Caribou to play upstairs in Whelans.

This one will, I think, sell out quick.

May 18.

Saul Williams Irish tour in, well guess when.

12 May Button Factory Dublin
13 May Cyprus Avenue Cork
14 May Roisin Dubh Galway

Here's the video for Saul's cover of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" from his last record.

Work has been quiet today...

... so I've been bouncing around a few music/arts blogs.

Maybe there's something wrong with me, the record I thought was the best didn't win last night but I'm not taking it as a personal affront to my sensibilities. I've seen words like "cheapening" being bandied about. The Choice Award is a marketing tool for Irish albums and that's all it is as far as I'm concerned, I don't really see the point of getting worked up over those blue Santa hats that Pepsi give away around Christmas time.

Here's a NMH song from 1992's cassette "release" Beauty that I was listening to earlier.

MP3: Neutral Milk Hotel - Circle Of Friends from Beauty.

Super Extra Bonus Party win the choice award.

http://thrillpier.blogspot.com/2008/02/choice-awards-tonight.html

Who called it?

Cool, gracious, enthusiastic acceptance speech. Doesn't matter about the f-bomb dropped.

For next Saturday's lotto numbers click here.

Silver Jews Irish Tour

May 14 - Cyprus Avenue, Cork
May 15 - Roisin Dubh, Galway www.roisindubh.net/tickets.php
May 16 - Whelans, Dublin

The Octopus Project & Duchess Says

Forever presents:

May 13th, 2008
The Sugar Club, Dublin
Tickets: €14.00 inc booking fee from usual places.

www.myspace.com/theoctopusproject
www.myspace.com/duchesssays

Unfortunately it's the same night as Yeasayer in Whelans which is a shame. Octopus Project are really worth hearing.

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks

Monday June 9th
Tripod– Old Harcourt St. Station – Dublin 2.
Doors – 7.30pm


Tickets €22.50 / 27.50 (inc. booking fee) available from Ticketmaster, Road Records, City Discs, Sound Cellar and usual outlets.

New album Real Emotional Trash, which I've not heard yet, has been getting really positive notices. His best post-Pixes (edit: I'm a moron) Pavement album according to some.

Choice Awards tonight.

Consensus winner: Super Extra Bonus Party after a massive row in the judges room means that out of spite no one will vote for anyone else's first choice.

Still think, no matter how much I like some of the other records, the Cathy Davey album towers over everything else on the list.

Fuck Buttons.

A idiosyncratic profanity I've subconsciously adopted of late thanks to my recent listening habits. I've been trying to ween myself off "cuntmonkey", horrible word. I've had plenty of use for it of late, even if many of those occurrences took place in internal monologues, most of them were a result in my decision to not do French when I was in school.

Walking up to the immigration fella, handing him my passport and saying "Merci, gahh shit Bonjour," that got a fuck buttons. Dude was packing heat, he could've shot me. I hear under Sarko the cops don't take much shit so you never know. Though perhaps since he had his mid-life crisis and got hitched to a supermodel he's lightened up somewhat. At the next G8 summit he'll probably bring Carla along, walk into the room with George, Vlad, Gordon and the others who aren't important enough for me to know their names and proclaim "hey dudes, this is what I'm tapping". They'll all go "wanker" and think he's a prick. Then they'll find themselves on the same page with every non-white French person and to be honest I don't think that there are many things that the son of an Algerian immigrant in Marseille would agree with George Bush about, so maybe there's an upside.

It's pretty intimidating though, walking around the place when the only completely mastered phrase you've got equips you to be able to order wine and specify how many glasses you want is scary. I say scary, fucking terrifying is more accurate. There's been much cursing of my German teacher in the past 7 days. Pointing helps a lot, but God help a hand-less anglophone in France, they (and their buttons) would be pretty fucked.

Lyon is a great city though, narrow streeted and tall buildinged like you find in most European cities, it's an oddly pleasant sort of claustrophobia. Great record shops too, all sorts of oddities popped up while flicking through the racks (A battered A House 10"? How unexpected.). I managed to get my hands on vinyl copies of Tom Waits' Small Change, Slint's self titled EP and TV On The Radio's Young Liars and still got change out of €40, I had to steel myself in order to stop myself from spending more. Everyone there seems to smoke but despite that I don't think I saw a single unhealthy looking person throughout my trip, it's probably got something to do with olive oil, and aloe vera. French people all seem to have a certain swagger to them, I think it's in the posture and how they carry themselves in general. Even jeans and a horrible woolly jumper look effortlessly stylish. It's all mysteriously charismatic and terribly enticing, I wanted to have a pint with almost all the men and sleep with almost all the women. But there's that language thing again, one night after splitting six bottles of wine with my mate Connie and inviting a Franco-Vietnamese drug dealer she know to help out for the final 2 I was on the verge of bellowing "I wish one of you could understand what I 'm saying" at one table fully occupied by women. Not effortlessly cool, not mysteriously stylish, terribly lame, damn you Frau Haliday. Fuck Buttons. In the end my canuck accomplice and I leaned against each other for support and staggered from the Saône across town and up some hills to the far side of Croix Rousse, I think it was tougher on her, she's only little.

Also causing me exasperation of late has been Arsenal, I guess I should address the cup thing. We were shite, really, really terrible. And Eboue is a dipshit who shouldn't be at the club, but I think we all knew that already. French TV unsurprisingly showed the Lyon-United game so I didn't see the Milan match in full, we looked pretty good from the highlights and as we're usually capable of scoring away from home the result wasn't a disaster, sickener with Ade hitting the bar at the end though. But back to the United game, it's far too early to say if Benzema will even approach living up to the "new Zidane" tag and for most of the match I thought the only reason he had it was due to his ethnic background and similar build. He looked a little lost and out of position up front on his own, dropping deep when other strikers might have made a run and whatnot but there were a couple of moments, and not just for the goal, when he looked really special, give him someone to play behind and he could beat the world.

Then there was Saturday, more points dropped to Birmingham, nice to see Theo get his first league goals and it could have been more if not for Maik Taylor but thanks to a super free kick from James McFadden and a penalty that never should have been given Arsenal only took a point from the game. But the result is only a secondary story. The Eduardo injury, I really don't see the point of condemning Taylor, shocking challenge that it was, he'll do his 3 match ban and be back in action. That's the way it works and reforming the disciplinary system is another issue and another discussion. Nor do I see much point in rehashing and overanalysing statements made since Saturday (and dumb fucking things were said by both Arsenal and Birmingham people, not to mention much of the bullshit that's cropped up in the UK press since then). I just feel sorry for Eduardo, he turned 25 this week and he'd finally established himself in the Arsenal first 11, was playing a serious part in the title challenge and had a European Championship to look forward to where his country could be serious dark horses to win the whole thing. Now he's got 6 weeks in plaster and 9 months of recovery to face, not to mention however long it takes for him to find his match fitness again. Poor bugger.

"Fuck Buttons are a two piece experimental noise group" from Bristol. They play upstairs in Whelan's on Friday February 29th. Don't let the description put you off, I think they're great. The gig clashes with Menomena in The Sugar Club and [La Galaxie] w/ Subplots in Crawdaddy. Fuck Buttons.

They're also in Auntie Annie's in Belfast on Thursday and Club Ping Pong in Cork on Saturday.

MP3: Fuck Buttons - Ribs Out from Street Horrrsing

Coldplay are selling a load of gear on Ebay

http://search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQsassZholm304

Some nice stuff there, bargain basement prices. Everything must go. etc.

Couple of quick notes then I'm off.

The She And Him (M. Ward and Zooey Deschenal) record, Volume 1 leaked yesterday. I've given it a couple of listens and despite my inital reservations about the actress turned singer thing I'm giving it a thumbs up I think. Deschenal has a not great but pretty pleasent 60's girl group voice and married with Ward's love of old fashioned production there's a real classic sound to the whole thing. It would have benefited from more vocal contributions from Matt.

Also recently leaked was 13 Blues For Thirteen Moons by Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band. You might have heard that it was due for release in conjuction with the hullabullu that Efrim created with his "we've finally broken up for good, oh no wait we haven't" blog shitstorm about G!YBE last week. As you might expect the whole thing has a feeling of darkness and impending doom about it and it's pretty good but I reckon I'll be more likely to dig out my Godspeed records then this on a regular basis. "Blindblindblind" is well worth hearing though.

Back on Monday.

Islands - Whelans - Dublin

I'm off to France in the morning (Lyon coincidentally, hope I don't get mistaken for a United fan, or worse a "roastbeef" on Saturday during the 6 nations matches) so this will have to be a quick one.

Islands worryingly started 5 minutes before Whelans' regular curfew last night which concerned me somewhat as I feared that the late start would lead to a curtailed set. Things worked out OK in the end as it was an hour before they finally left the stage for good, a pretty decent stretch. As for the set itself, it consisted mainly of material from the upcoming Arms Way* (only 3 older songs, a hoe-down upped version of "Volcanos", "Don't Call Me Whitney, Bobby" and the closing "Swans" got an airing along with a Sinead O'Connor cover).

If the gig is anything to go by then the album will be a sprawling, epic affair with songs jumping from one section to another and plenty of noteworthy string arrangements. Islands go post-rock as it were, but without the overbearing feeling of gloom that's a feature of so much of the genre. The only trouble was that after about 20 minutes it all seemed a little similar. One of the best things for me about Return To The Sea was the effortless way that the songs jumped from style to style, incorporating Calipso and Hip Hop into their indie-pop core, that aspect of things seemed lacking somewhat until one song suddenly took a sharp left turn and veered into Paul Simon circa Graceland territory, 2008 could I fear be a year of lazy Vampire Weekend comparisons for Nick Thorburn (née Diamonds) as a result. And if it does happen that'll be a shame because Thorburn writes fantastic songs, far better than Vampire Weekend do, and hopefully by the end of the year more people will be aware of his talents.

* According to Pitchfork it's out in the US on May 20th on Anti, the same date as Scarlett Johannson's Tom Waits covers album, only a Montreal indie-pop 6-piece can halt the apocalypse.

THIRD National date added.

May 12th in the Olympia. Edit: Or maybe it's the Ambassador.

Edit again: Or maybe it's the 13th in the Olympia, that's probably what it is.

You think if they'll throw in a ticket for this for people who already bought tickets for both of the other 2? Me neither.

There's a whole bunch of live unreleased Wolf Parade Stuff on Snakes Got A Blog

http://snakesgotablog.blogspot.com/2008/02/pardon-my-blues-live-wolf-parade.html

Full lineup for Primavera sound announced.

Someone PLEASE bring over Bon Iver.

www.primaverasound.com

808 State, A Place To Bury Strangers, Alan Braxe, Animal Collective, Apparat Band, Dj Assault, Atlas Sound, Autolux, Awesome Color, Bill Callahan, Bishop Allen, Bob Mould Band, Bon Iver, Boris, Buffalo Tom, Caribou, Cat Power, Clipse, The Cribs, De La Soul, Deerhunter, Digital Mystikz, Dinosaur Jr., Dirty Projectors, Dr. Octagon aka Kool Keith + Kutmasta Kurt, Edan & MC Dagha, El Guincho, Ellen Allien, Enon, Eric's Trip, Fanfarlo, The Felice Brothers, Fuck Buttons, Dj Funk, Gentle Music Men, The Go! Team, Grande-Marlaska, Health, Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs, It's Not Not, Kavinsky, Kinski, Les Savy Fav, Lightspeed Champion, Madee, Man Man, The Mary Onettes, Mary Weiss, The Marzipan Man, Menomena, Messer Chups, Midnight Juggernauts, Mission Of Burma, Mixmaster Mike, Model 500, MV & EE with The Golden Road, Nick Lowe, No Age, The Notwist, Okkervil River, Om, Para One, Pissed Jeans, Polvo, Port O'Brien, Portishead, Prinzhorn Dance School, Public Enemy performing It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, Robert Hood, Rufus Wainwright, The Rumble Strips, Scout Niblett, Sebadoh, Shipping News, Silver Jews, Simian Mobile Disco, Six Organs Of Admittance, Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, The Strange Death Of Liberal England, Subterranean Kids, Supermayer, Surkin, The Swell Season, Tachenko, Tarántula, Throbbing Gristle, Tiefschwarz, Tindersticks, Träd Gräs och Stenar, Vampire Weekend, Vórtice, Voxtrot, White Williams, Why?, Young Marble Giants.
Més Noticies

Michael Bay is awesome

A little housekeeping.

Just catching up with a few things that I've been neglecting to mention. I went to see Los Campesinos! on Monday, more enjoyable than their last gig in Whelan's I think, possibly due to me being more familiar with the songs, possibly due to me not being in agony for it. They did seem a little more accomplished than they were back in October. Comedic highlight was one of their songs coming to a sudden dead stop just as some frat boy shouted "I think the redhead is hot" to his friend. Support was from Johnny Foreigner, I've never really dug on hardcore so much of their set left me cold, it was better when they were putting a bit of a twist on it. Also playing was Sparkey Deathcap, who will get his own blog entry fairly soon.

No other gigs until last night when the Field hit Crawdaddy, very late, contrary to the signs posted in the venue he kept going till 3. Was good. Tired now. Hi Brian.

Hey! Football! I've not written about that in a while. Arsenal have won lots of matches since that last time I mentioned them and are currently 5 points clear at the top of the league with their closest challengers looking a little fragile, and not just last week in the Manchester derby. There's only 12 games left in the season and at this stage in the year 5 points ahead is a pretty commanding spot to be in but there's still trips to Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge to make as well as an increasingly less daunting looking game at Anfield to consider so anyone thinking that it's sewn up is delusional. There's a Cup game against Manchester United kicking off in 15 minutes, I'm surprised by my indifference to it, I think it's probably down in part to the league position and partly down to the far more enticing Champions League fixture on Wednesday against Milan.

Usmanov bought more shares in the club yesterday, he can still fuck off, the prick.

The extra Premier League game out foreign, awful idea, for al the reasons everyone else has mentioned.

I think we're up to date.

Awful prose.

Worse than usual.

I've already said my piece on awards for art ...

... but I have to say that I was shocked by how delighted I was to hear that my boys (+ gal) in Ham Sandwich won a Meteor Award last night. Granted it's the kiss of death "Hope For 2008" award but still, fair play. Hopefully they won't fall off the radar completely like pretty much everyone else who've won it in the past. Morrissey, it appears, is wrong, seeing your friends succeed is kinda cool.

They released an album yesterday too, called Carry The Meek. It's impossible for me to be objective about it because I think that unless you're the type who secretly harbours seething jealousies and resentments towards your mates (in which case you're probably an arse to your staff too) then you're predisposed to liking their artistic endeavors, their partners, their pets and whatever else it is that they get up to. That being said I do like the record and think that I would regardless. "Sleep" in particular, with it's washed out rhythm guitar, military drum beat and shimmering delayed guitar part (take a bow Mr. Darcy) at the start ticks a load of "things I'm a sucker for in songs" boxes, stands out for me. Other folk seem to like it too.

There's a somewhat delayed launch gig next Saturday in Whelan's too. Presumably McNamee will take to the stage with his Meteor hanging from neck on a chain. I, unfortunately, won't be there as I'll be in Lyon weeping into my €5 carafe of really nice St. Joseph/Cote Du Rhone because I'll be surrounded by shockingly hot women and many years ago I opted to do German in school rather than French.

Schiesse.

If I was a from the North and had won €6.5 million on the Euromillions I wouldn't buy a Ferrari

I'd go to most of these gigs in May instead, I suspect the cost would be similar but I'd leave a smaller carbon footprint long term. I've been told footprints are important these days.

I've been regularly mentioning just how fantastic May is going to be for gigs so I thought it'd be useful to collect everything together in a single post in case there's something people haven't yet heard about.

10 - Jonathan Richman, Whelans
11 - Man Man, Whelans
12- Dinosaur Jr., The Acadamy
13 - Dinosaur Jr., Spring And Airbreak
13 - Yeasayer, Whelans
13 - The Hold Steady, The Acadamy
14 - The Hold Steady, Spring And Airbreak
14 - The National, The Olympia
15 - The National, The Olympia
15 - Battles, Liars, The Redneck Manifesto, Vicar St.
19 - Animal Collective, Tripod
20 - Sunset Rubdown, Crawdaddy
20 - Broken Social Scene, Vicar St.
22 - Xiu Xiu, Whelans
22 - Bruce Springsteen, RDS
23 - Bruce Springsteen, RDS
23 - Jens Lekman + band, somewhere in Belfast
24 - Jens Lekman + band, Roisin Dubh
23 - Jens Lekman + band, The Village
25 - Bruce Springsteen, RDS

I've got music by most of these scattered around this blog, that's what tags are for. If I'm missing anything then the comment box is always open.

Edit: Cheers Pedro.

Here's some other stuff that certainly won't be going to.

1 - Dirty Projectors, Roisin Dubh (They're in Whelans the night before).
2 - Dirty Projectors, Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival Belfast

And some that I'm not familiar enough with to judge ...

3 - Jamie Liddell, The Acadamy
13 - Black Mountain, The Button Factory

Hold Steady back in Dublin in May.

The May clashes continue to pile up, this time it's up against Yeasayer in Whelan's.

The Hold Steady
Academy(Formerly Spirit 57)
Dublin, IE
Tue, 13/05/08
On Sale now.

I really don't do all that much linking to other blogs.

But I have to point out the general greatness of Sinead Gleeson's "Musical Rooms" series. It's a really interesting insight into people's various creative habits and habitats and probably my favourite thing on the Irish blogosphere right now.

Link.

Edit: Holy Shit, a whole bunch of people said pretty much the exact same thing this week without me realising. It's kinda Borg like.

Some things that I learned today while out and about dealing with the public.

• Taking a day's holiday from work to deliver flowers on the busiest day of the year for florists is lucrative. Much of May's gig going is now paid for.
• It is not however as spiritually rewarding as doing meals on wheels.
• For all the talk of Valentine's Day being lame and fake and commercial a gesture of love on that day seems to always be appreciated.
• Delivering flowers to a workplace, even somewhere supposedly conservative like a bank, without fail causes girlish squeals and exclamations of "OH MY GOD" from the people there.
• Guys, you should always have the flowers delivered to the workplace. Your gal will get to feel really smug for the rest of the the day.
• There are many, many stay at home women of a certain age who, if the kids have either left home or live close enough to school to walk to it spend half the day in their PJ's.
• I have a new found appreciation for postmen and postwomen. In the countryside with no street or road names and no house numbers you can ask them where someone lives and without even having to pause for thought they'll be able to give you exact directions.
• Sparky Deathcap's album is really rather good and I should blog about it fairly soon.
• No matter long a couple have been together even if it's 20 years or more it seems that a woman's face will instantly brighten if she thinks that her husband/partner has sent her flowers.
• It will then tragically fall if she learns that the flowers are in fact being sent to her teenage daughter.
• This disappointment if only trumped by the look you get if you've gone to the wrong house because you haven't been able to find a postman to give you directions.
• The person driving a JCB with the licence plate 05-KE-9551 earlier today is a dick who should have pulled into the Royal Oak to leave the queue of traffic that had built up behind him pass by but didn't.
• If you are walking on the street with a bouquet of roses someone will jokingly ask you "are those for me" at least every 50 yards you walk. This gets old really quick.
• On this of all days I'm really glad I'm single. €80 for a dozen roses is fucking insane.

MP3: Tom Waits - Blue Valentines from Blue Valentine

Well this brightens up my Wednesday no end.

From On The Record.

On The Record has learned that My Bloody Valentine are playing this year’s Electric Picnic. More to follow

Free Dan Deacon Albums.

Dan Deacon has put up all his pre Spiderman Of The Rings releases up on his website for free download. Here specifically.

Belated birthday greeting to one of the greatest albums of all time.

10 years on Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over The Sea remains one of the most remarkable sounding records ever committed to tape (4-track as I understand it, despite Robert Schneider's objections). If, as it seems it will be, Jeff Mangum's final musical statement (at least under the NMH banner) then he certainly went out on top.

Stereogum have a good piece marking the anniversary of the album's release here.

Vampire Weekend covering Radiohead.

I stand by my earlier comments about them but some of you may be interested in this.

MP3: Vampire Weekend - Exit Music (For a film) Radiohead cover

Xiu Xiu coming to Dublin

FOREVER Presents

Xiu Xiu
plus guests
May 22nd, 2008
Whelans, Wexford St, Dublin 2
Tickets: €14.00 inc booking fee.
Onsale from tomorrow from WAV and www.tickets.ie

www.myspace.com/xiuxiuforlife

Balls, it's the same night as Springsteen. Ah well, maybe they'll be back.

Everything I Need To Know, I Learned from Iron Maiden

http://www.spazoutny.com/ironmaiden.htm

350 B.C. Macedonia: "Alexander The Great (356-323 B.C.)" from Somewhere In Time pays tribute to the great Macedonian king by painstakingly listing EVERYTHING he ever did, in chronological order. Sample lyrics: At the the age of 19, he became the Macedon king/And swore to free all of Asia Minor/By the Aegean Sea in 334 B.C./He utterly beat the armies of Persia.

I performed an a capella air guitar version of the entire song while standing atop my desk as my final project in World History 101, and Mr. Bradley was forced to admit that it was- despite being "inappropriate and disruptive"- 100% historically accurate. Historical footnote: If you play the song backwards, there are no satanic messages, but Alexander does get younger and his life progressively less impressive.

Black Francis getting busted by the Guards outside St. Stevens Green.

So the free Black Francis precore didn't take place at the bandstand in the park yesterday because they close the park on a Saturday at the same time that the the gig was due to take place. Simple solution, hold it at the gates of the park. Massive crowd results, the police show up and take Mr. Thompson off to the pokey.

Free Black Francis gig tommorrow.

2.9.2008
Dublin, Ireland
Precore: St. Stephen's Green @ The Bandstand (Center of Dublin, top
of Grafton Street/ St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2) @ 5:00 p.m.
Perhaps drinks afterwards @ Grogan's Castle Lounge (15 South William
Street, up the road from Tower Records)

Pushing my luck now.

Seeing as my wish for an Irish Man Man date was fulfilled so soon after I blogged about it. I would like ...

- Built To Spill to play here.
- To win that massive Euromillions draw tomorrow.
- A pony.
- A surprise.

Ask and you shall receive.

Foggy Notions presents ...

MAN MAN
Whelan's, Dublin, Sunday May 11, 2008

He travelled across the sea in the belly of a Japanese

... businessman on a pleasure ship to France.



Of all the bands that I've started listening to in the last couple of months none have captured my imagination in quite the same way as Man Man have. I've mentioned them in passing in a few posts over the course of the past month or so but I've not really talked about them in much detail so seeing as the office is really quiet this morning and I've got them ringing through my headphones at the minute it seems as good a time as any.

The first thing that stuck me when I first heard their most recent record Six Demon Bag (they've got a new one, Rabbit Habits, out in April on Anti) is that these guys really, really sound like Tom Waits (also currently on Anti). No bad thing of course seeing as ol' razorblade larynx is one of my favorite musicians. It's a pretty obvious comparison too thanks mainly to singer Honus Honus' growling delivery. But there's more too it than that really, what does it for me about Man Man is the joyously chaotic way that they fling musical ideas at the listener as though they're monkey's handling their own feces, only the the feces smell of strawberries and tastes of ... well I really like the taste of mashed potatoes so I'll say mashed potatoes you can insert the delicious food of your choice as a substitute if you wish; and most importantly the shit sounds great too.

They've appropriated a lot of Eastern European sounds into their music but unlike Beirut who, much as I loved parts of Gulag Orkestrar (Condon's superior second record under that moniker isn't really relevant to this discussion), to me seemed to lack a legitimacy when using Klezmer sounds in his/their music Man Man seem to own it a lot more. Perhaps it's because they're a little bit more selective about what they lift and put more effort into incorporating it into other more American styles like Barber Shop, Jazz and 60's girl pop thus creating their own sound.

Man Man are due to play the Pitchfork vs. ATP All Tomorrow's Partys in Camber Sands in May and seeing as almost every other band on the bill are playing here that month I think it'd be kinda nice if someone brought them over.

I've posted this song before but Fileden is being an asshole at the minute, if it finally decides to let me upload "Spider Cider" like I want I'll change the link.

MP3: Man Man - Engwish Bwudd from Six Demon Bag.

MP3: Man Man - Spider Cider from Six Demon Bag.

3 ways to vastly increase the amount of comments on your blog...

... that I came up with while reading the comments for my Phantom post.

1. Pick a soft target.
2. Say mean things about it.
3. Order and number those things.

I'm a fat bastard.

Though I've been doing something about it of late and now most of my jeans are falling off.

However according to Eoghan over on Cluas this is a pretty skinny blog. One of the skinniest around in fact.

This is for anyone who still likes some junk in the trunk.

Baby Got Back - Gilbert and Sullivan Style

Oh You're So Silent Jens

May 23 Belfast TBA
May 24 Galway Roisin Dubh
May 25 Dublin the Village

Here's footage from Mr. Lekman's last gig in Dublin where he was ably assisted by Owen Pallett.

20 ways to vastly improve Phantom FM ...

... that I came up with this morning whilst being stuck in traffic between Navan and Trim*.

1. Make me programing director/head of pop picking.
2. No more fucking Foo Fighters.
3. Ditto for Ash.
4. We get it, you're the home of Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour.
5. Whenever Una Mullally is on call it the "sies slot".
6. Break Sinister Pete's speaking clock with a sledge hammer, it's even more annoying than that "Stop, step away from the cookie jar" cookie jar that was in the office. Put footage of it's destruction on YouTube.
7. Bring back Aunt Thomas, I loved that guy.
8. Live in-studio webcam, all presenters must wear this outfit ...

9. Get rid of the English guy, it's not an 800 years things (I'm a hun), have you heard his show?
10. 1 song, 24 hours, 3 words.

Louis Louis Day!

11. On a rolling basis no music to be played by bands that have had the front cover of the NME in the previous 6 months.
12. Make sure that your newsreaders/arts people know how to pronounce the words on their copy. Use phonetic (fone-eh-tick) spelling if need be. This is less of a problem then it used to be.
13. Realise that many of the people who might be interested in listening to Jim Carroll's show are out at gigs on a Saturday night. I've heard that dude play a single song ("Atlantic City" by The Boss) since he started up.
14. On the subject of specialist weekend shows, the amount of money that Pearl is on. Double it.
15. No more "text in your opinion on some makey uppy controversial subject of the day" on Simon Mahar's show. It's just biting Ray Darcy's shit and it's awful radio when he does it too.
16. Increase the amount of time that John Meagher/Eamonn Sweeny has on Edel Coffey's show to talk about new records. Same goes for that dude from musician inc who has the gear slot. You could give them the time that the guy from electricnews.net gets.
17. The last Shins record was shit, stop playing songs from it.
18. Push Nadine O'Regan's show back an hour, I'm usually asleep when it starts.
19. Challenge your daytime listenership, I'm not asking for Xiu Xiu to be put on the air but Jesus Christ, Liars have gone pop guys. Edel championing Battles was a start.
20. Playlist The Wrens, they're deadly.

* Actually it was 17, I thought of the other 3 as I was writing this.

Feist On Later

My problem with The Reminder is that it has 2 great songs on it and the rest is filler. All the same ...

Sunset Rubdown Dublin tickets on sale.

HERE

HOLY FUCK

Mandela Hall, Belfast, April 9.
Whelan’s, Dublin, April 10.

Who cares if Coachella won't book them becasue of their name?