Walking down East Wall Road in the rain, conjuring and discarding ideas on how to spin this interview, my feet splash through puddles in time to Seventeen. Wild piano mirrors my urgent state of mind while traffic finds itself dubbed to rumbling drums. As track seams into track, I realise that this music was made to walk, breathe, live to: filled with purpose and intent, it will take you where you need to go.
Lube: Project X began as a three-piece in 2004 to eventually whittle down to LPX, moniker for Leigh O’Gorman’s singular work as an experimental electronic musician. Regular gig/club nights of scintillating Irish talent were established under the Electric Fix promotions label until its demise in the former half of 2007 when Leigh moved to High Wycombe in Warwickshire, England to complete a degree in music management.
A lengthy muffler of influence and personality peel away to reach the core of this man and his methods. Dig the ten-foot scarf: it’s his second, the first having been stolen at a gig in Cork.

“Maybe the scarf will resurface in a decade, a la Bono’s stetson?”
I ask, ever mindful of the value in potential-celebrity garb.
“That’d be amazing - at least then I can stitch the two together. You always knew in (Doctor Who) episodes that when Tom Baker fell in a hole, the scarf would be used. Only once did that not happen!”
Trust him. Aside from encyclopaediac knowledge of BBC’s finest vintage, Leigh is also an authority on Hollywood teen stars. “I worked in a video store for four years ’til August 2007. Dullest. Job. Ever!! We had to push new releases yet at the same time were not allowed to watch anything above ‘12′ rating. So I watched nearly every Lyndsey Lohan and Hilary Duff film repeatedly for the last four years…and I’ve still never seen any Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, ET or Matrix films!”

At the launch of Seventeen at the BoomBoom Room, January 7th.

“As with TV and music, I’m more drawn to films from the Thirties through to the Sixties. I’m just not pushed to write much in the way of classically structured pop music (intro-verse-short chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus-refrain-end).
I love Sandinista! by The Clash: it’s a lesson that you can do anything with music and you should never confine yourself within a structure.”

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Cilian Foster sings and plays guitar in Dublin’s trad-rock trio, Gra Don Ceoil and has shared the stage with the likes of Paddy Casey and The Fureys. Here he rolls through the highs and lows of Ireland’s gig circuit…

What do you imagine are the differences between emerging musicians today and that of U2’s time?
Acts emerging today don’t stand as much a chance of becoming a ‘legend’ band. Record labels are dropping bands like no-one’s business. The norm now is to throw out an album every two years and it’s expected to be top quality. For most bands the debut album took a number of years to get to a high standard, then the follow up is basically thrown together (not in every case) so the record company can make as much profit on you while you are the ‘in’ thing rather than let you take an extra year or two to make the follow up album as good, if not better than the debut.

Which experiences of breaking into the music industry remain the same?
Not a lot, unfortunately. I think the one thing that remains the same is to have that song with a great hook. But looking at the charts now or even what’s on television: the public aren’t that interested in the next biggest band, they wanna hear the next greatest song. I think we’re in an era of ‘one-hit-wonders’ because the only songs that are being heard are the singles.
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…So sang Marlene Dietrich in the 1940s, harking back to her homeland.
Over the last few months of chatting to musicians and browsing networking sites, it’s dawned how many Irish musicians are upping sticks and choosing to gig away from home: Berlin in Germany, to precise.
Perhaps Ireland shares a subconcious affinity with the Germans, having also rebuilt a ravaged economy into a thriving hub of exciting artistic development? Berlin was always a highly cultural city: classical composers Bach and Mendelssohn called it home and today there are a staggering seven symphonic orchestras in the city. Although schmaltzy, the gloriously hedonistic image portrayed in Liza Minelli’s Oscar-winning Cabaret was supposedly an honest representation of the city’s nightlife prior to the horrors of WWII, cementing a reputation as an open community for artists, musicians and those of an independent disposition. The 60s/70s style known as ‘Berlin School’ furthered progressive music with offerings from John Peel’s favourite conceptualists Tangerine Dream whose early forays paved the way for Techno, the biggest revolution in pop music since jive rock in the Fifties. A few years later David Bowie and Brian Eno sought refuge in the city’s creative haven and produced some of the most critically acclaimed material of their careers.

When the wall dividing East from West was demolished in 1989 and the nation’s reunification began, derelict buildings on the old west side, many untouched since the war, were reclaimed by young people looking for seclusion in which to play the ultra-loud Techno. Hundreds of galleries and museums, low cost of living and tolerance for individuality meant that the creative reputation gathered momentum and expanded into continental Europe’s unofficial capital of culture with musicians and artists from all over the world flocking to lay roots there. Several of our home-grown artists now use the capital as a base: Humanzi took a break from the Dubscene rock’n'roll for R’n'R of a different nature and ended up recording the as-yet unreleased follow-up to 2006’s succesful Tremors there. I tracked down some others to find out what influenced their choices in making the move.

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Slaine, poet/MC of Portrush funkster skate-crew, Team Fresh sheds some light on his band’s experience of the music indsutry in Ireland.

OffHerRocker: What do you imagine are the differences between emerging musicians today and that of U2’s day?
Slaine:Wow… when U2 were starting out, the only influence they had was traditional Irish music, The Dubliners and showbands touring the country playing that week’s top 40 from start to finish, probably in cold dance halls where you could buy a cup of tea and an egg sandwich afterwards… Read the rest of this entry »