Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Coolaboola Birthday/Babyshambles/Radio Soulwax!







Jam Junior was sandwiched between a number of other interesting events in the last few days. Last Thursday Coolaboola celebrated their first birthday in Cyprus Avenue. Coolaboola is four young girls, Ali, Lorna, Meg and Kari, who got fed up with not being old enough to go to music gigs and decided to set up their own all ages events! I've known the girls since the start and helped them with their early events but it's amazing to stand back and watch how they are now putting on better and better gigs each time! They have had incredible bands play there, from Playtoh and Lotus Lullaby, to Wallmark and Fred and this time the line-up was excellent once again.

KVX are five young girls from in and around the Douglas area and they started off the proceedings! They were confident and assured and really got the large young crowd rocking at 2 in the afternoon! They are joining me for Teenage Thursdays tonight on RedFM so I'll have more from them soon! I only caught the start of the energetic RumbleStrips but I was impressed while I had to head away before the Chalets gig, to get ready for my show at the Savoy. The Chalets are one of my favourite Irish bands however, and I've been watching them closely since I first saw them at Oxegen about three years ago. I'm delighted they are doing so well but I'm even more delighted for Coolaboola as they are one of the best success stories in Cork music over the last 12 months-Happy birthday girls!

I had two Rapture gigs in the Savoy over the weekend but it was the Saturday one which rocked most! Between them I checked out Babyshambles on Sunday, Pete Doherty's band playing the early gig in the Savoy. There was a lot of talk about this gig because of the tabloid fuss regarding Doherty's drug problems and relationship with Kate Moss. None of that interests me in the slightest as I'm not the biggest fan of the U.K. tabloids, the hypocrisy in which they dealt with Moss in particular disgusts me. What about the music though? I haven't been that impressed with Babyshambles as a band, compared to his music with the Libertines I don't think it stands up to be honest. Not expecting much was handy though as the charismatic Pete and his band played an interesting gig on a mellow Sunday evening. He is certainly a facinating character on stage and has got a certain rock n'roll magnetism which is what it's all about really. The band were rough as fuck at times but as a child of punk who was too young for the 70's, I've always enjoyed watching a group of people just playing as rough and free as they wanted more than technically accomplished bands who play two hour solos. That's what punk rock is all about!

Soulwax and 2 Many DJ's share some of these ethos too. On Tuesday Heineken brought another of their clever one-off nights to Cork with their Green Room Spheres. Essentially a big act in a relatively small room, this night see's the beer brand take over the club in a more stylish and subtle way than simply throwing their brand up everywhere. They use their signature colour green to create a furturistic look and spare no detail in turning the club into something different. The Savoy looked fantastic and an eager crowd who got tickets through their website turned up the day after the bank holiday and kept the party rocking! I was more impressed with Soulwax than when I had previously seen them, and some of the other acts were very interesting too and got the place jumping to some great music. By the time Soulwax morphed into their 2 Many DJ's set the club was absolutely going mad and the mixture of electroclash/dance classics/modern rock remixes sent everyone over the edge! The atmosphere and vibe were first class and I went home thinking, it would be great to do something like that every Tuesday!!!!!!

5 comments:

Pure Cork Boy said...

Yes indeed, Soulwax really rocked. I was lucky enough to be given a ticket but over the weekend I was also allocated 3 more tickets so I was able to bring some friends as well.

I was blown away by how incredible they were, I'd never heard them before. Lot's of bouncy goodness on the dance floor, which was like too crowded again! It's really starting to put me off. I'm almost thinking of not going to Bob Sinclar on Friday and just going to Doubletime instead simply because the over crowding is pissing me off so much. That said, Bob should be pretty good, so it's going to be a tough choice!

PS: You should really change the settings on your blog to allow anonymous comments. Otherwise, someone that wants to leave a comment actually has to be registered on blogger, which is probably the only reason you get so few comments! Like, sort it out man!

Anonymous said...

He did sort it out...

im Anonymous :P

Pure Cork Boy said...

And so he did... good for you anonymous!

Never did get to go and see Bob Sinclar in the end!

StevieG said...

Nice one guys-PCB ya didnt miss much with Bob Sinclair it was distinctly underwhelming!

Pure Cork Boy said...

I'll take some consolation in that. Went to Doubletime instead, Gary was his usually eclectic self. I swear to God, the amount of classy fecking women that go to Doubletime is unreal. It must be the best kept secret in Cork. Not your usual tarty Saturday night Rapture crowd (oops, sorry about that :-) either I can tell ya!

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    I'm a DJ from Cork in Ireland. I work with RedFM, presenting Red Drive, The Hitlist and my specialist show, Black on Red. I'm probably best known for being one of the main hip-hop/soul DJ's in Cork and Ireland. I've been DJing in Cork since the early 90's in legendary clubnights such as Sweat in Sir Henrys, Mor Disco, Free La Funk, Yo Latino and also Jam and Jam Junior at the Savoy and the Pavilion. I've also held down long term residencies at clubs around Ireland such as Brown Sugar at the Kitchen in Dublin, U-Turn at Ri Ra in Dublin, Jazz Juice at the GPO in Galway, Thompson Garage in Belfast, the Soul Clinic, Dee-Bop, Meltdown and Mo Bounce in Limerick and i've played abroad in the United States and the U.K. on numerous occasions. I also write a music column for the Evening Echo and i'm a regular contributor to the U.K.'s Blues and Soul, the longest running black music magazine in the world. These days i run the Pavilion, a music venue in Cork, which hosts my Jam night every few Fridays http://www.pavilioncork.com also you can catch me at http://djstevieg.podomatic.com