Jim Carrollon music.
Sales may be down, but Irish fests are set to impress
WHILE the media focus on how the credit crunch may affect ticket sales for live shows, promoters around the country are still announcing acts for forthcoming festivals.
The Kilkenny Arts Festival has added a new music strand to its line-up.
Wired will feature Mercury Rev (The Hub, August 12th), Spiritualized (playing with a gospel choir in St Canice's Cathedral on August 17th) and Lisa Hannigan (The Parade Tower, August 9th).
There will also be a Wired _at_ Cleere's programme during the festival with Irish acts such as Tenpastseven, Halves, Somadrome and many more.
Despite some nasty weather last summer which caused the cancellation of the first day's programme, the Farmleigh Affair will return to Farmleigh House in Dublin's Phoenix Park. Acts appearing over the August Bank Holiday weekend will include Justin Adams, the Mornington Singers, Grada, Carmen Souza, Mor Karbasi and many more.
The Farmleigh Affair is booked by the Improvised Music Company, which will also be pitching its tent at the Electric Picnic this year. Their Picnic line-up includes Terry Callier, Lou Rhodes, Jah Wobble, the excellent Dengue Fever, Fovea Hex, Iarla O'Lionaird and more.
Senegal's legendary Orchestra Baobab are the big draw at this year's Sligo Live which takes place from October 23rd to 27th. Other acts heading to the north- west include Quebec's Le Vent du Nord and renowned Chicago fiddler Liz Carroll.
October also sees DEAF taking over Dublin venues for the seventh year in a row. The line-up includes Model 500 (with Juan Atkins and the Underground Resistance crew, including Mike Banks), the Moritz Von Oswald Trio, Laurent Garnier, Nurse with Wound, Harmonia, M83, Chrome Hoof, Fuck Buttons and many more.
It's an all-star line-up for this year's Festival Of World Cultures in Dún Laoghaire from August 22nd to 24th with Brazil's Seu Jorge, China's Sa Dingding,
Tibet's Young Chen Lhamo, New York-based Gypsy music mash-up artists Balkan Beatbox and, best of all, Ethiopiques featuring Mahmoud Ahmed, Mulatu Astatqe, Getachew Mekurya, Alemayehu Eshete and The Either Orchestra.
RTÉ has a Pulse after all
IT'S not the first time a pirate radio station has come in from the cold (Phantom FM is one legit station that once flew the Jolly Roger), but the arrival of Pulse on RTÉ's digital airwaves is an interesting development.
Pulse FM was a pirate dance station which broadcast across Dublin until 2007. Former Pulse station manager Mark McCabe is now one of those involved with RTÉ's digital radio strategy, and he is using the Pulse name - and some of the station's old tags and one-liners - for RTÉ's new digital dance station.
Currently test-broadcasting with classic dance hits, house, disco and trance, RTÉ Pulse's first live transmission will be from the Planet Love festival taking place this weekend in Fairyhouse, Co Meath.
More information from www.rte.ie/digitalradio
The indie side of the Dark
CHARTING the ins and outs of independent music culture in Ireland is the ambitious aim of the Underground exhibition and publication, to be launched next week in conjunction with the Darklight festival.
Curated by artists and musicians Peter Maybury and Dennis McNulty, Underground will take place in the basement of Dublin's Road Records and feature work by Garrett Phelan, Sarah Pierce, Adam Sutherland, Francis McKee, Robin Watkins, Stephen Rennicks and Angela Detanico, and Rafael Lain.
A limited publication documenting pop's past and present will also be available.
Underground runs from June 27th to July 6th.
www. myspace.com/underground exhibition.
See this week's Darklight feature
ETC
• Having shown station chiefs that she can pull in the listeners with her Last Splashshow, Today FM's Alison Curtis takes over the Monday to Thursday 10pm to midnight slot from next week.
• Bonde do Role (version two) play Belfast's Stiff Kitten on August 2nd and Dublin's Crawdaddy on August 3rd.
• The Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir plug their Ten Thousandalbum with shows at Derry's Sandino's (July 23rd), Belfast's Black Box (24th), Galway's Cuba (25th), Skibereen's Cork X Southwest fest (26th) and Dublin's Crawdaddy (31st)
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