Ballroom of Romance # 20 http://www.ballroomofromance.com Date: Friday 19th September 2003 Time: 9pm Venue: The Lower Deck, Portobello Price: €6 (with a free CD-R featuring tracks from the bands playing to the first 100 "people" in the door) Bands: Alphastate http://www.alphastates.com/ Fresh from playing the Mór Festival, Alphastates (formerly Babelfish) are making waves over critics and the general public alike with their combination of leftfield production with good songwriting and sweet singing. Their debut album "Conversations with Robots" was released last November and are planning to release a follow-up in October. Among the critical acclaim they've received they've been voted both best Irish Band by Phantom FM, voted in the top ten Irish releases of 2002 by the Irish Times and according to Tom Dunne they are "by far one of the more promising acts to appear on the Irish scene recently". Hummingbird Smashing three-piece band from Dublin who will be releasing their debut EP around the end of September. If the Frames or Jeff Buckley are your thing, then definitely check these guys out. Very hard to say anything other than these are an exceptionally talented band with a lot of great songs. The lead singer also does a definitive version of "Raglan Road". Random http://www.rndm.com/ Released their debut EP "Falling through the Clouds" with a limited run of 500 copies. Reaction to this has been very positive and they are planning to release more stuff by the end of the year. They make evocative, soaring music and the lead singer has an ethereal voice. A Spaghetti Western http://www.aspaghettiwestern.com/ Subversive skewed pop with nice bits inbetween. Sound like bits of Cowboy Junkies mixed with bits of Sonic Youth. If you go the Blackfort Organic Gallery on Crow Street beforehand to see the free live music there, there will be five Ballroom CDs there. Pick up one and you get into the Ballroom for €4.