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Well done to Funeral Suits‘ Mick, Greg and Brian for their frantically fast-paced efforts last weekend with four phenomenal gigs, first supporting Green Lights‘ Whelans farewell on Friday before flitting to Limerick, Dublin and Belfast with Franz Ferdinand.

Major shouts to the lads who rescued me from Sunday afternoon ‘Franz are playing tonight and I don’t have a ticket’ doldrums. Not only that but they managed to wrangle a photopass for both their own and the Franz’ set. Not easy with MCD at 630 on a weekend night but they did it!

*loves* - but don’t go getting any ideas! I heard what you boys are like!

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A successful week for Irish music all-round! Firstly congratulations to Jape on winning the Choice Music Prize - many have already said it went to the nicest man in Ireland and of those on the final shortlist, he was certainly amongst the most deserving. Halfset made a really good album and R.S.A.G. certainly set tympanics trembling with Organic Sampler but in the end the award went to one whose music played truly massive role in 2008. Despite fear and suspicion on the night due  to the presence of David Holmes and The Script, Richie Egan is now wealthier to the tune of ten thousand fruits and a smooth celebratory trophy declaring Ritual the most critically-acclaimed Irish album of 2008. Thank you Jape.
There’s an interview with Choice founder Jim Carroll over on Analog. It’s a decent read…have Phantom really been binning bands’ CDs? In this age of carbon neutrality I thought unwanted promos found a home in charity shops. It’s all a wicked lie!

Salulations are also in order for Falter Ego who won the DIT Battle of the Bands in Think Tank on Wednesday (by the by, how fantastic is the new Cylon ceiling in the Eustace Street club?! Totally makes up for the naff Diet-Cokesque mural and porn-star toilets…!) Falter Ego beat off competition from Bojangled, Flying Columns and The Harm to win the first heat. Myself and two judges from Drop-D were level-pegging at 3/4 time and prepared for a fight amongst Indies when the three metallers rocked on and settled the score with four great, catchy songs. Look forward to hearing from you lads but if I can make one teeeny suggestion - introducing online visitors to your music with “The Official…Myspace Page” is a bit naff. Just sayin….

Before I launch into the plethora of upcoming releases and shows, take a moment to consider Parhelia’s words on the effects of illegal downloading on small bands.
The Dublin post-rockers released Shifting Sands in early February and yet to date there have been over 500 downloads from one filesharing site alone - more than the album’s total legitimate sales. That ain’t cool. Support your local music industry people - it’s the only way to survive without selling out.

Amongst others, this Saturday 7 March sees two entirely different gigs: Angel Pier, A Lazarus Soul and Lines Drawing Circles take over Andrews’ Lane Theatre - LDC also play Hideaway House in Deansgrange the following night, Sunday - you can read Angel Darragh’s Soundtrack over on Drop-D.

The other gigging biggie is The Urges in Whelans, also tomorrow - biggie because it’s their last Irish date before they descend on the not-so-sleepy town of Austin, Texas for SXSW….did you know the city has a bat population of 1.5 million? Sounds like a kind of haven!

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The Ledj has ‘em!

ruthlessimagery.wordpress.com

If you don’t know the Choice Music Prize takes place tonight you better have an excuse along the lines of having been off hunting for water on Titan, opals on Venus or at least decent pint of beer in Dublin.*

Anyway, yaddah yeah…tonight in Vicar Street, twelve judges will decide who wins the coveted prize for best Irish album of 2008. The contenders are:

Fight Like Apes “Fight Like Apes and the Mystery of the Golden Medallion”
Mick Flannery “White Lies”
Halfset “Another Way of Being There”
Lisa Hannigan “Sea Sew”
David Holmes “The Holy Pictures”
Jape “Ritual”
Messiah J & The Expert “From The Word Go”
Oppenheimer “Take The Whole Mid-Range And Boost It”
R.S.A.G. “Organic Sampler”
The Fucking Script “The Script”

*sulk* I had a whole plan to go along under the premise of snapping, having stolen The Vinny Club’s  muscleman suit to smuggle in under my photographer clothes so I could storm the stage during one of the dreadfully boring performances in order to douse phosphorescent lighter fuel across my cleverly-bulkier person whilst roaring “ADEBISI SHANK“  to be ejected, screaming and vindicated to St James’ Hospital burns unit. But I’m not arsed. I have better things to do tonight. It’s bin day tomorrow.

Go and annoy Jim Carroll with your opinions.

www.choicemusicprize.com

*Anyone found any nice opals lately? Or how about beer? What’s with only serving Carlsberg and Budweiser on draught in Crawdaddy anyway?

New video from supremely talented Gemma Hayes - she’s a special favourite for many. This is Home, second single from The Hollow of the Morning. It was shot on location in California in the same area where Gone With The Wind (”I’s a-scairt a cows!!”), one of my all-time movie faves was also filmed. Which is just kinda cool and interesting, a funny choice considering Casablas is a thousand miles from Tipperary. Lucky, lovely Gemma. The song’s great too…

Thanks to Galway Clare for the heads up xx

www.gemmahayes.com

Animated by Mark Scully of Zealots, this is a deadly short film to Renegades by Your Arch Enemies. Setting their rock-bop songs to oddball vids are exactly what YAE do well and these really engaging graphics culminate in a sort of Mr Benn on peyote cliffhanging headtrip.

And I love red and orange together, *clashclashclash*!

www.myspace.com/yourarchenemies

Dundalk’s Chrome Horse have made it to the finals of the International Songwriting Competition with Reflections Of A Madman. Congratulations are in order as they join the ranks of 287 finalists who beat off stiff competition from over 15,000 others to reach the crucial stage and Chrome Horse now reside in the last 16 of the Rock category.

The ISC is one of the world’s most respected songwriting competitions including judges such as Robert Smith of The Cure, Black Francis of The Pixies and Jerry Lee Lewis amongst others. It’s great to see they’ve got a chance to shine here. Check them out yourself by hitting their website: their entire Songs From The Last Revolution album is available free in either download or CD format!

Lend the lads a hand and bid in their favour: the People’s Choice Vote on the songwriting website is calculated separately from the judged competition:
Vote here: http://www.songwritingcompetition.com/PV…

www.myspace.com/chromehorserock

Monaghan’s Green Lights played their last gig on Friday in Whelans’ Upstairs…it was a jolly affair and absolutely loads of heads turned out to wish them well. It was great to see so many different faces in various stages of happiness/inebriation/lamentation…the gig itself was like these pictures - colourful, fuzzy, slightly strange and to use Colin’s words, messy. “Messy’ in a matey ‘let’s just play ‘em to bits’ kind of way…not the standard terminology of messy which was certainly applicable to the next Irish band I saw that same night….

Anyway, check out all the props and oddities that filled out the trio’s final barnstorm.

After which you may go to www.megaphonebowtie.com and download your two free songs.

And then go wish em all the best on MySpace.

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Fridays never drag and today was one of those days time flew away. Bye February, I hated you except for the pancakes at the end!

I didn’t really know what I’d be up to except GREEN LIGHTS tonight!!

Pop over in the morning for a bonus post. I’ll do ya something lovely with your scrambled eggs.

Unless you’re Koone. If you’re not a Moshspace user sign up, it’s filthy-worth it.