You might recall, if you've been around here long enough, that in 2006 we featured the 'Paris Calling' compilation of new young French garage rock bands. A surprisingly high proportion of them seemed to have attended the 2003 Paris concert by The Libertines and copied the London band's scuzzy retro-punk sound. Mainly middle-class teenagers from comfortable suburbs, they were lumped together by a cynical French music media as 'babyrockers' - which betrays the middle-age status and mentality of many in the music press here. ("Young people being in bands! Not in my day they were!")

One of these bands actually met and formed at that Libertines gig. However, Plastiscines (right) immediately distinguished themselves from their Doherty-worshipping peers. For one thing, they were a group of four girls: the other bands were mostly young lads in thrall to the immature and cliched Ramones-style gang image. Also, they were happy to play at being glamorous pop stars, appearing in photoshoots for fashion glossies as well as music mags. And they sounded nothing like the other bands - their reference points were The B-52s, Sleater Kinney and such U.S. punk-pop, with a hint of '60s Frenchness for local colour.

Most importantly, Plastiscines did it very well: their 2007 debut 'LP1' was crammed with snappy, catchy, charismatic songs befitting independent-minded young people. Unfortunately for them, heavy promotion for the record's French release seemed to weary the mainstream public and embolden the band's humourless muso critics. Their drummer quit and so did her replacement. This bad luck at home was tempered by well-received shows in North America, naturally more receptive than conservative France to girls playing electric guitars.

So, their second album has just come out and feels like it's aimed at a U.S. market: 11 of the 12 songs are in English and the band recently appeared in two episodes of hit series 'Gossip Girl'. However, 'About Love' is seriously disappointing - it feels like merchandise rather than music and that's always a symptom of the dreaded second album syndrome.

Many songs here sound like formulaic rehashes of familiar alt-rock. For instance, first single 'Barcelona' has hints of The White Stripes' 'Seven Nation Army' about it. Other tracks are half-ideas and quarter-ideas stretched beyond breaking: a song called 'Bitch', where singer Katty Besnard lists various ways in which she is the eponymous disagreeable female, is particularly dumb and depressing in this regard.

But the most unpleasant surprise about this record is how lifeless and boring it sounds. The charm, personality and swagger of their debut songs have disappeared. This could be any band, any uninspired or derivative guitar group: Plastiscines seem to have come down to the level of their 2006 babyrocker peers.

Oh well. You can check for yourself on Plastiscines' MySpace page. Here's the video for 'Barcelona':

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Yesterday, Monday 26 October 2009, this blog ran (and completed) its very first Marathon. It was a day of extreme highs and lows and one that I'll probably never forget.  I know for sure that my right knee won't let me forget anytime soon.

As I reached the start line at 8.30, the air was heavy with the smell of fear and deep heat.  Nervous pleasantries were exchanged between competitors amidst final stretches and photographs.  Everyone wanted to know what time everyone else wanted to achieve.  If I could do it in less that 4 hours, 30 minutes, I'd be very happy.  If I could somehow find the adrenalin to do it in less than four then I'd be ecstatic!  As the 9.00 start time approached, my emotions began to get the better of me, not because of the 26 miles, 385 yards ahead of me, but because of the hundreds of miles I'd put in beforehand and, of course, the very reason I was doing this in the first place, in memory of my Father-in-law, Alan Smyth.  

However, once the starting gun went all nerves quickly disappeared and I settled in to a nice pace of 9.30-9.45 minute miles for the first 5 miles.  It was hard not to think about the difference between the first time I attempted 5 miles, when I was sure I'd have to call some sort of cardiac ambulance, and today.  Indeed, miles 4-8, through the Phoenix Park, are perhaps the most fun I've ever had with my clothes on.  The colours of the trees, the enthusiastic crowds, the fact that I was, without very much effort, on course for possibly a 4 hour marathon added a spring to my step that made me feel like the greatest distance runner in the world.  

That being said, as good as I felt exiting the Chapelizod Gate, I realised that I wasn't sweating very much and so I took some time to load up on water and energy drinks at the next water station.  Mile 8 to 9, which included the impossibly steep St. Laurence Road, was by far the toughest of the race so far but as I made my way through miles 9-13 I seemed to get a second wind.  I was now running a pretty good pace and still had the 4 hour pace balloons in sight.

However, as I crossed the half way mark in 2 hours, 1 minute and 14 seconds, and began to dream of upping the pace and overtaking the pacemakers between miles 13-18 (and before I hit the dreaded wall), I heard what can only be described as a loud snap in my head and almost immediately came to a shuddering halt given the pain that was now emanating from my right knee. I couldn't believe it.  This was the same knee I suffered a grade 2 ACL tear in during training (causing me to miss 8 weeks in total) but which hadn't caused me any real trouble for over 6 weeks.  

I made my way as quickly as I could to the nearest first aid area where I was strongly advised to call it a day.  That was NEVER going to happen, not after coming this far.  The first aid guys applied as much deep freeze as they could before advising me one more time to consider leaving the race.  Stubbornly, I still refused, saying that I'd give it another couple of miles and see where it took me.  All in all, I spent over 21 minutes getting treatment and stretching and so any hope of a sub four hour marathon were well any truly gone.

Indeed, after about a mile of very light jogging I relalised that time was no longer an issue.  It was now all about ignoring the pain in my right knee (akin to replacing your knee joint with a testicle and running on it for 12 or so miles), and just finishing the race.  To be honest, I wasn't sure I could but as mile after mile passed by I could sense the finish line and that, plus a brilliantly supportive crowd, kept me going, even through miles 18-24 when I seemed to spend most of the time trying not to cry, both from the pain and the feeling that I'd let myself and others down because of this injury.

Somehow, and from somewhere, I picked up the courage to run, as fast as I could, the last 2 miles, 285 yards in the hope of finishing in less than 5 & a half hours.  Seeing Mrs Key Notes, her mum and my own Mum and Dad, as I struggled through the last mile, gave me a huge emotional and physical boost and as I crossed the line I was so overcome with the emotion of the whole experience that I almost, almost, forgot about the pain for a moment.  Officially, my time was 5.46.14 but, as I took 21 minutes out for treatment, I'm giving myself an unofficial time of 5.25.14.  

Not that it matters, of course, I finished a marathon, essentially on one leg, and that, as everyone has since told me, is all that really matters.  That and getting to the doctor today!

Should you wish to sponsor me, there is still time so please check out my MyCharity Page.

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I recently caught up with up and coming Belfast electro pop foursome Yes Cadets prior to their performance at the HWCH festival in Dublin. Yes Cadets were only formed last summer but in a short space ...

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Another day, another post about Serge Gainsbourg. But how can we help it? The man still exerts a profound influence on French and international pop music. Besides, even almost two decades after his death, he's still making news.

While exclusively revealing that the former Gainsbourg-Birkin residence lies in the shadow of Chateau French Letter, we mentioned in passing that a film has been made of Gainsbourg's life. Well, the first brief trailer has appeared in French cinemas, so we'll take the opportunity to tell you more.

'Gainsbourg (Vie Heroique)' - the part in brackets means 'heroic life' - will be released on 10 January 2010. It is directed by Joann Sfar, and is an adaptation of the director's own graphic novel about Serge. (By 'graphic novel' we mean a long-form comic book, not a saucy piece of prose.) The story begins with young Lucien Ginsburg, a Jewish boy in Nazi-occupied Paris, and ends with Gainsbarre, a drunken boor making a show of himself on '80s TV shows. Most importantly, though, in the middle it features Serge Gainsbourg, who made some of pop's most thrilling records.

The lead role is taken by theatre actor Eric Elmosnino, who has transformed himself into an uncanny double of the great man. Other parts go to more recognisable French screen players: award-winning young actress Sara Forestier plays France Gall; Laetitia Casta plays Brigitte Bardot and Anna Mougalis plays Juliette Greco.

As for the role of Jane Birkin, that's a story in itself. Gainsbourg's most famous creative and romantic partner is played by Lucy Gordon, an English actress who appeared in Spiderman 3 and a few lower-profile films. However, on 20 May of this year, two days before her 29th birthday and shortly after the final cut of the movie was screened privately, Gordon hung herself in her Paris apartment. Unconfirmed reports suggest that she had been deeply affected by the suicide of a friend.

Of course, mere impersonation isn't going to make for a good movie. Gainsbourg's complex nature and extraordinary story provide a considerable challenge for Sfar and his first film as a director.

Here is the 40-second trailer for 'Gainsbourg (Vie Heroique)'. Elmosnino, wreathed in smoke, perfectly captures the surprising effeminacy of late-'60s Serge. (This 1965 TV interview shows similar flickers of campness in Gainsbourg.) Gordon, for her part, does a good take of young Birkin the doe-eyed ingenue and improbable scandaliser of a generation. No prizes for guessing which piece of music soundtracks this clip:

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Much has been made here in France of Phoenix and their growing popularity in North America, with reference to two sold-out shows in New York's Central Park at the end of last month. However, these weren't huge outdoor events on the scale of, say, Paul Simon's legendary shows in 1981 and 1991 - the French band's gigs were in an area of the Park called the Rumsey Playfield as part of a cultural series called SummerStage.

Similarly, you may also have seen Justice and their 2008 documentary 'A Cross The Universe', which chronicled their eventful U.S. tour. (Highlights include a quickie marriage and an arrest for assault.) That pair's spiritual forefathers were celebrated in LCD Soundsystem's fantastic 2005 single 'Daft Punk Is Playing At My House'. And celebrity blogger Perez Hilton has taken under his wing a French singer called Sliimy, a cross musically and physically between Mika and Prince. So, pop from France has found a niche in the American music scene.

Attempting to build on this, while Phoenix were rocking New York a dedicated French music festival called 'Ooh La L.A!' took place in Los Angeles. As reported by Les Inrockuptibles, three shows took place over the weekend of 23-25 September at the Henry Fonda Theater on Hollywood Boulevard.

(And yes, French people really do say "ooh la la!" - though it seems to us that the most common users are irate drivers and excitable sports commentators. At the risk of destroying your image of France, it's not really something a pouty Parisian model or extrovert Breton villager would utter.)

The first night's bill featured Sebastien Tellier, still telling the unfunny joke that is his 'Sexuality' album. (However, as we reported last February, his live show is worth the ticket price just to hear him play the wonderful 'La Ritournelle'.) Also playing were a French Letter favourite - Cocoon, the Clermont-Ferrand folk-pop duo who've become hugely successful in France. (How could you not be charmed by an album called 'My Friends All Died In A Plane Crash' and released on a label called Sober And Gentle?)

And then there was piano-pop artist Gonzales. Real name Jason Beck, he's actually Canadian but following a few years in Berlin he's now resident in France. He produced both 'Let It Die' and 'The Reminder' for Feist. On 18 May he set a world record by performing a solo concert that lasted 27 hours, 3 minutes and 44 seconds. And his piano-playing hands were cast as those of Serge Gainsbourg in the forthcoming biopic on the great man, though we read that his contribution hasn't made the final cut.

Unfortunately his recent music is nowhere near as interesting as those little pieces of trivia. But back in 1999 and 2000 he released some catchy tunes on the Kitty-Yo label, the best of which was a slinky single called 'Let's Groove Again'.

Rather appropriately, the second night of the festival starred Hollywood Mon Amour (the '80s movie theme version of Nouvelle Vague) and Franco-Finnish indie duo The Dø, whose singer Olivia Merilahti is quite irritating. Sadly, French Letter favourite Emilie Simon had to cancel for personal reasons (a bereavement, apparently) and she was replaced by Soko, the acoustic singer-songer whose track 'I'll Kill Her' became something of an internet hit.

The final night of 'Ooh La L.A!' was dedicated to French electronica. Brodinski and The Shoes are both from the north-eastern city of Reims, also home to Yuksek, while Jamaica are a Parisian duo formerly known as Poney Poney (not to be confused with fellow French bands Poney Express, Poni Hoax or Pony Pony Run Run).

Aside from the electronica/Reims clique, you'd be hard pushed to construe any kind of coherent French scene from the 'Ooh La L.A!' line-up. For one thing, none of the artists currently perform in French, apart from the absent Emilie Simon's previous album, 'Végétal'. Still, it's a good time for French bands to head for America. And, combined with annual global Fête de la Musique celebrations such as Let's French in Dublin, world domination seems to be on the agenda.

We've already raved at length about Cocoon and Emilie Simon so here's that Gonzales song we mentioned earlier, 'Let's Groove Again':

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You might remember that the top album in our Best French Music of 2008 list was 'Don Lee Doo' by Kim.

Well, the Bordeaux electro-popper has just released the follow-up - his 18th long-player in only 15 years and he's still a young man. Fortunately, in the case of Kim Stanislas Giani, quality is quantity: 'Mary Lee Doo' is another cracker. (It even has its own charming little video trailer.)

You may have guessed from the title that this new record shares a theme with its predecessor - apparently it's the second part of a trilogy. And there's certainly some continuity in sound; Giani clearly still loves classic Prince and Kate Bush and, says you, what more recommendation could you want?

 Well, there's even more reason to check out the new Kim album. 'Mary Lee Doo' isn't just a tribute to '80s electro-pop - there's a more romantic and wistful feeling created with non-electronic instruments like bass and acoustic guitar. 'Solid Rock' has a breezy '60s feel and the excellent 'Solenn' shares the driving '70s groove of Fleetwood Mac's 'Rumours'.

And it's not all retro influences: 'Never Come Back 2 U' may have a Prince-ly title but it sounds more like contemporary U.S. R n' B, as does album closer 'Move On'.

Kim recently played a special show at the Aquitaine tourism and cultural centre in Paris. (Bordeaux is in the Aquitaine region, you see.) Starting off behind a table of small vintage keyboards and electronic devices (including one that seemed to be just a random array of grey plastic buttons), he then moved onto acoustic guitar (above right) and eventually even shunned the microphone. Point being: his songs work without electricity, which is handy in the storm-battered south-west of France. But then he hopped over to the retro synths again for the smashing 'Radio Grady'.

You can check out Kim's tunes, past and present, at his MySpace page or website. No video for any of the 'Mary Lee Doo' tracks yet, so here's something off 'Don Lee Doo' to give you a flavour of Kim - 'When The River Turns Around':

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A review of the album 'Post Electric Blues' by Idlewild

Review Snapshot: One could be forgiven for thinking that this latest offering portrays Idlewild growing old gracefully, but realistically this is the sound of a band who are trying to reinvent themselves. It doesn’t come close to the indie rock genius of the “The Remote Part” and the happy-go-lucky “Make Another World”, or the intrigue of the confused “Warnings/Promises”, but rather depends on several different influences to produce a fresh sound. Does it work? Yes, but only just. 

The Cluas Verdict? 6 out of 10

Full Review: As the album opens with “Younger Than America”, you instantly notice this is truly & recognisably Idlewild, a vicariously riffed tune, and one that will once again accuse them of being, albeit in a good way, influenced by REM circa the Document era. Add to that, an effective backing vocal by our own Heidi Talbot (who aided and abetted Roddy Woomble’s 2006 solo country-ish effort “Secret Of My Silence” to magnificent effect, more on that later). 

More of the same on “City Hall”, classic Idlewild. Baring in mind this is their 6th album, it still works in so far as the song exudes their undying zest for what they do. “Dreams of Nothing” echoes sentiments of “Century After Century” from the “The Remote Part”, picking on what made them underground greats while avoiding overdependence on it.

Nevertheless, the album is not without its pitfalls, “Readers & Writers” is chart-popped up to an ultimately ineffective extent with oversold bombast on its chorus; it’s only the album’s second track and in early listens, you worry that Idlewild may be trying to become commercial - which just isn’t them. The same could be said of the late-on “All Over the Town”. It would sound great live but forces little effect elsewhere. Another poppy effect on “Circles in Stars” features a distorted doubled up vocal that asks "why, why, why?" Woomble’s vocals have always been charismatic enough without having to resort to this sort of thing.

Perhaps the most disconcerting aspect of this album is the alt-country influences evident from Woomble’s solo effort that are breaking & entering their way through here – it doesn’t work on “(The Night Will) Bring You Back to Life”; it’s lyrically weak and the music doesn't sounds like anything like the Idlewild we’ve come to know and love. It improves on the album’s outro though as “Take Me Back in Time” features jangly guitar and a hum-drum backing vocal that possibly betrays the album as a whole but nonetheless remains a pleasing ending.

While the album’s blessing is that “Take Me Back To The Islands” is undoubtedly one of the best tracks on offer, the fact that it sounds like it was hand-picked from “Secret Of My Silence” is also a distant curse - you can’t help but wonder if these contrasting influences are pulling the sound of this band and its lead singer in opposite directions.

All in all, there’s enough here to satisfy dedicated fans and a lot of experimentation and credit to them for that; after all, bands who don’t reinvent themselves inevitably fade into the background or fade away altogether (just ask any Strokes or Garbage fan).

Definitely Idlewild’s weakest offering since the Remote Part, but a satisfying listen at the end of the day.

Jimmy Murphy

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A pet peeve of mine is bloated websites: site with pages that are so stuffed with images and widgets that they take too long to download, even on broadband. Over our 10 years of operations CLUAS .com has continually tried to keep things lean and mean when it comes to page size (indeed CLUAS, as far as I am aware, remains Ireland's lightest – and hence fastest – music website).

Back in 2008 I had a good old rant about bloated Irish websites (specifically about Music and Technology blogs). Another indulgent rant is long overdue, this time I've fixed my attention on the winners at the recent 2009 Irish Web Awards. Are the best Irish websites of 2009 a lean and mean bunch, or are they a morbidly obese bunch? Read on...

The table below presents the results of an analysis of all 21 sites that won an award at the Irish web awards in terms their page size as reflected in:

• the total size of their home page, and
• the total number of files that need to be downloaded (also know as number of "HTTP requests") to create the page.

The 3 colour-coded categories in the table correspond as follows:

• "The Skinny": ("Optimal balance of page size and http requests")
• The Bloated: ("Just too much going on in terms of page size and http requests")
• "The Bonkers": ("Inexcusably massive number of HTTP requests coupled with an utterly obese page size")

The Irish Web Award 2009 winners, categorised by payload

 

Seeing a whole load of data listed in a table is one thing. Presenting it in a chart is another, and can often make it easier to understand what is going on across a diverse set of data. So I plotted the results of each individual website on a chart in an effort to extract some more immediate and meaningful results from this analysis. The chart (see it below, where each dot represents one of the websites) has the number of HTTP request along the X-axis, the total size of the home page on the Y-axis. The general trend of the plotted data (that'll be the blue line rising gently upwards, my Leaving Cert Physics teacher would be proud of me) confirms what you'd expect, i.e. that the greater the number of HTTP requests a web page makes, the larger the size of that web page. However it's also easy to pick out from the chart which sites are skinny (hello to the sites that managed to squeeze into the box way down there in the most bottom left part of the graph) and which are bloated. And then there are those outlying sites which are just just barking when it comes to page size and number of HTTP requests...

Pity your poor browser - and internet connection – if you hit one of these 'bonkers' sites. For these 6 sites we're talking an average payload of 1.17 megabytes of data to be downloaded via an average of 104 HTTP requests!? Take the worst offender in terms of page size – danceireland.ie. Their home page is made up of 2MB of data (I repeat: 2 megabytes) to be downloaded. If you're on an iPhone and visit their home page, this single page will consume 7% of the daily bandwidth your phone company has allocated you (based on the monthly limit of 1GB of data afforded by O2 to iPhone customers in Ireland). One single solitary web page consuming 7% of your daily download allowance? Truly. Madly. Deeply. Bonkers.

The 8 'bloated' award winners? They are only somewhat better than their bonkers brethren. Between them they impose an average payload on visitors of 455 KB of files to be downloaded via an average of 70 HTTP requests.

But it's hats off to the 6 'skinny' sites (that'll be 5 of the 2009 Irish Web Award winners plus gatecrasher CLUAS.com) who all manage to keep their page size to less than 300kb while keeping the number of HTTP requests to less than 50. Between them they average a modest 265 KB of files to be downloaded per page via an average of 31 HTTP requests. Needless to say, thanks to our ongoing dietary efforts, CLUAS is among these 8 skinny sites, and our page size of 168KB means we clock in as the 4th lightest of the 22 sites.

Two concluding pleas:

• Plea 1: Could all webmasters run their websites through one of the many free online tools that check the overall size of a page (I recommend the one offered by the WebsiteOptimization.com guys). If comes out at over 500KB get pruning. Remove some heavy images or chunky widgets on your page to get it down to a reasonable size.

• Plea 2: Both the size of a webpage - and the number of HTTP requests the page makes - should be standard judging criteria in any web awards. Placing a carrot like that in front of any website owner who aspires to being recognised by his/her peers with an award for their site is one way to help focus minds on this often overlooked but important aspect of user experience, whether the user be connected via broadband or dialup. (...Of course it never crossed my mind that if super light CLUAS.com were ever to be up for consideration of an award with such an additional judging criteria, that our chances might get a bit of a lift...).

 

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A review of the album 'Sigh No More by Mumford & Sons Review Snapshot: This London folk foursome presented their first album, 'Sigh No More', at the beginning of this month, follow...

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A review of the album Strict Joy by The Swell Season Review Snapshot:  At times underwhelming and familiar, 'Strict Joy' brings nothing new to the table and deals with much of th...

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