Villagers, and Mick in my Village

Music

I downloaded 'Becoming a jackal' by Villagers and have been listening to it quite a bit this week.  I have heard quite a lot of talk about this band (or rather, this guy, Conor J. O'Brien - see Wikipedia article here) but hadn't heard a specific song I actually identified with them until this week, whern I heard and loved 'That day' on the radio on the way to work.  It was really one of those moments where you almost hold your breath after the song ends, begging the DJ to tell you who it was rather than cutting to an ad break or something equivalently cruel, which at least this time he did not (thanks Ian Dempsey of Today FM!).   The album is very good, and having read some on-line reviews the label of 'the Irish Bright Eyes' seems very fitting, in a very positive way (but not as whingey as the other Conor, i.e., Oberst, can get).  It also reminds me of the melodic theatricality of Duke Special on occasion, and for a one-man act the instrumentation is very good, in particular the drumming/percussion on several tracks.  My pick of the tracks so far include 'Home', 'Ship of promises' and 'Twenty-seven strangers', while 'The pact' is peculiarly 60s-feeling, and the pick is the aforementioned 'That day', the video for which can be seen below:

I also got sent a really nice clip of Josh Ritter and his band getting surprised at an American gig during 'Lantern' by a spot of on-target audience participation, and the looks on the band's faces just says all you need to know about how damn nice and sincere these guys, and their fans, are:

Last week, and previously, I have lamented by inability to get to see The National, despite my quite scary obsession with them and ongoing campaign to bribg their wonderfulness to anyone who will listen.  I have of course looked for clips of them playing at Electric Picnic, but the quality is generally not great (and occasionally depressing, such as clips which seem to show Matt in a state of advanced drunkenness), but I will include a clip of 'Mistaken for strangers' here:

Lastly, but not leastly, I have prevously reviewed here several gigs by Cork hero Mick Flannery (see here and here), and he has been gradually holding gigs closer and closer to my house, clearly in response, and on Friday night he played upstairs in my local pub, The White Horse, a mere 5 mins walk away (the only closer gig was when Mark Eitzel played a solo gig in a pub across the road from where I lived in 1998 or so).  The concert was, as always, far more enjoyable than Mick would have you believe it should be, and I took the opportunity to try the filming capabilities of my new iPhone 4.0, as showcased below for 'California':

Video quality is good, allowing for relatively good indoor light conditions, and I love the ease with which I could upload the clip straight to Youtube from the iPhone.  A clip of 'When I've got a dollar' (not quite the same without the accompaniment of his auntie Yvonne) is below:

That's enough music for now.  I have downloaded new stuff by Mogwai and Interpol, to band I have singularly failed in the past to really get in to (the former through never actually getting their stuff, to be honest) so am going to work on those and report next time.
Other cultural adventures

As I have quite a few videos above, I will keep the rest of this post short and sweet.  I went to see the Cork 'Star Wars invasion' show with my boys (10 and 4) and they thought it was pretty cool; well, to be honest, so did I.  Well put together and packed with enough to keep the many nerds visiting (myself included) happy, with lots of models (no, not that sort, large AT-STs, Y-wings and so on), cool light shows and even some of the actors for photos and chat.  The main draw was obviously Kenny Baker (R2-D2), and it was nice to see the guy who played Boba Fett, and the techie guy who apparently did the voice of General Grevious and others was funny and interesting in on-stage chat, but the other two ex-imperial officers were not exactly Harrison Ford-level novelty.  Anyway, quite well done and worth a look.

On TV, I watched 'The reader', of which it may be faint damnation to say it wasn't as bad as 'The soloist', and I actually found it more watchable and gripping than expected; I think it said something for my level of engagement, however, that I did not actually realise the 'affair' scenes happened after, and not before, the war - I could not work out the chronology, perhaps not surprisingly.    On Kindle, I pre-purchased and was sent 'The fall', which I am just starting (have a few books on the go now) as I really enjoyed 'The strain' (see here) - review to follow.

Tech-wise, I have just got an iPad, of which much more to follow, and my (iPhone) app of the week (and favourite in ages) is called My Artist, and when activated brings up a whole of of information about any artist in your collection, such as Wikipedia articles, Youtube clips and more - excellent for browsing while listening!