IRMA and The Media Industries unwillingness to change…..

As it is evident to most people file sharing and illegal downloading are not going to go away. The only thing that can be done is to minimise it by providing an alternative service that can compete with it. However the media industry refuses to acknowledge this and try and develop a new business model to compete with it. One of the biggest displays of ignorance was IRMA forcing Eircom to block the Pirate Bay website. It is the most pointless thing I’d ever heard of and I am extremely annoyed at Eircom for allowing it to happen. I hope to address two points in this post the being why it was pointless for the IRMA to request a block on just the pirate bay. and the second is why I am so annoyed at Eircom for allowing it to happen.

The reason that this block is so pointless is the same way that the napster situation in the late nineties early noughties was. unless every ISP agrees to block every site suspected of facilitating copyright infringement then banning just one or a selection of these sites is pointless. People are just going to switch to another site or service. Listening to an interview with an IRMA representative on the radio a few weeks ago it came across to me as though he genuinely believed that illegal downloading by Eircom customers was genuinely going to be stopped by this ban.

I don’t think that these people realise how the internet works, it goes beyond one I.P address, URL or set of servers. The pirate bay could very easily just copy everything across to a new set of servers with a new name and then the IRMA would be back to square one. It really is mind boggling. Being a child of the internet generation so to speak I am amazed at the fear of change exhibited by the big media companies. Being honest I see record companies influence diluting in favour of artists direct marketing to fans through services such as MySpace, iTunes and Facebook. Record sales were falling before napster and any of this became a topical issue. There’s a lot that could be said about how the napster incident was handled on both sides and being honest I don’t know enough about the subject to comment one way or the other about what happened. iTunes was released a few months later which I suppose could be seen as a happy compromise. (I’m a fan of iTunes btw).

I suppose now would be a good time to move onto my second point. I can’t understand why Eircom would allow this to happen. As an ISP (Internet Service Provider) they shouldn’t be censoring anything. It is not the duty of the ISP to filter content. What’s worse about this is that it has set a precedent now in Irish law. It is a bad precedent since it was all decided before it went before the court. The fact that it was stated in the Judges comments at the end of the trial maybe a saving grace for ISP’s that do not back down from the record companies. UPC and Esat BT have stated that they will not follow in Eircom’s foot steps. There is no legal condition in this country to force ISP’s to monitor their customers usage of broadband services. What it really boils down to is that Eircom backed down when threatened with legal action. Hopefully UPC and Esat BT which are larger companies and owned in turn by bigger multinationals will not.

Published in: on October 7, 2009 at 3:16 pm Leave a Comment
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Anvil: The Story of Anvil

Having just watched this film I’m surprised. When I heard about the film I was expecting a Spinal Tap type film, I was wrong. The film begins showing Anvil at their peak playing at a rock festival in Japan in the early 80’s. The rest of the film is completely different to the start. The film for the most part shows them as a fledgling group of guys in their 50’s still trying to be rock stars and at the beginning it is funny. But the tone changes when you see how excited they get when they get some European tour dates.


The tour they embark on starts off on a high at a festival. But it quickly descends into a farce with them playing to half filled and empty clubs. The fun and amusement makes way for the realisation that these guys are chasing smoke. They are never going to get that break and enjoy the success they want. It’s a shame really, the two main members come across as really polite and genuine people. One of them takes a job at a telemarketing firm, and he doesn’t get anywhere there because he has to be impolite and pushy to people on the phone.


In terms of the film there are three stand out moments for me. The first is somewhere in Europe they turn up 2 hours late for a show because they got lost trying to find the club. The club owner/manager lets them go on and play their two hour set. Then refuses to pay them because they were two hours late and the club had half emptied. Emotions run high for the band at that point and understandably so they did play the show and got nothing.


The second is when they are trying to get a distributor for their latest album. They go to a meeting with EMI in Toronto. The EMI representative turns off their album midway through the first song. While it was obvious to me that he was never going to take the band on. He does build up Anvil’s hopes to the extent that they leave thinking that they have a good chance of being accepted/signed by EMI. The disappointment that is on Lips’s face when they get the rejection note from EMI a few weeks later is gut wrenching. They perserve though and self distribute their album selling it directly to fans.


The last moment comes right at the end of the film. For the film it’s been built as these guys who can’t get a break. They go to Japan to play as part of a big rock festival over there. You believe that things are finally going there way. They find out their spot is the first on the day at 11:35am. The band starts to worry that no one will be there since they are the first band on and it’s so early in the day. This is shown right until they walk on stage dread that they are going to walk out into an empty arena…….they were wrong and the arena is packed full of anvil fans.


Watching their story begs the question is it worth it to be in the music business? There are a lot of films, books and other media that show how great it is IF you get that break. It’s refreshing to see the story of what might have been and the consequences of not making it big. These guys all have regular menial 9 to 5 jobs such as delivery drivers and are never particularly comfortable, given that a large portion of their income has to go on Anvil and the costs involved in keeping the band going.


Stories like this seem very common these days in the modern pop industry. Where bands have one or two hit singles and are then forgotten about. This is especially true of bands and performers that originate from reality shows such as the X factor. One hit wonders that are discarded and forgotten about as soon as something better comes along. For the moment I don’t know of any reason for people to try make it in the music industry…..seems more hardship than it’s worth since their is not guarantee that you will ever become successful.

Published in: on June 21, 2009 at 1:08 pm Leave a Comment
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Just a band or were they?

Lately I’ve been listening to Dan LeSac vs Scroobius Pip. On there album there’s a song called “Thou Shalt Always Kill” it’s a very good lyric and song but there is a bit in the middle that goes like this


“Thou shalt not put recording artists on ridiculous pedestals no matter how good they are or were once were.
The beatles were just a band, Led Zeppelin were just a band


It goes on like that through various bands. But that got me to thinking were bands such as Led Zeppelin, the Sex Pistols, The Beatles and Rolling Stones just band or were they something more. The Sex Pistols and Rolling Stones especially for me stand out as more than just a band. They are almost the embodiment of a time in history and a mood in the country. The Stones and Beatles were the flag bearers of the swinging sixties. The Stones at Altamount could be said to have been the end of the sixties. (Appropriate that it was to Sympathy for the Devil). The Sex Pistols were one of the pioneers of punk and that movement made the earlier bands such as The Who, Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones look like the old dinosaurs. Those older bands had become very technical and were doing twenty minute drum and guitar solos. The younger fans coming up didn’t want that. They wanted quick, fast two minute songs to jump around to.


Surely they were more than just a band they started a fashion trend and were one of the epicentres of a cultural movement. The same has happened throughout music history, from the pioneers such as the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. They were superseded by punk and bands like the Ramones, Sex Pistols and Clash. These in turn were replaced by the new wave of British heavy metal led by Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. This list could go on through the different versions and bands that were more than just popular but defined a period, by the way they dressed the content of their lyrics and the way that they represented themselves to the public.


I don’t think that it is fair to these bands to say that they were just a band. A lot of bands are just bands but some go beyond that and become a representation of an atmosphere and period in history. These bands are an important part of history and even shaped part of it. For example if it wasn’t for glam and hair metal in the 80’s then there would be no such thing as parental advisory labels on cds. A small example but still it does show how these bands have had an influence on society.

Published in: on May 13, 2009 at 5:23 pm Leave a Comment
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Death Magnetic and Black Ice

Arguably the two biggest let downs of the year. Especially Death Magnetic there was so much hype about this album and the band themselves made such a fuss about going to back to basics and forgetting about the previous twenty years. It turned out to be all bullshit. Better than St.Anger definitely but that’s not saying much. The songs were longer, heavier and the solo’s were back but all in all it was a let down. It’s not that the album is bad it’s fine to get a song from every so often on shuffle but to sit down and listen to it requires great patience in my experience. It’s 74 minutes and only has 10 songs. That’s crazy having an average song of 7 minutes, especially when the lyrics aren’t really saying anything. For songs of that length they should be telling a story (see nearly all long Iron Maiden songs). But these songs just don’t. To me they come across as being just business as usual. For an album that was in production for 3+ years. It’s a let down, especially The Unforgiven III. The Unforgiven I and II are my favourite Metallica songs but the third part just plain sucks.

So in case you haven’t guessed from the above in my opinion Death Magnetic was a huge let down. All the critics and magazines that hailed it as Metallica back on form, well that’s their opinion but I’m not alone in thinking it was a big let down. Metallica are never going to be able to reproduce Master of Puppets or The Black Album, they don’t need to because they have that fan base that will buy whatever they put out and pay to go to their concerts and buy the merchandise.

AC DC’s Black Ice I wasn’t expecting anything from it to be honest mainly because AC DC aren’t a band that’s about musical innovation or producing great studio albums. They were a fun band whose live show was always the reason that they achieved the success that they did. Black Ice starts off great with Rock N Roll Train then quickly descends into mediocrity. To me the album sounds like an excuse for a worldwide tour and maybe a final pay day. Jim Breuer Describes AC DC perfectly in the clip below.


Jim Breuer >>

Published in: on January 22, 2009 at 5:18 pm Leave a Comment
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Affliction Clothing

Someone asked me a while ago why I thought this was such a cool brand. It is very expensive and I can’t say one way or the other about the quality of their products. I mean it is more $70+ for a t-shirt and $700 for a leather jacket which seem to be at best an acquired taste. And to be honest I was at a loss for words and arguments as to why this brand was cool and worth the money.

But then I started thinking about it why I think this brand is so cool and I have an answer. You can tell a football fan by the clothes they wear and the team by their jersey. You can tell what sports or stereotype people fit into by the clothes they wear. That is why affliction clothing is cool to me. It’s the equivalent to a biker wearing his colours. Affliction are like rock musics and mma’s jerseys. Both rock music and mma are about attitude and excess. That’s why the clothes have to be expensive, when you buy them you have to feel you are buying a glimpse into the rock/mma lifestyle and you can’t do that in a shirt that costs $20 at WalMart. Just look at the promo vid for them

It’s a whos who of rockstars, mma stars and extreme sports stars. Affliction is building an
image as an edgy extreme brand that is running on attitude and excess and people seem to be buying in to it. Otherwise they’d have gone bust by now.

Published in: on October 23, 2008 at 10:23 am Comments (4)
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Metallica Marlay Park 20 August 2008

It’s Wednesday and I’m going over in my head what sort of set list Metallica are going to do and if Tenacious D are actually going to be any good. My first problem was that the weather was crap, with their being frequent heavy showers and it was just generally a shitty day. But the weather stayed fine so all was right with the world.
Sweet Savage were first on and to be honest I was in the line for most of their set, but they weren’t bad one thing that was cool was that Hetfield came out and sang with them. It was pretty cool and the gave Sweet Savage the biggest cheer. One thing that did really annoy me about Sweet Savage was that they kept asking the crowd were they looking forward to seeing Metallica. I was just left thinking no i came here to see you bunch of wannabe’s.
Tenacious D were on about 7. They were very very good, in fact I’d say that they verged on near brilliance. In terms of it being a great concert it was very entertaining. Completely different then what was to come from Metallica. It was a great stage show and very comedic with Jack Black being in overdrive in terms of his character. There were dozens and dozens of classic comedic moments including an appearance by Satan and The Metal. But my favourite part was when they performed Master Exploder. It was completely obvious that they were miming but it didn’t matter. It was just a great performance and really charged the atmosphere and got the crowd in the mood for the Mighty Metallica.
Metallica had their usual blend of energy and showmanship. They were fantastic and played a great selection from their previous albums. I did notice however and mention of the disaster that was St.Anger was thankfully absent. It even included a sample from their forth coming album Death Magnetic. The song Cyanide is very good and has some very heavy bass and drums if it is the exact same on the album as it was live.
One gripe I have is people with cameras at concerts. I paid the money to see the band live on stage, not through the viewfinder of your camera.
Anyway back to the gig Metallica are one of the best live bands around and Hetfield is one of the greatest front men of all time. All great rock bands have a great rapport with the audience. It’s the mark of a band that has worked hard to get where they are that they talk to and engage the audience. How well n audience engages with the audience is a sign of them completing their apprenticeship in the back of a transit setting up their own gear and playing to half filled clubs that aren’t bothered about them. It’s things like acknowledging the crowd singing along or just the fact that they paid to see them.
Currently there are four bands that I’ve seen that do this to a great extent and really make the crowd feel appreciated (Metallica, The Rolling Stones, Iron Maiden and Ozzy Osbourne). Of these it’s honestly a coin toss between Metallica and Iron Maiden for who has the best crowd interaction.

The Ecstasy Of Gold
Creeping Death
For whom the bell tolls
Ride the Lightning
The memory remains
Sanitarium
Cyanide
…And justice for all
The four horsemen
Fade to black
Master of puppets
Whiskey in the jar
Nothing else matters
Sad but true
One
Enter sandman
————-
Last caress
So what
Seek and destroy

For those interested the gig is available for download at livemetallica.com for $10

Published in: on August 24, 2008 at 6:20 pm Leave a Comment
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Neil Young Malahide Castle Dublin 29 June 2008

Went to see Neil Young on Sunday (29 June) despite a terrible week of weather, on Sunday the weather held up and the sun even made an appearance for extended periods of time. Got there 5- 10 minutes before the gates open, not a huge queue which worked out in our favour with stewards handing myself and my uncle PIT PASSES!!!. Pretty sweet probably at most 10-15 feet away from the stage.

The first band on stage was “Everest”, an indie/folk type band from California, they were very impressive and really helped the atmosphere of the gig. They came on stage with the sun shining and their set consisted of real laid back tunes that was just a good time. Sitting out in the sun just chilling with a great band how much better can it get.? The answer when you know Neil Young is on later on in the evening.

The Frames came on next and I wasn’t horribly impressed with them. The acoustic stuff at the start was boring with the singer guy looking like he was constipated when he tried to hit the higher notes/shout at the courses. All in all thought the singer was very good he bantered with the crowd and tried to get a sing along going. The sing along is actually my last criticism of The Frames he chose probably the most depressing song for a sing along. The song was called “Happiness” but was slow and really depressing to listen to. Even the bit he tried to get the crowd to sing along with was slow and depressing. Aside from the obvious mention of the word happiness it was hard to associate the song with anything other than just plain depressing.

Neil’s stage props and set up were strange to say the least. They included a pulsating red phone, Indian chief carving, a fan and light up numbers and letters. The artist’s easel that was beside the Indian carving was strange but turned out to be a pretty cool idea. Anyway the set list was as follows,

MALAHIDE SETLIST:

Love And Only Love
I’ve Been Waiting For You
Mr. Soul
Spirit Road
Powderfinger
Out of the Blue
Too Far Gone
Oh, Lonesome Me
Mother Earth
The Needle And The Damage Done
Unknown Legend
Old Man
Get Back To The Country
Words
No Hidden Path
—
A Day In The Life (Beatles cover)

Love and only Love lasted nearly fifteen minutes and was a great was to kick off the gig. The sheer wall of sound that came from the stage at the start was unbelieavable. The artists easel to the right of the stage had a canvas on it with a big N. Throughout the gig the setlist was displayed there, these canvas’s were painted by a guy standing at the back of the stage. The gig was fantastic and I’m not going to bore you with a bit about each song but I do have a few criticisms about the gig.

I wasn’t expecting Neil to be a showman ala Bruce Springsteen or Mick Jagger. But at times he seemes totally oblivious to the crowd, with his back turned to the crowd either with the bass player or the drummer. A lot of the songs degraded to self indulgent jamming. Which I have no problem with but when a five minute song gets stretched to the best part of forty minutes and he’s still singing/playing, that sort of thing shouldn’t happen on stage with a crowd that’s getting bored. I was disappointed with the encore as well, I thought he’s come out and play “Rockin in the Free World”, “Crime in the City” or “Cortez the Killer” but no he played a Beatles song.

Still though it was a great gig and I’m glad I went to see him, but I don’t think I’d go again.

The Needle and the Damage Done from the Gig (Sorry about the shakey camera hand)

Pics from the Concert

Published in: on July 2, 2008 at 9:12 am Comments (2)
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Musicovery.com

A quick post for anyone that bothers reading this thing. To check out musicovery.com if you are in anyway interested in music. It lest you select the genres you like then the mood of the music. It then makes a playlist from the genres and displays in a pretty sweet “musical tree”. You can even have it set to make playlists according to how much and fast people should try to dance at a party you’re having…a pretty kick ass site really.

There should be some actual posts up in the next ten days…..hopefully

Published in: on January 10, 2008 at 8:49 pm Comments (1)

Why I love Second hand record shops

I was in London recently and while wandering down around Soho, I came upon a street full of second hand record shops. This was great because surprisingly even in the metropolis that is Dublin. Old 33 vinyls are quite hard to find, especially if what your looking for is hard to find on CD. For me anyway that street in London was as close to a utopia as I’ll ever find. I went into all of them and they cater to all tastes in music. In fact I think they have a mini- union of sorts because if one shop has it they can direct you to a shop that specialises in whatever genre you may be looking for.

Anyway while browsing around one shop called “Sister Ray” (my new favourite shop) I discovered “The Honeydippers” album for £3. “The Honeydippers” that are on amazon are the a different group. “The Honeydippers” that I found in sister ray, is Jimmy Page and Robert Plant blues album from post Led Zeppelin. I heard about them at a record fair. I thought that was a pretty good find, my dad however was completely amazed by the fact that I was buying records not cd’s. I explained it him but I don’t think that he quite understood where I was coming from. (I’ll try and explain it better in a later post) I picked up two other albums one was AC DC’s “Back in Black” and the other was a limited white vinyl of Metallica’s “Ride the Lightning”

Its not the stock in these record shops that I love though its the people working there. When you go to a Virgin and HMV everything fells very generic, from the greeting to the goodbye at the till its like its leaned from a script (as it probably is).
“Good day Sir/Madam, have you had a pleasant experience? Could you find everything ok?”
Then the infamous “Thank you come again”

In America this is taken to an extreme. I saw an employee handbook from an American retail chain that had scripted conversations about how to pressure customers to buy products they didn’t need or want. I’ll try to find the link again.

In these second hand stores though everything seem more chilled out. The staff actually know what they’re talking about. They can even tell you how difficult its going to be to find the different albums. I think that its almost an older kind of service. From before big retail chains almost like the days of family run businesses. Theres an element of personal service that isn’t available in the big retail chains.

So in summation the reason I like the smaller second hand shops is because the staff are more knowledgeable, they have stock that just isn’t available in the bigger retail stores and there is an element of personal service.

But on the contrary to the above the stock tends to be a lot cheaper in the big chains, but thats just simple economics isn’t it?

Published in: on December 4, 2007 at 7:57 pm Leave a Comment

Pat McManus at the Bowery Waterford 28 Sept 2007

To start for those of you who don’t know who Pat McManus is, he was in a band called Mama’s Boys in the 70’s/80’s. They toured with Thin Lizzy and The Scorpions, they had a big hit single with “Needle in the Grove”. After Mama’s Boys went there separate ways Pat played in a trad outfit known as Celtus. As well many others.

Anyway Pat and his current band Hi-Voltage were playing in the Bowery on the above date. He was releasing his new album called “In My Own Time”. I’ll start with the gig. Pat is I suppose what you would call “old school”. While the sound from the microphones was a bit off. What comes through is his passion and love for music. Even on that small stage with between 100-200 people in attendance. He played like he was headlining Slane or some other massive rock festival in front of fifty thousand plus fans. It is easy to see why Pat is mentioned in the same breath as other more widely known great Irish guitarists. When he’s on stage he just gets lost in what he’s playing. What it comes across as is that there is him and his guitar, and he’s making the guitar talk.

The band are great as well, but its hard to shine when such a huge shadow is cast. The drummer played a short solo at the end very reminiscent of the one in Sha-La-La on Thin Lizzy’s “Live and Dangerous” album. It was played flawlessly with slight embellishments that showed he was comfortably able to play at that level. Preceding that that Pat played a medley of comprised of his older material and it was unreal. Hearing soaring lead guitar against a trad backing track is an experience not to be missed if you have the chance and interest.Now on to the album.

The album is great, maybe even brilliant. Listening to it reminded me of the first time I heard the blues powered rock of Led Zeppelin. From “Got that Right” to “Just for Shannon” the album is the blues. There are two tracks that deserve special mention. “Juggernaut” is a wall of sound that echo’s live and still retains its power on the CD. Its great to hear the fiddle in the middle as well showcasing his past with when he played in Celtus. Secondly “Return of the G Man” a song written in tribute to Rory Gallagher is a slower, more melodious affair that shows Pat’s talent for lyrics. One line sticks in my mind

“And He Tattooed the blues down in to your soul and left you burning with a passion that never let you go”

The song also contains one of the best acoustic solos that I’ve ever heard and really shows how great acoustic solos can be when done right. The album is blues rock no ifs or buts, it’s the best album I’ve heard since I heard the Answer back in April/May.

Speaking of the Answer they also deserve a mention in the blues rock category. Their debut album “Rise” absolutely blew me away. It’s amazing how four lads from Northern Ireland can sound so much like the juggernaut that was Led Zeppelin on their debut album. I would like to say they are going to reach the heights Led Zeppelin reached but given current trends in the music industry, its unlikely that any band will reach the super-superstar status that bands like Led Zeppelin, The Police and The Rolling Stones reached. Hopefully they will be successful though because if the first album is anything to go by they have the talent to have a long and distinguished career, whether in the mainstream or not.

Published in: on October 10, 2007 at 9:52 pm Leave a Comment
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