Songs on a compost heap (1 in a series)

Tweet I did a weeny bit of DJing during my girlfriend's usual Tuesday night slot recently. Sometimes she charitably indulges me like a friendly guard allowing a slow kid to mess with the siren in his squad car. Being me, I was not content just to play the music. I also chose to honk into her tiny ear (she has really tiny ears) about whatever I chose to play. What always strikes me as cool about these spontaneous DJ situations, is being forced by time to come up with a brand new tune from someone else's collection every few minutes. Soon ya start flipping through the CDs and selecting songs you have not thought about/ appreciated in yonks and getting excited about them. I'm gonna do that here for a series of posts. In each post I'll stick up an MP3 of a song that for one reason or another stands out from the musical detritus that has accumulated in my head over 26 years. They might not be my favourite songs (at the last count I miraculously had about 3,674 songs in my top three songs of all time list), or even great songs. Just songs that for one reason or another have been on my mind to the extent that I would like to shite on about them to the world through the medium of this blog. A song is always so much more than the sum of its parts. It can carry a personal resonance. For example, if Celine Dion's 'my heart will go on' was playing the time you prematurely ejaculated in your trousers at a teenage disco, then that song will not only be the soundtrack to a tragic overblown movie but, as you may discover in psychotherapy, the eternal soundtrack to your tragic overblown load. Or a song will have cultural resonance. Who can listen to the opening chords of 'don't look back in anger' without thinking of all britpop and the spirit of those times? You'll see from the first selection this is going to be a very random endeavour. MP3: Wubble U-petal I always called this song wubble u, but it turns out that wubble u is the name of the recording artist and the songs is actually called petal. It was a sort of flash in the pan techno hit in the mid 90s and used to get played on 2TV. Somewhat inexplicably, this song has a hold over me. I mean, superficially there is not much to the parts of it. Its standard enough fodder, and sounds a bit dated with its jiggly techno synth riff, euphoric female vocals, babbled ecstasy insights ("you fascinate me") and overt references to drugs. Maybe it lodged with me because of Stanley Unwin's nonsense voice over and a deeply troubling video which I can't separate the song from. In the video a man in a yellow latex robin hood suit meets a spooky wizard and eats a flower petal. He then sets off on a space hopper through fields full of multi-coloured lute players, tiny people on mushrooms and mysterious colouredy men that race unnaturally quickly past the camera and send a shiver of dread down my back. Perhaps most troubling of all is that this happens in front of a cartoon sky, giving the entire endeavour the frenzied hyper-realistic effect of the sort of hallucination that surely can only be brought on by years of taking too many recreational dance drugs. Remember Tracy from Big Brother? I bet its wubble u time inside her head all the time. Its like someone gave the Kells Amateur dramatics society some latex costumes, a video camera, a binful of drugs and set them loose for a few days in the fields behind the town. What I think is at the core of petal is something close to madness. It came out six or seven years after the start of rave culture, and the veneer of euphoria in the video seems to me to teeter on the brink of a bad and very strange trip, where you lose your mind entirely and are doomed (like Tracey and Bez) to live in that crusty psychedelic headspace for ever.Wubble U scares me.

More printed on paper stuff.

Tweet Keep yer eyeballs peeled for the latest issue of Analogue magazine knocking around town fer the grand price of totally free! I interviewed O'Death in Whelans last month and you can read the resulting piece right here. I've been on a reacquainting-myself-with-Mogwai buzz these last few days. Particularly with their masterpiece Young Team and the Mogwai EP. Incredible stuff. I remember buying Young Team when I was in 5th year of school after reading an over the top NME review and subsequently feeling disappointed and alienated by most of it when I tried to listen to it at home. I felt sick, mugged, and resentful of whatever gobshite reviewed it (Stephen Wells I think) 'cos £18.99 was a sizeable wad of my meagre savings to be wasting on such chundering abstract nonsense (good job Stars of the Lid weren't around to be recommended to me at that age). But I owned fuck all CDs at the time, so Young Team got the odd reluctant spin between the Boo Radleys and The Verve, just to see if there was anything to it. It took its time, but the album slowly won me over, and as it did it taught me to look beyond conventional song structures for my musical fixes. Although it was yonks until I could appreciate the brilliance of Like Herod as anything more than spurts of aggressive noise, I soon fell for the album's softer, more beautiful moments. Like this... MP3: Mogwai-Tracy You can nearly smell the rain off the wet streets of Glasgow.

Here we go!!!

Tweet Just got my yearly helping of bollox about Oxegen in my email inbox.... Now read over it carefully and deduce the myriad ways in which people who go to this are gonna be ripped off and cynically fucked up their collective holes by the monster that is MCD... If a three day festival (yes now you can endure this misery for 72 full hours) for 200 euro is a special offer (one day free according to them), it looks like the full whack of an oxegen ticket will be 300 quid this year. PLUS look at that snakey little 20 quid thursday camping charge, not to mention the overpriced food, the dublin bus rip off charges etc, etc, etc... Awful stuff. Anyway, here's the bollocky spiel...I trust that by putting this on my blog I'm not gonna convince anyone to actually go to this disaster. "Countdown to the Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Weekend of the Year begins... and this year it's 3 days! OXEGEN.IE REGISTERED FANS REWARDED WITH AN EXCLUSIVE 55 HOUR PRE SALE. EARLY BIRD TICKETS ON SALE FRIDAY 30 NOVEMBER @ 8AM You can not only purchase tickets at 2007 prices, but also receive a FULL day extra completely FREE as OXEGEN becomes 3 days. If since July, you've been pining for the next Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Weekend of the Year or missed out on a much sought after ticket last year, fear not as preparations for OXEGEN 2008 are well underway. Fans will be chuffed to hear that a limited number of early-bird weekend with camping tickets for next year's festival are going on sale at 2007 prices from 30th November at 8am. Tickets are priced at €197.50 (including booking fee) with a free car park space available for every four tickets booked. But... there is also an EXCLUSIVE ticket pre-sale available to registered OXEGEN.IE users where you get to buy a ticket FIRST. Tickets for registered users go on sale from midnight, Tuesday 27 November until 7am, Friday 30 November. Tickets are limited to 4 per person. Register here before 5pm on Tuesday if you haven't already registered to get access to the exclusive pre-sale. Not only can you get a ticket at 2007 prices but you enjoy an extra day completely FREE at OXEGEN 2008, as the festival will be opening on Friday for the first time ever with many of the hottest acts kicking the weekend off in style. New this year, the campsite will open on Thursday and fans wishing to camp need to purchase a Thursday Camping ticket in advance for an additional €20. For the first time ever, fans can choose which campsite they want to set up camp in for the weekend - Campsite Red or Campsite Blue." My fave bit of the above is the way the 2007 prices are supposed to be a good thing?? They are doing us a favour by offering us their scumbag riddled poisoned donkey of a music festival at last years already grotesquely inflated price, and having us believe that this is the deal of the century? I know where I'll be. In some sunny corner of spain or somewhere, watching fresh new bands like this for one third of the price. MP3: Fuck Buttons-Bright tomorrow Oh, and lest we forget...

Get stars in yer lids...

Tweet Want to hear what a dork I am? I put my name in for a night shift at work a few weeks ago and never thought twice about what night it would be. Turns out its the same night the very special Stars of the Lid play Wheelie Bins. That makes me a quadruple whammy of dork, dufus, dweeb, dunderhead (and all other words starting with the letter d that sound like insults from saved by the bell). To rub salt in the wound, I just found out they will be supported by the deadlee Ulrich Schnauss. MP3: Ulrich Schnauss-Stars Please if you go, let me how brilliant it is? Like, tell me if it sounds like the heartbroken mating calls of blind and lonely alien beasts moving massively and slowly through space? Or if it sounds like the final echoed whisper of a fisherman dying of cold in the galley of a lost Arctic trawler? Cos sometimes, these are the things that the drone based recordings of Stars of the Lid sound like. Other times they just sound like feelings, dread, hope, joy or despair. There are times they sound like something big thats about to happen. And times like something big has just happened and the universe is taking a breather. Their music is so deep, so abstract, and the odd time so close to the edge of huge revelations it can find you feeling small and unreal listening to it. Now I know that probably makes me sound like a bit of an ornate and flowery fucker, but I don't really care. I'm struggling to describe them. Try them out for yourselves. MP3: Stars of the Lid-Humectez La Mouture MP3: Stars of the Lid-The evil that never arrived

DEY'RE GIVIN AWAY 150 EEEUUUUROOOO!!!!

Tweet GAH! I'm landing home from work most evenings and plopping softly on the sofa. And that's it, game over for the next few hours. I'll end up watching telly instead of doing any remotely worth while like cooking or reading a decent book. Shite times. Not that telly's that bad. There's Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall (so I can cook vicariously) and the compelling Dragon's Den (boggle as dead-eyed rich bastards sneer at petrified and vaguely tragic English people who've invested the kid's university funds into weird things with no use). But with telly comes ads. I hate ads. Actually no I hate annoying people in ads. They come on like an entire army made out of clones of the embarrassing plank from the office who always tells you he's maaaadd! Once I started noticing them I couldn't stop. Its fuckin awful. I'm starting to obsess. So bad that my flatmate and I have a constantly changing list of the top five most hateful fuckers in ads. At first it was fairly static, with Mickey Head and Shoulders, the rapping fruit pastilles kid and those toxic hen-party rejects from Sheila's Wheels hogging the top spots. But then as the obsession kicked in we started noticing the minor characters from ads and the list has become an endless revolving door system of absolute cretins. Peripheral fuckers that appear for but a fleeting second in an ad, yet end up ruining your whole night. There's "I'm not bald just streamlined baby!" from the diet coke ad, the "what a feeling" traffic cop/ mime artist hybrid in the gaviscon ad and the gurning bellhop in the Heineken memory hotel. The whole ad thing has gotten so ridiculous we've started having morbid murderous fantasies about a creature made out of felt...this guy Oh the many ways I could kill that jiggling little puppety fuck! Our current number one, the most hateful, decrepit creature to ever haunt an ad...the excited nordie hag queuing for the bank in the Northern Irish Bank Ad... "A HUNDRED AND FIFTEE EURO!!! DEY'RE GIVIN' AWAY A HUNDRED AND FIFTEE EURO!!!" She's the sort of dessicated 'oul weapon that would kill a child to get near a two for one offer on argyle socks in Frawleys. And as for that 150 euro, you just know she's gonna withdraw it the next day and stuff it in the mattress to absorb pee until she dies of misery in her freezing hovel. Now, on a completely unrelated note...an MP3. One of the most goose-pimply moments I've had at a gig this year was when Jason Pierce sang this cover version of Daniel Johnson's most well known song at the electric picnic. In retrospect it was as if the debauched fog of the weekend cleared for a few perfectly remembered minutes shot through with some sort of gentle magic. This recording is from the american leg of the current tour. MP3: Spiritualized Acoustic Mainline-True love will find you in the end

Fight Like Greats

Tweet Ah where do I start with this one? Okay I'll keep it short. Last night Fight Like Apes absolutely destroyed Whelans. Taking to the stage dressed up in matching black outfits and ninja headbands, it was obvious that this wasn't gonna be your average gig for them. This was gonna be the gig that would announce to Dublin that the apes have landed. And holy fuck, but they rocked. It was a balls-out scream at the stage affair for a well lubricated audience who knew a disturbing amount of this semi-fledgling band's lyrics. A few thoughts struck me. One, this band cannot be stopped. Two, Maykay is genetically engineered to be a rock star. When she hits full tilt, she's a wild magnetic presence, barking, screaming and pulling every pair of eyes in the venue her direction (and keeping it real on the left wing Jamie did some line in demented saucepan banging). Three, they have an embarrassment of great songs for a band with only two EPs to their name. Four, they'll probably end up ruling the world on this form. My personal highlight was, as usual, Jake Summers, which, plain and simple is a raw slice of greatness, a stone cold classic indie rock anthem. Oh and the support act Grand Pocket Orchestra played a blinder too. If you can imagine Barbara Windsor from Carry on Nurse and a demented Elf-man banging out some brill eclectic sounds, that at times (only times mind you) reminded me a little of Deerhoof. The beautiful Lo Lo took some deadlee pictures as usual, but she's mad sick tonight so I'll update this blog with a good 'un as soon as she feels better. No fight like apes MP3 available on my shitty laptop for yis (but I heartily recommend the vinyl of their two EPs). Instead, here's a good 'un from a band fight like apes seem to be on a mission to get us all listening to. And why not? MP3: McLusky-whoyouknow Update: A photo from Loreana...

A big list of things I want to blog about soon...

Tweet In no particular order... -Mercury Rev when Dave Baker was with them (they were better than the flaming lips back then). -The best guided by voices songs which mention animals in the lyrics (this activity can be carried out with all sorts of categories seeing as there are about 1,500 guided by voices songs. Its a bit like family fortunes. Best guided by voices songs that mention types of plane, different foodstuffs in guided by voices songs, weather patterns as featured in guided by voices songs. Its deadly). -Tonights Fight Like Apes gig and tomorrow's New Pornographers gig. -Silver Apples. -Can you judge whether someone is sound based on whether or not they like Guided by Voices and other ropey psychological applications based on music preference (E.g. people who are REALLY into Squarepusher are generally boring bastards-discuss)? -Stars of the Lid and other music for falling asleep to. -A few cookery blogs. -Christmas songs (as in why are there no good ones any more?). -The Elephant Six recording company. -A BLEEDIN' MASSIVE campaign, which will start right here to get Built to Spill to play a gig in Dublin. I'll probably end up blogging about half of one of these things. Oh and ye may have noticed that my MP3 links are coming from all over the shop this weather. Its cos fileden have deleted my account (something to do with bandwidth limit being exceeded. So I'm just being a cretin and robbing other people's bandwidth for the time being.) Old shorty from Brooklyn here says enjoy the weekend and don' drink too much kids! MP3: Silver Apples-oscillations

WHHOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH

Tweet That's the sound Kevin Shield's guitar will soon be making live... Cos My Bloody Valentine have announced some live shows in England, their first in 16 years. Oh, what to expect from the live show? Will it be like the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey? A mentally damaging sonic trip into the future of mankind, filled with new music that will make 'loveless' sound like a compendium of Razorlight B Sides? Or will it be the most crushing anticlimax in modern rock since the Stone Roses shamefully shat all over themselves and their legacy at Glastonbury? A lumbering, workshy relic of man who likes pies leads a rusty band on stage to play banjaxed live versions of tracks from an album that sounded impossibly perfect on record because it was treated so much in the studio. Whatever happens, it would probably need to be close to the second coming of Christ to match the legend that has developed around these guys. MP3: My Bloody Valentine-Sue is fine The sun rises over My Bloody Valentine's stage set...

All aboard Kennedy's space station

Tweet Yay! Just got a text message that has considerably brightened the pissy afternoon that's in it. Lindstrom and Prins Thomas are bringing their tripped out Scandinavian space disco to Kennedy's on December 8th. At 15 quid, tickets are a fuckin' steal!! That's what the cheeky bolloxes at Vibe (my local mucksavage Niteclub in Kells) charge on a Saturday night. For one night only the interior of Kennedy's will be redecorated to look like the Russian space station Mir, replete with cosmonaut girls on silver rollerblades gliding through the crowd with trayfuls of space sweeties to help the revellers achieve zero gravity the moment Lindstrom launches into 'I feel space'. Or maybe not. Should be a mega night though. I'm linking to an MP3 of an entire live show by Lindstrom, pure savagery. I don't know if the guys will be playing separate or doing their collaborative stuff, or a bit of both? Maybe someone can tell me. MP3: Lindstrom Live at club caviar The two lads. Handsome devils aren't they?

They. Are. Your. Friends.

Tweet Here's my review of the Grizzly Bear Friend EP wot I did for Gareth... 2007 is proving to be a barnstorming year for North American indie rock. It’s a savage time to be into music. There is so much to get excited about. There is a frontier spirit of restless experimentalism in the air, where bands are not content to sit back on the laurels thrown at shit-hot, praised to the rafters albums, but instead keep questing, blogging, recording, remixing and covering each other’s work with a demented fervour that was last seen in the golden age of mid 90’s lo-fi. It’s a spirit that has delivered food from the Gods for hungry bloggers who are snaffling up bagfuls of wonderful sonic treats by the day. To me, the times are best embodied by the work of three very different but equally super bands, Animal Collective (whose singer released Person Pitch, an album of the year, and whose live show consists of awesome stuff newer than Strawberry Jam which is barely out 3 months), Deerhunter (who followed up Cryptograms with the mesmerising Flourescent Grey EP, and squillions of bonkers MP3s from frontman Bradford’s avant garde solo project Atlas Sound) and these guys, Grizzly Bear, who after the knockout of Yellow House, show up with the Friend EP reinterpreting their own work the same way Jackson Pollock used to get off his noggin on whiskey and reinterpret the number 5. Of the 11 tracks here, most are Grizzly Bear tricking around with their old stuff, three are other bands covering them, two are shiny new tracks and one is a cover version of ‘He Hit Me’ by The Crystals. I’ll get the other bands out of the way first, cos its only a bit diverting, except for one tune, and that’s Atlas Sound deconstructing ‘Knife’ their most renowned track, and re-recording it in what sounds like a haunted Japanese temple full of clockwork toys and bells. But never mind the other bands, its what the Grizzlies do to their own material that impresses the most here. The old tracks are run through the mangler, where they get stretched and warped into mad new forms. I won’t go into all of it, but anyone familiar with the original slight recording of ‘Alligator’ from Horn of Plenty will catch their breath listening to the massive mutations on display here. Its new! Its improved! Its 3 times longer! Its sung in a different key! And its dripping with exotic instrumentation like distant rumbling drums, warped velvet undergroundy guitar parts and trumpets! Also, check out what’s happened to ‘Little Brother’-the towering ways in which it rocks out literally bear no relation to the ethereal original. Out of the new tracks, it’s the hidden one that mugs ye, a quickfire squiggly trumpet collaboration with Zach from Beirut. All this madness suggests that like Animal Collective before them Grizzly Bear are intent to evolve at every turn they take. And on the evidence of the Friend EP, long may their wonderful experiments continue. The MP3 comes from another bear band, seabear. MP3: Seabear-libraries UPDATE!!! Judging by my comment box, seabear ain't exactly lighting people's fires so here's one from the EP MP3: Grizzly Bear-Shift (alternative version)

Glasvegas

Tweet No I'm not 'on about the abnormally embarrassing retrograde TG4 talent show (remember the dude in black face who utilised home made puppet technology to pretend to be the entire Jackson 5?). I'm talking about these lads, who are sort of psychedelic rockabilly young chancers from Glasgow (hence the Glas). Its an NME hype band I'm afraid, but hopefully they'll have legs enough to outrun the hype and the notorious NME kiss of death. Actually they are double jinxed because they are being promoted by Alan McGees magical shit finger that's turned everything its touched to shit since the last SFA release on creation records. But this song, its really interesting, what am I saying? Its great. It has a scuzzy Jesus and Mary Chain goes doo-wop feel (doo-gaze? Hoo-yeah! I invented a genre) some real spotty teenage soul and awkward jimmied in lyrics that ramble a bit and include the fabulous lines "I'm feeling so guilty about the things I said to my Mam when I was ten years old. I'm feeling so guilty about any old shit." Its only a demo, but there is a real hum of something properly special off this track. Good luck to 'em! MP3: Glasvegas-Its my own cheating heart that makes me cry Glasvegas as featured on TG4 "talent" show Glas Vegas

The printed word

Tweet I just realised that I posted a dud link for this before, so I'm gonna plug it again. Whenever you're knockin' about town keep yer eyes peeled for Gareth Williamson's unassuming little 'zine called Play the Song I like. Its great. It tends to hang out quietly on the counter of Tower Records waiting to be picked up by appreciative indie kids, who (with the exception of the crappy-yet-functional Event Guide and the pointless ad carrier 'In Dublin') are spoiled for choice with things you can read that are free yet not shit, wot with Mongrel, Analogue and this to flick through on the Luas. I contribute another small piece this time around, a review of Grizzly Bear's new EP. Oh and I had a bit of banter doing an interview with O'Death for the next Analogue, which not only packs silly amounts of exclusive interviews this issue, but steers refreshingly away from stuff like Katy French/Bono/Sex weasel woman with all the dildo updates/Mark Geary/An article about the Catholic Church and whatever other Dave Fanningesque dreck those drooling old geriatrics in Hotpress Heights think the kids are into today. Unlike Hotpress in so many ways, Analogue is very pleasing to the touch. It has a spine, matt pages, and a non-slip cover you'll just want to stroke against your bare skin all night. Not since monks wrote about Gregorian chants on vellum has Irish music journalism felt so seductive. It also puts lots of well written words about music where other mags might choose to run with a glossy close up of Jim Corr looking windswept and interesting near some castle, a bit like that other really sound hero of mine, Mickey from the Head and Shoulders ad. Cos Gareth's 'zine is a bit DIY but great, here is a song from a band who are a bit likewise... MP3: Sebadoh-The Freed Pig

And neon burns my sight...

Tweet Deerhunter in Whelans last night was the synapse frazzling culmination of an epic few days of drinkin' and giggin' that also took in Modeselektor and Animal Collective and left me feeling like a spent and delicate husk of my former self. I was gonna do a leaving cert style treatment of Animal Collective and Deerhunter in the compare and contrast these two bands vein. But as lots of fellow Bloggers have done a good job of discussing the 'collective, I won't add too much to things. Only this. At times Animal Collective sounded so strange and out there out it felt that new, unused parts of my brain were being stimulated and booting up for the first time.

Yet to not inform the crowd of Avey Tare's vocal problems at the start was a real head-scratcher, not to mention a bit of a swizz. It was obvious that something was up. I know that they are rarely conventional in what they play live, but c'mon to get that far in to proceedings without barely a peep of his inimitable bonkers vocals? If people knew what was up from the get-go, I wager they'd have gone with the flow and enjoyed things a bit more, rather than looked awkwardly around to see if anyone else was as confused as they were. Click! Loreana snapped this stonker

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 And then there was Deerhunter in Whelan's...again, the photo is courtesy of Loreana.

 
Not the world's most vertical bunch of musicians...

What a fuckin' show. When they ended on a wild, ragged interpretation of their psychedelic masterpiece Strange Lights, the whooshy madness emanating from their guitars was equivalent to the full brunt of a hurricane. All the stuff they played sounded so raw and untamed and most tunes generally stretched into spacious and textured grooves that were longer than the recorded versions but didn't drone past their welcome. It was only bleedin' massive. There is still a barely perceptible hum in my right ear. Maybe I'm damaged? It was worth it. And my borderline obsessed fan of a girlfriend who did a shoot with them, somehow had them dedicate Like New to her.

A thought occurred to me during the gig and I've probably harped on about it a bit here before. Much of the crowd seemed a little too cool for school and weren't exactly getting into it. I wished they'd loosen up a bit. This is the case with so many of my favourite bands. They end up playing a set that moves the earth to a sea of blank faces all doing that barely perceptible hipster nod thing. I mean, how could you not move to deerhunter, this was phenomenal music. I wish some of the apeshit modeselektor fans from Thursday were there. They would have shook things down!

P.S Did you see the huge runny strings of drool oozing out of guitarist Colin's mouth? I thought he was going to keel over and seize up. Whatever he was on, it didn't seem to have too bad an impact on his ability to play though.

P.P.S Support dude Y.A.C.H.T while not exactly my cup of tea, did a hilarious line of freakin' out the squares by dancing like a malfunctioning robot child with imaginary instruments in the midst of a frankly terrified audience. He also conducted a bizzarro Q&A with the audience and ended up chatting for a good five minutes about his recently deceased cat.

Today's treat combines two of my favourite bands in one nifty little package. It's a rattley-clattery-ghostly cover of Knife by Grizzly Bear by Bradford from Deerhunter's side project Atlas Sound. Its on a new EP by Grizzly Bear (Friend EP) that's out today and by all accounts thus far, sounds like its well worth the shillings. Its heaving with new material from Grizzly Bear and a few remixes (11 tracks in total). Everything that band does is solid gold in my book (well maybe not their poops, but everything else).


MP3:Grizzly Bear-Knife (covered by Atlas Sound)

Asleep on the independent...

Tweet Asleep on the compost heap makes the daily media...In an article about Fight Like Apes by Eamonn Sweeney in the Irish independent Day and Night magazine... Also, me girlfriend took the cool picture. Now I'm off to listen to animal collective on heavy rotation until tonight's gig. Yipeee!!! MP3: Animal Collective-Song for Ariel

Now we're high as monkeys...

Tweet Gah! All sorts of real life shite is keeping me away from my old matey the laptop, so blogs have been suffering. However, by next week I hope to have reported back from Modeselektor (was a funnee mongfest), Animal Collective (I'm worried I've left myself open to severe disappointment 'cos I fully expect this gig to be the closest my secular little brain will come to seeing the sun jig about in the sky at Mejugorje) and Deerhunter (another potential gig of the year). Cripes! Normally I put up a fun go-gettem' tune for the weekend. But it's November, the city is slick with rain and many people have seen the National once or twice over the last few days. So, if at 4am, you find yourself crumpled drunkenly on the corner of Wexford street while your other half stomps away in a huff, take solace in the fact that you could make some beautiful art out of it. like this... MP3: Arab Strap Here we go