All Write Now: the winning entries

Never in the history of jurydom have four good men and two women true had to work so hard! Did we mind? On the contrary, it was a real pleasure, seeing just how many of the entries were of really impressive calibre.
“Up to 400 words on any music subject that takes your fancy” was the brief, and you didn’t let us down with either the quality or the quantity of your entries. Not everything was of Olympian standard, but we didn’t expect it to be. But we got to read some really was some cracking stuff.
After much deliberation, and the occasional tussle, we’ve chosen the four students – two 6th Year and two 3rd Level – who, as our overall winners, receive €1,000 in cash, a fab new Nokia 6680 mobile with €100 call credit from Vodafone and a summer or autumn internship at hotpress.
Their submissions are printed here, along with those of the 16 runners-up – one from each province in the four categories – who’ll also receive prizes, courtesy of Vodafone.
A big “thank you” to everybody who took the time and trouble to enter, to our distinguished and supremely boggle-eyed panel of judges and to the folk at Vodafone, whose support made the whole thing possible. And finally, a huge, hotpress-style congratulations to the winners. Now, over to you…
Second level male winner: Tim Smyth
2002-2007, A Playlist
Frank Zappa once said, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” Although he’s everyone’s favourite bandito-‘tached troubadour, I disagree. Writing pins down the every-hair-enraptured shiver that only music gives you.
And here is the document of five of those shivers.
2006: ‘Hey Jude’ – The Beatles
Alex Turner deserves credit for convincing us he’s not eleven, but 2006 belonged to these little-known Liverpudlians. ‘Hey Jude’ features the ultimate singalong, with a breakdown involving a rangy bassline, blaring Edwardian horns and strings that shimmer like a mirage.
Reviews were lukewarm, but their best is yet to come... Buy.
2005: ‘Old Sh*t/New Sh*t’ – Eels
Forget Live 8. My highlight came during work experience, while furtively listening to my Discman. That’s when I heard this song’s aquatic guitar line begin to unfurl, when I knew Mr. E’s happy ending was here at last. It’s as uplifting as watching Forrest Gump outrun the bullies, as mysteriously beautiful as finding a shaft of sunlight in an attic. If he can write this after all his troubles, see what listening to it can do for you.
2004: ‘Take Me Out’ – Franz Ferdinand
Its sheer energy nearly gave me a heart-attack. When I heard that ground-shuddering chord and those piston-pumping hi-hats, I knew I needed to get a copy that second – or else, I thought, panicking, they’d all be gone.
Then I heard those diamond-hard crunches – and that riff. I legged it.
2003: ‘There There’ – Radiohead
My introduction to the joys of Smilin’ Thommy Yorke and Chums. Its gut-bludgeoning bassline and violin-pure voice shivered my spine; its wrenching guitar histrionics blew my mind. It was love at first listen – the most gloriously atonal noise-fest I had heard since, aged five, I trapped my cat under a bucket.
2002: ‘There Goes The Fear’ – Doves
Dave Fanning’s interviewing some soft-spoken Mancunians. As usual, he’s confusing me (I’m 14).
Then he plays a song the colour of a Surrealist sunset and the consistency of caramel, with a percussion coda that sounds like a beach party in Paradise. I have to find this song – even if the only copy is guarded by ninjas.
And that’s how everything started.
Zappa was wrong – there is a point to writing about music. If you can’t make it, you write about it.
For those of us handier with a pen than a plec, it’s our only option.

Leinster
Guy Wingfield Horan

A Recipe For Success

To make sangria, take:
Copious amounts of Red Wine
Orange and other fruit juices
6oz of Brandy
6oz of Triple Sec
Fruit chunks
…and leave for around four hours in a fridge.
However, this recipe changes quite a bit when you’re waiting in a car park for your lift. It was about this time that we abandoned the project, to be filed under “…it was a good idea at the time.” Mainly because, though not quite on a par with Hunter S. slicing grapefruit on a plane to Denver, we were attracting strange looks whilst chopping fruit and poking the slices into bottle of blood red “white lemonade” (the label wasn’t fooling anyone.) It did however prove to be quite potent and made the five-hour trip to Belfast far more bearable.
To make one of the best bands of 2006 take:
½ of the White Stripes
1 Brendon Benson
An attic and a hot summer’s day
…and finally about 2/3 of the Greenhornes
The Raconteurs’ Dublin gig had sold out, and the discovery of their Tennents Vital date in Belfast was what spawned this alt. rock pilgrimage.
We had missed two of the bands by the time we had checked into our hotel and found the Botanical Gardens, but it didn’t matter once Be You Own Pet (8/10), who reminded me of a lot of a wilder Yeah Yeah Yeahs, took to the stage.
However, the night truly belonged to The Raconteurs. Even ¡Forward, Russia!’s show (8/10), which involved vocalist Tom Woodhead diving head-first into the crowd and proceeding to go mental, paled in comparison.
The Raconteurs (10/10) managed to get through all of their phenomenal debut, Broken Boy Soldiers, not to mention a different, mellower intro to ‘Store Bought Bones’, an insane improvised solo to ‘Blue Veins’ and a cover of ‘Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)’. Yeah, that Cher hit that Nancy Sinatra covered.
It was, along with Sigur Rós at Oxegen, the greatest musical experience of my life.
After The Raconteurs, we went back to the hotel; the Kaiser Chiefs would have been wasted on us…
What we needed was somewhere quiet to sit down until we stopped shivering, which could have been the result of either an adrenaline rush or a bout of Stendhal sydrome – and maybe some more of that Frankenstein’s monster sangria...

Munster
Tom Mullen

A Music Critic You Aren’t!

“I mean, have you heard Paul McCartney’s latest album? It’s hardly the best he’s ever written, but it’s still ten times better than fucking Hard-Fi!” – Noel Gallagher.
Alright Noel, simmer! Blimey, you’re a talented bloke, but music critic? You’re having a laugh!
Listen up, aspiring rock ‘n’ roll stars. A prerequisite of making it big is having a blonde-hair-extensions-fake-tan-and-high-heels ability to slag off your rivals. Essentially, sod musical talent and lyrical genius, it’s the knack of taking the piss out of your fellow piss-taking artists that counts.
Here’s how it rolls:
Step 1: Big up your latest album to rather astronomical heights. Never underestimate the power of complete, raw, disillusioned, stomach-churning cockiness. Standard replies include “This is our Sgt. Pepper!”, “It’s like nothing we’ve done before!”, “We’re bigger than Jesus!”.
Step 2: Swear a lot, complaining about how gruelling life is on the road, 'cause there just aren’t enough games for the Nintendo Wii on the fully-furnished tourbus. Under no circumstances mention your recent stay at the Priory!
Step 3: Slag off every other band whose LP release date is anywhere within a six-month radius of yours. Standard digs include “they’re too heavily influenced” and “Yeah well, they’ll never make it in America!” Pete Doherty is usually fair game, if the gossip-starved non-believers that are the tabloids haven’t already driven nails through his hands and feet, hurled insults at his drooping head and watched the life seep from his hanging body as punishment for buying a guitar pick from a second-hand shop while his car was parked on double yellow-lines.
So, if you’re going to make it in the dog-eat-dog, it’s-a-long-way-to-the-top, don’t-call-us-we’ll-call-you music business, not only should you be able to wear a guitar, have a few raucous haircuts under your belt, and perhaps the ability to write a tune every now and again, whilst chatting up the nurses at the Priory and relentlessly playing the Nintendo Wii, you’re going to have to overlook your principles, and be prepared to take the mother of all pisses out of your fellow songwriters.
So you better start now if you’re going to reach Noel’s standard.

Here’s one I made earlier:
“Hard-fucking-fi? Their production on their measly, camp, pathetic excuse for an album sounds so shoddy, I bet it wouldn’t even cover Chris Martin’s macrobiotic yoghurt demands for a week. It’ll never translate in America!”
‘Nuff said.

Ulster
Paul Smith

Numbers Up At The Nerve

The Wombles’ Christmas visit to Derry around 1974 was well before my time, but I’m reliably informed by an embarrassed close family member that half the population turned out. The Maiden City has always been Belfast’s poor relation when it comes to live music up North, so when we do get someone half decent, locals flock to the venue like Amy Winehouse to a free bar.
Not the most cutting edge band around, The Magic Numbers have slightly more credibility than the Wimbledon Common combo, so their Nerve Centre date arrived just in time to inject some summer cheer into a dreary winter night.
Opening with the jaunty ‘This Is A Song’ from the new album Those The Brokes, might not have been the best way to start the gig, but things soon improved when ‘Forever Lost’ was energetically thrashed out and eagerly received by the sell-out crowd.
Michelle Stodart wielded her bass in all directions, while Angela Gannon kept her distance, proving she was more than just the band’s tambourine shaker by taking lead vocals on the sublime ‘I See You, You See Me’.
You had to strain to hear her delicate voice above the ‘Stars In Their Eyes’-like applause after each line, but at least the reception was warm and enthusiastic.
Enthusiastic isn’t how you’d describe the reaction to the new material though, in particular the dire ‘Slow Down’.

Connaught
Joe Donnellan
5 Reasons To Go To Oxegen

These aren’t so much reasons, as experiences from last year to help twist your arm if you’re half thinking about going this year…
5. Crowd surfing. Everyone around is concentrating on you. If you get dropped, though, you’re on your own!
4. The food. My god, is it shit – but how else would you get away with drinking yourself into a stupor for a whole three days, spending two hundred euro on food, not take a shit all weekend and still come back a stone lighter.?You cant argue with results like that.
3. The randomers. One guy from The Isle Of Man stayed for 2 hours before disappearing. We didn’t see him again until Monday morning and he was supposed to be in the tent beside us.
2. The Bacardi Bar. 7.50 for a drink, but what a place!. Trained pros behind the bar, juggling, spinning and throwing bottles as well as throwing ice onto the packed dance floor. Has to be seen to be understood.
1. The music. It wouldn’t be a music festival without the music. And in fairness it was there in spades. I was in the arena listening to top quality music for 12 hours on the Sunday.
And the tips I was talking about:
5. Bring a wheelbarrow. Yes you’re reading it properly – if you had to lug around crates of beer for two hours before you get to put up a tent at all you’d understand.
4. Raingear and old clothes. I went with two sets of clothes and no raingear. Ended up wearing Saturday's clothes home again on Monday because of my stupidity. And they were still wet.
3. Don’t set tents on fire. We… I mean some people got into a lot of trouble (and had a lot of fun for this reason). The campsite was like a war zone in the early hours of Monday morning.
2. Pace yourself. You’re not going to manage to maintain a permanent state of drunkenness, so take it handy on the Friday night. And don’t drink in the arena. It’s a rip-off.
1. Join an angry mob. They just go around chanting “angry mob” and generally look threatening. They last all of four minutes before security comes over and everyone scatters. Harmless fun.

Second level Female winner: Orla Ryan
Make Some Illnoise
Sufjan Stevens
Illinois (Come On Feel The Illinoise) [Rough Trade Records]
Have you ever found a shiny coin down the abyss which is the back of your couch? If yes, you will know the elation caused by such a simple event. If no, I implore you to start searching for that elusive object immediately. Sufjan Stevens is one such coin. You will not find him on the front cover of an illustrious music magazine. His music is more likely to frequent late night radio and ‘alternative’ music websites. He remains relatively under the radar, waiting to be discovered. Illinois is one of the most refreshing, remarkable albums of recent times.
Opening with the lines “...We couldn’t imagine what it was... The alien thing that took its form”, Stevens refers to a UFO sighting, but the same description could be given to Illinois itself. The first time I laid my ears on this record, I was transfixed. Upon further listening, none of its appeal disappears. The lyrics and instrumentation are exhilarating. Think Morrissey, only positive.
Stevens subconsciously succeeds in sowing sympathy within the listener for infamous US serial killer John Wayne Gacy, Jr., in the song of the same name. How often does a simplicity-laden track of just over three minutes have such a profound effect as to create undeniable empathy within anyone who hears it? From the banjo-picking ode to his stepmother in ‘Decatur’, and the dizzy, hair-raising heights of ‘Chicago’, to the dulcet tones of ‘The Predatory Wasp Of The Palisades Is Out To Get Us!’, one never ceases to clasp this shiny coin.
Possibly the most effective, eloquent track is ‘Casimir Pulaski Day’. It perfectly encapsulates love, loss and the irreversible indentation left by cancer on each individual life it touches. It is poignant, beautiful, honest. With the fusillade of unoriginal, manufactured ‘music’ polluting the airwaves, Illinois is a rare jewel worthy of recognition, but too special to become ubiquitous.
Stevens once said he intended to record an album inspired by each American state – a gargantuan task. Having represented Michigan and Illinois so spectacularly, I for one cannot wait until he makes it to Washington.
The last words uttered here are: “Celebrate the few. Celebrate the new/ It can only start with you.”
It is sometimes more effective to be subtle than to shout. Stevens gives a masterclass in intelligent song-writing and arrangement that sends you looking for more loose change.
TEN/TEN

Leinster
Caelainn Hogan

The Likely Lads

When Shane MacGowan made his surprise appearance onstage at the Ambassador during the Babyshambles gig last September, unanimous shock rippled through the crowd, like the whole room had copped on to the same private joke: this was Pete Doherty in 22 years time. A bizarre combination altogether (Moss, Doherty and MacGowan – the good, the bad and the ugly), but being two of today’s most endearing hedonists it was hard to believe no one had coined the Pete-Shane comparison before. As MacGowan belted out a galvanizing rendition of ‘Dirty Old Town’, Doherty strummed and warbled along at his side like an enamoured protégé. The two share the same captivating presence, feeding our voyeuristic fascination for talented and debauched epicureans languishing in their own sort of Neverland, beat up and always half baked. They paint quite a romantic picture: you can imagine them crooning, paralytic in some north London pub, sharing each others’ needles or booking themselves in for joint holidays at the Priory. MacGowan revealed their latest scandal to the Sun in December:
“I had my photograph taken with Mr. Doherty recently. It was by Mario Testino. Nothing particularly unusual, except he asked us to be naked together, which was pretty unexpected. What’s more unexpected is that we obliged.”
They both were born in England, but to Irish parents, and are both now very much based in London. MacGowan supposedly began drinking at the age of five and allegedly hasn’t stopped since. Doherty seems to go from one drug-related court case to the next. Their antics have gained them notoriety in the press, not that celebrities behaving badly are anything extraordinary, but with Doherty and MacGowan it is less airbrushed, less Hollywood. Whether shooting blood out a syringe at the cameraman or flashing a toothless grin, they have immediate impact. They are intriguing because they are accessible.
I met Pete Doherty once in Dublin and he’s hard not to like: very polite and down to earth, with no pretensions. Both he and MacGowan share that same roguish charm. They are eccentrics, and though their unshaven, slightly bloated and pale faces don’t quite fit the celebrity image, they have become legendary in the public eye. Flawed and immoral, whether parading among the crème de la crème or passing out in the gutter, it seems the world is their oyster. The reality is there’s no pearl without some grit.

Ulster
Derbhla Leddy
Scary Monsters: A Bowie Benchmark

“What are they trying to prove? – What are they hoping to find?”
The period of the late 1970’s placed David Bowie at a crossroads. His already phenomenally successful career had paved the way for a new generation of musicians, for example Gary Numan. In 1977, Bowie released Low, the first chapter of his so-called “Berlin Trilogy”. Followed by the equally experimental Heroes and Lodger, the trilogy was critically adored yet a commercial disappointment. In response to this, Bowie returned with an album which flawlessly merged his Ziggy Stardust glory with his more recent aloofness. The results, needless to say, speak for themselves.
What set Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) apart from the start was the sudden shift in Bowie’s song writing process. While the “Berlin Trilogy” consisted of many songs which had been improvised on the spot, Bowie instead spent time crafting these songs before even entering New York’s Power Station studio, where the majority of the album was recorded. Also, his three previous albums had begun to feature more and more input from collaborators such as Brian Eno. The absence of the former Roxy Music keyboardist this time around is yet a further indicator of the step Bowie was taking towards a more commercial profile.
The album’s propulsive, hair-shaking opener ‘It’s No Game (No. 1)’ launches the album on an exhilarating high. Guest vocalist Michi Hirota sings the entire song in Japanese, perhaps representing the album’s oddest, most experimental feature. From the similarly chugging title track to the scathing 'Teenage Wildlife', Bowie is on auto-pilot throughout. One of the album’s standout tracks, 'Fashion', features an irresistible call-and -response chant of “turn to the left, turn to the right”.
The album’s unquestionable highpoint, however, is of course ‘Ashes To Ashes’. Released a month before the album, it was an immediate number one hit and gave the public its first taste of what was to follow. The song’s hauntingly catchy synth line provides the backdrop for a sequel of sorts to 'Space Oddity', with Bowie once again referencing the troubled character of “Major Tom”.
The album’s chart placings of number one in Britain and number 12 in America propelled Bowie back into the mainstream. Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) has since become a Bowie benchmark, against which every subsequent Bowie album has been ranked.
Munster
Emer Downing
I Like The Early Stuff

Since noticing the “I like early stuff” t-shirt slogan on the cover of this year’s Hot Press Christmas Special, I’ve been thinking about something every music fan encounters at one stage or another – music snobbery. People have different definitions of what a music snob is, so, after, oh, minutes of contemplation, I’ve developed three categories into which these snobs could be classified.
First, there are the painful, boastful ones who know every band that has ever influenced another. These snobs have an extensive knowledge of genres and bands that existed before their time. They show off this knowledge by comparing every new band to one from a past generation, then sighing and moaning about how nothing is original these days.
These people will never again be satisfied by a gig. This is because they’ve heard everything. Nobody is original. Hence, every new band is a plagiarist and nothing can be unique or impressive.
The second type of music-snob has a much more defined taste. They refuse to listen to music outside of a specific genre and look down on people with inferior musical taste. These people enjoy a limited selection of music, for example, post-punk indie alternative rock: nothing else fits their standards.
They cannot accept others’ opinions on what’s hot and what’s not. They won’t admit to any guilty pleasure. Even if they do secretly love that, dare I say it, James Blunt song, they can’t allow themselves to indulge.
Then there are the devoted fans of a particular artist or band, who don’t agree with anybody jumping on the bandwagon at the fourth album. They turn their noses up at any modern-day fourteen year old who claims to love Green Day. Some of these teenagers may have bought the back catalogue, but they can’t change the fact that they were only just out of nappies when the band started off.
Nonetheless, this third form of music-snob will discriminate against them. They insist that “real” fans are those who have stuck by the band since their first series of gigs in a friend’s shed down the road.
Thing is that, where music's concerned, there’s no need to be so judgemental. Opening your ears to different genres of music is not sacrilege. Having a varied taste does not make you indecisive. But trying to kill anybody’s passion for music is a sin!

Third level male winner: Liam Clume
The Past As Poetry, The Future
An Obituary

“And songs are never quite the answer, just a soundtrack to a life that is over all too soon.” – Badly Drawn Boy, You Were Right.
My best friend is dead. I guess there are more eloquent and descriptive ways of saying this, though none can change the reality. I think our lives are monuments to the choices we have made, ever growing until we are branded by death. I regret a lot of choices, but I guess I made a few right ones to gain the friend that I did. I don’t think I will ever get over her death, I will just encounter new ways of coping with it. In the meantime, I have music.
One of my first memories of us was listening to Thin Lizzy’s ‘Sarah’ and feeling really envious that she had her own song. It just summed her up, three minutes of guitar-fused compassion. When I hear it now, I can’t help but be reminded of those days, abandoned in the wilderness of youth, sculpted by the music we worshipped. I see her thrashing her body in some wild ecstasy to the hypnotizing voice of Phil Lynott. Like that, other memories that I have seem to have developed their own unique soundtrack. That’s the real beauty of music, it allows you to visit places you thought you had lost forever.
Another memory that sticks out is that every time she cried she put on Jeff Buckley’s version of ‘Hallelujah’. It is a tradition that I have found myself continuing. I think that listening to that angelic voice sing about love and loss in such a celestial way, allowed her to put things into perspective. We must remember that, though we all draw water from the well of pain, it will eventually become too big a burden for even the strongest person among us to carry. It must be returned to the well before we are eventually destroyed under its weight. It was the song they played at her funeral and it has this odd way of making me feel extremely lonely and appreciative, both at once.
When the loneliness really stings, I turn on ‘You’re Missing’ by Bruce and I try and feel grateful for the all the good times that we did get to have. Once in a while lives collide, and remain entangled forever.

Leinster
Will Daunt
Just Plain Angry: Humanzi’s Lead Man Speaks Out

Sean Mulrooney sounds tired. It’s 5pm on a wet Wednesday, and Humanzi are finished with rehearsals for the day. “We started at ten,” Sean mumbles, “so everyone’s pretty knackered.” Apparently, they’ve been doing this most days since returning from New York, where they played CMJ, as part of their bid to land a deal in the US. So why rehearse now? “We’re just writing more. Most of the songs on the album were finished over a year ago, so we’re all pretty bored of them.”
Now, such a work ethic is not something usually equated with Humanzi. In the new crop of Dublin bands, they have been earmarked as the bad boys, having more of a penchant for groupies and free drink than any real musical ambition. Accusations of style-over-substance were stoked by the fact that their appearance on the front of NME Ireland was captioned “the band who brought Dublin to a standstill,” a claim seriously undermined by rumours that their debut has sold only 500 copies. Put this alongside the fact that their Myspace page contains a blog titled ‘Diary of a Humanzi Roadie’ (complete with the tale of a drink-fuelled search for a block of hash), and it’s easy to see why cynics have dismissed them as a bunch of angry young men with nothing to shout about but shouting.
Mulrooney is quiet, friendly and surprisingly eloquent. The moment I suggest that their music seems reactionary he cuts me short, “We aren’t reacting against anything or thinking about pissing anyone off. We’re just a bunch of good Catholic, Dublin boys.” Critics seem to have forgotten that the minute they signed to Fiction Records they set-up their own label and released singles for The Things and Channel One: not the action of a band whose only concern is their own rise to fame. Most surprisingly, he reveals that rockabilly was a formative influence, and that on the album they used “the same slapback effect on the vocals as the old rockabilly stars.”
The tragedy is that rockabilly rooted itself firmly in song-writing, a skill at which Humanzi are inconsistent. ‘Long Time Coming’ and ‘Out On A Wire’ showed no small amount of pop sensibility, but when I ask Mulrooney what they’re doing with the new material he replies: “We’ve stopped writing pop songs. There’s less keyboards, less melody, and more balls-out guitar. I’m fucking excited about it.” Oh dear, I hear you all sigh.

Munster
Andrew Curtin
The Changing Face Of Radiohead

What to say about a band for whom the plaudits have been virtually exhausted? Well, I’ll give it a shot. The release of The Bends in 1995 showed that Radiohead were a cut above their Britpop peers. I’ll never forget the spell that ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ cast on me, with its plaintive acoustic guitar matched with warm keyboards, and lyrics deriding a consumer society gone awry. Not to mention the accompanying video, depicting a futuristic supermarket with GM foods lining each shelf and homogeneity the name of the game.
The album’s other highlight was ‘Street Spirit’. Watching it on Dave Fanning’s 2TV programme, I didn’t really know then that the video sought to portray scenes of transcendental bliss, but I had an inkling that Radiohead were set to play an important part in my life. When Thom Yorke sings of “Rows of houses bearing down on (him)”, it conjures up images of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. The song’s concern with spiritual elevation echoes the novels of Joyce, and doubtless Yorke would have encountered these texts while studying English at Exeter.
Released in 1997, Ok Computer pushed the boundaries of sonic and artistic innovation. Some columnists saw it as a pioneering venture in electronic music, while others reckoned it a throwback to the progressive rock of the ‘70s. 'Airbag', with its explosive introduction a homage to DJ Shadow, supports the former view. On the other hand 'Paranoid Android', clocking in at seven minutes and containing three distinct, self-sufficient sections which somehow fuse seamlessly, is reminiscent of prog-rock.
Hail To The Thief continues Radiohead’s fascination with intrusions on the consciousness. Though the title may be Bush-baiting on the surface, it is more concerned with the great thief of concentration, the media. The songs on this record see Radiohead at their most outward-looking, and ‘There, There’, the first single, is probably their most positive track. It deals with overcoming paranoia and along with its concurrent video is beautifully realised. The song 'Myxomatosis' is eerily prophetic about the death of scientist David Kelly.
Throughout my teenage years, and indeed to this day, Radiohead has been a sound that recognised and articulated my fragility. They have offered guidance and solace in times of great confusion and upheaval; indeed, they’ve been “moving target(s) in a firing range”, as the song ‘Scatterbrain’ intones. Without them I’m sure I’d have long ago “ended up Scatterbrain”.

Connaught
John Burke
The Irish Music Scene Is Irrelevant

Director – irrelevant. 13% increase in suicide in Ireland. The Blizzards – pointless. The homeless and immigrant poverty. Neosupervital – needless. Organised crime and the murdering of innocent people. Declan O’ Rourke – safe. Drug addiction and mortality. Humanzi, The Marshalls, Delorentos, The Immediate etc. The Irish music scene is meaningless but then we still cry “Why aren’t our boys making it?”
Bar Damien Dempsey, does any band or musician have anything to say? Do these bands deserve the £25 I haven’t got? What will I gain? Inspiration? No. A sense of Irish advancement? No. A connection? No. Go into your room; resurrect any album(s). Anything innovative, with integrity, that will stand the test of time? No. Scan Hot Press; anyone actually worth reading about? No. All characterless, all meaningless and time will you show you that. Here for a year, then found hanging around the Whelan’s shelter for retired failures violating the younger clientele with stories about how their song was on The OC. That seems to be the goal for the Irish band; their song being used as a backdrop, as Bobby kisses Suzanne on some soul-destroying earthbound OC incarnation. This is the indication, this is the handshake. An island that gave the world Yeats, Joyce, Beckett, Wilde and O’Brien and we're jumping through hoops to facilitate talentless oxygen-thieving bimbos.
Take Thom Yorke’s song ‘Harrowdown Hill’. Its intention, purpose, content, innovation and execution are light-years ahead of anything happening in Irish music. Irish music is full of nasal gazers with arched eyebrows, paltry lukewarm boring wimps. Take for instance Snow Patrol. Its seems Lightbody has stolen Coldplay’s Mein Kampf. There’s a formula to the music e.g. ‘Chasing Cars’. It starts off slow, with some nonsensical lyrics about love, then the chorus is introduced. It then proceeds with more jargon about not knowing how to describe your feelings whilst over in South Africa a young girl dies trying to escape a rapist. Then some lyrics about gardens that Westlife would be proud of, then the chorus soaring for a fist-in-the-air, empty affirmation, then going quiet and the chorus longingly uttered again. Generic rubbish made for The OC. If you want love songs listen to Nick Cave, Floyd Cramer, Leonard Cohen, actual craftsmen.
The Irish music scene is irrelevant, characterless, purposeless, has no signs of advancing, it lacks truth and innovation. If only Dylan Moran could play guitar.

Ulster
Conor Harrington
The Day (Loud) Music Died

Your first grey hair? Parenthood? An unexplained appreciation of Ryan Tubridy? How do you know when you’re getting old? For me, the heartbreaking realisation that I no longer want to “rock” or worse still, be “rocked”, cemented the fact: I’m an auld fella.
I don’t know exactly when it happened, but at a recent Calexico gig, I realised that I was enjoying the trumpet playing moreso than I had Kirk Hammet’s guitar wizardry at this summer’s Metallica show. This immediately set alarm bells ringing in my head (ringing, not tolling, you see?!!), and brought me to this unhappy conclusion.
I must admit that it is something of a relief to no longer find myself in thrall at the sight of a 40-year-old man in leather caterwauling about hating school, but I also feel a pang of sadness at the prospect of a defining element of my youth being confined to the ventricle marked, “nostalgia”.
The upside of my new found “oldie” status is that I can now appreciate the genius of artists like the aforementioned Calexico, Sufjan Stevens, Yann Tiersen or Devendra Banhart – artists that I fear my former rocking self would have viewed as being “too soft”. The leather boot, as it were, is now on the other foot, and I can’t help but snicker at the grown men behind acts like Korn or Him scream their lungs out about issues which really should be of greater concern to their children. You see, I know only too well that, as you get older you no longer scream about things that annoy you, but rant incessantly. Oh, how I scoff at these angry old men from the lofty heights of my acoustic bliss!
And so it is with mixed emotions (yes, I can now admit to having emotions without fear of recrimination) that I wave goodbye to my angry youth, content to limit my rocking-out to the odd drunken bout of air-guitar, and a fraternal nod to the mascara-clad urchins who now carry the rock flame, and who view my non-black attire and scowl-free visage with open contempt. I should be concerned that this has happened to me at the tender age of 23, but what the hell? Pass the Bovril and fetch me my slippers, Ryan’s interviewing a nun. Lovely.

Third Level Female Winner: Clare O'Reilly
Backseat Drivers

In my youth I was an active member of a subversive underground organisation. Anything I tell you now, I do so under pain of death.
It was called ‘The Backseat’ and consisted of four sworn-in members – myself and my three siblings.
The roots of the movement can be traced back to when we were infants. As we were too young to voice our opposition, our father ruled the car tape-deck under a cruel “No voice – No vote” policy.
We made weak attempts to show our discontent (e.g. The Soother Throwing Uprising of 1992), but as we couldn’t articulate our grievances, our revolts were often humiliatingly attributed to teething.
Unbeknownst to my parents, we were growing in size (literally) and therefore growing in strength. At the age of five, as secretary, I drew up “The Backseat Manifesto” (in red crayon to emphasise our Communist leanings).
Our aim was clear – destroy Leonard Cohen. His music exemplified everything we stood against i.e. he was boring.
The Enemy put up an admirable fight (e.g. The Cold War of Spring 1996 when they turned off the car heating for two hours straight) – but ultimately they were no match for The Backseat. Allegations that we used underhand tactics in our campaign are not entirely unfounded, but I will not apologise. After all, we were at war.
The Enemy simply could not answer the age-old dilemma: How could one insist on playing ‘The Ultimate Leonard Cohen’ when one’s youngest daughter threw it out of the car window 40 miles ago?
However, despite our successes, I was inexcusably weak. In the midst of the “Walkman Onslaught 1998/1999”, I turned down the volume and secretly listened to Leonard’s words. I was falling in love despite my Backseat associations.
My comrades never suspected my betrayal; I wouldn’t be telling you this story if they had. I loved Cohen despite the blood vow I had made at the age of seven to “hate him forever and ever.”
It was a short-lived, tawdry love-affair and I will never forgive myself.
I wish I could take it all back and become a true Backseat again. It was a simpler time, when I knew what I stood for, when I had a cause worth dying for.
But it’s too late. I am a deserter and, as such there are no second chances. (Article 7.2 Backseat Manifesto 1994).
Long live the Backseat Brigade.

Leinster
Amanda Kavanagh
Enter Sandman And The War In Iraq

The last time I heard Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’ played at a level of Spinal Tap proportions was three summers ago at the RDS. The intro to perhaps their most famous song sparked screams and shouts from the excited audience. However, in Iraq and Guatanamo Bay, this song will for some, be forever equated with screams and shouts for all the wrong reasons.
Despite the popularity of music as a method of torture, the treatment of the matter is often trivialised in the media. It has been presented as a rather novel idea and has prompted much black humour around the question of due royalties. BBC News first reported on the use of music on captives in Iraq mid-2003, at the beginning of the summer in which Metallica played their first Irish concert since 1999. James Hetfield has since joked about it. “We’ve been punishing our parents, our wives, our loved ones with this music forever. […] Why should the Iraqis be any different?” However, the role of Metallica’s music in torturing detainees has provoked Lars Ulrich to publicly object to the use of their songs for this purpose. Surprisingly, he has not taken legal action.
There is no official playlist for American soldiers, and so personal taste has implicated many acts in this breach of the Geneva Convention. These include: AC/DC, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Eminem, Christina Aguilera, Matchbox 20, Bruce Springsteen, Limp Bizkit, Throbbing Gristle, Kris Kristofferson, Rage Against The Machine (a curious inclusion considering the lyrics to ‘Killing In The Name Of’, ‘Take The Power Back’ (!), Township Rebellion, etc.), as well as theme tunes from children's TV shows, Barney and Sesame Street.
The use of music in war is not a new concept and has been employed throughout the centuries. This is widely acknowledged. However it is only since the 2003 invasion of Iraq that the use of popular and most importantly, copyrighted music as a psychological weapon has been exposed so extensively. Yet, many are still unaware that whilst they are enjoying a concert, another is having the same music blasted into their ears as they are locked in a shipping box under strobe lighting. Considering the use of computer games by the U.S. military as a means to psychologically train soldiers for real wars, we can only wonder how much of popular culture will the U.S. hijack for exploitative means?

Munster
Michelle McMahon
Serendipity? Maybe...

Serendipity. Noun. Fortuitous coincidence.
An observation: serendipity explains perfectly the way you stumble across a song in the most random manner at the most random time, and everything makes a little more sense.
Personal Examples:
My friends, blessed with a beautiful baby girl. For nine months in-tummy baby was fed a conflicting diet of classical beauty courtesy of daddy, and slushy ballads favoured by mammy, each trying to foster a very early appreciation of their genre in their offspring. Her baby book presented the first musical difficulty. Amongst minor details such as weight, and number of fingers/toes at birth was ‘Baby’s Theme Song’. Horrified there was no pre-assigned song and terrified of ‘bad parent status’ after only three hours they hastily turned on the radio, agreeing that the first tune would be baby’s theme song. That very moment Larry Gogan was blasting ‘Sweet Child Of Mine’. I’m happy to report both new rock-fans and newborn Rose are doing well. Well, she could have been called Gun…
Nicola* was desperately trying to decide whether to spend the summer on a JI with us girlies, or stay at home with her beloved but on-off boyfriend. After endless soul-searching and with two days left to application deadline she sat into her car for a long drive nowhere ‘to think’. The car radio brought her first encounter with Ryan Adams serenading New York. A month later she was walking Fifth Avenue.
My own story. Scenario was I’d lusted after a beautiful male specimen for many Thursday nights. I decided to bite the bullet and entered the nightclub adamant that tonight I’d make my move. I downed a few quick ones for some courage of the Dutch variety and hit the floor. I worked my group towards his with a clever boogie-slide mechanism. We turned, eyes met and I prayed for the DJ to bless me with serious beats, so I could wow with my sexy moves. Instead, DJ chose ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’. My beloved’s over-enthusiastic reaction acted as windshield wipers; suddenly I understood. Somewhat bitterly, I introduced The God to my friend Brian*. Two years later they’re still very happy. Apt, also, that Queen brought my queens together.
Coincidences? I think not.
Serendipity? Maybe not, but I like to think so. Admit it, it’s a nice thought… ah go on…
*(Names altered for my friends’ privacy, and my own health and safety)

Connaught
Rachael Finucane
Blue Is The Colour

Joni Mitchell saved my life. Before you begin to imagine the aging Canadian folk singer pulling a student from the path of a bus or dangling from a height like an extra from Cliffhanger I should clarify. I am neither a recovering addict nor a born again Christian. The album Blue saved me from dross-poor writing, conventional guitar tuning and tired clichés.
The sign of an album you will love all your life is that it sounds new every time you listen. You get to know the playing-order by heart, the pause in a solo and the breath before a chorus. Blue takes you for a walk. The interactive features on CDs these days are all very well but I don’t want to watch a music video, I want to go for a stroll through someone else’s subconscious. Listening to Blue means a walk through relationships in ‘This Flight Tonight’, through Central Park in ‘My Old Man’, through painful adoption in ‘Little Green’ all the way to ‘California’ and the limp through friendship with a lost soul that is 'The Last Time I Saw Richard'.
Joni is the model of bravery, asking for love while “strung out on another man.” Her work exudes the cool of someone who didn’t bother with Woodstock because of the traffic but still wrote the song that defined the Summer of Love.
“I could drink a case of you” has considerably more romance than I could drink a slab of you. I get the impression that the empty vessels of Joni’s life are more pathetic than a pile of Dutch Gold cans under a ditch... or the ensuing hangover. The lyrics are angry and photographic – the guitar an orchestra. ‘All I Want’ is a manifesto of female desire. I kept poetry and music separate until I started thinking outside the CD box.
I could write a Blue book fit for any top shelf but I am absurdly protective of my favourite album. Like its creator I get shy the longer the confession but I will say that the contender for best line ever written comes in the album’s title track. “Songs are like tattoos” – no amount of life’s laser surgery can fade their significance. Time is a cover-up but when I hear 'Blue' I will always be snow-locked in a backwater American University, getting my first taste of the world. I wished for “a river I could skate away on” – I got it.

Ulster
Sine Freil
Adopt a musician!

Adoption. The big trend sweeping the land of celebrity. Madonna, Brad, Angelina: anyone who’s anyone is jumping on the bandwagon, soothing their consciences and giving a home to a misfortunate mite. Never one to miss out on a fashion, I have, for my own selfish reasons, bought into the hype. Not for me, however, a cute child from Cambodia or an orphan from Ethiopia (I do not yet possess the patience for nappies or night feeds). No, I have adopted an altogether different breed: my very own musician.
So far, the relationship is working wonderfully. With less tantrums than the average child, the maintenance of a musician is minimal. I feed him regularly, make him the odd cup of tea and occasionally oblige him by playing (very) simple backing for him on the keyboard. In return he makes our student house the most popular pre-pub venue in the area by playing free gigs in our living room and giving us sneak previews of the musical masterpieces that will make up his forthcoming album.
I have inadvertently become a groupie for the Leitrim legend that is Leo Logan – lead singer of The Vibes and Drumshanbo’s greatest export since Charlie McGettigan. One of my flatmates brought him home at the start of the year and, to tell the truth, we’ve all grown quite attached to him. He certainly stole the hearts of our house’s female population – the sensitive soppiness of songs like (the yet unreleased) ‘War Of Love’, and the rockier vibes (no pun intended!) of songs like ‘Beauty Queen’ are enough to get the grumpiest git in the form for fun. Needless to say the male lodgers in our house are ever-so-slightly jealous of the attention lavished upon the latest arrival, but Leo’s aesthetically pleasing sister (and female vocalist for The Vibes) Joanne, distracts them enough to allow us to indulge our musical interests.
If you are thinking of adopting your very own musician, I suggest that, as I have done, you pick a good one. Be proud to elbow everyone out of the way for the front spot at their gig and take full advantage of the jealousy invoked when you whisper (very loudly) to the person beside you that you “know him”. Remember, however, that musicians are not just for Christmas – they come in extremely handy for birthdays and private parties as well…