Pursued by a Bear »

• The Ballads of John and Yoko

  December 17, 2010 @ 8:20 am | by admin

  Daragh Downes here with your third installment from The Ticket Album Club. To mark the 30th anniversary of John Lennon’s death, we gave our four guests a copy of Double Fantasy (Stripped Down), a radical new mix of the 1980 album which Yoko Ono has commissioned from original producer Jack Douglas.

  Our December Album Clubbers were:

  -Iconic singer-songwriter and friend of The Beatles, Donovan
  -Union of Students in Ireland Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Officer, Siobhan McGuire
  -Irish Times columnist and author, Fintan O’Toole
  -Church of Ireland curate for Rathfarnham, Dublin, Rev. Anne Taylor. (more…)

• Enter Paul, Pursued by an Album Club

  October 22, 2010 @ 7:30 am | by admin

  Daragh Downes here. My thanks to Laurence Mackin for his kind invitation to guest post here on the new Ticket Album Club, which kicks off in today’s issue of The Ticket.

  Each month we will be asking a small group of people from different walks of life to take one key release and really live with it for several weeks. They then come into us and share their first, second and eleventh impressions of the album. Is it a grower? A shrinker? Or just a plain old stinker?

  For our first Album Club we gave copies of the new Interpol record to:

  -Pursued by a Bear’s own Laurence Mackin
  -Dublin student Nike Olumide
  -Recruitment specialist Theresa Black
  -Undertones frontman & top indie/alternative DJ Paul McLoone. (more…)

• When did this place get so lively?

  August 5, 2010 @ 11:02 am | by Laurence Mackin

  Has Dublin always been this active? I only ask, because in the past week here’s what I’ve managed to see. Last Friday, there was a cracking gig in the gloriously ramshackle surroundings of the Joinery gallery in Stoneybatter, where, for the princely sum of ¤8 you got four performances, from a solo jazz drum and electronics set and some quality rock and roll, to a blissfully moody improv set from the Buzz Aldrin Allstars featuring members of Adrian Crowley’s band, Halfset and 3epkano. (more…)

• Ok, go make more music videos

  March 5, 2010 @ 6:51 pm | by Fiona McCann

  Remember the guys on the treadmills? You may not remember the name of the band (OK Go). You may not even remember the name of the song (Here It Goes Again), but chances are you remember this music video. But turns out the big reward they got for such a creative endeavor, in terms of name recognition, record sales and a fanbase fostered from that video alone, is one they may have difficulty repeating. Damian Kulash Junior, the band’s lead singer and guitarist, explained why in a recent New York Times opinion piece.  “The fans and bloggers who helped spread “Here It Goes Again” across the Internet can no longer do what they did before, because our record company has blocked them from embedding our video on their sites. Believe it or not, in the four years since our treadmill dance got such attention, YouTube and EMI have actually made it harder to share our videos.” He does go on to explain why signing a deal with EMI was of such benefit to the band. But he has a lot to say to record companies about adapting to the brave new world of the internet and how it applies to music. If his final paragraph depresses you, be cheered by the fact that it hasn’t stopped the band making more cracking videos. See below.

• Kate McGarrigle RIP

  January 19, 2010 @ 2:01 pm | by Fiona McCann

• White Winter Hymnal

  July 7, 2009 @ 10:43 am | by Fiona McCann

  The fabulous Fleet Foxes play Dublin’s Vicar Street on September 7. Tickets will be €24 and go on sale this Thursday at 9 a.m. through Ticketmaster. Here’s some loveliness to whet your appetite:

  

• To buy or not to buy

  May 22, 2009 @ 10:31 am | by Fiona McCann

  There was a hard drive incident that I’m having trouble even typing about, and all (what, all?) my music is gone. In my frenzy to replenish, I am in search of some newbies and, as ever, recommendations. Albums I am considering include Tori Amos’s Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Bat For Lashes’ Two Suns, Camera Obscura’s My Maudlin Career, St Vincent’s Actor or My Latest Novel’s Death and Entrances. Or anything else that’s good and worth a listen, for that matter, with country influences particularly welcome at this juncture. Your thoughts, dear readers?

• Bell X Wha?

  April 10, 2009 @ 9:34 am | by Fiona McCann

  Vicar Street, Holy Thursday. Bell X1 played a blinder, but you could hardly hear them over the din. Maybe it’s coz I’m getting a little bit older (SWIDT?) but last night’s crowd brought out the curmudgeon in me. Facing into a dry Good Friday, the Vicar Street punters were clearly maximising till midnight, and the result was a cacophony that almost drowned out the band. Almost. But then the brass came out and with Paul on piano and the trombone tooting, everyone finally shut up. Magic. Any of y’all catch the gig?

• ‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy

  April 7, 2009 @ 1:48 pm | by Fiona McCann

  Some folk I know can love a song without having any notion of what’s being sung. The music takes precedence, and lyrics get sidelined in the listening process. Not me. I’m a lyrics lady, and can swing in favour of a band or singer simply by the order of words, the poetic content they put to melody. Favourites include – kind of obviously – Leonard Cohen (“Ring the bells that still can ring / Forget your perfect offering / There is a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in”), Tori Amos (“No one’s picking up the phone / Guess it’s clear he’s gone / And this little masochist / Is picking up her dress”), The Magnetic Fields (“It makes me feel blue / Pantone 292″), Bonnie Prince Billy (“A fireman her husband was/and so to give him duty/I duly tried to light a fire / upon his rightful booty”), Bell X1 (“I was other people’s children / I could always be sent home”), Sigur Ros (Ok, just kidding about the Sigur Ros bit). But you get the picture, and the list goes on and on. All time favourite? Bah, Hallelujah of course, for its perfect marrying of lyric to music (“It goes like this / the fourth, the fifth / the minor fall / and the major lift”). Yours?

• Good choice surprise for Choice Music Prize

  March 5, 2009 @ 12:56 pm | by Fiona McCann

  Jape won the Choice Music Prize Irish Album of the Year for Ritual in a decision that was surprising for being, for probably the first year in the history of the prize, unsurprising. Hurray for a buzzing, bouncing joy of an artist.

   

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