Also this weekend…
Damien Mulley prepares for Saturday’s festivities
After the excitement of Wednesday’s Choice Prize, the awards fever continues through to the weekend with Saturday bringing the third annual Irish Blog Awards.
The Indie Hour blog is delighted to have been nominated for Best Irish Music Blog, along with this list of lovely people:
- nialler9
- Cheebah
- House is a Feeling
- mp3hugger
- KilkennyMusic.com
- The Torture Garden
- Asleep on the Compost Heap
- The Red Scrapbook
- Matt Vinyl
- French Letter
- Off Her Rocker
- Stuart Bailie
- I Prefer the Obscure Mix
Head to their blogs and start reading (and listening). Quality stuff.
I should think that nialler9 will pick up the Best Music Blog again this year, and deservedly so. But then again, SEBP won the Choice Music Prize…so you never know, dreams can come true… 🙂
Really looking forward to meeting some of my favourite bloggers down at the Alexander Hotel. Please come and say hello if you see the indie hour written on the name tag of a girl with glasses, big earrings and a pint of Guinness in her hand. That’ll be me.
Best of luck to everyone nominated, thanks again to Damien for everything, looking forward to a great night!
Things to be at this weekend in Dublin…
Fuck Buttons with their poetry recital upstairs in Whelan’s. Not really though.
After the Grand Pocket Orchestra gig last week in Whelan’s, I was on my way out when I noticed the planning permission statement on the window near the venue door. On closer inspection, it proposes the extension of Whelan’s upstairs to provide a room for ‘poetry recitals’.
So the ‘poetry recitals’ start tonight with Thread Pulls and Fuck Buttons. It’s €12.50 and it all kicks off at 8pm. Bring your beret and get ready to snap your fingers. Jazz.
On Sunday there are two gigs to be heard. Mumblin’ Deaf Ro will be playing in Anseo on Camden Street at around 10pm. Still absolutely loving his album The Herring & The Brine.  It will be my first time catching Mr Ro live and am very much looking forward to hearing the songs in such a lovely intimate setting.
Also on Sunday, Chequerboard is launching his latest album Penny Black in Whelan’s with support from Carly Sings, who will be visiting us on the show next Thursday. Hope to have Chequerboard himself in soon to talk about Penny Black. Head to Chequerboard’s myspace for a listen.
Below is the mp3 of the interview we did in late January with Mumblin’ Deaf Ro. It’s one of my favourites of recent times, as he is a fascinating talker, and really made my job of putting together a good radio show extremely easy. Brilliant.
MP3
The Infomatics tonight
The Infomatics
Do tune in tonight when we will be joined by The Infomatics, who’ll be telling us about their upcoming debut album Kill or Create.
We’ll be on the air at 9pm on 103.2 Dublin City FM. Don’t worry if you’re out at Childline Rocks or The Real Heat at Neon Love, as the mp3 will be available for download on this blog in a few days.
Huzzah!
Super Extra Bonus Shock
I am delighted about the result of last night’s Choice Music Prize. If you’ve visited this blog before, you probably know that I am a Super Extra Bonus Party fan. I’m wearing their T-shirt right now.
I did not expect them to win last night – not because I don’t love their album or think it wasn’t deserving of the prize. But, like Nialler, I really didn’t think that 12 people would all agree on it being the Irish album of the year, as I thought its eclectism would be too polarizing.
There is a lot of debate this morning about the shock of SEBP winning. I was sure Adrian Crowley was going to walk away with it, and I would have been very happy if he had done so.
Personal feelings aside, the reason I think it’s so wonderful that SEBP won last night is that I feel it shows there is room in Ireland to do something different with music, to push the boundaries and to dance like a total loon while you do it.
Have a look at Sinead’s blog for her take on the night, head over to UnaRocks who gives an insight into the judges’ side of things, and over at nialler9 there’s a brilliant video of the acceptance speech.
Huge congratulations to the lads, commiserations to all the other acts nominated who put on a great show, well done to all the judges, and fair play to Jim Carroll and Dave Reid for putting the whole shebang together.
Nirvana’s Nevermind Censored
Nirvana’s 1991 album Nevermind as censored by Saudi officials
At the beginning of January, I wrote a post about Saudi blogger Fouad al-Farhan‘s detainment by Saudi officials. I mentioned the bizarre censorship laws that applied to music and other art forms.
Above is a picture of the edition of Nirvana’s Nevermind sold in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. You can see that the birthday suited baby has been given the treatment with black marker. A friend who worked in Jeddah in the early 90s (notice that yes, this is a cassette tape cover) fished that out of the back of his cupboard, and I had to put it up on the web.
Fouad al-Farhan remains in prison in Jeddah after his arrest on the 20th of December 2007. At the time of writing, that is 79 days of being held without charge.
Nialler9 February Podcast
Head over to Nialler9’s blog where this month’s podcast is available for download. As you may or may not know, I am the mouthpiece of said podcast. We just recorded it last night. I had a fierce fit of irrational giggles when I was trying to say ‘Chali2na‘ when talking about the contributors of Amplive’s Rainydayz remix album. All I could think of was Charlie Brown carrying a giant tuna.
When I finally did the link without guffawing, I think I even left Chali2na out of the list of contributors. So, sorry about that Chali2na.
Head to nialler9’s post about the podcast for the full playlist and mp3. Below you’ll find the mp3 link. Knock yourself out!
MP3
The Real Heat at Neon Love’s 1st Birthday
The Real Heat – hawt. And a bit scary.
This Thursday Neon Love will be celebrating its first birthday in The Bernard Shaw, the little pub near Portobello bridge with the best smoking garden in town.
The free weekly club hosted by Miss Marcos and Speakertreatz offers the best in electro, new wave, disco punk and fidget rave, with a bit of Dee-Lite and Salt ‘N’ Peppa occasionally thrown in for good measure.
Starting around 8pm, it’s free in as always, and there’ll be Buckfast promotions, as well as The Real Heat’s brand of Electro Glam. This is the lassies’ debut performance in Ireland, making a special trip over from London to help the Neon Love kids celebrate their first birthday. It’s going to be a cracker all right.
Head to Neon Love’s myspace for more details about the night itself, and head to The Real Heat’s myspace to cop a listen of their tunes.
Childline Rocks
Thursday night brings Childline Rocks back to Dublin, this year in The Academy (formerly known as Spirit). The line-up is pretty hard to beat, boasting among it Meteor Award nominees and winners, and Choice Music Prize nominees (and perhaps a winner!).
The seven hour fundraising festival taking place over three stages will be hosted by Michelle Doherty, and your €23.00 ticket admission goes to the ISPCC’s Childline. Childline provides a listening service for children under the age of 18, through phone lines manned by staff and volunteers, with an ethos of aid by confidential, non-judgemental, non-directive support for the children who use this invaluable service.
It’s a great line-up and a great cause, and tickets are available through ticketmaster. Alternatively, if rock is not your thing, you can make a donation to Childline through the ISPCC’s Fundraising Department or you can get involved through volunteering.
Running out of titles for posts about Choice
Super Extra Bonus Party take to the stage in Vicar Street for Choice Music Prize performance.
The podcast you are (hopefully) about to download has tracks from seven of the nominees of next week’s Choice Music Prize awards. We only fit in the seven tracks as we also spoke to Jim Carroll, Dave Geraghty and Tosh from Stanley Super 800. Apologies to Kila, Roisin Murphy and The Flaws who fell to the wayside of the playlist. Head to their respective myspaces now to have a listen.
As I said in an earlier post today, I’m really looking forward to seeing all ten acts play in Vicar Street on Wednesday night. Instead of writing much more about it, I’ll let you download the programme from last night, and let the music (and Jim and Dave and Tosh and me) do the talking!
One thing I will reiterate before you do is the recurring theme brought up by the indie hour guests last night, which was the unpredictability of the Choice Music Prize . I think this is why it’s a bit special as an event; apart from the fact that it focuses on the music and gets people talking passionately about Irish music, at the end of the day it could be any of the ten nominees who will be going home happy (and most probably very merrily pissed) by early Thursday morning next.
Best of luck to all the nominees, to the judges, to everyone working behind the scenes, to Jim Carroll and Dave Reid in the coming week and on the night itself.
MP3
Choice Music Prize Special Thursday 21st February
So much Choice!
Dry County’s Musical Room, shamelessly stolen from Sinead Gleeson’s Blog
I feel like a music lover in eh, a music shop, so giddy am I beginning to feel about next Wednesday’s Choice Music Prize, taking place in Dublin’s Vicar Street.
It seems I’m not the only one who’s getting excited about it. Check out the following blogs that are feeling the Choice fever:
CLUAS
Over at CLUAS, they are featuring the afore-linked interviews with eight of the ten nominees. They are also giving away one prize made up of the ten nominated albums here, and all you have to do to be in for the prize is predict the winner. So get clicking and get your hands on the swag.
Off Her Rocker
Photo lady supreme has been busy wading through the swamp that is YouTube to pick out videos from each of the ten nominees, and they’re up on her blog now awaiting your perusal.
Sinead Gleeson
Sinead Gleeson’s wonderful Musical Rooms Series has been concentrating on the Choice nominees of late. The series asks musicians to describe the room (or loo) in which they create their music, and Choice nominees or not, the entire series has made for fascinating reading. More of this kind of thing, please!
The Indie Hour 
