So as the tickets go on sale on wednesday, you may be wondering who is actually playing the Ball this year?

As far as I’m aware, the line up goes something like this:

Mark Ronson, Vitalic, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Lightspeed Champion, Boys noize, the Metros, Kavinsky, Reprazent, the Mighty Stef, the Coronas, Something happens, the Whip, Jamie Scott, the Spikes, Crazy P and Royworld.

According to his myspace, Boys Noize is also playing a set in Spy after playing at the Ball so I’m guessing he’s playing relatively early…

Asthmatic Kitty records released the Encyclcopedia Asthmatica DVD earlier this month. It’s a collection of visuals set to the music from the various artists on their roster; Sufjan Stevens, My Brightest Diamond, Castanets, Rafter, the Curtains, Shapes and Sizes, Bunky, Half-Handed Cloud, and Liz Janes.

In this clip, artist Deborah Johnson matches some intense animation to Sufjan Stevens’ song, ‘Palm Sunday Tornado Hits Crystal Lake.’

Palm Sunday Tornado Hits Crystal Lake from Asthmatic Kitty on Vimeo.

This next video has some quality ass shaking going on. ‘Baba’ by Bunky.

I haven’t seen the rest of the DVD but judging by this, it’s definitely worth a look. You can pick up the DVD here.

Muxtape lets you choose 12 songs to upload as a mix. It also lets you pick someone else’s mix and listen to it. It’s a nice change from last fm’s random same genre buzz. My only one negative point is that maybe people should be a bit more creative with the names of their mixes… It’s only a new site so I’m guessing the guys who developed it are still working on a few things to improve user interface etc. Still I think it’s a nice idea.

…Vampire Weekend. Yep these guys are class. The name nearly put me off at first but the album is so addictive I soon got over that. Apparently the band is named after a film they once made together. I don’t think there’s any Dublin gigs on the cards yet but who knows, maybe they’ll pop along to a festival during the summer.

APunk

And The Kids Don’t Stand A Chance live on the Paris streets from la blogotheque…

I love the way the drummer,Chris Tomson is playing a wheelie bin!

U:MACK Present PISSED JEANS
WEDNESDAY MAY 14
WHELANS OF WEXFORD STREET
DOORS 8pm
TICKETS €16 FROM ROAD RECORDS, CITY DISCS, SOUND
CELLAR, SPINDIZZY, WAV BOX OFFICE 1890 200078 & ONLINE.

Photo by Doron Gild.

Last week Dan and myself got the chance to catch Le Loup live in Crawdaddy and I have to say it was absolutely deadly. There’s a certain rawness and energy that doesn’t come through on the album (The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly). Live Le Loup really let loose and rockout. It’s a little more guitar based live too and unfortunately for us Tripod sound engineers failed to give the banjo enough volume that its essential melodies required.

Anyway I guess the jist of what I’m saying is that Le Loup are a whole other experience live. If you missed their crawdaddy show last week, fret not for the excellent Seattle based alternative music radio station KEXP recorded a live set of theirs and it’s available as a podcast here. There’s a brilliant song which didn’t make it onto the album called ‘The Sea took me’ that kicks in at about the 25 minute mark.

I’m very surprised by this, you just never know with the Choice Music Prize. To be honest I think the prize should have gone to Adrian Crowley or Cathy Davey.

I think Dan might be doing an interview with these guys soon so as an introduction, here’s a video for ‘Kathi and Orlandos Revolution’.

Una Rocks claims to have the exclusive on the line up at the Trinity Ball this year. Una’s info says Mark Ronson, Vitalic, Lightspeed Champion, Boys Noize. I know four acts isn’t much to go by but come on!

Alright we’ll be set on the electro front with Vitalic and Boys Noize but then again it’s not quite Justice and Erol Alkan, is it?

Now imagine for a second we actually got to choose groundbreaking acts like Girl Talk or Simian Mobile Disco who would tear the place up…. When the Trinity Ball was actually ran by the students, we picked Public Enemy, Jeff Buckley, Prodigy and the Rapture to name but a few. Now instead we get the dodgy end of a package deal consisting of whoever is booked for Oxegen.

King Tut’s Mark Boyd carefully constructs a multi layer song from scratch and makes it look easy! We’ve been watching these guys for awhile now and are sure they have great things ahead of them. King Tut have just released their debut album, ‘Chopping Wood and Carrying Water’.

Here’s a video for the second last song off the album, ‘It’s Strange’.