Bank holiday weekends are always good for gigs and this one was no exception; in fact, dance music fans in particular were spoiled for choice over the past few days with Villalobos, Dr. Lecktroluv, Cassius, MSTRKRFT and Soulwax all bringing their shows to town, not to mention the Dubstep/D’n’B/techno extravaganza that was Sibin taking place in Balbriggan on Saturday. While I realize it’s physically impossible to be in two places at the one time, I did make a good effort, getting to four gigs over the space of four days. Read all about it here…

Repping for club nights is a pretty sweet gig. Not so much the forcing flyers on people bit but rather the free gigs in exchange for sticking up posters part of the deal. My friend (whose identity I shall veil thinly by using the pseudonym Grain) and I, having been reps for a popular Wednesday night for quite a while now and tiring of being ill-treated by the bouncers in its host venue decided not to change allegiances entirely but to “expand” our promotion whorieness to bigging up Mr. Jones as well, tempted by the promise of free Electric Picnic tickets at the end of the summer.

Our first gig involved looking after Junior Boys when they played the Pod last Thursday. Upon arrival at around midnight, we wondered if the venue was open yet, as things looked deathly quiet. The turn out was underwhelming to say the least. In fact, there couldn’t have been more than 60 people there… Promotion for this gig was not the best, and it is exam season after all.

At least that’s the excuse we used when trying to explain to Matt and Jeremy why there were so few people on the floor in front of them… The boys were nay impressed. Having said that, they spun a great mix with Matt starting things off with a techno set before Jeremy moved onto a bit more house and disco. Having played a live set to what they described as an “awesome” crowd in Whelan’s last year, Thursday night was not exactly what they were expecting. Despite this, some friends of mine did earn the title of “Dance Nazis” from the boys in their attempts to fill the floor with their moves!

So what to do when there are no crazy after-parties to go to?, Well, if you’re Grain you bring the Junior Boys back to a grimy student house in Ranelagh for a few smokes and some wine picked up in a dodgy Indian restaurant… Crazy times… cough. Needless to say, the boys who rent the house and the few other stragglers at the party were slightly bemused when Matt decided to play some Booka Shade on youtube while broadcasting the fact that these boys are his “homies” and that Richie (Hawtin) and he are “tight”. The name-dropping did not go down well alas but Grain is quite sure the “guests” enjoyed themselves, even if chilling with students is not the usual thing for big names DJs to do of a Thursday!

Variety being the spice of life, I ended up at Jamie Lidell on Saturday. This was a complete spur of the moment gig, but what a gig it was. Having been offered a ticket at the last minute, I moseyed on over to the Academy not really knowing what to expect. Lidell appeared on stage shortly after nine, bounding on to play a live set with his band. Soulful and danceworthy with a heavy dose of funk, Lidell’s songs warmed the crowd up nicely for the DJ set/beat-boxing/crazy dancing performance that was to follow. As a performer Lidell is charismatic and full of energy with a superb singing voice to boot. While his sound is most certainly commercial, he (and his band) spice up the live show enough that he appeals to fans of a whole range of genres. He delivered an extremely impressive and varied performance that had us dancing from start to finish. A definite recommendation.

Sunday night was back to back fun. The evening kicked off with Radio Soulwax/2manydjs at Dublin Castle. The combination of beautiful weather, excellent surroundings and an act that never fail to impress made for a wonderful kick off to an evening of dancing. This was my third time seeing 2manydjs in the past year, but as always they were great, and equally so playing their nite versions live. Here’s a peek at them playing their remix of LCD Soundsytem’s ‘Get Innocuous”

Unfortunately licensing laws cut the show off at 10.30 much to the dismay of many wanting to continue the festivities but having taken this into account in advance we made our way onwards to Spy where MSTRKRFT and Gui Boratto were both spinning the tunes.

MSTRKRFT played the Black Room upstairs while Gui pumped minimal in the darker depths of Wax. I spent most of night upstairs in the sweaty surroundings of Spy. Hotter than ever, entering the upstairs room was literally like walking into a steam room. Sounds unpleasant but the heat really was unbearable, even more so than usual. So much so in fact that by the end of the night a lot of people had left. Silly, silly folk… Having persevered, despite the heat we were glad to hear that 2manydjs (presumably having enjoyed themselves at Dublin Castle) decided to roll on up to Spy where they played another set to a group of contented customers. I do get the impression that very few people actually realized that the boys who’d just stepped in to DJ were in fact the Belgians themselves but you can’t really complain when you’ve got that many quality acts under the one roof on the one night.

The music in Spy on Sunday was really top notch, an excellent mix of quality electro, cheesy pop and random 90s dance hits to cater to everyone’s tastes, with minimal just a staircase away if that’s what you were looking for. This song has been on constant repeat in my head ever since in fact, thanks to MSTRKRFT.

All in all, it was a pretty hectic weekend but worth it all the same. Roll on post exam craziness over the June Bank Holiday weekend. See y’all out and about!

Do you ever spend your Saturdays lounging aimlessly, doing nothing with your day?

Do you ever wish you could be spending this time doing something productive, creative even? You know, maybe see a few bands, partake in the creation of spontaneous art?

Well if the answer to any of the above questions is yes, then read on ‘cos Trinity D.A.S., a bunch of other people and the boys at the Bernard Shaw have just the thing for you…

A Bunch of People Present “A Happening” at Toejam at The Bernard Shaw 5th April starting at 4pm. Free entry.

Wikipedia says “A happening is a performance, event or situation meant to be considered as art. Happenings take place anywhere, are often multi-disciplinary, often lack a narrative and frequently seek to involve the audience in some way. Key elements of happenings are planned, but artists sometimes retain room for improvisation.”

What we are doing is a 21st Century version of what these spontaneous Happenings of the 1960s and bringing back the spirit of collectively creating an event based on the content of those attending.

This means, to begin with everyone receives a postcard on entry which they can draw on, modify etc in any way they like and then add this to the wall together with everyone else’s to form a unique piece of work formed by all present.

Following on from that, there will instillations of computer paper art, and new music videos by a selection of talented young directors. Then there will be interactive music and visuals which everyone can have a go with.

Then throughout the day while you lounge on bean bags, surrounded by lava lamps there will be live visuals, Fluxus art instillations and Live Music from….

Lomelindi (Live)

P.Dog (Live)

Roberto Pugliese (Live and Interactive Music and Visuals)

Attencton Bebe (acoustic covers of 90s dance hits)

The Sam Kavanagh Ensemble (Gypsy music 3 piece)

Plus many more

Followed by the A$$QUAKE boys ’til late

There are certain things you tend to associate with the French. Cutting edge music is not one of them. Or at least it wasn’t up until quite recently. Things look set to change, however, as France continues to dish up the newest and most exciting acts in the field of electronic music today. Looking at the lists of breakthrough dance acts of 2007, it’s difficult to ignore the predominantly gallic theme that’s overtaken clubland in the past 12 months. Tunes such as DJ Mehdi’s I am Somebody and SebastiAn’s Walkman have gained considerable play in clubs across the world while Justice’s D.A.N.C.E. not only enjoyed huge commercial success but was also remixed by dance maestros MSTRKRFT. If that doesn’t spell success, then I don’t know what does.

This is not an entirely new thing. France is, after all, home to Daft Punk, arguably of the biggest and most influential dance acts in the world and a group who are responsible at least in part for the huge rock/electronic crossover phenomenon of today. We must not forget Cassius or Alan Braxe either who have been producing funky house since the mid 1990s. Asides from them however, most people would have been hard pressed to come up with many other groundbreaking French artists had you asked them a year or two ago. Oh how things have changed!

Walk into any club tonight and you will more than likely hear the sounds of one of the Ed Banger crew pumping from the sound system. Frenzied yet melodic, funky but with a healthy dose of grit, today’s french electro is noisy, brazen and in your face. Characterised by ear splitting treble, tight edits and 80s glitz, the dance music of today is unmistakably gallic and undeniably cool.

Sick of big name DJs spinning shit tunes to crowds of people too mashed off their faces to even notice, the French have taken matters into their own hands and the result has changed the sound of dancefloors worldwide. A far cry from the four-on-the-floor house and techno of yore, today’s electro is considerably more innovative, drawing influences from rock, metal, hip hop and funk. The result? A sound that is uniquely french and extremely cool. The difference between the Ed Banger crew and superstar dance acts of the nineties is that this lot really don’t give a fuck. The label is their own and thus the artists have little by way of creative restrictions. In fact, they have none. Pedro Winters, AKA Busy P, founded the label in 2003 with the aim of creating the type of music that he himself wanted to hear when he went out. Long time manager of Daft Punk, Winters felt that electronic music had lost the plot a bit somewhere along the way and wanted to reinstate the fun, the noise and the colour in dance culture. He has been successful in doing so. Boasting acts such as Justice, Mr.Oizo, SebastiAn, Uffie and Feadz, Ed Banger is home to some of the biggest rising stars of today. And it’s not just the ravers who are taking notice. Indie kids, perhaps bored by the increasingly homogenised rock scene have started turning to electronic music, kicking off their converse in favour of high top fluoro trainers and finally learning to dance. This movement, dubbed “Rock ‘n’ Rave” by mixmag, is lead by DJs such as Erol Alkan, a fan of the Ed Banger lot since the very beginning. Alkan himself readily admits that his roots lie in the world of indie, and notes that today’s generation can’t relate to the rave culture of the nineties, as they simply weren’t there. This is where Busy P et al come in. Having grown up around trash metal themselves, they are now producing a bizarrely danceable type of cacophony, never heard before in clubs or indeed anywhere else.

The Ed Banger crew are innovative in that they are fusing genres which have traditionally been considered at opposite ends of the musical spectrum, and therefore creating a sound that is utterly unique. Fancy a bit of disco metal? Try Rainbow Man by Busy P. Feel like a little electro-hop? Check out Uffie and her mates TTC. Their music is recklessly fun, sticking two fingers up at the corporatisation of dance music and as such giving a voice to youth culture. Clubbers are tired of hearing the same thing over and over again. So are DJs. The music coming from France is now remedying this fatigue as dance music is returning to what it was originally supposed to be; music you can shake your thang to.

The strange thing about this gallic movement is that the French themselves are taking very little notice of it. Despite the fact that the Ed Banger and Kitsuné collectives are getting people dancing again on this side of Europe and indeed across the pond in the US, the French themselves are remaining unusually blasé about the whole thing. The reaction of both the French press and public towards their new wave of superstar DJs has been surprisingly lukewarm and the majority of Ed Banger’s parties are held outside of their homeland. Not that they’ve much to worry about though, having received extremely positive feedback from fans and critics alike in the press and in internet forums in recent times. These guys seem are on to a good thing and show no signs of packing up soon. With most of their artists due to release something in 2008 and their live shows gaining quite a reputation amongst today’s generation of clubbers, it seems these these guys have cracked the code and brought dance music back to its roots. They are making noise funky again, making sweat drip from the ceilings of clubs all over the world and amazingly, not taking themselves to seriously while doing so. Having already made their mark on the club scene in 2007, the French show no signs of retreating and luckily so. Clubs would be a hell of a lot duller without them.

So it’s that time of year again. Paddy’s Day is just around the corner and there’s a hell of a lot going on over the bank holiday weekend to cater for those in search of a good session. Pints aside though, there are also quite a few good gigs going on over the next few days, starting off with DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist playing the Ambassador tonight. Anyone fortunate enough to have a ticket should be preparing themselves for a night of quirky instrumental hip-hop and an awesome live show. Go forth readers and dance.

Sunday night sees a triple whammy of gigs as Michael Mayer and Hercules and Love Affair take over Spy, The Fall play Tripod and the Pod hosts the first Bacardi B-Live party of 2008. Although HALA are only playing a DJ set in Spy, I’d be interested to see what gets played. Made up of a loose collective of friends including Anthony Hegarty of Anthony and the Johnsons and producer Andy Butler, HALA are signed to hipper than thou New York record label DFA and are causing quite a stir amongst music bloggers the world over. Certainly one to watch.

I’m going to be heading pod-wards on Sunday however to see Australian electro-rock duo The Presets. Citing a rather diverse range of influences from dark rock all the way through to disco with training in classical music thrown in for good measure, the band’s live shows are said to be energetic, thrilling and more than a little bit unpredictable. Support on the night comes from UK hip hop maestro DJ Format (whose Fabriclive album is definitely worth a listen) and Disco Brasil. Expect an eclectic mix of hip-hop, soul, baile funk and electro. And all for only 20 quid!

If you’re into dance music at all, you surely will have noticed that Spy has been pulling in some amazing acts in the fields of house, electro and techno of late. With everyone from old school favourites Michael Mayer and Felix Da Housecat through to current dance rock darlings MSTRKRFT, Simian Mobile Disco and Boys Noize all set to play over the coming months, nobody can deny that the promoters are putting in some serious work. However, having gone there to see SebastiAn of the uber-cool Parisian Ed Banger label last night, I’m beginning to consider selling on my tickets for any future events. The reason? Spy is simply too small a venue to host such big name acts.

Remedy can market the gigs as “intimate” all they like but the reality is that when you pack that many people into so small a venue, things simply start to get messy. It was nearly impossible to get in and out of the room in which SebastiAn was playing, the tiny doorway creating a bottle neck effect of almost total gridlock. Not entirely practical (nor exactly safe) when hundreds of eager clubbers are trying to get into a minute room of insane temperatures to dance in whatever space they can find. Having gone out for a smoke and simply to catch a breath of fresh air, there was little or no chance of getting back into the main room. A shame really, given SebastiAn’s set was awesome.

Granted, the sound system is such that his set was played downstairs in the main bar and in the room opposite but when you pay for a ticket to see a DJ, you want to be able to dance in front of the decks, or at the very least in the same room as them. In the end, the bouncers resorted to kicking people out, we witnessed a few fights break out downstairs and it all got a little bit crazy, and I don’t mean in a good way. We left, pretty disappointed at having spent around 25 quid on a ticket and having been forced to spend most of the night avoiding being crushed in an entirely different room to the act we’d come to see. What pissed me off the most really was that I normally love sweaty electro nights, but when it comes to the point that you can’t actually dance and you’re drenched in other peoples’ sweat (seriously, it was dripping from the walls), it just doesn’t seem worth it. I really hate to say this, as I have been looking forward to seeing MSTRKRFT for ages, but unless there’s a venue change, or less tickets sold for future events, I seriously doubt I’ll be going. It seems strange to me that Remedy insist on using Spy as a venue for such big acts, given they’ve hosted previous events in the Tivoli and TBMC (now the Button Factory). Admittedly, hosting pounding electro nights in such luxe surroundings has the feel of being some kind of really cool house party but the sheer heat and packedness of the venue seriously takes away from the tunes.

It’s been about two months now since we waved a final goodbye to Backlash. Once THE electro night of choice for Dublin students, its (questionably named) replacement Mr. Jones was the cause of much speculation. The Bodytonic crew promised us a similar feel to the original electro night but with a twist i.e. featuring more guest artists, bands and a broader spectrum of sounds. However, with Ivan Smagghe having been a no show when he was billed to perform in January and the sounds in the “Kitchen” becoming increasingly samey and commercial, some people were beginning to tire of the Pod as the dancing venue of choice.

Switch’s guest performance at Mr.Jones last night is surely to change all that. By midnight the venue was already pretty packed as Chewy warmed up the crowd with a selection of bass heavy tech-house and electro. Space on the dancefloor was scarce as eager clubbers psyched themselves up for the self-proclaimed “fidget-house” stylings of Dave “Switch” Taylor and come one o’clock when the man himself appeared behind the decks, the venue was jumping.

The first time I saw Switch was in November of 2006 when he was playing with Klaxons, also in the Pod. At that stage I was unfamiliar with his stuff but remember him playing a banging set, so good in fact that my… em… friend… fell off the stage (and nearly onto the DJ) from dancing so much! Last night was pretty much the same deal, good danceable bassline house and a charismatic, varied and most importantly fun set. The dance-floor didn’t empty in the slightest all night, testament to the DJ no doubt. A highlight of the set for me personally was stage dancing to “This is Sick”, one of Taylor’s own tunes remixed by Donna Summer. Check it out and keep your eyes peeled for more guest sets at Mr. Jones. Last night’s was a stomper.