Rumble and roar in the Dublin music scene

  I find my self getting little bit exited about the way things have been going in the underground music scene for a past while. It's obvious that more aggressive music is building up again. The Metal scene in Ireland is growing like a wild fire, and the punk brewing up as well. I personally do think that the times we are living does play its part in it. Good old friend of mine and some one who has worked in the music business for well over 30 years once said that it is a historical fact that music and arts always has its boom during recession. I know it can sound bit crazy, but it does make sense as well. I know things like classical music will suffer due to its exclusive nature, but on the street level things are happening. During the boom, pubs did organize music, but it was more tourist oriented in Dublin. Now the local hangouts have realized the power of live music, and it is great to see. There are many venues JPKALLIO.COM have played in in the past year that are great examples of this, Sweeney's on Dame street are hopping! And I am sure they would say it is lot to do with the live music, which in most days of the week they have in two or even three floors. The Pint on the Eden quay has really started to establish it self as a serious venue in the Dublin music scene, especially for Metal. After a small break Thomas house is back organizing live punk nights. The Gypsy rose on Aston quay is running gigs in the basement and acoustic gigs upstairs. And this is only small scratch of the surface of the bubbling music scene in Dublin.

  The other factor in the picture is money. Whether we like it or not, it plays it's part on everything. Sometimes when times are good, and it is easy to make money, that's just what we do. We take the well payed corporate gigs, mold our set lists to suit them, ware our black suits and jump when we are told to jump. Don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with this. But when the work isn't there, you need to keep your self busy, and that's often when you have time to concentrate on what you really want to do. And in tough times people do look for solace in music. Also during good times, music can be more of a party tool, where as when things are not so good, music can be the language to express frustrations and anger. For example cover bands, something like “Sweet home Alabama”, always a strong classic, would have been very popular, but now you get “Killing in the name” by Rage against the machine. But very often these are all things that just pass us by, and we don't pay attention to it. But what always amazes me is how the big promoters tend to work in the past... Only in 2012 German Hard rock/ Metal legends Rammstein play their first concert in Ireland. Now think what ever you may of them, they will fill the O2 and would have done so long before. Oh yeah, and do you remember the famous Manu Chao visit to Dublin quite few years ago? The promoter booked him to Whelans, as they didn't know him and didn't think it would sell... The concert was eventually moved and Manu Chao played to a full house in the Point. But the good thing in all this is that the smaller promoters have had a chance to break in to market that was very much dominated by two giants in the past. Now we have Napalm Death coming to play in the Pint, and the ticket price is very reasonable, thanks to the fact that the major promoters didn't have their "major"cut out of this.

  So as much as we all get dragged down by the news of doom and gloom every day, in music business it is the time of the independents. Small labels who do what they love, small promoters who put on shows for bands they love, and most of all bands who do what they love, not what they are expected to do. What do you think the future holds for Dublin music scene?

  I am just back from a long weekend away, I was in need of charging my batteries, and that's just what I did:-) But now JPKALLIO.COM is very busy getting prepared for some recording. As I mentioned last week, we'll be going in to the Trackmix studios next week for few days. And at the same time I am busy getting the recording of Sliotars new album done. So busy times, but hey, it's the only way how I know:-) Talk to you more next week.
  J.P.

On a shoestring project part 44

  The rain is beating its subtle drum beat on my window while I write this. It's always a bit of a dull after show like the Whelan's. But this time I hardly had time to sit down. But that's the way I like it anyway:-) Here is a video from the Whelan's concert.


  Now we got an extra gig next week in Sweeney's. It is the Juke box slot night and it is the basement venue. Also our good friends who we used to share rehearsal room with, the Casement ghosts are playing with us:-) We are really exited about this one. For those who don't know them, Casement Ghosts are a Punk rock band . I have been helping them out recording a demo in the past few months and I must say, they have some kicking songs, be sure not to miss them. Also on the night there will be Ivan St.Leger, Tom White and WillBury, who we are looking forward to hear on the night. Come along, the show starts around 8pm and it is free in:-)

  And the week after that on the 14th we are back in the Pint, but we'll talk more about that next week:-)

  So let me talk a little bit about attitude towards modern technology in music. What I mean here is particularly in the punk rock, metal and all us distorted guitar and pounding drum loving rockers. We embraced the Myspace when it first came along, then it was a must to be there! Now it is gone... waste of time, one of the worst sounding music players out there and why did they change it in to a pop up? Anyway at the time it was powerful tool, and helped loads of bands to get around. Then came the facebook and twitter... Yeah they might not be the coolest things in the world and we love to give out about them, but for a musician they are tools. Use them! We got our first bit of negative feedback few weeks ago when I was emailing radio stations, but to be honest with you this was more entertaining to me than anything else. In the email I send to the stations I tell them bit about us, send them a link to our music and in one part I explain how we embrace the DIY ethos. I have set up automated signature in my Email (You should do this as well! Check out WiseStamp), there is links to our website, facebook, twitter, youtube and myspace. The reply I got went in the lines of this: “DIY Punk on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube! When are you gonna sell out at Wal-Mart?” Well... you can't please everyone can you? So, lets go back to the world of making cassettes with our boom box, sharing them with our friends, few posters around the town before our gigs. Rocking it out and being so anti-establishment on Friday night, but back to nine to five on Monday morning. Now don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with nine to five, or having bit of fun on Friday, but criticizing bands for trying to get the word out there? Oh yeah, and the radio station in question has facebook, twitter and youtube pages;-). For musician social media is a tool, a means to connect with your audience and build a following.

  But in general, as you might know the response from radio stations around the world has been unreal! As I said so many times before, most of these people are music fans and like to help out new bands, so one negative mail against over 30 positive? I can live with that:-)

  Here's something light from the imagination of our drummer Sebastian:-)

  Now, the rain has changed to sunny blue sky:-) Better go out and enjoy it, we don't get much of it here in Ireland:-) Back for more next week.

J.P.

On a shoestring project part 42

  So it is the morning of our concert in Whelan's, upstairs that is, and we really hope to see you there. It's 8pm doors and music starts 9pm sharp. And as I mentioned before, there is a 11 a clock curfew, so all you people working the next day will make it for the last bus, dart or luas :-)

  And that’s enough advertising ;-). As you can imagine we have been busy rehearsing for the gig, and while doing this we realised that even after leaving out the tracks from our first E.P. We have more than enough material for a full album. But even more so, it sounds like a collection of songs that would work together as an album. Now obviously this was always some thing we were aiming for, but at the same time, the time needs to be right. There is no point recording an albums worth of songs just for the sake of doing it. All of us in the band love our music, we live and breathe it. We message each others YouTube clips of cool new bands we find and when ever we get together it never takes long before we start to talk about some new band one of us heard, or a new album some one got. And we have very old school approach to music. We still like albums, as a collection of songs that together becomes something more. Listening to some inspiring music is very important part of being a musician. It is very easy to take music as a granted these days, with it being available all over the internet by a click of a button. But most of us know it was not always like this. I remember a good family friend giving me a birthday gift of a cassette player when I was four or five, I think. Before this my parents did not have any way of playing music in the house. Although there always seemed to be a guitar around ;-) My dad used to drive trucks all around Europe and I remember the car stereos in the trucks being a great excitement to me. But when on that birthday I got my first cassette player and a cassette (it was Boney M...) it gave me freedom. Freedom to listen to music when I wanted and by god did I make the most out of this freedom and I must say my mother was very understanding ;-). The same family friend also introduced me to Lou Reed. Then my uncle had a collection of vinyl records. Everything about them fascinated me. The covers, the art work. There was Stray Cats and Motorhead, the two that stood out to me. And I am sure the guitars on those albums did start a life time fascination for the instrument. But still today when I hear a great album, it gets me exited. For example at the moment I can't stop listening to Social Distortions new album, a real genuine collection of songs that just works together so well. This is what I would love to achieve. To make an album that would have that same effect on people. Good album gets you hooked. You listen to it non stop for a long time and when you finally had enough, give it a rest. But when you come back to it, it just lights up something inside again. I do know music has a very different effect on every person. And I would very much like to hear what it means to you? Is it just something to dance to? Or something you just listen when you turn on your car radio? Or are you as obsessed about it as we are? And what do you expect from a good album? Or do you only listen to single songs? Leave us comments here or on Facebook and share your musical story :-)
  We got loads of more Radio play this week, this is the list so far:-)

Punk Britannia

Punk Rock Demonstration

King Kong Radio 2xm

Pluto Radio

v103rock

Music world radio

4a4a-fm

Radioi

Off The Chart Radio

Radio Arcadia - Toronto

LG73.ca

Monorock Radio

Radio Quebec

Ragnar Rokk Radio

  It is half past midnight when I write this, and I need to be up for rehearsals in the morning so it's time to get some shuteye. But before I go and drift away, let me just say something I don't say often enough: Thank you for reading this blog :-) It started as only a small blog, bit of a hobby for me, but 42 weeks later, the blog and everything around it including JPKALLIO.COM genuinely has had a big impact on me, and to my delight we are getting more and more hits every week :-) Thank you people and stay tuned, we are only getting warmed up!

J.P.

On a shoestring project part 41

  Even though Sebastian was on his holidays last week, we've had a busy week. Our music has got around lot :-) First of all the Punk Britannia show played us on Tuesday and the show is repeated Thursday nightPunkrockdemo.com. After the weekend the show will be available at Studsandpunks.co.uk. Also we'll be featured at the http://www.1234punkrock.de and Tide 96.0 FM (Hamburg, Germany). Also a video of us in the King Kong Club semi-final came out:-) So here it is, let us know what you think.

  Now as I talked about this last week, our show at the Whelan's is only week away. We really hope you all can make it in. It is going to be a really cool night. We've been sticking up posters around town, but it's hard to get every where, so if you have any places where you would like to stick a poster you can either copy it from here and print it out or get in contact with us and we can drop them down to you (in Dublin). So here's the poster again.

  I have heard from quite few people in the past few months’ compliments on how we promote JPKALLIO.COM. To me this is great to hear as we do put lots of hours in to it. But at the same time, I can't stop wondering why isn’t everyone doing it? I do understand that there is the weekend worriers who just do it for fun, but if you do have any ambitions bigger than that, get to work! All the information is at your finger tips, right in front of your eyes. Internet is full of valuable advice; Google is a tool I use every single day. How did I get our music to these radio shows and podcasts mentioned at the beginning of this blog post? I found the radios and podcast shows on Google, I visited their website, I listened to their shows, while I was doing other work (writing blog, designing gig posters...) and if it sounded like we could fit the bill, I contacted them. Send nice email with bit of info on you (who you are, where you're form and who do you represent). Now I personally think that this is an important part: on the server where our website is (Thanks Greg for the space) I have also posted our E.P. Tracks as high quality mp3s, so I can include links to them on Email. I would highly recommend against emailing any sound files, unless you have been requested to do so. The links I send, the person can download the files if they like them :-) And if not, well at least it’s not going to fill their Email box. If they want a physical CD, I'll gladly send it to them, but if your mp3s are high enough quality, it is actually faster and more practical for podcasts and internet radio, as they would end up compressing your CD files anyway. I talked about the difference of commercial radio, independent and internet radio in the past and lot of people in the podcasts and internet shows are music fans, and if your music is good enough quality, they will be happy to hear about your band.

This actually leads to another thing: In the past few months I have heard stories of bands investing their hard earned cash to some studio time, but the results being not very encouraging. It can be tough work if you are new to it. The studio environment can be intimidating, especially if it costs several hundreds a day and the clock is ticking. But I know these bands and I know they are capable of producing good recordings... Just because there is a sign on the door saying it is a studio, it does not mean you will come out sounding good. Some of the best engineers I have worked with are able to produce a dissent recording with minimal equipment pretty much anywhere, and no amount of fancy recording equipment can make you sound good if the person using it can not use it. I have worked on both sides of the recording process and still do. My two cent on the subject is this: first ask for some resent project done by the engineer with the equipment studio you're going to use and pay for. You are paying lots of money! You won’t buy car without test driving it, you won’t buy new guitar without trying it, possibly reading reviews about it on the net. It is your right to hear what they can do, and if they have problem with this, just walk away! Fancy equipment is nice, but worth nothing unless the engineer has the skills. And when you schedule your studio time, by the love of all the goods of rock! Leave enough time for mixing. This is where you will make the magic happen. This is where you glue all the elements together. I remember working on a compilation CD I had a track years back, and talking to the engineer, this guy was a pro, been at it for years and knew his way around the desk and computer. He said you should spend as much time on the mixing as you do on the actual recording. At the time I thought it sounded bit too much, but years later I have come to realize the wisdom in his words. Even this can be bit excessive on most people budgets; it is something to keep in mind.

Well that was a bit of a rant again, but it just gets to me a bit when the artists end up being the payers in a business that would not exist with out them ;-)

Back for more next week!

J.P.