This weekend's Beijing Pop Festival had everything. Bag ladies collecting plastic bottles, a Chinese camper van maker showing its wares, lamb skewers, marijuana, and lots of freeloaders selling their VIP tickets for RMB200 at the gate. We paid RMB250 for our day tickets at the official van, which sold a two day ticket for RMB450: "you get RMB50 discount."

And then we meet a friend inside with an access all areas VIP wristband, snapped up with the VIP invite she bought for RMB200 outside. Go everywhere, for two days, and use the VIP loos at the back of the stage. In China you give flash looking invites to officials, police and anyone else who might be able to put a spanner in the works. Even if they've no intention of going Beijing bigwigs regard free tickets as an acknowledgement of their might and if they don't get them they can exercise their ability to pull one of those many permits you need to put on an open air rock festival in China. Big shows like this one warrant a few hundred such tickets - and a special VIP area of arm chairs and tea service. 

When Alisha Keyes played on the Great Wall a few years ago organisers handed out 500 free tickets out of 5,000 sold and sat the paying public behind about six rows of armchairs reserved for big shots and/or their families. Many of course didn't show, or went home when the novelty wore off. Ticket scabs usually know the likely recipients and approach them for the tickets. Given than construction workers earn about RMB600 a month in Beijing, a ticket sell for RMB200 isn't a bad takings.

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Visiting the Sugar Jar CD shop over in the ever-more-gentrified 798 art district in Dashanzi district lately I picked up a couple of CDs of recordings made by travelling French musicologist Laurent Jeanneau. At RMB30 and in unillustrated pink paper packaging the CDs don't immediately catch the eye but then little of what they sell in the tiny Sugar Jar is mainstream.

"Background music, ambient music man!" were the explanations of a couple of local music fans hanging out in the shop. On first listen I've got lots of patriotic chants and background music you hear at morning assembly/exercise time in the yards of Chinese secondary schools. There's also chants and tunes from the Yi and the Miao, minorities in southern China. Jeanneau fears the country's minority music will be lost as the tribes' youth fall in line with the karaoke bars and syrupy Mandarin variations on western pop. It's a tale that's also been told about Tibet and Xinjiang, regions of Buddhist and Muslim peoples where Han culture and mass tourism are having a diluting effect on local traditions and music.

When I called the number on his CD the amiable Jeanneau answered. He doesn't have a mobile and lives, in a cottage outside the city, off the RMB15 he gets from each CD sold at the Sugarjar (he gave up on negotiating a deal with a mainstream Chinese record label). More after we meet on his next journey into town.

  

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DeVotchka (live in Crawdaddy, Dublin)

Review Snapshot: They may be known predominantly for the soundtrack of everyone’s favourite indie film of the past few years, but the Denver based band show Dublin that there is much more to them than yellow camper vans and wee Miss Americas. Despite the claim that their "live performances are considered transcendent- with audience members dancing and crying, sometimes in the space of a single song", the Dublin crowd are happy enough to cheer and dance. We’re just a little more restrained I suppose…

The CLUAS Verdict? 7.8 out of 10

Full Review: Spending a balmy and surprisingly dry Friday evening in the beer garden of Crawdaddy is not entirely unpleasant. However the prospect of having to enter a cramped, dark and sweaty room is not exactly enticing, even if it is to see a band that are reluctantly forced to refer to themselves as “Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack composers” in advertisements despite the beauty of their mournful songs. As I enter the venue ten minutes late (lounging in the setting sun delayed me) I am greeted by the sight and sound of Jeanie Schroder playing a huge illuminated sousaphone decorated in flowers and lights, a violinist who is either incredibly sedate or concentrated (quite a bemused expression in my opinion) and lead singer Nick Urata delicately crooning into a vintage microphone with an expression of grief that, one would presume, only a Latin singer can bring to a performance.

For the more sombre and heartfelt songs, Urata stands to the left of the mic as if whispering into a former lover’s ear. Throughout most of the set the drummer is in recluse behind Urata only to emerge to play trumpet when needed. In terms of categorisation Devotchka are a juxtaposition of mariachi influenced horns, guitar and a definite Yiddish/Eastern European fiddle but with the twist of an indie consciousness that invigorate the songs with a distinctive elegance which separates them from the pigeonholing of their influences. Twenty-Six temptations’ thundering sousaphone backbone is fair too loud and rumbling for such an initially timid audience.

The reluctant atmosphere gradually shifted as the trademark song from that soundtrack is aired. How It Ends alleviates any pretensions that they are a one trick horse. Thankfully this brought the rackety talkers of the venue to an abrupt and attentive silence. People began to loosen up: unfortunately I was right beside someone who did not relent in her movement or swaying and I was caught in a constant melee of dodging her grooving limbs and the same went for any unfortunates in her vicinity, but at least she was enjoying the flamenco claps. One of the highlights of the evening was definitely We’re Leaving where the band descended stage amongst the crowd a lá Arcade Fire at their recent gigs. The mariachi influence and lack of amplification brought both crowd and band (literally) closer and by the end of the second encore the crowd had finally been wooed with the polka of Lunnaya Pogonka that almost has me doing Russian squatworks. But not quite.

Whilst they are currently known mostly for their input to a soundtrack, it’s easy to see why they are much more in America. Their collecttive influences may perhaps restrict them from universal acknowledgement but with bands such as Gogol Bordello, Beirut and the North Strand Klezmer Band breaking through to the public, modest success may not be far off.

Solid performers and musicians as they are, it seemed they were waiting more for the audience to get into the gig, allowing them to relax in winning the crowd over. Perhaps the only complaint would perhaps be Urata’s over-earnest posing, giving each song such melodrama that he saturates some songs needlessly with his whispering pose. This was a great live introduction and with a few more visits and word of mouth approval they should garner a solid troupe of followers. Plus it’s nice to see a dressed up sousaphone once in a while.

Daire Hall

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Review Snapshot:
The Enemy is an anagram of The Jam.

The Cluas verdict? 3 out of 10

Full Review:
Did you know that The Enemy is an anagram of Paul Weller and The Jam? Nope, neither did I. When I first put on this album I must admit I thought I was going to love it especially when the first lyric I heard was, “Call the police, cos things are getting ugly”. At last a proper rock ‘n roll record, full of bile, anger and big guitars. But then, as I listened and listened again to this debut in my car, something strange started to happen. I began to hum along, but not to the actual songs on the record. Nope, I began to hum along to Jam classics such as ‘That’s Entertainment’, ‘Going Underground’ and ‘Town Called Malice’.

Something funny has happened in modern pop music, where once bands did everything in their power to create a unique sound quite unlike anyone else, now they strive to create a sound so similar to a famous classic group from days gone by as to be virtually indistinguishable. So prevalent has this movement become that it now has its own moniker; neo/retro. Amy Winehouse, Mika, Scissor Sisters, The Darkness, Jet, and Arctic Monkeys are just a few of the bands that sound similar to or exactly like big acts from previous eras. What’s more, they have been well rewarded for their efforts. Platinum discs, sell out tours and music industry gongs have flooded in for this type of ‘imitation is the best form of flattery’ music. It has been a slow process, preceded by the sound alike tribute band craze which spawned groups like Abbaesque who famously sold out the Point Depot, the sampling movement, which even U2 could not extinguish when they sued Negativland and the endless reunion/farewell tours of The Eagles. New music no longer means music that sounds new; it just means music that has the most recent release date. It sounds more like Dad spirit, if you will.

The Enemy are just the latest in a string of groups who are providing music to fans of previous generations of music industry legends that are now unable or unwilling to either tour or play the songs that made them famous. Bizarrely, it is bands such as Modest Mouse that, having signed up their hero Johnny Marr (nee Maher), are making music that is forward sounding and original whilst Arctic Monkeys, who sound so like 80s one hit wonder Jilted John that its no funny, find they have spawned their own, can’t even wait until the original have split, tribute band in Antarctic Monkeys.

As for The Enemy, well The Jam (minus Paul Weller) is presently on a reunion tour, your hard earned cash might be better spent on a ticket to see two thirds of the original of the species live instead.

Jules Jackson

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

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It was Alexandre Dumas who said 'Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.'  It was Key Notes who added 'Imbeciles were probably too busy texting in their votes for Ireland’s Greatest Living Musician.' 

Proving once again that the Irish general public should not be trusted to make decisions (see any General Election 1921-2007), Christy Moore has been awarded the mantle of Ireland’s Greatest Living Musician. Now, aside from the cruel jibe that he only knows nine chords and rations them to no more than three per song, the reality is that Christy Moore (as a music making entity at least) has been virtually retired for the last decade and will always be best known as an interpreter of other peoples music.

As a nation that prides itself on its musical ability, surely we could have come up with a musician more worthy of such a lofty title. While Key Notes has already made it clear that it thinks Neil Hannon is far more deserving of the award; it could also amass an endless (well at least twenty) list of musicians upon whose shoulders Ireland’s Greatest Living Musician would rest easily. 

Now, while Key Notes’ opinion of Christy Moore may be tempered by the fact that its Dad played nothing but The Christy Moore Collection 1981-1991 on every family holiday (from Lille to Lahinch) for four straight years, this blog still believes we can do better than this man as our Greatest Living Musician: 

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According to Mike Doyle, from San Diego, a leading light in a Christian surfing organisation, known as Walking on Water: "I think Jesus was a rebel, a radical. That attracts many surfers who tend to be revolutionaries and, sometimes, misfits.". Whatever the reason, the Christian surfing movement is attracting ever larger numbers of converts and Steven Morris of the Guardian has written an enlightening article on the topic.

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Review Snapshot: An interesting listen, though far from a masterpiece. Loose, funky and eclectic, the flaws are many but outnumbered by the positives. May not be destined for commercial success, but...

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French news agencies are this week reporting that France's most famous rock star and prison inmate may soon be free on conditional release.

Bertrand Cantat, lead singer with French group Noir Désir, was jailed in 2004 for eight years after a court in Lithuania found him guilty of killing his girlfriend, actress Marie Trintignant, after hitting her during a fight in their hotel room in Vilnius in July 2003. Cantat is currently serving his sentence in a prison near Toulouse, in south-west France.

Trintignant's death, and the subsequent trial of her lover Cantat, shocked France. The award-nominated actress, daughter of actor Jean-Louis Trintignant (star of French classics like 'Un Homme Et Une Femme' and 'Trois Couleurs Rouge') was filming on location in Vilnius at the time of the incident. The Lithuanian court heard how, during a fight after a party, a drunken Cantat struck Trintignant repeatedly, causing massive cerebral trauma.

A comatose Trintignant was rushed to a specialist hospital in France but died four days later. The then-President Chirac paid tribute to the late actress; Lithuanian police charged Cantat with her murder.

The case divided France. The charismatic Cantat was a hugely-admired figure, adored by French rock fans for his politically-engaged songs and fierce rebellious outbursts. In 1997 Noir Désir played a highly-charged concert in Toulon, a city then ruled by the extreme-right Front National of Jean-Marie Le Pen, and Cantat caused uproar at a 2002 awards ceremony by criticising the head of his record company. The idea of their idealistic rock idol being an abusive partner and killer was incomprehensible to his loyal fans. Cantat, echoing the tragic romances of Othello and of Romeo and Juliet, pleaded in court that he loved Trintignant and lost control during a passionate argument. During the period of the case, Noir Désir's record sales rocketed - but many fans have never forgiven Cantat for betraying their idealism.

The death of Trintignant provoked widespread public grief - and anger. Her violent end highlighted the issue of domestic violence, and huge numbers of people attended public demonstrations and protested at a perceived lack of resources and convictions in France. The Cantat trial became akin to a test case for domestic abuse; victim support groups held massive public demonstrations around France and called for greater protection of those suffering conjugal abuse.

Cantat was eventually found guilty of killing Trintignant and was sentenced to eight years in prison. A Noir Désir retrospective released in 2005 was promoted by his bandmates, who delicately referred to the 'absence' of their singer.

Trintignant was buried in Père Lachaise in Paris, final resting place of other tragic figures like Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison. A small Seine-side square named after her lies just around the corner from Morrison's former Paris apartment in the Marais.

Noir Désir, Cantat's band, are at best an acquired taste for non-French people. Their mix of punk aggression and self-righteous protest-song posturing makes for lumpen joyless sonic sludge that values politicised lyrics over musical content. Sure enough, Cantat's fans refer to him as the French Jim Morrison or the French Jeff Buckley; this should be enough to warn away discerning music lovers.

In short, most of Noir Désir's music is awful - but there are two flashes of quality in their back catalogue. One is the vicious guitar riff of 1992 single 'Tostaky', wasted on a clumsy and tuneless song. The other is an untypically catchy acoustic pop song that was a massive hit across the continent in 2001; it's called 'Le Vent Nous Portera' ('The Wind Will Carry Us'):

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You may not know this, indeed you may not want to know, but Key Notes will be getting married in 57 days time. You're probably also unware of the fact that one of this blogs favourite bands is Biffy Clyro, a band who just happen to have a song called 57.

Feeling bored this morning; Key Notes set its mp3 player to random. What song should happen to play first? Yes, you’ve guessed it; Hannigan by Fairuza. However, 57 did pop up somewhere between Neil Young’s Rockin' in the Free World and Mercury Rev’s Opus 40. There is a reason why it's called random.

To mark the event, Key Notes proudly presents 57 as its inaugural Song of the Week: 

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The boys and girls behind the Mercury Music Prize clearly know more about music than we do. How else can you explain the decision to award 1995’s prize to Portishead above Oasis (Definitely Maybe), Supergrass (I Should Coco) or, if they wanted leftfield, Leftfield (Leftism). Portishead have gone on to produce approximately one studio album since winning the Mercury, showing that the judges faith in the band using the award as springboard for a glittering music career, (as the prize is designed to do) was incredibly ill-founded. 

1999 was another occasion when the Mercury judges showed us mere mortals how cool they really where when Talvin Singh usurped the likes of Blur, Beth Orton, Faithless and The Chemical Brothers to claim the award for his debut album OK. The problem with OK was just that, it was nothing more. Even 13, which, in Key Notes humble opinion, is Blur's weakest album, was more deserving of the nod that year. However, Singh ticked a number of pc boxes that the judges couldn’t ignore. Middleclass white boy rock just wasn’t hip enough anymore it seemed. 

And so we come to last night. The winners of the 2007 awards were (and lets hope you haven't taped it for viewing tonight) Klaxons for their debut, Myths of the Near Future. Now, far be it from this blog to predict the future, but as interesting (indeed as refreshing) as Klaxons are, it is very much the sound of 2006/7 and the fickle record buying public will shortly move on to whatever sound du jour our friends in NME and Hot Press tell them they should be liking in 2008.  They are hardly a band that we'll still be talking about in 10 years time.

Personally, Key Notes vote would have gone for Bat for Lashes. Fur & Gold is a lovingly and skilfully crafted collection of music veneered with haunting vocals and moments of pure unadulterated pop eccentricity not seen since Kate Bush disappeared over the top of that hill. It’s not the best album this blog has ever heard by any means, but it has longevity, a timelessness, that Key Notes just can’t hear in any of the other contenders for this year’s prize. 

With all that being said, music is about opinions, and an album one person hates could easily be another’s favourite and that’s why Key Notes believes we should stop all these silly awards, after all, the only real winners are the sponsors behind the prize. Tellingly, not many Mercury winners have gone on to forge massively successful careers (it’s too early to tell for The Arctic Monkeys). 

Over to you then dear readers. Who did you feel was most deserving of last nights award; or indeed, like Key Notes do you feel that music awards serve no greater function than promoting the awards sponsors (whom, you'll note, Key Notes has failed to acknowledge)?

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