'Ticket's There' – Irish and International Music Blog

After months and months of pestering different publications and E-Zines to do an interview with us, we finally had to lie…and it worked. None other that Trebor Harrington from Rolling Stone magazine, agreed to meet us over the phone and conduct a short but published interview (take that Enya!). Read on..

‘Hated by the mainstream, loathed by the independents and feared by newer bands, Tickets There has climbed it’s way from being a gag MySpace into the supremo of the Irish music journalism market‘…at least that’s what the press release they handed me says. I find myself taken aback by this interview. After spending the last year and a half working hard to become a semi-decent music journalist, my path seems to have taken several steps back. Not only had I never heard of the so called ‘God Blog’, (Tickets There), but after I looked though some posts, I still didn’t get it. What I see is spelling and grammar mistakes, hastily put together images using characters from Eyebrowy.com animations, repeated claims of ‘Championing‘ Irish music and ten times as many posts damning every Irish band under the sun except for a half a dozen or so. So, despite my lack of interest, the unresponsive nature with the lads behind Tickets There and the smell hanging in the air when I meet them (Ed – You had a phone interview Trebor. Please do not add insult to injury), I decided to go through with the interview.

According to the rest of the press release, Tickets There was started in 2007 by two of Ireland’s pioneering live entertainment promoters and sales representatives, as a voice for unsigned and local acts who weren’t getting the support they deserve or need from the Irish media. However, according to the lads, it was all originally started as a joke.

“When we started Tickets There, it waz only because we were fucking bored, ya know. Eyebrowy had based these two lads on us and we tried suing em, but they told us to fuck off. Den we realized they hadn’t gotten the rites to da MoiSpace so..Score!”

Rolling Stone: And what was your original purpose with the site when you started it?

Tickets There: We didn’t really know at first. Anto came up with the idea of adding some of the eyebrowy clips n dat to the page, let people know who we are and wat we’re up ta and shit. Then a few months went by and we started heading into some of the shows we were ehm, promoting and realized ders all these fucking deadly bands in the country ya never hear off”

Rolling Stone: But surely if they’re good, they will be heard of eventually?

Tickets There: Listen bud, your in Ireland now. Just because something’s fucking deadly doesn’t mean people are gonna like it or even hear about it. Don’t forget, we’ve had Home and Away and Pat Kenny on our screens for years and they wont go away”

Rolling Stone: What about the accusations that you illegally sell tickets for concerts?

Tickets There: Ah no, that’s shite. I mean, we used to all right but haven’t done that in weeks. Ever since the site took off in a big way, there’s been no point. Between the dole and advertising, we’re bringing in over four hundred euros a week between us. No need to sell the tickets any more. But if you’re asking, I could get yaz Slane Tickets?

Rolling Stone: No its fine, thanks. So tell me a little about how Tickets There developed. You claim it to be Ireland’s leading music blog. Quite a strong statement to make, considering the number of ones out there, how do you justify it?

Tickets There: Just look at da bleeding stats man, they’re of the fucking charts. Some days we could get up to ten hits from all over the county. That’s fucking success ya can’t measure bud.

Rolling Stone: Well, our website gets up to ten thousand hits a day.

Tickets There: Again man, you’re in fucking Ireland now. No site in dis country gets dat many fucking hits, except maybe U2.com, and that’s probably in Holland or somewhere now. It’s all politics, ya no what I mean?. The main stream doesn’t want us to succeed so they fabricate all this nonsense bout us and the site.

Rolling Stone: What are you talking about, how does that affect your blog statistics?

Tickets There: I don’t know, you’ve lost me.

Rolling Stone: Ok, moving on. I’ve read your manifesto and you claim Tickets There! to be a champion of Irish talent. Yet when I read your MySpace Review blogs, they seemed to focus more on slating the bands in Ireland and pulling them apart for bothering to get of the couch and make an effort at creating music. Don’t these ideals clash?

Tickets There: Bollocks. We don’t go out looking for bands to tear apart, they just seem to keep popping up. Da MoiSpace reviews were originally started to find random Irish bands and give them a bit of unbiased exposure rather than harping on about the select few we already like. It wasn’t meant to be about ripping every bands songs apart for our readers entertainment. It’s meant to be a real search for good Irish acts.

Rolling Stone: Was finding so many bad acts the reason you took a break from writing the reviews earlier this year?

Tickets There: Ya, we were becoming so frustrated and demoralized that there didn’t seem any point doing any more. We almost always choose acts we hadn’t heard or seen before so there wouldn’t be anything but their music to praise or criticize but after so many bands like Grand Pocket Orchestra, Fight Like Apes, Bats, We Should Be Dead..etc. Der didn’t seem any reason to continue. We did manage to find a few good ones like A Lazarus Soul, One Day International, Mass Extinction and Le Galaxie but then there just seemed to be so many we refused to go through with (Such as The Script) and the reviews ended.

Rolling Stone: Does it look likely that you’ll start doing them again soon?

Tickets There: Since we’re getting near the 100^th post on the site, we decided to hurry things along a little and we did a couple of special reviews which included Bell X1’s new tracks and the new ASH single. They turned out to be fucking wicked.

Rolling Stone: Those are very well established acts in this country, don’t you think you should have given the space to a more unheard of act like the others?

Tickets There: No.

Rolling Stone: So, you’re now in your second year of running Tickets There. Have you got anything special lined up for the future?

Tickets There: Well, the main thing is our Turn History Blog which will be fully published on July 16^th, the third anniversary of their split. We have a lot of surprises in store for that one including a competition to win an original 2000 copy of Antisocial and the Beretta 7″, and possibly, exclusive comments from the band. But all that’s under wraps at da moment and we’re still working everything out. Hopefully we’ll have all the details posted soon and we’ll start previewing extracts from the blog when the final copy is finished. Currently it’s over five and a half thousand words so be prepared.

Rolling Stone: Have you any plans to bring back your monthly ‘Wall of Shows’ and gig calendar?

Tickets There: We only ever really did dat when there was a good pile of shows on and this years been shite. But it will return wither this month or June. Also, the fucking Moispace calendar keeps acting the bollocks on us and deleting it’s self every bleeding time we sit down for three hours, looking through hundreds of bands for up and coming shows and that’s gets a bit tiresome.

Rolling Stone: One final question, we only know one of your names, can I ask the other?

Tickets There: Anto.

Tickets There will continue celebrating it’s 100^th post with more MySpace reviews, previews from the Turn history and more in the coming weeks. Find out more @ www.myspace.com/TICKETSTHERE

Words: Trebor Harrington.

Photo: Eyebrowy.com and Tickets There Studios Inc.