Blogging the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival 2009

This weekend I'm heading south with Steph to blog, tweet, twitpix and otherwise record and experience the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival 2009.

It's an event running over 30 years but this is the first time I'll have been down for it - in fact it's my first major jazz event!

Having been all souled up at this year's Dublin City Soul Festival I'm looking forward to hearing a different type of music and experiencing a different vibe. Huge thanks to Guinness for the invitation and opportunity!

This year's festival features over 1,000 musicians from 29 countries, so I'm sure there'll be some interesting choices for me. Having gone through the programme diligently and repeatedly, I'm hoping I get to experience the following (and here's where you'll find me to buy me a pint/slap me for all the bad jokes):

Friday:

First off it's to Jazz at the College lunchtime concert at UCC's Aula Maxima with Grace McMahon and the Paul O'Donnell Group.

Heading on then at 3pm to see a jazz group called The Club Men in the Festival club



The group above are called The Bad Plus - comprised of Ethan Iverson on piano/keyboard, Reid Anderson on electric bass and Dave King on drums - and I love the description -

The Bad Plus has undoubtedly exploded all notions of what a jazz piano trio should sound like – whether at rock festivals, jazz clubs or symphony halls. According to Rolling Stone, 'By any standard, jazz or otherwise, this is mighty, moving music … hot players with hard-rock hearts.'

They'll be doing a double bill with Sun Ra Arkestra in the Everyman Theatre on Friday evening from 20:30.

Finally then off to watch the superb Hypnotic Brass Ensemble in the Pavillion from 23:30.

SATURDAY



Saturday starts a trip to CIT and the Cork School of Music for a Family Jazz Big Band Concert with musical director John O' Connor conducting the band, made up of senior degree and post-graduate students of the School who will play "popular and exciting big band favourites."



Yurodny is one of my "don't want to miss" events.

Featuring guest musicians from around the world, this group apparently have a a repertoire that ranges from gypsy melodies to experimental electronica, crossing the tundra of jazz along the way. The line up looks like a great list of musicians including Cora Venus Lunny, Ben Davis, Kate Ellis, Oleg Ponomarov and Tom Arthurs .

They're in the Everyman Theatre at 2pm as part of a double bill with Al Di Meola.



This (well the dancing part) could well be us after our Swing Dance Lesson on Saturday afternoon, if we don't go to the Jazz Poetry session (daddio) instead.

We'll then be heading on to see the Garda Siochana Band performing with Togetherness Gadjo Jazz at the Festival club at 15:30 before a break for the Cork Tweetup where it'll be nice to put names to faces.

Then we go to a concert I'm greatly anticipating - Mr Kurt Elling, singing Coltraine and Hartman.

Described by the New York Times as ‘the standout male jazz vocalist of our times’, Kurt’s rich voice displays an astonishing technical facility and emotional depth. He celebrates in Cork the launch of his latest album ‘Dedicated to You’, his stunning interpretation of the classic Coltrane/Hartman album.

Special guest is Grammy winner Ernie Watts, one of the most versatile sax players on the world scene in the past 40 years.

Elling is in the Everyman Theatre at 8pm.

Also on that evening that I'd love to have seen is the already SOLD OUT Imelda May gig at 20:30 in The Savoy of Patrick St over in The Pavilion is Fionn Regan at 8pm.

SUNDAY

We'll be starting Sunday with mass. As it should be. A Jazz mass.

Join this truly celebratory and spiritual Harvest Jazz service at Cork’s most historic church - a morning of jazz joy featuring the Bla Mondag (Blue Monday) Jazz Band from Copenhagen and the African Irish Gospel Choir from Cork with guests Music commences at 10.45am.

From there it's back to the Everyman Theatre to see Jack de Johnette and the Ripple Effect

Jack DeJohnette is widely regarded as one of jazz music's greatest drummers. From Chicago, he has collaborated with most of the major figures in jazz history, most notably John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Herbie Hancock, Ornette Coleman, Keith Jarrett and Pat Metheny.

DeJohnette is also skilled at nearly every musical style and is no stranger to leading innovative bands of his own. The Ripple Effect is DeJohnette's latest collaborative project. The Ripple Effect blends shades of world music, drum and bass and electronica to create a fresh taste of rhythmic jazz for the 21st century. Phenomenal.

After that, at 15:30, there's a Mystery Session at the Festival Club. Very exciting altogether. No idea who it could be!

Having a break in the afternoon will be welcome, because we're heading to a 1930s Harlem night in the Firkin Crane.

Come and experience the hot house atmosphere of Harlem’s most flamboyant period - the jazz age at its zenith with glamourous guys and gals, plus great music. And expect the unexpected it was a sellout last year.

Music from the 16 piece Tuxedo Junction Big Band playing the hits of Billy Holiday, Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller and more.

After that, it's possibly the gig that I'm most looking forward to (and that I'm hoping to post about tomorrow - the beautiful and wonderfully talented Ms YolanDa Brown in the Firkin Crane.

And then it's dancing the night away at the Festival Club in anticipation of our trip home on Monday.

So, short version - lots of music, seeing friends, having a dance, a pray, a walk and a great time. Woot :)

You can check out the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival, on October 23 to 26 on their website and download the snazzy brochure (which is where I got most of the info and images above from) right here.

National Lottie wins, Off Her Rocker ends and the whole of the moon

It's one of those days I guess. Shortly after I read that the wonderfully talented Lottie has won February's Blog Post of the Month for her post on Misadventures in Life and Fashion, I go to read that my inspirational friend Nay is finishing the Off Her Rocker Blog over at Hot Press and heading off for new adventures and, hopefully, to pastures green.

I first met Nay in an official capacity where she, as Hot Press photographer, was working at the Bright New Sounds gig - wow, nearly a year ago! Impressed by her ownership of the event and what she needed to get done and how (basically just point me in the direction and let me get on with it) she stuck in my head as someone I'd like to know.

I started reading the Off Her Rocker blog. I know virtually nothing about Irish music past what's already on my iPod so the amount of people, gigs, albums and art that I found out there was such a revelation. Every post was well thought out, there was no just "throwing it up there" and she had such a genuine interest and passion for the music, it practically shone from it. It became a regular destination.

I was lucky enough to meet her then later in the year and we've since become good friends. I can understand completely how - and why - she feels she has to stop - pressure, time (especially raising two small children), criticism, lack of support, lack of resource - all things that have such a draining effect. While I'm sorry to see her go because of the big gap she will leave, I'm glad she's leaving to try something new, exciting and hopefully more fulfilling.

I trust too that the big space she leaves will help people - and indeed Hot Press themselves - see what a need there is for people to support the Irish music industry both online and offline - it's why events like the Road Records benefit is happening - and why other music bloggers who give people coverage/priase/feedback/a break - Nialler9, Guess List, KilkennyMusic.com, Drop-d, State.ie, Swear I'm not Paul, MP3 Hugger, Ragged Words, Nick Thinks, On the Record and Analogue to name but a few that I have found through my wanders from Off Her Rocker and more - are so important to keeping us up to date with what's going on.

From the amount of musicians I have spoken to, every review, every interview, ever photo and every piece of promotion all helps and is appreciated. Those who know how can really help those who don't, but want to learn. Nay was someone who lived and breathed that. She still is.

It's been interesting to see the reaction to some blogs ending. I'll miss blogs like Sinéad's, Una's and The Chancer but look forward to finding new ones too and catching up with the people that I don't get to read often enough. Blogging is alive and well and I can only thank all those who have contributed to my first, quite eventful year at it, but who, for their own great reasons, have decided enough is enough. It must be a hard thing to do. Fair play to yis.

As for the rest of us, sure all we can do is keep on truckin. Nay, this one is for you - shot at the Tuesday's Child gig in Vicar Street on February 6. You have no idea how difficult it was for me not to sing along and ruin the video ;-)

Talking to PR people about blogging

My reservations are that you can send stuff to bloggers and then have it ripped apart! This doesn't happen with traditional media as unless they are hugely passionate about wanting to rip apart what you have sent them they won't bother doing it as they don't have a lot of column inches at their disposal, whereas bloggers have the freedom and space to write what they like to any extent that they want to...

I appreciate that this is the real value of blogs but it's not fun to face down a client who's spending money with you explaining why their product/service/event is the ridicule of the online community! This hasn't happened us (yet, touch wood!) but I'm sure it will and I've seen it happen to others!

There's also this impression that PR people are all pushy blonde bimbos who have surgically attached mobiles to their ears and carry clipboards and we aren't ALL like that - though I would agree that some are. I think that PR people feel that bloggers are unapproachable in many cases so it's interesting to hear that it's the bloggers who are asking how both parties can connect. I'm delighted to hear this!

Aileen Galvin, Director/Business, entertainment | architects

The second Collision course - a meeting of Irish PR people and bloggers takes place tonight.

We’re going to get the PR and Digital Marketing people to mix more with the bloggers and to share their experiences during the time we have. We’ll split into three groups... each will be given a campaign to work on and present their ideas. The purpose is to cross-train/cross-share their opinions and insights and in doing so, get to know each other even more.

Prompted by Emily Tully's recent post on Online Press Releases, how do you like yours?, where she asked bloggers how they'd like to receive information from PR people, I contacted some friends and contacts in PR, events and marketing that I know to ask them questions inspired by those Damien raised in his summation of the first Collision course:

• Could bloggers help you spread the word about your particular events, clients or promotions and are you interested in them doing so?
  
  
• How should a blogger interested in doing so go about contacting you or your clients for more information?

The replies I've received have been as follows:

Cillian Barry, Owner, Feep Marketing

Answer: Online PR is becoming a must have marketing discipline for brands but there are many deep and dangerous pitfalls so it needs to be approached with some caution. Bloggers, better than most, understand the dynamics of online communications and can therefore provide a useful service to brands looking to enter this space.

Answer: As with all things relevance helps, just take the time to approach each person individually whether you are a blogger approaching an agency or brand or an agency or brand approaching a blogger

Julie Momboisse, Communication Executive & Audience Development, Temple Bar Cultural Trust

Answer: We organise lots of cultural events during the year. If you attend a TBCT event you will discover a whole different world in the heart of Dublin’s city centre: outdoor markets, concerts, circus, street spectacle, fire artists, comedians, magicians, musicians, movies, painters, sculptors, opera, public artworks, workshops, talks and walks.

We know that more and more people find out about our events online. We strongly believe that people's habits are changing and that we need to take a step further and engage with the blogging community. In that sense, bloggers can help us spreading the words about our events but also, getting closer to our audiences’ expectations.

Answer: If you blog, are interested in what we do and want to share it with your readers, please get in touch! You can contact me through our blog http://blog.templebar.ie; send me an e-mail at jmomboisse@templebar.ie or even call into the Temple Bar Cultural Information Centre - it’s right in the heart of Temple Bar at 12 East Essex Street.

Mark Duckenfield, founder, Emergent Events and Street Performance World Championship

It's surprising how many people hear about the festival through blogs to the degree that a good few people are coming to the Championship from the UK this year directly because of them.

I have just done a quick search in the festival inbox and there are 257 results from 77 people. Now that's huge especially considering that we have never have used blogs...

You might think that 77 from a festival of 100,000 is not that big... but you have to remember that not everybody will have mailed us. It would be great to a way of figuring out how many people come to the event because of blogs.

I honestly do wish that I had more time to concentrate on things like a blog, Bebo and Myspace... Our office is small, as you know, it really is only Conor and me and any of those things takes up a huge amount of time. I tried to manage the Bebo page in the first year but I just didn't have the time... my brother tried to do it in the second year (but he is 17 with the attention span of a gnat). We know that we can utilise them all better this year... it is just figuring out how. If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them.

As a final note, I'm sure that you are aware of the Event Guide weekly email. It really good, and really effective... but... I think that it is too unstructured. Its just too long. I love the idea of it but I cant see thousands of people reading through a mail that size. I wonder if the blogging world could help that out.

Emma Kytzia, PR & Communications Exec, National College of Ireland

Absolutely, National College of Ireland would be delighted for bloggers to help spread the word about the college, our full and part-time courses, our open days and our public events.

We're a little unsure how to go about approaching other bloggers though, and would be uncertain as to the reaction we'd receive.

Shauneen Armstrong, Press Officer at The Labour Party

The basic answer to your question is yes. We do engage with bloggers, many are on our mailing lists, they have been invited to our events including conferences. In addition we make as many things available online as possible.

Our last conference was streamed live on the internet, the second year in a row that we have done that. Also through our Flickr and You Tube sites not only are we engaging with the people who take the time to comment but we are also providing content for people's sites if they wish to use it.

In addition to using Twitter to point people to different things that we are doing; highlighting campaigns and engaging with those have followed us, we have also used the site to give followers sneak peaks of various materials, and events that are not yet publicised. More recently we have had new members recruited through Twitter.

From what I'm seeing in both the events and charity section, there's a huge need and drive to understand and embrace the online medium. I found the first Collision course extremely interesting as a starting point of dialogue between PR professionals and bloggers and am sure the second will be even more involving.

I contributed yesterday to a seminar for charities, communities and voluntary organisations. Organised by The Wheel, this Social Media for Charities workshop introduced the 40+ people there to the potential of blogs, social networks and engaging with people online.

Nathalie McDermott from On Road Media, a London-based social enterprise that trains marginalised groups and organisations in podcasting, video blogging and social networks spoke to respresentatives from groups as diverse as the Ballyfermot Advocacy Service to Barnardos to the Catholic Institute for Deaf People to the Irish Georgian Society, Samaritans Ireland and the National Concert hall on how best to get their message across.

It was interesting, informative and highlighted the need for courses such as these, to educate and explain in a non judgemental, no-question-is-stupid, we-all-had-to-start-somewhere kind of way. From what I've seen even since yesterday, there was positive reaction and action, with many of the organisations setting up Twitter accounts yesterday afternoon. A small step but one in the right direction.

I was also invited recently to the launch of the St Patrick's Day Festival 2009, to the launch of the 2009 Temple Bar programme, to talk to the Abbey Theatre about their events and am aware of other events this year looking to blog, to talk to bloggers engage with the online community. The pre-launch event for one of Ireland's largest companies that was on last night confirmed how it's not just the "new, young and hip" brands, companies or services who are engaging, but older, established businesses who are taking a new look at the way they do things.

While I can offer absolutely no professional advice on the whole PR/blogger communications, I can say based on personal experience of having blogged about so many events that the more information I get, the better able I will be to make the decision about whether I'll blog about something. A press-release is only a small part - any official photos, previews of ads, programmes, videos or contact details - basically anything that will help me write a post is appreciated. There's no guarantee that I will use it, but if it's something or someone that I'm interested in and I believe other people will be too, then chances are that I'll post it.

All you can do is ask nicely. It's what I do and am always positively surprised by the result.

How to comment on a blog - a beginners guide

For people who may not know how to comment on a blog, I hope this will help you. I read - and comment on - a number of blogs every day and I've compiled some instructions (with picture examples) below that may help you, I hope.

I've also included a brief (and probably inaccurate) description of the blogs to hopefully introduce you to some you may not be familiar with.

1. There are a number of different types of blog. Two of the more popular are Wordpress, Blogspot or Blogger (like this one) and they have different ways of accepting comments. I'll hopefully show you this below.
   
   
2. Writing a comment on a blog is no more difficult than sending an email. Honestly. It's three basic steps:
   
   
   • Fill out your comment
   • Leave your name
   • Press Submit. That's it!
     
   
   
3. You don't have to enter your email address on some blogs. This one is an example. Have a look here to see how that's done.
   
   
4. The easiest thing to do is just look for the word "comment" and click on it. For example, on this blog, you'll see

If you click on the circled link you can add your comment.

The background to this is a post on commenting on blogs, one of the interesting things that came up over on The Faux Sty forum about Darren reaching 100 posts was the comment:

Congratulations Val on your 100th post, I must admit I have popped in a read a good number of your blogs but I have no idea how to post a response over there, so I'll tell you now how good you are at describing the stuff your at - I must admit I find it insightful to read your blogging. Keep up the good work.

I wonder if that's one of the reason that people don't post comments? That even though you might like what someone writes, you're not sure how to reply?

So maybe this guide will help. Let's start with what to look for:

Over on Damien Mulley's blog (Damien writes about Irish internet related news, topics as well as a host of other stuff and is generally regarded as top blogger) you'll see



And over on Alexia's Blog (she blogs about technology and other interesting ideas) you'll see



but, you can also click on the heading and then you'll see the comment form below the post (which is what an article on a blog is called). This tends to be the same for most blogs.



For example, you can see over on Grannymar's blog (cooking, jokes, adventures and toyboys) you can click on the heading or the comments link



The lovely Annelicious (a terribly interesting girl altogether) has a big Add Comment link on hers



When you click on this you'll see a load of stuff (like below). Don't worry about it. This is just for people who know something called HTML and it's still fine to post your response if you don't.



The lovely girls over at Beaut.ie (who blog about beauty products no less) have the below



While Anthony (he blogs about interesting stuff he finds) has this



and just-come-out-as-metrosexual Darren has this



The Dear Lover Blog (very strange letters from boyfriend to girlfriend) has this



Beginning to see the similarity? All you have to do is click! :)

The lovely Maz, a shockingly stylish Limerick blogger (and ex Home and Away addict) has the below:



When you click there you'll see a form like the below. 2 small things:

1. Enter your name and your email address. Your email address will be kept private - no other blog readers can contact you through it, so don't worry - I'll explain why that's there below.
   
   
2. If you don't have a website/blog/URL don't worry! You don't HAVE to fill it in:

A handy thing to see if the blogger (blog writer) has responded to you is to check the box (if there is one) that says "email me follow up comments", like Grannymar has below:



You should know though that if it's a popular post you'll get a number of emails. Don't worry, as I said, your email address is private and only used for this purpose.

The lovely Deborah, over at Humble Housewife, (she blogs about cooking and related tasty stuff) has the below:



Now, when you click there a pop-up window opens - just fill this in as per usual



There are many different blog designs and the comment links are different but keep an eye out for it:

Grandad (a lovable but grumpy ould fella) has his down the bottom



As does the very quirky and up to date Jazzbiscuit



And Shane at Presenttense over at Ireland.com (the Irish Times website)



And award winning political and equality blogger (and Michael Lynn fan) Maman Poulet



and Twenty Major



and Sinéad Cochrane



and so on - see, it's not that complicated!

Rick O' Shea, of 2FM fame has his at the top (just to be different :P)



and an easy to complete form when you click on comments



Sometimes your comments may not appear immediately, like over at Sabrina Dent's beautifully designed blog



and that's because bloggers like to get to know you, so to make sure you're not a machine (or worse, pretending to be someone you're not) they keep a comment in moderation. This is normal practise - your hard work hasn't disappeared!



There are some blogs made in Blogspot/Blogger (like this one) which is owned by Google. Rosie over at Spanish Exposition (the exploits of a twentysomething year old) has a very popular (and great to read) blog:



When you click on her comments link, you'll see this screen, where you have two options. If you have a Google account (Gmail or Googlemail) you can post a comment using that (and don't worry, your password is hidden and secure)



or you can choose the second option - which doesn't ask for an email address - which looks like



Again if you don't have a "URL" (which means a website address) you don't have to enter one.

The lovely Chanberry over at Fictional Sheep and Andrew of Chancing My Arm and Lyndar the Merciless are similar and you can leave a comment in the same way.



Unarocks (music journalist, world traveller and loves-to-have-fun girl) has something extra on her blog:



Again, this is nothing to worry about, it's just making sure you're human!

Finally, (thankfully you say!) CEO of Blacknight Michele Neylon (who blogs about everything from spam to DVDs) has a slightly different form on his



And if you don't know what that means, don't worry about it!

Finally, just on comments - as I said in this post, bloggers write to be read and love getting comments, so if you have an opinion, a thought or just like what you read, feel free to share.

Please try to remember just as you're one person in front of a monitor, so is the blogger and so they prefer constructive criticism, lively debate and gifts of fine wines than abuse. Well, okay, the fine wine thing is just me.

I hope this helped. If it did, please let me know and share your new found expertise with your friends. Happy commenting!


(Fellow bloggers, I hope it's okay I used (and slightly edited in cases) your work. Feel free to take the images if you think they'd help on your blog. Not everyone's an expert.)

Update for bloggers: Iarhflaith has released free Add Comment buttons for your blog - check them out!