Kritikos and Kings of Concrete

July 30, 2007 at 4:24 pm (The Show) (Ben Kritikos, Kings of Concrete)

Last Thursday the 26th of July, we were joined on the indie hour by the lovely Benjamin Kritikos.

I first heard Ben play at an open mic night nearly four years ago now. He had compelling song titles such as Problem with a Capitol P and Apology, a song for his (now ex) wife with the line “I’m sorry for being such a waste of space” which I could really relate to. One of the first things Ben ever said to me was “Don’t come too close, I’m homeless at the moment and haven’t had a shower in a while.” I liked him straight away.

Myself and Ben became very good friends, through playing at the same shitty open mic nights, discovering a common appreciation for DH Lawrence and a similar nervous habit of twisting our hair, and then we moved in together. So Ben is actually my flatmate. He’s very clean. And he’s handy with a cajon.

It may seem like favouritism or whatever to have my flatmate on the show, but that is the beauty of not getting paid to do this show, nobody tells me what to do either. Anyway, I wouldn’t have Ben on the show if I thought his music was shit.

I know Ben very well at this stage – he’s one of my best friends in fact – and he’s also one of my favourite songwriters. It’s one of the things I like about my life – coming home from a hard day’s tefl teaching to be greeted by Ben playing guitar on our front steps. I have huge respect for Ben’s musical work ethic – he plays music because that’s what he was made to do. In fact, he’s totally useless at everything else. Just kidding. But, it is as simple as that – Ben is one of those artists whose heart might stop beating if he gave up creating.

So he came on the show and we spoke of The Happy Gang, his recent travels abroad, the recording of an album, Indigo Kids and America.

We also spoke to Dave Smith from Kings of Concrete, a skate and bike festival which took place on Saturday the 28th of July in Wood Quay in Dublin. Reports of the festival say it was a lot of fun, so hopefully we’ll be hearing more from The Kings in the months to come.

We started the show with Holland 1945 from Neutral Milk Hotel’s 1998 In The Aeroplane Over The Sea – bloody brilliant album it is too. We finished the show with Buck 65’s Indestructible Sam, and in between we heard Red Light Cock Fight from Thinguma*Jigsaw ahead of their album release last night in The Lower Deck in Dublin’s Portobello. Nialler9 recommended the Four Tet remix of Caribou’s Melody Day, which also features on the July Nialler9 Podcast .