Short songs that aren’t too short
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Tag Archives: Music
Onob
Another weekend, another Saturday supplement featuring excerpts from Bono’s parenting blog.
I take my humble place among the begrudgers. Not because he behaves like any other amoral mega-rich parasite and doing so while presenting himself as a secular saint who has the right to lecture everyone else on economic justice. Or his hair-raising hypocrisy and limited grasp of development ethics. Or that his approach to aid reform in the developing world is propped up on a string of vanity campaigns underpinned by neo-liberal profit driven gains. Or that his entire approach to advocacy is that of classic paternalism: the privileged should show charity to the poor and be lauded for it, where justice or self-determination plays no part. Or for his failure to recognise and support the right of Africans to speak for themselves and determine their own course of action. Or for elbowing aside the integrity of protest music and dumbing down justice to a ring-tone. Or that he has unfettered access to the world stage, without a mandate, on which he smarmily pats the backs of war-mongers and his G8 buddies with whom he is on first names. Or the awe-inspiring cowardice he displays whilst on that podium as he publicly gives full-marks for the development efforts of the aforementioned whilst undermining the efforts and drowning out the weary voices of those engaged in legitimate justice campaigns as they struggle to bat away the stench of bullshit left by him and the more cynical Geldof. No, it’s because those shades are fucking ridiculous.
Bono arriving at the Ireland Blog Awards
Turn it up!
So you know it’s got soul.
Van Morrison: 70 today. No guru, no method, no teacher.
*dodgy attempt at high-kick at 4:30*
Long songs that aren’t too long
To the basement, people!
Many surprises await you. Not really. We don’t have a basement. But as a carrier of chronic basement envy, I understand your disappointment.
It all happens in the basement.
Annie Wilkes almost killed off her beloved author in one in Misery. Yes, that was indeed the sheriff who met his untimely demise down there. Nasty. So it made a tense tale even more nail-biting.
Then there was Omar who took refuge in his sister’s basement when it mattered most. So it contributed to the necessary rehabilitation of one of TV’s most beloved characters before… well, before… actually, let’s not talk about it. It’s still too soon. And who could forget Elliot discovering E.T. behind the garbage cans in his. OK, me neither. So they also compel people to re-write scenes from perfect Steven Spielberg films. Still. No doubt the great director regrets missing that trick.
Occasionally, a basement will turn up in a song, and fans of this gem will recognise the reference. My new favourite thing is to drive around town with it blaring on repeat and master my air-drumming as we crawl through traffic. I discovered this retrospectively when I found myself lip-syncing the same chorus to the tenth person over the course of one journey.
Fans of Two-Door Cinema Club are probably aware that the group has a combined age of 8 and three-quarters. I’m certain they’re of an age that I could’ve given birth to all three, a fact I discovered when we showed up at one of their early gigs to be offered the only available seats next to their parents. One for the grandchildren. Oh no, wait, they were on the dance floor.
But few may know the origins of their name, which stems from a venue featured in the new segment of the blog. Welcome to Lesser Spotted Ulcer! Finally, the point of the post! Where every now and again, when I take the notion to remember, we visit one of Norn Iron’s hidden gems. No, really. 
First up, Tudor Cinema in Comber. A cute mispronunciation by a local boy inspired the moniker of his brilliant band. It’s privately owned by the lively Noel Spence, owner of 1000s of titles, which he will cheerfully allow you to scan through to book film and screen for a modest donation (no fees as such, or children allowed). Including E.T. and Misery. Donnie Darko, also. And The Blair Witch Project. Or any other film with a critical basement scene. He’ll even put up a personalised welcome message with the classic letters above the entrance. And if you’re lucky, he might give you a free copy of some native yarns and poetry in between performing his roving ice-lolly dolly duties. It takes a decent local map and frequent passenger-window-winding-down for directions to refine this map further, but it’s worth the recline into a red velvet seat when you do.
To Noel, my inaugural rosette. Go Noel (canned applause).
Tudor Cinema. (audience not pictured)
And that concludes this week’s edition. Tune in next time when we’ll be visiting the Stiff Little Fish Fingers factory.
Bless the weather
For condemning us in-doors where we’ve no choice but to run an eye along those racks of tracks that should be lying dormant till Jean Byrne gives us the nod.
Using the wind as a tuning fork, and the rain for percussion, the next two minutes and 33 seconds are brought to you by a man fashioned by angels. Punk angels with a caffeine habit and a fondness for fanning their gossamer wings out at the break of dusk. Scottish punk angels who occasionally drop him up a cuppa as he sits hunched over the bureau in his study, high up in his city loft. Glaswegian angels well fit for his frenzied scribbling down of inner thoughts at all shades of dark.
Picking up the tea-stained hardback he frequently knocks over and delicately returning it the sideboard; Yeats facedown, stains included in the price he paid in the second hand book-shop he likes to drape himself around on Thursdays. Hardy no-nonsense-pal angels who lift the needle from the vinyl crackling past last track on the turn-table that rotates to the rhythm of his breathing as he finally nods off.
I imagine.
Synth Vincent
St. Vincent spots another freak in the audience
We’re giving it socks from the ankles down to Annie Clark (St. Vincent) when she takes a moment from seducing us with another dazzling stairway-to-hell guitar riff to address us directly. She had already welcomed her audience “one and all, the freaks, the dominated, and dominatrix” (Oh stop *blushes*) because she’s certain she knows us from bygone days.
“Didn’t you at one time dream of taking flight?”, she poses in her faint Texan drawl. “Young arms outstretched, empty pizza boxes attached to each one before making the leap then falling and grazing your knees?” We’ve entered Annie’s realm of universal connection. “Yeah, we just dreamt of pizza”, quipped the bloke behind me.
Ah, relief. The tension in this threat of twee finally punctured enabling us to get back to the main business of enjoying the tunes from a musical deviant and her impressive cast of collaborators. It’s all angular and robotic dancing consistent with the sounds generated from shoving fistfuls of genres (pop, jazz, cabaret, metal?) through a four-(wo)manned mincer. Seamless rows of off-kilter and discordant arrangements fall out the outer end, chopped and topped by virtuoso guitar from its inventive conductor dipping through her back catalogue.
It’s all maddeningly familiar but entirely fresh, delivered by the love-child of Edward Scissorhands and a geisha. As a virgin show-goer, you’re guaranteed to wake up the following morning with thumping synth riffs competing for airplay and wondering what the hell you just saw. Thoroughly dominated, then.
Standout tracks: Your Lips Are Red, Digital Witness, Birth in Reverse, and.. well, all of them, really.
Sole kid
Life, like Tom Cruise, can be very weird. I robbed that line outright from Panti’s set at Body & Soul last weekend. A half hour retrospective sizzling with one-liners and insights as she pieced together the bizarre experience of finding herself a national treasure in recent months. Other highlights included generous helpings of falafel, general good cheer, unidentifiable music powerful enough to get the most stubborn of feet shuffling, and a previously unheard but cracking laid-out on Sunday festival lawn cover of Neil Young’s Harvest Moon, which you can listen to here.
There comes a moment in every aging festival goer’s career when one can no longer put off the inevitable. When it’s time to pause, reflect on happy times, reconcile then with now, adopt some perspective, and finally trade in the sleeping-room-only tent for one with ample standing room. Preferably chosen with the aid of a little video on a website that shows off the interior while the prospective buyers lean in to marvel at its impressive orthopaedic friendly features. We could well have given birth to the average festival weekender by the overbearing youthfulness of them, but by Jesus we’re able to maintain a comfortable up-right position as we lament not investing in some reputable ear-plugs to drown the fockers out.
A middle-aged camper awaits oil after bending his back too often
Which is exactly what our camping neighbours were thinking when they registered our Nordie riff raff status and barely suppressed their furtive glances checking for evidence of our exact position in the lowly caste. “Oh, Honey, where did you put the Buckfast?” Ha, had you there (I thought to myself). By Sunday we were on fake smile terms as our one cheerfully played with little Deloitte, Touche, Morgan and Stanley. Such adorable children. They didn’t even make fun of her when she helpfully pointed out their football was broken. She enjoys the occasional rugby tackle but her experience of them to date is confined to rigorous tickling sessions with her Da on the living room floor.
Focking right
For all the unlikely bedfellows family friendly festivals peg together, children rise to the challenge without a bother, gabbling away in their native tongue of life in the moment; the elusive moment the pair of us strain to reach through the tent that doubles as a tardis on another return journey we’re not convinced is going to land safely.
Review: Plenty of standing room so no more muscle pulling while entering and leaving. Plus and an abundance of storage pockets. Even the lip balm can have its own storage.
Drifting from stage to food stall, and from bar to ice-cream van, we managed to get within reasonable distance of The Moment. Not quite front row, but close enough to make out its features. To see the self-consciousness of its inhabitants dissolving away, its out-stretched arm offering a non-discriminatory hand to whoever fancied crossing its threshold. The promise of no-strings-attached escapism however meaningless. And meaningless is just as meaningful as life-altering experiences man, that more experienced travellers manage to reach usually with something stronger than warm beer and generous helpings of falafel.
We managed to catch most of the Moment from sitting on the shoulders of a one-child army, victorious on her hunt for every available opportunity for fun. It transpires that living in the moment also means not having to worry about needing the balls or your own two-to-four feet folk to join in. Just hook up with the others already there.
Sífein makes another failed bid for freedom
Flights of fancy
“Wait a minute, where’s me jumpah?”
Souldiers of fortune
Top 5: the great aural outdoors
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5 1/2.
5 3/4
Feel free to add your own…
Click here for adoration of the cross
Or grumpy fellas, as I prefer to call them.
Bless yourself at that cello. Press your clenched fist against your heart at the piano. Genuflect as the baritone swoops in at 1:59. It’s never too late to convert to the Gospel according to these Lords.
Take it away there, lads..
department of speculation 