Joe Kavanagh's Music News

For many of us, the camp-fest that is the Eurovision Song Contest has been a laughing stock for years but the frontrunner to represent Ireland at this year's event has already caused ripples far beyond the shores of the emerald isle. Known chiefly as a hugely popular presenter on children's television, who claims to do a sideline as a builder, Dustin Hoffman, a hand puppet of a turkey, is currently odds-on favorite to become the Irish entry in this year's Eurovision, a fact that is causing apoplexies in certain segments of the country's songwriting circles. Dustin's entry, Irlande Douze Points, is still a closely guarded secret but the puppet has revealed that the song will contain references to Bono, Terry Wogan and a forthright apology for Riverdance. The story has been carried in newspapers throughout Europe, leaving former Irish Eurovision writers spitting nails. Frank McNamara, who wrote two of Ireland's record seven winning entries, claims that the decision to send a toy turkey would be tantamount to "giving two fingers to Irish songwriters" (that's one middle finger to our US readers), which is not necessarily a bad thing in my humble opinion when it comes to Eurovision songwriters. Meanwhile, Shay Healy, another winning writer, stated that he failed to see "how any bunch of grown-ups could come up with this as a solution," while Phil Coulter asserted that this was a sign that the Eurovision had "gone down the tubes." Regardless of what these self-appointed guardians of the Eurovision Pong (sic) Contest think, it's the Irish public that will decide on which of the six finalists will make it through, but Dustin will almost certainly be the people's choice. For his part, Dustin has offered to "extend the wing of friendship" to all those that have attacked his decision to enter the race. Anyhow, let's face it the words 'taste' and 'Eurovision' have been mutually exclusive for four decades at this point and our past few entries have been metaphorical turkeys anyway, so we might as well go with the real thing this time around. I'll be putting a few shekels on him for the win anyway...

While Dustin is a pariah to some in the music industry, Ireland's commissioner to the European Union, Charlie McCreevy, is the toast of musicians throughout the continent after drafting a new bill that is set to extend the length of time that performers can collect royalties. As things stand, songwriters can collect performance royalties for the duration of their life, plus 70 years, allowing them to pass on the royalties to their next of kin, but musicians that only perform on songs are entitled collect royalties for 50 years, meaning that many of them are left without an income as they reach the later stages of life. This state of affairs means that over 7,000 musicians throughout Europe see their main source of income dry up each year. McCreevy has now drafted a bill, however, that will allow them to collect royalties for up to 95 years, with a novel "use it or lose it" provision that will allow performers to regain control of their recordings, if they are not being used by their respective labels after 50 years. Each member state is expected to endorse the bill but the drawn out process of ratification means that it will most likely not become law until 2010. Musicians and performers throughout Europe have long campaigned for such a directive, and McCreevy's move has been warmly greeted by aging musicians and performers throughout the continent...

Dublin gardaÌ (cops) played the part of villains in the capital last week when they arrived on the scene at St. Stephen's Green to break up a "pre-core" acoustic solo performance by Frank Black, who was in town for a gig later that night. The legendary Pixies singer arrived in the picturesque park with just an acoustic guitar and began belting out Pixies numbers, in addition to some of his solo material, only to be swamped by a crowd of over 1,000 people. After a handful of songs, gardaÌ were quick to call a halt to proceedings, before removing the singer from the scene in the back of a patrol car, incurring the wrath of the crowd who assumed that they were arresting him. Spokespeople for the cops later claimed that they were actually taking him away because they feared for the safety of the crowd as it continued to grow exponentially. I think that's what you might refer to as a case of retroactive PR because I very much doubt that the cops had any idea who the large man with the guitar was. Even if someone told them that it was Frank Black a.k.a. Black Francis, they probably would have just thought: "jaysus, she's really let herself go, hasn't she?"