Opportunies out west

In the wake of his receipt of a Fairplay For Airplay award for his support for new and locally-based artists on Mid West Radio, presenter and programme controller Chris Carroll has announced plans to devote a full hour on Sunday afternoons to new artists. As he explained to me, “The local artists’ hour will go out from two o’clock to three o’clock on Mid West and on our sister station North West Radio and it will be presented by Viv Brennan.”

As an added bonus, Mid West Radio will record a selection of local artists in Soundtrax Studios in Castlebar for inclusion in the programme. It will also feature tracks submitted by local artists provided they’re on CD rather than on cassette.

As Carroll pointed out, “Since we started over ten years ago we have tried to be as supportive of local artists as we can within the normal commercial constraints. We’ve even allocated a separate local artists’ section in our music library and this new programme is another example of that ongoing commitment.”

At a time when the competition for airplay is more intense than ever and is increasingly fuelled by the tendency for many artists to record and even release their own records, the introduction of the Mid West/North West innovation is really invaluable and a tremendous boon to local acts.

Send your CDs to Chris Carroll, North West Radio, Abbey Street, Ballyhaunis, Co. Mayo and make sure you include a contact name and phone number.

Meanwhile back on the wind-up gramophone we find Dublin band After The Party. Their three-track single ‘Cruel’ packs a fair pop/rock punch. It’s finely produced, and boasts some stylish guitar playing from David Hand. The title track is a worthy outing with an attractive chorus and the whole shenanigans is only spoiled by vocalist Michael Flanagan having picked up too many vocal mannerisms from the likes of Stereophonics. When he finds his own voice he should have something special to offer as he comes across with shedloads of confidence and commitment.

The single song demo received from Jack Groenland from I don’t know where contains a tuneful folksy ditty called ‘I Really Love You’. It hasn’t anything new to say but it delivers its stereotypical romantic platitudes and rural imagery on a pleasant melody and with an inoffensive vocal style enhanced by neat harmonies.

The feel of the intro to the opening track ‘Alone’ on the CD from Tarebo suggested we were in for a version of Neil Young’s ‘Ohio’ or ‘Southern Man’ and it plods pleasantly along in that vein without ever working up much of a sweat.

Tarebo are a fine band in that they can play and sing in an Ocean Colour Scene retro kind of way, brimming with confidence and all the right rock sensibilities. But they really need to start writing songs that have something interesting to say.

Whisker Off have been round this way before and they’re back with an excellent four-track CD which has been picking up plays on Dublin’s XFM (broadcasting to you on 107.9 FM). The CD shows a serious leap forward for the band who come across like a heavier version of REM with the usual guitars and drums line-up augmented by the excellent keyboards and sampling work of Gabrielle Marois.

From Drogheda, Co Louth comes SJ McArdle, a singer-songwriter in the folk vain. His four-track CD was produced by Colin Blakey (ex-Waterboys) and suggests that McArdle could be a serious contender is he has the marketing suss to match his undoubted singing and writing talent. His vocal style owes a little to Dylan, Springsteen and Ron Sexsmith, and melodically he reminds one of Tom Waits, but there’s a restrained smoky quality to his voice that could appeal to the masses. ‘Quiet And Strong’ opens with the charming observation that “Girls have a thing they do with their ears, they can switch them on and off. Boys like to think they’ve figured it out so they shuffle their feet and cough”. Brilliant!