After this years radically disappointing Trinity Ball line-up, it’s time to re-evaluate the bands we get to play the event. Lets imagine, with a new Ents officer, arguably less in the pocket of philistine event management companies, the best ball we could possibly have next year. What do you suggest?
Here’s one idea for a line up, this isn’t a ‘My Favourite Bands’ list, it’s a group of folk, all excellent, mostly upbeat, many of whom have a large student following. Most importantly none of the acts listed are too big to play the ball. Check out the list and suggest your own.
Realistically, nothing’s likely to change. No Ent’s officer, however decent, can wrest control of the ball from corporate interests. Word is, when tickets sold out in record time this year, Trinity got shafted for the unannounced ‘good’ Oxygen acts (sic). The ball’s become an event, not about the music, but about the socialising. That’s not the worst thing in the world. Trinity Ball is like a great big wedding, filled with mediocre bands and friends you haven’t seen in ages, all dolled up in tails and top-hats. But can you imagine, if they really tried, the night we’d have?
Andy’s the expert on Japanese electro, but I’m captivated by one new chiptune artist in particular, the enigmatic Omodaka. The great graphic novelist and comic writer Warren Ellis recently posted the video below, which is a beautifully pure attempt to express music through imagery. I’m convinced there are only two ways to make a truly great music video, a piece that enhances rather than merely embellishes the music it illustrates. The method used in this video, is to create a pictorial analogue to the music, a constructed synesthesia, articulating the sounds rather than the conceptual content of the piece. The track is effortlessly fleshed out 8-bit drum and base, and the video, directed by Hiroshi Kizu, features a dance performance by Masako Yasumoto. You can subscribe to Omodaka’s ‘Far East Recording’ videos on Youtube.
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?
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!
At the risk of turning Analogue into a clip sharing site, I simply have to share this. Ian Svenonius, a sort of down tempo American Russell Brand, and former lead singer of parody politics punk outfit Nation of Ulysses, now hosts uberhip lounge interview show Soft Focus. The show (and the Vice channel on which it airs) represents at once the epitome of hipsterism and an utter send up of its too cool for school premise. When Svenonius met alt country darling Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, genius had to ensue.
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.
It sounds almost ironic now, doesn’t it.
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…
I’m really getting sick of the references and comparisons to My Bloody Valentine when reading about new bands. Most of these references are completely unfounded. I’ve thought about this before but it really struck me this morning as I was reading a press release about a new release on Half Machine records by a band called Psychedelic Horseshit from Columbus, Ohio. Now I know that the two following quotes don’t directly compare Psychedelic Horseshit to MBV but could the writers not have used a little more imagination when describing their sound…
They’ve been chased off stage in more states than seem possible in their short existence, but all the tour stories wouldn’t be worth an eighth of a sh*t if the music wasn’t the most heart-poundingly great racket since that My Bloody Valentine covers record Comets On Fire never made.
– Vice Magazine
White, discordant noise that makes My Bloody Valentine look as ear-friendly as Girls Aloud.
– The Fly
To me Psychedelic Horseshit sound more like deliberately out of tune Strokes guitar rock meets Lou Reed Velvet underground era vocals. I think it’s actually growing on me and I don’t find them to be half as much of a racket as Vice and The Fly make out. Although I’d like to see them live and see how my argument holds up. Above all, having listened to a few of their tracks nothing about them would lead me to draw any kind of My Bloody Valentine comparison or use any reference to them in an attempt to describe their sound.
Anyway so what I’m really wondering is when did My Bloody Valentine become the definitive referencing point for most music critics? I’m not trying to imply that MBV are bad, they’re one of my favourite bands. I just think that a lot of the comparisons between new bands and them are completely unfounded and lazy. And I haven’t been the only one to notice this in recent years.
Psychedelic horseshit release ‘New Wave Hippies’ as a 7″ in July on Half Machine Records.
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
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