The annual Festival Interceltique takes place this weekend in Lorient, on the west coast of Brittany. Celtic acts from around the world will perform at the event, now in its 37th edition. This year the theme is Scotland, so there's a Highland flavour to the 2007 festival.

The Irish contingent at this year's festival includes Sharon Shannon, The Dubliners (or what's left of them), Donegal fiddle-player Theresa Kavanagh, folk group Coscan, a punk-folk outfit called the Mahones (hmm, wonder which two bands inspired that name?), The Colman Irish Dancers and the New Ross Pipe Band. There will no doubt be plenty of tributes to the mighty Tommy Makem, who passed away earlier this week.

We did a double-take, however, when we thought we saw a certain Californian funk-rock band on the bill - but in fact it was just the Red Hot Chili Pipers, a gang of Glaswegian pipers who are sure to win Best Band Name if there's such a prize.

The biggest genuine star name of the whole festival, though, is Sinead O'Connor, who has just released her trad and reggae influenced album 'Theology', her first collection of new material  since 2002's 'Sean-Nos Nua'.

Your blogger has a soft spot for Sinead ever since hearing her sing 'Peggy Gordon' a capella at a small fundraising concert in Dalkey a few years ago. It was a mindblowing experience - she has a voice made for traditional Irish ballads.

Here's the great lady singing a live trad-rasta version of  'Óró, sé do bheatha 'bhaile': 

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To check out Urban Surfing, click on the link below.

http://magicseaweed.com/video/flvplayer.php?id=30

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Note: After a huge interlude (during which whatever spare time I had was focused on sorting out stuff for the CLUAS site) I'm now getting back into blogging, I suspect it'll be in starts and studders for a while though, but hang in there...

The internet is, er, killing the music industry. Obviously.

Thankfully we have Elton John who, single-handedly, has come up with the best idea yet to save the music industry from inevitable death delievred by the hand of devious digital demons:  we must (wait for it) shut the internet down!

Damn, if only I had thought of that earlier. Yes, in yesterday's Sun Elton John went on the (analog, non-digital, paper-archived) record stating:

"I do think it would be an incredible experiment to shut down the whole internet for five years and see what sort of art is produced over that span… there’s too much technology available… I’m sure, as far as music goes, it would be much more interesting.”

Glossing over the fact that he is making a packet after recently deciding to put his back catalogue online, I must say that I for one am all up for it. Yes, let's indeed shut down the internet for 5 years and see what sort of music is conjured up. 

If everyone else out there doing stuff on the internet can agree to do the same, I'll gladly do my bit and shut down CLUAS until August 2012 (at which point you are all cordially invited to pop back to the CLUAS Discussion board to talk about how it all went).

Deal?

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When Matt Seaton of the Guardian mentioned in an article on cycling that George W Bush had taken up mountain biking I didn't really believe him. So I googled it and lo and behold President Bush is indeed a convert to a two wheeled, oil free mode of transport, Bike Force One if you will, and Outsider Magazine even went on the trail with him. Now, what I'd like to see is an off road race between him...and Michael Moore.

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Your blogger is back in Eire for a few weeks to recover from a hard year of working, marathon running and swanning around Paris.  We flew into Dublin this morning, and the city looks well - the Famine seems to have cleared up, and we didn't see any Black and Tans on the streets. Next stop the Kingdom - but the French-connected pop reports will continue.

Flying out of Charles de Gaulle Airport (or Roissy, as every French person still calls it) this morning reminded us that U2 shot the video for 'Beautiful Day' there in 2000. This was in more innocent pre-9/11 times, of course. Were the video to be filmed there today (based on our experiences this morning) it would feature Bono in a long queue for passport checks and Adam getting a good hard frisking (although perhaps that latter video already exists in someone's private collection).

Anyway, here's U2 acting the eejit in CDG. And keep an eye out for your blogger around Ireland over the next three weeks!

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When Shane Byrne came out tonight dressed as Freddie Mercury on Charity You're A Star; complete with white vest, black leather jacket and white jeans, and lashed into Queen's "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" I started to laugh so much that I couldn't breath. Some people were surprised but in 2005 the Singing Mullet gave an interview to The Guardian which signalled his favoured taste in rock and, if he stays in the competition all the way to the finals, we could be looking at a priceless version of either 'Enter Sandman' or 'Thriller'.

Q: OK, what music to you listen to before charging out on to the pitch?
A: Something heavy. As you can probably tell from my hair...
Q: Ah, so that's what it's all about! A homage to heavy metal!
A: It's not a homage to anything! I just hate short hair. Simple as that.
Q: So what's the last CD you bought?
A: Well, I'm a modern type of guy so I tend to download music rather than buy CDs. I've got very wide-ranging taste. I listen to everything from Metallica to Michael Jackson to classical stuff.

Certainly, the show is a bizarre cross between the final scene in 'About A Boy' and those very nasty 'Hostel' films, except in this case the contestants willingly submit themselves to immolation. Its brilliant car crash television and far funnier than anything on Paramount Comedy which exists on endless re-runs of live concerts by Jack Dee, Lee Evans and Tommy Tiernan. Good on you Shane.

To vote for Shane Byrne:

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