Monthly Archives: September 2009

Running Up That Hill

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At the end of the month my sister will take part in the 2009 Cork City Women’s Mini-Marathon, a mini-marathon for women that will take place in Cork city this year. I believe this is her first mini-marathon, though she did complete a lenghty bike trip a few years ago. I don’t know where she finds all the time as she also has to take care of one big fellow and two small fellas every day. She’s also going to college and is, I think, doing a night course. It’s hard to keep up with her. Her are a few tunes for you, Úna, to help you get over the finishing line on the 27th. All the songs should help you on your journey and, in case you forget what you’re doing, many of them are also about running and being out on the road

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Covering the 2009 Mercury Prize

Mercury Prize Logo

The 18th Mercury Music Prize will be announced tomorrow night on BBC 2 TV at 10.00pm. Primal Scream won the inaugral competition in 1992 and subsequent winners have included the likes of Suede, Pulp, Badly Drawn Boy and the Arctic Monkeys. Only four of the seventeen winning acts have been fronted by female singers: M People (1994); Portishead (1995); PJ Harvey (2001); and Ms Dynamite (2002). Each prize is open to albums from British and Irish acts released from June of the previous year to June of the year in question. There have been seven previous Irish nominees: U2 (1992); Therapy? (1994); Van Morrison (1995); Gemma Hayes (2002); The Thrills (2003); Snow Patrol (2004); and Fionn Regan (2007). Lisa Hannigan is the only Irish nominee this year and is one of five female singers on this year’s list along with Bat For Lashes, Florence & the Machine, La Roux and Speech Debelle. This year’s list is dominated by debut albums and only Bat For Lashes has been at this stage before for Fur and Gold in 2007. She is one of the favourites this year along with Lisa Hannigan and Florence & the Machine. Florence’s album has some great songs on it, but there’s also a bit of filler on it. I really like Glasvegas’ album and I think it has a great chance. However, I’d love to see Lisa Hannigan win for her album, Sea Sew. It’s a real grower and has taken me a while to get into it. But, it’s a very cohesive album and is one of my favourites of the last few years. You can check out tunes from eight of this year’s nominees below. La Roux features in a mashup with Hard-Fi, who appeared on 2005′s list. The rest of them sing other people’s songs including Bat For Lashes being joined by Fionn Regan on a song from Screamadelica, the first winner of the prize

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Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2009: Theatre

The entrance to Long Kesh prison

The entrance to Long Kesh prison

We only made it to one play at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival and what a play it was. Chronicles of Long Kesh at the Assembly Hall told the story of the prison situated outside Belfast that was variously known as Long Kesh, the Maze and the H Blocks. The prison opened as HM Prison Maze in 1971 and housed thousands of paramilitary prisoners before its eventual closure in 2000. This two-hour play could have been heavy going for its midday audience, but it managed to blend a hearty dose of humour and song with the many tragic events that took place within the prison. The first half of the play takes us through the 70s from the burning of the camp in 1974 up to the dirty protests and the first hunger strikes at the end of that decade. The set is bare except for six large wooden boxes that the actors constantly move around to indicate a change of scenery. It is narrated by Freddie, played brilliantly by Billy Clarke, a young Protestant man who decides to become a prison officer more out of financial necessity than personal choice. At the beginning, Freddie is naive and out of his depth, but he settles into his role as an officer despite the pressures that it brings. Freddie introduces us to the rest of the characters and keeps the audience up-to-date with events inside and outside the prison as the play progresses. The rest of the cast is made up of one female and five male actors who each play a number of different roles. At the start it seems that there are too many characters and sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart. However, we are soon able to differentiate them due to the actors use of facial expressions, accents and body posture and movement

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Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2009: Comedy

EdinburghComedyFestival-1

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival began in 1947 with just eight theatre companies taking part. It has expanded considerably since then to include comedy, music, dance, opera and musicals and is worth around 75 million quid each year to the Scottish economy. The Fringe is divided into a number of smaller festivals and each of these make up the Fringe Festival. Over one third of all shows in 2009 were comedy performances, slightly ahead of theatre, while music accounted for one sixth of the shows. In just over three weeks, Fringe 2009 sold (wait for it) 1.86 million tickets to over 34,000 performances of more than two thousand shows in 265 venues. Phew! In contrast, I was only able to buy 12 tickets to a dozen performances of twelve shows in ten venues. I guess I’m going to have to get more organised next time. Nearly a quarter of all shows at the Fringe are free and many more cost just a fiver to attend. It is also possible to get tickets for half price on the day for some performance in a 2-for-1 deal. The Fringe does not have a selection committee and, so, is open for anyone to set up their own show. These year there were nearly 19,000 performers putting on shows from sixty different countries. All of these people had to come up with money for travel, accommodation, meals and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, they have to pay a registration fee for their show and print up and distribute posters and flyers as well. Therefore, it may come as no surprise to learn that very few performances actually break even, never mind make a profit. For most of the performers, taking a hit financially is a small price to pay for the the amount of exposure and attention that putting on a show at the Festival brings. I’ve already provided some exposure for the musical acts that I saw this year, so here’s a few words about the more serious business of comedy at this year’s festival

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Slip Sliding Away: Sound Shopping in Scotland

Avalanche Records, Edinburgh

Avalanche Records, Edinburgh

Whenever I travel to other cities in Ireland and around the world I love to check out the local record emporiums, secondhand shops and charity stores. Over the last few years I’ve picked up loads of books, CDs and DVDs on these excursions. Recently, however, I’ve tended to spend most of my time browsing in the likes of Oxfam and Barnardos and less in “proper” secondhand stores. This is due to the increased proliferation of charity shops, the range and quality of the titles on offer and, significantly, the extremely low prices of the goods on sale. But, that all changed on my recent trip to Edinburgh where I spent most of my browsing time in bona fide record stores. In fact, the only charity store that I visited this time was the Oxfam Music Shop which is actually a secondhand record store cunningly disguised as a charity outlet

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Electric Boogie

Kinky Boots

The sixth instalment of Electric Picnic takes place this weekend in Stradbally, County Laois. It began as a one-day fest in 2004 and I attended it in 2005 when it turned into a two-day festival. I saw some great acts that year such as Kraftwerk, the Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Nick Cave and Toots & the Maytals. The atmosphere was very relaxed and the crowd was nice and chilled out. It’s been a three-day event since 2006 and is still a big draw. I would have loved to have gone this year, but I’m a bit light of pocket after all my gallivanting this summer. Besides, each person who attends is only allowed 48 x 500ml cans of beer. Sure, they’d be gone by Saturday. I’ve checked out this year’s line-up and I’ve put together a selection of songs from 21 acts that would be worth a few minutes of your time. Here’s hoping that the weather will remain fine for the weekend and that those attending will enjoy it as much as I did a few years ago

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Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2009: Music

FC Ukelele on stage at the Guilford Arms, Edinburgh

FC Ukelele on stage at the Guilford Arms, Edinburgh

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is primarily known for its comedy and theatre, but the city is also host to a load of fine music throughout the month of August and, I’m sure, the rest of the year. My previous visits to the city have mostly focused on the comedy, but this time my friend, John, and I found ourselves attending more music gigs than before. Our first port of call was a folk pub called the Royal Oak, situated near the Royal Mile. Two years ago, we decided to check out the place as we had heard good things about it. We decided to pop in for a quiet pint a few hours before midnight and were quite surprised to find ourselves still there sometime around four or five in the morning. We were having such good craic listening to great music and chatting to some interesting characters that we didn’t notice the time creeping up on us. We met a guy from Northern Ireland who spoke passionately and repetitively about his political views; we spoke at length to a supporter of Sunderland AFC who went by the name of Geordie; and towards the end of the night we met a nice Scotsman who was enjoying his first week of freedom since being released from prison. Good times

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Signs of the Times

An actual Edinburgh street sign

An actual Edinburgh street sign

A couple of days after coming back from France I was on the road again. This time I returned to Scotland for the second time in two months and to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for the fourth time this decade. Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and it’s a busy place during the month of August. The streets are full of tourists, performers and, I presume, people from Edinburgh. There are hundreds of venues devoted to putting on some amazing comedy, theatre and music shows. The cost of tickets to most of these shows is around ten pounds and you can get into many more for free. I went over with my friend John and we got to see about a dozen shows, mostly music and comedy, over an action-packed few days. We also got to check out a few of the city’s wonderful second-hand record stores where I managed to come away with quite a haul of CDs and DVDs. I’ll be posting about these over the next few days, but first I’d like to mention a quirky little exhibition that I came across by accident

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