The CLUAS Archive: 1998 - 2011

Entries for October 2008

31

Today, 1 November, is All Saints' Day and a public holiday in France. Traditionally, families visit the graves of their departed loved ones.

The graveyards of Paris receive visitors all year round, of course, because of the famous names on the tombstones. Fans of Serge Gainsbourg, Samuel Beckett, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir go to the cemetery at Montparnasse. Across the city, in Montmartre, a steady stream of cinephiles pay homage to François Truffaut

The most famous graveyard in Paris, and perhaps the world, is the Cimetière du Père Lachaise at the eastern edge of the city. Established by Napoleon in 1804, it's named after a 17th century Jesuit clergyman whose house once stood where today there's the cemetery chapel. 

The leafy, cobbled lanes of Pere LachaiseFar from being morbid, a stroll through Père Lachaise is quite wonderful. Its cobbled paths, shady trees and 19th century tombs (right) give an overpowering sense of the romantic and gothic. Parts of it are especially romantic. Letters and pledges are still left at the crypt of legendary tragic lovers Abelard and Heloise. 

Just as passionate are the visitors to the grave of murdered 18th century journalist Victor Noir, whose monument is a statue of him which features a prominent bulge in the trouser area. Reputed to have aphrodisiac qualities, this bulge is rubbed and kissed by amorous visitors.

Despite all this activity, there are plenty of quiet areas in this huge graveyard for those seeking to escape the hubbub of tourists. And those tourists are here for the star names with which Père Lachaise trumps all its rivals.

Oscar Wilde is buried here, under a large art deco angel. (The custom is to kiss the momument, so it's always covered in lipstick.) Other famous writers here include Marcel Proust, Molière, Gertrude Stein (with her partner Alice B. Toklas), Richard Wright, Balzac, Apollinaire and Paul Eluard.

Paris being a traditional haven for painters, Père Lachaise has its artistic community too: Modigliani, Géricault and Delacroix, Pissaro and Seurat. And among the actors and performers here you'll find the resting place of Marcel Marceau

But apart from the perenially popular Wilde, the latter-day fame of Père Lachaise comes from the musicians buried here. Strangely, a lot of the famous musical remains here are incomplete. Chopin, who has a particularly ornate tomb, is without his heart, which is in a church in Warsaw. (We once saw a violinist play beside Chopin's tomb, which was rather beautiful.) The ashes of Maria Callas were once housed here before being stolen and eventually cast into the Aegean sea. And Rossini's crypt is empty, his remains having been returned to Florence in Italy.

Still lying undisturbed and in one piece - well, what's left of them - are Bizet and Stephane Grappelli.

But two music stars outshine all other residents in Père Lachaise. Edith Piaf's family plot has traditionally been a favourite for French visitors - but with the success of the recent biopic there are more international tourists dropping by. Her grave is a simple slab of black marble, calling to mind her humble beginnings and enduring closeness to the ordinary French public. 

The tomb of Jim Morrison in Pere Lachaise, ParisAnd then there's the man who introduced the name of Père Lachaise to rock fans: Jim Morrison. While the vast numbers of excited teenagers have waned in recent years, there's still a steady stream of visitors looking for his hard-to-find tomb (left). The Greek inscription can be translated as 'True to his own spirit' or 'According to his own destiny'.

Such is the hassle his presence causes that the permanently exasperated security guards in Père Lachaise will light up with joy if you ask for directions to a non-Jim tomb. One friend of ours asked the way to Proust's grave and almost got adopted.

The days of smoking on Jim's plot and scrawling on his tombstone are long gone; today Morrison's grave is heavily protected. As well as a permanent guard or two, a crash barrier ensures that no one can physically touch the tomb. There are also two hidden security cameras: one in a tree and another in a lamp-post. 

Two metro lines run out to La Cimetière du Père Lachaise. Lines 2 and 3 both stop at a station called Père Lachaise which is near the main entrance. However, we recommend that you take line 3 and get off at Gambetta. You'll then go in the back entrance, which is closer to Wilde and Piaf - and the rest of your walk will be downhill through the cemetery past Morrison's tomb to the main entrance and Père Lachaise metro station.

An appropriate French song at this moment would be M83 and 'Graveyard Girl':


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30
Port O'Brien (live in Dublin)
Port O'Brien (live in Crawdaddy, Dublin) Review Snapshot: Port O’Brien come to Dublin on the back of their excellent ‘All We Could Do Was Sing’ album, but fail to recapture t...

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29

By now, our regular readers will be familiar with La Flèche d’Or, our favourite Paris venue and an established stopover for visiting Irish and US indie bands. It hosts three or four quality live acts nearly every night, and continues after midnight with dancing until dawn. Best of all, there’s no admission charge, so it’s a risk-free way of checking out new live music.

Live rock action at La Fleche d'Or in ParisFar from the city centre (but close to the famous Père Lachaise cemetery), the Flèche (right) is in the 20th district of Paris, which is populated mostly by students, artists and working-class immigrant communities. The typical Flèche-goer is either a diehard indie fan or a penniless student; you can see a line of them trudging up the hill from the Alexandre Dumas station every evening, then back down again at midnight for the last metro.

Your blogger hadn’t been to the Flèche since the summer. Anxious to get back into the saddle, we headed up there last Friday to catch a few interesting local bands. But when we drew up outside, we sensed that something was different. Someone had changed the Flèche d’Or.

Sauntering casually in, we were called back by the bouncer. Just as your CLUAS Foreign Correspondent (Paris) was about to throw a diva fit at the door staff, our attention was drawn to some freshly-crayoned signs plastered around: admission is free but you must buy in advance a ticket for your obligatory drink (une concession, in French). But admission is still free, like. It’s just that now you must buy your drinking rights first, or you’re not getting in. But admission is still free. (This semantic debate raged all night, like a punter/bouncer Sorbonne on the steps of the Flèche.)

Now, we’ve no problem buying a drink, even if it’s €6 for a small tumbler of beer (as at the Flèche). And most nights we’d even be willing to pay in. (We had our Dan Deacon experience there and almost felt guilty that it was free. Almost.) What got on everyone’s nerves last Friday night was that this free entry/aggressive concession routine is the hallmark of mean-spirited city centre clubs and tourist traps like the Guinness Tavern. Why is the Flèche d’Or, heretofore agreeably cosy, now acting like a trendy Paris nightspot?

Because it has become a trendy Paris nightspot, that’s why. The crowd was noticeably older, with less teenagers. Minor local celebrities (TV talent show winners, chat show panelists) were swanning around in the way we usually do. And we were surprised to see so many Blackberries being used in an indie rock club.

The Flèche d’Or is profiting from the latest Paris fashion: le look rock. Its genesis is arguably The Libertines’ concert in Paris back in 2003, which inspired the wave of teenage ‘babyrocker’ bands like Plastiscines who appeared on the 2006 ‘Paris Calling’ compilation album. Those bands placed an emphasis on their photogenic skinny-jeans-and-Converse look – and as the music press here refused to take them seriously, their main media outlets proved to be the fashion mags and style supplements. Fashion being so influential in Paris, this attention eventually bled into other media forms: advertising and TV wardrobe departments soon went for the Ramones-esque style too.

So, the bling-bling Riviera dancefloor look is passé and the stylized punk-rock look is in. And to accessorise, the fashion victims of Paris are now looking for the music.

Until now, alternative music has been a minority sport in France, a situation exacerbated by the French indie scene’s inferiority complex in the face of UK and US acts. Air and Daft Punk are not huge household names here. It’s rare that French indie acts even chart in France, let alone break the Top 10. Alternative radio stations like Le Mouv’ and Oui FM, constrained by a 20% language quota in their programming, usually meet their obligations by padding their playlists with new-style chanson française and classic French rock. Top-selling music/culture magazine Les Inrockuptibles gives more space to political comment than local music, which it hides away like a family scandal in an obscure mini-site called CQFD.

Housse de RacketNow that there’s a market for French indie pop, this is changing. French indie acts, growing in self-confidence, are spreading through the radio playlists and earning airplay for their fashionability as much as their quota-friendliness. Young homegrown bands like Housse de Racket (left) and BB Brunes are appearing on primetime TV shows such as ‘Le Grand Journal’ on Canal Plus, which normally invites only established French chart acts or the hippest of visiting Anglophone bands. And the soundtracks to TV ads and reports are more likely to be choppy rhythm guitar than dreamy electro synth.

That said, there’s one important qualifier; alt-pop fashion has not yet been translated into actual music sales. France's album and singles charts for the week 10-18 October showed no native indie acts in the Top 50. As soon as French bands start profiting, we’ll know that it’s a revolution and not just a whim.

We mentioned Housse de Racket, and Phantom FM listeners in Ireland may have heard Jim Carroll play this on his show recently - their current single 'Oh Yeah':


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29

Noah and the Whale (live in Whelan's, Dublin)

Chalie Fink of Noah and the WhaleReview Snapshot: An enjoyable night of folk-pop, that included the song we all came for: “Five Years Time”.

The Cluas Verdict? 8 out of 10

Full Review: It was a large and excitable crowed packed into Whelan’s to see Charlie Fink and his troop of pop-folk instrumentalists. The age-range went from just old enough to be there, all the way up to – as I could see it - fifty. Noah and the Whale clearly have a wide following, owing much of it to the extensive radio- and music channel play of their first single “Five Years Time” and also, the Laura Marling connection. No longer playing with the band, female vocal duty has been taken over by a red haired girl, whose name I did not catch. Also present on stage, a small brass section, violin and some keyboards.

After building some suspense, and showing a strange short film, they took the stage. Although well-translated to live as a whole, the stronger album tracks such as “Shape of my Heart”, “Jocasta” and “Rocks and Daggers” were instantly appreciated and definite highlights. Their frequent build-ups came across very well, and the layers of the different instruments on stage added a dimension to them that can’t be found on CD. I have a new apprecation for the very folk violin solos, now that I have witnessed them.

They took care of the die-hards, of which there were a few, with an old track, “Beating”, dedicated especially to them. Unfortunately, the pace took a hit when slow songs “Second Lover” and “Mary” were played back to back, follwed by a new song. But this was swiftly reversed when they played “Five Years Time”, smiling all the way through. It was hard to find a person not singing, jumping, head-nodding along. Another major sing-a-long came in the form of the limited-release single “2 Bodies, 1 Heart”, where we were given the opportunity to be their choir.

Throughout the gig, there was plenty of crowd interaction, made possible by the compact surroundings of Whelan’s. The front line of the crowd were less than arm’s length away from the band. However this did seem to cause some touble with some inexperienced gig-goers chatting noisely right under Charlie’s nose. He was stern but fair, and the kids subsquently shut up. And a girl called “Niamh” got plenty of attention from Charlie, which no doubt kept her happy.

There was no sign of  an encore, but people didn’t seem too put out about that. It was a nice, pleasant gig, that left everyone feeling a little bit happier.

Christine Cooke


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28

Last night I rolled out some tweaks to the navigation bar across good chunks of the site. You won't see the changes on this page (I will get around to doing the CLUAS blog and forum pages later tonight) but you will see it on the home page and any page that does NOT end with ".aspx" in its address.

In a nutshell: the navigation bar is being moved to just below the CLUAS logo (previously the nav bar was to right of the logo, where it has been for ages).

Why is this being done? This is a first step in a roll out of a complete refresh of the CLUAS look and feel. A few quick points about the change that has been implemented so far:

  1. It means we can have more items in the navigation bar becuase the nav bar now runs across the full width of the screen (the way it has been up to now meant we had to have a limited number of items on the nav bar as the bar had less space and too many items on the nav bar meant it would wrap around and "break" into two lines on screens of lower resolution).
  2. This week I also created a new 'interviews' page containing links to all of the 50+ interviews CLUAS has done over the years (this page and its links have been spun off from the long standing Features home page, the need to do this was something I realised when I recently analysed the full archive of CLUAS content). This new interviews home page - its creation being really just a bit of "content housekeeping" - is now linked from the new nav bar and will make the archive of CLUAS interviews more easily accessible to readers and search engines.
  3. Some of the space in the top right hand corner that has been freed up by this change is now running Google Ads. The intention however is not to run Google ads here all the time but to also run ads from local acts (publicising album releases / gigs / etc) and to allow them to run these ads for free. The DotNetNuke system that CLUAS uses for managing the site already has the technology built in for uploading and rotating non-Google banner ads. I need to implement this once the new nav bar is fully rolled out across the full site. Look out for an announcement on how bands can take advantage of this.

While this change is fairly discreet - I think some regulars may not even notice it - it sets CLUAS up for a far more visible shake up of the site's look and feel in the coming months.

Update 30 October: The nav bar for album and gig reviews as well as blogs has been updated (although you may need to hit 'refresh' in your browser to see it properly). Pages that have not yet been updated with the new nav bar are the discussion forum, Gigs of the Fortnight, the 'Features' and the 'Write for CLUAS' pages. They should be sorted in the coming days.


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24

Remember when Key Notes told you about Escape Act's innovative release strategy for their album?  Well, for those of you that don't, the Belfast band have taken to releasing all the tracks from their debut album, Loosely Based on Fiction, through some of Ireland's top music blogs.

The last track, Jupiter Storms, for example, was released through I Heart AU.

Key Notes was honoured to be asked to be part of this new and exciting approach to releasing music and today brings you the latest track for release, Laid Open.  It's a wonderful slice of indie pop which examines city life through the eyes of three Belfast boys.   

Download Laid Open now.

To check out the four songs already released, please see here.  


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24

Vampire Weekend (live in The Ambassador Theatre, Dublin)

Review Snapshot:  Living up to and, indeed, surpassing their Oxegen appearance, Vampire Weekend are a fun band with multitude of good songs.  It's just a pity they're all so short.

The Cluas Verdict? 8.5 out of 10

Full Review:Vampire Weekend Live
Is it still cool to like Vampire Weekend or has the backlash started yet? That seemed to be the question on most people’s lips last night as a packed Ambassador Theatre waited in nervous anticipation for New York’s finest purveyors of ‘Upper West Side Soweto.’ The answer to that question would have to wait though, at least until after New Amusement finished their support set.

I really wasn’t sure what to make of New Amusement last night. Undoubtedly they write some catchy songs and the majority of their set consisted of songs from their excellent mini-album Any Port in a Storm. However, singer Brian Molloy was plagued by tuning issues last night and at times it was painful to listen to. Only when he wasn’t singing did New Amusement sound like the band that had impressed me so much at this years Hard Working Class Heroes Festival. I can only assume the tuning problems were because he couldn’t hear himself sing and it’s a pity the sound engineer appeared to do nothing about it. Still, this is a band that has a great deal of potential and I’m sure they’ll take this appearance as a lesson learned.

So, is it still cool to like Vampire Weekend? The answer is that it doesn’t really matter. They’re a bit like Barak Obama; you don’t know why you like them, you just do. Having blown me away with their Oxegen performance I expected a fast paced set and Ezra Koenig and company definitely delivered. Opening with the foot-stomping trilogy of Mansard Roof, Campus and Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa they soon had almost every member of the audience, consisting mostly of students with too many scarves, hanging on their every note.

What a shame then that they decided to slow everything down with two new songs and the pedestrian paced I Stand Corrected and Bryn. Sensing he was losing the audience somewhat, Koenig announced that we were now entering the second part of the show and, to deafening screams, launched full throttle into the bands second single, A-Punk. This also marked the start of the sing-a-long part of the gig, something that Vampire Weekend may have welcomed but, then again, they didn’t have to listen to the girl in front of me who sounded more in pain than in tune, especially during One (Blake’s got a new Face). They wrapped up the set with faster-than-the-speed-of-light versions of M79, The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance and the hugely popular Oxford Comma. Who knew so many people were keen on grammar?

40 minutes into their set, and with a good deal of between song banter, Vampire Weekend had amazingly raced through 12 songs. What’s the rush? I could understand if it was a band with a huge volume of songs in their back catalogue but they’d already played 10 songs from their 11 track debut album. They’re going to struggle with their encore I thought to myself. I was wrong.

I’m not sure if I should admit this, but I was named after Stevie Nicks. Yes, the girl. Ergo, any cover of a Fleetwood Mac song will get my attention, especially if that song is Everywhere. This was, put simply, one of the best cover versions I’ve ever heard. I may have even sung along falsetto. Though to describe it as singing would be akin to describing an unkempt patch of grass as the pitch in Old Trafford. The night was wrapped up quite nicely with Walcott (Leaving Cape Cod) and, barely 55 minutes after starting, Vampire Weekend were finished.

This is the most fun I’ve had at a gig in a long time. I couldn’t help but enjoy myself. So good were Vampire Weekend that I could forgive the fact that the drums were too loud and that Ezra Koenig’s mic seemed to fade out at the start of every song. When you’re enjoying yourself this much and the music is this good, it’s very hard to care. Roll on album number two.

Steven O'Rourke

Photo Credit:  Beezeebeebee


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21

As you may or may not know indiecater is an offshoot of the mp3hugger blog and, while they initially concentrated on releasing compilations, the focus has recently switched to bringing the past back to life, starting with Red Star Belgrade's debut, Where the Sun Doesn't Shine.

Now though, the guys have moved closer to home by focusing on Sunbear's self-titled debut LP.  The album remains an prime example of a young band pulling out all the stops to dramatise what was buzzing around their heads.  Alas, fame and fortune were not to be and Sunbear soon faded from the limelight.  Their demise did spark the formation of the excellent Ruby Tailights though, so it's not all bad. 

As only 1,000 copies of Sunbear were released in 2004, not many people got to hear it.  Now though, indiecater has made Sunbear available for download for a recessionary-proof price of €3.50 (no 1% or 2% levies or means tests required here!).

You can download it here.

Oh, and though Kevin over at mp3hugger was playing his cards very close to his chest, rumour has it that a number of forgotten Irish records will see the light of day again before Christmas.  Key Notes is very excited at this prospect.

Sunbear:  Notebook


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19

A review of 'Fight Like Apes & The Mystery of the Golden Medallion'

Review Snapshot:  Fight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion is, to borrow a phrase from the funniest man on television, Jon Stewart, an enigma, wrapped in a riddle, nestled in a sesame seed bun of mystery. I hated it, I liked it, I loved it, I hated it again and then, when I thought I was falling in love one more time, something struck me and everything changed. Fight Like Apes have made a solid debut record. Indeed it will probably be one of the best records of the year and for that they should be commended.  It’s just that I was expecting more than solid.  I was expecting greatness.

The Cluas Verdict? 8 out of 10

Full Review:Fight Like Apes & The Mystery of the Golden Medallion

I’ve had Fight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion in my hands and on my stereo for quite some time now. There was, obviously, a temptation to rush to judgment on this record. After all, it was being touted as the most important release of the year and one could only sit back and smile at the ensuing clamour to be the first to review it. Had I reviewed it on the day of its release, it would have garnered no more than a 3 or 4. A week later it could have scored 9 or 9.5. That’s how much my feelings towards this album fluctuated.

Now though, after almost a month of soul searching, I realise why this album confuses me. Following a number outstanding live performances I’d bought into the hype surrounding Fight Like Apes and for the first couple of weeks after its release I paid the price for such foolishness. No album could have carried the weight of expectation I had laid upon the shoulders of Fight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion. However, shorn of my unrealistic expectations (which would surely have soundtracked the second coming of Jesus and/or Elliott Smith) this is actually quite a good album.

There are those that will complain that songs like Jake Summers, Lend me your Face, Do you Karate? and Battlestations have all been reworked and don’t sound as lo-fi (and, therefore, as good) as their originals. However, when you listen to the album in its entirety these re-workings were necessary. The original versions of those songs just don’t hold the slick production values of newer tracks like Something Global and Digifucker.   As individual songs they lose some of their charm, but the reworking benefits the album as a whole.

John Goodmanson (Death Cab for Cutie, Pavement) was brought on board as producer and has obviously decided to bring the band in a more polished direction and Fight Like Apes have (‘indier than thou’ types please look away now) created a more commercially viable record because of that. The Fight Like Apes formula is one a lot of bands could take note of.  High octane live shows help to generate underground hype and establish indie credentials.  Releasing a well produced record  will then, almost certainly, generate mainstream radio play and increase sales.

Fight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion is not an album without faults mind. It’s very ‘top heavy’ for a start. The second half of the album (12 songs) contains only two songs, Do you Karate? and I'm Beginning to Think you Prefer Beverly Hills 90210 to Me, that are worthy of note. Lumpy Dough, Snore Bore Whore and Megameanie do nothing to counter claims that the boys and girl in Fight Like Apes may be more self-conscious than they claim. Fight Like Apes are at their weakest when they try to sound like Fight Like Apes. 

In the words of Eamon Dunphy, Fight Like Apes & the Mystery of the Golden Medallion is a good album, not a great album. However, and you only have to read the sheer volume of reviews/blogs associated with the band to see I’m not alone, I firmly believe this is a band with greatness in them. That being said, history hasn’t been kind to Irish ‘next big things’ (JJ72 for one) and only Fight Like Apes know if they can ever become the band the rest of us seem to think they are destined to be. Indeed, only Fight Like Apes know if they even want to become that band. 

Steven O'Rourke


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18

DEAF Dublin Electronic Arts Festival 2008Far be it from us in Paris to tell you in Ireland what you should be doing next weekend, but we see that the DEAF electronic music festival will be on in Dublin on 23-26 October. No doubt our colleague Key Notes will be keeping an eye on this and reporting on the best of the action, dispatching his crack team of gig reviewers out into the electronic city like futuristic cyborgs of the night.

Keeping strictly to our remit lest the CLUAS trade union rep objects, we'll just highlight two French acts who'll be appearing at DEAF.

Starting at the finish, Laurent Garnier is one of the featured acts at the DEAF closing party that takes place at the Village, Whelans and Whelans Upstairs simultaneously on Sunday 26 October. You've no work the next day, so you can stay out late with a clear conscience.

Anthony Gonzales of M83Earlier in the festival, on Friday 23 October at Vicar Street, there's the return of M83 (left). You'll recall that Anthony Gonzales and co. played at the ALT back in April.

M83's album 'Saturdays = Youth' is one of the best French albums of this year, which is probably damning it with faint praise given that it hasn't been a great year for French albums. But it's good stuff nonetheless - dreamy synth-fuelled shoegazing that's perfect for late night listening. We're not sure how well that'll come across live; no doubt you'll let us know.

The standout track on 'Saturdays = Youth' is the gorgeous 'Kim And Jessie'. Between this single and the album as a whole, M83 is bound to feature strongly in our Best French Music of 2008 poll. (The Christmas lights are already going up outside the Paris department stores, which has got us thinking of our end-of-year list. Be sure to drop us a line to tell us your favourites of the year in pop française.)

Here's the video for 'Kim And Jessie', which features what we presume is called synchronised ballroom rollerskating. And if that isn't an Olympic event by now, downhill ballroom rollerskate road racing (2 mins 30 secs) certainly deserves to be:


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Nuggets from our archive

2006 - Review of Neosupervital's debut album, written by Doctor Binokular. The famously compelling review, complete with pie charts that compare the angst of Neosupervital with the angst of the reviewer. As you do.