otwo: Volume XVI, Issue 2

The University Observer’s Arts & Culture Supplement

29.09.09 VOL XV1 ISSUE 2

BARGAIN BASEMENT

Boys Noize Up Ryan Tubridy Hardy Bucks Guinness Baddies Project Runway

2

HELLO

CONTENTS 03WHINGE

SOAPBOX – bemoaning the bemoaned.

Colin Sweetman celebrates the dreadful public toilet in Soapbox

WHAT’S HOT & WHAT’S NOT – Michelle McCormick provides the answers

VOXPOPS & AGONY ANTO – Students answer back in Saywhat???, while Agony Anto sets them back on the right track

05 06GIGS & REELS ATTEMPTS

– Jake O’Brien attempts to go a night without inebriety

GIGABYTE - We hear a soundbite of Alison Lee’s memory as she retells the Lemonheads gig JUST BEEN DUMPED? - Listen to this great Mixtape of emotions

GIGS – Boys Noize tells Eoin Brady of his upcoming shows in Ireland

14HEADLINER

- After their dancetastic Electric Picnic set, otwo asks Basement Jaxx where their head’s currently at

16FASHION

– Seán McGovern gets political about t-shirts and “Tongue-in-Chic” takes a satirical look at the world of fashion, with sexy results.

19FILM & TV

– We also get a look into Project Runway in this fishy-fashy mix – otwo reviews and assesses Crimson Wing, The Invention of Lying and Up

– Emer Sugrue gives us the Top Ten Films With Questionable Endings – In an complete almost-worldwide exclusive(!!!!), director Pete Docter chats to otwo about their new film, Pixar’s Up

23CAMPUS GUESTS

– Thanks to LawSoc, the Hardy Bucks are back hidin’ and schokin’ with Jake O’Brien, while Colin Sweetman catches up with the honourable Ryan Tubridy

24ICON

- The legend of Bill Hicks lives on for one more page in Sarah Hayden’s synopsis of the seminal comedian

08FESTIVALS

25FOOD & DRINK

09MUSIC

26WEBWATCH

– The easy-going, yet Hard Working Class Heroes, catch up with Westley Barnes and Colin Sweetman

- In our obligatory Irish musician interview, Conor Molumby talks to Director about the permutations of life across the water - Emer Sugrue chats with Jerry Fish while Colin Sweetman gets goods from Baddies

11CULTURE VULTURE

- Nicola Lyons reviews The Ladder & The Moon in a Dramsoc classic, with Cormac Duffy providing analysis on Douglas Coupland’s new novel Generation A

12TRAVEL

- In honour of the great man Arthur, otwo shows you how to pour the proper pint and if you drink too many of these, Kevin Mulligan shows you the kitchen proper

- Gavan Reilly finds several online methods of having your working day interrupted by Kanye West

27REVIEWS

- Will Muse keep on top of Revelations?

Find out that and more in our Album Reviews

28BACKPAGE

– Mystic Mittens is predictably mystifying, while Show Patrol guides you through the Dublin scene for the next two weeks.

- Alex Court heads to Turkey, Sarah Doran flies to the fatherland of H&M, Stockholm, and Shane Murphy snorts it out of Colombia

Letter

from the Eds Week four already, and issue two for us! It’s been busy up here in otwo Towers. Busy and confusing. Presumably it’s been equally busy and confusing for you too. Really, if you haven’t already been to the first couple of Socialist Worker Party, Legion of Mary and C&E meetings, and managed to befriend a Spanish person who lives in Belgrove, you’ve been wasting your time.

Confusion has been directed our way from multiple sources for the past fortnight. In a worrying development, the fashion editor has been strutting around the office in Cantos and a baggy Dunnes hoodie (with thumb-holes), with a large gaelic football gear bag slung nonchalantly over his shoulder. We can only assume that he was concentrating so intensely on the quality of his articles his creative energy was exhausted when the time came to get dressed this morning.

Another stress-inducing moment was when several contributors were observed (Observer, see?) chatting enthusiastically about this issue’s fantastic article about BJ. BJ? “Well, we know UCD is a pleasantly liberal spot,” we began, “but wouldn’t devoting 900 words, a doublepage spread and the front cover to oral sex be excessive?” Happily, it turns out that we actually have an exclusive interview with Basement Jaxx.

In other, hopefully less digressive, news, this issue you can look forward to reading an interview with UCD graduate, Late Late Show host and generally pleasant individual, Ryan “otwo call me Tubs” Tubridy. We also spoke to Teutonic party-inciter Boys Noize, who’ll be paying a visit to our own Student Bar this week.

We’d also like to introduce our new columnist Agony Anto (aunt, Anto, geddit? We’re quite proud of that one). He’ll be taking a tough, nononsense approach to dealing with any of your problems that are too tough for Scottie. otwo is also keeping an eye to your physical wellbeing by ensuring you’re appropriately nourished: watch out for The Top Five Snacks to Eat After a Heavy Night Out, and (vital, we know) our guide to pouring a Guinness just right. otwo, never a paper to grasp for credit or adulation, takes no responsibility for the ranks of Adonises that following the advice of those two articles is sure to create over the coming months.

Toodle-ooo, Colin & Eoin

otwo

29.09.09

WHINGE

SOAPBOX

3

Colin Sweetman relates to scraped arms and wet seats in this public toilet mediocrity Some may find this article offensive or disgusting; others may find its effect of truth quite comical. Bottom line, though: if you’re not fit to read it then you’re not fit to live life.

Let’s say you are bussing or biking or whatever in to college, and the morning dump beckons your call. A brief visit to the loo is in order, so naturally, you do something about it. Going into any one of the toilets that are on offer in UCD isn’t exactly a traumatising experience; it’s just a mildly unpleasant one.

Firstly, you must approach the toilets in the same manner as diving into a swimming pool – hold your breath and hope that you come out the other side.

This can be difficult because, of course, you naturally forensically inspect every cubicle as they come by.

Open Door 1: you find that some lazy bastard not three or four minutes before you has pissed all over the seat. This is easily overcome if you happen to be a male of the species, but I’m afraid it is a bit of a contact sport for ladies. However, you are unlikely to do anything about it, so just move onto Door 2.

Door 2 has no latch. This won’t do at all.

Better try Door 3, but as soon as you enter you run out of breath, therefore allowing a tremendous smell punch you straight in the nasal gland, right as you discover that some cabbage-eating twerp has left a floating surprise waiting there for you.

In desperation you try Door 4. A quick look will do this time. No need for forensics. Just in and out and let the nightmare be over. Aahhhhh…

But wait! You’ve made a rookie mistake in the ceramics business. You never checked the bogroll. One of two things happen here: either you’re left with four, maybe five sheets – or, it has just been freshly filled with an industrial-sized roll, enough to wipe the arses of twenty diarrhoeal elephants. This unknowingly causes problems too, because it inevitably becomes jammed in the dispenser, making you reach deep into the bowels of the system to grab the tethered end which never ceases to break off just as you get a decent handful or grip. All the while your arm is getting cut to shreds from the serrated edge which never comes to use.

We’re talking two-ply perforated tissue here; what’s the use of a serrated edge?

I’ll tell you why, because the paper has the consistency of a crisp bag and the absorbency of a pint glass.

Maybe bidets are the way forward after all.

College is hard enough without having to stay up to date on being down with the kids. Michelle McCormick is here to save you the trouble

HOT

idontgoto.com

Attention Freshers! Set yourself apart from the hoody-wearing crowd by making an amusing and clever fashion statement – go to idontgoto.com and purchase one of their fine garments. Instead of blending in with the hordes, you’ll delight and astound passersby with your jaunty jumper from Idontgoto University.

Wispa Gold

Have you had one yet? Have you had one yet? Have you had one yet? The best thing to come back onto our shelves since… er, original Wispa, this caramelly chocolatey delight is the perfect excuse to stuff your face – since they’re only going to be around for a limited time. But they said that about Wispa original too, so maybe if we eat loads of them, they’ll stay forever.

Oktoberfests

As if we didn’t have our own excuse to get rat-arsed on a yearly basis with St Patrick’s Day, we’ve gone and imported this tradition from our German brethren.

And a fine tradition it is too! With both Messrs Maguire and the Porterhouse running their own Fests this Oktober, get thee down there and drink some beer. Because the Germans say so.

Hey otwo, I’m real happy for you…

…and I’mma let you finish, but last issue’s What’s Hot or What’s Not was the best What’s Hot or What’s Not of all time. Of. All. Time.

If you haven’t heard of the Kanye meme, please get out of whatever hole you’ve been hiding in. You probably smell.

NOT

Alesha Dixon on Strictly

Christmas Ads

Oh, shut up Alesha. Stop being so nice to everyone.

And stop laughing, it sounds like a cat being strangled by a leftover strand of your awful weave.

And stop pretending to talk to Bruno when Craig and Len are fighting – that’s the best part and you’re ruining it. And stop pretending you know things about dancing.

You know what, just get out… and take Tess with you, thanks.

otwo

Seriously? Seriously?!

It’s September!. Harvey Norman, I’m looking at you. Yes, we’re all strapped for cash and Christmas Clubs are probably a good idea, but put a poster up in the shop for God’s sake and don’t make me listen to jingling bells coming out of the TV when it’s sunny outside.

29.09.09

Yes in the City

Hi, I’m a girl. I have boobs and hair and I like makeup and cocktails, teeheehee!

There’s no possible way I could ever understand the intricacies of a big confusing treaty like Lisbon – could someone maybe tell me how to vote by comparing it to a popular TV show that has nothing at all to do with the treaty, its principles, or the impact it will have on the country?

I don’t want to get forehead wrinkles from thinking too hard.

Sugababes

I’ve lost count of how many band changes there have been, and I now care so little that I can’t be arsed to even click on the many stories I’ve seen online about your most recent “band reshuffle” to see who’s left this time. Give it up already! Your last song was dire anyway.

4

WHINGE

say what ???

QUESTION: Who Would Play You in a Movie About Your Life? ask Nicola Lyons & Gavan Reilly

“It’d have to be Kanye West”

“Julia Roberts or Ann Hathaway”

Tracey Quinn, 3rd Arts

Laura O’Keeffe, 1st Arts

Ian Toner, 2nd Arts

“Rowan Atkinson, because Lisa said so”

“Maureen O’Hara, ‘cause she’s got red hair like me”

“Lucy Liu. I think she’s the only one who could capture my curves” Keith Siew, 4th Science

AGONY ANTO otwo’s new agony uncle Agony Anto guides you through bleedin’ life, wha

Dear Anto, I just recently started up college in the big shmoke (Dublin that is) and it’s unreal! I have never seen so many of the women in all me life! I wrote me father shortly before this, explainin’ the situation and gave him a clatter full of gob for not moving here since before.

Sure all we had in Letterbeegobeesheen was an old pohsht to get the timber flyin’.

Anyway, I’ve seen this absolute beaut of a horse down in the lecture theatre there in the Newman building every Tuesday morning at about two in the afternoon. I’d fancy a bit of that meself now but all I can seem to manage is to stare lovingly into her eyes, but all she does is look away!

These college wans are a little more difficult to catch than the otwo

wemen back home. Sure all I had to do was flash me keys to touch an arm. What should I do?

Yours, Cullum Co. Tippoffalaois A’reet Cullum, Right, first off: take the fookin death stare off her, she’s not a bleedin’ tractor cart. What ye need to do is slowly go up to her and seat beside her. Then swiftly, like a ninja, flick the pen off her desk and offer to get it for her, no need to do a Bruce Lee now – just enough swift to eye the butter. Pen-flicking’s a great conversation starter. From here you can just walk away – no need to say anthin else – she gets the big picture.

It’s all about confidence now, Klingon guaranteed. Trust me on this one.

Yours,

Anto Dear Ansho, I am a Fresher at UCD and it’s really, really great and all that like, but I’m in this class on Tuesdays and there’s, like, this weirdo who keeps sitting directly opposite me. Last week he never once took his eyes off me, like, not even when my friend gave him the finger.

29.09.09

Catriona Ennis, 3rd Arts

Eventually, the class ended (thank God) and I left to go to lunch with Kirsten, my roomie. He like, followed us all the way to the restaurant with a kind stare that killers have. We sat down and had a good lunch like, but then he came over and threw a pen right into my friend’s eye. He came over and said “you dropped this”, put the pen on the table, then like took out his keys and slowly paraded them around his backside when walking away. Should I just drop out of college?

Yours, Klöÿœ Cabinfeely Dear Klo… Dear Klee…

A’reet Bird, This kind of ting happens all over da country. We tried building the River Dargle to keep the Bogmonsters at bay but what can you do? I’d say the best ting to do is to buy a sod of turf and lick with a heavy lust the next time he stares at you. I don’t know what type of effect this will have on him reet, but I’m sure it’ll be monstrous. Like garlic to vampires, ya know?

Yours,

Anto

otwo attempts : sobriety

ATTEMPTS

5

Jake O’Brien takes a look at festivities from a clearer perspective, staying off drink for a friend’s birthday party

“S

o you’re not drinking at all tonight? Jesus! Good luck…”

The surprise in his voice was obvious; the confusion was more than evident. This was one of several similar quotes addressed to me throughout the night as I subtly paraded my sobriety about the house party. I was a walking, talking block of clear-sighted suspicion, gleefully entrenched among the patrons of my friend’s twenty-second birthday shindig.

our playful arrogance and curiously petrified at the notion of this nectar running out. This is not to say that I became a nervous wreck, cowering in the corner of a wooden veranda and wondering when it would all end. No; yet I was hardly the life and soul of the party. I am sure that I was the life and soul of something though – myself, at the very least.

Nonetheless, the night continued into those ether-drenched hours past twelve, and everyone

However, we cannot forget that the epicentre of this experience is the assignment. Yours truly was not permitted to imbibe a single millilitre of anything alcoholic over the course of the entire day and night.

This is, after all, an otwo Attempt; a brash swing at an idea we collectively choose to ignore. How is it done? How do these people not drink when mired in a swamp of enthusiastic inebriation? This, then, was the ultimate ideal of my night: a rare and wholesome look at my drunken self through the eyes of sobriety.

So, let’s get down to it. The evening began as any similar event would these days, with some semblance of a pre-session: a haphazard gathering of several connected friends, with a likeminded penchant for arriving at a session already several sheets to the wind. Given that I was refraining from alcohol, I became the designated driver and so, had to drive a car full of that-which-I-couldn’t-have to the outskirts of Walkinstown for the night’s festivities.

If I was not thinking of the forbidden apple in the Garden of Eden on the car ride, I most certainly was upon our understated arrival. The attendance was at least triple what we had expected. With this many attendees, the soundtrack for the evening was set in stone: the sharp hiss of a fresh can, followed swiftly by the hard crack as the ring-pull is stressed and resettled. However, while all of this reads like the withdrawal-ridden ranting of a premature alcoholic, I found that once I reclined into the conversational swing of the night, I was no less happy with a glass of water than I would have been with a can or a glass of (insert preferable poison here).

As the night lumbered on, it became clear that alcohol was indeed the necessary lubricant of our culture. We seem to feel obnoxiously at ease in

Move to the bouncing castle. The roars are let out and the testosterone begins to pump. This seemingly innocent nostalgic party piece is full of both air and mischief. However, the joy and benevolence of a bouncing castle is that, drunk or not, you are guaranteed a good time. With bodies flying and a sinkhole being bored into the centre of the structure, we threw ourselves at anyone who seemed up for it. With the clever addition of a slide attached to the contraption, play became ever more devious. At several points the castle was turned upside-down and on its side, all while containing at least five beings. It must also be noted that all of this was occurring on the darker side of black.

Without light, blind aggression kicks up a notch, and any silhouette is fair game. Christ, get away from the damned thing – move somewhere else and see what a craned neck and a voyeur’s eye can conceive.

It was towards the end of my night that the ‘Howiya Condition’ began to take hold. Leering masculine eyes drenched in confidence drift towards the fairer sex and the slurred colloquialism slips from the end of their tongues: “Howiya!” Any female can fall victim to this truly Irish and drunken approach; all it requires is the right amount of social lubricant and an appropriate quantity of mischief. This activity indeed marks the climax of the night. A pinnacle has been reached and the goggles are firmly in place.

At several points the castle was

turned upside-down

seemed to find their happy balance; their inebriated medium. Gone was the understated nervousness of people meeting people.

Gone were the ideas of inadequacy or low self-esteem.

We were on a par now, congregating in groups of four or five around the doors, ledges and tables. But no one can sit now. This is the pivotal part of the proceedings when entertainment outside that of alcohol, but fuelled by it, must occur.

and on its side, all while containing at least five beings

otwo

29.09.09

However, here my endeavours come to a close. My sobriety demands sleep and a mattress calls from four suburbs over.

But what have I really attempted here? Going a whole fun-filled night without alcohol? Conversing with any and all without liquid confidence?

The main point would be that this is doable. It is worth the effort and it can do no possible harm, unless you cynically mouth off to some worse-for-wear fiend and end up in an uncoordinated brawl outside Supermacs.

All this being said, there is a possibility of alienating yourself, but you would have to be a vehemently obnoxious sober judge to pull that one off.

6

MUSIC

Alison Lee watches the Lemonheads wind back the years

Songs To Listen To After Getting Dumped The explosive cocktail of bitterness and resent from being dumped can transform us from harmonious creatures into frenzied shadows of our former selves. How many abusive midnight calls and drunken bar fights would have been saved if we had first listened to this playlist?

‘Fidelity’– Regina Spektor

Feeling depressed after the break up?

Of course you are. But how lucky are we to have Spektor’s refreshing alternative pop to erode all our misery.

Sit back and allow the combination of Regina’s buoyant piano and quirky voice give you a new lease of life.

‘Broken’ – Seether

Your teen angst will find a home in the emotion of Broken, an acoustic duet by two metal heads. The emotion in Amy Lee’s voice shows the cracks in her relationship with Shaun Morgan. This song will strike a chord with just about anyone.

‘Can’t Go Back’ – Primal Scream

Still clinging to the chance that you can get your relationship back on track?

Then Gillespie’s mantra of “Can’t go back, I can’t go back” followed by the dark guitars may convince you otherwise.

‘I Hate Everything About You’ – Three Days Grace

Instead of breaking a plate in anger, listen to this. The thumping guitar contemplates the smashing vocals to leave your aggression lost in the fury of the song.

‘Wish You Well’ – Mark Flannery

Flannery’s songwriting ability will captivate your imagination as he deals with his affection towards his ex. The

Cork man uses his acoustic guitar and raspy voice to describe how he “hit the bottle” after the end of his relationship.

Many of us can relate to a fellow Irish man’s method of recovery following a difficult period.

‘Dry Your Eyes’– The Streets

Handkerchiefs are recommended in this heartfelt account of Skinner’s mate and the breakdown of his relationship. Despite his irritating accent, he succeeds in rehabilitating broken hearts through his lyrics. In between sobs you’ll muffle to a mate how Skinner has epitomized your former relationship, not realising that thousands of others feel the same.

‘Fell in Love With A Girl’ – The White Stripes

Be wary of this song, as the racket of melodic noise stemming from Jack’s guitar and Meg’s drums will captivate your feet and lead you to spring wildly among your friends. Dancing is a sure way to lift the spirits especially as White mourns to you about chasing an unrequited love in a humorous and blissful fashion.

‘Smile’ – Lily Allen

If your secret desire is for a swarm of locusts to make life Hell for a cheating ex, you’ll find solace here. Although Smile doesn’t deal with revenge on an ex in such biblical terms as above, it does deal with Lily getting over an unfaithful lover. Her advice? Smile.

— Sean Finnan otwo

You’d be forgiven for confusing Lemonheads frontman Evan Dando with your average hobo.

Mangled jeans and lank, greasy hair don’t exactly scream ‘rich and famous’, and his chipped Gibson SG is well past its sell-by date. His bandmates are just as uninspiring: bassist Vess Ruhtenburg is equally scruffy, while chubby, bespectacled Devon Ashely looks far too cheerful to be the drummer in a cult indie band.

But appearances can be deceptive, as the Lemonheads rocked out like few bands know how at The Academy earlier this month. The first half of the set featured classics like ‘It’s A Shame About Ray’ and ‘My Drug Buddy’, with a few newer tracks such as ‘Pittsburgh’ thrown in for good measure. Occasionally doing the showbiz thing, Dando chatted to the crowd in his laconic Boston drawl, but mostly they ploughed ahead, stopping just long enough for Dando to consult the setlist taped to the floor and shout the name of the next song to the others.

The show was more akin to a casual jam session than a concert – probably why everyone seemed to have such a good time.

The second half saw Dando left on stage with nothing but a battered semi-acoustic to keep him company. He performed popular numbers like ‘The Outdoor Type’ and ‘Being Around’, and made hardcore fans happy by including B-sides and tracks from the Lemonhead’s debut album, Hate Your 29.09.09

Friends, released all of 22 years ago. It was tough to glimpse his face behind the curtain of hair, but despite being on the road since 1986, Dando didn’t at all seem bored - in fact, he seemed to be enjoying himself, albeit in an extremely spaced-out way.

His bandmates rejoined him for the closing numbers and even squeezed in an encore, which, judging by the roadies’ faces, wasn’t part of the plan.

The Lemonheads vast catalogue of acoustic ballads, punk tunes and covers made this gig any music nerd’s dream, but it was definitely the atmosphere of happy-stoner cheer that made this blast from the past seem so lemony-fresh.

oys Noize is hitting the road again. Following the success of his 2007 album Oi Oi Oi, and a busy year that saw him working with both the Black Eyed Peas and Kelis, the electropop producer has a new LP on the way, Power, to be released next Monday. Despite being just 26 and being popularly perceived as a new arrival on the scene, Boys Noize has been developing as a musician, musical connoisseur and performer for longer than most of otwo’s readers have been alive.

B

As a child, he played drums and piano. The first albums he bought (as a five-year-old!) were LL Cool J and De La Soul albums on vinyl. Initially, he listened to hip hop, but he was heavily influenced by both his mother’s disco records and – most significantly – his brother’s house music collection. When his brother’s records were stolen, Boys Noize (then a 13-year-old Alex Ridha) began buying the records again for himself, feeding his “addiction” to vinyl by working two jobs. He made mixtapes on rebuilt Technics decks, and dreamt of making enough money from DJing to pay for all the vinyl he was buying.

The next step was to start working in a record store specialising in House and Techno music.

Even though this was a significant era in his development, he retained his personal taste; he never bought into the hard, fast trance and techno that were popular in Berlin of the late 90s. Always independent and quirky, he preferred rough, imperfectly produced electro.

As his popularity grew, he remixed for Snoop Dogg, Marilyn Manson and Depeche Mode. In 2005, he launched Boys Noize Records, now home to Strip Steve and Shadowdancer. Boys Noize finally gained widespread international recognition in 2007 with the release of Oi Oi Oi. Considering his fiercely independent character and the fact that he had the luxury of a strong musical community around him as he grew, it’s perhaps not surprising that he disapproves

Make e o m s N O IZ E ATTEMPTS MUSIC

7

German electro superstar Boys Noize discusses the DJ scene and his own impressive career trajectory with Eoin Brady

of much of the recent developments in DJing and consumer music technology. Even now, when many prominent DJs perform using a laptop as the core of their performance equipment, Boys Noize would prefer to use vinyl. However, the club world is moving on: he tells of how at a gig in Manchester, on informing the staff that he would

finds exciting as it allows looping and effects more sophisticated than those available to vinyl.

Despite the possibilities opened up for DJing by technology recently, he says (in his thick, Brüno-esque German drawl) that sitting behind a computer pushing buttons looks “unsexy”, especially when contrasted with how an old-fashioned DJ who has “so much to do” looks like they’re having fun. Even though he believes that DJing is “more about what you play than how you play”, he still feels that the modern innovation of automatic beat-matching is “cheating”.

He made mixtapes on rebuilt Technics decks, and dreamt of making enough money from DJing to pay for all the vinyl he was buying be using vinyl, he was shown to a separate dusty DJ booth with one working deck. It was because of problems like this that he transitioned to using CDJs (a system that allows the DJ to use CDs instead of vinyl), a technology he otwo

Boys Noize confirmed his traditionalist leanings by explaining his views on music blogging.

Even though he signed two of the artists (Shadowdancer and Strip Steve) to Boys Noize Records after finding them on MySpace, he feels that it’s preferable to discover music by going to record stores, looking through the records and paying for it. When an artist “goes into the studio and has a crazy time producing an album”, he believes it fair that they should get money for doing it, but thinks this concept “missing from the kids’ consciousnesses”. On the other hand, he 29.09.09

has noticed a change in the make-up of the crowds at his gigs because of the music blogs: whereas once people went to clubs just because they were cool clubs, some of his shows now have more of a concert vibe, where people actually come to listen and pay attention to his music. This is not something that would have happened in the past, because for the first five or so years of his career, his music was only available in specialist DJ record stores, and so would have not been accessible to the regular music fan.

On Power, Boys Noize tells us that it “starts where Oi Oi Oi ended” but that we should expect a “less rock ‘n’ roll” sound. He says he tries to “stay outside of anything that is cool”, while having new sounds that “surprise and inspire” him. He states that one of his priorities was to make music to play in his DJ sets, so for all this talk of maturity, it sounds like it would be fair to expect one or two club bangers on Power.

As a final note, Boys Noize enthuses about “wild and crazy” shows in Ireland, where he is “shown a lot of love”. If you’d like to demonstrate your wild, crazy loveliness to Boys Noize, you can check him out in the Student Bar this Thursday.

8

MUSIC

HARD WORKING CLASS HEROES

Now in its seventh consecutive year, Dublin’s Hard Working Class Heroes festival (HWCH to aficionados) showcases the talents of upand-coming Irish bands, with this year’s event seeing a hundred bands playing six well-known establishments in and around Temple Bar from the 16th-18th October.

One of the acts returning to the festival this year is Kells indie noiseniks and Meteor Award winners, Ham Sandwich. Touted as the Irish answer to Rilo Kiley, the band’s impressive soundscapes range from the pounding intensity of ‘St Christopher’, sounding like a cross between Interpol and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, to the Sonic Youthlike ‘Keepsake’ showcasing lead singer Niamh Farren’s low-key, yet emotionally resonant, vocal style.

What is refreshing about Ham Sandwich is their ability to stick with the full-on sound approach, a feature which lends the group an aura of credibility and potential of endur-

ance amongst their contemporaries whose music is too choked by the rebirth of the synthesizer. The band have been busy working the summer festival scene from Glastonbury to Electric Picnic this year, and are sure to be one of this year’s HWCH’s highlights.

Speaking to otwo with enthusiasm about returning to the festival for the second year in a row, Farren relates her experience of this localised but highly electric occasion.

“It’s absolutely great”, she replies when asked about her opinion of the festival. “It’s a brilliant opportunity for young Irish bands to get heard, we’ve gotten a good lot of press from playing the festival and the tight schedule gives us a chance to focus on our best songs, instead of playing for an hour in front of people who don’t know who you are.” Niamh added that the almost “cabaret vibe” associated with the festival set it apart from the bigger, more international concerts, giving HWCH a

MUSICAL PROLES Consolidation is the key word for this story.

With the necessity to get the best from the worlds of pop and Indie rock, former acts the Chalets and Neosupervital consummated their differences and gave birth to a beautiful young child named Talulah Does the Hula.

This year they play the Hard Working Class Heroes Festival for the first time, citing it as an opportunity to just do what they love. Of course, as the Festival’s name suggests, it is a line-up comprising of struggling or part-time musicians who for some reason or other just like to gig around the Dublin circuit.

“We’re just taking it as it comes really, mainly because we really love it,” Talulah’s Jessie Ward tells otwo. It’s sweet for a band to admit this,

sense of individuality.

One band who are making an appearance at HWCH for the first time is Killer Chloe, who under their own admission missed the deadline for last year’s festival under “absolutely tragic” circumstances.

“I was on my holidays instead or something stupid like that,” laments lead singer/keyboard player Peter.

With the Sandersons demo release under their belts, these Trinity students echo the bunnymen-tinged wall of punk and electro sounds.

Thus they bring a sense of youthful emergency and hyperventilation to the festival. Although, at times the songs can seem a little directionless, the music and lyrics appearing to have been thrown in as the musicians came to them. The listener ends up not really sure whether to take it either completely seriously or with a fairly generous pinch of salt.

but it’s also always nice when things get off the ground and the money starts rolling in. This is not to say that they’re in it for the money though – there is a genuine feeling that they truly enjoy what they do, and what better way to see the world than to play music to it?

“We’d love to get out of Ireland to play Europe and America but for now it’s no problem because we really like the crowds that come see our gigs in Dublin,” And who could blame those crowds? There music is fantastically poppy and is regularly cited as being “sunny-sided”. To couple this, there are four beautiful young women (and mandrummer) on stage to make even the most remarkably miserable Irish eye smile.

Talulah Does the Hula have their HWCH slot in Twisted Pepper on 16th October. For more information see www.myspace.com/talulahdoesthehula Colin Sweetman otwo

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The group do seem to be playing all the right venues with an impressive example of work ethic ever since winning the Trinity Battle of the Bands last year. However, perhaps it is still too early to write off what could be a promising career of experimental reward. On being asked by otwo about his hopes with regards to the festival slot, Peter states that “hopefully it will boost our profile; it seems to be a rite of passage for a lot Irish bands”.

With acts ranging from luminaries like Ham Sandwich and Super Extra Bonus Party to upstarts like Killer Chloe, the Hard Working Class Heroes festival this year is beginning to look like a treat for music fans. All that without even having to venture further than Temple Bar!

Westley Barnes

MUSIC

9

Ill wait for Director Conor Molumby talks to Dublin foursome Director about the difficult second album

“W

hen you are half writing for someone else and half writing for yourself, you end up with something less meaningful,” says a pensive Michael Maloney, front-man with Malahide quartet Director, on the pressure of expectations. Facing the daunting challenge of following up a successful debut album is something few Irish bands have to do these days.

Director’s second album I’ll Wait For Sound, comes three years after its predecessor We Thrive on Big Cities landed at number two in the Irish charts, remaining on the rankings for 28 weeks and exceeding platinum status. An album that was praised by press and public alike, it was a genuine hit. How do you follow a hit? “We were worrying and second guessing ourselves so much, the only way to move forward was to ignore it.”

Maloney and his band-mates, guitarist Eoin Aherne, bassist Rowan Averill and drummer Shay Lawlor, built a reputation at the peak of the Irish live circuit and even won the Best New Act Prize at the Meteor awards in 2007. Since then, they’ve been away for a long time, partly due to a realisation that the opus in production was “not the album we want to make”, during what Maloney now refers to as “pre-production” for I’ll Wait for Sound.

The album began its gestation in a windowless room above a pub in Dublin before the band spent four months in a tiny cottage in Leitrim, getting back to basics and taking turns sleeping on the floor due to the lack of space. A new leaner – dare otwo say ‘heavier’? – sound was discovered.

“Heavier, not in a grungy way, but in a tight fast kind of way,” explains Maloney.

To capture this sound the band called on the services of producer Brad Wood, who has previously worked with Smashing Pumpkins, Placebo and Pete Yorn. To record the album in Wood’s home studio, the band had to relocate to L.A. “It had a

real homely atmosphere with his kids waltzing in and out. It didn’t feel like a big pressure studio situation, it was like we were still demoing in Leitrim.” As for the trappings of the Hollywood lifestyle, Maloney attests Director “were working flat out the whole time we were there”. No rock ‘n’ roll parties at the Playboy Mansion this time around then…

The result of this extensive writing and recording is, according to Maloney, “a very different kind of album”. The pop sensibility and catchy hooks of their debut certainly take a backseat on I’ll Wait

“People think when they are downloading [illegally] they are only hurting the record company and maybe they have no sympathy for them.

But bands are relying on record sales to keep doing what they’re doing” For Sound, but the album retains the instantly recognisable, distinctive sound. This attribute of Director’s music is partly due to Maloney’s unique vocal talents, which find a new space on this record. “There are also quieter moments that weren’t there on the first album.”

That first album was released by major label Atlantic, and Director looked set to become overnight superstars after their chart success here in Ireland. But the band and Atlantic went their separate ways before pre-production on I’ll Wait For Sound had begun. So were they surprised to find themselves without a major label considering their commercial success? “We saw it coming a long way away, once the album [We Thrive on Big otwo

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Cities] didn’t get a release in the UK.” Director had already built a solid appreciation among music fans in Britain after bagging highly sought after support slots with successful acts such as Razorlight, Hard-Fi and the Fratellis.

Add to this the numerous well-received performances at major festivals and Atlantic’s decision becomes more perplexing. Maloney is the first to admit he simply doesn’t know why Atlantic didn’t give the album a release across the Irish Sea, but contemplates that Atlantic “spent a lot of money, and maybe they didn’t see it coming back…my biggest regret about the first album is that it wasn’t released outside of Ireland.”

I’ll Wait For Sound is released on the band’s own Crapshoot Economics label, raising the topic of the music industry today, and how its transformation is taking its toll on up-and-coming acts like Director. “I really didn’t think [the music industry] would change that much, but it has so much in the few years we’ve been in it.” Does Maloney mean file-sharing? “It’s a moral and legal grey area; I mean, you’re not really stealing something if you’re making a copy of it”. He is quick to point out that new bands are feeling its effect. “People think when they are downloading [illegally] they are only hurting the record company and maybe they have no sympathy for them, but bands are relying on record sales to keep doing what they’re doing.”

The upside of the internet is the ease with which a large audience can hear a band’s music. It has also lead to bands playing live more. Live is where Director first built a fan base in Ireland, and they return to their roots with a nationwide tour next month. And as for that big regret about the first album, plans are already in the works to release I’ll Wait for Sound in the UK before the end of the year.

Director’s album I’ll Wait for Sound is now available to buy.

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MUSIC

Music Interview

An Anonymous Fish Emer Sugrue speaks to Jerry Fish about iTunes, Bono, and Jerry Fish, whoever he is

J

erry Fish used to front a successful rock band in the early 90s called An Emotional Fish. Their biggest hit was ‘Time Is On The Wall’, a song which can be heard on a Bulmers ad along with a voiceover by Fish himself.

Sadly, this is all your interviewer knows about Jerry Fish, thus making an interview with him a difficult prospect.

When I ask if the Bulmers adverts are most people would know him from, Fish patiently explains to me that “the adverts and voiceovers fund the record label [Jerry has set up his own, confusingly also titled The Mudbug Club], but primarily I’m an artist and I think most people would see that”. At this point I’m worried I’ve offended him, only assuaged when he jokingly adds, “I’m a jammy f***er”. He was very friendly during the interview, and though I tried not to let on, it was probably painfully obvious that I hadn’t a clue who he was.

“More like a circus band than a rock band”

Fish’s current band, Jerry Fish & The Mudbug Club, is “more eclectic” than his previous work, and Fish quickly corrects me when I refer to it as a ‘jazz band’ (damn you, Wikipedia). He describes his outfit as “more like a circus band than a rock band... with its double bass and a brass section, it’s an unusual band, no doubt about it”.

While frantically researching the band the night

before, I found that their music doesn’t have a signature style, with most songs barely sounding like they’re by the same band. Fish explains, “I just kind of go with how the song feels...

I just follow the route that the song dictates.

My favourite albums are Tarantino compilations…or sometimes the ones you get free with magazines with lots of different bands in them.

I like to kind of experiment with my voice and make it sound different... I like an album that has contrasts.”

Jerry Fish & The Mudbug Club is an independent band managed by Fish himself, and the internet thus becomes a key way for Fish to promote and market the band. “The radio is still king”, he states, but elaborates that new developments like iTunes have “turned music on its head completely. If you think about it, the music industry is really only as old as Elvis... Elvis never made any albums – he just made radio songs. The way people are buying songs now I think we’re seeing a return to that... the industry is changing, it’s going in that direction.”

And what does he think of Bono? He seems a little surprised but answers, “I like him for the things he’s done that most people don’t like him, to be honest. I think he’s done quite remarkable work as a politician... there are so many in his position who don’t bother their arse.” Maybe next time I’ll be better equipped to do an interview, with someone as undoubtedly seminal as Fish, the justice it deserves.

Battleships for Baddies Quantity of voices – lots of it.

Baddies go for the overkill effect of image making, so much so that you’d have thought the band just stepped from some kind of pseudo-80s time realm: “I think Baddies, it suits the way we dress,” says singer Michael Webster.

True in a sense, but not entirely vulgar. “I mean, at the end of our gigs we just go crazy. There was this boat in Bristol that we played at – sort of turned into a small venue – and I ended up getting my front tooth smashed out.”

They have recently been gigging non-stop throughout the summer at various festivals around Europe. “We played with White Lies in most of those festivals. I think it came to about 32 this summer.

We just bang those places and have a good time.”

The next steps along their journey are invariably Australia and New Zealand, before the try to make it big in the States: “We could have tried to break America this year but instead we decided to record our album. This December though we plan on hitting the Down Under with You Am I.” But does the band hold similarities to other groups with the same

for the summer festivities, mainly because they differ somewhat to their Anglo-sphere counterparts.

“You know, mainland European crowds have attitudes just to go crazy. They drink just as much as us but there is a different vibe about it. I think they’re there just to have a good time really, unlike the us – who just get pissed and fall over really.”

Colin Sweetman meets Michael Webster, frontman of Essex boys Baddies agenda from the south end of Essex? “There’s no scene as such, like we wouldn’t know each other or anything. There are bands like Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. But they’re otwo

very into their politics, and we’re more into music. We just set out to do our own thing.”

The band relates Roskilde in Denmark as being near top of their list 29.09.09

Baddies are set to close up their European tour in October, in which they are looking forward to their Irish dates: “you know, it’s a good close-up to a tour”. But with regard to Bono, for no reason at all: “I think he’s a bit of a twat, over-rated, and I wish he’d take those fucking sunglasses off… but a nice bloke all the same.”

Baddies play The Academy on the 1st of October tickets €11.50

Drama Review

T

he Ladder & The Moon, a play both devised by and starring Dramsoc’s Eoghan Carrick, Nessa Matthews and Ian Toner, wonderfully captures and celebrates the magic of childhood curiosity, imagination and creativity. This popular offering from last year was revived as part of their Freshers’ Week programme.

Set in a dark attic, this play follows the exploits of three young children in their many attempts to dispel boredom and have some fun. Through a number of short scenes the children engage in games of chase, a tea party, a mission to the moon, some mischief and even a little bit of romance.

The audience were in fits of laughter from the moment the piece began, as a hilarious and brilliantly choreographed coloured light sequence had many practically falling off their seats in hysterics.

The spoken word is used quite sparsely throughout this piece with no more than

REVIEWS

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a handful of lines sprinkled as boxes, sheets and even a shopping trolley are throughout its 40 minutes – employed by the children in their Matthews’ character, in fact, had no games and adventures.

Despite a prior warning that conventional dialogue at all. This, however, is part of the charm of Dramsoc were suffering technical The Ladder & The Moon as the difficulties in the form of a broken excellent use of facial expressions, projector, inhibiting a cloud body language, physical comedy sequence midway through the play, and even the simplest of sounds Carrick’s improvised use of drawings are used to full effect, combining was hilarious and allowed the effortlessly to characterise audience feel almost as if they were each of the three children. in on the joke. Ironically, this organic The rarity of dialogue in this impromptu comedy was one of the DR D R D AM RA MSSSO A M OCCC F O RE FFR R SH EES play also serves to heighten highlights of the play.

H S H E E R E R S R S F S FFE EES SSTTTIIIV VA V ALLL A the comedic value of the few In this simple depiction of youth and scripted lines that there are; lines imagination, The Ladder & The Moon such as “I’ve found the moon cheese” are all the guaranteed smiles all round and ensures that each member of the audience experiences a more funny because they are so unexpected. child-like sense of wonderment and joy, if only for Contrasting the scarcity of conversation in a short while. this piece, the use of props is both frequent and imaginative. The most mundane of objects such – Nicola Lyons Book Review

Generation Coupland Douglas Coupland’s latest novel is a break of pattern with mostly successful consequences, writes Cormac Duffy Generation A, the thirteenth novel from Douglas Coupland, marks a reinvention of sorts for the Canadian author. While most of his previous novels have found their success by allowing their quirky characters and sharp cultural commentary take the spotlight, his latest novel breaks the trend with its sprawling story.

Best read as a dystopian novel, it is set in the kind of future that pervades much of the work as a distant fear. It’s a future on the brink of ecological collapse due to the supposed extinction of bees – so when five individuals across the world are stung, the world desperately looks to them for solutions. Equally central to the plot is the mysterious new drug Solon, a powerful and addictive sedative with more than a passing resemblance to Brave New World’s Soma, turning the world’s population into solitudeloving drones. The use of Solon as a plot device builds a level of dramatic tension that the author has hitherto never managed to create,

highlighting Coupland’s successful expansion of style.

Moreover, the style is vintage Coupland: heavy on pop culture which contains a world of affable, authentic characters such as Diana, who suffers from the awful

“Coupland’s press are

billing the new novel as a spiritual sequel to his renowned debut Generation X, which leaves the book with rather large, zeitgeist-capturing shoes to fill”

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combination of having Tourette’s Syndrome – whilst simultaneously being in love with both the Pastor and with Harj, a Sri Lankan call centre operator with dreams of one day seeing Connecticut. The latter excellently highlights the contrast between his culture and ours, as he sees a visit to the ‘exotic’ Abercrombie & Fitch headquarters as a pilgrimage. He talks of his brother’s tour guide job as a proclamation of their wish to ‘find themselves’. Yet, their trips always degenerate into sex tourism.

Coupland’s press are billing the new novel as a spiritual sequel to his renowned debut Generation 29.09.09

X, which leaves the book with rather large, zeitgeist-capturing shoes to fill. This means that, like all of Coupland’s work, much of the discussion surrounding it will be on how he has failed to live up to his debut masterpiece – a fate the book does not deserve. In itself, it is an absorbing read, with equal parts dark humour and even darker introspection about human nature, scientific advancement and their difficult relationship.

The least that can be said is that it serves as a reassuring reminder that Coupland has life in him yet, and will continue to analyse the strange ways of our times for a long time to come.

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TRAVEL

Colombian Nights C

ocaine, Pablo Escobar, Shakira, Fauntino Asprilla, and coffee are just some of the images mentioned when Colombia comes to mind. It is a country that has never failed to grab headlines, mainly for the wrong reasons. Long periods of civil strife, punctuated by terrorist atrocities, have at many times paralysed the country, keeping it off-limits for travellers. However, less commented-upon in the world press has been Colombia’s economic resurgence over the last decade. There is no time like the present to explore this enigmatic nation before it becomes part of the ‘Gringo Trail’.

San Agustin, an archaeological treasure trove set amidst the shimmering emerald foothills of the Andes, is one of Colombia’s – if not South America’s – most alluring attractions. The area, home to one of the more colourful civilizations that populated the continent before Spanish colonisation in 1499, has an estimated 500 burial statues depicting people set admist spectacular mountainous scenery. Think Easter Island in the Andes.

Getting to San Agustin is a rather difficult undertaking unfortunately. It takes seven hours by bus to reach the town from the nearest city, Popoyan, which is only a distance of 110km away. This is due in no small part to the condition of the ‘road’ – or, more specifically,

A compelling concoction of varied landscapes, nightlife and cities that is perhaps South America’s best kept secret, writes Shane Murphy the lack of one. The important archaeological sites are housed in three main parks: the Parque Arqueologico, Alto de Los Idolos and Alto de Las Piedras. The latter two are best reached on horseback through spectacular gorges punctuated by coffee and the odd cocoa plant. The trails are steep and in many places quite dangerous, especially if it rains, but the rewards are magnificent.

At nighttime, San Agustin can be quite tame and dull, with little options for nightlife owing to its size. Most travellers visit primarily to see the sights and relax in the enchanted surroundings.

A few of the more intrepid come to sample the local varieties of mushroom before embarking on visits to see the statues, something which is not entirely recommended.

Due to the mild climate, with temperatures rarely dropping below 25˚C, much of the nightlife ends up on the streets, otwo

with impromptu salsa being the predominant form of traffic after dark.

In Colombia they often say that climate defines character. If that is true it’s fair to say that Cartagena, the so called jewel of the Carribean, is sweltering. Cartagena is radically different from many areas in Colombia; its climate, culture, and people offer yet another distinctive flavour to the Colombian cocktail.

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This tropical city, centre of the Afro-Columbian community, is a heady mix of cultural influences that pervade all forms of life. The city is an architectural gem of grace and style.

Inside the towering bluffs that surround the city lies a fascinating medievality of colonial mansions, horse drawn carriages, towering spires and great restuarants. This beguiling mix however is much more expensive than many other areas in Colombia, with pesos being stretched to the limits. Most backpackers will not actually stay in the old walled city because of the cost, but rather in the historic and gritty neighbourhood of Getsemani just outside the walled city. At night, Cartagena can be a bit prosaic during the week (especially in the old town), but at weekends the city comes alive to the infectous rhythms of reggaeton and vallenato where young and old dance until dawn.

With its dizzying array of landscapes from the the Caribbean to the Amazon, great cities with thriving nightlife, and people with a zeal for life, Colombia is a country that will beguile visitors with so much more to offer other than outdated sterotypes and bland generalisations.

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Alex Court recounts the exotic attractions of Istanbul and north-west Turkey Turkey begs to be travelled.

Cheap, comfortable, regular and reliable coach connections, breathtaking cityscapes and some incredible Islamic monuments can be seen on the same trip as raucous partying and sun soaking.

Istanbul is a wonderful introduction to Turkey and with many of the comforting conveniences you would find at home, you’ll be confused as to why Turkish moves to join the EU meet such lukewarm reception. The famous Blue Mosque, controversial with its six slender minarets and no entry fee, stands opposite the awesome Hagia Sofia at the entrance to the Sultanhamet area. Even though it is a bit of a tourist bubble, you can stay in a pansiyon (hostel) dorm for €7!

Ferries across the Bosporus give a glimpse of Istanbul’s massive size. Stretching from Europe to Asia, this city needs a lifetime to explore. The bazaars are breathtaking – you’ll find anything the human mind desires, and more, and the salesmen are less pushy than expected. The atmosphere is of lively business, rather than trick the traveller. Banter and bartering are a must, and a whole day should be dedicated.

There is also Topkapi Palace with its Harem, beautiful dome ceilings and gardens. While entry is almost €10, you’d be mad to miss this beautiful monument to gluttony, and a glimpse of Ottoman history.

Before Istanbul’s insides swallow you up, ferry across to Bandirma (€14). It’s 90 minutes

(and spiritually a million miles) from the sprawling city. The more local atmosphere is comfy, and buses from the Ottogar (bus station) will whisk you away on your journey to wherever. History buffs will head straight for Gallipoli and the Dardanelle Straits, right next to the ancient city of Troy, while the thirsty group of partyers will head to Bodrum to enjoy cheap beer and nagiles (waterpipes) and love the pirate ship rave.

A recommended refuelling stop is Ayvalik, a true town where horse drawn carriages would be hired to tourists if they weren’t busy transporting watermelon!

Boats will bring you out into the Aegean’s clear water for a day of swimming and sun for €5.50 with a sardine lunch included.

Another must is Selcuk and surrounding Ephesus. With its 25,000 seat, third century BC theatre, you find yourself revelling in the sense of history, imagining the lives of those long-gone souls. Selcuk has resisted becoming a touristic town where nothing is affordable or authentic, and is perfect to cool off in after a serious sightseeing day.

Whether you crave to paraglide in Uludeniz (well worth the €55) or grieve at the grave of the Suffi mystic Mevlana Rumi (where you can also see a hair from the Prophet Muhammad’s beard), Turkey will not disappoint. A beautiful country populated with beautiful friendly people, you’ll never run out of things to do or places to go.

Sarah Doran practices her English with the Swedes When asked if I was venturing anywhere this summer, I was often faced with an amusing reaction when I’d reply ‘Sweden’. Stockholm is apparently hardly the kind of destination that on first impression screams ‘holiday’, but it was there that I found myself – and it didn’t fail to impress.

Stockholm manages to balance the laidback attitude of its citizens with the hustle and bustle of the modern day cosmopolitan metropolis. Describing Stockholm to someone who has never been there is arguably relatively easy: Stockholm is somewhere between Paris and London. Someone who knows the city better than I told me that Stockholm isn’t like Paris, where a select many will look down upon

you because you don’t speak French; nor is it like London, where one wrong turn can leave you feeling lost in a maze of unrecognisable streets.

No, Stockholm is a ‘happy medium’, stretching across a series of islands in seemingly effortless elegance.

Travelling to Stockholm is simple: Ryanair fly to Skavsta Airport, located about 60 miles south of the city (you know, typical Ryanair).

Getting into Stockholm itself is otwo

cheapest by Flygbussarna (coach), about €12 each way, getting you to the city in around 90 minutes.

If you feel like flashing the cash in favour of comfort, SAS fly direct to Arlanda Airport.

You’ll find an abundance of bars and a vibrant nightlife in the city, most notably around the T-Bahn station at Slussen, while hopping off at T-Centralen will land you in the city centre for a spot of shopping.

The big brands are all here, and as the home ground of H&M, Stockholm boasts an array of the famous chain stores.

You won’t find yourself lost in translation at all. Don’t bank on practicing your Swedish in Stockholm, as a taxi driver informed me on day one, almost everyone jumps at the chance to practice their English. In most shops a simple ‘hej hej’ (pronounced hey hey) provides a warm greeting, whilst ‘tack’ serves to express polite thanks.

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The Swedish themselves are warm, friendly and polite, and there’s something very welcoming about the people in Stockholm that leaves you feeling as though you’ve just strolled through your own hometown. There are no ‘dodgy areas’ in this city – in fact, even the underground T-Bahn stations fail to prove in any way intimidating or menacing.

The one thing that still resonates with me about Stockholm is not the sight of the stereotypical blonde, tanned individuals roaming the streets; nor is it the fabulous summer weather that a city so often equated with dark sunless winters seemed to be experiencing. No: the one thing I vividly remember about Stockholm is the sheer volume of pregnant women I came across. Coming a close second, the memories of a phenomenal array of lingerie stores.

Whether there’s any correlation between the two, I’ll leave it to you to decide.

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MUSIC

BASEMENT

BEATS Simon Ratcliffe of Basement Jaxx discusses album artwork, Electric Picnic and iPhonewielding hippies with Ciara Fitzpatrick

“E

lectric Picnic… I’m trying to think, I’m just trying to put myself back, ‘cos my mind’s a bit jumbled.” Simon Ratcliffe has some trouble remembering if he caught any other acts at Electric Picnic, where Basement Jaxx were main stage headliners on the Sunday night. His uncertainty is understandable, given that he and Felix Buxton, the other half of Basement Jaxx, have played two festivals every weekend since June. Electric Picnic was the last stop on their festival circuit, which saw the duo play to audiences as far away as the Jisan Valley Festival in Seoul. Ratcliffe describes Electric Picnic as “wicked, yeah – that was really good. The crowd were good; I think the night… it had been raining a bit I think, so they probably had to battle through it a bit, but we had a great time. That’s the last show for us of this festival season, so, yeah, it was a nice way to end it.”

Basement Jaxx have blazed quite a trail since the release of their first full length album Remedy in 1999, scoring worldwide success with hits such as ‘Red Alert’, ‘Romeo’, ‘Where’s Your Head At?’ and most recently ‘Raindrops’, which Ratcliffe reports to go down best when played live: “That seems to actually be a highlight. Which is nice.”

“REMIXING IS GOOD IF YOU’VE GOT A GREAT SONG THERE… THAT’S HALF THE PROBLEM REALLY” The house/electronic duo from London formed in 1994, and set up their own record label called ‘Atlantic Jaxx’, which still exists today. Setting up their own label was the only way the band could get their music released at the time, according to Ratcliffe, “Cos nobody wanted to sign us, so it was just do it yourself really”. The band was eventually signed to XL Recordings in 1998, currently home to Sigur Ros, Radiohead, M.I.A. and Dizzee Rascal, but they didn’t pull the plug on Atlantic Jaxx. “We kept Atlantic Jaxx going just for releasing more low key stuff by us, stuff that was less commercial, or stuff by other people… just things that we thought people should hear.”

Last week saw the duo release their fifth album and their first for three years, Scars. Ratcliffe describes their new opus as having “the kind of crosssection and the sort of ranges of flavours we’ve always had on our records. It’s maybe a bit more melancholy than some of our albums, but at the same time it’s got enough sunshine, I think, to bring it up – so it’s a balance of energies.”

The new album sees the band work with a diverse range of artists, including Sam Sparro, Kelis, Santigold, Chipmunk, Lightspeed Champion and Yoko Ono. Ratcliffe describes working with the latter on ‘Day of the Sunflowers (We March On)’: “We weren’t sure whether she’d be difficult or not, I don’t know how easy she would be to take on our ideas; but she was fine.” The band didn’t have much music for the track at that point, just some basic chords to give Ono a key to sing in. Felix had written words that otwo

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“WE WENT UP TO HIM [RICK REUBEN] AND SAID, ‘HEY, WE JUST GOT A GRAMMY AND WE’RE BIG FANS’, AND SHOOK HIS BIG SQUISHY HAND. THAT WAS NICE” were “very in her style… it was very free thought in a way, like writing lines without thinking about what the next line’s gonna be.” The lyrics, thankfully, met with Ono’s total approval.

The band have been serial collaborators over the past decade: Lily Allen, Robyn, Dizzee Rascal, Siouxsie Sioux, and JC Chasez of N*Sync have all made appearances on tracks; but it’s the largely unknown Meshell Ndegeocello for whom Ratcliffe reserves most praise, for her work on the Kish Kash album. “I think we felt quite honoured to have her, because that was the first time we felt like we’d worked with a proper inverted commas ‘musician’… she’s kinda soul, jazz; she’s an amazing instrumentalist.”

As well as releasing their own material on XL and Atlantic Jaxx, touring and Djing, the band have also found time to remix other artists’ material, most notably Missy Elliot’s ‘4 My People’ and Daft Punk’s ‘Phoenix’. Ratcliffe prefers creating Basement Jaxx’s music to remixing other artists’, even though remixing is often a more straightforward process. “Remixing is good if you’ve got a great song there… that’s half the problem really, half the battle.” Usually other artists look for a club version of their song which means that, for the duo, “your path is carved in a way. You know what you’ve got to do.”

However, when it comes to making Basement Jaxx tracks, it’s not as clear cut: “I mean a lot of problems with Basement Jaxx is that we don’t quite know what we’re supposed to do, or we think we should do, or what we want to do, because we tried so many different styles and we’re known to be quite diverse. It’s always hard making up our minds what direction to go in.”

The direction the band took in 2004 proved to be the right one, as the duo won a Grammy Award for Best Electronic/Dance Album for Kish Kash.

Ratcliffe describes their win as “a surprise” and reveals that he very nearly didn’t go to the awards ceremony. “I didn’t really have much awareness of the Grammys to be honest, I wasn’t sure if it was something for music or for film. I get confused with these awards things.” Luckily, however, Buxton felt the two should go to the ceremony, where they were among stars like Andre 3000 of Outkast “and God knows who; basically the top musicians in the world from every department, every category. I thought, ‘Wow, this is pretty good.’”

The pair also blagged their way into an afterparty - “I mean, you have to blag so much” – and found themselves among Quentin Tarantino, Nelly and Usher. “We felt like tourists watching it all, you know. But that was exciting, yeah. We had a good night.”

The same night as the Grammy win the pair also met legendary producer, and now co-chairman of Columbia Records, Rick Reuben, in a little pizza place. “We were about to leave, and then we said, ‘Hey, who’s that in the corner?’ And there’s this huge bearded man, by himself at a table in the corner, just eating. And we went up to him and said, ‘Hey, we just got a Grammy and we’re big fans’, and shook his big squishy hand.

That was nice.”

Basement Jaxx have reportedly had a royal fan dance on stage with them, if rumours are to be believed. This summer a story ran in The London Paper declaring Prince Harry to have danced on stage in a monkey suit, at the O2 Wireless Festival in Hyde Park. Ratcliffe neither confirms nor denies this rumour: “We’ve been asked if we could just not say yes or no either way… He wasn’t otwo

29.09.09

there, and he might have been!”

Basement Jaxx seem to recognize the importance of their image and how it’s communicated to fans, whether it is through videos or album artwork. Ratcliffe says that the videos “are very important; obviously you’re in the hands of a director, and they’re going to make something that’s going to represent you around the world, so it’s a very delicate subject.” For the memorable ‘Where’s Your Head At?’ video, directed by Tractor and featuring the band’s faces morphed onto instrument-playing simians, Basement Jaxx were already big fans of the director so “we just let them get on with it, basically… Most other videos we have don’t have quite so much trust and faith in the director.”

The artwork for the new album is bright, colourful and features an owl’s head on a human body – cross-species morphing is evidently a recurring theme – brightly attired in a variety of items with a tribal feel, set against a mountainous background. Ratcliffe explains the artwork: “It’s basically the world today being a mishmash of cultures… everything’s a hybrid, everything’s interconnected; like music, a lot of music we hear is tribal, but it’s got this modern sheen on it.” He goes on.

“There’s a thing coming out now: hippies with iPhones, you know? It’s this modern world today. I don’t know what I’m trying to say but that seems to represent the world, and hopefully our music at the moment is the colour clashes that go on that record cover.”

A mish-mash of sounds, the album looks set to be another hit for the Jaxx and will keep their fans them dancing in a perpetual summer, though more and more raindrops will undoubtedly fall.

Fashion: 16

FASHION

T-Shirts An often unconscious combination of style and expression, Seán McGovern looks at the style, meaning and importance of the humble t-shirt

A

staple of college style, the t-shirt is simultaneously a basic fashion item, and one of the most important pieces of statement clothing in anyone’s wardrobe. From the beginning of the 1980s, the t-shirt has evolved from its original purpose of being simply an undergarment to something of individual expression.

The t-shirt itself is now as prized for originality as a designer garment for its exclusivity – and as a result of its simplicity, the focus has shifted from what a shirt is made of to what it displays.

If it’s a niche market you’re after, it’s best to find places that deal with particular graphic designers, themes and motifs. Red Eye in Temple Bar deals specifically in t-shirts of their own design, as well as brands like Royal T with a refined penchant for retro video games. Stock varies from Jamaican themes to old TV shows and witty takes on contemporary artwork, particularly Banksy. Red Eye also deal with customers’ individual prints - simply bring designs of your own choosing.

On the high street, meanwhile, Topman is one of the best places to get genuinely interesting, witty and intriguing prints. The only downside is that its availability reduces its exclusivity.

The t-shirt serves as much as statement clothing as it does with a retrospective of pop culture of the previous decades. As the 2000s near a close, the nostalgia of the 1990s becomes something many of us can relate to, and the years that pass between decades allow certain pop culture trends to become more evident. Space Invaders, the classic

arcade game from the 1980s, is now joined by the Street Fighter franchise from the 1990s as a witty retrospective of pop culture revisited in contemporary times.

Glenn Jones of Glennz.com recognises how the t-shirt is not just a fashion item but an item of informative expression – it is, essentially, the individual uniform.

“Maybe en masse it can have some power, but I think usually its just an individual thing, [it] gives the wearer an opportunity to express something. I guess sometimes if the wearer is a high profile person then that message can go a long way.”

Jones feels that the t-shirt is “one of those things that will always be in fashion; everyone has different taste so t-shirts give them a way to express their personality”.

The simplistic design will always last, he feels, but the imagery involved will always vary and evolve, depending on the designer and the individual wearer. “The thing about t-shirts is that anything goes. One man’s trash is another one’s treasure.”

Madonna, Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs and Spike Lee are just a few famous faces who were seen wearing Obama t-shirts during the 2008 American Election, effectively making their opinions visible. The Obama “Hope” poster made its way on to t-shirts in such a flurry that any celebrity seen in either the ‘Hope’ or ‘Barack the Vote’ t-shirt was a tremendous means of endorsement for the Obama campaign. This simple garment was as an integral part of the campaign, as much as any public appearance, speech and advisor. It served not just as functional fashion, but as one of the few instances of politics and fashion combined, as well as proof that the effects of fashion should never be underestimated. otwo

There are many reliable and original websites dealing specifically with original designed t-shirts, though naturally the types and tones will vary from site to site - many focus on graphic design as means of expression, others on irony and wordplay, and others feature daringly explicit themes.

There is a particular danger when brandishing a slogan, that although may be quite humourous, is intend29.09.09

ed to offend. The difficulty with risqué slogans is that they are difficult to pull off without seeming crass, lazy and stupid. The Jean Scene’s examples like ‘Nice legs, what time do they open?’ are to be avoided at all costs...

Hairybaby.com is an Irish t-shirt site with a firm tongue-in-cheek attitude to its designs. Their products have a distincive Irish humour, as a response to the disdain the site’s

FASHION

17

Model: David Reilly Photographer: Colin Scally Stylist: Seán McGovern All featured t-shirts available from Red Eye, 4 Crow St, Temple Bar, Dublin 2.

Don’t just seek them out in the city – Seán McGovern looks at the best t-shirt deals and designs online creators felt about the absence of any t-shirts with an Irish comedic lilt. As the site’s reference to the offspring of Craggy Island milkman Pat Mustard would suggest, their best offerings include Father Ted themed designs, particularly a ‘vintage’ 2001 Lovely Girls Festival judge’s tee. A comprehensive range of men’s and women’s styles include homages to Terminator (‘Beidh mé ar ais’), the late Patrick Swayze

(‘Ní chuireann aon duine baby sa chúine’) as well as the mandatory ‘I Shot JR’ tee.

Glennz.com, dually based in New Zealand and Texas, let their images do the talking, with incredibly witty uses of imagery incorporating a mix of pop culture. Glenn Jones, owner and designer with his otwo

online company had a few opinions about the t-shirt as fashion item and phenomenon.

For Jones, designing a t-shirt was finding a combination of what works and what people wanted to see. “After a while I was able to understand what out of my work people like to see on a tee- pop culture and parody”, he explains.

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As it deals primarily with design rather than construction, the online t-shirt industry is one of the most expansive of all online fashions, with niche markets dealing from vintage band t-shirts and TV parodies and cult films. Like most things in fashion, finding the right tee is simply a matter of looking around and figuring out what most appeals to your own sense of humour.

18

FASHION

Fashion Voxpops Sophie What are you wearing and where did you get it?

I’m wearing shoes from H&M, my jacket was from Russia. My trousers are from River Island and I got my t-shirt in Prague. I stole my waistcoat from my friend.

with Katie-Ann McDonagh

Sarah What are you wearing and where did you get it?

I got my wonder woman top in TopShop. I got my shoes in Topshop too and I got my bag from Shoe Zeta.

What’s the best fashion bargain you have ever found?

I got these big chunky baby pink heels in Armagh for €20.

What’s the most expensive thing you own?

My River Island coat cost €210.

What do you think is UCD’s biggest fashion faux pas?

I don’t get when fellas wear shorts when it’s not really that warm out.

What’s the best fashion bargain you have ever found?

I got these vintage cowboy boots in Paris for €20.

What is the most expensive item of clothing you own?

I have a €500 jacket from Charlie. It’s grey, long and kinda silver.

What do like least about fashion?

Abercrombie & Fitch.

Ellen What are you wearing and where did you get it?

The boots I got on sale in BT2.

My bag I picked up in Oxfam for a tenner. The jeans I got in Kerry and I got the dress in Penneys.

What is the best fashion bargain you have ever found?

There used to be this fantastic shop on Grafton street called Peter Blang and before they closed I got a bag for €20 that was originally €170.

What’s the most expensive thing you own?

My Debs dress, and I will never spend that much money again.

It was about €540, but it was a once-off and it was worth it.

What do you think is UCD’s biggest fashion faux pas?

The Uggs and the fake tans are our reputation, is but I don’t think there is much expression in the way people dress around here. I’m in Ag so everyone wears GAA jerseys!

Gillian What are you wearing and where did you get it?

My trousers are from Topshop. My top and my bag are from Urban Outfitters. I also got my cardigan from Topshop.

How would you describe your style?

Cool. I don’t know, I put on whatever I want.

What’s the best fashion bargain you have ever found?

I got shoes from Penneys for €3.

What’s the most expensive piece of clothing you own?

My Debs dress, it was like €700.

What do you think is UCD’s biggest fashion faux pas?

Uggs, massive man bags and the big back-combed hair on the top of the head.

Tongue-in-chic This week, Seán McGovern tackles the unmentionable: underwear Any woman with any respect for her future and the future of her breasts will know that it is vital to invest in a good bra. Lace and ribbon detail come second to the fact that they must be supported for years and years to come, so that they remain two identifiable mammory glands and not one big, slumping tumour somewhere between navel and crotch. This is a fact that every girl needs to know – if your mother never told you this, shame on her, and you maybe would have been better off in care at a young age, a fate that would

not be of harm to Kerry Katona’s children.

This same rule applies to men.

No, there should not be a device to hold in moobs; they shouldn’t exist in the first place. What is essential to remember is that, like the nose, there are certain elements of a man’s body that will continue to grow throughout life – become more and more pendulous as time increases, and no man wants to get his scrotum caught in his sock.

Men’s underwear is designed with a pouch in the front for a reason, and it’s not to hold your otwo

wallet. Alas, there are innumerable men out there who find buying underwear an arduous, agonising task. They seem to buy the biggest, loosest piece of pelvis-shaped nylon they can buy, as if to take absolutely all emphasis away from the fact that things need to be held in place.

God forbid the checkout woman in Dunnes knows you actually have genitals.

It seems that genitals only exist in Brown Thomas, where the price tag of Aussie Bums reflect the size of what they’re cupping.

Underwear shopping should not be 29.09.09

a toiling, gruelling and humiliating experience. Nor should it resort in not being able to eat for a week as a result of having some guy’s name written on the waistband. No – if you want to just have a normal, proportionate package, just make sure that there’s good support; it’ll help when you’re chasing the 46A. Have a look at the stock in H&M, it’s nice in both style and structure.

Don’t just do it for yourself, but do it for your future children, before your genitals turn into a medieval torture device. Act now, act fast.

Your balls are on the line.

FILM & TV

19

RUNAWAY SUCCESS Seán McGovern catches up with season six of the fashionista’s reality soap opera, Project Runway Beginning its sixth season on Sky1, Project Runway has changed its location but retains the one aspect that places it above all other competitive reality TV shows: talent.

Season six relocates the action from New York to Los Angeles, and while it may seem like an unlikely place to create individual fashions, LA features a larger fabric district and just as many opportunities to feature fashions based on their locations.

Some things have remained the same. The beautiful and often shrill Heidi Klum still speaks too loudly at the contestants, and tweets and whirs her little comments about the designs. Bitchat-large Nina Garcia and Michael Kors are still making the contestants jump through hoops, and design mentor Tim Gunn coins as many catchphrases as ever.

The show is as inventive as always.

The designers display their individual talents in episode one by making a red carpet dress and by episode two are given the task to create a chic maternity dress for actress Rebecca Romijn. Even the eliminated contestants earn a huge amount of credibility; the first eliminees in previous series being invariably

nutty.

Project Runway tries to bring a human element to the contestants, but when times get tough, there’s no sad music to emphasise the fact that yes, the contestants are upset. They all come from different backgrounds; some have worked in fashion before, others have not. The ambition is conveyed not in how the show is constructed, but in the designs they

create.

It’s Project Runway’s credibility has made it last. Christian Siriano, winner from season four, was a contestant who not only had a fully rounded personality but also immense talent. Since winning Project Runway he has launched his own line and his current autumn/ winter collection is sold in Saks Fifth Avenue. Project Runway is not exploitative of the contestants’ talent, nor does it portray characters as villains for entertainment’s sake.

Conflicts simply arise and occur as they would in any high-pressure situation.

But let’s be honest: Tim Gunn is Project Runway. With an accent like Lloyd Grossman taking the piss, the mentor has been one of the most entertaining aspects of the show.

“Make it work” will be inscribed upon his grave. Gunn makes words like ‘consternation’ sound exciting, while injecting Tectonic witticisms like ‘sturm und drang’.

The delicate balance of talent and entertainment make Project Runway something of a rarity. Whether you like fashion or not, a viewer can not help to be engrossed in the flurry of creativity onscreen. This is reality television with a brain; how often can we say that?

THEORETICAL GENIUS Gavan Reilly gets his head around The Big Bang Theory While more well-known American output like 30 Rock and Mad Men were the main headline grabbers at last week’s Primetime Emmy Awards, one cult series with a rapidly-growing fanbase managed to grab its first major nominations at any awards ceremony, and is slowly making an impact on mainstream consciousness with its snappy dialogue and smart nods to modern culture.

The Big Bang Theory, created by Chuck Lorre of How I Met Your Mother fame, tells the story of physicists and roommates Sheldon Cooper and Leonard Hofstadter, whose feelings of intellectual superiority are thrown into chaos when attractive waitress Penny moves into the empty apartment across the hall. Sheldon’s utter lack of humility and idiosyncratic need for routine act as a comic foil when juxtaposed against Penny’s social savvy and stereotyped bimbo ways.

Leonard, harbouring a deep crush on Penny, tries to mediate between the two and invariably sees his romantic ambitions frustrated by his faultless honesty and Sheldon’s incessant complaints, as well as the sleaziness and sheer ineptitude respectively of colleagues Howard and Raj. Though the general concept of the show is not an original one – pretty girl, socially inept boys, romance is stifled and hilarity ensues – there are refreshing modern touches to the lifestyle the characters lead.

The show knowingly namedrops references to Facebook and MySpace otwo

status updates, and has even evolved over its relatively brief history to include more modern references to Twitter and Kindle. The four men even have their own real-life Twitter

pages, smartly synchronised with the narrative of the show, tapping intelligently into the market the show is predominantly aimed at.

Don’t be dissuaded by the obvious geekiness of the topics discussed by 29.09.09

the four men; while obviously having their scientific passions, they have their modern indulgences like fast food, paintballing and Rock Band; and Penny’s everyday take on their own complicated subjects, cutely amplified by her slow integration into their own geeky world, keeps the content universally appealing. The whole package is neatly wrapped together by witheringly wry put-downs and an absurdly entertaining ensemble cast. TBBT is certainly worth investigation for nerds and bimbos alike – besides, if ever geek chic was at its zenith, these are its golden days, and The Big Bang Theory is a cracking embodiment of how inclusive it can be.

Series 3 of The Big Bang Theory began in the U.S. last week; the first two series air regularly on Channel 4 and RTÉ Two.

FILM & TV

Reviews

20

UP Released: 9th October Cast: Christopher Plummer, Delroy Lindo, Edward Asner Directors: Pete Docter, Bob Peterson It is difficult to fathom how a company like Pixar can maintain such a high quality with each new film (we’ll ignore Cars). Apart from the obvious technological improvements with each new release, the team manage to come up with more and more unique stories each year. In recent years the team has been moving away from more obvious children film set-ups like “What if toys/ insects/cars could talk?” to slightly more obscure plots such as “What if the last robot on Earth had to pull an Al Gore and show everybody the errors of their environmental ways?”

Up, directed by the creator of underrated

Monsters Inc, is arguably the most bizarre addition to the Pixar library. We follow Carl Frederickson, a grouchy 70-something-year-old man who decides to fulfil a life-long ambition of travelling to South America. To accomplish this he releases thousands of balloons from his chimney and, paired reluctantly with a seven year old Boy Scout named Russell, goes on an epic quest meeting a strange bird and talking dogs.

If you upset easily, you may want to take note that the opening ten minutes had grown men in tears awkwardly trying to dry their eyes behind their 3D glasses. While Up is a children’s film at heart there are some very serious themes dealt with, which may go over baby’s head but will hit his parents like a ton of bricks. It’s this switch back and forth from deadly serious to absolutely hilarious that should be commended, as the film avoids talking down to kids – but for all its

THE INVENTION OF LYING Released: Out Now Cast: Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Rob Lowe, Tina Fey Directors: Ricky Gervais, Matthew Robinson For the uninformed, The Invention of Lying, cowritten and co-directed by The Office star Ricky Gervais, presents us with a world where everyone tells the truth all the time. There is no fiction, flattery or anything that requires bending or stretching fact. Gervais, an overweight loser – he’s really stretching himself as an actor – looking for love, invents the lie. What follows is, in one line, “what would you do if you were the only person who could lie?” And yes, it’s the obvious stuff;

trick people into sleeping with you and giving you money.

Clearly there’s loads of room for comedy in a world where everyone is uncomfortably blunt about everything. For instance, the Coca-Cola slogan is “It’s very famous” and the Pepsi one is “for whenever they don’t have Coke”. Gervais plays his standard character – the one you either like or hate.

Then there’s the most interesting part of the film, a part the trailer never touches on and an aspect that makes this film notable in general.

The film, bizarrely enough, swiftly diverges into tame blasphemy when Gervais, in effect, makes up Christianity. In an effort to comfort a dying loved one he makes up a fictitious afterlife which sounds suspiciously like heaven. Everything then otwo

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serious foundation, Up is still a Pixar-patented comedy adventure with the hilarious dynamic of Russell and Carl. This genius combination provides plenty of laughs throughout their jungle adventure.

Up is also the stage to show off Pixar’s step into the world of 3D glasses. In all honesty, it seems a bit unnecessary. The colourful world that they’ve produced is amazing, and it is cool to be able to see it in perspective, but the additional money it will set you back just isn’t worth it. All in all, the characters may not be as memorable as those in other Pixar releases but the story will be difficult to forget.

In a nutshell: A spectacular and

unexpectedly thought provoking addition to the stellar Pixar collection.

Conor Barry

gets all Life of Brian when he claims to the masses of followers that the Man in the Sky is giving him all this information.

Meanwhile – in our world – Creation, a film that charts the life of Darwin, has been banned from release by the American censors because of fears of offending religious groups; yet this film essentially claims that Gervais is making up Christianity, mocking his naïve followers for comic effect. The American censors though, aren’t batting an eyelash. Not that they should; just food for thought.

In a nutshell: An unfortunately obvious rom-com with a pretty funny gimmick that gets tired quickly, and actually more interesting as religious commentary.

Conor Barry

FILM & TV

THE CRIMSON WING Released: Out Now Directors: Matthew Aeberhard and Leander Ward No doubt green-lighted following the enormous success of 2005’s Oscar-winning March of the Penguins, The Crimson Wing takes another ornithological rarity, this time the flamingoes of northern Tanzania, charting their journey from birth to death, taking in their extraordinary surroundings of Lake Natron and its neighbouring volcano, Ol Doinyo Lengai (‘mountain of God’).

With stunning shots of the birds in flight married to an appropriately rousing score from the Cinematic Orchestra, the film is graced with moments of undeniable beauty. However, there are only so many repetitive shots of the flamingos a lay audience can endure without succumbing to tedium, and with a mere 75 minutes’ running time, tedium is not something you would expect.

The film is the first feature to be released by Disneynature, a subsidiary studio specialising in nature documentaries. Its origins seem appropriate, given the first words heard in the film are “Once upon a time...” and that Marabou Storks, predators of the flamingoes’ defenceless young, are introduced as being like “storybook witches”.

Such fairytale allusions may succeed in pleasing youngsters, but those expecting a more scholarly dissection of the animals’ lifestyle will be disappointed.

Which brings us to the question of what The Crimson Wing’s target audience might be. There is little to

21

Films with Questionable Endings differentiate the final product from an Animal Planet documentary, and television or DVD may have been a more fitting environment than the cinema. Mainstream audiences might find it too light on drama to be involving, and so in truth it’s difficult to know who the film was made for.

Its final subtitle, telling us how pollution poses an enormous threat to the life of these birds also seems slightly incongruous, given that all we’ve seen for the preceding duration of the film – from the aforementioned Marabou Storks to the salt shackles that form around the feet of the baby chicks (bearing an uncanny resemblance to Ugg boots) – would suggest the biggest threat to these animals is nature itself.

Fans of all things small and fuzzy will adore the early scenes of the chicks hatching and their subsequent attempts to walk, and it does at least avoid for the most part the religious allusions that many felt hampered March of the Penguins. Nonetheless, given the rather esoteric nature of the documentary’s content, its theatrical release is questionable.

In a nutshell: One for nature enthusiasts only.

Padraic Coffey

Hancock The amusing premise of this film – an obnoxious alcoholic superhero gets rebranded by a PR firm – suddenly derails halfway through. With the writer apparently abducted by aliens leaving the script unfinished, we are treated to a bizarre assortment of fight scenes, laser guided amnesia and lunar vandalism.

Pretty in Pink Have a best friend who is always there for you? Makes you laugh when you are sad, always sticks up for you when other tear you down, is madly in love with you but just wants to see you happy? Well, screw him! Go for the hot guy, he only treats you bad because he loves you so much.

Signs This is a standard alien movie until it attempts to have a plot. The aliens are allergic to water. What sort of planning procedure was there for this invasion?

Were there any documents produced on the problems of invading somewhere that is over 70% made of your greatest weakness? The aliens also appear to have mastered space travel without first mastering the door; Mel Gibson defeats one by locking it in a cupboard.

Clueless This charming chick-flick ends with the heroine dating her step-brother.

Nothing like incest to grind a movie to a halt.

A.I. Started by Kubrick and completed by Spielberg, this movie is a schizophrenic mix of the sickeningly sentimental and the horrifyingly tragic. It finishes with a morale-sapping 20-minute series of endings. It feels like Spielberg filmed multiple outcomes in order to allow more freedom in post production but then, paralyzed by indecision, just layered them on like a big misery sponge cake.

Lord of the Rings Another film suffering from multiple endings disorder. Finding out what each surviving character does every day for rest of their life takes nearly as long as the preceding movie, without a single orc to lighten the mood.

The Witches The dark ending was removed for the film version and replaced with a witch who magicked everything better. Gives a warm fuzzy feeling inside. Oh wait, that’s vomit. Roald Dahl himself hated the ending so much that he stood outside cinemas with a megaphone shouting at people not to see it.

40 Days and 40 Nights A mildly amusing film, nothing anyone would actually pay for but not offensively bad... until the end that is.

Josh Hartnett has given up sexual activity for lent. On his final day, he gets raped and spends the rest of the film begging his girlfriend to forgive him for cheating on her, teaching us the important lesson that rape is both funny, and your own fault. Thanks Hollywood!

otwo

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The Breakfast Club A classic teen film from the 80s that taught us that people are more than their stereotypes. We learned that the popular kids and the outcasts have more in common than they thought, and could maybe even fall in love. Except for nerds.

They do everyone’s homework and die alone.

I Am Legend The original novel was a zombie story with a difference: As the story progresses the hero gains a deeper understanding of humanity leaving him and the audience to wonder who is truly the monster.

The film version has Will Smith explodes stuff. Awesome.

Emer Sugrue

22

FILM & TV

movin’ on up In the first of a two-part series, resident film buff Conor Barry talks to the brains behind Disney Pixar’s latest movie Up. First up (ahem) is director Pete Docter

P

ixar are known for their unconventional film concepts. Their latest, Up, may be the strangest of all: an elderly widower uses his house as a transportation device to fulfil a childhood dream of adventuring to South America. This is clearly not your standard children’s film fare. otwo caught up with director Pete Docter to get the inside scoop on this strange idea.

“It actually evolved from another that was even more bizarre, so when we landed on the old man and the floating house, that seemed a little tame by comparison,” reminisces Docter.

“And I think the important thing was that we had already arrived at an emotional foundation when you met this guy as a kid. And I think that’s what really landed the story; by the time he floats his house away you’re like, ‘yeah, that’s great!’, and that’s important.”

One of the major appeals of any Pixar film is that they aim for both kids and adults. This is taken to the extreme in Up with the first ten minutes producing more tears than laughs. Was Docter consciously catering to both children and adults? “Not really,” he admits. “I mean, we know there are going to be kids watching, starting with my own, so I definitely had that in the back of my head.”

No; instead Docter seems to be aiming much closer to home. “I’m the first audience,” laughs Docter, “so I’m trying to entertain myself and the other guys I’m working with. It’s a very collaborative group effort so I’m making sure that [co-director] Bob Peterson and my close collaborators are all having a good time. At some point, like every four months, we show it to the other directors and if those guys fall asleep we know we’ve got some issues.”

A noticeable point about Docter’s backlog of films (which includes the underrated, by Pixar standard, Monsters Inc.) is that he tends to include children in his films. I was curious to see how difficult it was to work with newcomer Jordon Nagai who provides the voice for naive sidekick Russell. “We’ll do the copy game where

we’ll be like, ‘Say it like this’, and we’ll do it and he’ll do it back. Then we’ll say, ‘Louder!’ That was especially true of Nagai. He was seven when we started and he had never acted before. We just liked his voice; he had a very sweet kind of innocent voice. To get him to some of the places we needed in the film was not easy.” But the effort shows with Nagai giving one of the most realistic child performances in recent memory. “I think the way we originally wrote it was quite different and it just wasn’t playing; we couldn’t get what we wanted from Jordan. So we rewrote it to better suit the type of kid he was, and that’s where we ended up.

So, it’s by listening to the actors and sensing what works and what doesn’t. You know, the actors themselves affected the characters quite a bit.”

would take – and we figured it out – twentythree-and-a-half million balloons to lift the house. And that would be impossible to blow them up and tie them to the roof. Even then it would probably rip the chimney out as opposed to flying the house.

“So we needed to create a world in which a floating house was possible. If you shoot everything with tons of detail and sound and dialogue and everything, to me that’s not as affecting as taking some things away. So in the end we ended up making it fairly stylised; we stripped away all the dialogue and in doing so, I think – the same with the design, even by stripping away and caricaturing design – you encourage the audience to imbue the character in the movie with a little bit more of their own. They’re able to project their own ‘what are they talking about here?’ or ‘what happened right before that?’ And it becomes more alive in their own head than had I just fed them everything.”

‘‘It would takeand we figured it out- twentythree-and-ahalf million balloons to lift the house’’

Pixar are known for pushing the boundaries of CGI technology and Up is no different.

The film goes for a purposely simplistic style that was anything but easy to program.

Why did Docter decide to go for this drawing style of animation? “Here’s my thinking. Okay, it’s a film about a guy who ties balloons to his house and floats away.

And you could do this in live action special effects, you can try to tell the same story in live action. But I don’t know that you’d ever quite fully accept it unless you made it a kind of [Monty Python artist] Terry Gilliam-stylised world. It otwo

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Pixar have always made more than just children’s films, but they gained a new respectability recently when they became the first animated film to open the Cannes Film Festival. At this stage does Docter accept that his films are being viewed as ‘art’?

“I think the line between the two is blurry,” he contends, “because I always feel like art is entertainment – and I know that might sound kind of weird, or crass, but it’s about communication; so even though it’s an ink splotch on a canvas, if it doesn’t say something to the audience that’s looking at it, I don’t really get it.

It has to speak somehow and the audience has to look at it and go, ‘I’m affected by this’. ”

FILM & TV

A TALE OF A TUB New Late Late Show host Ryan Tubridy graces the Belfield campus once more in this brief interlude with Colin Sweetman

“N

EVER SLAG ARTS STUDENTS!”

Yes, after battles of pens and swords, Ryan Tubridy

“Boys in the West of Ireland tryin’ to get out of a small town to the Big Schmoke” – well, it looks like they’ve made it! Jake O’Brien sits down with the Hardy Bucks’ Buzz and The Boo

“S

ound.” After only a mere moment in the room Buzz pipes up with a request: “Can I grab one o’ dem rollies there?” Upon this, The Boo smoothes his way into a seat and makes a demand of his co-star and friend: “Roll one for me cause I can’t roll… C’mon!” Buzz’s response is less than polite but rurally playful.

“Fuck ye!”

Getting down to business, we delve into the group’s prospects after winning the RTÉ Storyland competition, and it would seem that Channel 4 might also have plans for them. “Well, that’s only a rumour like,” says The Boo, “You know the way rumours spread… we’re tryin’ to get somethin’ with Channel 4.

There’s a person over there at the moment showing them our pilot – so hopefully we get somethin’.”

gleefully imparts this information to any newbies not yet acquainted with the humble scholar of the Arts. “Just don’t do it,” intervened

Indeed. We do know how rumours spread: straight from the mouths of The Hardy Bucks in their Astra Hall Performance only minutes earlier. Nonetheless, these are sincere gentlemen; very honest characters altogether. It is evident from the fact that Buzz is still shaking with nerves from the show and The Boo is equally petrified.

Putting anxious sentiments to one side the subject of Hardy Bucks’ similarity to Canada’s own Trailer Park Boys is raised and squashed with equivocal speed. “They copied us!” was Buzz’s quick response, whereas The Boo retained an obviously more prepared answer to this evidentially common question.

“There’d be more of a connection with The Office now in fairness… it’s just a coincidence that it looks like Trailer Park Boys. The Office would be more of a genuine representation.”

At this point the smoke clears and the distinct lack of sincerity from time to time rises to the fore. Yet what is interesting here is that there is no malevolence present. There are no contrived notions of secrecy with this bunch; only a wish to play with your head and make you laugh.

Turning honest, The Boo tells us his favourite moment while filming Hardy Bucks. “I enjoyed the campotwo

that familiar voice. “Because most people who go to this college are, so you’re going after a majority when you do that.”

However, he is not informing us of past occurrences with Arts students, he is speaking on behalf of them. With a degree in History and Greek & Roman Civilisation, Tubs is ‘one of them’ - or conversely, ‘one of us’. Of course, this depends on your educational background…

Despite this, he is widely regarded for his presenter status, and not for his knowledge in the chronicles of Ancient Rome. In his first outing as host of The Late Late Show, Tubridy made a barbeque out of An Taoiseach Brian Cowen in what was in some viewer’s minds the grilling of the summer.

Regardless of the media’s representation of how bad or good it was swallowed by either men, Tubridy felt that it “went very well…both myself and Mr Cowen were very happy with the outcome and were pleased to have done [the interview]”.

There is a definite feeling of satisfaction with the new host, who

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brought in over 1.6 million viewers during the course of the two-hour show. “It’s been an amazing experience and I love it. People keep coming up to me and saying ‘Good job, good job’ – and it just feels wonderful.”

Not all shows are without their proprietor’s stamp though. Tubridy, unlike Kenny, brought back the desk and the infamous line “one for everyone in the audience” – although sceptics are naturally sceptical about how long this will last. Other features included Tubridy’s house band with a slightly jazzier Late Late theme tune.

Did the Arts degree come in handy then after all? Or was it a combination of lacerating wit and good contacts? “I enjoyed studying here in UCD, and I still use what knowledge I gained here” – the proof that it was not entirely useless.

“I’d say ‘not to do nothing’ to new students, because it’s just better to do something with your time and to get involved in college life instead of just being bored, which is the alternative.”

MADDER THAN A BAG OF SPIDERS

site scene where we’re up pretendin’ to break up a campsite, that was good fun during… and it was fun after as well!” However, Buzz retains some ridiculous moments for himself. “Throwin’ a shlap to a Polish lad right after the camera was finished! [laughter ensues] Shtraightened his jaw, like… Took his nose clean off !”

Moreover, as a general consensus the boys agree that the Speed Dating episode was their best experience while making the show both on and off camera. “The Shpeed Datin’ was 29.09.09

the best… cause we were… very drunk.”

All in all, these lads are what we call Good People. They are genuinely funny boys from the West.

It will be incredibly interesting to watch their weird rise to fame, and be sure of one thing: they will get there. There is almost too much charisma subtly buried amongst the elongated phrases, bottles of Buckfast and Full Irish smoothies (Buzz’s own concoction).

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ICONS

otwo icon:

Bill Hicks

P

THE SEMINAL, OUTSPOKEN AND LEGENDARY COMEDIAN GETS THE ICON TREATMENT FROM SALLY HAYDEN

hilosopher, musician, poet, outsider, preacher, genius - Bill Hicks was always something more than a comedian. A man who aspired to be “Noam Chomsky with dick jokes”, Hicks was seen as many to be the antidote to the Reagan and Bush-controlled capitalist America of the late 80s and early 90s. Quick-witted and cynical, he was arguably the most probing and iconic voice of the period, a definite social commentator who wasn’t afraid to go against the tide of public opinion.

Born in 1961, Hicks grew up in the buckles of the Bible belt in Houston, Texas, “a strict Southern Baptist ozone”. He did have a relatively happy childhood, but the small-mindedness and bigotry he witnessed during this time would provide the fuel for his career as well as his lifelong pursuit of personal freedom and private epiphany.

Initially straight-edged, he started doing comedy gigs in clubs long before he was legally allowed to drink in them. At the age of 17 his parents sent him to a psychoanalyst who, bemused by his humour, reportedly decided “it’s them, not you”.

At 19, Hicks moved to Los Angeles and started working the stage at the Comedy Club, the embryonic home of Seinfeld and Leno. It was in LA that he had his first experience of drugs, dropping a hit of LSD in his apartment. Chain-smoking soon became an integral part of his act. His continued usage of both drink and drugs eventually led to him becoming a bit of a risk on the comedy circuit, though a worthy one at that. Even after giving up, he continued to champion the recreational use of cannabis and mushrooms.

From there he moved to New York and between 1987 and 1992 did an average of 300 shows a year.

While his audience share in the US remained modest, in England he became a full-blown phenomenon, selling out 2,000-seater theatres and being filmed for Channel 4. He earned the respect of the major kings of comedy – Letterman, Leno, Dennis Miller, Sam Kinison – earning the name “the comedian’s comedian”. He released two albums, Dangerous (1990) and Relentless (1992), and in 1993 was named a “Hot Stand Up Comic”

by Rolling Stone.

Although inarguably funny, Hicks wasn’t one for jokes. His act encompassed his personal view

on the world, his rebellion against the “United States of Advertising” where “freedom of expression is guaranteed if you’ve got the money”. In each performance his audience was taken on a ride from cynical to passionate expression, all interjected with a healthy sprinkling of dick jokes.

This idea – of the United States of Advertising reached a whole new level when, in October 1993, his routine was cut completely from The Late Show with David Letterman, allegedly because CBS were afraid of angering a pro-choice group who were showing commercials on the show at the time. In the removed section, Hicks suggested that if they were so pro-life, “why not protest

around graveyards?” He also questioned the wearing of crucifixes by Catholics and spoke of his idea for a new show, namely, “Lets Hunt and Kill Billy Ray Cyrus”.

He also had another aggravation in 1993, when former friend and comedian Denis Leary borrowed large chunks of his material in his album, ironically titled No Cure for Cancer. At least three comedians have gone on the record as saying that this was blatant copying, and their friendship ended abruptly as a result.

In June 1993 Hicks was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, starting a whole new whirlwind of activity into which he threw himself completely. His pace of touring and writing continued unabated, while he established a network of doctors on the way where he could receive chemotherapy. He was also recording a new album with Kevin Booth, and working on the pilot for a new show.

Before Christmas his health took a turn for the worse. He had to cancel a series of gigs in Caroline’s in New York, and returned to his parents’ house.

There he read Huckleberry Finn, said phone-call goodbyes to every friend and lover, declared he had said all there was to say, and stopped speaking.

Two weeks later he died.

“ Hicks suggested that if they were so pro-life, ‘why not protest around graveyards?’ ” otwo

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The very essence of real tragedy in a death comes when someone is lost who hadn’t yet made their full contribution to the world, and there is no question that Hicks had an astonishing amount left to give.

He fought against rules, regulations, the status quo and stagnation, and one wonders what his take would be on the world today – post-911, post-Bush II, post-Obama’s appointment, reality television and the real cult of celebrity.

Hick’s legacy however, isn’t forgotten. In a 2005 poll voted on by comedians, Hicks was ranked number thirteen in the Greatest Comedy Acts Ever. A Channel 4 poll placed him at number six. Radiohead’s album The Bends is dedicated to him, as is SPA’s self-titled album. He is mentioned in numerous songs, movies, and on his tenth anniversary was declared in a motion in the British Parliament as being “worthy of inclusion with Lenny Bruce and George Carlin in any list of unflinching and painfully honest political philosophers”.

FOOD & DRINK

Food & Drink with Colin Sweetman

25

TOP FIVE

The Two-Part Pour It’s the end of a long day, and you decide to settle down with a nice pint of Guinness. You wait patiently at the bar and say, in a most venerate approach, “pint of Guinness please”. But then, you slowly watch as the barman quickly cripples the most defining part of your day.

“Only in Dublin”, you think, as the slow realisation comes to you that the barman is not in fact a barman, and that your pint is not, indeed, a pint.

Sam Waters, a fellow UCD student and a man with many years in the trade, could teach them a thing or two about achieving the ‘Perfect Pint’, an art almost lost during the Celtic Tiger years.

From the tap:

1. Always use Guinness glass; never anything else.

2. Ensure the glass is at room temperature.

3. Tilt glass to a 45˚ angle.

4. Ensure that spout of tap never touches glass.

5. Aim flow of beer towards the harp logo until three-quarters full.

6. Leave it to settle for exactly one minute and twenty seconds.

7. Top off by pushing lever all the way back.

8. Let Guinness settle for thirty seconds before drinking.

You can also use this method when pouring from a can or bottle, but never drink directly from either.

Some Guinness cocktails: Black Velvet 16oz Guinness 16oz Cider (or champagne for the deluxe version) Most likely to be consumed: in Germany

snacks to eat after a heavy night out As the academic year progresses, the necessity of diligent study will become clear. However, this sharp realisation will most definitely be outweighed by the obvious advantages of an active social life for a few more months.

Here is a shortlist of food to keep the modern student half-awake in lectures and always up for a night out...

1 - Leftover Takeaway Leftovers, the cream of the crop... well, not really, but certainly necessary for survival. Picture living with a final year architecture student (hermit) and one of those odd people with a gym membership. 4am raids on their food press will yield little but jars of ‘instant muscle mass’ and 32-ounce coffee sachets. Disaster! This is where those lonely pieces of rice floating in three-day-old black bean sauce with a few soggy peppers for garnish become utterly appetising.

2 - Toast Simple, effective, and won’t cause any adverse reactions when mixed with what has come beforehand in the night. Can be dipped in tea to form a delicious, sloppy concoction.

3 - Pasta An instant carb load is a stalwart of the post-nightout recovery – and when mixed with bolognaise sauce, the results are delicious. However, it is also fraught with danger, and too many men (better than the author) have tried and failed to cook even the simplest of dishes after a heavy night on the town.

Things can go very wrong, very quickly: water boils over, saucepan boils dry, pasta fries to the brink of combustion while saucepan warps under the pressure of intense heat. An inattentive drunkard and a gas hob simply don’t mix, so cook with caution.

4 - Traditional Fry The traditional fry is well worth its place on this list for its lucid simplicity. A heavy night out can lead to a lot of confusion and head pains when you return home; a fry is often the last bastion of clarity (before you pass out on the floor looking for a stray sausage, that is). Unfortunately, risk often outweighs reward, and the idea is abandoned. This is usually the cause of one too many ‘waking up the entire apartment block by blitzing your sausage and rasher, in God knows how much butter’ fire alarm misadventures.

Black Bull 16oz Guinness 16oz Red Bull Most likely to be consumed: in Jamaica by world record-shattering athletes

Hangman’s Blood: 5oz Guinness 1oz gin 1oz rum 1oz whiskey 1oz brandy 1oz port 4oz Champagne

5 - Pancakes Bottom of the pile. Nothing like this should ever be tried, unless you enjoy waking up slumped over a mixing bowl – covered in a sticky mess of flour and eggs.

Most likely to be consumed: by deceased alcoholic poetry snob Anthony Burgess

Kevin Mulligan

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WEB

with Gavan Reilly If last fortnight‘s links aren’t still keeping you distracted during lectures, then never fear – otwo has found anot – Yo, it’s Kanye, I’m happy for you, I’mma let you finish, but the last WebWatch was the best WebWatch so far of all time! - … eh, well, yes. As you could probably have guessed, the last two weeks on the interwebs have been almost totally consumed by the latest mere du jour, the veritable bottomless pit of humour that is Kanye West’s VMA antics.

For those of you who are taking college a bit too seriously and haven’t left the library since orientation, let me recap: at the MTV Video Music Awards, 19-year-old Taylor Swift picked up the Best Female Video award (who knew videos had genders?

I thought all videos were of the Caster Semenya mode), for ‘You Belong With Me’ (http://short. ie/uo17). Miffed that Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’ (http://short.ie/ uo18) had been beaten, West stormed the stage to grab the mic

from Swift and declare Beyonce’s video one of the “best videos of all time” http://short.ie/uo19 for the incident. There is, of course, only one way the internet is going to respond to a multi-millionaire stealing a mic from a teenage country singer: to take the pure, unadulterated p*ss out of him.

Step forward the Interrupting Kanye meme – best showcased at (http://short.ie/uo20), with a fine collection assembled by urlesque. com, and the quick-domaingrabbing ImmaLetYouFinish. com (http://short.ie/uo21). If Kanye-baiting isn’t your kind of thing, http://short.ie/uo22 is the recommended crème de la crème.

On separate but similar themes, Know Your Meme (http://short. ie/uo23) catalogues the best internet fads of all time – Kanye newly among them – and explains them in a friendly format that will appeal to noobs and leets alike.

Ever wonder how long Longcat is?

(Hint: it’s not short.) http://short. ie/uo24 will reveal all.

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Which – stunningly Swiftly – leaves just enough time for F**k Yeah, 4Chan (http://short.ie/ uo25), which takes all the virusrisking, eyeball-offending risk out of browsing the world’s least trustworthy comic shock site, 4chan.org; F My Life (http://short.

29.09.09

ie/uo26), the year’s hottest thingsare-crap-with-my-life archive; and Damn Interesting, which is, well… bloody intriguing to say the least (http://short.ie/uo27).

If you have any links to share with WebWatch, drop us a line – webwatch@universityobserver.ie.

MUSIC

SEAN KINGSTON

KATE WALSH

DAVID GERAGHTY

Album: Tomorrow Rating: D-

Album: Light and Dark Rating: B-

Album: The Victory Dance Rating: B

Tomorrow is the somewhat optimistically titled second offering from Americanborn, Jamaican-raised crooner Sean Kingston. Hoping to emulate the formula of his 2007 eponymous debut, his mix of synth pop, reggae, rap and R&B offers an album of varying styles. In many instances much of the songwriting is laughable; second track ‘War’ will leave listeners cringing, as Kingston compares his lust for a woman to military service, declaring “It’s like I’m trying to die just to get with you/Feel like you’re putting me through World War II”.

Light and Dark is the third album from Brighton’s Kate Walsh, who tells of tragic love and heartbreak in much the same harmonies as saw her past albums well. Her ability to hauntingly sing through her painful reflection of love lost encourages us to open up to our own fragility.

Opening ‘As He Pleases’ incorporates the clinking of xylophone and lapping of water with Walsh’s tender lament for her lost soul. ‘Gather My Strength’, the final song, closes the album just as it began – delicate, quiet and alluring, but there are some songs on the album that could be done without.

Following on from the album Kill Your Darlings released in 2007, Bell X1 guitarist David Geraghty has recently released his second solo album entitled The Victory Dance. As opposed to his debut album, The Victory Dance has more of a free, feelgood vibe, with some slow sets and romantic songs like ‘Soft Spot’ and the leading song ‘Tuesday’s Feet’.

Although the laid-back music in the majority of the songs lacks variety, the lyrics in each of the ten tunes are wellwritten and sung with great feeling.

Geraghty’s upbeat yet melancholic new album is bound to be a success in Ireland, if not internationally. Despite

In a nutshell: Kingston’s

Tomorrow won’t be so bright if he continues to produce output of this quality.

Shane Murphy

In a nutshell: Kate Walsh is such

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the fact that it takes a bit of getting into, The Victory Dance is worth a listen, just like the previous album.

In a nutshell: pleasant, but unspectacular.

Laura Kinsella

Reviews

a sentimental mess, it’s hard not to fall for her in some strange way.

Louise Carney

SIZE2SHOES Album: Size2Shoes Rating: B+ Limerick brothers Size2Shoes are tipped as the next big Irish band with a rapidly growing fan base that

even includes Russell Crowe. The acoustic pop of their first album is a type not yet tackled by an Irish band, and showcases their raw talent in every track with upbeat lyrics, mellow underlying tones, and catchy rhythms.

The generous use of Irish slang in each track lends Size2Shoes a unique quality

that sets them apart from their peers.

Though it’s strange to hear such strong Irish accents on such a colourful and creative album, the brothers’ potential is undoubtable. With their amazing ability to harmonise two contrasting voices, this album – and this band – are unlike anything that the Irish music

scene has produced before.

In a nutshell: Relaxed and

authentic sounding, yet striking. A great debut.

Claire Slevin

Album of the Fortnight MUSE Album: The Resistance Rating: A With The Resistance, Muse demonstrate exactly what makes them stand out from all other stadium rock bands. It’s the album that soundtracks college life; messages of resistance and rebellion are belted out over catchy melodies. This is clearly a Muse album, but it is Muse taken to a new level of polished sophistication.

‘Uprising’ establishes what is waiting for the listener, with Doctor-Who-style electronics over pulsating bass lines, while lead single ‘United States of Eurasia (+ Collateral Damage)’ combines a Queen-like falsetto with a Chopin nocturne as only Muse could. ‘I Belong to You’ is a self-

indulgent track creating a sense of fixation and obsession, which slowly takes hold and pulls the listener down. ‘Part Three’ is a gloriously textured orchestral work wrapped around Bellamy and his band. Closing triad, ‘The Exogenesis Symphony’, is a full three-movement work complete with luxurious strings and stunning piano control. A brilliant band at the top of their game.

In a nutshell: An essential to any music library.

Catherine Maguire

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Aries (March 21 – April 20) For your mid-term MCQ on Thursday, Derren Brown predicts the answers as a, b, d, d, a, a, d, b, a, and d. You should probably just drop out now.

ENCORE

The Arts Block Cat once again fails to take down the Dutch; beware your next fortnight’s fortunes may have suffered the consequences

Taurus (April 21 – May 21) Week four already, and what have you achieved? Another grand of mammy’s money down the drain. It’s about time you did something productive. Set up a pyramid scheme.

Gemini (May 22 – June 21) These deer entrails I’ve been using to predict your future aren’t being terribly helpful today. All I’m getting is... something to do with intestines?

Gig of the Fortnight: Boys Noize 01.10.09 – UCD Student Bar – €17

Whilst the name may mislead you into thinking that Boys Noize is some sort of a group effort, the tag ‘noize’ is certainly an accurate one. Alexander Ridha, the German techno wizard, boasts an incredibly impressive list of collaborators, having worked on music from Tiga and Para One to Feist and TUESDAY 29th September Dramsoc ‘Very Good Jeeves’ – Dramsoc Theatre LG1 – 1pm & 7pm – €2.50 & €3.00 Local Natives – The Academy €13.50 ‘The Birds’ – Gate Theatre – 8pm €27-35

6th October Dramsoc ‘An Ideal Husband’ – Dramsoc Theatre LG1 – 7pm €3 for members Jonathan Richman – The Village – €21 Andrew Stanley –The International Bar – Doors 9pm/ Show 9.30pm – €5

Virgo (August 24 – September 23) What the augurs tell me is strikingly clear and unambiguous: at some point in the not-too-distant future, you will attend a lecture of some sort.

THURSDAY

30th September

1st October

Health – The Village - €12 The Comedy Cellar – The International Bar – Doors 9pm / Show 9.30pm – €8 Students UCD Ents Mystery Tour – Who knows??? – €20 ‘The Birds’ – Gate Theatre – 8pm €27-35

Scorpio (October 24 – November 22) Yes; you’re right; of course gender is a social construct.

Besides, that skirt really shows off your legs.

Pisces (February 19 – March 20) Wear a raincoat tomorrow. No, wait – wear two. [If you’re reading this on Thursday, I hope you got good ‘n’ wet, serves you right.

]

7th October Dramsoc ‘An Ideal Husband’ – Dramsoc Theatre LG1 – 7pm €3 for members Massive Attack – The Olympia – €49.20 ‘Buck Jones and the Body Snatchers’ – Ionad an Phiarsaigh – 7:30pm – €18-25

Boys Noize – UCD Student Bar – €17 UCD Ents Thirsty Thursdays – XXI – €6/8 The Pixies – The Olympia - €54.80 Buck Jones and the Body Snatchers’ – Ionad an Phiarsaigh – 7:30pm – €18-25 8th October Dramsoc ‘An Ideal Husband’ – Dramsoc Theatre LG1 – 7pm €3 for members Editors – The Olympia – €28/30 Daft Funk – Student Bar – €6 in aid of SADS go on, it’s for charity!

Capricorn (December 23 – January 23) For the rest of objective reality, the under-car ankle-slicer is an urban legend. However, for you, he’s making an exception.

Cake is in your future.

Depeche Mode. Throw in remixes of Bloc Party and Kaiser Chiefs, with a fanbase that includes 2ManyDJs and Justice, and Boys Noize is bound to have something that will appeal to everyone. Such a variety of musical diversions only adds to his kinetic performances.

WEDNESDAY

Sagittarius (November 23 – December 22) There are two hundred euro worth of traffic cones sitting at the bottom of the lake, and they’ve got your name written all over them.

Aquarius (January 21 – February 19) It’s not that he’s not that into you; it’s just that you still aren’t texting him often enough. Up it another bit, maybe to six or seven an hour, and you’ll soon start seeing results.

Libra (Sept 24 – Oct 23)

Cancer (June 22 – July 23) All that peer pressure you’ve been studiously ignoring for the last six years? Well, sorry, but it was right.

[

Leo (July 24 – August 23) Bigger earrings!

That’s the path to true happiness!

Live, Boys Noize is not a gig for the casual bystander. It’s loud, it’s heavy, it’s in your face and it absolutely guarantees plenty of dancing and sweating as Ridha lets rip an unrelenting assortment of electro gems.

Eimear O’Reilly

FRIDAY 2nd October Dramsoc ‘Very Good Jeeves’ – Dramsoc Theatre LG1 – 1pm & 7pm – €2.50 & €3.00 Boys Noize – The Academy - €28.50 ‘Buck Jones and the Body Snatchers’ – Ionad an Phiarsaigh – 7:30pm – €18-25

SATURDAY 3rd October Speech Debelle – The Academy, Abbey St - €13.60 ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ – BBC One – FREE!!

TNA Wrestling – The O2 – 6:30pm – €33.60-81.00

SUNDAY

MONDAY

4th October

5th October

Nouvelle Vague – Tripod - €24.50 ‘Buck Jones and the Body Snatchers’ – Ionad an Phiarsaigh – 6:30pm – €18-25

9th October

10th October

11th October

Dramsoc ‘An Ideal Husband’ – Dramsoc Theatre LG1 – 7pm €3 for members Cowboy X – Whelans – €tbc Up – Cinemas citywide

Strictly Come Dancing – BBC One – FREE!!

‘The Birds’ – Gate Theatre – 8pm €2735 ‘Buck Jones and the Body Snatchers’ – Ionad an Phiarsaigh – 7:30pm – €18-25

National Coming Out Day – Price depends on your point of view…

‘Buck Jones and the Body Snatchers’ – Ionad an Phiarsaigh – 6:30pm – €18-25

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Dramsoc ‘An Ideal Husband’ – Dramsoc Theatre LG1 – 7pm €3 for members The King Kong Club Electrical Musical Gameshow – The Village - Free Admission ‘The Birds’ – Gate Theatre – 8pm €2735 12th October Dramsoc ‘Professor Taranne’ – Dramsoc Theatre LG1 – 7pm €3 for members