Features
State Mix #22: Bantum’s For The Love of Offset mix
Offset Festival takes place from October 1st – 3rd in Grand Canal Theatre and is a must for creative types interested in photography, design, illustration and more visual practices. State will be announcing its event shortly but here is a mix by Ruairi Lynch aka Bantum of For The Love Of… to promote their own
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State Intervention #6 this weekend – Peggy Sue & Sons Of Noel And Adrian plus ticket giveaway
After a small break over the summer, the State Intervention series is back this weekend with a special double bill. Seeing as many of you won’t be checking your computers on a Sunday we’re breaking with tradition just this once by giving you the details here on State ahead of time. Our guests for #6…
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Pop Goes to College, Gets An F
When pop is subjected to academic-style analysis, the results are typically dreadful. You can read all the commentaries on 1970s subcultures in compendiums of cultural theory by Dick Hebdige and Stuart Hall, but I maintain that if you want to understand what pop was really like, what it was about… at that time, you’d be
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State’s Top 50 Music Books
It started off as an idle comment that turned into a raging debate – just what are the best music books of all time? Having canvassed our ever growing team of writers, here are State’s pick of the bunch…
31 Songs [Nick Hornby]…
Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel High Fidelity marked him down as the archetypal
Music on TV: X Factor, miming & Top Of The Pops
If I had my way, contestants on X Factor wouldn’t just be auto-tuned, they’d mime. Yes, mime. I’m serious.
Faking it has always played an important role in the presentation of pop on television. In the 1950s pioneering shows like American Bandstand and Six-Five Special… tweaked the atmosphere in the studio by adding audio tracks
Electric Picnic 2010 – The newcomers
1. Janelle Monae (Friday)
Catching this lady in her ascendency is quite a coup for Electric Picnic. Her recent album The ArchAndroid… is scoring well deserved rave reviews. With her trademark tuxedo and quiff, expect psychedelic funk, hip-hop, pop, even rock. Watch out for ‘Tightrope’, her collaboration with Big Boi, along with ‘Cold War’ and
Martin Clancy – The Busiest Man in Irish Music?
Is there a busier man than Martin Clancy in the Irish music scene? Doubtful. Not content with having a single in the upper reaches of the Billboard charts, Dublin’s Clancy has more projects on the go than LCD’s Soundsystem’s James Murphy and Del Boy Trotter combined.
May 2010 saw the former In Tua Nua member…
Zero 7 interview
Zero 7’s fortunes have changed dramatically in the past few months. When State caught up with beatsmith Sam Hardaker after the release of 2009’s Yeah Ghost…, there was a sense of pride in the new record, a resounding ‘life after Sia’ optimism dampened only by the conviction that the new album lacked much of
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Electric Picnic 2010 – Rock & alternative
A look at the loud and rock guitar-based acts playing the festival with a few weirder bands thrown in for good measure.
1. Foals (Friday)
A formidable live band, Foals have taken a more layered, subtle approach on current album Total Life Forever…, largely leaving behind their original math-rock sound. However, there’ll still be
Fight Like Apes interview
Fight Like Apes have made our life a misery. Not in general, you understand, but today certainly. Having played their second album The Body Of Christ And The Legs Of Tina Turner… a few times, we felt we had its measure – a solid step forward from their debut, not the best record they’ll ever
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Interview with Shit Robot
For a man almost two decades into a music career, details on Marcus Lambkin are quite sketchy. He doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. With a short bio on his Myspace providing all the personal knowledge you’d need to know, the Dublin native let’s the music does the talking. Well sort of; it’s mainly instrumental.…
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Interview with 65daysofstatic
State caught up with 65daysofstatic guitarists Paul Wolinski and Joe Shrewsbury at Sonisphere Festival in Knebworth, UK for a chat about festival setlists, mishaps, Sheffield bands, supporting The Cure and their latest album We Were Exploding Anyway.
Q. As a band that tours as much as you do – how do you find festival …
Interview with Klaxons
Simon Taylor-Davis has spent the day doing promo for his band’s latest album. The guitarist and songwriter has been fielding questions from various journalists all looking to pick apart Klaxons second coming.
For this London quartet the cliché of a ‘difficult second album’ is all too fitting. Three and a half years have passed since…
State Mix #21: Mixhell
The State Mix Series turns 21 and to celebrate we’ve called in some heavy-hitters in the shape of Brazilian DJ/remix duo Mixhell. The husband-and-wife team consists of Iggor and Laima Cavalera, who’ve been creating, playing and remixing all sorts of fabulous electronic noise since 2006, when Iggor left his position as drummer with legendary thrash-metal outfit Sepultura.
They maintain a busy…
