A holiday post from the wild Irish northwest

I am now on holidays in Donegal, in the wild north-west of Ireland, and the next post or two will be a ramble through some of the listening, watching, reading and other stuff you can catch up with on a holiday!

Music

Holiday listening breaks many rules of normal music-listening habits, as perhaps it should, as hitherto less significant influences such as the presence of children much of the time come to bear, combined with a general feeling that slightly more upbeat material is appropriate for mood modification purposes, and an overall sense of experimentalism and the need to break from all routine, including usual musical tastes. 

So, despite my innate urge to rave about the new National live EP (is 8 tracks an EP?) special on iTunes (will save that for next post), I will perservere with some musical selections more suitable to the occasion and location.  Donegal is the north-western corner of Ireland, and is wild, beautiful, undertouristed (in all the best ways) and where I always believe can be found the purest essence of the Ireland people come from abroad to see but fail to find in the more commercial and developed cities and regions further south; this is where you will find pubs in which people play Irish traditional music not because the tourists expect it but because that is how they wish to pass their evenings, and miles of beautiful Atlantic beaches deserted in July.  Donegal is a secret, which deserves to be tactfully shared, but not to the the extent that it could ever become less so.  Unfortunately, it has rained much of the last week, but there has to be some karmic counterbalance for all that beauty and stillness.

People in Donegal believe they are largely ignored by the rest of the country, and perhaps the world, and this may explain a lack of musical references to the area, but I did find two, the first by Irish senior singer-songwriter Paul Brady (although from a much earlier poem) which is most notable and worth sharing for the accompanying images of the area, including in the first shot the very town in which I am staying:



The second of these themed clips is in a somewhat similar (and equally uncharacteristic) vein, and is by the even more senior denizen of the Irish music scene, Christy Moore, and, while it may be called, somewhat unexpectedly in a geographic sense, 'The city of Chicago', features a line much in my head these days which claims that in said American metropolis, 'as the evening shadows fall, there are people dreaming of the hills of Donegal' (a lovely lovely line):

On perhaps slightly more familiar ground, almost all family holidays for the last many years have been uniformly soundtracked by the Waterboys' 'Room to roam'.  On, and since, its release in 1990, this has been almost universally panned as the unbearably twee pinnacle of Mike Scott's infatuation with all things Celtic and traditional, falling chronologically in between his epic windswept early stuff (of which the twin peaks, for me, were 'The whole of the moon' and 'Red army blues') and his more spaced and far less memorable later noodlings ('Glastonbury song' etc).  However, for me, 'Room to roam' is undoubtedly faily lighweight (and what the hell are they doing in fairground waltzers on the cover?) but is beautifully instrumented and has a gorgeous lightness of touch and overall prettiness which is a perfect soundtrack for any meander around the Irish countryside.  It is perhaps not surprisingly under-represented on Youtube; there is no sign of our favourite 'Spring comes to Spiddal' in which the line 'The lights are on in Stanton's' was somewhat spoiled in recent years by the discovery that said establishment is a craft shop and not a noteworthy pub.  However, I did find 'A man is in love' (one of the two great love songs on RTR, the other being 'How long will I love you'), which is just both lyrically and musically sweet (that word again - blame the holidays):

The final two Waterboys clips do not come from RTR, but from its predecessor 'Fisherman's blues' but undoubtedly belonging there in spirit, are the title track (first) and secondly 'The stolen child' (lyrics by WB Yeats!):





Although I will probably still be on holidays for the next post, I will resume normal musical coverage, and even get around to that blatantly 'National'ist rant.

Books

I finished 'The passage' and overall verdict is very positive, even if it ends on a very blatant and slightly too open note to allow what are apparently the next two books in a planned trilogy.  It is also written with a very clear eye to the obvious movie adaptation, which the Internet Movie Database confirms is in production, but yields no secrets on to those mere mortals who do not pay for an IMDB Pro subscription.  Interestingly, there are a whole pile of films with the same name already!

I have also started the book shown on the left, a new history of the battle of the Little Big Horn at which General Custer took on far more Indians than expected and came off the worse for wear.  As a young lad, I had quite an unhealthy interest in gory military history and have found it quite interesting to read proper histories of such battles as I heard of then (this one, Waterloo, Rorkes Drift and others) and learn the actual story.  This book is highly accessible and well written and avoids heavy military detail (as turned me off John Keegan's recent history of the American Civil War), and so I am enjoying it a lot.  However, it is a very tough battle (pun only slightly intended) against my parallel reading of Bill Bryson's 'At home', which I am absolutely loving, and will talk more about in the next post or two. 

Movies

Spent quite a bit of time immersed in B-movie science fiction heaven, starting with 'Predators', which I saw in the cinema and did enjoy quite a bit; yes it is very reminiscent of the original, but I found the characters interesting (if as deep as a Donegal puddle, and are they the predeators too?) and the action enough to keep me awake.  It did not quite do what 'Aliens' did for 'Alien', proving that just adding an 's' will not a superior sequel make (note, they did not do 'Godfathers', and 'Avatars' is not in development, at least according to IMDB); isn't it lucky there was not a movie called 'Sheep' which needed a sequel, as the creators would surely have been stumpted (and perhaps fleeced)?   I remember reading in The Irish Times last year that there was plans for a movie called 'Pride and predators', and the IMDB (again) suggests it is in development (here) - now that will be the next sequel to anticipate eagerly.  Also, on TV, saw 'Galaxy quest' again (very funny and well done) and found 'Lesbian vampire killers' about as much fun as the title would suggest and far more fun than the title would lead you to expect. 

On a slightly higher plane (no, not an in-flight movie, a DVD), I really really liked '(500 days of) Summer'.  Even if Joseph Gordon Leavitt does come across like a spare Heath Ledger grown in a lab to replace that tragically and prematurely large hole in movies.  It also gives him a sister who serves pretty much an identical function to the main character's sister in the wonderful wonderful 'Gregory's girl', but I liked many thinga about it which perhaps on a different day (i.e., not on holidays) might have annoyed me. I liked the time jumps, the titling, and even the split screen, brilliantly used in the scene where expectation of a particular event is contrasted with reality; I even coped with the song and dance routine, the blatant use of music like the Smiths to lend 'cool' (as in the clip below) and roared laughing at the scene where she tells him her nickname in College.  He seemed identifiably confused and real to me, but really, after it was all over, wasn't she just a bitch?



In a busy movie week or so I also saw 'Young Victoria' which impressed far more than I expected, although a week later I can remember very little bar a general positivity, which can't be a good sign.  I also watched 'The damned united' which made me initially think I could become interested in 1970's English football, against a lifetime of evidence, but then I fell asleep after a while so.....

Finally, I also got to see Toy Story 3 at second attempt (sold out on a howlingly wet day first time around) but will review that next post as this one is getting overlong as it is!

Other stuff

While in Donegal, I went along to something called the MacGill summer school, where various Irish politicians, academics, journalists and intellectuals of various levels of credential assemble for a week in a hall in a small town called Glenties to give and listen to a series of talks about various aspects of the state of trhe country (i.e., moan about, analyse and perhaps suggest how to escape our current wretched state).  I attended talks by historian Joe Lee and Peter Sutherland (whose career it is not possible to capture in a single descriptor) on education, and felt very aware that I was 20 years younger, significantly scruffier, and far less wealthy than the rest of the audience.  However, I still think there is something pretty cool about the fact that anyone can pay a fiver and wander off the street to have access to speakers including many of the current cabinet and ask them questions openly, which is somehow a good sign for a democracy, even one as bust as ours.

Finally, the iPad has been released and I am pretty sure I have talked myself into purchasing one when I get back to Cork; hard to find a clip to fit the moment, but Elvis Costello's wonderful 'Pads, paws and claws' keeps popping into my head when I think about it, so will stick that in instead:



Oh, and I thought this photo millimicronanoseconds from a crash at a Canadian airshow made my jaw drop alarming and rather dangerously (and more can be seen here):

That is more than enough for now, but needless to say lots carrying forward for the next post, including perhaps the final Irish release of the iPhone 4.0 (so many Apple products, so little time)! Click Here to Read More..

Art for pop's sake

This is going to be an unusual post, to say the least, focussing on a single topic, an exhibition at the lovely Glucksman Gallery in Cork which explores the relationship betwen pop music and art, and hence was of great interest to me beyond that which an average art exhibition tends to stir (although I have previously spoken of some finer forms of art here).  Anyway, somehow it didn't seem appropriate to mix such culture with, for example, a review of 'Predators', which will have to wait for the next post, so I will stick to the single topic for now.

I guess I haven't thougtht too much previously about art and music, although certain album sleeves always to me showed an artistic sensibility, for example the classic covers Peter Saville designed for Joy Division's 'Closer' (what a gorgeous sepulchral image) and 'Unknown pleasures' (apparently a graphic representation of a radio-astronomy capture of the sound from a supernova - how bloody cool is that?), as shown below.  While in university in Dublin, I had a huge poster on my bedroom wall for their 'Love will tear us apart', very much in the spirit of 'Closer' (as shown on the left), just to keep me cheerful!

 Around the same era, I also always had a fondness for the sleeve of 'A broken frame' by Depeche Mode, which I posted about previously here.  In more recent years, as albums gave way to CDs and thence to downloads, the art aspect progressively shrunk and had to work harder to grab one's attention, but ones which grabbed my attention included Tindersticks (the first abum) by Tindersticks the band (which I wrote about here) and selected others like 'A rush of blood to the head' by Coldplay (perhaps their finest moment, the graphic art not the music) and 'High violet' by the National (of course I am biased towards this album, as shown here, but it is a very cool and modern image on the cover):

Anyway, this brings me somewhat circuitously to the exhibition which this post is meant to be about the exhibition, called 'Mixtapes' in Cork's Glucksman Gallery (whose website is here). 

The Glucksman is a beautifully sited building in the leafy lower grounds of University College Cork, built on the footprint of two old tennis courts which it was apparently designed to fit within, leading to it having a somewhat tree-like appearance (in perfect harmony with its surroundings), with a slender base blossoming above to a curved wooden block housing two floors of gallery.

In November 2009, a catastrophic flood ensued from the release of a huge volume of water from a dam around 10 miles from the Gallery, and the river which flowed through the University grounds, right beside the Gallery, briefly but dramatically turned into a torrent carrying the apparent volume of the Mississippi for a few midnight hours.  While the shape of the gallery meant that the current collections were held high out of the waters, the basement, housing the art collection store and restaurant were, like many other university buildings, filled with dank destructive water.  It has been a long road back for all affected buildings, but thankfully the gallery is in business and well worth a visit.

The exhibition called 'Mixtapes' (see programme here) runs from June to October, and I visited one quiet Sunday afternoon, and with my son got a personalised curatorial tour from one of the gallery staff.

The entrance to the gallery leads directly onto a concrete and metal stairway which is in perhaps deliberate stark architectural contrast to the bright light and pale wood of the upper floors, and the first sight at the top of the stairs is a Marc Bijl piece called 'Teenage kicks', about which there is an article here.  This is a very visually arresting opening, with a black-painted drum kit adorned with roses and a fake human skull and the backdrop painted with the fairly cliched rock'n'roll slogan seen below (leaving unsaid the code about leaving a good looking corpse).  It is a nice piece, the drum kit (from which the sticks had to be hidden, apparently, to avoid life beating art too loudly), dramatic, and an interesting approach to rock sculpture, like the 'tomb of the unknown Spinal Tap drummer' (bizarre gardening accident suggested by the roses? spontaneous combustion suggested by the coating of carbonised ash? did that skull look like it choked on someone else's vomit?).  Anyway, art is supposed to be for the viewer to interpret, and I may have got a tad carried away that time, but I liked the drama and unsubtelty of it, just as rock should be.

I was less entusiastic about the glittery turntables next to the drum kit.  The first floor is also dominated by a very odd assemblage of wood and mirrors into which one can wander, with speakers and video clips capturing the sounds of the start of a gig or soundcheck, which is, uhm, interesting and certainly different, and apparently designed especially for the exhibition.  There are also a very cool set of stylsed shots of Robbie Williams fans before a gig, in which the photos have been digitally dissembled until they look like pointillistic or charcoal shots, and lose their identity, which is apparently the idea (loss of identity compounded by their own wearing football tops) and I think works pretty well.

On the stairs to the upper level one encounters Alejandro Cesarco's 'Ramones: an autobiography' (artists homepage here), which is a set list of Ramones songs all beginning with the word 'I', building a sort of life story like a list of things teenagers might say, and which is pretty cool.

The image below presents a panorama of the upper floor, including in the middle distance on the left a large black ball hanging in a grotesque parody of a disco ball (looking more like Spinal Tap - again - meets the Death Star), and which I also thought was an interesting piece.  In the middle against the wall is one of two pieces which are Husker Du singles presented in display cases like artefacts in a museum - music to be preserved and studied.  Considering the acres of paper which have been written about modern music (even that of Husker Du) much music is very much a subject of scholarly attention, and thus this makes sense.  Maybe in 500 years a future museum on Phobos will feature actual Husker Du records and accompanying interprative babble about what they might represent.....

The Metal Ball is by Baldvin Ringsted and there is an article about it here.  On the right of the photo is a second set of photos of fans pretending to be rock stars, the first appearing on the first floor and being from the 70s, while the ones upstairs feature the same subjects 30 years later, older but certainly no wiser.

The final two pieces I really liked were by the same artist, Anne Collier, and were (from the top) 'Crying' (apparently an image of Ingrid Bergman) and 'Anything you want' (the darker one with the single eye).  Both take a pile of record sleeves as their central motif, in the upper one against a simple backdrop of black and white, and in the second an eye on the front cover stares from encroaching blatant blackness, as if through a keyhole from another dimension.  I think these are really simple yet dramatic pictures, and the classic pride and power of the stack of albums deserves monuments such as these to remind those who now now only the iTunes library where these stacks would once have leaned against their walls.  Its a bit of an old recherche of times perdu, as it were.

One last mention must go to the admirably daft piece by Merdeyth Sparks 'History' (see article on her here and here), which I left the gallery with a piece of.  No, I did not steal it, but it consisted of two piles of paper album sleeves with the words 'You can't erase history' on one side and 'You can erase history' on the other, and they were meant to be taken away.  Apparently they have lots in stock in case they run out.  I guess it says something about the disposable mass-produced nature of modern music, the classical A-side/B-side duality of the single, and possibly illegal file-sharing, which are of course points worth making.

I enjoyed my trip to Mixtapes, and it made me think about music (and maybe even art) in a different way, and the building is always worth a visit and our support given its rough recent history, so I can only recommend it highly for all these reasons.

I guess the overall theme of the exhibition was, for me, somewhat nostalgic for a different era of music fandom, not that long ago but yet might years before iPods evolved to rule the world, and when the predecessor of the playlist in the fan's life was the mixtape, carefully assembled on C60/C90 cassettes far more laboriously its moden usurper; the spirit of this arcane art was best captured in Nick Hornby's wonderful 'High fidelity' (I previously talked about my love of that book here).  I loved mixtapes, and made many in my day, which lends the name of the exhibition a particular resonance for me.  My favourite was cheerfully entitled 'The darkest night' from around 1990 (well, what would you expect from the kind of melodramatist who had a huge gothic Joy Division poster on their wall at the time?) - I am still waiting for the royalty cheques after the releases of both 'Dark was the night' (my review here) and 'Dark night of the soul' (my article on which is here) in the last while on the grounds of that one!

Anyway, back to the point.  'Mixtapes' celebrates and ruminates on things which remain important to anyone who ever made their own mixtape.  Go, see, think, be the fan.

Click Here to Read More..

What makes deer tick anyway?

Music

This week I have been listening to 'The black dirt sessions' by Deer Tick a lot, mainly following a very good review in Uncut here.  It is really good, and a blast of classic alt-country but yet shot through with something rougher than many of that ilk (as opposed to elk, as opposed to deer), perhaps largely due to the singer's rasping croak which yet captures a softer side quite wonderfully on songs like the quite brilliant piano eulogy 'Goodbye dear friend', the lovely 'The sad sun' and 'Hand in my hand' which opens on a disarming falsetto after the growls that prowl through the rest of the songs.  Opener 'Choir of angels' sets the scene well, with a fuller sound and a lovely melody, as seen below:

While the following track '20 miles' has not surprisingly drawn comparisons with very early REM, not a bad or shameful reference point:

All in all, a very good album, even if some of the later tracks are a little more noisy and less to my immediate liking. 

I also just downloaded 'Dark night of the soul' by Dangermouse and Sparklehorse, and 'The place we ran from' by Tired Pony, Gary Lightbody's side project.  I have written before of my ambiguous feelings about Snow Patrol, but another positive review in Uncut drew me to this, and it sounds quite good so far.  I think the tinge of American in Snow Patrol has been what has drawn me to some of their stff in the past, so hoped this would be more distilled essence of that.  Among the more notable tracks are 'Point me at lost islands' and 'Get on the road' (with Zooey Daschanel, although it is so reminiscent of 'Set the fire to the third bar' as to be a handy back-up in case that one ever gets lost), while Tom Smith from Editors (another band I have occasionally ruminated ambiguously on, for example here, but there is no denying the man has a class voice) gives 'The good book' a chilling and classy vocal.  I am also interested in Iain Archer who has not appeared much in the press about the album but contributes a low-key Mike Scott vocal to 'I am a landslide'.  'Held in the arms of the world' doesn't wander off the snowy patrolled path, but has a nice chorus and building harmonies, but 'Northwestern skies' with its 'ooh, I'm in a big echoey americana barn' vocal seems a bit too efforty for me.  I found a video clip sort of trailering the album below.



Next I need to listen some more to 'Dark night' and see if my impressions have evolved since I listened to it in its previous online incarnation last year here.


Books

I am continuing to read 'The passage' and am actually really enjoying its second section where it leaps forward 100 years to a Mad Max meets New England pilgrim colony settlement (but surrounded by vampires) vibe, although the 100 year timeslip seems a little stretched, given the amount of relics of the older time which still seem to be workable alongside the crossbows and blades.  As usual, I am parallel processing another (on kindle), this week 'Cyber war' by former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke, which scares the crap out of me by explaining patiently how our increasing daily dependence on the web for just about everything could all come crashing down if any of a number of scenarios he outlines in highly readable fashion come to pass.

I found an interview with him on the subject here:

TV and movies

Not much on TV bar the World Cup, but lets' face it, drama like that at the end of the Ghana/Uruguay match (below) is far better, even for a sports footballiterate like me, than most of what screen-writers can come up with.

What I did watch of the World Cup was on Irish RTE television, and their post-match sketch slot, 'Apres match', really outdid themselves last night with their dubbing over several well known and unexpected faces from Irish sports commentary and politics:



In terms of movies, I did watch some taped movies: 'Last chance Harvey' (melodramatic and not particularly believable yet watchable as Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thomson are, for me, both huge watchable in just about anything) and 'Swing Vote' (almost the same comments, substituting in Kevin Costner, another actor I have always had a soft spot for ever since first encountering him in 'The Untouchables', after-shocks of the magnificence of which will always lend him a favourable air in my eyes).  I also saw bits on TV of Jaws and Raider of the Lost Ark on TV, and was struck again by the incredible 'Indianapolis' scene in the former and for the first time by the amazing sky-scapes in the latter, which I never noticed before.

Games

I have spent a few scattered hours playing 'Half-life 2: episode 1' and did not remember from before the wierd opening level (a bit tedious really) but the ensuing scenes in the dark remain very cool and scary. I actually found a trailer for it on-line below:



So, that's it for this week - hope to get to 'Predators' this week, and still waiting to hear the release date for the iPhone and iPad in Ireland, which now look like they may not be July after all.  Steve Jobs, why do you tease me so! Click Here to Read More..

More anthems by gaslight and others

Music

My main musical accompaniment this week has been the Gaslight Anthem, and I have as planned gone back to the '59 sound' album, and found it rather good indeed.  I really like 'Miles Davis and the cool', as seen below, which has a great drum intro:

Obviously, much has been written about their patronage by Bruce Springsteen, and there is some well-seen footage of them playing the title track with the man himself, from London I think, here:

I have also been hearing good things about the new Arcade Fire album, but of course good things were said about their previous two and I have blogged before about my failure to 'get them' or see what the fuss is all about (for example, see here).  I do like the sound of lead track 'Suburbs' below, particularly the piano line rolling through it:



I was also happy to hear that the album made by the late lamented Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse and Dangermouse, 'Dark night of the soul', will finally see the light of day; I wrote about it last year here.  The Irish Times website is currently streaming it live here.

Uncut magazine for this month features what appears to be an old style new release compilation for the first time in ages, which I am going to listen to with interest (it features bands I am interested to check out like Deer Tick, The Acorn and Blitzen Trapper), aand their reviews include a few few leads to follow up, in particular Tired Pony, a band which features Gary Lightbody from Snow Patrol, REM's Peter Buck and M Ward among others, a very promising mix. I found a track from it ('Dead American writers' - good title) here:



While doing some driving recently, I have been listening to a playlist of some recent downloads, including of course the National and Gaslight Anthem, but also McAlmont and Nyman, AA Bondy, Josh Ritter, Stornaway, Tracy Thorn and John Grant.  However, the one set of songs which keeps catching my ears and make me check who it is in excitement is Phosphorescent, which must be a good sign if it passes the audio equivalent of a blind taste test.  I will finish this extensive music post section with a live clip of them playing 'Tell me baby (have you had enough)':



Books

From dead American writers to live ones, I have read the first 150 pages or so of 'The passage' and am enjoying it, and also the relative novelty of feeling the authentic heft of a large book in my hands rather than my iPod for a change.  I like his writing and the plot is good (although not quite matching the set-up on the back cover, strangely), with a strange eerieness and casual brutality running through the set-up of incipient vampires, viruses, mysterious little girls, rogue FBI agents and (of course) nasty government agents up to nefarious plans.  I found the author talking about the book here:



I also finished 'Confessions of an alien hunter', discussed in my last post, which was hugely enjoyable and thoroughy recommended in anyone interested in alien life from with a science fiction or a science non-fiction perspective.

Movies

Watched and loved French thriller 'Anything for her': short, snappy, tense, unusual and very cool, highly recommended overall, and trailered as below:



Not much else to report.  The World Cup is effectively keeping me away from DVDs and movies, although I did watch Battlestar Galactica movie 'Razor' last week (a good refresher on the series, and pretty taut and brutal).  The football is certainly keeping quality films from the cinema, but I am certainly going to see 'Predators', probably irrespective of what the critics may well opine, and I guess the next one will be 'Toy Story 3'. 

In movie news, I was quite pleased to hear the (perhaps not terribly shocking) news that Peter Jackson looks like he may be going back to direct 'The hobbit' after Guillermo Del Toro pulled out; old hands may be most reliable on this one.

I also note that iTunes has started selling movies for €3.99 (currently a small range of old blockbusters including 'Independence day' and 'Terminator 2', and if they consistently keep some older interesting movies at that price I will certainly start a collection of same.


That's about enough for now, with not much else to report.  No release date for the iPad or iPhone 4.0 in Ireland yet, and definetely getting the latter and thinking more seriously about the former.  Will just have to wait for news! Click Here to Read More..

Anthems by gaslight

Music

In recent days' I have become pretty obsessed with 'American slang' by The Gaslight Anthem.  I downloaded their previous album, 'The old '58 sound' ages ago and listened a few times, but not much (note to self: go back and check it out again!).  A positive review in Uncut of their new one, however, send me back to eMusic and a new download, and I bloody love it (second favourite of the year so far, after you know who).  It has such energy and melody and is perfect for the summer, and I really don't get the reviews which go on and on about their debt to Springsteen; obviously there are things in common but their songs are tight and short and modest, not always things to be said about old Bruce, and I feel a strange celtic strand in their too, with regular reminders of the Pogues for some reason.

The first video clip below is an acoustic version of the title track, 'American slang', which shows off their singers great voice (and tattoos) wonderfully:

Next up is a live clip of 'Boxer', which would have to be good for me to get past the sacreligious baggage of the title, and does it brilliantly, with a great intro (not as good live as on album):



'The Queen of lower chelsea' is slower but has a really cool beat and their vocals and harmonies which are excellent all over the record are well to the fore here:



The last clip is perhaps my favourite from the album, 'Bring it on', which goes through several very cool gear shifts and turns in the closest they come to an all-out epic:



The only other musical thing I want to mention is finding Irish band Bell X1 doing a rather nice version of Don Henley's classic 'Boys of summer' here. 

Books

This week, I have been reading 'Confessions of an alien hunter' by Seth Shostak, which is a really interesting and nicely written account of our search for life beyond earth, from the very casual/loony land of the UFO-hunters to proper scientific considerations and projects such as SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence).  It skips a little over the fascinating story of NASA's claims for ultramicroscopic life in an Antarctic-found asteroid in the late 1990s but covers many other interesting angles very well.  The manner of writing is really good too, with very good use of humour and references to movies, such as obvious reference points like 'Contact', the logical gaps in which are gleefully exposed.   I particularly loved lines such as 'In other words, for two dozen years, UFOs were exposed to more scrutiny than Lindsay Lohan's social calendar.  Not finished yet but finding it a really good read, covering a very fertile field for good stories with a level of science which is not at all intimidating.

I also did some shopping this week, and bought 'The passage' by Justin Cronin in good old-fashioned hard copy (a big paperback, with a worn-looking nicely done cover) after a few e-mail ads from Amazon which were enough to spark my interest.  After loving 'The strain' I am clearly a bit more open to big epic vampire books, so decided to give it a try. Cork's Waterstone's were also pushing it pretty hard, with big display stands and freesheets with the first chapter reprinted to be taken away.

Finally, I went back to the kindle to download the new book by perhaps my favourite practitioner of the English language, by which I mean 'At home' by Bill Bryson; I actually did not hear much about this in advance, so know very little about it, except that I trust the author sufficiently to make this a fairly safe investment.

Movies and TV

Watched some of 'Hamlet 2' and pretty confused about what kind of film it is supposed to be, and unimpressed, so not inclined to watch the rest; I do like Steve Coogan but he seems all over the place in this one.  I also heard about and checked out a very cool mix-up on Youtube, which is the visuals from the trailer for Toy Story 3 with the audio for the new Christopher Nolan film 'Inception', which is actually very very strange a mix but very well done, as seen below:



My recent shopping spree also yielded the cut-price DVDs of 'Paranormal activity' (watching the director's commentary in the background as I type) and 'It might get loud', which I am curious about and think my eldest son, who is learning guitar, might like, as long as it does not turn him into a Led Zeppelin fan.
On TV, I have been working my way through recorded episodes of 'The pacific' but finding it a bit bleak and hard to follow, in terms of characters and action scenes (most of which are at night); I think I found 'Band of brothers' more accessible and watchable, but maybe this is just an accurate reflection of the nature of the relevant military campaigns.  Also trying to watch BBC's 'Outnumbered', which comes very well recommended but keeps putting me confortably to sleep. 

Perhaps surprisingly, my TV highlight of the week (and year so far) really has to be the finale of 'Grey's anatomy'.  I have been watching this fairly casually for most of its run, but this week's episode with the shootings really caught me off guard and made my jaw drop.  I am an appalling spoiler, who cannot resist checking out the ending of coming TV series and movies (although I try and resist every time, my will is not strong enough to hold back my curiosity) so real surprises in movies or TV are really rare for me, which made this such a treat and so gripping and unpredictable.  I found a set of clips from the finale set to Snow Patrol's 'Run' here:

So, that is a lot for this week (although I missed a post last week).  Still waiting eagerly for the launch date for MY iPhone 4.0 in Ireland, and starting to think (unbenownst to myself) about the iPad, due to launch here around the same time, so will have to see if I can be tempted when I get my hand son it for real.

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Bearing witness to never forgotten favourites

Music

For some reason, perhaps the fine weather, perhaps the fact the my wife's iPod found it on random recently, I have been listening a lot to an English band called Witness, who I discovered through Uncut magazine and who released two albums, 'Before the calm' (in 1999) and 'Under a sun' (in 2002) and split a few years later. Witness are, for me, one of the best bands I ever heard of that hardly anyone else has ever heard of, with all the nerdy pleasure that statement entails. For background, you can read about Witness on  Wikipedia here, see the band website here,read their NME page here and find singer Gerard Starkie on Myspace here.

Their albums are absolutely great, and blend the cloudy English indie depressed claustrophobia of Radiohead and many more besides with the American widescreen epic sensibilities of Counting Crows and many others more (although the singer's voice always most reminded me of Adam Duritz). This combination of my soft spots seems an obvious strategy for grabbing my attention, and that of others besides, but relatively few have tried it (although arguably the National have exploited the same conceit to wonderful effect). The albums have several fantastic songs each, and the first tends towards the English end of the spectrum above, while the latter hoves close to the far side of the Atlantic.

To give a sense of their wonderfulness, I will include below a clip of 'Hijacker' from both Jools Holland and their debut:

I also found a video of 'Scars' from the same album:

Clips from the less claustrophobic and more widescreen 'Under a sun' are harder to find on-line, but I did find my overall favourite of theirs, 'Closing up' (basically audio only) below:

Now that hopefully ye are so taken as to want to immediately buy their music, the requisite links from Amazon are below (note the gorgous still life cover of 'Before the calm'):















Movies

About the only movie development of the week is that I watched 'Lakeview terrace' on TV, which was actually a pretty effective thriller.  Let's face it, it is not exactly perceptive to point out that no-one does scary-ass better than Samuel L. Jackson, but at the same time Patrick Wilson is somehow unlikeable enough to make the conflict less than one-sided and simple, and the ratcheting confrontation was very nicely built up, even if the final driveway confrontation mid-inferno was somewhat melodramatic.  The clip below shows Sam in typically unfriendly mode:

Gadgets

Needless to say, I am currently obsessing about the iPhone 4.0. Last Monday, I watched Steve Jobs' keynote here live on my laptop, and I have definetely made the decision to dump my N95 (taking the refund the Carphone Warehouse are kindly offering) for this piece of really cool hardware.  I was impressed by all the specs, particularly things like the video editing, but was actually pretty disappointed that the max memory seems to be 32 gB, which is the same as my iPod touch, which is bursting at the seams and which I have to make weekly calls on what to uncheck to make room for new stuff.  I think overall the time has come for me to join the iPhone world still, though, and I will just haave to learn a whole new sort of memory discipline (if I don' forget how).  A video on the iPhone, for anyone living in a box for the last week, is below:



Other stuff

The book 'Storm of war' which I am reading on Kindle is absolutely captivating, with a great mix of opinion, anecdote and historical and epic sweep, mixing the personal with the strategic in a very unusual way. Best book I have read in ages!  Otherwise, not much else to report, but sure more will follow next week. Click Here to Read More..

The Cure, Stornoway, War and Emo Phillips

Quite a few updates this week, so straight into it:

Music

Have been listening to the Cure's 'Disintegration' special edition quite a bit, in another very nice package as shown below (trying the new Blogger Amazon functionality).  The album is really great, just epic and grand and great guitars and keyboards, and some of Robert Smith's finest lyrical performances, and I just don't remember it being so good at the time.  Several songs are really making a new impression all over again, but in particular 'Plainsong' just has an epic quality which is like the entire oeuvre (!?) of Sigur Ros foreshadowed:

Of the albums I mentioned downloading last week, I am quite liking Stornoway, more than I expected; although it is a little folkie twee, there is a nice quality running through it.  I will show a good version of 'Zorbing' here:



I am also enjoying the unusual sound of the McAlmont and Nyman album, and the combination of that voice and those classical-sounding strings is really cool.  My favourite by a long shot is 'City of Turin' but I could only find a clip of 'Underneath the hessian bags':



The last video I will show this week is for Josh Ritter's 'The curse' and was made by his drummer, showing an unexpected flair for puppetry:



Finally, I read a really interesting and mysterious article in the Irish Times by Brian Boyd  here about an incredible new album the identity of which cannot be revealed.  Had a poke around on-line and no clues but wondering based on it being someone really big of maybe David Bowie? 

Movies

My only movie news this week is that I was very disappointed to hear that Guillermo Del Toro has pulled out of directing 'The hobbit'; I found an interview with him below and think he would have brought a very interesting vision to the project:

Other than that, I have started watching 'Drag me to hell', which I recorded a while ago from Sky Movies - interestingly yuck so far and lots of cringing and squirming going on.....

Books

I finished 'My brain on music' and really liked and would recommend it, a great mix of music theory for the uninitiated and great anecdote, reference and scientific background.  It certainly has made me think about music and my reaction to it in a very different way. 

I have since started reading 'The storm of war', shown below, which seems a fresh and highly readable new history of WWII.  It is very readable and has sprung quite a few unknown facts on me, like realising how much inconvenience Ireland's bloody-mindedness regarding its neutrality and allowing Britain to use its ports caused for the allied navies.

Other bits

There was a really interesting New scientist article on language here, with some great examples of bizarre phrases from other languages.  My favourite of these is 'Rawa-Dawa' from the Indian dialect Mundari, which apparently means:

the sensation of suddenly realising you can do something reprehensible, and no one is there to witness it

This is clearly a massive gap in the English language - why do we not have a word for this, if for no other reason than to encourage people to think like this??

I also heard that the iPhone 4 will be announced on Monday, which I am excited about, and definetely plan to retire my trusty N95 for assuming (a) memory at least 64 gB and (b) better camera than on previous iPhones; I quite like the idea of replacing two gadgets (and possibly three if I count my Blackberry) for one most of the time. 

I also listened to some more Emo Phillips and my favourite sketch by far is the following:

Once, when I was in New York City, I went to the library. I said, "I'd like a book on the Heimlich anti-choking maneuver," and the guy said, "Look at the card catalog. I'm busy." So I go to the card catalog. I look under Heimlich and choking and maneuver. It's not any of those places. And I see this first aid book with the section and I take it and that guy said, "It's a reference book. You can't take it out; you have to Xerox it." I said, "Do you have change for a dollar?" He said, "It's not a bank, it's a library." So I go to this souvenir stand and I said, "Do you have change for a dollar?" They said, "It's not a bank, it's a souvenir stand." So I go to this bank, and they said, "Yes, this is a bank." And they give me the change and I go back to the libary. By this time there's a line of students Xeroxing their books and whatever and I -- finally get to Xerox the Heimlich. As I go back the guy says, "Put it back, now that you've used it." So I put it back. And as I leave, he says, "Thank you." I said, "Well, thank you! I'm never coming to this barn again." And I went back to my car. Now by this time, my sister's almost purple from the chicken bone...

Finally, after getting uncomfortably hooked on the damn show for the last few weeks, was delighted that Spelbound won Britain's got talent.

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My brain mainly on the music of the Cure

More to report on this week than in recent weeks, including multiple video clips, so will just get into it!

Music

This week I have been on a bit of a Cure binge, having bought the Disintegration special edition on CD (looked like too nice a package to yield to download), although I haven't got to listen to the extras yet. I do love much of the album, particularly 'Lovesong', seen live below:

This tempts me of course to rant a little about the Cure, as I did in my very first post on this blog here. For now, I will just confine myself to commenting that not only does 'Inbetween days' remain my favourite song ever, but it actually has 2 of my other favourite Cure songs, making it quite possibly my single favourite cultural artefact: 3 songs, around 9 minutes of pop perfection in one perfect package. The first b-side is 'The exploding boy', quite the cousin to its A-side in feel and percussion, but with some cool sax at the start and a great tumbling rolling pace:

The second b-side is 'A few hours after this', which features quite possibly my favourite use of strings in the pursuit of lightness in pop ever:

In other musical acquisitions, I just tonight downloaded from eMusic the new albums by Tracy Thorn and Stornaway (curious from reviews of the latter, and having a soft spot for the former since one my my favourite lines ever appeared in 'Come home' - 'every day's like Christmas day without you, it's cold and there's nothing to do'). I was also surprised to find David McAlmont and Michael Nyman's collaboration on eMusic, which had perked my interest when it came out (I liked the McAlmont/Bernard Butler album, particularly 'Yes' and 'You'll lose a good thing', seen below), so I downloaded that too.

Lots to listen to, reviews to follow.

Books

As well as continuing to work my way through the weighty biography of Francis Crick, I have been reading on Kindle a really interesting book called 'Evolution versus creationism' by Eugenie Scott, which is a highly readable and comprehensive overview of a debate which, to me as a scientist, is almost incredibly straightforward in its lopsidedness, but the book helps lay out clearly the sheer absurdity of the creationist arguments and literature.

I had a birthday during the week, and among my presents was a very unusual book called 'My brain on music' (see below) which I immediately added to my parallel book processing activities and from which I have already got more of a feel for concepts like pitch, tone, chords and timbre than I honeestly ever had. I have always been a complete illiterate in the actual science of music, and found it completely impenetrable, but this enjoyable and accessible book gives me new hope that I may actually come to some sort of passing terms with this stuff:

I also bought a compilation of interviews, transcripts of shows and articles about Bill Hicks, of whom more below (for €3.50 in HMV) and downloaded 'The girl with the dragon tattoo' onto Kindle for around the same price.

Movies

Purchased 'Sherlock Holmes' from iTunes, copied the movie file to my laptop, and watched in part-screeen while working on a train to Dublin. It really is a very good and clever movie, and I just love Downey Jrs voice and script, and interplay with Jude Law. On the completely trashy front, I as interested to see the trailer for 'Predators' (below), and was sad to hear last night that Dennis Hopper died, although I would not have been a huge fan, barring his role in 'Speed', for which I always had a huge soft spot:

Other stuff

During a busy cultural week, I managed to listen to three great American alternative comedians, Bill Hicks (on a DVD I bought cheap ages ago), Emo Philips and Steven Wright (both of which albums I downloaded from eMusic); I must admit none of them blew my socks off as I expected they would, but I will talk more about them next week. I also got the second series of 'Terminator chronicles' for my birthday (enjoyed the first) and bought myself 'The road' on DVD.

Also, Uncut had a cover CD which looks kind of interesting....

All in all, lots of acquisitions to work through over the coming weeks!

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