Totally Dublin 56 by Totally Dublin

are ya dancin’?

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056 READMEFIRST

Germany. Lots of beer, plenty of sausage and full of Germans. Many of you, as I did, probably have more than a picnic basket full of preconceptions about the German people. Mine were not only totally wrong, they were also based only on the dress sense of the German heavy metal band The Scorpions, a German girl in London with a black and white cow-patterned pair of trousers and pictures of people with an unhealthy penchant for jeans jackets with the arms cut off and large moustaches. I thought the Germans were loud, brash and unfriendly. The truth is entirely different and now I know this from personal experience. It took me a World Cup, a beer festival in Bavaria and a wunderbar long weekend in the underrated city

of Hamburg to find out. For most people, all it takes is a short visit to Berlin, the cultural capital of Europe. People not only holiday in Berlin but they relocate over there at a pace where it almost becomes tought to keep track. They all send postcards to us remaining in the old world telling the tales of alternative marvellousness and that we all should come join. One of those annoyingly happy relocaters goes by the name of Conor Creighton and now he teases us with an article about the formidable half illegal, whole unique, little bars you can find in case you have a personal guide of good local knowledge (or if you’ve read this article in Totally Dublin). Peter Steen-Christensen

14 Dance-Off Totally D.I.S.C.O. 18 Gone To The Dogs A bit of ruff and tumble at Crufts 25 Listings We’re the Nick Hornby of what’s going on in Dublin

41 Lesbian Thespian Featuring the bitch in black 42 Room At The Berlin Minimalism and Beck’s make damn good bedfellows 50 Gastronaut A Half-Italian, half-French edition 52 Bitesize Suffering from the swine flu

Totally Dublin 56 Upper Leeson St. Dublin 4 (01) 668 8188

54 Restaurant Guide Picks for the peckish 56 Cinema Now in 3D 60 North Strand Kontra Band Only one quarter Klezmer 62 Audio “I think King Midas must have sexually abused you when you were younger”

Office Manager, Credit Control & Accounts Emma Brereton emma@hkm.ie (01) 668 8188 087 279 0179

Publisher Stefan Hallenius stefan@hkm.ie (01) 687 0695 087 139 0031

Website Cillian McDonnell editor@totallydublin.ie (01) 668 8197

Editor Peter Steen-Christensen peter@hkm.ie 087 665 2908 (01) 668 8188 Assistant Editor Daniel Gray daniel@hkm.ie (01) 668 8188 Art Director Lauren Kavanagh lauren@hkm.ie (01) 668 8188 Advertising Stefan Hallenius stefan@hkm.ie (01) 479 1111 087 139 0031

CONTENTS056 8 Roadmap Totally Dublin’s very own GPS

CREDITS

Contributors Emma Brereton Paul Cleary Brian Coldrick Conor Creighton John Devine Cait Fahey Katie Gilroy Caomhan Keane Roisin Kiberd Tania Kelley Sheena Madden Darragh McCabe Karl McDonald Jade O’Callaghan Laura O’Neill Steve Ryan Kara Solarz Emma Taaffe Kaitlin Young

John Carey john.carey@hkm.ie (01) 668 8185 087 903 6853

All advertising enquiries contact (01) 668 8185 Read more at www.totallydublin.ie Totally Dublin is a monthly HKM Media publication and is distributed from 500 selected distribution points. The average monthly audit of Totally Dublin for the period January - June 2008 was 50,003 as certified by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or part without the permission from the publishers. The views expressed in Totally Dublin are those of the respective contributors and are not necessarily shared by the magazine or its staff. The magazine welcomes ideas and new contributors but can assume no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs or illustrations.

Totally Dublin ISSN 1649-511X

Front cover image: Yves by Cait Fahey

TOTALLY DUBLIN

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la vie Early bird special daily

5-8pm 2-courses €15 3-courses €18

Opening times: 7days, 12-11pm

www.lavie.ie // T: 01 7645177

La Paloma Spanish cuisine in the heart of Temple Bar Tues-Sun 6pm-11.30pm

Asdills Row, Temple Bar, Dublin 2

t: (01) 6777392 /// www.lapalomadublin.com

TOTALLY DUBLIN

Roadmap

HomeMade Love :: This May 15th sees the return of the mighty Synth Eastwood. The SE show, in case you haven’t been watching, is the collection of megacreative artists’ and designers’ work presented in a gig environment for all the world to see. This incarnation’s theme is ‘HomeMade’, and will be presented in two parts. The first part is a freebie in FilmBase, featuring over 100 posters, installations and projects by creative types (including Chris Judge and Renate Henschke). Then, ten seconds walk away at the Button Factory will be a latenight gig with the Synth Eastwood band, and a long list of luminaries from Spilly Walker (the side-project of a certain Kitt-shaped Totally Dublin cover star) to hip-hop comedy duo Rubber Bandits. We could go on typing about how synthariffic the Eastwood crew are, but our fingers would fall off. Check out www.syntheastwood.com and see for yourself.

Postal Shirts and Stripy Skirts :: Adjust your Flash Players to stun, people. Arms is an Irish company that makes hands-on clothing for hands-on people. Whether quirkily coloured button-ups or breastpocketed t-shirts the collection is practical, colourful, and nerdily adorable. Go and drool over their models and dream of cottony turquoise love at madeforyoubyarms.com

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Roadmap

3 10

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A Few Digs :: We like Valerie Francis (the lady behind one of this year’s best slow-burner albums, Slow Dynamo), and we like Eoghan Kidney (the animator whose splodges have graced the videos of Caribou, Stars and FLApes). It stands to reason, then, that we dig their collaboration in the video for her first single, Punches. It might make less sense though, that Kanye West is also an admirer. ‘Ye picked up on the triumph of light anima-

tion and blogged it up, to the value of over 200,000 hits in one Easter Weekend while we were busy seeing how many Crème Eggs we could fit in our mouths at once. It was less than 200,000. You win, guys. www.myspace.com/valeriefrancis www.myspace.com/kidneyfilm

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COFFEE SOCIETY 61 Ranelagh Village, D.6 7.30am - 10.30pm 2 Lower Liffey Street, D.1 8am - 7pm Camden Street/Harcourt Road, D.2 7.30am - 20.30pm

tel: 01 4914445 fax: 01 4914446

coffeeireland@eircom.net

Whether visiting for a quick coffee in between appointments, or cosying in for a comfortable break-time, Dublin's Coffee Society offers the best of both worlds. Coffee with a kick, and coffee shops with comfort - whether you're stopping for a minute or staying for an hour.

“DUBLIN’S BEST KEPT SECRET” TRADITIONAL IRISH MUSIC SATURDAY AT 9PM, SUNDAY AT 9PM EVERY SAT & SUN FROM 9PM TIL LATE A SING SONG WITH THE BAND

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GREAT FOOD SERVED From 10AM - 10PM, 7 Days Kate's Cottage is in the heart of Dublin City Centre and is a traditional Irish public house with a great personality and atmosphere. Serving a wide and varried selection of drinks, including a great pint of stout. Amien Street, Dublin 1 Tel: 01 801 4325 www.katescottage-pub.com info@katescottagepub.com

D DANCE O OFF

WORDS DANIEL GRAY PICTURES CAIT FAHEY

Dancing, we’re told, is the poetry of the feet. Fittingly, there’s a Hacienda-full of banjaxed wordsmiths out there for every one poet with a ballerina-like balance with words, and for every danceﬂoor Wordsworth there’s a superclub full of dancers with all the bodily eloquence of a fourthclass limerick. We all know Dublin has raised some of the world’s most well-regarded poets in its drunken bosom, so it follows thus that we must have some of the best danceﬂoor talents this side of South Macarena, right? Right! We found some of Dublin’s Yeatsian dance talents on our odyssey and asked them just what it is that makes them funkier than a bag of Bootsy Collins’ platforms.

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who: Yves, 23 where: Reggae Night @ The Mezz So… do you come here often? Yes, yes, a lot, every Wednesday. Other reggae nights in the Turk’s Head sometimes too.

who: Sophie, 25 where: Dominion Goth Night @ Peader Kearney’s

What is it about reggae music that appeals to you most for dancing to? The rhythm. I am a musician too, you see. I play the bass guitar.

So… Do you come here often? It was my first time in a goth club, because where I live in France (in the South) there is no place like Dominion. But I’m really into the music, so I’ve been to a lot of metal/goth concerts in France.

Do you dance when you’re playing? I have to! I’m like this [breaks out in airbass boogie]!

Do you think goth music is made to be able to dance to? At the beginning I think that goth music is not made to dance, just to listen to and to “move”. But tonight’s music was pretty good for dancing and for fun.

Are all your friends into reggae? Yes, almost almost all of them. Do you think it’s the most social type of music? Yes, it’s spiritual music. It’s not noise, we’re all in this basement together dancing to peace and love. It makes everybody happy to dance to, and open to each other. What’s your favourite song to dance to? It’s a Bob Marley song, the band just played it a few minutes ago inside. I don’t know the names of songs, but I can play them all. I really love it. You seem really confident as a dancer. Do you ever feel self-conscious? No, no, no, no. When I dance I don’t dance for other people, I dance only for me. If somebody’s playing music on the street I’ll dance just because it’s fucking good music! When I listen to good music my only reaction is to dance, to groove to it. I close my eyes and listen to the bass amd drums and lose myself in it. I’m crazy, sometimes! Would you be more attracted to a reggae lady if she’s a good dancer? Yes, yes, yes! It’s a gift, and it’s a beautiful thing… There’s no point trying to find words for it.

who: Peter, 20 where: Saturdays @ Tripod So... do you come here often? Well I'm currently DJing here twice a month so that's enough for me. Do you think being a good DJ is strongly connected with being a good dancer? I think they both stem from a love of music so... maybe? What's your favourite song to dance to? Date With The Night, by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Do you dance in your bedroom before you go out? Oh yes. What's your earliest memory of dancing? Doing the Macarena on an awful family holiday. Would you be more attracted to another person if they're a good dancer? I find something very appealing about someone who can dance well, or wildly, yes.

Who are better dancers, the Irish or the French? I think there is no best and worse dancer. Everybody has their own dance style! Do you ever dance in your bedroom before you go out? Ahaha! Hummm... when I was younger, I used to dance in my bedroom, but not any more! I do prefer in clubs. Would you be more attracted to a boy if he’s a good dancer? Yes, of course! A guy who is a good dancer is very attractive! And what a pity, because there are not a lot of guys who know how to… Do you need to be drunk or high to be comfortable dancing? Well, not really. Whatever my state I can dance. Do you have a trademark dance move? No, I don’t think so. I just try to “be with the music”. One of my favorite sentences: “dance like no one is watching you”.

Do you feel self-conscious when dancing? Do you need to be drunk or high to loosen up? Drunkenness helps. But I think the best part of dancing is that you can just lose yourself in it, and in the music, and forget that anyone might be watching. Have you a dancing idol? I probably shouldn't make another Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ reference but, yeah, Karen O knows how to move. Do you have a trademark dance move? "The headbutt" - check out this scar! *points at forehead*

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who: Sébastien, 22 where: Sunday @ Dice Bar

who: Lisa, 20 and Andre, 22 where: Friday Night @ The Globe

Does your disco outfit make you a better dancer? Yes of course, it is part of the character you play. People around you find it funnier, and you can then dance without being shy and just rock!

So… do you come here often? L: Yes, we’ve been here before! We like the people and we like the place, and most of the time we like the music.

Is rockabilly your favourite type of music to dance to? I would say one of them. It is a pretty energetic dance with lots of funny movements. I also like disco, old electro, rock and Spanish dance... Always lots of fun!

How long have you been seeing each other? L: 10 months. Did you bond over a mutual talent for dancing? L: We didn’t meet that way, but we both think that we’re great dancers.

Where else in Dublin do you go to dance? Dice Bar is definitely the best. Usually I don't really mind, since I am with my friends and the music keeps me dancing.

The DJ’s playing lots of chart music and house music – is that your favourite kind of music? L: No, I think that we both like indie rock a lot more.

Who's the best dancer you know? One of my friends from Azerbaijan, the traditional dance from his country is amazing, and he is really good at it. He can dance on every beat he is listening to.

What’s your song? [They confer] L + A: Somebody Told Me, by the Killers! Is Ireland better than Italy for dancing? L: Yes! A: No!

who: Scott, 33 where: Drop Dead Gorgeous @ Rírá So… do you come here often? Yeah, I like it here. I’m a Hogan’s boy too. Does dancing make you a happier person? Yes. I work really, really hard every single day, it’s nice to just lose yourself in something. I’m essentially a relaxed guy, and it’s a relaxing thing to do.

Would you be more attracted to another person if they're a good dancer? Yes definitely, dancing is part of the flirt. It drives you close to the person. No need to talk, just express what you feel with the dance. What's your favourite song to dance to? Rasputin by Boney M. I always dance it with my flatmate before we go out. Do you always dance in your bedroom before you go out? Yes, from the moment I start to dress to the moment I lock my apartment door!

Are you more attracted to a lady if she’s a good dancer? Yeah, absolutely. I had a girlfriend, and it ended (nobody’s fault!), but we were just great dancing together. Do you see it as an important form of communication? It’s not as complicated as that. There’s just nothing more beautiful than two people dancing together – you’re cool, they’re cool, you’re both cool, and that’s it. What’s your favourite song to dance to? It depends on how I’m feeling at that exact moment, what the energy is, all these other factors to be considered. Do you have a trademark dance move? I do, but I’m not telling you. You’ll have to hang out with me more to find out.

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COFFEE SOCIETY 61 Ranelagh Village, D.6 7.30am - 10.30pm 2 Lower Liffey Street, D.1 8am - 7pm Camden Street/Harcourt Road, D.2 7.30am - 20.30pm

tel: 01 4914445 fax: 01 4914446

coffeeireland@eircom.net

“DUBLIN’S BEST KEPT SECRET” TRADITIONAL IRISH MUSIC SATURDAY AT 9PM, SUNDAY AT 9PM EVERY SAT & SUN FROM 9PM TIL LATE A SING SONG WITH THE BAND

WEXFORD ST. FRIDAY// uplifting Funk + Soul

DAILY BEER & DAILY BEER & COCKTAILS COCKTAILS PROMOS! PROMOS!

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GONE TO THE DOGS Pictures Cliona O’Flaherty

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Opening hours: Sun: 4pm - 11pm Mon-Wed: 5pm - 11pm Thurs-Sat: Noon - 11pm Charles Guilbaud’s restaurant and cocktail bar offers cool and contemporary décor with a vibrant atmosphere to accompany classic European cooking. Open for dinner 7 days a week and for lunch Thursday to Saturday, we source the best quality fresh Irish produce and provide ‘home made’ dishes cooked to order for each customer and served by friendly and attentive staff. Come and try our award wining cocktail bar which will tantalise you with high quality fresh cocktails, some new inventions and plenty of classic concoctions!

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The Irish Film Instituteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

May 8-16 2009

SPANISH&LATIN AMERICANFilmSeason LT22: Radio La Colifata May 8 (7.05) The Empty Nest (El Nido VacĂo) May 9 (1.25), 10 (7.05) Fermatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Room (La HabitaciĂłn De Fermat) May 9 (7.05) Heart Of Time (CorazĂłn Del Tiempo) May 10 (1.20) Sleep Dealer May 11 (7.05)

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%2; 2)),&( 12: 23(1 $7 7(03/( %$5 &8/785$/ ,1)250$7,21 &(175( 3+

Night Flowers (Flores De Luna) May 12 (6.35) Round Two (Segundo Asalto) May 13 (6.45) The Sandman (El Hombre De Arena) May 14 (6.45) Lake Tahoe May 15 (7.10) Spleen (La Noche Que DejĂł De Llover) May 16 (1.20)

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'XEOLQ 'DQFH )HVWLYDO 0D\ Â˛ THE IRISH TIMES

The Empty Nest (El Nido VacĂo)

Box Office 01 679 3477 www.ifi.ie

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ﬁlm live music clubs classical theatre art comedy

listings

where do you think you’re going?

of the best

Cinema Q CORALINE

Release Date: 22 May

life and blissful marriage to Sharon

Director: Henry Selick

Rating: TBC

(Beyoncé Knowles) in jeopardy.

Cast: Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher,

A sexy, scary, slick, smart and funny

St. Peter’s Basilica.

French.

Q NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN

Release Date: 8 May

Director: Shawn Levy

Rating: PG

Cast: Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Owen

Q 12 ROUNDS

Dallas Howard, Moon Bloodgood,

A girl discovers an alternate world

Wilson, Hank Azaria, Christopher

Director: Renny Harlin

Helena Bonham Carter.

under her home in this quirky, well-

Guest, Alain Chabat, Robin

Cast: John Cena, Aiden Gillen,

Release Date: 3 June

crafted stop-motion feature. With

Williams.

Ashley Scott.

Rating: TBC

shades of Tim Burton, Coraline is

Release Date: 22 May

Release Date: 29 May

The fourth in the Terminator series,

child-friendly but gleefully sinister.

Rating: PG

Rating: 12A

this science fiction post-apocalyptic

When the lights go off the battle is

A criminal mastermind enacts his

war film is set in the year 2018, and

Q STAR TREK

on… Larry Daly becomes a caretaker

revenge on New Orleans Detective

focuses on the war between humanity

Director: J.J. Abrams

at the Smithsonian Museum and on

Danny Fischer, taunting the cop with

and Skynet.

Cast: John Cho, Ben Cross, Bruce

one magical night all sorts of famous

a series of near-impossible puzzles

Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Chris Pine,

artefacts come to life, taking Larry

and tasks – 12 rounds that Fischer

Zachary Quinto, Winona Ryder, Zoë

on yet another hilarious adventure.

must complete to save the life of his

John Hodgeman, Ian McShane, Keith David, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn

high school horror flick that smells

Q TERMINATOR: SALVATION

like teen spirit with a hint of rotting

Director: McG

flesh!

Cast: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin, Bryce

fiancée.

Saldana, Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin, Eric Bana, Leonard Nimoy.

Q FIRED UP

Release Date: 8 May

Director: Will Gluck

Rating: PG13

Q LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT Director: Dennis IIiadis Cast: Garret Dillahunt, Michael

Cast: Nicholas D’Agosto, Eric

Q JONAS BROTHERS: THE 3D CONCERT EXPERIENCE

The incredible story of a young

Christian Olsen, Sarah Roemer,

Director: Bruce Hendricks

Release Date: 12 June

crew’s maiden voyage onboard the

Molly Sims, Annalyne McCord.

Cast: Nick Jonas, Kevin Jonas, Joe

Rating: 18

most advanced starship ever created

Release Date: 22 May

Jonas, Demi Lovato, Taylor Swift.

Masters of horror Wes Craven and

- the U.S.S. Enterprise. On an action-

Rating: PG13

Release Date: 29 May

Sean Cunningham bring one of the

filled journey, the new recruits must

Dreading another summer of

Rating: G

most notorious thrillers of all time to

stop an evil being whose mission of

football camp, Shawn (Nicholas

A film that takes you where no fan

a new generation, one which explores

vengeance threatens all of mankind.

D’Agosto) and Nick (Eric Christian

has gone before. Experience the

how far two ordinary people will go

Olsen), the stars of their high school

Jonas Brothers up close and personal

to exact revenge on the sociopaths

Q ANGELS AND DEMONS

football team, hatch a plan to join

in 3D, with behind the scenes

who harmed their child.

Director: Ron Howard

the hot girls at cheer camp instead.

footage.

Cast: Tom Hanks, Ewan McGregor,

Everything is dandy until Shawn falls

Stellan Skarsgärd, Ayelet Zurer.

for a beautiful cheerleader who is

Q OBSESSED

Release Date: 14 May

wise to the boys’ wily ways.

Director: Steve Shill Cast: Idris Elba, Beyoncé Knowles,

Rating:

Ali Larter.

If at first you don’t succeed… Try a sequel. In another movie adapted

Q TORMENTED

Release Date: 29 May

from Dan Brown’s novels, Tom

Director: John Wright

Rating: PG13

Hanks reprises his role as Professor

Cast: Alex Pettyfer, April Pearson,

Obsessed temp worker, Lisa, (Ali

Robert Langdon who uncovers a plot

Calvin Dean, Dimitri Leonidas,

Larter) starts stalking asset manager

to murder four cardinals and destroy

Larissa Wilson.

Derek (Idris Elba), putting his perfect

Bowen, Joshua Cox.

FILM

Last Chance Harvey

1 2 3 4 5

Release Date: 5 June Rating: PG13 Bafta-winning director Joel Hopkins unites thespian royalty Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson in the romance of the year, Last Chance Harvey, sure to chip away at the stoniest of hearts.

Everlasting Moments Release Date: 22 May Rating: 12A Set in Sweden in 1911, Everlasting Moments is a great story of love and hope, directed by 78 year old Jan Troell whose empathy and care for his characters is instinctive.

Awaydays Release Date: 22 May Rating: 18 If you think football and fashion are as incompatible as oil and water, you’re wrong mate. Pat Holden’s film documents how the football fanatical Scousers of Liverpool created a look that shook the world and put Fred Perry’s kids through college.

Cheri Release Date: 5 May Rating: 15A From the Oscar nominated director of The Queen comes the story of the love affair between the beautiful retired courtesan Léa (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Cheri, the son of her old colleague and rival, Mme Peloux.

Blood: The Last Vampire Release Date: 12 June Rating: 16 Born to a human father and a vampire mother, 17 year old Saya is a ‘Halfling’, obsessed with using her samurai skills to rid the world of vampires, all the while knowing that she herself can’t survive without the blood of those she hunts.

Live gigs Monday 4 May

Visit our new website for comprehensive Cinema, Gig, Club, Theatre, Exhibition, Comedy and Festival listings - www.totallydublin.ie

8pm, €49.80-70.70

USA 2008 Guitar Player Magazine

8pm, €20

Power trio back with (yet another)

Whelan’s

The Never Ending Tour rolls on as

Readers Choice Award winner

Improvised jazz trio

album, ‘Crooked Timber’ to support

8pm, €10

plays his first O2 stint.

Q Dirk Powell The Village

Wednesday 13 May

Q Depeche Mode and Friends Peadar Kearney’s

8pm, €15

Q Little Feat The Academy

9.30pm, €6

Q The Dirty 9s Whelan’s

from the Bon Iver-esque one-man

Q Priscilla Ahn The Sugar Club

A celebration for De Mode’s newest

8pm, €8

orchestra

8pm, €29

8pm, €31.50

album

Indie upstairs

Saturday 16 May

Q Kevin Brady Trio JJ Smyth’s

Q Tola Custy, Padraig Rynne & Paul McSherry Seamus Ennis Cultural Centre

8.30pm, €12

Q Peter Broderick Whelan’s

the freewheeling Rob Zimmerman

8pm, €15 Samples, guitars, electro and folk

With support from Prison Love

iPod-friendly folk

Q Sarah Lee Guthrie and John Irion Whelan’s

Q La Dolce Roma Bewley’s Cafe Theatre

Q Ronan O’Snodaigh Whelan’s

8.30pm, €15

8pm, €20

8pm, €17

a selection of music Italia

The Guthrie dynasty continues

Poetry and bodhran-playing from the

Tuesday 5 May Q Bob Dylan The O2

founder of trad-kings Kila

Chanteuse Derby Browne performing

Friday 8 May

The Never Ending Tour rolls on as

music is Fennesz: a meticulous laptop

6.30pm, €91.25/76.25

the freewheeling Rob Zimmerman

conceptualist who weaves...

plays his first O2 stint.

Q Thomas Leeb Whelan’s

master pays his first visit to the O2.

8pm, €10

Guitarist who plays a style he

8pm, €26

American indie-rock influenced

calls ‘the bastard child of acoustic

No need for all the Commotion

northpaw

fingerstyle’

8pm, €13

8pm, €15

Our current favourite indie rock

Launching their album ‘Proper

three-piece headline their first Dublin

Order’

show

Q Tiny Magnetic Pets Whelan’s

8pm, €10

The Cream and Yardbirds guitar

8pm, €TBC

Q The Pale Whelan’s

Q Pinky Whelan’s Dolittle presents.

8pm, €TBC

Q Sky Larkin The Academy

collective relive their ‘Liege & Lief’

Q Margaret Healy Whelan’s

Lloyd Cole Whelan’s

In support of second album, Zeitgeist

Monday 18 May

A triumvirate of Irish folk’s finest

glory days

AC/DC tribute

with Bon Iver in support

7.30pm, €16

Influential and inspired 60’s folk

8pm, €15

A veritable bukkake of indie folk

Q Fairport Convention Whelan’s

Q Hells Bells The Academy

At the frontier of contemporary

8pm, €15

Thursday 14 May

Q Fennesz Andrews Lane 8pm, €23.50

Q The Acorn Whelan’s

jam bands

8pm, €21.50

8pm, €59.80-70.70

Q I Am Not Left Handed Whelan’s

One of America’s most enduring

Dublin alt-rock quartet

Lush songwriting from the well-

Q The Blackout The Academy

travelled Dubliner.

8pm, €20

Q Tricky The Academy

(sic.)

8pm, €30

Q Ruth Anne The Academy

Post-hardcore mates of LostProfits

Q The Breeders Vicar Street 8.30pm, €28 Kind of a big Deal.

Q Citizen Whelan’s 8pm, €TBC

Q Clara Rose Whelan’s 8pm, €8 With Monahan and Vitruvius

Rory and Los Rockefellers Whelan’s

Trip-hop hero returns

8pm, €TBC

Q Ovo Whelan’s

Leona Lewis songwriter flies solo

8pm, €10

Q Anti-Pop Consortium

Q Telepathe The Academy

With Estel and Drainland

Whelan’s

8pm, €16.50

8pm, €13.50

Sinister NYC post-punk duo in

Indie hip-hopsters

Academy 2

Q Super Extra Bonus Party Andrews Lane

Q Anne Marie Redmond Bewley’s Cafe Theatre

Q Chairlift The Academy

Tuesday 12 May Enrique Iglesias The O2

8pm, €12

Friday 15 May

Tuesday 19 May

7pm, €52.80

8pm, €8

He can be your hero, baby. For 52

With support from Neosupervital

quid.

Thursday 7 May

8pm, €15

8.30pm, €12

8pm, €14.50

Lloyd Cole Whelan’s

The Newbridge, Kildare and Tallaght

Blues, soul and funk singer

80s styled electro-pop band enjoying

collective prep their second album

MGMT comparisons and iPod ad

Wednesday 6 May

Q Passion Pit The Academy

8pm, €26

Night Horses

Sunday 17 May

Q Jay Brannan Crawdaddy

8pm, €15.50 Hotly-tipped cosmic-popsters make

The Lost Brothers Whelan’s

Q Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti Whelan’s

Q Future Of The Left The Academy

Q Miracle Bell Whelan’s

8pm, €12

their way over from Massachussets

8pm, €12

8pm, €TBC

8pm, €12

8pm, €10

Former Mclusky boys bring their

With the Eskies and the Federallies

New York-based strummer

Q Bob Dylan The O2

Q Pierre Bensusan The Sugar Club 8pm, €14

Vincent Courtois - Sylvie Courvoisier - Ellery Eskelin Trio National Concert Hall

Q Therapy? The Academy

racket to Academy 2

8pm, €25

Q Travega

ubiquity

Wednesday 20 May

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Visit our new website for comprehensive Cinema, Gig, Club, Theatre, Exhibition, Comedy and Festival listings - www.totallydublin.ie

Monitor

Q Billy O’ Dwyer (Bob) Whelan’s 8pm, €10 Upstairs.

Q Mick Flannery Vicar Street 8.30pm, €23 Corkonian award-winning folk singer-songwriter

Q Woodpigeon The Academy 8pm, €13 Sufjan-styled Canadian indie

Thursday 21 May Q Justin Carroll’s Triple Piglet/Electronic Sensoria Band The Fold 8pm, €12 Balkan-infused improvisations from Justin Carroll’s alt-folk trio

Q The Slackers The Academy 8pm, €18.50 Slacksadaisical Jamaican rock

Q Brett Dennan Whelan’s 8pm, €13.50 One of Rolling Stone’s Top 10 Artists to Watch. They don’t mention listening to him.

Q Ane Brun The Sugar Club 8.30pm, €15 Stockholm folkie

Q Poets of Rhythm Whelan’s

ADRIAN CROWLEY ARCADIAN FIRE WORDS Daniel Gray

Adrian Crowley is the source of great debate in the Totally Dublin office. See me, I say his music sounds like honey dripping from a wooden spoon. Another voice pops up saying he's more a bathful of melted chocolate. We can't even compromise and call him a Toblerone - his glorious new album, Season Of The Sparks is virtually angle-free, a golden floating cumulus cloud at sunset. Crowley's career to date has been as slow to unravel as his music. Only with last album Long Distance Swimmer did his Drakeist strumming strike the right chord. Spurred on by that low-key success, SOTS is an irresistible, strident opus of an artist in his prime. The Irish Times remarked that you're an artist that prospers from confidence - did you feel you hit a purple patch after the acclaim the last album garnered? Has the acclaim Season Of The Sparks already picked up pushed you all the more? There is definitely something in that. The response to the last album, Long Distance Swimmer, was extremely heartening and encouraging. It gave me a validation that helped justify all the time and effort I was about to invest in making another album! It makes a big difference to know that there is maybe a new audience out there

8pm, €15

anticipating the fruits of your labour. Already the reaction to the new album is spurring me on even further. Like your last album, there are distinct motifs running throughout Season Of The Sparks - bees, honey, dreams. What are the meanings, or set of meanings attached to these recurring images? And how did they differ to the more maritime setting of the last album? Yes that's true, there does seem to be a recurring imagery or a type of imagery to Season Of The Sparks. I'm not entirely sure how that started. I enjoy the mystery that comes with songs emerging. My only guide is a gut feeling that keeps me in check. I wasn't conscious of the water imagery that ran through many of the songs of the last album at the time of writing. Likewise I wasn't really conscious of the dominant images on Season Of The Sparks. I suppose there might be an archetypal symbolism that recurs on the new record, one of Arcadian reverie but also the idea of impermanence and a lust for life in the present, you know? What sort of hunger made you create this album? An urge to lose myself in a strange landscape and to discover what's hidden there. There are some particularly obscure instruments used throughout the album. Do you seek out new musical devices, or do they find you? Both really. I have amassed a collection of peculiar instruments that have taken up residence in my attic. On the new album I make use of marxophone, shruti

box, upright harmonium,viola de gamba, baroque viola... and also some truly amazing guitar pedals that make the guitar into some new instrument that sounds nothing like a conventional guitar. My friend Marja Gaynor played the gamba and baroque viola.

German retro-modernist funk (but fun)

Does this album reflect the input or influence of the Fence Collective? [Fife-based DIY folk collective Adrian is involved with] No not really, certainly not directly. The others in the Fence Collective haven't heard the new album yet. Though they (people like King Creosote, The Pictish Trail and James Yorkston) are a constant source of inspiration, they have a very unselfconscious way of doing things, an amazing freedom to performing and writing that really grabs people and makes them realise what's really important. I hope that ethos might have had a hand in my development.

Q Deerhunter Whelan’s

There's a certain poetic precision to both your music and your lyrics - if Season Of The Sparks was any poem, what one would it be? Nice question. I would say probably The Choric Song Of The Lotus Eaters by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

8pm, €11.50

Adrian Crowley’s unctuous new album The Season Of The Sparks is released on the 1st May via Tin Angel Records

Q Manteca Bewley’s Cafe Theatre 8.30pm, €10 Latin/jazz/fusion act

Friday 22 May

8pm, €16.45 Bradford Cox and co. tour their most recent critical hit collection, the dream-poppy ‘Microcastles’.

Q Black Lips + Mika Miko Crawdaddy 8pm, €15 A night of noise with two of America’s most garage

Q Kieran Goss Seamus Ennis Cultural Centre 7.30pm, €25 Accompanied by Gareth Hughes on double bass and Ann Kinsella on backing vocals

Q Red Light Company The Academy NME-tipped quintet

Q Stiff Little Fingers The Academy 8pm, €25 Northy punks still spitting vitriol

Q DelorentoEs Whelan’s 8pm, €20 The great indie rock and roll swindle

Q Soul Jam The Sugar Club 7.30pm, €40 With Ms.Nickki & The Memphis Soul Survivors and Vince Johnson of the Plantation All Stars

ďŹ lm music listings nightlife culture comedy events festivals features

less inky

more linky

WWW.TOTALLYDUBLIN.IE

Q Max Greenwood

Q Delorentoes Whelanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Olympia Theatre

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź16

With a name like that you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t say

Whelanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Bewleyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cafe Theatre

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź33.60

Love-obsessed angular pop quintet

no, really

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź10

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź20

Sold out

return with album two

Big-hearted piano twinkles

Saturday 23 May

Q Dave Mulligan Whelanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Tuesday 26 May

8pm, â&#x201A;ŹTBC

Q Boyzone The O2 7pm, â&#x201A;Ź49.20-59.80

Oh, no. Rubbish James Blunt copyist.

Q Aslan Vicar Street

Irish Americana

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź33.60

Q Soul Jam The Sugar Club

Meteor Irish Band of the Year (1989)

Q James Morrisson Olympia Theatre

7.30pm, â&#x201A;Ź17/20

Q Van Cleef The Village

7.30pm, â&#x201A;Ź28/33.60

Dublinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own rising international

8pm, â&#x201A;ŹTBC

The Lizard King rises from the de...

R&B star

Irish indie pop

Q James Morrisson Olympia Theatre

Saturday 30 May

7.30pm, â&#x201A;Ź28/33.60

Q Shapeshifter (NZ) Live Crawdaddy

Reggae, ska and rocksteady legends

Q Scott Matthews Whelanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź15

Q Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players Crawdaddy

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź20 Ivor Novello-awarded songsmith

Q The Kinetics The Academy

Q Rhydian Roberts Olympia Theatre

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź12/15

Q Mugger Dave Whelanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź11

Fancy some â&#x20AC;&#x153;indie-vaudeville

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź33.60

conceptual art-rock popâ&#x20AC;??

8pm, â&#x201A;ŹTBC

Westlifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s embarrassing Dads back again... erm, no matter what

Q Toots and the Maytals Tripod

Q Casio Kids The Academy

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź25/32.50

7.30pm, â&#x201A;Ź40

Q DM Stith Crawdaddy

Sunday 24 May

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź12/15

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź17

Experimental multi-instrumentalist from Indiana

Q Africa Day Iveagh Gardens

Scandanavian synthpopsters play first Irish headline show

12am, Free

Q The River Valley Band Andrews Lane

With Vieux Farka TourĂŠ, Cathy Davey, Niwel Tsumbu, and Kila

8pm, â&#x201A;ŹTBC w/ The Hot Sprockets + The Last Tycoons

Q Karima Francis The Academy

Sold out

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź14.50

Q Gallows The Academy

With Voodoo Fire in Haiti

Q Bob Dylan Poetry of the Blues Whelanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Q Kieran Goss Seamus Ennis Cultural Centre

Tipped Armatrading-like songstress

7.30pm, â&#x201A;Ź16

Q Ghanarama

Sanguinary punks unleash new

Accompanied by Gareth Hughes on

Whelanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

album â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The Grey Britainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

double bass and Ann Kinsella on

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź25

Q Kyratz Radio City

Q After the Explosions Whelanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 8pm, â&#x201A;Ź8

Q The Phantom Band Whelanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Q Ezio Whelanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

influence prog rockers

Wednesday 27 May

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź15

Q Boyzone The O2

Q Rhydian Roberts

Q Crazy P The Sugar Club

Q Holly Golightly & The Brokeoffs Andrews Lane

Irish button accordion player, with

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź25

band

Nottingham-based electronica band

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź15

Q Beyonce The O2

Q Antony and the Johnsons Vicar Street

Q Creamy Goodness The George Bernard Shaw

Sasha Fierceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sold out three-nighter

8.30pm, Sold Out

Free, â&#x201A;Ź8pm

Q Ria Czerniak

BVS 6SOR AV]^ C

Tdbmft

scbm!Ijhi f I

p oh

C^^S` 4]e\Sa Ab BS[^ZS 0O` 2cPZW\

Tljo

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perform live

7pm, Sold Out

Off-kilter country

Q The Maccabees The Academy

Sunday 31 May

7.30pm, â&#x201A;Ź16

7pm, â&#x201A;Ź49.20-59.80

4c\ 5cg

q ft j Q

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź15

Original country and blues

Q Jon Hopkins The Sugar Club

Monday 25 May

One man, one violin, one damn

Q David Munnelly Band Seamus Ennis Cultural Centre

Chequerboard

Choice cuts with Richie Egan

Q Rodriquez Whelanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź12/15

Finnish post-rock, with support from

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź17

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź20

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź10

Irelandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading piano

With Scuba and the Dying Seconds

you trust Gary Lightbody?

Q Final Fantasy Whelanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

good gig

8.30pm, â&#x201A;Ź10

Q Jape The Button Factory

Gary Lightbody thinks heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s good. Do

Q Charlie Parr Crawdaddy

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź18

apparently

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź8

In support of new single

Q Library Tapes Whelanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Q Phil Ware Trio JJ Smythâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Waits with a circus showband,

7pm, Sold Out

8pm, â&#x201A;ŹTBC

Thursday 28 May

Q Jerry Fish and the Mudbug Club The Academy What you get when you cross Tom

Q Beyonce The O2

Q Joe Echo Whelanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

Doomy psychedelia specialists

With Tessa Perry & Liz Clark

8pm, â&#x201A;ŹTBC

The Phantom of the Academy returns

Q DC Tempest Andrews Lane

Tech-House, Post-Grunge and Electro

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź12

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź12.50

Friday 29 May

New Zealandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s DnB outfit

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź15

8pm, â&#x201A;Ź16

backing vocals

Polish-Irish singer-songwriter

Q Laura Izibor Tripod

An orchestrally-backed Antony returns with songs from his new

collection ‘The Crying Light’

Q The Coronas The Academy

of the best

Q George Thorogood and the Destroyers Olympia Theatre

7.30pm, €28 The biggest thing to come out of

8pm, €39

Terenure since that AIB advert

The world’s most overpriced bar

Aisling Quinn

band

Whelan’s

GIGS

8pm, €10

Q Joan of Arc Whelan’s

Upstairs

8pm. €14

Q Caomhin O’Raghallaigh/ Thread Pulls The Fold

Former Cap’n Jazz man with support from Love of Everything

Monday 1 June

8pm, €12 Sublime fiddle and hardanger virtuso Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh...

Q Phosphorescent Whelan’s 8pm, €15

Q Manic Street Preachers Olympia Theatre

Willie Nelson-rejigger and fantastic

8pm, €44.20/49.20

folkie in his own right

If you tolerate this they might never

Tuesday 2 June Q Stephen Forbert Whelan’s 8pm

call it a day.

Q Stephen Fretwell The Academy 8pm, €16.05 Fretful folk singer

€23 Nashvillian country

Wednesday 3 June

Q The Handsome Family Whelan’s 8pm, €20 Bloody-minded alt-country

Q Dan Deacon Ensemble Andrews Lane

Friday 5 June

8pm, €17.50 The ‘Salvador Dali of electro’ returns. With Future Islands and Adventure.

Q In Case Of Fire The Academy 8pm, €13

Q The Mighty Diamonds Crawdaddy

Kerrang-approved Norn Iron heavy rock.

8pm, €17/22.50 Veteran roots harmony trio

Q Teitur The Sugar Club

Q Beyonce The O2

8pm, €16

7pm, Sold Out

Faroe Islands for Brian Kerr

Q A Plastic Rose Whelan’s 8pm, €10 Belfast post-hardcore

Thursday 4 June

Here on an exchange trip from the

Visit our new website for comprehensive Cinema, Gig, Club, Theatre, Exhibition, Comedy and Festival listings www.totallydublin.ie

1 2 3 4 5

Bob Dylan The O2, 5th May 8pm, €49.80-70.70 The Never Ending Tour rolls on as the freewheeling Rob Zimmerman plays his first ever O2 stint.

Beyonce The O2, 29th-30th May, 3rd-4th June 7pm, €67.50/72.50/83.05 Beyonce brings her schizophrenic alter-ego Sasha Fierce to Dublin for a four night residency.

The Breeders Vicar Street 8.30pm, €28 Kind of a big Deal.

Villagers Whelan's 7.30pm, €15 The ex-Immediate guitarist and former Totally Dublin interviewee brings his hotly-tipped, haunting guitars to Whelans

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti Whelan's 8pm, €TBC Hauntology pioneer and Paw Tracks label great who’s as divisive as Bovril bars

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Friday 8th May Yuksek Twisted Pepper 11pm, €12

downstairs in the basement.

Saturday 16th May

Yuksek is amongst the hottest stars

Dj Steffi, Hudson Mohawke (Dj Set) + Mike Slott Twisted Pepper

to have emerged from the new wave

Berlin native DJ Steffi makes her

of French dance music. Yuksek has

Dublin debut in the TP basement

provided remixing services to a host

while Revolution hosts Scottish

of artists including Kaiser Chiefs,

hip-hop/dub/broken beat sensation

Chromeo and Wu Tang’s Ghost

Hudson Mohawke and Mike Slott

Face Killah. One of the first DJs to

on the Stage.

Parisian electro-house purveyor

ever play at Twisted Pepper, Yuksek makes a welcome return to Dublin.

Saturday 9th May John Daly (Wave Music) Twisted Pepper 11pm, €10

Climaxxx Club South William 10pm, Free

Chilled tunes on the third Friday of

Bodytonic’s surrogate Grandad

Chewy and guests spin disco,

every month.

returns to Dublin for a set of old

tropical and Balkan beats on the last

school funk, raga and dancehall

Saturday of every month.

jams.

Sunday 31st May

Friday 29th May

Soundtrack ‘09 The Pod (Access All Areas) 9pm, €24.50

The Breakdown crew celebrate their

Johnson, The Loft & Panorama

third birthday with their full band

Bar, this is one Corkonian to keep

and MC Kwasi confirmed for the

an eye on.

night, with other acts TBA. Expect

D’n’B/Dub double-hitter with original nutta’ legend Shy FX on the Stage and Martyn & Instra:mental

Saturday 30th May

DJ Derek [Bristol] The Bernard Shaw 9pm, Free

(at Francois’s Deep Space), Robert

Shy FX, Martyn & Instra:mental Twisted Pepper 11pm, €10

the last Friday of every month.

Mr. Whippy Soundsystem South William Basement 10.30pm, Free

top dancing spots including Cielo

Friday 15th May

culture music since the early 90s on

Friday 22nd May

Breakdown 3rd Birthday Twisted Pepper 11pm, Price TBC

DJ. A regular spinner at the worlds

Saturday 23rd May

The cream of roots, reggae, and

Martin Buttrich [Live] & I-F Twisted Pepper 11pm, €10 Planet E’s Martin Buttrich makes his debut Irish appearance on the Stage, while in the Basement Electric City favourite I-F makes a welcome return with his bag of quality Italo, electro & house beats.

John Daly has carved out quite a name for himself as a house music

Friday of every month with live afrojazz horns.

FVF Present Marc Ashken + More TBA Twisted Pepper

The Button Factory, Sat 9th May 8pm, €15

UK Techno DJ Marc Ashken celebrates the release of his EP ‘Just A Groove’ on FVF’s label alongside FVF favourite Metrotek in the Basement.

Brakes, Funk, DnB and Soul, a live b-boy show and freebies doing the

Norwegian loungecore DJ and

Skream, Boy 8 Bit, Rusko and more

rounds.

producer, Prins Thomas, celebrates

TBA.

The Pod complex opens its doors for the June bank holiday weekend and plays host to Diplo, Fake Blood,

Nightflight at the Button Factory’s 1st birthday with a four hour set.

CLUBBING

Lovefoxxx (CSS) – DJ Set

Time & Price TBC

Prins Thomas The Button Factory 11pm, €15/€10 with student card/keyring

Afronova Live South William 10.30pm, Free Lex Woo’s afrodiscobeat comes to the Southwilliam on the third

of the best

Clubs - once-offs

1 2

Cansei de Ser Sexy’s irrepressible frontwoman takes to the Button Factory stage for a night of tunage akin to CSS’s hit, ‘Music is my Hot Hot Sex’. Get there at 8pm and you’ll catch Humanzi and the 202’s live too – all for the bargain price of €15.

Armin Van Buuren Tripod, Fri 22nd May 11pm, €32.95

Citing electronic pioneer Jean Michel Jarre as a major influence on his work, Van Buuren has carved out a major niche for himself both as a producer and DJ who is revered the world over.

DJ Derek [Bristol]

The Bernard Shaw, Sat 23rd May 9pm, Free

Firehouse Skank South William 10pm, Free

Weekly clubs

Ever wondered how your granddad’s record collection would measure up on today’s fickle dancefloor? Pretty damn good if your grandpa was as cool as Bodytonic’s surrogate granddad, DJ Derek. The vintage spinner returns to Dublin for a set of old school funk, raga and dancehall jams.

Sasha

Tripod, Fri 29th May 11pm, €26.50

Mondays

8pm

Sin, Sycamore St, Temple Bar, D2

Funky Sourz

Pool competition, Karaoke & DJ

9pm

Club M, Blooms Hotel, D2

Island Culture

Disco, House, R’n’B

11pm, €5

South William, 52 South William

Make and Do-Do with Panti

St, D2

Panti Bar, 7-8 Capel St, D1

Jelly Donut

Free

10pm

The Village, 26 Wexford St, D2

Hed-Dandi

Caribbean cocktail party

Gay arts and crafts night.

10.30pm, Free

Dandelion Café Bar Club, St. Stephens

Minimal Techno

Green West, D2

DJ Andy Preston (FM104)

Fionn Davenport

DJ Ken Halford

Sin, Sycamore Street, Temple Bar, D2

Buskers, Temple Bar, D2

Give a Dog a Bone

9pm, €5

10pm

Panti Bar, 7-8 Capel St, D1

Takeover

No cheese eclectic mix

Chart Pop, Indie, Rock

Penny’s in the bar!

Twentyone Club & Lounge, D’Olier

The Hep Cat Club

Euro Saver Mondays

Jezabelle

11pm, €5

4 Dame Lane, Dame Lane, D2

Twentyone Club & Lounge, D’Olier

The Purty Kitchen, 34/35 East Essex

Electro, Techno

8pm, Free

St, D2

St, Temple Bar, D2

Swing, Jazz and Lounge with classes.

11pm, €1 (with flyer)

7pm, Free before 11pm

Wednesdays

DJ Al Redmond

Live Classic Rock

Antics

The Dice Bar, Queen St, Smithfield, D7

Recess

The DRAG Inn

St, D2

Free

Ruaille Buaille, South King St, D2

The Dragon, Sth Great Georges St, D2

11pm, €5

DJ Alley

11pm, €8/6

8pm, Free

Indie Rock ‘n’ Roll student night

Student night

Davina Devine presents open mic

with live music slots.

DJs Dave McGuire & Steve O

St, D2

Dice Sessions

POD, Old Harcourt Station, Harcourt

King Kong Club Therapy

11pm, Free

Club M, Blooms Hotel, D2

Musical game show

11pm, €5

Glitz

9pm

Funky House, R‘n’B

Break for the Border, Johnstons Place,

Underground House, Techno, Funk

The Dragon, Sth Great Georges St, D2

Tuesdays

10pm, Free Cocktails, Candy & Classic Tunes

Soap Marathon Monday/ Mashed Up Monday

go-go boys and makeovers.

Dean Sherry

Lr Stephens St, D2 11pm

1957

Gay club night.

The Dice Bar, Queen St, Smithfield, D7 Free

Ri-Ra, Dame Court, D2

Trashed

11pm, Free before 11.30 €5 after

Andrews Lane Theatre, Andrews

Classic and Alternative Rock

Lane, D2

Blues, Ska

10.30pm, €5

The Mighty Stef’s Acoustic Nightmares

Indie and Electro

The Village Bar, 26 Wexford St, D2

6.30pm, Free

Le Nouveau Wasteland

Chill out with a bowl of mash and

The Dice Bar, Queen St, Smithfield, D7

catch up with all the soaps.

Free

DJ Stephen James

Laid back French Hip Hop and

Buskers, Temple Bar, D2

Soup Bitchin’

Groove

10pm

Panti Bar, 7-8 Capel St, D1

Chart Pop, Indie

Gay student night

Break for the Border, 2 Johnstons Place, Lr Stephens St, D2

The Academy, Sun 31st May €26.20 Alex Ridha’s sickeningly popular electro returns for yet another round of distorted synths.

Sin, Sycamore Street, Temple Bar, D2

Ruby Tuesdays

The George, Sth Great Georges St, D2

The Industry Night

Boys Noize

night with prizes, naked twister,

The Village, 26 Wexford St, D2

Dolly Does Dragon

Acid house veteran Sasha brings his infamous style to Tripod. Having produced and remixed tracks for everyone from Madonna to The Chemical Brothers, Sasha is one of the most powerful forces in dance music today.

Star DJs

Acoustic night with The Mighty Stef

Visit our new website for comprehensive Cinema, Gig, Club, Theatre, Exhibition, Comedy and Festival listings www.totallydublin.ie

Professor Jerzy Jedrysiak & Marta Wakula-Mac

New Works

left: Professor Jerzy Jedrysiak, Hendric Van Prooije 1989 | right: Marta Wakula-Mac, Dancers VII

7th May - 30th May 2009

Dublinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Print Gallery Est. 1988

Through the arch, off Cope Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 t: +353 1 679 8021 f: +353 1 679 4575 e: gallery@graphicstudiodublin.com www.graphicstudiodublin.com Mon - Fri: 10 am - 5.30 pm Sat: 11 am - 5 pm

Graphic Studio Dublin is a charitable organisation

Indie Rock, Motown and Swing

Wednesdays @ Spy

9pm, Free before 10pm, after 10pm

9pm

â&#x201A;Ź8/â&#x201A;Ź4 with student ID

Nightflight

Râ&#x20AC;&#x2122;nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;B, House, Chart

Spy, Powerscourt Townhouse Centre,

Alternative Grunge Night

Game show followed by 80s and

The Button Factory, Curved St, Temple Bar, D2

Sth William St, D2

Peader Kearneyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, 64 Dame St, D2

90s music.

11pm, â&#x201A;Ź5

10pm

11pm, â&#x201A;Ź5/3

Late club night

Alernative grunge

The Song Room

Soundcheck

The Globe, 11 Sth Great Georges St, D2

Processed Beats Searsons, 42-44 Baggot St. Upper, D4

Fridays @ V1

9pm, Free

The Vaults, Harbourmaster Plase,

Indie, Rock, Electro

Muzik

Foreplay Friday

IFSC, D1

The Button Factory, Curved St, Temple

The Academy, Middle Abbey St, D2

Progressive Tribal, Techno and

Go!

Bar, D2

10.30pm, â&#x201A;Ź10 after 11pm

Trance

Bodega Club, Pavilion Centre, Marine

Spy, Powerscourt Townhouse Centre,

11pm

R â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; B, Hip Hop, Garage

8.30pm, Free

South William St, D2

Up Beat Indie, New Wave, Bouncy

Live music

7pm â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 11pm

Electro

11pm, â&#x201A;Ź10 (ladies free before

NoDisko

The Purty Kitchen, 34/35 East Essex

midnight)

The Academy, Middle Abbey St, D2

Street, Temple Bar, D2

Soul, Indie, Disco, Rock

Thursday night DJ

â&#x201A;Ź5 after 11pm

10pm, Free before 11pm

The Globe, 11 Sth Great Georges St, D2

Indie Rock with regular guest DJs

DJ Austin Carter

Hells Kitchen

Sub Zero

Richmond St, Portobello, D2

The Dice Bar, Queen St, Smithfield, D7

Transformer (below The Oak),

Funk, House, Dubstep, Hip Hop

Unarocks and Sarah J Fox play indie

We got Soul, the Funk, and the Kitchen Sink

rock â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; roll

Ri-Ra, Dame Court, Dublin 2 11pm, Free before 11.30, â&#x201A;Ź5 after

Soundcheck Afterparty Vs Le Cirque

Soul and Funk

Spy, Powerscourt Townhouse Centre,

Rd, Dun Laoghaire

The Friday Night Project

11pm, Free Indie

Scribble The Bernard Shaw, 11-12 Sth

South William St, D2

After Work Party

Free

Parliment St, D2

Unplugged @ The Purty

11pm, â&#x201A;Ź5

The Purty Kitchen, 34/35 East Essex

Funk and Soul classics

11pm, Free

Saturdays

The Purty Kitchen, 34/35 East Essex St,

Fashion, fun, concept nights, indie-

Street, Temple Bar, D2

Indie, Rock, Mod.

Pogo

Temple Bar, D2

rock and electro

6pm, Free before 11pm

Friday Night Globe DJ

Live Rock with Totally Wired.

The Globe, 11 Sth Great Georges St, D2

Stephens Street Social Club

S, D2

11pm, Free

Bia Bar, 28/30 Lower Stephens St, D2

11pm, â&#x201A;Ź10 (varies if guest) House, Soul, Funk

7pm, Free before 11pm

The Twisted Pepper, 54 Middle Abbey

Live acoustic set with Gavin

Re-Session

Edwards.

Wax @ Spy, Powerscourt Townhouse

Moog 69s

DJ Eamonn Barrett plays an eclectic

8pm, Free

Centre, South William St, D2

Thomas Reads, Parliment St, D2

mix.

Funk, Soul, Timeless Classics

Space â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Veda

11pm

9.30pm, Free

The George, Sth Great Georges St, D2

Minimal, House, Techno

Live covers band + DJ. Funk, Soul,

Ri-Ra Guest Night

Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Make Party

POD, Old Harcourt Station, Harcourt St, D2

Pop.

Ri-Ra, Dame Court, Dublin 2

The Village, 26 Wexford St, D2

11pm, â&#x201A;Ź12

11pm, â&#x201A;Ź10 from 11.30pm

11pm

Access all areas at the Pod complex

DJ Mikki Dee

with local residents and special guest

9pm, Free before 10pm, after 10pm

Download + Tripod Saturdays

â&#x201A;Ź8/â&#x201A;Ź4 with student ID

Mash

Performance and dance. Retro 50s,

South William, 52 South William St, D2

Big Time!

International and homegrown DJ

60s, 70s.

9pm, Free

The Bernard Shaw, 11-12 South

talent.

Mash-ups, Bootlegs, Covers

Richmond St, Portobello, D2

DJ Alan Healy

You Tube nights, hat partys... make

Strictly Handbag

The George, Sth Great Georges St, D2

Gossip

and do for grown ups! With a DJ.

The Sugar Club, 8 Lwr. Leeson St, D2

9pm, Free before 10pm â&#x201A;Ź9 after

Spy, Powerscourt Townhouse Centre,

11pm, â&#x201A;Ź10 (2 for 1 before midnight)

Camp, Commercial, Dance

South William St, D2

Panti Bar, 7-8 Capel Street, D1

Rock Steady

Karaoke Friday

10pm

Spy, Powerscourt Townhouse Centre,

Break for the Border, Johnstons Place,

Gay cabaret.

South William St, D2

Lr Stephens St,D2

Rubberband

11pm, â&#x201A;Ź5

10pm

Wax @ Spy, Powerscourt Townhouse

Indie, Pop

Karaoke night.

Centre, South William St, D2

The Twisted Pepper, 54 Middle Abbey St, D2

Hospital

Panticlub

Control/Delete

11pm, â&#x201A;Ź10 (varies if guest)

Wax @ Spy, Powerscourt Townhouse

Panti Bar, 7-8 Capel St, D1

Andrews Lane Theatre, Andrews Lane, D2

Bass, Dubstep, Dancehall

Centre, South William St, D2

DJ Paddy Scahill

Buskers, Temple Bar, D2

Jason Mackay

10pm

Sin, Sycamore Street, Temple Bar, D2

Chart Pop, Current Indie and Rock

9pm

The Panti Show

Music

Dance, Râ&#x20AC;&#x2122;nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;B, House

Thursdays

Fromage

Mr. Jones

The Dice Bar, Queen St, Smithfield, D7

The Twisted Pepper, 54 Middle Abbey

Free

Fridays

St, D2

Motown Soul, Rock

Mud

11pm, â&#x201A;Ź8/5 House, Electro, Bassline

dj slots over five rooms.

DJ Fluffy in the Box

Cooler Than You

11pm, â&#x201A;Ź3/4

The Underground @ Kennedys,

Indie and Electro

Westland Row, D2

Free before 11pm, â&#x201A;Ź10 after

11pm, â&#x201A;Ź10 (â&#x201A;Ź8 with student ID)

11pm, â&#x201A;Ź5 before midnight, â&#x201A;Ź7 after

Babalonia Tropical Soundclash

80s, Disco, Hip Hop, House

Electro, Techno, House

South William, 52 South William St, D2

House, Techno

Sugar Club Saturdays The Sugar Club, 8 Lwr. Leeson St, D2

Music with Words

11pm, â&#x201A;Ź15

Pravda, Lwr. Liffey St, D1

Salsa, Swing, Ska, Latin

10pm, â&#x201A;Ź6/â&#x201A;Ź4 before 11pm or with

Annieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Family Fortunes

8.30pm, Free

Al Redmond

9.30pm, Free

flyer

The George, Sth Great Georges St, D2

Dub, Ska, Afrobeat

Sin, Sycamore St, Temple Bar, D2

Indie, Ska, Soul, Electro

national irish visual arts library

Public Research Library of 20th Century Irish Art & Design

National College of Art & Design 100 Thomas Street Dublin 8 T: 01 636 4347 romanod@ncad.ie www.ncad.ie/nival

" XBSN BOE SFMBYJOH SFTUBVSBOU UP HP GPS MVODI EJOOFS BOE UBQBT &VSPQFBO XJOFT UP DIPPTF GSPN 7PUFE CFTU OFXDPNFS CZ UIF SFTUBVSBOU BTTPDJBUJPO PG *SFMBOE 3FDPNNFOEFE CZ UIF .JDIFMJO (VJEF 0QFO -VODI 5VFTEBZ 'SJEBZ QN QN %JOOFS 5VFTEBZ 4BUVSEBZ QN QN 1FNCSPLF 4USFFU 6QQFS %VCMJO 5 XXX EBY JF

Freaks Come Out

Afternoon: Car boot sales, film clubs,

Temple Bar, D2

The Academy, Middle Abbey St, D2

music lectures, t-shirt making etc.

9pm, Free before 11pm

€15

Later on: Resident DJs playing Soul,

Gay cabaret shows.

Dirty Electro and House with regular

Funk, House, Electro

Classical Tuesday 5 May

music performances by junior,

Q RIAM Annual BA Concerti

undergraduate and postgraduate students

12 Sundays

Performances

Sidesteppin’

The Bernard Shaw, 11-12 South

National Concert Hall

Saturday Night Globe DJ

Bia Bar, 28/30 Lower Stephens St, D2

Richmond St, Portobello, D2

8pm, €10

Saturday 16 May

The Globe, 11 Sth Great Georges St, D2

8pm, Free

12pm – 12am, Free

Featuring five of Ireland’s finest

Temptations - An Opera Gala

11pm, Free

Old School Hip Hop, Funk 45s,

Funk, Disco, House

emerging talents

Concert

DJ Dave Cleary plays an eclectic mix.

Reggae

Songs of Praise

Wednesday 6 May

guest DJs.

Violin and Piano recital RTE National Symphony Orchestra National Concert Hall 8pm, €10/18/24/30/35 Strauss, Mahler

National Concert Hall

Saturday 23 May

8pm, €25/40/45

Boris Berezovsky

Space... The Vinyl Frontier

Saturday @ The Village

The Village, 26 Wexford St, D2

Q Han-Na Chang + Finghin Collins

Featuring the work of composers

National Concert Hall

Ri-Ra, Dame Court, D2

The Village, 26 Wexford St, D2

10pm, Free

National Concert Hall

as Verdi, Bellini, Mozart, Puccini,

8pm, €15/25/30/35/45

11pm, €10 after 11.30

11pm

Rock ‘n’ Roll Karaoke

8pm, €15/20/25/35/45

Donizetti and Handel

One of Russia’s most commanding

Soul, Funk, Disco, Electro

DJs Pete Pamf, Morgan, Dave Redetta & Special Guests

Two-time Grammy nominated cellist

Zrazy Jazz

together with former child prodigy

Sunday 17 May

The George, Sth Great Georges St, D2

pianist

performers

Q Verdi Requiem

Tuesday 26 May

Peader Kearney’s, 64 Dame St, D2

DJ Karen @ The Dragon

4pm – 7pm, Free

National Concert Hall

Liam Clancy

10pm, €5

The Dragon, Sth Great Georges St, D2

Lazy Jazz Sunday

8pm, €25/30/35

National Concert Hall

Reggae

10pm

The Culwick Choral Society

8pm, €30/35

Irish Reggae Dance

House music.

The Promised Land

Thursday 7 May

Shirley’s Bingo Sundays

Q Signature Series : Blake with RTE

The George, Sth Great Georges St, D2

Concert Orchestra

Monday 18 May

Presenting ‘The Wheels Of Life’

The Dice Bar, Queen St, Smithfield, D7

Beauty Spot Karaoke

8.30pm, Free

National Concert Hall

The Magic of Gilbert and Sullivan

Wednesday 27 May

Free

The George, Sth Great Georges St, D2

Bingo & Cabaret with Shirley Temple

8pm, €25/40

National Concert Hall

Latin

Soul, Funk, Disco

9pm, Free before 10pm, €10 after

Bar

Classical Brit award winners,

8pm

National Concert Hall

and receivers of Keira Knightley’s

€20/25/35

1.05pm, €15

fandom

With songs from The Mikado, the

Programme will include works by

Pirates of Penzance, and more

Piazzolla, Pujol and Ibert

Karaoke followed by DJs playing

Saturdays @ V1

camp commercial pop.

The Vaults, Harbourmaster Plase,

Elbow Room South William, 52 South William St, D2

IFSC, D1

Panticlub

8pm, Free

Friday 8 May

R ‘n’ B, Soul and Hip Hop with

Panti Bar, 7-8 Capel St, D1

Jazz, Soul, Disc & Latin

Scott Joplin meets Gershwin & Fats

Tuesday 19 May

Saturday 30 May

regular guest DJs.

DJ Philth & Guests

Waller

RTE Concert Orchestra

Richard Tognetti and the Irish

National Concert Hall

Chamber Orchestra

1.05pm, €15

8pm

National Concert Hall

Celebrating the Great Years of Piano

€11/22/27/33/37

8pm, €10/20/30

Ragtime & Jazz 1900-1940

A homage to the collaborations of

Corelli, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky

Wes Darcy

Sundays

Sin, Sycamore St, Temple Bar, D2 9pm

Worries Outernational

R’n’B

The Button Factory, Curved St, Temple

McCormack and Kreisler

Sunday 31 May

Bar, D2

RTE National Symphony Orchestra

Basement Traxx

11pm

National Concert Hall

Wednesday 20 May

Transformer (below The Oak),

Dancehall Styles

8pm, €10/18/24/30/35

Ulster Orchestra

National Concert Hall

Debussy, Rachmaninov, Ravel

National Concert Hall

8pm, €27.50/30

8pm, €10/18/24/30/35

With Our Lady’s Choral Society

Parliment St, D2 11pm, Free

The Workers Party

Indie, Rock

Sin, Sycamore Street, Temple Bar, D2

Monday 11 May

9pm

DIT Conservatory Prize-Winners

With DJ Ilk

Concert

Friday 22 May

National Concert Hall

Alan Smale & Anthony Byrne,

8pm, €5

National Concert Hall

Featuring solo and chamber

1.05pm, €12

Downtown Searsons, 42-44 Baggot St. Upper, D4 10pm, Free

Jazz @ The Globe

Indie, Soul, Chart

The Globe, 11 Sth Great Georges St, D2 5.30 – 7.30pm

Saturdazed

Sunday evening jazz

Bodega Club, Pavilion Centre, Marine Rd, Dun Laoghaire

Hang the DJ

11pm, €10

The Globe, 11 Sth Great Georges St, D2

Chart, Dance, R ‘n’ B

9pm, Free Rock, Indie, Funk, Soul

Visit our new website for comprehensive Cinema, Gig, Club, Theatre, Exhibition, Comedy and Festival listings www.totallydublin.ie

The Creation

Rachmaninov’s three dances

Toejam The Bernard Shaw, 11 - 12 South

Gay Cabaret

Richmond St, Portobello, D2

The Purty Kitchen, 34/35 East Essex St,

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of the best

Theatre Q Mandragola Smock Alley Theatre Exchange St. Lower, Temple Bar

May 9th-12th

The Mill Theatre, Dundrum Town Centre

Award-winning Irish director Mark

This chaotic supernatural comic play,

mystical comedy-drama, centered on

written by Noel Coward and directed

one magnificent day of tension, fight-

written by one of the world’s most

Q Pageant – The Musical Smock Alley Theatre Exchange St. Lwr, Temple Bar

by Anne O’Connell and Maria King,

ing, drinking, crying and laughing.

influential political thinkers, Niccolo

You the Audience will pick a new

concerns a socialite and novelist

Machiavelli, tells the story of the

Miss Glamouresse from these ambi-

who is haunted by the ghost of his

7:45pm, €15 May 4th-9th

determination of a wealthy young

tious, sexy, Male beauties each night!

first wife.

playboy steal the heart of a married

Fully live performance, with band

woman.

and hosted by Frankie Cavalier.

8pm, €18 May 19th-23rd

8pm, €15 May 21st-26th

8pm, €18 May 7th-12th

Q Loupe Project Arts Centre 39 East Essex St, Temple Bar, D2

Q Mum’s the Word The Mill Theatre, Dundrum Town Centre

This moving comedy, set in a

Five women...five stories...one com-

bonds are put to the test as sexuality

Tom Mac Intyre directs this lusty and

mon thread...a hilarious and intimate

and political intolerance foster hatred

Directed by Antoinette Duffy and

Pollard leads a strong cast in this

homophobic environment, will leave

Q The Boy Who Fell from the Roof Smock Alley Theatre Exchange St. Lower, Temple Bar

Q Only an Apple The Abbey Theatre, 26 Lwr Abbey St, D1 disquieting tale of an ailing playboy

look at motherhood. The smash hit

and fear.

Juliet Jenkin journeys through the

Taoiseach. A characteristically

comedy about how children change

teenage psyche of two 12th Grade

mischievous and theatrical journey

your life forever!

9:30pm, €15 May 4th-9th

learners as they fall into the cold bath

between our world and that of the

waters of homosexuality, race, love,

imagination.

8pm, €25 May 27th-28th

death and growing up in contempo-

8pm, €22 April 28th-May 30th

rary Cape Town.

8pm, €14 May 14th-19th

Q The Last Days of a Reluctant Tyrant The Abbey Theatre, 26 Lwr Abbey St, D1

Feis Maitiu The Mill Theatre Dundrum Town Centre

you in tears and stitches, as family

Q A Dog Called Redemption Project Arts Centre 39 East Essex St, Temple Bar, D2 formed between two homeless men on the cold streets of London, sees

longest running festival in Ireland. It

playwright Matthew Landers col-

Inspired by The Golovlyov Family

embraces all aspects of performance

laborating once more with Dublin

by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, this

art- drama, improvisation, storytell-

born director Mark Pollard. Both

In this erotic and totally uninhibited

epic family drama, shot through with

ing, verse speaking, mime and

laugh-out loud hilarious and deeply

performance, flesh, wine and philoso-

dark humour, tells the tragic story of

Shakespeare recital.

touching.

phy are guaranteed (and explored)

a family disintegrating, having lost its

as Greek God Dionysus challenges

moral values.

8pm, €18 May 11th-16th

8:15pm, €15 May 11th-16th

the naked hypocrisy of his brother,

7:30pm, €25 May 27th-11th July Q Parade The Civic Theatre, Tallaght, D24

Q Love and Money Project Arts Centre 39 East Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2

Q Ellamenope Jones Project Arts Centre 39 East Essex St, Temple Bar, D2

Q Mein Camp Smock Alley Theatre Exchange St. Lower, Temple Bar

In Jason Robert Brown’s fine musi-

Dennis Kelly’s funny but heart

theatre piece is Ellamenope Jones - an

cal play, a panoramic selection of

wrenching Love and Money offers a

all-singing, all-dancing, avaricious

characters from the American Deep

cautionary tale of consumerism gone

husband-murderer who tears a blaze

‘Mein Camp’ is a one hour musical

South bring about the circumstances

mad, putting spiraling debt and its

across a fantastical Gothic-edged

comedy romp set in the last great era

of a sensational real-life murder trial

effect on love under the microscope.

Dublin.

of cabaret. A musical tour around

and its aftermath.

April 17th-May 9th

Europe, from the Gay Paris of the

8pm, †19 May 19th-23rd

8:15pm, €8 May 29th-30th

Apollo.

9:30pm, €12 May 14th-19th

late 20’s, right back to the London Blitz!

9.45pm, €12

Q Blithe Spirit

Q The Bird Sanctuary Project Arts Centre 39 East Essex St, Temple Bar, D2

The Shawshank Redemption The Gaiety, South King St, D2 Directed by Peter Sheridan, this is the powerful story of one man’s indomitable spirit and long struggle against injustice which eventually frees the minds and souls of him and his fellow inmates. 8pm, †25 May 14th-June 20th

1 2

The Producers The Gaiety,South King St, D2 Noel McDonagh directs this play about a down-on-his-luck theatre producer who longs for a return to his glory days. 7:30pm, †15 April 28th-May 9th

All My Sons The Gate Theatre,Parnell Square, D1 Arthur Miller’s All My Sons is a provocative story of love, guilt and the corrupting power of greed, as two families struggle to come to terms with the brutal reality of what they have lost and gained in the aftermath of WWII. Directed by Robin Lefèvre. 8pm, †15-†30 May 2nd-June 13th

This story of an unlikely friendship

Feis Maitiu Drama Dublin is the

Q Apollo/Dionysus Smock Alley Theatre Exchange St. Lower, Temple Bar

THEATRE

The protagonist of this musical

Mandragola Smock Alley Theatre Exchange St. Lower, Temple Bar Directed by Antoinette Duffy and written by one of the world's most influential political thinkers, Niccolo Machiavelli, tells the story of the determination of a wealthy young playboy steal the heart of a married woman. 8pm, †15 May 21st-26th

4 5

Silenciados Project Arts Centre 39 East Essex Street, Temple Bar, D2 An Auschwitz Prisoner, a gay activist, a gay Christian, a Guatemalan transsexual and a victim of bullying … they were all silenced because of sexual discrimination. Five separate stories told without words. 9:30pm, †15

THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION Upstage

INTERVIEW WITH PETER SHERIDAN WORDS

Sheena Madden

Walking down some dodgy backstreet in New York in 2004, I ambled across a shifty looking character selling movie scripts bound in cheap cardboard. My uncertainty of the legitimacy of this unlikely businessman fought against my overwhelming desire to bring useless trinkets back to the homeland and culminated in me hastily requesting the script to the most popular film that he had. A yellowing, but word-perfect, copy of The Shawshank Redemption’s script now adorns my coffee table. Today, fifteen years since the story was adapted for the screen from its original incarnation as Stephen King’s 1982 novella, ‘Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption’, and its popularity shows no signs of slowing. The very first stage adaptation of the story is opening at the Gaiety Theatre this May, starring Kevin Anderson and Reg Cathey. Director Peter Sheridan took some time out to talk to Upstage about the relevance that The Shawshank Redemption has to the Irish people. What do you think it is about the Shawshank Redemption story that has such universal appeal? Well the word is in the title: there is

redemption at the core of the story and I suppose there is a kind of fundamental yearning in all of us to be saved. This is a story where one guy, a Jesus-like figure (Andy Dufresne), has this power. He suffers greatly: he’s been beaten up by rapists, he’s been turned over by the Governor and generally been abused. Yet throughout all of this he never loses that inner light, that hope, that sense of his own worth. So I think it’s kind of a modern parable, a modern Jesus story, and I think that’s its power. You’re well known for your depiction of life in Ireland. What was it about The Shawshank Redemption that caused you to veer off-course slightly and look away from your archetypal Irish subject matter? I’ve always had a huge interest in institutions. I don’t know where it comes from; it must have been a previous existence. I must have been a prisoner or a guard or something. My grandfather spent time in prison for Republican activity after 1916, so there would have been an interest from that. But I think the thing about The Shawshank is that Ireland has this really strange history with prisons. Especially the whole thing around the Republican

movement, 1916 to the 1920s – you were nobody if you didn’t spend time in jail. I think when the second Dáil met nearly everybody in the chamber had spent time in jail at one time or another. So there’s a very important connection to the Irish experience within the jail theme. Stephen King wrote the original novella, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. Are you a fan? He’s a modern master of the genre. He is to the late 20th century what Charles Dickens was to Victorian England. And he has this thing about prison as well. He wrote The Green Mile too. So he has something in his previous existence too – maybe me and Stephen King were guards in the same prison in a previous existence! Do you feel a higher sense of pressure directing a story that is already so wellknown, and so well-loved? Yes, it is an added pressure, there’s no question about it. There’s a huge expectation. It’s a much-loved movie and it’s a much-loved book and everybody has a view on it. So many, many people will be coming to see the movie – but they ain’t gonna get the movie!

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Arts Desk

DUBLIN WRITERS FESTIVAL WORDS SHEENA MADDEN

Ask any Dubliner and he will be able to reel off a list of literary brethren as long as the Liffey: Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, Roddy Doyle and Patrick Kavanagh to name but a few. With a history of such high calibre writers, it’s not surprising that one of the most exciting dates in Dublin’s cultural diary is the annual Dublin Writers Festival. Now in its 11th year, the Dublin Writers Festival continues to attract bookworms from far and wide to experience some of the world’s most noteworthy pen-wielders reading from their most recent works and taking part in curated conversations about their books, writing and – this year’s theme – the ‘power of the word’. This year, 25 authors from varied milieu appear at the festival. Programme Director Liam Browne has ensured that visitors to the six-day festival will have the opportunity to dip their toes in a variety of genre pools ranging from paddling with the humorous tones of Guardian critic Joe Queenan to delving into murky, murderous seas with Val McDermid, one of the world’s best selling crime writers. Possibly Ireland’s most cherished living author, Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, will be rounding off his 70th birthday celebrations in the National Concert Hall on the 2nd of June by reading a personal selection of his muchloved poetry. Heaney won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995 and is famed for his poetry that examines his political standpoints through the soft lens of everyday observations. On June 5th, Booker prize nominee and IMPAC award winner Colm Tóibín will be at the Project Arts Centre to read from his

revered literary catalogue. From established and accomplished writers to first-time novelists, the Writers Festival will showcase readings from music journalist Peter Murphy, former Investment banker Aifric Campbell and war correspondent Ed O’Loughlin, all of whom have just penned debut novels. With other highlights including a traditional Irish music performance to the poetry of Dermot Bolger, readings and discussion exploring the theme of women’s writing, and an exclusive Irish visit by writer and broadcaster Simon Schama CBE, who will be talking about his newest book based on his BBC series, The American Future, A History, the 2009 Dublin Writers Festival is shaping up to be the most exciting to date. Dublin Writers Festival, 2nd – 7th June 2009 at various locations in Dublin www.dublinwritersfestival.com

LINO CUTTING: JERZY JEDRYSIAK AND MARTA WAKULA-MAC Ah linocutting – irrepressible scourge of Junior Cert. students throughout Ireland. Little did we realise as 15-year-old tearaways that linocutting was not merely a tortuous method dreamed up by Mrs. Foster to inflict pain upon our troublesome thumbs, but a highly-skilled

and respected medium of artistry. Matisse and Picasso worked extensively within the linocutting realm and today we have artists such as Jerzy Jedrysiak and Marta Wakula-Mac to follow in their footsteps. Silva rerum, from the Latin meaning ‘forest of things’, was a multi-generational chronicle kept by many Polish noble families from the 16th through 18th centuries. It is from this tradition that internationally renowned artist, Professor Jerzy Jedrysiak, takes his starting point. Globally recognised for his linocut techniques, Jedrysiak has received a plethora of awards and his prints are displayed in collections throughout the world’s finest galleries. Marta Wakula-Mac also works within the realm of linocutting, once again taking her starting points from a book. For her, inspiration lies within the book of Genesis. Wakula– Mac combines thick, bold lines with vibrant colour to depict spirited dancers who celebrate life and its dynamic energy. Jerzy Jedrysiak will give a linocut demonstration followed by an artist’s talk by Marta Wakula-Mac at the gallery on the 7th May between 3-4 pm. 7th–30th May, Graphic Studio Gallery

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National Gallery of Ireland Merrion Square West and Clare Street, Dublin 2.

Q Rankin: Cheka Kidogo An exhibition by fashion photographer Rankin will take place in Wolfe Tone Park. Rankin traveled with Oxfam to a refugee camp in Eastern Congo and the images he took paint a fascinating portrait of life for the survivors of the ongoing conflict there. Until July 31st

Original Print Gallery 4 Temple Bar, Dublin 2.

Q Vermeer, Fabritius, and De Hooch: Three Masterpieces from Delft Until May 24th Q Thomas Roberts Exhibition An exhibition of over 50 works dedicated to the finest landscape painter of the 18th century. Until June 28th

Q Border Country An exhibition of the work of James Clancy. Until May 16th

George’s Street, Dublin 2.

5 – 9 Temple Bar, Dublin 2.

Q The Present A five piece film installation by renowned Finnish artist and filmmaker Eija-Lisa Ahtila. Until May 23rd

Q Timeswept Margaret McLoughlin’s third solo exhibition. Until May 7th

Blanchardstown, Dublin 15 Q The Habit of Remembering An exhibition by Marie Connole and Mary Noonan. Until June 27th Q Sounds Like Art Work by David Bickley, Michael Doocey, Maeve Collins, Jenny Brady, Andrew Fogarty and more. Until June 27th

Alliance Francaise 1 Kildare Street, Dublin 2.

Andrew Maxwell Vicar Street, Thomas St., D2 8th May ‘The Panel’ favourite Andrew Maxwell plays a once-off date in Vicar Street after his sold-out stint in February. €28 Des Bishop – Unbéarlable Vicar Street, Thomas St., D2 9th/10th May After a sell out tour of his last show Tongues, Des

Bishop is already setting new records with his new show ‘Unbéarlable’. Having already sold out several nights this year, Des is back for more. €28 Charity night in aid of Barnardos The Laughter Lounge, Eden Quay, D1 13th May Joe Rooney Plus Guests €26 Karl Spain The Laughter Lounge, Eden Quay, D1 14th–16th May Since the success of his reality TV show, Karl Spain Wants a Woman, Karl has become a household name. Don’t sit in the front row – you have been warned! €26 Joe Rooney – What Crisis? Vicar Street, Thomas St., D2 15th May Since Joe last performed at Vicar Street, he has not only acted in, but also wrote for RTE’s most watched television program of the last two years, ‘Killinaskully’. He toured with Pat Shortt, performing to sell out audiences across Ireland.

€23 Jason Byrne Vicar Street, Thomas St., D2 21st May Jason’s inspired, original brand of high-energy lunacy ensures that there is no other comedian presently like him. This year Jason became the top selling comic ever in the history of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. €28 Jarlath Regan The Laughter Lounge, Eden Quay, D1 21st – 23rd May Jarlath Regan has played every major venue from Montreal to Australia and is back to headline the show in Dublin. With special guests Markus Ryan, Keith Healy and Paddy Courtney. €26 Whose Lounge is it Anyway? The Laughter Lounge, Eden Quay, D1 22nd May The Laughter Lounge hosts an audience participation sketch show in the style of legendary TV show, ‘Whose Line is it Anyway?’ €15 Brendan O’Carroll – How’s

Between Metaphor and Object A range of works from the IMMA Collection, primarily sculptures and installation works principally from the 1990s. It provides perspectives on the diversity of practice that is represented in the IMMA Collection from this period, explores its particularities, and considers them in the context of international trends of the decade.

Gallagher Gallery, 15 Ely Place, D2.

Q Between Metaphor and Object A range of works from the IMMA Collection, primarily sculptures and installation works principally from the 1990s. It provides perspectives on the diversity of practice that is represented in the IMMA Collection from this period, explores its particularities, and considers them in the context of international trends of the decade. Q The First BMW Art Car by Alexander Calder Until June 21st

Royal Hospital, Military Rd., D2

Royal Hibernian Academy

Visit our new website for comprehensive Cinema, Gig, Club, Theatre, Exhibition, Comedy and Festival listings www.totallydublin.ie

Comedy once-offs

Robbie Bonham The Laughter Lounge, Eden Quay, D1 7-9th May Robbie was voted the funniest man in Dublin by 98FM listeners. Joining him on the night will be Colm O’Regan, Ruairi Campbell and Gar Murran. €26

56 Francis Street, Dublin 9

Royal Hospital, Military Rd., D2

Draiocht

Q Brendan O’Carroll - For The Love Of Mrs. Brown Olympia Theatre, Dame St., D2 6th April - 18th April Comedy listings – once-offs Charity Event in aid of Blackhall Builders The Laughter Lounge, Eden Quay, D1 6th May Steve Cummins plus guests. €26

IMMA

Gallery Zozimus

IMMA

Q Frank Photography by Tracey Walsh. Until May 11th

ART

Temple Bar Gallery

Q Shades of Light Work by Mary Horan. May 7th-May 24th

Juice

Wolfe Tone Park

of the best

Q Strangers to Citizens: The Irish in Europe 1600 – 1800 An exhibition that focuses on Irish migration to continental Europe. Until December 31st

Your Wobbly Bits? Olympia Theatre, 72 Dame St., D2 24th May After the success of ‘For the Love of Mrs. Brown’, Ireland’s favourite crossdressing ‘oul one returns to the Olympia Theatre for one night only. €30/35 Joe Rooney The Laughter Lounge, Eden Quay, D1 28th–30th May Fr. Ted’s troublesome priest, Father Damo, and Killinascully star Joe Rooney plays three nights at the Laughter Lounge. €26

3 4

179th Annual Exhibition The 179th RHA Annual Exhibition, where over half of the work is selected from open submission, provides an unparalleled opportunity to view Ireland’s established and most promising emerging artists. May 26th-July 25th

Project Arts Centre If I Can't Dance I Don't Want to be Part of Your Revolution. An artistic platform developed and curated by Frederique Bergholtz and Annie Fletcher, working with artists Keren Cytter, Jon Mikel Euba, Olivier Foulon, Suchan Kinoshita, Joachim Koester and Sarah Pierce May 8th-June 20th

The Stone Gallery 70 Pearse Street, D2. Hugh McCarthy Hugh McCarthy’s new paintings and works on paper contain amorphous masses and geometric areas of colour that invade and leave the picture plane. These abstract compositions reference product labels, 80´s computer games, and advertisements amongst a plethora of motifs culled from the history of art, both past and present. April 30th-May 30th

Pavillion Theatre Marine Road, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin.

Paul Lynam: Duggerna Reef Lynam's third exhibition builds on his previous work on Kilkee. The subject matter here is Duggerna Reef, a natural rock barrier at Moore Bay, Kilkee, Co. Clare, its rock pools and cliffs, surging surf and flora. April 30th-May 14th

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LESBIAN THESPIAN Careful now

WORDS PAUL CLEARY The Dublin Gay Theatre Festival hits Dublin this May, offering a variety of gaythemed drama, ranging from the camp theatrics of Wonder Woman the Musical to the far darker side of gay culture in I Love You Bro, inspired by the true story of a boy who conspires to murder himself. Many of the plays in the festival have already wowed audiences across the globe, however Careful, written by South African playwright Fiona Coyne is a world premiere. In Careful, we meet actress Jean Baxter, who is getting frustrated with the lack of roles in the new South Africa. When she is offered the role as a lesbian she meets theatre critic Leila Russell and they form an unexpected bond. We spoke to director Roy Sargeant on why Careful stands out from the other plays in the festival. Careful is a world premiere, so people will not have seen any reviews on it yet, can you tell us a bit on the background of the play? It was penned by Fiona Coyne, a South African playwright who has six plays under her belt. I have directed three of her six plays, so in terms of connection between director and writer we have a special bond. She’s also renowned in our country for being the “bitch in black” as the presenter of the Weakest Link. She is a very distinguished writer who will be coming with us to Ireland for the festival. The theatre festival is the biggest of its kind in the world, why do you think people should go to Careful above other plays in the festival? I think lesbian-themed plays have always been a major minority in gay theatre programmes. This is the first lesbian themed play written by a South African, so it has a unique element to it. I know that Brian Merriman (director of submissions for the

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festival) has always been under pressure from the lesbian quarter to up the ante on including more lesbian-themed plays at festivals and even this year there is far more emphasis on gay men. And is the main character Jean swayed or allured at all to the lesbian lifestyle? No, not at all, as she says to Leila at one point: “you don’t have to be murderous to play one”. Her character is highly neurotic. After 1994 when South Africa gained its democratic freedom in adjusting the balance of opportunity for theatre practitioners, a lot of senior white actors found less and less work. This is an issue that is also dealt within the play. The balance was so rightly corrected to bring black people into the profession; and that is progressing now with certain vigour, which is great. But at the same time some older white actors find it difficult to get roles. You directed The Boy Who Fell From The Roof two years ago at the same festival, how does Careful compare to it? The two plays are polar opposites. The Boy Who Fell From The Roof is a coming of age tale about a young chap coming out. It surrounds lack of parental acceptance and is a tragedy. Careful is about two adults, two women who have a debate about issues to do with sexual orientation, lifestyle and the basic process of living. Is there an underlying message that the audience will leave with? I hope that the audience will come away with a new understanding of the gay/ straight debate, and that people are just people. Sexuality has little importance at the end of the day. 11 - 16 May at the Teachers Club TOTALLY DUBLIN

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WORDS CONOR CREIGHTON PICTURES TANIA KELLEY When the first artists and dreamers picked up their tents and headed east to Berlin they were met with a jumble of boarded up shop fronts and peeling facades that looked more like the place old car parks go to die than the building blocks of a pre-eminent European capital. Like a driver arriving on race day to find out he’s going to have to assemble the car before he can charge it on the piste, the artists found a half-city in need of completion. They moved in and turned their hands to carpentry, painting, plumbing and wiring, and when the sawdust settled and the last blast of the masonry drills dipped to a purr what emerged was a place full of hobby bars that reflected the personalities of their owners. The bars expressed what the newcomers hadn’t found upon arrival, and overnight, they transformed hundreds of erstwhile designers, writers, artists, actors and musicians into publicans. One in four Berlin citizens are professional artists, one in four exist off social benefits, and the average German drinks half a litre of beer a day. If you ever find yourself in a city where everyone else is either an artist or two days away from the breadline, then the best bet is not to try and sell more art, but instead to sell beer. Germany has the highest number of licensed premises in all of Europe and Berlin may well have the highest concentration of any urban area in Germany. Like rats in New York and switchblades in London, in Berlin you’re never further than a couple of metres from a beer, but it’s the prevalence of small, thematic establishments that function as bars while holding their own amongst art installations that makes the city so interesting. There are venues that you enter through the low doors of a wooden wardrobe, bars where the furnishings are made from plastic buckets and stripped shells, more garage than bar, where you’re compelled to play table tennis while you drink, and end up spilling beer down the jeans you got in that shop that was selling secondhand tack by the kilo. They stay open as late as they want, they flirt with anti-smoking regulations and in a few cases they just take an abandoned building and run it as a bar when the coast is clear. It’s the five-second schoolyard smoke, while the year head is at the beginning of a lap, come to life as a going concern. Take Sophie’s place for example. “I can only talk to you if you’re not going to print anything in a German paper,” she says, standing in the doorway. “You’ve nothing to worry about,” I say,

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ROOM AT THE BERLIN The littlest bars sing the prettiest songs

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“My German gets me coffee, cigarettes and mutters from my old neighbours. I’m a long way off writing anything. I just want to ask you about your bar.” “But it’s not a bar,” Sophie admonishes. Of course it’s not, how dumb of me. There are about a hundred people inside, and maybe another thirty out on the street, all drinking €1.80 beer and dancing to a DJ playing disco in the corner. Sophie’s joint is a bar – not even the brain damaged could get away with saying it’s not. But as far as the people who say what you can and cannot do in Berlin are concerned it’s a derelict building that not even the squatters are interested in. “It’s like this,” Sophie explains, “If a place is important to an area, they turn a blind eye.” The “they” she’s talking about are Berlin’s enforcers of control. They catch you cheating on the trains and they’ll march you red-faced to a bank to extract your dues; they track your movements like paparazzi once you’ve registered your address and if you break a glass doing the dishes in the evening, they’ll have a noise complaint on your doormat the next morning. Order trumps chaos in Berlin but when it comes to quasi-legal bars order turns a blind eye. The city’s full of

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places like Sophie’s that sell cheap beer, don’t open that often and keep conscientious fire marshals awake in the middle of the night. Cookies, Berghain and Tresor, three of the better-known club names in Europe, all began in Berlin as illegal venues. Nowadays they’re right up there with the TV Tower and Checkpoint Charlie for sucking the foreign tourists in. In Berlin they have an aesthetic called minimal that’s applicable to many mediums: music, fashion, and even relationships – if you berate the stranger who passed 72 lost hours with you in June for only getting back in touch with you in January, six months later, they’ll probably respond with “Sorry, babe, I’m just a bit minimal.” Kim is so minimal that they don’t even have a sign outside. It’s a bar run by four friends who divide responsibilities four ways, and don’t fall out over dirty dishes in the sink. The building was originally a bicycle repair shop, then a coffee shop that sold drugs and now a bar, wholly free from non-essential additives save a 1970s Bang & Olufsen tape deck on the wall. One of the four, Oliver, runs a pingpong bar in the Prenzlaurberg part of town. Ping-pong works better than pea-

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nuts. A few runs of the table and you’ll drink and dribble your way through more bottles than if your sweetheart got eyes for your brother and stole your car in the middle of the night to abscond with him. Kuschlowski is a new bar opened by a designer who made all the furniture from pieces he’d come across at flea markets, including lots of buckets. It sits shoulder to shoulder with a Thai-themed bar whose main attraction is not the fake palm trees or the Asian pop music but the German prostitutes who charge €25 for twenty minutes in an upstairs room. The Weinerei bar in Prenzlaurberg operates on an honesty system that is more open to abuse than a blind shopkeeper. But it must work the majority of the time or else someone’s got a rich daddy, not in Berlin, who’s footing the bills. You hire a glass for two euro and then refill it yourself for the rest of the night. When it comes around to leaving you pay what you feel the night’s distraction was worth. Berlin is the only affordable city in Europe where you don’t feel like you’ve dropped off the face of the planet as a compromise to frugality. Rent can be cheap so it’s easier to do things, like operating a bar based on your customer’s good or bad nature, here than in most other

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European capitals. It’s naïve to say that it’s not about money but most people realise they won’t make any when they get into this game. Suffice to say if Sophie were to legalise her place, the taxes would put her out business, and Robert, who runs an underground poker bar in Mitte wouldn’t make rent the last Wednesday of every month if he didn’t keep winning hands. On average, no one’s doing well in Berlin. The bar is set low and if you aim too high it just comes off ugly and pretentious. Berlin’s mayor recently described the city as “poor but sexy” – black stockings with a ladder the size of a biro. The best parts of Berlin city were claimed by opportunists who were mindful of the consequences of financial excess. Huge buildings in the centre have been held hostage by squatters for two decades. Some of the squats offer bike repairs, others run thrift stores, none of them make more than enough money to keep them living basically, but that you assume, is all they want. A story goes that back in ’89, a group of Germans from a Kreuzberg squat had begun dissembling the Berlin Wall and selling vials of GDR concrete when they realised that within a few hours they had

already made more money than they had ever dreamed of. They dropped their picks and hammers, held an emergency meeting amongst the dust and clamour and made the unanimous decision to ditch the potential bounty still clinging to the wall. They deemed integrity more valuable than prosperity. A lot of these smaller hobby bars close on Mondays and Tuesdays, not out of disdain for the ugliest days of the week but because the owners can’t afford to take on staff and need a rest. Save a few, the majority of them have opened within the last few years in the up-and-coming rather than established neighbourhoods, which gives the city a long-legged spider rather than a squashed-up bug aspect. And when Frühling kicks in, the bar owners throw a host of higgledy-piggledy chairs out front for thirsty Germans to lounge, often nude, talking about recycling and David Hasselhoff with a cool beer between their legs keeping their sausages fresh.

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THE PLOUGH AND THE BAR TAKE A DIVE WORDS

Jonathon de Burca Butler Cait Fahey

PICTURES

Years ago Donal the barman was serving a woman in the off-licence when a young gurrier lurched in from the street and swiped the handbag from her shoulder. Donal reacted instinctively and heroically jumping over the counter like a 1980’s porn cop, he pursued the thief onto O’Connell Street where he tackled him a la Brian O’Driscoll and eventually retrieved the bag. Unfortunately, for our young hero this exhibition of valour

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didn’t earn him a night of passion in the scratcher with the woman he saved from the handbag snatcher, but it did get him a fiver, which he duly spent on a delicious pint in the bar he has known all his life. Stories, anecdotes and philosophies can be heard with factory-like regularity in this, one of the North inner city’s most interesting pubs. It’s one of a dwindling number of boozers where the bar staff, most of whom have worked here for years, know and talk to the punters without fuss or inhibition. All are on first name terms, and although they greet each other like an apathetic family, you get a true sense of community. Men duck in and out to the next-door bookies, anxiously holding pen and paper, while the buzzer from the off-licence would stop your heart if you weren’t used to it. The odd group of straggling tourists sometimes make their way in and are always greeted politely. And although they often seem initially baffled, with the help of some soft arse-relieving bar stools, most

are in their comfort zone quite quickly. Looking around the walls we’re reminded of the great sporting occasions this pub has witnessed over the years: Packie’s save, The Dubs winning the All-Ireland and Dawn Run. It’s also no surprise to see the owner, a native of Kerry, hoisting the Sam Maguire aloft as his county men enjoy a post All-Ireland pint in his pub. In fact it’s like a museum of good Irish memories. You could spend hours looking around at the genuine paraphernalia that the bar staff have accumulated over the years but if you get bored of that you can always go down the windy stairs (careful now) and pot a few pool balls while listening to a good old jukebox. Great place for a (good) few top-class after-work pints. Word of warning though: leave your airs and graces outside, they won’t wash here. Sean O’Casey’s 105 Marlborough St, Dublin T: 01 874 9617

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LA MÈRE ZOU JUST LIKE MAMAN USED TO MAKE WORDS Katie Gilroy

PICTURE Emma Brereton

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You’ve got to admire the sheer élan of the French. It is that French confidence which enabled President Sarkozy to snare his stunning bride; that air of self-certainty that allows Gallic teens to savour the fermented grapes of their country responsibly without crossing over to bingedrinking territory, and the aplomb with which only the French Revolution could ever take place. If I was responsible for producing the legendary Zinedine Zidane or the iconic Coco Chanel, you wouldn’t hear the end of it. Arrogant, bumptious, pompous, call it what you like, but the French have got the glowing resumé to back it all up. Immune to ‘mediocrity’, the French above all excel in gastronomy. To them, food is an art form. It is their pint of Guinness. They approach their food with seriousness, professionalism and unbridled passion. It’s not just cooking to them, it’s ‘haute cuisine’, a term which encompasses the whole dining experience – the food, the wine, and the ambiance. There is a petite place in Dublin called La Mere Zou that can boast the best of all three. La Mere Zou is a French paradox of sorts. On descending the steps to the bistro’s basement quarters from the sunlit street above, one might prepare to enter darkness. But there is nothing cold or cavernous about this jolly space. It is small but roomy. Lunchtime draws in a swarm of suits from surrounding offices, and whilst there is a definite aura of class pervading the premises, it is served sans snobbery. The waiters are as efficient as a team of ants. It is possible that our waitress was also psychic, presenting me with a shiny, new fork before mine had even fallen to the floor. My companion’s choice of starter – an asparagus risotto with a mushroom fricassée and a poached egg, may have been popular in the 70’s, but there was nothing dated about the delicate, creamy sauce. However, when the egg yolk ruptured and mingled enthusiastically with the risotto, the dish was tainted somewhat. Not taken by the pan-fried chicken liver salad, or

tempted by the rock oysters, I opted for the braised pork belly which was unctuous. Garnished with baby leaves, and bathing in an emulsified egg yolk and mustard Gribiche sauce, this piece of meat was superb, from its meltingly delicious layer of fat down to its tenderised flesh. Whilst not completely dissatisfied with our main courses, we both agreed that on our next visit we would order differently - and we would be visiting again. My selection of grilled mackerel served with chorizo, warm potato salad, spinach and fennel aïoli waged a war on my tongue, as the spicy sausage and potent poisson battled it out for supremacy. Unhappy with a cameo role as a condiment, the fennel aïoli (or tartar sauce), was acrid, overpowering and desperate for attention. Ignoring the surrounding circus, the pair of fish fillets were sensational and would have sufficed as a solo act. With high hopes for the lamb cutlets, my dining partner was disappointed when the meagre chops drizzled in a tomato and olive jus lacked succulence, but the Boulangère potatoes were a stack of sheer delight. As its name suggests, the white chocolate parfait was perfect, but the crème brulée was the pièce de resistance. Upon hearing the sound of the spoon tapping on the fragile sugary surface before cracking like a sheet of ice and giving way to a rich and creamy bowl of heaven, our mouths watered in unison. Two cappuccinos and l’addition! The bill came to €57.90 which included a glass of zesty Sauvignon Blanc from France’s Loire Valley pour moi, and a strapping Brouilly Gamay for my date. All three courses may not have been superlative, but the French, with their cool confidence, innate style and undeniable elegance have a way of making you think that you have just enjoyed the best meal of your life. And well, at €20 for three courses it couldn’t get any better. La Mère Zou 22 St. Stephen’s Green Dublin 2 T: 01 661 6669

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PACINO’S AL YOU CAN EAT WORDS Katie Gilroy

PICTURE Emma Brereton

I don’t know if you remember Pappagallo’s Pizzeria in Stillorgan, but I more or less spent my childhood there. I was raised on their doughy Margherita pizzas and foamy coke floats. At age twelve, my Saturday nights were spent with my dad and two sisters at the Italian eatery, with entertainment provided by the masterful chefs as they tossed floury pizza bases two at a time in the air majestically like circus jugglers. It didn’t take much to impress me back then, but as I delve deeper into my twenties I realise that the best things in life really are the simple things. A handful of lollipops from the glass jar on the way out, and my gap-toothed grin would last until my return the following weekend. Sadly Pappagallo’s no longer exists, but a recent visit to Pacino’s on Suffolk Street reminded me of a simpler time before food got so fancy. With all the ‘Bleus’ and ‘Bangs’, Marco Pierre White this and Kevin Thornton that, it’s easy to forget

about the modest, less fashionable places like Pacino’s. I have often hurried by the inconspicuous premises on my way to some other trendy hotspot further down the street, unaware of the little Italian treasure that’s been under my nose all along. In fact, Pacino’s has been around since 1994, although its ownership has changed hands a few times over the years. Rustic food in rustic surroundings best describes Pacino’s fare. Wooden floors and furniture and walls adorned with Italian pictures and paraphernalia give a real sense of ‘La Famiglia’, and the young waitresses are cheerful and enthusiastic. For a Sunday night it’s quiet at first, but by eight o’clock the place is almost full with starving students and rambling tourists. We order the bruschetta and deep fried mushrooms to tide us over until our main courses. In lieu of the usual, boring bruschetta, we were thrilled when presented with three pieces of crusty bread - one smeared in hummus and pesto, another

sporting spicy chorizo, and the third was done conventionally with chopped tomatoes and cheese. No sooner had the fried mushrooms arrived than they were en route to our greedy guts. Accompanied by a garlic mayo dip they were delish. Whilst the menu features everything from salads to burgers, sea bass and steaks, we decided to stick to what the Italians do best – pizza and pasta. Unfortunately all the dough-spinning was done out of view, but my Michelangelo pizza was a stellar 12 inch of melted mozzarella, sweet caramelized onion, pepperoni and goats cheese, drizzled in homemade basil pesto with a sprinkle of parmesan. At €15.95 it’s not cheap, but I polished my plate. The lasagne was a saucy bowl of Bolognese and layers of pasta, topped with a creamy white sauce and melted mozzarella, brimming with homemade flavour. An Australian red was the perfect partner to the pasta dish, but again at €6.50 per glass, a bit pricey. My love for banoffi pie was firmly re-established which will surely be bad news for my waistline, and a selection of ice-cream made us feel young and giddy again. The bill came to a sobering €66 including one latte, but the overriding feeling was one of satisfaction as we said goodbye to Pacino’s and to our childhood, until next time. Pacino’s 18 Suffolk Street, Dublin 2 T: 01 677 5651

Interns Wanted ·

open lunch and dinner Tuesday through Sunday

fully licensed

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10 minute walk to RDS

fantastic value

artisan and organic produce

delicious brunch available at weekends

Do you enjoy writing, reading and researching? Are you responsible and enthusiastic? Totally Dublin is taking on interns to help produce our magazine and online content. If you would like to get experience in publishing, please send your CV to emma@hkm.ie or daniel@hkm.ie

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6A Sandymount Green, Dublin 4 Phone: 01 219 4676 // Fax: 01 219 4654

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EIGHT SQUARE METRES

Eight square metres probably isn’t much bigger than your average burial plot. It doesn’t lend itself generously to the swinging of cats, or to any acts of animal cruelty really. You’d think that such limited surface area is no better than wasteland, doomed to lay dormant and barren without a life purpose. For one computer science graduate by the name of Adam Bermingham however, the pokey balcony of his Kilmainham apartment is a field of dreams and an outdoor lab where he experiments with all sorts of edibles; namely broccoli, potatoes and a range of beans. Frustrated by the cost of food and herbs in particular, having just acquired a mortgage and a costly culinary habit, Adam embarked upon growing his own produce last summer, thus eliminating concerns over food miles and pesticides. He chronicles both his successes and failures in a blog which is aptly called Eight Square Metres, and describes each task as an experiment in simple terms to encourage students like him to pick up a trowel and sow some oats, the safe and ethical way. www.eightsquaremetres.com

GOURMET FOOD PARLOUR

Formidable duo Lorraine Heskin and Lorraine Byrne opened up the doors of their first business venture in the seaside spot of Dun Laoghaire in 2006, and two years later another Gourmet Food Parlour sprung up in Swords. Not content until the whole of Ireland is munching on their ciabattas, slurping their homemade soups and nibbling on their artisan cheeses, the pair have recently opened yet another branch at The Grange in Ballyboughal. With a European menu featuring delicious wines, gourmet coffee, speciality teas and an adventurous gourmet food menu, the new Gourmet Food Parlour is nestled amongst an art gallery, arts and crafts store and reflexology and beautician centre, offering the perfect opportunity for some shameless self-indulgence. Tapas nights with live Spanish music are a great way to start the weekend, and traditional mouth-watering plates of patatas bravas, paella and spicy chorizo and chickpea stew ensure that no one leaves hungry. Gourmet Food Parlour 7 Cumberland Street Dun Laoghaire Co. Dublin T: 01 280 5670 www.gourmetfoodparlour.com

TOTALLY DUBLIN

BITESIZE ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO EAT WORDS Katie Gilroy

HERE’S LOOKING AT YOU

Casablanca has come to the street – South William Street that is, in the form of newly opened Moroccan themed restaurant and wine bar, Dada. A fusion of Spanish tapas and authentic Moroccan cuisine, Dada is a welcome addition to one of Dublin’s busiest streets full of adored cafés and clubs and various ethnic eateries. The proprietor hails from the cultural capital of Morocco and the city that will forever be associated with Humphrey and Bergman and the greatest love story of all time, and with a wealth of experience in the restaurant and food trade behind the mystery man, Dada is sure to be a success. The menu itself reads like a Hollywood script with Andalucian omelettes and kofta tagine for lunch, and filo pastry stuffed with pigeon, chicken, almonds, eggs and cinnamon for dinner. Of course there is plenty of cous cous on the menu too, and a colourful variety of wines from every corner of the world. The dessert menu which boasts homemade Moroccan pastries and toffee soaked date and walnut cake are enough to encourage you to make your own date with fate. It could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship… Dada 44–45 South William Street Dublin 2 T: 01 617 0777

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The Recession Cutting Steak ÓÎÈÊ "7 ,Ê, / -Ê," ]Ê 1 ÊÈÊ/ \Êä£ { ÇÇäxÇ

�16 8oz FXB Sirloin Steak Mon - Thurs FXB Pembroke Street Tel: 01 676 4606 FXB Grill @ Ryan’s of Parkgate Street Tel: 01 671 9352

www.fxbrestaurants.com

DUBLIN

NEW

NON-STOP TO

GALWAY

3 course lunch only €12.50 Monday to Friday Early Bird €18.50 (3 courses) - all night long! Ireland’s ﬁrst Teppenyaki grill

Chai-Yo 100 Lower Baggot St, Dublin 2 01 - 6767652

Y L L A T O T

FOOD

Restaurant Guide

Brasserie Sixty6 66-67 South Great Georges St, Dublin 2 Stylish, buzzy restaurant, right in the heart of Dublin’s shopping and entertainment district. Great food and drink, fantastic surroundings, exciting atmosphere, reasonable prices. Whether it's a lazy brunch at the weekend or a business lunch, or simply a romantic dinner, at brasserie sixty6 is always our pleasure. Finger-licking desserts, a full vegetarian menu, carefully selected wine list chosen with accessibility, value and good taste, delicious cocktails to start your evening… you will not be disappointed. Open: Mon-Fri at 11am, Sat-Sun 10am, Until: Sun-Wed til 10.30pm, Wed-Sat til 11pm

t: (01) 4005878 www.brasseriesixty6.com

Itsa4

Café Novo

Itsa4 is a perfect gastro-neighborhood restaurant that consistently ticks all the boxes. Renowned for its organic and artisan suppliers, delicious food and relaxed service, itsa4 is also popular with families and those following special diets as all dishes on the menu have detailed descriptions regarding gluten, dairy and suitability for vegetarians. With great music, booth seating, and perfectly sized wine-list, itsa4 is regularly featured as one of Bridgestone’s 100 Best Restaurants in Ireland as well as featuring in both the Michelin Guide and Georgina Campbell guides. A real favourite with serious foodies and off-duty chefs.

Café Novo, a chic new international bar and brasserie opened it doors in October 2008. This fun and flirty eatery will woo diners with a carefully selected menu that offers traditional favourites with a twist - making it the perfect brunch stop for peckish shoppers or evening dinner and drinks spot for city slickers. Conveniently located on Harry Street, just a few steps from Grafton Street, Café Novo offers informal-style drop-in dining, whether you want to grab a modern take on a club sandwich or to simply sip on a cocktail. Mon-Sun 10am-10pm, bar open to 12.30am

Lunch and dinner Tuesday through Saturday

t: (01) 6463353 dine@cafenovo.ie

6A Sandymount Green, Dublin 4

Harry St, Dublin 2

t: (01) 219 4676

Bull and Castle Gastro Pub and Beer Hall Christchurch Place, Christchurch

Ireland’s first and only gastro pub and beer hall, providing restaurant quality food in a pub style atmosphere. Owned and run by FXB, an establishment already well known for its free-range cuisine, we also match different styles of beer with our food menu, providing an interesting twist to dining. We have now extended our opening hours on a Friday and Saturday night to 2.30am. Upstairs our beer hall stocks over 150 different beers from around the world and we are a premiere distributor of Irish craft beers. Mon–Thurs: 11am-23.30, Fri-Sat: 11am-02.30 Sun: 12.00-23.00

Sinners

Café Carlo

Belly dancing and Baba Ganoush, Sinner’s is a traditional Lebanese restaurant in the heart of Dublin City, which combines good food with a vibrant atmosphere. Sinners Lebanese Restaurant is a former recipient of a “Best Ethnic Cuisine” Temple Bar award and continues to serve patrons a wide variety of tantalising Lebanese fare. Guests at Sinners will find a welcoming staff, who provide an excellent service to ensure you have an authentic, fun night out. Open 5pm til late

The relaxed and intimate setting of Café Carlo, coupled with its high-quality, reasonably priced food and friendly, attentive staff has made this restaurant a huge favourite with Dublin diners. Not only is it a popular choice with visitors to our fair city, it's also found a place in the hearts of the discerning locals, who return time and again to soak up the Cafe Carlo atmosphere and enjoy some genuinely delicious food. Free glass of wine with every main course when mentioning this ad!

12 Parliament Street, Dublin 2

63 - 64 O’Connell Street, Dublin 1

t: (01) 675 0050

t: (01) 888 08 56 www.cafecarlo.net

La Peniche

Punjab Balti

La Peniche offers a beautiful dinner cruise from Tuesday to Thursday. The cruise is available for private hire also by prior arrangement.

Old favourite Punjab Balti retains its popularity and success after 13 years by consistently serving authentic Punjabi cuisine, prepared in the same traditional manner as in the Indian subcontinent's Punjab region for centuries. Over the years this famous Ranelagh restaurant has won major recognition for it's top quality food, intimate ambience, excellent value and service. You can bring your own beer or wine and there are also takeaway and delivery services available that are perfect for a Balti night in. For current special offers check out www. punjabbalti.ie

t: (01) 475 1122

FXB Grill @ Ryans 28 Parkgate Street, South Dublin Centre Ryan’s of Parkgate St. is the latest addition to FXB Restaurants. An establishment of outstanding heritage, character and distinction, Ryan’s is one of Dublin’s authentic Victorian pubs. With a history as long as Ryan’s itself, FXB’s is synonymous with award-winning, free range cuisine. Patrons can enjoy a nice bite to eat or just wander in for what is reputably the best pint in Dublin. Whatever you decide, a friendly welcome awaits you in Ryan’s of Parkgate St. Everyday from 5.30pm, Lunch: Friday to Sunday

t: (01) 677 6097 www.fxbrestaurants.com

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Grand Canal, Mespil Road, Dublin 4

Lunch Tues - Fri: 12.00-14.30 Dinner Tues - Sat: 18.00-22.30 Dinner Cruises Tues-Thurs

T: (01) 790 0077 www.lapeniche.ie

15 Ranelagh Village, Dublin 6

t: (01) 496 0808 / (01) 491 2222 info@punjabbalti.ie

www.totallydublin.ie

SoHo

South William

La Mere Zou

La Paloma

Unpretentious cooking, laid back surroundings, nice sounds, reasonable prices, easy dining and a friendly welcome. Bang in the middle of Dublin city centre - right where you want to be. One all day menu, whether for a quick bite, or a shared platter, or lunch, or casual dinner with friends or colleagues. We offer simple classics and staples prepared using the best ingredients, and executed with style..What you want, how you want it. Laid back eating at SoHo.

With 8 different types of specialist pis (at just €9 each) and a varied menu of soups, salads and sandwiches, the South William bar transcends regular pub grub. Open 7 from midday, this is a bar you’ll find almost impossible to leave, and food you’ll keep coming back yo

A solidly French restauramt offering bistro classics with a moden touch, La Mere Zou opened in 1994 and specialises in Classic French cuisine. They also offer a large selection of seafood directly from the local fishmarket. At La Mere Zou you can relax in a warm, familial atmosphere while enjoying the very best in cuisine and service.

La Paloma is a casual family run bar/restaurant in the very heart of Temple Bar serving Spanish influenced dishes since 1990.The warm colourful decor with Spanish football on TV and a small bar serving beer, sangria, wines including Riojas by the glass completes a laid back feeling.The menu includes Calamares, Gambas Ajillo, Albondigas, Paellas including Vegetarian, Many Fish dishes, Pinchitos con Gambas and more including a Tapas menu. A Two course Early Bird is available with Seafood or Chicken Paella as main course from 6pm to 7pm at 13.95.

17 South Great Georges Street, Dublin 2

Open: Mon-Fri 12pm, Sat & Sun 10.30am Last Orders: Sun- Wed 10.30pm, Thurs-Sat 11pm

52 South William St, Dublin 2

Food served from 12am to 10pm

t: (01) 672 5946 www.southwilliam.ie

22 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2

Lunch: Monday - Friday 12 -3pm Dinner: Monday - Sat 6 - 11pm

t: (01) 61 6669 www.lamerezou.ie

t: (01) 7079596 www.sohodublin.com

Gotham Café

La Vie Restaurant on Exchequer St is one of Dublins most exciting new openings. Situated where the Central Hotel’s Ross & Wallpole Bar used to be, it boasts one of Dublins brightest and most spacious dining rooms, serving delicious European cuisine. There are three rooms which can cater for parties of up to 80 people, or you can book a single room for smaller, more intimate gatherings warmed by an open fireplace. Check for special events like Salsa and Karaoke. Special menu available on St Patrick’s Day. Also, check out our new cocktail menu.

Open since 1993 asone of the first casual restaurants in Dublin, Gotham still has a reputation for serving consistently great food at reasonable prices. Most famous for the Gourmet Pizzas, they also offer a full range of light breakfast, lunch and dinner options to suit any time of the day or night.

Open 7 days, 12-11pm

Tues-Sun 6pm-11.30pm

t: (01) 6777392 www.lapalomadublin.com

La Vie Restaurant

1-5 Exchequer Street, Dublin 2

Asdills Row, Temple Bar, Dublin 2

8 South Anne St, Dublin 2

Sun to Thurs 10.30am-11pm Fri & Sat 10.30am-12 Sunday Brunch 11.30-4pm

t: (01) 679 52 66 www.gothamcafe.ie

t: (01) 764 51 77 www.lavie.ie

DAX

The Pig’s Ear

A welcoming bar area offers a post-work winddown or light evening meal, perfect for you and your colleagues to enjoy with hot and cold tapas, available Tuesday to Saturday. Ideal for business and perfect for pleasure, or to dine privately for groups of between 10 and 14 people, Dax Restaurant is only a stones throw away from you and your business so why not take the time to visit a restaurant of refreshment, rejuvenation and reinvigoration.

The Pig’s Ear restaurant specialises in traditional irish fare which is sumptuous and at afforable prices. The décor is comfy and casual but the real gem is its location on Nassau St situated on the second floor overlooking Trinity College. The food ranges from hearty shepherds pie to bacon and cabbage. Also check out the newly opened café upstairs serving all day breakfast for €6.95, open from 9-5 Mon-Sat.

Tuesday to Friday from 12.30pm to 2pm Tuesday to Saturday from 6pm to 10pm

Restaurant open 6 days.

23 Pembroke Street Upper

t: 01 6761494 olivier@dax.ie www.dax.ie

4 Nassau St, Dublin 2

t: (01) 6703865 www.thepigsear.ie

Venu

Ukiyo Bar

The Farm

Chai Yo

Venu has enjoyed a loyal following since it opened in 2006 and it has been renowned for its well-executed, varied food menu and for its award-winning cocktail bar. If you are looking for a vibrant place that serves great cocktails and quality ‘home-made’ dishes at reasonable prices it is hard to look much further than Venu Brasserie. Tues - Sat: Dinner 5.30 til late Saturday Brunch: 12pm til 4pm

Ukiyo Bar is Dublin’s premier late night bar, restaurant and entertainment venue. Open from 12pm till late 7 days a week, especially on Thursday, Friday and Saturday when we keep our kitchen open past midnight. At Ukiyo we strive to provide our customers with a unique dining and entertainment experience - from the best value lunches to great sushi and sake in the evening, attentive and knowledgeable service, top shelf cocktails and some of the best club nights in Dublin at the weekend. Not to mention our private karaoke booths, making Ukiyo the immediate choice for a first date, a birthday party or a corporate bash.

The Farm is about tasty homemade locally sourced free range, organic and fresh food. Healthy vegetables and fresh herbs. All their food is freshly prepared and cooked to order.

Famed for their Teppenyaki tables creating a unique and interactive eating experience, as well as meals made from the freshest, highest quality ingredients and a great party opportunity, Chai Yo perfects the balance between fun and food. For the less party-inclined of visitors, there is a quieter downstairs section. Something for everyone!

Anne’s Lane, off South Anne St, Dublin 2

t: (01) 67 06 755 www.venu.ie charles@venubrasserie.com

7-9 Exchequer Street, Dublin 2

t: (01) 6334071 www.ukiyobar.com

www.totallydublin.ie

3 Dawson St, Dublin 2

11 am to 11 pm 7 days a week

t: (01) 671 8654 hello@thefarmfood.ie

100 Lower Baggot St, Dublin 2

Mon-Fri:12.30-3pm, 6pm-11.30pm Sat: 5.30pm-midnight Sun: 3pm-10pm

t: (01) 676 7652 www.chaiyo.ie TOTALLY DUBLIN

Cinema

Encounters at the End of the World

Shifty

Director: Werner Herzog Talent: Werner Herzog Released: 24 April Four years after the release of the disquieting Grizzly Man, the Steven Spielberg of documentary, Werner Herzog, makes an eagerly-awaited return to the genre. Herzog travels to McMurdo, a research station in the Ross Sea area of Antarctica, to craft this dazzlingly beautiful film that seems more interested in human nature than Mother Nature. Here, in what Herzog describes as “an ugly mining town,” he comes across an odd collection of people: aimless travellers, free spirits; “professional dreamers” as Stefan Pashov (a philosopher-turned-forklift-driver) so aptly describes them. We are introduced to a linguist on a continent with no language, a former banker who now drives a Terra Bus, and one metalworker who believes his unusual hands and elongated ribcage prove his descent from Aztec royalty. Herzog, for his part, seems oppressed by the bleakness of the research centre, and impatient to explore the wider world. This he is allowed to do only after completing a bizarre safety course that uses buckets to simulate the conditions of a white-out. Finally, he is free, and in a series of achingly beautiful, almost poetic shots, he researches a herd of seals, a colony of penguins, and, most memorably, the environment of the Ross Sea under several metres of ice. A captivating soundtrack of choral music and the inorganic sounds of seal calls perfectly capture the timelessness and allure of this ethereal landscape. In an incredibly moving and affecting picture, Herzog perfectly succeeds in capturing the danger and isolation of this mysterious continent, where all the lines of the map converge.

Director: Eran Creevy Talent: Riz Ahmed, Daniel Mays, Jason Flemyng Released: 29 April Shifty is director Eran Creevy’s feature debut, and a different kettle of fish entirely from the music videos and commercials he has worked on previously. A budget of 100k did not allow for a large-scale production with A-list stars to fill the roles or any gaudy special effects, but Creevy’s film was never intended to be flashy or grand. Authenticity is what the British director was striving for with this gritty story on the illicit drug trade. Like a cancer, we see how the destruction trickles down through society, from the ruthless dealers to the dependent customers who he supplies, and their innocent by-standing families. The movie opens with a bang on the door. After four years of being away, Chris (Daniel Mays) returns to the fold of his hometown to pay a visit to his best friend Shifty (Riz Ahmed). In the space of twenty-four hours, (six hours more than the whole film was shot in), Chris becomes entangled in Shifty’s life of crime as he accompanies his friend on his rounds. A knife attack, a cop-chase, and various encounters with desperate, downtrodden junkies as well as threats from his own duplicitous dealer played by Jason Flemyng, force Shifty to reconsider his career options. While Shifty is a small-budget movie with a big message about drugs, it is also a film about friendship. Through subtle, enjoyable interplay, a portrait of a friendship rooted in history unfolds organically, and develops from a natural awkwardness when Chris knocks on Shifty’s door at the movie’s beginning, to a fraternal familiarity by the final scene. Despite a forced twist at the end, Shifty is a decent debut from Creevy that won’t necessarily shock the viewer any more than your average movie about drugs, but offers some harrowing and unsettling scenes all the same.

Emma Taaffe Katie Gilroy

The Uninvited

Helen

Director: Charles Guard, Thomas Guard Talent: Emily Browning, David Strathaim Released: 24 April

Directors: Desperate Optimists (Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor) Talent: Annie Townsend, Danny Groenland, Sandie Malia, Dennis Jobling Released: 1 May

'There's something evil in the house'. As if we couldn't tell. The Uninvited is a film rife with all the horror cliches we have come to associate with Asian remakes: long-haired demon children, mysterious seeping liquids and banshees clawing their way across the floor. The film aims slightly higher than your average slasher, mixing the ghosts and gory flashbacks with a plotline that takes you inside the mind of teenager Anna, played by the doll-like Emily Browning. Following the traumatic death of her mother in a housefire, Anna is released from a psychiatric ward and returns home eager to resume where she left off. However, her homecoming is marred by the addition of her father's overbearing new girlfriend Rachel [Banks]. The source material, Kim Ji-Woon's moody A Tale of Two Sisters, was creepy but bafflingly mysterious. The Guard brothers make it their business to simplify matters, going down the route taken by so many Western remakes by patronising their audience with cliches. Haunted boathouses, 'dream-sequences' and gratuitous bikini shots all feature. The film is sustained by the composure of its actors; Browning plays the victim role with intelligence and sympathy, while Elizabeth Banks, last seen in Zack and Miri Make a Porno, steals the show as the Stepford-esque stepmother-in-waiting. Her polished, deadeyed smile and her sinister concern for Anna are more frightening than any banshee waiting behind the door. With its old-fashioned Gothic frights, studied performances and exquisite Maine setting, this film should rise above the average horror remake. And yet The Uninvited is betrayed by confused aims; a desire to make a thoughtful film conflicting with the need to please an audience accustomed to schlock.

A pre-actual act-of-watching perusal of the online reviews of a film makes you feel a little like the maid arriving after the neurotic housewife has wiped down every surface with industrial-strength antibacterial wipes – authentic personal judgements become impossible, the feather duster hangs limp and useless. Yet Helen is such a mysterious piece of work that I felt the need to repeat-google, if only to get a handle on a film lacking in a famous director, prominent actors or any of the reference points that would usually stir the demograph in me. One blog described it as a ‘psychological thriller’ - it seems everyone was as deep in the dark as I. For Helen is an Art Film, but not an arty film - as soon as this writer witnessed the staccato slow-mo intro, the words ‘psychological thriller’ vanished from my understanding faster than the zeroes off of a property developer’s bank balance. Originally conceived as a Tyneside-based community project of the experimental production/ direction team Desperate Optimists, Helen is full of long takes, glacial pans and even a couple of lengthy quasi-didactic monologues. Plotwise, the film is minimal – its eponymous heroine lives in a care home and is on the verge of leaving school when she makes the life-altering decision to audition for a part in a police reconstruction video. In this respect, Molloy and Lawlor betray their short film pedigree, failing to adequately develop the vague theme of identity over Helen’s 70-odd minutes. Without the weight of a strong concept, the more experimental sequences fall flat. Were it not for Annie Townsend’s fascinating performance, I might have wished for something a little more psychologically thrilling. Darragh McCabe

Roisin Kiberd

TOTALLY DUBLIN

For more movie reviews, trailers, DVD reviews, interviews, movie news and comprehensive cinema listings throughout the month, visit our new website www.totallydublin.ie

Cinema

Is Anybody There?

Good

Director: John Crowley Talent: Michael Caine, David Morrissey, Ann-Marie Duff, Bill Milner Released: 1 May

Director: Vincente Amorim Talent: Viggo Mortensen, Jason Isaacs, Jodie Whittaker, Mark Strong Released: 17 April

What’s it all about, Sir Caine? Oh, it seems he’s forgotten. For those for whom ‘Positive Ageing’ is an oxymoron, John Crowley (Intermission) presents us with a schmaltzy portrait of an Alzheimer’s-ridden Alfie. Caine plays Clarence, formerly The Amazing Clah-Renz, a magician who toured the working-men’s club circuit in the 1950s. He is sent by social services to live in Lark Hill, a nascent retirement home in deepest, gloomiest Yorkshire. The home is owned by a married couple (Anne-Marie Duff and David Morrissey) who live there with their young son Edward (Bill Milner). Understandably, considering the film’s mortality rate, Edward has an obsession with death and the afterlife, and with the help of Clarence sets out to solve the film’s eponymous question. In the meantime, Age Action had better put Liveline on speed dial, because John Crowley does not like old people. The supporting cast of gag geriatrics (including Leslie Philips, Toff No.3 in every Carry On film you’ve seen) act as a foil to Milner’s youth. The camera glorifies in their every squelch, shudder and dribble, playing the whole gamut of age-related illness, from Parkinson’s to dementia, for laughs. This might not be so insulting were it not for the film’s faux-PC overtones. What about all their stories, Edward’s mother implores, the lives they have lived? These vegetables were once venerable, in other words. Without the excellent performances of Caine and Milner respectively, Is Anybody There? could have turned into an exercise in cheap ageism – but the duo’s ability to cry on demand doesn’t do anything for a film already dripping in sentimentality. You were only supposed to blow the bloody what off, Michael?

Make sure to mention the War to secure a place at this year’s Oscar ceremony. After Kate Winslet’s award-winning turn as a former Nazi in The Reader comes Vincente Amorim’s Good, in which Viggo Mortensen lends both his own considerable acting talents and admirable Nordic bone structure to the role of harassed academic John Halder. The film, based on C.P. Taylor’s celebrated 1981 play, ostensibly charts Halder’s moral tumble from honourable dissident to honorary SS man. As a Dead Poets Society-style Inspirational Lecturer in a 1930s Berlin university (“Faith! Music! Proust!” he scrawls on the blackboard) he writes a novel advocating compassionate euthanasia, inspired in part by his relationship with his chronically ill mother. Years later Adolf Hitler himself comes across the book, and Halder is hired to spread propaganda about the concentration camp system. As he moves up the Party ranks, his relationships with his Jewish friend Maurice (Jason Isaacs) and his self-obsessed wife begin to fall apart. Good seems to contain a more sophisticated reading of the Holocaust than The Reader, or Tom Cruise’s Valkyrie. The faux-German intonation of the former is thankfully absent, with Isaacs’ Jewish psychoanalyst dubiously differentiated by a Steptoe-style cockney accent - “Cor! She looks like a bladdy Rheinmaiden!” he says of Halder’s Aryan mistress Anne (Jodie Whittaker). Mortensen’s performance is affecting, and the film is successful in depicting the ease with which ordinary Germans found themselves going along with Nazi atrocities. Yet Good fails to point any fingers, and its attempts to exonerate Halder ring false in the face of his misdeeds. Without a strong moral core the film, like its main character, rapidly loses our respect.

Darragh McCabe

Outlander

Hannah Montana

Director: Howard McCain Talent: James Caviezel, John Hurt, Jack Houston, Sophia Myles Released: 24 April

Director: Peter Chelsom Talent: Miley Cyrus, Emily Osment, Mitchel Musso Released: 1 May

Howard McCain brings his very own Beowulf-inspired (apparently – to us it seems more World of Warcraft) fantasy film to the screens after ten years of production delays and setbacks. We wonder how it never occurred to him to improve it in all that time. In an opening that clearly wishes it was three-dimensional, a burning craft tumbles through space before crash-landing in a fjord in Iron Age Scandinavia. The only survivor is Kainan (Caviezel), a warrior from a distant planet. He learns the history of Earth and becomes fluent in the local dialect within minutes thanks to his trusty computer, and proceeds to stumble clumsily through rivers and woods carrying a Star-Trek-esque laser gun and wearing an impractical rubber costume that is ever so slightly too tight. He discovers a destroyed village and immediately recognises the work of the Moorwen, a violent creature from his home planet. Before he can track and kill it Kainan is captured by a Viking king-to-be (Houston) who assumes Kainan is the perpetrator. Wulfric drags Kainan to his village, and viciously beats him. Freya (Myles), an Independent Woman, daughter of the current king (Hurt), and heroine of the film, tends to him. When the local men venture out to hunt the animal that has destroyed their neighbours, Kainan joins them. After various sweeping shots for the purpose of displaying rubbish CGI, he inevitably saves the day by killing a bear, and is rewarded with membership of the community. Now all that remains is to find and kill the Moorwen, before it kills them. With a disappointing performance from The Passion of the Christ’s Caviezel, a not-quiteconvincing Gandalf impression from Hurt combined with the most obvious plot arc nicked from the realms of discarded LOTR sub-plots, and a wardrobe of the most hideous costumes stolen from Xena: Warrior Princess, this film leaves something to be desired – namely, that we had never spent two hours of our life on it.

What if aul’ Britters hadn’t married K. Fed, shaved her head, and become the slightly creepy caricature of her former “Hit Me Baby” self? What if, instead of endorsing her, her family had protected her from the poison chalice that is fame? Hannah Montana: the Movie could almost be that “what if” scenario, as the parallels with Ms Spears’ younger self are uncanny. For those of you unaware of the Hannah Montana phenomenon, the premise is: wholesome southern brunette becomes world’s biggest pop star but wears a blonde wig on stage to keep her identity clandestine in order to retain a normal life (AKA not going the way of Britney/Lindsey/Paris etc). The Peter Parker to Hannah’s Spiderman is Miley Stewert and the film sees Miley forced to spend two weeks away from the glitz of L.A. in her grandmother’s farm in Tennessee. It’s unfair to really give this film a normal review. The Hannah Montana army will lap up her attempts at living it “rough” but it offers zilch to anyone not already on the bubble and squeak bandwagon. With so many quality kid movies being churned out of Disney, the High School Musical generation baffles parents who would far prefer to take their offspring to the likes of WALL-E or Kung Fu Panda. Hannah Montana is what the kids want to see however, and Time magazine’s recent placement of Miley Cyrus as the 148th most influential person on the planet speaks volumes on just how popular this little girl is. The movie though, is defiantly just for little kids in fact scrap that, it’s just for little girls and it’s doubtful anyone over the age of 14 will be able to stomach Hannah’s sugary franchise. Still, the moral is worthy and with so many teeny celebrities delving in sex, drugs and bubblegum pop, perhaps Hannah isn’t such a bad thing. It’s just a pity Miley Cyrus doesn’t take some of her lead role’s advice. Paul Cleary

Emma Taaffe

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TOTALLY DUBLIN 51 TOTALLY CORK 17

Klezmer is a style of music derived from Hasidic Judaism, drawing from a rich Hebrew history to create one of Europe’s most distinct folk music styles. The North Strand is comprised, predominantly, of chippers, bookies and funeral homes. Culture clash or what? The North Strand Kontra Band (née Klezmer Band) represent the joining of those two distinctive cultural histories. How did you get together? Well there are about thirty different versions of this story, which one do you want? Okay I’ll give you the real one, I started playing the clarinet, playing klezmer tunes, that’s why I bought the clarinet, I wanted to learn klezmer music, then my brother started accompanying me, and then we invited Daly to join us on guitar and it just gradually went from there. There’s seven of us now. How did you hear about klezmer music? My Da is a musician and his musical partner Johnny lived in Turkey for a while and when he came back he started incorporating eastern sounds into his music so that’s how we got interested, and then klezmer music in particular came from our Jewish lawyer friend from Philadelphia, and he told us what to check out and we really liked it and started playing it. We are primarily apprentices to the recordings; we like to go from the old recordings. But by the time it comes out in the band it sounds quite different again. Of course we’re not doing just klezmer anymore. Is that why you’ve changed your name recently? Yeah it is, we’re not just doing klezmer anymore, klezmer is too specific, we’re not doing that sort of stuff solely anymore, partly because we are doing our own stuff now too, and we’re incorporating loads of different styles and eventually in the long run we want to bring trad into that as well. So the main reason was we didn’t want to get bogged down with one particular style, it would be like calling ourselves the North Strand Tango Band,

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and doing a quarter tango and three quarters something else. So what with expanding our sound and the new band members we figured it would be a good time to rename. We don’t think it will confuse people too much, there aren’t likely to be any other bands from North Strand called the North Strand Something-or-Other Band, so it should be fine. We haven’t released any recordings yet and that is something we are planning on doing very soon, hopefully before the summer, so that will hopefully be an album with our new name on it, and something that people can recognise us by. Did you find it hard to get bookings when you started out given the nature/accessibility of the music you were playing, not many people I expect would be aware of it? No we didn’t find it hard, at the start a friend of ours was working as a manager in the Gaiety and she told us to get two hours together and she’d give us a gig, so we did and we impressed so then she said ‘get three hours together’ and we did and then she gave us a bit of a residency there. So we’ve never really sought out gigs, they just came our way so we’re lucky in that respect, we do have a bit of a niche. We like do to a bit of guerilla gigging too; we started off busking so it’s fun to do a bit of that for the craic, and sometimes when we play we don’t want to stop so if a venue kicks us out we tend to continue playing elsewhere. We’ve been thinking about showing up at places with all the gear and going ‘what do you mean we’re not booked? Well we’re here now we might as well play.’

NORTH STRAND KONTRA BAND My Big Fat Jewish Wedding Band WORDS JADE O’CALLAGHAN

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Audio

Papercuts

Cymbals Eat Guitars

You Can Have What You Want [Memphis Industries]

Why There Are Mountains [Self-Released]

Papercuts frontman Jason Quever grew up in a Californian commune before nomadically drifting across the States, eventually settling in San Francisco after he used a friend’s apartment to record piano tracks for Cass McCombs. Here, he hooked up with a whole host of musical buddies including Vetiver, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone and Beach House. In fact, Beach House’s Alex Scally lent a hand with the arrangements on You Can Have What You Want and Vetiver’s Andy Cabic is Papercuts’ US label boss; so he’s in good company. While the dreamy folk-pop influence of his contemporaries is apparent, Quever’s Papercuts vehicle takes its starting point from the 60s. Nostalgia is rife throughout the record’s entirety, due in equal parts to its wistful lyricism (for example, on album opener Once We Walked in the Sunlight) and its 100% analogue production. That’s right, nary a blip of electronic interference on this one. From the outset it becomes apparent that you are about to engage in a threesome with Quever and some dusty old Hammond organ that he’s been toying around with for the better part of a decade. But don’t worry, you’ll get into it. The retro organ sound conjures images of hazy days spent drinking warm beer in someone’s basement while the dazzling San Franciscan sun does its best to permeate the multicoloured rugs that have been tacked to the windows for shade’s sake. If there had been anyone else in this fantasy basement with Quever, it would’ve been The Velvet Underground and My Bloody Valentine. Yes, all of them - drinking beer together. With the gushing adulation for shoegaze-lite that has been adorning the bloggerati’s playlists of late, it would be very easy to give You Can Have What You Want one listen and dismiss it as another light and lovely, but ultimately disposable LP of reverb-heavy ‘meh’ before banishing it to the stack containing your mother’s Norah Jones CDs. But don’t be so hasty, give it a few listens. It really is a grower of an album, with lush intricacies that become more apparent with each play. Sheena Madden

The desert begat Meat Puppets, the Meat Puppets begat Dinosaur Jr., Dinosaur Jr. did beget Sebadoh, Sebadoh begat Built to Spill, and Built to Spill did beget Modest Mouse and Death Cab For Cutie. Thus the wigout slacker indie continuum grew, a linear stretch from the esoteric to the mainstreamconscious. Staten Island’s Cymbals Eat Guitars are not the next progression in that stream, but in fact an offshoot – what if Modest Mouse never wrote Float On, Death Cab never became the Pacific Northwest’s unwelcome answer to Coldplay, and Wolf Parade didn’t slip into uncomfortable conservatism on their sophomore album? A declaration of interest: this writer’s opiates are inordinately released by the merest contact with whiny-guitary American dudes trying to express their, like, inner core in the most wonky way possible. Cymbals Eat Guitars may well have been cybernetically manufactured by Stephen Malkmus to take advantage of folk exactly like me. If you’re of the anti-slacker stance, however, don’t return to your toast-with-no-jam just yet – CEG are a multidisciplinary martial arts force, sporting black belts in melody, dynamics, joyous crescendoes, and melancholic troughs. In a sentence: they’ll kick the shit out of you like a splenetic sensei, and you’ll love every second of it. Most noticeable about CEG’s debut album is its third-trimester sized pallette of sounds; none of them new, but many of them used in a new context. Just listen to them play the musical poltergeist on What Dogs See, or to the recurring phantom trumpet marshals. Clashing guitars grapple with each other like stubborn noodles, drums go for emphatic effect over subtlety, and singer Joseph Ferocious sounds like somebody is constantly shoving a toilet plunger into his tummy and pulling for dear life. The Arcade Fire can go piss on a vicarage: this is how to do widescreen indie schmindie without the reverence, ambition without the godfearing shame. Daniel Gray SEE

ALSO:

Wolf Parade – Apologies For Mount Zoomer [If Only Records]

SEE ALSO: Deerhunter - Microcastle [4AD], Vetiver – Thing of the Past [Gnomonsong]

Metric

Doom

Fantasies [Metric Music Int.]

Born Like This [Lex]

I’m never sure what to expect from a Metric record. One of the many derivatives of the Canadian indie collective Broken Social Scene, this quartet sets the hauntingly simple voice of Emily Haines to the tune of edgy synths, often resulting in middle of the road indie-pop that occasionally finds its way onto an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. Overall I’ve personally preferred the more minimalist side of Miss Haines, complimented only by a piano on her solo project Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton or, even better yet, as the lingering voice on the Social Scene masterpiece, Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl. But in the instance of Metric’s latest album, Fantasies, I am happy to admit that I was wrong. The band’s fourth release strikes a perfect balance between electronic new wave and power pop, landing in territory that hasn’t been mastered since before the Postal Service became overplayed. And instead of becoming overwhelmed by hard-rock guitar riffs, Haines’ voice soars over instant pop hits like the catchy Gimme Sympathy and the equally addictive opener Help I’m Alive. The band also wisely takes a step back from power chords to showcase Emily Haines’ beautifully soft vocals on subtly escalating songs like Twilight Galaxy and Collect Call, which evoke a sound a little more akin to Stars (yet another Canadian indie group the singer dabbles in). So, typically, my elitist self would immediately dismiss any new effort by Emily Haines and company, claiming their old stuff was way better as I crank up old Broken Social Scene classics on my oversized headphones. But despite the fact that this album is sure to hit the radio faster than Lady Gaga’s next dance single, I’m happy to admit that Fantasies is the kind of album that you won’t mind getting stuck in your head.

About halfway through his latest album hipster-hopper Darren Dumile, a man accustomed to Superman-in-a-phone-boothlike transformations morphs into something a good deal more sinister than his usual supervillain schtick: a rampant homophobe. Long established as one of those rappers intellectuals are allowed to like by the strictures of hipdom, the artist variously known as Metal Face, King Geedorah and Viktor Vaughn challenges listeners in the same way D.W. Griffith, Leni Riefenstahl, Fela Kuti, and Black Flag make life difficult for their hagiographers. Difficult to defend, (hell, it’s even got the worst flow on the album) Batty Boyz’s vitriolic hatespeech tarnishes what is otherwise the man in the metal mask’s most polished achievement to date. Let’s ignore that big, neo-Nazi elephant in the room, then, for the rest of Dumile’s opus. Doom’s calling card has always been fantastical lyrics and obscurist samples. Born Like This represents the vaudevillain’s step from the circus into the real world, dropping so many chunky words about the Hadron Collider, the recession, Somalian pirates and Nigerian scam-mails that it’s akin to watching a sped-up SixOne news (if Sharon Ní Bheolain was a homophobic black dude). Doom’s production veers more towards hip-hop orthodoxy than before. He crafts a backing track from ESG’s UFO (aka the most overused sample in rap history), and pulls it off with a sinister playfulness. Despite higher production values, however, spoken-word samples sloppily chopped up still give Born Like This a crackly bedroom-rap veneer, a William S. Burroughs raised on the Silver Surfer and Public Enemy. The fact that he’s this compelling while sounding eternally like he’s dispensing rhymes from a recliner sofa by the sitting-room fire spliffed off his funbags makes D all the more magnetic. Even if he has got something stuck up his arse (ho ho) about gays.

Kara Solarz

Daniel Gray

SEE ALSO: Stars - Set Yourself On Fire [Arts & Crafts International], Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton - Knives Don’t Have Your Back [Last Gang

SEE

ALSO:

Ghostface Killah – Iron Man [Epic], Quasimoto – The Unseen [Stones

Throw]

Records], Tegan and Sara - The Con [Sire]

TOTALLY DUBLIN

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Dublin Duck Dispensary

Tim Exile

Yykes Basket [Self-Released]

The Listening Tree [Warp/Planet Mu]

To liken this latest offering from the young but prolific Dublin Duck Dispensary to a homegrown In the Aeroplane Over the Sea might imply I'd not be bothered to look past the album's quaintly gorgeous cover, but the songs themselves display that same engaging balance of naive charm and selfassurance. Dublin Duck Dispensary (in fact the work of a single musician, multi-talented Bobby Aherne) have all the childlike eccentricity you'd expect from their name, but behind the talk of toy factories and the keyboard tracks straight out of Mario-Land, listeners will find a thoughtfulness absent from most jangly guitar-wielding indie acts. The first two tracks, The What and Be Happy, resemble pop songs stripped down to their purest, most unpretentious purpose of making the listener happy. And though the second track's lyrics barely extend beyond the words of its title, repeated over and over, the effect is oddly poignant, evoking situations and feelings that can’t be remedied by just telling ourselves ‘it’s OK’. There's a simplicity to these songs that's resonant of nursery rhymes. But the result is neither agonizingly earnest nor too cynical and self-aware, sounding as much like the Strokes as it does Mother Goose. Like its ambiguous title, Yykes Basket is a strange, beguiling little cornucopia of styles and flourishes. Aherne uses his lyrics as opportunities for the poetic and absurd, with the more memorable lines 'Why would I walk when I got a hot air balloon?' and 'I think King Midas must have sexually abused you when you were younger'. But even the most wilfully odd moments are delivered with such confidence it’s hard for them not to make sense. Behind the modest folksiness, this album struggles to contain an ambition and the dizzying promise of more to come. Aherne is never limited by humble circumstances, instead crafting them into homespun charm. Roisin Kiberd SEE ALSO: The Unicorns – Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? [Rough Trade], Jon Pertwee/June Whitfield – Wonderful Children’s Songs [Contour Records], The Shangri-Las – Myrmidons of Melodrama [RPM]

ALSO:

Various - Warp 1 and 2 Classics [Warp], Depeche Mode - The Singles

[EMI]

Silversun Pickups

Dark Days/Light Years [Rough Trade Records]

Swoon [Dangerbird Records]

Paul Cleary

[Capitol]

SEE

Super Furry Animals Whether it be donning Power Ranger costumes on stage or christening their debut album after a 58-lettered Welsh village, the Super Furry Animals have earned a status for crafting psychedelic rock whilst never seeming anxious of coming across a bit daft at the same time. They have their niche and they seem happy sticking to it. Why should they modify? On their ninth album in thirteen years their formula remains fresh, and whilst it’s unlikely to earn them any new fans, it will certainly keep old faithfuls happy. In keeping with their back catalogue Dark Days/Light Years feels like it was concocted in a cauldron rather than in a recording studio. Opener Crazy Naked Girls sets the album off on a dawdling start with six minutes of the same three words repeated to the same three notes. Crazy Naked Girls. Crazy Naked Girls. Crazy Naked Girls. However, as soon as next track Mountain pops on all is exonerated, as they revert into the happy-sleepy compositions they do best. Inaugural Trams is the highlight track and while it does still suffer from repetition, Franz Ferdinand’s Nick McCarthy offers a delightfully camp German monologue in a bridge that saves the day. The Very Best of Neil Diamond and Lliwiau Llachar both offer bizarre gratification and don’t extend their welcome, but too many of the songs believe they are bigger then they are. Does Cardiff In The Sun really need to be eight minutes long? This irritating need for non-epical epics stains the album’s stream and listening becomes a needless chore. A pity, as a less indulgent approach to production would have lead to the Super Furry Animals most electrifying body of work to date.

SEE

Tim Exile's credentials as a drum 'n' bass weirdo are impeccable. He's signed to Warp, the home of a legion of head-melters from Aphex Twin to Battles. He expatriated from England to (surprise, surprise) Berlin. He makes his own instruments, or rather customises them in order to allow live improvisation and a new world of unique weirdness opportunities. It's lucky he likes Depeche Mode so much then, or he'd be unlistenable. Hold on, that's not really fair. There's a definite substratum to The Listening Tree in which an 80s synth pop baritone tries to sabotage the navel-gazing with some vaguely banal lyrics. But in the struggle of Dave Gahan vs. the infuriatingly complex labyrinth of beats and bleeps, there is only ever going to be one winner. And if this album is worthy of repeat listens (hint: it is) it's because of the knotted, cerebral beats which require full concentration. The prevailing sense is of being on a journey. Many tracks begin simply enough, with a pleasant synth line or a straightforward beat. The beat will shift and then continue, seemingly at an angle to what came before. Tempos and rhythms fluctuate, and by the end of each track there's almost a sigh of relief upon having survived the ordeal. First single Family Galaxy is the clear highlight, a mind-twisting track in which the beat refuses to be pinned down for more than a few bars at a time. Beginning with a languid beat and becoming gradually more frantic as it undergoes metamorphosis, the refrain which eventually emerges is nothing short of anthemic. "The family galaxy keeps changing, no matter what you do", the vocals exhort, and it's hard to argue, having delved this far into the cut-up futurism of The Listening Tree. Karl McDonald

Gorillaz - Demon Days [Parlophone], Supergrass - Road To Rouen

Ain’t no doubt about it, we’ve exhausted almost every era available to us with regards to music revivals. But no, wait a minute... early 90s alt-rock. Hmmm, now there’s a thought. I know what you’re thinking: “The 90s wasn’t long enough ago for there to be a revival”, I hear the youth-clingers in the crowd screaming. Well, think again naysayers - Silversun Pickups have managed to skilfully isolate the sound of the 90’s most popular band just as it’s beginning to dawn on everyone how inanely boring it’s getting listening to nerds playing with their synthesisers. Silversun Pickups’ 2006 debut, Carnavas, generated more comparisons to Smashing Pumpkins than Sarah Jessica Parker did to a horse. They even have the stereotypical 90s alt-rock formation down to a tee (girl bassist included). Unfortunately for us, the band seem to have bought into their largely unfounded hype and failed to realise that you cannot just take a mediocre three-minute song, stretch it to six minutes and, hey presto, instant atmospheric. The majority of songs on this 10-track album would be plausible as decent rock songs but are simply not strong enough to carry the extra few minutes that have been forced upon them. Album opener There’s No Secrets This Year begins on a fairly credible note with pleasantly distorted drums that have the possibility to go directions other than the route that they finally take towards Brian Aubert’s forcibly androgynous vocals. To be honest, Aubert’s irritating nasal noise is enough to spoil an album that is not without its finer moments at times. Songs such as Growing Old is Getting Old and Sort Of show promise, with the latter’s heavy bassline and agile drumming being a testament to the musicians. Sheena Madden SEE ALSO: Smashing Pumpkins – Siamese Dream [Virgin], Future Kings of Spain – Nervousystem [What’s The Kim?]

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