The Irish Rock the Vote initiative has been getting a bit of a hammering from many quarters. And the criticisms – the banality / pointlessness of the videos, the refusal to advance even a single issue of importance to their target audience, the obsessive neutrality of everything they do, etc – are (no pun intended) rock solid.

Now it transpires that, as Rev Jules pointed out yesterday in his blog, their Executive Director has gone on the record that he does not expect a big increase in the turn out of 18-30 year olds...

It could have been all very different. Aside from apathy, non interest in politics, and a preference for spending one's time on the pull, there are two other key barriers to getting a greater proportion of 18-30 year olds voting. Yes, I'm talking about the old chestnuts...

• Not being registered to vote (or being registered to do so in another part of the country from where you live / work / study),
• The (since time-eternal) imposition of the party in power of a week day election.

Alas, Rock The Vote by launching only last month eliminated any possibility of having even a stab of a chance at breaking down either of these two well-established barriers. They've truly put the cart before the horse. Maybe if they had launched back at the tail end of the summer 2006 - just as the colleges were about to open for another academic year - they could have channeled their enthusiasm and considerable resources on getting the yuff of Ireland to register to vote (or move their registration to where they live/study/work) before the Nov 2006 December 2006 deadline for updating the voter lists. With that tackled (and in the process maybe bagging a bit of credibility and respect) they could have been well positioned to orchestrate a high profile campaign to heckle, bully and pressurize the Government into calling an election that, in line with most of continental Europe, actually fell on (God forbid) a weekend.

But forget the trite videos, forget the refusal to embrace a single issue of importance to 18-30 year olds, forget the enforced fence-sitting of the initiative. Because here is where for me it gets really, really insane: RTV's Executive Director is on the record as saying they that it is their strict policy "not to comment on the day we believe polling should take place"! To say I was gob smacked would be a massive understatement. They would not even be prepared to campaign for a weekend election day? Up to reading that I was prepared to give them a wide berth, with an assessment along the lines of them being a bunch of idealistic, enthusiastic, well-resourced, politically naïve, digital camera wielding 18-30 years olds who were averse to expressing the slightest of political views. Scrap That. With a capital S. And T. They have no credibility. No spine. No spunk. None. They do not represent the best interests of those they pander to.

I had planned to rant on about the pointlessness of the full page ad they had in yesterday's Tuesday's Irish Times (the vast majority of whose readers BTW are not even in their targeted demographic, and sure let's also gloss over the fact that the 24,670 euro cost of such an ad could – for example - fund 50 buses to ferry 2500 18-30 year old registered but exiled voters to their polling station in the boonies) but – really - why bother?

Rock the Vote had huge potenital but it was sure squandered in the hands of this crew.

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The latest email newsletter from Wilco has had me a bit perplexed ever since it hit my inbox.

A few lines in we’re told we can expect a “slightly serious tone (in) this note”. Okay. I put down the cornflakes. These guys now had my attention.

Reading on they invite us to listen to a stream of their new album ‘Sky Blue Sky’ and then to “take a moment to reflect” on the “dynamic” between themselves and their fans. There follows a riff about how some fans have lamented the “somewhat sad state of the music business” and have been asking Wilco to “consider changing the way (they) do things” and the band tell us they have refused to do so.

With that out of the way they then ask us to “go out next week and do the right thing for Wilco… and buy the record”.

I don’t know about you but I simply don’t know why a band as well established as Wilco with a solid, passionate - often obsessive - fan base thought it necessary to basically beg their fans to go out and buy their latest release. It’s true that some reviews of advance copies have varied from less than gushing to 'good but not their finest hour' but that’s not something likely to scare off your typical Wilco nut, someone who will be fully aware of the many layers a Wilco record typically has that need repeated listens to reveal.

The most likely explanation here is that Wilco fear MP3s of the album floating about the place will impact the sales. But it is that very scenario that really throws me. Hear me out.

A few years back Wilco put free downloads of the complete Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album on their website while they sorted out which label was going to release it. Tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of fans downloaded the album and – when it was finally released - many of us (myself included) went out and actually bought the album. And before you could say “I am trying to break the bank” it was the biggest selling album of Wilco’s career.

Roll on 2007 and Wilco seem to have done a complete U-turn and are - if we read between the lines of this begging letter - now in fear of MP3s. What’s going on? Why the shift? Maybe pressure from the record company (the quite excellent, often adventurous and in-for-the-longhaul Nonesuch label) to massage their fans into action in this way? Personally, I doubt it (and if there was such pressure Wilco surely would have resisted, if you think back to the ‘Our way or the highway’ attitude they took with their former record label when they asked for Yankee Hotel Foxtrot to be re-recorded).

So all things considered, I for one am perplexed as to why they thought they needed to do this. If any one has insights into or ideas on this do please throw them into the comments below.

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Back in 1999 when I started CLUAS the most visible music website in Ireland was www.muse.ie. At that time it was run by Eircom's digital publishing division (christened with a - of course - cooler than thou name: 'Rondomondo').

Remember, this was the time before the dot com bubble burst and those working for this new interweb thing were going to become masters of the universe. Or something like that. Ronodomondo somehow persuaded some moneyed (but gullible) people to hand over loadsa dosh to help them get a place on the frontline of this, er, new world order. Rumour has it that the Rondomondo boyz'n'gals then - holy Batman - splashed a good wad of it on flash offices and even flashier dot com furniture, all necessary for the cause of course).

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