oxegen will suck

- The big news today is that the coachella line-up has been released. No Smiths reunion but this is a pretty epic line-up.
http://coachella.com/event/lineup


There really is this weird divide between indie kids in Ireland and Britain and whats going on in the US. Like there is a seriously awesome list of bands who are all doing interesting things in music and meanwhile the biggest festival in Ireland has started "teasing" it's audience with bullshit competitions and a "rounds" based system of announcements, as if this year Oxegen will be any better or realistically in any way different from last year or the year before.

Oxegen announced yesterday that Snow Patrol, Bloc Party and Katy Perry will be joining Kings of Leon as headliners for the years festival.

Now this all seems pretty dreadful. But just remember that in a few months Pitchfork will be announcing the line-up for their festival and its going to be great and its going to cost something like 50 dollars... While people in Ireland are being subjected to ridiculous prices and utterly thoughtless line-ups. People can go and on about Electric Picnc but the line-up last year was fairly dreaful.

Ok EP is in an awkward situation where they have to maintain audience interest and manage to get bands to bother their arses coming to ireland, when most of the great indie music is coming from america and canadia, and maybe sweden.

But Oxegen can fuck off with their bollox promotional campaigns, invest more in better acts, improve the conditions of you're festival, make the camping not look like a concentration camp, stop security beating kids, put some kind of consideration into food preperation practices and pricing and maybe this would not all come off as insulting.

BEARDS OVER BABIES!!!

I WANT MY ELEPHANT

-- Last night Eircom signed a deal with the 4 big record labels in Ireland which agreed to the shutting down of music downloaders internet collection based on evidence of file sharing. The times had the story today on the front page and while most other internet providers went with the obligatory "yeah we're going to look into the viability of enforcing similar proposals" this is still quite a worrying thing, well at least in my opinion.

Regardless of just how blind and stupid record companies are this isn't going to work. There will always be another litte computer wizard who will just come up with ways of getting around whatever measure of protection we build around intellectual property. Now intellectual property is something I have a huge objection with but this isn't the time or place for me to show just how pretentious I am.

The real point here is that people will not go back to the traditional system. Take artists/bands like Cadence Weapon Nine Inch Nails Diplo, Spank Rock, Animal Collective ... who have all figured out how to play the new market in ways that, and here's the great part, finally put the art before the industry. These are all bands who, with the exception of NIN could never have really made it in the old system of record companies, and this is what music fans are more and more coming to expect from their music.

The increased focus on the progression of music has come about because of how society has become more culturally entrenched. Art is cheaper to make cheaper to promote and more readily availble than at any time in history.

And by proposing to shut people off from this the industry will alienate its clients where it isn't simply ignored by the more tech savy among us.

This is all very indicative of the horrifically short sighted reactionary law making policy in this country. Remember the debacle regarding the sex laws 4/5 years back? Record companies applying this level of preasure is a desperation move and in reality will have no effect, as argued above. But the right of the companies to apply this preassure is a disgrace and when they do topple over the next few years Ireland will be stuck with archaic intellectual property laws.

couple of other interesting articles on this
http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2009/01/irish-isp-agrees-to-disconnect-repeat-p2p-users.ars
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/28/isps_music_business/

the daily reach-around

http://thrillpier.blogspot.com/2009/01/frightened-rabbit-to-play-dublin.html
-Frightened Rabbit have fallen into the tiny little group of british bands who make good music category of modern indie. Last years featured on loads of best of lists, wasn't my cup of tea but this is sure to be a big night for fans.

http://www.culturebully.com/m83-on-late-night-with-conan-obrien
- I've been listening to M83's last album alot over the past few days. Its definitely grown into one of those albums that you end up being completley in love with. At first I wasn't that into the whole 80s wash of synths playing out over each other, but now its become that music i put on when I desperately need to relax. It has essentially replaced 18 seconds beforesunrise (y'know, that () album from Sigur Ros)

http://unarocks.blogspot.com/2009/01/another-meteor-award-oopsies.html - FUNSIES!!!

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/148785-metric-make-fantasies-a-reality We might as well go ahead and make up one rule regarding music, if there's somebody involved with BBS involved you know its going to be good.

life on mars

the daily reach-around

http://www.nialler9.com/2009/01/27/dj-mek-electro-alternative-reggae-mix/ - occasionally cheesy mix

http://getweird.wordpress.com/2009/01/28/new-shuttle-mixtape/
- So I still have no sound on my work computer speakers. But this is a mix from Deadulus - contributor/remixer. Dude has also put out a new remix of Cadence Weapon. It begins with Brian Wilson ends with Shostakovich and has Flying Lotus in the middle ... probably going to a least be nteresting

http://www.oxegen.ie/2009/ ... that is either a misprint or oxegen has moved to 4 days ... wierd. last year Oxegen really had to work hard to compete with Electric Picnic and they managedto pull it off, combining both their traditional market share while at the same time pulling out left-field bands to broaden their scope.

Now you could see moving to 4 days as a sign that there will be more variety. Or that you could get trapped for 4 days in puke soaked hell if oxegen decide to keep treating its customers like shit, which it will.

more AC stuff, sometimes i think this might never stop;
http://iguessimfloating.blogspot.com/2009/01/mp3-new-animal-collective-what-would-i.html

I'm not a big Springsteen fan but this is funny http://stereogum.com/archives/video/is-queen-of-the-supermarket-the-worst-springsteen_048641.html

with respects

The release of Telafon Tel Aviv's latest album should have been fantastic news but i finally got the album the day I found out that Charlie Cooper, one half the band, passed away on Jan. 22nd.

Telafon Tel Aviv's music speaks for itself. Charlie Cooper has left behind a rich catalogue and will be sorely missed, not least by his band mate who had this to say

Hello, Everyone.

It breaks my heart to inform you all that Charlie Cooper, my better half in Telefon Tel Aviv, passed away on January 22nd.

We have been friends since high school, and began making records together a decade ago. We have been so fortunate to tour the world together, while at the same time having a massive amount of laughs at one another's expense.

Aside from Charlie's singular genius and musical gifts, I can tell you that he was a total sweetheart of a guy, and a loving friend and confidant to people everywhere. His musicianship was surpassed only by his greater gift to the world - his warmth, his generosity, his unquenchable humor, and his undying loyalty to those whom he loved. In the spirit of honorable mention, however, I should mention that he had a shoe collection that was marvelous, knowledge of hip-hop that was profound, and knowledge of wine that was subtle.

He is survived by a sister, a neice, a nephew, his mother, his stepfather, me, and more adoring friends than the Universe has dark matter. As such, his family and I ask for your discretion and consideration of our privacy during these extremely turbulent waters.

Yours in Music,

Joshua Eustis

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=42233895

Dennis the Menace got older, and asian.

snarl... growl... snarl.













The new Clint Eastwood movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1205489/ seems to be drawn completely from the tales of Dennis and Mr. Wilson. The grumpy old man who has an unhealthy obsession with his garden and which people enter it. Now I suppose there are some differences, like i said, the original Dennis was not Asian, nor a kid being pursued by angry gang members, but that might be where the differences end.

This is meant to be a touching movie about a boy who needs help and guidance from a male role-model, who then turns to his crotchety old neighbour, who we both see grow as a result of this, but honestly? It just falls flat.

There are one or two scenes in the movie that could be good, but only if you can get past Clint Eastwood's character's constant growling at the camera, or the racial abuse he spouts off every 30 seconds or so. For example, verbally tearing the wigga wannabe boy a new asshole at one point falls into this "entertaining" category. But overall this is a poor movie for Eastwood, both in directing and acting. Every single modern cultural stereotype is played out (badly), from disrespecting grandkids to trigger-happy gang members, and the storyline in itself which just cries out at every given opportunity "why can't we all just get along???"

I cant say its as bad as "flags of our fathers", but it comes close in some points. See it, don't see, just don't say i didn't warn you.

mess of random love notes written on a giant plastic rose found in the middle of Seoul
- both horribly romantic and slightly creepy all at the same time.

the daily reach-around

Pitchfork t.v. has announced a new show. A.D.D "That stands for Analog technology > mixed Digitally > and distributed Digitally" Ok the concept is a bit anal but the announced line-up includes "Times New Viking, Vivian Girls, Max Tundra, Ponytail, Crystal Stilts, and Matt & Kim." Also the Fucked Up episode is already up. I'm looking forward to a reminder of just how great ponytail are live.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/148705-interview-damon-albarn-and-jamie-hewlet ; a surprisingly interesting interview from pitchfork with the people behind Monkey and Gorrilaz

http://www.nyctaper.com/?p=513 - review + bootleg of animal collective live at the bowery ballroom last friday.

http://www.state.ie/blog/one-day-international-live/ One Day International's album from last year was really great but showed a band still growing into itself, reports from recent live shows have been even more glowing that usual.

http://stereogum.com/archives/mp3/new-ra-ra-riot-ghost-under-rocks-passion-pit-remix_048181.html I can't listen to this cause of computer problems but have decided that this should be fairly great