Cllr Rotimi Adebari first came to Ireland with his family in 2000 fleeing religious persecution in Nigeria. After a few weeks the family settled in Portlaoise. Seven years later the people of Portlaoise have elected him mayor. You can read the full story in The Irish Times Online.

[Read more...]

[Read more...]

Ted Leo and The Pharmacists played an explosive show at the Fleche d'Or in Paris last night. Unfortunately, the turnout was low - in fact, the band's original Paris show (at the Nouveau Casino) was cancelled due to poor ticket sales, and last night's slot on the Fleche's Monday night bill a less-than-ideal solution. Still and all, they were magnificent - and free!

They must surely be one of the hardest-rocking bands around. Sometimes they rock like At The Drive In: furnace blasts of incendiary chords and screaming rage. Other times they rock like Thin Lizzy: southern-fried blues licks with stomping basslines on the side. On 'A Bottle Of Buckie' (from their latest album 'Living With The Living') they even rock like The Pogues. In summary, they rock like The Rock and Rocky Balboa hurling rocks at the Rock of Cashel.

Almost as impressive as the rock is the hair. Check out drummer Chris Wilson's Ronnie Drew-like beard! And bassist Dave Lerner's poodle perm! We haven't seen hair like that since (Snip! - CLUAS Legal Department).

If you want to rock, go to see them. They'll be at Crawdaddy in Dublin this Wednesday night - it's one of CLUAS's Gigs Of The Fortnight. They're then playing the Roisin Dubh in Galway on Thursday and Lavery's Bunker in Belfast on Friday.

To whet your appetite, here's 'Sons Of Cain' live from San Francisco:

[Read more...]

Groan. The new single by French singer Amel Bent is called 'Nouveau Francais' and it deals with contemporary social issues - and it borrows a few bars of 'La Marseillaise' to make its point.

We're disappointed because Amel's first album, in 2005, was full of sassy, smart, self-assured Rn'B-flavoured pop - the best of which was the brilliant 'Ma Philosophie', one of our picks of the best French tunes of 2005.

All that summer, groups of girls sang it in streets, on the metro and (if my upstairs neighbour is typical) in their bedrooms. In short, it did more to project and cultivate a positive image of ethnic French women than any political speech or well-meaning social initiative. If that's not political, then I don't know what is.

Now, for her second album ('A 20 Ans', which means 'At Age 20'), Amel is presenting a more mature image - with cliched 'socially-aware' songs written by middle-aged men (and even one by the elderly Charles Aznavour) which are completely out of touch with the young French girls who idolise her.

And as French people are currently recovering from having voted four times in the last six weeks, a climate of political fatigue is probably the worst context for releasing an overtly political record.

What a pity. Anyway, here's that derriere-kicking 'Ma Philosophie', one of the best French singles of the last decade. But be careful -  you can't dance and think at the same time: 

[Read more...]

On Friday night, one note popsters Arctic Monkeys played the Pyramid Stage of Glastonbury and were so dull they had to bring on fellow scallywag Dizzee Rascal to liven things up, which he didn't really. On Saturday night, The Killers upped the pace in dullness thanks to a performance by Brandon Flowers who decided to impersonate Damien Rice doing Freddie Mercury at an Elvis convention. The fact that they sounded like they played the same song repeatedly for the entire length of their set didn't help matters. On Sunday night, The Who went all out by being as exciting to watch as a group of labourers mixing cement by the side of the road. Am I missing something ?

Putting aside the obvious humiliation of running around in the rain for three days on farmland awash with mud, why would you then subject yourself to some of the absolute worst music on earth? I don't understand this festival, just as I don't understand the appeal of that dull little prog rocker DJ John Peel who now has a stage named after him at the very same Glastonbury or the music of Mark E. Smith for that matter or why Elvis Costello, who can't sing a note to save his life, keeps on recording jazz records. Nor do I understand why 'Later with Jools Holland' keeps on be talked about in reverential, hushed tones as being at the forefront of music television when they limit soul legend Smokey Robinson to thirty seconds at the piano talking about his life and music then allow Damien Rice free reign to wail his tuneless dirges throughout the same programme, not to mention the fact that Tom Jones seems to have a cut on every 'Later With' DVD that the BBC puts out.

Dont' get me wrong, the BBC makes the best music programmes on Earth. 'Seven Ages of Rock' has been wonderful to watch, 'Jazz Britannia', 'Folk Britannia' and 'Folk Hibernia' were all excellent, their annual coverage of the Cambridge Folk Festival is second to none, 'Never Mind The Buzzcocks' continues to be a laugh and they pulled out all the stops for both LiveAid and Live8 but, man, Glastonbury, what a sad excuse for entertainment. To paraphrase the punky girl in 'Four Weddings and a Funeral', I think it's dull as sh*t.

[Read more...]

It was Jim Carroll over at the journal of record who tipped us off about Malajube, a five-piece from Quebec whose 2006 record 'Trompe l'Oeil' has recently been released in Europe.

As with a lot of innovative music these days, this album gleefully jumbles up genres  - there are bits of '70s AM rock, new wave, folk and even a touch of indie-pop. It sounds fresh, inventive and full of energy - the immediate (if a bit too obvious) comparison would be to 'Funeral' by Arcade Fire.

So, the new Arcade Fire with 2007's smash hit indie album? Probably not. You see, your local record dealer's just going to bury it in his 'world' music section because they sing in French.

But while singing in French will probably put off a lot of English-language punters, that shouldn't dissuade the French, right? Wrong. French-language music from Quebec is considered deeply uncool here in 'la Hexagone'- behind Celine Dion there's a horde of equally-bland balladeers (names like Mylene Farmer, Garou and Lara Fabian; apologies to any French readers who've just got sick all over their computers) who come to France to seek their fortune.

And French people generally ridicule the Quebecois for their accents, just as they do with the Belgians and Swiss for having the nerve to speak French in a Belgian or Swiss accent (and just like how the Irish accent was mocked in Britain until the 1990s). English-speaking Quebec acts like Arcade Fire or Rufus Wainwright don't meet this barrier (this Maginot Line, if you will) of linguistic credibility.

Malajube have already been and gone around Europe before anyone seemed to notice them - they played in Dublin earlier this month, and supported Arcade Fire here in Paris.

However, they'll be back for some European festivals this August - in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and a French festival called Les Nuits Secretes (at Aulnoye-Aymeries, in the north-east near Lille and the Belgian border). No news yet of any Irish festival appearances - but in the meantime you can listen to the entire album on their MySpace page, and you can watch the video for the wonderful pop thrills of 'Montreal -40°C' below. Remember; in French the 't' is silent in 'Montreal'. Now that's not too scary to listen to, is it?

[Read more...]

We don't know much about this guy (right). He calls himself PacoVolume; he's French but he sings in English. We came upon him only because he supported Simple Kid in Paris last week - however, we spent much of his set waiting impatiently for the Cork boy to come on.

And then right at the end PacoVolume plays his ace: a marvellous song called 'Cookiemachine' which we've heard a couple of times on the radio without catching the singer's name. It has a Super Furry Animals sound to it, and the chorus is wonderful.

It's taken from PacoVolume's album 'Manhattan Baby', which came out at the tail end of 2006. Unfortunately, none of his other songs even come close to the brilliance of 'Cookiemachine', which is just waiting to be a hit! hit! hit!

No video for it yet - but you can listen to it on PacoVolume's MySpace site, along with other tracks of his. There's also an MP3 version of it available at the bottom of this post from music bloggers Milk Milk Lemonade.

[Read more...]

Lonely China Day was back in action last night at 2 Kollegas, the curiously named but cosy little bar in a park better known for its drive-in cinema in Beijing's northerly Chaoyang district. The band passed up on a tour of Israel in April because the band broke up. "They were pissed," says Matt Kagler, boss of Tag Team Records which signed the band in 2005. Two band members who unexpectedly quit the band in April are being replaced. The band has a new drummer.

The band played its music to an eye catching screen backdrop featuring graphics laid over footage of Beijing. The film was shot and edited by a young filmmaker and band fan who makes documentaries at Chinese Central TV (CCTV). The whole effect was reminiscent of a Primal Scream live experience, and Lonely China Day likes to fiddle plenty of electronic content into its guitar-driven tunes. Even though the film has been stripped down to squiggly primary colours the cranes and stop-start traffic jams (and terrible driving) of mini-vans make it obvious this is Beijing.

Lonely China Day has made its name for snazzy graphic design and artwork in its shows and album releases. Last night band handlers were selling t-shirts at the door, also designed by the band. "They're arty guys,"  Kagler explained over beers at 2 Kollegas. During the band's tour of USA this spring LCD made such a big impression on New York Times critic Jon Pareles that he has since written five articles on the band and its label, says Kagler. He plans on doing a lengthy feature on the group in August for the NYT's glossy weekend magazine. Good timing, considering the band is releasing its new album in the US in July.

[Read more...]

[Read more...]

Ten years on the seminal film about Beijing’s counter cultural scene seems dated, but its star, Cui Jian, still deserve credit for sticking with his music when times were tough. Nearly no one showed up at the Cherry Lane recently for a showing of Beijing Bastards, the film made in 1993 by Zhang Yuan and only recently legalized in mainland China.

The film centres around the lives of a group of Beijing malcontents, zeroing in on 20-something Karzi, a moody malcontent who tries to get his pregnant girlfriend to give him another chance. A half-dozen other characters include Cui Jian, who plays himself and contributes a moody score. The story line also includes his band being shuffled around like ducks between rehearsal rooms: locals don’t like, or understand, the din.

Today’s Beijing is unrecogniseable in the film: no traffic jams, no foreign business people/slackers, no Starbucks.  The Cherry Lane screening was interrupted by several of the mobile phone tones ubiquitous on today’s streets. There’s a lot more wealth in China, and some more rock n roll, but most youths have given up protest songs for the urban dream of apartment and car, more achievable than ever in go-getting modern China.

The Cherry Lane is an old Peking Opera house used as a non-profit artnouse film house on the weekends. Beijing Bastards has never been shown in a mainstream cinema in China.

[Read more...]