CLUAS Irish Indie Music The Soap Box

Aiden Curran's article on busking.

vapourmile — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 23:44:14 GMT

Like a lot of amateur writers Aiden's blog on the matters starts ok, and once he's warmed to the task he just goes through some stream of conciousness rubbish based on his opinion of what other's opinion is.

Yes, busking is less salutary than many professional music forms. But arguably, it causes far less wide reaching environmental damage than is indirectly being caused by individuals working in many other industries. Many things in our society receive social sanction by mere majority opinion without too much time spent on analysis about whether or not it is ethically sound in its basis. I mean hell, as long we're profiting from it in some way it HAS to be ok? Of course not.

There is very little political motivation to busk. Many people who turn to the streets do it for one of two reasons: Choice: perhaps to reject the kind of social control found in business. Lack of choice: Many who work on the streets are ostensibly unemployable, it would be very hard for them to win and sustain any kind of successful social role in business.

The article is also hypocritical blaming Buskers for 'creative conservatism', they're certainly Not as 'creatively conservative' as the writing about hatred of what they're doing is. It also takes considerably more skill to even badly play an instrument than it does write about ones loathing of it. And it takes a certain amount of balls to go out and do it public, particularly in the face of exactly this kind of non-appreciation and ignorance.

Also, the reason buskers choose 'old favourites' like Wonderwall is simple economics... it earns more recognition and money to simply recycle familiar favourites than it does to chance something new and original. The conservatism, if there is any, is in the hands of the paying public who throw more money at Hallelujah and Wonderwall than other songs purely because more people know the songs. The same can the said of Redemption song, Radiohead and loads of others we all know. You cannnot place the blame on the performers for the predictability of public response, many of them would rather be playing tunes they prefer.

I don't think city centres would be improved by removing buskers, I think they'd deteriorate, it is after all free music and usually some respite for the dog eat dog world of work most passers by are faced with every day. It is, as you have proven, always something that makes for a bit of chatter at the proverbial coffee machine especially, of course, the ones who are truly dreadful, who simply by being such a supply rich seams of comedy and don't seem to really care.

Shame you can't make light of it yourself.

Cork Airport- petition to rename Rory Gallagher Airport

mutch2 — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 03:54:40 GMT

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/RoryCork/

help email suspended

belleangele — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 23:40:52 GMT

Sorry I know this isn't the place for it but I cant seem to get through to any admin at cluas and urgently need access to my email account which has been suspended since monday.
help!

thanks
Sophia

Fusion Family celebrate the release of their latest video/ single 'Dr Sadler'

PLUG ARTISTS — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 03:35:05 GMT

Just a brief note to let you know that the Dr. Sadler video is now on Vimeo and Youtube for your viewing pleasure!
Watch video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mOysahdSw8

Fusion Family are hitting the studio to record their follow up single 'Last Time' with Super producer Danny Saber (Madonna/ Public Enemy/ U2/ Black Grape/ David Bowie)

The single is set for a release in later in the year and the band will be popping up at various events in the meantime.

A special thanks to all that were involved and we hope you like it. Appreciate you all helping us get it out there!

Check out the following links for tour dates and Fusion Family related info
FACEBOOK; http://www.facebook.com/pages/...2695
MYSPACE; www.myspace.com/fusionfamily
SOUNDCLOUD; www.soundcloud.com/fusionfamilymusic
TWITTER; http://twitter.com/#!/thefusionfamily

FUSION FAMILY - DR. SADLER - PRESS RELEASE

Irish Act Fusion Family Deliver Astounding Music Video

In times of austerity, and people constantly banging on about reducing costs, how in God’s name have the Fusion Family made this video? A video which wouldn’t look out of place on MTV , you wouldn’t be surprised if a six figure had been speant to make it a reality . According to Luke Leslie the Director of this extraordinary video, the story began with a hat. “I think 'Dr Sadler' all started with Brian's hat. It hangs on the side of Fusion Family's logo and he won't stop wearing the damn thing. So eight months ago, in he trots spouting this old-landish concept for a Vintage Style music video teeming with corrupt politicians, crooked cops, gorgeous girls, and mysterious tommy-gun toting assassins. I thought it sounded

fantastic, and had great potential but it needed a lot of fleshing out.” And so begun a sixteen-month process filled with cold nights in warehouses and the requirement for everyone to start believing in a project that seemed ridiculous to anyone who gave themselves the time to really think about it.

Leslie notes he was not looking for that crisp hard black and white you would associate with recent films like Sin City. Rather classics such as Casablanca or The Third Man were more his style reference. One of the most important elements of the production was assembling a good crew one that could deliver on a project with very thin comericial investment (solely by the Fusions Family guerilla record label, Plug Artists).

The track used for the video derives from FusionFamily's debut album 'Full Circle' (produced by Brian Masterson), and certainly stands up to the challenge presented by thevideo itself, rather then simply enhancing the perception of the song, the video has offerered the platform the song deserves

Things are falling into place piece by piece in camp FusionFamily, and with top producer Danny Saber from LA lined up to collaborate on the follow up single entitled 'Last Time',

Narayan Van Maele, the cinematographer worked with Leslie since collaborating on his graduate short film King of the Waves. They we are used to pinching pennies on low budget projects. Since the whole story had to be told visually breaking it down with a shot-list was key, we also made up birds eye view diagrams to help visualize the layout of each set - which existed mainly inside a computer - followed by a tight daily schedule and a finally a comprehensive budget.

A strong team makes or breaks a low budget project. In addition, Leslie notes that everyone who came onboard did so because they wanted to be part of something different. “I can't speak highly enough of Rioghnach Ni Ghrioghair who not only cast our two gorgeous ladies,

But sourced props, costumes, took stills; production managed, did everyone’s hair and make-up and even did the catering!”

Our student film-days are only just behind us so mucking in and making it happen is second nature to all of us at this stage.

The band will be touring again from September and will be popping up at a couple of festivals before then.

For info on tour dates click here: www.myspace.com/fusionfamily
To Join us on Facebook click here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/...2695

Audio Mastering

Hofer98 — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:45:50 GMT

Audio mastering is essential in today’s day and age of excellence. It is done to make the track sound professional. The audio mastering can be attempted for correcting the tracks in terms of frequency, dynamics, width and loudness. It is also essential for enhancing the sound and making it a sweeter sounding track. How the mastering is done? Mastering is done using tools that eq or compress the sound accordingly. Besides these tools, the mastering requires a monitoring system and an acoustically suited room. Mastering is performed by a mastering engineer with expertise and experience. The trained ears of a mastering engineer can identify any lags in the recorded track and fulfill them. In effect, mastering makes up for any kind of deficiency that might be present in a recorded track. This would also mean making the sound sweeter or enhancing the feel of the sound, which is highly essential in today’s competitive music industry. Mastering renders the finish and the finesse that is demanded by the music track. This would make sure that the music track sounds good among its peers. However, care need to taken in not making the sound too loud to kill the song. Professional mastering renders clarity and loudness to the song, which makes it, sound professional. The mastering service is now available online as well. The online mastering services are at par with that of its attended counterparts, in terms of quality and perfection. It is also highly convenient and affordable as compared to the attended mastering services.

Crown Records?

GAWS — Thu, 11 Dec 2003 13:17:26 GMT

Hi everyone newbie here. My name is Terry, I sing and play rhythm guitar for a band called GAWS out of the Charlotte NC, USA area. We were recently contacted by Crownn records requesting a demo and view. While doing a search on yahoo about Crownn I ran across your BBS..There was someone else mentioning inquerry about Crownn also. Just wondering if anyone else knew anything about them? This is the first time any label has contacted my band, so we're alittle excited, but cautious just the same.. I'm also a Moderator on the VS Planet BBS www.vsplanet.com for users of Roland V Studio Daws (GAWS Digital Underground) stop by sometime and say hello. VSPR VSPlanet Radio has just been launched, and it's a pretty cool site just like yours.. Anyway if anyone's heard of Crownn or anything about them please reply. Thanks Terry ps, my family originally came from Derry Ireland to America many, many moons ago. It's nice to find a place where I can react with you guys here, and learn a little about where I came from, and your musicians to boot, how cool is that?

Promoting in Ireland

CiaraH — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 04:20:12 GMT

Hey guys,

I'm writing a paper on how promoter in Ireland Market their events and would love if some of you could fill in a little survey regarding how you find out about events.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CWJFDS3

Thanks

Great Website, but it could be alot better!!

eanna_canavan@yahoo.ie — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 04:24:06 GMT

Hi guys, as you can see I'm a new member to this community. So far I can say im really impressed with the layout and the content but to be fair there is an awful lack of content here. I'm just wondering have half of the members given up on this completely? I'm not here to complain about things, I just think that things could improve alot here. I'm willing to submit content whenever I can, which would probably be a gig review of an album review. Is there any way we can increase the membership to get some serious activity going again? Any ideas? Praise/Criticism would be greatly appreciated!

Choice Music Prize shortlist

aidan — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 08:55:22 GMT

So, is it a foregone conclusion that Villagers will win? Perhaps (and hopefully) not: 5/2 with Paddy Power at the time of writing, tight but hardly unbackable: www.paddypower.com/bet/music/choice-music-prize

Still great value on other runners: Cathy Davey at 8/1 and Two Door Cinema Club at 10/1 - surely worth a punt. (I'd be happy if either of those two won. Or, basically, anyone except Villagers.)

Runners and riders (10 go to post):

Adebesi Shank “This is the Second Album of a Band called Adebisi Shank” (Richter Collective)
The Cast of Cheers “Chariot” (Self release)
Cathy Davey “The Nameless” (Hammer Toe Records)
Fight Like Apes “The Body of Christ & The Legs of Tina Turner” (Model Citizen)
Halves “It Goes, It Goes (Forever & Ever)” (Hate is The Enemy)
Imelda May “Mayhem” (Universal)
James Vincent McMorrow “Early in The Morning” (Universal)
O Emperor “Hither Thither” (Universal)
Two Door Cinema Club “Tourist History” (Kitsune)
Villagers “Becoming a Jackal” (Domino)

Choice Music Prize: Win a full set of the albums

admin — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:04:02 GMT

CLUAS has just opened a competition to win the full set of albums nominated for the Choice Music Prize. You just need to predict the winner to have a chance, submit your prediciton via the competition page.

CLUAS 2010 Writers Poll results

aidan — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 00:41:53 GMT

'Democracy is the right of the village idiot to have his say", Lenin apparently said.

On a completely unrelated note, the CLUAS writers (including self) have voted on the best albums of 2010 and the CLUAS gaffer (more of a Stalin man) has just returned the results: www.cluas.com/poll/2010/best-albums-writers.asp

All reactions, fuming and cheering below. For my part:

Yay - Villagers didn't top the poll: a seriously overrated album - definitely not best Irish album of the year.
Nay - No sign of Owen Pallett ('Heartland' released way back in January 2010) or Darwin Deez (pure pop pleasure). And the Arcade Fire album was fairly boring.

New to this forum

sharlenelaura — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 22:04:05 GMT

Hi

Joined on this forum today

Other Voices last night (March 19)

starbelgrade — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 19:44:34 GMT

March 21st show...

Paddy Casey ; jesus, even he looks like he's pissed off with his own songs as he's singing them.

The Coronas; James Blunt on speed. I thought you couldn't get away with being this s**te anymore. Apparantley I was wrong.

Paul Heaton; He made a joke about his last solo album selling only 1 copy. He probably exagerrated.

Dry County ; the best performance of the night. Post rock meets Radiohead, meets dance. Great use of the Roland SP-404 & SPDS samplers. Not too gone on the vocals, but that's me being picky.

Fight Like Apes; Highly dissapointing. The first song they played was bloody awful & the rendition of "Lend Me Your Face" failed to really ignite. They sounded better last time they were on.

New PJ Harvey track

eoghan — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:52:20 GMT

Check out 'Written on the forehead', a track from PJ Harvey's forthcoming album Let England Shake, which will be hitting stores in February (on the Vagrant Records label). Very different to what we are used to from her:

Written On The Forehead by pjharvey

Live at the Marquee Acts announced, anyone going?

eanna_canavan@yahoo.ie — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 23:19:47 GMT

The acts for the 2011 live at the Marquee were announced today, hard to believe its in its seventh year already! Its taking place from June 23rd to July the first. Acts include Elton John, Christy Moore, Bell X 1, Imelda May and many more be annouced. Anyone here thinking of going?

Sufjan's The Age of Adz and Neil Young's Le Noise...

stephen — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 09:47:08 GMT

... is it just me or are both these records just difficult/annoying to listen to?

Le Noise first. I think some of the songs on there are strong - nothing too different thought. So they're given a reverb/echo treatment that's disconcerting to say the least. But I'm clearly missing something as this record is getting very strong reviews. I'd be interested in the CLUAS view.

The Age of Adz is just plain bad, as far as I can tell. I'm sure it's a reflection of Sufjan's state of mind but it's a deflating listen. A dirge of bleeps, honks, squeaks with his voice buried deep in the mix. Again, some of the online blogs are saying this is his masterpiece. What am I missing here?!

Have I turned into a grumpy old man!!

Intellectual property and new Internet technologies

TBG and Studio — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 21:50:01 GMT

Temple Bar Gallery & Studios presents:

Public panel discussion

Intellectual property and new Internet technologies.

Panellists :

Jim Carroll (Music Journalist, The Irish Times)

Keith Donald (Chairman of IMRO, Irish Music Rights Organisation)

Conor McGarrigle (Internet artist)

Saturday 27^th November at 3 pm

Free event

All Welcome

Temple Bar Gallery & Studios

5-9 Temple Bar

Dublin 2

For further information contact

Rayne Booth: rayne@templebargallery.com 01 6710073

The current exhibition At Temple Bar Gallery & Studios is entitled I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realise that what you heard is not what I meant' , by Alan Butler. The work in the show engages in both appropriation of third party materials and the sharing/distribution of culture online. Using found and appropriated clips of mainstream entertainment, Butler remixes and subverts highly recognisable mass media images, creating a hybrid art work which critiques current global politics

In the context of Alan Butler’s current solo exhibition at Temple Bar Gallery & Studios, this panel discussion will focus on the ways in which intellectual property, particularly art and music, is disseminated and distributed today. The aim of this event is to open up debate around copyright for artists and musicians and to discuss whether copyright laws should now change to reflect the new ways in which intellectual property is consumed via the internet.

Please note that 27^th November is also Temple Bar Gallery & Studios’ annual open studio day, and lecture attendees are welcome to visit the 30 artists’ studios in the building either before or after the lecture. The open Studio day takes place from 2-6pm.

Georgia Wonder

jhs123 — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 17:50:05 GMT

Indie duo Georgia Wonder, aka Stephanie Grant and Julian Moore, are currently locked away in a music shop working on their album project Made In Nevada. The pair have been handed the keys to Portsmouth's long-established music shop Nevada Music where they are using the Aladdin's Cave of equipment to record their forthcoming album.

The band have just released Siren, the second single from the project, which takes on a different direction to their usual material and shows how recording the album entirely in-store has had an effect on their sound.

Stephanie and Julian took some time out from recording to talk to us about their DIY project...
Who's idea was it to record the album in a music store?

Steph: It literally dawned on the two of us when we popped in one day to buy some guitar strings. We're always looking for new ways to do things, and we suddenly realised that if we couldn't afford to take the stuff out of the shop to record our new album with, we could ask if we could just use their gear in the shop!
Why did you choose Nevada Music in particular?

Julian: Apart from being the largest music store on the South Coast, I remembered the store from when I was at school - and at that time it was a much smaller corner shop in a different part of town around the corner from my house. I used to spend hours in there messing around on different bits of kit. So even though they didn't know Georgia Wonder at all when we asked if we could use their new store, I remembered their attitude from before and thought it was worth a shot!
Did you enjoy the recording process?

Steph: We're still recording and have quite a few more tracks to go. It's great fun having access to hundreds of guitars, amps, keyboards and stuff and it's also nice when new gear comes in that some people may not have got their hands on yet!
How did it differ from the way you've recorded tracks before?

Julian: In the past we've used the instruments we own. We do have some nice equipment, but one of the drawbacks is not having choice - if you really want to make a good recording you need access to lots of instruments. Having a store full of gear has made a huge difference to the way we record - we now go and get the guitar for the job out of a selection of hundreds, instead of using the same old guitar and trying to make it fit. The same goes for amplifiers, keyboards - everything in fact.
Did you face any difficulties/constraints?

Steph: I was sitting there the other day while Julian was trying to record some guitar parts and the guy in the demo room next door kept turning everything up to 11 while he played 'that' Guns n Roses riff. The walls shook and we had to stop for a bit. We try not to get in the way of regular punters coming in the shop, although sometimes that's quite tricky!
Were any other musicians involved in the recording process?

Julian: So far it's just been the two of us, although that may change in the next few songs.
Did you go into the music store with some rough ideas, or did you start from scratch?

Steph: Our latest single 'Siren' was a bit of everything. We had a groove and some lyrics; we put the bulk of the track down in the store but then were missing a verse. The chorus suddenly came together one evening and then Julian had to go back in the shop and lay down some more twangy guitars. Once again the great thing about doing stuff in the shop is we're able to pick the right guitar with the right twang and put it though the amp with the most twang too!
Do you have any similar projects up your sleeve for the future?

Julian: We've got some other ideas we're working on but it's a bit too soon to say right now. We'll keep you posted!

What is Belly Dance?

ROWAN11 — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 20:49:07 GMT

Many Belly Dance NYC professionals pronounce belly dancing is the ancient type of dance, having ancestry in all very old civilizations. Perhaps the utmost misapprehension concerning belly dancing is that it is proposed to divert men.

All over history, this ritualized appearance has frequently been executed for extra women, usually for the duration of fertility rites or parties organizing a young woman for marriage. In the majority cases, the being there of men is not allowable.

Belly dancing is natural to a woman's bone and muscle organization with actions originates from the torso somewhat than in the legs and feet. The dance over and over again focal point upon dividing dissimilar parts of the body, affecting them autonomously in sumptuous prototype, weaving mutually the whole feminine structure. Belly dancing is normally executed barefoot, consideration by a lot of to accentuate the cherished physical connection among the dancer, her look, and Mother Earth.

NEW HAMSANDWICH ALBUM

christy de burg — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 12:52:51 GMT

Looks like there's a new Ham sandwich album on the horizon.....the 1st of October it said somewhere.

Good to see them back.

Come on the sambos!!!