Dave Quinn Interviews RSAG (Rarely Seen Above Ground) for Connected Magazine

With the growing success of Irish talent in music at the moment you cannot help but be a little proud, and a little patriotic. But deeper lies an uneasiness, one which makes us all ask the same questions lately, such as “When will we hear a fresh, different and homegrown talent that doesn’t go straight for the jugular of indie rock”. No? Anybody? Well maybe it is just me, but nonetheless my mouth has been firmly shut and will happily stay that way for the entire time RSAG is on the music scene.
Rarely Seen Above Ground – or Jeremy Hickey to his mates, has gained national notoriety after his performance at Electric Picnic 08 sparked the Irish Times to write “he was one of the best acts by far” and “he blew me away”. Since Then he has enjoyed further success with the release of his debut album Organic Sampler at the end of 2008 which received nationwide media acclaim. Seriously, he is crazy hot.
Those who have yet to hear RSAG are in for a treat as he has a jam packed summer schedule of live performances and you are sure to catch one sooner rather than later.
Luckily Connected had pre-empted this heavy workload and managed to catch up with RSAG for a chat before his touring began.


1. Hi! Firstly, your name stands for Rarely Seen Above Ground. Slight touch of Agoraphobia or is there a better story behind it?
No, not as deep as that! It was quite a simple origin to be honest. A friend of mine years ago heard one of my demos after a long time of nobody purposely knowing what I was up to. He said “hey, you’re rarely seen above ground”. That idea of doing something that was unexpected stuck with me for years.

2. Your name has been popping up all over the place; most notably on RTE's The View and Other Voices. Are you already eying up sports Cars and other such luxury items that come with Fame?
Ha, absolutely not! The only things I’m eying up are some microphones and other pieces of equipment to improve what I want to do on my next recordings.

3. When did you last google yourself and what did you find?
A review of my album Organic Sampler by Lauren Murphy.

4. What festivals are you hoping to play through the summer months?
I’m hoping to play a lot! Oxegen in July, Castlepalooza in August, Hop Farm (UK), Airbound (Croatia) and the Cork independent Festival. I have already played Sea Sessions at the end of May, so yeah; the summer is going to be pretty busy!

5. You are a former member of band Blue Ghost, how did you end up becoming a solo artist?
I actually started as a solo artist and then formed a band. In 1996 I had done my first proper solo recording under the name Blue Ghost and then about a year later I met Davy Holland and we decided to work together but still go under the name Blue Ghost.

6. Do you carry any lucky charms when playing live? (Please don’t say rabbit’s foot!)
The only things I consider lucky are my ear attenuators.

7. Plans for the second album?
I am currently working on my new album. I do not know when it will be finished as I am so busy this summer but when it is released it will be called Be it Right or Wrong.


8. Your influences include Talking Heads, Radiohead and Miles Davies. Have you every received any comparisons?
I always receive comparisons and of course always will. I love a lot of different styles of music and those styles will always come through in my music when it inspires me. It's mood driving music which always depends on feel.

9. I'd compare your singing style to Ian Curtis (Joy Division) or Paul Banks of Interpol. Is that a complement or do you hate me now!?
No I don’t hate you! I’m not sure if it was a conscious thing but on some of the songs on Organic sampler there is that kind of style alright. It suits the mood on some tracks. It is very distinct.

10. What is your favorite thing in the world, EVER?
Moving Forward.



Check out RSAG during the summer and hopefully by the time you want more from the metaphorical mole of music his second album Be It Right Or Wrong will be just around the corner.

For more on RSAG check out http://www.myspace.com/rarelyseenaboveground.


Words by Dave Quinn

Automated Music Presents: Simon Baker

Automated Music are back with a mega blow-out for the bank holiday weekend, this time securing top DJ Simon Baker to join in the fun.
Simon has been growing on the DJ circuit since the early nineties, honing his craft in electronic music and eventually floating well beyond the shores of the UK with recent tours in the States, South America, Asia and of course, all around Europe.
He initially gained recognition in 2004 as part of a duo known as The Liptrick, but after releasing their EP on Ralph Lawson’s 2020 Vision label the group disbanded, and Simon launched his own Infant Records label soon after.

Since then he has worked with many other DJs such as Paul Woolford, Burnski, Tim Green, Anthony Collins and many more. The last few years has seen quite a busy touring schedule for Simon, securing residencies in Asylum (Leeds) and DDD in London, but his vision stretched further than his home land. He has played some of the top European clubs such as Weekend, Watergate and Cocoon in Germany and Nitsa in Barcelona. The U.S. welcomed him to Droog (L.A.), The EndUp in San Fran and Sullivan Room in NYC. He has even had the fortune of stepping on stage at the Piknic Electronik Festival in Montreal.
With more mixes still to come, including a re-work of Simian Mobile Disco’s “Sleep Depravation”, Simon simply cannot stop and is on a collision course with mainstream electro audiences.

Dublin’s Automated Music have the pleasure of hosting Simon Bakers Irish debut, along with support from Rubio and Barry Greaves.

So get your dirty techno shoes on this Bank Holiday Sunday and make your way down to The Underground at Kennedy’s to check out Automated Music’s newest guest; Simon Baker.

Doors 10pm, Entry €15.00.

For more info check out: www.myspace.com/simonbakerinfantrecords
www.myspace.com/automatemusic

Words by Dave Quinn

Gig Review: Shoctopus at Radio City, Saturday 11th of April

With bands like Airbourne and the Answer reviving that type of simplistic Rock n Roll that does exactly what it says on the tin (rock your socks off!), they have in turn sparked new life into the creators, AC:DC, along with inspiring new acts to rekindle the flame. Everyone knows I’m a sucker for judging a book by its cover, especially when it comes to the name a band gives itself. You can imagine my excitement and anticipation for seeing Dublin based band Shoctopus live on Saturday 11th. The band played Radio city and after checking them out on myspace I was optimistic about the quality in their live performances. With bands like Airbourne and the Answer reviving that type of simplistic Rock n Roll that does exactly what it says on the tin, and in turn have sparked new life into the creators; AC:DC. Their sound isn’t a million miles away from Motorhead or The Sword with vocals similar to a pre-solo career Ozzy Osborne. Unfortunately the turn-out on the night was far from what I expected but nothing prepared me for the performance itself.

As the guitarist belted out riff after riff the front mans voice began to drown. His over enthusiastic desperation for everyone to “rock out” fell on deaf ears which was made worse by his constant demand for people to crowd around him after every song. Have you no shame Sir? While the Drummer made repeated mistakes in an attempt to keep up with a tempo he was supposed to be setting for the rest of the band, the bassist stood motionless and seemed uncomfortable in his own skin. These were still overshadowed by the lead singer who can only be compared (by me) to a hard rock Doppelganger of Morrissey’s personality with none of the talent. This beast does exist, for I have seen him with my own eyes and I can assure you, cringe-worthy is an understatement.

The only talent was the guitarist who has font fantastic ability in a type of guitar playing that is getting a second wind in popularity thanks to bands like the Answer. This guy needs to pack up his guitar and his awesome riffs and sail away on a life raft because the Shoctopus boat is sinking. They don’t even need an Iceberg to speed up the disaster, the lead singer is a perfect fit for the job.


Words by Dave Quinn

Automated Music Presents: Tim Green

Whoa! What was that enormous sound? I don’t know but I think we should check it out…. What a kick in! And the rest is history.
What the hell am I on about you ask? Isn’t it obvious that the above words were spoken by every music lover in the world right before electro music exploded onto the scene for all to enjoy!
Electro music can stand for many things and is commonly defined with bands like Jus+ice, Digitalism and of course, Daft Punk. These bands have paved the way for a new uprising in the Dublin DJ scene with more tangents of the genre being created daily. One particular Independent label saw the new horizon and immediately capitalised, making them an easily recognisable name for any DJ event in Dublin today. Automated Music offer a fresh perspective on Dance Music and with their growing popularity they have attracted many household DJ names in techno, minimal and house. They do not look like they will stop for a breath anytime soon.
The latest offering from Automated Music comes in the form of a rising DJ with little left to prove, London based Tim Green aka TG. Tim has released records on label Dirtybird & Trapez which have since been sampled by world Famous DJs Carl Cox and Claude Von Stroke, and Tim is now looking to take on Dublin with his first ever Irish gig. TG’s ability to fuse live DJing with CDjs and laptop work have gained him critical acclaim and led to gigs such as The Watergate in Berlin & Nuits Sonore Festival in Lyon.

So for anyone in the mood to get crazy to some dark minimal techno tunes blasted into your ears by a DJ we will be hearing a lot more from, check out Tim Green at The Cavern on Store Street on Thursday April 9th. Doors open at 10pm and admission is a measly 12 bucks. Support on the night is from Automateds own local favorite DJ Citizen Black, and playing for the first time under Automated Music, Blue Nun.

For More information check out www.myspace.com/tg909
www.myspace.com/automatemusic



Words by Dave Quinn

Interview with ABAM at The Grainstore, Cabinteely on 28th March 2009

A rustling can be heard in the hedges of Irish Independent music, something wicked this way comes. Wicked in the mid 90’s skateboard slang sense of the word obviously, because Dublin based alt-rock band ABAM definitely have a bright future ahead of them. With the surge in popularity in Irish bands at the moment every musician wants their moment in the spotlight based on similarly commercial music. The fresh, experimental and yet progressive quality to ABAM separates them from the rest as they create something completely new for the Dublin scene. Their sound is almost indescribable as every song you hear offers something different, from catchy riffs that cause uncontrollable dancing to exploratory music with hyper-speed drumming that draw some comparison to bands like The Mars Volta. Cynics may say this is not a band for the present but regardless, they are a band for the future. Connected caught up with Neil Adams (guitar) and Kev Curran (drums) at a recent show to chat about the next steps in the ABAM journey.

Hi Guys, Great show! You seem to lose yourselves in the music on stage. Do you pride yourselves on live performances?

Neil: I think our live shows are the most important thing of all. We have been in the studio and recorded a few EPs but when we are jamming and rehearsing its all about getting right for the next show.

Is the imagery on stage important to you?

Kev: Do you mean Neil’s green Pants? (Laughter ensues)
Neil: yeah, the green pants are very important! We like to wear bright colours and just get crazy on stage, Its not just about public perception but about our own comfort on stage.

You have two more shows in the next month, so you are very busy with gigs. Are you concentrating on that predominantly or is an album a priority?

Neil: At the moment we are still writing the album, and the gigs we are doing give us the chance to test and develop new material. We plan to record before the start of June so it should be finished by the summertime
Kev: We aren’t quite sure WHERE we are going to record it yet…
Neil: Yeah but its going to be mega!
Kev: It’s going to be awesome!

You spent some time recording in the States last summer too. What did you take from the experience?

Kev: It was deadly. (Again, laughter ensues)
Neil: We went to Los Angeles, had a great time and got to play some live shows over there too and count ourselves really lucky that we got the opportunity. We even got a chance to record with Jimmy Coup and Rich Mouser in the Mouse House Studios, which may I add was the absolute nicest studio I have ever been in! It had swimming pools and numerous bedrooms, even though I didn’t have my own room…

Any Plans to return?

Kev: Yeah definitely, we’d like to organise some sort of tour up the east or west coast.
Neil: We don’t want to just stay in one place like we did in LA, we want our next trip over to be a bit more…Scattered.

Neil, with you and Connor being brothers, do creative differences ever take a more personal twist?

Kev: No way! They have some sort of weird telepathy. They both understand instantly what the other is doing; they don’t even have to talk about it. They just start playing and, it just works. It’s like magic pours out of both guitars!
Neil: I don’t know about that! It is great how we compliment each other though. Like, when one of us writes a riff the other would instinctively know what we both think would sound cool playing over it.
Kev: I don’t understand how you two do it at all. When you listen to each of their contributions singled out on their own, they sound completely wrong for each other. But when you put them both together, it mixes perfectly.

A lot of your influences come from video games which is shown in lyrics and song titles such as Red Shell. Are video games a big part of your life or childhood?

Neil: I just bought an N64 with Goldeneye and Mario Kart!

So it’s still a huge influence today?

Neil: Absolutely. I had recently bought Mortal Kombat and all through the following nights gig I was thinking about doing Fatalities, so much so that my antics on stage led to me falling over an amp during a song. I had to stay lying on the amp until we finished!
Kev: Goldeneye is great for nostalgic reasons and it paved the way for Halo and Call Of Duty which I love.
Neil: The classic stuff will always be my favourite. In fact, one of our songs is named after the SNES game “Zombies ate my Neighbours” which is crazy because we play the song so much I forgot about the origin of its name.
Kev: That new game Left for Dead is pretty cool too.

It looks like you guys have a plethora of resources still untapped!

We will never get tired of writing music about computer games. Ever.



ABAM will be playing the Twisted Pepper on the 30th of April; alternatively you can check them out at http://www.myspace.com/ABAMband.

Words by Dave Quinn

Connector.ie Meet Up Number 8 - Review

The connector meet-ups organised by Conor Lynch are designed to encourage self motivated independent professionals to mingle on an informal basis with the hopes of gaining interest in each others work. They all want to help each other, which is a rare yet vital commodity for Dublin’s Independent circuit. Connectors Meet Up No.8 which took place in Renards Bar on Fredrick Street, Dublin on Thursday 26th of March, stirred up quite an amount of interest with more than one hundred people in attendance. The event was extremely well organised, with sponsorship from Bulmers and Ben and Jerrys, who had promotions in house to further advertise the event.

The night began as a social experience with people given time to take initiative in making important introductions to other attendees. After sufficient time was given to this clever yet possible unscripted process, presentations began. The Highlight of these was without doubt Co-creator and CEO of Daft.ie Eamon Fallon, who gave a descriptive insight into his professional career from school to his current position. The presentation was highly motivating for anyone with desires to create a website and inspiring to those who have attempted yet become disillusioned. The following section of the night was the open-mic style presentations, with members given the opportunity to present and promote themselves or their business for one minute. Everyone from PR companies to photographers took the stage and gained great exposure.

In a nutshell, the event was successful in regards to the publicity it received, with the turn-out being exceptional. The presentations and general social interaction of the people was also a very positive step for Connector. With the popularity and content of the site growing rapidly, I guarantee this is still only the beginning. Given time there will be no need to keep your ear to the ground as Connector.ie will be louder than ever.

Recent Albums of quality worth mentioning...

After venting my frustrations about some of the poor music released in the last year (one album in particular, obviously) I decided to first of all shorten my rants and secondly to be more positive. With that in mind I thought it appropriate to talk about some of the albums which were equally anticipated but received a warmer response from me.
The first was by a band who in their last outing created such a backlash from fans there were reports of mass burning of the album at bonfires in the States. What kind of music is capable of such wrath, you ask? It is Heavy Metal, of course! The cremated album in reference was Metallicas St. Anger, which stirred up quite an angry broth amongst true fans. The album, along with "making of" documentary Some Kind Of Monster,the bands re-release into the wild seemed a tad pretentious. They needed a big bang to mark their territory as the long reigning lords of metal after the debacle of St. Anger.
The new album Death Magnetic was more than just a bang, it was an explosive scream bursting the eardrum of every pessimistic critic in the land. The album reminds me of a time when Metallica were competing with the likes of Slayer, bringing back the old metal roots of Master of Puppets and Ride the Lightning. It is truly a breath of fresh air to a genre clouded in smog music from bands like 30 seconds to Mars. Real metal musicis dying and hardcore followers have to rely on the stuff of old, which to be frank never gets old. Slayer, Pantera and even some older Slipknot would be chosen ahead of Metallica these days, but now the band can realistically hold their heads up high and proclaim, "We are still one of the best". Fast pedals and heavy guitar shredding is all I need to satisfy the metal craving and finally, some original work has come from such a talented band worth banging your head to.
The second appraisal is regarding an album with a very mixed reaction and I am here to tell the negative opinion pushers to pull their stubborn head out of the sand realize the quality of the album. The band is The Prodigy, the album Invaders Must Die. Since its arrival all I have been hearing is they now sound like a sub-standard Pendulum, which is ridiculous based on the opinion that Pendulum are below par in general. As the Market for that style of music is so popular recently, the prodigy are immediately compared to what is current and being labeled based on them sounding different. After Always Outnumbered was released Liam Howelett promised an album which felt like the prodigy of old, and I defy anyone to play Experience/Jilted Generation back to back with the new record without seeing massive similarities. The cold hard truth for those pessimists is that the Prodigy are back at the top of their game with a fresh mix of heavy electro, jungle and drum n' bass music that originally put them in the spotlight all those years ago.