Canne’d Heat

“I’m going to be rich by the time I’m 50. I’ve no particular reason for believing that, not even an agenda as to how I’ll get there. It’s just a feeling. A gut feeling. I’m 42 now, so I’ve got eight years to do it. And then I’ll be laughing.” (laughs).

– An anonymous Irish delegate at Midem

In the Palais de Festival, the exhibition areas are humming.

The stands are still being constructed and the sound of hammers is punctuated by the music of hi-fi systems and video monitors being tested. The show hasn’t even opened yet but already there are signs of wear and tear.

Pat Dempsey is here to give it his best shot. His Lodge Records enterprise is up and running and he’s come to MIDEM armed with a useful catalogue of material for licensing. It won’t be an easy sell but an artist like Andrew Hayman clearly has considerable potential in Europe. Whatever way you look at it, he could have done without the searing pain that’s currently making it almost impossible for him to walk.

“I have a trapped nerve in my back,” he says through gritted teeth. “Of all the days for it to happen. I’m going to go for a Chinese, take some painkillers, go to bed and hope for the best. I’ve got so much on tomorrow that I just can’t afford to let this screw me up.”

Dempsey has been at MIDEM before. He knows the ropes well enough to have put in the necessary advance planning. “I’ve got four appointments in the morning,” he says. “I’ve got four in the afternoon. It’s the same every day, all week. Starting with meetings at 9 o’clock in the morning, my time is fully booked. That’s the way you have to go about it here.”

He’s on a roll now, trapped nerve or no trapped nerve. “Determination is so important in this business,” he states. “It’s all about conviction. Let people know that you believe in what you’re doing and they’re that much more likely to believe in you. You have to go with your instincts, make what you believe are good records and hope that somebody else out there sees what you see in the artists and the songs. In the end that’s what it comes down to: instinct, belief, commitment, conviction.”

Pat Dempsey is going to give it his best shot – and if he doesn’t come back with a couple of useful deals it won’t be for want of trying.

One seasoned Cannes campaigner has had a few beers. Now

he wants to talk. Only an Irishman would choose The Barracuda for that particular purpose, but what the hell. He locates himself along the leather seating at the back of this tiny, dimly lit club. His companion is all ears, listening to a mildly drunken dissertation on the state of the local industry. Around them, ten or twelve suggestively under-dressed women are floating. Two of them throw their arms languidly around the shoulders of a couple of overfed music biz execs, their beer bellies pressed up against the bar. Others flit from customer to customer, flirting and making eyes.

“1500 francs gets you a bottle of champagne and that hooker,” says the Irishman, suddenly breaking from his monologue. A tall, thin girl with an angel face, no underwear and a tight figure-hugging long dress draws gasps from another new arrival.

An earnest looking German with a beard and glasses has already bought one bottle of champagne. His hostess has been sitting with her hand on the inside of his thigh. Now she’s moving it up, just so far. And down. And up. Just a little bit further. She leans over and licks his ear.

She’s beginning to fly. The promise of pleasure oozes from her every gesture. She grooves back to the counter for another bottle of champagne and the German leans over and confides in the stranger beside him in broken English. ‘It is expensive but you have to do it. She is class act’. You can say that again, buddy. She comes back to the table carrying an ice-bucket. It contains a magnum.

She begins to dance in front of the German. The music is black, sensual, soulful dance: she throws back her arms, shakes her hips, spreads her feet and the micro dress she’s wearing slips further up her thighs. She’s smiling, smiling, smiling. She kneels on the seat straddling him momentarily, pushing her breasts up against his hungry face. She’s full of grace. He is close to grunting. Whatever he whispers she steps back sharply, still moving in time to the music. She slips her hand down the front of her dress and lifts out one delicate breast to show him. She reveals its twin with the same smooth, teasing movement and then says ‘small’, curving her hands gently through the air. In one fluid gesture, she turns and shows her ass, pulling the dress up over it to display the full, round curves before covering that vision as quickly, spinning around — the bass throbbing in the background — and tracing a vast curve in the air. ‘Big’, she says and laughs . . .

It’s time to open the magnum and she runs her hands provocatively down its neck. She’s done this routine before, dancing as she strips back the gold foil and teases at the cork before it explodes into her hand. She throws her head back and laughs. From behind the counter the manageress emerges, credit card receipt in hand. The German may be trying to scrutinise the damage with one eye but he can’t take the other off the girl’s increasingly exposed, bronzed body as she gyrates rhapsodically in front of him. He signs. She slips through a door at the back of the club to see if the room is free. Now the German, his lust temporarily interrupted, looks at the thin slip of paper to which he’s put his signature.

4,000 Francs. And this is the second one he’s signed tonight. That’s 5,500 in total, over £600. His face betrays no emotion. The bronzed beauty dances back and pours a glass apiece from the bulging bottle. One for the worker who’s cleaning up the tables too. They’ll be able to go into the back room any minute. “Good time,” she says. “Very good time.” And with that she kisses lightly around his panting mouth and laughs, possibly even enjoying herself.

“You’ve got to hand it to her,” the Irishman says in awe. “She’s fucking brilliant.” Doubtless whoever is going to have to assess the German’s Expenses Claim would agree. The Barracuda eats money.

“It’s 7.15am and the traffic on 57th Freeway south-bound is

heavy this morning. Hi! I’m Ellen K and this is your latest traffic update on Rick Dees In The Morning Show on 102.7 Kiss FM, the No. 1 music station in Los Angeles.”

And then it’s over to Rick himself – yes, in person in the France Telecom Studio in the Radio Exhibit Hall in the Palais de Festival in Cannes it’s the No. 1 DJ in the whole of the United States of America. Now this should be something!

Rick launches into his Animal Tales slot – stories sent in by listeners about weird goings-on with their pets. This morning’s offering is a particularly dumb beast, about a man who washes the family cat by putting shampoo in the cistern, sticking the cat down the toilet, closing the lid and flushing the contraption. Not once but three times. Rick delivers the story like some people read to children – his patter full of smarmy inflections, idiotic ooohs and aaahs, and ridiculous exaggerated emphases.

And then it comes to the punchline. “The correspondent shouldn’t object to the cat being subjected to this treatment,” says Rick. Why? Our DJ is really smiling now. “Because you’ve finally found a way of getting your husband to put the toilet lid down,” he bellows, the volume up to 11. And with that someone hits a button and a divider comes in, a phoney voice intoning Animal Tales, followed by an inane chorus of Hugga Chuka, Hugga Chuka, Hugga Hugga Hugga – or some shit to that effect. It is unconscionable that people in California, at this very minute, might actually be laughing at this.

More shouts and then another divider, introducing this morning’s cash call. Yes and the figure is now up to $34,264. “YOU WANT IT ALL,” a voice roars and there are sound effects of people hollering, shrieking, shouting and clapping. “Stay tuned,” a voice orders, “Kiss FM may call you at any minute.” A member of the audience, sitting outside the windowed radio studio is wondering, meanwhile, what he’d do with an Uzi machine gun if he had one ready . . .

Vic the Brick – Vic the what! – roars in to do a sports report on the previous night’s Superbowl, everything delivered in the kind of ludicrous tones intended to signify EXCITEMENT and URGENCY, but which are far more likely to have you wondering why the fuck your man doesn’t remove his earplugs. The jokes are telegraphed, the punchlines crap and the whole bulletin is a royal pain in the ass – to the extent that you’re almost glad to hear again from Rick. Almost.

Next it’s over to a pre-recorded interview with Toni Braxton in which Rick says more than Toni. He tries to sound intimate. He tries to sound jolly. He tries to sound matey. All he sounds is pompous, over-bearing and really quite idiotic.

After twenty minutes the man who has no Uzi can take no more. The thought that this shit is the most popular morning show on American radio is just too frightening. The horror. The horror.

Ger Whelan is lying on the floor. On either side of him are

figures squatting in the manner of dope-smokers in someone else’s crash pad. He rolls over, kneels up and sticks his nose right in one guy’s face. He stares him down briefly, music pulsing in the background. His music.

It’d be so easy to forget all about it. So easy and so sweet. If he allowed himself to now, he’d be walking down the Croisette in the moonlight within sixty seconds, on the edge of a continent, Africa calling to the South, and beyond its borders all the unnameable mysteries of places that echo from the pages of fable and story and news bulletin. There is a place called Timbuktu.

But that’s not on the set-list tonight. He picks himself up and backs away across the floor of the Martinez ballroom, looking at the crowd of dummies, still in mock-psychotic mode yet aware of the danger that if he doesn’t watch his step he could trip ignominiously over a cross-legged freak.

“What’s the story,” he says into the microphone. “This is the fucking deal, is it? Why are you so far back?” He waves the startled crowd forward. “Come on up here,” he says hopefully, resorting then to one of the oldest reassurances in the book. “Don’t be afraid. We won’t bite you.” By now he’s back on stage and An Emotional Fish are pumping it up. A familiar bass riff and they’re into ‘Celebrate’ and the audience begins to respond noticeably.

You could say that it hasn’t been happening for An Emotional Fish tonight. The sound is a mess, too much bass giving the whole stew a muddy flavour: like stepping in wet concrete. And Whelan’s voice has been mired in it. Some frantic signals from a member of the Irish contingent having finally got through to the insensible sound man; by ‘Celebrate’ a bit more top has been added to the voice and a bit more volume. At last you can hear the lead singer and the setting is right for a full-blooded charge to the finishing line. His foray into the audience has won Whelan a few new friends too. The audience may be made up of jaded industry suits, too self-conscious to be the first to clap but after midnight the applause is beginning to resound and the occasional holler from the vicinity of the mixing desk is being echoed, call and response style elsewhere.

To Ger Whelan it feels like a bummer all the same. You give everything and get almost nothing back. This must be the way a stripper feels playing to an empty house. But somewhere lurking in the darkness, is a large man from Zyx and he likes what he sees.

When the Irish showcase is over, Ger is down in the auditorium marvelling at 4 Men And A Dog and Sharon Shannon and surveying the debris. “What do you think of this shit?” he enquires of an acquaintance. “I don’t know about you but I find it all . . .” He throws his hands out, inflates his cheeks, raises his eyebrows and registers a sense of complete bewilderment. He exhales into a sort of a smile . . . “I mean I went into the Palais today and I just kept my shades on and walked around it and I thought: what the fuck is this all about? I’m a musician and none of this has anything to do with me. It’s got nothing to do with the artists.”

Ah yes, but the man from Zyx might not agree. “It’s a weird fucking business,” Aidan Cosgrave, manager of An Emotional Fish is saying when he observes the big bearded German in the distance, the following evening. “Yesterday I had nothing — a few offers of licensing deals that might carry us over and keep the bank happy for a while. Today I’ve got two labels who want to do world-wide deals and really get behind the band. This guy might be my new A&R man,” he adds as the bulky figure plants a metal briefcase with the legend ZYX emblazoned on it, onto the hotel lobby floor. “Zyx are huge in Germany. I thought that they’d only want the GAS countries — that’s Germany, Austria and Switzerland — but they’ve got offices all over the world now and they’re looking for acts to break through on that scale. He thinks Ger is a fucking star.”

Going down to eyeball that sucker in the audience might just turn out to be the best career move Ger Whelan ever made . . .

An Irish delegate is standing in the centre of the now sparsely

occupied expanse of the Martinez bar. It’s 3am and he has three drinks, one in his left hand, one in his right and one held precariously in between, glass wedged against glass and holding. Just. He executes a 360 degree turn perilously, looking increasingly befuddled with every additional 90 degrees negotiated. One more quarter turn and, like a child spinning until he or she is dizzy, he’d collapse helplessly on the marble floor amid a bedlam of glass smashing and spilt alcohol. Luckily he recognises a familiar face observing his confusion. “Johnny,” he slurs. “Would you like a drink.”

There isn’t even time to discuss this fuzzy proposition when a moment of sheer inspiration strikes. The delegate looks up, summoning an expression of determination from somewhere in the depths of his alcoholic derangement.

“Come on,” he says optimistically, “Let’s go to The Barracuda.”

Oh dear.

• Next issue: As part of a comprehensive overview of the current state of Irish music, we talk to MIDEM delegates and assess the fall-out for the Irish business – and for Irish musicians – from this year’s event.

Dance Stance

FROM A business point of view, being in Cannes for Midem ’95 proved one very, very LARGE point: those who think (and yes, there are some who still do) that the dance boom is a passing fad couldn’t be further from the truth. If anything, it showed that dance music’s stranglehold on the European pop charts has even yet to reach its full strength. European dance music is, (as the Italian Media label states in its advertising) nineties pop and there’s just so much demand in the teenage sector for it, that there are signs of it getting bigger still.

The Europeans dominated the business wheeling and dealing in the dance sector – UK labels suffer from the same problems as their rock and indie counterparts in that they are paranoid about being seen as unhip. We were reminded time and time again that all the biggest dance hits in the UK charts last year came from the continent. The Irish dance on show, product of RED and the ‘Dulamann’ cut got a much more positive response. Whether commercial or underground, Irish dance was seen as taking its lead from the continent. On the business side of things, that offers much hope ,but musically I still feel there is a growing ‘Irishness’ about all the homemade grooves – and hopefully next year there’ll be a much wider variety on show. American dance suffered from the same apathy as that of the UK, but there were some interesting worldly items on offer from a few rather strange territories.

On a personal note, Midem confirmed to me that the business of music has little to do with those who actually make the music – but seeing as the ‘suits’ are waving their cheque-books at dance product with such large abandon, I don’t feel too bad.

• Mark Kavanagh

Through the Grapevine

The Irish contingent went to

MIDEM full of optimism. But

there were subterranean tensions too, which surfaced in the early days of the event. Michael O’Riordan of the Ritz group (and IMRO) was making his feelings known to all and sundry that he didn’t believe that the Irish stand was sufficiently well-funded. Johnny Lappin of Evolving Music was making the same case, believing that a team of “professionals” should be brought in to run the whole operation. And there were distinct tensions between Blink manager Aidan Lambert and Derry O’Brien, who was running the stand for An Bord Tráchtála.

O’Brien had no hesitation in rejecting criticisms of his organisation on the funding question. “The entire operation costs £75,000 to run and the contribution we receive from the industry comes to about a third of that,” he argued. “By comparison with most similar events with which we’re involved, that is a low level of contribution on the part of the industry. I actually come under pressure because people feel that the industry should be meeting half of the costs – so you can’t win.”

Donie Cassidy, in contrast to some of his industry colleagues, was unstinting in his praise of the official effort. “Look at all those companies who are represented here,” he commented, pointing to the display of company logos to the side of the Irish stand. “It’s incredible to think that over thirty companies are represented here. I’ve been coming here for a long time and there were many years when we couldn’t even get any backing for an Irish stand. I’d give the credit for this to the Minister, Michael D. Higgins, who’s done a wonderful job in supporting Irish music and Irish film. I think we should be proud of the presence we have here.”

There was an inevitable focus on the recent Paul Harrington interview in Hot Press and the element of bad timing, from the point of view of doing licencing deals for the Rock ’n’ Roll Kids album. Eurovision songwriter-winner Brendan Graham was philosophical. “We could all talk about our disappointment at how things have gone and the reasons for it. But I think it’s much more constructive to see the process through, and to do your level best to make it happen. We’ve just done a deal in Norway for the album and we’re still optimistic about getting it away elsewhere. That’s what I’m anxious to do, without getting into any personality clashes with anyone.”

After their acoustic showcase in the small room in the Martinez, Paul Harrington is in a similar frame of mind. “I haven’t spoken to the other lads about it yet but I had to say what I felt and I’m glad that I did. In a way it was probably therapeutic for me to talk about it and in that way get it out of my system.”

Certainly on-stage Harrington had seemed a good deal more positive than on some recent outings. “I thought they did extremely well,” Derry O’Brien commented. “There was a genuine sense of conviction in the performance, which is important.”

Mark Dignam was less certain of his own performance, on the same Martinez bill. “I was just beginning to really get into it,” he confessed, “when I realised that I’d come to the final number.” Dignam was obviously nervous but he acquitted himself well nonetheless, his fresh direct delivery of emotionally committed material allowing no one to rest easily in their seats.

And then there was Martin Hayes. “Je suis Martin-ez,” he said by way of introduction and proceeded to blow the house down – or those in it who had ears at any rate – with his wonderful, lyrical fiddle playing. Hayes’ command of the sound of his instrument and its lucious, sweet, Sautern-like tone was a joy to experience.

Overall, the showcase gigs were a considerable success. In the ballroom, Georgia opened proceedings and enhanced their reputation for playing well-constructed melodic radio-friendly pop. An Emotional Fish battled against sound gremlins and won in the end, due largely to a brave, winning performance out front from Ger Whelan. Sharon Shannon had them rocking in the aisles, even though there were no aisles. And finally, 4 Men And A Dog screamed on to take the occasion by the scruff of the neck and play a wonderfully danceable, lively, entertaining and musically powerful set – with Gino in stupendous form out front.

The impact of that night alone would have made the Irish presence worthwhile but with dedicated record company folk like Oliver Sweeney of CBM, Alan Connaughton of Starc, Michael Ua Seaghdha of Velo, Pat Dempsey of Lodge, Eddie Joyce and Pete McCluskey of Danceline, Paul O’Reilly of Dara, Michael Ward of Gael Linn and Mark Kavanagh of Red Records working the floor and doing licencing and distribution deals for a whole range of Irish product, the probability is that there’ll be a substantial return on the collective investment over the coming weeks.

The campaign by IMRO to forge relationships with collection societies around the world was also going ahead full throttle, with Hugh Duffy and Brendan Graham meeting the leading lights from the rights business around the world. In the long run it could prove to be the most productive IMRO ever for Irish music.