Blog: A Town Full of Losers

Once a week, I pop into the city centre and wander around the charity shops. Over the years I've picked up some interesting books and cds that I might have otherwise missed out on. It's also handy when I get stopped on the street by those annoying people who try to get you signed up to their charity organisation. I don't have to feel guilty when I politely refuse by saying, "No, thanks. I already contribute to local charities on a weekly basis." Recently, however, my visits to what the Americans call thrift stores have produced decidedly slim pickings, and [...]

Tonight, BBC4 screens two programmes to commemorate the late John Martyn, who died on January 29th this year at the age of 60. First up at 10.00pm is a 1994 documentary that follows the events surrounding the amputation of one of his legs. It also includes a look back at his career as well as snippets from some of his live performances. The show is followed at 11.00pm by a live performance in London in 1978 I was fortunate enough to see this wonderful singer, songwriter & musician in concert, not once, but twice. On both occasions I [...]

The penultimate day of The Guardian's 1000 Song Everyone Must Hear features songs about life and death. As usual, I hadn't heard over forty of them but, unusually for me, I was only able to track down a handful of these. Bertie by Kate Bush is not a tribute to Ireland's former Taoiseach, but a song for her son. It appears on her double album, Aerial. I like a lot of Ms Bush's earlier stuff, but I've only given this album a few spins, so I missed out on this one. I must check it out again [...]

The Guardian continues its excellent series, 1000 Songs Everyone Must Hear, with protest songs and political songs. Unsurprisingly, the most common themes represented are songs about opposition to war and about race relations. I had not heard over forty of the songs on the list. I managed to track down half of those and here are five that I particularly enjoyed. (What Did I Too to Be So) Black and Blue is Louis Armstrong's version of a song by Fats Waller, whose best known songs were Ain't Misbehavin' and Honeysuckle Rose. Waller's songs were mostly humorous in tone, [...]

When you have love and heartbreak and people and places, sex isn't too far behind. The fourth part of The Guardian's seven-part series, Songs Everyone Should Hear, continues with songs about nocturnal emmisions, horizontal jogging or, if you'd prefer, shagging. All tastes are catered for and I was particularly pleased to see the presence of songs like I Touch Myself, Orgasm Addict and Turning Japanese, which are linked by their do-it-yourself approach to the subject in, er, hand I had never heard over forty of the songs on this list previously, but I've managed to narrow that down [...]

Day three of The Guardian's 1000 Songs Everyone Must Hear concerns tracks dealing with people and places. I hadn't heard three dozen of them, but I've found over twenty of them since. I've included five of those that I particularly enjoyed. As this post concerns songs about people and places, I suppose it's appropriate that I begin with Kentucky by The Louvin Brothers. I lived in North Kentucky for a year, but it was nearer to Southern Ohio, so I didn't get the full effect. I was familiar with country music before going over and I heard some [...]

This St Patrick's Day, Sky One screens a special Irish edition of their animated sitcom, The Simpsons. For the first time, this latest instalment will be premiered in the UK and Ireland before being shown in the USA. The episode, entitled In the Name of the Grandfather, sees Homer and his dad coming to Ireland to run a pub. I'm sure that a few leprechauns will appear as well as cameos from Irish personalities. It seems that animated versions of Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová will turn up and Colm Meaney will voice one of the characters. The [...]

The second part of The Guardian's series, 1000 Songs Everyone Must Hear, continues with songs about heartbreak, the flip-side to its opening topic of songs about love. As I'm far more familiar with the concept of heartbreak than that of love, I was surprised that I hadn't heard over forty of the songs on the list. I managed to find about three dozen of these without too much, er, heartbreak. You can check out five of them below. It was great to see such an unassuming bunch of lads as Elbow walk away with last year's Mercury Music [...]

The Guardian has just begun a series that runs from March 14-20, 2009. It's called 1000 Songs Everyone Must Hear and is divided into seven daily parts, beginning with songs about Love . Most of the usual suspects are present and, while I had heard most of the songs, there were about two dozen that I had to track down and listen to. I've included five of those below. The Chi-Lites hailed from Chicago and are best known for their hit song, Have You Seen Her? The use of the word 'stoned' in song [...]

I watched an interesting documentary about Rough Trade records on BBC 4 last night. Rough Trade is most famous for introducing the wonderful music of The Smiths to the world, but their roster also included such diverse acts as The Raincoats, Scritti Politti and Ivor Cutler. The show featured brief performances by these acts and others, as well as archive and new interviews with many of the label's key players, including label founder Geoff Travis and Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr. Rough Trade began as an independent record store in London just as punk rock hit the scene in [...]

In what has been a disappointing season, my favourite football team, Arsenal, take a slim one goal lead to Rome in tonight's Champions League second leg tie. If we can hold on to that lead we'll be in the hat for the Quarter Final draw UPDATE : Arsenal just about managed to hold on Marianne Faithfull has a new album of cover versions out called Easy Come, Easy Go. One of the songs is a fine stab at Hold On, Hold On by Neko [...]

2009 Good Friday Music Event St Patrick's Day is always full of the festive spirit for Irish people around the world. Even people who have given up the drink for Lent make an exception on this day. Conversely, and even perversley, the beginning of the weekend that signals the end of Lent has traditionally been a "dry" day in Ireland. Good Friday kicks off the Easter weekend as one of only two days, along with Christmas Day, when pubs, off licences and everywhere else that is entitled to sell alcoholic beverages is, well, NOT entitled to [...]

Last month, my friend Fabienne invited me to her housewarming. Not unusual, you might say. But, Fabienne lives in France and I live in Ireland and she didn't think that I'd make the trip. However, Fabienne forgot that I'm Irish and we never refuse a party invitation. A short (and cheap) Ryanair flight later and I was drinking wine and eating cheese at Fabienne's new abode. I got to meet some old friends and make some new ones and to improve my use of the English language. So, with a couple of dozen French men and women, a [...]

John Cale is 67 today. The Welshman was a co-founder of The Velvet Underground with Lou Reed and he played viola, bass and piano on their first two albums. He also contributed a few vocal turns on those records before he and Lou fell out. He went on to make loads of fine solo recordings, among them the title track of his 1973 album, Paris 1919, below. It was also his interpretation of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah on the tribute album, I'm Your Fan, that inspired Jeff Buckley's version and has made the song so ubiquitous since. I've included a live [...]

I've been listening to and reading about music for a couple of decades and I've been trawling through the music blogs for a couple of years now (You can see some of my favourites on the right). I've discovered quite a bit of music in that time. For my first post, I've put together a dozen tracks (plus one) of songs that contain the word "one" in the title. Left-click on the link to bring it up on a new page where you should be able to listen to or download the track. 01 The One [...]