The randomiser says “oops upside your head, say oops upside your head”
Jim Carroll
Hands up who feels sorry for the Maccer? A little bit sorry? No takers? Anyway, there must be easier ways to pimp a book than causing the Minister for Garlic and RTE’s current affairs queenpin to fume. McWilliams’ fecking awful week ended with the Irish Daily Mail sending both Shay Healy and Brenda Power out to have a pop at him on Saturday, while yesterday’s Trib was “get Maccer!”-tastic from cover to cover. Indeed, per the Trib’s Mick Clifford, we learn that McWilliams has moved on from David Brooks to Calvin Trillin in terms of his NYT reading. Ravey Davey will be hoping that reviews of the book will be only bleedin’ rapid.
Bet there’s no mention of Miss Pencil Skirt in Dan O’Brien’s new book. Read this piece from the Economist Intelligence Unit writer about Ireland’s political paralysis and add “Ireland, Europe and the World: Writings on a New Century” to your book list.
New music show on the small screen incoming: with a nod and a wink to Peej Harvey, When Under Ether hits your tellies on Tuesday night on RTE 2. Fronted by Michelle Doherty (Phantom FM and ex-Channel Six’s Nightshift) and Elton Mullally (who used to produce the latter show), the new programme will, natch, air at stupid o’clock (11.45pm) which is the norm for music TV shows. Nonetheless, it’s a welcome move because we need more music TV shows on the box (such as Una Mullally’s new show incoming on TG4 in 2010) and on smaller screens (Analogue Episode 1 is now live featuring Kronos Quartet, Patrick Kelleher and So Cow). After all, just ask Wild Beasts or Stornoway about the bump in gig attendances, profile and sales thanks to recent spins and pirourettes on Later.
Banter does the Noughties: the topic for the monthly yakking session at the Twisted Pepper (Middle Abbey Street, Dublin) on November 28 is the Review of the Decade. Our guests for this rocket-powered blast through 10 years of pop culture are Richie “Jape” Egan, Nadine “Sunday Business Post/Phantom FM” O’Regan and Trevor “Bodytonic chief” O’Shea. As always, admission is free but fill in the form here to guarantee your place
The return of On The Record Presents: following our very successful debut into this sort of thing a few weeks ago, On The Record Presents takes over the live room at the Twisted Pepper again on November 28 with live sets from the awesome Dark Room Notes and the equally awesome Not Squares. It’s all part of the TP’s first birthday bash with Carl Craig rocking the basement, a Silent Disco in the cafe and Mr Jones and Mud in the Mezz.
New albums which make you go “yes” when you finally get around to listening to them: you can file “Embryonic”, the latest masterblaster from The Flaming Lips, under this heading. Man, you’ll be hearing and seeing things when this starts to ebb and flow.
Hoops upside your head: Hanging From The Rafters: The Story of Neptune and the Golden Age of Irish Basketball sounds like an absolute blast. Kieran Shannon’s book remembers what happened when a bunch of US pro basketball players fetched up in 1980s Ireland and transformed the domestic game. Excerpts from the book here and here.
Will summer 2010 be a quiet one on the megastar gigging front? There’s certainly very few names already in the offing for shows here next year. I mean, just look at who’s onboard for Cork’s Live at the Marquee series to date: Kenny Rogers, JLS and Deep Purple. Sure, they used to have better line-ups for Siamsa Cois Laoi.
We are the robots: tune into The Far Side tomorrow night for a Playtime for Robots hour from 11pm as we boot on down the autobahn with the remastered Kraftwerk back-catalogue booming on the stereo.
RIP Jerry Fuchs. The drummer with !!!, The Juan MacLean and Maserati died after falling down an elevator shaft at a party in Brooklyn.
“The fight, by all accounts, looked as if it were taking place under water between two arthritics in Michelin Man suits”: Tom Humphries sums up the little and large heavyweight bout on Saturday night. Now that Haye has desptached “Shrek’s older, bigger brother”, the hype machine can begin to roll once more.
Three is the magic number: when three different people mention a new band, you just have to check them out. Three highly respected tipsters raved to me about The Middle East within 12 hours last week. And yes, all three are bang on the money.
10:59 am
Really looking forward to Elton and Michelle’s new show. Yay, Music on the TV!
Comment by Una Mullally