It's back! Key Notes' favourite festival is returning to its spiritual Temple Bar home this September.  Once again venues such as The Hub and Eamon Dorans will  play host to the Hard Working Class Heroes Festival for 3 days (12th - 14th), after last years failed POD complex experiment.

According to the usually reliable State magazine blog the Irish bands playing this year are as follows:

202’s / 79Cortinaz / A Lazarus Soul / The Aftermath / Alphamono / The Ambience Affair / Angel Pier / Armoured Bear / Mark Austin / Autamata / Bats / The Beat Poets / Bravado / The Brothers Movement / The Cades / Carly Sings / Nick Carswell & The Elective Orchestra / Caruso / Chequerboard / Cian / Class Of 1984 / Ollie Cole / Crayonsmith / Cutaways / The Dagger Lees / Deaf Animal Orchestra / Distractors / Dolbro Dan / Dublin Duck Dispensary / Exit: Pursued By A Bear / Fiach / Fighting With Wire / Valerie Francis / Fred / Gorbachov / Grand Pocket Orchestra / Groom / Halves / Headgear / Heartbreak Cartel / The Holy Roman Army / Hooray for Humans / The Hot Sprockets / Hybrasil / Kill Krinkle Club / The Kinetiks / The Last Tycoons / Le Galaxie / Lines Drawing Circles / Little Xs For Eyes / Mackerel The Cat / Tom McShane / Fiona Melady / The Minutes / Walter Mitty & The Realists / More Tiny Giants / My Brother Woody / Nakatomi Plaza / New Amusement / Noise Control / Not Men But Giants / One Day International / The Followers of Otis / Panama Kings / The Parks / Pilotlight / Pocket Promise / The Rags / The Revellions / Robotnik / John Shelly and the Creatures / Sickboy / Sideproject / So Cow / Sounds of System Breakdown / Sparks Fly / The Spook of The Thirteenth Lock / Super Extra Bonus Party / Supermodel Twins / Sweet Jane / Tidal District / Tiger Empire / David Turpin / The Vinny Club / Vodkopter / You're Only Massive

Details of the festival headliners will be announced soon, as will information on the invasion of Scottish bands.

Key Notes can already break this list down into the following:

Band's He'd REALLY Like to See:
A Lazarus Soul
Ollie Cole
Pilotlight
Autamata
Grand Pocket Orchestra
Headgear
Le Glaxie
The Spook of the Thirteenth Lock
Tidal District
You're Only Massive

Band's He Wouldn't Mind Seeing:
Angel Pier
Carly Sings
Fighting With Wire
New Amusement
Hooray for Humans
Robotnik

Everyone Else

Tickets are still available for Hard Working Class Heroes 2008 from here

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A review of the album Ritual by Jape

Review Snapshot: Things could have gotten very quiet for Jape in the last few years, but Ritual will be banishing any barren times for Richie Egan. Not a perfect album, but a magnificent one nonetheless. If music was food, Ritual would satisfy more tastes than most.

The Cluas Verdict? 8.5 out of 10

Full Review:
It’s been four years since Richie ‘Jape’ Egan cemented his place amongst Ireland’s new breed of gifted songwriters with second album, The Monkeys In The Zoo Have More Fun Than Me. In the meantime, with his third album nearing completion, he signed to V2, and promptly saw his new home go belly-up. The Monkeys…, meanwhile, bore fruit to ‘Floating’ covered by The Raconteurs, itself leading to more questioning of just where Egan would go next. Irish music might not have undergone any seismic changes in the last four years, but it’s certainly taken enough detours where old dogs need to learn new tricks.

Put simply: if an album could have been custom-made to bridge this gap between notability and glory, Ritual wouldn’t be very far off it, opening with a voice loop on Christopher And Anthony that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Mylo album, before settling into a light, insightful and relaxed yet upbeat path.

I Was A Man, the album’s lead single, opens with a memorable hook that could well have kicked off a chart-botherer but for the slightly obtuse instrumental later in the track. If it won’t be bothering the charts you’ll probably hear it soundtracking another short-lived sports series on RTE in the not-too-distant future. Replays, its sequel, a slightly grimy faux-future opus with a few too many repetitive High E synth taps pushing it too close to the boundaries of bearable.

The album then takes a turn into a slow-burning but gorgeous interlude duo. On Graveyard, Egan shows that while the previous songs are built on melody, his lyricism is worth an exposure too. “It’s just a short, short distance from the nipple to the soil”, he sings, over a lush, deep, layered euphony of minor synthesis. This lyrical strength then hits astonishing new high gears on Phil Lynott. In a truly seanachaí mode, Egan tells an initially acoustic story of a night at a gig under a lunar eclipse, as the rockers around him say “look / at / the / fuckin’ / moon” in a staccato so perfect you can’t help but be smug even listening to it. The mortality of the occasion hits him to the point where he realises, “One day I’ll be a dead man / who plays the bass from Crumlin / like Phil Lynott” in an interlude of honest-to-God beauty. It says much about Jape’s output that it’s only on the word “Crumlin” that you’re aware you’re listening to domestic produce; you’d easily think you were listening to something that had been well-respected enough on the other side of the Atlantic to make the leap to these shores.

Streetwise is the spiritual start of Side B, with triadic vocals underpinning a electronic masterpiece of booming chords. The Hibernian references are kept up with tributes to Jackie’s Army among others, before At The Heart Of All This Strangeness appears as a musical aberration; a sole acoustic guitar atoneing a beautiful, fragile melody augmented by silences placed to pinpoint perfection, as Egan is overwhelmed by how “there is nothing but hate in every dictionary” with gripping pathos.

The closing triplet almost echo the openers: Apple In An Orchard gets back into the form of the earlier tracks, with Egan borrowing from the Morrissey school of sing-as-you-think storytelling; Strike Me Down opens with another repetitive – but upspeed – synth hook leading into syncopated semiquavers in both vocals and score that sounds like a GameBoy on LSD; while Nothing Lasts Forever ends the album with a virtual scan of the radio channels before settling on a sibling track to Radiohead’s All I Need. That the album produces similar opuses as In Rainbows is a tribute of which not much higher order could be paid.

In short – after a four year break where things could have gotten very quiet for Jape, Ritual will be making sure that the next couple of years will be busier for Richie Egan. A masterpiece, not quite; a potential Album Of The Year, very much so.

Gav Reilly

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This edition of Key Note Speaker see's Dudley, Mark and Joss from The Dudley Corporation take time out from promoting their latest album, Year of the Husband, to provide you with an insight into their musical, literary and visual tastes.

Favourite Songs from the Past Year
Joss
Meshuggah - Bleed
Boris - My Neighbour Satan
Dudley 
Goblin Cock - We got a bleeder! (unreleased)
Mark 
Wilco - Either Way
The New Pornographers - All The Old Showstoppers
The Melvins - Billy Fish
The Spook Of The Thirteenth Lock - The Spook

Favourite Song Ever
Joss
Today it's any one of:
Richard Harris - McArthur Park
Drive Like Jehu - Luau
Erkin Koray - arlı Dağlar
Blonde Redhead - Top Ranking
Dudley
Drive Like Jehu - New Math
Mark 
The live version of Bad Boy Boogie from If you Want Blood You've Got it by AC/DC

Favourite Dudley Song
Joss & Mark 
We Angled Our Shadows and Cast Them In Stone
Dudley
One of the new ones that won't be released for years yet!

Favourite New Band/Artist
Joss
Anna Jarvinen
Subplots
Underground Railroad
Dudley
She & Him
The Big Sleep
Small Snails
Mark 
The Spook Of The Thirteenth Lock (If this band are not huge I'll kill someone.  I know who I'll kill as well.)
Stanley Ross

Favourite Band/Artist Ever
Joss
Drive Like Jehu or Deerhoof or Erkin Koray
Dudley
Drive Like Jehu or Queen, I think
Mark 
The Melvins

Favourite Gig This Year
Joss
The Zombies or Martin Finke
Dudley
The Notwist @ The Button Factory
Mark 
Both Wilco gigs in Vicar Street were fantastic

Favourite Gig Ever
Joss
Drive Like Jehu, TJ's Newport, 1994
Dudley
Queen @ Slane, or Deerhoof at the Empty Bottle in Chicago
Mark 
Tomahawk and The Melvins, 30 Stone Street, Copenhagen, 2003

Favourite Dudley Corporation Gig Ever
Mark 
Mercury Lounge NY, Sept '05. In the middle of a really rough tour we played one of our best ever gigs to a crowd of strangers who seemed to love it. People wandered in to the room and stayed. I was really chuffed after that one. Short lived high though, walked out of the venue to discover our van had been towed!
Dudley
Either Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco or the Mercury Lounge, NYC, both nights where it felt like we were genuinely at the top of our game
Joss
Maybe the first LP launch in Whelan's Sept 10 2001 (Key Notes Birthday!)  That was very fun.

Favourite Venue
Joss
Kraftbrau, Kalamazoo (cry!)
Dudley
Same as Joss but Irving Plaza in New York was pretty great too
Mark 
The Roisin Dubh or Kraftbrau

Favourite Piece of Musical/Recording Equipment
Joss
My old Ludwig kit.
Dudley
My strat that I just spent a small fortune getting repaired, and am now too afraid to touch
Mark 
I'm the wrong person top ask that question, I'll just get all nerdy and bore folk

Download or CD/Cassette/Record
Joss
CD for convenience, LP for niceness.
Dudley
Do most of my listening via mp3s over my home network now, but LP when not being lazy
Mark 
See Joss’ answer

Favourite TV Show at the Moment
Joss
Uhhm... Flight of the Conchords
Dudley
Shark! Dexter!
Mark 
The Wire

Best Movie Ever Seen
Joss
Wild Strawberries or This Sporting Life
Dudley
Star Wars, Brazil, Deathrace 2000
Mark 
Impossible to answer, but I'll say Inner Space

Greatest Book Ever Read
Mark 
The Dirt by Motley Crue. This is not a sarcastic answer
Joss
James Robert Baker - Boy Wonder. The Dirt is great too
Dudley
Boy Wonder is amazing, Confederacy of Dunces comes in close after. The worst biog. ever is Mercury and Me. Bah!

Most Listened to Radio Show
Joss
John Peel (cry!), Adam & Joe, Donal Dineen, Alison Curtis, The Right Hook
Dudley
Not much of a radio-er since the demise of Peel (I really should mp3-ise all those old Peel tapes). John Kennedy on XFM can be great
Mark 
Morning Ireland, Alison Curtis, Drivetime with Mary Wilson, Off the Ball

What's in Store for The Dudley Corporation Next
Joss
New songs! Euro tour in Autumn! A new LP in less than 4 years, I hope!  Gigs in Mullingar, Greystones Theatre and Electric Picnic soon
Dudley
Some rehearsing would be nice!
Mark 
Find somewhere to rehearse

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You make your money in China out of studios. The nice smooth paint work and the upholstery of Pilot Records' studio in Chaoyangmen are proof enough that the label has money. Proof of that is that the label’s management appear to spend a big chunk of their time down here in the cool basement, away from the heat and the ugly slapped-up office towers of the surrounding Chaoyangmen district. A 12 hour stint in the studio costs RMB500 (EUR49).

It’s not easy surviving in a niche market on CD sales alone. Label founder Zeng Yu, the epitome of cool with wavy-haired goatee and brown recantangular framed glasses, chanelled a teenage passion for Metallica and Motley Crue into a guitar slot with Buffer, a college-days project that was the first band to sign onto Warner in China. The band broke up before an album was done, but Warner kept Zeng and the lead vocal "because they wanted us to do some arrangement and production."

A virtuoso rock guitarist, Zeng spent five years on pop production for cash-cow stars like Zhou Xun and Pu Xu - the only rock act at Warner in that period was Dada. The five big labels in China don’t pay much attention to rock because it’s not mainstream enough. By 2005 he'd gotten enough cash, connections and experience under his belt to set up Pilot, the achievement of a dream.

Zeng, 29, founded Pilot with Zheng Shen who founded the label in 2005. Zheng was a veteran of Sony, running the multinational’s public relations in China. “He loves rock music." The first three signings among the label’s ten artists were Reflector, Caffe-In and Honeygun.  The label also has since also signed local heavy metallers Spring Autumn. new hopes are Honeygun and Wudu Kung Fu. The label’s best seller is Caffe-In’s ‘Caffee-In Land’, which sold over 50,000 CDs following its 2006 release. The latest signings are hardcore rap CMCV and glam punk rock Ziyo, which released an EP on Warner before leaving for Pilot.

Reflector came on board because Zeng had been watching the trio since his college days. The punk trio been on the road for 10 years. The band’s sound was tighter than any of the other bands on the circuit. “They’re China’s Green Day!” Zeng picked up Caffee-In at a talent competition organized by an Australian- New Zealand label. As adjudicator for the China round of the competition Zeng championed Caffe-In, drawn by the band's blend of pop-punk and cultures: the band is a mix of Chinese and Japanese personnel. Unfortunately the band has gone to Japan for the summer to avoid Beijng's Olympic clean-up of foreign students, rock bars and alternative lifestyles in general. 

Reflector only had an EP to its name he signed them. “They had so many fans we wanted to give them something.” Doing his A&R Zeng is driven by the live sound. “We don’t pay much heed to someone’s demo. The performance has to be good as the music.”

Rock may be a minority market but local fans “ge mi” as he calls them, are very loyal. They’re the only music fans who’ll buy real CDs and they want t-shirts and caps too. The other Pilot strategy is its ability to get bands across the country on low-cost tours. A ‘tour performance department” does tight planning on routes and accommodation so that bands get to provincial fans while also making some money. "It’s easy nowadays to get gigs in China's cities, you can call the bars a few nights ahead. Few however make any money."

Pilot keeps its costs tight by focusing tours on particular regions. Honeygun is currently on the road in northeast China, a populous region or large cities like Changchun and Shenyang, near the North Korean border. Band management pick the dates carefully: big shows in larger venues on weekends and smaller cities during the week. Tours have been made easier by an explosion in the number of bars even in farflung provinces. “In Beijing there are too many bands but I love going to Urumqi because they don’t get bands too often out there so they treat them like superstars.” Pilot extends its RMB30 door prices in Beijing accross the country. Locals are willing to pay for the novelty of seeing a gig. A show in Qu Jing near Kunming is a stand-out because the audience’s warmth: 100 locals squeezed into a small bar held a party for the visitors.

A staff of 12 at work stations in a wood-toned office on the second floor of a nondescript office building. The name was chosen to reflect the fact that the label is pioneering. A collection of hip hop and several new albums in the first half of 2009. Zeng isn’t reliant on Pilot for cash. He moonlights as a producer for Zong Ke at Taihe Rye. Good producers make good money in China. A good melody is good enough for most Chinese listeners, not yet musically educated enough to pick up on a bad mastering job. "We producers need quality, but the listener doesn’t need quality. They want something soppy, that moves their heart." He points to Dao Lang, hugely successful crooner whose albums are however badly mastered. Pilot masters its albums in Japan and in the UK. Taiwan is the best fit however, "because the quality is good and it’s not that expensive."

Zeng also thinks Pilot is handy at PR campaigns: he smiles and hints at a thick book of contacts drawn from his Warner days. Several of the bands are invited on popular TV programmes: Kuai Le Da Benying on Hunan TV. But they’ll rarely get to perform their music: rather the musicians are invited on to chat shows as an envelope-pushing. “Our musicians image is not that weird as people used to think.” Presenters however tend to concentrate on musicians’ lifestyle.  Pilot wants to see rock bands closer to the mainstream, so we’re chasing TV and radio producers. But there’s no chance Pilot band will get on a Central TV channel. "I don’t think TV is the main channel for audience growth. Performance is more important for that." A Honeygun song has gotten a lot of play in the wake of the Sichuan earthquake. Corporate sponsorship is a necessary evil, which Pilot has also had recourse to: jeans maker Lee paid the label’s bands to play the brand’s Halloween Party. “Their style is closer to the rock style and they wanted to show that.”

Rock music bands have been pursuing the label but new signings appear thin on the ground. There’s over 1,000 bands in Beijing, says Zeng, but few have what it takes. “They all see that their performance will improve a lot with us. And they’ll get better PR. We really have a crew to back them up. “We’ll tell them that their guitars don’t sound right.” The biggest problem with local bands is that “they just don’t move on the stage. Pilot films shows and then sits the band down the next day to analyse the footage so they get better.

Zeng Yu, and below, Pilot fellow-founder Zheng Shen

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A review of the album 'Year Of The Husband' by The Dudley Corporation

Review Snapshot: The Dublin trio return at last, bringing us a mixed bag of well-written alt-pop songs (yay!) filled out with Radiohead-style post-rock noodling (nay!). Likeable and interesting, it’ll charm you at times – but you’ll hardly get swept off your feet.

The Cluas Verdict? 7 out of 10

Full Review:
The more sentimental indie fans among you may find it charming that The Dudley Corporation story has gone from “The Lonely World Of…” to “In Love With…” and has now reached marriage. “Year Of The Husband” is named for the fact that the three Corpo members (Dudley, Joss and Mark) all got married during the making of this album.

Not that it’s a slushfest of marital bliss, but “Year Of The Husband” certainly has a romantic tint to it, with plenty of lovelorn lyrics and sweet arrangements. However, the album’s frequent tempo changes, post-rock blurriness and shifts from quiet to loud will remind most listeners of serious, unromantic Radiohead. This is most clear in the prog-experimental “Leave A Last Kiss” and “We Angled Our Shadows And Cast Them in Stone”.

Guests on this album include Nigel Farrelly of The Waiting Room and Carol Keogh of Automata and The Tycho Brahe/Tychonaut, and Keogh contributes significantly to the record’s standout track, “Step-Out”. The contrast between her clear, distinctive voice and Dudley Colley’s indie slurring gives this rock-out a solid structure that’s lacking in the more impressionistic tracks elsewhere on the album.

Indeed, the quality of this record increases significantly when The Dudley Corporation drop the abstract noodling and deliver more focused material. A simple song like “Vapour Trails” suddenly takes off with a shimmering slide guitar lick that captures the restless escapism of the title and lyrics.

Having opened with the uptempo alt-rock chugging of “The Lens Begins”, the album closes in a much quieter setting. Another reference point for this record is the U.S. slowcore of Low, and the two closing tracks, “Aliens” and “Don’t Give Up, Stupid”, are slices of melancholic Americana that are much more satisfying than the band’s Radiohead-isms.

So, while this album features a good handful of quality alt-rock tunes, there’s a nagging sense that its more experimental stretches are just filler. You’ll like “Year Of The Husband”, but it’s best just to stay friends with it.

Aidan Curran

More ...

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Research from France has found that the louder the music in a bar, the more you will drink.

The claim is made by Nicolas Gueguen, professor of behavioural science at the University of Bretagne-Sud in Brittany, in a paper entitled “Sound Level of Environmental Music and Drinking Behaviour: A Field Experiment with Beer Drinkers” which has been published in the journal “Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research”.

For the purposes of consistency, the standard drink was a 25 cl. glass of draught beer (i.e. a half pint, the normal unit of beer consumption in France). Another criterium was the music being played: only current chart hits.

At random, and with the permission of the bar owners, the research team changed the sound levels between either 72 decibels, considered normal, or 88 decibels, considered loud. Each time, the researchers would observe one subject’s drinking patterns. After the observed subject left the bar, sound levels were again randomly selected and a new subject was chosen.

The results showed a link between loud music and the tendency of bar patrons to drink more and faster. At the normal decibel level, customers had an average of 2.6 drinks and took 14.5 minutes to finish each drink. However, when the music was loud, customers ordered an average of 3.4 drinks and took less than 11.5 minutes to finish each one.

Guéguen has two possible explanations for his team’s findings. "One, in agreement with previous research on music, food and drink, high sound levels may have caused higher arousal, which led the subjects to drink faster and to order more drinks," he says.

"Two, loud music may have had a negative effect on social interaction in the bar, so that patrons drank more because they talked less."

In other words, loud music gets you excited but stops you having a conversation, so you channel your energy into drinking. The results are consistent with findings of psychological manipulation in advertising and supermarket environments.

However, Professor Gueguen makes a more serious point. Over 70,000 a year die in France because of chronic alcohol consumption, and drinking is linked the majority of fatal car accidents. "We have shown that environmental music played in a bar is associated with an increase in drinking," he said. "We need to encourage bar owners to play music at more of a moderate level, and make consumers aware that loud music can influence their alcohol consumption."

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A review of the 2008 Open'er festival (Gdansk)

Snapshot:

• What? Open'er Music Festival, Babie Doly Airfield, Gdynia, Poland.
• Who? Chemical Brothers, Jay Z, Goldfrapp, Sex Pistols, Massive Attack, and some cool Polish bands!
• Why? the cost was cheap but the lineup wasn’t.

Full Review:
In recent years foreign music festivals have become an alternative for the Irish music-lover unable to cough up €200+ for a ticket to EP or Oxegen. Roskilde, Benicassim, and Rock Werchter are always guaranteed to attract the big names en-route to Ireland, and then some. Aside from these majors, there is an underbelly of emerging festivals on the continent, one of which is Poland`s Heineken-endorsed Open'er festival, sprawled on a disused air-field outside the city of Gdansk on Poland's Baltic coastline - easy to get to via Ryanair & shuttle buses. Although the 5-year old festival has expanded at rapid speed by all accounts - boasting diverse recent headliners such as Beastie Boys, Bjork, Sigur Ros and The White Stripes - the price has not. €83 was the cost of a 3-day (with camping) ticket, topped off with access to a fully-stocked-with-fresh-food 24-hour shop on the campsite as well as an on-site offy (downside: it only sold Heineken, as did the bars inside the festival). Add to this relentless sunshine in the high-twenties and we're ready for the music.
 
Highlight of the weekend were the Chemical Brothers. They brought down the curtain on Sunday night with an exerting set (more details below) that caused even the surprisingly reserved Polish crowd to engage in hysterics. Earlier that evening Alison Goldfrapp pleaded with the 25,000+ present to get moving. Even a boisterous triple-play of Ooh La La, Train and Strict Machine - coupled with the sight of multi-instrumentalist Will Gregory clad in Steve Irwin gear - couldn´t stir the crowd to dance en masse. This lack of energy from what was a large crowd was apparent all weekend. Maybe I'm overlooking a concerted effort by the Polish audience to appreciate the music on display. Or maybe I've been exposed to remnants of the Féile-induced "let's damage our bodies in every way possible" Irish prototype for far too long.
 
The antithesis of this self-destructive approach was evident during Massive Attack's set on Sunday night.  Performing to a main stage crowd of over 40,000 - the majority of whom were sprawled on the grass taking in the music - it was an amazing sight to behold, a chilled out gig on such on a mass scale. Almost a decade on from the heights reached in the 90s, the Bristol trip-hoppers still deliver a stirring live show, with their touring guest vocalists giving tracks Angel, Teardrop and Unfinished Sympathy the stamp of authenticity that the crowd wanted.
 
The big-chill of Massive Attack's set was the perfect ease-in to the Chemical Brothers-enduced madness that was next on the menu. Taking to the stage following a medley of Kraftwerk tracks and a looped narration of the line "Open your mind, relax, and float downstream" from The Beatles 'In The Beginning' you just knew the most culturally in-tune act on the bill was about to rightly grasp the 1am Sunday headline slot. Hallucinations-on-demand followed as high-res visuals of FREAKY clowns/robots/kaleidoscopes provided the backdrop to the Chemical Brothers 2-hour assault of re-interpreted yet instantly familiar classics (esp. Believe), proving once again that the Chemical Brothers are the night.
 
Where the diligence and attention to detail of the Chemical Brothers set left a lasting impression, Jay Z's lack of the same did likewise. Still on a high from his much hyped success at Glastonbury the week previously, Carter hastily re-enacted live fave 99 Problems (with AC/DC 'Back In Black' guitar reference) early on but quickly resigned to carefree rapping in the company of spinmaster-of-choice Eight Track (he tours with Kanye West also). A cover of Amy Winehouse's 'Rehab' was cringeworthy (but fun) and a long way removed from the ghetto sensibilities of Jay Z's Bronx-savvy image, but he was clearly performing in a night-off-duty "let's have have a laugh" capacity. What harm.
 
Meanwhile, over on the Tent Stage, a mobbed marquee witnessed a subdued (by his standards) Johnny Rotten utter anti-establishment mumblings whilst fronting a musically sound original Sex Pistols lineup - then again the power chord punk that "revolutionized" rock music in the seventies was never going to be difficult to remaster.
 
Back to the Main Stage proceedings and without wanting to lessen the merits of Interpol & The Raconteurs, they just did not work in these environs. The Raconteurs probably went on to rock the Pet Sounds Tent at Oxegen (comments please..) whilst Interpol's main stage slot at Open'er was in broad daylight which certainly did not befit their tone.
 
Speaking of Oxegen success stories, positives may have been reported of Roisin Murphy's headline slot in the Pet Sounds Tent at same but she went above and beyond this secondary prestige at Open'er, headlining Friday night's Main Stage in a manner befitting the coolest female performer in the world right now. Her image and vibe are impossible to define but suffice to say she oozes sexual prowess on stage whilst still giving the crowd a big hug - she she spoke the lingo throughout and reminded the 40,000 present (in a noticeably Irish accent) how she's played more gigs in Poland than she has in Ireland. Her dance troop, outfit changes and ever-present and distinct voice wrapped up day one perfectly and standout tracks were obviously the hits 'You Know Me Better', 'Moviestar', amongst other upbeat offerings from her acclaimed 'Overpowered' album. She must headline a main stage in Ireland soon.
 
Being a Polish music festival, it would have been either impossible or racist not to sample some Polish acts along the way. The band-names certainly impressed, especially Hungry Hungry Models and Pornohagen! Although Pornohagen were a cheap imitation of The Hives, there was other quality rock of Polish origin to find elsewhere. Tapping into the international language of post-rock, the Czech-shirted Polish-born 3-piece California Stories Uncovered had a nice instrumental-rocking-out-in-a-garage sound to them (albeit a pretty obvious yet incomplete rip-off of Mogwai). Krakow's Gasoline also delivered a more atmospheric instrumental-rock set, Eno-esque in parts and definitely worth checking out if you're looking to add to your go-to-sleep playlist. Hatifnats also impressed - this Warsaw 3-piece stuck to the good 'ol stadium rock - albeit in a marquee - but their sound is laden with New Order riffs coupled with a vocalist whose shouty vocals I can think remind only of Jane's Addiction’s Perry Farrell. 3 bands worth MySpaceing.
 
A major downside of the festival was the Heineken overkill - it was the only alcoholic drink available, no alternative of wine/smirnoff ice etc was on offer throughout the festival site (smuggled vodka only lasts for so long). However if lager is your cup of tea then Open'er 2008 was for you. The weather was hot, the campsite was mudless, the music was great - so after a weekend of extreme product placement I'd give the Open'er a highly recommended 4 Heineken cans out of 5!

Ronan Lawlor

More ...

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Mercury Music Prize:
In approximately 30 minutes the nominees for the 2008 Mercury Music Prize will be announced. Lot's of speculation here and here as to who will get the nod.  While Key Notes isn't a fan of every album on the list below, he will eat his virtual hat if at least 50% of them are not included:

• Radiohead - In Rainbows
• The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of the Understatement
• Coldplay - Viva la Vida or 'Whacky' Alternative Title
• MIA - Kala
• Neon Neon - Stainless Style
• Jamie Lidell - Jim
• Portishead - Third
• Elbow- The Seldom Seen Kid
• Burial - Untrue
• Token Folk/Hip Hop/R & B Album's

No doubt, a huge miscarriage of justice will be done and guess what, they'll probably have to rename it the Turner Prize* afterwards.

*Key Notes did steal this joke from elsewhere, but meh.

Free Music from Bright Eyes Conor Oberst:
Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band are streaming every single track from their (his) new album Conor Oberst  here.  Produced by the man himself and recorded in Mexico, the album contains a song called Danny Callahan whom Key Notes went to school with many years ago.  Is it the same person, probably not but still, it's free!  Oh, and so is this quasi-making of video:

Something for the Weekend:
Well the first thing you should do is check out Ian's 'Gigs of the Fortnight' but if you still see nothing of interest then be sure to get down to Andrews Lane Theatre for Electric Eel Shock, one of the best live bands Key Notes has ever seen.

Update on Mercury Prize:
Nominations are now announced and Key Notes won't be eating any hats for some time as 5 from his 9 were nominated!  The full list: 

• Adele - 19
• British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
• Burial - Untrue
• Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
• The Last Shadow Puppets - Age of the Understatement
• Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim
• Neon Neon - Stainless Style
• Portico Quartet - Knee Deep in the North Sea
• Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
• Radiohead - In Rainbows
• Rachel Unthank & The Winterset - The Bairns

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We got the lowdown on Beijng’s preservation (or lack of) its old town last Saturday night at dinner with Matthew Hu of the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Centre. Private developers who promised to clean up an entire neighbourhood were welcomed in by city officials, explained Hu, director of this non-government organization promoting architectural preservation.

Things could be better if the city stuck to its five year plans, but money has talked: Beijing went from a neat grid of laneway housing to a post-1949 splash of communist blocks of self contained factories and apartments until private developers were allowed do the building in the 1980s. Politically connected developers got parcels of land from local governments keen for cash and flashy buildings with which to impress peers and superiors.

Maybe because they see tourists flock to the old buildings, district governments long blamed for selling land to private developers insensitive to local heritage, have become more accountable to please higher officials to preserve the remaining hutongs, says Hu. China is preoccupied with rushing up a mass-produced city, says Neville Mars, a Dutch architect who has done great things to publicise the follies of bad architecture and planning through his Dynamic City Foundation. “China is still being constructed as an empty slate. The idea is you build a project today and copy paste it."

Hu sees a new, subtle willingness among officials to listen first to preservationists. Well lets hope we see that in the rest of the city's breakneck urbanisation. Beijing is a bit like Dublin in that there's a deeply engrained divide between the northern part of the city, home to universities and business, and the south, a sprawl of cheap apartments, army barracks and factories. Now that developers have run out of space or money in the north, they're moving into southerly neighbourhoods like Fengtai. Down south Daxing has proven itself as Beijing’s industrial hub. Industrial focus has consolidated around the Beijing Development Area in Daxing.

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Back in the summer of 2006, when this blog was still an old-fashioned monthly column, we predicted world domination for Versailles band Phoenix (below right). They had just released their splendid third album, "It's Never Been Like That", and looked set to capitalise on the exposure they received from featuring on the soundtrack to Sofia Coppola's "Lost In Translation".

And as singer Thomas Mars was going out with Coppola, there was a celebrity-gossip angle that was surely good for gaining mainstream attention.

Well, despite our enthusiasm and some glowing reviews in the UK and US music press, the album didn't break the charts. Still, Phoenix have built up a solid international fanbase from years of constant touring.

Time for some useful information:

Trivia (1): Phoenix formed to play as a session band for a remix of Air's "Kelly Watch The Stars".

Trivia (2): It was Mars, under the pseudonym of Gordon Tracks, who sang the vocals on Air's "Playground Love" from Coppola's screen adaptation of "The Virgin Suicides".

Trivia (3): Guitarist Laurent Brancowitz played with Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christos in a band called Darlin'. On their 1992 UK tour the band were dismissed by Melody Maker as "a bunch of daft punk". Wonder what ever happened to the other two lads?

Phoenix are currently in New York recording their as-yet-untitled fourth album, due for release in November. Before that, we can get a taster of what the new album will sound like. The band have contributed a new track to a promotional campaign for jewellers Cartier.

"Twenty-One One Zero" is quite different to the classic indie-popness of their last album. Opening with a Kraftwerk-esque loop, the track brings in an Eno-style ambient synth treatment, some pounding drums and a squally guitar. It all builds to an arena-friendly burst of energy.

Sound familiar? Well, we reckon it shares a lot with U2's "Where The Streets Have No Name". Are Phoenix planning to go all stadium-rock and turn a few dollars Stateside? Let's hope "Twenty-One One Zero", while diverting in its way, is just work in progress and they have some killer tunes in the bag.

You can check out the full five minutes-plus of "Twenty-One One Zero" on the special Cartier MySpace. As a preview, here's the first three minutes - and they don't even get to the track's two lines of lyrics. Hmmm:

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