very few members of the jimmy cake use thumped. a lot of people from bands in dublin find it a pretty invaluable resource, whether for publiscing gigs, finding band members or getting technical advice from the recording boards, or record pressing advice from the things boards. it's also an *exceptionally* busy forum and the amount of traffic it generates causes no small amount of headaches, both technically and financially. i would like to see a foggy notions website though. joan of arse, much to the citys loss, broke up some time ago. go see their new incarnation, the law court of christ, in whelans this tuesday. the dudley corporation sell far more records in europe than in ireland, and by the end of this year we will have toured the UK, Europe and Japan, with our current album available in all those territories and the US. all without the government or mr walshs help. suits me, sir. however, i *do* spend an inordinate amount of time discussing my beard. it's f**king great.

I have been all through Ireland listening to rock. Dublin's music scene isn't dead but it is very tired. Those in Dublin usually agree. Where I have found a wealth of music though is Cork. Cork's scene blow up in the past year producing such an overwelming offering of great bands who almost shun any attention. Cork seems to be a place where the music industry has passed it over in attention so many times, it's made one for itself, With Bands like Rulers of the Planet, Rest, the waiting room, The Shambuenos, Trade, the shades, the new messiahs, and exit the street, Cork didn't create a sound like seattle brought Grunge, Cork has been generating bands pushing the borders of their respective genre borders. It's almost as if Cork is lobbying for he worlds attention with the introduction of 2005 Cultural capital of Europe. If you haven't been to Cork for the music... you need to make the trek.

dublin gone. everybody dead.

PERHAPS and only perhaps, scenes are seen as dead exactly because they are scenes. Scenes are seen for the most part by the general public as cliques. Operating outside the clique can often be met with disdain from those within, or something... anyway, in terms of dublin, i think it is doing just fine with the bands that are emerging. There seems to be numerous venues etc. However, my bone of contention is that the focus is constantly on Dublin, and nobody seems to be looking at the work done in places like Limerick, Galway and Cork and the bands appearing from these cities. Collectives have been set up in Limerick, Galway etc that have proven that diy ethics can still prevail and that bands can release records independently etc. Its not all about the money man blah blah

Originally posted by Roger the Dodger
Some very interesting points on this thread - especially about the media. It is interesting that no-one has mentioned Cluas as a media outlet supportive to Irish music (or maybe this is taken for granted?). Indeed, what is the general state of Irish online media regarding Irish rock? Thumped is just full of Jimmy Cakes talking about their beards and individual band forums are just full of groupies. Does Foggy Notions have an online presence? Whatever happened to Muse? Does anyone know anyone who has paid to use hotpress.com? sorry, me again. in relation to media in ireland, there is little for emerging bands, bands with previously minimal exposure. However the likes of Student Radio and Fanzines (very useful as they tend to be read by those with a genuine interest etc)should be explored by bands kicking off. laterr

Dublin is dead is nearly every respect. In the Late Eighties / Early Ninties there was a thriving scene based mainly of the availibility of venues ( McGonagles , SFX, Mat Hatter ) and the fact that international acts did not include Ireland on their touring itinery because of cost and indeed terrorism fears. Bands like A House emerged from all this as genuine contenders ( And would of regardless ) but then suffered as all of a sudden Ireland became a European. Cafes opened, people got younger and most imp. Money started rolling in. It was also at this time that the young people began to resent Irishness ( As it had treated them so badly up to this point ) and responded by welcoming in the Brit Pop brigade with Gusto. Irish bands where dismissed at once. The frank and walters would be demeaned into being ' Quirky ', but of little importance, despite releasing some of the finest Irish Indie rock ever. The record labels that had set up camp in Ireland after U2 went global soon also began to leave, destroying many an Irish band in it's wake. Sure, some bands did emerge. The franks did go top ten in England, so did the Sultans and Indeed A House also charted over there a number of times. But what about the other bands who in the early ninties where as familiar with Dublin audiences as Travis or Coldplay ? The likes of Engine Alley , Blink , Into Paradise , The power of Dreams?? People just tuned off. Radio is partially to blame, the collapse of decent Pirate affected a lot, but honestly, if you need reasons why a scene has not existed in Dublin since then you will need to ask yourself. It's your fault

Interesting points Punch, one and all. I wouldn't strictly agree on venue availability being a factor though. I wouldn't be too nostalgic about McGonagles or the SFX, they were s**tholes. However, what was important at that time was the huge amount of pubs willing to let a couple of bands set up in a corner whether they were s**te or not. Anyone who was around in the late 80's/early 90's probably spent many a night in The Underground of The White Horse checking out bands of wildly varying quality. And all it cost you was your few beers. It is true that very few bands came here until the 90's which did help the scene here. Although I really trace the the decline of the Dublin scene to the regulation of the airwaves. Before that, you couldn't turn the dial without hitting a community station playing very ecletic stuff. I had my first sniff of bands like REM, Dead Milkmen, Pixies, Sugar through these stations, bands you never would have heard otherwise. Equally, local acts could get their material played. Even back in those days, the big ststions tried to compete (you mightn't believe this but Gerry Ryan used to have the 10-12 slot on 2FM and the music wasn't half bad!) Of course, this all changed in the nineties. It's ironic that both 2FM and Today FM are trying to reclaim this listenership, 15-20 years after it was killed off. As for the bands and record companies, they were all over here looking for the next U2. None of the acts were marketed in England and dropped like hot cakes when the didn't sell millions. For the record, I was particularly fond of A house & Engine Alley but the ones I really thought were going to make it were Blink.

Yessiree, totally agree with you there PunchBowl (or perhaps you lost your edits? You gotta love technology)

Spot on, Venting of Spleen. My point though about McGonagles et all wasn't so much about their level of luxury but more their level of popularity. It WAS a scene when most of your mates would be heading up Grafton st for a gig. I'm sure this great ' Cleansing ' of the Music scene got rid of many bands that shouldn't of been there in the first place but I'm still bitter about some of the results. A House, if they where releasing 'I am the Greatest' now, would propably become superstars overnight. Blink's last album was commercially ignored but should of done the business. Anyway, what we have now is the emergence of a number of new bands who are developing quite well, without being part of a particular scene. The likes of the Frames , Bell X1 , Paddy Casey have been running around scratching each others backs for ages now and in some cases getting caught up in coat-tails and it's finally paying off. But It's just with the emergence of the Village ( Not may Fave venue ) and Vicar st ( A little too posh for rock and roll ) as the main port of call for these guys that I'm beginning to think that there is a big scene waiting to happen, but it's just not. My master plan ? Open the top floor of the Palace on Camden St for Gigs. Remove the bar from the venue in whelans and bring back the Mean fiddler. I'll get my coat

Excellent! Could never quite put my finger on what it was about Vicar Street I didn't like. But any venue with a punter maning the jacks with Lynx & gum is not very rock and roll! God be with the days where bogs were for ching and passing out in your own vomit. This town needs some balls out dirty venues al right. And yes, we all loved McGonagles, even the fact that they only served wine!

The Dublin Music scene is far from dead. It's thriving. Whether you like it or not bands like the frames and artists like Damien Rice and Gemma Hayes are doing the business here at home and abroad. The fundamental problem with Bands like A House and Blink is that they couldn't shake that mid-80s, early 90s Sun studios sound. These records have aged very badly indeed. Newer artists like the Jimmy Cake, The Dudley Corporation, The Frames, Nina Hynes, The Tycho Brahe, Ann Scott etc. etc. transcend that sound and are definitely more globally viable than the aforementioned bands. The effect of the internet on Irish music is very apparent. Exposure to more eclectic music and the accessibilty of affordable home recording technology has led to an expansion of the Irish sound.

Ahh look Lads (and Lassies) What is all this...'Oh yeah, today bands are much more helping each other out and sharing like and scratching each others backs...not like the bad old days'. Noodles. The Eighties Irish bands all were in cliques too. Anyone remember Lark In The Park and bands like... Light A Fire Under A Ghost of A Blue Flower in Cactus Heaven As for there being no decent venues... 'Isacc Butts' 'Parlour Bar' 'Slatterys Rathmines' Thats just three. ALl better than the Underground. And big record companies ? And promoting Irish Acts in the UK Charts ? And all those Irish acts making it big in the UK right now ?Sorry to tell y'all but right now Daniel O'Donnell is No.3 in the UK Album charts. Kids don't buy records, they don't surf the internet, they download onto their phones. Wanna make it big, write a ringtone.

Jesus I created a monster with this one. 1,345 readings of the post. There must be some sort of blue-peter type badge or equivalent going for this?????

im a newbie to the (unsigned) Dublin scene, but all I have to say is it's fun, theres not alot of money in it, its expensive to get set up gear wise, but there are alot of sound(as in nice, easy goin..not the engineering sound) people involved. one thing that does amaze me however is the lack of women involved in the industry, from the unsigned side of things at least. maybe its cos women are better at men at this ASWEL as academia, (is sport the last bastion of male victory over females?) therefore go straight to the top. Overall though Johnson my friend, i'd so far say it seems the best place to be on this island at least! but then maybe goin back the years it was more vibrant than it appears now... as stated, I'm a new comer to this stuff.

I don't think women are better in music then men, or that men are better then women for that matter. I do think that it can be tougher for women in that it is a largely male dominated industry and because of this women generally have to prove they have talent and aren't just eye candy. Womens' sex appeal is sadly a huge factor in their success as musicians and performers. You rarely see a dog ugly female performer but there's plenty of rough looking guys fronting successful bands. Women are faced with the choice of using their sex appeal to their advantage where they can (and if they can) to further their careers, but run the risk of not being taken seriously. If they downplay that side of things (in the hope of being credited for their talent) they are often overlooked as not having enough 'commercial' appeal. In the pop world there's certainly a heavy emphasis on sex appeal across the genders and the guys are under as much pressure to look good (and there's generally not a huge amount of talent going on dare i say as well) but in the rock world, there's some surprisingly archaic attitudes towards women. Women often end up having to act ballsy or agressively to get to the top, and are seen as being hardnosed in the process. To be fair in Dublin there's an awful lot more ladies doing their thing now then there has been for a while. Think back to the early nineties and the eighties and there were comparatively few women fronting bands or putting out their own stuff. It can only be a good thing that they are making waves and inspiring younger girls to pick up an instrument and realise that they don't have to learn poxy dance routines to get somewhere. Well...that's my two cents worth anyway...now i'm off to...ahem...burn my bra or something

Rock on Dromed! Totally with you on this one. Music is the one place where the playing field should be level, but sadly isn't. Being a typical bloke who suffers from foot-in-mouth disease though, its hard to take a stand on the gender issue without saying the wrong thing, so sorry if I offend anyone. I guess the misogyny that we find in rock goes right back to its roots in the blues, take song like "paying the cost to the boss" by B.B. King. It would be pretty hard to get that past the politically correct police today. Ironically I have to admit that I like this song, but in a tongue in cheek kind of way. I think this wrong but often harmless (and sometimes not so harmless) misogyny was carried over from the blues and amplified (no pun intended) in rock and roll, especially metal (which I would argue isn't really rock'n'roll, but thats another debate). Then there's the whole area of hip hop and rap, which really needs to sort itself out. As for burning your bra, please be more careful when leaning across a gas cooker.. oh damn, sorry! I knew I'd put my foot in it somehow, the sleater-kinney fans are gonna kill me! (attempts in vain to remove foot from mouth, though it should be noted that tongue is also firmly wedged in cheek)

Isn't it B.B King's daughter who's an amazing guitarist in her own right??? Think she appeared in a GAP ad at one stage, which maybe aint something to be too proud of, but she can handle an axe! It's just kind of sad that we could pretty much list any decent female 'rock' musicians on one hand like Patti Smith, Chrisie Hynde, Kim Deal, Kim Gordon etc there's not a huge amount at the end of the day. Madonna is an example of someone that has capitalised on her sexuality and while she can play, isn't known for her talent as a musician. The aforementioned ladies are all pretty androgynous (spelling?)so have they had to de-sexualise themselves to get where they did? I doubt it was a conscious thing for them, and of course there's plenty of men (and women) that like the androgny, but can glamour/femininity co-incide with being taken seriously as a musician? Joni Mitchill is about the only one I can think of that was, in my opinion, a great guitar player and without gettin her **** out managed to still maintain her femininity - it's a strange one though cos while I respect her as a musician I'm guilty of seeing her as being a bit twee perhaps for this same reason. I'd always prefer to see the girls hold their own without having to capitalise on their sex appeal. Unless of course they are Peaches. Peaches is my heroine.

I don't know much about BB Kings' daughter, but she oughta be good if she got any lessons from her old man! As for listing of decent female rock stars on one hand, I think its more correct to say we could count the number of recognised, well known female rock stars on one hand. Theres lots of good female rockers, but they just don't get the same recognition as the guys and if the do it's often in a patronising "ooh aren't the girls clever" kind of way. Just off the top of my head I can add a few great female rockers to your list, how about Emily Haines (from Metric), Sioxsie Sioux, Poly Styrene (x-ray spex), Kristen Hersh, Tanya Donnelly (Belly, The Breeders, solo stuff), etc. If you expand the list to go outside the confines of rock, how about Bjork, Solex, Chicks on Speed, Missy Elliot, Miss Kittin, Nicola Kusperus (Adult.), etc. and that is just off the top of my head, if I sat down and thought about it I could come up with a longer list. The thing that really irritates me is that female acts are more likely to be dismissed as a novelty than their male counterparts who are doing the same thing. For example, Marc Bolan gets loads of respect, but not Suzi Quattro. Bon Jovis' soft metal is taken (relatively) seriously yet Heart are consigned to the dustbin of history. A lot of Hearts' later output is as mediocre as Bon Jovi, but "Barracuda" is a classic, kicks the arse out "Living on Prayer" any day. The Donnas get reviewed on the basis of the fact that they are Girls with Guitars, but Blink 182 get reviewed on their own merit (or lack of). Oh yeah, and I reckon Nicos' contribution to that first Velvet Underground album is underplayed, ok she didn't actually write the songs, but can you imagine anyone else singing "I'll be your mirror"? Some of her solo stuff is pretty good too.

I'm sorry but I spent the best part of my teens contemplating Suzi Quatro with one hand