Take 'GI Jane', for example, the simple tale of a brilliant young female officer who signs up as a test case for the Navy SEALS and who in one scene is taught through direct experience the interrogation technique known quaintly as  waterboarding as part of her basic training. Now I have a problem with this. According to Amnesty International, waterboarding is a form of torture and because it is a form of torture there is consequently an absolute ban on it by the European Court of Human Rights. Yet, here is a fictional depiction albeit 10 years old, of American soldiers being taught how to torture people in contravention of fundamental human rights, and all in the name of an entertainment which has the message that there should be more gender equality in Western Society. You work it out, words fail me.

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A month ago I surveyed over 30 leading Irish music blogs and websites in terms of how heavy they were when it came to the number of kilobytes visitors would have to download once they hit the site's home page. As you do, like.

The results showed a huge diversity across the sites: the slimmest (that'll be CLUAS) stepped in at a super-svelte 97 KB, while the heaviest (egocentric) was over 20 times heavier with its scale-busting 2.1 MB of data that each visitor had to download just to access its home page.

Alas, the truth is there are far more people out there using dialup to access the internet then we'd ever imagine (Mulley only yesterday wrote about there still being 200,000 dialup users in Ireland alone) and for such users your site will take an eternity to load if it is weighed down with 100s of kilobytes of data. It might not be terribly sexy but, until broadband is ubiquitous, keeping an eye on the 'payload' of your site or blog is really the smart thing to do.

So how are Ireland's leading music sites doing sites doing one month on after my original, er, exposé? Did any of them implement the recommendations I provided and trim themselves down? The answer, in short, is a definite 'yes' for a large number of them.

The table below provides an update of the sites' weights. Of the 32 sites originally surveyed, 21 have reduced their 'weight' in the intervening month (several by massive amounts). A month ago only 8 of 32 sites made into the 'green zone' (i.e. weighing in at 250 KB or less). Today 11 of the sites now merit for a privileged spot in the said zone.

At the other end of the scale, the number of sites in the 'red zone' of the table below (i.e. sites for which visitors would have to download a whopping 1 MB or more of data to access their homepage) has dropped to 4, compared to 7 a month ago (although Indie Hour - which appears to have eaten a few proverbial pies in the last few weeks - was just 1 single kilobyte away from a spot in the red zone).

Overall, the average weight of the 32 sites is today 20% lighter than it was 4 weeks ago (the average weight of a site was 631 KB at the beginning of February, today it is 515 KB). Some sites have made amazing progress in the last month and merit a special mention:

• www.Donal.ie has lost a mind-boggling 1374 KB in the last month, allowing it to slim down from a hyper obese 1.9 MB to a cuddly 526 KB. Amazing work. No, really.
• Egocentric has lost a similarly impressive 1255 KB in the last month, slimming down from a modem-melting 2.1 MB to a mere pudgy 845 KB. Keep drinking that virtual slimfast though as 845 KB is no walk in the park for those 200,000 Irish dialup users.
• Cheebah has gone from 1.2MB to 278 KB, a huge drop of almost 1 full megabyte which has taken it out of the red zone and parachuted itself right to the edge of the hallowed 'green zone'.
• Matt Vinyl and Asleep on the Compost Heap each having shaved off about 400 KB from their payloads.

Check out the full table below and see how your favourite music sites are doing (and I for one am pretty pleased to see that CLUAS.com's 3 entries are all in the top 5). The 4 colour coded categories correspond as follows:

• Less than 250 KB: ("Optimal balance of content and page size")
• 251 KB to 500 KB: ("Total nightmare for dialup users")
• 501 KB to 999 KB: ("High risk of testing the patience of broadband users")
• Greater than 1 MB: ("Clinical cases of inexcusable hyper cyber-obesity")

Ireland's Top Music Site's & Blogs
(ranked in terms of page size - updated 4 March 2008)

Current ranking	Previous ranking	Site / Blog	Components of webpage (in KB)					Total page size	Weight loss / gain?
			HTML	Images	CSS	Flash
1	(1)	CLUAS (*)	16	39	12	3	0	71 KB	-26 KB
2	(4)	Thrill Pier	22	1.5	74	4	1	102 KB	-75 KB
3	(2)	Test Industries	18	80	1	17	0	117 KB	no change
4	(7)	Key Notes	21	90	59	13	0	182 KB	-52 KB
5	(6)	French Letter	19	107	56	13	0	198 KB	-27 KB
6	(3)	Music Road	16	160	16	2	8	204 KB	+43 KB
7	(13)	House is a Feeling (*)	66	118	24	2	0	211 KB	-135 KB
8	(8)	Hot Press (*)	62	144	6	7	0	219 KB	-29 KB
9	(10)	Thumped	7	130	51	32	0	220 KB	-50 KB
10	(18)	The Red scrapbook	20	146	75	4	0	245 KB	-194 KB
11	(12)	Phantom FM (*)	50	144	34	13	9	250 KB	-53 KB
12	(5)	On the Record	19	175	38	26	0	259 KB	+70 KB
13	(28)	Cheebah	19	232	12	16	0	278 KB	-922 KB
14	(19)	Muse (*)	41	166	94	19	1	321 KB	-153 KB
15	(14)	Kilkenny Music (*)	46	178	24	26	52	328 KB	-26 KB
16	(16)	State	7	264	86	31	0	389 KB	-33 KB
17	(17)	Nialler9	17	280	96	22	6	420 KB	-6 KB
18	(9)	Sinead Gleeson	16	411	0	7	2	437 KB	+184 KB
19	(23)	I Prefer the Obscure Mix	18	583	33	2	6	444 KB	-194 KB
20	(20)	Indie Limerick	17	314	81	4	28	445 KB	-87 KB
21	(25)	Asleep on the Compost Heap	16	394	69	4	0	484 KB	-416 KB
22	(15)	MP3 Hugger	132	183	151	4	40	510 KB	+118 KB
23	(26)	Matt Vinyl	18	340	70	4	82	515 KB	-485 KB
24	(31)	Donal O’Caoimh (*)	32	405	81	8	0	526 KB	-1374 KB
25	(11)	Una Rocks	33	400	75	4	15	527 KB	+234 KB
26	(21)	The Torture Garden	17	551	13	4	3	588 KB	+4 KB
27	(32)	Egoeccentric	28	530	198	4	84	845 KB	-1255 KB
28	(24)	The Indie Hour	15	946	35	5	2	999 KB	+162 KB
29	(27)	Magoo (*)	43	1010	16	11	2	1.08 MB	+80 KB
30	(29)	Off the Rocker (*)	54	1387	65	11	2	1.5 MB	-100 KB
31	(22)	Cubik Music	30	702	16	12	832	1.6 MB	+400 KB
32	(30)	Stuart Bailie (*)	220	1756	1	0	0	1.98 MB	+180 KB

Note on the above:

Figures above are the sizes of each site's main page as surveyed between 29 February 2008 and 1 March 2008 (according to the Web Page Analyser service). It just represents a snapshot in time. The sizes above are dynamic and will fluctuate whenever new content is added to, or older content removed from, these sites' home page.

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Congratulations to Nialler9 on winning (retaining, we should say) the Music category at the Irish Blog Awards in Dublin last Saturday night. We know some music fans here in Paris who have no Irish connections but who have found his blog and are loyal fans. Chapeau!
 
[Your Paris correspondent was very happy to have made the final shortlist. Of course, we'd have preferred to have won... but thanks to the judges for their kindness and our readers for your support. If you've just joined us, your curiosity aroused by seeing our link on the list of nominees - bienvenue!]
 
Nialler recently posted some videos by French director Michel Gondry (right), in the news at the moment for his new movie 'Be Kind Rewind'. Gondry is probably one of the most influential, innovative and celebrated music video directors ever, making the medium a real art form. He has made a quirky yet successful jump into cinema, with idiosyncratic films like 'Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind' and 'The Science Of Sleep' earning excellent reviews.

Gondry's most famous music videos include his work for Bjork's 'Human Behaviour', Massive Attack's 'Protection' (an amazing song and video) and The White Stripes' 'The Hardest Button To Button'.

But did you know that Gondry has directed videos for three Irish acts?

The first was his debut non-French clip: for 'How The West Was Won' by Belfast band Energy Orchard. We couldn't find any footage of it, but we recall that it features the band playing in front of a screen showing old cowboy movies. It was clever in its way but hardly anything special.

The second was for 'This Is It (Your Soul)' by The Hothouse Flowers. A black-and-white affair, it's a streetscene reflected in a concave mirror. Yes, it's terrible.

More memorable is this video for Sinead O'Connor's ferocious 'Fire On Babylon':

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Air plan to bring out a special limited edition of 'Moon Safari' on 31 March to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its release.
 
The two-disc set will feature the original album plus remixes and live session versions of the album's best-known tracks. The package will also include a DVD documentary on the duo.
 
One of the best-loved albums of 1998, 'Moon Safari' combined the lush soulfulness of 'Melody Nelson'-era Serge Gainsbourg with the dreamy, faux-futuristic electronica of Jean Michel Jarre's 'Oxygène'. Selling around two million copies worldwide, the album cemented the popularity and public perception of French electronica, which had broken into the mainstream music consciousness with Daft Punk's 'Homework' the previous year.
 
The Air pair, Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel, followed up 'Moon Safari' with an electrifying soundtrack to Sofia Coppola's 'The Virgin Suicides' and a collection of their charming earlier releases, 'Premiers Symptômes'. We highly recommend both.
 
Their post-'Safari' studio albums, however, have been more problematic. In an apparent attempt to puncture expectations of a 'Moon Safari II', their next official release had a harsher, robotic sound which was closer to a bad Kraftwerk parody than to Gainsbourg or Jarre. '10,000Hz Legend' was a relative flop, seen as a stubborn reaction against their previous success.
 
2004's 'Talkie Walkie' tried to revisit the dreaminess of 'Moon Safari', especially in soft-focus singles like 'Cherry Blossom Girl', but with limited success. And the less said about last year's ghastly 'Pocket Symphony' the better.
 
'Pocket Symphony' was all the more disappointing given the high standard of Godin and Dunckel's side projects the previous year. The two collaborated with lyricists Neil Hannon and Jarvis Cocker on Charlotte Gainsbourg's excellent '5:55' album, while Dunckel's intriguing solo album as Darkel was closer to the true Kraftwerk spirit than '10,000Hz Legend'.
 
It seems that Air will forever live in the shadow of their wonderful debut album, but their side projects (including 'The Virgin Suicides') always offer us hope of another masterpiece.
 
'Moon Safari' featured the lovestruck 'All I Need' and the stomping 'Kelly Watch The Stars' (released as a single remix which rocks more than the album track). Our favourite, though, is the poptastic first single, 'Sexy Boy'. Here's the video, where the two lads play astronaut in New York with their toy monkey:

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Congratulations to Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová for winning the Oscar for Best Song at last nights awards.  Putting aside the controversy regarding the songs eligibility, such a huge success can only be good for Irish music, even if that success consists of some kid picking up an instrument for the first time. 

For those of you who are going to hear this song a million times over the radio/tv today, here's your first blast.

Falling Slowly:

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The cultural links between Ireland and France have always been strong. The Flight Of The Earls in 1607 saw us lose our Gaelic nobility, who fled to France and left their loyal Irish subjects behind as a leader-less shower of peasants. Later, Wolfe Tone returned to Ireland from France to try to incite republican uprising and sing republican ballads.

Enterprising mercenary Richard Hennessy so impressed King Louis XV that in 1765 the early Irish entrepreneur was granted the town of Cognac, where he started producing the drink that today is popular both with US rappers and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il (apparently a fiend for the stuff).

And, speaking of short leaders with strange hair, Bono lives in the south of France and writes (with Simon Carmody!) the occasional song for Johnny Hallyday. Yes, French culture is all the richer for its Irish influence.

No doubt with this cultural kinship in mind, Gary Moore and Phil Lynott (right) wrote the massively popular 'Parisienne Walkways'. Originally featuring on Moore's 1978 album 'Back On The Streets', the track was released as a single in April 1979 and reached number 8 in the UK Top Ten.

The lyrics, typically for Lynott's non-Lizzy work, are quite maudlin: the narrator is sentimental for "Paris in '49 / The Champs-Elysées, Saint Michel / and old Beaujolais wine" and reminisces about  "those summer days spent outside corner cafés". All very picture-postcard, like.

But then again, no one listens to this song for its two short verses of words. No, 'Parisienne Walkways' features one of the most famous guitar lines in rock, no doubt still accompanied on countless tennis rackets in front of bedroom mirrors the world over.

It's a staple of air guitar competitions (and 'Air Guitar Hits' compilation albums), soundtrack to the hunched-over-the-axe, hair-hanging-over-face, standing-on-mountain-peak position.

You can perfect your moves by watching Moore and Lynott duetting live in the '80s (at the Ulster Hall in Belfast in 1984, apparently, but we're not quite sure). Air guitarists, your cue is at 2 mins 30 seconds:

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'Stage Of The Art' is a series of regular shows, starting tonight, that aim to link the London and Paris music scenes. Appropriately, the events are sponsored by Eurostar (the Channel Tunnel train company) and their 'London Coming' cultural initiative.

The concerts will take place in a major art institution in each capital - in London at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) and in Paris at the Palais de Tokyo (a contemporary art gallery across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower).

The opening show, tonight in London, features indie band Poney Poney and enigmatic electronician Sebastien Tellier, who will be playing extracts from his forthcoming album, 'Sexuality'. Then in Paris tomorrow night it's the turn of Laura Marling, Paris Motel and Dirty Pretty Things.

It's fitting that Carl Barat's new band will inaugurate the Paris end of the event; The Libertines were profoundly influential on the current wave of Parisian 'babyrocker' bands like Plastiscines and Naast.

Further twin concerts are scheduled for April 18-19, June 6-7 and July 10-11 - however, no acts for those dates have been confirmed yet.

The concert series is a further example of the close relationship between the two grand old capitals, especially in music. For the London scene, Paris is the home of achingly-hip electronica - hence Monsieur Tellier on the UK bill. In the French capital it's the English NME-indie-band community that's admired, thus explaining Dirty Pretty Things' appearance.

Sponsors Eurostar, with the Channel Tunnel train service, have reinvigorated the relationship - the two capitals are now just two hours apart, and cross-channel daytripping is more and more common. For instance, this weekend: England are playing France in the Six Nations in Paris on Saturday night!

Could a similar concert-twinning idea work for an Irish city? Within Ireland, for instance - a Dublin-Belfast exchange. Or perhaps internationally, Dublin with London, Glasgow, Liverpool... or why not Turin, given the new Juventus link with our national football team?

Anyway, you can keep up to date on the Paris-London series of concerts by touching base with the Stage Of The Art MySpace page, where you can hear tracks from the featured artists.

Sebastien Tellier, continuing the music-art theme, will play a special show at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in February 29 - your blogger will be there! Here's 'Sexual Sportswear', the first single off Tellier's new album. As if with the France-UK connection constantly in mind, the track sounds like Jean Michel Jarre and the video looks like a James Bond credit sequence:

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If there are three things that politicised me as a callow student, it was in no particular order a) the way that musicians around the world took a stand against Apartheid South Africa b) the music of Christy Moore, Steve Earle and Bruce Springsteen and c) a small paragraph on the liner notes for U2's 'The Joshua Tree' that encouraged fans to join Amnesty International.

Two decades later, artists such as Yoko Ono Lennon and Mia Farrow are again taking a stand against abuses of human rights and again they are mobilising popular opinion and boycotts, an Irish invention by the way, against the continuing crisis in Darfur. So Sound Waves, being a rather liberal blog asks, should Ireland boycott the Beijing Olympcs? To help you decide I have posted up some (very few) relevant links below and, should you then come to the conclusion, either yes or no, you can convey your support of or protest against Ireland's planned participation in these games, directly to Ireland's Olympians.

The Olympic Council of Ireland

Beijing 2008 Olympic Games: Official Site

Irish Defences Forces To Deploy in Chad

BBC: Q&A, Sudan's Darfur Crisis

Amnesty International (Irish Section)

China & Darfur: Washington Post

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Via an EXCLUSIVE from UnaRocks, the first names on this year's Trinity Ball line-up have been announced.

If you're putting on the Ritz this May 9 and plan to spend your night in central Dublin's part-time college/full-time tourist attraction, you'll be able to debauch yourself until early-house opening-time to the likes of superstar producer Mark Ronson, Berlin electro-DJ Boys Noize, indie-kid Lightspeed Champion... and le French touch of Vitalic (right).

Vitalic is Dijon-born DJ and remixer Pascal Arbez. He first came to attention with his 2001 track 'La Rock 01' and released his debut album, OK Cowboy, in 2005, from which you might know 'My Friend Dario' - if not the single, then perhaps its trashy video.

Why not visit Vitalic's MySpace page to sample the merchandise? Warning: the background design is fairly trippy and will give you eyeache. It moves around like those Jesus pictures with the follow-you eyes. Surely the CLUAS gaffer would have words with him about it.

Here's the video for 'Poney Part 1' - it features lots of dogs with floppy ears and sad eyes (or is that 'sad ears and floppy eyes'?), so it should appeal to noted music blogger/cute-animal-lover The Indie Hour:

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