I feel like we’ve all forgotten about Republic of Loose. I was only like 13 or 14 when “Aaagh!” came out and I didn’t really catch any of the stories around the band, but by 2008 they were the coolest band to ever exist in Ireland. I don’t remember what happened to make it all stop and it doesn’t really matter in the context of this little idea. What I wanted to do is just make a note, out here on the internet, of how fucking weird it was that Republic of Loose ever happened. “Comeback Girl” is the possibly the greatest Irish song of all time. This was a soul band, a band with chest hair, a band fronted by a man who wanted to be called Johnny Pyro who sang about dirty sex and drugs. And for a few years everybody was cool with that. I think that that’s fuckin cool.

Also, if you like Republic of Loose and Spotify is trying to make you listen to Paddy Casey or the fucking Coronas, just listen to This Club. Closest vibe you’ll get that’s still Irish and they’re solid live.

 

-“no, i’m on the emo boy body plan

i’m also saving for full body laser hair removal”

-“ew”

-“i’ll be just wearing belts instead of shirts in no time”

 

Last week I thought I broke my hand. I got back to Galway on Sunday and I’ve been avoiding Pierre because he’s French and they take handshakes seriously. I knew it would take too long to explain. I was correct.

Just take this. I’d been planning on making a giant playlist to make up for not posting and then it didn’t happen and didn’t happen so here’s what I had. I love you and I’m sorry

Hit me up if any links don’t work

I don’t really even write stuff for this anymore. I just collect music and put together playlists and then apologize for not putting this together sooner. I’ve been doing stuff. Nothing important though. One thing that kinda matters is that I’ve been thinking about what I share. For the most part I’ve been sharing Soundcloud or Spotify playlists and maybe one or two Youtube videos. I feel like that limits the music that I share because of the scenes involved. I like Soundcloud because it’s easy to use and ya can slide from one artist to another and find cool stuff. The problem is that it’s mostly electonicy/ dancey/ dj boys kinda stuff. That’s fucking fine if that’s what you want, but I don’t think it is what I want for this blog. I want to share free music, and especially Irish music that you can go see live. I’m not saying I have any sway in the real world and in career-making or anything like that, but if I can share something and you like it, I’d like that you can then go and see this person or band and tell them you liked it.

Fuck it anyway like. This is a quick blog with a fair amount of music in it. Some ya can pay for  and some I’ll give ya for free.

Some bits and bobs from soundcloud

Go here for some old stuff by Humor, who I talked about many moons ago.

Get this from Cult Called Man, who have a gig this Friday in Ratoath and are busy being cool and worrying Modest Mouse. Once you hear that free one and see this amazing cover you’ll understand why they’re allowed do things like that.

If you feel like paying for stuff you should check out the new Twin Shadow before he blows up coz he’s in the trailer for one of those movies where guys fall in love with weird girls.

Last but not least, there is a fucking truck load of new Zoax merch online as well as physical copies of the new one from them.

Ok that’s it. Hit me up if you have cool stuff worth sharing or if you hate any of it or love any of it or want to tell me any secrets.

Hectic few weeks of college. I’ve got some really fucking cool tunes though. One Allan Kingdom and then a playlist of ten tracks. All free. That’s how we do.

Decided to try a new look for the site. I cut down on the menus and crap and cut down on my categories. Posts are divided into free and not free because that’s how I want to go about this from now on. Click on the menu three line thingy in the top corner for the menu and the different categories. Just a bit simpler.

Back in college which means back to long periods of time on public transport or, in a positive vibes kinda universe, long periods of listening time. This week I’ve been listening to a lot of 80s r’n’b, Rick James and The Gap Band and stuff like that. I tried to find some free remixes or whatever so there’s a couple thrown in there. It’s weird because a lot of it is really remixable but I didn’t find a lot. The thing about it is that a lot of these songs were sampled in the late 80s through to the 90s and a lot of the artists that sampled it made big money as pop/hip-hop/electronic acts so none of it ends up being free. Will Smith ripped off a ton of old r’n’b tracks and I really don’t want to deal with Big Willy Style right now.

Last time I was talking about not listening to any rap anymore so I went and listened to stuff that seems to be big. I didn’t find a lot a really liked. Chuck Inglish’s album seems pretty solid and I like the new Childish Gambino. I’m gonna listen through the older Chuck Inglish tapes and I’ll get back to them on here later.

Here’s volume 6 anyway. I had trouble with downloads for this one, tracks were claiming to be free but then wouldn’t download. I think I weeded all of them out. Leave a comment if any of them don’t work in this set or if you find any in earlier playlists.

I’ve been working on quite a large post for a couple of days but the motivation has died for it. I had the music picked and I was working in the post itself, layout and whatever, and I just lost the buzz for it. I’ll come back to it someday. Instead, I’ve got free music. Always good. Plenty of remixes. Mostly sticks to a kind of disco vibe because that’s what I’ve been listening to. I went back to some of my old sources of tunes to add a little bit of variety.

One thing I don’t have a lot of is hip hop. I was a massive hip hop head a few years ago and I feel like I’ve slipped away from it. With that in mind I want some recommendations if yis have any. I know I have to listen to new Childish Gambino but what else?

Kevinisabastard.com turns one this week/month/nowish so as a celebration and apology here is the run down of the musical year of the bastard.

Song of the Year: Panic! at the Disco, “Girls/Girls/Boys”

My song of the year comes from last year. Fight me. Spotify claimed that this was my song of the year and that’s as valid a reason as any to go with it. I talked about it way back in my first month of blogging and it’s stuck with me through the year. Yay.

Songs worth a damn: (in the order that I thought of them)

• “Weekend” – Vérité
• “Kisser” (Lazerdisk Remix) – Step Rockets
• “Uptown Funk”- Mark Ronson & Bruno Mars
• “Bugatti” – Tiga
• “Pony” – Zak Waters
• “Calling Out” – Penguin Prison
• “Lonely Souls” – Zoax
• “To the Top” – Twin Shadow

Album of the Year: Chromeo’s “White Women”

I have been a huge Chromeo fan for like 8 years at this point. I’m not gonna say I knew about them first or that they were better when nobody knew about them, but it was an amazing thing to find Chromeo and it’s been amazing to see the development. When “White Women” came out I was listening to it twice or three times a day. I bought the deluxe merch pack with my first pay check of the summer. It was a massive album for me this year.

Lovely albums:

• “Trouble in Paradise”- La Roux
• “Client Liaison” – Client Liaison
• “Down to Earth” – Flight Facilities

Hip happening EPs:

• “XIII” – Zoax
• “Four Guys Having Fun … Nothing Sexual” – Alabaster
• “The Element Yes”- Meanwhile OST

And as always, let’s see what I can give you for free based on these lists.

Straight off the bat, Colin from Alabaster is my brother so I’m not going to go mad pushing them because that just seems like poor form. I will say that I really liked that EP. If you click here you can download their debut album “Nobody Wants It” for “name your price” aka probably zero. The EP is a solid improvement but the album is a taster of things to come.

The Lazerdisk remix is free and that leads us on to something else. Some of these tracks were supposed to be on Free Free Free volume 4, which I started weeks ago, but since that’s taken so long I’ll throw that on here too. Tis the season and all. You’ve got a “Bugatti” Remix in there too.

So that’s it. It’s been a year of this so what have you thought. Everything is welcome in the comments, I’m always looking for feedback and recommendations for new, old or free music.

Peace

Gimme a shout if any of those downloads change. I had some free Penguin Prison remixes but they are now part of the single pack for “Calling Out” and Vérité’s remix pack for “Weekend” which ya can get on iTunes if you’re some sort of mad bastard.