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.

This year we are in the somewhat fortunate position of celebrating both Friday 13^th and St. Valentines day in close proximity. Quite how one celebrates Friday 13^th is a slight mystery but were you to combine the two – stick with me here – and create a horror movie fest based around movies that combine the feast days of love, horror and the ways in which they sometimes meet.

Sounds complicated? Luckily we have compiled a shortlist of movies that meet the criteria. If you happen to be part of a couple these movies can be used to get closer on the couch as Jason Vorhees goes after another victim. If you’re single you can choose cynicism to get you through the day, perhaps imagining a fate worse than marriage for the couples fawning outside your window…

1: My Bloody Valentine

This is the original My Bloody Valentine released in 1981. Quentin Tarantino called this his favourite horror movie of all time and it’s easy to see why. The movie has everything you could ask for in a Valentines Day horror movie. Young people go against the advice of their elders and stage a Valentines Day dance, strictly verboten by the resident psychopath who, 10 years earlier, killed two men at the same dance and ordered that the event be canceled indefinitely. The foolish youths meet their maker in this low budget film replete with the glorious amounts of blood and gore that could only be loved by Tarantino. Catch the reimagined 3D version in cinemas now.

2: Valentine

Definitely not the same calibre as My Bloody Valentine, Valentine is a cheesy horror. Though if you’re looking for something that ties in nicely with a celebration of horror and love then this tale of a victim of cruel high school girls exacting his revenge on them in later years in more than apt. Pluses are that it stars David Boreanaz and Katherine Heigl, both rather good looking people. Minuses are pretty much everything else. Watch it tongue-in-cheek style, this is horror-by-numbers but it is a themed horror and works well for the weekend that’s in it.

3: Zombie Honeymoon

A young man and his wife are on honeymoon. One quiet day at the beach a zombie rises from the sea (sea zombies! Who knew?) and vomits blood into the unsuspecting man’s mouth. The man seems fine but soon enough the newly-weds discover that he is, in fact, a zombie! But a rather nice zombie. A zombie who tries not to eat his wife’s friends when they come to visit, only to find his insatiable hunger for human flesh, well, insatiable. The couple remain in love, his slow descent into full blown zombie one of the rockier parts of their first year together.

If that is not a lesson to the couples of today to stick it out through thick and thin then what, we can only ask, what is?

4: My Boyfriend’s Back

My Boyfriend's Back Poster

More zombies, but this time with heart and a little humour. If the thoughts of watching the vengeful miner in My Bloody Valentine work his way through an entire village are not to your liking then a movie like My Boyfriend’s Back is for you. Johnny Dingle, the boyfriend of the title, dies before he can go on a date with the object of his affection Missy McCloud. In order to make the fateful date happen Johnny comes back as a zombie and finds Missy waiting for him, ready to stick by his side through the slings and arrows of being a zombie in a small town. It’s touching and horrific, what more could you want from a Valentine’s night in?

5: Friday the 13^th (2009)

There is no direct Valentine’s Day tie-in with this movie but, as horrors go, this is definitely one to break the first date ice or, if you’re with that special someone, allow you to hide in his/her shoulder during the particularly disturbingly bloody parts. Based on the 1980 movie of the same name this sequel brings back the infamously disturbed and disturbing Jason Vorhees to the big screen. As with My Bloody Valentine this tale of foolish youths revisiting the scene of a bloody crime to dance and drink and screw is rife with violence and ye olde ‘leave right now you pack of idiots can’t you see you’re going to die’ plotlines. All in all a cautionary tale for you Valentine’s Day lovers.

This article first appeared on www.Movies.ie

]]> http://yrcgoespop.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/friday-13th-v-valentines-day-a-movie-guide/feed/ 0 Ciara boy http://yrcgoespop.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/i-know-the-human-being-and-fish-can-coexist-peacefully/ http://yrcgoespop.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/i-know-the-human-being-and-fish-can-coexist-peacefully/#comments Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:29:04 +0000 Ciara http://yrcgoespop.wordpress.com/?p=73 ]]> 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’s Bushisms random generator.

Obama will never be this much fun.

‘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.

Waiting To Explode

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.

In conversation with fellow media types in recent weeks, we inevitably get round to our best of 2008 lists. It comes to my turn and I say Dan Deacon at Electric Picnic was my gig of the year and people ask why. My response is a pitiful series of ooohs and aaahs and exclamatory swearing because that’s the only way I can get even close to describing that awesome hour of organised chaos in a tent.

With his whimsical, exhilarating electro-pop tunes, Deacon had the Little Big Tent jumping, swaying, moshing like a thousand 10-year-old kids in a bouncy castle.

From the riotous ‘The Crystal Cat’ to the joyful twee anthem-cum-crowd freakout ‘Wham City’, the set harnessed people’s energy and sense of humour and gave them back an amazing communal experience.

I think that communal experience was key to my enjoyment of it. Having belted my way over to the Little Big Tent straight after Elbow, I was trying to calm my expectations after Guy Garvey’s own fist-pumping finale ‘One Day Like This’. Deacon offered more of the same fist pumping but also a closeness and intensity that you won’t find at an Elbow gig.

He organised human whirlpools and tunnels that were supposed to suck everybody in eventually but didn’t quite work because of the tight space and intoxicated crowd. But for those of us who did get sucked in and danced our way “sassy as fuck” (as Deacon put it) down the tunnel of hands, there was a feeling of having had a crazy, sweaty, dangerous yet joyful shared experience. When the gig’s climax ‘Wham City’ finally faded out, I just stood there with my hands on my head, exclaiming ‘Holy fuck! Holy fuck!’ and then high-fived some equally ecstatic strangers.

I realise the moshing is not to everyone’s tastes and quite a few people left the tent after the first crowd surge at the start. Once or twice I had to grab the person in front to avoid falling over but, for me, the hint of danger added to the experience. Probably not a good way to get one’s kicks…

‘Silence Like the Wind Overtakes Me’ is a ridiculous yet sublime harmony that probably best distills the experience of a Dan Deacon gig. There’s a handful of videos of his Picnic set floating around Youtube. But this one from Pitchfork 2007 really captures the feeling.

Back to December 2008 and Deacon begins his new tour with a 15-member ensemble at Brooklyn’s Masonic Temple. Playing material from his forthcoming Bromst album (March 2009), pre-publicity said to expect something different and, by all accounts, it was different. The NY Times review said the crowd didn’t know how to react:

That made some people impatient; they had come to dance and get silly, not to experience Minimalist meditations. When one piece lingered over sustained tones, the crowd started clapping a double-time dance beat.

It seems Deacon has gone minimalist, with much of the new material a homage to American composer Steve Reich (Deacon has a master’s degree in electro-acoustic composition). The set was half from his iPod down on the floor and half from the ensemble up on stage. Apparently the new songs were “mercurial, exhilarating structures with angular, leaping vocal lines from David Longstreth (Dirty Projectors), cooing female vocal harmonies and pointillistic guitar patterns.”

However, there was some of the usual crowd participation: audience members placed hands on neighbours’ heads – a “healing ritual of sorts”. And Deacon’s humorous rants still feature. (After technical glitches: “Well, this so far is a nightmare. Let’s see if we can take over the nightmare, and have sex with the nightmare.”)

The sound quality is poor on the videos that have emerged so far but below is an example of what he’s up to.

I don’t want to make my mind up about Bromst until I hear it. But maybe we won’t be witnessing Deacon’s electro-pop tour de forces for a while. I was looking forward to another one but who’s to say his new, more minimalist set won’t be just as good, if a little more demanding.

Dubya gets the ultimate insult thrown his way in Iraq today.

They bite their thumbs, sir.

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.

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.

‘You Know Me Better’

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.

Oh me, oh my.

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?