This is cheesy italo gold: Dee D. Jackson - “Automatic Lover” (1978)
I love the flash-bulbs stuck on top of the “robot”’s helmet ;)
This tune kicks off a fantastic mix from Little Boots which has been on repeat in my gaff…
Saw Dengue Fever at the Sugar Club here in Dublin last Saturday with a big gang of mates and had an awesome time ;)
Somehow, despite living in Southern California for 3 years, I managed not to see them play live over there — so this was the first time I’d seen them live.
The Sugar Club actually turned out to be a pretty good setup for them; there was a good bit of seating, but still lots of room up the front for dancing. With a bit of encouragement from Chhom Nimol that’s where we were, right up front, singing along (phonetically at least).
Mental number of gigs on, that night, though. Dengue Fever, TV On The Radio, Jay Reatard (scheduled but AWOL), Cut Copy, and others — all competing for the limited number of Dublin punters! The Fever did a great job, it looked like the place was full up.
I only recently got my hands on their first album, so I had no idea they did such good covers of the classics, specifically Chnam Oun 16 (I’m Sixteen) and Ma Pi Naok (Thanks A Lot):
Both were played, as you can see from the setlist above; in fact, ‘Chnam Oun 16′ was the closing encore. Tune!
Afterwards, there was opportunity to chat with the band as they stuck around in true future-of-the-music-biz style. I got to gush about how I’d been a massive fan for 4 years, blah blah. I’m sure they get that shit all the time ;)
This is sooo good. Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit ftw!
The awesome Radioclit remix crew are coming to Dublin — playing Transmission at The Button Factory on 1 Nov, tickets EUR 10, doors open at 11. Bit late for me! Pity though, their mixes have been teh osm for the last few years:
Santogold - Get It Up (Radioclit mix featuring M.I.A. and Gorilla Zoe)
Little Boots is unstoppable! Head over to Bigstereo and pick up “Bring It On”, fantastic remix that she did of a Leon Jean-Marie track. It’s amazing — full on italo disco — reminds me of Fockewulf 190’s “Body Heat” or Arpadys’ “Monkey Star”. nice!
Great mixtape, too….
What else is good right now? These tracks from Gang Gang Dance’s new album sound awesome — more here. Knife-ish vocals and collaborations with Tinchey Strider, cool stuff.
I hadn’t been giving Little Boots too much time, as it was just sounding too poppy for me. But then I heard these:
Little Boots - Stuck On Repeat
Both are great synthy pop, with just enough synth stuff for my tastes now. Stuck On Repeat was produced by Joe Godard of Hot Chip, and you can tell. great stuff. Bigstereo describes it as “Moroder does Kylie”, which is about right.
Yay! Dengue Fever have confirmed their Sugar Club date on Nov 15th. good news!
In other news, myself and about 20 mates (srsly) went to see Fujiya and Miyagi last Sat in the Spiegeltent. It was good fun; F&M are a little monotonous IMO, but the venue is fantastic, and combined with the great weather and good beers, mucho fun was had.
FUCKSTICKS!!!
Kraftwerk-Change of Venue
Original Venue: Luggala
Rescheduled Venue: Royal Hospital Kilmainham
POD Concerts announce change of venue for A DAY IN THE LIFE with Kraftwerk due to adverse weather conditions.
Pod Concerts regret to announce that due to extreme weather conditions causing the river at Lough Dan to burst its banks on the Luggala Estate, Co. Wicklow today, the Kraftwerk concert, scheduled for the 13th September will now be held in the grounds of Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin.
With adverse weather conditions forecasted for the forthcoming week making production and build of site impossible, Promoter John Reynolds declared;
“I am personally deeply disappointed that this event can not take place on the Luggala Estate which is one of the most awe inspiring and breathtaking locations in Ireland. However due to the unprecedented rainfall and the nature of the site being a natural valley, the subsequent waterlogging conditions, have made it impossible to prepare Luggala for a concert for the general public.”
Tickets for this event will still be valid for Royal Hospital Kilmainham, Dublin on 13th September, a unique and historical city centre venue, which played host to the hugely successful Leonard Cohen, Iggy Pop and Morrissey concerts earlier this year. Because of the nature of this site, it considerable less vulnerable to flooding and such adverse weather conditions. The ticket price for A DAY IN THE LIFE included a bus transfer to and from Luggala estate, Co. Wicklow, concert holders will now be refunded the bus fare of €20 on presentation of their ticket on the day of the show. Alternatively a full refund is available to ticket holders who do not wish to attend Kraftwerk at Royal Hospital Kilmainham.
Though the venue has changed A DAY IN THE LIFE will remain at intimate capacity of 4,999 in a specially installed tented structure. Door times will remain the same opening at 3pm and finishing at 11.30pm.
Pod Concerts would like to take this opportunity to announce a new introduction to the line up for A DAY IN THE LIFE. Hailing from Los Angeles, Lucent Dossier are the internationally acclaimed theatre collective that wowed Electric Picnickers last weekend with their apocalyptic steamboat providing a unique glimpse into the avant garde tribal culture that has captured the curiosity of the world. Lucent Dossier will be performing twice during A DAY IN THE LIFE in a spectacular purpose built dome.
Dammit. I was really looking forward to Luggala. :( I’m not sure I’m into this if it’s not going to be happening there — I may cancel my tickets now. ARGH.
Quite liking Fan Death. They’ve got this interesting Hercules and Love Affair vibe going on, with string instruments being used to play house melodies.
In fact this one:
Fan Death - When The Money’s Right
reminds me of this:
Williams Fairley Band - Can U Dance? (DJ Fast Eddie cover)
ie. the acid brass cover of Fast Eddie’s classic techno tune:
DJ Fast Eddie - Can U Dance? (1988)
This one’s really got the Glass Candy feeling going on:
BTW the name has a pretty crazy source, from a popular delusion in South Korea that a fan running in an enclosed space will consume the air and cause death. Those crazy South Koreans!
Electric whatever. I’ve just been drunk-dialled from that bloody festival in Laois. I’m sure it’s great, yis bastards.
Thankfully, via State Magazine comes news that Dengue Fever have signed up for a date in the Sugar Club in Dublin on Nov 15th. yay! tix are EUR13.50
However — don’t get your hopes up yet. It’s not showing up in their MySpace list of upcoming gigs, and this has been a sign of makey-uppey “fake” bookings in the past by Ireland’s promoters; let’s hope it’s not the case here…
Off to It’ly for my mates Bob and Ais’s wedding! later. First though, this looks good, from the DEAF program:
Sunday, 26th Oct: Maximum Joy present
White Noise performing ‘An Electric Storm’ live (Dave Vorhaus & Mark Jenkins)
Polly Fibre (live)
Broadcast (Warp) DJ Set
Followed by
B-MUSIC SPECIAL featuring
Andy Votel
Dom Thomas
Broadcast + Maximum Joy DJs
Sugar Club, 8 Leeson Street, Dublin 2
7.30pm to 2.30am
€15 (€10 after 11pm)
Now obviously it’ll be sans Delia Derbyshire. But still, quite an experience I hope! and I finally get to check out Turkish psych fan Andy Votel after missing his Spiegeltent gig last year.
Anyone fancy it?
Happy birthday Vinny Club! he has generously given us some lovely mixtape cake, including this sweet, sweet chunk of chiptune marzipan:
Lionel Richie - Hello (Vinny Club Mix)
This is possibly the best robotic-stalker/Lionel Richie cover version I’ve ever heard.
Pick the ZIP file up quick, it’s a one-day-only affair….
What a shame — CBS.nu has come to an end… here’s what I-F had to say:
Dear fellow Robots & Robettes,
Today is a difficult day. Probably one of the hardest since a long time because it’s the day The CBS will seize to excist.
at exactly 2000 CET i will shut down all systems.
It feels like putting your beloved pet to sleep to stop the suffering.
Because the CBS is suffering for a too long time from a lack of listeners. The amount of people tuned in every day is a joke considering the amount of time, energy and passion put into it the last 5 years by several people.
It’s definitely not the lack of love, respect and enthousiasm from the people out here, there are simply not enough people listening and no growth.
Also this desicion hasn’t been made overnight, I’ve been busy with this for the last few months.
I rather put the System to sleep now than letting it fade away into oblivion, neglected and forgotton.
There is no honor in that.
I didn’t read the forums, but I religiously listened to their top 100 every year for the past few years. Those encyclopedic rankings of techno, disco and italo classics were an amazing main-line into the heart of italo crate-digging, right from the heart of the man who single-handedly revived it with the amazing “Mixed Up In The Hague” mixtape. CBS was a great place to hear tunes for a fan like myself.
So long robots, and thanks!
I-F - I Do Because I Couldn’t Care Less
PS: Thankfully the mixes at robotdj.net appear to be continuing…
It’s been a while since the last post — stupid Dreamhost managed to lose underseacommunity.com entirely for over 2 weeks. :( I need to move the blog offa that, I think.
What have I been listening to recently? Well, the Santogold vs Diplo mixtape — I’m still not sure about Santogold, but Diplo, he’s still killing it. Great tunes, strongly recommend downloading this.
I wanted to go listen to the Farmleigh Affair, get some world music and picnics in with a gang of kiddies we were minding for the weekend — but guess what, the fucking organisers failed to deliver our tickets. Improvised Music Company? Improvised fucking Competence Company more like. Why bother (failing to) post out tickets to a free gig anyway? what’s wrong with me just printing the email off on my printer, and use that as the ticket… grr.
Anyway. Right now my killer tunage is on this:
Aeroplane Summer 2008 promo mix (via 2-4-hours)
it starts off with a brilliant Mungolian Jetset remix of the mental ‘Moon Song’ by They Came From The Stars I Saw Them: “oh glorious moon / oh beautiful sister in the sky / remember to value / what it is to be alive” — I’d post an mp3 but it’s not on the interwebs yet. gold disco throughout. Aeroplane are doing great stuff these days… here’s another one from the mix:
Great bit of old-skool goss from the My Little Piebald newsletter:
::: Old raver news: Asylum reunion busted by pigs :::
An improptu reunion rave was held recently in the building on Sackville Place where the Asylum nightclub used to be in the early 1990s. The Asylum only lasted a few brief years before being closed down, but it was easily Dublin’s maddest club at the time. Old ravers speak with a mixture of awe and terror about the goings on at the club:
The manager of the Asylum and three bouncers were jailed for selling drugs at the door of the club. Pills cost £25 each at the time, but one doorman called Stabber Doyle would helpfully bite off a half for you if that’s all you could afford.
A 17-year-old was shot in the stomach just outside the club after getting in a row with someone inside. There were also persistent rumours about a gun being fired in the air from the middle of the dancefloor one night.
There was an upstairs room known as ‘the shooting gallery’ where junkies used to inject gear into themselves
The recent reunion, or The Awakening, as the organisers called it, featured many of the DJs who used to play in the Asylum. However, it was sadly raided by the pigs before the ageing ravers could get up a proper head of steam. Hundreds of people were expected to attend, but the over-excited swine set up road blocks all over sackville place, killing the thing off pretty much entirely. Here’s some footage of the rave being busted by the pigs. Also - hilarious Prime Time feature on Ecstasy use in Ireland from around the same period, featuring interviews with some of Ireland’s first rave mongrels.
Ah, brings me back — I went there a few times raving back in the 90s, including one memorable Trainspotting-style trip to the jacks. What a fucking dodgy kip!
(flyer via Unarocks)
This sounds pretty osm. Luggala is a really beautiful part of the world. Good comments over on Jim Carroll’s blog, although the poor old Jimmy Cake come into some stick… but nuggets like this are gold:
‘Kraftwerk - they used to spend weeks cycling around Ireland, believe it or not. Theres a whole album of unreleased tunes in the Kling Klang vaults about the glories of cycling around the Glen of Aherlow on a sunny day.’
riiiight.
Update: just bought me tix. Kraftwerk’s only European gig this year — looking forward to this!
The name of the night, btw, strikes me as a little morbid; here’s the scoop from the POD site:
Guinness heir Gareth Brown resides at Luggala. Founder of Claddagh Records record label in 1959 which recorded many of the classic traditional music albums of the last five decades, he also discovered The Chieftains, the first band to make Irish traditional music popular around the world. Slightly more compelling is the story behind Gareth’s brother, Tara Brown. Socialite and enthusiast of London Counterculture [sic], Tara was a good friend of the Beatles. Paul McCartney met Tara for the first time in the same club where he would eventually meet Linda. In 1966 at the age of 21, and rumoured to be on mind expanding drugs at the time, Tara drove his sports car at high speed through red lights in South Kensington, smashing into a van and killing himself. It was this that inspired John Lennon to write the lines “I heard the news today oh boy” and “he blew his mind out in a car” from the Beatles song ‘A Day in the Life’. Tara Brown is buried at Luggala.
Been playing a lot of Grand Theft Auto 4, listening to The Journey’s robot DJ and her humanity-hating comments:
GTA4 Soundtrack - The Journey sampler
“It’s all an illusion. You’ll be dead soon.
And turn into dust. Enjoy your day.”“Time is growing faster. Increasing. You want it to slow down.
Blink. You missed it.”“You are listening to The Journey. A computerised look at mankind.
From inside the motherlode. Things do not look good.”“I am your DJ. Are you hallucinating? Probably.
It’s OK to hope it’s all a dream.”“What does this all mean?
Who knows. You’re too stupid to understand.
The Journey.”
Love it. All set, aptly, to Koyaanisqatsi’s:
I understand he’s playing Dundalk tonight, anyone going?
Jim Carroll writes that influential percussion post-punkers Liquid Liquid will be arriving in Dublin on October 5th.
Sounds intriguing! I think reports were that they rocked Glasgae’s Optimo when they played there, although of course that club was named after one of their tunes, so that may not be too surprising.
30 squids for Tripod, though…
The first time I heard Dennis Parker’s “Like An Eagle”, you think “nice bit of disco cheese” — nifty enough to get a re-edit by Todd Terje last year, and a banning from the 2006 CBS Top 100 (!). But it gets better and better…
Check out the video:
Bananas. It’s like one of the baddies in Superman II put on a bucket of fake tan and did a kilo of coke. from the YouTube comments: ‘Jesus, even the eagle is gay. This RULES.’
Now it turns out that he was a porn star to boot, under the name of Wade Nichols — ‘his first adult role was in the 1975 film Exploring Young Girls. He followed with films such as Summer of Laura, My Sex-Rated Wife, Marishino Cherries, and John Derrick’s Love You. Nichols also appeared in the 1975 adult gay film Boynapped!.’
um, blimey!
Update: hahaha, it appears a certain anonymous disco edit king has chosen Wade Nichols as a nom de plume for a RVNG OF THE NRDS re-edit of “On The Road Again” by Canned Heat. osm!
just got hold of Exuma I and II, great stuff!
I came down on a lightning bolt
Nine months in my Mama’s belly.
When I was born, the midwife scream and shout,
I had fire crystals coming out of my mouth.
I’m Exuma, I’m the Obeah Man
lots more detail at Musica Acida, check it out.
My “not going to the Picnic” plans are in ribbons. Jim Carroll reveals that Dengue Fever, only the greatest Cambodian-via-LA surf-rock band ever, will be playing.
argh! what to do?
wow. if you like your 80’s synth sounds, head over to xxjfg and download the Roland Sebastian Faber tune, “Molecular Master” — very tasty indeed, flavours of Enola Gay with the odd Oxygene percussion noise…
And just to make some original postage here, a laid-back, Vince-Clarke-esque, teutonic synth cover of Eno’s classic:
Chica and The Folder - I’ll Come Running
enjoy!
Mother Jones: the Torture Playlist:
Music has been used in American military prisons and on bases to induce sleep deprivation, “prolong capture shock,” disorient detainees during interrogations — and also drown out screams. Based on a leaked interrogation log, news reports, and the accounts of soldiers and detainees, here are some of the songs that guards and interrogators chose.
Most of the top 10 are what you’d expect from redneck teenagers sent to create hell on earth: death metal, Eminem, and Metallica — and, er, some ironic kiddie-show theme tunes. But at number 11? “Babylon”, by David Gray…
Here’s a story I never knew –
More than sixty years after the publication of Ulysses, Kate Bush was working on the follow-up to her 1985 ‘Hounds of Love’ album, which is now widely hailed as her own masterpiece. Around this time Kate had written an instrumental piece of music, a rhythmic melody that strongly suggested the cadence of Molly Bloom’s speech. Kate’s introduction to the final passage of Ulysses had been a 1958 recording of the soliloquy by the Irish actress Siobhan McKenna. Kate was transfixed by the beauty and femininity of the writing. “It’s like this never-ending sentence, this long train of thought, and the only thing that punctuates it is the word “yes” and it very gradually accelerates. I just thought it was one of the most sensual pieces ever written.” The words from the book matched perfectly to the music. “It was just like it was meant to be. The words fitted - they just fitted. The whole thing fitted, it was ridiculous…”
The music was recorded at Windmill Lane studios in Dublin, arranged by Bill Whelan. The featured players were Davey Spillane on uillean pipes, Donal Lunny on bouzuki, John Sheahan on fiddle, Charlie Morgan on drums and Del Palmer on bass. Kate’s brother Paddy would be credited on the sleeve-notes with playing ‘whips’ on the record, an error he quickly rectified. “I’m actually playing a pair of fishing rods. I wanted to get the impression of a beautiful Irish lakeland and the swishing sound of the rods should conjure the atmosphere of fly-fishing, tweed hats and long Wellingtons.”
Kate’s good cheer at this progress was short-lived however. The Joyce estate would not grant her permission to use the words directly from the book (jm: absolutely fucking typical, wankers). Attempts to change their minds continued for about a year. “We approached the relevant people and they just would not let me use them. No way. I tried everything. Obviously, I was very disappointed. It was completely their prerogative, but it was very difficult for me, then, to re-approach the song. In some ways I wanted to just leave it off the album. But we’d put a lot of work into it. The Irish musicians had worked so hard.”
Despite this frustration Kate set about completely transforming her song. “I gradually rewrote it, keeping the same rhythm of the words and the same sounds but turning it into its own story.” The piece, now titled The Sensual World, became about Molly Bloom the character stepping out of the book world, a black and white two-dimensional world, into the real world. “The immediate impression was the sensuality of this world. The fact that you can touch things, that is so sensual - the colours of trees, the feel of the grass on the feet, the touch of this in the hand, the fact that it is such a sensual world. I think for me that is an incredibly important thing about this planet, that we are surrounded by such sensuality and yet we tend not to see it like that. I’m sure for someone who had never experienced it before it would be quite a devastating thing.” Later in her career Kate returned to this theme, a euphoric appreciation of everyday experience, on her ‘Aerial’ album in 2005 to huge critical acclaim.
The song opens with the sound of church bells, perhaps echoing Leopold’s proposal to Molly on Howth Head. “I’ve got a thing about the sound of bells. It’s one of those fantastic sounds: a sound of celebration. They’re used to mark points in life; births, weddings, deaths, but they give this tremendous feeling of celebration. In the original speech Molly’s talking of the time when Leopold proposed to her, and I just had the image of bells, this image of them sitting on the hillside with the sound of bells in the distance. In hindsight I also think it’s a lovely way to start an album. A feeling of celebration that puts me on a hillside somewhere on a sunny afternoon.”
It seems a group of Kate Bush fans plan to walk along the cliffs of Howth Head in Dublin this June 14th (two days before Bloomsday): ‘A pleasant walk along the cliffs of Howth Head (”…where the water and the earth caress…”) then down into Howth village for an afternoon and evening of live music and merry-making; celebrating Kate, Molly Bloom, James Joyce - and whatever else tickles your fancy! Peaches and seedcake will be the backpack munchies of choice.’
Cut Copy, The Presets, it’s Chromey it’s Chromeo-oh-oh-oh-oh, The Faint, Hercules and Love Affair, the Congos, Lindstrom, Modeselektor, and Diplo — damn the Picnic is lining up to be something good after all!
When I heard that Antony wouldn’t be coming to play Dublin in the Hercules and Love Affair gig on June 1st, I wasn’t too impressed — esp given that the ticket price is as high as EUR 30, when their UK gigs are going for 15 quid.
But having seen the YouTube clips Jaime at Daughters of Invention just posted, I may be revisiting that:
Looks awesome ;)
Week of Gigs continues, with Ladytron tonight at Tripod, and Glass Candy playing Maximum Joy at The Button Factory.
I’ll be heading along to Ladytron. I would have liked to go to Glass Candy, but to be honest I’m knackered and the idea of a show starting at 11pm is too much for me nowadays, having to get up early to wipe baby’s arses and what-not. So not rock and roll.
Anyway, I’m not entirely sure how great a Glass Candy gig is going to be — in my opinion they might be better on wax than live — I’d be happy to hear I’m wrong though!
Here’s Glass Candy playing their cover of Kraftwerk’s “Computer Love” in London last week:
Bonus — here’s the tune that got me hooked, a classic from 2005’s Iko EP:
Ian spotted this story at the Beeb:
German techno group Scooter have knocked Madonna off the number one spot in the UK album chart. ‘Jumping All Over the World’, the group’s first UK album since 2002, went straight in as a new entry.
6AM! In the Morning!! Time for SCOOTER!!!
If you ask me, that’s unsurprising, considering it contains possibly the oddest cover concept of recent years, namely Scooter covering The Sisters of Mercy’s ‘Marian’:
Very odd. Quite pedestrian, and breaks into depressed-sounding German halfway through… wtf.
Hey! In other news, it’s week of gigs! A huge gang of us went to see Iron and Wine at the Olympia on Sunday, highlight of which was an electrifying encore of “Resurrection Fern”:
Iron and Wine - Resurrection Fern
The hair was standing on the back of my neck. Fantastic.
After the gig, we retired to the Oak around the corner for a couple of post-gig pints. One of our friends spotted the band wandering past, leapt out, and bodily dragged them into the bar, diverting them from their bus for the next gig in Glasgow.
All credit to The Dude, with his amazing collection of 100 tiny percussion instruments. My favourite was the 5 tiny bells, I think. Mrs. Undersea in particular was a massive fan.
Tonight’s Yeasayer at Whelan’s. Should be good….
So, Crystal Castles use bleepy chiptunes sounds, although apparently separately from the chiptunes scene, just because they sound cool, and because they grew up with those noises just like we did:
It was only to create annoying sounds. That keyboard was made back in 2004 and then we learned about this whole 8-bit scene, which we don’t really have anything to do with. It’s a completely different world.
That’s cool. It sounds great, anyway.
However… this ‘different world’ story seems to be unravelling. It seems they’ve been using extensive samples of original chiptunes from the 8-bit community, and violating the licensing terms for attribution-required Creative Commons-licensed music. As n0wak says:
One time is, maybe, a careless mistake. Two, three, four times over is kleptomania. The worst part is that they distance themselves — a ‘completely different world’ — from the very same community that they are influenced by. Chiptunes? Not cool. Asshole douchebaggery? Totally hipster!
The 8bitpeoples response is worth reading too:
As you may have noticed, we release all our music under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND License here at 8bitpeoples. What this means is that you’re free to share it however you like, with whomever you like. All we ask in return is that you credit it appropriately, do not use it for any commercial purposes, and obtain permission before creating any derivative works (such as remixing it or using it as the soundtrack for a video). Crystal Castles has violated every term of this license in their use of Lo-Bat’s music.
If you’re going to sample from an underground scene, it’s only fair to credit and be cool about it. wtf.
While we’re talking about CC and chiptunes, check out this awesome 8-bit cover of ‘Crimewave’ ;) –
Dauragon88 - Crimewave (Crystal Castles cover)
Finally, while I’m posting — classic 1978 epic Italo-electro mp3 over at xxjfg — Automat, ‘The Rise, The Advance, the Genus’. Imagine a 16-minute long Kraftwerk tune with massive bombastic build-ups and breakdowns; a favourite of mine…
Wow. US-based players of GTA IV can buy copies of in-game music, without leaving the game — cool. The more interesting bit is this, though — sounds like Rockstar might be doing a better job of tracking down rightsholders for the music they’re licensing this time around than they did last time:
[Rockstar] is one of the few game developers that actually creates and licenses its own soundtracks — a task often left to the game publisher — and the company approaches it with a passion close to music-geek-like obsession.
Consider the back story on how the 1979 cult classic “Walk the Night” by the Skatt Bros. came to appear on the soundtrack. Skatt Bros. member Sean Delaney — also known as the “fifth member of Kiss” for his writing and production work with the rock band — died in 2003, leaving his publishing share to a brother, a sister and a nephew living somewhere in Utah. They proved so hard to find that Rockstar went through the trouble of hiring a private investigator who flew to Orum, Utah, to locate them.
“It was just one of those songs we just couldn’t let go of,” Rockstar music supervisor Ivan Pavlovich says. “It fit the game perfectly, so we were obviously determined to track them down.”
When I heard about the “hiring a PI” story, I thought to myself, “why bother? just pick another tune.” But they’re right — you couldn’t leave this one out:
The Skatt Brothers - Walk The Night
Super-camp hard rocking disco, as heard on Optimo’s “Psyche Out” and frequent appearances in the CBS Top 100… tune!
Erykah Badu has always been the most interesting new soul singer, and her new album New Amerykah, Pt. 1: 4th World War is an incredible return to form after a long absence. It’s a mixture of social commentary in the classic 70s style of Gil Scott Heron or Marvin Gaye with the latest in leftfield hiphop production by Madlib and 7th Wonder.
The most conventional track on the album is Honey, but luckily the relatively innocuous music gets a syncopated tweak by Seiji of Bugz In The Attic
This is the single for their upcoming album, “Velocifero” –
I’m really loving it. Not sure about the album yet though, but it took me a while to get into “Witching Hour” too…
Here’s some classic icy ‘tron, from their first album, “604″:
‘The experience [of Electric Picnic], when recounted second hand, never fails to sound like a slightly grubbier, slightly ‘artsier’, weekend health-spa retreat; naturalistic chill out zones, organic Fair Trade snacks, clean toilets, and a general ‘positive atmosphere’; indeed the whole thing is like a temporary realization of the contents of multiple broadsheet weekend supplements.’
– Mentasms, via Eoghan. love it!
So I went to the Crystal Castles gig in the Andrews Lane Theatre (now rebranded “ALT”) on Tuesday night.
It wasn’t great… I’ve been loving the album, so I was really looking forward to the gig. But the live format was a bit meh, as Nialler noted — their set was a measly 25 minutes long; the sound was a mess, making it hard to make out which tune was which; quite a few of their best tunes were AWOL, such as “Untrust Us”; and there was no encore. On top of that, the support DJ was shite.
Still, the gig was cheap — 13 squids, and the support band Ugly Megan were quite cute. And — megabonus — I finally got to meet up with Nialler in person! ;)
One thing that was a little disconcerting was the age/fashion profile of the crowd. It was overwhelmingly full of hip, angular-haircutted 18 year olds — much more than any other gig I’ve been at in Dublin recently. This has thrown up some great threads at On The Record and UnaRocks… plenty of old indie rock fans gnashing their teeth about these mysterious youngsters suddenly appearing at a gig, when they haven’t been seen before “on the scene”.
There’s an easy answer as to why this happened — there aren’t many bands playing Dublin on the nu-rave end of the spectrum. The Dublin gig scene is still pretty rockist.
May 16th — mark your calendars!
This is turning out to be a pretty busy month…
It turns out that no less than the fucking Chromatics will be playing at Andrew’s Lane Theatre on 24 April.
This would be all well and fantastic — except that’s just two days after Crystal Castles play the same venue. wtf! Unfortunately I’ve already got my Crystal Castles tix — and I’m looking forward to that gig anyway. But I would have loved to hit both, and it’s just not possible with only 2 days between ‘em.
So, went to see Holy Fuck in Whelan’s on Thursday.
It was in the company of a (very) pregnant friend, which assured us early access to the upstairs level, with seating. Maybe I’m getting old (maybe?!), but turns out this was great stuff — seats! no queues for the bar! no queues for the jacks! a great view of the band! Really, I must go to more gigs with pregnant ladies. Not very rock and roll, but there you go.
The Fuck have a very impressive range of crappy Bontempi toy keyboards — we counted 11. Great array of effects pedals and custom electronic noise boxes, too. Reminded me of Black Moth Super Rainbow a little. The only thing that let it down was a little lack of volume — it could have been louder. still – good gig! recommended!
Also, I came across an interesting idea — Fustar is running a “Dreadful Thoughts Story Club”, an intriguing kind of interweb-based mini-book-club project revolving around horror short stories, and as part of this, Niall Munnelly set up a collaborative mixtape as described here. Here’s the results so far: Dreadful Thoughts Muxtape. (including Suspiria and Wendy Carlos tracks from yours truly.)
I love the idea of a collaborative mixtape run through Muxtape.com, very nifty.
Finally — occasional Undersea Community contributor Eoghan is now blogging about serious stuff over here at The Colour of Memory. Go subscribe.
There are good bands in Ireland.
That’s it. I’ve said it.
I feel better now.
The Jimmy Cake are the Kevin Bacon of the Irish music scene, except you are typically just one degree of separation from them. This track is one of the highlights of their new album, Spectre & Crown.
God Is An Astronaut are another one of my favourite local acts. They are from Kilmacanouge just outside Bray. Pure mad epic & slick post-rock.
Long time no blog…
What have I been listening to? Well, top of the playlist has been the Hercules and Love Affair album, with Pilooski’s two D-I-R-T-Y edit collections from last year close behind. But coming up fast is the new Crystal Castles album. ‘Untrust Us’, the opener, is a new one on me and is beautiful:
I’ve just bought tickets for Crystal Castles at Andrew’s Lane — this will be a great gig, I think.
Also proving interesting — Sunset Rubdown! mental, psychedelic-ish, Of Montreal-ish rock:
Sunset Rubdown - Up On Your Leopard, Upon The End Of Your Feral Days
Apart from that — Ladytron are coming to Dublin, and I have a couple of tix on my board ready to go. Ian, I’m looking at you?
Also, picked up the new Dengue Fever album — but sadly it hasn’t quite grabbed me yet :( Give it time, I guess.
If you’re interested, I wrote a post about the Irish record industry’s case against Eircom over here on me other blog.
I can’t believe I’m actually in the position of plugging for Eircom.
I remember hearing a story about a legendary Dublin music obsessive who had two enormous piles of CDs in his living room towering like monoliths. He would take one from the unlistened pile, give two plays all the way through - “I think two is fair” was the quote, and then stick it in the listened pile.
He may or may not have made some notes in a ledger as he did so.
Well, I sniggered to myself when I heard this story, but these days, thanks to the magical internet and a busy schedule, I find myself in a similar position. Luckily an iTunes playlist called ‘Intray’ is a lot less hassle than a ginormous pile of CDs.
So I thought I’d stick up some randomish selections from my intray.
Never really got stuck into the whole alt.country/TexMex indie rock thing but I’m making up for lost time now. This is from the soundtrack to obscure indie flick Committed.
The Whitest Boy Alive - Borders
Erlend Oye and Kings Of Convenience were always a bit too fey IMO, but the Vs. remix album and Oye’s classic DJ Kicks were pretty tasty. The Whitest Boy Alive is his new project, started as electronica but turned into a normal band, and so far, they see much less drippy than Kings Of Convenience. This rocks in a slightly Thurston Moore style.
Faves from a few posts ago have got an album out.
