Wickidey whack, what’s the craic Jack?

Well, first of all, the business end- We’ll be spreadin the gospel of punkpoprockska in Laragh in Co Wickla this Saturday, so pop on down if ye are around that neck of the woods. We’ve also got a gig in Eamon Dorans coming up on the 28^th of May, that’s for the Oxfam Oxjam gigs and it should be a cracker, so get thee to the Dorans for some quality shit. On the subject of gigs, We’d all like to offer big love and huge thanks to everyone who came along to Radio City for the Focus Ireland fund raiser. It was a fantastic gig and we all had an absolutely brilliant time. All the bands there agreed that we should do more gigs together, so hopefully it’ll happen again before too long. You can check out some photos of the night here or if you’ve facebook, you can check out Franzi’s frankly massive photo collection here

Now, on to the rant. This week I’ve a bee in my bonnet about something very close to my heart- independent music. Being in an unsigned band does help with this, but I’m not really going to moan about our situation, I’m actually levelling the blame at Irish music lovers (and buyers, which includes myself, so this is kind of a rant to self as well). I buy as much music as I can afford, and that means I probably average out at about 1 album a week per year, not including stuff I get for free off other bands or from magazines etc. I subscribe to a load of free iTunes music as well ( I highly recommend song of the day if you’ve got an iPod and access to iTunes)  What bothers me is that there’s a wealth of independent music out there, but there doesn’t seem to be much support for it. At the moment the record companies aren’t really signing anyone up, so our main sources of income are cd sales and gigs. The major music retailers (HMV, Tower, Zavvi, Golden Discs) have fairly stringent rules regarding how many cd a band can stock at any one time, how much percentage they take, how long they will stock a cd on the shelves, and where it’s located in their store. (Normally at the back of the shop, tucked away)  It’s s similar story with airplay on Irish commercial radio (with the notable exception of PhantomFM) As far as I know, there are no national radio stations that have a dedicated independent or unsigned music show weekdays before 7pm. I remember that Jon Richards on Galway Bay Fm used to have a drivetime type show that featured unsigned bands before 7pm, but I don’t know if it’s still going.

I can understand that Irish radio stations make most of their revenue through advertising, which includes “first play” and “exclusives” in return for automatic playlisting. But surely they have some kind of responsibility to play some Irish music on their shows. Sorry, some independent, non commercially based Irish music. I really don’t think that the Irish music scene should be represented on national radio and TV solely by Westlife, U2, Damian Rice, Sinead O Connor, Mundy and other commercially viable artists who really don’t need the leg up like other less well known artists like The Mighty Stef, Delorentos, Cathy Davey, Hot Sprockets, Noise Control, RSAG, Walter Mitty and the Realists, The Heritage Centre, The Amazing Few, Lisa McLauglin, Murder of Crows, The Aftermath, Vesta Varro, Messiah J and the Expert, the Peakin Trippers, Odi…I could go on all day here, but hopefully you get the point.

Anyhoo, I digress. This is the point I’m trying to make. About 5 years ago there was No Disco, RTE axed it. It took 5 years to get a show like the Raw sessions on TV (check it right here), and only with corporate sponsorship. Road Records, Dublin’s premier independent record store, nearly went out of business a couple of months ago. Humanzi managed to sell less than a thousand copies of their debut, despite having a large publicity machine behind them, and a shit hot album. If we just amble along, it’s not gonna get any better. The recession might have an effect on it, but the problem existed before them. Large record companies nowadays more than ever before are littering our eardrums with pap and drivel of the poorest quality, and they have absolutely no regard for artistic integrity, originality or fresh ambitious songs and music. Most execs will admit to you that a hit single is simply a driver for corporate tie ins such as advertising and endorsements. In order for the Irish music scene to continue to flourish, we need to seriously re evaluate the way in which we listen to music.

  I’m willing to do my bit, buy my CD’s in Road, request Irish music on primetime shows, pay to see unsigned bands, spread the word to my mates and whoever I think might be interested in hearing new music, do whatever it takes to make sure that independent Irish music has a future. It’s time to get our shit together, realise that if we don’t spread the word, make the effort and put our hand in our pocket occasionally, there will a far smaller group, and it will be concentrated into a small clique of in the know musicians and artists who are lucky enough to either get signed or have the financial backing in place to keep them on the scene.  

All I’d ask anyone reading this is to check out one of the bands listed above (this goes out to musicians too, after all, we can help each other out too) Go tot their site, or if you’re into their tunes, pop into Road and grab their CD, or if you can’t, check it out on ITunes)

Ok, that’s it, now that I’ve guaranteed that RedKid will never get signed by a major…haha

Later peeps, Keeto-out

“The purpose of producin beautiful soul music is two-fold

One is fun - two goes to glue all the loopholes,

Let's build, useful tools, find some resolution in our lives

Three's to get your groove on, but it ain't like there's no

particular order, this ain't a true/false, answer only part of it

Everything's got an art to it”