At The Captain’s Table | Interview With Captain Moonlight

The new issue of Lookleft has hit the shelves across Ireland this week. Here is an interview with Captain Moonlight from the previous issue. Lookleft is available in every Easons north / south & other selected retailers.

Obsessive about politics, philosophy, literature, music and hurling, Kilkenny rapper Captain Moonlight tackles serious political issues, creating intelligent, hard-hitting, often humorous hip-hop in the process. Barry Healy met the man behind the new album ‘Offenses Against The State’.

Coming from a county famed more for hurling only one first question for Captiain Moonlight: “It began with the break dancing scene back in ’84”. It was through this he discovered “the musical side with the likes of Mantronix, Public Enemy and Rakeem. ’86 to ’91 was the golden era of hip hop for me; this is what got me into it. I started writing raps in ’88 but it was a while before I found my own style. Hearing Scary Éire blew it open for me, it showed how it could be done. I was always into more political hip hop like Public Enemy or British hardcore like Gunshot, Black Radical and London Posse. They had a very aggressive rat-tat-tat-tat sound which had a really big influence on me.”

Captain Moonlight’s new album ‘Offenses Against The State’ is record number four and the first since his ‘Agroculture’ trilogy. “How different is it to the ‘Agroculture’ albums? I’m not sure. It’s still me. its closer to the sound I’ve always wanted. It’s more to do with the hip hop I grew up listening to. This one’s far rawer than before, more sample based and influenced by early ‘90s, hardcore and British hip hop.” Lyrically he feels it is “a belligerent response to the way things are right now. It is as much to do with people and their response as much as it is to do with the government, but, with plenty of humour too.”

For example ‘Financial Rape Crisis At High Noon’ is “a song about people who give out about how bad things are, yet vote the same candidates in. Locally we have John McGuiness (of Fianna Fail)  who criticised his party’s leadership and government when he was stripped of his Junior Minister’s job. The electorate voted him back in comfortably, seeing him as some sort of pseudo Irish rebel. Its bullshit, a nod and a hoodwink. People are voting the very same, they are not changing the system, just the heads of it”. Other songs like ‘Uniform State’ “deal with ideas of the alpha male Garda mentality” while ‘Fuck You Captain Moonlight’ is a “self-dissing take on the ‘Don’t Flop Ireland’ battle raps which I don’t do myself but there’s really sharp stuff happening there”. 

Moonlight is fully aware of differing opinons on Irish hip hop, saying “nostrils tend to get raised when people hear an Irish lad rapping in his own accent especially in this country. It’s a strange thing, it has a divisive effect, a lot of people are really into it while others just can’t get it”. He’s unperturbed, “personally I write music for myself and through a love of hip hop and not for anyone else. I see a lot of artists like this too who deserve to be heard by a far wider audience. I don’t take what people think too much to heart but yes people see a difference between ‘hip hop’ and ‘Irish hip hop. Hip Hop as a mainstream it is probably the biggest selling genre in Ireland but most is imported from America. UK grime is making some headway which isn’t a bad thing but it’s taken so long for British hip hop to gain respect in its own right.”

“There’s a lot of really great Irish rap artists now. In the last five years a whole generation of lads coming through like Collie, Redzer and Nugget who have their own identity. They are the predominant sound now. It’s very hard to know how or when but some of these artists will breakthrough at some stage and if one gets through three or four will follow. I’m not sure how it will turn out at all but I’m happy with the level I’m at.”

Captain Moonlight will be gigging in December and January to promote his new album before starting work on his next release, ‘Scenes From A Land War’.

Captain Moonlight – The Nod And The Hoodwink

 Download: Captain Moonlight – Banana Republican

Download: Captain Moonlight – OCD

Grow up to be Losers? An Interview with We Are Losers

 

The new issue of Lookleft has hit the shelves across Ireland this week so it is about time I posted this interview with We Are Losers from the last issue. Lookleft is available in every Easons north / south & other selected retailers.

It has been a remarkable twelve months for Kildare/Dublin band We Are Losers. What began as a solo-side project of Super Extra Bonus Party guitarist Gavin Elsted writing and recording a few songs in his bedroom has flourished into something much bigger. Barry Healy caught up with front man Gavin Elsted to find out more.

As we began chatting in his kitchen over freshly made coffee, it is abundantly clear he is remarkably humble about the whole affair. There were no grandiose expectations starting out, it was just seen as “a chance to write simple straightforward over the top fuzzy noise pop and this was the music inspiring me at the time and so wanted to try my hand at it”.

Gavin never expected it to get this far explaining “the most I could have hoped for was that someone might have come back to me saying ‘hey, I really like your tunes’. It was a bit scary to be honest because it happened so fast. We put a few tunes online and emailed them around. All of a sudden we landed our first gig at Hard Working Class Heroes which was mental.”

It was around this time We Are Losers blossomed into a four-piece, adding fellow Bonus Partiers Gary Clarke and Stephen Conlan and Bronwyn Murphy-White of Grand Pocket Orchestra. It seems to have been a perfect fit. “After jamming a few times it all fit so quickly” says Gavin, adding “The more involved the three have got the less stressed I am about everything. I find it easy to sit back and let them do their thing. I know what Gary and Steve are going to do from playing in a band with them for years and Bronwyn is such an accomplished musician anyway that I am completely confident in what she brings”.

The band’s sudden rise has really taken Gavin by surprise “there is now way we thought we would get this far so quickly. Within three or four months we had labels interested and had management involved, which has huge benefits. Up and up is the best way to describe how it has been as well as a lot of fun too. If it wasn’t we wouldn’t be doing it”.

One of the many high points so far came in July with the release of their debut double a-side single ‘Sunset Song / Cheerleader’ on Leeds Indie label ‘Dance to the Radio’.

It is a partnership which goes back sometime as Gavin explains. “We’d been friends with ‘Dance to the Radio’ since they put out Super Extra Bonus Party’s ‘Who Are You And What Do You Want’ on a vinyl compilation. I just kept in contact with them and let them know I was doing new stuff. They asked me to send it on to them so I did and they were into it. We were then asked to play ‘Live at Leeds’, they came to see our show and met us afterwards and offered to do something with us. We decided on a single to see how things would go. It has been great so far. They’ve been good to us and they’re looking after us really well.”

Gavin seems equally happy with the response to the band’s debut single adding “it has been pretty good so far. We’ve been getting some good radio play and people seem to be into it. We weren’t expecting anything like that to be honest”.

While on the surface Losers would appear to differ somewhat from his previous work but he is insistent that “even though other members of SEBP will probably kill me for saying this, there was definite pop elements to the Bonus Party tunes. Stuff like ‘Comets’ or ‘Eamonn’ are pop songs. Just because there is electronics or distortion on them doesn’t stop them being pop songs. They are all pop songs with strong melodies and it’s the same with Losers”.

So what of the future for We Are Losers? Well it’s pretty straightforward according to Gavin who is aiming “to gig as much as humanly possible. Try to get down to other places in Ireland apart from Dublin and Galway and write more tunes of course. We’ll see where we’re at after a few months and hopefully we can keep going up and up”.

 We Are Losers – We Vampires

 We Are Losers – Sunset Song

Download: We Are Losers – Cheerleader

Sertone From Above: An Interview w/ Sertone

With a new issue of Lookleft set to hit shelves across Ireland very soon it is about time I shared an interview I did with Sertone in the current issue. Lookleft is available in every Easons north/south & other selected retailers.

Gareth McAlinden aka Sertone received widespread praise for the release of his excellent debut EP The View From Above EP on Belfast hip-hop label MeltedMusic in February. He is riginally from Portadown but now based in Liverpool (via Bedford), where he moved to attend university four years ago. Barry Healy caught up with the 22 year old instrumental hip-hop and electronica producer who took time out to answer some questions for LookLeft.

LL: Is there much more opportunities for you and your music in Liverpool than Ireland?

Sertone: “It’s funny because one of the main reasons I decided on England was I thought there would be more music opportunities. At that time the UK seemed to have a much bigger and healthier hip hop scene. The first year in Liverpool I kind of just sat back and watched how the city worked, trying to figure out who was who etc. Now I’m playing regularly and running a night in Liverpool trying to promote ‘beat music’. The Irish electronic scene is amazing right now with acts like Solar Bears, Sunken Foal, Moths, Frankie Bingo, and the whole grime/step scene in Dublin being pushed by Colz, Major Grave and Shatterfreak.”

LL: How long have you been making music? How did you get started? 

Sertone: “I started DJing at 11, messing around with pause tapes and video game music making applications until around the age of 15 or so when I got a copy of cubase and it has grown from there. I always tried to make ‘weirder’ more experimental beats for rappers to distinguish myself, only a handful of MCs ever took notice. I kind of gave up on making music to be heard by anyone else and concentrated on making stuff purely for me. Since then things have really started to move forward.”

LL: Your music has a rather unique sound, how did you get into hip-hop and electronic music? 

Sertone: “Thank you, I’m glad to have been able to etch out a unique sound. Hip Hop was my first love, like anything I develop a passion for I’m enthused to know everything I possibly can. I spent ten years listening to every type of hip hop I could find. This led to me to all the music that went into creating hip hop and whatever it’s spawned. Groups like Portishead and Massive Attack pointed me to search for more electronic music.”

LL: Many people mightn’t associate Portadown with this sound, is there a healthy electronic/hip-hop ‘scene’ in the North? 

Sertone: “Yeah moving between Portadown, Liverpool and Bedford the last four years meant it’s been hard to put where I am into the music. On ‘Past, Present, Future’ I used a sample which had vocals about Belfast in it to show people where I’m from. Also, I found the sample just as I started working on the EP for Melted Music who are based in Belfast, so it felt like fate! Probably the most notable electronic act from the North is Boxcutter and there are some great local heads like Defcon. Two notable MCs are Belfast’s Sketch Nine and long time collaborator and peer Jee4ce who’s a rapper, producer, video director and all round creative genius.”

LL: You released your debut EP The View From Above in February, how was the response?

Sertone: “The response was really overwhelming to be honest! I didn’t expect anywhere near the level of exposure or positivity it received. I expected it to be listened to by friends and some of their friends, when it started to get covered by MTV, BBC, AU and Hotpress it picked up pace quickly. There’s been a few surreal moments the past few months; hearing the whole CD being played in a random bar, Boy George tweeting me to say he enjoyed it and my mum phoning to say she had heard ‘Past, Present, Future’ on BBC Radio when she was driving home.”

LL: You have been compared to artists like RJD2, J Dilla & Flying Lotus you must be pretty chuffed? 

Sertone: “To me that’s the greatest compliment. When I saw those kinds of names being mentioned in the same articles as mine I was blown away. Obviously they were all big influences when I started making music. I hope my music doesn’t come across as an imitation of those artists and in some small way that I’ve been able to put my twist on it.”

LL: And the rest of 2011? 

Sertone: “I just released Versions, a collection of 15 remixes which is available for free at sertone.bandcamp.com. I’m touring the UK and Ireland this summer and perhaps starting on a follow up to The View From Above EP. Just more music really!”

 SertOne - Past, Present, Future

 SertOne – Astro-Bazaar

 

A Further Shore: An Interview w/ The Vagabonds

Photo: Karl McCaughey

With Lookleft selling well across Ireland (its in every Easons north/south) it is about time I shared an interview I did with The Vagabonds for the last issue.

The Vagabonds have been making waves on both sides of the Irish Sea lately; Dave and Pa took time out to chat with LookLeft.

The Vagabonds began life as a two-piece after Pa and Dave met while studying in Cork, later adding Niall Burns and Niall Clancy after moving to Dublin. There is no bravado here; both are open about the bands humble origins two years ago.

As Pa explains “we practised for ages and we were still shit after a year, playing shit gigs. We thought we were great but we weren’t.” They never let this get them down however, enjoying playing and improving all the while. Dave took some heart from hearing Blur’s Damon Albarn interviewed saying for the first two years they were absolutely abysmal adding [as a band] “we’ve got better now.”

They must be doing something right to attract the attention of legendary producer Stephen Street (Blur, The Smiths and Babyshambles). Dave explains the coming together “We would love to have a more exciting story but we just sent him an email with a demo. His manager got back saying he was interested in working with us but it would be expensive as an unsigned band. We didn’t care”. Although jumping at the chance there was some trepidation said Pa “We never recorded with an established producer, just some demos so it was quite an experience, very daunting, not in a bad way.”

The resulting debut EP Another Victory for Hysteria is superb. The response according to Dave has been “positive, good amongst our peers. It’s not as though I don’t respect the opinion of other bands and people we know working in music but it’s a bit like your mother saying your good at football, I would rather hear it from Alex Ferguson.” It was largely ignored by the mainstream media except “Paul McLoone and Dan Hegarty who played it quite a bit and we’re thankful for that but I want to hear our songs at half two in the evening when people are listening.”

A wider issue emerges, whereby home-grown acts get a raw deal at the expense of more established acts. Both are adamant “things should be better here. Take Radio 1 in the UK, you are likely to hear a new band or one you haven’t heard before. Ireland is big enough to have an indigenous ‘scene’ like Scotland, but too many bands have to leave Ireland to make it.”

From their experience the odds are against the artist as Dave outlines “In Ireland anyway the promoter, venue and vintner are all making money off the bands who aren’t” adding, “we want to be able to work as musicians and make a living. Anyone who says otherwise is a fucking liar. Unfortunately we can’t do that here. You get gigs in Dublin but they are reluctant to pay ya”. Pa agrees saying “We’re not looking for €300,000 deals. Just enough to put into the band and make a living”

The band would love to make it from Dublin but have their sights set on cracking the UK with Dave explaining “We are looking towards England, not to belittle Ireland or that, we are gonna take a risk because we believe this band can work.”

The band has already been noticed and received support from Strummerville (The Joe Strummer Foundation for New Music), a UK based not for profit organisation aimed at helping up and coming artists.  Dave speaks fondly about them.

“They do very good work and they’re giving us some backing. Our music kind of fits in with Strummerville. We have a song John Mellor, often referred to as our homage to Joe Strummer which it isn’t but it fits in with their agenda. It’s nice to have a link to the UK”. Pa has similar sentiments adding “It’s nice to be recognised by this kind of organisation.  It’s like we’re something unusual in the UK we can’t get a decent gig is Cork, Galway or Derry but we can get them in Brighton, London and Manchester. “

Their aforementioned brash punk rock sound makes them standout from other bands, explaining it Dave chuckles, it was “a complete and utter accident. We just decided to turn up the amps and distortion, we ended up loud. There is more sophistication to our approach now. Many bands try to be avant-garde for avant-garde’s sake; we know certain types of songs that will work for this band.”

It will be interesting to see what comes next from these guys who hope to hit the studio with Stephen Street once again in the summer. Unfortunately The Vagabonds may not be on their own looking abroad for their future; in this case Ireland’s loss will be Britain’s gain.

Their debut EP is available for FREE from Bandcamp.

 The Vagabonds – 46A

 Download: The Vagabonds – John Mellor via Strummerville

Introducing: Candidate

Candidate are Lexington trio Cedric Sparkman, Laurence Adams and Jason Matuskiewicz. American they may be, but their music has a distinctly British edge to it.

Their sound reeks of mid to late ’80s British indie but is not pretending to be anything else. They have embraced those bands who inspired them for which there  are obvious comparisons, namely The Cure, The Stone Roses and The Smiths. The later seems to permeate every ounce of what they do and you can almost hear a young Morrissey shining through Sparkman’s vocals.

This straight edge indie approach appears to suit them very well. The songs are catchy, poetic, passionate and filled with hooks and melodies, it’s hard to dislike.

Like what you hear? You can pick up Candidate’s debut record A New Life from Bandcamp right now!

Download: Candidate – Need It Most

Download: Candidate – I’d Come Running

Candidate – A New Life

The word according to Mighty Stef the Baptist

With issue 6 of Lookleft almost ready to hit the shelves across Ireland I thought it wry time I shared an interview I did for the last issue with one of Ireland’s most treasured artists, The Mighty Stef.

The Mighty Stef has long been heralded as one of Ireland’s finest emerging troubadours, something his latest album ‘TMS & The Baptists’ has placed in stone.

Lookleft needed no excuse for a chat with Stef before the Newbridge leg of his Irish Tour. We sought sanctuary in the corner of the bar away from the pre-show hustle and bustle. The positive reactions to his new record and the numbers braving the snow to make it to his gigs had a genuinely humbling effect on him.

To date his work has been characterised by a fiery folk-punk attitude and a predilection for the darker side of life especially in the early days “I think I was deliberately aiming for the more morose themes” and “there’s some pretty dark stuff on the new album, mixed with two or three uplifting tracks”.

The album title evokes religious connotations which manifest themselves dealing with issues of sin and redemption during songs ‘John the Baptist Parts 1 & 2’. Accompanied by a wry smile he explains the thinking, “John the Baptist (Part 1) is almost a tongue in cheek gospel song asking for whomever it is that hands out forgiveness to have mercy on us all, in particular me and the other five lads in the band. I’m not a deeply religious person”, preferring instead to keep it simple and “believe in right and wrong”. The introduction of his new band ‘The Baptists’ has pushed him from his comfort zone, making things “slightly different. They didn’t let me be nonchalant or lazy as I would normally be”.

However, one ever-present ingredient to his work is heart and soul, always a big part but never so fervently as his latest single, ‘We Want Blood’. The song, a universal song of disgust at the powers that be is “not so much a call to arms. I’m not a violent person. I’m not even a political person. It’s apparent to me that the people responsible for the economic downturn aren’t the people who are gonna be held accountable, it will be me, you and all the other good working class people”. The song has received many plaudits for how timely it is but he points out that it’s always the right time because “these points are always relevant, even in the supposedly good times the government were still a shower of c**ts and the banks were still a shower of greedy bastards, excuse the language.” “I wrote this over a year and half ago and it was as relevant then as it is now. It mightn’t go far enough in what it’s saying.”

Music has acted as a catalyst for change in the past but Stef isn’t sure if he’s “politically savvy enough to write a protest album or anything like that”. There’s a feeling music can “even by accident, change things. When rock’ n roll first hit America, Christian rightwing groups said it was the work of the devil but it changed people’s perspectives.

When I think of rock n roll having the power to change things I always think of Bob Dylan or Joe Strummer, neither of whom wanted to be spokespersons for their generation but did by default and they did change things for a lot of people.”

This is his third album to be released via his ‘The First Born is Dead’ label and being an independent artist is something he’s happy with, “I’ve managed to make a very modest living but the money isn’t the important thing to me, its playing music”. He points out that it can be “as hard as you make it. If I was to limit myself to gig around Ireland I would force myself into a corner pretty quickly. I try to get outside [Ireland] a bit. I

love doing this so much, I would never complain about how difficult it is because it’s an absolute privilege and pleasure to do it”.

The internet is an intrinsic weapon in his arsenal and he is dismissive of the major labels’ and industry heads’ attitudes that the internet is killing music. On the contrary it seems to be a great leveller; “it might have spoiled the party for a lot of people who have had it really good for a very long time. If you look down the food chain to the likes of myself, I’d be nowhere without the internet. It allows me to go off on tour, play small venues and for people to be able to find out who I am and interact with people about the music”.

In an industry that constantly presents individuals obsessed with fame, self-importance and money but low on talent, to find a musician so honest and full of love for music is a refreshing change.

.

The Mighty Stef – John The Baptist (Part 1)

A Quick Chat with Django Django

Django Django featured on the blog earlier in the year and they’re as brilliant as they’re difficult to categorise. A melting pot of backgrounds, culture and musical influences has resulted in some of the tightest, cleverest and catchy as hell danceable indie of 2010.

With an album in the pipeline the Django’s are destined for great things and definitely ones to watch in the next year, with that in mind we decided to get in before the rush and have a quick chat with them. Thanks to Dave for taking time out to chat with us.

Django Django’s three biggest influences & why?

1. Joe Meek, maverick producer who pushed pop music into new and strange places bringing avant-garde sounds to the charts and had a passion for experimental production.

2. The Beatles and The Beach Boys, like Joe Meek, The Beatles and Brian Wilson knew how to push pop music without losing the songs and the hooks. Vinny’s voice in Django always suits being layered up into harmonies and that’s great because I’ve always loved vocal harmonies in music. He’s good at picking out weird harmonies and that’s something these guys did so well and that’s made me love these two bands for as long as I can remember.

3. De Wolfe Library LPs, just a great back catalogue of weird and wonderful records. They’re a bit pricey to buy on eBay now mind, but trunk records do good reissues of this kind of thing.

Three favourite remixes/songs of 2010 so far?

Hot Chip – One Life Stand (Carl Craig PCP Remix)

Egyptian Hip Hop – Wild Human Child

Rye Rye – Witch Doctor

I/V: A Quick Chat with Tone Idle

Tone Idle are duo James Matlock and Marc Manning who along with their bass-filled synth-accented electro tunes featured on the blog a while back – they’ve been busy mixing and making new tunes lately so it’s ripe time for a for a quick chat.

The premise is simple, the band share their top three answers to three questions, so here goes!

Tone Idle’s three biggest influences and why?

1. It starts with groups from before our time such as Earth Wind and Fire, Kool and the Gang, Funkadelic, Gap Band, Prince, Tower of Power, the Brothers Johnson etc. They wrote some timeless songs, with great hooks, rhythms and melodies amongst many other things. These guys also supplied with some cool drum breaks, which are still popular today.

2. We’re both fans of metal, mainly for brutal guitar riffs and insane blast beats, stuff like Pantera and Testament, Early Killswitch, God Forbid etc. The stamina involved in performing this stuff live is incredible.

3. Anything that exploits rhythm and tone.

Three favourite remixes/songs of 2010 so far?

1. Zombies For Money – Numbra One (Foamo Remix)

It’s absolutely disgusting filth.

2. Noisia - Alpha Centauri

It’s all about the blend between quite hard-hitting synths and rich sounding 80s-esque pads.

3.  A1 bassline – Close to me.

Tasty arpeggios that mix beautifully. Fat Distortion, cool drum patterns and melodic too. Love the way he takes one riff and keeps it exciting.