That’s right folks, ‘it’s all happening’ (boy, did that ever get old!). The good folks over at Hard Working Class Heroes have posted the schedule of live bands playing between the 7th, 8th and 9th of October.
We will off course be doing our preview after we’ve had time to digest everything but here’s the full break down for you to droll over in the mean time (or alternatively, you can Click Here and see it properly on the HWCH.net Website)
On the ball today. Loads of great music, loads of people visiting Tickets There (which always makes us smile) and lots of sunshine for the soaking. Time for another look at some of Ireland’s finest bands. One of Tickets There’s earliest readers mentioned this band in a message to us and it didn’t take too many of their songs to convince us they deserve a praising review. So let’s get to it, shall we?
As usual, I’ve never seen the band live or heard their album (I do go to gigs and buy records, just seem to miss all these guys).
After listening to them for a while, I’m reminded of A.S.I.W.Y.F.A. and I’ll Eat Your Face…a little. Instrumental heavy rock / metal with some added keyboards for good measure. First song Satellites is a blast. Very fast in places, very heavy in others and several relaxed moments letting the listener unwind and enjoy the sights. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Ireland has some fantastic instrumental bands on the go at the moment and these guys are another example of that. Second track, 4plus1equals5 is very similar to Satellites but in a good way. I’m never really sure what to say about instrumental acts other than they’re deadly or they’re shit. This band are the former. The music is more than good enough on it’s own to keep you interested and there’s more than enough changes to keep the song’s ‘building’ feel.
Interlude is third and brings on a totally different buzz. One that would be closer to Le Galaxie than ASIWYFA. Despite me comparing, I don’t want ye getting confused. This group have their own style and I don’t want to overshadow that. Interlude is a nice, sublime sort of peaceful effort. Dive, Dive, Dive on the other hand, is a blistering slice of pure grunge styled rock. Heavy guitars, ball busting drums and all the works. Wee stompy breaks and more pounding on everything they can play or find. Savage!!
15728 (actually the second last track, MySpace skipped it) finishes things off and it’s similar to Interlude except a radio kind of voice is repeating the numbers over the music. Very atmospheric. Like it was just plucked from a Resident Evil game. As the song progresses, it could be compared to a Prodigy number rather than a metal band. Great heavy dance beats, electronica up the wazoo and the whole shebang. Fuck writing about it, I’m going back to listen.
Highly recommended and they’re playing the HWCH Festival tonight, 20:55 in Twisted Pepper Click Here For More Details.
Also, check out the C!ties MySpace!
It’s October, Halloween is close and the Hard Working Class Heroes Festival returns to the streets of Dublin. For a mere forty odd Euro, you’ll have access to 100 bands in six of Dublin’s finest venues over the next three days (or you can buy much cheaper tickets if you can only handle one day of the festivities). There’s also street exhibits, art and photography exhibitions and loads, loads more joy n craic going on. The atmosphere should be great craic around the town. As for the bands themselves? Well, let’s see what Tickets There recommends.
Please keep in mind that Tickets There’s talent doesn’t affords us the luxury of spending all day listening to music so I won’t be recommending zillions of bands, just the handful of extremely talented ones I’ve had the good fortune to find.
Friday, 16th October
20:40 – 21:10: The Brothers Movement – The Button factory
22:45 – 23:10 – Talulah Does the Hula (meant to be good)
23:30 – 00:00 – Neosupervital – Twisted Pepper
Saturday, 17th October
19:10 – 19:40: Ollie Cole – The Button Factory
20:15 – 20:45: Kill Krinkle Club (Go and see for yourself just how obnoxiously shite this band are. Very, very funny to watch their fans get into it. You can play nasty, snide little games and pass remarks. Always good fun)
20:55 – 21:25: C!ties – Twisted Pepper
22:30 – 23:00: Sweet Jane – Andrews’s lane
23:15 – 00:00: Adebisi Shank – Andrews Lane
Sunday, 18th October
22:50 – 21:20 – Fiona Melady– Button Factory
21:30 – 22:00: The Brad Pitt Light Orchestra – The Button Factory
22:10 – 22:40: SOUNDS OF SYSTEM BREAKDOWN – Twisted Pepper
22:55 – 23:30 – Ham Sandwich – The Button Factory
Believe it or not, that’s it. And two of the bands should even really be there. I’m afraid very few of Tickets There’s choices for this country’s leading acts will be on show. Anyways people, relax, check out the official HWCH festival page for more details and the full schedule.
To see a full list of the band playing, venues involved and all the other guff, check out the HWCH Homepage (it’s working now :))
To see the full schedule Click Here
This is gonna be a quick one, just want to warn you now. I’m way behind my proposed forty MySpace review so I wanna get two out tonight if possible. Currently, I’m going by the Top 20 Download chart on HWCH.com (or net, can’t remember). I’ve decided to skip of a few of the acts because they’re total bollocks and I’ve settled for Dublin group, The Star Department. Never heard of them before, don’t like the sound of the first song that’s playing but let’s fire through anyways.
Never heard em, never seen em.
Porcelain Doll is a little annoying. Like a good version of Kill Krinkle Club with some brass instead of ass. Forced kind of tranquillity and a little pointless. Better than it should sound but not something you’d ever really be bothered with. You can just see the guys there, wearing very silly hats and acting very sincere. In my mind, the Smashing Pumpkins just did a full on, heavy guitars, massive string section version of this tracks and it fucking rocks. Original doesn’t though.
Antlers, a song with over 3,000 plays compared to Porcelain Doll’s 520, isn’t any better. It’s basically the exact same song (god am I fucking sick of saying that almost every fucking time I write about an Irish group). Annoying, shitty harmonies, boring, tired shitty guitars and terrible, stupidly terrible lyrics with the added bonus of annoying changes. Not good. I want a comment from their fans on this post, I want to see what people, who like this kind of music say. Bet that’ll be a laugh. Maybe more claims of Tickets There pushing artists over the edge. This isn’t a song, it’s a mess. Porcelain Doll suddenly looks a lot better.
Superhawk is third and last on the list. It has the least number of plays and the only difference I can hear between this and the others is more trumpets during the intro. Please see above for description of music. More bad harmonies, more boring guitars. More bad changes and much, much more badly placed instruments.
Hard Working Class Heroes my hole. More like ‘music’ for D4 gits with no taste!
Ok, so far I’m nine reviews behind this weekends target. Only two people have read this morning’s one so I don’t think anyone is sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for them anyways. So, todays Hard Working Class Heroes Festival special review is The Brad Pitt Light Orchestra. Now, Tickets There isn’t expecting a whole pile from this band but we’ll try and be as positive, charming, happy go lucky and polite as we almost usually are. I turned off the Future Kings of Spain to start this review so they better be worth it.
As usual, I’ve never seen the band live or heard their album.
Soon! is first. Ok, just a one minute’s preview. Ehm, well it’s different. Strings and guitars with a splash of drums. Strange vocals and not really Tickets There’s thing. Not as bad as I thought it would be though. Second track, December seems to be the full deal. Similar to Soon! but a little better. The vocals aren’t as in your face and the music is a little less intrusive. The strings add a nice change and it’s kind of angelic poppy or something. Definitely not as bad as I thought. Certainly not my thing but more than audible. There’s something oddly familiar about it, like it was in some film. Very well done, purposely shambolic sound around the whole thing.
What do you get when you mix nineteen thirties swing music with reggae and PJ Harvey? Grace Jones. A song that by all rights should be very, very silly. “Grace Jones on your cell phone”! What the hell is that meant to mean anyway? Unusually, it kind of works. Still not my thing but I’m looking for positives and I’ll happily admit it’s a strange mix that I haven’t heard a group do before. Manages to change its style a lot without the basic foundation changing an inch (does that make sense?). All I Want follows and it’s much more simplistic and very, very different from the previous numbers. This one sounds more like Divine Comedy doing singer songwriter stuff. Little Swiss (cheesy) but not the worst out there. More harmonies would have been nicer on it. The two singers compliment each other very well.
The Devil in Me starts off with much heavier guitars than the other numbers. Little less gospelish despite it’s subject. There’s a good backing from one of those sixties styled organs. I think this is my favourite so far. One I’d even consider putting on rotation for a few days. Not the most original but pretty alright. Wake Up Screaming sounds closer to an Irish rock number than a lot of music I’ve heard in a while and the violins are a welcome return and they make the overall flow of the song very melodic. Slow paced but in a good way.
Four Out Five brings their MySpace selection to a close and it’s not a bad way to go. Very, very nice song that would work very well in a smokey jazz bar. Not bad.
Well, Tickets There has been caught off guard again. Looks like there will be some acts to check out this year after all. Hop over and check out The Brad Pitt Light Orchestra for yourself and see what I mean.
Tickets There is getting ready to return to some Irish music folks. After the Megadeth and KISS bonanzas, we feel it’s time to get back to our roots and bring you some of the best….and a lot of the worst music Ireland has to offer.
Our plan is simple. Rather than searching for bands on MySpace to review, we’re going to do a review of every single band playing the Hard Working Class Heroes Festival this year (excluding the ones we’ve already done).
We were hoping to start ages ago but ya know, KISS!. So we’ll be starting tonight and we’ll bring you a minimum of one MySpace review a day. Forget all that nonsense of starting to be nicer, if the bands are shit, we’ll fucking say it (and yes, the list will be returning Shaun J)
So stay tuned later tonight for the first of many, many new MySpace Reviews!!
All the best,
Tickets There
'Ticket's There' - Irish and International Music Blog 