Two DIY and one skinny Wolves’ gig later

Last weekend was quite eventful for me, I managed to see a load of Irish acts and one from LA. Not bad for a weekend in the middle of January. The common thread running through all of the gigs was the way that they were organised and where they took place; downstairs in a regular Northside pub, in a shed and in an art gallery.

On Friday, I headed along to my first gig of the weekend in The Tap pub near Smithfield. My friend Aonghus is the “singer” in a noise band called Sex Bat (short for Sexual Battery). Aonghus has been in a plethora of noise, experimental and metal bands over the last few years but somehow I’ve never made it to any of his gigs. So I made an effort this time. The gig was in the basement and was a DIY jobby to celebrate some dudes birthday, Cian was his name I think. I didn’t know what to expect Sex Bat to be like. Noise is a pretty broad term afterall! I moved up to the front as they took to the stage - big mistake… Within 30 seconds of the gig starting, Aonghus’ flailing arms hard knocked a full pint out of my hand, all over me and those unlucky enough to nearby. Another 30 seconds later I got punched in the stomach as Aonghus screamed the most aggressive non-descript roars down the mic. The set went on like this for awhile as Aonghus launched himself into the crowd and sprawled out on the floor. The band jammed along all the while producing a dirty amalgamation of feedback heavy guitars, harmonics and sporadic drum bursts. Tommy from Estel visibly hammered also joined the jam, using a pint glass as a slide wave after wave of squealing distortion wailed from his direction. This was one of the most intense gigs I’ve been to in a long long while. Afterwards Aonghus explained that the aim of Sex Bat is “pure aggression” - I think they’ve got that down to a tee.

Photo by Maeve.

Saturday saw me standing in a creaky shed on South Circular Road soaking up the incredible sounds of Children Under Hoof. About 15 friends of the band gathered together for what was to be a trial run for a series of regular gigs in the Shed, aka the Box Social. The shed is usually used as a practice space but for the night, it was a particularly suiting venue. As the roof lifted with the wind, ghostly knocking noises were added to the mix while the band blazed their way through 5 lush ambient / experimental jams. Dead pan beats a la Neu!, synths galore, a variety of eccentric trinket sized instruments, sax, considered bass lines and yelpy washed-out vocals all contributed to create a somewhat epic soundscape throughout the whole set. I was enthralled for the whole thing and further convinced that Children Under Hoof at the vanguard of making interesting original music in Ireland. Luckily I had a WAV recorder with me on the night so you too can bask in the glow of the Children Under Hoof live experience.

Bonefire (live at the Box Social) mp3

Photo by Jamie, Skinny Wolves

Sunday is meant to be a day of rest and relaxation so it was fitting that LA’s Lucky Dragons were performing at the Joy Gallery. Fitting because of the positive and uplifting nature of the Lucky Dragons set. Support act Boys of Summer started proceeding with an extended drone wank that unfortunately had no climax. Some people seemed to appreciate it but it was completely lost on me. Next up was Sunken Foal, his album ‘Fallen Arches’ was one of the best Irish albums of 2008 so it was great to finally catch him live. I wasn’t sure how his sound would work live but being joined by his friend Rob really helped lead Foal Duncan Murphy find the right dynamic between the organic guitar sounds and the layers of synthetic beats / samples. Then came Lucky Dragons’ turn. Luke Fischbeck is the mysterious human being behind Lucky Dragons. Throughout the show, Fischbeck leads the audience through a collaborative experience of communication through sound. Contact mics on long cords were passed out into the audience and the only way sound could be generated is if people connect by holding hands. It was really cool to see complete strangers sitting on the floor connecting with each other to make music, albeit fairly trippy sounds. The whole experience was completely unique and even though I did personally contribute, I was left with a really positive feeling afterwards. It was like meditating or something. Even the three teenage girls who had talked incessantly through the other sets shut up for a few minutes. Apparently Lucky Dragons will be back later this year so if you get a chance, I totally recommend heading along.

Morning Ritual by Lucky Dragons from Jordan Dykstra on Vimeo.

Free stuff…I like free stuff - Graveyard

Skinny Wolves + UMack DJs break out the death jams.

Zombie beats from the grave and new rotting flesh from the other side.

Expect this kind of nonsense from the wolves…
Telepathe, Fad Gadget, Ike Yard, DAF, Hawkwind, Killing Joke, Chrome, Suicide, Pink Military, Six Finger Satellite, Loop, Gang Gang Dance, Silver Apples, Soft Cell, Gina X, Siouxsie & the Banshees, Ruth, Prag:vec, Mahjongg, Indian Jewelry, High Places, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Pylon, Talking Heads, Crystal Stilts, Vivian Girls, The Distributors, Xmal Deutschland, SPK, Palais Schaumburg, Kraftwerk, GD Luxxe, Chromatics, Arthur Russell, Wooden Shjips, Animal Collective etc…

its FREE by the way…

Free stuff is great, especially “in the current economic climate”.

Life at the Joy

So with the New Year, a new beginning and a new office. That’s right, Analogue now has office all of our own (well sort of). The week before Christmas, I took a desk in a shared creative space called Redspace. It’s above the Joy Gallery and is shared by Graphic Designers, Documentary makers, Web designers, Artists and an Animation company. I was getting sick of working from home and thought I’d be more productive if I was in an office of some sort. So when the deskspace came available in Redspace, I jumped at the chance. It’s cool being surrounded by lots of other creative types, I know this sounds lame but it’s inspiring in a way. Anyways, the Joy Gallery is hosting some pretty sweet events over the next few months.

Life at the Joy is the first permanent exhibition running in the gallery, it launched just before Christmas and is open every Saturday from 12-6pm. It features work from Laura De Burca, Oisin Byrne, Rachel Ni Chuinn, Fiona Hallinan, Ruth Lyons, Kate Strain, Alex Synge and Amy Walsh.

This Friday, 9th of January:

THE SOUNDS>>>

Australian B12 Shot a.k.a. Holly Fluxx is hitting our shores for the first time this January to treat us to a night of popcore, raphop, fun’n'bass, and sparkle-art-noise. The ultra-productive B12 Shot does not limit herself to just making amazing music. She also set up the ‘Gooey On The Inside’ collective along with Ultra Violet MC. This Melbourne based group promote gigs, organize parties, write, design, and publish zines, and create their own visual art. With upcoming releases on the cards, and a reputation for original, creative, and most of all… Fun live sets, this show looks set to be a monster!

Support on the night comes from…

Attention Bebe, the local legends who dare us not to dance or smile as they play their unique takes on classic pop and dance tracks from the 1990’s. You may have caught ‘em at some of their recent ‘happenings’ in the Bernard Shaw, or busking to the Xmas masses on Grafton Street, or on their brilliantly named ‘World Tour of Portabello’!.

Other support comes from…

Sixfoot Apprentice, a member of the !Kaboogie gang who’ve been putting on gigs in Ireland for 3 years now. His sets vary from poptastic bassy booty bounceyness to faster spazzier breaks, but always highly danceable. Expect the unexpected here, with mashups of pop and breakcore, punk and hiphop.
and…

Maryjane, playing midi grunge drum distortion to soundtrack your so-called life.

Check out all tonight musical acts here…

B12 Shot - www.myspace.com/b12ishot

Attention Bebe - www.myspace.com/attentionbebe

Sixfoot Apprentice - www.myspace.com/sixfootapprentice

Maryjane - www.myspace.com/comacomacoma

THE ART>>>

Iheartwillies, Shorter Trousers, Ginge, Eilis and B12 Shot together will be producing a number of black-line illustrations where the objective of the show is to get the audience to finish them. All 5 have a unique style of doodling so the end results should be interesting, covering subjects like the big bang theory and crying celebrities.

On the night there will be 20 A0 prints with 100 markers. The audience will be free to colour the images and add to the drawings as they wish. No image is for sale, and all the art will be given away for free to the first 20 people to arrive to the show.

All the images from the show will be put together in a colouring book format so everyone will have a copy to take home with them.

This is a unique approach to an art show where the viewer has full permission to do what they want, and where scribbling is encouraged.

So come, drink, dance, colour in …..blah blah bluh.

B12 Shot
says her style is is high speed broadband onomatopoeia + sparkles.
www.myspace.com/gooeyontheinside

Eilis McDonald
“To me, music always has to look like it sounds. Whatever that means to you it should transpire.” - David Lee Roth, 1995
Eilis McDonald is a multi-media artist based in Dublin.
www.eilismcdonald.com

Iheartwillies
Dublin based illustrator with previous exhibitions in Dublin as part of The Projected Weekends and in Buenos Aires this past September in two established contemporary venues, Expotrastiendas and Palacio de las Artes.
She has also produced album covers for artists on Acroplane, Wronglab, Mechanical Records and an upcoming release on Netlab. Lisa has produced poster design for various Irish collectives such as Back To Bass Kicks, !Kaboogie, Wobble, Breakfast and Redrum.
www.myspace.com/iheartwillies

Ginge
Dublin based model maker and animator who has exhibited in the Prague Quadrenial and also recently with local collective Synth Eastwood at the Deaf festival. Finn also produces a unique range of jewelery from found objects such as dominos and dice which will be available on the night to buy.
www.myspace.com/goontheginge

Shorter Trousers
Dublin based photography student, Shorter has worked with the Artisit? festival and produced photographs for the Ard Bia Gallery. Her work has been exhibited in Film Base as part of a group show and she has produced posters for Leechrum Records and Stress! in Galway.
www.myspace.com/shorter_trousers

Saturday, 25th of January:

Skinny Wolves presents
LUCKY DRAGONS (USA, Upset the Rhythm/Marriage Records)
w/ Boys of Summer
& Guests tbc

(more details to come, closer to the event…)

Crystal Stilts - Converging in the Quiet

There are obvious comparisons that can be made here but what’s the point. Haunting dead pan vocals, a killer washed out riff, an unforgettable bassline and beats that wouldn’t be terribly out of place on a Neu! track - yes these guys are good. Crystal Stilts released their self titled Ep back in May on Woodsist and a full length called ‘Alight of Night’ on Slumberland in October. Both are deadly but I think I prefer the original cuts of the songs that appear on the Ep.

Art Rockin’ promoters Skinny Wolves have them over to play upstairs in Whelans on the 19th of February.

What’s The Skinny?

Those ever-admirable champions of art rock in Ireland, Skinny Wolves, have lined up a wonderfully noisy October for Dubliners. Having already showcased acts like No Age, Mika Miko, Magik Markers and Les Georges Leningrad before their popularity burgeoned, be sure some of the upcoming acts appearing on SW posters around town will be gracing blogs and hype-sites a-plenty in the future.

Things kick off on the 3rd of October with the screechings of “based nowhere and residing pretty much everywhere” no-wave outfit Lovvers. Surfing the crest of the current wave of melodic noise-punk, they stir up familiar influences like the Minutemen and old-school Sub Pop with a distinctly British edge. Not to mention their seriously screwed-up EP artwork. Their blank generationisms will be on show in the Boom Boom Room with support from popular-with-earplug-manufacturers Bats and the nicely rhyming Weil Rats.

Probably the biggest name on the SW calendar is Telepathe upstairs in Whelans the next night. A tear through their hypnotic song “Chrome’s On It” is pretty much worth the ticket price alone, and horror-movie “Sinister Militia” would be a nice bonus. We won’t even hold the fact they’re mates with These New Puritans against them. Support comes from Jenny and the Deadites, who have sweetly named songs like “Amongst The Piss” and “Throne Of Blood” (Kurosawa reference?), and work some thumping industrial hip-hop beats. Think dark anticon, like Sole, except Irish, and you’re about there.

The Creeping Nobodies have been slugging out post-punk trips since 2001, so it’s a bit unfair to compare them to Liars. But they sometimes sound quite like Liars, circa 2001, but a lot more layered and erratic. Nevermind cowbells, their track “Your Likeness” utilizes samples of bovine mooing over a break, before fucking your head over with a brass breakdown towards the end. It’s not going to be a laidback ride, in other words. The faint of heart might be more comfortable with supporting violaist Anni Rossi, who has supported the Ting Tings (never heard of ‘em) on their tour amongst other plaudits. Both do a good line in percussion, and both are worth your second trip to check out the new Boom Boom Room on the 11th.

Rounding off the month’s lovely line-up on the 17th are Mahjongg, a band with a clear appreciation of Liquid Liquid, Brian Eno and David Byrne. For once I find myself agreeing with a promo sheet: “Mahjongg have chewed up their influences, spitting back a sinister musical polyglot that will reward the curious and infuriate the impatient”. They mix their sound up with some obscure African elements, but not so tokenistically as most experimental bands tend to, and sound as if they’re pretty much impossible not to dance to in a live setting. Sure we’ll just have to head up to Whelan’s to find out, won’t we?

Have a goo at the Skinny Wolves Myspace for some tracks from the upcoming artists.