Britney’s Message To Dublin — I Love You UK!

Britney Spears is coming to Dublin to play The O2 in October…. and she’s already endearing herself to Irish fans! As per her promoter’s just released press release:

“Spears has prepared an extraordinary show that promises to be her greatest ever, and reaches Ireland on October 24th when she plays Dublin’s O2. She will be performing 21of her smash hits including 2 surprise songs. She says “I can’t wait to come back to the UK and perform for my fans there, it’s been too long!”

Oh Britney! Reminded me of this:

On The Stereo – Richmond Fontaine

Originally published on State.ie

Richmond Fontaine – ‘I Fell Into Painting Houses In Phoenix, Arizona’

There are few modern American writers out there to match Richmond Fontaine’s Willy Vlautin. As a musician, those in love with Americana will find much to love in Vlautin’s lyrics of the losers, boozers and gamblers of blue collar America. Like Springsteen in particular, he’s a deft touch at creating lyrically powerful songs that conjure up ceaseless images. ‘I Fell Into Painting Houses In Phoenix, Arizona’, from 2007’s Thirteen Cities, is one such tune. Listening to it, it’ll come as little surprise to learn that Vlautin, having fronted the Portland based outfit for well over a decade, has began to garner huge acclaim as a novelist. Last year’s Lean On Pete was as close as they come to a modern American masterpiece with the Irish Times’s Eileen Battersby proclaiming — “how good is contemporary US fiction? This good: catch your breath good.” One not to ignore.

Steve Cummins

Read this on State.ie

Rory and the Island – Colours

Love the summer sunshine vibe of this tune. Can’t but put you in a good mood. New single from Rory Gallagher, he of The Revs fame.

The View — Live at The Academy, Dublin

FIVE years on and three albums in, you couldn’t claim that The View have set the world alight. Scurrying on to the scene in 2006 amid chants of “The View, The View, The View are on fire,” the Scottish four-piece have tended to implode rather than sparkle as tales of drug abuse and an underwhelming second album filtered from their Dryburgh base.

Their stock in Ireland — an ancestral home for three of the four Scots — has also dipped. In 2007 they packed The Ambassador on the back of their number one debut, Hats Off To The Buskers. This time around — such was the extent that its follow-up Which Bitch sent fans running — things are markedly different. Tonight’s show was originally booked for the tiny confides of The Academy 2.

Nonetheless, bumped up to a little under three-quarters full Academy main stage, the Dryburgh lads are slowly eking back some of the goodwill that met their debut. New album Bread and Circuses may have an awful title, but it marks a return in parts to the infectious pop-punk-fuelled anthems of their debut and tonight, initially, it shows.

Opener ‘Grace’, the lead single on the new LP, is The View at their best. Moody guitarist Pete Reilly hurls out a chugging guitar line met by frontman Kyle Falconer’s stoned vocal melody and the result is an infectious pop-rock anthem that sets the mood up nicely for the night. ‘Wasted Little DJs’ follows as the mosh pit of Britpop males swells to its swirling opening guitar riff as Kyle and Kieren converge on the centre mic for the song’s chorus. The intoxicating tales of Dundee’s party underbelly continues with ‘5 Rebeccas’, its mesh of punk and ska wearing its Libertines and Babyshambles’ influences firmly on its sleeve.

It’s then the set begins to lull with newbies ‘Blondie’ and ‘Girl’. It’s not until bassist Kieren Webster takes lead vocals for ‘Skag
Trendy’, ‘Friend’ and ‘Wasteland’ that the set begins to spike back into life. With Webster at the helm, The View become a different entity entirely, his fierce and urgent punk wail a marked contrast to the more chilled pop chimes of the ‘couldn’t care less’ Falconer. It’s this ability to switch between mute and attack that sets them apart, though normal service is swiftly resumed as Falconer is put back in charge for the rest of the proceedings.

Another lull of filler songs culled from their last two records follows until the four-piece scamper too the business end of the set.
‘Same Jeans’, predictably, proves the mass sing-a-long though its charm has waned with the passing years. The group’s real anthem is saved for their encore with ‘Superstar Tradesman’ reminiscent of an early Oasis. Forgettable second album single ‘Shock Horror’ closes a patchy set as a beer-soaked audience scream out the band’s trademark chant.  There may be love left in the air for the four-piece but, on tonight’s evidence, The View possess more filler than killer.

Now playing — what’s on the stereo

Rome (Jack White, Danger Mouse, Daniel Luppi)

Speaking of Jack White — Swedish duo First Aid Kit’s debut on White’s Third Man Records

Caribou are back on the stereo. What a track.

LCD Soundsystem — Live Alone (Franz Ferdinand cover)

Should you burn your records?

Just read a piece by NME journo Rick Martin about how he doesn’t care about physical formats of music and it has riled me. He’s so far wide in missing the point that there’s little point in me pointing out the holes in his article. Just go read it here.

Dumb pop star moments

The NME is great at turning it’s photo galleries into nice little features, and they’ve struck gold again. Some hilarious outbursts in their ‘25 dumb things pop stars have said’ gallery. My favourite is Liam Gallaghers’

“I’m not frightened by [extra-terrestrial life]. I’m as smart as them. Probably thick as fuck, aren’t they? Big goggly-eyed big heads, man, they haven’t got a fucking clue. I’d do their fucking heads in, them aliens, man. They’d be like, ‘Farking hell, farking hell! Let’s get back to Planet Knob.”

Goodbye LCD Soundsystem

James Murphy and Co’s final gig, live from New York’s Madison Square Garden, on Saturday night was absolutely stunning. In some ways, great as it would be to see LCD again, I hope there’s no reunion and he leaves it at that.

Here’s the whole epic, near four-hour, set.

The Frames — For The Birds live in Dublin

If there is a famous Glen Hansard quote, than it’s probably his comment around the turn of the last decade that The Frames are a band destined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It was a sentiment that drew to mind last night as their three-hour ‘For The Birds’ show came to a close at Dublin’s Vicar Street. Here was a gig of two halves — from the sublime to the ridiculous.

A reading of a passionate — if earnest — essay on the 10-year-old album introduced the set and served to put the album in some sort of context. Not that it needed it. From the opening tender chimes of ‘In The Deep Shade’ to the wall of noise that closed ‘Mighty Sword’, this was a majestic, magical performance, forcefully reminding one of how great The Frames were and can be. There were new discoveries too as the underlying intensity of ‘Early Bird’ and ‘Headlong’ came to the fore.

One tends to overlook how strong a band Hansard and Co are when they’re operating at the peak of their powers. Perhaps we’ve even taken them for granted as the plaudits have been cast at those jetting in from the west —  The Nationals, the Wilcos, etc. But The Frames circa For The Birds were as good as them all, and then some. It’s difficult to remember songs of self-doubt, from an Irish band, sounding so confident.

At 11pm, with ‘For The Birds’ finished, The Frames could have left it at that and sent us home reminiscing about 2001 and how important the band’s fourth album was to the alternative music community in Ireland. It gave the indie community here a certain confidence to look away from the UK or the US. But there was more to come. It was going to be a long night.

Roddy Doyle arrived first with a reading of his new short-story, ‘Blood’, which was fantastic as it elicited oohs and aahs from the audience. Predictably The Frames then returned for a best of the rest set drawn largely from ‘For The Birds’ predecessors, ‘Dance The Devil’ and ‘Fitzcaraldo’. Good as this was, it only served to emphasize further how far ‘For The Birds’ stands out in their canon. Damien Rice then ambled on stage in a rather odd matter as he delivered a rather dull new tune.

Next up was Bronagh Gallagher, who revisited some soul as the fireworks from the first half of the set began to fade into the distance. And then there was Liam. Mr O’Maonlai. The less said about him the better, but somewhere in between his shambolic, and frankly embarrassing, 20-minutes or so set, he seemed to forget he was a guest here rather than the main draw. Even the cries of “Fuck off Liam” couldn’t move him. I can’t for the life of me remember a worse  live set.

Eventually, Hansard managed to draw back some control as the set closed with ‘Hey Day’ and a tribute to the song’s writer, Mic Christopher. Ten years dead this December, his anniversary will close a year of looking back for  Hansard, who earlier this month took part in The Commitments 20-year reunion (were they ever together?) shows.

With the gig ending at around 12.40am, it’s suffice to say it was an odd night. Frames fans got their moneys worth with a quite brilliant execution of what they’d paid for — an airing of ‘For The Birds’ — and a few other great tunes thrown into the mix. It’s a pity then it will be remembered, in part, for the ramblings of O’Maonlai. However, I for one can’t wait to spin ‘For The Birds’ again.

Over at the Irish Times Jim Carroll has a good piece on last night’s brilliance and absurdities. Read it here.

You can also read Philip Cummins’ full review of the gig over at State.

Damien Rice resurfaces at Frames’ show

Damien Rice was back onstage last night at The Frames one-off For The Birds show in Dublin. More on that gig later today ( a gig very much of two halves). Rice came on as part of the “special guests” segment and played a new tune. Not my cup of tea, but it is in keeping with much of O — so his fans should be pleased. Turns out he played the same tune in Whelans at a Glen Hansard show earlier this month. Video below. Maybe there’ll be a new LP from him this year (his last, 9, came out five years ago).