It is a roll of the famous "Crowded Cabin" scene where various groups of people from their ocean liner pile into the room for the most pointless of reasons... but it is very, very funny.
Leigh
Steven Van Zandt will be broadcasting his Underground Garage Radio show from Tower Records on Wicklow Street at 1pm on Sunday afternoon.
The FIA and FOTA have not agreed on the issues facing Formula 1, with the result being the FOTA teams leaving F1 to start their own rival series. FOTA - which consists of Ferrari, McLaren, Brawn GP, Toyota, Renault, BMW, Red Bull and Toro Rosso - have decided after ongoing talks broke down (again) that their dealings with FIA are now concluded in dramatic fashion.
One thing I've noticed about the local music scene in both Dublin and London (and this may not be a popular view) is the sheer arrogance that is often present amongst its participants - the thought that we deserve cool purely because of where we come from regardless of the output that is produced ...and I've seen this a lot over the years - an awful lot!! I will not go into the details here, because I could spew my guts for page after page.

"...you decide the outcome at the end of every episode..."Suddenly my heart fell and it fell again when the promo started going on about viewer text votes and my mind drifts once again to missed opportunities and lowest common denominator outputs. Is there something so difficult about music shows that they can't simply present an artist within a credible format or are we so stupid that we simply can't handle it? Irish television has a very bad history when it comes to producing shoddy, shoddy programmes and it's just a shame that this adds to a very long list.
Excellent - the Microtronics EP by Broadcast has just arrived on my metaphorical doormat this morning.“uhyy9’p’ru9]fp’o ;;;;;;;rfgn[0-y 80gq ‘# 3gt5i0 n]#we9 rg[-tnq-e9wg][o-qjk”…if you know what I mean. Mish, mosh, mash, kill keyboard smash – like fists against my head whilst simultaneously butting a wall.
I originally posted this at the end of January and with today being the 15th anniversary of Ayrton Senna's Death, it seems apt to repost this entry as - quite frankly - I don't think there is anything that I could add to this.Billboard: "Is this ruling likely to help new legal alternatives? "I wrote here about a week-and-a-half ago (right here) about my beliefs for the future regarding the next step of the music industry and one of my niggling points is the industry's apparent inability and/or unwillingness to adapt to the future and Billboard's post-Pirate Bay case article alludes to the industry's stubbornness as well.
GP: "The big frustration is that we act for all these legal services who pay lots of money to the rights holders, and it's almost impossible to get licenses. They are so expensive and the process is so slow. Two or three years can go by and you can throw millions at trying to get a compelling service launched, and there are obstacles in the way all the time. Pandora is a great example, it's just not possible [to operate it in Europe]. We also advise Last.fm and MySpace, it's just so much hard work. This is the irony: they [labels] complain about piracy and then you walk in the door with a new service with some VC funding and an amazing bit of software that is essentially promoting and selling their content. But they say 'we are not moving unless you give us an advance of $5 million plus equity.'"
"…the automobile will never replace the horse and carriage…"You only have to look briefly at what has happened since to disregard that statement as nonsense; however it was an absolute belief at the time.



*I have tried to write this entry twice already, but due to Blogger.com's absurd shitness a third attempt is necessary.
The rather grand Sleep Thieves and Lines Drawing Circles are both performing at the Sugar Club on Leeson St. this Friday evening as part of this year's IMRO Showcase Tour shindig.Thank You All ! - From Road Records
A big big thank you to everybody who attended our benefit show on Saturday night in Andrews Lane. It really was an amazing night full of like-minded music fanatics and a real shot in the arm to us here at Road Records regarding the feelings people have towards our store and what we do. It was truly amazing to see so many people come out and support us, added to the general goodwill we have experienced here in the store since we announced our closure. I have to say we have both been utterly blown away by the reaction we have received. To be honest I did know people liked the storebut the outpouring of emotion since January has just been mind blowing, from bands contributing free stock to our cause and also from regular customers just begging us not to give up hope.
We regarded our decision in January as final having spent a long time trying to find a way out of our situation to no avail. Soon after announcing our closure a number of ideas were thrown at us by different people and we started to think that maybe there was a way that we could carry on.
We have set ourselves certain targets and have agreed that if we manage to hit every single one of them then we will carry on with the shop. Last Saturday night was the fulfillment of a major target!
The thank you list for Saturday night could go on for many pages so I will
keep it as simple as possible
- To Vinny from the Jimmy Cake whose idea it was in the first place * We can never repay you.
- The bands * Jimmy Cake, Jape, Adrian Crowley, Large Mound, Dudley Corporation and Si Schroeder [Colm Mac Con Iomaire sustained a rather serious eye injury on -Saturday but we still owe you Colm]
- Thanks also to Dylan and Djonny for their dj skills, we would love to have done it ourselves but that would have required not being able to talk to everyone on the night.
- Andews Lane and their staff for the venue.
- Leagues, Allistar and Foggy Notions for their tireless help.
- Paul Smyth, Tickets.ie, Nialler9 / State Magazine, Pete Brady at Thumped.com and Tower Records
- Every single one of you people who paid in.
We would also like to thank all the bands who contributed their music to us free of charge after we announced our closure, the thank you list would go into the hundreds so please forgive us for just making a collective thank you to you all, you know who you are and you should be very proud of yourselves for what you have done for us.
To everybody who has been in to us since January with words of support, thank you, it really does mean a lot to us to just know how important you feel our store is to the Irish music scene in general.
Thank you all so much.
Julie and Dave
News is slowly but surely leaking about the fate of Honda F1. If rumours are to be believed, former Ferrari Technical Director, Ross Brawn, has led the buy-out with help from Bernie Ecclestone (in lieu of a portion of next season's prize money) - a buy out that is thought to have finished Nick Fry's relationship with the team.
I'm going to be straight up here - I'm not going to review the album as I have not heard it and probably may not pick it up; if you hang on for a second, I'll explain.
There is a confession to be made before I go on with review: with this EP, I have found myself in the midst of an unknown territory - Anthemic rock.
(apologies - this was to be published last week until Blogger.com became a cock)
(apologies - this was to be published last week until Blogger.com became a cock)
Strange rumours are seeping out of Honda F1 with regards to the teams future. Bosses at the Japanese corporation's headquarters announced in December that they were pulled out of competition with immediate effect and since then there has been a rush to find buyers.Jesus, what a shitty night - I mean piss-pot shitty!! “There’s going to be a lot of rain…” I have absolutely no problem with that, but did the BBC Weatherman have to smile like a lobotomised fucking cat when he said it?
Ughhh… anyway, I'm here to catch Fighting with Wire at the Camden Barfly in London - one of many venues in London that have that slightly dingy Whelan’s feel only without the tradition - it is a high class Eamonn Doran's basically. The Barfly is also much crapper in terms of sound. No matter who is on or who is manning the desk, the sound always seems to swing violently from deeply muffled to painfully sharp. More than anything, it is just another symptom of the sick case of franchised rooms, complete with their hip clientele and their sponsored lifestyles endorsed by the NME and XFM, etc... Yes, that (e)N(e)ME (sic).
But enough of my meandering bullshit - what of the bands..? Hold Fire opened and were... quite good, although hardly the most challenging of groups. In 25 minutes they ripped through some jaunty and well composed British Pop/Rock (nee Indie) in a fairly confident manner and although there were nice for a fun listen, they could have been any London band right now - the only downer point was the lead singer's guitar was clearly (and painfully) out of tune halfway through every song.
Anyhoo, thereafter I went downstairs and in my quest to a responsible adult (i.e. - I'm penniless), I decided against alcohol and went for a pint of blackcurrant and lemonade. £3.60 - Camden Barfly, you can fuck right off!!
Ten sweet minutes later, a discovered was made. It turns out that the following support act - the New 1920's - are one of the shittest bands I've ever fucking heard... really. Just imagine a crap Rage Against the Machine and then imagine a crap Hardcore Punk band and the imagine being shot in the head (you get the idea). Someone whispered beforehand that the singer digs confrontation - different singer. Every conceivable pose and strut was thrown and not in a subtle or intelligent way.
(Fuck off! Needed a pint - it was cheaper than a mineral. I don't get that at all.)
The final support act of the evening were Irish act La Faro - and they rawk. I mean, they really rawk. Rawk is not something I normally go for, but they were quite possibly the best fun I've had at a gig in a really long time. Put simply, it was barrage of bass and riffs - absolutely fucking loved it!!
Admittedly I initially went to this with the intention of seeing Fighting with Wire, but by the second song I was so knackered and aurally blunted that I just went home. They were probably pretty good, but I guess I’ll just have to find out another time. On reflection, the main disappointment of the night was the incredibly subdued crowd. The gig was fairly full, but there was a severe lack of atmosphere in the place - but it's not the first time I've experienced that in the Barfly.
Current listening:
Neu! "Neu!"
Leigh