U2 / Roger Waters Steal The Week, Happy Abandon : Music Zone’s First Gig With Coughlan’s Live, and Would You Like A Cassette With That??

Hi Everyone,

Hope ye’r all well folks..

Couple of beauts in the shop for release today… The U2 box is out on both vinyl and CD, and is a gorgeous looking set… If its out of your pocket range well the Double CD is a nice listen, the Live CD from New York is a cracker.. I got a nice giggle as well during Pride when the Edge strums down in the middle of the song for the Bono man’s sermon.. (I don’t mind Bono in the slightest… Cork for : ‘Erraaa, he’s alright  Bono like’.. I know not everyone agrees… I had a love affair with the band in my early teens… Couldn’t get enough… Music, books the whole lot… Listening to the new albums over and over and over again when they were released so Bono’s alright in my book for loads of reasons really… Another day maybe).. Back to the sermon it went something like this… “Turn down all the house lights!!!.. Well what I want to say tonight”….  Pause… Still pausing… Gentle strumming while still pausing… “Well, thanks for tonight”… In the name of love… Maybe twas an inward sermon that night… I laughed my arse off when I heard it… It’s worth a listen… Bono’s mind freeze.. Sorry kid.

The second beaut, and a slight bit surprised by, is the ROGER WATERS album… It caught my attention from the get go and held… It sounds really good on two listens from the shop floor.. Will investigate further… Political out to be fair to him.. Calling it as he sees it in fairness to him… Strong record…. “Where nincompoops can become presidents”…. Great word.. Haven’t heard it for years… “Nincompoop”.

Other vinyl records and CDs for release tomorrow include ALT J (must get that on also… June is cracking for releases really)… (ALT J has been delayed… Not with us just yet but will be very soon)… I think there’s a download code with it, if so i hope it’s fairly visible!!!. And TRAINSPOTTING 2 OST, TOM PETTY, DAN AUERBACH, ALL TIME LOW’S CD, IGGY POP, MARIKA HACKMAN, NEIL DIAMOND, HALSEY..

A few others, check out the video here for all of them :

Moving on to releases for the 9th of June, we have the new LONDON GRAMMAR Record via Ministry of Sound and Sony… Could be a cracker…. It’s on CD, Deluxe CD, LP and Deluxe LP… It’s called ‘Truth is a Beautiful Thing’.

Warner have the LINDSEY BUCKINGHAM / CHRISTINE MCVIE release for the 9th of June on East West…. There must be a really cool anagram in there somewhere i’d say… Getting really decent reviews is this one…. Warner also has new albums by THE KRONOS QUARTET and PHOENIX as well as some KREATOR reissues on vinyl and CD including ‘Extreme Aggression’ and ‘Pleasure to Kill’.

If truth is a beautiful thing… Here’s a thing of beauty so I suppose… I made a bit of a balls with RSD… Bought too much… Caught with a bit… That’s the danger with it… Haven’t had an RSD graveyard for a couple of years but have one this year…. My own fault…. Trying to make sure I had stuff for the man, the moon, his dog, and his budgie…. So will be a bit of a sale on the RSD17 stock… Could be a nice sale actually… MOST OF IT 25% DISCOUNTED AT LEAST, and because of my errors and in our attempts to gain back we’re introducing a new policy of upselling within the towers… Yep they’re all at it… I was in a shop over the weekend…. I can be a critical geit of customer service, or plain manners ( ack of) at the best of times… Is it me or is it fairly brutal around the place (manners)…. But they attempted the auld upsell on 3 occasions without been anyway warm or friendly… I didn’t bite… Still dropped 88 bucks…. But as I walked out the door I kinda of said to myself I won’t be back… I know all the “retail guru” books talk of upselling (never read one.. but it’s in there)… Easy… ‘Have you sleeves for your records??.. It will keep them in better nick… Hold their value….’ That kind of shite… (granted it’s true but you can make your own mind on it i’m sure)….. But personally it gives me a bad bang… I dont like it being done to me… So NO, we will in our arse be upselling but feel free to buy a RSD17  record…. Maybe the resentment of it tracks  back to my old and first job as a 17 year old in Maccie Dsss…. When on tills you HAD to say ie, ;would you like an apple pie with that’…. ‘That’s a large fries?’ etc…. Pedalling the bullshit along with the other shite…. I would have thought I was always a good front of house man but only done about 5 shifts ever out front in Maccie Ds with poor grades (you were marked to get stars).. More suited behind the scenes they thought I suppose…. Sorry for complete tangent again… It just happens… Would you like a cassette with that??

Proper have a new ANATHEMA album on CD and 2 LP.

Cargo have the MAGPIE SALUTE on vinyl… 2LP on exclusive gold vinyl… Cargo have the vinyl, Universal have the CD… MAGPIE SALUTE  is an American rock band formed in 2016 by former Black Crowes guitarist Rich Robinson. The band also includes former Black Crowes members Marc Ford and Sven Pipien as well as Rich Robinson band members Matt Slocum, Joe Magistro, Adrien Reju and Katrine Ottosen.

Republic of Music have a CLUTCH 5CD/DVD set limited to 3k and signed by the band…. That’s a fair bit of signing lads… Like getting 3000 lines in school… Ah the days of lines… Really productive stuff were the auld lines… I must try harder 100 times for the next morning… ROM also have a new movie score by TINDERSTICKS to the movie “Minute Bodies” on either CD/DVD or LP/DVD … Again limited to a once off only ever pressing of 3000 units.

Universal for the 9th of June have the new KATY PERRY album, the new CHUCK BERRY CD and LP, the MAGPIE SALUTE CD and RITCHIE BLACKMOREs RAINBOW Live in Birmingham 2016 on 2CD.

Also from Universal for next week the 9th and probably the one the will do best for us is the new and 10th GOV’T MULE record… If the Mule have not been on your radar and you like a hint of blues southern rock with a few interesting twists into other genres then you should check out these guys… They are QUALITY musicians… New record from the Mule is called “Revolution Come… Revolution Go”.

Lastly from Universal are some nice vinyl reissues including the soundtracks to GLADIATOR and BRAVEHEART, as well PETER BJORN AND JOHN’S “Writer’s Block”.

PLAY IT AGAIN SAM have an interesting project by SUFJAN STEVENS, BRYCE DESSNER, NICO MAKLY and JAMES MCALISTER entitled “Planetarium”, with a string quartet and 7 trombones… Sounds like a nice listen to me anyway…. DJT couldn’t make the sessions.

PIAS also has a new album by SUFFOCATION and an album by jazz supergroup… Dejohnette, Grenadier, Medeski and Scofield.

Exciting news next from us here at Music Zone towers…. We are putting on a gig… In Coughlan’s… Well Coughlan’s are putting it on really, but we are putting our name to it… A friend of ours in the US of A sent me a link of an unreleased debut album by a band from his hometown of Chapel Hill North Carolina, who were going to be around these shores for a few days and did we want them to come into the shop and play a few tunes… I loved, absolutely loved what I heard on the record… And I said ‘yeah we’d be up for that no problem’.. The more I listened to it though the more I liked it, so I sent it over to Brian in Coughlan’s to see if he would be interested in housing the lads for a gig and he was up for it also so between the jigs and the reels we are co-hosting the night with Coughlan’s… Thursday the 13th July… Cancel the holidays!

Here’s a bit about the lads, HAPPY ABANDON

They just finished recording their debut record “Facepaint” with Producers Jamie Candiloro (Ryan Adams, Lisa Germano, REM) and Jason Merritt (Tift Merrit, Hot Hot Heat) and it will be released on August 25th, 2017 worldwide via Schoolkids Records and distribution by Redeye Worldwide (Proper in Ireland).   In the US, Big Hassle PR are to handle their publicity, the same person who broke Alt-J and The Lumineers in the States.

Here’s a four track sampler from the record, an exclusive :

https://soundcloud.com/ray-obrien-7/sets/happy-abandon-4-track-sampler/s-mqk10

Might be able to send a link to the whole record next week…. Will ask the lads… But trust me if you like what you heard you will like the rest also…

If you like it like we do….  Tickets are 5EUR from the shop… There going fast (that’s the line i’d say)…. Who knows it could be a Henry’s ‘91 moment yet…. Half Cork was there like…. It will be a night out with the good folk of the club that support us and brighten our days…. With some cracking tunes…. To entice ye even more the support on the night will be from up and coming Cork band SMALL DOSE…. One member is our own Bobby, here so another reason to get out to it… The Bob man’s band will be doing 20/25 minutes of their own material before the main event… In the interval we also have a local actor who is going to recite a piece from ‘The Man From La Mancha’… So surely there is something for everyone?!

Look all messing aside… We would love to see you there if you can make it… The record is great in our opinion.

Sin é for this week folks

Thanks for listening,
Ray
www.musiczone.ie