Keep It Fresh

It’s Friday and I am sleepy. Very sleepy. So to whip things into a frenzy, I attempt to supply you with a quickfire inventory of musings that are occupying my overactive mind:

• Robots In Disguise are rather terrible.
• Lightspeed Champion is rather not terrible.
• Black coffee saved my life today. And not for the first or last time.
• I await the Kevin Drew gig with fervour.
• If you still haven’t seen Control, get on it.
• Mark and Dave are DJing the Lobby Bar in Crawdaddy tonight. Get thee there. There promises to also be some lady action – ladies who have already been referred to in this post, in fact.
• If Jessica Alba can’t wear neon denim effectively, then neither can you or I mere mortals.
• Why aren’t more people tickled pink by the fact Super Furry Animals are playing next week?
• My assumption accuracy is not as honed as it used to be.
• The Some Days Never End Festival has much, much potential, though I have a feeling I will be disappointed.
• Arts and Crafts are fun.
• Did I mention Blur are probably reforming?…yup, thought so…
  

 http://www.entertainment.ie/festival

I like forgiving and forgetting

I dislike constant lethargy

 _sarah_

pic: Super Extra Bonus Party @ HWCH ‘07

Well there ain’t many unfortunately as I could only make Friday. Saturaday was a family gathering of the grand scale and Sunday was spent in bed sick. Boo-urns. So here’s a rather small report.

First off the ‘all-in-one’ building setup works. I was a smidge late getting down to Pod so I missed Gavin Glass but I hear good things which is nice to know. After meeting the gang myself Bernie and Sinead headed to Tidal District in the Working Man’s Club. I was instantly blown away but this is defiantly a band worth checking further down the line.

Next up was festival favorites Super Extra Bonus Party. I really like the Party’s instrumental material and it was a great show filled with high-jinx. The Crawdaddy room was full with bodies been directed to the balcony area upon arrival. It’s a bit late but shout out to nialler9. Happy Birthday dude!

After a quick bevy (Budweiser, Budweiser, Budweiser or Guinness) we popped off to the Lennon Lounge for something a bit different. Los Langeros sang and danced into the crowd and were made for a Spiegeltent performance but their certainly not everyone’s cup of tea (ahem…Sarah!). Real fun band worth checking out.

In a continued attempt to hit every room at the festival (missed Tripod!) we headed to the Pod room to check out The Minutes upon Bernie’s recommendation. Their a really together band with some good tunes so do check them out. They play Whelans with the Blonde Majority on October 4th.

Finally I dashed over to the Odeon by my lonesome to check out Le Bein. I could natter on about the duo all night but the bottom line is they continue to get better and better. Roll on a hard copy release.

Props to all those involved with photo exhibition including our boy Dan and Miss Lili (photo at top of post). The work looked fantastic and Crawdaddy’s Lobby Bar should be used for more of the same in the future.

The drive home was filled with power ballads and garlic/cheese chips. Great night and I’m gutted I couldn’t make the rest of the weekend. No dice I guess.

HWCH 2008 anyone?

-phil

So HWCH is almost upon us (exciting!). Below are the weekends schedules with the surprise inclusion of the Odeon as a venue. Tickets are still available (Night pass €15, weekend pass €30) and can be bought from the POD box office which is open 12pm - 11pm each day. Below is my list of Irish recommendations and you can view the individual schedules after the jump.

-phil

*deep breath*

Alphastates, Betamax Format, Butterfly Explosion, Channel One, Chicks, Dark Room Notes, Dry County, Evil Harrissons, Fifteen Minutes, Fight Like Apes, Gavin Glass , Grand Pocket Orchestra, Halves, Ham Sandwich, Hassle Merchants, Jenny Lindfors, Kill City Defectors, Le Bien, Los Langeros, Michael Knight, MIGALINX, Miss Paula Flynn, Noise Control, One Day International, Panda Kopanda, Queen Kong, rhob, Sub Rosa, Super Extra Bonus Party, The Laundry Shop, The Radio, The Terribles, Tidal District,Valerie Francis, White Noise Continue reading ‘HWCH Schedules’

Hot Chip, play Garden Party - 2007

//dan//

http://www.culturenight.ie

It’s tonight, dontcha know.

Get this, there are FREE buses from such far flung places as trinity to temple bar. Get your stilettos out.

It should be a hoot though. Vodka in Coke bottles, anyone?

I like vodka

I dislike getting startled

_sarah_

As a longtime fan of Tatty Devine (and half rhymes, it would appear), I pluck part-time pleasure from networking through their myspace friends with their varying, albeit, delightful endeavours of the accessorising nature. Having reached the unsurprising conclusion that Ladies Rosie Wolfenden and Harriet Vine are the forerunners in this niche, I am partial to comparison (read: undermining) and evaluation of their hipster counterparts.

DillyDollyDayDream (www.myspace.com/dillydollydaydream), while unashamedly pipping everyone to the post with their epithet alone, lack somewhat on substance with the unoriginality of their produce. Saying that, it is all very well made, ridiculously competitively priced and their crochet hats are diamond. Not literally of course. That would be silly. And extravagant. Two great features, on reflection. I’ll suggest.

Stepping up the standards, Dolls & Molls Jewellery (www.myspace.com/dolls_and_molls), bases it’s appeal on the mere covetable abundance of tat on a string – a personal favourite being the tea-set necklace. Anything that appears expensive is justified, frankly, as there is rarely repeating charms, with each being as “ooh” and “aah” invoking as the last. And, if their embellishment is good enough for adornment whores, the Long Blondes, it’s top drawer for me.

On that note, it appears that having pretty music ladies endorsing your goods can only be a benefit – cf: Tatty Devine designing a range of merchandise for the overlooked and underrated Duke Spirit. Check yo. (www.myspace.com/tatty_devine).

My current obsessions revolve around an Australian venture, MARIE SAYS EAT CAKE!, (www.myspace.com/mariesayseatcake). In the little lady’s own words, it’s the epitome of everything kitsch, kawaii and tres chic. I likes it. Postage is cheap, you can pick and choose everything from chain types to felt length to gem abundance and it’s all very stickle brick throwback, which, I for one, have been waiting on for some time now. Subtle hint alert: I CRAVE THE IPOD NECKLACE. Round our way (or not so much of late), Enfant Terrible (www.myspace.com/enfantterriblegold), are doing a sweet job rocking the Perspex, which Phil summed up not so long ago. Props all round!

Oh yes, I also promised to sum up Electric Picnic in a single word. I slaved over it all weekend and even restricted myself by disallowing hyphens. Bongo roll please. Electric Picnic was: festive.

I like casual

I dislike causality. And casualty. Especially of the casual nature.

_sarah_

Final Fantasy // Electric Picnic 2007

I finally got my ducks in a row, filtered through the madness and present to you Electric Picnic 2007. From a strictly musical stand point of course. More photos of the weekend will be arriving on your doorstep later this weekend but for now I offer the textual breakdown…

>>>Friday: Mwahahaha! We didn’t have any traffic problems. Sailed in! Of course in order to do so we had to be on the road at 8.30am but from the horror stories I’ve heard it was well worth. A large chunk of Friday was spent looking for fictional character John which proved to be a great way to meet people. Then I was shaved down to a tache. That’s enough on that. After wandering through the main arena and discovering they had kept pretty much the same layout as last year (this proves handy as you’ll find your sub-conscious kicks in when your lost and drunk), I caught a smidge of Hot Chip before heading to meet friends. Once a posse was gathered it was off to lady of the hour Bjork. It is at this point that I potentially put myself up for slaughter, as I don’t find Bjork’s current output to be all that spectacular. I left her show half way being thoroughly unimpressed and finding the whole affair very lacking. I moved swiftly to the Electric Arena and was greeted by an unusually smiley Damon Albarn. The Good, The Bad & The Queen played and absolute blinder, with a perfectly formed set and well placed moments of banter. When the violin quartet came in during Herculean it filled the tent perfectly and could only be topped by Mr. Albarn making us count to 32 in order to close the set. It was then a skip and a hop over to the main stage for LCD Soundsystem. I danced like a Maniac 2000 and enjoyed every moment of the set. My prayers were answered when “No Love Lost” opened the encore and “New York I Love You” proved the perfect cliched closer for bonding with new found gig buddies. Continue reading ‘Shitnic ‘07′