No doubt you queued in the rain from the crack of dawn to buy the new Coldplay album, 'Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends'. Or maybe you just ignored it.

Either way, perhaps you noticed the album's cover (right), which reproduces a very famous French painting. As you've no doubt shouted at the computer, it's Delacroix's 'Liberty Leading the People', otherwise known as 'Liberty Getting 'Em Out for the Lads'.

The painting, from 1830, commemorates that year's overthrowing of Charles X, king of France under the Bourbon restoration. It depicts an idealised barricade scene from the French Revolution of 1789. (The dapper-looking rebel with top hat and bayonet is believed to be Delacroix himself.)

You can see this painting at the Louvre in Paris. It hangs in a grand hall of oversized French classics just around the corner from the Mona Lisa, probably the most famous painting in the world.

On the same wall as Delacroix's famous barricade scene is another iconic French masterpiece that has been used on an album cover. We're talking about Géricault's 'Raft of the Medusa', which was used by The Pogues for the sleeve of "Rum, Sodomy and the Lash". We hasten to add that the original painting doesn't feature the heads of the band.

While Delacroix's painting is a bit naff to modern viewers (much like Coldplay), Géricault's great work is still immensely powerful in its depiction of human forms twisted in agony.

There's a connection between 'Raft of the Medusa' and our other featured painting. Delacroix was the model for the young man slumped on his legs in the left foreground. (On the album cover, he's just over the word "The" of "The Pogues".)

Both Géricault and Delacroix are buried in the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, famous as the resting place of Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf and Oscar Wilde.

Have you been to the Louvre? If you've visited Paris as a tourist, perhaps you've dashed through in one afternoon to see the greatest hits: the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. It takes a full afternoon's brisk walk just to see all the paintings; the sculptures, Egyptology and other artefacts are each another day's work.

Fortunately for those of us who live in Paris, the Louvre is open for free on the first Sunday of every month. So, we can just stroll in and take the great museum one section at a time. The other major galleries of Paris, such as the Musée d'Orsay and the Centre Pompidou, are also free on the first Sunday. We've said it before; life here is good.

From the Louvre-referencing 'Rum, Sodomy And The Lash', here's a very '80s-London video for one of The Pogues' own masterpieces, 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes': 

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This edition features Daragh Anderson of Codes, who has taken time out from a busy schedule that includes gigs in London, The Academy and Oxegen, to become the Sixth Key Note Speaker.

Favourite Songs from the Past Year
Radiohead - All I Need
M83 - We Own The Sky
Idiot Pilot - In Record Shape
Unkle - Keys To The Kingdom
MGMT - Time to Pretend

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2008 will see Oxegen become a four day event for the first time.  Punters who have decided to stay on Thursday night will get to enjoy the Swamp Circus Theatre whose line up includes the smallest banjo orchestra in the world , a Headphone Disco and The Rocking Back the Clock Stage that will feature the likes of The Stone Roses Experience and AC/DC cover band, Hells Bells.

Friday July 11

Friday night see’s the Main Stage being headlined by the Kings of Leon and Interpol while the O2 Stage features the likes of dEUS and the Future Kings of Spain. For those of you who like their music a little more electronic, Aphex Twin, Battles and God is An Astronaut will all be appearing on the Pet Sounds Stage.

Irish interest on Friday centres on the Green Room which hosts the likes of BellX1, Mundy and (Key Notes’ personal favourite [/sarcasm]) The Kinetiks.

Key Notes One to Watch: Sugababes Cat Power – Pet Sounds Stage

Saturday July 12

REM and The Verve can be seen strutting their stuff on the Main Stage on Saturday night. Key Notes first ever gig was The Verve in Slane and he has a rather interesting tale to tell about the night. However, such immoral, not to mention illegal, activities should never become public knowledge. Saturday will also allow festival goers play ‘will she, won’t she’ with Amy Winehouse being the special guest topic.

The Manic Street Preachers, Echo and the Bunnymen, Vampire Weekend and The Ting Tings are all part of a cracking Green Room line up, as are the mental, which obviously means brilliant, Brian Jonestown Massacre. Irish bands performing on Saturday include Codes (IMRO New Sounds Stage), Concerto for Constantine (Green Room) and Belfast’s own Oppenheimer (IMRO New Sounds Stage).

Key Notes One to Watch: Codes (IMRO New Sounds Stage)

Sunday July 13

Far from being the start of a wind down, Sunday has quite a strong line up. The Main Stage plays host Rage Against the Machine amidst rumours (started by, and only known to, Key Notes) of an imminent album announcement. Elsewhere, dance is well represented by Does it Offend You, Yeah (Dance Stage) and Chemical Brothers (02 Stage). 

The British invade these shores (don’t mention the war - Ed) in droves on Sunday with The Kooks and The Fratellis both playing the Main Stage while Ian Brown and Reverend and the Makers can both be found in the Green Room. 

Irish performances on Sunday come from Oscar winner Glen Hansard and Roisin Murphy (Pet Sounds Stage) as well as The Blizzards (Main Stage) and Fight Like Apes (2FM New Band Stage). 

Key Notes One to Watch: Band of Horses (Pet Sounds Stage)

For those of you who want to wake up hungover, tired and dirty on Monday morning, but having enjoyed a great weekend of music, a limited number of weekend tickets are still available for Oxegen from the usual outlets.

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A review of the album Explode From The Center by Rubies

Review Snapshot: Swedish (we think) five-piece debut with a sound collection of works that - regretfully - seem too comfortable in their own skin to reach out and engage the listener in an anotherwise worthwhile listen.

The Cluas Verdict? 5.5 out of 10

Full Review:
Rubies are a five-piece built around the longstanding pair of Simone Rubi and Terri Loewenthal, and while all of their promotional material manages to avoid details of their geographical heritage, Rubies are as Swedish as Ikea – you know they’re Swedish, but don’t know exactly how you can distinguish it that way, it’s just something you know.

‘Explode from the Center’ is a very solid and distinguished album, and doesn’t at all sound like a debut. Whether this is a good thing or not is another matter – the album seems to lack the distinct, urgent freshness that classifies a great debut. Perhaps Rubies just aren’t that kind of band.

Despite the synthesis, the album has a consistent sense of timelessness, ably sitting comfortably in mental images from late 80’s warehouse raves to third millennium wine bars. The opening half of the nine-track opus is a promise of more energy to come; the latter, however, mostly disappoints, save for ‘Diamonds on Fire’, which hits stride with repetitive smacked guitar and muttered vocal riffs. Lyrically the strongest song of the album. “I could make it / so much easier on you / but it’s hard, it’s so hard”, sing the band, before growing into lush counterpoint with comforting warmth.

Opening with light funk guitar, ‘Room Without A Key’ settling into a light Sia Furler-esque groove before hitting an 80’s chord in the chorus, yet embellished with distinctly modernist vocal tweets, and smacks of a 4am red wine crash in a city centre shoebox, being followed by the lush acoustic and intimate synthesis of ‘Too Bright’.

'Signs of Love'’s Wurlitzer opening is reminiscent of Semisonic, and offers the first chance for Simone Rubi to really push her melodic chorales. “Lovin’ each other ‘til the end of Summer / into the Fall under we find another way / to stay inside our hearts” sings Rubi, with the kind of elegance that Morcheeba made an easy career from.

With a synth opening that Duran Duran could have relaunched with, lead single ‘I Feel Electric’ is made for a nightclub scene from an edgy independent drama (think Juno or the Sugar Rush TV series). A multiminded song, it ebbs, flows and glides its way through four and a half disco-tinged minutes with alarming invention and creativity, although sounding like a Casio keyboard’s workout demo song once it settles in the middle eight.

Second single ‘Stand In A Line’ opens sounding like it was tailor-made for an Orange ad with summery streetscapes and gently syncopated beats, and then flirting with funky hip-hop before detouring into the slap bass identikit R&B you’d hear in a mental image of a Topshop. “Did you notice your mind’s on fire?” asks Rubi during the hip-hop phase of this awkwardly adolescent opus – awkward in the sense that the song seems to take on phases just as arbitrarily as your average teen.

Elsewhere, 'Turquoise' opens with groggy plucking and settles into a sunburnt bop suspiciously like Bell x1’s ‘The Money’ before discovering gospel at the end with blaring saxophone and searing vocal backup, while the closing couple of Silver Mornings (conjuring images of tamely driving down a straight country road with nothing to amuse on either side and only one tape for the stereo. “This is what it’s like when it’s lonesome at night”, eh? Too right) and The Truth and the Lies bring the album to a muted close.  On the latter in particular, coming after eight songs desperate for a strum, when it comes it’s misspent on lazy, Feist-y (sic) oozing without direction. If you were to play the album coming in at 4am, this one would lead to a steady slumber.

‘Explode from the Center’ is a work of real promise but is ultimately crippled by its comfort in its own skin and the absence of a desire to reach out and engage. A good album in that it’s open for engagement, but not a great one without offering it in return.

Gav Reilly

 To buy a new or (very reasonably priced) 2nd hand copy of this album on Amazon just click here.

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It could be a landmark in China’s protection of music copyright: the music industry is sueing Baidu, China’s leading search engine by traffic, because it claims, much of the company’s wealth is down to its illegal downloads to users by deep linking or reorganizing song data into play lists in order to draw users.

In a case taken by major labels Universal, Warner and Sony – though not EMI, which has a contract to supply music to Baidu – are seeking US$9 million in damages in the case, which was filed with the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court. Outside the courtroom smaller music firms and bodies like the Music Copyright Society of China (MCSC), the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) are seeking other ways to hurt Baidu into action. Companies like R2G the court case is simply a test run: if found guilty Baidu is likely to be fined a small amount (Chinese courts limit the awards to RMB200,000 (EUR20,000 euros). But a guilty verdict could open Baidu up to a slew of further cases, in Chinese as well as foreign courts. The company’s US investors will surely be worried.   

I’ve been talking with Matthew Daniel, vice president of R2G, a local firm selling rights to international music catalogues in China, talks about wanting the big corporations and especially advertising companies involved. A well informed veteran of the local music industry, he sees the best chance for success in a multi-pronged offensive. Aside from tackling Baidu in court the music industry will also target its advertisers. By contacting its advertisers individually as well as bringing the company to court, it presents Baidu with a nightmare scenario of losing the case and its credibility with major corporate brands whose advertising spend has helped make Baidu one of China’s most wealthy and recognizable corporate names. Baidu has portrayed itself as a Chinese David against the Goliaths of the multinational music majors. Hardly the case, but it's a tactic that has some currency in ultra-nationalistic China.

Most encouraginly though, Baidu's hand may be forced by local Chinese record firms, whom bodies like the IFPI have been busily signing up as members. In the letters sent to advertisers Qu Jingming, vice president of the Music Copyright Society of China, pointedly asks advertisers “do you want to be associated with pirated music?" Qu's organisation represents 80 percent market share in China out of its well located and appointed office in Jingfang Plaza. The willingness to invite international press (though at short notice) to a recent press conference suggests a new intent to protect local music industry among state-sponsored bodies like the MCSC.

Protecting digital content is ever more important for the music industry. Global music sales took another tumble last year according to the IFPI, which represents the recording industry. A 34% increase in music sold online did little to compensate for the 13% drop in sales of CDs and music DVDs, which account for the bulk of the market. A report from PricewaterhouseCoopers forecast that spending on all forms of recorded music will continue to decline as youngsters turn to other outlets.

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When I first launched CLUAS.com in 1999 I used Microsoft’s FrontPage to publish and maintain content on the site. While FrontPage was, er, cutting-edge back then it today is a massively out-dated technology (indeed Microsoft announced several years ago that they are retiring FrontPage and will no longer support it from next year on). So in 2005 I started looking around for alternatives to FrontPage out of necessity.

I was acutely conscious that whatever choice I'd make would be vital for the site's future and so it took me over a year of pure procrastination to come to a decision on what technology I would deploy on CLUAS. In the end I went for an open source Content Management System called DotNetNuke ("DNN") which, after months of testing, I finally installed on CLUAS in November 2006.

DNN is actually a peculiar beast - an "open source software" project built on top of proprietary Microsoft technologies, a company considered by many to be the antithesis of Open Source Software. DNN is in fact today the biggest open source project today based on Microsoft technologies, and its active community strives to continually advance and improve DNN and oversee a release of a new improved version of the core technology every 3 months or so.

Another reason I selected DotNetNuke was that it has an extensive number of 'pluggable' add-ons (called 'modules') available that introduce new features to the core DotNetNuke platform, so users are not limited to the ‘core’ functionality. Some of these 'modules' are free and some you have to pay for (such as 'Active Forums' which drives the CLUAS Discussion Boards). However one thing I never appreciated when I initially chose DotNetNuke was the dependency CLUAS would come to have on one of the freely available modules – the Blog Module. This module allows for basic blogging functionality and we now use it on CLUAS for publishing all album and gig reviews, in addition to maintaining all the CLUAS blogs. In a nutshell a huge proportion of new content is today added to CLUAS via this module. The problem is that the blog module lacks much of the functionality and, let's call it, "visual panache" that comes with leading blog platforms such as Wordpress, Blogspot and others. The DNN blog module more or less 'does the job', and often not efficeintly or prettily

When I came across these limitations in the blog module I would, instead of grinding my teeth, submit an enhancement request to the DNN Blog Module team via the ‘Enhancement submission’ procedure they have put in place. To my pleasant surprise some of my  enhancement  requests got integrated into subsequent releases. I also became a regular on the official Blog Module forums and struck up some off-forum contact with other heavy users of the Blog module, including members of the team that are developing new versions of the module. Cutting to the chase , all of this resulting in the blog module's Team Lead Antonio Chagoury offering me a slot on the official blog module team about 2 months ago (as a QA tester and not as a coder, thankfully, considering I am not capable of writing a line of code if my life depended on it).

The last month has seen a flurry of activity behind the scene as the team - which also includes the very excellent Don Wortherly, Rip Rowan, Jim Bonnie and Dario Rossa - prepares the next version of the blog module (v3.05). I have been very active in all of this (identifying bugs, scoping out new functionality that would improve the user experience, etc) and I must say that the next release is really shaping up to be an amazing improvement.

While it won't be released for another month or so I plan to 'dog food' it here on CLUAS in the next week and the differences will be visible immediately to CLUAS regulars. While the CLUAS gig, album and blog sections will all look snazzier, some of the most important improvements will be invisible to casual visitors. There are a number of enhancements that will make the publishing of gig & album reviews and - of course - blog entries, so much easier for CLUAS writers. For example, those who publish content to CLUAS today will in the future be able to do so without even opening their web browser as the new version of the blog module supports the possibility for writers to publish content direct from their desktop (using the free 'Windows Live Writer'). The writers have for too long had to put up with a inadequate and cumbersome method of publication, now they will have a smoother route to getting content to CLUAS readers.

There are a rake of other improvements with the next release but I've bored you long enough so I'll put on the brakes, for the moment that is. What I will say (as I allow myself to get carried away about it all) it will be one of the biggest improvements to CLUAS in quite a while. Excuse the cliché but, watch this space.

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Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang are both former
members of Galaxie 500.  One of the the Eighties most influential bands, Galaxie 500 released three albums; Today, On Fire and This is our Music before breaking up in 1991.

As a duo, Damon and Naomi have released 7 albums, with their two most recent, Within These Walls and The Earth is Blue, being released on their own 20I20I20 label.  The duo play Whelan's on June 25th and, thanks to Forever Presents, Key Notes has a pair of tickets to give away. 

To win, simply email keynotes[at]cluas.com - replacing [at] with @ - stating your name and contact details.  Please put the words 'Damon & Naomi Competition' in the subject bar.  The winner will be drawn at random and will be notified before 4pm Wednesday afternoon.

Key Notes will be there, and with any luck we'll get to hear Song to the Siren, one of the best cover versions around:

 

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Walking through the central streets of Laos' capital Vientiane last week I chatted with a Chinese family from  Yunnan (the southwestern province which borders Laos) running a shop to shift counterfeit music and film products. A copy of the U2 Popmart tour DVD costs 11,000 kip in the store, the same as it costs in Beijing.

Counterfeits are geting scarcer at home - there’s less pirate CD and DVD product on the streets of Chinese cities – but China’s counterfeiting problem may simply be exported to neighbouring states.  Packaging of the Chinese fakes is slicker, often indistinguishable from the real thing, whereas in Vietnam the packaging is often badly photocopied inlay cards wrapped around a pen-marked disk straight out of a stationery shop. The Vientiane store was identical to the countless others which used to proliferate in Chinese cities: shelves of recent releases and staples by favourites like U2, Eric Clapton and Westlife. It also reminded me of similar stores I've seen in Ulan Bator, capital of China's northern neighbour, Mongolia. 

Industry coalition groups have been saying that makers of fake clothes, software and CDs are increasingly aiming for export markets: EU authorities claim that 70 percent of counterfeits seized at EU ports in 2007 came from China. Given that customs check, on average, less than five percent of containers going through China's jammed-busy ports, it's not surprising that a half dozen boxes of audiovisual product goes undetected, hidden in the front end of a container of fruit or furniture.

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Your blogger took one of his rare trips out of Paris last weekend. We were at Saint Lô in Normandy for a family occasion – the younger brother’s wedding to a charming young lady from that area. This means that your Paris correspondent, free-spirited bachelor, now has French in-laws; this may seem apt to you but it’s bizarre to us. (They’re tremendously nice people, we must say.)

A CLUAS Foreign Correspondent is never off duty, though. After the meal, dancing broke out and we kept a keen ear on what was being played. It being a French romance, first song was the theme from ‘Amélie’. We then remember ‘Double Je’ by Christophe Willem, which still sounds marvellous.

But our main ethno-musico-sociological discovery of the evening? French people will disco-dance to ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’.

Over the weekend we had time to stroll around Saint Lô. For your blogger, this simply meant his usual weekend routine: breakfast croissant and pain au chocolat at a café while reading the paper en français. Sunday morning, we watched our regular football programme, ‘Téléfoot’, at another café. (We hadn’t realised how exotic this would all seem to some Irishpeople.)

 

Most of the Irish guests found Saint Lô’s only Irish bar. However, they were shocked to discover that it only opens two days a week: Tuesday and Friday. (They drowned their sorrows in the town’s Scottish bar, open every day except Sunday.)

Again, your Paris correspondent kept his mind on the job. As usual when in a new town, we searched for a record shop. In Saint Lô this means Planet R, a book and music store on Rue Maréchal Léclerc. We can recommend it highly; not only were they playing the latest dEUS album when we went in but their biggest section is the alternative music one. And most of their stock was under ten euros. We fear they may be closed if we ever go back to Saint Lô.

Mindful of our Pamplona experience, when not buying a Jonathan Richman album changed our life, we shopped for a Saint Lô musical souvenir. So, what did we buy? Well, the idea was to get an album that we hadn’t seen in the Paris shops. We eventually went for ‘Melting Pop’, a sampler from French indie label Ra & Bo. This is the French dealer of The Frank and Walters, and the sampler features ‘Miles and Miles’ from their 2006 album 'A Renewed Interest In Happiness'.

Now, back in Paris, we’re listening to ‘Melting Pop’ and hoping to find a hidden French gem or two. Well, there are a couple of pleasant Coral-esque songs by the likes of Da Brasilians, Fireball and The Fleets.

 

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