The best pies at the Electric Picnic (and as Una points out, at the Ben & Jerrys Sundae Festival in London at the weekend) are always at the Pieminister stall. Mmm, we can taste that Arriba Bandito pie already…

And, from the same good news department that first told you Wilco were playing Ireland this autumn, it seems that Pieminister are on their way to Dublin to open not one but TWO Pieminister outlets in the next few months. One will be in Temple Bar and one will be near Wexford Street/Camden Street. Like we said, mmmm.

It seems that the best way to ensure a huge pay-day, a contract extension and some management love in RTE is to keep losing listeners (51,000 in 2005 and 15,000 in the first couple of months of 2006, according to recent JNLR listenership figures).

Take a bow Gerry Ryan, who will be comingatcha on 2FM (and RTE TV) for another five years. That’s five more years of Gerry talking about vibrators and interviewing celebrities while eating. Fantastic.

Interestingly, this announcement was made a good month ahead of the next JNLR book (due August 23rd). Wonder why RTE did not wait until then to conclude their negotiations with Gerry’s Mister Ten Percent? Would it have anything to do with the off-chance that those JNLR figures could well signal a further dip in Gerry’s listenership? Or am I just being mischevious again?

(1) Belvedere House in Co Westmeath is a fantastic location for a festival. Maybe this is where Latitude and Bestival will be held when they come in 2008?

(2) Gillian Welch rocks. Her performance at the Midlands Festival yesterday was quite amazing. The gig of the year so far.

(3) After Saturday’s match, no-one will stop the Kilkenny hurlers in 2007. Galway gave their all, but Kilkenny just powered away.

(4) Tipperary were shocking. And I’m not even going to mention Eoin Kelly’s ridiculous showboating when he came on as a sub or that stupid sideline cut which cost us the game.

(5) Jose Gonzalez is a lovely man. His forthcoming album “In Our Nature” is gorgeous and not just that cover version of Massive Attack’s “Teardrop”.

(6) MIA’s “Paper Planes” is the boom tune of the summer.

(7) The patron saint of Irish blogging is also a dab hand at the aul’ music and movie reviewing.

(8) The best way to deal with muddy car-parks and fields is big bales of straw.

(9) The new Animal Collective album “Strawberry Jam” is as good as - if not slightly better than - Panda Bear’s “Person Pitch” album.

(10) Thanks to the wonder of DVD, I finally get all the fuss about Life On Mars.

(11) Hot Chip are playing the Electric Picnic. Who knew?

As some of you know, I do a weekly radio show on Phantom 105.2 in Dublin on Saturday nights from 10pm to midnight. The playlists are on the station’s site, but a few people have suggested that they should also be here. As requested…. Oh and before people ask, no, there’s not a podcast.

Health “Crimewave” (Lovepump United)
Disco Drive “It’s A Long Way To The Top” (Unhip)
Ghost Frequency “Nightmare” (Buddhist Punk/City Rockers)
Chromeo “Tenderoni” (Vice)
Go! Team “Doing It Right” (Memphis Industries)
Architecture In Helsinki “Debbie” (Co-Op)
Chk Chk Chk (!!!) “All My Heroes Are Weirdos” (Warp)
Oppenheimer “This Is Not A Test” (Smalltown America)
Spilly Walker “Let The Freak Come Out At Night” (Foggy Notions)
The Aliens “I Am The Unknown” (Pet Rocks)
The Dragons “Cosmosis” (Ninja Tune)
Os Mutantes “Panis Et Circenses” (Luaka Bop)
Mexican Institute Of Sound “Hip Hop No Pares” (Cooking Vinyl)
The National “Pretty In Pink” (White)
Richard Hawley “Tonight The Streets Are Ours” (Mute)
Four Tet “No More Mosquitoes” (Domino)
Modeselecktor/Thom Yorke “White Flash” (Bpitch Control)
Caribou “Eli” (City Slang)
Strange Death Of Liberal England “I Saw Evil” (Fantastic Plastic)
Bodies Of Water “We Are Co-Existors” (Thousand Tongues)
Poppy & The Jezebels “Nazi Girls” (Reveal)
Little Dragon “After The Rain” (Peacefrog)
Sonic Youth “My Friend Goo” (Geffen)
My Bloody Valentine “Sugar” (Creation)
Ulrich Schnauss “Inbetween the Years” (Independiente)
Savath & Savalas “El Solitario” (Anti)
Jose Gonzalez “Teardrop” (Peacefrog)
John Lurie “What Do You Know About Music, You’re Not A Lawyer” (Strange & Beautiful)
Grizzly Bear “He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)” (Daytrotter)

After the weather endurance test of the last two months, more and more Irish music fans are probably planning to decamp to Europe for their festival kicks in 2008.
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Julie Feeney’s appearance on the main stage at Italia Wave marked the Galway singer’s debut on the European outdoor festival trail.

She had been spotted by the Italia Wave bookers at the influential Eurosonic festival in Holland in January and invited to Florence.

“The audience were really amazing”, said Feeney about her show. “They were very open and fresh. My music is so bloody odd anyway but they managed to tap into it. They were clapping to songs like “Autopilot” which I’d never heard an audience doing before.”

She has commenced work on the follow-up to her Choice Music Prize-winning “13 Songs” debut with a 2008 release date in mind.

“I’m trying to see how many tracks I can record myself and I’m finding it’s much faster that way. I’m already well into the process – I recorded some children singing the other week for one of the pieces.”

With his Blur mate Alex James content to make cheese, helm a Classic FM radio show and shill his autobiography to whoever will listen, Damon Albarn’s musical CV continues to bloom.

Recent strings to his bow include the “Monkey: Journey To The West” Chinese opera and the fascinating Africa Express project.

At Italia Wave, Albarn was leading The Good, The Bad & The Queen. This London song cycle collaboration with Paul Simonon, Tony Allen and Simon Tong makes for a hugely atmospheric and dramatic musical delight. Expect them to be one of this year’s highlights at the Electric Picnic.

For European acts seeking exposure on the European festival circuit, it would appear that Eurosonic is the showcase that matters.

Italia Wave acts Julie Feeney, Enter Shikari, Shitdisco, Tunng and the good-time, vodka-soaked, klezmer-ska of Russia’s 14-strong Leningrad were first talent-spotted at the Groningen event last January.

Bands who wish to apply for Eurosonic and obtain information about its European Talent Exchange Program (ETEP) can do so online. Closing date for applications for the January 2008 event is September 4.

What amazes me about the ongoing interest in the whereabouts of Blogorrah is the failure by anyone to actively try to replace it. Yes, Blogorrah is fantastic, but it’s far from unique. I mean, they shamelessly ripped their stylebook from Gawker. Maybe Blogorrah’s absence is caused by problems in getting the new Gawker fonts?

But the fascination does provoke a couple of questions. Like…

Are Irish bloggers really so hard up for chuckle material that they need John, Derek and assorted folk to come up with the funnies every day?

Do Irish bloggers ever think they could actually do something similar or - this one is kind of radical, I know - better by themselves? Would they even think of having a go? There are some very talented bloggers out there who could easily do the same job, but who lack the ambition and drive (and probably balls) to have a go.

Are Irish bloggers so hard up for things to write about that they need the Blogorrahistas to do the spade-work for them? I mean, I thought that was just a charge leveled at the mainsteam media?

What the hell did Irish bloggers write about before Blogorrah?

Does this prove that there is a blogging version of the silly season?

Just asking, like.

I really hope someone is keeping count because I think we’ve gone over 60 music festivals and outdoor shows in Ireland this summer.

I like the sound of Knockanstock, happening this weekend at the Ballyknockan Inn just outside Blessington, Co Wicklow overlooking the lakes.

It will feature dozens and dozens of bands over three days and nights and, best of all, it costs just 20 euro (and that includes camping). More of this kind of thing, please.

Frank Rose at Wired magazine has taken a close look at Second Life and, well, it doesn’t look great from where he is sitting.

For a start, the numbers don’t stack up.

Second Life partisans claim meteoric growth, with the number of “residents,” or avatars created, surpassing 7 million in June. There’s no question that more and more people are trying Second Life, but that figure turns out to be wildly misleading. For starters, many people make more than one avatar. According to Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life, the number of avatars created by distinct individuals was closer to 4 million. Of those, only about 1 million had logged on in the previous 30 days (the standard measure of Internet traffic), and barely a third of that total had bothered to drop by in the previous week. Most of those who did were from Europe or Asia, leaving a little more than 100,000 Americans per week to be targeted by US marketers.

Then, what do people do when they get there?

Once you put in several hours flailing around learning how to function in Second Life, there isn’t much to do. That may explain why more than 85 percent of the avatars created have been abandoned. The big draws for those who do return are free money and kinky sex. On a random day in June, the most popular location was Money Island (where Linden dollars, the official currency, are given away gratis), with a score of 136,000. Sexy Beach, one of several regions that offer virtual sex shops, dancing, and no-strings hookups, came in at 133,000.

It may be time to issue some stern words to the marketing departments at the 50 major companies who’ve decided to do business on Second Life to date.

The Sears store on IBM’s Innovation Island had a traffic score of 281; Coke’s Virtual Thirst pavilion, a mere 27. And even when corporate destinations actually draw people, the PR can be less than ideal. Last winter, CNET’s in-world correspondent was conducting a live interview with Anshe Chung, an avatar said to have earned more than $1 million on virtual real estate deals, when Chung was assaulted by flying penises in a griefer attack.

So why the hell are the corporates, ad agencies and brands flocking to Second Life? Veteran advertising expert Joseph Plummer puts it down to, well, terror.

“A terror has gripped corporate America. The simple model they all grew up with” — the 30-second spot, delivered through the mass reach of television — “is no longer working. And there are two types of people out there: a small group that’s experimenting thoughtfully, and a large group that’s trying the next thing to come through the door.”

Enter, then, the Second Life sheep.

Actually, how many On The Record readers are on the Second Life buzz?

From the Pot Kettle Black department. Per the Beeb, 50 Cent is taking ye olde legal action against an internet advertising firm for an online promotion which allegedly shows him being shot. Right. And Fiddy has never glamorised that kind of violence? He must have a new album on the way to plug. Oh, he does.

And from the Lick Lick department. Kelly Clarkson has taken time out from her hectic schedule to apologise to her record label bottle-washer Clive Davis (the man who thought they had named the CD after him) for an alleged beef. No beef, just ham. Nothing more to see here, please keep moving.

Rock’n'roll is here to pay: the LA Times look at the business of licensing songs for ads.

Laura Barton says hail, hail “Roadrunner” and traces the history of Jonathan Richman’s most famous tune.

The New York Times salutes the song of the summer.

Setting music free could be a sign o’ the times, says Time magazine analysying Prince’s recent lucrative freebie schmoozle with The Mail on Sunday.

Chris Blackwell was one of the very few music industry executives to actually walk the walk as well as he talked the talk. These days, though, he’s more interested in building houses, as Maggie Lee found out.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I wouldn’t have believed it either if you had told me when I started this blog that I’d write several posts in July 2007 about Babs. I mean, the singing Babs as opposed to the hurling Babs. I’ve even learned how to spell her name right without having to resort to Google.

Anyway, Babs. It’s interesting to note that the most popular diva in Co Kildare has a Truth Alerts section on her website.

This is where you can see her very own truth and reconciliation go-to team in action. Here, Ms Streisand’s people take widely reported misconceptions about the singer and set the record straight. They’ve tackled the truth about some posters in London in 1994, an unauthorised biography and the Streisand Foundation’s unfortunate purchase of some Halliburton shares.

Our favourite is this one:

In view of press speculation that there was a political aspect to an incident at one of the recent Ft. Lauderdale performances of the current Barbra Streisand national tour, the star wishes it known that she discovered later that the outburst was in no way political. The man who threw a paper cup with liquid in it onto the stage was actually the guest of someone to whom Streisand had given tickets, a guest who had had one or more too many beers but no political convictions.

But, hold on, there’s NOTHING about her recent schmozzle in Ireland. No polite notice to counteract all the bad press caused by her recent take-the-money-and-fly appearance at Castletown House. No kindly written letter to her fans about the experience of a lifetime which turned out to be nothing of the sort. No memo from Babs about her role in the fiasco.

Well, it’s not good enough. We, the bloggers who’ve had a grand old time of it since last Saturday week, demand action.

For some reason, there are no drunks of any age at Italia Wave.
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Even more unlikely surfers have emerged for September’s Cois Fharraige music and surf jamboree in Kilkee, Co Clare.

Both Paddy Casey, who will be plugging his “Addicted To Company” new album, and Badly Drawn Boy, who may have to ditch the hat if he gets on a board, have been added to the line-up.

They wll be joining The Enemy, Roisin Murphy, Ocean Colour Scene, Republic Of Loose, The Blizzards and others by the Atlantic from September 7 to 9.

We wonder what surfers make of the line-up. Any surfers care to comment?

They said it couldn’t be done but what the hell do they know anyway? We have had our first sighting of GAA county colours at an Italia rock festival. All will be revealed below the fold.
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Festival of World Cultures director Jody Ackland’s memories of the event’s first outing in 2001 are still clear. “What I remember most are the hundred people or so down at the Harbour Plaza dancing to a local Nigerian group.”
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Those who wonder how Irish music fans can afford all those summer shows will have some more pondering to do when they see the extent of the autumn/winter event calendar.

Leaving aside what will be happening in tents at Imma and the Phoenix Park, and other big hitters visiting town, there are some potentially fascinating shows on the cards.

Ones to watch for include the fantastic Modeselektor with The Field on November 1st, LCD Soundsystem, Wilco, Devendra Banhart, Animal Collective, Iron & Wine, The Decemberists, Underworld, The National (one of the word-of-mouth hits from Oxegen), Feist and Miss Kittin and The Hacker (playing their first ever live Irish show together on December 1st).

Unlike many of the summer’s big muddy outings, none of these shows should end up dominating the shouting and whinging on RTÉ Radio One’s Liveline for an hour.

Live Earth organisers in Germany admitted this week that their event lost nearly €1 million.

The financial woes occurred because just 29,000 tickets for the 45,000 capacity venue were put on sale, with 2,500 going to sponsors and VIPs. The rest, bizarrely, were unused.

It seems that the promoters, Hamburg Marketing GmbH, didn’t do the math and had not taken into account the €750,000 fee which they had to pay to Live Earth Inc.

The losers in this instance are the citizens of Hamburg, who get to pick up the €950,000 shortfall.

The drums, the drums, the drums.
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Walking towards the festival, that Hold Steady line, “they came from miles around to get messed up on the music”, seems apt when you see the lines of scooters and cars. Then you realise that the Scissor Sisters are headlining tonight. No-one ever got messed up on the Scissor Sisters, pal.
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The Italians are complaining about the weather. It’s too hot, they say again and again. Having just left a land where Noah was unwilling to anchor his ark for the last six weeks for fear of getting stranded, On the Record begs to differ. Blue skies. Round yellow thing. Heat. Umbrellas solely in use stuck in cold drinks. This is summer. I know, I know, the weather has probably been decent in Ireland for the last 10 minutes but this is REALLY summer.
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On the Record has moved to Tuscany for the rest of the week. Yeah, the weather and Barbra Streisand took its toll in the end.

Anyway, we’re here for the Italia Wave festival which started last night with Nitin Sawhney and Orchestra Regionale Della Toscana performing “A Throw Of Dice” in the Piazzale Michelangelo. I missed it but I’m told it was quite swanky and brilliant. Today, I’m hoping to catch Chk Chk Chk, Tunng, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and a load more. Daily reports to come.

Did I mention that it’s 32° C in the shade here at the moment? As Ice T put it, don’t hate the playa, hate the game.

MCD have announced that they’re setting up a specialist commitee to look into the Barbra Streisand concert debacle.

The committee will be chaired by Pat Byrne, former Garda Commissioner. It will also include Health and Safety Officer, Michael Slattery of Slattery & Associates along with Julian Davis, Communications Consultant on Special Olympics World Games. It will also include senior MCD personnel including Denis Desmond and Justin Green.

Michael Slattery was the health and safety officer at the recent Oxegen festival and Julian Davis works with Fleishman Hillard PR.

MCD invited any fans affected by the above issues to write to Denis Desmond, 7 Park Road, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin. Concerned concert goers are encouraged to continue to contact MCD. To date 127 complaints from the 17,000 attendance have been received.

Denis is going to be a busy man with all those letters. As Shane points out, it’s staggering to think that a company dealing with thousands of customers every week doesn’t have a dedicated customer hotline.

This committee will hold its first meeting this week and it is anticipated to have completed its work by early September.

Well, that’s Liveline sorted for September.

And the nominees are:

Jamie T “Panic Prevention
Bat For Lashes “Fur And Gold”
Arctic Monkeys “Favourite Worst Nightmare”
Amy Winehouse “Back To Black”
Klaxons “Myths Of The Near Future”
Dizzee Rascal “Maths & English”
Maps “We Can Create”
The View “Hats Off To The Buskers”
New Young Pony Club “Fantastic Playground”
Young Knives “Voices Of Animals And Men”
Fionn Regan “The End Of History”
Basuiat Strings with Seb Roachford “Basquiet Strings”

First impressions - must put a few quid on Amy Winehouse and Bat for Lashes. Great to see Fionn Regan getting the nod. Er, what happened to the Candie Payne album? And is this the least heavyweight Mercury Music Prize shortlist to date?

UPDATE Here are the runners and riders for the Popjustice Twenty Quid Music Prize

Reports on Thumped and Boards from last weekend’s Mantua Project shindig in deepest Roscommon would indicate that there were a number of problems with toilets (or lack of), joyriders on tractors, security (or, again, lack of), generators and all-round organisational SNAFUs. And Ms Streisand’s fans thought they had issues with the lack of a seat?

Here’s what Nialler9 had to make of the weekend.

Can’t wait to hear the calls about this on Liveline……

If it’s Monday, it must mean that Irish concert-goers are fuming. No-one fumes as well as we Irish and there’s never been a better time for it than this summer.
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Who said that print was dead? Prince’s decision to give away copies of his new album with a Sunday newspaper in the UK has unleashed a huge wave of music industry navel-gazing.
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Oh yes, it’s another festival. The latest addition to this summer’s never-ending run of fun is the Big Bang Festival of Rhythm, which will be responsible for a barrage of noise in various Dublin city venues from July 27th to 29th.

The star attraction is Bombay tabla maestro and percussionist Trilok Gurtu, a man who has provided a dash on outings with Don Cherry, Gilberto Gil and Bill Laswell. He performs his 20 Years of Talking Tabla show at the National Concert Hall on the Saturday night.

Other acts aiming to change your way of thinking about rhythm include 15-piece Rio samba band Monobloco, top frame drummers from Ireland and Italy and a mass drum-in, Big Bang 2, in Meeting House Square featuring drummers from all over the country marshalled by Riverdance drummer Ray Fean.

Since it first went on air in May 1999, Raidió na Gaeltachta’s An Taobh Tuathail has gathered many accolades and positive notices for the breadth and depth of the electronic, ambient and other sounds featured on the show.

The time seems right, then, for long-standing presenter Cian Ó Cíobháin to compile a 12-track compilation for the Psychonavigation label featuring such favoured Taobh Tuathail acts as Cane 141, United Bible Studies, Phelan Sheppard and Jimmy Behan.

The CD is released in August with launch shows at Galway’s Róisín Dubh (August 24th) and Dublin’s Sugar Club (August 25th).

Anyone for some Oxjam? Following on from the huge success of The Cake Sale album, Oxfam are planning a month-long music festival to raise cash and awareness.

Oxjam has already enlisted the support of DJ Shadow, Klaxons , The Kooks, Kaiser Chiefs and Kasabian (basically, bands beginning with “K”), but it is now seeking other acts to lend a hand with music events around the country during October.

Organisers point out that an Oxjam event which raises €500 can provide safe water for almost 420 people, six emergency shelters or essential medicines for three villages.

My favourite quote about the forthcoming album? “It’ll rip your face off”.
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The Times - Good news: music sales are down, but the joint is jumpin’:

I think cultural historians may look back on the six or seven years either side of 2000 as a period of aberration, when people temporarily became obsessed with technology and forgot that the most intoxicating thing in human existence is our ability to communicate face to face. We are starting to emerge from that rather dreary tunnel now, I believe. We won’t dump the technology. It’s too useful. But we will control it, rather than letting it control us.

The Guardian - Forget the doom and gloom after the closure of Fopp and HMV’s dismal results, the future for the record shop may not be so bad after all

All Hip-Hop - Kanye West and Evel Knievel enter mediation

Wired - new words added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary include “crunk”, “ginormous,” “sudoku,” “DVR,” and “smackdown”.

Reuters - US record labels follow Disney into “tween” market

The Daily Telegraph - £550? Barbra Streisand is worth every penny

The Guardian’s blog - Chris Cottingham claims that electroclash was no flash in the pan

40,000 tickets for next year’s T In The Park festival went on sale this morning. They were sold out within 65 minutes.

The police statistics from last weekend’s T in the Park were as follows:

Tayside Police made 66 arrests at T in the Park, four fewer than the 70 made at the festival last year. Of those arrested, 30 were kept in custody, 16 for drugs-related offences and the remaining 14 for a mixture of offences including assault, breach of the peace, and theft.

It’s interesting then to do the compare and contrast exercise with Oxegen. Per Georgina O’Halloran in yesterday’s Irish Times:

Gardaí made 49 arrests over the course of the weekend, including 48 arrests for public order offences and one assault. There were 320 drug seizures and 17 detentions under Section 15 of the Misuse of Drugs Act.

Both Oxegen and T In the Park attracted 80,000 fans.

Mmm, wonder when the early bird tickets for next year’s Oxegen will go on sale? And how fast it will take for them to sell out?

A couple of confirmed shows and a couple of shows we’ve heard about accompanied by a nod and a wink.

The ones which are happening:

Feist! Yes, Leslie Feist herself will be singing tunes from her wonderful album “The Reminder” (and her equally fine “Let It Die” and “Monarch” albums) at Dublin’s Tripod on September 25.

Regina Spektor! Spooky folk music from the classically trained New York singer with the well-regarded “Begin To Hope” album. She plays Tripod on August 30.

Underworld! They’re back! Lager! Lager! Lager! Etc! The new album is called “Oblivion With Bells” and it’s out in October. They play Belfast’s Kings Hall on October 6 and I reckon a Dublin show is also likely.

The ones which are happening which we shouldn’t know about:

Wilco! Yes, finally. I always feel like the boy who cried wolf when it comes to Wilco because they were supposed to play the Electric Picnic last year and this year but it never happened. This time, though, I think we can safely assume they will be playing a plush Dublin venue in November.

Animal Collective! “Strawberry Jam” is already sounding like a contender for one of the albums of the year. It’s the Panda Bear album with added hallucinogens and psychedelia and pop. Anyway, they’re also on the cards for Irish shows in the autumn.

Devendra Banhart! Everyone’s favourite hippy child will be rocking out at a venue near you in October. Lovely.

UPDATE - thanks to Emma for pointing out that LCD Soundsystem are playing Dublin’s Tripod on October 20. Good news for anyone who didn’t get an Electric Picnic ticket

UPDATE EILE - we hear from our favourite mole Deep Heat that Jose Gonzalez is on his way to Ireland this October too for shows in Dublin and Cork.

We arrived at Vicar Street expecting a night of pedigree soul music. We left with Smokey Robinson’s satin trousers as the main topic of conversation.
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As if you needed telling, it’s Oxegen time again, and 80,000 Irish music fans will be invading Punchestown Racecourse in Co Kildare this weekend.

Next week’s Ticket will carry a report from Ireland’s biggest music festival.

We’d like to hear about your experiences at Oxegen. Let us know by posting below what you thought of this year’s event, and we’ll print some of your comments next week. Happy camping!

MCD and POD Concerts both now plan to host music shows in large tents in October. It’s a remarkable coincidence that both promoters had the idea of putting a tent in Dublin 8 at the same time.

The question is which came first: the POD tent in the grounds of the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) or the MCD tent in the Phoenix Park?
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It really seems as if every week brings more bad news for the record industry. The closure of UK record chain Fopp, with the loss of 700 jobs, coincided with the publication of figures showing a slump in CD sales for the seventh consecutive year.

In 2006, total music sales worldwide were down 5 per cent on the previous year, according to the IFPI, a lobby group representing record labels worldwide.

“We hoped that the decline in physical sales would be offset by the increase in digital sales,” said IFPI chairman John Kennedy. “But while digital sales have grown as expected, physical sales have fallen by more than expected.”

Predictably, IFPI fingered piracy and online illegal filesharing for this downturn.

A few labels must be hoping last weekend’s Diana bland-fest at Wembley Stadium or this weekend’s Live Earth smugathon will change that scenario.

Kudos galore to veteran Irish composer Roger Doyle. The godfather of Irish electronica won the Magisterium Award at the Bourges International Electro-acoustic Music Competitio in France.

The prize, which is awarded to composers with at least 25 years of professional experience, highlights works that might become milestones in the history of electro-acoustic music.

Doyle, who has produced music in Ireland since the release of his 1978 album, Thalia, won the accolade for his work The Ninth Set.

Lyric FM will profile Doyle and celebrate his Magisterium win on Sunday next at 8pm.

You know this one.
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An Eyebrowy slam-dunk as they set the scene for Bell X1’s show at Malahide Castle last weekend. More of this kind of thing please chaps.

Corker! A new website looks at the early days of club culture in Cork with a grand round-up of the Sir Henry’s days, including the 120BPM documentary, various mixes from the Sweat glory days, some Stevie G joints and lots of flyers. There’s even a couple of pics in there from Nirvana’s show at the venue back in 1991 when they supported Sonic Youth. Ah, I remember it well…

Bruuuuuuce! It’s the On The Record YouTube Springsteen grab including “Thunder Road” from 1976, a promo video for “Atlantic City” from 1982 (hmm, wonder has David Chase seen this one?) and an acoustic version of “Born To Run” from 1986.

Hello to Seamus Brennan, the new Minister for Fun at the Department of Arts, Sport & Tourism. Will he do anything for the Irish music industry? Keep dreaming, boys and girls, keep dreaming.

Os Mutantes are coming! Yes, we know we’ve probably mentioned this before, but the Brazilian psychedelic pop icons play Dublin’s Vicar Street on July 26. When Caetano Veloso first met them, he said “they looked like three angels”. They look somewhat different these days we’re sure, but check out this trailer from the proposed band documentary “Bread & Circuses - A Film About Os Mutantes” and get a fever for the flavour. This show had better not get canned.

George Michael has rescheduled his nixed Dublin show (the show, you will recall, was cancelled because of a truck crash on that notorious stretch of tarmac from Bucharest to Prague) with two Point shows on August 1 and 2.

Even using the solar-powered On The Record calculator, it just doesn’t add up.

RDS: big patch of green in Dublin 4, capacity anything from 25,000 to 40,000 depending on where you stick the stage

The Point - former train-shed in Dublin 1, capacity up to 8,000 depending on how many seats you stick in (but it will be 20,000 when the builders finish in early 2009).

For two shows in the Point, you’ll jam in 16,000 punters maximum at the moment. Which means, George Michael’s second show in the RDS drew less than capacity. I mean, way less than capacity.

It all begs a couple of questions.

Just why did the promoters bother with the extra show in the first place when there’s really not that kind of demand for two nights of Michael at the RDS? Sure, he can do a couple of nights at the Point but so can Westlife.

Given the huge attempts to flog tickets for that second show (all those print ads and radio ads in the weeks before the shows), were porkies told about the real reason why the show was pulled? After all, the sold-out first show went off without a hitch. It would be nice to see the Ticketmaster manifest for that gig.

Seeing how much of a hit dinasour and heritage acts are taking across Europe this summer, are Irish audiences too beginning to vote with their wallets?

It’s turning into a fascinating summer on the Irish live music beat.

UPDATE Given that there are now plenty of tickets on sale for the Point shows from Ticketmaster, it’s fair to say that the second RDS show sold well less than 16,000.

This week’s Clipse show at Dublin’s Vicar Street has been cancelled.

No reason given in the press release, but we’re guessing that “poor ticket sales” might be one.

Anyone want to guess how many tickets were sold for this show?

Last week, as sometimes happens, a post about one thing quickly became about something else entirely. In this case, a post about how fans across Europe were abandoning dinasour and heritage acts became, via reader comments, a tirade by folks wondering why so many venues can’t get the simple basic notion of time-keeping right.
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Sometime this week, Arcade Fire (or rather their agent because it is a band’s well paid Mister Ten Percent who says yes or no to this kind of thing) will decide which Dublin show they will play this autumn.

There are three proposals on the table for this October outing:

(1) A gig in the RDS Simmonscourt

(2) A show at the Some Days Never End festival to be held by POD Concerts in a tent in the grounds of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin (subject to planning permission, licenses and stuff).

(3) A gig in the tent to be pitched by MCD Concerts near the Visitors Centre in the Phoenix Park (subject to planning permission, appeals and all that jazz)

On The Record has heard that the money on offer for this shindig is “huge”, “massive”, “more than Beverley Cooper Flynn will earn in the lifetime of this Dail”, “enough to buy your gaff and the gaff next door” and “listen, it’s big”.

Stay tuned, fight fans