The Thin Air Magazine: Issue 14

Feature: Comedy trio Foil Arms & Hog // Track Record: Sister Ghost’s Shannon O’Neill Live: The Mighty Stef’s final show // Vault Lines: Padraig Cooney on Michael Knight ISSUE #014 | JUNE/JULY 2016 | FREE

– Lisa O’Neill: The Divil You Know – U

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M U S I C M U S I C & &

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FRANKLYN // FLECKS // SLOUCH // LAUREN BIRD // I HAVE A TRIBE // CHRIS WEE OVERHEAD THE ALBATROSS // LAND LOVERS // STEVEN MAYBURY // THE SMITHS

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Foreword / Contents Editor Brian Coney brian@thethinair.net @brianconey

Sound & Vision

Deputy Editor/ Photo Editor Loreana Rushe loreana@thethinair.net Art Director Stuart Bell @stubell_ Reviews Editor Eoin Murray eoin@thethinair.net Guide Editor Stevie Lennox stevie@thethinair.net @stevieisms Contributors: Aaron Drain Aidan Kelly Murphy Blair Massie Brian Coney Caolan Coleman Chris Wee Colm Laverty Conor Callanan Conor Smyth Joe Laverty John Rooney Jonathan Wallace Loreana Rushe Lucy Foster Michael Pope Padraig Cooney Paula Murphy Pedro Giaquinto Ruth Kelly Sara Marsden Stefan Murphy Ste Murray Steven Rainey Stevie Lennox Zara Hedderman Cover Photo: Joe Laverty

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Above All Else

’ve just turned 29. I’ve lost my birth certificate, which I need for my disgracefully overdue provisional driver’s licence. I should probably call up the dentist to arrange that long-awaited check-up. That will surely culminate in extortionate fees in return for acute agony. Should the overdraft be cleared by now? My bass guitar really needs some serious attention. I’ve precisely 34p to my name. Brian “34p” Coney. This heat is actually unbearable.

There is, in fact, nowhere near enough hours in the day. I’ve

resorted to regurgitating truisms. “Is this really suitable for Page Three in the magazine?”

I’ve just turned 29. Yes – life is indeed often little more than an impenetrable flurry of confusion, disappointment and misjudged aspiration but fear not: no matter how things may time and again conspire to numb you to little more than a husk of a human being, we will, all of us, always and forever, have sound and vision; music and culture; thinkers, creators and doers. Extend that overdraft. Brian Coney

Contents Photo Of The Month --------------- 4 Projection ------------------------------ 5 Chris Wee ------------------------------ 6 Inbound -------------------------------- 8 The First Time ---------------------- 12 Feature: Plugd Records ---------- 14 Track Record: Sister Ghost------ 18 Feature: Lisa O’Neill -------------- 20

Feature: Rob Crane ---------------- 24 Feature: Foil Arms And Hog --- 26 Primer: Steven Maybury -------- 29 Reviews: Releases ----------------- 32 Reviews: Live ----------------------- 34 Not Gospel: Ghostbusters ------- 36 88mph: The Smiths --------------- 38 Agony Uncle ------------------------- 39

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June/July 2016

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– Photo of the Month

Photo of the Month Jason Lee

4

Lisa Hannigan Connolly’s of Leap, Cork Image: Jason Lee

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ach month our photo editor Loreana Rushe selects one standout gig image from our fantastic team of hard working photographers.

The photographer gets the opportunity to showcase their pic and share a few insights into how they captured it.

Loreana: Our photographers have been fortunate to cover the majority of Lisa’s dates on her Irish tour and I’ve yet to see a bad photo of her.

Her grace and energy always exude when she performs, making for some wonderful photos, in particular on Jason’s shot above and the rest of his set from this show.

Jason: I took this photograph of Lisa under the hammers at Connolly’s after quietly shuffling my butt along the

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floor, doing my best not disturb anyone and getting as close as possible to the stage. Even though it makes for a challenge to photograph, I love the low house lighting at Connolly’s.

In the moment I took this shot, I caught sight of a pre-flash coming from above, the kind some cameras use to eliminate red eye so as Lisa was illuminated by the full flash from the balcony I caught the snap. I saw it coming and calculated my instinct.

Okay, so I’m not for using flashes at gigs, but big thanks to whoever accidentally lit this shot.

Last word as a music fan: for me, there are a handful voices, Odetta’s or Karen Dalton’s, say, that come from somewhere else. Lisa Hannigan’s is amongst them.

Projection

og

– Projection

“I

t’s touched down over the Atlantic!” “Which part?” “All of it!” This line from the Independence Day: Resurgence trailer is an appropriate metaphor for the movie itself, and the summer blockbuster in general. A gargantuan, unavoidable eyesore hovering over the landscape, blocking out the sunlight. The category of ‘summer movie’ is becoming less fixed for sure, with superhero tent-poles like Batman v Superman released as early as March. Still, there’s a lot of bank on the line in this year’s sweaty months: Suicide Squad, Finding Dory, The BFG, Jason Bourne, Star Trek: Beyond and other big-money studio releases will be plastering buses pretty soon. So we’re ignoring all of that and giving much-needed oxygen to some lower-profile theatrical alternatives.

Elizabeth Moss delivers a masterclass in psychotic meltdown and poisoned friendship in Alex Ross Perry’s Queen of Earth, which has been available on American VOD for a while but is finally getting a limited UK cinema release. Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon, a stylishly visceral slasher thriller starring Elle Fanning as a young model thrown to the L.A. fashion wolves, got booed at Cannes and is already ringing alarm bells at the Daily Mail. Indulge your indecent side and prepare to be confounded. The macabre continues in Matteo Garrone’s Tale of Tales, a triptych of weirdo fairy

tales drawn from the folk stories of 17th-century Italy, with Selma Hayek, John C. Reilly and others participating in delicious baroque strangeness.

Irish-made Traders picks at the carcass of post-boom Dublin, with Killian Scott and John Bradley-Walsh as a pair of busted bankers who start an online murder club.

Taika Waititi, the multi-talented Kiwi behind What We Do in the Shadows and Marvel’s forthcoming new Thor, r in e We returns with Hunt for the Wilderpeople, an extremely promising survival comedy that strands Sam Neill and his delinquent teenage nephew in the New Zealand bush. It’s hardly an indie, but we have to mention Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, the music industry satire from The Lonely Island crew that’s drawing comparisons to This is Spinal Tap. Weiner is a doc about disgraced New York politician Anthony Weiner, caught sending shirtless selfies to girls on the side. Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg find themselves flies on the wall as the scandal engulfs his mayoral campaign, an unusually intimate look at professional catastrophe.

Todd Solondz’s Wiener-Dog, shot by Carol’s Edward Lachman, continues the director’s fondness for saddos and eccentrics, following the titular mutt’s passage from owner to owner, including Greta Gerwig’s lonely vet tech. Gerwig also shows up in Rebecca Miller’s Maggie’s Plan, a complicated romance comedy with Ethan Hawke and Julianne Moore. All included, this should be enough incentive to avoid the sun and keep those alabaster thighs milky white. Conor Smyth -D

Alternative Summer Programming

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Chris Wee

Sparks

October 2nd 2015 : Santa Fe - Denver

– Chris Wee

I

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t is sometimes at our lowest points that we are the most open to experiencing something truly special and fulfilling.

9 shows left out of 31, feeling a little raggedy. We pulled away from last night’s accommodation, a truly soul destroying casino hotel, planted on the dusty nothingness somewhere outside of Santa Fe. Nowhere makes you more homesick than places like this. It was my turn to drive, and despite my best efforts, within the first hour i’d taken a couple of wrong turns through the dust and added another hour on top of our already arduous drive.

Mental wellbeing on tour is the single greatest goal for any touring musician.

Decent food, ample sleep and sufficient communication with loved ones at home are key elements of keeping yourself on the straight and narrow. You’re battling your day to day existence to achieve it along with contending with the necessity to be a bright eye’d and consummate performer.

I’m keeping us late because of these wrong turns so we’re making less stops in order to make the time up. Decent service stops are essential in breaking the monotony, today we have no such

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luxury and the morale in the van reflects it. I burn an entire tank of fuel and push us through New Mexico, weaving up through the national parks to the state border into Colorado. Dust turns to trees and back to dust.

We pass countless miles of drab highways on this 340 mile journey.

Out of the monotony, right around lunchtime we happen upon a Chipotle, nestled amongst the usual sprawl of conveniences. Semi healthy burritos at this point offer some light in this dreary day, although we can’t eat in because of the time, it’s another van lap-lunch. I get mine first and race back out to the van in order to eat as much as I can before everyone’s back so I’m not contending with too much food falling round me once I’ve set off driving again. I turn down the offer to switch drivers. Somedays if you’ve messed up for whatever reason on tour, and especially if you’ve taken wrong turns and delayed the whole day, doing the whole drive is a sort of self imposed penance to show the rest of the guys you’re sorry.

Messing up on tour always carry greater weight, contributing to the erosion of morale which is such a crucial status quo to maintain. Everyone misses home or is dealing with their

Photo: Joe Laverty

And So I Watch You From Afar drummer Chris Wee reflects on perspective, mental wellbeing and recovery on the open road

Projection

own shit so you never want to be adding to that strain. Feeling particularly detached from the guys, I put my headphones in for the final couple of hours drive from here to the venue. As I pull back out onto the I-25 North towards Denver and press play on an unknown preloaded playlist a song comes on that absolutely crushes me. When I say crush, I don’t really know how to articulate it further than that. Almost a month into tour, tired, despondent, and gripped with the sense that I’d let the guys down, the song washed all over and through me, gripping every strand of anxiety and frayed emotion within me.

You lose perspective on tour when various negativity begins leaking into your day. You forget about the guy two nights ago that showed you the tattoo he got of your band on him. Or the couple who both fought through depression by being brought together by your music. You lose the ability to be circumspect when you begin struggling with keeping it all together.

Then sometimes a song comes along that you’ve never heard before comes on and grabs you by the neck and shakes you. It awakens all corners of your deadened emo-

“Almost a month into tour, tired, despondent, and gripped with the sense that I’d let the guys down, the song washed all over and through me.”

tions. It reminds you of how much you love all the guys sitting next to you and the band you’ve built together. How appreciative you are of the people that come to watch you play every night. You’re reminded of how special your loved ones are, who are always there for you no matter what the distance is.

Their warm embrace almost wrapping round my body through the sounds of this song that will forever change me.

‘And then it comes again/just like a spark.’ Chris Wee

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Inbound Franklyn

– Inbound –

I

t seems like a case of twice bitten, thrice wise for Frankyln’s Owen Strathern. After initially finding some success with Magherafelt mods The Tides, Strathern’s growing indifference to the lad rock pedalled by his school friends lead to the bassist joining forces with his brother Enda and Tides newbie Stephen Leacock to explore poppier territories. General Fiasco, including Enda on guitar and Leacock on drums, seemed destined for big things: the band’s pop punk melodies, paired with Owen’s deceptively vulnerable lyrics, drew the attention of the British indie press, and the success of early singles ‘Sometime Sometime’ and ‘Ever So Shy’ saw the band winning slots at Reading and

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Leeds and T in the Park.

Success is rarely straight forward though, and after two albums, the band announced an indefinite hiatus.

Although that seemingly spelled the end for General Fiasco, this year saw the formation of new project Franklyn. Reuniting the Strathern brothers with Leacock and adding new member Paul McAdams, the band have played a number of small dates around Belfast. First single ‘We Don’t Want To Live’ seemed to exorcise the ghosts of General Fiasco, displaying a punchier indie sound yet still retaining enough melody to floor a festival crowd. Coupled with the equally radio-ready ‘Pleasure’, it seems the trio will be back in front of huge crowds before long. Caolán Coleman

Photo: �Sara Marsden

Franklyn

Inbound Franklyn

Photo: �Aidan Kelly Murphy

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erhaps it’s just us, but we’re noticing a serious – and welcome – islandwide resurgence on the scuzzy alternative rock front as of late, with Dublin way ahead of the pack. This month, it’s young trio Slouch, who come from Knocklyon, on the outskirts of the city, just before the mountains – and they sound like it.

They released their debut EP, Feminine Elbows, last year, which boasts the sound of a desert contained within a garage in the ‘burbs. They’re carried with the just-loose-enough, gut-led rhythmic swagger of Physical Graffiti-era Zeppelin with the influences of a subsequent three decades of noise, really zeroing in on the turn of the ‘90s – fuzzy, heartfelt solos,

harmonics, dissonance and all – so overall, not too far from the alchemy of Them Crooked Vultures.

As you’d hope and expect, there are plenty of loud-quiet dynamics at play here, and at their most melodic and stripped back, their mid-to-uptempo tunes recall the Pixies, or those glorious early Weezer moments where Rivers Cuomo gives himself over to the Power of the Riff while still allowing the light to shine through the murk.

Aside from an outing at Knockanstockan, the trio have plans to record their second EP by the end of the summer, after which they’ll get in the van and play in a venue near you, where they’ll doubtlessly shine even moreso than on record. Stevie Lennox

June/July 2016

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– Inbound –

Slouch

T

here is an intimacy inherent in Flecks’ understated, atmospheric songs - enveloping sonic warmth that’s an invitation to lean closer; to listen beyond the quintet’s instrumental weave and hear what whispered reflections await to be deciphered. The members have converged from various musical outfits and endeavours, uniting with an ease that manipulates the auditory sense; slowly coating the listener in an aural glaze like the honey that seems to glisten on Freya Monks’ vocals. Soft, insistent percussion pushes and pulls the band along - both a quickened heartbeat and a measured pulse behind the tonal undercurrents 10

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and lyrical disclosures.

Their debut EP, Girl, is awash with dichotomies - the shining, pulsating slivers of synth pop that sit alongside and permeate the fuzzier swathes of dark electro; the trip-hop comedowns and euphoric catharses; opaque remembrances and frank admissions, introspective yet laid bare for scrutiny. It’s almost a feeling of confliction - the desire in the listener both to dance, and to just sit back and let it all wash over; to be buoyed along on the band’s groove while Monks’ is in the midst of a crisis: “I do not recognise myself/I want to change/ But I’m afraid to lose/What once was mine.”

Just go with it. Justin McDaid

Photo: �Pedro Giaquinto

– Inbound –

Flecks

Inbound Lauren Bird

Lauren Bird that not only included the chance to shoot her first music video, for her ‘Goodbye, Good Luck’ single, but there was also a slot on the bill for the Stendhal Music Festival with her name on it. Prior to performing her self-penned tunes in public, Bird would instead play covers at open mic nights, however following a gentle push in the right direction from her music teacher, she began to sing her autobiographical songs about love (‘Tonight’), moving on (‘Goodbye, Good Luck’) and anxiety (‘Ode To Anxiety’), to increasingly appreciative audiences.

With a very bright few months ahead of her, here’s hoping that Bird will continue to blend her inner thoughts with the pop driven sensibilities that have helped her thus far. Conor Callanan

June/July 2016

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– Inbound –

Photo: Ruth Kelly

H

ailing from Strabane in County Tyrone, Lauren Bird is an artist steadily making a name for herself within the Irish singer-songwriter scene. In May 2014 Bird – or McGeogh to the family postman - uploaded her self-titled debut EP onto Bandcamp, and within two days it had hit the number one spot on the site’s acoustic chart.

Bird’s affiliation with the world of music began after she took up the viola aged 7, and from there she gravitated toward the guitar, piano, drums, bass and finally the ukulele.

It’s the latter instrument that is the main focus of her musical affection these days, and one that sits rather aptly alongside her short, sharp and rather personal songs.

Last year she won Chordblossom’s Kickstarter competition, with a prize

The First Time Rob Costello

– Rob Costello – First album you bought?

I had some rubbish tapes (e.g. Now That’s What I Call Music 26) but my first proper music shopping spree netted me Blur’s Parklife and Dance Massive 2 First live concert/gig?

It must have been Slane in 1999. Robbie Williams headlined. No regrets.

First artist/band to change your music-listening/making life?

At The Drive In really blew me away when I saw the video for ‘One-Armed Scissor’ late at night on MTV2 for the first time. Who were these people? How do I get hair like that? What kind of demonic possession is making them jump around like that on stage? I knew if I was ever to get up on stage, I was going to channel some of that!

First festival experience?

Witness (since renamed Oxegen,

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then cancelled). In hindsight - and in comparison to numerous Glastos and Szigets since - it was a sad scattering of chipper vans and stages in an empty field. I remember excellent gigs by The Frames and Frank Black, though.

First song to make you cry?

I went on a language exchange to Toulouse when I was sixteen. I didn’t get on well with the guy I ended up with - he was obsessed with Pokemon and computer games and I guess I was more on to the beer and girls stage. I was just bored out of my mind (and not very good at french either). One day I stopped in the park with my CD Walkman and Jimi Hendrix’s ’Little Wing’, and shed a little tear.

First musical hero/idol you ever met?

James Murphy. Like nearly all my brushes with idols it happened while I was drunk. I think I gushed. He was polite.

Photo: Joe Laverty

– The First Time

Photographer Joe Laverty shoots and delves into the musicmaking, listening and loving firsts of London-based Dubliner Rob Costello of Sounds of System Breakdown

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Feature Plugd Records

— Plugd Records

S

ituated in the beautiful Triskel Arts Centre, independent record shop Plugd is a central hub for music of all creeds and flavours in Cork City. Apart from selling records, founder Jimmy Horgan has been a pivotal figure in the shaping and cultivation of the vibrant Cork music scene.

Words and photos by Blair Massie.

First off, I wanted to ask you how your affinity for records began? What would you recall being the first records that you bought? Well... growing up in the preCD era, I had really cool aunts who collected a bit – mostly folk stuff like Dylan etc.

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I was always drawn to the artwork more than anything. It wasn’t until later in my teens that I got into collecting. There wasn’t many places in Kerry that you could pick up vinyl – at least the stuff I was into - so I used to take the odd day-trip out to Dublin to pick up whatever few records I could afford. The first albums I remember picking up were probably Automatic by The Jesus and Mary Chain and maybe Trompe Le Monde by the Pixies.

It’s safe to assume opening a record shop requires an extreme amount of confidence in terms of having an idea

Photo: Pedro Giaquinto

Blair Massie talks independence, vinyl and the scene with Jimmy Horgan of Cork’s Plugd Records

Feature Plugd Records

“I think we do this for the same reason that people go to gigs.

That feeling.”

about the kinds of music people want to listen to and ultimately buy. How did you navigate this and what have you learned about the ebb and flow of selling records?

Indeed, confidence is one way of putting it.

My then colleague, Ronan and I opened up in the old Comet Records premises on Washington St. It was an institution for many years. We took this as our starting point and deviated out. It was a bit of a learning curve.

It was, and still is, about finding the balance between what you think people need to hear and what they want to hear. The mistakes are the multiple copies of albums still behind the counter. You’re learning all the time, especially from chatting to customers.

regulars picking up an album or two a week.

Electronic vinyl has really made a comeback as well – pressings are more limited compared to before, so there’s more of an urgency for people to drop by.

I think for a lot of musicians they feel “legitimate” after a tour and getting something pressed to vinyl. What is it about vinyl that makes creators feel confident in what they are doing? Good question. I guess its that feeling that they have made that step beyond playing in their local or copying CDs. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – I admire anyone who makes music. Releasing on vinyl is a statement of intent I guess. It must be a special feeling. I remember when John Daly used to work in the shop. One day he came in and played me a track, I think it was Solaris.

Great track... JD was pretty hyped about it.

The pressing came back a few months later, there was just so much time and effort coming together for that moment.

I can imagine 5 years ago there was a lot less people buying records and a lot of the business is seeing the same people through the door. More recently, have you seen a surge in the types of people buying music? Yeah definitely, there has been a lot of the younger team through the door in the last few years.

You see a definite interest, with

June/July 2016

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Feature Plugd Records

Outside of simply selling records you guys have truly become a backbone and driving force in the Cork music scene.

What is the force driving you through all the gigs, promotion, bookings, ticket sales etc? That’s nice to hear. I would say the music scene is more about the people making music and going to shows than anything else though. We are fortunate that we have a place where we can host gigs. Why do we do it? I think we do this for the same reason that people go to gigs. That feeling.

Some of the best shows we have done have been in the café – Dan Walsh’s improvised music night never ceases to blow my mind I think you guys have done so much to help out the young community of artists and musicians.

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Going forward, do you feel like vinyl could be or is the primary physical form that people will be buying music in this industry of streaming and digital downloads? Vinyl is definitely at a high point right now. In terms of buying music, yeah definitely, vinyl is a tactile, beautiful object.

It’s perfect. I can’t imagine it being superseded by anything else in the near future. In terms of listening to music, I think there’s a good balance going on at the moment. From my own experience, and speaking to customers and friends, a lot of people stream and download music for free. This informs peoples decisions about what they will buy on vinyl. triskelartscentre.ie/plugd-records

Vault Lines Michael Knight

Padraig Cooney on Michael Knight In the first of a new feature celebrating sadlydeparted Irish acts, Land Lovers’ Padraig Cooney extols singer-songwriter Michael Knight.

I

had only a cursory knowledge of Irish music until I started my first band, which was fairly late at 22. I knew some of the acts that had become mainstream successes in Ireland, and some of the ones who had become international bands. I can’t say I loved any of them: as I saw it, they had either studiously removed any element of Irishness from their music, like The Thrills, or were Indie Country & Irish like The Frames. I made the first Land Lovers record with ill-informed, unfounded arrogance. I just didn’t think there were any interesting songwriters in Ireland.

Then I stumbled upon Michael Knight on MySpace and I felt very silly indeed. The complexity and the wit, the individuality, the confidence to develop from a lineage, to wear influence lightly rather than propping-up mundane music with fashionable production: all this took me by surprise and made me re-evaluate what I was doing.

After initially being taken by the lead track ‘Coronation Street’ from the second album I’m Not Entirely Clear How I Ended Up Like This on MySpace, I remember picking up Richie Murphy’s two albums at a Yesboyicecream showcase gig upstairs in Whelan’s, where a friend who was in-the-know said that he envied me for having that world

to discover. Discover it I did and I contend that ‘Waves to the Shore’ is the best Irish pop tune of that decade, that ‘She Sounded Friendly When She Called’ is genuinely sad and moving, and that ‘Reading Old Diary Entries’ is absolutely hilarious. There was an excellent new Michael Knight album recently but for the purposes of the integrity of this series about dead or inactive acts, I’m glad to say that the current Berlin incarnation of the band doesn’t count! Padraig Cooney

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– Sister Ghost – Derry musician Shannon Delores O’Neill AKA Sister Ghost handpicks a selection of records that have left an indelible imprint on her music and life.

Celebrating its 30th birthday back in April this year, this album is Siouxsie and her band of Banshees at their 80s goth disco best. ‘Cities in Dust’ is the best example of making death and destruction something incredibly danceable - no mean feat!

Weezer The Blue Album This album is one of those where every song is good; all killer no filler. It and Pinkerton are my favourite Weezer albums. I went to the South of France a

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few years ago and both of these albums just happened to be on my new listening rotation. They’ve both became my ‘sunny holiday’ soundtrack as a result (particularly ‘Holiday’ of course).

Kate Bush Never for Ever The artwork alone for this LP is great - it really captures the surrealist and storybook songwriting that Kate is best known for. ‘Babooshka’ was the first Kate Bush song I really got into back in school, but at the time I didn’t really listen to her work further – that love affair happened during my first year at University).

Photo: Colm Laverty

Siouxsie and The Banshees Tinderbox

Track Record Sister Ghost

Sonic Youth Bad Moon Rising This album is a nostalgic one that takes me back to being 17 again; a great year, I’ll agree with Sinatra. It is a work of art from start to finish that makes you feel like you’re in Manson-era California, on a twilight hillside or watching a desert sunset.

The Smiths What Difference Does It Make?

[The Smiths]

This was the first record I ever laid a record player needle on. It was given to me as a Christmas present and I was particularly pleased that it was the ‘Mozza with the milk’ version. The Smiths’ music is already very nostalgic sounding, so there’s something extra special about putting on one of their records and hearing it crackle back to life.

Tears for Fears Head Over Heels

[Songs from the Big Chair] Who’d have thought feeling lovelorn could be so damn groovy? One thing I like about this song is that the verses are, in my opinion, catchier than the chorus

(the verse bass line can be blamed for that). My love for this song is also intrinsically linked to its use in a montage in Richard Kelly’s cinematic perfection that is Donnie Darko.

Maxïmo Park A Certain Trigger Maxïmo Park were my absolute gateway band into the world of post punk and British indie rock. I used to listen to this album religiously on the school bus and loved the wistful lyricism for the city (coming from such a small village) and the frank confessions of being in and out of love. We all remember the confusing mess that was adolescence, right?

Fugazi Repeater I bought this copy of Repeater in Berlin and at the time was heavily into all things Dischord. I was given 13 Songs on a mixtape from an ex back when I was 16, and as much as I like that record, this is my ultimate Fugazi album. The chords used in the chorus of ‘Shut the Door’ are probably my favourite moment, as well as that riff that kicks in during the verses of ‘Two Beats Off’. Oof! All hail MacKaye and the boyos.

June/July 2016

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Feature Lisa O’Neill

LISA A TIME & O’NEILL A PLACE Words Aaron Drain

Photos Joe Laverty

W

hile it may seem trite to state that music, like most art, is often shaped by its environment, it is a theme that’s so intrinsically linked to creative expression that it simply cannot be ignored. So it’s unsurprising then, when listening to the melodic alt-folk, and often traditional-leaning music of Lisa O’Neill, that the actual act of listening itself becomes more than just transformative, but transcendental – your mind’s eye can become fixated on lyrical allusions or musical tropes associated with specific locales, real or imaginary, that allow deeply rewarding connections to be forged.

For O’Neill, her upbringing in rural Cavan and subsequent years spent in Dublin, have had an effect laced with profundity, and more immediately, implications for the style and uniqueness of the music she writes. “I think environment, language, accent, phrasing, familiar characters, landmarks, tales real and surreal influence my writing and contributes to the adventures of most writers be it folk music or not,” she explains.

It’s this blurring of surreal and real though, a delivery wrought with personal reflection and at times vibrant cerebral meanderings, that shine through on ‘Pothole in the Sky’, the title track from O’Neill’s latest full-length of the same name, but for Lisa, there’s a much simpler (and perhaps more terrifying) explanation as to its origins than one might expect, given the absurdity of the title’s proposition. “I write frankly and metaphorically, I move to and fro. ‘Pothole in the Sky’ is real to me, and was influenced by a real life experience in which I did a sky dive. From the open door of the tiny plane, 10,000ft above ground through miles of white clouds, I saw the faintest black dot, this dot was earth and also many other things in my imagination which can take on a visual form of fear and the unknown.”

Was the unknown a concern when O’Neill made the leap to Dublin some years ago? “I didn’t find the move to Dublin daunting in any way but exciting,” she says. “The world opened up. More landmarks, people, accents, stories, characters. Before I left Cavan, I had only ever met one other songwriter. So until I got to college it was hard for me to believe that my writing was anything more than personal musings.” It’s a premise that we might take for granted, this ability to be immersed in a scene of likeminded music lovers and practitioners, but it’s not a factor that was damaging to O’Neill’s progression as a youth – for finding kindred spirits in the camaraderie of playing in a band, learning her craft and in the artists she was exposed to growing up have all been, and remain, important foundations for her.

“The early stages of my life which was almost all spent in Cavan definitely shaped how I saw life and how I would speak about what I saw,” Lisa reveals. “My parents listened to a lot of music about the house. Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Patsy Cline, Queen, The Dubliners, The Beatles, John Lennon and Elvis. My first instrument was the tin whistle, I began at seven

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Feature Lisa O’Neill

“LIVE PERFORMANCE IS WHERE I BEGAN, RECORD MAKING IS A BONUS.” years. I think the whistle tunes and the fact that I marched while playing in the marching band influenced my singing, phrasing and rhythm when I began writing songs.” This inherent rhythm is a charming element found throughout Pothole in the Sky, an album that largely moves with tidal emotional force yet gentle chord progressions that command the attention.

“I was also influenced by the shaping of the words and the heart and emotion I heard behind the singing of the people I’ve listed above,” she goes on. “I believed them. I remember being brought to tears at a young age after listening to songs like ‘You Were Always on My Mind’, ‘Imagine’, ‘Are You Lonesome Tonight’ and going back again and again to recapture those feelings. They spoke to me.

I couldn’t get enough of the songs I liked. I remember observing similar behaviour in my father when he was listening to music.”

A deeply reverential outlook for a young O’Neill that has guided her writing and creative output, her career as a singer-songwriter began to blossom with Has An Album, of which she recalls “I was several years gone from college when the first song popped its head up. I wrote maybe 20 songs within the space of a year and a half. I certainly didn’t set out to write an album. They were great fun to write and I enjoyed the reactions I got from my friends and family with these silly little songs. I started

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getting back into the open mic scene around then. I was encouraged to make an album with these songs and I did, with the help of my family, friends, a generous sound engineer called Tommy O’Sullivan and £500 my grandmother had left me in her will. It went much further then I could imagine.”

It literally took her further too. A tour with David Gray after the release of her second album, the Choice Prize nominated Same Cloth Or Not, saw her gain traction both commercially and on the live circuit, after a period spent honing her trade and working in Bewley’s on Grafton St. “No day was the same.

I hated it and I loved it. I count that time as a great gift. Living, listening, experiencing, probably preparing to write. Gigs were coming in more with the release of that first album and I was feeling a lot more considerate even contemplating writing.”

But despite the accolades, O’Neill remains staunch that her music is, and always has been, a product of her inner thoughts, feelings, connections to people and places, and most importantly, her own time. “I certainly had no notions of awards when writing Same Cloth Or Not. By the time I received the nomination the album was well embedded in me in the sense that I believed in it and proudly accepted the nomination. David Kitt, Karl Odlum and all the musicians involved deserve credit for the

Feature Lisa O’Neill

Choice nomination too. The ultimate position I was working towards was making an album I’d be proud to stand by in years to come. I still love that album today.”

O’Neill will be going further still – with Potholes In The Sky just released to critical acclaim, it’s time to bring it new audiences, although, touring has never been an issue. “I love playing live and travelling, seeing new places, telling stories, meeting the audience.

Audiences large and small, but I can see their

faces better when the audience is small. I like that. It energises me – live performance is where I began, record making is a bonus.”

A bonus maybe, but as she prepares to embark on a national tour, and with hopeful plans to have the album released outside of Ireland, is the raw nature of her songwriting and performing a difficult undertaking to frequently bear? “I don’t give away everything, I still have some thoughts just for me,” O’Neill says. “I’ll always have that.” Aaron Drain

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Feature Rob Crane

Rob Crane: Creative Rubbish

How did you get interested in art and where did it begin? I became interested in art and stuff mainly from 80s and 90s cartoons and movies. I would draw the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters (still do), Batman characters (still do), Mortal Kombat characters and so on. I would look at old Empire mags and fangoria/special effects mags. I then started to make up my own characters and would give them powers, back stories and stats. I collected a huge sketchbook of A4 drawings in a folder and would show them to people and look and keep track of their reactions intensely (still do).

What are you main materials when you create art? I work with acrylics, spray paints, brushes, pens, pencils, wood, power tools, rust, recycled materials and whatever else is required for different projects.

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What inspires your work? My work is inspired by all the things I surround myself with. In my teen years while I still would draw and Art was the only subject I could handle. It took a back seat to smoking, drinking, fuckin’ around, trying to impress girls and just surviving school in general.

In my early twenties I travelled to New Zealand to visit my brother Simon Crane. I saw his amazing paintings and this instantly inspired me to get back into Art, like a punch in the face. When I got home I got my brushes and tools out and have never put them down since. So Simon’s own work was the main restart/ inspiration, not that I wanted to emulate it but just how good it was.

How would you describe your own work to someone who has never seen it before? I would describe my stuff as Original Creative Rubbish.

You have an interesting project involving artwork on cans. Can you discuss the process? “Pissheads” is a street-art and photography project I do. They are characters made from recycled beer cans and various materials. First I cycle the streets of Dublin, pick up and collect all the cans and usable bits of waste I find, I then wash them, paint them, combine and manipulate them to make different faces and characters from the “recycled” shit. I always say that my route home is spotless

Photos: Pedro Giaquinto

One of many Irish creatives being championed by our friends at BeKreativ, Rob Crane is a Dublin-based artist working in various mediums including found objects and one-off pieces of sculpture art called ‘pissheads’. He chats to us about what drives his artistic processes and his plans for the future.

Feature Rob Crane

because I’ve picked everything up. Sometimes if I’m in a hurry, I might cycle past a bottle cap or whatever on the road and think “I must remember to come back for that”. It’s bad. After I have made the character I bring it back out onto the Streets of Dublin, photograph it and post the picture to Instagram. I left hundreds of pieces of free art around Dublin over the years. I can’t leave them all behind or in the spot photographed anymore, for different reasons but they are still out there to be found, now and again.

Where’s the most unusual place you have left a piece of your work? Electric Picnic is probably one of the most unusual place I’ve exhibited work. There has honestly been so many mad places though. There was that time I made my way into a burnt out derelict building off Cork street. I was taking a pisshead photo and what I thought was a pile of rubbish in the corner of the room just stood up and started shouting at me. Once the

nice fella saw the Pisshead though, all was good and I gave it to him as a momento.

You’re currently working on a project for Beck’s and BeKreativ. What else are you currently undertaking at the moment? I’m currently doing some nice canvas commissions, which are always welcome. Some work for Bloom Fringe and a large project for that BeKreativ campaign, which is a great opportunity. I’m really looking forward to sharing it. Also a different side of my work can be seen at ‘’Sculpture in Context’’ this September.

What are you plans for the rest of 2016?

For 2016 I plan to continue to work hard, build up my website and, of course, the same thing we do every year: “try to take over the world”. I would just like to take this chance to really thank everyone who supports my work. It means a lot. Sláinte! robcraneart.squarespace.com

Be Kreativ is a support platform from Beck’s to give up-and-coming creatives an opportunity to showcase their talents in Ireland. Here, and on BeKreativ.ie. We’ll hero YOU, the creatives. So whether you’re a musician, painter, writer, sculptor, fashion designer, coder or beyond… All you have to do is #BeKreativ.

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Primer MacAree FeatureFuschia Foil Arms & Hog

Foil Arms & Hog

S

ean Finegan, Conor McKenna and Sean Flanagan AKA Foil Arms & Hog met whilst studying a mixture of Engineering, Architecture and Genetics in university. Dense subjects with the promise of fairly certain futures upon graduating.

Then the unexpected happened, the recession and subsequent unemployment. While a large percentage of Foil Arms & Hog’s contemporaries emigrated, the guys decided to laugh their way to success by sharing their comedy sketches online. Eight years

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later, Foil Arms & Hog are one of Ireland’s most successful sketch groups, drawing inspiration from the abundant comedic fruits of Ireland’s inimitable idiosyncrasies. Their YouTube channel is overflowing with videos from the dreaded first encounter with a Driving Instructor, satires on the varied vernacular across the country (especially when asking for directions in a rural setting), and a song about the perils of flying with Ryanair.

Theirs are universal and modern concepts for their contemporary audiences, most of

Photos: Ste Murray

Zara Hedderman chats with the fast-rising, Fringe-bound, Dublin comedy sketch trio

Feature Foil Arms & Hog

whom are most likely watching Foil Arms & Hog’s sketches in the same university library where the guys possibly developed some of their earliest material. It’s funny how you’re never too far away from a laugh and a joke, especially on an island so intimately remote as Ireland.

This August, Foil Arms and Hog will perform fifty shows in twenty-seven days at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where they will return for their eighth consecutive year, entertaining one of the biggest gatherings of comedy and theatre in the world. Before the trio embark on what will be a tireless 2016, Sean Finegan spoke to me about clowns, forgetting jokes, and whether a Foil Arms & Hog series for television is a laughing matter or serious possibility in the future.

Who or what informs your style of comedy? Clowns. We absolutely love clowns, and not the big wig and red nose kind, proper hardcore clowns. There’s an American guy called Doctor Brown whose live shows are immense, you’re terrified of him and love him at the same time. Trygve Wakenshaw is another brilliant clown, who also studied under Phillipe Gaulier in France. It’s serious stuff this clowning about!

Do you find that your constantly surrounded by inspiration for new material when you’re out and about on the streets of Dublin? That does happen, and when inspiration strikes there’s a desperate scramble for pen and paper. You NEVER remember a joke, it’s a lesson that requires constant relearning. So many good jokes have died face down in the mud with the thought, ‘Ah that’s really funny! I’ll definitely remember that’.

You’ve appeared frequently on The Savage Eye, have you any plans to expand from Youtube and develop a Foil Arms &

Hog series for television? Of course we’d never say no to the telly God if she came calling, but at the moment we’re happy sticking to YouTube. On YouTube nobody can put limitations on our sketches, or tell us that something’s not funny. That’s the job of the trolls, and they have the decency to do it after it’s been made and published online.

What exciting projects have Foil Arms & Hog been working on for the second half of 2016? Are there any particular themes you’ll be touching on with your YouTube channel over the summer? The second half of 2016 is promoting and performing the new show, DoomDah. We’re working like mad on it at the moment and we’ll be bringing it to the Edinburgh Festival for August to put it through it’s paces. Then it’ll be onto the Dublin Fringe, the Cork Comedy Festival and the Irish tour. In terms of themes to our YouTube channel, there probably won’t be one! After eight years we’ve finally resigned ourselves to the fact that we are unable to stick to themes. We lack discipline. Always moving onto the next thing.

Social satire, especially in Ireland, has become quite a powerful medium for opening discussions about some of the issues affecting the majority of the

“You NEVER remember a joke, it’s a lesson that requires constant re-learning.”

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Feature Foil Arms & Hog

country, notably mental health. Are you conscious of this when you’re developing and writing new material? No, we’re definitely not conscious of it, at all. We’ve always said our only message is that there’s no message, we just write what makes us laugh. Don’t be taking life lessons off comedians, we’re all broken people!

Has Michael O’Leary heard “The Ryanair Song?” Oh God, I hope he has heard it, that would be hilarious! However, as much as it pains us, we have to say that the sketch is no longer completely accurate. Ryanair’s new ‘strategy to be nice’ is really killing one off one of our best sketches. At the moment the sketch is hanging on by it’s finger tips thanks to some unhealed Ryanair scar tis-

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sues in the public’s conscious. If we did ever meet Michael O’Leary we’d probably ask him to do us a favour and bring back the tyranny.

Foil Arms & Hog release a new video every week on your YouTube channel.

Does this short time period to write and film the sketches equate to immense pressure to create new material, or is the collaboration between the three of you a constant fun and fresh process? Coming up with the ideas and writing the scripts is always fun, but filming and getting the sketches edited by Thursday is a PAIN IN THE HOOP. If we were a bit more organised we’d film everything well in advance but at moment we are trying to perfect the art of the Wednesday scramble.

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June/July 2016

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Primer Steven Maybury

Primer: Steven Maybury

S

teven Maybury’s latest shows, Anicca and Dukkha, highlight an emerging artist whose practice is evolving and diversifying in the most interesting of fashions. In this edition of Primer Aidan Kelly Murphy sits down to chat about his work, influences and plans for the future.

As a child did you always have an interest in art? My father was a picture framer so I was always surrounded by artworks but it wasn’t really until I went traveling after school that I realised it was an incredible way to see and understand the world.

Did you have a practice at that stage? I was just dabbling, I didn’t really know exactly what I was doing. I had a lot of friends who were creating art, so I piggy-backed really until I eventually fell into it myself. There was a frustration there when I was younger, primarily because I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Art had a level of accessibility and held my attention because it could be whatever you wanted it to be.

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What avenues inspire you? A lot of stuff I’m inspired by is very natural. My ideas evolve from interactions with the world and from things that I find - I call it my stumble-upon approach. Often they’re discarded debris, things that are outdated and don’t have a function anymore. There is also an observational stance in the sense that I find myself continuously finding these objects and started collecting them. I find a lot of recurring patterns in theses objects. There is an obsessive nature there but this comes more from a curiosity.

You had a studio residency in the RHA and created three shows during then.

How important was that space to your work?I was lucky enough to go in there with ideas. I was at a time when I wanted to start creating work from ideas that had been growing for awhile but were hampered by limitations of space, so to have such a huge space to create works was incredible. They were initially supposed to be one exhibition but they ended up becoming three sister shows. That’s where the playfulness of having such a large studio came into affect, feeling like a kid in a candy store with all this space.

You show Anicca opened in The Library Project in May. How the show came together? The idea that things have a temporary and impermanent nature was resonating with my own practice and my obsessions with drawing fault lines.

I came across an exhibition in the Douglas Hyde Gallery called Dukkha, it’s a Buddhist doctrine that helps you understand and become content with the fact that life’s a bitch. I began researching and came across

Primer Steve Maybury

another doctrine called Anicca - coming to terms with the temporariness of life. I began to recognise areas of destruction which lead me to my own rituals and obsessions, one of which was based on repetitions that were similar to my drawings - skateboarding.

Skateboards come spick and span but the only way you can learn is by essentially destroying it. So I started skateboarding certain decks and began mapping one trick, recording my obsessive nature through repetition.

Anicca sees a progression of your work, can you talk us through the different mediums? In Anicca there are three skateboards which are on spits, rotating to give the idea of constant. There are also 17 drawing which are activated by light and have been exposed for long periods to create fades, they almost mimic cameras in how they work. It’s the first exhibition that I’ve had where the entire show is framed, which is exciting in the sense that it’s scrutinising the idea of presentation and archiving. The are three photographs of the marks on the rotating skate-

boards which have been blown up huge to become huge almost abstract, expressionist paintings. They’re printed like posters and pasted onto walls so they have this conflict as they’re a photograph, but they’re not a serious photograph as they have to be ripped off a wall at the end of the show.

Can you tell us about your new show Dukkha? Dukkha is opening on June 3rd in Platform Arts, Belfast. Dukkha was that exhibition in the Douglas Hyde Gallery, it’s not a homage exactly but more of a reaction to the things that I was working on at the time.

It’s a choreographed editing of those three shows from the RHA back into one.

What does the future hold?

After Dukkha, myself and a childhood friend are driving across the world in a really shitty car! We’ve entered the Mongol Rally and are going across Europe and Asia all the to Mongolia. It’s going to be six weeks of madness! It’s been a decade since I last travelled so hopefully it becomes something I do every decade.

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Reviews Releases

– Reviews

My Tribe Your Tribe Loyalties My Tribe Your Tribe continue to build the foundations of a promising trajectory. Their debut EP, Loyalties, is a darkly melodic collection of compositions that are not entirely expected to co-exist, yet simultaneously work together.

When you first listen to the EP there are several moments that instantly, albeit unnervingly, remind you of various unassociated acts. Returning to the songs, however, you begin to hear things differently, Mercer’s vocals become softer as do the guitar and drums. They become more distinct. ‘Ghost With You’, is a fine representation of the band’s experimentation in layering their instruments. Meanwhile, ‘Soaks Right Through’, bears

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an eery similarity to the Local Natives’ 2013 album Hummingbird, imagine a loose combination of ‘Ceilings’ and ‘Wooly Mammoth.’

One grievance with Loyalties is ‘God Bless My Counsellor.’ The heavier electro tendencies pose a disconcerting disconnect to the uniformity of My Tribe Your Tribe’s sound, so far.

In all, Loyalties is worthy of praise for the young band destined for domestic success. Zara Hedderman

Overhead The Albatross Learning to Growl Despite forming in 2009, Dublin’s Overhead, The Albatross have at long last released their debut LP, deftly solidifying them as a

band with no intention of being lumped into the same exhausted category that so many other instrumental bands fall into. Instead they have shown themselves to be a group who have patiently crafted a debut of colossal proportions. While it is not a completely unique record, utilising plenty of the Post-Rock tropes that appear staple, through clever and additional instrumentation, subtle complexity and genuine emotion these qualities are adapted and expanded upon expertly.

Take the album’s astonishing opening track ‘Indie Rose’, which easily lowers us into the album like a cradle with fluttery soundscapes and the crisp hum of a tone that rests somewhere between that of a string and a voice. The track builds and builds with class and emotion to its thrilling peak of clattering drums, seismic guitars and strings. Learning to Growl is a beautifully cohesive collection that is both vibrant and dynamic and which may stand proudly up alongside some of the most prolific instrumental “rock” records of the past five years.

Eoin Murray

Reviews Releases

I Have a Tribe Beneath a Yellow Moon Dubliner Patrick O’Laoghaire AKA I Have A Tribe’s long awaited album, Beneath A Yellow Moon is a stunningly imperfect indie-folk record brimming with eleven brilliantly honest tracks. Partly inspired by his two-year-old niece’s approach to playing the piano, the album champions freedom and the idea of letting go when creating music. His acoustic sound is layered with texture, flowing with fragile and delicate piano melodies, virtuous and carefully cultivated lyrics and pounding percussive passages, all laden with emotion. His captivating voice tends to weave itself around the music, almost tiptoeing amongst the wild mix of

instrumental outbursts.

The most alluring aspect is that when O’Laoghaire sees something, he immediately uncovers the beauty in it, capturing what many do not get the chance to see.

He takes the listener on a journey into all that makes life so beautiful, bringing the entire colour palette to life and ultimately creating a closeness and intimacy between himself and the listener. Paula Murphy

Land Lovers The Rooks Have Returned Five years on from the release of their second album, Confidants, Dublin outfit Land Lovers have returned with their first full-length record in nearly five years

in the form of the Popical Island-released The Rooks Have Returned. What originally started out as a solo effort by Padraig Cooney of Skeletons, the frontman has been joined by Ciaran Canavan, Shane Murphy, Maggie Fagan and Conor Deasy on album number three. Kicking off with ‘Springtime for the Mystics’, Land Lovers lay out their stall right from the off, as the opener’s upbeat drumming and hook-laden basslines are enveloped in a synth sound that adds a hazy vibe to proceedings.

Combing the lyrical content, it’s clear that Cooney’s intrepid character’s lives don’t necessarily match the sanguine picture the musical output portrays. ‘I’d Do Anything’ and ‘Life of Crime’ continue along the same vein of uplifting pop as the aforementioned opening gambit yet Cooney still manages to knock on the door of the glum and misfortunate.

It’s not all doom and gloom, however, as the essence of lust is evident on ‘Crowd of Lungs’, highlighting that Cooney can dream in a positive way for his normally downtrodden characters.

Conor Callanan

June/July 2016

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Live The Mighty Stef Final Show

The Mighty Stef Final Show THE BUTTON FACTORY, DUBLIN

The final show in The Button Factor was magic – the best show we ever did in Dublin, to my recollection. No band would break up if all their nights were like this. We were lucky to have a lot of good nights in our existence but this ranked among the best. Every face in the crowd reminded me of a time or a place, which was beautifully distracting from the sadness of calling it a day.

We started our ‘farewell’ run in Germany and we did six shows in total. Each was special in its own way and as it got closer to the Dublin gig I was worried it would be too much of an emotional affair, and it was. But the good kind of emotion.

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There’s been some great memories.

Walking out onstage at the Benicassim Festival in Spain in 2009 to a packed tent stands out. I’d attended this festival three times previously as a punter and it was like a dream come true. It will live long in my memory. But we were lucky, we had a lot of great gigs and great nights over the years.

We hope the fans have a sense that we really cared about showing them a good time; giving experiences and making music that connected with people no matter how cynical the person and I hope they forgive us for bowing out when we did. We felt it was time, and we really did our best.

I have started making a record under the name Count Vaseline. It’s a one-man project, with some collaborators, including Dan Fitzpatrick, the guitarist of The Mighty Stef.

I play my first Irish gig on June 25th opening for Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds, an artist and performer I truly respect. So it’s a nice way to start. Gary Lonergan, my main writing partner in The Mighty Stef over the years is making experimental electronic music and has already played his first Dublin show with his new project Temper Drone. For me the music will end when I stop breathing, I suppose. Stef Murphy

Photo: Joe Laverty

Following an emotional swansong at Dublin’s Button Factory, The Mighty Stef main man Stef Murphy reflects on the band’s career and what the future holds.

“No bands would break up if all their nights were like this.�

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Not Gospel Ghostbusters

– Not Gospel

I

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n Robert Wise’s 1971 movie adaptation of Michael Crichton’s novel The Andromeda Strain, one of the four protagonists is a woman. And in the movie, there’s nothing significant or outrageous about this. She is, simply, biologically, a woman. But more importantly, she’s a character. She does stuff, she has feelings, ideas. And when a younger male cast member handles the film’s sole action sequence, it’s not because it’s a job that only a man could do, it’s because he’s younger and more physically fit.

In the current era of re-boots, The Andromeda Strain is crying out for a remake, with the 1971-stylings of the film making it painfully dated in places, occasionally threatening to overcome the fascinating premise of life from other worlds that forms the films core. And if they did re-make it, all the characters could be women. Or not. Because in The Andromeda Strain, people are characterised by their actions, not their gender.

But by the same token, there is clearly a gender bias in Hollywood, and recent franchises like Star Wars & The Avengers have come under flack for featuring strong female characters, but not knowing how– or being frightened – to promote them. Without wanting to sound like the bleeding-heart liberal I no longer am, this is patently stupid, and

The Thin Air Magazine

characters should stand or fall on what they do, rather than what they are, biologically speaking.

The most prominent attempt to address this gender bias is Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters re-launch, which features the original Fab Four having grown boobs, and become women. And as usual, sections of the internet are OUTRAGED. Our childhoods are over. The series is ruined. It’s stupid. Pointless.

It won’t work.

At the time of writing, the film hasn’t come out, so I can’t say whether it will work or not. From the trailer, it doesn’t look promising, but that has absolutely 0% to do with the gender of the cast. This has, with predictable inevitability, been trotted out as the reason for the outrage, in many cases by people who clearly seem to be covering their facts after talking primarily about gender.

Outrage eats outrage, and leads to greater outrage. None of this has addressed the key concerns at the heart of Hollywood, or a Ghostbusters re-boot. The past is there to be plundered, yes, but if, for example, there’s a female Batman re-boot in the future, the problem won’t be that it’s a lady Batman, it’ll be that we still feel the need to tell that story again. We need new story-telling blood. And blood doesn’t have a gender. Steven Rainey

Illustration: John Rooney

– Who You Gonna Call?

The Outraged, Most Likely.

June/July 2016

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88mph The Smiths The Queen Is Dead

(NOVEMBER, 1974)

– 88mph

The Smiths The Queen Is Dead

T

(JUNE, 1986)

he Smiths recorded their 3rd album ill at ease with their position in the music world. They were unsure of their record label, frustrated at how the media represented them, and perplexed with the public’s perception of the band.

Nevertheless, when The Queen Is Dead was released, it presented The Smiths at their zenith, aware of their astonishing abilities and revelling in utilising them to full effect. The confidence bursts forth from the get-go with a 6 minute plus, unbridled thrash of a title track and is sustained throughout the 9 diverse songs that follow it.

The musical landscape displays a knowing maturity; the stylistic cherry picking of the previous year’s Meat Is Murder (from Chic to Iron Maiden - no joke) is deftly tempered, retaining the eclecticism in a more balanced whole. The palette (garage punk, torch song, rockabilly and their familiar jangling-indie) sit together wonderfully, complimenting and contrasting in equal measure. Johnny Marr, as ever, exhibits unlimited invention and the band with engineer Stephen Street embrace regular experimentation, finding space in most songs for some unique sound or other.

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Then of course there is Morrissey. For the previous LP, he had deliberately opted for blunt finger-pointing. Here he takes a more subtle (and often hilarious) approach to getting across his message. While the loneliness and misery long associated with his lyrics are still present, they are joined by allegories, espousing absurdity and slapstick to the level of his beloved Carry On films. Verbose soliloquies are matched pound for pound by songs that seem to exist purely to accommodate a single gag.

They address their industry gripes; ‘Frankly, Mr. Shankly’ sends up their label boss while ‘The Boy With The Thorn In His Side’ yearns for acceptance “If they don’t believe us now, will they ever believe us?”. Moz acknowledges his foibles with ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’ and ‘Cemetry Gates’ where he addresses accusations of plagiarism in a quirky tale of bookish one-upmanship. ‘I Know It’s Over’ out-Morrisseys all his past miseries, only to be itself trumped by arguably The Smiths’ finest moment; ‘There Is a Light That Never Goes Out’ somehow transforms being hit by a bus into a sweet, heartbreakingly romantic gesture.

Oh, and did I mention there’s also a ‘Vicar in a Tutu’? Jonathan Wallace

Agony Uncle Superheroes

Agony Uncle Agonising? Le Galaxie's Michael Pope is here to help.

perheroes This Month...Su Have you ever danced with the devil in pale moonlight? With great power comes great responsibility.

If you could have only one superpower, what would you do? Donna, Kerry I suppose if I could go back in time I could save Michael Jackson, Kurt Cobain or John Lennon but honestly I’d probably just make those Garth Brooks concerts happen.

Who could possibly represent Ireland as a superhero? Devin, Drogheda Is it a bird (smashing into the North Tower)? Is it a plane (smashing into the South Tower)? No it’s Jim fucking Corr!

Illustration: Loreana Rushe

Are there any really crap superheroes?

Dan, Kilkenny The little lad with the arrows from those Avengers films. He looks like he fell asleep-face down on a crate of pineapples and HE USES A BOW AND ARROW. What’s your opinion on the recent Batman V Superman film? Tighe, Galway The thematic betrayal of the two most iconic superheroes in history is bad enough, but the visual and narrative inco-

herence is cinematic treachery of the highest order. Fuuuuuuuuuuck that movie.

Stan Lee is renowned for taking credit for other artists work. If you could take credit for anyone’s work who would it be? Jason, Dublin Due to impending court proceedings I can’t go in to much detail but let’s just say I was all four members of B*Witched.

Have you ever heard about that Superman film starring Nicolas Cage that was never made? Thoughts? Frank, Cork ‘Superman Lives’ would have been directed by Tim Burton and written by Kevin Smith. Even typing that has ensured I wont get an erection for five years.

What actor would you love to see play a superhero in the movies? Wong, Belfast Everyone from Fair City as The X-Men Who would you assemble for your own team of Avengers? Maria, Derry Iron Man – Gerry Adams Captain America – Martin McGuinness Thor – Ian Paisley Black Widow – Mary Lou McDonald Hawkeye – Mike Nesbitt Hulk – Julian Simmons Who deserves a comic book based on their life? Grace, Sligo Majella O’Donnell

NEXT MONTH’S SUBJECT IS... TRUMP. SEND YOUR QUESTIONS TO ASKMICHAEL@THETHINAIR.NET

June/July 2016

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Steve Gunn - Eyes on the Lines

The Kills - Ash & Ice

Red Hot Organization - Day of the dead

Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool

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