On The Record »

• The Great Northern Songbook at the Ulster Hall

  April 4, 2012 @ 1:17 pm | by Jim Carroll

  One of the finest venues on this here island has to be the Ulster Hall in Belfast. I’ve seen some great shows there over the years – I remember The Waterboys playing a stunner back there when I was a lad – and I’m sure Belfast gig-goers have their own memories of the beautiful venue on Bedford Street.

  To mark 150 years of shows at the Ulster Hall, BBC Radio Ulster are running a special gig at the venue on May 24. 10 acts including And So I Watch You From Afar, Cara Dillon, Boxcutter, The Answer, General Fiasco, RAM’S Pocket Radio, Brian Kennedy, Katharine Philippa and others will play on the night. The plan is that they’ll play one of their tunes plus one from the list of songs which BBC Radio Ulster listeners have selected as their favourite Northern Irish compositions.

  The show will be broadcast live on BBC Radio Ulster but tickets are now available for the event via a lottery here.

  Anyone care to guess what songs have made the cut of top Northern Irish tunes? “Alternative Ulster”? “Teenage Kicks”? “Screamager”? “Chasing Cars”? “Shining Light”?

• Calling all DIY music activists

  April 2, 2012 @ 8:56 am | by Jim Carroll

  Susan Gill is a researcher at DIT’s School Of Media and is currently writing a PhD on the DIY ethic in contemporary music. She is hoping to talk to and get the views of those involved in Irish music, including musicians, promoters, writers and record label operators. If you’re one of the above and you’d like to help out Susan, there’s an online questionnaire here.

• Irish TV’s take on homegrown hip-hop

  February 21, 2012 @ 8:38 am | by Jim Carroll

  To judge by the domestic TV schedules, Irish hip-hop is having a bit of a moment. A few weeks ago, the first edition of RTE’s new arts show The Works featured a short report on some of those involved in the Dublin scene. Last night, we had a jump in profile and length in the shape of Ireland’s Rappers, a Reality Bites documentary focusing on what the show makers called “a highly creative and dedicated subculture with a cast of incredible and sometimes barely believable characters”.

  That should have been a warning in itself. When a TV show talks about “incredible and sometimes barely believable characters”, you know what you’re in for and Ireland’s Rappers didn’t disappoint in that regard. This was as cliched as they come, with such nuggets as a “feud” between two Dublin hip-hop collectives and a 25 year old rapper living at home with his ma (stop the press! 25 year old Irish rapper lives with his Ma! Just like Biggie Smalls did when he was starting out! No doubt we can expect future RTE documentaries to look at 25 year old indie musicians, folk singers and classical players who live at home with the Ma) featuring in the rushes. There was also some odd loose threads in the narrative about pending releases which were mentioned once or twice and never followed up on, a shoddy piece of continuity and a sign that this show had its own agenda from the get-go.

  Then, there was the fact that a show called Ireland’s Rappers didn’t bother going beyond Dublin and Cork in search of stories and “incredible and sometimes barely believable characters” who could rock the mic. Indeed, we could fill the rest of this post with the names the show should have featured, but Cheebah tweeted it best of all last night.

  But did we really expect anything else from a show which opened with a throwaway line eulogising the Rubberbandits and ignoring a vibrant history from Scary Eire and Marxman to Messiah J & The Expert and onto Maverick Sabre? I genuinely thought that narrator Damien Dempsey would have known better than to get involved in this hackneyed, awkward, cliche-riddden, negative, incorrect protrayal of the country’s hip-hop scene. Surely Damo, of all people, recognises a set-up and an agenda when he sees it?

  And there was an agenda. The problem with Irish TV shows of this ilk is that they’re all about the caricature. The show makers played up the comedy aspects of a 25 year old living with his Ma – surely not an odditity in Recession 2.0 Ireland – a rapper hanging out with his girlfriend and her family celebrating a 21st, people rapping in strong Dublin accents (they’re from Dublin, what do you expect?) and the Workin’ Class Records crew giving an interview to camera with a few horses wandering around in the background. Did those who agreed to take part in the show know that this was how it would turn out? Is this really what Irish hip-hop is all about? Answer: it is to RTE and the people who made this show. They saw the idea of Irish hip-hop as something which could produce some cheap laughs for the gallery if presented in a certain way and away they went. Laughs ahoy!

  Strangely, Ireland’s Rappers focused very little on the music, but RTE TV, as we have seen again and again and again over the years has absolutely no interest in music so it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that they went for the comedy rather than musical factor. Perhaps that’s why we didn’t see such musically on-point acts as Melodica Deathship or mynameisJohn on the screen as they saw this charade for what it was (an exploitive reality TV show dressed up as something else). Then again, the people who made the show probably didn’t bother asking these people in the first place.

  The one silver lining in what was an atrocious abuse of the TV licence fee was Temper-Mental MissElayneous, who lit up the screen every time she appeared. She’s the lady who features on the brilliant Willa Lee track “Fallin’”, which we featured here last week, and her own “Proletarian Restitution” EP is well worth checking out (and paying for). Whether it was watching her freestyle on the street in Finglas or mentoring other female would-be rappers about their flow, she was on-point, lively and fascinating, one of the brightest sights and sounds on the Irish music scene right now. There’s someone who’s a whole lot more than just being one of the “incredible and sometimes barely believable characters” the show set out to capture. She’s the real deal.

  Why didn’t we have more people like her (because they’re out there) rather than taking-the-mick scenes involving rappers at home? Because it was easier for everyone involved with the show to send up this idea – per TV’s cliched way of looking at hip-hop, rappers are supposed to live in gaffs straight out of MTV’s Cribs rather than in a terraced house in an estate in north Dublin – rather than explore the real stories and inspirations behind the Irish hip-hop scene. It would be wrong to call Ireland’s Rappers a missed opportunity because the show and the station had absolutely no intention of going anywhere near the real thing. Instead, we got what TV thought we wanted – cheap laughs at someone else’s expense while ignoring that scene’s strong, strident positives. Anyone really surprised? (If you missed the show, you can watch it on the RTE Player here)

• A pointyheaded post about Irish bands and Irish radio

  February 14, 2012 @ 9:45 am | by Jim Carroll

  We must be due a bout of fuming really soon about Irish bands and radio play. There’s a grand stretch in the evenings – yes, there really is – so that must mean that we’ll soon get an assortment of interested parties grumbling, groaning, whinging, fighting, arguing and spitting feathers about this topic.

  It’s a debate as familiar and predictable as a Brendan O’Carroll sketch. Those who are in or who represent Irish bands will point out that their acts don’t get as much radio play as acts from out foreign who just happen to make the kind of pop tunes which music radio likes to play to pull an audience. Those from the radio side of the fence will point to the amount of Irish music they do play (come on down Bressie, Royseven and The Coronas, all of whom received much airplay love in 2011), all the initiatives they’re involved in to help homegrown talent and make the subtle fact that most Irish bands don’t really make the kind of tunes which sound well on daytime radio. There will be a lot of mud-slinging, some political ass-covering (though your man, the showband lad, is no longer a senator) and then, the argument will go away for another 12 months and we can start to talk about something else again.

  

  Perhaps it’s time for some other solutions for this evergreen, hoary dispute (OTR, we’re all about the solutions this week – tomorrow, we’re bringing Lar back). Both sides will claim that the other side have to move first, but that’s really going to get us nowhere. Both sides will claim that they’re doing the right thing and, you know what, they’re right. But that also gets us nowhere. Both sides will try to claim the high moral ground, but the high moral ground is always covered in fog at this time of the year so, yeah, that gets us nowhere as well. Like I said, new solutions required. Smart lad or lass wanted. New balls please.

  Radio is hugely important for any act because it’s a brilliant promotional tool to get to the mainstream, the people who turn acts into hits. If you get a radio hit, you’re on your way in this country to moving your gigs from pub back-rooms to theatres and big halls. Word of mouth is hugely important, you can get so far with print and online and a good rep as a live act is also useful (we’ll forget about TV – the TV business doesn’t give two damns about music so we’ll do as they do to balance things out), but radio is the key player in moving acts from next big things to big things.

  The problem is that existing radio stations are very tightly formatted and every single one of them stays glued to this format like a toddler stays attached to their comfort blanket. When you turn on 2fm or Today FM or Spin and if the stations want to make sure advertisers keep advertising with them, the listener should know what they’re getting. You can’t expect to turn on the stations at 10am to hear MMOTHS’ new single or a track from God Is An Astronaut’s current album. Now, you and me and every OTR reader would like that, but we’re in the minority. We’re the odd ones out. The people who listen to radio want something else and the radio stations give them “something else”. It’s why people listen to radio and people who read OTR and other music-mad online blogs and publications don’t listen to radio. You might get a show like that if you tuned into Zan Rowe’s morning show on Triple J in Australia, but adventurous radio of a smiliar ilk does not happened on daytime mainstream FM stations here.

  Now, I know that some of you are going to tut and say “but the radio stations SHOULD be playing Irish bands! They SHOULD be playing Lethal Dialect or SertOne or Bouts! It’s so fecking unfair! Boo!” And you’re right. I’d happily listen to a radio station which played those acts along with a ton of other ones that I like. As things stand, I rarely listen to music radio during the day because I have all those acts I want to listen to available a click or CD away and my musical tastes are far, far better than anyone on daytime radio. Sure, I’d love to get more people listening to those acts – music fans are music evangalists – and there are various online ways to do so (Last.FM, This Is My Jam etc), but I accept that radio as it currently stands is not the way to do this. Ain’t going to happen. Save your breath to cool your porridge.

  However, there are solutions which don’t require kicking and screaming and forcing the radio stations to use ridiculous regulations and loopholes to claim Kylie Minogue as an Irish act because she recorded the track in an Irish studio and drank Barry’s Tea while she was there. If people really think that there is a demand for Irish underground and indie rock and pop bands on an Irish radio station, start a radio station. Fight fire with fire. Actually go out there and prove that there’s a demand from an audience to hear Irish bands day and night.

  As regular readers know, OTR is a firm believer in doing stuff rather than giving out yards about them. Yes, it’s easier sit on your arse complaining on Twitter about stuff like so many sneersters do, but it’s actually much healthier, educational, entertaining and enlightening to put stuff together. All of which means I’m amazed that no-one involved with the new school of Irish music has put together an online station to broadcast what they believe to be these fantastic bands. What about a temporary licence from the BAI to show that there’s a demand there to hear these acts? While we’re at it with the BAI, wouldn’t Irish acts be considered a community for the purposes of getting one of those community radio licences? The solutions are out there.

  But perhaps the big problem holding back all these initiatives (I don’t think I’m the first to point out these alternatives exist) is the unspoken fear that perhaps the numbers willing to listen to and support such a station are small. That the market for Irish acts is nowhere near as big or healthy as we’re led to believe by the success of some of the acts. That the number of Irish acts who do get mainstream radio play are small for the reason that most of them just don’t have tunes to make the grade and such a station would soon become boring and full of contractually-obligated filler. That the acts who make the break are the exception and not the rule. That you need more than just Irish acts to make decent 24/7 radio programming and then the argument is, like it has always been, about how much Irish music you have in the mix. In truth, the huffing and puffing which goes on about this issue is a bit of a smokescreen because all involved know the huffing the puffing hides the real issues, many of which are outlined above. The only way to prove otherwise is to forget about the current bunch of stations (including – DOI time – Phantom FM, where I do a weekly show) and start again. High time for someone who fervently believes that there is a radio audience for Irish acts who are currently getting blanked by the existing stations to get off the fence.

• Irish music 2012: the lay of the land

  January 3, 2012 @ 8:54 am | by Jim Carroll

  There’s something quite invigorating about the start of a new year and all that the changing of the calendar on the wall brings with it. Time to start anew. Time to try out well-known Gucci model Sam Beckett’s great line all over again. Time to go back up the hill again with renewed vigour. Out with the old, in with the new and all of that. Your man Pope Gregory XIII knew what he was doing, you know.

  There are naturally some traditions which go hand in hand with this changing of the guard and, for the music-writing classes, this is the time of year to attempt to predict the acts who are going to do great things in the coming year. You’ll find my list of 10 Irish acts who I think are going to make an impression in the next 12 months here, all of whom will be familiar to visitors to this neck of the web. You will also find my list of get-out-of-jail-free cards, caveats and conditions at the start of the piece. Ain’t going to be that solider, bud. Anyone who still thinks that those who compile these lists are infalliable and really know what is going to happen in the next 12 months is living on another planet smoking a pipe with Stephen Ireland.

  Let’s be honest, it probably won’t be a brand new act who’ll end up being the Irish sound of 2012. There will be plenty of brand new acts who’ll make a splash next year and who will be featured on this blog and others as the year spins out but, in terms of going beyond the small constituency of new band watchers and blog readers, you need to look further afield at acts who’ve already done their developmental work. It used to be called “paying you dues” but “developmental work” sounds swankier. Going forward.

  Because it’s a long-term game. The meme of our time, after all, is time. It takes time for an act to sort out their heads, it takes time for an act to realise what they’re doing. You don’t become the sound of 2012 by suddenly appearing in 2011 and making like you’re cock of the walk. Every act who will make a splash in the coming 12 months, from Lana Del Rey and Emile Sande on the international front to Little Green Cars and This Club at home, have been working their butts off for years to get to this stage. The best overnight success stories are the ones which take five years because these usually lead to sustainable careers. And isn’t that goal?

  Speaking of sustainability, it’s also worth looking at what’s going on offstage as well, starting with a spot of omphaloskepsis. For the size of it and the volume of music produced, the Irish music scene generates a lot of introspection and analysis. It’s fair to say that media coverage, by and large, breaks down along predictable lines. Most of the mainsteam outlets concentrate on the big hitters, the acts who can sell a couple of thousand downloads of a new song or sell out a big room because that’s what mainstream media outlets do. The non-mainstream media, by contrast, concentrate on the acts who either haven’t yet hit those goals or who never will or who are very happy to make music for themselves. The non-mainstream media usually slags off the acts which the mainstream media covers because that’s the default setting (The Coronas will rarely bother the Hype Machine and both are perfectly happy with that state of affairs) and the mainstream media usually doesn’t bother going near the darlings of the non-mainstream media (not that some of those darlings want to have any truck with the showbiz pages). Two parallel lines rocking off into the distance.

  Of course, both sides can up their game. I’m with Handsome Young Stranger when it comes to the current trend for music blogs to cover their asses with the term “curation”. When you stick up YouTube videos and Soundcloud clips – especially videos and clips which everyone else is pimping at the same time – with just a scrap of explanation or review or critical slant, please note that this is just softcore PR and nothing more. Less curation and more criticism please, especially criticism of some of the non-mainstream’s most sacred cows who’ve gone fat and lazy. We know you think it – now write it.

  Also, it’s never really a good thing when cosy relationships exist between artists and those writing about said acts. It’s sadly inevitable in a country as small as this, but it amazes me that it still goes on and that it’s somehow seen by both sides as a positive. Where’s the critical remove, the distance required to serve your readers? And don’t give me that aul’ shite about blogs being different and being there to act as a cheerleaders. If you want to be a cheerleader for the act, spellcheck the press release. But, thankfully because it’s a small country, we can recognise the ties that bind and hence why some writers are probably not quite as highly regarded as they think they are. More declarations of interests please – or, better still, find someone else to cover because there’s no shortage of acts.

  Still offstage, it will be an interesting year for the domestic scene’s infrastructure and influence. The entire industry is still in that fascinating state of flux when anything can happen, which is good news for anyone keen to get involved in the barter between act and audience. The more things change, the more opportunities present themselves. For example, remember the handwringing and obituaries when Road Records closed down and how many stressed the problems Irish acts would now have flogging their new albums? But since then, there’s been both an explosion of new releases and a number of new retail stores entering the scene in the capital. Just because something changes doesn’t mean it’s the end of days. Scenes morph and adopt to new realities. Life goes on. Life has to go on. And the domestic scene also adopts to these changes because that’s the natural order of things.

  In terms of influence, I’m eager to see how the focus on Irish acts at next week’s Eurosonic festival in Groningen is going to play out. These are acts who’ve come through the mill here at home over the last few years and it will be interesting to find out what Eurosonic’s battery of booking agents, festival promoters and media folks make of them. The proof of the pudding will be in the festival bookings they receive as a result of their 30 minutes onstage in the Netherlands and where things go from there. It’s all very well to bang on about the health of the domestic indie, alternative and electronic scenes but, unless we’re looking to tip the hat to Éamon de Valera’s call for economic self-sufficiency, the acts need to make an impression abroad too. A gig in a room in Groningen is one place to start that dance.

• There’s a long, hard road ahead for musicians

  October 14, 2011 @ 9:53 am | by Jim Carroll

  Any musicians reading The Ticket today will not need us to tell them that it’s tough out there.

  Between falls in revenue from recorded music, the collapse of the traditional record label model and the recession’s negative effect on live music attendances, acts are finding it increasingly difficult to making a living from music.

  It was a topic which came up again and again at the Hard Working Class Heroes convention in Dublin last weekend (DOI: I chaired the panel discussions), but there were no easy answers.

  For instance, everyone knows the money artists get from streaming is peanuts compared to downloads and physical sales (Fast Company estimates that you get between $0.001 and $0.004 per play from Pandora, Sirius XM Radio and Spotify).

  Acts know too that they will be several years into their career before they will be earning decent money for their live shows. So what to do (aside from writing better tunes)?

  The problem is that there is not an one-size-fits-all solution. At HWCH, panelists discussed areas like the niche economy and diversification as possible ways forward. There was also mention of the recent pieces in The Quietus by Joe Cardamone from the Icarus Line about his band’s experience in this brave new world.

  In truth, though, it’s down to the act themselves to realise what they’re getting into. Leaving aside the hobbyists (who don’t really intend to make a living from music) and the established acts (who have a different set of concerns), it’s the bands who are caught in the middle without the safety net of a fanbase who face the biggest hurdles.

  Acts need to recognise that there’s no such thing as instant good times and that they face many years of unpaid development before things might – might – change for them. It’s a long, hard road for sure.

• Hard Working Class Heroes 2011: the pointyheaded overview

  October 10, 2011 @ 9:36 am | by Jim Carroll

  Now, that’s what we call a weekend. The ninth Hard Working Class Heroes’ shebang hit the capital’s streets with a plethora of gigs, panels, conversations and gossip between bands, fans and those who make a living connecting one with the other. To our eyes, there was a hell of a lot more people binge-gigging every night (yes, including a school night like Thursday), which is a very good thing. It’s all very well to talk about some sort of boom in Irish music but it’s nothing without people standing out front checking out the bands and roaming in a pack from venue to venue. After the jump, the news, views and pointyheaded opinions from #hwch11.
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• Why bands should leave pester power to toddlers

  August 24, 2011 @ 9:29 am | by Jim Carroll

  This tweet from Nialler9 last week probably spoke for many who’ve seen their email in-boxes, Twitter feeds, Facebook pages and blogs invaded daily by bands looking for votes in online competitions.

  You know the kind: a band have entered some battle of the bands’ competition to be the first act on the bill at some sponsored-up-to-the-eyeballs’ hooley or other. In order to win this allegedly valuable prize, the band need everyone they know to click “Like” or reteweet a tweet or vote for them on some heavily branded page. Thus, because they don’t know any better, the band pester their fans, friends and people they don’t know from a gap in the ditch to vote for them with their clicks. It’s bad enough when bands do this once, but many come back again and again looking for your time, annoying you even more in the process. It’s the same kind of carry-on which a toddler usually employs to great effect to get you to buy them a bar of chocolate at a supermarket checkout till.

  The problem for bands who use pester power is that they’re really not doing themselves any favours. For a start, pestering or hassling would-be fans and influencers is not a good look. Moreover, if a band really thinks that their only chance to succeed or shine will come from winning some competition to be the first act on the bill at some sponsored-up-to-the-eyeballs’ hooley or other (a victory based on a popularity contest rather than anything to do with their music), they really need to cop themselves on. If a band think spending their time racking up emails and tweets and status updates and the like in order to publicise that competition is the best use of their time and resources, they really should be in another game.

  The only winners with these shenanigans are the brands who are behind the silly competition to begin with, not the bands who are collectively annoying everyone they know with their pleadings. It’s high fives all round for the marketing department, where the value of the prize bears no relation to the value exerted by the brand from their involvement. All the pestering, hassling and annoying is done by the band, not the brand, so the latter get to gain from the former’s exertions.

  To be fair, you can see where the bands are coming from. They operate in an ever-changing music business where it appears that new players like brands and corporates hold more sway and present more opportunities for them than the traditional industry players. If there’s a new set of rules by which to play the game, bands have to get with it. That most brands and corporates have absolutely no real interest in music or building sustainable careers or developing a band seems to be left unsaid in the brave new post-record label world. You can say many things about those old-school labels, but many actually knew that there was far more profit to be made from a band with a long-term career than an one-hit wonder. Brands want the instant hits which come from Facebook likes and calls to action.

  Turning bands into grunts for some poxy online contest with a poorer prize than you’ll get in your local bingo hall on a wet Tuesday night also reinforces the notion that bands are supposd to in constant competition with their peers for attention, profile, gigs and opportunities. If you don’t go for this amazing opportunity to be the first act on the bill at some sponsored-up-to-the-eyeballs’ hooley or other (or, indeed, any online competition where it’s about the number of people you can pester to get behind you), some other new act will get there instead and you’ll be left behind. Stupid, untrue and illogical, but many acts sadly seem to buy into this mentality.

  To be honest, acts should really view any online popularity competition with great suspicion rather than bail in with great gusto, unless they have some weird desire to help a brand reach a bigger audience. After all, in the long run, that competition and your association with a brand (who will be shaking you down for more rights than any major label would dream of demanding) is doing feck all for you, your band and your music. And you are, aren’t you, in this for the long run?

• Hell hath no fury like a pop svengali scorned

  June 24, 2011 @ 8:16 am | by Jim Carroll

  There is a law in music journalism that you view everything which Louis Walsh says about his acts with a jaundiced eye. The Mayoman remains one of the most skilled practitioners of the dark art of spin and soundbites.

  Your instant reaction, then, when the Peter Mandelson of pop refers to Boyzone as “yesterday’s men” is to look for the angle. Is Walsh cranking up the X Factor hard-sell? Does one of his other charges have a new record to flog? What’s in it for him?

  In this case, it’s to do with a parting of the ways between band and manager and the manager getting his retaliation in first.

  “They’re like Blue – yesterday’s men”, zinged Walsh to Heat magazine as he collected his P45. “There’s too much competition for them. You have to have something amazing as there’s so much talent out there, JLS, One Direction, Westlife, The Wanted.”

  Leaving aside the questionable placement of “talent” and “Westlife” in the same sentence, Walsh’s comments about Boyzone are telling, especially in the light of Take That’s annexing of Croke Park last weekend.

  Like Take That, Boyzone also reformed. But, unlike them, the Irish band never sustained the early burst of interest created by their comeback in 2008.

  No doubt, the death of Stephen Gately and Ronan Keating’s adventures in tabloid hell contributed to the lack of enthusiasm from the general public about the project.

  But as Take That have shown, a boy-band reunion can’t be just about nostalgia. What has contributed to Take That’s current success is that their new, post-reunion material is as strong as anything from the first time around.

  With Boyzone, that kind of successful reinvention just hasn’t happened and Walsh obviously thinks it never will. Better to head for the hills and hope Wonderland don’t turn out to be a flop.

• Next steps for Irish music

  May 20, 2011 @ 9:45 am | by Jim Carroll

  As readers know only all too well, last year was a spectacular one for Irish music. Over 200 albums were released in 2010 and the quality of these albums was remarkably high. It was, as we’ve said before, something of a golden age.

  The question, though, is what comes next.

  An answer of sorts was provided last week at the Great Escape festival and convention in Brighton where a bunch of Irish bands were playing and showcasing. There were queues around the block for Villagers (who won an Ivor Novello award for Best song Musically and Lyrically for “Becoming a Jackal” yesterday), huge interest in James Vincent McMorrow (legendary talent scout Seymour Stein checked out the show) and growing interest in bands like Funeral Suits.

  Events like the Great Escape provide the next step for acts who are ready to take advantage of interest from abroad. In the case of McMorrow, for example, his “Early In the Morning” debut album will be doing a lot of musical networking for him for quite some time to come. For instance, that album and those songs has ensured an appearance next week on BBC’s Later with Jools TV show and more European and US dates.

  The name of the game for Irish music is to keep producing acts who can go on to do business abroad. A working band is unlikely to be able to make do through Irish activities alone. But getting to the level where you can tour and release abroad takes talent, time, perseverence and a large amount of luck.

  Last year’s bumper crop was the result of years of hard graft both by the musicians onstage and those behind the scenes. The next step is making sure that those acts who can make the most of shop-windows like the Great Escape – and next year’s Eurosonic festival, where Ireland is to be the featured country – get to do so. As Villagers and McMorrow have shown, the talent is there.

• Jedward have the last laugh

  April 19, 2011 @ 1:59 pm | by Jim Carroll

  Around about a year ago, there was a lot of guffawing about Jedward on the back of the pair getting their P45s from Sony Music after one single. But, as OTR noted when the story broke, you had to wonder who were the real dopes in all of this, as it was becoming perfectly clear that Jedward were not really in this for any sort of musical gain. Music was, after all, just one string to their rather bizarre bow and a pretty poor one at that so how any music company expected to make cash from them was anyone’s guess. You wondered just where the Grimes’ twins would go from there. One thing was clear, though: we hadn’t heard the last of them just because the Sony A&R department told them to sling their hooks.

  Fast-forward a year and Jedward are the ones with the grins. Several breathless stories last week told of a multi-million year for the pair thanks to gigs, personal appearances, product endorsements, advertising campaigns and anything else which will turn a buck for the buckos. They are even stars on the bar mitzvah circuit (and yes, there is evidence to show that this isn’t some whopper from the Louis Walsh spin machine). They are raking it in. The group who finished sixth in The X Factor two years ago are now doing better than anyone else from that TV show. Who knew?

  There are several lessons in all of this. Firstly, never write off two lads from Lucan with vertical-hold hairstyles who are managed by someone who can always find brass from muck. Secondly, never under-estimate the difficulties involved in trying to make cash from sales of recorded music in 2011 and beyond. And thirdly, Jedward are going to be with us for a very, very long time. Now, isn’t that a cheery thought for the afternoon?

• The real costs of playing SXSW

  March 29, 2011 @ 1:54 pm | by Jim Carroll

  A footnote to the last of last week’s posts about SXSW 2011. One or two readers commented about the Arts Council grants received by the Irish acts who go to play at the Austin, Texas event. Since then, a couple of acts who have played US showcase events like SXSW (and CMJ) have been in touch by email to give their side of the story and point out that “musos are not enjoying holidays at the Arts Council’s expense”.

  Last year (2010), funding to attend SXSW was €1,200 per act. According to one act “flights alone for four musicians cost around €2400 and that’s before adding in extra flight costs for equipment etc.”

  There’s also the cost of getting working visas which you are legally required to have to attend and play at SXSW. You can apply directly to the US embassy for these, but it’s often easier to use an agency as you have to liaise with the US Musicians Union and demonstrate that your act is internationally recognised (cuttings, reviews, sales figures etc). A lot of acts chance it without a visa, but it’s a big risk if you’ve already shelled out for flights. Using a visa agency such as Tamizdat to sort this out can cost up to €1000.

  While backline is provided at most showcases, you may need to rent backline for some shows and unofficial parties so that’s another €100 to €200 per show to factor into your costs. Another hidden cost is a step-up transformer to allow European equipment to run off American electricity, which comes to around €80 per show. According to one source, “you’re looking at kicking in at least €3000 of your own money to play at SXSW, if not more”.

  Another important point to note is that this funding comes from Culture Ireland, and not the Arts Council, and is administered through First Music Contact.

  (The acts who have given OTR these details have done so on the basis that they remain confidential)

• Stories from the radio

  March 7, 2011 @ 9:33 am | by Jim Carroll

  Aslan have never enjoyed a great rep in certain quarters. You can chalk this down to many things, from the band’s music (brilliant, catchy pop songs which get played to death on the radio are not everyone’s cup of tea) to their longetivity (sticking around for nearly three decades is quite staggering, in fairness), but there’s no doubt that their lengthy innings means that there’s a lot of fantastic tales to be told. I remember interviewing back in 1998 or 1999 and they were fantastic value, just one cracking story after another.

  In many ways, then, interviewing the band’s Christy Dignam and Billy McGuinness was an easy gig for Miriam O’Callaghan on yesterday’s Miriam Meets show. She just had to make sure the microphones were on, point the duo in the direction of another anecdote and away they went without any need for the presenter to stick her oar in.

  While O’Callaghan’s Sunday morning show often suffers from fluffy whimsy and a feeling that the host has to induce the guest to tears at least once, this episode was never going to fall into that trap. Dignam and McGuinness covered the whole nine yards of Aslan’s existence, from the early days playing the Revenue Club, rehearsing in a pig-sty and throwing in decent jobs as a baker and telephone engineer to the era of signing a record deal, partying every night away and Dignam’s heroin addiction right onto the band splitting up and getting back together again.

  There were no punches pulled when it came to discussing such issues as Dignam getting fired from the band he founded – the others left this dirty deed to their then manager Danny Kenny while they dodged the singer in a studio across town – or how he dealt with his addiction. It was an open, honest and brutally raw hour of radio and made you realise that there’s one hell of a documentary in Aslan’s topsy-turvey crazy world. I just hope (and assume) someone is working on it.

  Patricia, Mary and Mary-Lou Too was the title of a brilliant post-general election 2007 on three female candidates who ran (ultimately unsuccessfully) for the Dail in Dublin Central. Dogfight: Conor and Charlie was this election’s offering on that front, documentary maker Ciaran Cassidy following Dublin South West Fianna Fail dudes Conor Lenihan and Charlie “Mr Tallaght” O’Connor as they battled for their political lives.

  Cassidy’s time with the candidates produced radio gold. What stood out was the reaction the pair received on the doorsteps. There was plenty of the anger we kept hearing about during the election campaign, as people reacted to finding two of the gobshites responsible for the mess we’re in, smirking away at their front door. That there was only one reported incident of threatened violence against this pair of doofuses is a credit to the maturity of the voters of Dublin South West, who instead took their savage revenge at the ballot-box.

  What also stood out was the pair’s reaction to this anger. There were lots of laughs, jibes and slaggings as the Fianna Failers failed time and time again to realise just why the constituents were so outraged. There was no empathy, no understanding, no sympathy of the situations they were hearing about because Lenihan and O’Connor just didn’t get it and have been insulated from the hardships and hard choices which faced their constituents (and will continue to be, as you can see from this piece listing their pensions and redundancy payments). For them, it was a bad day at the office and, sure, they’ll be back again in a few years time. For the voters, this was a cold, calculated, completely warranted response to 14 years of Fianna Fail incompetence.

  If those compiling Fianna Fail’s post-game blame report needs something else to analyse, this documentary should be compulsory listening. Of course, given the pig-headed arrogance displayed to the bitter end by the fired pair and their failed peers like John O’Donoghue and Dick Roche, there’s every chance that the reduced rump of Fianna Fail diehards is still wandering around, scratching its collective head, trying to work out what just happened. Having a new leader who did a good line in looking pious and saying sorry at every juncture was just not good enough in the end. Having candidates like Lenihan and O’Connor rolling around the constituency like they were to the manor born was not what the voters wanted. As the documentary showed, the writing was on the wall from the very beginning of the campaign, if only the party and its candidates had bothered to look.

• Shit Robot goes live, says sorry, plots world domination

  February 18, 2011 @ 9:30 am | by Jim Carroll

  Never say never. Last year when The Ticket interviewed Marcus Lambkin, AKA Shit Robot, he was adamant that there would be no live show.

  People wanted Lambkin to start doing shows to promote his “From the Cradle to the Rave” debut album, but he was not interested.

  “I’m going to resist it for now because I think it would be very difficult to put together a live show for that record”, he said. “I couldn’t have the vocalists like Ian, Nancy or Alexis onstage every night for a start.

  “If I was going to do it, I’d want to do it right. I’m not going to stand up onstage with a laptop. That would be foolish.”

  Five months later and, yes, you’ve guessed it, Lambkin is about to start doing live shows. On The Record contacted him and asked him to explain himself.

  “I was under pressure to do a live show at the time, but as I said back then, I wouldn’t have the vocalists on stage, or it wouldn’t be like a conventional ‘band’ thing.

  “But then we started to think about things a little differently, different ways of bringing the show to life, but it still being Shit Robot. We decided to build something called The Shit Robot Show. It’s based on a large screen, with me inside it, kind of like a giant DJ booth, but with me playing some synths and hardware. We’ve got some of the vocalists appearing on the screen, and some pretty cool visuals for each track. It will hopefully be a good show, I’m excited about it.”

  Shit Robot’s first live show wll be at London’s Fabric on March 4 followed by some SXSW appearances. An Irish festival show is also likely this summer.

• Gong! Gong! Gong! Digital Socket Awards comingatcha

  February 1, 2011 @ 2:13 pm | by Jim Carroll

  It’s nearly time to roll out the carpet which the organisers got on the cheap from the Meteor Music Awards now that they’re finished with it. On Thursday night, the first ever Digital Socket Awards will be handed out at a swish(-ish) ceremony at the Grand Social, Dublin 2. The DSAs are Ireland’s first ever music awards’ event where the contenders were nominated by you, the public, and decided by us, 26 Irish music bloggers including OTR.

  You’ll find a full list of the shortlists in the various categories here and the winners will be announced on the night. Aside from all the gong-giving, there will be live sets from Meljoann, Groom and some very special guests who may or may not be on one of the shortlists. If you want to go along, tickets are a tenner (plus booking fees) and all profits go to Aware.

  The folks who’ve put the Digital Socket Awards in motion are Peter Nagle, Ronan Hunt-Murphy, Naomi McArdle and Aidan Cuffe. Having had experience of this kind of thing before, I reckon all four can’t wait for Friday morning to come along and normal life can resume. Best of luck to them with the event – and best of luck to all the nominees.

• Farewell to the Meteors

  January 11, 2011 @ 8:34 am | by Jim Carroll

  There are few people other than Westlife who are likely to miss the Meteor Music Awards. Almost every year, the Westlife lads would turn up, smile for the cameras and go home with another clatter of gongs for the collection. There must be little room in their expansive gaffs for anything else with all those gongs, tooth-whitening products and abandoned tuxedos from their attempt to be the Rat Pack.

  But there will be no awards for Westlife or anyone else in 2011. Yesterday, Meteor announced that they had “decided to take a break” after “10 rockin’ years” and “not produce the Meteors in 2011”. Few will be surprised if this break becomes permanent.

  You could call the Meteors many things but “rockin’” is not one of them. It was an event which grew out of what used to be the IRMA Awards and previously the IRMA Milk Awards (both attempts by Irish record industry boyos IRMA to ape the Brits) and got going in 2001, when Elton John turned up to collect his humanitarian award.

  The die was cast and the Meteors became synonymous with red carpets, showbiz reporters (Xpose must be gutted that the event has been axed), tacky limos (to cart the stars from one door to another, believe it or not) and W-list (as in “who the hell is that?”) celebrities in the audience. There was never much surprise or debate about the winners, with the annual 2fm Hope For… award for upcoming acts in particular often seen as the kiss of death for any aspiring act (hello Rubyhorse, Relish and Angel Of Mons). If any of the acts who won awards received a sales bounce as a result of turning up and waving at the crowd, we didn’t receive a press release about it.

  It’s unlikely, though, that anyone will step into the breach and attempt to replace the Meteors in the short-term. Putting on an event on that scale requires a significant production budgets (Meteor had to obviously move from the O2 in recent years and a lot of cash was needed to transform the RDS into a venue fit for TV) and promotional spend. In current straitened financial times, such sponsorship budgets are more likely to be found in sports rather than entertainment because of a perceived better bang for the sponsor’s bucks. Then, there’s the fact that Irish music awards of this ilk will be associated with Meteor for quite some time to come so any incoming brand will have to spend a lot of cash to break that link. The aul’ red-carpet can be rolled up and put into storage for now.

• Gong! Gong! Gong! OTR’s Gongs of 2010!

  December 23, 2010 @ 9:55 am | by Jim Carroll

  Gong! Gong! Gong! We end the year with OTR’s Gongs Of 2010, our set of beautifully designed awards presented to those who have served the rock’n’roll cause at home and away in the last 12 months. Please note that tongues are firmly in cheeks.

  Before we start handing out the gongs, a HUGE thanks to ALL our readers for a brilliant year on the blog. A round of applause and a standing ovation for every single one of you from me. I keep saying this because it’s true – OTR only works because of you lot reading it, commenting on it and tipping me off about stuff for it. It’s very humbling to see the reaction which posts here generate and it spurs me on to keep OTR at the very top of the game. Thanks so much for spending another 12 months reading, commenting and fuming on OTR. Have a fantastic Christmas break. Be safe on those roads if you’re travelling. And best wishes for the next 12 months. Normal service resumes on Wednesday January 5 with OTR’s 2011 preview.

  Now, the envelopes please. The winners of OTR’s Gongs of 2010 are….
  (more…)

• Why “Horse Outside” probably won’t be the Christmas number one

  December 21, 2010 @ 9:43 am | by Jim Carroll

  It’s simple, really: it looks like the Rubberbandits won’t sell enough copies of their single to make the top spot their own. The other contender for the Number One slot is The X Factor TV talent show winner Matt Cardle and, on the face of the sales tallies to date, he’s going to be the last man standing when the shops close on Thursday night.

  Over a busy retail weekend (remember that the Irish chart is compiled on sales from Friday to Thursday so Friday to Monday is when the bulk of sales happen), Cardle sold over 22,000 CDs and downloads of his single (that’s 43,000 units in total). Meanwhile, the Rubberbandits flogged nearly 9,000 CDs and downloads in the same period (their cumulative total is now just over 17,000). That’s over 2 Cardle sales for every Bandit purchase and it’s a gap which is unlkely to be breached by the time the final chart is compiled and published on Christmas Eve. While the Limerick act are well ahead on the downloads side of the house, they’re just not in the race when it comes to CD sales and the chart is based on a combination of both.

  Of course, very few who mine chart data and look at record releases week in and week out will be surprised by this. The Rubberbandits may have a lot of traction at the moment with over three million views for the “Horse Outside” video, a surreal Liveline episode and an interview on The Late Late Show (a show, which producer Michael Kealy tweeted, attracted an average audience of over a million), but that’s no match for Cardle and The X Factor machine, especially when you look at the demographics of their respective fanbases.

  See, the Rubberbandits have encountered one of the biggest problems with the modern record business. Having loads of video views to brag about to the media is one thing; getting those people who watched the video to actually pay for a download or buy a CD is another game entirely. In fairness, the Rubberbandits aren’t the only act finding this hard to do this. Put plainly, the audience who are making all the online noise right now about the Rubberbandits (and indeed, other online hits of this ilk) are not the people who buy singles or even downloads. They’ll chant “fuck your Christmas number one, I’ve a horse outside” until they’re blue in the face. They’ll roar along to the single when they hear it on the radio or at a club. They”ll go along to one of the band’s gig for the crack with their pals. But they won’t buy the damn single. Like people who will tell opinion pollsters that they won’t vote for Fianna Fail and then actually do, these music fans will swear blind on Facebook and Twitter that they’ll buy the track on iTunes. But they won’t – and the numbers back that up. Once again, it’s a case of online commitments to a cause not translating into real life action.

  The fact is that the vast majority of the Irish population are the mainstream. They’re the people who buy five albums a year, the people who watch The X Factor and the people who buy singles by lads like Cardle when they see them on the shelf in Tesco. The mainstream saw and heard the Rubberbandits last week and decided “they’re not as funny as Pat Shortt” or “they’re not as good as The Script” and moved on. They will not be buying “Horse Outside” so that’s the vast majority of the Irish population turning their noses up at the Rubberbandits. They’re in the Cardle camp.

  The Rubberbandits may say that they’ve no interest in the Christmas number one but, deep down inside, they and their team probably thought it was possible to beat The X Factor (the caption on that YouTube video appeals to fans to “join the campaign to make Rubberbandits number 1 this Christmas!”) Then again, the consolation prize for being out-sold by another lad from the telly is a pretty damn good one.

  In the space of a few weeks, they’ve gone from an act with a small, clued-in following to one who captured the national zeitgeist for a few days. They’re a bigger, more high profile act than they were a few months ago. Their December shows are sold out and they’re ready to move to bigger venues in 2011. Whether they can maintain this trajectory remains to be seen – another “Horse Outside” would definitely help – but, if they play their cards right, they could end up having the last laugh.

  The danger, of course, is that they could end up becoming the new Crystal Swing. You do remember them, don’t you? They were the temporary toast of hipsters and irony fans everywhere a few months ago before becoming toast when that in-crowd moved on to some other joke. Crystal Swing are still as shite now as they were before anyone paid any attention to them, but no-one is betting on them to have a Christmas smash hit. Rubberbandits will argue that they’d an audience before all this attention, but so had Crystal Swing (an audience of country music fans is still an audience, especially when the bandwagon-jumpers have abandoned you). The trick for the Rubberbandits is to keep their heads when all around them are losing theirs and take the right advice. Going for the quick, easy bucks will only bite them in the arses in the long-run.

• Introducing the Digital Socket Awards

  December 13, 2010 @ 9:44 am | by Jim Carroll

  The Digital Socket Awards are a music event with a difference. They are Ireland’s first ever music awards’ event where the contenders are nominated by you, the public, and decided by us, 26 Irish music bloggers.

  The process is as simple as an IMF bailout. You go to the website to nominate the longlist in a number of different categories, from best independent label to best album. Every nomination will make it to the longlist so there’s no need to spam for votes or fire up the street teams. The 26 blogger judges will then use this list to vote on a shortlist of three finalists in each category. The winners will be announced at the Digital Socket Awards’ event at Dublin’s Grand Social on February 3. The event will feature live acts, DJs and other bits of razzmatazz (sure, there might even be a red carpet if someone manages to pick one up cheap in the sales).

  The people who’ve put the Digital Socket Awards in motion are Peter Nagle, Ronan Hunt-Murphy, Naomi McArdle and Aidan Cuffe. Full information on the whole shebang on the website.

  (DOI: I’m one of the blogger judges)

• “We’re seeing something of a golden age as new bands and releases come to the fore like never before”

  October 18, 2010 @ 9:43 am | by Jim Carroll

  In Saturday’s paper, I wrote a piece about a new golden age for Irish music. It’s something which has been on my mind for the past few months and, when the paper’s arts editor Shane Hegarty contacted me with a similar thought, the piece came together.

  A few footnotes. (1) Timing is everything: last week, the Irish music industry was all over the media but not because of a new record from Shit Robot or Imelda May. Instead, it was all about the major labels, piracy, Paul McGuinness and court-dates. If you were to read the runes based on that coverage, you’d think the industry was in a shocker and about to go the way of the dodo. Yet, just as the industry bigwigs, lobbyists and legal eagles continue to fight a fight which they’ve been fighting and losing since 1999, there’s another Irish music industry which has never been more vibrant, productive or alive. That, for me, was the gist of the piece, the contrast between the optics and the reality, between the past and the future.

  (2) I spent the tail-end of last week in Manchester at the In the City conference and festival. The weekend before, I’d done the binge-gigging thing at Hard Working Class Heroes in Dublin. What struck me in Manchester again and again was that the standard of acts just wasn’t at the same level as the bands I’d seen in Dublin the previous weekend. Sure, they sounded fresh and were tackling the post-punk angles with relish but the musicianship, the chops, were nowhere near as developed as the bands I’d seen the previous week. That’s something which you couldn’t have said 10 years ago. The overall standard has shot up. This also applies to bands who might not necessarily be my cup of tea – I’m not a huge fan of bands like The Chakras or The Rags, but the quality of the former’s live show (as seen at In the City) and the latter’s album has to be acknowledged.

  (3) Another point to make about the self-release culture. While there were undoubtedly bands who stuck out their own releases in the past, they just didn’t get the same amount of attention as today’s crew. Back then, as I say in the piece, the established labels still had a grip on the mechanics of releasing and promoting a record. Today, a release by an Irish band off their own back or on a small label is likely to get as much unpaid-for attention as any major label release. As a result, the releases get way, way, way more attention and coverage than was ever the case a decade ago. And yes, of course, just as not all major release records are terrible, not all self-released Irish albums are works of great art either.

  (4) A small but important clarification: there’s a line in the piece which says “while you could lament the fact that we never managed to set up a self-sufficient Irish indie network”, this line read “while you could lament the fact that we never managed to set a self-sufficient Irish indie label infrastructure and network together,” when submitted by me and before it was subbed. As I say, a small but important clarification. There was always an indie network, but the indie label network has never happened and probably never will. Many will argue that we don’t need one, but an old label head like me will always regret that that never happened.

  Now, over to you

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