STREETS AHEAD

Streetcrab formed in 1996 as Deluge and served their time on the student night circuit in Limerick. After rehearsing in various unsuitable locations they found a rehearsal hall in Shannon near where they live. They recently participated in the IMRO Best of Irish Showcase Tour 2000 and passed with flying colours to the Vicar St. and London heats. But it hasn't all been plain sailing for the Shannonside massive.

"Our gigs sometimes haven t gone to plan," admits Rod Smith (bass/vocals). "At our second gig, our then drummers snare-stand broke in two during a really crap version of Oasis s Live Forever , and as we continued on minus drums our guitarist came under fire from a deluge of beer mats and sweet wrappers. The thing was, we were playing for a company social and most of the audience was over forty! We have been electrocuted on stage due to faulty wiring, our lead guitarist has fallen off the stage, and most recently, in London, our singer jumped off the stage to mosh with a member of the audience and accidentally headbutted him but in the end, it all adds to the fun!"
Aside from the happy anarchy that has characterised Streetcrab shows to date, Pat, Rod, Mike and Benz have been beavering away on a diverse range of original material, currently proving to be a hit on Mp3.com.
"We don t try to fit in to a certain type of music, we just write songs, play them and try to entertain," explains Rod. "We seem to drift in and out of so many genres and because of that, we don t feel we should tie ourselves down to a specific one. We don t think any band likes to be categorized or labeled. It gives people a premeditated idea of what you re about, so you re judged, be it good or bad, on your genre, even before they listen to you."
"Our Mp3 site is working out great for us at the moment, we are getting people from all over the world, who are listening to our songs, downloading them and getting there friends to listen to them. We are featured on over ten Mp3 radio stations, which are played by hundreds of people every day, giving us massive exposure. One of our songs, Fallen , has been in the Irish Mp3 charts top ten for the last five or six weeks, peaking at No. 4 last week! We have met hundreds of bands and artists online, received lots of good advice and even made a bit of money! The Internet is providing an avenue to the world that a lot of Irish bands haven t picked up on. All in all, it s an easy way for a small band to reach an audience of millions of people.
There are downsides to Mp3, such as the current Metallica/ Dr. Dre versus Napster lawsuits, which kind of puts a dark cloud over Mp3 downloads. The difference between Mp3.com and the Napster corp. is that on Mp3.com, you choose whether you want your songs to be downloaded, but with Napster you can download music from any band that anyone has put on their computer, for free. Artists are losing money and copyright laws are being broken."
Streetcrab, who are participants in the Esat Digifone Headstart Competition, hope for a long, prolific and profitable career.
"The only ambitions we have are to nail a record deal, make fuck loads of money (my dad wants a Volvo!) and be able to make complete pricks of ourselves without getting embarrassed or worrying what anyone has to say! Seriously, we would love to see Irish rock step out of the shadows of commercial, corporate pop acts. We would love to see Ireland with a healthy rock scene again and if we can have a part in taking it out, even better! Besides, who wants to be a corporate robot, working 9 to 5, for some fat cat with a Jag , while you can bearly scrape the rent together? Nah it s good old rock and roll for us!"
Streetcrab play Knox's pub in Ennis, Co. Clare on June 14th and Dolan's Warehouse, Limerick on June 28th as part of the Esat Digifone Headstart Competition. Their music is available to download from the net at www.mp3.com/streetcrab