from 10pm.

The Wave Pictures “I Love You Like A Madman”
The Dum Dum Girls “Jail La La”
Primary 1’s (feat. Nina Persson) “The Blues”
The Bundles “Pirates Declare War”
The Pack A.D. “Crazy”
Audiofun “Drop It”
Gorillaz “Stylo (Alex Metric Remix)”
Broken Social Scene “World Sick”
Beach House “The Arrangement”
Friendo “Counter/Time”
Jay-Z “What We Talkin’ About
Groove Armada “Paper Romace (Classixx Remix)”
Hooray For Earth “Surrounded By Your Friends”
Pantha Du Prince “The Splendour”
UNKLE “Natural Selection”
Rosie and Me “Bonfires”
Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings “I Learned The Hard Way”
The Cast of Cheers “Derp”
Rafter “Paper”
Redneck Manifesto “Black Apple”
White Hinterland “No Logic”
She & Him “Thieves”
Johnny Cash “Ain’t No Grave”
Miike Snow “Silvia (Hook N Sling & Goodwill Remix)”

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Why the political dramas of the last fortnight don’t really matter a damn

@ 11:11 am | by Jim Carroll

My name is Jim and I’m a political junkie. This is not new news to OTR readers, of course, who’ve seen this blog follow the twists and turns of a remarkable 16 days in Irish politics. Those of us who treat political jigs and reels as a form of blood sport haven’t had so much fun in years. Your man from RTE throwing his toys out of the pram, Deirdre de Burca’s icy daggers, Willie O’Dea’s wibbly-wobbly fall from grace and, now, the Minister for Parsnips and Turnips Trevor Sargent standing down in bizarre circumstances: it has been one hell of a month for the Irish political system.

Let’s be clear about one thing, though. As we watch personalities, characters and chancers on Kildare Street huff and puff on and off the plinth, the big issues remain unresolved, untouched and unmentioned. These haven’t gone away just because polticians are preening and falling on their swords and carrots. The lack of jobs, the numbers on the dole queues, the state of the banks, the inertia in the economy and the general national mood of helplessness are still present and correct.

No-one in power is doing anything constructive or innovative about these issues. Oh sure, they’ll issue a few press releases about “hundreds of green jobs” and get caught up in ridiculous chararades with airline bosses, but this is just shadowboxing and window dressing. Those allegedly in charge of this little country has no solutions for the problems we face and show little sign of changing that state of affairs. We know this and, worse, they know it too. A stalemate has developed and neither side has a rashers about the next move to make.

Instead, we, the people who elected the current shower on both sides of the divide on Kildare Street, whinge. We moan and grumble and give out. We turn to those temples of gloom, Liveline on the radio and The Frontline on the telly, to bellyache. In other countries, they take their protests to the streets; here, we talk to Joe. If it’s not the old wans giving out to Joe Duffy, it’s various reps from the so-called lost generation grumbling about their sense of entitlement to Pat Kenny.

Leaving aside how quickly Kenny and his team have allowed The Frontline to become Liveline-TV, it was illustrative to see Monday’s night “youth” show (good to see The Frontline are getting their ideas from the Gay Byrne era of The Late, Late Show, eh?) descend into a predictable national moan. We have covered the complaints of the lost generation before and I really don’t want to go back over old ground. Thousands are sailing again, but the whinge generation that are leaving this time are doing so with an awful lot of negative baggage. Word up: you’re entitled to absolutely nothing just because you have a degree under your oxter. It’s those who’re choosing to stay behind to try to sort out the mess that really should be getting the attention.

One issue which has come up again and again and again as the Celtic Tiger and the good times have exited stage left is a disengagement between the political system and the people. We think we know what the system should be doing, but it doesn’t appear to be doing that. You could hear tones of this in GLXTD’s parting shots and it’s present whenever two or more gather to moan. The “all those bleedin’ politicians are the same” line sums this one up as we contemplate a political system still dominated by the Civil War politics which was bequeathed to us by our grandparents and great-grandparents. There have been many attempts to change this picture via new political parties and movements – including, I understand, one in the last six months which never left the planning stages despite the best intentions of all concerned – but nothing has happened. We continue to re-elect different sides of the same coin.

The problem is that you need to be in the system in order to change it. Those on the outside clamouring for change and calling for a second republic and advocating new ways of doing things unfortunately don’t have the power to do anything. Those on the inside, those who have played the system and won, have no desire or need to change the status quo. Even though the numbers might say something else, we’re stuck with the system we have and, like an omnibus episode of Eastenders, we’re going to continue to encounter the same characters, the same drama queens and the same plotlines for some time to come. Meanwhile, the bigger issues continue to fester….

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Dinosaur Jr and Built to Spill, Dublin, May

@ 1:18 am | by Jim Carroll

Dinosaur Jr and Built to Spill will play Dublin’s Vicar Street on May 11 in addition to the previously announced gig in Galway the night before. Tickets, at €29 each, go on sale on Friday. Post comments on this here.

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More GUBU on Kildare Street: Trevor Sargent resigns

February 23, 2010 @ 5:40 pm | by Jim Carroll

Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and Green Party TD Trevor Sargent has resigned over allegations of interfering in a criminal case in his constituency as raised in today’s Evening Herald. He resigned after a brief statement to the Dail during which he accepted he made an “error of judgment” about the case.

Coming on the back of the George Lee Ex-TD, Deirdre de Burca and Willie O’Dea stories, it means Kildare Street is now home to more drama than a double-episode of Fair City and shows that Leinster House is finally providing some value for money.

As with any soap opera, there’s a whodunnit element in the latest twist as in the timing of the story and I’m sure there’s more to come about this story. And, in fairness to Trevor Sargent, the ex-minister didn’t attempt to weasel his way out of the controversy or stonewall the process like John O’Donoghue and Willie O’Dea.

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The first names on the Oxegen ‘10 bill – and there’s no sign of Jedward

@ 12:41 pm | by Jim Carroll

As predicted by OTR, the first names for Oxegen 2010 include Eminem (good to know that both sides haven’t let this little matter stand in their way), Muse, Kasabian, Faithless, Broken Social Scene and Florence & The Machine.

Also making their way to Punchestown Racecourse in Co Kildare between July 9 and 11 will be:

Jay-Z, Black Eyed Peas, The Prodigy, Paolo Nutini, Stereophonics, David Guetta, Vampire Weekend, Mumford & Sons, John Mayer, Hot Chip, Calvin Harris, Newton Faulkner, Gossip, The Temper Trap, Empire of the Sun, Goldfrapp, La Roux, Wolfmother, Rise Against, The Coral, Ellie Goulding, Two Door Cinema Club, Armand Van Helden, Steve Angello, Simian Mobile Disco, Erol Alkan, Steve Aoki, A-Trak, Aeroplane.

Tickets go on sale on March 12 at €224.50 for a three three camping ticket. The deposit scheme introduced last year is also available for 2010.

Snap analysis: it seems that the “pop” direction predicted by OTR after Oxegen 2009 may indeed have come to pass.

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Dinosaur Jr and Built to Spill, Ireland, May

@ 9:49 am | by Jim Carroll

Dinosaur Jr and Built to Spill play Galway’s Black Box on May 10. Tickets for the gig now on sale at €30 and €28 a pop. A Dublin show will be announced in the next few days with MCD, Aiken Promotions and POD all vying for the gig.

Stay tuned for the Oxegen announcement later today – and don’t be surprised if Muse, Gorillaz, Faithless, Arcade Fire, Florence & The Machine, Broken Social Scene and Eminem feature.

From back in the day…

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The randomiser says “Dan Boyle is the Green Party’s Nelson Muntz”

February 22, 2010 @ 10:57 am | by Jim Carroll

10 days to go! We speak, of course, about the Choice Music Prize bunfight, the rumble in the Irish music jungle, the thrilla in vanilla and all of that. Plenty of meat on the plate already: here are CMP09 nominees Duckworth Lewis Method running a cryptic pair of eyes over this year’s 10. Sunday Trib scribbler Una Mullally is definitely pro-Choice. Ace webmag Ragged Words have a CMP preview week starting from today featuring interviews with Julie Feeney, Adrian Crowley, And So I Watch You From Afar, Valerie Francis and the Duckworth Lewis Method. And Musical Rooms finds out why Valerie Francis doesn’t have a musical room of her own right now. More stuff to come this week! It all happens on March 3 at Vicar Street in Dublin (tickets here, for those who want to come along). I bet you’re excited….

Want to sound like you know what you’re talking about when you’re bitching about the weather? The Irish Met Society’s one-day conference on weather and climate on March 27 at the Botanic Gardens in Dublin may help. It will feature panels from a half-dozen talking heads including ex-Irish Times columnist John Gibbons (“Denial or Despair: towards effectively communicating Climate Change” – we hope Pat Kenny pops along to ask some questions), Met Eireann’s Gerald Fleming and Séamus Walsh and others. Admission is free and the full schedule is here. And one more for the weather-watchers in the audience: inside the British Met Office, from yesterday’s revamped Observer.

Speaking of the Observer, really liked the redesigned New Review which reminded me of the Independent on Sunday’s Magazine of old back in the day. Tip for maximum enjoyment from online persual: read the digital version of the New Review for the full enchilada.

Celebrity witness of the week: Prince is listed among the witnesses due to appear in the MCD v Prince legal action over the cancellation of that infamous Croke Park gig in June 2008. Over at the Sunday Times, they went a little overboard with the puns about this story and didn’t know how to stop. Pity, all the same, that the case wasn’t heard last week and Prince could have went along to the Meteor Music Awards’ beano at the RDS while he was in town.

Well, that’s the end of that then. After a week when loads of eejits fumed in print and on radio about the threatened closure/sale/demolitation/”it’s going to be turned into a kebab shop!” of the Abbey Road studios in London, owners EMI say they’ve no plans to do anything of the sort. Well, at least a ton of showbiz hacks got a week’s content out of that shaggy-dog “save Abbey Road” non-story. Meanwhile, here is this week’s save-the-whatever tale.

Interesting musings from CMT editorial director Chet Flippo about Johnny Cash’s legagy in the wake of this week’s release of the “American VI: Ain’t No Grave” album: “Everyone’s lingering memory of Cash is different. I do recall the sick old man in a wheel chair. But – even more vividly – I remember Johnny Cash as a vibrant, strong and confident man, standing tall and commanding a stage.”

Allez Roche! Interview with Nicolas Roche as he preps for the new season on the bike.

As inevitable as night following day, the new Joanna Newsom album leaked over the weekend a couple of days before release and thousands of beardy indie boys without girlfriends went into raptures. “Have One On Me” is one of a number of new releases where the labels have set down draconian, if not downright ridiculous, conditions for reviewers who need to hear the album to write a few words on it. Yet even this refusal to provide pre-release review copies or streams to ‘orrible hacks still didn’t prevent the album from ending up online prior to release. At least Drag City didn’t issue lengthy confidentiality agreeements a la Gorillaz and EMI to the review posse.

Wonder what Jay-Z would make of that? Here’s Jigga sounding off about how labels need to streamline to succeed.

Maybe what labels need to do is sign and develop more acts like Sade, who sold 502,000 copies of new album “Soldier Of Love ” in one week in the U S of A. Whoop!

Interesting post from Steve Redmond on why there is no such thing any more as the music industry. Regular OTR readers will probably recogise a lot of his points.

And here’s the pounds and pence breakdown on why private equity investors should be putting their cash into live businesses rather than record labels.

I know one infamous international celebrity music biz playboy who watches Oireachtas Report, but enough about Louis Walsh. Shane takes a look at last week’s Joint Oireachtas committee meeting where members of that august body fumed about how RTE didn’t pitch the show as primetime, box-office viewing like Desperate Housewives. Mo’ respect to RTÉ’s managing editor of news, Cillian de Paor, for keeping a straight face in what must have been difficult circumstances.

Hats off to…. Gerry Ryan. No, seriously, come back! Please, come back! The dude’s new Undercurrents series will see him play a tune by a brand new Irish act on his show every Friday. Yes, he should be doing this all the time. Yes, every show on 2fm should be doing this. Yes, Adebisi Shank. are a quare name but great stuff. But kudos for once for this idea. The band will also be pimped on the show’s website.

A question about Willie. Was Mike Dwane the only journo that the ex-minister treated to untruths and slanders about Maurice Quinlivan? Or were there other hacks who got the same whisper in the ear from Willie and simply didn’t follow the story?

Top of my SXSW 2010 tips – The Middle East

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Plugathon

February 19, 2010 @ 11:24 am | by Jim Carroll

In The Ticket today, we chat to Ry Cooder and Paddy Moloney of The Chieftains about their “San Patricio” collaboration, there are interviews with Lightspeed Champion and Vyvienne Long, Jesca Hoop shares the contents of her rider with us, Brian Boyd says “no” to the Brits, Donald Clarke examines Irish stereotypes on the big screen and Sinead Gleeson looks at how Hollywood portrays female journos. Plus The Ticket’s brand new games column from Ciara O’Brien and Joe Griffin.

In New Music, there are hip-hip-hurrahs for Esben & The Witch, James Vincent McMorrow, The Morning Benders, Civil Civic and These United States, while there are Music News stories on Irish bands heading to Austin, TX for South By Southwest, Billy Bragg vs the Banks of England and Record Store Day on April 17.

Album of the Week comes from Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate (really looking forward to hearing this) and there are also reviews of releases by Johnny Cash, Duke Special, Holly Miranda, Tunng, Errors, Plasticines, Efterklang, Bass Clef, “The Last Station OST”, Téada and many more. Plus Eoin Butler gets his Shuffle on with the singles and downloads and we have the finest guide to going out in the land.

New flicks opening this week include The Lovely Bones, Crazy Heart, The Last Station and The Headless Woman. Plus film news, the weekly movie quiz and DC’s Screenwriter column.

The Ticket: 238,000 readers cannot be wrong

In case you’ve spent the last couple of hours on Mars, Willie’s gone.

The OTR plugboard is now open for business. Please feel free to plug and recommend stuff away to your heart’s content, but remember to declare an interest where one should be declared. Please note that plugs are accepted on the whim of OTR and may be edited for length/clarity/common sense. Events with a commercial sponsor are really ads and will probably not be published in this slot. I’m also cutting down on those plugs which appear every week (you know who you are) so don’t say you weren’t warned. Baby, it’s still rather cold outside.

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Willie O’Dea resigns as Minister for Defence

February 18, 2010 @ 10:03 pm | by Jim Carroll

Willie’s gone – and just in time for the 9 o’clock news too. We won’t see the likes of that moustache again. The battle to claim the scalp has now begun but, whatever about claims from the Green Party (a day late and a dollar short), Fine Gael, Labour Party and the Limerick Leader in this regard, we can really chalk this one down to Sean O’Rourke and yet another robust interview on the News At One. It must be catching: watch Anne Doyle’s sharp questioning of Sven Gormley here.

Rhetorical question of the day: will Willie top the poll next time out in Limerick East?

Comments (22)
Tune of the Week – “Girls’ Night”

@ 5:45 pm | by Jim Carroll

You’re so fine….

The facts: the band are called First Rate People. They hail from Toronto and are fresh meat on the new music block. This is from an EP thingy called “It’s Never Not Happening”.

The sound: “Girls’ Night” was what last Tuesday lunchtime sounded like. For about an hour or so, there was a whisper of warmth from the sun, the sky was that crazy blue you often get in high summer and there was a tease, a tang, of spring in the air. It was a time for feeling optimistic that, yes, there are always better days ahead. This tune matched the mood to a T. A tune to whistle along to as you walk on by without a care in the world. The rest of the EP is also busting with similar laidback vitality and charming potential. Download it here and add their name to your little red book.

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Slane Castle gig on August 28?

@ 2:04 pm | by Jim Carroll

Per Ronan McGreevy’s interview with venue owner Lord Henry Mountcharles to run in the paper tomorrow, this year’s Slane Castle concert, if there is one, will happen on August 28.

“That decision has not yet been made”, said Mountcharles when asked by Ronan about Slane 2010. “I would have to say that I’m hopeful, but not if the is aren’t dotted and the ts aren’t crossed, but I’m hopeful if there is going to be a show it is going to be at the end of August.”

Mountcharles refused to be drawn on who might be playing (“if I did answer that question, you might have some indication of what I have in mind and I ain’t going to go there”), though he did say that there were many acts who could play the venue. “People often say to me that we have run out of acts to play Slane and I say that is rubbish. I actually cite Oasis as the example. There are bands out there that perhaps you and I haven’t heard of yet who could headline Slane.”

He also addressed the many problems which occured in the wake of last year’s Oasis show at the venue. “There were problems, there is no getting away from that and yes a lot of discussions, meetings and physical changes to the site have been made. The areas where concessions can be put has been expanded. Those things are largely to improve the comfort zones on the sites.

“The principle problem was a significant systems failure on the Dublin gate and that was where my attention was focused. I wanted to find out what the hell happened. There are changes about how it is going to be related to security and arrangements of how people get in and all of that. There are security aspects to all of that and for me to discuss those with you would not be appropriate.

“I was very pissed off about what happened. It should not happen. I will be all over some people like a hot rash. I am in the business of not only make sure that things do not go wrong, but little improvements that people might not be conscious of are made to the venue. There is no room for complacency in the open air show. Complacency is frankly a sin. Attention to detail is paramount.”

It will be interesting to see who will head the bill if the gig goes ahead because, frankly, I can’t think of a whole lot of acts who are (a) on the road this summer and (b) capable of filling Slane. AC/DC? Kings Of Leon? Let the speculation begin!

Comments (54)
Another fine mess…

@ 11:09 am | by Jim Carroll

Is someone keeping count of the number of U-turns the Green Party have made since going into government? The political equivalent of joyriders doing handbrake turns every chance they get, the Greens have turned around so often at this stage that they probably don’t have a clue which way they should be facing.

Along the way, they’ve amassed a lengthy list of abandonded principles, forgotten policies and botched attempts to cover their hides which probably should be prepared for widespread distribution before the next general election. If nothing else, it will serve to show Green Party reps, members and groupies that life is very different away from the high moral ground.

Vincent Browne had a great column yesterday about the latest problem the Green Party face. Well, faced – there’s another one today as party chairman Senator Dan Boyle decides to tweet his nose at the world and then scarpers.

Anyway, yesterday’s problem was the bould Willie O’Dea. As reported widely, the Minister for Defence and Limerick East TD has found himself in a spot of bother over an allegation made against a fellow Shannonside politician which has turned out to be completely wrong.

As the Greens manned up to back their government colleague, Vinnie listed a few government decisions and policies which the Greens have spinelessly gone along with during the two and a half years spent keeping Fianna Fail in the power to which they have become accustomed. He wonders if the Greens are really in government: “what’s the evidence? They are in office all right, but in government?”

You can probably pre-empt the Green response to this and other quibbles about their decision to go into government by now. You have to make unpleasant and unpopular decisions, they will bleat. We can’t be in opposition forever, they will whine. We have been able to advance a couple of Green policies, they will mumble. Some of those policies were rattled off by Eamon Ryan and Mary White the other day when Deirdre de Burca left the Green nirvana and her former colleagues were forced to back John Gormley, a man who is to Irish politics what Sven Goran-Eriksson was to international football management. At least we were spared the Gormley interview method this time out. You know the one where he nods his head furiously while the other person is speaking and then talks over them. Watch out for it when he’s on the telly in the next 24 hours to try to speak out of both sides of his mouth about his party chairman’s fit of pique.

It’s a sorry stage of affairs when even the opposition acknowledge that attacking the Greens is like shooting fish in a barrel (maybe it’s time the Greens brought in a law against that sort of thing). Yesterday in the Dail during the debate on the Willie Fib, Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore sounded even a little sorry for them as more tirades came their way. Many Greens probably feel a nostalgic twinge for the days when they were the ones giving out yards from their high horses about standards in public office.

Instead, they are there simply to make up the numbers, waddle through the lobby after their Fianna Fail buddies and vote confidence in a government minister who said one thing on tape to a journalist and another thing in a sworn affidavit to a court of the land. The Greens really are the mudguards, add-ons, hitch-hikers and spare wheels in this government and no amount of hand-wringing and tortured brows are going to change that. As Miram Lord writes witheringly today, “the sight of the Greens doing their angst-ridden routine yet again fooled nobody”. And that will hopefully also apply to Boyle’s egotistical solo run. At least the Irish electorate won’t be fooled when it comes time to rate the Greens’ time in office.

No-one ever said that being in government was going to be easy, but the Greens, of all people, should have known that sharing (a tiny bit of) power with Fianna Fail is not really being in government. If you lie down with dogs, you’ll get fleas and it will take a hell of a lot of disinfectant to cleanse the Greens after this bed-in. It’s truly a sorry state of affairs for a party who had the potential to be more than just an eco-friendly appendage to another couple of years of Fianna Fail rule.

Yet it’s also further proof, as our friend GLXTD and his disciples discovered last week, that you can’t really change a political system from within. Oh sure, you can make small changes – and the Greens will be first to a microphone to point to some of them (Paul “Madser” Gogarty was on about stopping political donations again yesterday – doesn’t he know that there will be copious loopholes in that one too for parties to exploit?) – but the real big-ticket changes will never be implemented by those who are in power thanks to that same system. That’s like turkeys voting for Christmas. The Irish political system really has no room for idealists or policy wonks or those who want to make a difference. Yeah, you’ll get lip service paid to all of that but, in truth, the Irish political system wants people who know how to run for office, people who’re prepared to plague government departments with reps and PQs, people who know that getting a pothole mended is far more important than any institutional change. If you want something else, you’re not going to get it by being elected to Dail Eireann – or, in the case of Dan Boyle, getting handed a cushy gig in the Seanad.

Comments (33)
The Far Side – playlist for Tuesday February 16

February 17, 2010 @ 10:57 am | by Jim Carroll

As played on The Far Side, Phantom 105.2, Tuesday February 16, 10pm-midnight

The brand new Dark Room Notes tune “Wall Of Waves” is from the K9 Sessions recorded for Cathal Funge’s Icon show (Phantom 105.2, Wednesdays, 10pm-midnight).

I played a track from excellent new Dublin band The Cast of Cheers last night and you can download their debut album “Chariot” here. Tip o’ the hat to Barry Redsetta for the heads-up on this last week.

And we’d also an hour of Mardi Gras carnival tunes last night for the now annual Far Side of NOLA special.

Goldfrapp “Rocket (Richard X remix)” (Mute)
Alphabeat “Heat Wave” (Polydor)
Lindstrom & Christabelle “Lovesick” (Feedelity)
Moonlight Bride “Young Guns” (Self release)
First Rate People “Girls Night” (Self release)
Toro Y Moi “Missya” (Carpark)
The Morning Benders “Excuses” (True Panther)
Japandroids “Art Czars” (Polyvinyl)
Civil Civic “Less Unless” (Self release)
The Cast of Cheers “Tip the Can” (Self release)
Humanzi “Hammer” (First Born Is Dead)
Dark Room Notes “Wall of Waves” (K9 Sessions for Icon)
Prins Thomas “Nattonsket” (Full Pupp)
Blockhead “Which One Of You Jerks Drank My Arnold Palmer?” (Ninja Tune)

The Far Side of NOLA – Mardi Gras special

Rebirth Brass Band “Carnival Time” (Mardi Gras)
The Meters “Hey Pocky A-Way” (Reprise)
Professor Longhair “Big Chief” (Watch)
Sugar Boy Crawford “Jock-A-Mo” (Chess)
Dr John “Iko Iko” (Atco)
Jessie Hill “Ooh Poo Pah Doo (Part One)” (Capitol)
Earl King “Come On” (EMI)
Bo Dillis & The Wild Magnolia Mardi Gras Indian Band “Handa Wanda”
(Minit)
Porgy Jones “The Dap” (Great Southern)
Dejan’s Olympia Brass Band “It Ain’t My Fault” (Eighth)
Professor Longhair “Mardi Gras In New Orleans” (Ron)
Huey ‘Piano’ Smith & His Clowns “Free, Single & Disengaged” (Scram)
The Meters “Oh! Calcutta” (Josie)
Aaron Neville “Hercules” (A&M)
Lee Dorsey “Get Out Of My Life Woman” (Charly)
Tom Waits “I Wish I Was In New Orleans (In the Ninth Ward)” (Elektra)

Comments (37)
Solo run for Body & Soul

February 16, 2010 @ 3:06 pm | by Jim Carroll

It appears that the folks behind the Electric Picnic’s Body & Soul arena are planning a soiree beyond Stradbally.

Per their website, the Body & Soul Solstice Weekend will take place at Ballinlough Castle, Clonmellon, Co. Meath from June 19 to 21, a venue previously used for the Garden Party and Life festivals and for a Tiesto gig in 2008.

There’s very little on the website about the event bar a spiel about creaing “a vibrant sense of community” and awakening “a sense of connection between people and the environmment, the artist and the viewer, the world of dreams and the the natural world we inhabit.” The B&S organisers do say, however, that they are looking for people who wish to take part in “volunteers programme, themed camps, collective art pieces, open mikes, speakers corners and more.”

UPDATE Yes, folks, there will be music at this weekender too. Full list of acts to come.

Comments (16)
Do you want an app with that?

@ 10:05 am | by Jim Carroll

As far as we know, there is no app out there to change a lightbulb, but you can rest assured that some developer is probably working on one right now.

The huge, monster, out-of-the-park success of Apple’s App Store means there are now applications for absolutely anything you could possibly want to do with your iPhone or iTouch. Of course, at least 97% of the apps are a complete waste of time – you only have to look at some of the stuff in the Top 25 charts to see that – but the market is growing because the demand is there.

After all, I didn’t think I needed games like Traffic Rush, Flight Control or iBasketball, recipes from Whole Foods (slightly better than my usual idea of Googling whatever ingredients in the kitchen to see what comes together), Wallace & Gromit cartoons, the Byline RSS offline reader or the B&W Camera app until I actually downloaded and started to use them.

I even occasionally use the much maligned A Bike Now app (much maligned especially by those who had the excellent unofficial Dublin Bikes app until it was yanked from the App store and who seem to have now made it their mission to diss the official app every time it’s mentioned), though I don’t think it’s the app’s fault that there’s never a bike on Talbot Street when you need one.

Beside being Pancake Tuesday and Mardi Gras, today is also App Day at OTR. Point and click at your favourite apps, music or otherwise. Tell us about the apps you’d design if you had the skills, the patience and the time and there may be a developer looking for an idea who has a “eureka” moment. Share what’s on your iPhone.

Comments (52)
A night out with Midlake

February 15, 2010 @ 11:08 am | by Jim Carroll

Warning: there are flutes ahead. Actually, there are two flutes ahead. But there are no lyres, lutes or harps. There are also no cloaks or hoods, just seven men playing sweet, serene of folk-rock. Midlake at a packed Vicar Street, then, was never going to be a Valentine’s Night’s massacre.

They’ve come to town to flog “The Courage Of Others”, an album which has received even helpings of love and hate. Influenced by band leader Tim Smith’s newly found affection for old folk tunes from the late Sixties/early Seventies, it’s an album which brings medieval wenches, pastoral rural scenes and tall ships afloat on the ocean waves to mind. However, as albums go, it’s more absorbing than instant, it doesn’t not contain highs or lows to truly capture your attention and the pitch and tone don’t really change from start to finish. It’s an album which does take time, but it’s still hard to know if it’s time worth taking.

While it was always going to be telling then where the Denton, Texas band would take these songs live, I reckon most of those at Vicar Street were there on the back on the slowburning appeal of previous album “The Trials of Van Occupanther”. The last time Midlake were in touring mode with that album, most of those who travelled to Thomas Street to swoon over songs like “Roscoe” had probably not yet got around to the album. It was a sleeper, an album which gained traction and sales and love by virtue of word-of-mouth appeal. This audience are here, then, to belatedly cheer that one and, well, they’ll also see about the new tunes.

To begin with, the band too seemed a little shy about “The Courage of Others”. Handling the new songs with the care usually applied to dealing with squalling infants, there was a gingerness about the opening number in particular which was interesting in itself – even the band, it seems, don’t quite know where they were going with these songs. Then, as if they suddenly copped that a couple of flutes, a keyboard with a panpipes button and four guitars could actually chime in symphony, they found a momentum which carried them up hills, down dales and away with the fairies.

Yet not everything has changed which is why Midlake soared on this outing. Remember that even in going back to a future of sorts from the ’70s’ soft-rock shuffle of “Van Occupanther”, they haven’t abandonded those perfect, perfect harmonies which they seemingly can call up at the drop of a peaked cap. Remember too that they can still write sublime, moody, fully formed songs which prove compelling in this setting. Remember also that they can still work the gears within their playing which can lead to transcendence. In many ways, they’re beginning to remind me of Wilco in terms of how the live show moves the band to another dimension, though I do admit it’s hard to imagine Jeff Tweedy giving us a flute solo.

But what was most noteworthy last night was just how well “The Courage of Others” sounds with flesh and emotion on its bones. I know I won’t be the only one digging that album out today and trying to find out what was missing on previous listens.

That show came at the end of a busy weekend for gigs in the capital city with both tUnE-yArds and Beach House also in action. I didn’t make either show due to other stuff so your comments and reviews welcome.

Comments (33)
The Friday wishlist: can someone please bring Stevie Wonder to Ireland for a gig this year?

February 12, 2010 @ 3:09 pm | by Jim Carroll

Now that Stevie Wonder has been confirmed as a headliner for this year’s Glastonbury Festival, we’re hoping some Irish promoter will do the decent thing, pay his fee and bring him over to Ireland for a show. C’mon promoters! Steve Wonder, man.

Speaking of gigs and the summer, let’s share the contents of an interesting text from one of our many industry sources who is usually on the money: “Oxegen 2010 – Muse, Faithless, Arcade Fire, Florence & The Machine, Eminem“. As this is speculation, the usual OTR health warning applies.

Here’s Stevie back in the day…

Comments (40)
Green Party senator does a George Lee

@ 11:22 am | by Jim Carroll

Groundhog Day on Kildare Street: Déirdre de Burca has resigned from the Green Party and Seanad Eireann citing a long list of reasons as she walks through the door.

Headlines from de Burca’s blame report include loss of confidence in Green Party chief John Gormley and loss of the party’s “political values” and “integrity” as it has become “no more than an extension of the Fianna Fail party” and “an obedient ‘add-on’ to Fianna Fail”. Bet John Gormley wishes he could ship her off to some incinerator or other.

Best of all, this zinger: “from stonewalling us and trying to unravel key aspects of our policy initiatives being implemented, to ignoring our input into the preparation of new legislation, to reneging on two key agreements made between Party Leaders, the Fianna Fail Party continues to ‘run rings’ around us and to take advantage of our inexperience and our very obvious fear of facing the electorate.”

“Two key agreements”? Did Brian Cowen renege on a promise to buy a box of Fairtrade teabags or something? Nothing about the minks, though. Assume they’re OK.

UPDATE Very timely post on irishelection.com last night by Veronica McDermott on what’s left for the Green Party in government.

The Green Party TDs and senators (all eight of them) have issued the following statement. Interesting line about how “our policies have created tens of thousands of new, valuable jobs”. Will they also take credit for these jobs?

Comments (19)
Another week, another set of plugs

@ 11:09 am | by Jim Carroll

In The Ticket today, Irish actress Saoirse Ronan discusses her rapid rise, there’s a look at the Glee effect on the music industry and interviews with the Dublin-bound tUnE-yArds and The Leisure Society.

In New Music, it’s thumbs aloft for Penguin Prison, Warpaint, The Selfish Replicators, Veronica Falls and Strait Laces, while there’s Music News stories on Tinnitus Awareness Week in the UK, Autoban’s Lonely Hearts gig and the latest batch of instores at Dublin’s Tower Records.

CD of the Week comes from Marina & The Diamonds and there are also reviews of releases by Shearwater, Field Music, Peter Gabriel, Princeton, Luke Slott, Captain Moonlight, PiL (the “Plastic Box” compilation), “A Single Man” soundtrack, Kíla, Jason & The Scorchers and others. Plus Eoin Butler’s lowdown on the singles and downloads in Shuffle and the best guide to going out in the land.

New movies opening in cinemas today include The Wolfman, A Single Man, Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief, Ponya and Valentine’s Day. Plus for the film buffs: the weekly movie quiz, DVD reviews and Reel News.

The Ticket: it ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it.

The OTR noticeboard is now open for business. Please feel free to plug and recommend stuff away to your heart’s content, but remember to declare an interest where one should be declared. Please note that plugs are accepted on the whim of OTR and may be edited for length/clarity/common sense. Events with a commercial sponsor are really ads and will probably not be published in this slot. I’m also cutting down on those plugs which appear every week (you know who you are) so don’t say you weren’t warned. Is it just me or is there a stretch in the evenings?

Comments (15)
Tune of the Week – “Promises”

February 11, 2010 @ 12:39 pm | by Jim Carroll

From the record label who introduced us to Girls and Lemonade, say hello to The Morning Benders.
(more…)

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News of the OTR world

@ 10:55 am | by Jim Carroll

Owen Pallett, take two. The violin maestro formerly known as Final Fantasy will now also play Dublin’s Whelan’s on March 19. The more I listen to his new album “Heartland”, the more I dig it. And he’s fantastic live too. Tickets at €24 each on sale from today.

Google goes all Public Enemy and shuts ‘em down. When not launching yokes which are a mixture of many other yokes (hey, whatever happened to Orkut?), the internet behemoth-owned Blogger service shut down a bunch of MP3 music blogs earlier this week. The reason for the 86-ing? The music posted on the blogs allegedly violates Blogger’s terms of services. Odd because in most cases, the blogs were simply posting or streaming MP3s given to them directly by acts, labels or PRs and so there didn’t appear to be any violation involved. Many of the blogs in question, including the excellent Pop Tarts Suck Toasted and It’s A Rap have now moved to their own domains.

More oddball interweb behaviour: Warner Music may be about to stop licensing its songs to free music streaming services like Spotify. Warner chief executive Edgar Bronfman Jr pontificated that “free streaming services are clearly not net positive for the industry and as far as Warner Music is concerned will not be licensed”. Hold on a darn tooting minute: don’t Warner Music and friends get paid royalties for Spotify streams? Isn’t this the way the industry was supposed to be moving? Is Bronfman Jr (the man who wrote “To Love You More” and “Whisper in the Dark” as recorded by Celine Dion and Dionne Warwick, trivia fans) about to send in the lawyers again? Do I hear whoops of delight from well-upholstered legal eagles everywhere? Or is this the first shot in a negotiating battle with streaming services to make sure that the latter don’t get to kick the record labels in the hoop as happened when Steve Jobs came along with iTunes?

Illegal downloaders, who loves ya baby? Alan Kelly MEP, that’s who. The Tipperaryman and Labour MEP for Munster told the EU’s Internal Market Committee yesterday that “individuals who carry out a small level of downloading of illegal material should not be the subject of any legal sanctions”. Much of what Kelly had to say made sense bar the bit where he seemed to mix up IMRO and IRMA. One letter, a world of difference.

Members of Westlife, this is your future.

John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads”, Coldplay’s “Yellow” and now, Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”: bringing a new meaning to the expression “jaysus, he’s murdering that song”. Tip of the hat to FO’C for the link.

And finally, let the fuming begin! Patrick Kelleher, So Cow AND Hunter-Gatherer blanked by Linda Martin and RTE’s Eurosong 2010 judges in favour of John Waters, Boyzone’s Mikey Graham and, I kid you not, the runner-up in the German version of American Idol. I assume someone is going to start a Facebook campaign today….

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The Far Side – playlist for Tuesday February 9

February 10, 2010 @ 9:33 am | by Jim Carroll

As played on The Far Side, Phantom 105.2, Tuesday February 9, 10pm-midnight

Next Tuesday night, we have a Mardi Gras special as The Far Side heads to NOLA to whoop it up with the Who Dat? nation. Bring yo’ own beads!

Friendly Fires “Hold On!” (White)
The Golden Filter “Hide Me” (Brille)
Janka Nabay “Eh Congo” (True Panther)
Operator Please “Logic” (Brille)
The Secret Machines “Like I Can” (TSM)
Prins Thomas “Attiatte” (Full Pupp)
Sebastien Leger “L’amour et la violence (Floating Points remix)” (White)
Computer Juice “Computer Juice” (Turbo)
Civil Civic “Less Unless” (Self release)
Flying Lotus “Quakes” (Warp)
Massive Attack “Flat of the Blade” (Virgin)
Bass Clef “Halliwick” (Blank Tapes)
The Flirtations “Nothing But A Heartache” (Deram)
Rufus Thomas “The Breakdown (Part One)” (Stax)
The Brothers Of Soul “Come On Down” (Boo)
Gil Scott-Heron “Me & The Devil” (XL)
Erykah Badu “Window Seat” (Universal Motown)
Reflection Eternal “Just Begun” (Blacksmith)
Yonlu “I Know What It’s Like” (Luaka Bop)
Leo Gandleman “Na Floresta (Garrincha!)” (Far Out)
Owen Pallett “Midnight Directives” (Domino)
John Grant “I Want To Go To Marz” (Bella Union)
James Vincent McMorrow “If I Had A Boat” (Burning Rope)
Quadron “Pressure” (Plug Research)
Aska “There Are Many Of Us” (Manimal Vinyl)
Valgeir Sigurdsson “Dreamland” (Bedroom Community)
Rev A.W. Nix “Prayer Meeting In Hell” (Document)

Comments (6)
Drop Haiti’s Debt gig cancelled

February 9, 2010 @ 5:46 pm | by Jim Carroll

The benefit gig featuring Cathy Davey, Julie Feeney, Villagers, The Chapters, The Chakras and many more which was to be held in Dublin’s Vicar Street on February 11 has been cancelled.

The reason cited is “unavoidable circumstances”, which is a new one on me. Wonder how many tickets were sold for this gig and if audience fatigue is now beginning to hit some of the more hastily arranged shows? As we noted last week, every second gig at the moment seems to be a Haiti benefit gig and some of those putting on these gigs seem to have unreal expectations about how the show will do.

Tickets are refundable from the point of purchase. All proceeds from the show were supposed to be going to Trocaire’s Earthquake Appeal so it’s odd that there’s no mention about if and how people can just pass the ticket money to that appeal.

Comments (14)
The randomiser says “who dat?”

@ 10:40 am | by Jim Carroll

Date for yo’ diaries: the next On The Record Presents night will feature new breed leaders Mount Kimbie at Twisted Pepper (Middle Abbey St., Dublin) on April 16.

On the gig beat (part one): beautiful tunes and lush atmospherics from The Low Anthem at Vicar Street last night. Naturally, they played a bunch of tunes from the striking “Oh My God, Charlie Darwin” album, but it was a couple of debuts which really caught the ear. I also now know that the instrument I most want to learn how to play is the crotales.

More GeorgeLeeExTD, anyone? If you haven’t had enough of GLXTD already – for someone who was exiting politics, he sure got around yesterday, turning up on the News At One, Liveline, The Last Word, Six One News, The Frontline and Tonight with Vincent Browne to tell his story and make sure he was centrestage – good pieces in today’s paper from Elaine Byrne and Fintan O’Toole.

You have a couple of days left to go see the excellent Picturing New York photo exhibition at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Take tomorrow off and head to NYC.

Very sharp piece on blog rock’s lack of a political edge.

Maybe this is what digital radio needs to make a splash in Ireland – a radio scrappage scheme.

Mo’ radio: what the iPad means for radio. Next week, what the iPad means for tillage farmers

Teens say no to blogging, Twitter and doing their homework. Meanwhile, Billboard magazine reckon Twitter is the new Second Life. Ouch.

On the gig beat (part two): did you know that the excellent She Keeps Bees were playing in Dublin’s Whelan’s last night? It seems I wasn’t alone in getting caught on the hop by this gig which makes you wonder should there be a Fas course in how to promote a show (lesson one: get the info to anyone who has written a few times before about the band and make sure the show is listed here). Nonetheless, a sparse attendance enjoyed a smashing feast of bluesy, primal riffs from Jess and Andy. We also enjoyed Jess’ thoughts of driving a car off a ferry. If you’re in Cork, they play at Cyprus Avenue tonight and if you’re in Galway, they play at the Roisin Dubh tomorrow night. Go along, you will not be disappointed. This is what they look and sound like.

New York Times says “hell no” to Master Nation

You think MP3s are the business? Behold, the future sound of music.

Analague take two: second time around for Analogue’s web-TV show with the latest episode featuring Angkorwat, a piece on fishing in Ireland soundtracked by Hunter-Gatherer (very Caught By the River, that) and an interview with Kurt Vile. Watch it here

Latest podcast from State magazine has previous Choice Music Prize winner Julie Feeney talking about the impact the win had on her career, an interview with Placebo’s new drummer Steve Forrest and Nialler9 waxing lyrical about the acts to listen out for in 2010.

And finally: you can call him Rafael. Tall man tries to impersonate short-ass singer Paul Simon and fails.

Comments (41)
George Lee resigns from Fine Gael and the Dáil

February 8, 2010 @ 1:57 pm | by Jim Carroll

Well, that didn’t last long, did it? George Lee heads for the hills and steps down as a TD and a member of Fine Gael. His resignation statement is here. He shall now be known as GeorgeLeeExTD

UPDATES

Comment of the day so far: Sean O’Rourke on the RTE News at One recalling the text he sent to GeorgeLeeExTD on budget day – “one day, all of this was yours”.

OTR readers strike again: this was predicted last week by Comet

So, what’s next for GeorgeLeeExTD? Actually, is there a precedent for ANY Irish TD to throw a wobbler like that and walk out of the job after a few months? And does this, plus the fact that Enda Kenny has been rubbish on the TV and the radio these last few weeks, mean now could be a good time to place a few bob on FF winning the next election? It could never happen….could it?

Of course, this could be the time for GeorgeLeeExTD to take out the laptop and write Da Buke. I seem to remember that he signed a contract to write a book in 2008/09 but handed back the advance. That book was supposed to be on the collapse of the Irish economy, but the new one could be about nine months in the life of GeorgeLeeExTD.

They may not have issued a statement or a press release (yet), but Fine Gael HQ are on the case and their site has already been Leewashed: “0 results for “george lee””

The writing was on the Twitter – look at the last tweet from @georgelee

Finally, someone has told Enda Kenny the news. Here’s the statement from the FG chief.

Comments (59)
The Pitchfork effect: 3.2

@ 10:58 am | by Jim Carroll

Like most of you, I dip in and out of Pitchfork most weeks for news bulletins, track reviews, MP3 premieres and interviews of an indie and alternative variety. I’m not, though, a huge fan of their album reviews, which read like something you’d get from a student mag writer who has swallowed a dictionary and isn’t so sure what all those words mean, but persists with the verbosity nonethless. If I need that sort of review of a new release, there are plenty close to home which do the trick.

It was probably because of this that I missed the website’s mauling of the new Midlake album “The Courage of Others”. I always enjoy well-written, contrary album reviews which buck the prevailing critical trend, but this one was just contrary for the sake of being contrary.

Anyway, I reckoned that it probably kicked off a lively debate (like the one which spread from the Guardian to OTR recently over that Beach House review) so I went looking for it. Only problem is that any debate which is taking place sure as hell isn’t happening on Pitchfork. You may be able to share the review in 225 different ways, via everything from Meccho to Amenme, but you can’t have a back and forth with the reviewer and other readers on the site. There’s no forum, no blog, no comments form: Pitchfork turns out to be as much a closed shop as the old-school music press which its readers and disciples keep saying it has replaced. Maybe they want readers to send a letter to its office in Chicago for a soon-come letters’ page?

Of course, Pitchfork isn’t the only publication in the world which operates this policy, but it’s quite remarkable to see how a mag so closely associated with how web operations have changed how music is reviewed and covered does not appear to have any time whatsoever for the views of its readers. While an open door policy would probably mean a tsunami of fanboy hallelujahs for Radiohead or Joanna Newsom at every turn (the can-do-no-wrong pin-ups of the P4K set), a degree of moderation could introduce some debate and critical voices to the proceedings which a permanent establishment institution like P4K sorely requires.

Sure, there is an argument to be made that a magazine like Pitchfork is operating as a filter and you’re buying into the opinions of its writers, but surely even its from-the-top-down process would benefit from some reader interaction? And, instead of seeing a debate about one of its reviews or articles take place elsewhere, housing it at home would also bring far more folks to the yard.

Yet even as it become as much a part of the permanent establishment as Rolling Stone or Spin (or any other music mag you care to mention), Pitchfork is still viewed in some quarters as an alternative. But just as a large chunk of the music which Pitchfork once exclusively covered has become more appealing to the mainstream, the publication too has moved from the outside to the inside with all that entails. The real alternatives are somewhere else entirely whipping it up, ripping it up, making it up and mixing it up as they go along.

Comments (41)
The revolution will be plugged

February 5, 2010 @ 10:24 am | by Jim Carroll

In The Ticket today, we track down Gil Scott-Heron to talk to him about his awesome new album “I’m New Here” and other matters, Donald Clarke spruces up before talking to Tom Ford about A Single Man, there’s an interview with The Low Anthem ahead of their Dublin show next week, Keith Duggan finds out what former South African rugby captain François Pienaar thinks of Invictus and there’s a look at new Disney animation The Princess and the Frog.

In New Music, we run the rule over Funeral Party, Anna Calvi, Active Child, Luna Belle and Logikparty, while there are Music News stories on Floyd Soul and the Wolf’s full moon album launch, more Haiti benefits and Brighton’s Great Escape festival.

Album of the week comes from Massive Attack and there are also reviews of new releases by Gil Scott-Heron, Sade, Ke$ha, Fionn Regan, At Last An Atlas, Lonelady, Husky Rescue, Seamus Tansey, Maire Breathnach and others. Plus Eoin Butler throws his leg over the singles and downloads in Shuffle.

New movies out this week include Invictus, Astro Boy, Eamon, Youth In Revolt, The Princess and the Frog and Mugabe and The White. Plus DC’s Screenwriter column, the weekly movie quiz and movie news.

The Ticket: oops upside your head

Plugs plug: one of the busiest posts on OTR this week was this post on earplugs. There’s loads and loads of practical advice and thought-provoking anecdotes in the comments section about why protecting your ears at gigs is a good idea. If you haven’t had a look and you’re wondering about that ringing noise in your ears, it might be a good idea to have a read of it.

Rain Machine incoming: two dates for TV On The Radio’s Kyp Malone’s side-project at Belfast’s Speakeasy on April 14 (tickets £12 plus booking fee) and Dublin’s Academy on April 15 (tickets €16.05 plus booking fee).

It’s that time of the week again: the OTR community noticeboard is now open for business. Please feel free to plug and recommend stuff away to your heart’s content, but remember to declare an interest where one should be declared. Please note that plugs are accepted on the whim of OTR and may be edited for length/clarity/common sense. Events with a commercial sponsor are really ads and will probably not be published in this slot. I’m also cutting down on those plugs which appear every week (you know who you are) so don’t say you weren’t warned. Hey, there’s blue skies over Dublin 3.

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Tune of the Week – “Peoples Potential”

February 4, 2010 @ 1:57 pm | by Jim Carroll

It’s the air horns wot won it.
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Hope Sandoval, Dublin, May

@ 1:00 pm | by Jim Carroll

One-off Dublin show incoming for Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions at Whelan’s on May 7. Because of the band’s connections to the city (ie Warm Inventions Colm Ó Cíosóig and Alan Browne), the plan is to do something special in Dublin before revving up for a full-scale tour. Tickets at €28 a pop go on sale next Wednesday. By the way, Sandoval sounds just awesome on “Paradise Circus”, her collaboration with Massive Attack on new album “Helgioland”. The official video is probably NSFW, but this one should be OK.

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More Haiti benefits

@ 10:47 am | by Jim Carroll

Yes, I know, every second gig at the moment seems to be a Haiti benefit gig and you have to hope that audience fatigue is not about to set in. Many of those I’ve spoken to in the live gig business over the last few days have questioned if those putting on the gigs actually know what they’ve taken on, especially at a time of year when ticket sales for many shows are quite sluggish. Nevertheless, the gigs are still happening so if you can, support them.

The latest one to be announced has Cathy Davey (who should have a new album out this year), Julie Feeney, Villagers, The Chapters, The Chakras and many more to be announced playing Dublin’s Vicar Street on February 11. Tickets are €20 each and all cash raised goes to Trocaire’s Earthquake Appeal. The gig will also try to raise awareness about the Drop Haiti’s Debt campaign. The country owes some US$890 million to the International Monetary Fund and other creditors to pay off national debts ran up in the past and the campaign is lobbying for this debt to be dropped to allow the country to be rebuilt.

Mavericks for Haiti: finally, a charity single which might actually be some cop. Shane MacGowan has rounded up Nick Cave, Bobby Gillespie, Chrissie Hynde, Glen Matlock, Paloma Faith, Johnny Depp and Mick Jones to record a cover of Screamin Jay Hawkins’ “I Put A Spell On You”. The single will be released later this month, with all money raised going to Concern Worldwide. It’s going to be a hoot. And speaking of hoots: if you haven’t read Will Hodgkinson’s off-the-wall account of a mad night out with MacGowan in Tipperary for a recent issue of Mojo magazine, read it here. Maybe we should start a campaign to get Tom Creagh into Dail Eireann alongside Michael Lowry and Mattie McGrath?

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The Far Side – playlist for Tuesday February 2

February 3, 2010 @ 11:13 am | by Jim Carroll

As played on The Far Side, Phantom 105.2, Tuesday February 2, 10pm-midnight

The rather splendid O Emperor tune “Don’t Mind Me” is from the K9 Sessions recorded for Cathal Funge’s Icon show (Phantom 105.2, Wednesdays, 10pm-midnight).

Funeral Party “NYC Moves to the Sound of LA” (Fearless)
Lemonade “Lifted” (True Panther)
Errors “Germany” (Rock Action)
The Morning Benders “Promises” (True Panther)
The Strange Boys “Be Brave” (Rough Trade)
Not Squares “Asylum” (Richter Collective)
First Rate People “Girls Night” (Self release)
Four Tet “Plastic People” (Domino)
To Rococo Rot “Forwardness” (Domino)
Lali Puna “Remember” (Morr Music)
Ganglians “Candy Girl” (Woodsist)
Maria & The Mirrors “Omar” (Parlour)
KatCross “The Line” (Self release)
The Blue Choir “Get Ready for War” (Self release)
She & Him “In The Sun” (Double Six)
JJ “Into the Light” (Sincerely Yours)
Gil Scott-Heron “I’m New Here” (XL)
The Tallest Man On Earth “King Of Spain” (Dead Oceans)
Bonobo “Kiara” (Ninja Tune)
Gonjasufi “Holidays” (Warp)
Esben & The Witch “They Use Smiles To Bury You” (Too Pure)
Rural Alberta Advantage “Eye of the Tiger” (Saddle Creek)
Luke Slott “Don’t Go Back To Sleep” (Self release)
Milinal “Artificial & Yellow” (Audiobulb)
O Emperor “Don’t Mind Me” (K9 Sessions for Icon)
Beck/Devendra Banhart “Suzanne” (Record Club)
Johnny Cash “Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream” (Lost Highway)
Gil Scott-Heron “New York Is Killing Me” (XL)

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How not to go deaf for a living

February 2, 2010 @ 3:13 pm | by Jim Carroll

There was a fair bit of coverage in the last 24 hours about that survey which claims that 51% of people listen to their MP3 players at dangerously high volume levels. The survey was published to plug Hearing Awareness Week, a campaign from the Irish Deaf Society in association with hearing aid company Hidden Hearing.

The headline figures from the survey, which was compiled by Red C and backed by European Union and World Health Organisation reports (though the latter report was published back in 1997), are fairly startling: one in five people are blasting their ears with sound levels of 100db or more (the equivalent of hearing a pneumatic drill 10 feet away); 11% of MP3 player users and 35% of people attending gigs and concerts say they have experienced ringing in their ears and 40% of MP3 players tested reach sound levels over 100db – listening at this volume can cause damage to your hearing after just 30 minutes.

The stat about live gig-goers stands out a mile to me. I can’t even begin to contemplate the damage which I’m inflicted on my hearing over the years (and I’m not just talking about the amount of shite bands I’ve had to endure). Without even going for a hearing test, I know that years of heavy-duty gig-going have taken their toll. For instance, I’ve now reached the stage where I don’t even try to have a conversation with someone while a band are onstage because I know I won’t be able to make out a word they’re saying. And I’m sure I’m not alone in this.

But it’s never too late to do something about it. Reading Tenacious Tim’s account of his battle with tinnitus was one of the big impetuses for me to buy ear-plugs to use at gigs. It took a bit of effort to actually (1) remember to bring them with me and (2) to actually use them, but the more I have used them, the more comfortable I have become with them. All that’s turned down is the volume: the sound quality is as clear and unmuffled (provided the soundman is doing his job right) as it would be without ear-plugs. It’s also worth noting that more and more gig-goers appear to be plugging in. Suffering because of bad music is one thing – suffering because of tinnitus or ear damage is quite another.

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Getting the Bird in the U S of A

@ 10:59 am | by Jim Carroll

Oh to have been a fly on the wall as those who unsuccessfully applied for the job of RTE’s Washington correspondant in 2008 watched the closing minutes of Charlie Bird’s American Year last night. There was the bould Charlie, giving up the ghost a mere 12 months into his four year stint. He did so with a rueful smile, a shrug of the shoulders and a bottle of red wine, sharing the latter with his two co-workers in the station’s office in the US capital. Those unsuccessful applicants are probably dusting off their CVs and updating their interview gags this morning.

I missed part one of this documentary on RTE’s man in America, but going on these reviews, I don’t seem to have missed much. Last night was more of the same: a journalist on the loose in a foreign land struggling with deadlines and culture clashes. It’s a common scenario in the media trade and one where most journalists overcome these difficulties within a few weeks or months.

Not Charlie: here was a man who obviously really, really, really wanted the gig but quickly found that he was out of his depth. Bird grumbled, fumed and complained about his lot at every turn, like an auld wan with a pain in her hoop on the phone to Joe Duffy. We saw him trying to be chirpy with his very patient cameraman and office manager (the views of both on their year with the Bird would be interesting to hear). We saw him having his dinner on his own in an Irish pub. We followed him stomping about Washington DC. Bird and America should have – could have – got on, but it was not to be.

The real reasons for this mismatch were understandably never extrapolated. After all, to do so would be to cast aspersions on RTE management who sent him out to the wild, wild west in the first place. Bird has always been a great man for the big home games. He’s good at sniffing out the big domestic political dramas, but has a habit of placing himself squarely in the thick of the action as if he’s one of the central players. It’s something which has been caricatured down through the years, but also exploited. In Showtime, Pat Leahy’s excellent book on Fianna Fail’s years in power, you can see how that party leveraged Bird’s coverage of Bertie Ahern’s 1997 election campaign to keep their man in the public eye.

However, away from home, Bird is not quite so effective. His US stories to date have lacked any sort of rhythm or analysis as he has struggled to find an angle which is both new and which will appeal to a home audience. Trying to do a Charlie Bird and inserting himself into the story when that narrative usually contains Barack Obama is always going to be a non-runner. Then, there’s the fact that some of his stories have been told many, many times before. I’ve lost count of the number of times at this stage, for instance, that I’ve encountered, in TV and in print, that hard-chaw sherrif with a fetish for making prisoners sport pink underwear.

Bird’s coverage of Haiti in recent weeks is another case in point. For a whole week, he basically filed the same story every single day. There was no sense of finding and exploring a new angle or taking a step back to examine the bigger picture. That didn’t happen until RTE reporters Cian McCormack and Tomás Ó Mainnín arrived and began despatching much more solid and telling pieces.

Many, including Bird himself several times last night, have pointed out that one of the problems was that the new US corr was pushing 60 and getting on a bit. An old dog unable to learn new tricks, though, is not much of an excuse. There are many, many veteran reporters who are well able to adopt to new situations and postings and keep filing top-class copy. It’s not about age, but ability. Look at last night’s show, for example, and Bird’s interview with Helen Thomas, the leading lady of the White House press corps. She hits 90 this year, has covered the comings and goings of 10 US presidents and still comes across as someone you wouldn’t cross if you knew what was good for you.

While Bird and America has turned out to be a horrific, costly mismatch, the more pressing question is why RTE management sent him out there in the first place. Past US correspondants have tended to be rising stars in the newsroom – Mark Little, Carole Coleman, Robert Shortt – and not established “national treaures”. Did RTE management really think Bird was the best candidate? Was this some sort of stroke to keep Bird happy? Who are they going to send out now? At least Charlie has a job to come home to.

(Part one of Charlie Bird’s American Year is here and part two is here)

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That summer festival feeling

February 1, 2010 @ 11:03 am | by Jim Carroll

Am I the only who thinks that it is suspiciously quiet on the festival front at the moment? Yes, I know, February has just begun and yer man from OTR is already previewing what awaits us in the fields this summer. But rewind a year or even two and there was already plenty of chatter at this stage about who and what was on the cards. Indeed, many of the big summer shows for 2009 such as Oasis (remember them?) or AC/DC or Take That were sold out before New Year’s Eve 2008. In 2010, we’ve got next to nada so far on the indie or alternative rock front. Well, bar Green Day at Marlay Park which seems to be doing OK numberwise, if our usually reliable sources are anything to go by.

Perhaps, though, this is further proof of the great re-alignment when it comes to summer shows. Remember 2009 was the year when the Big Two fests didn’t sell out months in advance as the recession hit home, punters went abroad in greater numbers for their festival kicks (as noted by PRs for numerous European music fests already on a sunnysideup charm offensive with Irish media), music fans demanded more value for money (and this didn’t mean gourmet pies with mushy peas and no homemade cider) and the O2 effect saw promoters hedging their bets on big productions.

In 2009, you also got a slight sense that that those festival vibes which have been all-conquering since 2002/03 have finally abated a little. Maybe, just maybe, the Irish gig-going community are over the big communal festivals. I know, we’re also supposed to be “over” blogging, but we all know when that death notice was published.

Last summer was also the year when those Big Two fests found themselves wrapped up in the same Venn diagram when Festival Republic, the company formerly known as Mean Fiddler and co-owned by MCD’s Denis Desmond and Live Nation, bought into the Electric Picnic. Despite an annus horribilis on other fronts, EP originators POD continued to book and program the event, but a slew of acts who would have made more sense playing at the Stradbally soiree ended up playing the Bebo-bop that is Oxegen. Given those ties which bind, acts like Fever Ray (who played to less than 300 people in the Charlie McCreevy Memorial Dance Lean-To at Punchestown) and The Specials, to name just two, would have been idea for the Picnic yet ended up leaving Co Kildare with large pay-cheques and a lingering smell of anticlimax. In the wake of last year’s Oxegen, we suggested that clearer, cleaner demarcation lines between the Big Two fests might be the way to go so it will be interesting to see how the two will tog out in ‘10.

Of course, there will also be plenty of smaller fests having a go. One of the first new arrivals (though the press blurb will claim it has been around since St Patrick was into hard-house) is the Grouse Lodge studios-helmed Festival of the Fires, which is happening on a hill in Co Westmeath (as a by the by, Leviathan boss Naoise Nunn’s muses on that same hill in today’s paper). It sets out to be “a festival unlike any other, designed for both a national and international audience and created through the alchemy of ceremony, music, theatre, literature, poetry, holistic health, art, crafts and more”. Meanwhile, also in Co Westmeath, the Life festival is moving to Belvedere House, past lodgings for the aborted Midlands and Hi-Fi fests. You can also expect many of last summer’s fests to return for another bite of the cherry in ‘10.

What will be really interesting to see, though, is who will feature on the bills for the Big Two. While there’s no shortage of acts who can fill the mid and lower levels, it’s the headliners who will really command all the interest especially given the apparent lack of big acts seemingly on the road this year. Much as I like the look of this line-up and that line-up, I can’t see either Oxegen adopting such a wide remit or EP being able to afford the fees.

So who can we expect to see on these shores in ‘10? Well, Leftfield are back on the road so expect them to turn up for one. The Strokes are also touring because they need the cash to pay for stuff so you can add them to the list. It would be damn cool if EP booked Gil Scott-Heron and stuck him in the Body & Soul area (and pigs might fly). All other guesses – educated or otherwise – welcome.

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