Did you know that 30% of murders in February happen on the 14th? Were you aware of the rather high incidence of death by long stemmed rose in and around mid February? You weren’t?
That could possibly be because they’re made up, imagined and completely not true. We think.
There’s always been something not quite right about the feast of St Valentine. Perhaps it’s the forced shows of emotion, the sense of desolation when you find yourself single and wandering a supermarket aisle where everything is pink, fluffy and made of chocolate. It really is a ripe time for people to edge ever closer to the dark side of crazy. Continue reading →
Before he leaves and we never hear from him again – I can’t see him making a fortune alá Clinton on the lecture circuit – amuse yourself with the Guardian’sBushisms random generator.
While on Christmas sojourn in my homeland of the midlands I saw a new act you may want to check out the next time you see one of their posters near your local musical establishment.
‘Waiting to Explode Vs Marty Mulligan’ is a pretty cumbersome moniker. Roll off the tongue it does not. ‘Waiting to Explode‘ are a Mullingar-based foursome who have been gigging sporadically around Ireland for a few years. Their influences are varied, you could spends days drawing comparisons with bands like Mogwai, the Redneck Manifesto, At the Drive In and Explosions in the Sky. Though two of the band’s members, Paul Feery and Tommy Moore, contribute vocals when playing live and in studio I happen to think they have only now found their voice in the guise of super slam poet Marty Mulligan [from Mullingar!].
Mulligan is a poet, resident in Galway, originally from Mullingar, responsible for organizing slam poetry nights in places like the Roisín Dubh in Galway and curating events in the Leviathan tent at Electric Picnic. It was at last summer’s Picnic that Waiting to Explode and Mulligan first got together to write and perform music to poetry.
Though I, sadly, missed the Picnic shows I caught a shorter set from the group on Saturday 27th December in the Stables. The combination of Mulligan’s vocals, poetry and his rather unique onstage persona – imagine Zach de La Rocha impersonating Elvis in a sharp suit and you’re almost there – with the powerful blend of bass-driven funk-rock was enthralling. Their set was pretty short as they were supporting another act but the impact it left on me was not lessened by its brevity.
There is something happening in the backwaters of Mullingar, quite where this unlikely combination will go is yet to be seen. I recommend you check them out while, and when, you still can.
This post is partly an excuse to write about my favourite gig of the year (and possibly of my life) but also a discussion of what happens when an artist you like starts taking their work to ‘strange new places’.
Dan Deacon is famous for his live shows. He works with all his equipment on a table down on the floor amongst the crowd, with the house lights on for much of the set. He garnered much acclaim for his gigs in Whelan’s and Vicar St in December 2007 and June of this year and, with that in mind, I got Spiderman of the Rings (2007) and marked out the Baltimore man-child as one to see at Electric Picnic in August. He lived up to expectations.
You may not like The Spanner, oxygen.ie’s “satirical” magazine, but you have to admire their chutzpah.
Their weekly mailouts often have the funniest subject lines. Today’s was a gem: “Dodgy pork linked to Donegal Garda station” and my favourite one ever was, from this time last year, something along the lines of “Maddie to Katie [French]: Get off my front page”.
If only the rest of the publication were as funny. It’s no Slate, but it’ll have to do.
I’m not the first to wonder this but hopefully I may be among the last. Last week I was among a few hundred (thousand? what’s the Olympia’s capacity?) worshipping at the altar of Róisín Murphy, her of Moloko fame and solo success. The girl is amazing. She is a walking ode to showmanship, everything most artists – especially those specialising in pop - should strain to be. Thing is, they probably wouldn’t succeed.
Murphy storms the stage wearing a massive feathered coat. Regardless of how ridiculously fabulous her clothing is, it never wears her. Her performance is mesmerizing, her dedication to her cause unquestionable. She is a female Brian Ferry during ‘Slave to Love’, she is a blend of all that made Madonna, Kate Bush, Michael Jackson, Prince and a handful of others so famous, all the while remaining Roisin Murphy, part Irish girl, part girl next door.
It could be her lack of a Lily Allen-style need to overshare. Allen was her usual confessional self in the Observer Music Monthly at the weekend; “I’ve had a couple of times,’ she says, ‘when I’ve got to know someone over a few weeks and we’ve had a really great time here, just watching TV and shagging.” Murphy doesn’t share like this, ever. It doesn’t seem to be in her nature to. And while this is not a judgement cast on Allen it is an indicator of what a person must do to become part of the super-famous.
Murphy plays the fame game to an extent. ‘Slave to Love’ features on an ad for Gucci pour homme featuring James Franco. (ad here, song here) She is pictured at fashion week in New York and London, she goes to parties with fabulous folk and is photographed for Vogue. For all intensive purposes she is a celebrity par excellence. Excepting her disregard for the rite of passage also known as a public meltdown: Britney, Lily, Amy..the list goes on.
It is a sad state of affairs when someone as talented as Murphy is confined to Dolans in Limerick and, to an extent, the Olympia. Here’s to hoping her star is in the ascendant, not just to the level of the other stars but far, far beyond that they have achieved. It would be a triumph of talent over all that is dreary and dull in the pop world.
If you were intrigued by Joe Dolan mania in Mullingar and what this says about the midlands and the towns therein then you may be interested in scooting on over to Yellow Roman Candles for Eoin’s discussion on his own home county’s trials and tribulations.
This weekend was Joe Dolan Celebration weekend in Mullingar, Westmeath. Yes, it is hard to believe almost a year has passed since the untimely departure of, and I quote our esteemed Taoiseach here, a performer who “left the country and whole world a lasting musical legacy”.
What would Joe think? A life-size bronze statue? A Joe Dolan-special pizza in the chip shop beside his recording studio? Half-off boxes of poppers in the local head shop?
It’s easy to mock. Oh, so deliciously easy. Yet there remains the question of what kind of society, or community, immortalises a nationally famous popstar in bronze in the town square, dedicates a weekend to that person and, in the accompanying literature, asks that visitors wait around and enjoy the retail and leisure oppurtunities Mullingar has to offer, essentially using the deceased to generate business? When did the citizens of Mullingar sign up to be Graceland’s inferior twin?
Indeed it is the age of the celebrity. An age when singing about heroic deeds immortalises you as the hero and not the other way around.
I would’ve liked to go home for the weekend and gauge the reaction at street level. Apparently the town was “mental”, the streets were all pedestrianised and every flag was flying. In dark times – le recession of course – people cling to anything of light they can get their hands on. Perhaps Joe’s weekend of fun will lift the spirits of the Mullingar massive in the dark days of winter.
Walking through town on Friday I passed a member of the Dolan family. Looking at the collages in the windows, the old record collections on display and the posters adorning each wall, his companion said “I was just thinking how much he would enjoy this, how much he would love to be here”. And, I guess, for all of my cynicism I got my answer there and then.
Tonight on the nine o’clock news RTÉ ran an item about celebrations at Queens University, Belfast. Seamus Heaney recieved a Lifetime Achievement Award during the University’s Centenary Charter Day celebration.
Beginning his report over images of fireworks exploding above the gothic facade of Queens Tommy Gorman said, “loud bangs in south Belfast tonight, but legal ones”.
Oh Mr. Gorman. Must we really keep reminding the public what the North is really famous for? Hmm?
