Hip hop hurrah

IT's been a funny old rock'n'roll world for Michael Franti - first discovered by the heroic Jello Biafra when he was with the seminal West Coast industrial outfit, The Beatnigs (who were hugely influenced by those other industrio-rockers, Einsturzende Neubaten) they put out their first material on Biafra's Alternative Tentacles label but only really came to prominence when he and side-kick Rono Tse signed to a major label and changed their name to The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy.

Their one and only album, Hipocrisy Is The Greatest Luxury (1993) was one of those "right time, right place" affairs. Very much a post-MTV, post-new technology piece of work, it sought to deal with the fall-out from the media-ted world we all live in. Quickly picked up by U2, who put them on their Zooropa tour and used Television: Drug Of The Nation as their concert opener, they were also fated by Public Enemy but soon broke up - not because of musical differences but because of political differences - Rono Tse being the Mick Jones to Michael Franti's Joe Strummer, if you know your musical history.

Franti went on to explore all manner of ethnic-political concerns with his new band Spearhead. Bringing more soul, reggae and bits of jazz into the sound, he was determined to get away from the hectoring, industrial beats of The Disposables - "that band were a bit like broccoli - people were into it because they thought it was good for them". The first Spearhead album, Home (1995) wasn't the best, even though it did spawn a few American hit singles - Hole In The Bucket and People In The Middle but the brand new one, Chocolate Supa Highway is an improvement and well worth a go on the listening posts.

For Franti, as always, the medium is the message and this is one medium, he believes, that is far from colour blind: "It's about the other side of the information super highway - the black realm," he says. "The way black people communicate - through music, voice, ideas. In a way, hip hop is our world wide internet. Most of the stories on the album come from my experiences of travelling on tour and seeing the global warmth hip hop has spread. Also it's time to recount the events of recent history and begin to hold accountable the fraternity of good ol' boys, coke smugglin' politricksters and well-dressed slimeballs, for the misdeeds they have perpretated upon `us' the dependable, good natured, herb-using, hip hop generation." Fair enough.

Micheal Franti's Spearhead play The Olympia Theatre, Dublin next Monday at 8 p.m.

IT may well be just another media stunt but it's symbolic proof that the mighty Prodigy are a Grade A band with the world being their lobster and all of that: next Sunday night at 12 midnight, the Virgin stores in both Dublin and Belfast will open their doors - as will Tower Records, Dublin and Golden Discs, Dublin and Cork - so over-eager fans can go in and procure their hot-from-their-record-pressing-plant copies of the new album, The Fat Of The Land. Very much the punk rock band du jour, The Prodigy will be head lining the "I can't believe it's not Feile" day trip to Tipp on August 24th... Sack's new single, Latitude is now in the shops and they'll be playing a gig to open up a brand new rock music venue in Dublin tomorrow night at 9 p.m. It's called The Funnel and it's at 24 City Quay (beside The City Arts Centre basically) and it's going to be a sort of Underground Rock Garden type venue - which is nice. Support on the night comes from Alan Cullivan's new band, Eva Dallas ... Despite the fact that Mary Black covered five of his songs on her new album, David Gray retains his cult Irish following to the extent that he's now playing three gigs at The Mean Fiddler, Dublin (Sunday, Monday and Tuesday). He also plays The Metropole Hotel, Cork tonight ... The Strictly Fish people are hanging around the docks again: every Friday there's rare groove, disco and bits of pop music at The Friday Social at Columbia (Sir John Rogerson's Quay - the old Waterfront venue) and at the same venue on Saturday, the all-dancing, all-drinking original Strictly Fish is in residence (there's a cocktail lounge in the basement - how cool is that?) ... Hope Promotions are going through one of their busy periods promoting hardcore gigs all over the gaff: on Sunday night in good ol' Charlie's Bar of Aungier Street, they'll be presenting a triple header of Month Of Birthdays, Capstan and Tetsuo all for two quid and 50 pence admission. Please note that when we say hardcore we mean hardcore.