Jools Holland 's 34th season of Later kicked off on the BBC last week. I've been tuning into this show for years now and I've often seen lots of my favourites on it, as well as acts that would become favourites. The show features a half dozen different performers who play between one and three songs depending on the level of fame they have achieved. There is always a diverse range of musical styles on offer and, while I'm not into everyone that appears on the show, I always enjoy the live songs and occasional chats between the [...]
Easter has arrived again and tomorrow is Good Friday, also known as Great Friday or Black Friday. From midnight tonight until just before lunchtime on Saturday the sale of alcohol in public houses, supermarkets and off licences is not pernitted in the Republic of Ireland. Apparently, it will be possible to buy drinks on trains and at train stations with a bar, although you will need to produce a valid rail ticket as proof of travel. A small price to pay, surely. Not only that, but most supermarkets and off licenses will be extremely busy tonight as people stock up [...]
Cover Lay Down is one of my favourite blogs and I've been following it since its inception in 2007. It's a music blog and each song on the site is a cover version. In addition, all the songs featured are either covers of folk artists or folk versions of songs by non-folk performers. Last weekend, the band chosen for coverage was REM , the Athens, Georgia outfit who have been performing for nearly three decades now. The post features ten covers of REM songs plus three tracks covered by REM. You should definitely check out the [...]
A person who never fails to put a smile on my face celebrates a significant milestone tomorrow. I'd like to wish a happy fifth birthday to my nephew, Seán. I'm sure he'll have a great day with his brother, Patrick, and I hope he'll share some of his presents with his younger brother. So, I'd like to share a couple of songs with my two nephews. The first song is for the birthday boy and is a version of Altered Images' Happy Birthday. It contains a sample of Marilyn Monroe singing birthday greetings to JFK in anticipation of his 45th [...]
It's been an eventful week for the Rangers pair, Barry Ferguson and Allan McGregor. Last weekend, the two players were suspended from the Scottish team after they had been caught trying to summon up a bit of Dutch courage following their defeat by Holland the night before. Rather than taking their punishment like men the feckin' eejits decided to act like a couple of schoolboys. As the cameras focused on them during Scotland's subsequent match against Iceland, the two boys decided to give them the two-fingered salute . As a result the Scottish FA banned [...]
Nighttime Limerick - A place rarely visited by Irish Times music journalists Every Friday afternoon I buy a copy of The Irish Times and sometimes, if I'm up earlier, I buy it around midday. I used to buy it more often but at nearly €2 a pop I don't think it's such good value anymore. I buy it on a Friday because of its weekly supplement, The Ticket . It provides me with reviews, interviews and articles about music, bands, films and filmmakers that come from (or are coming to) Ireland. I read [...]
"Tell me, Mr Obama, what compression rate did you use?" Baracka Obama is in Europe this week and one of his engagements was an audience with the Queen of England. To mark the ocassion, the US President presented the British monarch with a shiny new iPod. He also filled the player with videos of her 2007 visit to the US as well as mp3s of forty Broadway show tunes. Much of the comment concerning the gift has focused on its appropriatness, the legality of the mp3s, and alternative suggestions as to what tunes he should have [...]
Last night I got home from work just in time to see a show called Queens of British Pop (BBC One 11.30pm). The show looked at the careers and music of six female singers who started out in the 60s and 70s. I was familiar with all the singers and some of their music, but a lot of it was new to me. The programme gave equal time to each singer and included footage of them performing as well as informative interviews with the five who are still alive. There's going to be a second part and I [...]
Who's that with Lorenzo? February 15th, 2009. Rome. Italy. There's still a lot of love in the air from the night before and most of it is directed at the Irish rugby team. They've just gained a comfortable victory over Italy that will set them up nicely for their eventual Grand Slam triumph. Fast forward to the first of April. The Irish football team travels to Bari as they attempt to consolidate their second place in World Cup 2010 qualification Group Eight. The score won't be quite as high tonight and this time it's the [...]
Image from I Have Grave News I often like to watch TV3 News for the laugh. While watching it tonight, I nearly fell off my chair. At first I thought it might be an April Fools joke, but it's still only March 31st. Apparently, this dude is the spokesperson for taxi drivers in Cork. It turns out that they're refusing to allow non-nationals to join their union. Mr Coughlan agreed that this was the case and it was because their constitution only allows drivers from Cork to join! This [...]
Today's the last day of March and this is always a sure sign that April Fools Day isn't too far away. It is a day beloved of practical jokers and hopefully, because of the current economic climate, tomorrow will be no different. We've already had a bit of practice in Ireland in recent weeks, but not everyone joined in the fun. My own reaction to the incident has changed somewhat since I posted it, and can be read in the responses at the end of that post. But, how did the first [...]
If I ever had to go to that hypothetical island and I could only take one album, one book, and one film, I have a fair idea what they would be. The album I would take would be Biograph by Bob Dylan. It's not my favourite album by him, but it's a three-cd box set that includes around half a century of songs that span the first twenty years of his recording career. I think that if I was on a desert island and I had only a collection of around a dozen songs to listen [...]
The recent controversy surrounding the nude paintings of Brian Cowen has led to quite a bit of discussion in the international media and online. If you want to sample some of this discussion, a comprehensive alphabetical list that links to dozens of online articles can be found at cearta.ie . With April Fools Day approaching, I enjoyed the artist's prank, but was less convinced by the paintings' satirical qualities. Of course, our Taoiseach is not the only international leader who has found himself in such a position. The incident reminded me of the far greater [...]
David Peace 's novel The Damned Utd is one of my favourite novels. The book is a fictionalised account of Brian Clough 's brief tenure as the manager of Leeds United in 1974. We also get flashbacks to his playing days with his hometown club Middlesborough, his early retirement due to injury, and his earlier managerial spells at Hartlepool and Derby. The Brian Clough presented in the book is a fictional version of the man who died in 2004, but Peace researched the book quite well and it was difficult for me not to take [...]
Salvadore Dali 's The Persistence of Memory (1931) Tomorrow is the last Sunday in March which means the beginning of Irish Standard Time , British Summer Time and Daylight Saving Time in most of Europe. Effectively, this means that all clocks in Europe will go forward by one hour at 1.00am on Sunday morning and this will last until October 25th. It's a form of daylight saving time and its purpose is to add an hour of sunlight to the evening and to remove [...]
Last week, Irish thoughts were distracted from the economic recession by the rugby team's Grand Slam success. This week, Irish minds have been occupied by a couple of paintings of Brian Cowen that depict the Taoiseach in a less than flattering light. This "controversy", which will surely be dubbed Cowengate, arose on Monday. RTE News carried a report about the erection of two different portraits of Mr Cowen that mysteriously appeared in two Dublin art galleries earlier that day. Apparently, both had been put up by an individual who simply entered each gallery and nailed the [...]
Last night, I was part of the audience at a wonderful gig that took place at the Olympia in Dublin. The American singer Jackson Browne came on stage to a warm reception just after 8.00pm and, apart from a fifteen minute break, he played until just after 11.00. He was backed by a wonderful band with a tight rhythm section, a no-frills keyboard player, two female backing vocalists, and a versatile and accomplished guitarist. Browne himself is a brilliant frontman and musician and the quality of his singing and his energy throughout was amazing for a guy who turned 60 [...]
This weekend I went back to my roots to the scenic County Limerick village of Galbally to watch the historic rugby victory in the local pub. I managed to get back in time for the game and I even survived for another couple of hours after the match finished. My memory of the rest of the evening is sketchy at best, but I do know I was home and in bed well before Cinderella Time . I was a bit worse for wear the next day and declined my brother's offer to spend another day [...]
The Guardian's 1000 Songs Everyone Must Hear concludes with their selection of party tunes. This time I hadn't heard nearly half of the songs, but I've included five below that I tracked down. The complete list would make a good playlist for any party and would be sure to get people out on the dance floor. I'm a bit late with this post as I've been celebrating the Irish rugby team's victory this weekend Spike Jones was an American musician and bandleader whose band performed parodies of contemporary hits and humorous ditties from the 1930s through the 1950s. [...]
Jackson Browne plays the Olympia in Dublin next week . All going well, I should be going to see him on Tuesday with my friend John. I've seen Browne perform live twice already, but I've yet to see him headline. The first time I saw him was at The Riverbend, Cincinnatti, Ohio, on the eve of my 33rd birthday in 2002. Amazingly, he was supporting Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. Both acts were brilliant and it was one of the best concerts I've ever seen outside Ireland. And, if I remember correctly, the tickets only cost about [...]
A Town Full of Losers
Avicii – Two Million
Yellow Magic Orchestra edit from Chrome Canyon
Beck – I Just Started Hating Some People Today
H&M Lookbook Mujer y Hombre Otoño 2012.
