Radio: Live Transmission.

I’ve posted about radio shows before, I know. But I’ve stopped listening to the radio during the day- mainly because if I hear ‘Radio Heart’ by the Futureheads one more time I may kill myself. Thankfully, night time is a happier radio time. The excellent excellent Cian O Cíobhán presents ‘An Taobh Tuathail’ from 11pm-1am every Monday to Friday night on Radio na Gaeltachta.

An Taobh Tuathail has been broadcasting the cream of underground music from around the globe on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta/ANOCHT FM since May 1999.

Cian Ó Cíobháin who has been presenting the show since its very first broadcast, presents the show Monday to Friday, 11pm-1am.

Cian spins a broad range of mostly underground music on the show. The shows from earlier in the the week are more reflective in mood - drawing on electronica, dream-pop, alt-folk, post-rock, soundtracks and jazz.

Thursdays and Fridays are devoted to electronic dancefloor music: predominantly house, electro & techno, which Cian plays at clubs around Ireland (http://www.sisi.tv).

On Wednesday, you could say ‘file under: other’, though usually theres’s space for Balearic gems, nu-disco, dubstep and electro-pop on the midweek show.

Now, I know it’s as gaeilge, but when the playlist is as ace as this, and when you hear o Cíobhán’s beautiful Irish, language will cease to become an issue.

Podcasts are available díreach anseo, and a best of cd can be bought here.

Sell Out Ok!

My favourite twee-sters,The Boy Least Likely To, have joined forces to make the most splendid ad about saving that I have seen yet. I know that some artists have issues with their music being used in ads, but really, when it’s as charming as the below, how could anyone be annoyed? That said, I don’t think putting money in a bank ever made anyone feel as happy as that young girl splashing about. I doubt she even has a bank account.

[youtube:http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=cDHZzjdMtWY]

If that wasn’t enough, here’re The Boy Least Likely To again, this time, covering ‘Faith’, complete with banjo and, yes, handclaps.

[youtube:http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=EZIug6yKCr4]

Trinity Ball ‘08. Party Hardy etc etc etc

Right. This is not going to be a typical anaphotoblog. There will be no photos of the analogue crew cavorting happily together. There will be no hilarious anecdotes about our collective escapades. Not because we all heartily dislike each other (don’t worry, we’re not splitting up) but because, Trinity Ball doesn’t roll like that. Gareth compared Trinity Ball to a wedding. That’s too civilized a comparison. Trinity Ball is a battlefield. You enter at midnight, armed with the gig timetable and many friends. You leave, having seen – at best- The Mighty Stef, and certain that, once upon a time, you wouldn’t have been caught dead making out with Gerard who studies Science.

Even still, I have done some tireless research, and managed to piece together a vaguely coherent narrative. Some bits I may have made up.

Before The Ball:
Gareth and Bren hung out and drank with grown-ups.

Olwyn had a party. I don’t think anyone else showed up.

I went to a party where people had hair like this:

At The Ball

There was the Main Stage. It had bands like The Coronas –whose entire songwriting oeuvre is based on their J1. No thanks. Though, during my research, I did see that someone was, and I quote ‘gutted about missing the Coronas’. Each to their own.

Lightspeed Champion was playing as well. Conor’s boyfriend even got his photo taken with Dev. How Exciting.

Truth be told, the dance tent was where everyone could be found. Here I am dancing..

Though I think that Olwyn’s probably a better dancer than I am.

I can smile nicely though.

Kavinsky’s set was DIRE. Vitalic pulled out, so his set was extended by another hour or so. He couldn’t hack it. The tent emptied.

The Boyze Noize came on. Oh it was joy. The tent looked like this.

It felt like this.

After The Ball

Suddenly 5am rolled around. The sun was already up. Where to next?
Bren, Gareth, Conor, Andrew and Olwyn all went to Australia.
I went to a party full of dreadful people. So I cut my losses, and went elsewhere. Elsewhere being a gathering of lovely people, providing jumpers, cups of tea and exactly what we wanted to listen to.

Namely this..

[youtube:http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=8ePfIkGqHCQ]

Peer Pressure’s An Awful Thing

They’re all bloody at it :

Paul McCartney has announced that he is to give away his current studio album Memory Almost Full, with the Mail On Sunday on May 18.

The album, which originally came out last year through Starbucks’ music imprint Hear Music, has already sold 100,000 copies in the UK to date (OCC) and reached number five in the UK album charts. However, with the free giveaway the album has a potential to reach upto 2 million homes.

Speaking to music industry business weekly Music Week, The Mail on Sunday’s managing director Stephen Miron commented on the deal, saying: “If you look at how he came to do the Starbucks’ album deal, it was a result of feeling unhappy with the music industry and looking at alternative ways of distribution. I can’t think of anyone else who has come up with the right alternative distribution than us.”

Though, seriously Paul, The Mail on Sunday? The Mail ‘Britain For The British, Let’s Uphold Conservative (With A Small ‘c’) Values’ on Sunday? What would Coretta say?

‘In Rainbows’ Model = A Once-Off

It seems that giving away an album for free isn’t really viable going forward, as business types say. In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Thom ‘Winky’ Yorke says that:

“I think it was a one-off response to a particular situation… It was a one-off in terms of a story. It was one of those things where we were in the position of everyone asking us what we were going to do. I don’t think it would have the same significance now anyway, if we chose to give something away again. It was a moment in time.”

Which is, one would suppose, a more diplomatic way of saying that they were unhappy with their record company.

If and when more artists release media gratis, they’d do well to look to this media-savvy plot fan-based promotion.

A Difficult Decision

[youtube:http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=pACePi441ds]

If I was a cooler person, I’d be at Hospital in Wax. But I’m not. Tonight I am babysitting. This evening, you can either watch Bjork’s Dancer in the Dark, or the less cerebral, but probably more entertaining AVP: Alien Vs Predator . They’re on at the same time - 9pm. It’s hardly Sophie’s Choice I know, but I am genuinely torn.

We Be Rollin’. Dey Hatin’….

Look! It’s around about 6 o’clock and we’re getting ready for a night of fun times.
Let’s listen to some music to get us started. In fact let’s listen to some remixes of M.I.A. That’s the reason that music was invented, right? Especially the Holy Fuck remix. We all agree that it’s delightful. We don’t all agree on Battles though. Bren only likes the Fourtet remix of that one song that he knows. That’s ok. We weren’t going to listen to Battles anyway.

Gareth, the technological genius that he is, discovers a timer on his camera. What larks! We cluster, we jump, we pose- akin to skinnier, more beautiful people that we see on television shows. We amuse ourselves wonderfully.

Gosh, it’s 7.15 already. Let’s put on our walking shoes and head to Harcourt St. It’s quite sunny out. We put on our sunglasses. We keep our sunglasses on for probably too long.
We see a big line outside Tripod. We don’t want to wait. We loiter on the street corner instead. We imagine that we are in the Velvet Underground. We are not actually in the Velvet Underground. Eventually we join the queue. We are still wearing our sunglasses. If we weren’t us, we’d hate us. Dan notes that ‘we are us, and I hate us’. He doesn’t mean it really though.

Into the venue we go! Except we are split up. It’s very upsetting. Then we are reunited. It’s bliss. We squash around a table and share chairs. It’s mildly uncomfortable but very companionable. The MC is the worst comedian known to the Milky Way. He operates on the Pythagorean Principle of a squared= b squared + c squared. (B standing in the case for Volume, and C for Coarseness- A naturally representing Humour). Clever chap, eh?

They begin to present the awards. We don’t really care about the ones that we’re not nominated for. We still clap though. We’re very polite like that.

The recipient of Short Story of the Year wants to free Tibet. He said so in his speech. It wasn’t so much a speech as him shouting ‘Free Tibet’. He is very politically involved, but ill-advised. Tibet doesn’t want to be an independent state. It just wants autonomy. That’s what I said in my presentation on Tibet in my French class last Thursday. I would have gladly discussed Tibetan issues with the young man, but he left the stage very quickly. Presumably he was shocked by his own oratory skills.

As the ceremony wears on, we keep not winning things. Every time that we don’t win something, Bren goes for a cigarette. It gets to the stage where he even goes for a cigarette after we lose awards that we weren’t even nominated for. Our table gets very tense.

Thank goodness we won the People’s Choice Award. We get very very excited. Ailbhe and Conor jump a lot. Everyone jumps a lot. It’s like a scene from The Mighty Ducks. Had we thought of it, we may have started quacking.

We stop paying attention then. We wander around for a bit. There is music playing, and Ailbhe and Sarah-Jane have a dance. No-one else has a dance though. We are not impressed. We leave to find other places to dance. Ailbhe loses her shoes. She’s devastated. Then she finds her shoes. She’s very happy. We drink whiskey together. We are very glad that we are all friends. We tell each other this. It’s been a fine evening.

Swit Swoo

This Man:

Is dating This Woman:

I think it’s LOVELY.

Li-licky-ck-licky-y: An Unusual Form of Tourettes.

Given that I was obsessed with Mason Vs Princess Superstar track, I was very excited when I heard she had a new jam out. [I can say words like 'jam' now, because I saw 'Step Up 2 The Streets' the other day, and it convinced me that if the lead actress who is the whitest person in the world, can say 'jam', then I can too].

The new track is excellent, and in the grand tradition of Princess Superstar tracks, not only has uber-seedy lyrics, it also has an, em, inventive video.

[youtube:http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=lNKiYOTnCH8]

There’re some good remixes already out there- not least the Hervé one.

Can I Get A Flip-Reverse On That?

Very very quickly, because I still have 2,000 more words of mediocre French to write by tomorrow morn….

Compare the first twenty seconds of this:

[youtube:http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=HQwm1v1R-qM]

With the first twenty seconds of this:

[youtube:http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=7sei-eEjy4g]

___________ is the sincerest form of flattery. Fill the blank.

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