This spellingbindly pure performance from Joni Mitchell never fails to inspire. As a sixties girl, she was unrivalled when it came to writing songs about politics and for capturing the mood of beatnik folkies at a time of great promise and happiness (wars and political drama aside). Her unique guitar style is something that made everything she composed as fresh as the hippy daisies she probably wore in her hair.
Enjoy the video below of her performance on the Johnny Cash show in 1969.
1. Facebook. Bebo for those what can write good, innit. 2. The Apprentice. More fun than seeing someone have their bank card swallowed by an ATM. 3. Fianna Fáil. 27.5% of the country can't be wrong, right? 4. Gavin Sheridan. Okay, not Gavin, but his blog! The grandaddy of Irish blogging is back. 5. Cheating cheatahs. What's next, lions that can't tell the truth?
What's not:
1. Big Brother. Staler than four month old bread. 2. The weather. And apparently, the wet spell at the weekend drove people online. 3. Irish property prices. Sell, sell, sell. 4. CD WOW. They are being ordered to pay £41m for selling cheap imported CDs. What I want to know is, who buys CDs anymore? 5. Wifi. Did nobody bother to check that this technology could cause you to grow an extra ear?
These lists are too easy and it's very lazy. But the Sindo might like my writing. Any chance of a job there Aengus, or is it still a family affair?
That poor excuse for toiletpaper, and especially Eoghan Harris, has been credited with saving Bertie Ahern's bacon for coming out and telling us all how naughty the bulk of the Irish media were for asking the hard questions.
Listen here as Eoghan Harris once again demonstrates how he and his employer are simply not willing to engage in serious political discourse.
Whether the polls got it famously wrong or that the public changed their minds mid-stream is of little significance now. Let their voice be heard loud and clear. On Thursday, Irish voters said it was okay to be a little bit corrupt, said it was okay to have to put up with declining quality of life standards and said that change was unwanted and unnecessary. What they couldn't write on the ballot paper was that their real first preference is for economic prosperity to continue. In short, they got the heeby-jeebies.
Let's look at the detritus as it lies strewn across the Irish political landscape. The only real socialist, Joe Higgins, joins a long, sorry list of independents, PDs and Sinn Féiners to lose out to the big two.
An interesting point to note is that in this age of environmental goodwill, the Green Party has failed to match this trendy public sentiment with an increase of support. Fianna Fáil might do well to add this ready-made package to their own without sacrificing too much in terms of cabinet assignments.
While Bertie Ahern can deservedly bask in FF's clinical vote getting and distribution success, he has his work cut-out to maintain support in face of what appears to be an economy in decline. It is simply not realistic to hope that the flagging construction industry will not have too much of an impact on all other areas of the economy. Tradesmen who have made vast amounts of money from a booming property market are now finding lucrative work in short supply. This is particularly true for rural Ireland. Oversaturation of new houses has seriously reduced the demand levels we have seen in the past 10 years. What is to become of these people who have no easily-transferable skills to put to use in other areas of industry? The dole queues will be supported by the wages of young middle-class Ireland who failed to reap the same monetary rewards afforded to carpenters, bricklayers and roofers. Admittedly, this doomsday prediction might happen no matter who got elected this weekend. But when was preparation for this ever mentioned in the past two electoral terms?
All of the failings and disappointments of this government have been ignored by the electorate. The scandals, the dereliction of duty to provide adequate healthcare, the failure to put in place any immigration policies have all been ignored in favour of maintaining the status quo. Are the countless Tribunals now a waste of money? Does Bertie Ahern and Fianna Fáil have carte blanche to act as they wish without fear of being held accountable? Will the notion of standards of conduct in public life now be considered as nice-to-have but not essential? Time, and Fianna Fáil's upcoming term in government, will tell.
** Political persuasions and opinions aside, In Fact, Ah would like to congratulate Michael Kitt on his topping the poll in Galway East. Who says there's no such thing as an honest Fianna Fáil politician?
If you didn't catch Jonathan Ross last weekend here's an edited down version of his interview with Janice Dickinson. Don't you just want to punch her really hard in her perfectly sculpted nose? Unless of course you are Liam Neeson.
Many jokes were made about the number of beards being stroked at the recent All Tomorrow's Parties festival in Minehead. Ordinarily, this many older men being present in a Butlin's holiday camp would have every parent scampering. Even The Go Team! tried to address this reserved behaviour, not usually seen at music festivals up and down the UK.
All of that aside, this new model of music festival staging was appreciated by them all, bands and appreciators alike. What's not to like about having a bed to sleep in when cold smelly tents are the norm? It's a dream for fans to be able to half curate the line-up.
Luckily, our chalet was located a mere two minutes from the stages, with us having many of the performing artists as neighbours. On Saturday, Daniel Johnston emerged from his chalet to perform an impromptu song from his stairwell for a handful of us festival goers.
Lowlights: - Architecture in Helsinki. A mess of a performance. - The food. Everything was fried. - The sound at the Pavilion Stage. As one observer put it, it was like listening to and watching bands play in a mall. - Daniel Johnston's opening set. For a talented songwriter, the man can't play guitar very well and admits to the fact by sayingn that he's practicing very hard to become better. - The decibel level for The Annuals' performance. Painful on the eardrums. - The queue to see Battles.
Highlights: - Daniel Johnston playing outside our chalet. - The Go Team!. A lot of fun. - Band of Horses. Sublime. - The Two Gallants. Probably the highlight. - Apples in Stereo. Teenage rock played by 40 year olds. - Yo La Tengo. Eclectic to say the least.
Let's just get on with it already. It was last December when I first posted about the upcoming All Tomorrow's Parties festival. Highlights now include Modest Mouse, Sparklehorse, Daniel Johnston, Patti Smith, The Go Team, Echo and the Bunnymen, Yo La Tengo, Battles and of course, Band of Horses. Phew. The situation/event demands military precision and a highlighter pen if one is to see the main draws.
The operation took a knock, or rather our driver did when he was thrown from his bike on Holloway Road last week, smashing his collarbone in the process. Not to fear. The old man-like contingency is to take the train to the fantastically kitsch Butlin's holiday park in Minehead, Somerset.
The proliferation of smaller festivals in the past few years is testament to the diversity and hunger for music that will never get a mention during prime time radio or TV. That said, who could have guessed that MCD would organise a stellar line-up for Oxegen in 2007, especially considering the allegations that surfaced last year? Paul and El Commandant P are tackling Primavera the week after, so expect a full debriefing from Barcelona.
Here's something to whet the appetite for all Patti Smith fans ...
Any readers out there ever bury a time capsule as a child? I did once, I remember preparing it. Unfortunately, already I'm dubious about under which extension or new patio or other minor development of one of my childhood homes it is under. Ah well.
I'm sure some of you may have done this as a child, but an altogether rarer occurrence I imagine is finding a time capsule planted many moons ago. The film Amélie was beautifully crafted around such a discovery.
Something I stumbled across yesterday gave me a feeling which I can only imagine is similar to how Amélie felt upon finding that box of bits and bobs which someone held dear many years in the past.
Via the essential blentwell.com I found hometaping.org has posted a previously uncirculated recording of a 1998 Daft Punk DJ set at legendary New York club Twilo. Twilo shut its doors for the last time in 2001 having been hounded by Rudy Guiliani and city authorities. Its place in the NY music scene's history books seems to grow ever closer to the seminal Studio 54 ever since.
Apparently Daft Punk's less celebrated but equally important compatriots Cassius were spreading the gospel of French Electro-House on that night in Twilo also. Quite a tidy line-up for a night's dancing! It may be difficult for Europeans to fully appreciate but many American's speak of the broadening of the mass market for European electronic music in the States which Daft Punk's huge success over there ushered in.
So this DJ set for me is something of a record of the zeitgeist of the time in the US and its awakening to modern European electronic and dance music. Coincidently, Audion (28) who plays Dublin tonight and is originally from south Texas spoke of Daft Punk in an interview linked from my post yesterday. He mentioned how Daft Punk's influence on the electronic music scene and market in The States was 'monumental' in the late '90s. It's great to see North American artists contributing so much to cutting edge techno and electronic music's development of late, something which Daft Punk's success over there may have played some small part in, however popular their sound.
Of course, besides all that waffle, the mix is serious fun. I hope Amélie herself in her setting in the late 90s got to dance to some of these sounds from her fellow Parisiens. The quality is great and obviously taken from source. Look out for the still amazing Daft Punk mashup white label involving the Beastie Boy's Intergalactic and Alan Braxe's Vertigo.
Lil Louis' ubiquitous (at the time) ode to the vocalisation of female arousal French Kiss rounds out the mix. As the story goes this track was banned at certain venues which may or may not have taken themselves too seriously!
Enjoy the mix quickly before that server it's on goes down!
Once again, big up to hometaping.org whose writer personally sourced this recording.
Jim Carroll's relatively new blog On The Record gives us a sneak preview to the lineup for this Friday night's Later With Jools. This show's 11.35pm slot explains why freeview recorders were invented. Oh, and he likes Fox's Classics. El Commandant P is diligently studying for exams at the moment but we're hoping for a few more Biscuit Tin installments shortly afterwards.
Richard Whelan died in the early hours of July 29th 2005 only three weeks after one of his friends died during the July 7th bombings. He was stabbed to death while on the 43 bus in Islington, north London. Reading an eye-witness account of events directly after the attack made me swallow hard. Here was a description of a city that, at the time, had lost all hope. The city in this article was one where fear prevented ordinary decent people from becoming extraordinary decent people. Read The Guardian's article at your own leisure.
I've never forgotten this story. Any time I take a bus at night time in Islington, I think of Richard Whelan. I think of the man who refused to give his coat to give comfort to Richard Whelan's dying body.
Today, the Old Bailey heard how the accused, Anthony Leon Joseph, threw chips at Richard Whelan's girlfriend Kerry Barker. Richard Whelan confronted Joseph who responded by stabbing him seven times, once fatally in the heart. CCTV footage of the murderer eerily smirking as he left the bus was shown to the jury.
Before you give up on this city, it is worth pointing out that an article in today's Daily Mail quoted the prosecuting QC saying that "The people there did everything they could for him, but it was all in vain." A correction to The Guardian article now points out that this indeed was the case and that many people tried to help save the victim's life.
I think we've all had the experience while growing up of the multi-disciplinary genius. You know, the person who could mesmerise with a flick of a hurl as easily as he could shoot a 3 point basket. Or the one who'd write an English composition that would make Seamus Heaney salivate and in the next class demolish the maths teacher on the finer intricacies of differential calculus. We all know true talent when we see it, hell most of us probably recognise it in ourselves via one outlet or another.
There has always been something mystical for me about those who excel in multiple spheres of artistic or sporting endeavour, their products and achievements in each seem to re-inforce one another to become something more than the sum of their parts.
One such person is Matthew Dear, aka Audion. Unlike many musical artists with different monikers, Dear does not use his Audion persona as a manner to distance himself from past releases under his birth name. He uses the birth name and the Audion handle as different hats to wear for his different projects. As Matthew Dear he is the charming electro-pop would-be king. His deep mellifluous baritone wonderfully brings to life his ability as a lyricist. His first full length artist album as Matthew Dear, Leave Luck To Heaven was very well received in 2003.
Matthew Dear Interview
Since 2003 (as Audion), Dear has been stomping his way through every techno space of note in Europe and The America's playing live and DJing. He has had many successful techno/minimal releases on various leading dance labels. For many in the electronic music community and press his release in the second half of 2006 of "Mouth To Mouth" was without question the Number 1 dancefloor cut of the year. If you have a look on youtube, you can see almost every minimal/techno DJ worth their salt playing this tune in large cities from San Francisco to Berlin.
I understand completely why there are so many video renditions of Mouth To Mouth on youtube. I heard it, not through headphones, for the first time on the floor of Panoramabar in Berlin at about midday on New Years day this year. The mayhem and pure release it invokes among a crowded dancefloor feels like a loaded moment that simply must be captured. Audion's star could not be much higher in techno circles at the moment and his forthcoming 12" Noiser/Fred's Bells due for release later this month is eagerly awaited in DJ booths around the world.
Back in Matthew Dear land, on the first single (Deserter) from his upcoming (June 6th) sophomore album he intones beautifully on introspective themes, "Been around the world/seen my share of existence/smoked too much/an infidel for commitments." "Just keep on searching/don’t be uncertain/your life will only be just what you wanted from it." Dear's voice is not the only element of this album, titled Asa Breed, which has already seen Ian Curtis oft mentioned in previews of it. Expect to hear an avalanche of hype about this release as the summer progresses, his live shows (with band) in support of the upcoming album are already causing a stir on the intertr0n.
Matthew Dear - Deserter
Despite his multi-faceted talents for fuelling the ultimate in mass dancefloor hedonism as Audion while also massaging the soul and emotions as Matthew Dear, (and maybe unlike that school kid you always used to envy) Dear won't be showing off this Thursday night in Dublin. Tomorrow night (Thur 10th) at Electric City @ Wax it's most definitely only Audion who will be in the house. I just hope everyone on the dancefloor is careful of their head on the low ceiling in there when he drops Mouth To Mouth, things tend to get a just a tad unrestrained-jumpy-up-and-downy. Golden.
Audion plays Mouth To Mouth to a packed Dancefloor in Vancouver's Lotus Club last month.
One thing for certain is that bank holidays weekends never turn out as you plan them. In this microcosmic climate where hosepipe bans extend until the following February, London today decides to thwart barbecues, days out in the park and any general attempt to enjoy the extended weekend by raining. It has been unseasonably warm in the past few weeks, enough to plant seeds of hope for weekends where the weather mimics the sunshine that's available to view from an office desk at 2pm on a Wednesday.
So on a rainy day in London, you could attempt to catch up on some serious reading or you could just watch Heroes. Just ask anyone and they'll tell you that I don't care for watching the goggle box anymore. But this TV show has become the exception to what could be considered a pretentious lifestyle choice. Its primary means of retaining your attention is nothing new. Withholding information and drip feeding plot and character details are methods that Lost, Desperate Housewives and others have mastered. That's where the similarities end; Lost and DL are shit, Heroes is phenomenal. What is there not to like about a show where most characters have special powers? In short, the creators have tapped into long-since buried wells of childhood dreams where we could fly and have x-ray vision.
The only catch is that Heroes can only be found here in the UK on the obscure Sci-Fi channel (available on Channel 6 in Ireland). The Internet is now my TV, one where I don't watch ads and don't have to switch over to satisfy another's desire to watch Pat Butcher and Peggy Mitchell slug it out at the Queen Vic.
Warning: I take no responsibility for the addiction you will suffer by clicking on the Play button below. I'm currently on episode 20. 21 has not been shown in the US yet. Cold turkey doesn't come close to describing this void I feel in my life between 20 and 21. How can two numbers be so close yet so far apart?
At 3pm on Sunday Mark Selby will break off against John Higgins in the final of the 888.com World Snooker Championship final in the Embassy Theatre in Sheffield. A rank outsider for the championship Selby’s from enroute to the final has been nothing short of sensational. Positioned outside the top 16 in the world, Selby has become only the third qualifier in the history of the game to make the final. Shaun Murphy, last night’s beaten semi-finalist, was the first ever qualifier to win the tournament in 1995 and Selby is hoping to emulate his achievement over the next two days.
Seemingly completely unfazed by any challenge or opponent put before him Selby has been ratcheting up the century breaks for fun. 10 of the 63 century breaks in the tournament so far can be attributed to the 23 year old, with 5 alone in his match against former world champion Peter Ebdon equalling the tournament best for a one game total. But last night's amazing 17-16 victory against Shaun Murphy where he was two frames down with three to play will undoubtedly be the highlight of his career so far. Here's hoping he can finish the job and go all the way.
Selby's meteoric rise to becoming a household name reflects the changing nature of the competitive snooker circuit in the last few years. There are now so many young talented players coming through that any qualifier could pop up and win snooker's greatest prize outright. A decade ago snooker fans could safely assume that the tournament decider would invariably come down to two of the top 10 players on the circuit that year. The likelihood of a Stephen Hendry (8 time world champion) or Steve Davis type domination conquering the snooker fraternity again is very unlikely. Any of the top 32 players can beat each other on any given day. It is a testament to the enduring quality of Steve Davis that he is still ranked #15 in the world. However it seems unlikely that players of the Davis, Parrott and to a less extent Hendry era will lift the trophy again.
Unfortunately from an Irish perspective we don't seem to have any new blood coming through to the professional circuit. Perhaps this is due to the lack of snooker halls in urban areas and to a lesser extent pool tables in ninety-nine percent of city pubs around the country. Maybe no one simply thinks of playing it these days. In any case unless our Ken can get back on that horse he fell off of so early in this year's tournament, it's not looking like we'll have another world champion from these shores any time soon.
I heard from now departed elders of my family that we had moved from Offaly some 95 odd years ago. Could it be that I am related to the new star of the Irish wasting-time-online world?
His name is John Bracken and he wants your vote in the upcoming election. Not satisfied to just kiss babies on doorsteps to garner votes, John Bracken goes that extra mile and has recorded a song for the campaign. It remains to be seen if he will adopt the slogan proposed over at Green Ink ... "But, are ye ridin'?"
Ok, ok. It's a slow news day of a different kind, the writers of these parts are elsewhere at the moment. Bank Holiday weekend pending and all. Despite a frenzied In Fact, Ah phone-around, three of us can't do anything substantial to mark today. Today was a great day. One of us is studying for closely looming exams. One of us has an interview to attend to. The most exciting of us has Friday off work and has broken into the bank holiday weekend drinkies already (hey, the sun - it shines!). So I'm just putting this here as a marker.
Vincent Browne, you are a fucking legend. Not just today, but on most days. Today was different only because you were heard Cristal, by a lot of people.
With summertime just around the corner, all the lazy people will be looking for ways of trying to get active without having to exercise to much physical strain. And one of the many healthy options available to them is the new hype activity that is TAG Rugby. It's a mix of both rugby codes, without all the brute force, i.e it's a non-contact sport. A bit like playing darts with a shuttlecock or hurling with a ping pong ball and bat.
TAG Rugby isn't a sport now is it? It's more a social event. It's a glorified kick about or throw about in a field and an excuse for drinks after. Seeing as each official venue has clubhouse facilities or is associated with a nearby pub adds weight to my argument. I'm sure no rugby coach goes in search of new players at an event like this as it fails to teach people many of the basic skills needed for the game along with the rules. As one of my fellow contributors El Commandant P remarked to me recently 'it's a sport for desperate early 30s single types'.
It also seems to be quite a sexist activity - in matches between mixed teams, females tries are worth 3 points while a male's is worth a solitary one. Are we saying women are three times worse than men at this game? Or is the male to female ratio in need of a change in the females favour to help build more relationships at TAG Rugby?
Granted it might be fun for some people but for me, rugby is about great attacking flair by quick and agile players able to fend of tackles in the pursuit of a try, crisply executed plays, the sheer physical force of a defensive tackle, players showing their technical ability and tactical know-how by the half backs. Not a game of tag played by a group of people with one thought on the game and the other on the pub afterwards. Go have your fun, but don't dare call it a sport....hear that El P?
What do Altern-8, Amon Tobin, Atari Teenage Riot, Enduser, Goldie, Orbital, LTJ Bukem, N.W.A., Oasis, The Prodigy, Salt-N-Peppa, Squarepusher and Venetian Snares have in common?
They've all used (i.e. sampled) the Amen Break, a sub six second drum solo which appeared on a B side (Amen, Brother) to a 1969 single by The Winstons named Color Him Father.
Below is a fascinating mini-documentary about the history of the Amen Break and copyright law detailing how one six second drum solo from a 1969 B-side has become ubiquitous in global popular culture almost 40 years later.
