The CLUAS Archive: 1998 - 2011

Entries for April 2009

23

CLUAS on FacebookCLUAS has always been well ahead of the curve. Sure, weren't we on the internet a full year before U2 decided it was time they had a website?

Therefore it will be no surprise to hear that CLUAS continues to plough a path at the bleeding edge of 21st century technology. The latest example of this? Our decision to set up - only yesterday - a page for CLUAS on Facebook.

So if anyone else out there is also an early adopter of Facebook, you can now add yourself to the CLUAS Facebook network. And if you have never heard of Facebook, remember it was right here that it first came to your attention. All part of the service m'luds and ladies.

 


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22

Ireland's most intimate boutique music and arts festival, Castle Palooza, was launched yesterday and the event, now in its fourth year, promises to be the best yet.  The line-up so far is a who's who of top class Irish indie acts:

  • David Kitt
  • R.S.A.G.
  • Dark Room Notes
  • Ambience Affair
  • Le Galaxie
  • Channel One
  • Dave Peyton
  • Nell Bryden
  • The Lost Brothers
  • Noise Control
  • Patrick Kelleher
  • Robotnik
  • Project Jenny Project Jan
  • The Followers Of Otis

     

    Key Notes is particularly excited about the presence of Dark Room Notes, Le Galaxie (formerly 66e), Robotnik and the man currently hawking his excellent Nightsaver album, David Kitt.  This blog is also looking forward to seeing R.S.A.G and Channel One for the first time, having been told many times by his fellow bloggers that he really must see them live.

More acts are to be announced before the event, taking place on August 1 & 2 (the Bank Holiday weekend), in the grounds of Charleville Castle, Tullamore.  There will also be a number of non-music events taking place over the course of the weekend including a live Rocky Horror Picture Show and ceilí though, unfortunately, not at the same time! 

Tickets are available from a recession-busting €89 for a weekend camping and include a 'Treat Yourself' package for couples for €299 which includes 2-day camping tickets, a pitched tent on arrival, a double sleeping bag, pillows and mats, a bottle of champagne and breakfast in bed on the Sunday morning, complete with newspaper.  This is not your typical festival!  All tickets available from here the usual outlets.


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22

A review of the album Upside to the Downside by Jabbas

Review Snapshot:  Upside to the Downside doesn't break any new musicial boundaries but its infusion of edgy urban beats and toe-tapping electro-pop ensures that there's pleanty to keep all but the most fickle of listeners coming back again and again.

The Cluas Verdict? 7 out of 10

Full Review:
Jabbas is a very aspirational young man.  Upside to the DownsideBefore I began to listen to his debut album, Upside to the Downside, I was challenged to cut up everything I thought I knew about rock, pop and dance and throw the pieces into a pot of glue.  Indeed, even then, what came out would only go some of the way to explaining what Jabbas sounds like.  An interesting challenge when you're dealing with something as subjective and emotive as music, I'm sure you'll agree but it is also an exercise well worth undertaking, especially when the album in question, for the most part, delivers.

The record sleeve claims that this album was recorded in bedrooms in Castlegregory and Dublin, and its lo-fi production values will not be to everyone's taste.  That being said, this is the ultimate self-produced record, with Jabbas playing virtually every instrument and proving to be very competent on them all. 

Upside to the Downside opens with the following line 'Baby, I'm your one stop shop for all your needs.'  Generally, it's a promise that Jabbas lives up to.  This record contains a pick-n-mix of musical styles from euro-pop to Beck-esque sleazy rock, without ever sounding disjointed.  The stand out tracks are Electrotable Town, Make Amends, Ephemera and the title track, even if the verses of the later do sound a little like David Byrne's Lazy at times (it even contains the lyric, ironically enough, 'I'm never lazy, I'm always late').  Indeed, it is this feeling of familiarity (despite the number of genres that the album spans) that, paradoxically, will drive some listeners away and keep yet more coming back.  

Overall, Upside to the Downside is, despite the high standards it sets itself, a very accomplished debut album and showcases Jabbas as both a talented songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.  More importantly, it leaves you eagerly anticipating album number two.

Steve O'Rourke


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21
An interview with Leeds-based Official Secrets Act Formed in 2006 in Leeds' Official Secrets Act are a new sharply dressed indie fourpiece. Combining the angular riffs of Franz Ferdinand with ...

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21

In the same way as the summer transfer window gets us excited for the forthcoming new football season, so the April-May period of festival line-up speculation and announcements starts us planning for a summer of music. You in Éire are already dreaming of torrential rain, horrendous traffic jams and alleged campsite riots (allegedly).

But for those of you looking to head off foreign for some sunshine with your live tunes, here begins our annual overview of the French summer festival line-up.

Eurockeennes 2009The busiest weekend for French festivals is the first weekend of July, when traditionally there are THREE big events simultaneously – Solidays in Paris, the Main Square Festival in the northern town of Arras and Eurockéennes in the eastern city of Belfort. Today we’ll look at Eurockéennes, which takes place from Friday 3 to Sunday 5 July. (We'll feature the other two in due course.)

Now in its 20th year, Eurockéennes is perhaps the French festival that’s best known internationally. This is certainly due to the size and quality of its line-up, but also because of its location; Belfort is close to Switzerland and southern Germany so it’s within reach of Euro-railers and backpackers throughout central Europe.

The 2009 programme has marquee names and cult heroes galore. The Friday night features The Prodigy, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Alela Diane, Emiliana Torrini, Hockey, Diplo, The Ting Tings, La Roux and The Kills, while that night’s headliners are French rappers NTM. Saturday has Kanye West, Pete(r) Doherty, Friendly Fires, Tricky, Passion Pit, Peter Bjorn & John, home favourites Birdy Nam Nam and Austrian chanteuse Sophie Hunger.

Finally, on Sunday you’ve got Slipknot, Glasvegas, Mos Def, Tinariwen, Florence And The Machine, adopted-Irishpeople Rodrigo y Gabriela and The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. But that final day belongs to three heavyweight French acts: Phoenix, Yuksek and Laurent Garnier.

Any questions?

How much will Eurockéennes cost me? If you book on the festival website, you can get a three-day pass (including four days of camping!) for €88 and a one-day ticket for €39. These prices don’t include booking fees, putting-ticket-into-envelope expenses, etc. but that’ll hardly be much. That three-day pass looks like great value.

How do I get to Eurockéennes? Well, Easyjet fly to nearby Basle-Mulhouse airport, and the French national rail company is offering special fares for three-day ticketholders.

Full details of the line-up and practicalities are available on the Eurockéennes website's English page.

From Saturday Night Live recently, here’s another fab new Phoenix track: off the forthcoming ‘Wolfgang Amadeux Phoenix’ it’s ‘Lisztomania’. What’s with all the classical composer references?
 


 

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18

Alias Empire  (live in Crawdaddy, Dublin)

alias empireReview Snapshot: Happy, dizzy, sweaty: Alias Empire rocked a sell-out Antics night with enough synths to wake yer granddad. 

The Cluas Verdict? 9 out of 10

Full Review:
I like disproportion. And I like sensory stimulation. This might explain my love of tiny daffodils, miniature Heroes and giant Jenga. It would also account for my pleasant feelings on walking into Tripod Wednesday night to see a huge white Raffaello on the ceiling, a giant stretched thong-like decoration, young girls with small knees and a DJ with a tiny head and gigantic round headphones.

Crawdaddy filled up nicely as Antics began to sell out. The time waiting for Alias Empire (formerly Dry County) to take the stage was spent posing in front of visuals that consisted of whales, fish and other little monsters swirling around in a sea of colour. The music began with Jape and Morrissey and ended up getting all tech-house-like which got the crowd excited.

Before Alias Empire came on, I'd already inspected their equipment – MS 2000B synth (impressive-looking), numerous other synthesizers as well as a stage densely packed with wires. The four-piece Dublin band powerfully began with an introduction that was stimulating – lights under their microphones, visuals that included nuclear mushroom clouds and chattering teeth. Their new image's presence showed with AE Kraftwerk style T-shirts that were perhaps a little too imitative for my liking. When they played Attention about five people suddenly got up onstage, with one chubby guy jumping out and trying to crowd-surf across a too-thin audience.

Alias Empire played like voracious electronic beasts with a synthesizer tour-de-force that showed off their older tracks and fluently introduced new material that the crowd enjoyed. A short power-cut at the start of the set was disappointing, but covered up easily when it suddenly surged back and the band were back on their feet. Lead singer Kevin gave as much energy as he does on the band's debut album, and he proved to be adept at multi-tasking both singing and synth-ing. The baseball capped lead guitarist was also a star, getting all Lager Lager onstage, giving himself naturally to the audience.

The standout track was 'Stop – Proceed', which emitted lots of energy for dancing around to, and encouraging Kevin to note that the 'girl at the front knew the words'. (Me, of course). The final climax came when the band rolled from Pins to their own version of Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger. This got the crowd worked up and in the mood for going next door to dance after the gig. The band proved that their material works on many levels, with dancing, crowd-surfing and stage-invading all obvious elements of the evening.

Niamh Madden


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16

This Saturday (18 April) is World Record Store Day, when punters are encouraged to support their local music dealers. It’s a good opportunity to tell you about our favourite French record shops – and encourage you to tip us off about ones we haven’t discovered yet.

High-street record shops in France are quite good, with breadth and depth to their stock. Should you find yourself in a busy shopping area in a French city, chances are you’re close to an outlet of FNAC, an excellent chain of home entertainment and multimedia stores. Their music space is usually divided into large sections for rock, French, jazz, classical, urban and world music, and each section has its own information desk where the staff (in their distinctive green and yellow waistcoats) tend to be quite knowledgeable. The FNAC on the Champs-Élysées in Paris is open until midnight, like the neighbouring Virgin Megastore (also very good) – there’s something magical about being in a record shop late at night, as if all the best music only comes out after dark. And because the Champs-Élysées is a designated tourist zone, both stores can open on Sundays.

As well as being a fine store, we also commend FNAC for their Indétendances series of samplers and summertime Paris concerts, giving valuable mainstream exposure to up-and-coming French acts of various styles. And the larger FNAC stores have a dedicated space for live performances – in particular we recall a full-on, plugged-in, amped-up set by Grenoble band Rhesus at the FNAC near Montparnasse one Saturday afternoon.

Gibert Joseph on the Boulevard Saint Michel in ParisEven better than FNAC, in our view, is Gibert Joseph (right), a book and music seller that can also be found in many major French towns. In Paris, you can find Gibert Joseph halfway up the Boulevard Saint Michel, the record shop at number 34 a few doors past the bookstore. (Warning: don’t confuse Gibert Joseph with Gibert Jeune, the virtually-similar group of bookshops around the fountain in Place Saint Michel.)

Gibert Joseph’s main virtue is that they sell new and second-hand music side by side. You can even find the latest releases marked with a yellow sticker that says ‘Occasion’, the French term for second-hand, at discount prices and shelved beside new copies at full price. Gibert Joseph has the best alternative music section of any French high-street chain. They also have live sessions. And, if you’ll forgive the digression, the bookstore has new and second-hand English reading material on the fourth floor, though we should also mention the small second-hand English bookstores nearby around the Odéon.

If you crave the real independent music store experience in Paris, simply go out the door of Gibert Joseph, cross the Boulevard Saint Michel and you’ll find rue des Écoles, home to small second-hand shops like Crocodisc. The nearby O’CD has become successful and opened many branches, but at a price: like many small record stores in Paris, it now stocks more DVDs than music.

Then, further along the street, turn right and go up rue de la Montaigne Saint Geneviève. At the very top, just before you come up behind the Panthéon, you have La Dame Blanche, which specializes in jazz and classical music on vinyl. Even if you don’t do the wax, some of those old classical LPs have wonderful sleeves – dig the scary head on young Daniel Barenboim! Half the pleasure of visiting record stores is simply flicking through the stock and finding an album cover that’s surreal, kitsch or slightly troubling. (Another digression: round the corner from La Dame Blanche is the Bombardier, a very nice English pub with filling meals and football on TV.)

But what’s the best record store in Paris? Well, our choice is well outside the city centre – you’ll need to take the metro to Belleville in the east and then push your way through the busy streets of this ethnic, working-class area. Suddenly you’ll fall across Place Saint Marthe, a quiet cobblestone square that has boho cafés on one side. On the other side is the record store, Ground Zero.

Ground Zero record store near Belleville in ParisGround Zero (left) is small and homey – we know it’s a converted house because there’s still a sink in one corner. Like Road Records in Dublin, it stocks the latest indie releases and correctly assumes that you already own the essential classics. Their main trade is in the sort of alternative guitar pop that attracts shy, bookish male punters who then shuffle timidly up to the girls behind the counter.

And, crucially, it sells product from local acts – you’re likely to find records by Paris-based singers and bands displayed in boxes on the counter. In particular, Ground Zero seems to be a favourite of the extended Herman Dune family, who have performed in-store sessions there.

So, this World Record Store Day your correspondent will head for Ground Zero near Belleville in Paris to buy albums and give the twinkly eye to those shop assistants.

On our rare trips outside Paris, we’ve made sure to look for local independent record shops. Should your holidays take you into deep France, we have two recommendations: Planet R in Saint Lô in Normandy and Sofa in Lyon. And there are Gibert Joseph record shops in Versailles and Lyon – we’ve been there, we know that they exist.

If you know any other good record shops in France, especially outside Paris, or if you have a memorable record-buying experience from your school tour or last holiday here, tell us about it with a comment below. Live from Ground Zero in Paris, here's Herman Dune and Julie Doiron singing 'With A Fistful Of Faith':


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15

Key Notes Top Ten Irish Albums: 7

Damien Rice - O

This blog entry could get Key Notes in a great deal of trouble.  You see, while the good people of CLUAS respect all musical tastes, there is something about Damien Rice that splits the CLUAS writers firmly into two camps.  Those that don't like him and those that really don't like him.  Key Notes is being facetious, of course, but it is fair to say that this blog is in the minority on this site when it comes to Rice.  However, wouldn't it be a very boring site if every single one of us had the same opinion?

From what I can gather, between the expletives, it is Rice's image as the head troubadour of the Irish singer-songwriter set that seems to grate with most people.  While it's true that this blog was going through a bit of singer-songer phase when he bought O, it was during his time with Juniper that Key Notes first became aware of his fellow Kildareman.  Juniper were one of those bands, like Ten Speed Racer, that always seemed less than the sum of their parts and Bell X1's status as one of Ireland's most popular bands (bra detectors that they may be) and the phenomenal success of Rice beyond these shores would seem to verify that.

However, strip away Rice's image as a messiah amongst certains sections of the Irish music scene and the fact that every (formerly - they're all broke trying to pay for their second home now) middle class family in Ireland own a copy of O (along with White Ladder and whatever that Dido one was) and you're left with O, an album that embraces its obvious flaws and is all the better for it.  It is far from technically perfect, but it has something much more important, magic. 

O touches a part of the conscience that you spend most of your time trying to hide (the part that makes you cry at the end of Big Fish or watching a documentary on Hillsborough).  Musically, there is very little difference between Rice and most folksy singer-songwriters.  What's different about O is that Rice's songwriting is so raw, so emotional that, like Leonard Cohen, you can forgive the flaws because you feel empathy for the characters in his songs.  It helps, of course, to have the vocal talents of Lisa Hannigan and the heart-tugging cello of Vyvienne Long on your side, but more than that Rice has a way with words that escapes most of his contemporaries.  Any songwriter that can turn a song about masturbation (Aime) into a love song is doing something right. 

O is one of those albums that touches greatness without having any stand out tracks, instead it is the sum of their parts, the collective consciousness of the 12 disparate characters that make up the album that draws you in.  It doesn't matter that Rice followed up O with the lacklustre 9, an album that seems worse now than when this blog reviewed it for his first CLUAS piece.  O is, like Astral Weeks, an album that divides opinon.  Some people can't see beyond the musical sparseness of either and yet their are others, like Key Notes, that believes that sometimes, just sometimes, the music plays second fiddle to the story of the album, indeed, the story of O.

Damien Rice - Cold Water


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15
Herm 'Monsters'
A review of the album Monsters by Herm Review Snapshot: Monsters is an excellent album whose only fault is that it contains so many disparate song styles that it sometimes sounds more like a ...

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13

The IMRO Showcase Tour 2009 (The Sugar Club, Dublin)

The ReveliionsReview Snapshot: The IMRO gig at The Sugar Club showcased a number of talented new musicians who gained full audience appreciation with their varied sounds. 

The Cluas Verdict? 7 out of 10

Full Review:

There’s something about venues. With its tiered seating, shining disco ball, velvet curtain and candle-lit tables, The Sugar Club set up a serene and relaxed feeling the minute you took a seat. There was a real sense of 1950s nostalgia about the set-up. I almost felt like a member of the Back to the Future audience, awaiting Marty McFly’s inappropriate Johnny B. Goode guitar solo. The IMRO gig was full of band members, mates of mates, and mates of mates of mates, who showed up to give them support.

Dublin alt-rockers I Phoenix were first up. Their solos were not as insane as Johnny B. Goodness, but with a powerful and intense sound they acted as a refreshing break from effects-heavy laptop bands. With gutsy climaxes and well-developed endings, the band appeared to be a tight and well-practiced group. The vocals were a little hard to hear, but technical details aside, they proved to be a talented little rock outfit.

More characters streamed into the glow of the old theatre – the man with the handlebar mustache, the girl with massive glasses and wide belt, lots of Topman clothed boys. (Quick digression - Am I the only one who is a little bored with uber-trendiness at gigs? Or maybe I’m just jealous…) Strolling to the bar, I discovered my biggest disappointment of the evening – emptying Six Euro onto the countertop for a bottle of Tiger. After just seven months of living in the UK I seemed to have acquired an exaggerated culture shock when buying any form of drink back at home.

The second biggest disappointment of the evening was also the second band, five-piece Harrows. Their early tracks showed them to be poppy, radio-friendly and almost too good to be true, with catchy riffs, a Kings of Leon soundalike as lead vocalist who rasped in all the right places. But as the tunes wore on, I realized there was far too much repetition in the lyrics and the sound. Having previously won the 2FM Battle of the Bands Dublin heats, I could see them being successful because they seem to fit into the young rock scene quite well, even if they weren’t to my taste.

Third band House of Dolls were also quite fashionable – with Johnny Two Belts on guitar and banging on a single drum – but their music seemed a little more mature. With influences like Joy Division and My Bloody Valentine, their music had a moody 90s sound that rocked The Sugar Club. There was a little too much reverb on the vocals but the full sound of the band made up for that minor tick. The audience seemed to really enjoy the band, and there was a great atmosphere of appreciation for all of the bands during the evening.

The Revellions, a band who looked and sounded like The Doors, were the final act to take the stage. Tight pants? Yep. Straight hair? Yep. A faraway gaze? Yep. The five-piece were immediately tagged for me as Monkees. With mic-swinging and leaping around, they gave an energetic performance and show promise for any fans of a heavy 1960s sound.

This evening’s IMRO Showcase proved to be a classic night of talented regional bands that have the potential to become more widely known. Showcase acts from 2008 such as Robotnik, Codes, The Kinetiks and Halves have garnered more fans and a greater reputation with the launch pad that such a showcase gig can supply.

Niamh Madden

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Nuggets from our archive

2008 - A comprehensive guide to recording an album, written by Andy Knightly (the guide is spread over 4 parts).