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Firstly, apologies for the fact that the blog has been rather inactive of late. Many reasons, of course, but that will change!

This is a quick one. Regular readers will be well aware of Short Cuts love of bluegrass (as evidenced by my choice of the best record I bought in 2007 - link here).

From producing Loretta Lynn to swapping riffs with Keith Richards, Jack White as always worn his influences on his sleeve. Well add bluegrass to the list!

Just watch this wonderful clip...

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We had been wondering which city could be called France's capital of rock. (It's not Paris, obviously. Rock ruffles your clothes, musses up your hair.)

One popular suggestion was Clermont-Ferrand. We also considered Rennes, Nantes and Grenoble as contenders. And after a Tidy Towns-style inspection and judging process, we've come to a decision.

The capital of French rock is London.

Only last week we featured John & Jehn, the lovey-dovey art-rockers who've set up shop Thames-side. Before them there were The Teenagers, swearing like troopers.

Now we've discovered Underground Railroad (right), three more Frenchies bringing noisy alt-rock to Her Majesty's gig-spots. They're named after a 19th century secret escape network that helped slaves free Southern states and head north to freedom, so QE2 would want to watch out for the subversive French element loose on the royal thoroughfares.

Further to that, in French a hit single is called 'une tube'. And they live in London, where the underground railroad is called the Tube. And they're a band, right, so they could have hits. And they'd be 'tubes' in French. And... oh, forget it. We thought it was clever.

The trio - Raphael, Marion and J.B. - recently released an album, 'Sticks And Stones'. It's bloody good. For some reason the promo blurb on our copy compared them to The Pixies, which is absurd - if anything, their squally post-rock sounds a bit like Sonic Youth. But with a few catchy tunes. You can check some out on their MySpace page.

Here's the video for a fine recent Underground Railroad single, 'Kill Me Now':

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Key Notes Top Ten Irish Albums: 8

Alphastates - Made From Sand

Don't you think that it's all rather strange?  So sings Catherine Dowling on Made From Sand's opening track, 'Round Here.  She's wrong though, there's nothing strange about appreciating the quality of this album.

Key Notes first encountered Alphastates in the old Temple Bar Music Centre at Hard Working Class 2004.  Those of you familiar with the old venue will remember that the stage/gig area was separated from the bar area by two very heavy doors and so moving a round of drinks from one section to the other meant relying on either the kindness of strangers or the growth of an extra limb.  Walking through the double doors that night Dowling's vocals stopped this blog in it's tracks.  Subsequently, Key Notes has seen Dowling's vocals described as everything from 'honeydripping' to 'breathy' but that night, this blog could only use one word, sultry.

As it turns out, that was description was reinforced upon purchasing Made From Sand.  This album oozes sexuality to the extent that it should come with an 18 rating.  Much like this particular blog in fact as Key Notes can best describe Made From Sand as the musical equivalent to spending a stormy winter evening in the company of a beautiful woman, in front of an open fire, with a nice bottle of red wine left to breathe on the coffee table and clothes being an optional extra.  Thanks largely to the production genius of Karl Odlum, Made From Sand achieves this sound by crowning a multi-layered musical landscape with Dowling's captivating vocals.

As is usually the case with great albums, it's difficult to pick a favourite song on Made From Sand.  Kiss Me is probably the standout track, though not by much.  Dripping with sexual tension, this song is tailor made for a movie soundtrack.  Well, as long as the story of that movie involves a boy who says he loves a girl but doesn't really do anything about it until, alas, it might be too late.  You know, pretty much the story of about 100 movies per year.  Sometimes and Indian Sky are also worth mentioning as being possibly the only songs on the album where Dowling's voice is not the focal point and yet neither song appears out of place.  Speaking of special mentions, CLUAS' own Andy Knightley is mentioned in the sleeve notes (yes, Key Notes always reads the sleeve notes).

It's four years since the release of Made From Sand and Alphastates have, unfortunately, failed to deliver an LP since.  New album Human Nature is due out in February 2009 and, if the lead single of the same name is anything to go by, it will see the band moving in a new direction.  Key Notes' will reserve judgement until he hears the entire album but, whatever direction Alphastates decide to take, they have already delivered one of Irish music's most unique albums and the world is a better place for it. 

Alphastates - Kiss Me

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Manic Street Preachers (live in Hong Kong)

Review Snapshot: Great show, but why didn't the avowed socialists come play Red China?

The Cluas Verdict? 9 out of 10

Full Review:
Opening with Motorcycle Emptiness, the Manics made the best of a bad turnout in Hong Kong to deliver a stash of their hits and a cover of Nirvana’s Penny Royal Tea. The new and the old, Autumn Song and Faster came early on, followed by that solid cover of Rihanna’s Umbrella, which has become a staple of their live set on this tour.

It’s strange that the supposedly socialist Manic Street Preachers came to Hong Kong, the most capitalistic piece of land in Asia, rather than north to Beijing? The Chinese capital’s gritty soul and priceless layers of bittersweet history and colourful characters reads like a Manics songbook. Maybe it's because they're scared of bumping into their old collaborator Kylie Minogue - she got a mention during the Hong Kong set - has been in these parts lately.

Or maybe it’s because, whatever their protestations, the Manics’ fanbase has now graduated, married and become the 30-something office jockey, a creature found in abundance in Hong Kong’s skyscrapers. Down in Kowloon Bay, the HiTech Star is a hall in a mall. I should’ve expected it but the Hong kong convention centre address is a bit misleading; cake shops, Cantonese cuisine and karaoke all abound in this place. Taking the elevator to the fifth floor for the balcony seats, I was shown inside with the usual Hong Kong friendly efficiency. That can be annoying: a security man politely kept us back from the glass barrier - not becuase it was dangerously crowded up there, but because we'd smudge the glass by getting too close. There were plenty of disinterested faces in the sparse balcony crowd, lots of quizzical locals who didn’t know the songs and were obviously along for a look.

It got better when I moved downstairs for Masses Against the Classes. A HK$50 (EUR5) pint of Carlsberg in hand I strolled up to the second barrier from the stage and watched the rest of the show with a local fan who appeared like he really wanted to look like Richey Edwards and complained at the end that the band didn’t play Kevin Carter.

The Manics trio is now buffeted by several travelling musicians, one of whom, introduced by James Dean Bradfield as “Mr London Irish Sean Reed" played some lovely saxophone on Ocean Spray. The acoustic playing of “Mr London Irish” number two, Wayne Murray, seemed a bit mechanical at times. Bradfield excused any propensity to falsetto on him having a cold, but all was forgiven when the frontman took the acoustic guitar himself for a heart-rending Black Flowers, introduced as “one of Richey Edward’s finest lyrics.”

Nicky Wire's comparatively conservative wardrobe for the night - a white suit - may have been chosen to fit the sterile surrounds. Real fans might have been thin on the ground, but everyone moved to Bradfield's "cerebral drinking song," Design for Life. Suit jacked slung over shoulder, the gwailos (local slang for foreigners)  let a screech of recognition for Everything Must Go, introduced as “from the cool days of Britpop.” Raised beer tumbler in the air and neckties loosened, they were having a good time by the time the houselights went on, after a glorious Send Away the Tigers.

I went home happy I got great value for my HK$440 (EUR44) ticket and the airfare from Beijing. Next time I hope the Welsh communists will come up north to visit their lapsed brethern.

Mark Godfrey

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Does your local public library have a music section? Not just music-related books and magazines, but a section where you can borrow CDs and perhaps also DVDs.

There are two large public multimedia libraries (in French, ‘médiathéques’) near Château French Letter and both have extensive music sections, or ‘discothèques’. Yes, ‘discothèques’. (The French term for a disco is ‘une boîte de nuit’, which literally means ‘a night box’. Sweat box, more like it.) We do the rounds of our libraries every Saturday morning. (They also have lots of novels in English.)

Both libraries are quite quick in stocking the latest releases, so it’s an essential source of new music. Within a week or two of their release, we were able to take out this year’s albums by Vampire Weekend, Fleet Foxes, dEUS, Hercules & Love Affair, Portishead, Foals, Tindersticks, She & Him and any other worthwhile record of 2008. (It helps that alternative music is a minority sport in France; no one else seems to have borrowed them before us.) We also discovered obscure classics from ye olden days (Young Marble Giants) and overlooked gems from more recently (Nicole Atkins).

As well as saving money on new music, our libraries allow us to experiment, risk-free. In this way we’ve tasted other genres, chipped away at our monolithic ignorance of jazz, classical and world music. So now we’ve discovered Rachid Taha, Ornette Coleman, Tom Zé, Amadou and Mariam – and made a start on the works of Beethoven, Bach and Mozart. It’s been a wonderful education.

(On which point: at school shouldn’t we listen to classic music they way we read classic literature? Imagine the morning of the Leaving Cert exam: “Yeats and Mozart both came up last year, so this year it’s definitely Austin Clarke and Jelly Roll Morton!” And then the post-mortem afterwards: “Thomas Kinsella and Fela Kuti!?!? Sure we never did THEM!”)

It’s interesting to see the differences in stock between the two libraries. The music desk at the older establishment is staffed by hard rock fans, and that library always seems to be buying reissues by ‘70s leather-rockers like Scorpions. The other, newer place has indie-kid employees and has more indie-kid new releases, apparently inspired by the pages of French music magazine Les Inrockuptibles. Although a librarian friend of ours insists that stock is bought by administrators and not influenced by staff, we suspect otherwise.

Another curiosity of French music libraries (and record stores): French-language music is shelved separately as ‘chanson française’, a rather loose concept that covers traditional balladry, MOR and anything considered mainstream. French-language pop like Yelle or Housse De Racket goes in here too, but rock en français (like Dionysos or the dreaded Noir Désir) is filed under international rock. Music by Air is filed as international rock/pop, while the album they made for Charlotte Gainsbourg is considered chanson française even though it’s in English. But then, your local HMV (or whoever)lumps all non-English music in as ‘world music’.

We’ve mentioned before the large market here for music aimed at small children: bouncy pop performed by cartoon characters. So the libraries have sizeable sections of these works: one of our local libraries has more children’s records than it has metal, electronica and country combined.

Given that we pay more tax in France, and spend it more wisely, it’s slightly unfair to compare France with Ireland in this regard. But just for comparison’s sake:

From our last days in Dublin, four years ago, we remember that the ILAC Centre library had a music section. Is it still there? If so, hopefully it’s been spruced up and restocked. Back in the day, it was fairly run down. Inlay cards were tattered, faded or simply photocopies, and cases were cracked or broken. There was hardly any rock or pop – certainly no recent releases. Most of the best jazz albums, including the entire stock of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, were missing, probably stashed in some Dublin bedsit and never to return. That said, there was still enough on the shelves to make the ILAC music library interesting.

For reasons that would surely bore you, the CLUAS Foreign Correspondent (Paris) turned up in Portlaoise public library two years ago. We saw that they had a fair-sized music section.  Having looked them up on the web at random, we see that the local libraries in Tralee, Ennis, Cavan and Athlone don’t have one but Ballina, Wexford and Carlow do.

Here’s an experiment: go to your local library and, if it has a music section, see if they have these five records: (1) ‘Unknown Pleasures’ by Joy Division (2) ‘Birth of The Cool’ by Miles Davis (3) Bach’s ‘Goldberg Variations’, played by Glenn Gould (4) 'Around The World In A Day' by Prince (5) ‘Egypt’ by Youssou N’Dour. Five points for each album-plus-artist you find, for a maximum score of 25. Three points if you can only find another album by the same artist, or if the Bach is performed by someone else. Two points for a compilation or soundtrack featuring any excerpt from these five albums. One point for a compilation/soundtrack with any track by these artists.

From an album and artist we’d never have heard of but for the wonderful French public library system, here’s New Jersey singer-songer Nicole Atkins and the video for ‘The Way It Is’, from her fantastic 2007 album ‘Neptune City’. Not to build it up too much or anything, but that chorus is something else:

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Roisin Murphy (live in The Olympia Theatre, Dublin)

Review Snapshot:  Róisín Murphy is, without doubt, Ireland’s greatest female performer and seeing her live results in a full on assault on your eyes and ears. That Murphy pulls it off whilst barely stopping for a breath is a testament to how much effort is put into staging such a spectacular show.

The Cluas Verdict? 9.5 out of 10

Full Review:
Quirky is one of those words that can be used as a compliment as often as it can be used to insult somebody. It’s certainly a word that could be used to describe British electronic artist Bishi, last night’s support act. Arriving on stage dressed as a cross between Princess Leia and Cleopatra and armed only with an i-Pod and a sitar, Bishi certainly knew how to make an entrance. Thankfully there was substance to go with the, ahem, style and her fusion of tango, folk, pop and electronica served to warm up an audience that was getting larger by the minute.

It was clear from the audience that Róisín Murphy has a huge following amongst Ireland’s gay community, who made up a sizeable portion of the crowd, surpassed only by groups of college students wearing far too many scraves for an indoor venue. Regardless of sexuality or attire, each and every member of the audience jumped to their feet when the opening chords of Overpowered burst into life.

If I was to say at this point that the first 3 songs of the evening where the opening three tracks from Overpowered (an album which you really must own) you might think to yourself ‘hmm, that’s a bit boring.’ You’d be wrong. What makes Murphy such a brilliant live performer is the quality of her band and their ability to completely restructure their songs and yet lose none of the ‘oomph’ (that’s a professional music term) that makes them so remarkable in the first place.

Steven O'Rourke

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