Inky Inky Finger

Buy, sell, and trade at face value.

Ticket touts have been around as long as I remember. In true capitalistic fashion, they buy low and they sell high, neatly filling a gap in the market for the last minute sale of tickets. However, given the amount of money that touts can make for a nights work goes into the thousands for expensive shows, they realised a long time ago that they could corner the market even more effectively by buying the tickets when they go on sale and reselling them later on.

This did happen to some extent when people had to queue on the streets for advance tickets to big shows, but it really took off when internet ticketing became common place. Limits are set per credit card as opposed to per person in the queue, making it even easier for the touts to block buy tickets to events. This moved touting from being a small time endeavour where a few guys made a few quid each to being a full on racketeering game.

Sometimes however, what the internet creates, the internet destroys too. Step forward Toutless.com, a site where users can buy and sell tickets for any type of show, but only up to face value, including any fees.

I used the site recently both to buy and sell tickets to two sold out concerts, and had very positive experiences with both. When I wanted to sell, I had a number of offers within minutes. When I wanted to buy, it was a little harder, having to keep an eagle eye on the site over the course of 24 hours, but I got the tickets I wanted, at face value. The only negative experience I had was that some people tried to inflate the prices of tickets privately when I contacted them, which is completely against the spirit of the site. Luckily the moderators of the site are very active and quickly banned anyone caught trying this on.

At the most basic level, I don’t really have a problem with an individual selling sought after tickets for an inflated price, because the market will pay it, but allowing that to be the norm is what allows large scale touting to flourish and remain acceptable. Overall, I’d much prefer to see more people using a service like Toutless.com to buy, sell and trade tickets.

[One thing that does strike me after writing this is, how do you prevent the touts from buying the tickets for face value on Toutless.com and then selling them at a mark-up somewhere else???]

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The age old debate between the “DJ as artist” and “DJ as jukebox” rears its ugly head over again, this time over on Haido’s blog.

“… i had a pair of girls come up to me and repeatedly ask for: pop music; songs with words; songs people know; songs people can dance to.”

This happened at a club called Transmission in the Button Factory a little while ago. Unperturbed,  Haido went on to play what he wanted to play:

Boys Noize – Oh! (A-Trak Remix)
SmartTech – Took The Trompeta
Green Velvet – Flash
The Chemical Brothers – Star Guitar (Pete Heller’s Expanded Mix)
Daft Punk – Around The World
Joe and Will Ask? – Fabric of Win (ft. SaintSaviour)
Simian Mobile Disco – Audacity of Huge
Kid Cudi – Make Her Say (Nadastrom 88 Dub)
Midfield General – Disco Sirens (Boy 8-Bit Remix)
MGMT – Time To Pretend (Diplo Remix)
La Roux – I’m Not Your Toy (Jack Beats Remix)
Little Boots – Stuck On Repeat (Alexander Robotnick Remix)
Machines Don’t Care – Afro Jacker
Telephoned – Pop Champagne
Stardust – Music Sounds Better With You
Sharon Phillips – Want 2 / Need 2 (Trentemøller Remix)

In fairness to Haido, that’s a pretty accessible set list, so on this occaision I’d have to say that the girls in question were just in the wrong club. They obviously wanted chart pop and R’n'B, which they were never really going to get in Transmission.

Having been on the receiving end of these requests on many an occaision myself, the way I look at it is this – as a DJ you’re only beholden to two things:

1. The Club
2. Your Own Taste

The Club is essentially the promotor or venue manager, whoever it is that has asked you to play. Your taste is your taste. This is where it gets a little tricky though. The promoter or venue manager is perfectly within their rights to ask you to accomodate requests if they want to. This nearly always leads to conflicts. Give in, and you are a jukebox, playing against your own taste (sometimes). Hold out, and you’ll probably get replaced.

The only solution I’ve ever come up with is to choose to only play in places where I have free reign over what I play. Requests might be accommodated on occaision, but are discouraged. The bottom line for me is, if I’m going to DJ, I want to enjoy it, and that means not being directed by third parties. Some people I know on the other hand love requests and interacting directly with the punters (in relation to exactly what to play next), but that’s not for me.

So DJs, what do you think?

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Machine Says Yes from FC Kahuna was one of the best albums of the last ten years, and amazingly ahead of its time. It came out on the short lived first run of the City Rockers label in 2002. After the temporary demise of the label, the album was picked up by Skint in 2003. It spanned a lot of different electronic styles, from the breezy chill-out of Hayling (video above) to the blissed out tech house of Glitterball, via the nasty stuttering of Nothing Is Wrong.

I was expecting FC Kahuna to go on to bigger and better things, to maybe take their place as the newest live electronic act on the circuit, but for some reason they just faded away after a few Skint singles and remixes (as far as I know).

So it was a pleasant surprise to hear via Alex Metric that they’re back and have been sending out new material. I’ve not heard any of it yet but I’m really looking forward to it. Anyone with any more details, pass them on!

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Cocktails

I was sad to hear about the case of Gary Reinbach, 22, from Dagenham, who died earlier this week after developing cirrhosis of the liver. He began binge drinking at the age of 13 apparently.

The story sparked a short debate about whether people with heavy drink problems should be eligible for liver transplants. With such a shortage of donor organs available, the general consensus seems to be no, which begs the question, why isn’t organ donation opt out instead of opt in?

Getting back to the point of the post though, it’s easy to forget sometimes that alcohol isn’t only dangerous because of the fights or road accidents it causes. It can kill you outright by itself. I don’t know anything much about Gary Reinback, but to die at the age of just 22 from overindulgence in our favourite legal drug seems such a shame.

[Source: BBC News]

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Kick up the ass time again. Every now and again you get bored of the music you listen to or the films you go to see or even the people you hang around with. It’s only natural, but it’s dangerous if you let the undertow take you down with it. Much better is a quick dash to the left or the right to see what’s going on over there.

Taking a bit of time to do that lately, I caught up with some old friends and made some new ones. Here’s a little bit of what I found.

Optimo back to back

The Optimo lads were back in Dublin recently for one of Jon’s Shock! events, this time in the Bernard Shaw and the Twisted Pepper. Two friendlier DJs you will never meet. Unfortunately our trip to their boat party next week had to be put on hold, but we will make the pilgramage to the club before the year is out, and that’s a promise. In the meantime check out their website for more news and mixes. Optimo – Anti BNP Since 1997

Steve Reynolds DJ

Speaking of the Shocktimo event, Steve Reynolds was DJing again, and he is missed. All you safe promoters, book him. He’s great. Really. Get his latest mix from the Shock podcast page. It’s number 26 if you can’t find it.

Jon at Shocktimo

While we’re at it, Jon’s looking happy, if a bit pixelated in this one from the smoking area at Shocktimo. He won’t mind though, he’s very busy these days with college, as you can tell from the State Of Shock blog.

Jape at Oxegen 09

I went over to the Hop Farm Festival in the UK a couple of weeks ago to play one of those pre-opening sets for the early arrivals. I hooked up with a good crowd from Ireland while I was there including Carden Kent and his mates Sean and Damian, and Dave McDonagh and the Synth Eastwood crew. The weather was amazing and the company was great. As a bonus we also got to see a few acts at the festival, including Jape, although the shot above is from his set at Oxegen.

I’ve talked about Richie before and his endless positivity, so I won’t bore you about it again, but he’s always a pleasure to hang around with. I’m really looking forward to hearing some of his new work, including the lost “quiet album”. My favourite from his recent sets has got to be Nothing Lasts Forever, which you can listen to on Jape’s Myspace page.

Fight Like Apes at Hop Farm 09

Another band I got to see at Hop Farm and at Oxegen were Fight Like Apes. I know they’ve been written and blogged about endlessly in the last year, but their live show is so much fun that I’m going to join the bandwagon. They are a really great band, and these days when the money comes from building a crowd through live gigs, they’re going to be a real winner.

Bitches With Wolves

An act you might not have heard of yet but you will soon is Bitches With Wolves. He totally owned the dance stage at Oxegen, mother fuckers (as he might or might not say). Take a quick trip to his Myspace page for more, and keep an eye out for more shows in Dublin soon. Total tip for the top of the pops.

Oxegen 09 Dance Stage

Speaking of the dance stage, how can you not enjoy playing with all those lights and lasers going off around you?

Philth - that's me!

Here’s a pic of me doing my thing during my first set. As you can see, the decks were a long way back from the crowd because of the stage, but it was still great fun. I reckon there were about 3,000 people there for the first set, and nearer 6,000 when I filled in for Popof later.

Hystereo were kind enough to give me a couple of new versions of their tracks and some rebrands they’ve been working on too. There’s no doubt that the boys have it, whatever it is, but the labels really need to get the finger out and stop with all the delays. City Speak and Police 995 should be out soon. Keep an eye on Hystereo.com for more.

On the other hand, Vitalic has been the master of his own destiny for a long time now, and has taken his sweet time with producing a proper follow up to OK Cowboy. Things are picking up pace though, with a new EP out this week, and the recent remixes are top notch too. The Birdy Nam Nam is getting a lot of play from me. Check out “Your Disco Song” below.

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[YouTube thanks to Damien Mulley]

I did a quick Twitter post last night when I noticed a story on RTÉ News online about two anonymous paintings of a naked Brian Cowen that had appeared in two Dublin galleries yesterday. Underneath a picture of one of the paintings a sub editor had made a pun about one of the paintings being “well hung”. I was surprised but pleased that RTÉ could make fun of the situation.

I was more than a little surprised tonight then to hear that RTÉ issued an apology to Cowen and his family over their reporting of the story. Watching the report above, I really don’t know why they would have had to do so. I know our libel laws are amazingly out of date, but surely they couldn’t cover anything said in the report? The story on RTÉ online has also since been edited and the pictures of the paintings have been removed.

I look forward to hearing more about it tomorrow anyway. In the meantime, you can read the latest reactions by searching for #picturegate on Twitter.

[Update 25/03/09] It gets worse! I just read the text of the apology on the Irish Times website:

“On last night’s programme we carried a report on the illicit hanging of caricatures of the Taoiseach in two Dublin galleries. RTÉ News would like to apologise for any personal offence caused to Mr Cowen or his family and for any disrespect shown to the office of the Taoiseach by our broadcast.”

To make matters worse, they’re also reporting that “Fianna Fáil TD Michael Kennedy last night called on RTÉ director general Cathal Goan to consider his position”. Seriously, I know things are bad right now, but Cowen and the FF party need to figure out when to laugh and roll with it. They’ve now achieved something I thought was impossible: to look even more pathetic than they already did.

[Update 25/03/09] Here’s the video of the apology.

It seems people are less perplexed about this than I am, but more angry. Damien Mulley, who posted the first video here, just wrote his own blog post about RTÉ’s apology, and other artists are now starting to publish more naked pictures of Cowen.

[Update 25/03/09] Nearly 24 hours have passed since I first posted here about what’s now just called Picturegate. It’s funny how fast things move sometimes. We now know that the artist in question is called Conor Casby. Apparently the pictures were hung in the galleries weeks ago, but it was RTÉ’s report two nights ago that made the shit hit the fan.

Today, Gardai visited Today FM trying to strongarm the contact details of Mr Casby out of them. He had been in touch with the Ray D’Arcy show for a couple of months. They didn’t give the Gardai his details, but, in a strange turn of events, Mr Casby contacted the Gardai himself and gave a voluntary statement. It just goes to show how out of hand the whole thing had gotten that there was talk of charging him with criminal damage for putting some glue on a wall and incitement to hatred (???).

The story has been all over the radio all day, and all over the world thanks to the BBC, The Times and the New York Times. I’m still pissed off that RTÉ were made to apologise, when no other media group in the world has even been asked to (to the best of my knowledge), and they’re all still publishing images of the paintings which caused such offence to the office of the Taoiseach.

I guess we can take some comfort in the fact that the creative types didn’t let us down. Check out some of their sterling photoshops of Brian Cowen over on the Creative Ireland website. This one is my favourite:

Brian Cowen by JimChimney

Posted in opinion, politics, videos | 4 Comments »

Graham Linehan (Image from 4talentmagazine.com)

I don’t know a lot about the man apart from he wrote and continues to write funny TV shows, and he runs a pretty popular blog called Why, That’s Delightful. Recently he posted a piece about an unforgiveably misguided piece in the Scottish Sunday Express that had to do with teenage survivors of the Dunblane massacre. The thrust of the piece was basically that these survivors were shaming the people who died in the massacre by going out and leading normal lives, including doing such shameful things as going out and having fun and posting about it on Facebook.

Graham was rightly outraged and wrote this blog post. It has since attracted a lot of press and online attention, leading to nearly 10,000 signatures on a petition expressing “deep offense at the article”. The Press Complaints Commision has also announced that it is investigating the Dunblane article, and now apparently the Scottish Sunday Express are due to publish an apology (later today).

Celebs often get an unfair kicking for trying to use their fame and contacts to do some good, so in this case I thought it was worth giving a shout out to one who made a stand and (so it seems) made a difference.

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Image via http://www.nomad4ever.com/

I’d normally just ignore comments I don’t agree with from the Pope or other religious leaders, but, no matter what he believes personally or as the head of the Catholic Church, saying that AIDS “cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which even aggravates the problems” is only going to lead to more people getting infected and dying.

Despite understanding some of the theological reasons for the objection of the church to sex before marriage and the use of contraception, I can’t understand how they can continue to tell people not to use condoms when all the evidence suggests that letting them do so will save a great number of people’s lives. How can having more sick and dying people be better than having less?

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Fianna Fail via www.irishsentinel.com

It’s a long held belief of mine that the party poliical system as it exists now doesn’t serve the people. It serves the parties themselves first, the politicians second, their cronies third, and the rest of us if we’re lucky. I understand how hard it would be to get a majority on difficult decisions if there were no parties, but would it be wrong to expect our politicians to work hard in our interests representing our opinions?

Right now our government is spending valuable time trying to keep itself in power, time that it could be using to directly address some of the many problems affecting the nation. As the country steers listlessly towards bankruptcy, the people have finally taken to the streets, and there’s a lot more to come I’m sure. The people have no confiedence in the government and it is only a matter of time before it falls.

Not before time the idea of an all party emergency government is being mooted, a step that would hopefully restore some confidence internationally in Ireland PLC. It will take a radical move like this to help us out of this mess, and when the dust settles and the history books are written and the fingers pointed, the party political system will hopefully go under the spotlight and be exposed as the flawed, anachronistic millstone around our collective necks that it is.

As much as anything else, this episode is showing us of the need for real political leadership, forward thinking decision takers with top quality advisers. Right now it seems like we have none of these. Not that I blame Cowen & Company personally for everything that has happened, the seeds of which were sown a long time ago (oh how Bertie must be laughing now…). However, this government has spectacularly failed to protect, manage or restore confidence in the banking system and the economy as a whole.

It’s clear to me that we, Ireland, need help. We don’t have the right people in power to get us out of this mess. A Dail without parties would have realised this a long time ago and done something about it.

[P.S. It's also time for an end to the libel laws as they stand, or for our journalists to take a stand and defy them. The unprintable knowledge they have could have put an end to this government a long time ago...]

Posted in ireland, opinion, politics | 1 Comment »

Everything, Everything by Underworld is one of my favourite DVD’s of all time. Painstakingly put together over the course of a year, sliced together from lots of different performances around the world, the band constructed what they thought was the best possible re-creation of one of their live gigs for home watching and listening. They did an amazing job too. (I’m seriously considering renting out a cinema some night just to have a playback party with some friends – maybe Denzille Cinema?)

Anyway, nearly 10 years later, technology has moved on to the point where one man and his camera can capture a full gig in HD, and upload it to YouTube for the whole world to see. While I’m really happy to be able to watch this concert, it feels like a new chapter is opening up in the whole royalties / free downloads / copyright infringement issues debate.

For a lot of bands right now, live performance is the only thing bringing in any real cash. To put a web content spin on it, the unique content of a concert is worth money to people, and they have to buy a ticket to see it. A lot of bands, Underworld included, also sell CDs of their concerts, and getting that extra tenner from a percentage of the crowd can make a big difference to the profitability of a show.

While I don’t agree with the heavy handed tactics of Prince and the like trying to remove all footage of their concerts from YouTube, is posting a whole concert going to far? Does it make a difference if the band isn’t selling a recording of that gig?

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