nialler9 April podcast
The April nialler9 podcast is up and ready for download. As you may or may not know, I do the mouthy-words part of the podcast. It’s fun, and if I do say so myself, this podcast is one of our best yet.
Apologies for the delay in the Robotnik mp3 from last week, I’ll get it up as soon as I can.
Here is the April nialler9 podcast for you downloading pleasure…
MP3
Damn you, Sinead Gleeson
Right, Sinead. Here’s my meme. Apparently this is what all the cool bloggers did way back in 2005. Here are six random facts about me. Me. ME.
1 – I love country music. My dad brought me to Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee when I was nine years old and it had a lasting affect on me. We went to the Grand Old Opry and Graceland. It was the best trip I’ve ever been on.
2 – I have a scar on my forehead which came about after a car accident in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, about three months before the Tennessee trip. My dad had to bring me to the prison where the man who crashed in to us was being held the day after the accident. It was my dad’s decision as to whether the man was to be freed or not. The police kept saying to my dad that I was ruined now because my face was scarred. They argued that it would be difficult for him to find me a husband. I cried because I didn’t want the man to be kept in the horrible prison. My dad had the man released immediately.
3 – I really like The Eagles.
4 – I love swimming.
5 – I will eat pesto or peanut butter with anything. But I will not eat pesto and peanut butter together. That would be crazy.
6 – I wrote a song called Laura which made it to the shortlist of The USA Songwriting Competition in 2006. You can listen to it on the chocolate teapot myspace. But you don’t have to.
I am now tagging Mr New(ish), Little Bird Eats, Deb the Housewife, Sabrina Dent, Darragh on the Compost Heap, and Rapture Ponies.
Here are the rules, as stated by Sigla:
Link to the person that tagged you.
Post the rules on your blog.
Write six random things about you in a blog post.
Tag six people in your post.
Let each person know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
Let the taggee know your entry is up.
Actually, Sinead…that was fun. 🙂
Al-Farhan freed
Fouad al-Farhan, the Saudi blogger who was imprisoned in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia back in December 2007, was released on 26th of April, after five months in prison. I wrote about Fouad and Saudi censorship in general here.
To quote the Arab News from 27th of April:
“Al-Farhan was detained in December for “violating regulations,” according to official statements that made it clear that charges against him had nothing to do with national security concerns. No charges were ever pressed or outlined. The Interior Ministry issued no statements about the release yesterday.”
I’d like to take this opportunity to send my best wishes to Al-Farhan, and his family and friends who supported him throughout his ordeal in the hands of a regime which has no respect for human rights or freedom of speech.
Saudi Jeans is a blog written by Ahmed, a friend of Fouad’s, who showed courage by publicly supporting Fouad throughout his imprisonment. Something that we very often take for granted in Ireland is being able to speak our mind, and to stand up for what we think is right. This is taken to another level on the interent, where we can hide behind blog identities and names like phaserkid89. It’s annoying when the anonymity of leaving a comment sometimes leads to senseless negativity, but for the most part, the internet does give an on-line voice to people who have something to say outside of the mainstream media.
In Saudi, freedom of speech is not a given, even on the internet. I think by not being bullied into silence, Ahmed and his blogging colleagues deserve our admiration.
Saudi Jeans posted links to his top ten Saudi blogs last year. The blogs listed from 1-5 are in Arabic, but the blogs from 6-10 are in English. Enjoy.
Brad just waved at you!!
I’m hot. You’re not.
From the 1989 classic Teen Witch. Class!
Hope you’re having a good Monday…
Robotnik tonight
Robotnik on the indie hour in April 2007
Do tune in this evening to Dublin City 103.2 FM from 9 to 10pm tonight, when we will be joined by our old friend in indieness, Robotnik. He’ll be playing a few live tunes and we’ll be hearing a few tracks from his debut album Pleasant Square.
We’ll also be talking to The Amazing Few, as well as the organisers of Hefty Horse, who are putting on So Cow in Anseo this Sunday. Hurrah!
If you miss the show tonight, do keep an eye on this blog as the mp3 will be up in a few days…
I heart The Jimmy Cake
Dip and a blurry Jurgen from The Jimmy Cake last night at The Button Factory by nialler9
There were at least four gigs that I wanted to go to last night – I made it to two in the end which was good enough going. As I mentioned in the earlier post, I missed Mumblin’ Deaf Ro and The Spook of The 13th Lock. I also didn’t make it to The Holy Roman Army upstairs in Whelan’s, but I hope to catch them either on the 1st of May in The Blue Note or on the 4th of May in Anseo.
I started the night off in The Sugar Club at the IMRO showcase to catch Reader’s Wives, who visited us three weeks ago. It was my first time seeing Reader’s Wives in their current incarnation and it was a full on energetic set. The Sugar Club, despite its loveliness, has the unforgivable flaw of being the scariest place to dance in the world. By getting up to dance, you feel like you’re on stage as well. Not comfortable. However, myself and two friends braved the embarrassment and had a dance to Sexually Attracted to Myself. It had to be done.
As I left The Sugar Club, my old favourites Hybrasil were just taking to the stage. It was very tempting to stay but The Jimmy Cake were beckoning in The Button Factory. I arrived in the old Temple Bar Music Centre to squeeze in to the packed out venue and found some comfortable dancing space right at the front.
Difficult dancing seemed to be the theme of the night. Myself and my good friend Bluebottle Farm were doing our best to keep up with the 12/8 time signatures and whatnot of The Jimmy Cake, and in the end resorted to what I will now christen The Jimmy Cake Dance. It’s a sort of lurching, head down, body swaying type thing. Probably wouldn’t win us a slot on America’s Best Dancers reality TV show, but it’s thoroughly enjoyable all the same.
I caught the last four songs, which in fairness was a good 40 minutes. The stage was packed – the string quartet and extra brass players squeezed into the right hand corner, with guitarist Mike subtley conducting them thus acting like a halfway point between the classical and experimental elements of this fine, fine band.
Lisa on clarinet, Parx on trumpet and Alex on saxophone were holding court on a raised level to the back of the stage, Paul on keys and Jurgen on the accordian were centre stage facing each other, Vinnie was in the middle and drummer John was to the left. Dip the bass player had the most commanding presence on stage, which was no mean feat, as all players were quite captivating. Dip had the upper hand because of his incredible bass stance. He looked like a giant. See photo below.
I heard Red Tony, the performance of which was a deeply emotional one. When The Jimmy Cake first visited us back in October, Vinnie explained that the song was dedicated to his late uncle, ‘a belligerant but thoroughly lovable character’ and last night it seemed that the band were very conscious of the man while playing the tribute to him. They played two more before the ‘pretend last song’ (to quote Vinnie again) of the night which was Jetta’s Palace, getting a great reaction from the crowd, and rightly so.
The band came on for an encore and finished the night with a track from Dublin Gone. Everybody Dead. I was explaining to a friend that although I still have my much loved copy of Dublin Gone. Everybody Dead. I unfortunately lost the cd case and inlay card years ago. So I don’t know any of the names of the tracks. But the one they finished with is the one that goes ‘Duh duh duh. Duh duh. Duh Duh Duh. DUH.’ You know the one.
From what I saw, it was a triumphant return for The Jimmy Cake, and a performance which equaled the quality of the record Spectre & Crown, bringing it to an even more intense level of musical achievement. I still don’t know how they manage to co-ordinate it all. It’s my opinion that they are probably the best band in Ireland. Is that over the top? I think not.
Below is the mp3 of the chat with Parx and Paul G. Smyth from the other night on the indie hour. We started this show with Cut Killer’s Nique La Police, the mp3 of which I found thanks to our good friend nialler9. I watched Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine again last week and was reminded of that track and the amazing scene it comes from. I tried to find it on the net, and when I failed I asked nialler to work his internet magic (lol). He managed to find it and posted it on his blog last week. And that is the story of the indie hour and nique la police.
We heard Giveamanakick’s Borrowed Time from their album Welcome To The Cusp, which they are releasing in Whelan’s tonight with support from the mighty Adebisi Shank. Doors are at 8pm and it’s €12.50 in.
Nialler9 recommended M83’s Kim & Jessie from their album Saturdays=Youth. M83 are playing in Andrew’s Lane Theatre on 25 April with support from Crayonsmith. Crayonsmith is also playing tonight in The Academy in Dublin, launching his latest album White Wonder. It’s the bargain price of €5 (on the show last night I mistakenly said it was €19 – sorry) and support comes from the respectively excellent Cap Pas Cap and BATS.
The subsequent forty minutes of the show were all about The Jimmy Cake, starting with Jetta’s Palace, then onto my favourite The Day The Arms That Came Out of The Wall and finishing up with the raucous Hugs for Buddy.
And so for your downloading pleasure, here is the mp3 of the show. Enjoy.
MP3
Mumblin’ Deaf Ro Calf
I arose today at noon to head into Road Records to catch Mumblin’ Deaf Ro, who was taking part in the all day celebration of International Record Store Day. I couldn’t make it to The Boom Boom Room last night, where Ro was supporting experimental folkies The Spook of The 13th Lock at their album launch. I have only heard Le Hare from the Spooks album, a track which we heard on the indie hour a few weeks back and is up for your listening perusal on their myspace. Looking forward to having a good listen to the self titled album, perhaps we’ll have them in on the indie hour for a session soon…
There are a host of folks playing acoustic sets at Road Records on Fade Street all day today – you’re not too late to have a listen to Mark Geary, Lauren Guillery, John Hegarty, and David Kitt, who will be playing in the friendliest record shop in Dublin until 5.30pm today.
Mumblin’ Deaf Ro has four tunes up on his myspace from a Radio na Life session for download. You’ll find What To Learn It and Where to Learn It, Restring The Bow and El Salvador from the excellent The Herring & The Brine, as well as the new tune Cade Calf Call which I suspect will feature on the next Mumblin’ Deaf Ro album to be released sometime in the next five years 🙂 Thanks to my buddy Fenster for the heads up on the downloads.
Road Records have a 20% sale on everything in store at the moment. I saw Thrill Pier down there today, happily availing of the discount. Good man.
The mp3 of The Jimmy Cake interview the other night will be up shortly.
The Jimmy Cake Giveaway…
Nine people + an astonishing album = The Jimmy Cake
I’m just back from another lovely evening with The Jimmy Cake on the indie hour, having been joined by Paul and Parx from the band for a chat.
We have an exclusive web-only ticket giveaway for the launch gig of their album Spectre & Crown, which will take place tomorrow night in The Button Factory in Dublin.
We have two pairs of tickets to give away, and to get your hands on one pair of those, all you have to do is email me at the address on the top right of this blog before 2pm on Friday the 18th April with the answer to the following question:
Spectre & Crown is the third album from The Jimmy Cake. For a pair of tickets – what was their first album called?
Doors are at 7.30pm tomorrow night, support comes from Sunken Foal and it’s 15 euro in. All nine of The Jimmy Cake will of course be there, as well as a string quartet and a few extra brass players, and I would say it is a gig not to be missed. See you down there.
The mp3 of the interview tonight will be up shortly…
The Jimmy Cake tonight…
We shall be joined in studio tonight once more by The Jimmy Cake. They visited us over six months ago and they’re coming back for some more listens to Spectre & Crown and to talk about their gig tomorrow night in The Button Factory in Dublin.
We will also be listening to a lovely number of tunes, including the weekly nialler9 recommended track.
So tune in from 9 to 10pm on 103.2 Dublin City FM tonight or stay tuned to this blog where the mp3 of the interview will be available in a few days. Nice.
Spring cleaning to the sound of garage rock…
The Indie Hour at work
And so. Apologies for the delayed posting of the indie hour crash course #1. As the title of this post suggests, the delay was down to me spring cleaning my little Rathmines pad. For a flat of such petite proportions, there was rather a lot of junk in it. And so the job took much longer than expected. Frightful really. But now I feel like a new woman. A domesticated woman. Lol.
Below is the mp3 of the indie hour crash course in Garage Rock, brought to you in association with The Revellions, The Urges and The Things. We played one original track and one hand picked recommended track from each bands, as well as getting the bottom of some of the sub-genres that lie underneath the rather large umbrella of garage rock.
Robbie Thing, Darcy Revellion, Jim Urge and Ruari Thing
We also spoke to the lovely Dandelion about her Sassy Sue’s GoGo night in The Sugar Club in Dublin every Friday night and her monthly DJ residency at The Amsterdam Beat Club on Camden Palace, as well as digging out garage records in Blackrock market way back when.
We started the show with Hey Sailor from The Detroit Cobras, and nialler9 recommended Man In Space from The Vigilantes (a track which featured on the ninth nialler9 podcast) taken from a compilation called Loose Ends found via The Yank Sizzler blog .
And so here it is for your downloading pleasure…prepare to be educated. Innit.
Right. I’m off to see Holy Fuck in Whelans, taking a one night sabbatical from the indie hour broadcasts. I shall report back to you in the morn. V excited. V.
MP3
The Indie Hour Crash Course #1 – Garage Rock
The Indie Hour 