I believe the children are our future (days festival).

A little bird tells me that Foggy Notions and Forever Presents have a little something special planned for those music fans that are too young to legally get boozed up.

No date or venue yet but it'll be good. The resourceful might even find a hint in this post.

About big sharks
Sharp swords
Beast bees
Bead lords
Sweet cakes
Maste lakes
O ma ma ma ma ma ma ma ma

Rapid fire May is loco yo gig reviews 8: Jens Lekman - The Village.

You know when you're confronted with a giant cake? And it looks really delicious? There was probably loads of chocolate involved in making it, fudge too. Or strawberrys and cream if you're into some a little lighter and summery. And you eat the whole thing? Then you feel a little sick afterwards?

No?

Well congrats on never having issues with your weight.

I reckon that since the 7th of this month I've seen at least 32 different acts in 9 venues and 2 countries. I'd say that I need a break but June sees Bon Iver and Dan Deacon hit Dublin which are pretty much unmissable as far as I'm concerned as well and Evangelicals, The Dodos, Radiohead, Low, Bonnie Prince Billie and probably a whole bunch more that I've not mentioned. Can someone get sick of live music? In my case it appears not. That being said if the European Championships turn out to be good and mean that I stay in a few more evenings in June I won't be complaining too much.

Last December Jens Lekman played Whelan's pretty much solo save for occasional contributions from a percussionist and violins from Alex Turner's string arranger. But mainly the night was all about Lekman's songs and his voice. There was some strange, intangible thing in the air that night and as the gig went on you couldn't help but feel that the Swede was drawing you in and making a very real personal connection with you through his music. And it's not just me that felt that way, a friend of mine said to me last week "that night the whole room fell in love with Jens." I can't say I disagree, I'm still into chicks otherwise but.

Last night he returned to Dublin to play The Village with a full band. And it just felt like a guy with some great songs and a supertight band playing a gig. It was fine, actually to be fair, it was good. But it lacked the charm of his last appearance here. Worse though was that parts of it felt utterly contrived; like his storytelling during "A Postcard To Nina" or when he requested that no one put any videos from the gig up on YouTube because it wanted the night to be special and unique, just for him, the band and those in attendance. Oh Jens, I bet you say that to all the crowds.

I was told afterwards that there's a good chance that Lekman won't tour again for a number of years and in recent times he's said to the Swedish press that he's unlikely to ever put out a full album again. That'd be a shame because I do think that when he's at his best he's a remarkable, enthralling talent. But if there's a Jens Lekman gig that lives long in my memory it won't be the one last night.

Autumn Owls.

I got my first review copy of something yesterday. It was kinda odd getting an envelope and above my name was written "Thrill Pier". What Pete (my postman) thinks of the situation I have no idea. But free stuff is good so I'm happy enough for Pete to be befuddled (by all means send me free shit, CD's ... concert tickets, I'm looking at you Aiken promotions, I'd fancy a lie in on Tuesday morning, that's all I'm saying.)

I don't write much about Irish music here, I'm not quite sure why. I just generally don't have the time to do so I guess so generally focus on things I really like or stuff that might be of interest (this of course is the serial problem with blogs, there does tend to be a hooray for everything aspect to them but my reasoning is that if it's not your job, and you only have a limited amount of free time to write about things then why waste your time on something you hate when it means you might not be able to spread the word on something that you're really into) and if I'm being perfectly honest there's not a whole lot of local stuff that really, truly excites me. That being said I do think that this year has been quite strong for Irish albums and I have been meaning to get around to writing about how much I've been enjoying the sparse coldness of the new Waiting Room album or how Spectre And Crown by the Jimmy Cake is far more than simply the tour de force that is lead-single-of-sorts "Jetta's Palace" or how I think the first single off of Crayonsmith's record is a super pop tune (though they generally are disqualified from critical mention here under the "people I know I don't mention at length because I want to like their stuff and I'm not objective about them" rule I have in place here). Oh, I guess I just did.

Anyway a band called Autumn Owls sent me their EP this week. It hit me from right the off when I listened to it that these guys really, really like Wilco circa Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born. No bad thing that, and it's certainly a damn site better than really liking whatever it is that's resulted is there being so many dreadfully painful to listen to garage-rock and punk influenced bands stinking up the stages around Dublin.

There's 5 songs on the Insomnia Lodge EP. Good ones at that. At their core they're acoustic based americana tunes and come with all the accoutrements attached to that label; harmonicas, the sound of plectrums being dragged along guitar strings, and whatnot but what really makes them work for me is how they're wrapped up in droney synths, melodicas and ambient guitar noise. It's all very relaxed and meditative, perfect for late nights spent on the couch when you're not ready to go to bed yet or Sunday mornings when you're trying to get your head straight. Or at least I think they might be, I'll have to try them out tomorrow if I'm up before noon.

MP3: Autumn Owls - Overcoat Smile from Insomnia Lodge EP

Autumn Owls on Myspace.

First Impressions: The Hold Steady - Stay Positive

Oh man, the poor Hold Steady. Their new album leaks the same day that I go see Springsteen live and my first chance to listen to the record is overshadowed by memories of The E-Street band being amazing at pretty much the same sorta schtick they trade on (OK this is a really lazy stereotype to bring up when discussing The Hold Steady, they’ve really toned down the Bruce stuff since Separation Sunday, nothing they’ve done since comes as close to aping the boss as the frankly brilliant line “Tramps Like Us and We Like Tramps”, but hey I’m lazy and I’m gonna run with it, for a couple of paragraphs at least).

It’s not a problem though; Craig, Tad and the boys hold up pretty well under the extra scrutiny that they’re placed under this morning. Maybe it’s because I’m just in the mood for this sort of thing right now or maybe because it’s actually a really good album.

You pretty much know what you’re gonna get from any Hold Steady release. The band unashamedly plays classic bar-room American rock and one of the best (if perhaps a little one track minded) lyricists of his generation sings songs about drinking, getting high, screwing, college kids (often doing the previous 3 things), Catholic guilt and there’s usually a truck load of references to the St.Paul/Minneapolis area, Ybor City, Fl. as well as to songs that he’s previously written. And if you’re not a fan at this point Stay Positive isn’t going to win you over now.

Basically this is just another Hold Steady album.

But that’s fine with me, because I really like Hold Steady albums.

And this song fuses the things that I most liked about each of their previous 2 records into just under 3 marvellous minutes.

MP3: The Hold Steady - Stay Positive from Stay Positive.

Rapid fire May is loco yo gig reviews 7: Bruce Springsteen - RDS

Traffic was pretty terrible in Dublin this evening. That’s why I spent the first 4 songs of Bruce Springsteen’s set tonight standing outside the gate of the R.D.S. on Simmonscourt Rd. waiting for my gig buddy for the night to fight his way through traffic. Nonetheless even from that exterior position I could hear the boss perfectly and I suspected from the opening salvo of “The Promised Land” and “Radio Nowhere” that the gig just might be something special. As things turned out, ticketless as I am, standing in the same spot on Friday and Sunday nights Mister that sounds pretty tempting at this point.

The night was, for me, an odd mix of being thrilled by what is possibly the best Rock n’ Roll band anyone has ever put together kicking out jam after jam after jam and a vaguely sad sort of nostalgia. If the greatest gift that my father ever gave me was a love of music thanks to his picking of folk and country tunes on his guitar as I listened on as a child the musician who left the most lasting impression on me from that period is Springsteen, from the ages of 7-11 I barely listened to anything else, and if I did then I certainly don’t remember it. Tonight was the third time that I’ve seen him at the RDS over the past 15 years and the first time that my old man, thanks to a recent shoulder operation, hasn’t been along for the ride and at numerous points during the gig I thought of how much he’d have enjoyed it and wished he was there with me.

Moments like during “The River” when Bruce deviated from the recorded melody of the song while underneath I could hear the crowd sing it like on the album. Or when “Reason To Believe”, so quiet and meditative on Nebraska was transformed into a gigantic blues-rock workout complete with screaming harmonica and snarling vocals. Or just the general brilliance of “Darkness On The Edge Of Town.”

But it was the encore that was the killer. Emerging after a few minutes break having already performed for the best part of 2 hours Springsteen went straight into “Thunder Road”, then “Born To Run” which segued into “Bobby Jean” (i.e. one of the few songs on Born In The USA that I love on record). Next came “10th Avenue Freezeout”, at that point I was thinking that the only way to make the run of songs more perfect would be if “Street Of Fire” or anything else from Nebraska made it onto the setlist. Though in order to save my head from exploding the night ended instead with a much drawn out take on “American Land” from the Seeger Sessions album, which I guess was for the best.

Shearwater in Ireland

Whelan's, 16th of July. On Sale on Tuesday. I've not had the chance to listen to their latest album Rook yet but I've been hearing wonderful things about it.

Built To Spill (over in Ireland)

November 9th - The Limelight, Belfast
November 10th - The Academy, Dublin

I know a few people who I expect are greeting this news with the same levels of joy that I am Tom Waits coming here. They presumably won't have to pay over a ton to see BTS though, which I guess makes me the sucker.

British Sea Power back in August

29th in the Acadamy in Dublin.
30th in Mandella Hall in Belfast.

Still the most raucous gig I've been at all year.

Tickets on sale this morning.

Rapid fire May is loco yo gig reviews 6: No Age - Whelans (Upstairs)

I'll readily admit to knowing very little about No Age aside for the fact that yesterday morning I finally got around to listening to Nouns and for the first time this year found myself being knocked right on my arse by an album with an initial listen. A couple of other spins, well not spins exactly, I hit play on my Zen, we really need to come up with some new terminology to keep pace with the MP3 age, throughout the day convinced me to pull double duty and drop into Whelan's after Sunset Rubdown and catch their late gig upstairs. As it turns out I wasn't the only one in the same mindset as I spotted a couple of other faces in the crowd from the first gig and there were a few people that I spoke to later that had been at Broken Social Scene in Vicar Street earlier as well. I don't know if 2 gigs in a night is something that I'd regularly do or that I could justify during conversations with my wallet but late gigs in Dublin as a concept, they've got my full backing. More of this sort of thing please.

But back to No Age, like I said I don't know much about them. So the sight of 2 guys getting up on stage together to begin to play threw me a little. On record they sound so rich and full I was a little thrown that their live lineup was a drummer and a guitarist.

They make a hell of a racket though the pair of them. Samples filled out the noise that neither of them could produce on the fly and on top of and around those went ferociously pounding drums from Dean Spunt as Randy Randell wrung a mixture of Sonic Youth style dissonance and punk fury out of his guitar, and even managed a trip into the middle of the crowd towards the end of the set.

Not the best gig I've seen all year, actually it wasn't the best gig I saw last night but it was still quite the fun hour and knowing how much word of mouth counts when it comes to getting people to show up to see bands I doubt they'll be in so small a room next time they make a trip to these shores.

Rapid fire May is loco yo gig reviews 5: Sunset Rubdown - Crawdaddy

People should be allowed to have fun. I'm not a killjoy. If folks don't get in my way they can do whatever they want.

But sometimes I think folks should be breathalysed before being allowed into a gig. And I'm not talking about Spencer Krug here who played the gig at Crawdaddy last night completely plastered with seemingly no effect on his playing save for the second to last song where the tempo went to shit a couple of times. But enough talk of idiots who can't control their flailing elbows.

Save for the somewhat lengthy waits between songs, sometimes due to Krug scrambling around trying to find his beer, sometimes by the fact that the band had to climb around the really tight stage to get to whatever instrument they were playing at the time, I've no complaints about Sunset Rubdown's set. Unlike on Friday when their momentum was broken up a lot at the start by broken strings things went a lot more smoothly and save for "Snakes Got A Leg" and "3 Colours" I think they managed to squeeze pretty much every song I wanted to hear into their 80 minute set, including a completely sublime closing take on "The Empty Threats Of Little Lord" which featured Camilla Wynn Ingr using what appeared to be a pocket vibrator on her glockenspiel*. The new Wolf Parade (which has grown on me since I first heard it) is out soon and the band will be reconvening to tour the states to coincide with that and presumably they'll make it to Europe later in the year so god knows when Sunset Rubdown will be back. Not soon enough whenever it is.

By the way, support band Speck Mountain should brush up on their Geography. UK tour? 800 years, 800 YEARS GODAMNIT. Stupid Venezuelans.

* Glockenspiel is not a euphemism for anything.

Finally, comfirmed Tom Waits details.

As ever it's Jim with the final scoop.

July 30, 31 August 1st.

"These will be in an all-seated marquee in the Phoenix Park (to be called The Ratcellar). Tickets will be €116.25 and €131.25 and will go on sale on Tuesday next at 9am"

I'm prepared to pay it, if I don't gets tickets I'm prepared to fly elsewhere to see him. I've paid more in total to travel to see worse but he's one of the very few that I'd be willing to go over a ton to see just for the ticket.

No Age - Upstairs in Whelan's tonight.

Just a heads up.

Having only previous heard a couple of songs and being reasonably impressed but not blown away I am, at this minute, having a first proper listen to No Age's Nouns. It's the most immediately attention grabbing record I've heard all year, right up my alley. Doors at 10:30.

MySpace.

Rapid fire May is loco yo gig reviews 4: All Tomorrow's Parties - Minehead

I really hate my car sometimes. Despite the hundred odd thousand miles of service that it's given me over the years it chooses the most inopportune moments to cause me problems.

This evening for example, driving out of the long stay car-park in Dublin Airport it decided to start vomiting oil all over the road, not good. One reversion to childhood and a stressed out phone-call to my folks later and along comes Daddy to save me, or at least to give me a lift. My car is currently abandoned in a car park somewhere in North Dublin, I'll sort it out in the morning but if some fucker decided to rob it, crash it, and burn it out at this point I wouldn't shed a tear.

But that's the reason why I'm not at Animal Collective and Atlas Sound tonight. As it happens they had their own transport problems on the way over here and by my reckoning AC are just about now hitting the stage in Whelan's for the impromptu late gig that they had to arrange after missing their ferry earlier today. I could have made it after all but I'm too pissed off over the car and too generally tired from the weekend to make it through a late gig. But if it's anything like they were in Minehead last night it'll be a hell of a gig, everything the last one in Tripod should have been.

Friday at ATP began with sitting around a car park till 4 in the increasingly worsening drizzle for a couple of hours waiting for the time when we could enter the chalets. My only previous ATP experience is with one of the Camber ones a couple of years ago and that's a pretty bleak looking place but in spite of its far more pristine appearance trudging through misty rain in Minehead is a far more miserable experience than anything that living in the set of Hi Di Hi is. On the upside things went pretty much stratospheric after that.

Anyway, bands n' shit:

The Good And Great:

-After brief stints checking out Papier Tigre and Mono the first band I properly caught during the weekend was Sunset Rubdown. Actually as that band was the one on that bill that I most like but hadn't previously seen they were the one was most anticipating seeing throughout the whole weekend. It did not start well. Actually it started, then it stopped, then it started again, a couple of times. 2 broken guitar strings in 3 songs meant that it took them a while to really hit their stride but when they did ... it was moider. In a good way, a really really good way.

- Curators Explosions In The Sky. They did their thing, I liked it, as usual the stuff they played in 6/8 did far more for me than the rest of their material. They're forever at their best when there's a little swing in what they do but having seen them a couple of months ago I wasn't overly anxious to see the full set.

- Since last Tuesday I've been regretting not seeing the Hold Steady and going instead to see Yeasayer that night (it's been an reasonably stress free week, ordinarily I have more important regrets). Turns out I was wrong on both counts. If Friday night was any indication The Sugar Club was the place to be because The Octopus Project rocked my face off, far and away the most enjoyable thing I saw all weekend.

- Okkervil River. Despite having seen them a couple of times already I seem to always forget how much Will Sheff throws himself into his performances. Rockin'. And I thought that The Wren's Charles Bissell added a really cool new dynamic to the material with his (guest) guitar playing.

- I really enjoyed Phosphorescent when I saw him play upstairs in Whelan's a few weeks ago but I suspect that his gig was somewhat overshadowed by how good Why? were later that night. But on Friday night he was on a whole different level. Hopefully back in Ireland, with a full band, in July or so. Not one to be missed.

- Animal Collective, but I already said that.

- I can usually take or leave Four Tet live but he was pretty good this time around. Rocking the Tenori-on.

- The National, not as good as Thursday, better than Wednesday. Having seen them twice this week I didn't feel the need to watch the whole set but for the 20 minutes I was around for them they were getting the job done and most of the people there who weren't suffering from a slight case of National fatigue seemed to be into it.

- A Hawk And A Hacksaw. Big noise considering their lineup, I'd have been tapping my toe were it not for the fact that I was lying down on the fake grass.

- Despite some odd comments about Ireland from Dave Berman The Silver Jews hit the spot perfectly midway through Sunday afternoon. Berman's a lucky dude, great songs and, as the ATP handbook for the weekend pointed out, he's got "a hot band and a hotter wife."

- Dinosaur Jr. ripping into "Freakscene" as soon as I walked into the venue.

The Not Good And Great:

- Adem, with a big band he sounded like Snow Patrol or Coldplay.

- Broken Social Scene, it just felt really jam-bandy and dull. This impression wasn't helped by J Mascis, EITS and one of The Constantines showing up together on stage for one song.

- Battles, not them but the insanely long queues to get in to see them. We didn't even bother the first night and only got in 15 minutes into the set on the second night. They were good but for me I think it's something of a law of diminishing returns every time I see them. The sight of one of my mates dancing to Atlas may well be the personal highlight of the whole weekend.

- How fucking sheepish indie bands are about selling merch. Making money isn't a crime dudes. They should all take lessons from the Wu Tang crew who were pushing their shit on people all weekend.

- Missing Jens Lekman because I couldn't drag my exhausted arse out of the chalets and away from the rasher sandwiches we were having for breakfast. This meant that the first band I saw on Sunday were Polvo, who I really liked but hardly the best way to ease your way into day 3 of any festival.

- The flight home. Not so much fun. I don't think there's ever been a short haul flight in history where so many of the passengers fell asleep during the 45 minute flight time.

- Meeting Scott Devendorf from the National on Saturday night when walking back to the chalets and embarrassing him when I said to him that 30 seconds into our chat the handshake that we were continuing all the way through the conversation had become uncomfortably long. I felt like such a dick afterwards. By the way, second wind award for the weekend goes to his brother Bryan who looked like hell when I saw him at the bar on Sunday morning but a few hours later was bounding around the place shooting hoops.

So that's it for another year at least, I don't do the Christmas ones as my noise tolerance isn't up to much. As awful as it sounds I've got my fingers crossed that Real Emotional Trash tanks, I've heard stories.

Rapid fire May is loco yo gig reviews 3: The National - The Olympia

A very wise puppet once repeatedly said, "That's the way to do it, That's the way to do it."

But he was a spouse abusing motherfucker so perhaps we should pay him no mind.

Nonetheless The National kicked my fucking ass tonight. The bass was still a little too low in the mix but otherwise all my previous problems were non-existent this time around.

I'm off to ATP in the morning.

This will likely be my final post until Monday night/Tuesday sometime when I get back.

Frightened Rabbit are playing Dublin while I'm away. I'd have liked to have seen them, ah well.

Here's their dates:

18 May Sugar Club, Dublin
19 May Dolan’s, Limerick
20 May Auntie Annie’s, Belfast