The Ticket's Top 50 bands right now..

The Irish Times Friday music supplement The Ticket have done a poll of the "50 best Irish music acts right now".

The top five is:
5. Lisa Hannigan
4. Fight Like Apes
3. Cathy Davey
2. Jape
1. David Holmes

While probably not scientifically accurate, it certainly makes an interesting read. Notable omissions include Mumblin' Deaf Ro, Director, The Flaws and Super Extra Bonus Party, but there's plenty to be getting on with in the rest.

Have a read here.

(alternatively Nialler9 has his own list up here too)

Speed Bump

more here.

Director announce dates and New album

Dublin band Director have announced plans to release their second album "I'll Wait for Sound" on the 8th of May. It will be released on their own Crapshoot Economics label and will be promoted with gigs in Kilkenny, Cork and Dublin's Button Factory.

For full details (and a listen to their first single Sing it without a tune visit their myspace.

Good article from the Guardian

David Byrne and Brian Eno talk to the Guardian about music, paranoia and their new album "Everything that Happens will Happen Today"

Read it here.

The Presidents of the United States of America play Vicar Street Friday

These guys seem to have been around forever.

If you're looking for an unusual gig to see this weekend, you could do worse than the Seattle pop-punk three piece. Recent album "These are the good times people" has gotten mixed reviews, but live they're well worth it.

Tickets are €26 and you can get them here.

Newswipe

Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe is a program about television. Its also one of the best programs on television. Cutting, satirical, course and educational, Screenwipe is often must-see-tv, and hopefully we can expect the same from Newswipe.

Shows are now up on Youtube and you can also catch up on Screenwipe here. Do yourself a favour, yeah?

Bst Sng Evr

English 3-piece Metronomy have mostly done remixes and electronic kinda pop. Well, so it says on their Myspace and Wikipedia Pages anyway. I'm not really sure what that means, but i do know that this is the Bst Sng Evr:



Discover them yourself here. (the A Thing for Me remix is a good starting point too)

Pat Kenny quits the Late Late...

Pat has decided he will quit the program at the end of it's current run, and rumour has it he will return with a new current affairs based show in the Autumn. It's probably general consensus that Kenny is good with the serious stuff and useless at the celebrity and light rubbish that chat shows have to filled with, so its sounds like a good move for all. Talk obviously now moves to who will take over, if they decide to continue it (which they probably will) with Gerry Ryan, Miriam O'Callaghan, Ryan Tubridy and Patrick Kielty all mentioned. The chat show format is pretty tired though, with jaded celebrities wheeled about giving shallow interviews whenever they have another book/record/boiler to sell, and with the amount of actual shows on Irish TV, more often than not, its a boring exchange between an interviewer who doesn't really care and a interviewee who has nothing to say.
Anyway, my money would be on Tubridy. If i betted on prospective show hosts. Which i probably wouldn't..