Kill the Pig!

Over on the Guardian, what with their proper journalists and that, they’re reporting on legal harassment and prosecution of Oink. Oink was a members only website for torrent sharing with strict rules about leechers and that, with an invite only membership. I’m not sure what brought it to the authorities attention other than that it’s based in England and therefore under the insane British legal system, despite which it is far from obvious that Oink was in any way a criminal operation. This follows on from the multiple other attempts to harass torrent tracking websites world wide. Interpol was amongst the many agencies involved in shutting the site down. There have been several attempts to sully the waters surrounding Oink, with police sources in the UK lying about the (actually normal) levels of pre released material on the site. All in all its a crap little development. Founder was in court today- case adjourned.

ps I yoinked the photo from tiny mix tapes. I wouldn’t normally mention it, just its a great website.

The Fall - Dublin Fringe Fest

Mark E Smith stumbles around the stage. He’s acting like an aged alcoholic at a family gathering, lashing out at everything within reach, knocking over microphone stands, turning up or off the amps. He can’t sing, either. Not at all.

But the music is fantastic, the songs compelling studies in power, menace and threat, Smiths deadpan anti-singing aside, to the point where by you can accept it, forgive him. The band are reputedly one of the tightest units touring and don’t disappoint. Only Smith remains from the original line up and the young heads are technically brilliant.

The Fall, well Smith and support, purvey wonderfully vibrant, even now, post punk. Its a weird genre anyway, defined and shaped by its reaction to another. Its jarring now to hear how ripped of he’s been, where all those bands got it from.

The Spiegeltent has a great set up, using the setting by the waterfall in the Iveagh Gardens wonderfuly, with stalls and bars, and the ever present pie stall. If any of the acts in coming days tickle you, go for it- its great.

New American Weird

A while back I wrote an article about Americana music, naive and weirdly formatted as it was. Of course I’m older and a bit wider read nower days, and realise, of course, that the music I was describing in such glowing terms was in fact not Americana, but a subsection of it called New America Weird. Glad to clear that up for you.

New American Weird, as an idea, has been fashioned by Devendra Banhart, amongst others, with his compilation Golden Apples of the Sun for Arthur Magazine. Its a fantastic, then super rare - now re-issued compilation, featuring the likes of Joanna Newsom, Josephine Foster, Iron & Wine and Scout Niblett. You can listen to it over on Arthur Magazine’s website.

ps Banhart has a new side project, as spotted over on Pitchfork.

Alaska in Winter - Dance Party in the Balkans

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAq6VIjak-8]

There is something about the under-produced, under-programmed simplicity of the drum machine on Alaska in Winter’s new album that leaves it feeling unfinished, and lends a tremendous feeling of uneasiness to the lush production of the rest of the record. The vocals, at times annoyingly reminiscent of My Computer’s Vulnerability, with their dense layering, and heavy manipulation away from the natural further add to the tension, as do the childish, often meaningless lyrics.

This tension is counterpointed by the confident use of brass and piano, lifting the album above itself, giving a sense of cohesion and mild euphoria. The periodic, startling use of trumpet brilliantly highlights and alleviates the tension.

This is a careful, self indulgent and self confident album, meditative in places and often brilliant.

Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer

One of the particularly satisfying elements of the first Wolf Parade album- Apologies to Queen Mary was its individuality, its particular view of the world. Songs like Dinner Bells and the excellent Grounds for Divorce were quirky and often fun. They were far from meaningless but treated their subjects and themselves with a lack of reverence. More over there was a sense of hunger and drive to the music, an uneasiness.

Perhaps it is symptomatic of my own deep seated neophilia, but this, Wolf Parade’s second album just is not that exciting. The vocals are often shrouded, layered and without the violence and beauty of the first record. The songs themselves are not particularly interesting, without the easy licks and riff’s. There are the odd moments of brilliance, but my main problem with this record is that it could have been made by anyone. The Killers. The National. Its all a bit boring. Edgeless. Spherical.

CSS; Pants!

I’m on a charity buzz this week. There’s much to buzz about, I suppose. I went jumble sailing yesterday, round George Street and up to Capel Street. Then I spotted this lot in my favourite rag. Whilst I’m sure there’s only a relatively limited audience for Adriano’s pants, but they’re bound to be rabid. Bids at the charity auction are currently at 10 pounds sterling. Other highlights are Sir Ian McKellen’s fabulous shoes and a signed script from the Office.

But for music fans there’s only one item (obviously Pete Waterman’s crap donation of a crap cd aside). Go on, reach deep for CSS’s pants.

ps, please note that these are not actually pants, but are in fact vintage fila shorts, signed by the band. But they did belong to Adriano.

Would a Rose, by any other name…

Over on the Guardians music blogs they like to stir up a debate once a week by asking a silly question. In the course of this weeks steam bag about bad band names there’s a link to this beauty. Its a random band name generator. A quick play around has thrown up some fantastic names. Its startlingly effective.

Pick your favourites and describe what they’d sound like.

Rap vs O’Reilly, Round 324

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMYrdknDffA]

Bill O’Reilly, right wing commentator on the Fox Network, has a long running hatred and fear of rap music. I’m a big fan. I even put him in the book I’m writing with Gareth. Here’s a particularly graphic and ugly song by East Coast Avengers. It’s not very good, but is getting plenty of attention out in the blog-ospher.

Babyshambles a menace

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82HY9QWbRgU]

Over on Gruaniad’s music blog the news that Pete Doherty has been banned from playing a festival because the local police fear his music would cause disturbances.

But Superintendent Paul Williams said the ban was designed to preserve public safety. “Experts are telling us that the profile of fans that follow Pete Doherty and Babyshambles is volatile and they can easily be whipped up into a frenzy, whereas the profile of someone that would follow around Cliff Richard or Bucks Fizz, for example, is completely different.”

Mentalism.

Electric Picnic 2008, a MySpace Tour - Saturday

Saturdays line up explained, through a MySpace linkaggedon….

[Previously - Friday's acts]

Also- I’m fairly sure this is the first site map to go up on the web, over one the bodytonic site.

P.S. The Bodytonic acts are not in the list below- they may get their own post, depending on timings.

SATURDAY 30th

A Trak; Everything that can be said, is said here. Myspace, ahoy!

Antibalas; Afro Beat orchestra, heavily influenced by ska, Cuban jazz and fun. They are available for weddings, birthdays...

Arno Carstens; he would like to Brian Adam’s.

Black Acid; listened to a lot of the Strokes and liked what they heard, but thought- hey we can do this, but less interesting and with a more distorted vocal…

Boss Volenti; Ireland’s very own boring Queens of the Stone Age. Well done, lads.

Cathy Davey; media darling and decent singer.

Crash Ensemble; Exciting modern classical ensemble.

Crystal Castles; Bleepie pop. A favourite of Bren’s, and all that implies- hip, shallow and very, very good.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbAyX3JgZyo]

Cut Copy; Nu-rave drivel.

Dan Deacon; Electro genius, truly exciting, innovative and fun.

Digital Mystikz; English dj/producer. Laidback, bass heavy ambience, with a garage flavour.

Duffy; one of the least interesting Winehouse clones doing the rounds. Laughable fashion sense.

Elbow; Andy’s perfect festival band. Brilliant.

Franz Ferdinand; Glasgow based rockers Ferdinand return with material off their third album, and the “hits” from their back catalogue. Ought to get the office crowd jumping.

George Clinton; Mad funkaholic Clinton will be one of the festivals highlights.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuyS9M8T03A]

Grace Jones; Serious lunatic Grace Jones is a late addition to the Picnic and might well be the most memorable act of the whole weekend.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgMn2OJmx3w]

Halves; This Dublin band has been recommended to Gareth. Might be good. Hard to judge.

Havana Son; Cuban big band jazz.

Josh Ritter; Fair singer song-writer, despite dreadful last two albums. Always good live. Worth a tinkle.

Juana Molina; Cooky nonsense, sang in Spanish. Quite quiet good.

Kormac feat BS Quartet; Dublin based dj Kormac (swing/hip hop beats, lots of drum and bass).

La Rocca; Irish, but LA based. On the One Tree Hill soundtrack. Weak voiced lead singer and bit Keane like. Probably be huge in a few years.

Large Mound; boring songs about doing drugs and shit cars. Sound Irish, early 90’s Dudley Corporation. In a good way.

Laura Izibor; Singer song-writer, used on the soundtrack of Grey’s Anatomy.

Liam O’Maonlai; Irish singer, sings in Irish, of all things. Bit’s of traditional African chanting.

Lisa Hannigan; Surprisingly good Dublin based singer song-writer, quiet and beautiful.

Mercedes Peon Tambourine playing world music brilliance.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrbKxqDEO0w&feature=related]

Midnight Juggernauts Australian aural engineers Midnight Juggernauts specialize in throbbing sound gardens, dance-able funky forrests. Not as good as it sounds. All a bit Jamiroquai.

Mornington Singers; Heroically middle class Irish chamber choir. I have no idea what their set will be like, hey might do covers or stick with Mozart, either way it’ll be a change.

Msg; Not sure I can find these guys website. I hope like hell they’re anything like the Chinese American comedy rap group Notorious MSG. Links in comments if you know more than me.

New York Fund; From London, as the name suggests, New York Fund are a solid little outfit, capable of tunes and commercialism.

Oppenheimer; Belfast based tweecore (thanks Gareth) cuteness, with noisy bits.

Ra Ra Riot; Interesting percussion and muted guitar riffs, strong vocals and restrained strings. Might well be good. Might be Coldplay. Who know’s?

Rachel Unthank and the Winterset; This years folky curve ball for the Mercury Music Prize, sound a bit like Joanna Newsom would if she grew up on Dartmouth. Bit annoying, bit ace.

Santogold; Current Darling of many in the Analogue offices, Santogold will be were the dayglo crowd will be at. Diplo- who’s excellent mixtape of Santogold created the stir is also on tonight, over on the Bodytonic stage.

Silver Apples;Fighting the fight against fake myspace clones, the Silver Apples are continuing their brand of psychedelic lunacy. Definitely one of the highlights for me.

Soha; Slightly euphoric dance.

Super Extra Bonus Party; So you book one of Ireland’s more exciting dance acts. Good. You put them on a big enough stage. Fair enough. At 1pm. Fail.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU0JiOdbAEc&eurl=http://www.superextrabonusparty.com/home/]

Teitur; Scandinavian singer. Sings in English, considerately. Sounds a bit David Kitt.

That Petrol Emotion; Once of Derry City, now of London, That Petrol Emotion evolved out of the Undertones. A favorite of John Peel, the patron saint of fair to middling punky guitar pop.

The Breeders; All Boston Girl Super Group… no longer really describes the Breeders, but after seminal album after seminal album they will still be a highlight of the Picnic.

The Faint; Electro Punk out fit from Nebraska.

The Flaws; From Monaghan and Dundalk, the Flaws are guitar booze/office rock.

The Herbaliser; Its getting to the stage where by one could describe Herbaliser as legends. Seemingly around for ever, they keep on producing funky hip hop and mixtapes.

The Kills; Like the White Stripes but without the tunes, the voices or the swagger. Lo fi stripped back songs.

The Radio; Irish band with a half broken MySpace. One of them plays a moog. Musics is periodically interesting.

Tindersticks; Cult heroes Tindersticks are still going, producing minor masterpieces. Thick multi layered sound, with Love like use of guitars, and Stuarts voice.

Tobias Froberg; Brilliant Swedish artist, interesting instrumentation, definite pop sensibilities. Part time writer and producer, according to MySpace.

Ulrich Schnauss; Ambient electro at its best.

Underworld; UK dance trio Underworld’s breakthrough and highest point was the use of Born Slippy on the Trainspotting soundtrack. Other than that, they produce euphoria soaked early nineties house, with edges of panic and darkness. (Note, the video below is a remix with a loon dancing. Its not the video. But it is a video.)

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_O09ozhLek&feature=related]

Wilco Alt-country. A dirty term. But it fits Wilco perfectly, and it doesn’t tarnish their brilliance. Plus they recorded one of my favourite albums with Billy Bragg.

Yurodny; Strong folksters- with Balkan, Irish, English and gypsy traditions sat easily along side more Moorish sounds. Surprisingly successful and playful.

Friday. Saturday. Sunday.

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