The CLUAS Archive: 1998 - 2011

Blogs

From 2007 to 2010 CLUAS hosted blogs written by 8 of its writers. Over 900 blog entries were published in that time, all of which you can browse here. Here are links to the 8 individual blogs:

14

Number one in the singles charts in France this week is a track by French-born basketball star Tony Parker.

Don't give up the day job: Tony Parker - basketballer and rapperBy any standards, "Balance-Toi" is a fairly ordinary rap single. However, such is Parker's hero-status here that he could be reciting the Paris phone book and it would still sell metro-loads. Basketball, especially the NBA, is huge in urban France, tying in with rap's popularity here to create an identity and way of life for French teenagers from ethnic backgrounds.

The video for Parker's single is heavy on the bling-bling, but is probably more notable for the appearance by 'Desperate Housewives' star Eva Longoria - Parker's girlfriend.

Personally, from an Irish perspective we'd like to see Colm Cooper rapping about winning Kerry's umpteenth All-Ireland (video featuring, oh, Glenda Gilson or someone like that - and the bling-bling Sam Maguire trophy, of course).

Check out Parker's video here, rap/basketball/showbiz gossip fans!

 

 


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14

When Michael Flatley, Jean Butler and the entire Riverdance troupe came stampeding out onto the stage during the 1994 Eurovision, they heralded in a new era in Irish life. They gave Irish people a reason to be proud of their Gaelic culture and heritage and this pride somehow, in a karmic way, partly led on to Ireland's remarkable economic boom.

That's what an increasing number of economists and social commentators have opined at any rate. It's grist for the mill in many Irish corporate DVDs although, strangely, its not given as a reason on the official website of the Irish State which lists a high standard of education, a commitment to open markets, the return of skilled emigrants to Ireland and good co-operation between Government, Industry and Trade Unions with regard to economic policy as some of the contributing factors. On the other hand, it is certainly valid for historians and economists to study the cultural life of a country as part of a wider study of its economic and social development; as Professor Simon Schama has shown in his recent BBC series, “The Power of Art”.

I don't know, I'm not an economist and I may be missing the bigger picture here but surely an economic boom needs more than a few photogenic hoofers on television to help get itself off the ground, or am I just being naive? Ok, let’s just say for a minute that there is such a thing as a Eurovision Theory of Economics. Where does that leave the future of Ireland's economy in the aftermath of Ireland's last place disaster in the 2007 Eurovision and the ongoing failure on Broadway of the "Pirate Queen" which is brought to you by the producers of "Riverdance"? Not too good I would imagine.

I, for one, feel genuinely sorry for John Waters, Tommy Moran and Dervish. If they went array anywhere it was in thinking that the Eurovision is actually about the songwriter's craft. In fact, the Eurovision was originally conceived not by the music department of any European television station but by a collection of broadcast engineers belonging to the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) in the 1950s. The EBU is focused on helping its members in regard to technological advances in radio and television broadcasting and in the 1950s the idea of a pan European live broadcast was floated by these guys at a conference. After all the technological issues were ironed out the last question to be asked was, "So, what shall we broadcast?". "How about a song contest?" came a reply from one of the techies. "Fair enough, we'll go with that". And so a monster was born.

Now, according to John Waters, the Eurovision is about "desire" and whilst that may seem a bit off the topic, he is actually right because if there is one thing that the host broadcaster of any Eurovision desires, it is to show how superior they are in their broadcasting skills. As a result, money is thrown at the contest. Engineers get the chance to buy all kinds of systems and equipment that, up until then, they had been denied in annual budgets and the top above and below the line talent available to the broadcaster is drafted in to deliver the show. Certainly, the appearance of “Riverdance” as the interval act for the 1994 contest demonstrates the very high level of desire the producers had that year to show RTE and Ireland in a good light. So great was the pressure on RTE to deliver a top show year after year during the early Nineties and so good were Irish acts at winning it in the first place, 1992 to 1994 consecutively, that many of the people drafted in to work on the shows went on to stellar intenational careers in entertainment elsewhere, such as Michael Flatley and Declan Lowney who went on to direct "Father Ted".

Meanwhile, back at my theory...I should say that I am something of a fan of John Waters. He is a formidable man with a formidable intellect who has fought and won battles in this country that; given Ireland’s legal and social framework, I thought were impossible to win. As a result I read him on a regular basis and thus I have noticed that he, on occasion, queries a subject on two levels and to demonstrate what I mean I will give you an absurdist example of this intellectual tactic. Let's say you were to ask me about a bottle of milk, I could answer you as follows, “There are two questions to be asked of the bottle of milk. Firstly, what is it? Secondly, what does it mean?”

So, if we apply that approach to our 2007 Eurovision loss, firstly we might say that it is a loss for a group of Irish musicians who drew on Irish culture to create a song that they hoped would win a song contest. Secondly, we might say that it represents a general failure of Irish culture to translate or connect with other countries within Europe. It means that Irish culture and society, just as it was virile and relevant in a wider context in the early 1990s, is now impotent and irrelevant in the early 21st Century and that this has deeper economic implications for us in the future.

In other words, we are now where Finland used to be; they came last in 1963, 1965, 1968, 1980, 1982, 1990, 1992 and 1996. Perhaps future Finnish economists will look back and talk of 2006 as the beginning of the Lordi generation, when Finns saw their love of, eh, heavy metal turn them into winners just as the economy was looking up after 16 years of recession.

So, in the event that the above is, in some oblique way correct, what do I then propose, dear reader, to solve our imminent economic demise? Well, given the Eurovision’s recent appetite for Sturm und Drang, combined with a tasteful display of female flesh, I propose that next year we send out the legendary Irish punk band Paranoid Visions along with a crack team of Leeson Street lap dancers to do battle on our behalf. That should put the wind up the Serbians.

 


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13

While 2006 was a cracking year for French pop, 2007 has been a bit of a let-down so far. New albums by Air and Carla Bruni were disappointingly dull, while most of the guitar bands in Paris are stuck in a Libertines/Strokes fixation.

But we've searched long and hard and finally we've found some hidden treasures that merit your attention.Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, sharing their name with a James Bond soundtrack (a Dionne Warwick song from Thunderball) and a 2005 Robert Downey Jr film, are a four-piece Paris-based band. They make the same sort of epic heartfelt pop as under-rated Limerick band Woodstar, although they themselves describe their sound less romantically as "The Strokes f*cking with Wendy from Prefab Sprout".

They are currently rehearsing material and playing shows in Paris, but have yet to release material.

However, you can listen to some tracks on their MySpace page - we recommend "I'm In Love With You".


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12

Take a good look at the advertisment to the left. It's a recruitment poster for the US Marines and I doubt you would have seen it in any American music magazine that you care to read. However, if you read American surf magazines, adverts like this are becoming more and more prevelant with video commercials for the army also being tagged on to the start of the surf movie trailers that are accessible on 'SURFING' magazine's website.

Advertisments of this kind, to say the least, leave me cold. They play on the machismo that young men like to display in what should be their salad days. "If you have what it takes to make it", the poster dares the reader without telling them that having what it takes might involve being wounded or not coming back at all.

I had thought long and hard about what to write concerning why I am so opposed to this advert; it appeared on page 81 of the June 2007 edition of "TRANSWORLD SURF", but I thought that, since a picture is worth a thousand words, I would instead show you a photograph of former Marine Casey Owens, in his dress blues, after he returned from active service. The woman in tears standing to the left is his mother Janna Owens. Casey is one young man who will never surf again and this image of him could have been taken straight from the Bob Dylan song, "John Brown", which ends with the stanza:

"As he turned away to walk, his Ma was still in shock
At seein' the metal brace that helped him stand.
But as he turned to go, he called his mother close
And he dropped his medals down into her hand."

I

 

 


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10

Duke Special's show at the Nouveau Casino in Paris on 9 May was extraordinary - a resounding success. We can base this on empirical data: wild cheering, a second encore, the hungry queue to buy CDs after the show. But ultimately it's the emotional evidence that seals the verdict: the heart-thumping, soul-soaring, head-spinning, blood-rushing thrill that makes you want to go home and make your own music so that you could possibly move people in the same way.

In her review of the Duke's Dublin show in March, CLUAS's Anna Murray accurately lauded Peter Wilson's "entire package of performance, affecting honesty and offbeat entertainment that leaves you amazed in its wake". Is there anything finer in Irish pop today than the climax of 'Freewheel', when Wilson builds up power ("come on, come on, come on...") and then simply takes off with a soaring cry of "my soul"? At that moment in Paris last night people cheered, embraced and quite a lot seemed to get dust in their eye. The bare words in cold print just can't do justice to the feeling.  

There were three of them, all in 19th-century vibe - the Duke and drummer Temperance Society Chip Bailey dressed in cavalry jackets like stragglers from the Charge Of The Light Brigade, while Rea Curran on trumpet, accordion and backing vocals modelled the tweed-jacket and bushy-red-beard-with-no-moustache combination of a Punch caricature of a belligerent Irish peasant. Their show had the fresh quirkiness of a music hall act - especially the Harpo Marx-esque Bailey, switching between drums, cheese-grater and an indescribable hurdy-gurdy pole adorned with bells and shakers.

Even as they simply stood on stage, lit by chandeliers in this intimate Paris back-room, they were strange and thrilling to behold. Before each song Wilson stood wild-eyed like some Dickensian parlour-conjurer above his keyboard-draped-in-red-velvet, as if he were about to levitate Lilly Langtry or hypnotise a lord.

The eminent Victorians were joined for a few French verses of 'Portrait' by the wonderful Emily Loizeau, whose magical 2006 album 'L'Autre Bout Du Monde' shares much of Wilson's approach to melodic and heartfelt piano-pop.

Most of the highlights off 'Songs From The Deep Forest' got a play although, such is the abundance of jewels at Wilson's disposal, there was no room for the poignant 'This Could Be My Last Day'. But at least he sang our favourite lyric from 'Salvation Tambourine': "I could go to Paris, I could jump from the Tyre". A reference, of course, to every Belfastman's favourite pneumatic Parisian monument, the Eiffel Tyre. New song 'Careless Heart' (last night a stripped-down piano ballad, tomorrow night probably a revivalist gospel psalm) promises well for more brilliant material from Wilson in the future.

However, he has already fulfilled all of our great expectations.


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09

Legenday surfer Laird Hamilton jetted into Dublin on Tuesday to make publicity appearances on behalf of his sponsor Oxbow at both Onboard Surf Shop in Duke Street and 53 Degrees North in Carrickmines where he signed autographs and posed for photographs. A big guy in every respect; his SUV was parked outside the Shelbourne Hotel with a massive surfboard lashed to the top, he is best known on this side of the Atlantic for his starring role in 'Riding Giants' which he helped to finance.

So far, so what. This sort of thing happens all the time in music stores around Ireland when an artist has a new album to plug but it is very new in the world of Irish surfing and has caused some comment, in particular the fact that although the autograph signings were free, the talk and presentation that Hamilton gave at 6pm in 53 Degrees North came with a price tag of € 5.00 leaving some people to question why should they have to pay for what was, in effect, a marketing trip on behalf of his sponsor ?

Now, I didn't got to either of the signings nor did I attend the talk so I cannot comment on whether it was worth the time or money. I'm sure Laird had some excellent advice to impart; as does any person who is at the top of their profession, although I think the opportunities of learning from an expert surfer are very limited if you are not in the water with them. The main reason though that I didn't show up was that I think you should only stand in line for one of your heroes and none of my heroes are surfers because there is nothing heroic, in my opinion, about surfing.

Surfing is, when you strip it down, a selfish pursuit. It's one person - one wave and it is pursued primarily for self gratification. I'm sure Laird is a wonderful person and he certainly gave his all to his Irish fans on Tuesday but he appears no more heroic to me than any excellent athlete. That is not to diminish his many amazing sporting achievements but, you see, its not what you do on your own behalf that marks you out as a hero, its what you do on behalf of others. Bob Geldof on television promoting his song " I Don't Like Mondays" is not heroic. Bob Geldof on television during Live Aid, pleading with people "to give us your f*cking money", that's the stuff of a hero.

It's a point well made in the somewhat clunky but heartfelt blockbuster 'The Guardian" which stars Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher as two US Coast Guard Rescue Swimmers. The real life motto of these guys is "So Others May Live". Yes, the dialogue was a little jaded, yes the plotting was full of cliches but the central idea of the movie, that you devote your life to helping others, ran through the script like the stringer in a surfboard.

Laird Hamilton performs superhuman feats in the Pacific ocean, he looks great in magazines and on screen, and there are certainly many who would wish to emulate his sporting abilities but he is not my idea of a real hero. And it is a view that surf writer Matt Warshaw appears to share, "Surfing is devalued by all the inflated talk of gods and heroes. It is nothing but a rhythm, a pulse, an alternating tension and relaxation - and that is grand enough"

So who is a real hero? Well, the people who serve in the Irish Coast Guard and the RNLI for a start. Like I said before, its not what you do for yourself that counts, its what you do for others. And don't go telling them about some surfer dude challenging the might of the ocean, they know all too well the real power of the invulnerable tide.

 

 


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08

True living legend Prince has announced a 21 date residency in London later this year. The details known to date can be found here. 21 shows!!

What's interesting about Prince's escapade is that he has fixed ticket prices at £31.21 in tribute to his latest (and really rather fine) album 3121 - ticket buyers will also get a copy of the album (I'm assuming a digital download). The price means many of his fans can now afford to see the man credited with some of the most spectacular stage shows of the 20th century. Prince claims to have prepared over 150 songs for the shows and that he will play a different set list each night. He's bringing the symbol shaped stage that was showcased during the Superbowl half-time show. Seeing such a spectacle for that price must count as one of the bargains of the year (though cynics might snort that this ploy is designed to guarantee a full house for a fading musical force).

In any case, I applaud the idea and I think other, more close to home, moneymaking franchises could take note.

The PrinceFest will also present music lovers with an opportunity to appraise Prince's work. A friend of mine directed me to this interview with Alan Leeds. It is genuinely awe-inspiring. I challenge you to read it and resist putting on Sign of the TImes or Purple Rain or Around the World in a Day. In an era of mind-numbing hyperbole, this guy genuinely is a musical genius.

Definition of frustration? I'm visiting London for two weeks this summer, leaving for Sydney on July 28th. Rumoured date of Prince's first show? July 29th.


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08

In October of 2006, Cecilia Stego Chilo the Swedish Minister for Trade who oversaw funding for Sweden's state broadcaster STV, stepped down after admitting that she had failed to pay her television licence for 16 years and that she had been paying her nanny cash in hand. Did you get that? Will I repeat it for you?

Now, in the Sunday Independent on 6/5/2007, a poll commissioned by the newspaper found that 37% of the electorate still want Bertie Ahern to lead the next government, 5% more than his nearest rival Enda Kenny, even after it was revealed that Bertie had received € 50,000.00 in undeclared donations from businessmen in the early 1990s. In fact, after he initially admitted to receiving these payments his popularity in the polls actually increased, and he certainly didn't resign over the disclosure.

In other words, the Swedish idea of ethics and standards in public life is very different than our own which is the long way of saying that when you compare us to the rest of Europe, Irish politics is a laughing stock whereas, when it comes to Irish comedy, nobody is laughing. A Minister for Finance who didn’t have a bank account himself? That’s better than any routine by Des Bishop.

This is why I cannot take the newly formed Irish Rock the Vote organisation seriously or the latest lame attempt to satirise Irish political life, that suprisingly unfunny and toothless show "The State of Us” fronted by the actor Risteard Cooper and written by Gerry Stembridge, a fine writer himself who doesn't appear to have the same fire in the belly as Dermot Morgan had. I once met Morgan, by the way, and I asked him how come his political impressions were so spot on and his reply was simple, “because I hate the f*ckers”. To be fair though, sharp satire is not alway an effective means of dealing with politicians. It pained Morgan greatly that the more vicious he made his parodies of Squire Hockey, the more people seemed to like CJH. Equally, Will Ferrell's brilliant turn as George W. Bush is credited with improving his public image; not something I imagine Ferrell had in mind.

Rock The Vote is not, as you would imagine a call to arms by a new generation of politicised young Irish people in the tradition Bob Geldof who want to see the end of a style of politics that has seen not just one but two TDs end up in jail in the last decade as a result of the work of the Tribunals, nope, its actually an organisation out to answer such questions as, Where do I go to vote?”, “How do I cast my vote? “, What happens then?”, “How is my vote counted?”, “What if a candidate isn’t happy with the result?”, “Where can I find out about the results?”. What !!!  If this is the new generation of electorate, the question isn’t how can the present government stay in power, it is how can they not? Jesus, if CJH had been up against this bunch of numpties he could have been made dictator for life.

I won’t bore you with tales of my college days but just let me say this. When I was in university, RTE wasn’t running expensive adverts made with public funds begging you to wear a condom. In fact, student unions were breaking the law in their attempts to provide young people with contraception because it was illegal to sell them without a prescription, and the chances of getting one on a prescription were almost impossible anyway unless you were married. And that sea change in Irish public life wasn't effected by a generation of people who thought that voting was what you did when you were watching 'You're a Star"

Look, I am not telling you who to vote for, that’s up to you, what I am saying is that we aren’t going to get higher standards in public office unless we expect and demand them and, when we don’t get them, we should demand the removal of those in office who do not meet those standards. Perhaps we should rock the voters before we rock the vote.


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08

Les Vieilles Charrues, one of France’s most celebrated summer festivals, is a four-day music event which takes place from 19 to 22 July in Carhaix in deepest Brittany.

 

However, this year discerning music fans can skip the first day – the headliner on 19 July is geriatric crooner Charles Aznavour and he’s the best of that day’s line-up.

 

The serious rock n’roll business begins on Friday 20 July with sets from Peter Gabriel, Arcade Fire (playing every festival in France, it seems), LCD Soundsystem and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, to name the big international names. French punksters Stuck In The Sound are the pick of the domestic acts on that day.

 

Saturday 21 July features Bryan Ferry, Kaiser Chiefs, Sean Lennon, Herman Dune (promising some blissed-out summer sounds) and the brilliant electro-pop of French singer Emilie Simon, whose cracking single ‘Fleur De Saison’ was one of this column’s picks of 2006.

 

The weekend finishes with Scissor Sisters, Sinead O’Connor, Rickie Lee Jones, Klaxons and headliner Yannick Noah, the former French Open tennis champion who’s now a huge music star with his brand of bland reggae-flavoured feel-good pop. Also on Sunday’s bill is the wonderful Emily Loizeau, a piano-playing cabaret-pop chanteuse who we highly recommend.

 

A three-day pass for Les Vieilles Charrues costs only €69.50 – and camping is free for ticket-holders.

 

In addition, the regional train and bus services in Brittany are offering special cheap transportation to and from the festival - for example, €10 return for a train ticket from any station in Brittany (such as Rennes or Lorient, both of whom have air links to Ireland).

 

It all sounds like great value, put on with a view to as little hassle as possible for the festival-goer.

 

Tickets for Les Vieilles Charrues are available online and in English from French ticket outlet FNAC. For further details on the festival, contact the organisers directly at festivaliers@vieillescharrues.asso.fr

French Festival (1): Garden NEF, Angouleme 


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07

If anything demonstrates how far behind the times your average logger is then it is the news posted on SURFING Magazine's website on April 30th 2007 that Arcade Fire are "amazing" after the magazine caught the first night of their "comeback tour" at San Diego’s Spreckles Theater. Didn't know the band had gone away in the first place guys. SURFING goes on to say that "this is one band you should be into by now.". Wow, like, really  dude ?

Although I surf, I certainly don't hold dear many of the sacred cows so beloved of fellow waveriders. I think its great that women surf, I think bodyboarding is much more difficult to master than standing up on a 10 foot longboard, I think its great that Clark Foam was closed down, I think that localism is nonsense, I think that clinging to technologies from the 1950s such as fibreglass and rejecting modern advances such as carbon fiber is not retro or soulful, its just dumb, and I think that judging whether other people are 'real surfers or not' is for morons.

SURFING Magazine's taste in music is, in my opinion, well dodgy but taking this long to discover a band like Arcade Fire puts them into the Stone Age. What next ? An exclusive scoop that The Beatles have broken up or that a hip new band from Ireland called U2 have just released their first single ? Doh !

 

 


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Nuggets from our archive

2004 - The CLUAS Reviews of Erin McKeown's album 'Grand'. There was the positive review of the album (by Cormac Looney) and the entertainingly negative review (by Jules Jackson). These two reviews being the finest manifestations of what became affectionately known, around these parts at least, as the 'McKeown wars'.