Plans for the €2 billion development of the Docklands were revealed at the Galway City Community Forum AGM at the Menlo House Hotel last night. A series of phases would see a process of dredging and reclamation and the completion of a quay wall and rail-link according to representatives of PJ Tobin and the Harbour Company. The project is expected to be completed by 2019.

The proposal aims to move the existing tidal port into a deepwater site which would allow for the inclusion of much bigger ships than is currently possible. At the moment only ships weighing under seven thousand tonnes can enter the docks. If the new plans are implemented the docks will be able to accommodate ships weighing up to twenty thousand tonnes. This will open Galway Bay up to passenger liners, vehicle carriers, bulk oil carriers and other large ships resulting in a great economic boost for the city.

Revenue of 12-25 million euro a year is forecast from cruise liners alone. Jobs would also be provided by form of transporting and containerism. It would strengthen Galway’s ability to live up to it’s “gateway” designation under the national spatial strategy and would open what has been referred to as the “blue highway” for the large scale transportation of products to and from the Docklands. Also central to this project is the provision of a freight rail system. It is hoped that the plan will elevate Galway’s maritime opportunities as it will capitalise on the city’s close position to the sea.

The program was originally created at the invitation of Galway West Minister Eamon O Cuiv by a think-tank of civic, business, tourism, harbour and marine executives and presented to the Taoiseach in February of this year as part of the National Development Plan currently under preparation for 2007-2013.

Due to the fact that the developers are in the very early phases of planning, detail of designs were vague and many questions went unanswered. Of particular interest was how exactly the renovations would integrate into the future plans for the city’s infrastructure as a whole. However, the representatives of the organisations involved will return in a number of weeks to carry on dialogue to open communications with city interest groups.

De Burgo’s, Augustine Street, has always had an intimate relationship with the local music scene in Galway and many people can recall spending at least one good night in the underground venue (and if you cant your missing out). I remember it was there I first heard Drum and Bass being played outside of my own bedroom at a packed, sweaty party years ago. Club nights like Gigantic and Spacedog that began in De Burgo’s brought much needed good quality tunes to an audience who wanted more than just an average night out at a mediocre nightclub. These days Stress!! is the name of the most exciting and different musical event in Galway. Stress!! is a weekly night of electronic, acoustic, experimental and improvised music that takes place every Wednesday in De Burgos. While it was originally founded by Liam Hough, Tony Higgins and Jonny White, it is maintained and supported by many friends and like minded music fans.

The lack of opportunities for local bands trying to break out of the mainstream was a driving force behind the creation of Stress!! “There wasn’t many bars putting on original music” explains Jonny “and there’s a lot of people out there who are really good, but its not exactly what these bars put on. All of them deserve a place to play”. So, after getting a 5 week trial, the group set about booking the venue with artists they liked and filling it with an audience; an aim they have achieved.Improvisation and collaboration is central to the ethos behind Stress!! “When we started off, jamming was the main part of the night. Everyone who was playing, all the band and just whoever wanted to play could go nuts. Sometimes it was class, sometimes it sounded like you were getting sick!”

It is this sense of freedom and audience involvement which makes Stress!! such a unique night. Often musicians will perform close to the audience on the dance-floor, mingling with the crowd, narrowing the gap between performer and viewer.Abandoning the mainstream and more typical forms of musical expression is also important to Stress!! “99% of music on the radio is bollocks, it’s terrible,” says Jonny, “It’s made for money and there’s nothing really good about it. Most of the music I listen to, most people haven’t heard of. It’s not a snobbish thing, you just find what you’re into and then you keep digging.” Many of the bands and artists who play Stress!! share this belief, and their own inventive ways of making music has led to some interesting and memorable nights.

Kerry born turntable legend DJ Deviant has played some epic gigs at Stress!!, with lyrics occasionally provided by the talented Sebi C and Hideous Penguin. DJ Deviant’s unique approach to scratching and use of many styles has earned him a large following around Galway and his live performances never disappoint. At Stress!! he utilised multiple sets of decks and incorporated a full band into the mix, making for an amazing musical spectacle. The low ceilinged venue and willingness of the crowd to dance along gave the set a real house party atmosphere. Deviant returns to Stress!! on the 14th of November, a gig to be missed at your peril.

The venue is also perfect for quieter, more ambient performers, given its intimate setting. This makes it ideal for artists such as Laura Sheeran who also played there recently. Mixing folk and electronica in innovative ways she creates atmospheric songs, driven by her heart-stirring voice. At Stress!!, Laura’s songs were careful mixtures of looped vocals and various instruments in front of electronic beats and the results were mesmerising.

Artists who perform at Stress!! are always very appreciative of the opportunity to present their material to an audience. Events like Stress!! which showcases new and often unusual talent are important if a vibrant music scene is to exist. Bar one or two other places in Galway, it is difficult to come across music which excites or crosses boundaries. In a town so renowned for embracing the Arts it is disheartening to see pubs and clubs dominated by cover bands and DJs playing chart music, especially when there are so many bands creating progressive music.

Myspace is a vital resource to the organisers of Stress!!, allowing them to book bands and exchange ideas with people running similar nights. “There’s a whole bunch of nights like Stress!! around the country,” says Jonny, “they just don’t get the press, they’re booking brilliant bands.” “What’s made it easier for us is that we’ve hooked up with guys around the country,” adds Tony, “There’ a network now. Cork, Tralee, Belfast, Dublin, Limerick”. The Stress!! Myspace page is also a useful resource for people looking for new bands to discover as there is information and links to all the bands who have played at Stress!!, and the list is quite long.

Local instrumental rockers Junk Turks play on the 7th of November. Previously described as “the offspring of the White Stripes and Rodrigo y Gabriela” they blend ethnic tomes with intricate and crazy guitaring. With them on the night will will be Dublin singer and electronic explorer Ewa Gigon and Galway singer-songwriter el Scamperino!
On the 14th of November, Deviant is joined by windings (one of the members of giveamanakick) whose melodic rock has seen him share the stage with acts such as Smog, Bob Mould, Okerville River and FlyPanAm.

The best thing about Stress!! is that no two weeks are the same. The bands and styles of music change but the quality never ceases, and at this stage it has become a shelter for those looking for good music. “It’s just music that if you heard anywhere you’d think ‘that’s interesting, I’m glad I came’ Tony says. “It just happens that it’s once a week in Galway”. Long Live Stress!!

Saul Williams- The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust!

When I heard Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame was producing the new Saul Williams album I was automatically concerned. Would Reznor’s industrial inclinations cramp Saul’s hip-hop style? Would Trent ruin this album just as he has ruined everything he has touched in the last decade? Would Saul’s ghetto-poetic message be lost behind a hideous wall of noise? Thankfully this is not the case. This is one of the best hip-hop albums I have listened to in years and consistent with William’s previous work in terms of lyrical genius and musical innovation.

Saul Williams began his artistic career as an open mic poet from New York and went on to win many slam poetry awards. He has several collections of poetry published and is involved in a number of anti-war organisations as well as being a vocal critic of the Bush administration. His previous albums experimented with mixing electronica with hip-hop in an angry and energetic way. His lyrics focused on injustices in the world and on the problems he sees with the rising materialism and chauvinism in hip hop and black culture. His live performances are the stuff of legend and mixes performance poetry with almost aggressive yet affirmative music.

On Niggy Tardust the rhythms are hard and Saul leaves his comfort zone and is more willing to experiment with vocoders and other effects. The production is fantastic; Reznor’s expertise with complicated drum programming and creating atmospheric sounds brings out a new, deeper level in Saul’s songs. Unlike on his previous albums there is a bit more actual signing as apposed to rapping. Also Reznor’s presence is definatly audible with him guesting on a number of tracks. Yet, the mixture is good, at times the listener cannot hear where Saul ends and Trent begins. One of the many highlights of the album is the brilliantly punky cover of U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday with guitars and beats bending perfectly around William’s voice. The title track NiggyTardust is an intelligent and humorous dig at the Fiddy Cents of the hip hop world.

To make an amazing album even better there is also the fact that Saul has gone down the Radiohead route of releasing this album for free on his website. Improving on the “In Rainbows” model you are offered the choice of downloading it for free or for $5. Also there are a range of high quality formats available to chose from. There will be a hard copy available on CD in 2008, but until then, do yourself a favour and get this album.

Under both the Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon brand and also his own name, Mark Kozelek has spent the last fifteen years steadily compiling a wealth of material, eight full length albums, a handful of eps and many appearances on live records and compilations. Kozelek’s harrowing autobiographical lyrics give unflinchingly detailed accounts of pain, despair and hope while the lengthy accompanying music is slow, intense and dissonant. As time has passed, his music has become more acoustic and folk-infected, while his lyrics now seem obsessed with memory, geography and time.

From 1992 to 1996 Red House Painters released a series of acclaimed albums on the prestigious 4AD label, showcasing Kozelek’s intense songs. These songs were pieces that defied conventional structure. His lyrics were poetic and plainspoken. He wrote about what he knew and the band played along. An early song, “Katy Song” was a landmark. Written about the ongoing struggles of a major relationship in his life, the song is among Kozelek’s most sublime. The almost martial rhythm melds into a slow gait as the guitars swirl and build. Like most of his melodies, the tune is simple, with the feeling that each note has been specifically arranged for maximum impact. The song dissolves into a wordless “Hey Jude” singalong, nearly mirthful considering what came before.

Following the early success of Red House Painters, legitimate comparisons to Nick Drake, Tim Buckley, Leonard Cohen and Van Morrison were made. Yet these were artists Kozelek had never paid much attention to, drawing his inspiration from the classic rock he listened to growing up in Ohio. The impression these songs left on him are seen in his drastic reworkings of AC/DC songs on the album Whats Next to the Moon. The album comprised only of AC/DC covers are radical rearrangements of the originals which removed the Bon Scott-penned lyrics from their hard rock context and placed them into gentle acoustic “folk ballad” settings. This can also be seen on Tiny Cities, an album of covers of indie rockers Modest Mouse. Here Kozelek draws out the moods and words of 11 Modest Mouse songs and transports them from their visceral world of jittery beats and fervid sheiking to a bubbling water plane of subtle melody.

However it is his original work which is the most captivating. Songs such as “Have You Forgotten?” which was featured on the Vanilla Sky soundtrack (a movie he also played a acting role in) perfectly demonstrates how moods and memories are captured in song. In November 2006, Koezelek released a live album titled Little Drummer Boy under his own name. On the album’s two disks, he plays songs from his solo career, covers, and material from the catalogs of both Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon.

Mark Kozelek plays in the Roisin Dubh, Galway on Saturday, the 3rd of November.

Palahnuik, the author of Fight Club, and Choke has never pulled his punches with his twisted writing style and willingness to explore the most depraved elements of human activity. His fans will surely appreciate his latest novel, Rant, which is a paranoid glance into an future filled with disease and death and is surrounded by Palahnuik‘s signature dark humour. The story is an oral history of Buster Casey’s life as viewed through interviews with his family and friends. Like most protagonists of Palahnuik’s novels, Buster is a character at odds with society and discovers gratification in dark delights, such as purposefully subjecting himself to the stings and bites of venomous insects as a child and later looking to near death experiences for recreation.

The plot can be loosely defined as a look at Buster’s strange childhood in the eerie, continually windy town of Middleton, his later involvement with Party Crashing (a form of tag played with cars) and his eventual spreading of a highly contagious form of rabies that wipes out large amounts of the human population. The book is set in a cyber-fictional near future that Palahnuik uses to magnify the darkest spaces of modern society. In a world where most peoples enjoyment comes from sitting in a room, alone, plugged into a recording of other peoples experiences, Buster and his friends fill the boring hours of every day imitating road traffic accidents.

The multiple narration devices make the story difficult to follow in parts as the reader tries to adapt to the different styles and the contradictions in different peoples viewpoints. However this leads to interesting ways of interpreting the plot and I’d presume this would allow the book to be read several times with new ideas popping up. In terms of style and content Rant is much more daring than Fight Club and many of his other novels. The only place Rant fails is that there is too much going on in the book, too many ideas which are not fully developed- there is time travel, urban myths, countless anecdotes, dysfunctional families, drug abuse, a ton of ideas which could fuel another ten books. However this might be a purposeful attempt of the writer to further the crazy, paranoid tone of the novel designed to involve the reader in the madness. Fans of books like Vernon God Little by DPC Pierre and American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis will find a familiar and enjoyable figure in the character of Buster. Rant is a lunatic car chase, tearing through genres, with ideas flying by almost too fast to comprehend.

Pinback- Autumn of the Seraphs
(Touch and Go Records; 2007)

I don’t know why Pinback aren’t more popular. They have a song on an O2 ad and I’m sure they’ve popped up in The OC at some point. But despite their repertoire of catchy indie-pop songs they’ve remained relatively unknown and underrated. With Autumn of the Seraphs, their fourth album, it’s visible that they have become comfortable with their sound without becoming uninventive. The moody guitar riffs, uplifting refrains and piano theatrics that Pinback have previously mastered are all present here. However this offering seems much more delicate and focused than their other albums.
Autumn of the Serephs opens with the fast paced “From Nothing To Nowhere”, where guitars and vocals mix to create an infectious foot-tappingly good song. This up-beat theme continues into the album with the punky “Barnes” and synth-laden “Good To Sea”. In songs like “Walters” and “Bouquet”, Pinback reveal their ability to take a song into many different directions, without it feeling forced. The meditative pace and instantly likeable keyboard hooks are clearly that driving forces at work on this album, without taking from the catchy guitar riffs and melodic vocals of Rob Crow. The album closes with “Off By 50”, a mini pop epic which begins like a Black Sabbath and finishes with crashing drums, pianos and guitars.
My only complaint with Autumn of the Seraphs would be that at times it seems too delicate and songs may sound too carefully constructed. What it lacks is a rougher, edgier sound, maybe some guitar feedback or harsh noises every now or then. Nevertheless Pinback have once again proved themselves as a tight indie pop band well able to produce catchy and energetic songs. Fans of bands like Modest Mouse and The Shins will find enjoyable songs on this record.

Award-winning photojournalist to exhibit work on rural women in India

NUIG will host a photo-exhibition of the work of Asia’s eminent development journalist, Palagummi Sainath from the 25th of November until the 2nd of December at the Arts Millenium Building. The exhibit entitled “Visible Work, Invisible Women: Women & Work in Rural India” will focus on India’s rural women and in a broader context, the problems faced by women across the globe. The photographs highlight the astonishing contribution of rural women to India’s economy which sadly remains unnoticed and unacknowledged despite their significant labour and hard work. Sainath’s work also aims to point out the distressing wage ratio of women as compared to men in rural India and the inherent discrimination in terms of land ownership and control. The pictures of these women offer poignant glimpses of the lives, labour and struggles of millions of rural Indian women. The exhibition has so far been seen by over half a million people in mostly rural impoverished areas, and has toured extensively internationally.

Palagummi Sainath has worked as a journalist reporting on development and related issues in India for 26 years. He has won over 30 national and international journalism awards and fellowships, his most recent being the Ramon Magsaysay award in 2007 for journalism, literature, and creative communications arts.
Sainath's book, 'Everybody Loves a Good Drought' , has gone into 19 printings and has been translated into a number of languages. Through his work on India’s social problems, Sainath changed the nature of the development debate in his own country and across the world. In the last decade, he has spent on average three quarters of the year with village people, reporting extensively on agrarian crises due to neo-liberal policies, on the lack of sensitivity and efficiency by the government and the bureaucracy, on farmer suicides in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala and also reported on the plight of the dalits. Sainath's strength lies in his energy as an investigator, the rigour of his research and the lucidity of his prose. A fine photographer and public speaker, he is currently the Rural Affairs Editor of India's most serious English language daily, The Hindu, of Chennai.

The eminent Indian journalist Nikhil Chakravartty once described Sainath's work as "the conscience of the Indian nation." His work on poverty, hunger and inequality has also won praise from the likes of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen who once described him as one of the world's great experts on hunger and famine.
Sainath is actively involved in the training of journalists in the poorest regions of India's countryside. He has also been teaching journalism at the Sophia Polytechnic in Mumbai for 20 years. Many of Sainath's students have themselves gone on to win major national awards.
Sainath will also be speaking at this years’ conference “Development Futures” hosted by NUIG on the 24th and 25th of November. The conference aims to enhance the connections between development research and education and integrate dimensions of practice and activism.