Amy McGarrigle considers if selling your songs to advertisers still equates to selling out...

Anybody with a telly will have noticed Iggy Pop trying desperately to defy his age once again, jumping around bare chested like a kid on a sugar rush. Only this time he's selling car insurance to the craazzzzy kids.

Tag it along with a thumbs up for butter via punk legend John Lydon and a slight up roar was heard from some disgruntled fans. I say slight, because once people started to really discuss it, there was an air of... yeah... ok...I guess so.

You see, times have changed. Once upon a time musicians could hold up to their ideals against outright commercialism because they could sell music directly. Imagine that. Make a product - sell the product. That simply doesn't happened any more. CD sales have plummeted, yet musicians still have to write, record, package, distribute, tour and promote etc. Only now they are being asked to do this with essentially no income. It doesn't take a genius to work out the finances end up in the red.

The result is more and more bands in search of sync deals (placement of songs in TV or adverts) as a means of survival. It's the new life line - the new platinum disc. But, not really that new.

It's been ten years since Moby released Play. That's ten years since he was absolutely ripped for licensing every single song on the album to advertising. But, thinking about it now - he was the Godfather of Sync.

Sync in television shows like Ugly Betty and Grey's Anatomy have massively helped our very own Oppenheimer, Snow Patrol and Foy Vance. But it's adverts that seem to get peoples backs up. I didn't hear a backlash when Iggys 'Lust for Life' became synonymous with Ewan McGregor legging it down a street in Edinburgh. But putting his face to such an un-rock and roll product as insurance?

Really though, can we judge a band if an advert will end up funding a new album or tour? Nevermind the fact that it will spread their music faster than any radio show or blog these days. But can you take a band seriously after they've tried to sell you a, erm, poop in a box in the name of survival?

Perhaps the question is more to do with bands putting their face to a product, more so than just being the soundtrack to an advert? Or have we all just been swallowed up and blinded by a society void of morals? Well??

I guess there's no definitive right or wrong.

I think I've confused myself.... You?

It began as a barely discernable scruffiness. A trickle of facial hair that has become something like a flood. The much talked of surge of talent coming from Northern Ireland is undeniable, with each week bringing more great news about European tours, signings, releases and publishing deals. The thing is, we think it is more than coincidence that this is occurring in tandem with a rise in the sporting of facial hair. The local unsigned beard scene has never been stronger.

Case In Point #1 - FWW

Fighting With Wire are one of the most exciting live acts to come out of NI. That's a full stop there. But, we moot, would their relentless backline be anywhere near as impressive were in not for Craig McKean's chin warmer? We think not. Cahir's babyfaced urchin look needs to be addressed before world domination. 

Case In Point #2 - Cutaways

Obstinately quirky, but in the good way. If ever a beard summed up a band then surely it would be Paul from Cutaways. Drummer Ryan also is no stranger to facial fluff. Grace, however, has let the side down something terrible but according to this ATL interview, she will try harder... 

Case In Point #3 - Kowalski

The crowning glory of the local beard scene, Paddy Kowalski. The Hanging Face Gardens of Babylon. It has become an independent being from its nominal owner and now has its own facebook, Bebo and Myspace plus a pay-as-you-go contract cellphone. 

We can cast our minds back through the mists of time and applaud the founding beardfathers of NI music such as Andy Cairns and Rick Ash whose goatees first introduced the notion that in order to fully rock, one must first dispose of the disposable razor altogether. Honorable mentions for Herb and Jonny Lafaro (Midwest Gas Station attendant beard), Black Bear Saloon (hi-octane, fully leaded beards), Ed Zealous (variety pack party beards), Ben McAuley (fierce, intellectual  Marxist beard), and the likes of Heliopause, Six Star Hotel, and Desert Hearts.

Smoothies take note, if you want to get ahead, get a proper face.

Despite the fact that not everyone lives in an area where it the sun is splitting the trees one minute and there's (literally) floods on the main road the next, pretty much every band of note has written a song about rain. The Beatles, Eric Clapton, Guns 'N' Roses, Eric Clapton, Duran Duran and, erm... Travis - they've all done ballads about getting drenched.

For no reason other than I got totally soaked yesterday and my house stinks of damp cause my dopey cats came in soaked as well and shook themselves dry all over the place, HERE ARE MY TOP TEN SONGS ABOUT RAIN...

10. Eurythmics - Here Comes the Rain

I put this in because Paul McClean was insisting on singing it across the office so I had to bring it up on youtube to make him stop.

9. The Weathergirls - It's Raining Men

This is Homer Simpson's favourite song ever. Fact!

8. The Beatles - Rain

This was the first music video of all time!!

7. Prince - Purple Rain

Apart from being great, reminds me of Peter Kaye reacting to someone who said 'it's that WET rain' by saying, 'what type of other rain is there? Acid? PURPLE??'

6. Mint Royale - Singin' in the Rain

This got massively popular after some wee kid used it in Britain's Got Talent - but the guy dancing in the actual video does a much better job.

5. Rihanna - Umbrella

More about rain defence than actual rain, but the finest pop song of the last couple of years.

4. Garbage - Only Happy When It Rains

Most of their songs were a bit miserable, but she clearly has never caught pneumonia.

3. Basement Jaxx - Raindrops

Bit too new to make the top three, but this is scandalously overlooked at the moment and completely lodged in my brain.

2. Manic Street Preachers - Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head

I actually saw Burt Bacharach performing this last year! But the Manics version is wonderful.

1. Missy Elliot - Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)

Love this song. Love Missy Elliot. And at least she's inside being all nice and dry.

NEWS FLASH - IN THE TIME IT TOOK ME TO WRITE THIS BLOG IT WENT FROM REALLY SUNNY TO RIDICULOUS RAIN!!!!!!!

So Phil Kieran is about to release his long-awaited debut solo album on one of the world's biggest techno labels Cocoon Records this summer. Arguably one of the most important releases from an Irish electronic artist over the past few years, the album itself is set to feature notable contributions from Ros Moon Unit and Jack Hamill aka RL/VL among others.

Having only delivered the album to the label less than a fortnight ago, Phil was tasked with the assignment of performing it for the very first time, live at the legendary Cocoon club in Frankfurt on Friday night past. The usual route for this kind of album preview is to play it before a select handful of people in a tiny little club to give yourself the opportunity of making some final tweaks, just in case it doesn't pan out as expected, but Phil decided otherwise and had the added pressure of sharing the stage with Cocoon label boss and club owner Sven Vath, who thankfully appeared to be lapping it up.

Pulling together a set made up of entirely new material alongside a selection of his biggest tracks I Am A Monster, Skyhook and that Dancing Bears remix, it had all the trademarks of a classic Phil Kieran live set -  it was a little bit weird, a little bit twisted but ultimately tore the roof off.

I joined Phil in Frankfurt on Friday night armed only with a tiny little webcam, with the intention of capturing some of the reaction to his first live set in almost 10 years...

Flash plug-in required to view ATL video clips in the BBC Embedded Media Player

King Biscuit Time - I Walk the Earth (Regal, 2000)

OK so we were told we had to tidy up. Not just the sprawling catacombs of the ATL building (*cough*), but yes hands up we are probably - along with our Radio 1 colleagues - the worst offenders. We always felt that our mad creative whirl excused the piles of CDs and half eaten samosas, but apparently not. When people start to grimace when they walk past your desk it is probably time for a spruce.

The main (and possibly blindly obvious) thing that came to mind though, on spending half of an entire day cleaning and pruning the ATL CD archive, was that there are just so, so many casualties in the trenches of rock music. Yes, some deserved to be put against the wall, some should perhaps even have done the decent thing and leapt in front of a salvo themselves, but others we give a full 21 gun salute.

Each drawer throws up its own tricky decisions. Do we really need every single Sleater-Kinney CD ever released? Does anyone? Who are Groop Dogdrill again? I can allow pretty much all the guff late period Lightening Seeds CD singles to go, but you may prize the Longpigs and Lift to Experience from my cold, dead fingers.

So anyway, this week's 'Thing' to make you go 'Hmmm' will be one of those spared the remorseless twanging towards what we know as the 'hospital box'. It is an offshoot from the Beta Band, a Scottish indie outfit who caused critics to swoon and furrow brows in equal measures back in the late 90's (my goodness, how old are we?).

This side project was called King Biscuit Time, named after a famous old time US radio show, and saw vocalist Steve Mason continue to create lo-fi heartbreak anthems. As ever, its got lashings of reverb, stuttery beats and looping layers of melody. Priceless. Currently, it nestles nervously right in between the Killers and Kings of Leon, and  that's excactly where it will stay. Kaiser Chiefs, do we really need your digipack bonus disc?

You should see Hugo Duncan's desk by the way. Freakishly clean.

Initially, it's pretty hard to take Joe Lindsay seriously. The guy's a maniac, he comes bounding into the office every afternoon, usually opening with barrage of "affectionate" abuse aimed at yours truly (most of it sung). Then perhaps we'll get a few recent pop hits performed in the style of an old-skool cockney chimney sweep, a selection of impersonations, a random line from a film, a routine from Family Guy and... then he's gone.

This makes him sound like the meltiest most irritating work mate you can imagine, but you must appreciate we all tend to join in - all Joe is doing is winding us up. Not many blogs written when this guy's about, that's for sure.

So forgive me for suggesting the concept of taking Joe Lindsay seriously is a little rich.

Yet here we are, at the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival, watching Talk Radio. Joe is playing Barry Champlain - a kind of late night, unrefined, wound up version of Fraiser Crane, presenting a phone-in show in 80s Cleveland.

Thankfully, within about two minutes, we forget it's our Joe. I'm watching a deranged, Hicks-esque figure unravelling on air - gradually losing the plot as he deals with an increasingly hypocritical, irritating and ridiculous selection of 'typical' callers.

Despite an interval free, 90 minute, single location scene, the show flies by. Keeping in mind I have the most ludicrously tiny attention span, that's about as complimentary as I can get. He's helped by a decent cast, especially the guy playing his producer, whose monologue is a memorable highlight.

This was Joe's first attempt at the old acting. Well done, pal.

Talk Radio continues with a show tonight and tomorrow, 8pm at the Oh Yeah Music Centre.

So Richie Hawtin has announced he's now using Twitter to broadcast real-time playlists from his live shows using a plug-in developed for the Traktor Digital DJ software. The detractors will render it nothing more than a gimmick, but when you think about it, this has the potential to completely revolutionize how the music industry and DJs work together in the future.

In every city, town, village around the world DJs are playing music in clubs and bars. For the most part they are playing other peoples records, whether it be chart music or obscure underground electronica.

If they play the new Snow Patrol single, Snow Patrol have to get paid for that play. If they play the new Boxcutter single, Boxcutter has to get paid also. While the majority of reputable venues pay a PRS licence each year to cover live music and music performed by DJs, the size of the fee is determined mainly by the size of their venue, but no real reporting of the music played at each venue takes place, so royalty distribution becomes a wishy-washy affair with very little in the way of robust data to go on and the bigger artists get the biggest slice, with very little filtering through to smaller acts.

In an ideal world, every DJ would compile a playlist at the end of each set and post that off to PRS who would then log the plays of each individual record and dish out some royalties accordingly. It's never really going to happen though is it? In radio land, every single track is logged and sent through, which is great if you are Snow Patrol, but not so great if you are Boxcutter who would have very limited radio exposure.

The majority of underground electronica never makes it on to the radio, that doesn't mean to say people aren't buying it or playing it, but if PRS don't know people are playing it then how will the artists collect their royalties? Boxcutter will be played in clubs all over the world, but in terms of royalties, he'll make very little from these plays as PRS have no record it.

This is where the Twitter/Traktor collaboration has the potential to do what has never been done before, by collecting rock-solid data on the tracks which are being playing in clubs and bars all over the world. Not only that, but they can be distributed more accurately than they have in the past which was very hit and miss. It makes sense that if Richie Hawtin plays a certain tune at a string of gigs to a collective audience of say 50000 people that the artist who made that track should be compensated in proportion to the amount of exposure he's had, conversely if Richie played the same track to only 50 people at a gig, the artist would still get paid, but a lot less.

How difficult can it now be for PRS to now set up a Twitter account and start following every DJ on the planet who is blogging their fully automated real-time tracklistings, process this data and pay out accordingly? When you think about it, Twitter have inadvertantly saved the likes of PRS the huge costs they would have incurred setting up their own bespoke system and have handed them the perfect application to allow for a fairer more robust means of doing business in the fure.

The best ideas are always the simple ones, and this one would appear to be as simple as it gets.