Top 5 Indie bands in ireland???

mise_me_fein_V2

That must be why they're in the top 5 in the country then

Fraggle Rocks

rain on wrote:

ooo! the oak backlash starts here!
as for my two cents.. um..
the chalets
beards of jesus
giraffe running
slomatics
ten past seven.

Being pedantic, but i wouldn't really call Ten Past seven indie. Fookin amazing band though. New album should be out soon enough.

DadaKopf

Indie is a much maligned word. If by 'indie', you mean bands on an independent label, or no label at all, then 7:10 could be indie. If by 'indie', you mean shít Oasis/Coldplay/Beatles/Funky-Rugger-Bugger wannabe bands, then they certainly aren't.

Beards of Jesus are 'indie'.

rain on

DadaKopf wrote:

Indie is a much maligned word. If by 'indie', you mean bands on an independent label, or no label at all, then 7:10 could be indie. If by 'indie', you mean shít Oasis/Coldplay/Beatles/Funky-Rugger-Bugger wannabe bands, then they certainly aren't.

Beards of Jesus are 'indie'.

yes. the only time i saw ten past seven was in the city arts centre at a gig that was something like five quid in. i'd call that pretty ind(i)e(pendent).

indie - it's like a big umbrella that we all sit under.

at the time of posting i reckoned it was a better word to use than "alternative" or "rock"

john_henry

all irish music is rubbish. the irish music scene is more elitist than the most hardcore punk bands

John

john_henry, what's with all the anti-Irish music vibes? If you don't like Irish bands (you seem to have a bucket of tar and a giant brush) then why even open a thread like this?

john_henry

not to be pedantic, but it was the HP thread i started. i just think theres a current culture in ireland where bands and artists are happy to just attempt to be successful at home and almost admit defeat with the UK market. personally i think that there are only two genres of irish music, the staid, lugubrious singer/songwriters and the overly earnest indie kids. although im intrigued by humanzi. im sure that some of these bands dream of the UK but it always seems like their afraid to stray from producing a certain type of music lest they offend the whelans cabal and get thrown out of the hansard fan club. in all honesty why would you listen to mundy, declan o rourke or any of the other singer/songwriters so lauded in HP when you could listen to devendra banhart, willy mason, bright eyes etc. they really cant compare and i think it helps absolutely nobody when HP says that these artists are destined for great things. its getting to the stage where any old sham with an acoustic guitar is heading for ireland because they know that they will be lapped up here. importing singer/songwriters is wrong!! i think irish acts should just forget about whelans and just think bigger. replies welcomed.

John

Actually I totally agree with you there. I thought you were just being a troll at first but that post has a lot of truth in it. The Irish bands that I do like are the ones that stray from the whole singer/songwriter and heartfelt indie bands. It's a shame that most of them don't get the coverage in Hot Press or in the national press like bands like the Frames or the Walls do.

However I don't totally agree with having to set your sights on the UK to be a success. If (hopefully when) I get around to releasing an album I'd like to distribute on a larger scale using various net resources. Not enough bands make use of cheap technology (and I don't just mean myspace).

john_henry

im not saying that the UK market is the ultimate sign of success, im just trying to say that bands should aim for more than the odd gig in whelans or support slots for boghoppers like declan o rourke in vicar st. at the minute my cynicism for irish music is so bad that i will not give any irish act the time of day because the PR bull**** behind them is as bad as any of the nme bands. its actually more subservise if anything. imo theres only two good irish bands, stiff little fingers and ash. the rest is either bob dylan or jeff buckley rehashes.

tibor

john_henry wrote:

theres only two good irish bands, stiff little fingers and ash. the rest is either bob dylan or jeff buckley rehashes.

http://www.myspace.com/channelonesound
http://www.myspace.com/drycounty05
http://www.myspace.com/hybrasil

What was that?

legologic

While I have felt similar sentiments in the past J_h I must say i've started to re-appreciate certain niches in the Irish music market, niches too often overlooked. I think when people look at the Irish "indie" music scene they focus on the all too accessible bands that fall under that loose distinction. The whelan's wailers in particular. These acts are, tho' still falling under the category indie, now way too accessible and their songs have suffered as a result. They pander to their new found audience. Nowadays its very simple for anyone in the country to get a taste of the indie scene but what most people find are these glorified pop acts. I'm not saying i'd prefer it to be more elitist or exclusive but I think there's something going wrong when the indie scene of a country emulates the trends of the pop charts i.e. bands latching on to and copying anything that has worked before.

My two current niches i'm poking my nose into would be Alt-country and post-rock. Slowly there's a few quality acts developing in these genre's. I Think Alt-country/americana can often be dismissed too quick by people for the occurence of the word "country" even tho on closer inspection, while using tradional instruments, has more structural comparrison to Rock. Bands like the superbly polished "Bray Vista" are stand-out in this field (even tho' tending to the country end of the scale). Also a band i've seen a few times, supporting Blanche once and Richmond Fontaine another, the Truro Syndicate never fail to impress.

As for Post-Rock at the moment the stand out heroes of the scene are Waiting room. The Jimmycake and, for a large chunk of their material, The Rednecks are also well represented in this field. Bands like the currently defunkt (tho' I hear rumors now and then) Connectfour Orchestra are a fantastic addidion to the irish music pallet and their album "chisel to the hip" is really a superb piece of work in this genre in general. Also Principles of Shotgun Cloning are currently producing some real head-turning sounds.

I suppose to bring an incredibly drawn-out point to a conclusion I think what people now define as indie and home-grown Irish music scratches a very shallow (in more ways than one) groove in the true Irish music scene. The bands they find are over-exposed in this country due to the listenability factor they all copy off each other.

On a separate note I would add that i'm less than endeard by Humanzi and the other bands that follow this style (The Things, Mighty Stef etc...). I kinda feel they're just creating another un-inovative style which is destined to become overworked. It's almost touching on a brit-rock meets mod-rock vibe which is becoming too much like the new pop. Thats just my personal opinion on it tho' and I would regard them still with infinately more respect than the current singer/songwriter scene.

Finally I would like to point out even on the singer-songwriter scene there are, from time-to-time glimmers of hope. I really love Goodtime John. His music is of really high Quality. The thought in it's construction is, I feel, much deeper and of a much higer standard than any other Irish singer-songwriter i've seen in the past few years! He's also toured america and europe supporting the likes of Little Wings and Bonnie Prince Billy.

john_henry

thanks for that tibor. you have shown me the way. you have truly revolutionised my musical tastes by posting three links to a bunch of ****ing no-marks. that is such a fan-boy thing to do.

tibor

john_henry wrote:

thanks for that tibor. you have shown me the way. you have truly revolutionised my musical tastes by posting three links to a bunch of ****ing no-marks. that is such a fan-boy thing to do.

I see you've discovered sarcasm. Congratulations. :rolleyes:

They sound like Bob Dylan and Jeff Buckley to you then?

If you were to make some valid criticisms I might engage in a deeper debate, but what's the point?

You've obviously written off all Irish music without even giving it a chance because of a few **** singer-songwriters. I guess Irish music will have to wait until it's ratified as cool by pitchforkmedia or zane lowe or whoever you're using as your barometer of what's "hip" and "now" before you bother lending an ear to it.

john_henry

ah tibor...work hard and every day you shall receive a shiny penny. irish music will never be "hip" or "cool". (to use your 50's vernacular)

tibor

john_henry

why call me a troll just because i dont agree with you musical tastes or opinions? you're the one one who tried to force your tastes on me. do you work for Hot Press by any chance? grow up for christs sake.

jack nance hair

I've just had a quick read through, but I didn't see anyone mention Crumb. I thought their album was certainly the best irish album of last year, and definitely up there with my favourite overall albums of the year.

tibor

john_henry wrote:

why call me a troll just because i dont agree with you musical tastes or opinions? you're the one one who tried to force your tastes on me. do you work for Hot Press by any chance? grow up for christs sake.

You're a troll because you're not engaging in genuine debate, simply restating all Irish music is **** Dylan/Buckley ripoffs, despite evidence produced to the contrary.

I wasn't forcing any tastes on anyone. I just posted 3 examples of Irish music that is nothing like Dylan/Buckley. You may not like it, which is fair enough, but to deride it as **** Dylan/Buckley ripoff is wholly inaccurate. As I said before, provide some valid criticism or points and perhaps a more enlightened debate can begin.

This coupled with your holier than thou elitist attitude makes the Troll comment more than fair in my book. Grow up indeed.

Sincerely,
Niall Stokes. :rolleyes:

john_henry

right, this tit for tat crap has to stop. you say i wasnt contributing to the debate? if you were able to read you would have seen my earlier post explaining my thoughts on the irish music scene, to which the mod agreed (to a point). instead, you focused on the fact that i rejected your attempts to show me the light and therefore you get personal and call me a troll. did i not say replies welcomed at the end of that post? so now anyone who doesnt agree with tibor is a troll?? also, please explain how you perceived this supposed holier than thou attitude and elitist view? and why do people like you always feel the need to jump to the defence of irish acts? you're like a schoolkid trying to fend off insults about his mother.

tibor

john_henry wrote:

right, this tit for tat crap has to stop. you say i wasnt contributing to the debate?

I said you weren't engaging in debate, and rightly so.
You just ignored my examples that Irish music isn't all Buckley/Dylanisms.
You also ignored other posters assertions of different types of music being produced in Ireland.

If you don't like it, fair enough, but calling all Irish music Buckley/Dylan
is ill-informed and just plain wrong.

john_henry wrote:

you focused on the fact that i rejected your attempts to show me the light

I focused on the fact that you totally ignored my point.

john_henry wrote:

and therefore you get personal and call me a troll.

From the outset, each of your responses to my posts have been utterly condescending in attitude and drenched in holier than thou sarcasm.

Pre troll comment:
"fan-boy"
"ah tibor...work hard and every day you shall receive a shiny penny"

Typical troll behaviour. I was hardly the one to get personal.

john_henry wrote:

and why do people like you

People like me?

john_henry wrote:

always feel the need to jump to the defence of irish acts?

I'm not jumping to the defence of Irish artists.
I haven't even said any Irish artists are any good for Christ's sake.
All I've said is that writing off all Irish music as Buckley/Dylan ripoffs is disingenuos and mislead.


I'm done with this.

john_henry

ok well are you and i not engaging in debate? you call me condescending but at least legologic replied with a well written lowdown on various irish bands, you just stuck up three links followed by the line "What was that?" as if somehow you had to instantly school me on the finer points of irish music.

if you had read the HP thread etc. you would realise that the point being made is that only certain types of irish music ever gets exposure, the singer/songwriters in particular. this was never a missive about unsigned bands on myspace. i only replied in that manner because of the holier than thou tone of your post with the links.

if you went to the trouble of looking up those links you could have at least written something about them eg. try these if your looking for something a bit different. its a bit much to think that someones perception of music can be changed by 3 myspace links.

any chance you pair could PM your argument
i dont think anyone else is interested any more
The title of the thread was "Top 5 Indie bands in ireland???"

John

Yeah, come on lads, let it drop.

Anyway, back on topic, I picked up two nice CDs this week. Ten Past Seven's album which was very interesting, kind of like Dillinger Escape Plan but without the aggression. The other was The Ghostwood Project which I enjoyed despite the fact it sounded like it was mixed by a deaf goat (well it is a demo CD so I wasn't expecting a perfect sound). They do that post rock thing that gets my head nodding. I'd like to see them live and see what they really sound like.

DadaKopf

John Henry, you make some daycent points. But in fairness, who are you, Jim Carroll?

There are plenty of bands in Ireland who make the music they do because they think they're doing something right, or interesting or they're trying to break boundaries and recognise, basically, that the music they love making is NEVER going to be commercially successful. So what's the problem?

I'd rather bands like that than bland crap in the charts.

Sure, as a rule of thumb, most bands are ****e. Why is anyone surprised?

judas101

id like to think most of them will be playin at this gig;)

lyrama

My picks:

Bellx1
Future Kings of Spain
The Chalets
The Revs
Republic of Loose

Haven't heard a lotta Redneck Maniifesto but from what I've heard me likes! Like what would you catagorize "Ash" as? At a stage they were kinda indie but now.... what would you say they are ? Brill band tho sad that Charlotte left *tear*!

Spicy Lauren

Spicy Lauren wrote:

Ch-1
Redneck Manifesto
Panda Kopanda
Mainline
Jape

Since the weekend I have to add God is an Astronaut to that.

blu_sonic

Seeing as the voyeurs split im subbing them for "ham sandwich"

hollyhamill

gotta be
bellx1,
revs,
kaiser chiefs,
onya,
pugwash