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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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.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/b3_eyRj3grQ" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

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

www.myspace.com/yourarchenemies

If you haven’t caught them since last year’s line-up shuffle, get along and gawp. Zealots play Futurism tomorrow night in Dorans…

www.myspace.com/zealotsmusic

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/PVWelcome2008.htm

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.

Green Lights – Whelans Upstairs – 27/02/09 Read the rest of this entry »

Trust me, you stand to benefit from David Kitt, Somadrone and Sunken Foal in your life, stuffed by a three-course meal and Dublin: The Movie. Taking place in the Sugar Club this Sunday 1 March, all this and more is yours for €20…paidback triple with a cosy feeling come summer that your squids helped hoist that banner, run this film and put a smile on the face of many an arts, movies and music fan. That’s the idea but it’ll only happen if you go…

www.darklight.ie/

Here’s a straggler post of the day…oh, I crack myself up. However I will spare you any puns on Bitches In The Basement. This isn’t Austria.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/P5_9XGQx8P4" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

www.myspace.com/straglers

Megaphone Bowtie image - Barry Quinn

How many times have you fallen in love with a record only to discover, much to your horror, that the band have broken up? Such is the fate of unsuspecting Irish indie music fans who have not yet discovered Green Lights – this Friday 27 February sees the band’s final performance with good friends The Funeral Suits in Whelans.

Born in a student gaff in Monaghan, Green Lights began in 2006 with guitarist Colin, drummer Daniel and a lot of bad songs. Of which, some (Fold, Threading Ice, Glove Box) survived and make up the live set list.

After about a year of Colin and Daniel jamming away, synths player Nigel moved into said gaff and the line-up of Green Lights was complete.

Colin: We had no bass and we liked it that way.

Drop-D: That’s quite surprising though, Green Lights seem like the kind of band who would have a bassist. And I hadn’t realised you were knocking around for a while…you seemed to just emerge last year in a flurry of EPs, Small Curious Things followed by Time To Tell The Parents.

Colin: We did release quite a bit in 2008. It annoys me to see great bands not getting their material out there. Sure, it costs money but it’s so much fun to do. They were like mini projects that kept me busy when I was unemployed.

Nigel: Yeah it’s much more rewarding if you do all the press release, photoshoot, managerial stuff yourself. Less people to get pissed off with!

Drop-D: It’s quite unusual for Irish bands to produce so quickly though. I’m not sure if it’s entirely financially-driven either, there honestly doesn’t seem to be enough good material to keep releasing….

Colin: Well I think it’s because we live together? Also people can forget about bands very easily in Dublin. I’m not too sure. I do think a lot of bands are scared to fork out money on what can be quite daunting project. My advice is go for it, regret it later!

Nigel: Colin will admit he can be quite prolific with the songwriting if Daniel and I lock him in his bedroom and only give him Sugar Puffs until he writes something new!

Drop-D: So what spurred the advance from bedroom band to really hitting the live circuit?

Nigel: Back in the middle of 2007 we decided Dublin was finally ready for a big onslaught from us and so we started just taking whatever gigs we could get, ranging from support slots to club nights and even barn dances…

Colin: It was hard starting out mind…coming from Monaghan where there are zero bands apart from The Flaws, it was almost impossible to get gigs. Then we started showcasing with the brilliant Garageland which proved a great starting point for us, met lots of people and bands and it got easier….

To read the utter scandal on Dublin’s smelliest venue and for the great laugh of seeing Nay fall flat on her face with yet another inept brand of her own inimitable ‘Wrongzo’ journalism, continue reading the whole article over on Drop-D….

Fancy some Americana-driven blues rock to hound yaw dawgs to? This here’s The River Valley Band accompanied by them low-down, no-good, keister-kicking Hot Sprockets and Whelans’ own enigma of Sunday night slide-guitar, NC Lawlor:

Oh yeeehah!

www.myspace.com/therivervalleyband