we will be uploading all images and video from cork and newcastle in the next week or 2!


thanks for all the comments and nice stuff, we had a ball in cork and smashed it in newcastle,


Addiction EP out last monday22nd its on itunes and other sites!


enjoy and cheers,

Mark Kid NC

Noise Control at The Gibson Rooms 21/10/08


I didn’t really know what to expect when going to see Irish outfit Noise Control at the Gibson rooms; I had a quick look at Noise Controls' MySpace earlier and had read a little press about how Noise Control had been personally picked by Liam Howlett of the Prodigy as support acts. I hadn’t realised until I arrived that actually that is precisely what happened; Noise Control had innocently sent him some of their music, not imagining much to come of it, and in true fashion of what you would never expect to happen, Liam had actually listened to it and further more, selected Noise Control to support. Pretty impressive stuff, considering it was based on their music alone.

Drink in hand (free booze, woo hoo!), Noise Control came to the stage. A slightly older band than I was expecting (with exception to front man Mark Kid – hence the name, possibly?), they did however look like your typical Does It Offend You Yeah/Pendulum type band; a dressed down act that were refreshingly not about the image in an almost student fashion. After a brief introduction with a strangely un-Irish sounding front man(!), they opened with the first song of the night, 'Solar Star' before moving into one of the highlights of the evening, 'Cities of Dreams' (Noise Controls' current single which is a joint double-A side along with 'Mudbath'). Impressively, both of these songs on the double-A side are going to be featured on the soundtrack for Disney’s’ interactive award winning action video game 'Pure', sharing a listing with We Are Scientists, Pendulum and the Futureheads. Again, not bad work for a band that have only been going two years and have yet to release their debut album.

The live version of 'Cites of Dreams' kept its' polished sound intact, with it's fast paced drum n' bass energy making it an anthem that wouldn’t feel out of place on a Friday night at Fabric. I so far was really enjoying this set, usually a bit of a purist with my rock n' roll preferences (ignorant I know), I was starting to come round to this non dark side of drum n' bass.


But then it truly fell into place with the next song making a huge impact. 'Our Life' could honestly be described as an epic song; my friend commented, "this was meant for a stadium", destined for big things. Full of energy that took you on a journey, bringing their rock element tenaciously into the mix with the lead guitarist going crazy with the wah pedal. It was brilliant stuff.

The set followed on with catchy 'Steel', instantly recognisable from their MySpace, then finishing up with 'Addiction', 'Catch the Race' and finally, the joint double-A side to 'Cities of Dreams', 'Mudbath'. Which, considering the calibre of the mid section of the set, was slightly disappointing as a closer. However, it did deliver in getting the crowd involved with the opening “Do you want to get dirty?” and you can imagine this going down well when they’ve built a bigger solid fan base.

All in all a really enjoyable set and that I would gladly go through again. Considering I never really understood the point of seeing “dance” bands live, I have new insight and can and will go and see dance bands live now. Instead of staring at the band in an almost idolising fashion, you’re meant to just enjoy yourself, have a few drinks, dance around, have fun and not worry about what you or they look like. Everyone’s having fun. Everyone’s a winner. Death to pretentiousness! I'm all for it. Fans of Pendulum, Does it Offend You Yeah and Prodigy will no doubt love this.

Live: Noise Control ride the reds
Thursday, October 23, 2008
David Harrison

The Gibson Guitar Rooms are a weird second-story office that has been turned into a showcase venue, with a pukka soundsystem and Gibson guitars dripping from the walls. When Irish soundclashers Noise Control take the stage, they look like three hardmen, their dealer and his geeky mate. If he was on a movie credit, guitarist Kevin Whyms would be billed as 'Tough Guy 1', and Music Towers has a lot of fun waching him tear out a clunky bendy riff out of his red SG.

Mark-Kid kicks in on vocals, and Whyms toys with the Korg unit to add extra layers to the sound. Layers of sound are what this band are about, high energy guitar electronic noise so you aren't sure what is being triggered and who is making what. It's all weaving about each other.

El Byrne (bass) is an amazing player, his fingers darting around the five string terrifyingly fast. His The Edge-like rack behind him, controlled from a homemade pedal board, scares us too. We love pedals, and homemade pedal boards ooze sex (in a guitar-geek-sex kind of way). Dare we say it - Byrne is actually is justified having a five-string.

The room is lined with X-Boxes with some racing game or another that Noise Control are the default soundtrack to, and on the strength of tonight we can see why. The speed of the quadbiking scenes syncs in perfectly with the ebb and flow of Mark-Kid's words. The Prodigy recently demanded Noise Control support them and its not hard to understand their motivation - Noise Control manage to transend these office-like surroundings and spit out tight track after tight track.

They finish on their festival-anthem-in-the-making, 'Mudbath'. Earlier that evening, Music Towers attended a conference on how to sell music in the future now a whole generation have been trained to get it for free, and who don't download as they just swap hard drives. The terrabyte hard drive, capable of holding pretty much the entire iTunes back catalogue, is a week or two away.

So what is the saviour of music? Lots of creative services and functions were mentioned in the conference....yet nobody mentioned that live music could be the saviour of music. Dancing around in the field covered in mud, slinging some lady around in a dayglow pink bikini to a soundtrack of 'Mudbath' by Noise Control...now that is the saviour of music.