Ten Speed Racer’s Pat Barrett is now operating as The Hedge Schools and releases the Joe Chester-produced “Never Leave Anywhere” album on October 10.

Fiddle-player with The Frames and Swell Season, Colm Mac Con Iomaire releases his lovely debut solo album “The Hare’s Corner” on September 5.

Fujiya & Miyagi’s plug new album “Light Bulbs” with September shows at Cork’s Cyprus Avenue (19), Dublin’s Spiegeltent (20) and Belfast’s Stiff Kitten (21).

David Holmes launches his new album “The Holy Pictures” at Dublin’s Pogo on September 20. Video for “I Heard Wonders” follows

You can use this weekly Etc post to plug and recommend gigs, new releases, TV shows, recipes and exotic fruit. Please be polite and declare an interest where relevant.

This weekend’s Irish Green Gathering festival features Jinx Lennon, Giveamanakick (video below of band playing “Spring Break!” on RTE kids TV show), R.S.A.G., Margaret Healy, Ugly Megan and many more playing at Woodbrook House, Co Wexford. Organisers have been involved in a marathon sundance since midweek ahead of the fest.

Math-rock pioneers Don Caballero play their first ever Irish show at Dublin’s Crawdaddy on November 14th.

Cork-born, Barcelona-based house and techno producer Chymera returns to Ireland for dates at Stereotonic, Dublin, on August 15th and at the Solas Festival, Co Carlow, on August 17th.

Quote of the week: “Nobody”. Full-time miserabist Morrissey tells Israel’s Time Out magazine who he will be inviting to his forthcoming 50th birthday party. On The Record feels rather slighted.

Super Extra Bonus Party launch their new remix album with a Recession 2.0 special at ALT on October 10. It’s a tenner in and you get to see the band, (many) special guests and go home with a copy of the album. Here, I assume they haven’t lost that lovely trophy we gave them back in February. The cheque, I’d say, is long spent.

From this week on, you can use this weekly Etc post to go random with plugs, recommendations and stuff. Just make sure you declare an interest where relevant.

You’re Only Massive and Queen Kong launch their collaborative album Dot-Dash at Dublin’s Project Arts Centre on August 15th.

New-school disco queenpin Little Boots is the guest DJ at Dublin’s Button Factory on August 16th. Expect to hear her new single Meddle at least once.

Irish record-business veteran Dave Pennefather steps down as head of Universal Music Ireland in September after 24 years at the top.

Dave Fanning looks at the history of reggae on RTÉ Radio One on Monday next at 1.30pm.

Steve Albini’s Shellac (see video below) play Galway’s Roisin Dubh on October 27 and Dublin’s Button Factory on October 28.

Dublin City Council’s Arts Office is behind the Northside Music Festival running in various northside Dublin city venues throughout August, with performances from Havana Son, Grada, Kevin Glackin, Veda and many more.

Polish post-rock outfit Korbowod play shows at Dublin’s Boom Boom Room on July 25th and Waterford’s Artbeat Festival on July 26th.

Minimal techno maestro Pantha Du Prince plays a live set at Dublin’s Andrew’s Lane Theatre on August 2.

Hollywood’s favourite Irish film score composer David Holmes releases his new album The Holy Pictures on September 8.

Musos seeking a dig-out for recording or performance projects should check out Music Network’s funding schemes, details of which were announced this week. Closing date for applications is October 6.

New York punk-funk pioneers Liquid Liquid play Dublin’s Tripod on October 5th, one of just two European shows for the band. Domino has just released Slip in and Out of Phenomenon, a fantastic set of their greatest grooves.

Tickets go on sale today for US house kingpin Danny Tenaglia’s date at Dublin’s Tripod on September 19th.

Regular readers will remember that last summer saw all sorts of things (usually festival line-ups) falling off the back of trucks driving through the On The Record’s hood. Well, it seems those trucks are back because a big chunk of the line-up for the DEAF 2008 festival in Dublin in October has just arrived.

The big one will be a bash at The Village, Whelan’s and Upstairs at Whelan’s on Sunday 26 featuring Model 500 (Juan Atkins live with the Underground Resistance crew, including Mike Banks), the Moritz Von Oswald Trio (with Maurizio, Max Louderbauer and Vladislav Delay), Laurent Garnier, the D1 international showcase with AEOD, Annie Hall, Comtron and Baiyon plus even more acts.

During the actual festival from October 22 to 27, there will be DEAF collaborations with UMACK, Forever, Choice Cuts, Foggy Notions, Sweettalk, Maximum Joy, !Kaboogie and Electricity which means appearances in the capital from Nurse with Wound, Harmonia, M83 (with Channel One, Vicar Street, October 24), the fecking awesome Chrome Hoof (Whelan’s, October 25), Andy Votel, Fuck Buttons, Glen Underground, Trans AM (The Village, October 24) plus lots more.

There will also be DEAF events at such galleries as This is Not a Shop, Pallas Studios and the Gallery of Photography, a programme of experimental films from Spain and Africa and technical talks and demos in the Science Gallery.

Best of all, there’s the return of the fantastic DEAF Junior programme with workshops for kids in Sean MacDermott St, Ballymum, Clondalkin and Tallaght featuring D1 producers as the workshop tutors.

We’re now waiting for a truck to drive by with details of DNA.

Urban tales of every hue are on offer from the We Are Here mini-fest organised by the Project Arts Centre and Dublin Docklands Development Authority.

The latest We Are Here takes place in various city spaces from June 23rd to July 5th.

Musical highlights include brazen Waterford lasses You’re Only Massive’s Disco-nnect, featuring a guided walking tour of the South Docklands followed by a gig.

There’s also We Are Here To Party, featuring homegrown hip-hop from Ophelia and Redsquare, Arabic percussion from Tarab and Balkan and Gypsy fusion beats from Romania’s DJ Dubase.

Make a June Bank Holiday weekend date with Mr Scruff, the Mancunian tea-dancer who plays shows in Cork (Savoy, May 30th), Galway (Black Box, May 31st) and Limerick (Trinity Rooms, June 1st). His Dublin date will be at the Button Factory on June 14th.

Get an advance preview of tracks from Cork-born house producer Mark O’Sullivan’s new album, Fragments From a Long Country, at his MySpace site.

Arcade Fire are moving into the film soundtrack business, supplying the score for The Box, the new film from Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly.

There are some shows which are selling out this weather. All tickets for funkmaster Maceo Parker’s gig at the Mermaid Arts Centre as part of the Bray Jazz Festival tomorrow night have been snapped up.

This year’s FeileAfrica fest in Cork runs from May 22nd-25th with shows from Gregory Isaacs, Afrocelt Sound System’s N’faly Kouyate and many others.

Master At Work Kenny Dope will spend the June bank holiday weekend in Ireland with shows at Dublin’s Tivoli (May 31st) and Limerick’s Baker Place (June 1st

Bumper to Bumper is a headphone disco taking place at Grand Canal Square, Dublin next Saturday (April 19) as part of the Dublin Dance Festival.

Phantom Anthems host Sinead Ni Mhorda and myself will be spinning the tunes from 7pm to 10pm. You’re likely to get indie anthems, electropop gems, funky-punky boom tunes, gigantic hip-hop, sunnysideup rare grooves and bubblegum sounds of every description.

Admission to the event is free but you need to get yourself a ticket in advance (see here for ticketing details).

You also need to bring a FM radio with a headphone because, well, it’s a headphone disco, innit. No PA, just you and your headphones dancing around the square. The three hour set will be broadcast on Phantom 105.2 so you tune in your radio and Bob’s your uncle.

Also, it’s Ireland in April so bring a brolly, a jumper and a hat.

It will be the best fun you could possibly have in Dublin next weekend. And it will probably change your life too.

Putting some of that Arctic Monkeys loot to good use, the Domino label release “Slip In And Out Of Phenomenon”, a retrospective of New York punk-funk kingpins Liquid Liquid, on May 23.

The Skinny Wolves are back and they’ve got Brooklyn hipsters Effi Briest lined up for their next club night at Transformer (Thomas Read’s, Dublin) on April 18.

Kiwi with an Irish passport Liam Finn releases his debut album “I’ll Be Lightning” here on April 18 and marks the occasion with shows in Cork (Whiskey, 23), Galway (Roisin Dubh, 24) and Dublin (Sugar Club, 25).

From the good news department: hip-hop and samba night Brasilintime, which has its roots in the documentary of the same name (see video below), is back in Ireland in May.

Put together by Limerick-born photographer, director and DJ Brian “B+” Cross, the line-up stars Afrobeat legend Tony Allen, most recently in action with The Good, The Bad & The Queen.

Allen will appear with Brazilian drummers Ivan Conti (Azymuth) and Joao Paryhba (Trio Mocoto) plus the mighty Madlib (Beat Konducta/ Quasimoto), J-Rocc (The Beat Junkies) and Nuts.

The dates are Dublin’s Tivoli on May 2nd and Limerick’s Trinity Rooms on May 4th.

The UK Office of National Statistics has dumped the CD single from its list of goods and service used to measure inflation. Other items chopped include ready-made meals, camera film and microwaves.

Public Enemy producer Hank Shocklee and Berlin-based music-maker Henrik Schwarz will host a Red Bull Music Academy workshop at Dublin’s Spy on April 12 for aspiring Irish producers. Email for more info.

RTE’s various digital radio stations are now broadcasting in the Cork and Limerick areas. Lets hope there’s even more content on the way, particularly from the excellent 2XM indie station.

Further proof that De La Soul’s maxim that everyone wants to be a DJ was on the money: unnamed members of Bloc Party hit the decks at the POD, Dublin on March 23rd.

Some must-see additions to the capital city gigroll: The Notwist (Button Factory, June 7), Ted Leo & The Pharmacists (Crawdaddy, April 13), Man Man (Whelan’s, May 11), Why? (Whelan’s, April 26) and Damon & Naomi (Whelan’s, June 25).

Our outdoor gig of the summer? That could well be Prince at Croke Park playing the greatest hits one last time (allegedly) on June 16.

Acts heading to Co Galway for this year’s Life Festival from July 4 to 6 include Max Romeo, Coldcut, Finley Quaye and Alloy Mental.

Maybe they’ll make the Picnic this time? Gnarls Barkley return in April with a new album, “The Odd Couple”.

Transvision Vamp singer Wendy James turns DJ at a special Songs Of Praise happening at The Village, Dublin on Easter Sunday.

“The Ballad of Ronnie Drew”, featuring U2, The Dubliners, Kila, Christy Moore, Shane MacGowan, Glen Hansard and an all-star Band of Bowsies, goes on release today. All proceeds to the Irish Cancer Society.

March’s must-see gig in the capital is the visit of avant-garde queenpin Baby Dee to Whelan’s on the 22nd.

The Go! Team hit the decks at Sassy Sue’s Go-Go Inevitable at Dublin’s Sugar Club on April 18.

We’re really looking forward to hearing “Jim”, the new album from electro-pop crooner Jamie Lidell. He plays Dublin’s Academy on May 3.

Anyone for some hairy psych-metal? Canuck rockers Black Mountain plug their awesome new album “In The Future” at Dublin’s Button Factory on May 13.

The new David Gray? Big in Ireland singer-songwriter Tom Baxter plays Dublin’s National Stadium on May 2.

On The Record is officially very excited. German indie kingpins The Notwist release a brand new album in May, the long awaited follow-up to 2002’s “Neon Golden”

It’s like Ri-Ra 1994-5 all over again, dudes. Hip-hop pioneers Naughty By Nature go live at Dublin’s Tripod on March 6. Hip-hop hurrah, ho, hey, ho etc

Large birthday cake for Trinity Rooms please. The Limerick superclub kick off their fifth b-day celebrations with Groove Armada DJ-ing on February 17.

Kraftwerk remain pop’s most enduring riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Many attempts have been made to decipher what actually goes on beyond the doors of their Kling-Klang studio and there have ever been a couple of band interviews in recent years. Yet the enigma remains in place.

Wolfgang Flur, though, is one who has cracked the code. Once a member of the band behind such classics as Trans Europe Express and Computer World, Flur even wrote a fascinating book on his Kraftwerk experiences, I Was A Robot.

These days, Flur concentrates on his Yamo music project, and it’s Yamo which will be bringing him to Dublin for the first Fabrik club night at the Tivoli on February 14th.

Others appearing at Fabrik include Soft Cell and The Grid’s Dave Ball, Irish electro pop act Neosupervital and veteran spinner Anni Hogan.

There are a couple of big dates already on the Dublin clubbing calendar for 2008.

Chilean-German minimal kingpin Ricardo Villalobos will visit Dublin for a Remedy gig on May 4th.

The same night, MSTRKRFT, Gui Boratto (the Brazilian behind one of 2007’s spellbinding tune, Beautiful Life) and Navid Tahernia play Spy.

Other Spy visitors include Richard Dorfmeister (January 25th), Justin Robertson (February 15th) and DJ SebastiAn (February 29th)

Those who think that the rise and rise of live gigs means the end is nigh (again) for big-room clubbing events should talk to the people at Planetlove.

They’ve just announced the line up for their Winter Session to be held at Junction 15 in Dublin on February 16th.

The top-drawer trancers knocking out the anthems on the night will include Ferry Corsten, Judge Jules, Sander Van Doorn and Alex Kidd. Irish reps include Mark Kavanagh and John Gibbons.

Further info from planetlovemusic.com