Electric Picnic 2008, a MySpace Tour – Friday

A linkathon for all the confirmed acts for Friday of this years picnic. So you can stand back when your mates want to go the Pistols and say, ‘Na mate, there’s this fantastic new wave afro beat band starting over at the Big Tree…’

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

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

FRIDAY 29th

At First Light; Irish traditional music.

Booka Shade; Berlin based dj- and all that implies: paired back euro dance.

Carbon Silicon; a sub Billy Bragg, bit Adam and the Ants, post-punk type nonsense.

Dawn Landes; superb Beth Orton-esque singer

Digitalism; German dj, bleepie house.

Fovea Hex; Dublin based aural landscapests, eerily beautiful

Giveamanakick; rocking twosome from Limerick, prone to bouts of noise and commercialism.

Christy Moore; boozy hero of Irish folk

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J-X0TBZ0sM]

Dobet Gnahore; exciting, relatively new, afro-beat singer, a little easy listening for my tastes.

Goldfrapp; sweet little Alison Goldfrapp, making music, all electro folk and vibrators.

Gomez; brilliant band who never quite seem to make it, despite being utterly fantastic. Terrifying old man voice.

Jape; third album just out but still known for that one song Jack White keeps covering. Brilliant live, sometimes, and consistently fantastic in the studio.

Joan As Policewoman; Very excited about this one.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMdzQB8qWS8&feature=related]

Kíla; always stunning live, Kíla mix traditional Irish music with African rhythms.

Kissy Sellout; owners of the best myspace background since kinsky, remix artists, similar but not as good as Gril Talk or Kleptones.

Late of the Pier; standard indie band with guitars and pretensions and annoying electro bits.

Little Green Cars; young Irish band, strong vocal lead, guitars and synthes, as is de riguer these days.

Lou Rhodes; distinctive vocals, breathy and beautiful from the Lamb former singer.

Miles Electric; cannot be found- please link through in the comments if you can undo my tower of ignorance.

New Young Pony Club; Trashy nu-rave gibberish beloved of neon crowd. Latest offerings are a mix of Winehouse and MGMT-esque bandwagon jumping shit.

Pinky; Potentially fantastic Dublin band, big hummable tunes and a friendly monkeys vibe. Playing in Crawdaddy soon, so you can get a preview.

Presets; spent too long listening to Duran Duran and early nineties housepop. Good, though.

Sigur Rós; I’ve never heard of this small time Icelandic act. Soundscapes, or something.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ5Grncdjlc&feature=related]

Terry Callier; English Jazz.

The Gutter Twins; Hard touring, super ambitious indie duo. Sound uninspired.

The Stunning; Weak, late nighties sub-Beautiful South lameness. Brilliant name, tho’.

Think of One’s- Camping Shaabi ; Thinking of One are a Belgian collective, and Camping Shaabi is project based around Moroccan music. There’s a film about it here, but its in foreign. Here’s some of their music.

Tiga; superb dj producer, from Canada. Think Felix the Housecat and Miss Kitten, then compare. He wins.

Tinariwen; Best of the bands to emerge from the Sub-Saharan desert and the shadow of Ali Farka Toure. Inspired and enchanting.

Wallis Bird Singer-song-writer, Dublin. Likes Nora Jones from the sound of it. Fair play to her, she might make it.

Yard Dogs Brilliant burlesque group- lots of Tom Waits-like touches. Actually, nearly a tribute act. Fun and theatrical.

Friday. Saturday. Sunday.

Isaac Hayes is Dead

Isaac Hayes, remarkable chronicler of street life in his music and the voice of sex education to paper cartoon characters, has died. Check out his obituary over on the Gruaniad, and their natty little youtube gallery thing.

He was a pioneer of soul and the legacy of his music ought not to be over shadowed either by his work on South Park (despite the fact that I’ve put a video from it to illustrate this), or his religion. His soundtrack for Shaft was stunning.

[youtube:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=R-gb18FZ4A0&feature=related]

Perfect Festival Band

So we’re heading deep into the season here. Glasto’s been and gone. The Festival-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is next weekend and the Electric Picnic is still far enough away to seem like a beautiful dream. Many other festivals are reveling right now, indeed roll a dice and wonder into a field and more than likely you’ll find Fat Boy Slim and KISS fighting it out.

All of which leads to the question; Who’s the Greatest festival band?

Here’s my nomination;

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=9BG6tZFMkvQ]

Elbow. Always brilliant live, with great lifting melodies and soaring instrumentation. The front man looks like a man you met in the cue for humus and there is always a sing along.

ps, please include, where possible, a youtube link to your incredibly hip/obscure nomination.

Quiet night in with the Beeb

I’m all at home in the country, nothing to do, since its too dark for croquet, and watching the Beeb’s coverage of Glasto.

Amy Winehouse is easily being upstaged by her fantastic backing singers. She’s sounds little better than the South American drag queen version of her.

The Racounters sounded weirdly subdued. Jack White still looks like Elvis from his cameo in Walk Hard.

James Blunt looks a lot like Conor.

Hot Chip don’t translate well to TV.

And although the Beeb do fantastic coverage of the main stage, they rarely touch upon the more obscure acts that make festivals magical.

Glasto didn’t sell out this year. Tickets were still available this morning. In the absence of a big name headliner, aside from Jay Z, there simply wasn’t the draw for tickets. Also the incredibly ill thought out ticketing systems and the wall of a few years ago also seem to have alienated fans. Mostly, however, there just seem to be much better options out there. Bestival on the Isle of Wight, The Secret Garden Party and the Womad Festivals all can lay claim to the original spirit of Glasto, and Leeds and Reading can often rival it for line up. And outside of the UK there’s Roskilde, our own Electric Picnic and the ones in Poland, Serbia and Spain… There’s only so many people that can go to festivals, and way too much choice. Whats the bets there’s a solid indie rock headliner next year, a big beast like Radiohead.

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – Live at Vicar Street

Vicar Street’s full of wage slaves and moneyed ex-hips, most drunk and rowdy. A few in the industry are here too, including (according to Bren) Dan Deacon and Si Schroder. Following an amazing set by Baby Dee, Bonnie “Prince” Billy shambles onto stage with his band. They’re a ramshackle lot, the percussionist looks like a refugee from the Gypsy Kings, the double bassist looks plain bored, I’m sure the guitarist was in Mercury Rev and the violinist seems utterly out of place, given that she’s actually quite attractive. Bonnie “Prince” Billy (appearing as part of the Future Days Festival) himself is dressed all in grubby white, jeans and T, both much too small for him, neither attempting to disguise his paunch. His hair and beard are unkempt, giving the impression of feral 1890′s trailer trash. He’s on form, despite all this, lightening quick with the drunken audience:

Drunken ‘Office’ Drone – I’ve shaved my penis!
Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – Did you shave it off?

Quick as a snap, an instinctive entertainer he apes and gesticulates wildly, screwing up his face and amazingly agile eyebrows throughout the set. The mic’s about six inches too low for him, so he has to stoop in each time to sing, leaning forward, contorted. He’s in fine voice too. It can often seem, especially on his recorded work, that Bonnie “Prince” Billy is hiding his voice in duets or with layers of backing singers. Whilst these are present tonight, his voice is strong and piercing, close to sharpness, which adds great vulnerability and humour to the performance. Instrumentally the band are tight, especially percussionist Michael Zerang whose instinctive and restrained playing keep the rest on a leash. Although they don’t stray far from the original material, the band’s playing carefully interweaves and counter points the vocal harmonies. Oldhams’ electric guitar is rarely used, and then only to punctuate and accentuate rather than dominate, and the acousticity lends a timelessness and sentimentality to the whole experience.

Emmett Kelly and Jennifer Hutt, playing guitars and violin respectively, sing beautifully. I did Kelly an injustice saying he was in Mercury Rev; he just looks it, but he has a real talent and I would like to see him tour here alone.

The jaunty bombasticism of R Kelly’s ‘The Worlds Greatest‘ takes on a precariousness and aspirational quality, making it a celebration not merely of one man but of all of us. It is in such moments of quiet, when Oldham voice is most clear, the backing music and singing seeming to push him on rather than join him, that the night is at its best. He is so at home on stage: bunny hopping and miming, and yet backs up this knowing irony with real substance, genuine emotion. His penultimate song is a spine tingling rendition of ‘I See A Darkness’. Its a brilliant song anyway, but there, in Vicar Street, wearing clothes too small for him, flip flops and facial hair stolen from a sergeant major in the Boer War, with drunken office workers and the tragic posers, I See A Darkness shines brilliant, turning what could have seemed glib, or fake, to something amazing.

Eurovisiontime

As highly credible independent music journalists May is always a high point for us here at Analogue Towers. There are many exciting new bands that make there way across the Atlantic Ocean for the first time, drawn by Ireland’s suddenly balmy climate and credulousness. As coldblooded creatures we move quicker and more effectively in the sun, darting around Dublin talking to exclusive Canadians and hip youngs. It is also the month in which the European Union celebrates hip young indie bands in their amazing televised music festival, The Eurovison Song Contest. As highly credible young hips there isn’t a chance in hell any single one of us here would miss it. What do you mean I’m talking shit? Oh.

Anyway, there is a reason to tune in on Saturday (by which time, hopefully, Ireland woeful turkey based entry will be eliminated from the competition, and fingers-crossed, reality) and that is the utterly brilliant French entry. I’ve waxed lyrical about my love of French music before on these virtual pages, and therefore won’t labour the point. They are, however, the saviors of Europe. Whilst I can’t bring myself to vote for the Lisbon Treaty, it is only because it doesn’t give Ireland’s sovereignty to France alone. Anyway, here’s the track.

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=Vz58Hw9hldw]

Andy’s Muxtape

Ciao fools,

Yes I’ve been in the library most of the day and weeping the rest, and am now sufficiently confident of my own impending doom to share the sound track to it with you, the lucky public. Much like the yokel in the Fast Show, this week I have been mostly listening to the Blues and Dubstep, collections of which I recently inherited from brother internet. Make any sense?

Good, I thought not.

Anyway, here’s the track list for the fail, which can be found here.

1: Ali Farka Touré, Timbarma

Superb mix of traditional Malian music with the delta blues, taken from Ali Farka’s eponymous album. Farka, by the by, means Donkey.

2: iTAL tEK, White Mark

With all the dark brooding bass and ethereal synthesisers that hall mark Dubstep, this perfectly captures my growing paranoia and terror, as exams approach.

3: Björk, Isobel (Deodata Mix)

Because pop remixes of classic Björk songs are fun, finding the little dot-dot to go over the ‘O’ on Björk’s name is not and Deodata is a Brazilian.

4: Sketch Show, Ohotzck

Ohotzck starts off sounding like a mobile phone advert, but quickly reveals itself to be one of Sketch Show’s most playful and fulfilling tracks.

5: King Tut, Lukes Hymn

King Tut, interviewed back in issue two of Analogue and therefore, old friends, in magazine speak,are still hawking their great album Chopping Wood and Carrying Water and this is one of the strongest tracks on there.

6: Panda Bear, Good Girl (Mixed)

Panda Bear’s are all owned by the People’s Republic of China and, if summoned, must be returned to their homeland. This includes Panda Bears born outside of China and members of the Animal Collective, like Noah Lennox.

7: Professor Longhair, In the Night

New Orleans legend Longhair plays easily one of funkiest, upbeat songs about girls with “Sex appeal”. Fair play to him.

8: Derek and the Dominos, Have You Ever Loved a Woman?

A lovingly crafted song about doing the nasty with your bestfriend’s ladyfriend. It includes the lament, “When something deep inside won’t let you rape your bestfriend’s wife…” Genius.

9: Cotti & Cluekid, Sensi Dub

A great vocal lift this deep, danceable dubstep track above the hoard, taken from Cotti & Cluekid’s Sensi Dub EP.

10: Virgo, The Clack Riddim (Instrumental Mix)

Totally brilliant track to listen to whilst walking through town, within minutes you’ll have escaped into a dark half world, where you’re a tough but fair cop, shooting out the bad guys and leaving it up to the sarge to deal with the paper work… Oh yeah, sorry.

And that’s a wrap, have fun.

Andrew

pps, This muxtape will be up for about a week, until I do another one. One track from this one will be saved to carry on over.

Happy International Workers Day

Yes its May Day and a whole 40 years since the summer of 1968 where so many of our parents (probably) generation thought something might happen, and perhaps something nearly did. Anyway, here’s some music from that year.

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ibjtq3LSm4Q]
It sounds almost ironic now, doesn’t it.

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=OM9KRpEkGfY]
Amazing even now, The Beatles White Album was released in November, sending special messages to Charles Manson. John Lennon and John Hoyland exchanged letters in the media about the summers protests.

And more and more and on and on. The Yardbirds disbanded and Led Zeppellin rose from their ashes. Hendrix recorded Electric Ladyland. Small Faces released their first album. Et cetera…

And then after all, after the tear gas and petrol bombs of Paris had cleared, Elvis had his come back special…

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

Daniel Johnston in Dublin

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrNT-4hXD3w]

Brilliant outsider singer song writer, and self mythologist, Daniel Johnston is playing a gig in Whelans on July 27th. He’ll be supported by a host of names, but its really a chance to see one of the most enchantingly difficult men in music. Tickets go on sale today from tickets.ie

Get me one will you?

Its Japanese ambient experimental electronica-esque jazz, man.

I downloaded the excellent Tronika mini-album from Sketch Show there the other day, and was totally blown away by it. But, and here lies evidence of my total inability to work the googlemachine, I couldn’t find out anything about them in English. Gradually I looked closer and specifically to the excellently named NipPop, an internet resource on Japanese music.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7XqkmtXnoE]

It turns out that the two main guys are former members of Yellow Magic Orchestra, the giants of experimental electro, kind of a Japanese Kraftwerk. The music they do now is reminiscent of a more accessible Aphex Twin, from his ambient period, and the collaboration with Cornelius really tells through, with playful flashes layering unto the beautifully crafted aural textures and chanted lyrics, in both Japanese and English.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6guTXe0bzP8&feature=related]

I am utterly enchanted by this little piece of brilliance and am now planning to buy the live dvd. The clip above is from it, the two guys in question are the bass player and drummer, called Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi respectively. They even look utterly brilliant. Love the hat.

Oh and if anyone has any of the other albums by these guys, or more infomation, please let me know or comment on this posting. Thanks.

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