PABCAS, the blog of Paul Martin Campbell

To my dismay, I had to cut short my attendance at the FOWA road trip last night. I can’t say I regret leaving it though. I headed to the comeback gig of Conor Brennan at Anseo.

Conor’s been a great friend for years and I helped him with a lot of the publicity and web stuff for his band, The Stranded Circus, 3,4,5 years ago or so. After a few favourable write ups and a cracking EP, the band packed it in and Conor’s been in hibernation for the past three years.

I’ve been egging him on for the last year, particularly since he posted a few impromptu videos of some songs he’d been working on on Youtube.

Last night, in the most intimate of settings, with a crowd bursting out the door, needle-pin silent for the quiet bits, Conor gave us a sample of the new stuff. Interspersed with the new material were two really, really powerful covers of Radiohead’s “I Will” and Michael Jackson “Leave me Alone”. Both were Conor-ised to great effect.

I’m really excited about this. Conor’s been working on a recording featuring Ben from the Thrills on drums and I can’t wait to hear it.

Again, seriously, watch this space, but in the meantime, watch the videos

Last.fm recently pushed an update that opens their music listening client automatically when you start iTunes so that scrobbling happens all the time. I don’t know how much I appreciate it, as my Powerbook has been maxing out CPU a lot recently and when I hit iTunes, I kinda just want iTunes. It’s also a teensy bit on the wrong side of an invasion of my privacy. The setting has been duly turned off in the suspiciously labourious to find “Scrobbling” section of the preferences.

However, look what happened when I plugged in an iPod this evening:

They were bopping about like a snake.

Fortunately, Last.fm knew that “something is seriously wrong”

How nice of them to tell me.

As I flew toward California, I couldn’t help thinking that the US landscape was like a sea, suspended in time – mountains hang as sheer waves in a storm, great plains expand across other horizons, the calm ocean.

The theme of this trip is turning out to be humility. I stood beneath a cap rock today in the Joshua Tree National Park and … well, I imagined it was something like standing next to a dinosaur. Similar feelings as I flew across the southern tip of Greenland, looking out at the snowdrifts receding into eternity.

Coachella was also humbling in a way, but also inspiring. Let me explain.

I first saw The Frames in Whelans about 7 years ago. I then watched Damien Rice rise out of the obscure Juniper (now Bell X1 ) and saw him join the Frames onstage several times, even once in Simon’s Cafe, where he sat beside me with his guitar before being called up by Glen to perform the Jackson 5’s “I want you back” ... then about a year later just before he released “O”, I watched Damien play through the album acoustically in the Temple Bar Music Centre before which, Brazilan couple Roderigo y Gabriela wowed the audience and began their rise to success.

Having been out of touch of the music scene in Dublin for about 4 or 5 years, it was both novel and exhilarating to see bands who were local just a few years ago and whom I was excited about then really shaking up audiences 5000 miles away. In a way, it was inevitable, but it sure felt good to watch those three acts against a backdrop of palm trees.

Right now, I’m about to watch Heroes on NBC, on a television, as it’s meant to be seen. Now that’s novel.

I’m publishing this in all the available sections. The south west of America has fundamentally influenced the person I am. The centre of the film world for the best part of the last century in Southern California. The tech capital of the world to the north. And I’m sure there’s enough of a music scene between San Francisco and LA to have my appetite for that covered (have you seen the Coachella lineup?

I got offered Coachella tickets yesterday and today I decided to go. I’m flying in 11 hours. Then I’m moving out from palm springs and making my way north on Tuesday…

In a way, it feels like I’m going home

If anyone has any pointers, let me know.

Rui Carmo says it better than I could

As I’ve been asked to manage the launch of a reclusive Irish artist who’s releasing a single to radio in the next few weeks.

He’s not too keen on revealing his identity (it’s not me, despite some uncanny parallels), but is going by the name (for now) of Alien Envoy

Myspace profile here and MySpace Blog here

Keep an eye on the blog to see what he’s up to, friend him if you feel so inclined and I’ll see if I can get some details of the single launch as and when I get it. He’s currently trying to pull himself to get back to Dublin in time for his single launch, but plans aren’t going too well…

I’m going to get all my bits together and my thoughts in sync and start using the “Yes, save this article as draft” feature. I’ve got three posts in mind that I want to flesh out before publishing. They’re in the works:

• a piece on “The Need for a Great Band” in the context of the fragmentation of the music industry at the moment
• a criticism of certain branches of youth culture in Dublin
• an overview of a mini MVC lightweight php framework that I hacked together today to make updating a site written therein easier for my brain to take. Quite excited about this one.

So I’m going to take my time and get these fleshed out over the next few days. I’m quite angry about both of them, so hopefully that’ll come through the writing.

Clap Your Hands were good but not great. The sound was muffled and they played a lot of new songs.

Last three songs however lifted the whole thing out of the water – Tidal Wave was huge, Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth fantastic. Good show. I do love New York.