The most words what I ever wrote in one go

Sorry there hasn't been any posts the last couple of days, I had a very busy weekend, a large part of which involved me standing in a muddy field getting rained on. I came down with a flu so did nothing but lie in bed watching The I.T Crowd on tvlinks, I just couldn't bring myself to attempt stringing words together in some sort of half readable fashion (I find that hard enough when I'm feeling 100%). Thats my excuse, I don't know whats up with yr other gimcracker SB, though he's probably been eating punnet after punnet of cherry tomatoes, getting in rumbles with his gang or giving back to nature, that's what he's into.

So i wake up today and i'm feeling much better, the sun is shining, I have a couple hours to kill before real work starts so I start thinking of something i can write about. My mind is blank. A quick sprint through the internet shows that it's been quite a quiet news week all over: The fuhrer of all music websites Pitchfork have an interview with Daryl Hall! of Hall & Oates fame, Our usual stop off for pointless un-news NME.com's top story is that huge abortion fan Madonna is selling her record company Maverick, anyone wanna own the rights to The Brood's back catalogue? Every other blog has been posting video's of Animal Collective live at the MIDI Festival in France so what's the point in even alerting you to that?

So I guess I'll just give you a quick run down of some of the great music i saw over the weekend yeah? Yeah.

The Spook of the 13th Lock: i can't praise these guys too much as they're friends but they really are shaping up to be one of the BEST BANDS IN THE WORLD EVER TIMES INFINITY!!!. Supposedly uncool elements like Trad, dual harmonising guitar solo's and Celtic Mysticism combine to make what some clownshoe is probably moments away from calling 'Horslips for the i-pod generation'.

Spook myspace

The Spook were one of the supports at the Brian Cullen's Love Bullets 10'' e.p launch in Toners of Baggot St. BCLB are one of the noisiest and most fun bands I've seen in a while, throwing sweets and hyperfuzzed sweet-pop into the crowd and their rapidly dying ear drums. The e.p comes with fantastic artwork and a board game designed by Studiomime aka Dublin musician David Donohoe and is already on the verge of selling out so get yrself down to Road Records as soon as you can and pick up one the the few remaining copies.

Love Bullets myspace

Straight after the BCLB gig i ran up to Crawdaddy for the Dan Deacon / So Cow gig. We've probably yakked on about Dan Deacon enough on this website so i'll just say his set was super fun, life-affirming stuff. The nialler9 blog has a more in depth review with pictures and video from the night, so go read. So what about So Cow? Well i have to say I'm kicking myself I didn't go see this guy more while he was home (he lives in the good Korea i think). Excellent lo-fi indie pop with smart/funny lyrics. Best part was he had his between song banter pre-recorded along with his backing tracks which constantly got me gigling.

So Cow myspace

Next morning i headed down to Wexford to play with Pantone247 at the Irish Green Gathering, Irelands first ever festival run entirely on petuli oil or something. Sunken stages, bails of hay used for toilets, minuscule organic burgers for 6.50, drum circles, no lights in the campsite and so many crusty types TG4's viewing figures must have been at an all time low - this was a lot of fun.

First act i caught were the always fun Cork langers Stanley Super 800, summery dance pop in the lashing rain, there's nothing better. The new songs sound great, speshly the supposed 'classic rock rip off' one. SS800 have a new album out in September.

SS800 myspace

Next up were the far too talented for their own good 10 past 7, breakneck rhythms, squiddly widdly guitar lines and so much jumping around that bassist Matt fell of the stage right into a pool of mud towards the end of their set. Brilliant stuff that you'd assume no one could follow.

10 past 7 myspace

Someone did follow and that someone was Rarely Seen Above Ground. It's fairly mind blowing stuff, one man from Kilkenny sat behind his drumkit playing and singing along to his own pre-recorded bass and guitar lines. His kit is augmented with all sorts of metallic bric-a-brac which he works into the beats with such furious speed as to make it seem like he's got an extra pair of hands. RSAB will be playing in Crawdaddy on Saturday (25th), go see him do his thing.

Rarely Seen Above Ground myspace
(his recorded work doesn't really give you the full effect, seriously go see him on Saturday)

- R.V