Zombies and Psychos

For the last two months I’ve been reading ‘American Psycho‘ by Brett Easton Ellis. It doesn’t usually take me this long to get through a book but I tend to have to stop for a while every time the character takes another girl home, slices up her sexual organs, chainsaws her in half and has sex with her entrails. I’m a bit of a wuss that way. In between those scenes, the book is fantastic – the character of Bateman is hugely compelling and the world Ellis has created is both alien and familiar, attractive and repulsive. In the morally ambiguous, superficial and self-centred society Bateman inhabits, it’s no wonder he acts the way he does.

But, when I started reading it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that it all felt very familiar; as if I had read it before even though I knew I hadn’t. It wasn’t until maybe 60 pages in that I realised that Paul Howard had lifted the style of the book and applied it to Ross O’Carroll-Kelly. It made perfect sense: both worlds share that shallow, label-obsessed materialism. But for the next 50 pages, I couldn’t shake the image of Bateman just being Ross in a suit and living in late-80’s New York. Very distracting.

HWCH #2 – The Industry/The Scene

The first – and only other time – I was at Hard Working Class Heroes was in 2004. I was only 18 then and was pretty unfamiliar with the Irish music scene at the time. I knew The Frames of course and I knew Fred, but I had never heard of most of the other bands and so my friends and I wandered from venue to venue (back then it was all conveniently based within Temple Bar proper) watching, discovering, enjoying and hating different bands. It was the first time I saw Rulers of the Planet and Bell X1 as well as others that I have long since forgotten.

Europe: Probably Not The Best Continent In The World!

So Dustin fails to even get to the final of the Eurovision. His legions of critics are sitting back now, grinning, self satisfied, itching to shout “I told you so!” But in reality, it’s not Dustin’s fault. It’s yet another example of Europe’s more than questionable taste in music.

Eurovision is an atrocity of music. Sort of like Celebrity You’re A Star without the charity. Some will say it’s gone downhill in the last ten years. They’ll look back on the time when Ireland ruled the roost with fondness. But it was just as crap then as it is now. Linda Martin, Dana, Johnny Logan. Those songs are terrible. Eurovision holds itself up to be a prestigious showcase of the best songwriting talent on the continent, which is about as delusional as the Burmese Junta thinking everything is under control. Only difference is, even the Junta are beginning to realise they might be a bit wrong. Those who take the competition seriously have really got to ask themselves why. I mean, Dustin’s critics proclaimed he would embarrass us, that we would be shamed from the competition. As if the viewers of Eurovision are a demographic whose perception of our country is something we should really be worried about.

Having said that, I did watch the semi-final tonight, more out of morbid curiosity and boredom than anything else though. I have to admit right here and now that it bothered me that Dustin didn’t qualify, but not out of some sense of national pride. What annoys me is that almost all of the songs that qualified were so terribly mediocre, so utterly devoid of merit. Such a gross display of poor taste on a multi-national level simply adds another reason to my “Why I Hate 95% Of The Human Race” list, which is already quite lenghty.

Pushing Daisies

I sometimes think RTE intentionally recruit the most mentally deficient schedulers they can find. Some of the best films RTE show tend to be on well past midnight. Granted, this is often because films I think are good don’t have a mass audience appeal. Fine, I get it. But, having bought Pushing Daisies, why then did RTE decide to put it on after midnight? On a Monday (or Tuesday morning, whatever your preference!).

In case you haven’t heard of it, Pushing Daisies is the latest prime-time American TV import. It aired to great fanfare on ITV a couple of weeks ago; the weekend supplements of the English papers were full of superlative-laden articles about the series. It was on the cover of Radio Times. Time magazine named it in the top 5 best new series of 2007. It’s done very well in America and in Britain. RTE however, decide to bung it into to the late night schedule and don’t even advertise it. Admittedly the first episode had strangulation with a plastic bag in it, but given the style of the show, it could hardly be descriped as graphic or upsetting.

What’s it about?

Hotpress: The Bastion of Irish Journalistic Standards

Una and TwentyMajor have already covered this, but I think Twenty is right in saying “this needs as wide an audience as possible.”

Hotpress in their infinite “journalistic” wisdom, decided to dedicate four pages of their… fine publication to this guy, a rapper called Nailerz from the ghettos of Limerick. But his music isn’t even on the Bebo page to which HotPress direct you. You have to do a little looking around to find the link to this page.

If his personal page didn’t warn you as to how much of a knobber this guy is, his band page gives more than a few extra hints. “check out mo tunes i robbed most of um cause thats what i do” he says, which is encouraging.

As I’m sure many of you will be surprised, it turns out that the music is awful. The same old “gangsta” shit with piss poor rhymes and the usual gun-glorification. “all mo tunes that are one hundred percent mine ye will have to buy in the shops and they will make you laugh cry freak you out make you kill people and teach you how to get away with murder.” The Irish record buying public are exploding with impatience, I’m sure.

Is Fearr Gaeilge Briste Ná Béarla Foirfe

No sooner had I finished writing the previous post and went to make some lunch that I heard Dereck Mooney (*shudder*) talking about Glen on d’radio. It seems that in the New York Times, there’s an article today about Glen’s apparently botched attempt to use Irish in his acceptance speech. THIS BE THE LINK

He said ‘Go raibh míle, míle, maith agat’ when he perhaps should have said ‘Go raibh míle, míle, maith agaibh’, being that agat is singular while agaibh is plural.

Purists like this piss me off. There would be no one pointing out the mistake if he had made it in English but because they perceive that he made a slight grammatical mistake in a moment of joy and nervousness, he’s abusing our national language.

How A Sitcom Is Born (In RTE)

Location: The RTE brainstorming room.

(Though judging by some of the station’s output, this place probably doesn’t even exist.)

RTE Executive: Right, Dave, thanks for coming to this meeting. My assistant, Sharon, has read some of your scripts and she tells me they’re very promising.

Dave: Well, thanks. I’m glad-

Exec: (Interrupts) Yeah, yeah, that’s great. So, what’s your idea? Sharon tells me it’s got something to do with a school?

Dave: Um…no actually. It’s about a guy who owns an independent music store in Cork and his friend who runs a small time music label. It’s basically about their relationships, loves, losses and dealing with unsigned bands. I wanted to bring in a tiny bit of the surrealism and one camera atmosphere of Scrubs, with perhaps the quotable one liners of the Simpsons and the wit of Black Books.

Exec: …Right… But it’s funny?

Dave: Oh yeah, definitely. In fact, Graham Linehan has read one of my scripts and has said it’s one of the most promising he has read in at least ten years. And, Dylan Moran has actually expressed-

Exec: Graham who? Moran? (Turns to assistant) Who are these people?

Sharon: They’re-

Exec: (Turning back to Dave) Look, that sounds really good. I love it. It just needs some…tweaking.

Dave: Tweaking? Well, I -

Exec: Yeah, tweaking. For instance, no one cares about Cork. That’s not going to work.

Dave: But I -

Exec: It’s got to be Dublin. As we like to say here in RTE, “There’s no one important outside Dublin.” And a music store? I can’t see it. What about your other idea about a school?

Dave: I didn’t have -

Exec: Yeah, you’re school idea was much better. We’ve got to look at the demographics. There’s a growing population of…what do you call them? Immigrants! A lot in Dublin now, so maybe if we could work that into the script.

Dave: Um…if we could get back to -

Exec: A language school! That’s great, nice one Dave. Thing is though, our viewers are thick!

Dave: What? They’re not thick.

Exec: (Laughs) A now Dave, I’m an RTE executive. I know what I’m talking about. Those people out there are thick. They’re not going to understand something as original as that. We need to copy an existing format.

Dave: (Getting more and more confused) What? But why would -

Exec: Have you ever seen the Office, Dave?

Dave: Yeah, it’s not bad.

Exec: Turgid pile of shite Dave, those BBC bastards don’t know what they’re doing. But it was pretty successful, so let’s take that format and apply it to your language school idea.

Dave: But I didn’t have that idea.

Exec: Ah now Dave, this is RTE! This is no place for modesty. So we have a language school instead of an office and we have a teacher instead of a manager? I like what you’re saying Dave.

Dave: (Giving up at this stage) Um…yeah…thanks.

Exec: But of course we’ve got to make the teacher annoying. I mean really annoying. Let’s make this guy the most horrendously infuriating character to ever have graced Irish television.

Sharon: Um…what about Ryan Tubridy?

Exec: Good point. The SECOND most horrendously infuriating character to ever have graced Irish television. A real cunt. Every movement, every word this prick utters should drive people around the bend. That’s what the riff-raff love! That’s what they think is funny.

Dave: Are you sure that’s funny?

Exec: (Arms out open wide) Dave, Dave. Trust me, I’ve produced ‘Upwardly Mobile’, ‘Killinaskully’, ‘Bull Island’, ‘The Cassidys’ and ‘Extra, Extra, Read All About It’. See? I know what’s funny.

Dave: But none of those shows were -

Exec: Actually funny in any way shape or form? I know that Dave. You know that. Sharon here is a woman, and even she knows that. But the viewers don’t know that. So it doesn’t matter.

Dave: (Stares blankly).

Exec: So we’ve got the annoying teacher, a group of immigrants and that cringe-worthy humour that The Office made popular. That sounds like a pretty accurate portrayal of modern Irish society, don’t you think?

Dave: Well, I wouldn’t say exactly that -

Exec: Bad writing! I forgot about that bad writing. That’s a must, of course. So really, I wouldn’t bother working too hard on it Dave, it’s cool. Just slap any old shit together.

(The anger Dave has been feeling bubbling within for the last few minutes finally bursts forth)
Dave: (Rising from his chair) Look! I can’t do this. None of this was my idea! This isn’t my script! This is a terrible idea! I can’t sacrifice my artistic integrity for this rubbish.

Exec: Oh. Sorry Dave, I didn’t know you felt that way. Although, I did forget to mention how much you’d get paid for this.

(The Exec writes a figure on a sheet of paper, folds it and slides it across the table to Dave. Dave opens the paper, his eyes widen and struggles to find words.)

Exec: (Smiling) So Dave, when do you think you could have the pilot script of “The English Class” polished up?

Dave: A week! 5 days! Whatever you like. (Giggles a little, looking at the piece of paper again.)

Exec: Excellent! Good talking to you Dave.

And that, dear readers, is how RTE continues it’s amazing streak of producing top quality homegrown sitcoms.

Madam, ….

Oh, Irish Times letter page, how you love to drive me crazy sometimes with your annoyingly conservative (probably septuagenarian) contributors. Let’s have a look at what they have to say today.
There’s JA Barnwell from Dublin 9 who is worried about the effect d’immigrants will have on our precious National Identity and wonders ‘are we in face the losing “the thing called a country” (Wolfe Tone)?’ Our identity and culture are constantly shifting and evolving. Things like language and social mores are always changing, as indeed do cultures and identities. But as usual, people settle into a certain way of thinking as they get older and therefore see any change that comes afterwards as detrimental to what they see as being the correct order of these things. They fail to see that these ideas are not concrete, they are ethereal and not only change from day to day, year to year and generation to generation but from person to person. Some of these immigrants aren’t here for long, others are here for life. But they are the new Irish. The civil war/anti-Brit generation are slowly dying away and we’re no longer tied down by the insular ideas of our forefathers. So stuff it, oldie! Your ideas are obsolete!
Then We’ve got Aidan Meagher of the ‘Friends Of Classical Music’. (If someone from the ‘Friends’ of anything try to talk to you, run a country fucking mile.) Aidan is complaining that young people don’t listen to classical music and that somehow it’s the fault of the schools for not instilling in them even the “slightest notion of this great cultural heritage.’ As if, for some reason, other types of music might be less valid, less artistically or intellectually fulfilling. No doubt, classical music is a thrill to hear live but given that most of it’s fans (Fans? Of classical music? That sounds so wrong. Enthusiast perhaps? Aficionado? Disciple) are somewhat cliquey and it has never really been able to shed it’s distinctly high-brow sensibilities, it’s not entirely the most welcoming atmosphere for those who can’t tell their Mozart from the their Dvorak.
Something of a disappointing page today really, the other contributors were either agreeable or uninteresting. Nevertheless, this is a topic to which I will return.

Holding Out My Arms, Hoping Something Happens To Swing By

Hmmm…

I’m stuck.

There seems to be no music out there at all, to which I want to listen. The last really good album I listened to was Biffy Clyro’s latest. Before that, it was Brand New’s latest. Saul Williams has been pleasing me of late, but he hasn’t sated my thirst for something new; pastures thus far unchewed. But nothing out there is punching me in the stomach in the way music should.

That’s not to say everything is shit. Just last night, I saw two good bands in The Bróg here in Cork. Locallers, Elk (whom I still haven’t gotten around to writing up on) and a Japanese band called Lite. Lite, actually, were truly astounding; their musicianship was amazing and many of their songs were very good. My problem with them however, was that they were instrumental – post-rock/math-rock/whatever-you’re-having-yourself-rock. Normally, I would have said this was fine, but there just seems to be so much of it out there at the moment that it’s really starting to bore me. A post-rock band has to try much harder to impress me now, given there’s a lot of them, and Lite did just that. Still didn’t make me want to fork out 15 quid for the album.

I think I need that human connection you can only get from vocals, from a song. Right now, I can’t find it.

I got Fionn Regan’s album a few weeks ago. It was good. Very good in fact. Some truly great lyrics there. Like post-rock bands, (and most any other type of music now, come to think of it) the single guitar, singer/songwriter type guy has to really cut it to impress me. Fionn did that. And yet, I’m still looking for something. I’m still thirsty.

I borrowed Mates Of State from a friend, thinking I might find what I’m looking for there. No guitars. Just poppy singing, drums and synth. Very now, very fun. Again, they’re good, but my gut remains musically un-punched.

This is a time of huge change for music. Never before have we had so much at our fingertips. People are throwing it at us. Every band and DJ and kid with a Korg and broadband is clawing to get our attention. There’s something out there for me, I know that for sure. But it’s like I’m standing on this beach, looking for one grain of sand. I have no idea where to start looking. How do you other people do it? How do y’all constantly find something new? How are you constantly excited? What did I miss?

Biffy Clyro – Machines

Brand New – Archers Bows Have Broken

Saul Williams – Twice The First Time

Mates Of State – Fraud In The 80’s

Fionn Regan – Put A Penny In The Slot