One of the redeeming features in Cork City’s creative resurgence has been a huge boost in non-licensed venues taking over from pub shutdowns, with the likes of the Very Healthy Cafe, Crowley’s and even the Turquoise Flamingo hosting shows in recent times. By far the leader in this wave of DIY live excursions has to be the ever-amazing PLUGD Records, upstairs in the Triskel.

Eoghan O’Sullivan, aka fellow blogosphere dweller The Point of Everything, maintains a well-kept and insightful organ on music and beyond in Ireland, and in our estimation is one of the lesser-appreciated voices in the clatter of Irish music journalism.

These two mighty institutions join their not inconsiderable sexy-powers to bring us a feast of noise and pop Saturday week at PLUGD. We Are Losers and Girl Band hit up the Greatest Record Shop in the Known Universe for a dual blast of alternating feedback and feelgood. It ought to be stellar.

Presser and Facebook link follow. Saturday week at PLUGD, €6/5 concession! 

Two of the best new bands in Ireland join forces to rock Cork city on Saturday, July 7.

We Are Losers make pop music. Then add plenty of noise. Featuring members of Super Extra Bonus Party and Grand Pocket Orchestra, the Dublin/Kildare four-piece came together in 2010, and have made gig-goers weak at the knees with their infectious tunes ever since. After releasing a single on the acclaimed Leeds-based label Dance To The Radio, they are poised to unleash a split EP with Runaround Kids on Philophobia Music, a label based in Wakefield. We Are Losers’ three-song contribution is meant to soundtrack all the good things in life. As they sing on the infectiously feel-good ‘We Vampires’, they let the light in. Impossible to resist, their live show is energetic and unpredictable. We Are Losers are a band you won’t want to miss out on. They’re hitting a number of cities around Dublin with Runaround Kids as part of the EP launch before they arrive in Cork with Girl Band in tow.

“If you’re a fan of fuzzy fun, there’s plenty to sink your teeth into with We Are Losers. My guess is that they’re not going to live up to their name, because as far as I can make out they are absolute winners.” – ListenBeforeYouBuy.net

“Fuzzy, scuzzy, itchy-as-hell indie buzz pop with a couple of great songs in the middle” – On The Record

Girl Band’s formula is simple: play loud and play hard. There’s no pandering, no fancy tricks, just a young four-piece playing rock music as if their lives depended on it. Having recently released debut single single ‘In Our Heads’, a powerful two-minute blast of energy, and also had a cover of the Chemical Brothers’ ‘Hanna’ featured on Quompilation #2, Girl Band have already showcased their range of talents. An intense live experience, they prove impossible to resist.

“The un-Googleable Girl Band, specialising in erratic, vintage-sounding rock in the vein of Sonic Youth. Shouty, yes, but listen carefully, there’s melody in the madness.” – Hot Press

Plugd and The Point Of Everything Present… We Are Losers and Girl Band.

Traces of the Real is an exhibition of photographer Hugh McCabe‘s “song exposure” photography, fresh from a run at the Workman’s Club last year.

Leaving the shutter open for the duration of a song during a live set, then abruptly closing, McCabe’s body of work succeeds in bringing to life the experience of a gig, capturing the essence of a gig’s kinetic energy in stunning still life.

Artists featured include Adebisi Shank, The Spook of the Thirteenth Lock, Jello Biafra and more.

Happening at PLUGD @ The Triskel from today.

Here’s the blurb:

song exposure [sawng ek-spoh-zher]

a photograph created by opening the shutter at the start of a song and closing it at the end

Following successful runs at the Fumbally Exchange and the Workmans Club in Dublin in 2011, the Traces Of The Real exhibition will open at Plugd at the Triskel Arts Centre in June. Traces Of The Real is an exhibition of song exposure photographs taken by Hugh McCabe in various music venues in Ireland and the UK. A song exposure photograph is a photograph of the performance of a song, created by opening the shutter at the start of the song, and then closing it at the end. The resulting images capture the stages and equipment in vivid detail but cast the performers and audiences as fluid, transient and ghostlike presences in front of the lens. The aim of the series is to explore the notion of temporality within photographic representation, and to question the idea that photographs should correspond to discrete, frozen moments in time.

The inspiration came from renowned Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Theaters series. Sugimoto set up his camera at the back of ornate movie palaces in New York and other US cities, opened his shutter at the start of the film, and closed it at the end. The light from the projected movie becomes the light source for the photographic exposure and illuminates all corners of the theater. Traces Of The Real started as an exploration of how this idea could be applied to live music concerts and evolved into an attempt to answer the following questions. Can one take a photograph of a song? If so, what would it look like?

The photographs were shot in a number of different venues: including Vicar Street, The Village, The Button Factory, Whelans (all in Dublin); Triskel Christchurch (Cork) and ATP (Minehead, UK). A wide variety of artists were photographed in this manner: including Adebisi Shank, Spook Of The Thirteenth Lock, The Ex, Si Schroeder, Jello Biafra, Dan Deacon, The Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra, Sea Dog and many more. The images are created using a mix of old and new technology. They are shot using a large format film camera fixed onto a tripod. This produces a 5” by 4” negative which is digitized to give an image of enormously high resolution. These images are then printed by fine art printer David Monahan and mounted onto aluminum compound (dibond) panels.

Traces Of The Real will open in Plugd on Thursday June 7th at 6pm and run until the beginning of July.

Hugh McCabe was born and lives in Dublin. He has spent more than fifteen years involved in the music scene, mainly as a musician but also releasing records and organizing gigs, before turning to photography in recent years. He completed the Certificate in Photography and Digital Imaging at NCAD in 2010 and is currently a participant on the MA Art In The Contemporary World (NCAD). He has participated in a number of group exhibitions. Traces Of The Real is his first solo exhibition. He lectures in Creative Digital Media at the Institute of Technology Blanchardstown.

Example images and further information on the Traces Of The Real project can be found at: http://www.tracesofthereal.com

Jim and Al have just gotten a bunch of new stock in at PLUGD @ The Triskel, and boy howdy, is it ever crammed with goodness.

No need to tell you to get on that rightly if you see anything you like and to support your local independent record store, wherever you read this from.

From Al’s Facebook:

Just in!

Battles – Dross Glop 2 (Warp) 12″

Battles – Dross Glop 3 (Warp) 12″

Burial / Four Tet – Nova (Text) 12″

Ben Frost & Daniel Bjarnason – Solaris (Bedroom Community) LP

Black Breath – Sentenced To Life (Southern Lord) LP/CD

Bowerbirds – The Clearing (Dead Oceans) LP/CD

Edgar Varese – Early Works (Doxy) LP

Grimes – Visions (4AD) CD

Jende Ri Palenge – People Of Palenque (Soul Jazz) LP/CD

Jozef Van Wissem & Jim Jaramusch – Concerning the Entrance Into Eternity (Important) LP/CD

Nadja – Excision (Important) CD

Nite Jewel – One Second Of Love (Secretly Canadian) LP/CD

Palace Music – Viva Last Blues (Domino) LP/CD

Palace Music – Lost Blues And Other Songs (Domino) LP/CD

Palace Songs – Hope (Domino) LP/CD

Philippe D’ aram – Fascination (Finders Keepers) 10″

Pierre Raph – Requiem For A Vampire (Finders Keepers) 10″

Roy Brooks & The Artistic Heritage – Black Survival (Universal Sound) LP/ CD

The Magnetic Fields – Love At The Bottom Of The Sea (Domino) LP/CD

The Palace Brothers – There is no one what will take care of you (Domino) LP/CD

Various Artists – Ramp 50 (Ramp) CD

Various Artists – Reekus 30 (Reekus) CD

Back In!!

Keiji Haino/Jim O’Rourke/Oren Ambarchi – Imikuzushi (Black Truffle) LP

Mastodon – Hunter (Reprise) LP

Peaking Lights – 936 (Weird World) LP/CD

Ryan Teague – Field Drawings (Village Green) CD

Sharon Van Etten – Tramp (Jagjaguwar) LP/CD

Tim Hecker – Ravedeath 1972 (Kranky) LP/CD

Walls – Coracle (Kompakt) LP/CD

& loads more!!

https://twitter.com/#!/plugdrecords

021-4276300

http://www.triskelart.com/livemusic.htm#alexandertucker

http://www.recordstoreday.com/Home

Feared lost for over 30 years until its recent unearthing from a Swedish archive, Black Power Mixtape is a a poignant, relevant first-hand look at the Civil Rights struggles of the late 1960s and an African-American community coming together in the early 1970s, pieced together from footage and interviews on the ground. One of the most significant cultural discoveries of our time, this remarkable film stands as a vital document of a turbulent time that shaped culture in America, and was at the vanguard of a changing world society.

Friday sees a screening of this cultural treasure at PLUGD @ The Triskel, with limited places and DJ sets downstairs in GULPD until the wee hours from Stevie G, Jus-Me, Colm K, and Dr. Herringbone Dread.

Tickets 10e on the night. For more, check the trailer below.

All manner of sonic wonderment awaits attendees of the Cork chapter of the ongoing rarities and oddities night B-MUSIC, debuting in Cork on Saturday night.

Hidden treasures across the musical spectrum are dug out from the crates and aired by Mici Durnin and Doug Shipton, the Irish regulars of the Manchester collective, and promises to be a sweet eve of sound and artistic discovery.

Saturday night, free in, PLUGD @ The Triskel.

B-Music // CORK.

It’s back. ZAUM, the left-of-centre night curated by Ten Past Seven’s Rory O’Brien, is back in business and running out of the venerable PLUGD Records at the Triskel Arts Centre Thursday night.

And to kick things off, a showing will be had of the documentary filmed on the final night of the Quad, a fly-on-the-wall look at the gigging, the people, and the sadly electric atmosphere of the final night of one of Irish music’s most important venues (that’s no Corkcentric hyperbole either), filmed and directed by Petr Stary and featuring Ten Past Seven, Hope is Noise, Plinth, Stanton’s Grave, Slugbait and the also dearly departed KVX (in their second-last gig together).

There’ll also be noise from Dan G, Tom Waits tributes from members of Ten Past Seven, Lamp and Charlie Don’t Surf and a puppet show, Three Cows and a Cow.

Doors are half eight. RSVP in the link below.

ZAUM @ Plugd.

Courtesy of Albert Twomey, the list of spanking new LPs in stock tomorrow at PLUGD @ The Triskel!

BLIND BLAKE – THAT WILL HAPPEN NO MORE LP
EVANS, BILL -TRIO – EVERYBODY DIGS BILL EVANS LP
FUNKADELIC – COSMIC SLOP LP
HUSKER DU – ZEN ARCADE LP
JAPANDROIDS – POST-NOTHING LP
MERCURY REV – YERSELF IS STEAM LP
MONKS – BLACK MONK TIME LP
OS MUTANTES – OS MUTANTES LP
PANDA BEAR – TOMBOY LP
PARTCH, HARRY – WORLD OF HARRY PARTCH LP
PERHACS, LINDA – PARALLELOGRAMS LP
POOLE, CHARLIE – I’M THE MAN WHO RODE.. LP
REINHARDT, DJANGO – FROM THE ULTRAPHONE SHELVES LP
SCOTT-HERON, GIL – SMALL TALK AT 125TH & LEN LP
SMOG – KNOCK KNOCK LP
SUN RA – SOUND OF JOY LP
V/A ROCKABILLY’S GRAVEST HITS LP
VELVET UNDERGROUND – WHITE LIGHT/WHITE HEAT LP
WEYES BLOOD – OUTSIDE ROOM LP

Carl Plover, seen above, has just released his new anthology book, Sustain Your Ability to Satisfy. Just off a launch gig at the Firkin Crane, the erstwhile lyricist/playwright/one-time full-time post-punk musician is hitting PLUGD Records this Saturday for an instore slam poetry performance.

The new book collects his completed poems and lyrics, organising them into moods and emotions, and offer a direct, yet biting insight into the mind and processes of the writer and his perception of the world, and life in all its stages. For good measure, screenplay and play extracts are included as a bonus chapter. To hear one, download Drop-d’s Cork Rock City compilation, where a recording of Failure Got Stuck in Traffic can be heard among the comp’s more experimental moments.

Wasps Vs Humans / punk poetry slam / instore performance.