Gerry Ryan RIP
2fm broadcaster Gerry Ryan was found dead at his home in Dublin this morning. He was 53 years of age.
On The Record »
-
-
Aftershow parties – where the real business gets done
It’s not just bankers and politicians who are ingenious when it comes to topping-up pension plans. This weekend, Black Eyed Peas (“the most corporate band in America,” according to the Wall Street Journal) play two shows at Dublin’s O2.
When those shows end, the band – well, “at least two members of Black Eyed Peas”, according to the press release – will head to Tripod for the official aftershow party, where more cash will be bagged. The band could then do an R Kelly and invite clubbers to bring the party back to the hotel lobby. Such aftershow parties have become a regular add-on, especially for visiting r’n’b and hip-hop acts.
They charge handsomely for their presence. According to two different Dublin-based promoters, the Black Eyed Peas were looking for €50,000 for their aftershow parties at the outset. And main Pea Will.I.Am is also scheduled to turn up at the Academy on Sunday night to guest with Felix Da Housecat.
You can’t blame the acts. To paraphrase Big Poppa, their reign on the top is usually short like leprechauns, so they should make hay while they can.
Hip-hop’s entrepreneurial spirit in this regard has long been saluted, or at least tolerated, via 50 Cent and P Diddy’s exploits.
Yet there is something unseemly about watching Chris Brown’s people pimp pre-show meet-and-greet opportunities with the star for $200 a go. That, however, pales in comparison to hard rockers Kiss, who are flogging the VIP experience at the O2 next week for €1,000 a skull.
Once upon a time, it used to be about the music, right? One more time from Biggie: “mo’ money, mo’ problems”.
-
#Now Playing – April 30
This week’s essential tunes from OTR and guest selector, Yannis from Foals. Please feel free to add your own selections.
Renee Fleming “Intervention” (Decca)
New York Metropolitan Opera diva Renee Fleming’s striking version of the Arcade Fire classic.
The Gaslight Anthem “American Slang” (Side One Dummy)
Proof that there’s more to the Garden State than Jersey Shore. Title track from The Gaslight Anthem’s new album sees them back in the eye of the hurricane.
New Amusement “My Captain” (Any Other City)
Robust, likable debut album from the Dublin band whose apprenticeship has produced a clutch of strong EPs.
M.I.A. “Born Free” (XL)
Bracing blast of Suicide- sampling punk rock taken from everyone’s favourite rabble-rouser’s imminent third album. Warning: the video is probably NSFW and may cause offence to red-heads.
Jeru Da Damaja “The Sun Rises in the East” (PayDay)
“Incredible production from DJ Premier, and Jeru’s style is refreshingly free of hip-hop cliches.” – Selected by Yanni Philippakis from Foals.
-
Three from The Ticket – and your plugs
Flight of the Conchords: the story of “New Zealand’s fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo a capella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo” as told by Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement ahead of their Dublin shows next week.
O Emperor: the Cork/Waterford band tell Lauren Murphy why they think a major label deal is a good move for their imperial intentions
Cinemagic: Davin O’Dwyer previews the third take of the festival intended to get young folks up close and personal with film-making.
Plus: new albums reviewed from Flying Lotus (CD of the Week slot for the far-out “Cosmogramma”), Kormac, Courtney Love, Melissa Auf Der Maur, Nice Nice, We Saw Heaven, Lady Antebellum and others, and reviews of new flicks in the cinemas including Nightwatching, Iron Man 2, Revanche, The Last Song and The Disappearance of Alice Creed.
All this and more in The Ticket, in print, online and the best of The Ticket on the app.
The OTR plugs service 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. 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. Plugs which plug the same stuff every week will also be deleted – if people ain’t interested by now, you should really get the message. Crunchies are so over-rated.
-
OTR returns to The Ticket
From tomorrow, On The Record will be making a return to the pages of The Ticket as a weekly column. The new OTR set-up will have an opinion piece, a Now Playing section and a weekly New Music round-up.
This will mean some changes to the regular postings here on the blog. Every Thursday afternoon, I’ll be publishing the New Music picks here, with the rest of the column following on Friday morning. Don’t worry, the regular plugs post will continue, though there will be some subtle changes to that as well, as you’ll see from tomorrow.
For now, here are the New Music highlights for this week
Slow-motion bittersweet symphonies and wistful layers of spooky sound from the Ontario duo who take their name from a Max Richter album title. Check out the free-to-download “The Years EP” for a taste of their evocative dream-pop.
Taking over where Burial left off, London producer Deadboy’s releases to date have demonstrated his skills when it comes to pitch-perfect melancholic, soulful, futuristic electronic grooves. Both the “If U Want Me” single for Glasgow’s Numbers label and the “U Cheated” EP for Well Rounded are next-generation beauties.
2009/10 may have been a desperate season for Hull City’s football fans, but there are some musical reasons to be cheerful on Humberside. The Neat’s debut single “In Youth Is Pleasure” is a brash, sharp-as-a-tack tune with a bit of a snarl to it. Now available on Chewing Gum, a new label from a few Kaiser Chiefs.
-
DJ Shadow, Ireland, July
DJ Shadow plays Belfast’s Ulster Hall on July 4 and Dublin’s Tripod on July 5. Tickets for the Belfast show are £20 and are now on sale, while the door tax for the Dublin show will be €32.50 and tickets go on sale next Tuesday.
-
“This music blogger IMRO licence thing”
As many of you know, there have been various blog and Twitter rumbles this week about IMRO’s moves to ask music bloggers (ie people who host MP3 files on their site) to pay for an IMRO/MCPSI Limited Online Exploitation Licence. Nialler9 has the full skinny on the story here.
While people really should go there and comment on this, I’m very curious about what Irish bands who are IMRO members think about this development, especially those bands who’ve been covered quite intensely by Nialler9 and other blogs in the past. It should be noted from the outset that Niall has said he has no problem paying artist royalties so that’s not the issue under discussion here.
Do bands think it’s a simple matter that every site hosting your music should shut their traps and pay up, even those sites you yourself have pestered for the coverage? Or do you feel there are certain exceptions to be made in the form of blogs which are really hobby sites and not professional ones (Nialler puts his site in the latter category as it hosts ads)? And isn’t it the fact that IMRO fund a lot of worthy tours and enterprises (DOI: I’m the co-founder of the Choice Music Prize which is funded by IMRO) and so the fee goes to a good cause? Or should the fee be ring-fenced for those bands who actually are covered by the blogs?
Bands, bloggers and fans, the floor is yours.
-
Making (not a lot of) cash from streaming
It’s funny how certain music business stories keep on returning to the news cycle. A year ago, we wrote about the economics and politics of streaming on the back of Spotify and Lala being in the news. In recent weeks, we’ve seen a ton of acts debut their new albums as free-to-air streams. For instance, right now, you can hear new albums from LCD Soundsystem, Broken Social Scene and The Golden Filter, while The National had “High Violet” available via the New York Times up to yesterday.
But, as we have also seen demonstrated of late, there certainly isn’t a whole lot of money out there for acts who go down the streaming route. This graph shows just how difficult it is for acts and labels to earn the same level of revenue that they were once used to pocketing from flogging physical product. Billboard magazine have also been on the case in this regard.
The small cash payments on offer from streaming behemoths has led to predictable and justifiable outrage from songwriters, acts and their various lobby groups. Sam Leith had a good summing up of the situation in the Guardian the other day. He points out that Spotify and co are often pitched as the good cops by all concerned in the ongoing battle with internet piracy and online ne’er-do-wells. “If this is the best Good Cop can do, God help us all”, as he points out that a song played one million times would net its author £850. You can be sure that one million radio plays would result in a far better pay-day.
Of course – and Leith, in fairness, does refer to this – a lot comes down to the act’s own publishing contracts and situation. There is also the fact, as many analysts have argued, that the acts and labels’ cost base should be reduced in view of reduced income. This, though, takes time as large ships like labels move slowly and there are certain costs (mastering an album, for instance) which can’t be stripped out, unless you want a release which doesn’t sound great.
Yet there are some streaming services who seem to be providing a better return. We7 have been quietly climbing up the ranks in recent times, with the result that they’ve announced that their advertising revenue in March was enough to pay for both royalties to acts and meet their own running costs. Even their payouts seem above average: one million plays of a song on We7 equals a payday of between £2,000 and £4,000 depending on the deal between label and service provider.
That said, it may be premature to call for a ticker-tape parade. One decent month probably doesn’t make up for the lorry-loads of cash invested in We7 and the accumulated losses over the three years since the company began operations. Their break-even point is, I’d wager, still a long way down the line.
Moreover, for every We7 that finally sees some black figures instead of red on its balance sheet, there are dozens of others who came, set out their stall and departed with their tails between the legs. The huge amount of streaming services in the marketplace has probably caused confusion for acts and consumers and, though the big guns like Spotify and We7 seem set to survive, bad users experiences with some fly-by-night start-ups can have a lasting detrimental effect.
All of this shows that making money from recorded music means tending many gardens. Even though reported physical sales may be declining (see these UK figures from earlier in the week), it would still be a very foolish band who stopped pressing up CDs and vinyl given the money to be made from those sales compared to digital income. And it really does seem likely that we’re still a long, long way from a time when all revenue from recorded music comes from the digital sphere – if indeed that day will ever come. Flogging those CDs and records from the merch table at the back of your gig ain’t going to go out of fashion any time soon.
-
The Far Side – playlist for Tuesday April 27
As played on The Far Side, Phantom 105.2, Tuesday April 27, 10pm-midnight
Big shout out to everyone who got in touch on OTR, on Twitter and on email with suggestions for the hip-hop hour. It was a hoot but, as I quickly discovered, it’s nigh on impossible to get pack every tune into an hour. I’ll definitely do it again in the coming months so stay tuned.
DJing dates: I’ll be DJ-ing at the Bumper to Bumper headphone disco with Michelle Doherty at the Dublin Dance Festival’s opening night bash in Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 on Saturday May 8. Admission is free but you’ll need to get a ticket in advance and bring a radio and headphones on the night. Full information here.
Next week on The Far Side: preview of the Villagers’ debut album “Becoming A Jackal”
Broken Social Scene “Meet Me In The Basement” (City Slang)
Operator Please “Back & Forth” (Brille)
Generationals “Nobody Could Change Your Mind” (Park the Van)
The Neat “In Youth Is Pleasure” (Chewing Gum)
Solex vs Cristina Martinez & Jon Spencer “Bon Bon” (Bronzerat)
Thee Oh Sees “Castiatic Tackle” (In the Red)
Crime “I Don’t Love Her” (Hit & Run)
M.I.A. “Born Free” (XL)
LCD Soundsystem “Drunk Girls (Holy Ghost! remix)” (DFA)
Holy Ghost! “Say My Name” (Kitsune)
Caribou “Bowls” (City Slang)
New Amusement “Hunting & Husbandry” (Any Other City)
Steve Mason “Yesterday” (Double Six)
Mountain Man “Dog Song” (Bella Union)
Boa Morte “Rail Song” (Kicking A Can)The Far Side’s Fat Laces & Gold Chains Special
The Pharcyde “Ya Mama” (Delicious Vinyl)
A Tribe Called Quest “Can I Kick It?” (Jive)
Brand Nubian “Punks Jump Up To Get Beat Down” (Elektra)
Public Enemy “Bring the Noise” (Def Jam)
Wu-Tang Clan “Protect Ya Neck” (Loud)
KRS One “Sound of the Police” (Jive)
Mobb Deep “Shook Ones Pt 2” (Loud)
Dr Octagon “Earth People” (Mo Wax)
Eric B & Rakim “I Know You Got Soul” (4th & Broadway)
Ol Dirty Bastard “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” (Elektra)
Beastie Boys “Shake Your Rump” (Capitol)
Run DMC “Peter Piper” (Profile)
Naughty By Nature “Hip Hop Hurrah” (Tommy Boy)
De La Soul “Eye Know” (Tommy Boy) -
Kickstarting a festival or an album
One of the best panels I stumbled upon at SXSWi in Austin last month was Funding Your Projects from the Crowd, which looked at how crowdfunding provided a different kind of financial link between creators and audience.
One of the most illuminating perspectives came from Perry Chen, the co-founder of Kickstarter, a site which allows people to find funds for creative ideas and endeavours by tapping into the wallets and goodwill of their friends, fans and the crowd.
What’s interesting about Kickstarter, aside from the width and depth of projects under their umbrella, is that it’s an all-or-nothing enterprise – you only get the cash which is pledged, if you get all the cash you need for the project. This means less risk for all concerned, allows people to test out ideas without risking everything and motivates your would-be audience to spread the word if they want the project to happen.
Right now, one of the projects on Kickstarter’s books involves the Dublin-bound Mountain Man and the Mountain Man Fest in Saratoga Springs in upstate New York in July. They’ve already got a ton of bands confirmed for “the raddest festival that ever existed” – including HEALTH, Real Estate, Phantogram, Cults, Summer Camp, Memoryhouse, Julian Lynch and many more – and now they need to raise $65,000 for the event (the full budget breakdown is included in the proposal so people can see where their cash is going).
In fairness, Mountain Man have a hell of a long way to go ($5,562 pledged as of now) to make this happen. However, when you poke around Kickstarter, you come across some ideas from the music sector which got or are on the way to getting the cash they required to get an album recorded, a record pressed up, a CD released or, even, a reggae dancehall musical off the ground.
As we know all too well at present, there’s very little joy to be had if you’re just tapping into the usual sources of investment capital or seed money. Kickstarter’s clients, it seems, have found a new way to square the circle and get the show on the road.
-
Bad day for “the global standard in secure media delivery”
Play MPE are a company that the vast majority of people who write about music know only too well. They are, per their own website, “the perfect solution for content owners to securely deliver their audio and other media to authorized recipients via the Internet”.
If you are a record label who are about to release a new album which reviewers have to hear and you don’t want to send out CDs for fear of piracy and leaks, you use a company like Play MPE. You give the album to Play MPE because they can get it to the journalists who need to hear it without the album leaking all over the internet. Well, that’s the sales pitch anyway. Music hacks may not like Play MPE and other services like it (we’d prefer a CD or MP3 downloads rather than a very awkward streaming service – see this survey from CMU Daily) but, given the paranoia demonstrated by the labels and their firm belief that media reps are responsible for the bulk of album leaks, we don’t have much of a choice in the matter.
However, it now seems that Play MPE is far from leak-proof itself. Per this report from Cnet, a teenager posed as an Australian music critic, got access to the service and proceeded to leak new releases by The Black Keys, Macy Gray, Hole, The Gaslight Anthem and others.
According to a post on Absolute Punk, where this story came to light, Play MPE then emailed the labels to tell them the bad news: “a hacker managed to obtain a Play MPE account last week and found an exploit in the Play MPE Direct-to-Web player that allowed him access to your release, even though he was not on the recipient lists. We promptly disabled the offending account and closed this exploit on Monday but by then your album had been accessed.”
I would say there’s a hell of a lot of fuming at the labels who use Play MPE about this. They pay a huge fee to “the global standard in secure media delivery” so that this kind of thing doesn’t happen. Yet, despite all the security and hoopla, the system can still be hacked and the files sent out into the wild for anyone to access.
What’s noteworthy about this fiasco is that none of the hacks who use Play MPE on a day to day basis were the ones who leaked the tracks. This may be down to a number of facts. Maybe it’s the case that teens are far more technologically sussed than most music hacks. Or maybe, as seems more likely, that music hacks were not the ones doing the leaking in the first place and can actually be trusted with a promo CD. The labels – and bands – will be hoping that it’s not because hacks listened to the albums concerned and decided they weren’t worth leaking.
-
Richard Downes to become the new Charlie Bird
News from RTE that Morning Ireland’s excellent presenter Richard Downes will be packing his bags and heading to the USA as the station’s new Washington corr. Here’s hoping he’ll make a better fist of the gig than The Bird, who really only came into his own when he went hunting down Irish bankers in Cape Cod.
-
The randomiser says “we don’t give a hoot about your stinkin’ Facebook campaign”
Incoming: Beirut play Dublin’s Tripod on August 24, their first show in the city in over three years. Mmm, must be new music on the way too.
Attention all OTR readers who like to communicate in 140 characters or less: @jimcarrollOTR
Incoming (part two): seeing as the first show sold out, Lenny Cohen has said “and why not?” to a second date at Lissadell House, Co Sligo. Tickets for the additional show on August 1 are now on sale.
A new national anthem for Ireland! So what do you think of “My Blood Is Boiling for Ireland”? The song’s composers, Kalle Ryan and Enda Roche, describe it as: “Run DMC meets the Dubliners in a primary-school Irish-language class”.
Ladies and gentlemen, the record industry woes are OVER! Sales of recorded music in Britain in 2009 rose for the first time in six years with income increasing from £916 million to £929 million. It’s all down to digital as digital sales rose by 53 per cent, while physical formats continued to drop (down another 6 per cent).
Not incoming: it seems LCD Soundsystem can’t sort out replacement dates for those two Tripod shows which were 86′d last week due to volcanic circumstances. Your next chance to see the band in this neck of the woods will be at the Electric Picnic.
“Between Two Waves” is a new free compilation from online label Eardrums Pop (OTR regular Tenacious Tim is one of those working behind the scenes) featuring 38 tunes especially written and recorded for the album as collaborations between bands. Even the artwork which goes with the release came about via a collaboration between illustrators. As most of the acts have chosen new names for the collaborations, you may not recognise some of the names at first, but there’s full details in the downloadable booklet about who’s who. The album can be streamed or downloaded and don’t forget the booklet.
If, like me, you were one of those who spotted a series of black-text-on-red-background pieces in various pages of The Irish Times over the last few weeks, you may have wondered what it was all about. The pieces were part of an artwork called Stereo JLG / the editing of the trailer by Irish artist John Lalor and there’s full information on the project here. Lalor will be in conversation with Maeve Connolly from Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology and Christina Kennedy from the Irish Museum of Modern Art at the Oonagh Young Gallery in Dublin on May 6.
The quality Irish releases keep on coming. If I was to compile that list of my five favourite Irish acts right now for Nialler9’s Irish week this week, I’d certainly try to shoehorn New Amusement onto the list. Forthcoming debut album “My Captain” for the Any Other City label is a bit of a wow.
Anyone got any fat laces? I’m going to do an old-school hip-hop hour on The Far Side tomorrow night so all suggestions welcome. Tim Dogg may or may not feature.
One for the diary: the awesome James Blake is coming to town. The dude’s recent “The Bells Sketch” EP for Hessle Audio was a thing of great joy, another grandstanding demo for Blake’s slo-mo bass-funkathon. When you add this to his Harmonimix hip-hop buzz and forthcoming EP for R&S, you can understand the fuss around him. Blake plays at Wobble (Twisted Pepper, Middle Abbey Street, Dublin 1) on May 7.
We’re hearing rumours about some Kings Of Leon summer shows in Dublin. Once we have more info on this, we’ll let you know so you can get the hell out of the city.
The teachers who taught Arctic Monkeys, The xx, Joanna Newsom, Leona Lewis and Muse how to rock.
And finally, the future sound of Hull.
-
Get the last of your plugs!
In The Ticket today, Rufus Wainwright talks about his operatic tendencies, we take a walk on the beach with Cathy Davey, Donald Clarke previews the summer’s blockbuster movies and well-known gong fan Brian Boyd runs the rule over the Ivor Novello Awards. In our gaming section, Ciara O’Brien and Joe Griffin review Splinter Cell Conviction, Section 8, Final Fight: Double Impact and Angry Birds.
There are New Music berths for Frankie & The Heartstrings, Cults, Villa Nah, Pomegranates and Kid Meets Cougar, Music News stories on volcano-related music cancellations and the Red Bull stage at Oxegen and Ailbhe Malone kicks off a new pop column.
Album of the week comes from Terje Rypdal and there are also reviews of releases by The Hold Steady, Caribou, The Golden Filter (the album is streaming here), John Hiatt, Josh Ritter, Harlem, Avi Buffalo, Avett Brothers and many more. Plus Eoin Butler does the Shuffle with singles and downloads.
New films for your viewing pleasure include Extract, Life During Wartime, Cherrybomb, Date Night, Afterlife, La Danse, Centurion, The Joneses and Dogtooth. Plus movie news, the weekly movie quiz and Screenwriter returns from Heathrow Airport.
The Ticket: music and movies covered in print, online and on the app.
The OTR plugs service 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. Plugs which plug the same stuff every week will also be deleted – if people ain’t interested by now, you should really get the message. Now you’re sucking diesel.
-
Stevie Wonder, Dublin, June – confirmed
The mystery is over! As previously announced by promoters MCD in a newspaper ad, Stevie Wonder plays Dublin’s O2 on June 24. This time, though, per an OTR source in the blue corner, tickets are actually going on sale on Thursday April 29 and will be priced, as originally announced, from €65.70 up to €96.25.
To mark the occasion, Stevie live on Sesame Street from back in the day. Go Stevie Go!
-
Buy Irish!
In case you haven’t seen it, check out Nialler9’s Irish Week which is proving to be hugely enjoyable. Niall asked a bunch of folks involved in different strands of Irish music (including OTR) to list the five Irish bands or acts that they’re really into right now. Like all the best ideas, it’s that simple. You’ll certainly recognise some of the names which people are listing and you may not recognise others but, like all these things, it’s a good way to jog your memory about acts you may have forgotten or acts you really should check out. If any OTR readers want to list their five favourite Irish acts right now and why, you know what to do….
-
Guest post – Delorentos’ Kieran McGuinness on Haiti
Kieran McGuinness from Delorentos is one of a number of Irish volunteers heading to Haiti this week to take part in the Haven Partnership’s Build It Week initiative. Here, he talks about why he’s volunteered for the trip, the fundraising efforts and what lies ahead.
(more…) -
The Far Side – playlist for Tuesday April 20
As played on The Far Side, Phantom 105.2, Tuesday April 20, 10pm-midnight
DJing dates: I’ll be DJ-ing at the Bumper to Bumper headphone disco with Michelle Doherty at the Dublin Dance Festival’s opening night bash in Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 on Saturday May 8. Admission is free but you’ll need to get a ticket in advance and bring a radio and headphones on the night. Full information here.
Pomegranates “Everybody, Come Outside!” (Afternoon)
The Redneck Manifesto “Black Apple” (Richter Collective)
The Love Supreme “Sugar” (Tirk)
LCD Soundsystem “Drunk Girls” (DFA)
Nice Nice “See Waves” (Warp)
Diamond Rings “Wait & See” (Tomlab)
These New Puritans “Three Thousand” (Angular)
Ganglians “Voodoo” (Woodsist)
Stornoway “Zorbing” (Self release)
The Rural Alberta Advantage “Sleep All Day” (Wichita)
Kid Meets Cougar “Hey Hey” (Self released)
Villa Nah “All the Days” (Sahko)
Gang Starr “Check the Technique” (Cooltempo)
Jazzmatazz “Loungin’” (Chrysalis)
Terror Danjah “Acid” (Hyperdub)
Deadboy “If U Want Me” (Numbers)
Rudi Zygadlo“Resaleable Friendship” (Planet Mu)
James Blake “The Bells Sketch” (Hessle Audio)
Arthur Russell “Place I Know/Kid Like You” (Rough Trade)
John Boutte “Treme Song” (Boutteworks)
Carolina Chocolate Drops “Hit ‘Em Up Style” (Nonesuch)
Edward Larry Gordon “All Pervading” (Soul Jazz)
Galaxie 500 “Way Up High” (Domino)
Real Estate “Pool Swimmers” (Woodsist)
Bon Iver “Come Talk To Me” (Jagjaguwar) -
On, off, on, off, on, off and now on again – it’s Lenny!
As previously reported and then retracted, it’s now confirmed that Lenny will play Sligo’s Lissadell House on July 31. It will be the third summer in a row that the Lenny dude has played an Irish show – he’s obviously taking pension advice from Michael Fingleton. Tickets go on sale next Monday and are priced from €80.
No news as yet on the mysterious case of the Stevie Wonder show at Dublin’s O2 which was advertised, but never went on sale. We’ll let you know about this when we hear more.
-
Mountain Man, Dublin, July
One of OTR’s favourite acts from this year’s SXSW festival, Mountain Man, make their Irish debut at Dublin’s Crawdaddy on July 2. Tickets for this one will be €13 and go on sale later in the week.
-
Guru RIP
Very sad news via Stevie G about the death of Gang Starr’s great MC and Jazzmatazz main mover Guru. The 43 year old passed away yesterday after a lengthy battle with cancer.
-
The man with the €27 million pension
No matter what happens in the future, Irish Nationwide will always be associated with Michael Fingleton and his €27 million pension. The building society have just unleashed their latest accounts and they’re not a pretty picture. Even the fact that there’s a volcano going loco in Iceland can’t disguise this one. Of course, there are very few financial institutions whose books look well at the moment, but Irish Nationwide resembles a turkey which has been plucked clean over the Christmas. There ain’t nothing left. Even the bones have been gnawed.
When the fingers point, they will point at Fingleton. He’s the one who ran Irish Nationwide for 37 years and oversaw how that small-town society lost the run of itself with delusions of grandeur. He’s the character who’s to the fore in books on the strange rise and inevitable fall of the Irish economy by Shane Ross and Matt Cooper. We’ll be paying for the stupidity of that man in the fedora and other gombeens like him for quite some time to come.
It didn’t just happen in Ireland. I’m currently reading Andrew Ross Sorkin’s excellent book “Too Big to Fail” on Wall Street’s alleged masters of the universe and the colossal greed which fed every stupid decision of theirs is unavoidable on every single page. But, as is often the way, we seem to have bred a worse class of eejit here. Always happens for some reason.
However, it’s the scale of Fingleton’s pension fund which continues to astonish me. As in, what is he going to do with all that dosh? Is he going to head to Las Vegas and hit the craps tables for a few days? Does he have one hell of a stamp collection or model railway habit to feed? Is he going to buy a rake of new hats and overcoats? Will he give it all to charity? Is he the only seventysomething gent out there with a €27 million pension fund and a “because I’m worth it” attitude to boot? Answers gratefully appreciated.
-
Volcanic circumstances – list of cancelled shows
The following Irish shows due to take place this week have been postponed or cancelled due to ash from that blooming volcano and its impact on air travel:
LCD Soudsystem (Tripod, Dublin, Tuesday and Wednesday – per promoter, rescheduled dates to be announced)
Grant Lee Philips (Sugar Club, Dublin, Tuesday – date to be rescheduled)
Powerfinger (Vicar Street, Dublin, Tuesday – gig rescheduled to May 31, per OTR reader Michael)
Whale Watching II with Nico Muhly, Valgeir Sigurðsson, Sam Amidon and Ben Frost. (National Concert Hall, Dublin, Wednesday – the concert has been cancelled and ticket holders should contact the National Concert Hall Box office for further information)
Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra with Emmanuel Krivine (conductor) and Jean-Yves Thibaudet (piano) (NCH, Dublin, tonight – the performance is cancelled and ticket holders have neen notified – thanks to @dayandnight and @NCH_Music for the heads-up)
Irish Chamber Choir of Paris (concerts in Dublin, Maynooth and Galway have been cancelled and it is hoped to reschedule them at a later date)
I’ll update this list as more confirmed postponements and cancellations are announced during the day.
-
The randomiser says “do you want some volcano insurance with that?”
Item: Mount Kimbie. Truly splendid live vibes from the Kimbies’ Dom and Kai at the OTR Presents show at the Twisted Pepper on Friday night. At times, they were reminiscent of some old-school 4AD heads at play (the Pale Saints came to mind), albeit working to much more futuristic and classical blueprints than simply shaping a bunch of sonic cathedrals in the sky. They’ll probably return for more later in the year.
OTR’s “the volcano made us do it, guv, honest” department is now open for business. Ash-covered unforeseen circumstances ahoy this week, especially with US acts who haven’t already left the US for Europe. On that note, the brace of LCD Soundsystem shows in Dublin this week have been postponed, per promoters POD Concerts. You can expect many other gigs and tours to be hit so stay tuned for more updates during the week. Hey, are YOU a rock’n'roller who has been hit by the volcano? Please let us know!
Whitney! Ain’t no volcano hot enough to stop WhitHo from hitting town. So, OTR readers, what was it like? Here’s what four Ticket writers had to make of it, for a start, while Panti’s take on the gig is here. I bet Joe Duffy has already done 100 press-ups this morning to prepare for this afternoon’s Liveline marathon. I mean, people will fume one way or another, right?
We assume the volcano will be gone by the Augus bank holiday weekend, right? Lenny will be hoping so as he’s confirmed a date at Lissadell House, Co Sligo for July 31. Wonder what other gigs are on the schedule that weekend for Lissadell?
Can you get Saint Columcille’s back-catalogue on Rapidshare? Plenty of OTR comment already on Friday’s judgement by Mr Justice Peter Charleton which allows Eircom to proceed with their three-strikes-and-your-internet-is-cut-off policy. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports on similar plans to put a halt to the P2P gallop in the UK and France. I don’t think we’ve seen the end of this one yet as people begin to air questions about the ruling.
Mo’ music biz stuff: The Guardian’s Helianne Lindvall is usually on the money when it comes to music business stories and her piece on artists signed to labels who refuse to release their material raises some interesting points.
Maybe the trick is to sign to a label run by a fellow musician? “It’s not to make money. It’s to put out good stuff,” says Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor about his label, Terrible Records .
Item: Record Store Day! We assume all of those who were waxing lyrical about record store events last week on the lead-up to the weekend’s Record Store Day will be out in force at their local record store again this week. What? You do know that a record store is supposed to be for life and not just for one day a year? Let’s hope we’re not doing this again next year with the number of participating stores down to single figures.
Tune! Tip o’ the hat to Barry Redsetta for the heads-up on this spine-tingling wibbly-wobbly wonder from Deadboy.
-
Ruling delivered on illegal firesharing. Judge quotes Saint Colmcille.
Full report here from Mary Carolon on today’s High Court judgement by Mr Justice Peter Charleton which allows Eircom to proceed with their three-strikes-and-your-internet-is-cut-off policy.
Per Mary’s report, “the judgment arose from a settlement last year of proceedings by four major record companies – EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner – against Eircom over the use by others of its services for illegal downloading. Other cases are pending”.
“Mr Justice Charleton today ruled concerns raised by the Data Protection Commissioner about those measures, including about the rights of access to the internet, did not prevent the measures being implemented. The measures were lawful and compatible with the data protection legislation, he found.
“There was nothing in the criminal or civil law which legalises that which is otherwise illegal simply because the transaction takes place over the internet, he said.”
The upshot of this judgement is that the parties can now proceed to implementing last year’s settlement. “Under the settlement, Eircom agreed to implement measures aimed at stopping illegal downloading, including disclosing to the companies the uploaders and downloaders’ identities through their IP addresses, and ultimately cutting them off if illegal downloading persisted.”
Full ruling here.
-
On the Record Presents: Mount Kimbie tonight
No transport SNAFUs here so that means we’ll have Mount Kimbie in the Twisted Pepper (Middle Abbey Street, Dublin 1) tonight from 11pm. Full info on the rest of the bill here. Hopefully, we’ll see you there.
-
The Ticket app – we’re in business
The Ticket’s app for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad is now live. Please post all comments and feedback about the new app here.
Comments Off -
Always make the best use of Plug Fridays on OTR #bandtips
In The Ticket today, Tara Brady looks at the chick flicks which Hollywood hopes will keep those not interested in the World Cup happy, Mary Hannigan casts football’s leading men (Wayne Rooney as Buzz Lightyear), The Redneck Manifesto talk “Friendship”, Wicklow metalheads Glyder admit they’re uncool, Zach Tillman sells us some “Pearly Gate Music” and Yorgos Lanthimos explains what his new film Dogtooth is all about.
There’s New Music love for The Rural Alberta Advantage, Sunday Girl, Baths (tip of the hat to Mrs OTR for that heads-up), The Riot Tapes and Diamond Rings, while there are Music News stories on Record Store Day, the Vantasival fest for campervan and scooter enthusiasts and the Bray Jazz Festival at 11.
Album of the week comes from Kate Nash and there are also reviews of releases by Seabear, Kid Sister, Ash (great PR stunt, lads), Patrick Kelleher, Harper Simon, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Darwin Deez, Chick Corea, Brooks Williams and many more. Plus Eoin Butler hits Shuffle with the singles and downloads and gaming gurus Ciara O’Brien and Joe Griffin review How To Train Your Dragon, Prison Break: The Conspiracy, Monsters (Probably) Stole My Princess and Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City.
New flicks getting the once-over are The Ghost, City of Life and Death, Dear John, The Daisy Chain, Cemetary Junction and Repo Men. Plus movie news, the film quiz and the Screenwriter column from Our Man At Heathrow Airport, Donald Clarke.
The Ticket: your recommended weekly intake of movies and music
The Ticket app: it’s on the way. Steve Jobs is just reading the Kate Nash review first.
On The Record Presents: Mount Kimbie are supposed to be playing this tonight at the Twisted Pepper (Middle Abbey Street, Dublin 1) but that bloody volcano may put paid to this. Update to come this afternoon.
The ongoing mystery of the Stevie Wonder gig: no, tickets for this one didn’t go on sale this morning as previously advertised. Not a sausage on this from the promoters (though they are offering volcano-related special offers like this) so your guess is as good as mine as to why you’d have an ad in the Sunday papers for a gig which then didn’t go on sale.
The Middle East: tickets for this one are most definitely are on sale this morning. Get ‘em fast because we reckon this may be one of the gigs of the year.
The OTR plugs service is now open for your plugs. 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. Plugs which plug the same stuff every week will also be deleted – if people ain’t interested by now, you should really get the message. Let us talk about Treme next week, OK?
-
The Ticket: there’s now an app for that
Tomorrow morning at 9am, The Ticket app for the iPhone will go live at the Apple App Store. It will be free of charge and give users access to The Ticket’s music and movies’ news, reviews and features. Check it out tomorrow and, as if OTR readers needed to be asked, tell us what you think.
-
A volcano can be termed “unforeseen circumstances”, right?
I’d say there are a fair few promoters biting their nails at the moment with the airports closed for the rest of the day at least due to that volcano in Iceland. With the Trinity Ball on tomorrow night and Whitney Houston due to begin a run of shows at the O2 at the weekend, there will be some frayed nerves out there.
There were a few people giving out yards about Houston on Liveline earlier and, in what must be a first even for Ireland, seeking a refund before the singer takes to the stage. They were looking for their money back based on the reviews of her tour to date (though some reviewers seemed to have been at a different show). However, they may not get a chance to wince at the state of her voice if she can’t get into the country and we’re all happily spared a repeat of that clip Joe played from one of her shows this week. It’s at times like this that event cancellation insurance policies are a promoter’s best friend. Stay tuned, sports fans.
-
Running a record label in 2010
It’s always interesting to get a look at what goes on behind the scenes in a business you admire. XL are one of those labels who’ve steered a singular course in recent years and managing director Ben Beardsworth gives an overview on how the label operates in the current issue of Music Week.
The label have had a very good run of late, particularly with The xx (500,000 copies of their debut album sold and counting) and Gil Scott-Heron. As Beardsworth goes thought the process behind both releases, the talking points make complete sense. The xx recorded in the label’s in-house studio which meant low recording costs and there was little pre-release hype to send expectations skywards. The Scott-Heron album “I’m New Here” was a project initiated and driven by XL boss Richard Russell so you had that personal involvement at all stages.
Leaving aside the fact that Beardsworth is obviously not going to focus on any negative aspects of how his label operates (no label is perfect), XL sounds like a ringer for some of those great labels of old who made great records, a bit of cash and a lot of sense. Back in the day when I was on that side of the business, for instance, I always wanted to work for Island Records because their HQ at 22 St Peter’s Square in London buzzed with the right attitude and ideas. The label was about the music because that was what mattered most at the end of the day. Sure, there also has to be a significant back-end operation too and XL have enough strategic alliances in place to ensure that side of the house is also in order.
If there is to be a future for record labels, it’s probably along similar lines to what Beardsworth is talking about, where the emphasis is on making great albums as much as getting the finished product into Tesco. It will be interesting to see if some of the current suite of boutique and tastemaker labels will get to rise to an XL-like level in the next few years and if they’ll maintain such an emphasis.
-
Up, up and away with Villagers
You have to admit that it looks very good. As Conor O’Brien prepares to release the “Becoming A Jackal” album next month, his Villagers’ ducks are lined up in a row. Excellent early reviews (including a rave from Jon Pareles in the New York Times), a barnstorming appearance on BBC2’s Later last night (the only TV show which really counts for music fans in these parts) and fantastic word-of-mouth from the live shows to date mean this campaign is, as they say, perfectly set up.
And then, you hear the album. That deserves a new paragraph at the very least.
“Becoming A Jackal” has haunted me since I first heard the songs. Like all the best experiences, I wanted to dive in again right away and relive the highs all over again because it was truly something to relish. From the very first proper listen, it’s obvious that O’Brien is already a songwriter who has the measure of his craft and knows that sometimes less is more when it comes to allowing songs to scar and stir your soul. There’s depth, intensity, beauty and confidence galore here.
He’s a master of detail – the literary reportage demonstrated on “Twenty Seven Strangers”; how “I Saw The Dead” sets a spooky, uneasy, unsettling tone in the most subtle, shadowy, quietly menacing manner possible; the orchestral elegance grounding “Pieces” giving way to a howling, almost ghoulish swirl of devilment. Then, there’s a song like “Home”, a gentle, hugely engaging wash of grace and harmonies which tugs at your heartstrings. Truly, it’s an album a cut and a dash ahead of everyone else.
Make no bones about it, O’Brien will be with us in this game for the long haul. Last night won’t be his last encounter with Jools Holland – indeed, it probably won’t even be his last encounter this year. Then, there’s the fact that he has a secret weapon in the shape of the band. Remember that most people outside Ireland have encountered Villagers to date as a solo venture and have been simply wowed by O’Brien and those songs. When you add a talented bunch of players who know how to embellish those tunes without losing the essence of the sound, it’s another reason for sustained applause and ovations.
Some, naturally, will point to the fact that O’Brien now has Domino in his corner as a reason for his current advancement. That’s all very well and Domino are a fine, fine label, but let’s not lose sight of the fact that it’s O’Brien’s songs which are causing all this fuss. As far as I know, we didn’t have the man from the NY Times or Later going gaga for the Archie Bronson Outfit. No, this heartwarming fuss over the Dubliner is all down to the songs he has written and is performing with aplomb.
Of course, we shouldn’t forget that “Becoming A Jackal” is O’Brien second “debut” album. Over the last few weeks, I listened to The Immediate’s “In Towers and Clouds” a couple of times and the thrill remained the same as it did back in 2006 when this was my soundtrack for a couple of months. It’s still wide-eyed and sharp, a great modish clatter with emotion, spirit and brio.
I interviewed O’Brien when that album came out and have pulled this quote from the tapes which could well be written for the adventure that awaits him in 2010 and beyond. “We’ve always been obsessed with the idea of art. So many people produce such crap. They don’t use this thing called writing or art as a tool to get whatever they have inside which is really good across to the world. They call themselves artists, but you don’t have an automatic right to be an artist, you have to earn it. We’re earning that right because that we treat it with such care. We know it’s a strange thing to want do for a living, but the better the work you do, the more you earn the right to do it.”
-
The Far Side – playlist for Tuesday April 13
As played on The Far Side, Phantom 105.2, Tuesday April 13, 10pm-midnight
DJing dates: I’ll be DJ-ing at Mud (Twisted Pepper, Middle Abbey St., Dublin 1) at the On The Record Presents night with the awesome Mount Kimbie on Friday night.
Signals “Silverfish” (Moshi Moshi)
Girls Names “Don’t Let Me In” (Captured Tracks)
The Postelles “White Night” (Astralwerks)
Lemonade “Banana Republic” (True Panther)
Holy Fuck “Red Lights” (Young Turks)
The Golden Filter “Dance Around the Fire” (Brille)
Gold Panda “You” (Notown)
Caribou “Found Out” (City Slang)
Villa Nah “Running On” (Sahko)
Holy Ghost “Say My Name” (Kitsune)
The Juan Maclean “Feel So Good” (!K7)
Les Gillettes “Pompeii” (Kitsune)
Boy 8-Bit “The Keep” (This Is Music)
Frankie & The Heartstrings “Tender” (Popsex)
The Bewitched Hands On Top of Our Heads “Work” (April77)
JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound “I Am Trying To Break Your Heart” (Rabbit Factory)
Soul President “Got To Have It” (Big Mack)
Freddy Scott & The Four Steps “Same Ole Beat” (Henry Stone)
Pastor TL Barrett & the Youth for Christ Choir “Like A Ship” (Numero)
The Black Keys “Tighten Up” (City Slang)
Villagers “Twenty Seven Strangers” (Domino)
The Morning Benders “Hand Me Downs” (Rough Trade)
Mountain Man “How’m I Doing?” (Bella Union)
Wait What/The Notorious XX “Dead Wrong” (Wait What)
Julian Lynch “Mare” (Olde English Spelling Bee)
Lonely Galaxy “Have A Heart” (Transparent)
Baths “Hall” (Anticon)
Ali Farke Toure & Toumani Diabate “Sabu Yerkoy” (World Circuit)
Galaxie 500 “Fourth Of July” (Domino) -
The randomiser has the first farmer’s tan of the year
OTR coming soon to an app near you? The Irish Times’ news app is now available for your iYokes and, what do you know, it’s already topping the charts at the App Store. Next up: The Irishman’s Diary app (er, maybe).
Stand tall, Black Eyed Peas! You are the most corporate band in the United States of America! You’re probably heading that way over here too, if the fee we hear you’re charging for your after-show soiree in the Tripod next month is any guide. Here, who do OTR readers reckon are the most corporate band in Ireland? The ones who will whore themselves for any ol’ brand at any ol’ launch? Don’t all answer at once.
Beats for the sunny south-east: Rob O’Connor from Beat 102-103 in Waterford is taking his radio show out of the studio for a brace of Irish Beats Sessions in Phil Grimes’ bar in the city. Tomorrow night (Wednesday 14), it’s Neosupervital in the spotlight, with David Geraghty in action in the same spot on Wednesday 21. Both gigs will be recorded for broadcast on Rob’s Irish Beats show on the following Sunday.
Why bands making albums for kids is pointless.
Anyone for another band from back in the day doing it one more time? First mutterings about a Big Audio Dynamite reunion.
Wilco (The Festival). Bet they’ll tour that if it’s a success.
Stately gigs: online mag State are hosting a free gig on Friday night in the Mercantile (Dame Street, Dublin) as part of Music Network’s Love: Live Music day. If you want to see Super Extra Bonus Party, The Cast of Cheers and Take the Money & Run, please RSVP here.
Two good ‘uns at the Twisted Pepper (Middle Abbey Street, Dublin) in the weeks to come. Item one, the fourth Psycho Fest takes over the venue on April 24 for an all-day-and-night bash featuring dozens of acts including Cap Pas Cap, Girls Names, Wounds, Disconnect 4, Boy From Brazil, Cloud Castle Lake and many, many more. Item two, Kormac’s Big Band FINALLY gets around to releasing that debut album. Kormac and co will be launching “Word Play” with a show at the venue on April 29.
Is Beardyman the only beatboxer to ever feature on The Late, Late Show? We think so. Dude brings his Open Sauce show to Dublin’s Button Factory on May 7.
The story of the late, great Alex Chilton’s 28 years in New Orleans
The Bray Jazz Festival turns 11. This year’s turn from one of the finest small jazz fests in Europe will feature 34 shows in the Co Wicklow town over the May Bank Holiday weekend from such players as Soft Machine’s John Etheridge, Wolfgang Muthspiel (who will be playing with Larry Grenadier and Chris Cheek in a drum-free trio), Wayne Krantz and many more.
Finally, the coolest robot you’ll meet today
-
Stevie Wonder, Dublin, June
No official announcement on this one yet but, as OTR reader pmk points out, there was an ad in The Sunday Times at the weekend so it looks like someone has listened to our plea from a few weeks ago. Stevie Wonder plays The O2, Dublin on June 24. Tickets are supposed to go on sale on Friday, but there are no details as of yet on Ticketmaster. OTR readers, feel free to fill in the blanks on this one.
UPDATE thanks to Nialler9 for pointing out that tickets, which go on sale on Friday at 9am, will be priced from €65.70 up to €96.25.
For the day that’s in it…
-
The Middle East, Dublin, June
It turns out that The Middle East’s Irish debut will not be at Oxegen after all, because the band are set to play Dublin’s Sugar Club a few weeks before that on June 26. Tickets for this one go on sale later this week at €13.50 a pop.
-
Show some love for your local record store (again)
Next Saturday (April 17) is Record Store Day and a bunch of indie record stores around the country will be hanging out the bunting for the occasion. You can expect in-store gigs, limited special-edition releases and probably some free lollipops too.
Per the press release, the stores who’re taking part are All City, City Discs, Freebird Secret Book and Record Store, Road, Sound Cellar, Spindizzy, Tower (all Dublin); Zhivago (Galway), Heartbeat City (Kilkenny and Tullamore), Rollercoaster Music (Kilkenny), e2 Music (Mullingar and Navan), Bridge Stores (New Ross), Third Wave Music (Sligo) and BPM Records (Waterford). Up north, Derry’s Cool Discs and Belfast’s Good Vibrations are also taking part. You can check with the shops to find out what they’ve got planned.
Yep, you’re right, there used to be a whole lot more record stores out there. Once upon a time, we didn’t need a Record Store Day to remind us of their existence because, well, there was nowhere else to go to acquire music. As we have seen again and again over the last few years, record shops have been disappearing from the streets more rapidly than money from the national piggy-bank. Both big chains and small stores have gone out of business, compiling a lengthy blame report as they headed for the hills. High rents, lack of city-centre footfall, changes in music consumption habits, inability to get younger music fans into the shops, the recession, competition from online sources, lack of money… hell, even the lack of a decent U2 album was even cited by some as a reason for the record stores’ demise. We’ll be waiting a long time if a decent U2 album is the fix for the retail sector’s woes.
As someone who spent more years (and money) in record stores than I’d care to remember, the situation saddens me. Excellent record stores and equally fine people behind the counter provided me with my musical education. Tuned-in record shop clerks (yeah, they exist, shoulder to shoulder with the cranky sods who gave that profession a bad name) said that if I liked that record, I’d also like this record and usually, they were right. When I’d no cash in my pockets, I’d take a longer way to get to where I was going rather than walk past a store and not call in. I know from previous posts here that I’m not alone in a fondness for what record stores gave the world. It was – and still is, to be honest – an addiction.
Yet even when you analyse the downturn in the sector, you find that the stores themselves should shoulder some of the blame. When they were the only game in town, too many bad shops thrived and cultivated such bad habits as overcharging customers and persisting in sloppy, often rude customer service. With the arrival of more competitive online stores and other ways to (legally or otherwise) acquire music, many music fans happily abandoned the bricks-and-mortar stores to their fate. Unfortunately, this meant bad times for some decent stores, which is why we’re reached today’s sorry pass.
Like the record industry, the record stores have to realise that their past glory days are over and will not return. Accept it and move on. Purchasing habits for many music fans have changed and they are no longer be able to spend their lunch hour or Saturday morning traipsing from shop to shop. The Kids, the ones who are supposed to save us all, favour other means to acquire music. Indeed, the next time you’re in a record store, count how many in the store are under 30 or, even, under 40 years of age. As Olan O’Brien from All City Records remarked at a Banter discussion back in January, “running a record store is like running an angling shop these days: the customers are all middle-aged men”.
Of course, we need more events like Record Store Day to highlight what a good record store can mean and bring to a community of music fans, but record stores need to realise that this must begin with them. The labels who see the importance of record stores are already onboard – aside from providing exclusive releases for Saturday, these labels have also significantly reduced dealer prices to the shops over the past 18 months – but it’s the shops themselves who have to take the initiative.
Most importantly of all, they have to stress the future as well as the past. It’s all very well to wax nostalgic about what it was like back in the day, but this schtick really only appeals to those seeking to relive past experiences and doesn’t entice new customers to step up to the plate. It’s up to the shops to sell and position themselves as places of value to those music fans who don’t currently view stores as an important part of the infrastructure. That’s where the rebirth will begin – if there is to be one.
-
The king of plugs
In The Ticket today, Anna Carey lists the flicks every teen girl should see, we head to the opera with The Knife, go duck-watching with Stornoway and hear Luca Guadagnino discuss his new flick I Am Love. Donald Clarke previews the forthcoming Stranger Than Fiction documentary festival and Brian Boyd disses lame Facebook campaigns. And there’s New Music love for Tanlines, The Cast Of Cheers (my pal Billy’s favourite band right now), MEN, Lucy Love and Julian Lynch.
Album of the week comes from MGMT and there are also reviews of releases from Plan B, Scouting For Girls, The Morning Benders, Tallest Man On Earth, We Have Band, Erykah Badu and many more.
In the cinemas up and down the land, new flicks for your viewing pleasure include Whip It (what are the odds that Drew Barrymore’s rollerderby fandango will herald a rollermania revival?), I Am Love, Shelter and Little Foxes. Plus film news, the weekly movie quiz and, not forgetting, DC’s ever-entertaining Screenwriter column and blog.
The Ticket: nininininininininini (6)
The OTR plugs service is now open for your, well, plugs. 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. Is this a sunny weekend I see before me?
-
Malcom McLaren RIP
The truly unique Malcom McLaren has died. The Sex Pistols, Bow Wow Wow and New York Dolls’ manager, punk rock impressario, music-maker, motormouth, commentator, fashionista, artist, rock’n'roll swindler and would-be mayor of London had been suffering from cancer for quite some time. We shall never see his likes again. Some quotes from an interview I did with him in 1998 after the jump.
-
Castlepalooza 2010 – the line-up
Some of the acts who will be heading to Charleville Castle in Tullamore, Co Offaly over the August bank holiday week (July 31 and August 1) for this year’s Castlepalooza festival include:
Mercury Rev
Fionn Regan
Wave Machines (heard great reports about their shows at SXSW)
Lonelady (we heart Lonelady)
Codes
Taylor McFerrin
Cashier No 9
Adebisi Shank (Wexford County Council’s favourite DIY collective)
Tu-Ki
James Vincent McMorrow (really digging his album)
O Emperor (new single “Don’t Mind Me” is really sweet)
Robotnik
Funeral Suits
The Cast Of Cheers
The Lowly Knights
Readers Wives
The Blue Choir
Sarsparilla
Yes Cadets
Nakatomi TowersMore acts to be added to what is, at first glance, a damn impressive line-up. Tickets at €99 a pop go on sale on Friday morning.
-
Brendan Perry, Irish tour, May
Dead Can Dance co-founder Brendan Perry plays three Irish shows in May. Expect a mixture of Dead Can Dance and solo material when Perry and his band play Dublin’s Tripod (May 26), Cork’s Pavilion (May 27) and Galway’s Roisin Dubh (May 28). One of the very best live shows I’ve ever seen was Dead Can Dance at The Factory space in Sligo many, many moons ago.
-
The Far Side – playlist for Tuesday April 6
As played on The Far Side, Phantom 105.2, Tuesday April 6, 10pm-midnight
Thee Oh Sees “I Was Denied” (In the Red)
Givers “Up Up Up” (Valcour)
Magic Kids “Hey Boy” (Goner)
Harlem “Friendly Ghost” (Matador)
Summer Cats “Hey You” (Slumberland)
Holy Fuck “Latin America” (Young Turks)
The Redneck Manifesto “Tomb of the Dudes” (Richter Collective)
Delorean “Stay Close” (True Panther)
The Morning Benders “Mason Jar” (Rough Trade)
Mountain Man “Mouthwings” (Bella Union)
Peter Wolf Crier “Crutch & Cane” (Jagjaguwar)
Smoke Fairies “Sunshine” (Music for Heroes)
The Unthanks “Here’s the Tender Coming” (Rough Trade)
Rye Rye “Bang” (Interscope)
Maluca “El Tigeraso” (Mad Decent)
Das Racist “Who’s That Brown?” (Self release)
Gil Scott Heron/Nas “New York Is Killing Me” (XL)
Dan Deacon “Woof Woof (Hudson Mohawke remix)” (Carpark)
Onra “High Hopes“ (All City)
Sunday Girl “Four Floors (Diplo remix)” (Geffen)
Baths “Maximalist” (Anticon)
Bernard “Pretty” Purdie “Soul Drums” (Date)
Kashmere Stage Band “Boss City” (Now-Again)
Kashmere Stage Band “Thank You” (Now-Again)
Buddy Miles “Heart’s Delight” (Miracle)
Lou Bond “Why Must Our Eyes Always Be Turned Backwards?” (Light In the Attic)
James Murphy “People” (DFA/Parlophone) -
Going forward, moving backwards
Perhaps the most striking element of the entire Sean Quinn fandango over the last week was his admission that he lost €3 billion gambling on Anglo Irish Bank shares. The media thought I’d lost one or one-and-a-half billion, Quinn said in his interview with Sean Whelan on RTE News (an interview which was far more noteworthy than Charlie Bird knocking up to a house in Cape Cod and getting nowhere), but I actually lost three billion.
There you go, he seemed to smirk at us, those media boyos got it wrong. I don’t know about you, but if I lost a three billion punt on a rogue bank, I’d be staying schtum about it. It’s a far cry from those folksy Tuesday night poker games.
In yesterday’s paper, John McManus nailed what I’m sure many people are thinking. With a track record like this, who the hell would let Quinn in charge of a sale-of-work in the local church hall, let alone a large company?
Sure, Quinn has transformed the border area and has given employment to many thousands of people, but is this really enough to excuse his headstrong, silly run on Seanie’s blackjack tables? You could argue that it was his own money and he could, if he wished, spend it anyhow and anywhere he wanted to. Problem is, though, we now know, far too late, how Quinn and Anglo Irish Bank operated and what it means for the citizens of this country. Even the whole issue of tax on Contracts for Difference, the mechanism which Quinn used to build his stake in Anglo-Irish, shows the remove between Us and Them.
Of course, Quinn was not alone. During the good times – remember the good times? – a micro-class of Gordan Gekkos sprung up in this country. Greed was not just good, they implied, greed was your national duty. There’s no need to go the detail the long, never-ending litany of madness which ensued here during those years, except to note that we’ll be paying for this binge-gambling for many, many years to come.
But as the payback begins and we face into what seems like years of hard labour, you can be sure that Quinn and his peers will be around to pick up the pieces and the cheap deals which will inevitably fall out of the NAMA shakedown. For all the outstanding loans and debts, you can bet that these lads will be the ones chomping at the bit to get a share of the action when the time comes. And for all those oustanding debts and loans, debts and loans which are so large that the mind boggles trying to get all those figures to make sense, they will still have cash or access to cash to leverage those deals. I’m sure if any OTR reader fell behind with a loan, the banks would be around first thing tomorrow to get their pound of flesh, yet there appears to be very little effort made to do likewise with our Gordon Gekkos. And don’t start with the line that “sure, they don’t have it”. Please. Tell me that when all attempts at forensic accounting have come up with nothing.
Yet, there is no doubt that we do have to move on from all of the above. I’m someone who doesn’t really think there’s much to be gained endlessly reviewing the past and raking over old ground. However, it’s abundantly clear that there’s such an amount of anger out there about how this country was mismanaged since the mid-1990s that moving on is not as simple as it sounds. Mananging the two – the public desire for retribution and the need to kickstart the economy again – is going to take some doing. And “retribution” means a lot more than just calling in little Seanie to have his collar felt in Bray garda station.
-
The OTR re-up (now available in pineapple flavour)
Good news for the capital city gigging classes (1): Tortoise return to Dublin for a show at Whelan’s on July 10. Tickets now on sale at €29 a pop.
So, there will be no Slane gig this year. Despite venue owner Lord Henry Mountcharles talking loud about an August 28 engagement a while back and thus setting the hearts of Kings Of Leon, AC/DC and Crystal Swing fans aflutter, it all comes to naught. Slane shall not have thousands of visiting half-wits this year (or was that just the year Oasis played?). I always find it amusing how we in the media lap up LHM’s annual game of interview rounders. After all, it’s MCD Concerts who do the booking and the promoting for the Slane shebang giving LHM a few bob for the loan of the field. While he did say in his interview with Marian Finucane at the weekend that he said no to Bon Jovi a few years ago, we shouldn’t forget that he did say yes in the past to Stereophonics, Robbie Williams and Bryan Adams thus negating in three strokes any notion of the “special nature” of the Slane bash.
Some OTR readers may remember the grandiose plans for the Festival of the Fires mooted back in February. This was the fest which promised, let us recall, “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”. The line-up for this one? Kíla and Sharon Shannon and Her Big Band with special guests Mundy and Jerry Fish. Someone obviously mistook “a festival unlike any other” for a night at the Rose of Tralee Festival Dome.
More good news for the capital city gigging classes: The Books return to Dublin for a (fully-seated) show at the Button Factory on May 13. The door tax for this one is €20. Hurrah!
Is Leonard Cohen the new CSS? We ask because Lenny’s name features heavily in this report about a mooted series of gigs in Lissadell House, Co Sligo over the August Bank Holiday weekend. Should Lenny’s expressed “excitement” at playing at the venue come to pass, this will be his third summer in a row in Ireland. The dude must really need to replenish his piggybank. More the point, though, we’re curious about the other acts lined up for the Lissadell bash. Any members of the OTR guessing gallery wish to have a go?
Further good news for the capital city gigging classes (3): the rather fabulous DM Stith is in town tonight and tomorrow night. Tonight, you will find him playing a gig in The Torture Garden’s sitting-room in Monkstown and tomorrow, you will find him supporting Choice Music Prize winner Adrian Crawley in Whelan’s (At Last An Atlas also on the bill). Go, go, go, go etc.
Desperate times calls for desperate measures, but surely a Commitments reunion (especially one prepared to strap a Jedward on) is a step too far.
You need a reason to go to Co Donegal? Here you go, bud: Sea Sessions has Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Paul Weller, David Holmes, Andrew Weatherall, Fun Lovin’ Criminals, Cathy Davey, Frank & Walters and many more playing in Bundoran from June 25 to 27. Rumours that Weller will be doing a spot of surfboarding on the Saturday night (and/or a bit of skinnydipping) could not be confirmed at the time of going to blog. Tickets are €79.95 for this one.
Even more good news for the capital city gigging classes: The Ruby Suns are coming to town. They play a Ragged Words night at the Twisted Pepper on May 27 and tickets will be €12 a pop.
The socio-ecomomic ups and downs of SXSW from Fucked Up. If any of the Irish acts who were in Austin, Texas want to add their opinions to the mix, please hit the comments below.
More gigs in fields, though those who tend the beautiful Iveagh Gardens in the heart of Dublin may not take too kindly to OTR labelling their green patch a “field”. Expect Aiken Promotions to add a few more gigs for this venue to join the previously announced Paloma Faith in July. And, as is always the case when a promoter finds a new space, expect others to take a shine to that venue too in the coming months.
The next bout of OTR TV love is reserved for Treme.
OTR’s post-SXSW rehab may be in Knoxville, Tennessee in 2011 if the dates are right. Much love for the Big Ears festival from the nice man at the New York Times.
Excellent piece comparing and contrasting arts funding for musos in Sweden, Norway, Canada, Britain and the United States. No mention of Ireland or our new Minister for Fun. We await her thinking on funding for the arts with interest, especially given her first bright idea.
How many OTR readers will do the aul’ “I don’t know what a tracker mortgage is” routine about Justin Bieber? Thought so. Lil’ dude sold 283,000 copies of his new album right out of the box in the U S of A. Find out why it’s all about the Justin here.
78 things you probably didn’t know about Johnny Cash.
Why there’s nothing new about letting it all hang out in the name of art.
And finally, more good news for… (you get the idea). Mount Kimbie play the next On The Record Presents night at Mud at the Twisted Pepper in Dublin on April 16. Tickets for this one are €8 (or €6 for Bodytonic members). BTW stay tuned for news on some damn cool OTR Presents/Banter outings in the coming months.
Search On The Record
ADVERTISEMENT
