O-two Volume XVII Issue 8

O-two 1st FEB 2011 Issue 8 Vol. XVII

The University Observer’s Arts & Culture Supplement

MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE O-two talks to Mikey Way about being in a band of multi-million-selling rock stars and the secrets to their success

+inside > ARTS VS SCIENCE > FAN FICTION > TRUE GRIT > MOGWAI

Contents

O-two

03 REGULARS

14 HEADLINER

WHAT'S HOT WHAT'S NOT Too cool for school? A to the L to the I tells you WH&WN.

16 FILM

SOAPBOX The drab outlook of UCD is on O-two’s nerves this issue.

SHOW PATROL Events for you and your imaginary friends to attend, page 10.

04 COMMENT

Moan, groan and atone. Emer Sugrue gives her thoughts on what will happen in 2011.

05 SPIRITUAL & SEXUAL ADVICE

– Sexual Advice Editor Fadora McSexypants is here to calm your relationship worries.

– Chief Horoscopes Editor Mystic Mittens guides your through the Milky Way.

06 HEAD TO HEAD

–Arts and Science students clash as Kieran Murphy and Paul Gorman go head to head.

07 ATTEMPTS

– From ballooning complex in issue six to actual balloons, Alison Sneyd attempts hot air ballooning.

08 INTERVIEW

– Starting out in UCD and building a reputation for himself as a top Irish comedian, Anna Burzlaff chats to Jarlath Regan.

09 WEBWATCH

– A healthy dose of fanfiction with Steven Balbirnie and something brillz from Emer Sugrue, flick to Webwatch for interwebz stuff.

11 FASHION

– Trackies are out; smart slick looks are in, according to Sophie Lioe.

– UCD FADS latest fashion show is reviewed and O-two peers around campus for the latest styles.

1 February 2011

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– A fanboy article from Conor O’Nolan with My Chemical Romance fills our headliner slot this issue.

REVIEWS –A grammatically incorrect movie and two directors with full stops in their names (James L. Brooks and David O. Russell) feature this issue. True Grit, The Fighter and How Do You Know are all subjected to O-two’s rigorous critical analysis.

TOP TEN Children’s innocence protects them from movie inaccuracies and innuendo, reports Stephen Allen.

TV New HBO drama Boardwalk Empire reviewed and more fanboy-esque journalism with Firefly praised and heralded as the second coming.

20 GAMES

We get retro with Duck Hunt and examine the futility of pointless accessories.

21 MUSIC

INTERVIEWS – O-two get funky with Cloud Nothings, up with Cocophone, down with Florrie and chill with Mogwai.

SHUFFLE – The best movie tunes that tickled Sophie Lioe’s fancy.

WRITE LIKE APES – They’re back. They were never gone!

26 FOOD AND DRINK

– O-two’s chief food blog writer Elaine Lavery digests the best food blogs out there.

– O-two’s chief food aficionado Elaine Lavery dines in the presence of a VIP.

28 BACK PAGE

– O-two loves bands that make a statement like Soldier’s Can’t Dance, our latest campus band.

– What would you change about UCD? O-two?

Letter from the Eds Hola readers, It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life for O-two, and we’re feeling good. We’re not going to lie, O-two was a bit behind schedule this issue and was touch and go at times, but all is back on track now. Hopefully you are all snuggled up and taking some time out of your stressful life to catch up on everything cultural.

We have an action-packed issue that will have something for everyone. Especially film, which has three blockbuster potentials under the watchful eye of our reviewers. Film Editor Jhobe gives his scholarly opinion on True Grit, Anna Burzlaff critiques the latest romcom How Do You Know and The Fighter gets a… just read the film section to find out.

As ever, O-two brings you hip music (but not hipster music) as we chat to the Florrie, Cloud Nothings, Cocophone and the latest Kings of Scotland, Mogwai. As seems to be a tendency with O-two, music has taken over our headliner slot yet again as we talk to MCR. Who are MCR? You’ll have to go to page 14 to find out.

Fashion continues to stay ahead of the trends, as Kieran Murphy decides you are all too inept to dress yourselves. The pick of the content this week has to be our Hitchhiker’s guide to frolitics. O-two realises the seriousness of this political epidemic, and is here to guide you all through it.

By the way, that quote at the start of the letter was from the song ‘Feeling Good’ and was taken from the Michael Bublé version, so Nina Simone, don’t even try to claim royalties!

Emer & Killian Sent from an iPhone

SOAPBOX The doom and gloom of UCD’s appearance has finally tripped a switch in Laura O'Connor's head as she rants and raves

The James Joyce Library – hardly the epitome of glamour.

W

Rant

O-two

hen it comes to architecture, Trinity College always want to lark on about its campus, which features historical buildings dating back from the 18th century. Cork IT boasts a swanky new library building and UL has a shiny concert hall. And what about UCD? Well, we have a water tower and the huge chunk of weathered concrete that is the James Joyce Library – exciting stuff.

There’s nothing really wrong with the architecture of UCD. It’s just that a lot of the buildings in the centre of campus were built during the 60s when everyone thought that concrete was the bee’s knees and had forgotten all about brick while still getting the hang of wood. Everywhere you look it’s the same case. The Ag Science building is concrete, so is the Arts building. Come on, even the shutters of the library are concrete.

These are all beautiful designs, but how can the mass concrete facade of the James Joyce Library compare with the Ontario College of Art and Design, which features a brightblue building balancing on top of colourful pixie sticks. Who cares whether it looks bizarre or not, because when your college

building looks like its defying gravity, everything else pales in comparison.

Another boring thing about the centre of UCD is the complete and utter lack of colour. The most colourful things there are the swans, and being white, well, they’re really not that colourful.

There have been several propositions on how to fix this. The leading suggestion is to paint the whole place a happy yellow colour to alleviate the out-of-moneyfor-alcohol blues of all those disenchanted and hungover arts students dragging themselves to class.

In addition, the concretecovered walkway is in serious need of some pimping.

Maybe some flashing lights and speakers pumping dance music will ease the air of gloom and doom surrounding the place.

But there is hope for the future. Fingers crossed that this soon-to-be-built student centre beside the gym will spice things up and add a bit of razzle-dazzle to the campus, and that we’ll finally be able to tell those smug Trinners twits that we bet THEY don’t have an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

WHAT’S WHAT’S

HOT NOT

&

If you have a bandwagon, O-two is ready to jump on it. Alison Lee gives a rundown on the cool and lame of the fortnight

What’s Hot

1 February 2011

What’s Not

3

The start of the oscar season

The joys of dubstep

The music of Lykke Li

Thanks to the upcoming Oscars, good movies are hitting the silver screen! Instant classics like The Kings Speech and 127 Hours almost make up for Hollywood’s latest 3D embarrassments. Ok, so it’s all for the sake of a cheesy award-ceremonyturned-fashion-show, but at least it means there’s something to see at the cinema.

This bizarre yet highly addictive genre is becoming more and more popular in Dublin, and O-two understands why. Don’t know what it sounds like? Imagine drum'n'bass (with a LOT more bass than drum) except sloooower.

If this intrigues you, head to the Twisted Pepper for one of the city’s few regular Dubstep nights.

Those who thought Swedish music was all about heavy metal and Abba were wrong.

There’s a new kid on the indie block, a kid who’s making such a good impression that Kings of Leon asked her to cover a song of theirs. And what’s more, she’s playing in Tripod soon, so grab a Lykke Li ticket while they’re still going.

The Facebook Abercrombie & pages about Fitch shop mass

February 14th and the V-word

Dante was wrong – hell has eight circles, not seven. The extra circle is reserved for fashion victims with more money than sense called “Abercrombie & Fitch”.

It’s dark, crowded, humid and populated by attractive demons in hot pants. Rumour has it that a branch of hell-on-Earth is soon opening in Dublin – so hit that confession box asap.

Let there be no mention of the V-word (no, I don’t mean vagina) anywhere near O-two’s official headquarters. The Western world goes a little crazy on this particular date, with those of the male persuasion pressured to present their “special someone” with chocolates she feels too guilty to eat, flowers she’s probably allergic to, and a teddy bear that’ll get binned when they inevitably break up.

Anyone else confused by the latest Facebook fad?

You’d think that after the damning revelations of the Ryan Report we’d have invented more constructive ways to voice our outrage against Catholic Church than to create pages like “Dumping your girlfriend so you’re single for mass” and “pre-drinking before mass”. Maybe the handshake bit WOULD be better as a high-five, but still…

POLITICS

O-two

1 February 2011

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O-two Opinion:

Hitchhiker’s guide to frolitics

Want to look political and down with the times? Killian Woods gives you the heads up on how to look cool and impress your friends with politics

I

t has been difficult to put a finger on exactly what’s been happening over the past few weeks/ months in the political hemispheres that run the country. We’ve breached so many thresholds that we thought held together the moral fibres of our country’s bureaucratic structure, only to survive each blow to the knackers and follow it up with another blow to that delicate region.

So first there was the Fianna Fáil heave that supposedly rocked our government to its core, only for the current regime to miraculously pop their head out the other end unscathed. Then the actual building blocks (ministers) of the government started to pull out like a game of Jenga, yet still the government stood.

Now O-two may be a bit sketchy on the actual chronological order of these crucial events over the past few weeks, but next up was the non-occurrence of a certain certainty we were told was a near dead cert to certainly happen. 'Tis the season for resignations and all that with Richard Keys stepping down at Sky, but it appears someone clearly failed to cc Brian Cowen on that memo. Or maybe he forgot that he was Taoiseach as well and should probably step down from that position too.

Yabbadabbadoo this hullabaloo does appear to be getting out of control. As a country we are entering uncharted political waters, no man’s land, parts of Mayo that still practice Murphy’s Law. Don’t panic though; O-two is here to help you through these tough political times.

We are here to help because we care about the future prosperity of our island. This advice is unique and impartial. In what other rag will you be told who and what party to vote for? Well, apart from the Irish Independent.

Prepare for change This is one of the key aspects in the build-up to a general election. You must be prepared for anything.

In the modern day, any political model can prosper and take over. Whether it is the Polish Ninja Party

will all know you as the guy down with current affairs. looking to enforce German foreign policies circa Or as previously mentioned, you could look like a 1934-1945, or ‘There’s a political party in my mouth dick and lose all your friends. They would look at you and everyone’s invited’ party that wants all kids to in disgust and see you as an object that personifies their have inflatable tricolour hammers, change needs to be father’s shame at being sacked from his job. They could prepared for. also blame you for the resulting breadline existence No one is too backward for change, and it is aplenty which sees them living out of Lidl’s expiry date 90 per in all walks of life. Freddo bars are now 25 cents, cent sales.

1p jellys are now 10 cents, they jigged around the There is no right answer to the political upheaval we ingredients to fish fingers and now Rancheros aren’t as are about to throw ourselves into. Maybe one last piece of ripply as they used to be. So don’t be surprised if a new advice O-two can give is for you all to listen to what those government (not naming names) gets into power and poor politicians that will be standing on your doorstep in a flurry of Supermacs chains replace the likes of Eddie the coming weeks have to say. And remember, a vote for Rockets, McDonalds and Abrakebabra in Dublin.

Fine Gael is a vote for change. More importantly, a vote Voting for Fine Gael is a vote for cows grazing in St Stephen's Forgot about the essentials such as date of the Green. election and paperwork? Someone else will probably remind you. The main concern is being in the zone when you are standing at that ballot box Policr it ic al qu es tions and faced with the biggest decision of O -tw o giv es yo your life. u three question to ask those needy politician s If all the pictures become fuzzy and s on you can’t tell the difference between your doorstep the conmen trying to get into the • On a scale of Karl Marx Dáil so they can have a cosy pension to Sa Palin, where do you fall po rah and the conmen trying to get into the litically?

Dáil so they can have a cosy pension, • Pl ac e th ese iss ue s in relevant political take a deep breath and calm down. importance: A) The Gay In real life, looks can be deceiving, Agenda but this isn’t real life, this is politics.

B) Home Rule and C) An glo Irish Look at them all closely and decide Easter bonuses. which are the sexiest candidates, rank • The Fine Gael person br them in relevant order and if there is ough a tie-breaker, vote Fianna Fáil. muffin; I assume you have t a a Options muffin too?

You could follow the crowd and vote • W hat is your opinion on out the old government, but why not the Eugenics wars? try and be contemporary and ironic for the sake of being a dick? By voting for Fianna Fáil, you would instantly boost your friends’ opinion of you and they

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1 February 2011

Advice

O-two

This fortnight Fadora McSexypants gives you a five-step plan to nabbing a man Dear Fadora, I can’t get a boyfriend. Whenever I approach a man to get his phone number or his babies, he runs away! I think it’s my haircut. What should I do?

Jennifer Hogan, 3rd year Philosophy.

Good evening Jennifer Hogan, There is no getting away from it ladies – men are difficult to tie down. I personally have had more husbands come and go than I can rightly remember, but recent estimations put the number somewhere in the thirties. Men are notoriously difficult to keep committed. Or so I hear. All my husbands died in mysterious circumstances.

There is no reason why every girl on the UCD campus can’t have a handsome man on her arm, unless she’s ugly.

So J-Ho, to help you end your desperate, pitiful quest for

Mystic Mittens

Embrace the new Zodiac signs because Mittens says so

a man, here’s Fadora McSexypants’s Five Quick Steps to Boyftown. Use it carefully – inside are all the tips any girl needs to get knee-deep in wang, and I don’t mean the foreign kid who follows you around the Arts building.

• Take a long hard look at yourself. Look at yourself in a mirror. Go on, I’ll wait. Look at yourself. Really look. Look at every one of your little insecurities. Your little belly, your flat hair, your weird arse. Really look at them. Imagine a handbag on your arm. Now I want you to put all those insecurities in that handbag. Can you feel how heavy it is?

Can you feel how much it’s weighing you down? That’s how ugly you are. Focus on how ugly you are from here on out.

• Hit the gym. Now that you have suitably low selfesteem, it’s time to hit the gym. Nothing screams girlfriend material like the golden combo of a hot body and a tearstained face. If you need inspiration while running that last 5k, just remember how fat people die alone.

• Learn to bake. Nothing is more attractive to a man than a woman who can bake. Men have simple tastes – bring them a tin full of brownies or the occasional Rice Krispie bun and you’ll have them eating fairy cakes out your hand faster than you can say ‘Betty Cocker’.

• Act like you want nothing to do with him. People are stupid, and want what they can’t have simply by virtue of its unattainability. Keep your distance. Don’t pay any compliments and take a while to text back: it’s like ‘keepaway’, but with tits. If, like me, you are appallingly goodlooking, this almost always works. If you have a face like a skinned knee, however, maybe skip this step.

• Handjob! Nothing says ‘long term, committed relationship’ like a sly HJ at the back of the Astra Hall.

No man can resist it. Simply surprise your man with an impromptu fiddle-faddle between classes, and he’ll be yours forever.

Actually, now that I think about it, you could cut out steps one through four.

Love and Cuddles, Fadora McSexypants, MLitt, PhD, SWM. Next week, Fadora explains why the morning-after pill shouldn’t just be available in Boots, it should be mandatory.

Send your queries to mcsexypants@universityobserver.ie.

Ophiuchus (November 30 – December 17) Welcome to the Zodiac club. Common traits of an Ophiuchus include a tendency towards strange fetishes and chronic procrastination.

Sagittarius

Aries

Leo

(April 19 – May 13) You escaped with a grazed knee last time, but the next car collision may make a sizable dent in your health insurance.

(August 11 – September 16) Your new hairstyle is a portal into your soul and mental well-being, and damn do you look messed up.

(December 18 – January 20) You think you and your partner are on the same wavelength, but one of you is trying for a baby.

Taurus

Virgo

Capricorn

(May 14 – June 21) Those taurens who have jumped ship to Gemini were dragging the whole star sign down. You are now perfect.

Gemini (June 22 – July 20) Read between the lines and you will get to the bottom of why your Elements coffee smells like piss.

(September 17 – October 30) The only thing as infectious as that smile of yours is the chlamydia inhabiting every sexual hole you have.

Libra

(January 21 – February 16) Making friends is tough, but do you know what isn’t: showering!

Aquarius

(October 31 – November 23) Consider sleeping in the bath until the bed-wetting subsides.

(February 17 – March 11) Dumping 101: Look them in the eyes and tell them they’re getting fat. Simplez.

Cancer

Scorpio

Pisces

(July 21 – August 10) You think you should be in a relationship, but that picking-yournose-and-eating-its-contents combo tends to be a deal breaker.

(November 24 - November 29) Stardom will come in the form of Road Safety Authority using images of your car accident in their next national ad campaign.

(March 12 – April 18) Fourteen is the magic number.

Once you hit that quota, it’s time to visit the clinic again.

HEAD to HEAD

O-two

1 February 2011

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The rivalry between the Science and Arts faculties has been around since the dawn of UCD.

Arts Vs Science

Think you should be dissecting frogs instead of translating Medieval English? Let Paul Gorman and Kieran Murphy decide for you Paul: Science students are better than Arts students because we would win in

a fight – hands down. We have robots to fight for us. Sure you have Geography students (Geography, the only Science so lame it’s an Arts subject), they might help you in a fight, help you get the high ground. Then again, they’re Geography students, and if they fight like they work they’ll probably help at all.

Kieran:

Sorry but robots? I believe we have engineers to thank for that and this is clearly Arts Vs Science. As a matter of fact, Arts students would win in a fight just because of the sheer number of us. While you're toiling away in labs looking for the right percentage of clove oil in a beaker, we’re all up in the library benchpressing with 1,200 page heavy anthologies of English literature.

And what have Science students ever done for the world? Create black holes – that’s what you’ve done. Without science, black holes never would have existed and we wouldn’t be living in fear of being sucked into God’s mouth.

Paul: You’re afraid of black holes? They are generalised and paraded around as

something that would instantly destroy us all if they entered our solar system.

So are all Arts students good at drawing then? What good is English anyway?

Whoever uses words? And history, that was yesterday. Get over it. And medieval times, that was like, ages ago, before science was even invented. And those guys were bad-ass and had swords and stuff. Medieval students don’t have swords; their degrees aren’t worth the receipts they’re written on. Conclusion: Arts ain't no use to nobody. Second conclusion: I have a giant tub of acid, it's awesome.

Kieran:

Arts is a wondrous degree that gives people the option of a wealth of different careers. For instance, where did Ryan Tubridy come from? History.

Where did Rosanna Davison come from? Art History. And they’re fine beacons of our society that have all originated from Arts. In fact, Arts students get better life satisfaction from our time in college than Science students. Since when was the last time we heard about a Science student’s banter?

And if we want to talk about useless subjects, what about physics? Since when has a subject that is completely theoretical and therefore made up been allowed to be taught in a college? Even though history may be over, at least we’re not sitting around waiting for two atoms that may or may not collide in Geneva.

Paul: Where did Ryan Tubridy come from? Science should get on that and

figure out how to plug it up. I don't even know who Rosanna Davison is and you know why? She never invented anything. Life satisfaction is overrated.

Who wants to be happy when instead you can spend hours tormenting yourself over the smallest detail only to then discover that you didn't need to do anything at all? I mean, who doesn’t love that? You know what, fine. You go have fun with the Arts students, but leave your iPods with us and remember this: we invented internet porn and we can take it away.

Funny you should mention internet porn. Science students must be watching a lot of it due to your general lack of personalities and charisma. I’m sure that on the Science Soc’s monthly night out to Coppers, the ladies aren't exactly swooning at your anecdotes about nuclei walking into bars.

While Arts students may not be the hardest workers of all time, we’re certainly more socially intelligent. Mentioning you used to sit in the same classroom as Rosanna Davison is a lot more appealing to a female than saying you can fully implement Einstein’s theory of who the hell cares.

That’s not why we lack personality and charisma. We lack it because we suppress it to make ourselves better scientists. You can’t charm a bacteriophage to infect some spirillum volutans. We’re stoic as Buddhist monks, but instead of twofinger Zen, we try to make the world a little bit better. We’re also like monks in that we’re bald, never have sex, and sometimes want to set ourselves on fire....or maybe that’s just me.

So you’re saying that a Science student’s only goal in life is to make money? Advance yourself in a career? Whatever happened to going to college to find yourself, get an education, or become an academic? Science students are a purge on the fine institution of UCD. Where do Science students study? The James Joyce Library. Without him we wouldn’t have a five-storey tall Mecca of education to hone ourselves in.

Without James Joyce we wouldn’t have a metaphorical Mecca of concrete called Ulysses. If we wanted to make money we would study finance, if we wanted an education we would watch that movie with Carey Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard, and if we wanted to be academics we would work harder. Ultimately, there’s only one reason anyone decides to be a Science student: to meet cute Asian girls.

Kieran:

Paul:

Kieran

Paul:

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1 February 2011

ATtempts

O-two

O-two attempts:

Hot air ballooning

Travelling via hot air balloon is an unmissable, once-ina-lifetime experience, albeit one that is slightly terrifying, writes Alison Sneyd

Balloons can amount to more than just a load of hot air apparently.

I

t was 6.30am on a Sunday morning and instead of being fast asleep in bed, I was in the middle of a park in Bath, England, watching a hot air balloon being assembled.

This was my second attempt at going hot air ballooning over Bath with Bailey Balloons. The first try was called off at the last second because sudden gusts of wind made flying unsafe. Ballooning is very dependent on the weather. That is why I was up so early on this morning; the air is usually still just after dawn. This attempt, I seemed to have gotten lucky with the weather. The wind was calm and the sky was clear. I really hoped it would stay that way.

The other 14 passengers and I helped to unroll the enormous balloon skin and stretch it out flat on the grass. The balloon was slowly inflated, first with fans and then with the burner. When the balloon was ready and floating above us, we clambered into the basket and assumed our take-off and landing positions – sitting down with our backs braced against the basket behind us and holding tightly onto the rope grips.

Our pilot Clive fired the burner, aiming to lift us off the ground. At this point, my nerves set in.

Unable to see out over the top of the basket, I felt like I was on an amusement park ride about to be yanked into the air, only without a seat belt. Clive fired the burner again and I felt a slight rocking sensation.

Turning around and peeking out through the footholds used to climb into the balloon, I saw we were already off the ground, hovering about a foot above the grass – so much for my fears of hurtling into the air. It turned out that was all there was to our take off and Clive said we could stand up. With a few more blasts of the burner we were off, floating gently upwards and out of the park.

My nervousness had completely vanished. The flight was so peaceful; it barely like felt like we were moving at all. It also didn't hurt that the basket came half way up my chest so there was absolutely no way I could fall out. Fears forgotten, I stuck my head out over the side of the basket and took in the spectacular views.

We floated south over Bath’s beautiful, honeycoloured Georgian terraces. We passed the famous Royal Crescent, a stunning semicircle of thirty terraced townhouses. As impressive as I had found the architecture from the ground, it was far more so in the air where I could fully appreciate its enormous scale. Before long, we left the city behind and drifted out over the still and quiet countryside.

A landscape of green fields and rolling hills spread out beneath us. Clive offered a drink to anyone who could spot a deer, but no one did.

After about 50 minutes in the air, Clive brought us slowly down over an empty field. I got a little nervous again as we had been warned that it was

normal for the basket to tip over onto its side on landing. Despite assurances that this was perfectly safe, the prospect of winding up squashed beneath the other passengers as the basket was dragged through a field just didn’t sound very enjoyable.

We eased down over the field and hit the ground with a gentle bump. We then bounced and skidded sideways before stopping fully. To my relief, we didn’t tip over. In fact, the experience was smoother than a number of airplane landings I’ve been in.

The adventure wasn’t over yet, as we spent the better part of the next hour dismantling the balloon.

After the balloon skin deflated onto the ground, we painstakingly rolled it up into a long, tight tube and carried it into its storage bag. The work done, it was celebration time. We had a champagne toast and were presented with a flight certificate. Then a taxi was ordered for us. As we headed back to Bath, I was very, very glad the weather had worked out.

My balloon ride was an exhilarating and unique experience. Clive and the other Bailey Balloons staff I met were friendly and professional. I felt perfectly safe flying with them. The main downside was, as I had discovered the hard way, you are at the mercy of the weather and so there are no guarantees your flight will go ahead. The flight tickets are not cheap either, mine cost £145 Sterling.

But then again, this is not the kind of thing you get to do every day.

INTERVIEW

O-two

1 February 2011

8

The king of comedy A critically-acclaimed comedian who is approaching the peak of his career, Anna Burzlaff chats to Jarlath Regan about his rapid rise to comedic stardom

F

or most, the benefits of the Irish financial crisis are difficult to see, in particular when it comes to job loss. For Jarlath Regan however, getting let go from his career (as a graphic designer) in 2006 was a true blessing in disguise; finally allowing him to embark wholeheartedly on a career in the standup industry. In the space of five years Regan’s achievements have mounted quick and fast, a finalist in the BBC Comedy Awards as well as a presenter on The Panel, Regan’s recessionary cloud certainly had a very thick silver lining.

“I never felt like I worked a day since [I began standup], it’s just been the thing that I wanted to do so it’s just been easy to have fun and enjoy it.”

No stranger to UCD, Regan impressively boasts auditor of the L&H as one of his many feats, and is quick to acknowledge the role of the college in his standup career.

Despite being the main face of UCD’s debating society, Regan soon discovered his skill lay mainly on the comedic side as opposed to the argumentative: “My preference was to try and entertain the crowd rather than try and convince them that I was right.”

After organising a series of lunch-time comedy gigs with comedians like Des Bishop and Jason Byrne in the college, Regan was left in little doubt as to what he wanted to do, saying that it was “just about getting a laugh and I just loved it”.

However the usual drone of parental expectations and obligations buzzed in the comedian’s ear a little too loudly to justify a total attempt to break into the standup world, particularly after having just recently completed a master’s degree at the Smurfit School. “[I had] parents who just had spent so much money on my education that I was under pressure from them and myself to make use of it, and throwing it away would have looked like me saying: Regan’s career skyrocketed ‘Hey four during the Irish comedy boom. years/five years of

college and I’m gonna go up and tell jokes for a living’.” However it would only be a matter of favourable circumstance and some gentle spousal encouragement before standup became a full-time occupation for Regan.

With a constantly burgeoning market for comedians, the standup industry is undoubtedly growing at rapid rates. This of course means increased competition in and focus on the comedic circuit. While for Regan financial worries took a less prominent role (within six months of hard work he was earning more than he was in his office job), as a young and eager performer criticism and assessment were difficult pills to swallow.

“I guess in the beginning I took it really hard, and I think most people do. That you think it’s a personal attack, particularly when you’re putting your personality on stage. It’s not just a joke, it’s part of who you are, and yeah, that’s quite hard to take.”

Now that Regan has grown more comfortable and matured in standup, he has learned better how to deal with the somewhat negative criticism: “Now I'm earning a living through this, I’m doing something right and people are still coming to the shows, so I guess you can’t focus on the people that aren’t fans of it.”

Regan is certainly a far cry from some of the more bitter and satirical comedians such as Dylan Moran and the late Bill Hicks, in fact previously he himself classified his comedy as “positive standup” with “nothing negative, aggressive or cynical”.

While critics may pigeonhole him as a jolly Irishman, the 28-yearold performer is reassuring in the fact that it’s not all sunshine and roses. In fact, there may be a darker edge to Regan we are yet to see: “My standup may be positive but I’m pretty pissed off about a lot of things. I may find a positive conclusion, but there’s a fair bit of vitriol in the whole thing at the end of the day.”

With a proud legacy of Irish comedians behind him, Regan certainly has high expectations to reach. Yet when it comes to his aims, he is keeping his cards very close to his chest: “Ambitions and goals are things that are pretty delicate,” he says. “I think we all have them and we know how to handle them in our own head, but when you give them to other people they can break them.”

For the UCD Arts graduate, it is all about learning from experience and constantly trying to better your comedy. “If you can continue to be funnier on a year-to-year basis, I think things will work out okay.”

His top tips for getting into the industry? Write everything down, try it out, take your time and be aware that there are many more outlets for humour outside of standup.

Jarlath Regan is becoming a regular face on the Irish standup circuit. Despite criticisms of ineffectual material, since losing his dayjob in early 2006, his work has won overwhelming favour both here and abroad. With upcoming festivals, and continuing work on The Rumour Room, not to mention having a newborn baby to contend with, Regan is sure to have his hands full in 2011.

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WEB

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Webwatch:

Write or Die

To work or not to work, that is the question that plagues all college students.

Emer Sugrue investigates writeordie.com to see if that might be the answer

P

rocrastination is something we all suffer from at some point in our lives. Unfortunately I suffer from it at all points in my life and so I have turned to the internet to solve the problem it has partly caused.

Write or Die is a program designed to eliminate the problem by forcing you to write. It comes from the idea that a tangible consequence is more effective than an intangible reward. If I do my essay now I will get good marks; if I put it off, I can watch telly.

The lure of good marks three months from now will never be enough to counter the instant gratification of going for a nap and spur me to action – but a browser turning red and making a noise just might.

You pick a time limit and a word goal and your ‘Grace Period’, or time until your punishment kicks in. You can choose forgiving, strict or evil depending on your procrastination level and penchant for flagellation. You then select your difficulty level or ‘consequences’.

Gentle Mode is the closest to your regular judgement-free word program. You type away and if

you stop, after a while a message will pop up kindly urging you to continue. Normal Mode is slightly harsher. After a few seconds of inactivity an annoying noise starts to play. It seems to be random. While playing around with it, I got crying babies, a poorly played violin and Hanson’s ‘MMMBop’. Finally, there’s Kamikaze Mode – when your time is up, the program begins deleting your writing, word by word.

However, the main question is does it work? Well, sort of. It’s not great for college work because you will legitimately need to pause frequently to check a source or a fact and wake the house with the cacophonous strains of the Hanson brothers, not to mention the ability to mute defeating the purpose of the program altogether.

Even Kamikaze Mode isn’t enough for the determined procrastinator, as if you switch to another browser to look at cats or whatever you crazy kids do with your internet, your work will be deleted without you even realising. Ultimately, you have to want it to work and if you were determined to do that, wouldn’t you just do your damn homework in the first place?

People who are allergic to hard work, such as our young friend above, could do worse than make use of writeordie.com.

Too good to be true?

From alternate endings to crossovers, Steven Balbirnie takes on the murky world of fan fiction

I

t’s no secret that as a genre, fan fiction has a fairly negative reputation; but does it deserve it?

To find out, I decided to visit fanfiction.net, the world’s biggest online archive of fan fiction since its establishment in 1998. The range of material on the site is certainly impressive, featuring everything from works based on Father Ted to Tetris (though nothing

by Anne Rice, apparently for legal reasons).

However, some titles are clearly more popular than others. Moby Dick has three works based on it, Twilight has over 170,000. This didn’t give me a good first impression and, by and large, this was vindicated by the volume of grammatically poor stories with clichés and paper-thin plots that can be found on the site. One of the best examples of the flawed nature of most efforts was the Indiana Jones fan fiction in which the author deemed it necessary to tell the reader in brackets after the word Nazis – “remember that they is evil guys”. I must admit that some stories are so bad they’re good, such as the Half-Life: FullLife Consequences series, though you’d be better off seeing the hilarious YouTube animations adapted from it.

In the spirit of fairness, it has to be said that there

Twilight is clearly an influence on many fanfiction.net users, given the countless stories inspired by the series that appear on the site. are some stories of artistic merit on the site, even if they are frustratingly infrequent. Part of the Job is a short story which provides a thought-provoking examination of the professional relationship between James Bond and Miss Moneypenny.

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality was kindly recommended to me and it was certainly intriguing, though unfortunately I don’t possess enough in-depth knowledge of physics to properly appreciate it. The works of value were the ones which really showed the fan’s passion for the source material; an example being one writer who completed one of

Chaucer’s unfinished Canterbury Tales, writing in medieval English. One advantage to fan fiction that I discovered on the site was that it can easily sidestep copyright and licensing issues to allow scenarios that would be otherwise impossible; such as The Mysterious Affair in Scarlet, a story in which Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot team up to crack a case. In fact, the draw of fan fiction is that the possibilities for it are only limited by the imaginations of the fans.

The only fitting description for fanfiction.net is that it’s a mixed bag, containing works by contributors varying from the passionate to the illiterate.

LISTINGS

O-two

Show Patrol February 1st Funeral Party – Academy 2 – €13.50 The Field – The Olympia – €25 Broken Records – Crawdaddy – €14 Imelda May – Vicar Street – €35 February 2nd Good Charlotte – The Academy – €25 Melanie Plain – The Workman’s Club – €12 Andy Irvine and Dick Gaughan – Whelan’s – €19.85 February 3rd Bitches with Wolves – Whelan’s – €10 Octopussy – The Academy – €4 February 4th Syphor – Academy 2 – €11.80 Junip – Whelan’s – €19 February 5th Feeder – The Academy – €31.50 Ryan Sheridan – Whelan’s – €8 Wire – The Academy – €20

February 6th Somewhere Under the Rainbow – The Olympia – €25 February 7th Hurts – The Academy – €19.50 February 8th Comedy Mish Mash – International Bar – €5 February 9th Master & Dog – Whelan’s – €8 February 10th Octopussy – The Academy – €4 Joan as Policewoman – The Button Factory – €24.50 February 11th Cocophone – Academy 2 – €12 The Flaws – Crawdaddy – €N/A February 12th Ham Sandwich – Whelan’s – €15 Magazine Gap – Academy 2 – €7 February 13th Ocean Colour Scene – The Olympia – €30 February 14th Jimmy Webb – The Sugar Club – €28

1 February 2011

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Gig of the Fortnight: The Hold Steady February 10th – The Academy – €27.50 Formed in 2003, it wasn’t until three years later that this Brooklyn-based band became known in Ireland with the release of Girls and Boys in America – earning them a top spot at Oxegen amongst other prestigious events. In support of most recent album Heaven Is Whenever, The Hold Steady play the Academy for their first Irish date since the departure of keyboardist Franz Nicolay. Head down to the gig for a near-guaranteed evening of fantastic, consistently anthemic rock music – just try to resist singing along, nobody likes a guest vocalist.

- Imelda Hehir

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1 February 2011

FASHION

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Fashion from the front row Missed Paris fashion week? Don’t worry, Shane Twomey brings you the latest from the UCD FADS Charity Fashion Show

T

he UCD Fashion and Design Society put on their second fashion show of the year, this time in aid of the UCD Community Outreach Fund. While the models and the clothes were above par, lengthy gaps between sections and questionable comedic acts left a sour taste in people’s mouths.

The evening opened with ball wear which featured the much-expected bejazzled floor-length frocks.

And instead of guys in tuxedos, we were surprised to see models sporting pyjamas and robes, which are obviously inspired by the latest trends spotted on girls in Tallaght.

After the initial introduction, our host for the night was Suzanne Jackson from the SoSueMe.ie blog, who was beyond charming and certainly one of the highlights of the show. Suzanne then introduced us to the first comedian of the night, who was as inappropriate as Frankie Boyle without the punch lines. Moreover, judging by the amount of time he spent on stage, it was pretty evident that there were some delays.

After the comedian’s departure, clothes for college was on with chequered shirts and skinny jeans for the guys and polka dot dresses teemed with leather jackets for the girls. After this brief college section, Heroes in Hiding (of Fade Street fame) played a half-

hour-long set which is a bit more than you’d expect for a fashion show. Most interesting, however, was the Alexander McQueen runway show playing in the background.

After another lengthy intermission, we had the festival section, with guys sporting big chunky military boots – the perfect alternative to wellies.

The girls were wearing jodhpurs mixed with kitten heels and woolly jumpers to fend off the four seasons experienced during Oxegen.

Throughout the night, the spring/summer trends were evident for the women’s clothes: romantic ballerina skirts and tops added elegance to certain looks. The whole section dedicated to seventiesinspired gear showed us the in trend crimped hair styles, belly tops and wide-legged trousers.

By the end of the night, the audience’s reactions were mixed. While most agreed they loved the clothes and that the models worked well, they just wish there wasn’t that many gaps in between sections. While this is the UCD Fashion and Design Society’s first year and only their second fashion show, this was certainly a fantastic effort.

And with the UCD Fashion Show in less than a month’s time, UCD FADS have definitely set the mark.

Campus Style Watch

The UCD Fashion and Design Society put on an excellent, despite this year being their first as a recognised society.

Name: Tasneem Madani Course: 1st Year B&L Wearing: Shoes and top from A|Wear, trousers from River Island.

Essential Beauty Item: Eyeliner

Sh auna Tasneem

M ar k Name: Shauna Dwyer Course: 2nd Year Arts Wearing: Cardigan and Top from H&M, trousers from Penney’s and shoes are Converse.

Essential Beauty Item: Coco Chanel

Name: Mark Graham Course: 1st Year Arts Wearing: Scarf from American Apparel, top and jeans from Topman, River Island boots and the bag was a gift.

Most Expensive Item Bought: €200 boots.

FASHION

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1 February 2011

Daisy Wears Coat – €60 A-Wear Purple blouse – €30 A-Wear Pants – €35 A-Wear Skirt – €30 A-Wear Red Blouse – €30 A-Wear Lace up heels – €25 New Look

You know you love me Spotted: a number of UCD students looking sharp and slick, without a tracksuit in sight... Looks like New York’s Upper East Side glamour has landed in D4 just in time for spring, writes Sophie Lioe

A

headband here, a pair of chinos there; injecting a little Upper East Side into your everyday wardrobe is not actually as unattainable as Blake Lively’s impeccably groomed hair or Blair Waldorf ’s sprawling designer handbag collection. To brighten up a dull Monday morning tutorial, here’s our guide to bringing a little XOXO to your outfit.

For the girls, take a leaf out of Blair’s copy book and go preppy, with a girlish twist. Famous for her love of bows, schoolgirl hair bands and penchant for pearls – these are easy additions to your wardrobe that won’t cost a fortune.

Forget the Chanel bag and go for a sleek, minimalist Penny’s alternative and you’ll have the beginnings of a Gossip Girl makeover on a student budget.

Those of us for whom the thought of matching twinsets and pearls is a little too much, then do not despair – the key here is androgynous dressing; and look no further than Gossip Girl ’s very own style mogul Chuck Bass. The king of slick suits and responsible for bringing the age of the gentleman back into the spotlight. To make your look less sugary sweet, think brogues, blazers and the odd preppy jumper, and your look is complete.

For the guys, it is a fine line between looking sharp and looking like you’re going on a pub/golf-themed night out, but stick to the basics of a pair of chinos and perhaps the odd polo neck and you’ll get this pared down look right. And avoid looking like you’ve robbed your dad’s golfing wardrobe. Blair and Chuck had better watch out.

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FASHION

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Raymond Wears T-Shirt – €12 Shirt – €18.99 Cardigan – €19.99 Trousers – €19.99 All menswear from New Look Shoes – Model's Own

Lauren Wears Lace up flats – €19.99 New Look T-Shirt – €20 A-Wear Bag – €25 A-Wear Shorts – €30 A-Wear

Models: Daisy Onubugu, Lauren McK eown and R aymond Fullham Stylist: Kieran Murphy, Photographer: Aisling Twomey, Vintage provided by: Mercury Goes Retrograde, Cork, Location: Courtesy of the Gresham Metropole Hotel, Cork

Feature

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1 February 2011

14

True romance

Alt-rock superstars My Chemical Romance released their latest album in November. Conor O’Nolan talks to Mikey Way about their elaborate concept albums and ample side projects

I

t’s been over four years since My Chemical Romance’s magnum opus, The Black Parade, was released upon the rapturous MCRmy (M-C-army) and the world as a whole to great hype and acclaim. It seemed for a few weeks in late 2006 that the band was at the centre of popular culture. Latest album Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, although garnering critical praise has not the same mainstream reach, not that this phases the band and its bassist Mikey Way in any way.

“We try not to think too much about how the album will be perceived, we wanted to make the album we wanted to make, and if people liked it, that was awesome, that seems to be the way it worked out, which is great!”

The band have one of the most dedicated and loyal

fanbases in music today and Danger Days, which was released in late November, has already sold over a million copies.

Abandoning the Queen-inspired pomp of The Black Parade, the band embraced a much more varied approach. You wouldn’t know this from listening to punk-fuelled lead single ‘Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)’, or even from hearing the closing track ‘Vampire Money’ (an even dirtier punk song, written as a middle finger inspired by their being asked to contribute to the Twilight: New Moon soundtrack).

Between these two poles, there is a mix of songs in a relatively similar, if uncharacteristic vein; there’s ‘Sing’, a pop-rock ballad of sorts, ‘The Only Hope for Me is

You’ (a synth-driven song, which approaches the realms of stadium rock), and ‘Summertime’, which can be regarded as being one of My Chemical Romance’s most uplifting songs yet.

In other ways, Danger Days remains compliant to a trend in the band’s output, in the sense that it is a concept album. Danger Days follows the story of the “Killjoys”, a group of outlaws who are embroiled in an endless and seemingly futile battle with the evil corporation “Better Living Industries” (BL/ind.... get it?). It is different to their previous albums in the sense that the songs make more sense in isolation, and the overarching theme is a lot looser than on their previous records.

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1 February 2011

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Departing with traditional release schedules, the band released three singles and a free download of another song before the album ever hit the shelves. A far cry from the days of The Black Parade, which spawned numerous transatlantic chart hits, including ‘Welcome to The Black Parade’, ‘Famous Last Words’ and ‘Teenagers’. The band was content to sacrifice commercial success in favour of rewarding and reconnecting with their fanbase.

“Ultimately, you want people to listen to it as a whole,” he explains. “But we don’t necessarily get the luxury of that sometimes, so you kind of have to get your music out there in many different ways.”

The band chose to work with super-producer Rob Cavallo, the man behind Paramore’s Brand New Eyes and Green Day’s American Idiot as well as The Black Parade.

The recording of The Black Parade was fraught with difficulties, which led to Way leaving the band at one point.

“When we were doing the first attempt at this record, we set up all these boundaries and rules and whatnot, one of the rules we said was: ‘we’re not going to work

Feature with the same producer twice’.”

After abandoning the first attempt at an album, the band decided to return to Cavallo in desperation: “When we reconnected with Rob, the planets kind of aligned and we made Danger Days. It was so much fun; it was just a real exciting time for the band.”

The recording was not without its casualties though.

The band’s drummer, Bob Bryar, who had been with them since 2004, left the band for undisclosed reasons last February. O-two’s attempt to get Way to elaborate on his departure was quickly shot down: “It’s not something we really talk about, it’s just that there was a situation and it was a better situation if we parted ways,” he says cryptically.

Along with a deluxe special edition of the album, the band released The Mad Gear and Missile Kid EP, which featured songs that didn’t quite fit the style of Danger Days.

“We wrote a lot of songs, and we loved a lot of them, but some of them don’t belong on the record. In the story, we came up with this fake band that the Killjoys would listen to as they’re driving around. It became a way to write different sorts of songs, and it was just fun.”

Eager to get back out on the road, My Chemical Romance are embarking on a worldwide tour that they’re calling The World Contamination Tour. Way expresses particular excitement about returning to Dublin later this month.

“We haven’t been to Dublin in forever,” Mikey says.

“It’s hard to get to every spot in the world at once, but we’re finally coming back, so it’s going to be really fun and amazing.” James Dewees (of Coalesce, The Get Up Kids and Reggie & the Full Effect) will tour with them on keyboard duties and Michael Pedicone (previously a member of hardcore band The Bled) will fill in on drums for the tour.

Even with a name as ambitious as The World Contamination Tour, the band are being careful with long stretches on the road due to the many problems they faced in touring and promoting The Black Parade.

The band were unprepared for the inbuilt trials and tribulations of such a grand-scale tour and members had to leave the tour on numerous occasions over health concerns and family commitments.

“You just learn that we can’t really tour as much as we used to, not just for sanity reasons, but people have families now and people have other responsibilities. We’re still going to tour, we’re just going to do it in a more tactical way.”

Despite the caution, the tour promises to be as extensive as the previous one. It incorporates 43 dates in what is just the first leg – the last tour lasted six legs over a total of 15 months.

The Black Parade World Tour was also noted for its highly elaborate stage show. When asked about plans for this tour, Way remains tantalisingly vague in his response: “We’re not going to bring any pyrotechnics or anything like that this time, but there’s definitely surprises that we have that we’re formulating right now, but I’ll tell you one thing, there won’t be any fire.”

With each album MCR adds to their catalogue, picking a setlist becomes more of a challenge; lean too heavily on new material and risk alienating older fans, not enough new content and they fail to properly promote the latest album.

“We try to put something from every album on our setlist,” he says. “We were in rehearsal the other day and we were talking about what song off I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love we wanted to incorporate, we’re definitely going to put one on, but it gets difficult.”

The logistics of building a setlist are becoming increasingly complicated, but it’s a rewarding task for

the group: “I think that’s cool about your catalogue growing, you get to really make a statement live, you get to really make the setlist you want to make.”

Their last album was later released as a live album entitled The Black Parade Is Dead!, so called because the band were sick of playing the album from start to finish during every show. They felt the need to celebrate the end of the touring cycle.

“I’m not too sure if we’re going to put out a live album for this album,” he says, before adding: “We definitely have stuff planned, there’s stuff coming, we’re going to do something with this whole universe we’ve created.”

MCR are famously unafraid to explore their creative options outside the confines of the band; vocalist Gerard Way has a comic book project, The Umbrella Academy, which has lasted two series so far and has been optioned for a film adaption by Universal.

And their lead guitarist, Frank Iero, is a member of hardcore punk outfit Leathermouth.

When asked if he has anything in the works, Way responds: “I don’t really have any music stuff, like a side band, but I do have some other stuff coming up,

“Ultimately, you want people to listen to it as a whole... so you kind of have to get your music out there in many different ways” some comic book stuff.” However, he then explains that what is now just a three-track EP, might be expanded upon: “I don’t have any side band stuff other than The Mad Gear and Missile Kid,” he says.

While the band might be minus a drummer, they seem happier than ever, set to continue on their path to global domination. What was dismissed as a fad four or five years ago, has grown into a full-blown phenomenon, cultivating a new sound with every album and with an enormously increasing fanbase, the sky is the limit.

My Chemical Romance play The O2 on February 16th.

Tickets are €33.60.The album, Danger Days: The True Life of the Fabulous Killjoys, is out now.

FILM

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1 February 2011

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Raging Bale Newcomer Hailee Steinfeld is arguably the standout performer in True Grit.

True filmmaking

Title: True Grit Director Joel and Ethan Coen Starring: Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Hailee Steinfeld, Josh Brolin Release Date: February 11th

In The Fighter, Mark Walberg gives what he may be his best performance since Boogie Nights.

Title: The Fighter Director: David O Russell Starring: Christian Bale, Mark Wahlberg, Amy Adams, Melissa Leo Release Date: Out Now

T

he Fighter is a biopic of Irish-American boxer Micky Ward and his troubled relationship with his dysfunctional family, particularly his half-brother Dicky Elkund, himself a downand-out boxer suffering from drug addiction and a serious case of the ‘could-have-beens’. The film follows Ward’s torment when forced to choose between loyalty to his family or the career and success he so desperately craves.

A number of things stand out about this film.

Christian Bale’s performance as the chaotic figure of Dicky Elkund is nothing short of superb. Bale is capable of making you feel both supreme irritation with the perpetual troublemaker, and at the same time enables the viewer to draw serious sympathy for a man who has lost everything to drugs and is at least trying to make up for it.

The surprise performance of the film is Mark Wahlberg as Micky Ward. This is director David O Russell and Wahlberg’s third collaboration, and the duo have finally found their stride.

Most people would dismiss the former member

of the Funky Bunch out of hand as the purveyor of naff, two-star action f licks (barring the occasional gem such as The Departed ). Yet this time he surprises all by putting in a damn admirable effort as a man teetering on the edge of failure. Apparently, Wahlberg and Ward were already acquaintances within the Irish-American community in and around Boston.

So what makes Wahlberg’s performance so special? In marked contrast to his usual clichériddled action roles, he plays the role of young working-class man with a troubled background trying to make it big. Wahlberg puts a lot of personal experience into this part, and Wahlberg really shines.

Finally, what makes this film unique as a sport biopic lies in what parts of Ward’s career are shown. The high point of Ward’s boxing life, his three-fight rivalry with Arturo Gatti, doesn’t feature. Focusing on the darker times in Ward’s career is an unusual play for Russell to make, but it truly pays off. Instead, the film centres not on Ward’s rise to glory, focusing rather on him rescuing his career and his brother’s desire for redemption amidst the struggles of US workingclass life.

In a Nutshell: Marky Marked for greatness.

- Fachtna Basquille

Has the Dude abandoned his dressing gown and white Russian for gun slinging and eye patches? In True Grit, Jeff Bridges has collaborated again with the Coen brothers in a renovation of John Wayne’s 1969 Western classic of the same name. Anybody looking for a recreation of The Big Lebowski, however, will be disappointed.

True Grit follows the adventure of Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), an extremely resolute and mature 14-year-old girl (with an uncanny ability to roll cigarettes) in her mission to hunt down Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) who killed her father. She hires a drunkard marshal Reuben Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) and they are joined by a Texas Ranger, LaBoeuf (Matt Damon), who is tracking Chaney across the country for the assassination of a Texan senator.

The Coen brothers’ True Grit has brought the Western genre back to its fundamental roots. There are vintage stakeouts of black hat villains and campfires on the prairie. The Choctaw terrain is an environment for untrusting men with motives of financial gain, and where masculinity is measured by calibre.

Bridges is excellent as the archetypal drunken lawman and is exceptionally impressive in his introductory scene in court, while Damon’s performance as the proud Ranger is equally good.

However, it is Steinfeld’s portrayal of Mattie Ross that is truly outstanding. She gives an extremely accomplished performance in her quest for justice among her well-travelled counterparts.

True Grit is, unsurprisingly, brilliantly photographed by cinematographer Roger Deakins (Fargo, The Shawshank Redemption), who is effectively the third Coen brother. Deakins’s style and shot composition, especially in his long shots in this film, reinforces his mastery of the art of cinematography. The lack of recognition for his work by the Academy, despite nine nominations, is demonstrative of their ignorance for the formal mechanics of film.

This film is a classic Western for a modern audience.

The yarn is gripping and its dialogue is expertly delivered. Although the trademarks of the Western genre are presented, they are not clichéd and the film’s ten Oscar nominations are definitely merited. The Dude would also abide: “Well, I dig your style too, man. Got the whole cowboy thing goin’?”

In a nutshell: A solid addition to the Coen brothers’ canon.

- Dermot O’Rourke

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FILM

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As bad as it gets

Top Ten: Morally ambiguous childrens’ films Kids’ films can be scary in more ways than one. Stephen Allen exposes the movies that challenge the moral fibres of childhood’ 10. North So, there’s no place like home because everyone else you meet will be a jerk? Well, at least they’d be a jerk to Elijah Wood, so that I can understand.

9. Moonwalker This is less ambiguous and more confusing.

Just why? What the hell is going on? Why did Michael Jackson turn into a robot?! I’m scared…

8. Song of the South Hey kids, let’s talk about racism. I say talk, but what I mean is try to disguise it using animal characters and unsubtle dialogue. Isn’t that what you teach kids?

7. Old Yeller What’s the point of this movie? To teach you that everything you love will contract rabies and try to kill you, and then you prove your manhood by shooting them in the face. Also, love.

6. The Pod People Reese Witherspoon and Paul Rudd star in Brooks’s dour romcom.

Title: How Do You Know Director: James L Brooks Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd, Owen Wilson, Jack Nicholson Release Date: Out now

T

he romantic-comedy genre is often scoffed at by your typical snooty film critic. However, with the right ingredients, the genre can prove to be extremely rewarding for any audience. James L Brooks’s As Good As It Gets, for example, is the perfect paradigm for romcom gone right; striking the ideal balance between uplifting and quirky, it manages to tick all the boxes.

How Do You Know is Brooks’s latest stab at the romcom genre, and I emphasise the word ‘stab’.

Featuring an all-star cast that includes his old compatriot Jack Nicholson, the movie centres on Lisa, (Reese Witherspoon), an attractive 30-something who finds herself without direction after being dropped from the American women’s softball team.

While dating wealthy baseball star Matty (Owen Wilson), Witherspoon meets George (Paul Rudd), a seemingly honest businessman who is being wrongfully accused of fraud.

What follows is a series of predictable dilemmas which ultimately lead Witherspoon to question how you truly know when you have found the right person. It would be an insult to both reader and writer to waste time explaining how the plot pans out as the movie strays not one iota from its calculable blueprint.

While the stellar cast should add something to the movie, the shallow characters provide very little room for any definite display of talent. Wilson, as the main comedic source of the film, plays the same role he always does. Even Witherspoon, an actress I am quick to compliment and admire, fails to inject the movie with any significant charm.

How Do You Know is not an intellectual heavyweight which ponders any deep or psychological meaning, nor does it attempt to be. However, it fails to grasp the most essential ingredient of a romantic comedy – likeable characters. While Lisa, Matty, and George don't incite any great aversion in the audience, they are simply too undeveloped to form any sort of connection with.

When done correctly, a romantic comedy can provide 90 minutes of memorable and uplifting light relief. The genre has given us gems of movies, and has proven recently, with Love & Other Drugs, that it can be a reputable and acclaimed form of film.

With its massive earning potential, the romcom has been warmly embraced by Hollywood and is sure to be a pervasive cinematic feature for years to come.

Unfortunately, this also means a continuation of mediocre films like How Do You Know, which do not horrify or delight but simply leave the viewer utterly unaffected.

In a nutshell: Maybe a two for €12 DVD purchase.

- Anna Burzlaff

Trumpy, you can do magic! Trumpy, did you just kill people? Don't worry, I still love you Trumpy. Wait, what are you doing to my neck?! *crunching sounds*

5. ET Yes, Elliot, just let that alien go. It’s not as if his people might want some sort of revenge for the kidnapping and traumatising of one of their young. This is why Independence Day happened.

4. Beauty and the Beast This is the film that teaches us that Stockholm syndrome is the only source of true love. Take that Twilight. Also, at least Belle got a library out of the deal.

3. The Wizard of Oz What’s this? We’re in a strange land, full of magical wonders. Let’s take down the government! Why? Well... the lollipop guild did sing a jaunty tune.

2. Titanic: The Animated Musical This is the story of one of history’s greatest tragedies. Let’s put a rapping dog and racist mice in it. This is the best disaster ever.

1. Justin Bieber: Never Say Never “But this isn’t out yet.” I don't care, the moral of this story won’t matter as long as that annoying kid remains on screen, or speaks, or breathes.

FILM

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1 February 2011

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Don’t believe the hype Despite being the flagship series of the newly launched Sky Atlantic channel, Boardwalk Empire doesn’t quite live up to expectations, writes George Morahan

T

here was a time when American premium television channel HBO was perceived as the gold standard of TV channels; a time when such shows as The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood and Six Feet Under were garnering critical plaudits galore and an ample niche in the pop culture conversation.

One by one, these storied series came to an end, leaving HBO to desperately grasp at any new show with promise.

But with the rise of AMC and its enviable roster of shows (including Mad Men and Breaking Bad), HBO fell into mediocrity, coddling True Blood and pretending it was still what it once was. Sky’s new Atlantic channel is now the British and Irish outlet for HBO and will be showing old favourites as well as the latest programming from its surrogate.

The jewel in the crown? Boardwalk Empire, which is being set up as the catalyst for Atlantic’s launch and is branded with all the hallmarks of esteemed television dramas past and present. As a tale rooted in the genesis of the organised crime, it’s cut from the same cloth as The Sopranos and The Wire, its period setting in the 1920s hints at influences from Mad Men, and its many stars, including the likes of Steve Buscemi and Michael K

Boardwalk Empire has received an enormous amount of hype, partly as a result of Martin Scorsese agreeing to direct its pilot episode.

Williams, allude to the kind of success and dexterity that marked HBO shows apart in the early 2000s.

However, does it live up to all the hype? After all, its pilot episode was the most expensive ever made as well as having the distinction of being directed by Martin Scorsese. Honestly, no. In the early episodes, there are some flashes of brilliance, but the show doesn’t really add up to the sum of its illustrious parts.

First and foremost, it’s an exquisite-looking piece; the sets are magnificent and plenty of attention has been paid to the minute details of 1920s life. The acting is solid across the board; Buscemi, forever to be known as “kinda funny lookin’”, embodies his role as fledgling gangster/charming politician “Nucky” Thompson with ease, despite his lack of threatening physicality or classic good looks.

Boxing Clever – Firefly The first in our five-part series looking at the juiciest DVD boxsets you simply must own, Firefly is essential viewing, writes Jon Hozier-Byrne

F

irstly, I must admit a touch of impartiality – I love Firefly. I love everything about it. I love the characters, I love the concept, and I love the witty, quotable dialogue. I love Westerns almost as much as I love science fiction. I love the fact it was cancelled after only eleven aired episodes, only to be resurrected by fanatical fan support. But most of all, I love Joss Whedon.

Firefly isn’t just a fantastic DVD box set; it’s the box set that changed how movies are made. Due to the show’s massive post-cancellation DVD sales, the franchise was given a breath of fresh air with Universal’s big screen adaptation, Serenity. June 23rd was even marked as ‘Serenity Day’, when an army of fans would purchase the DVD en masse in an attempt to make lightning strike twice. It’s little wonder then, that a show with such a fervent following would be pretty good. Firefly is quite simply one of the most enthralling programmes you will ever watch, with characters you really begin to care about and a universe you truly get the urge to explore. Set in the year 2517, mankind has left Earth and settled on a new solar system.

While the central planets are bastions of progress and

wealth, the outer planets are uncivilised and dangerous, and exhibit more than a slight feel of the old West. Into this world is cast Mal Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), captain of a small ‘Firefly-class’ spaceship, and a crew of misfits and miscreants. Over the course of the series the crew try to avoid the long arm of the tyrannical Alliance, the dark barbarism of the Reavers, all the while protecting two wanted fugitives that stowed aboard the ship.

It’s difficult to pin down what exactly makes Firefly so enthralling. It’s got all the mystery of Lost, all the beleaguered hopelessness of Battlestar Galactica, and all the moral depravity of The Wire. What really makes Firefly special, though, is the characters. There are very few shows that make you feel quite so invested in the characters and this is largely due to Joss Whedon’s unique and witty dialogue. You truly want to learn more and more about the entire ensemble with each passing episode.

The episodes do pass, though, and all too quickly. With only 14 episodes ever made, it’s easy to feel a little cheated when you get to the final episode, aware all the while that even after Serenity, there are some mysteries that will never be resolved.

There are also strong performances from Michael Pitt, Kelly MacDonald (as abused housewife, Margaret) and especially Williams as the leader of the black caucus of Atlantic City, Chalky White. One memorable scene sees Williams’s character pitted up against a KKK Grand Dragon and recounting a mesmerising monologue about the death of his father at the hands of white supremacists.

As desperately as they are trying, the creators haven’t found the rhythm necessary to make Boardwalk truly must-see viewing. HBO, and now Sky, are hoping Empire will be the hit that brings their respective channels on top. Instead, they have a well-crafted show that could flourish into something spectacular, just not yet.

Boardwalk Empire premieres tonight on Sky Atlantic.

Universal brought Firefly to the big screen in the form of Serenity.

Still, saying you want more of something is hardly an argument against it, and the franchise’s fanatical following is a testament to the quality of what little of Whedon’s vision actually saw the light of day. Even if you’re not a fan of science fiction (or Westerns), this is still a brilliantly crafted show about people surviving on the very fringe of civilisation, and the relationships they forge. This is not just another low-budget sci-fi show – it’s a vast space-opera performed by a bluegrass band.

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1 February 2011

TELEVISION

O-two

Funny games

The method of informing and educating viewers through satire has quickly become an accepted trend, writes Quinton O’Reilly

The 10 O’Clock Show is the latest in a long lineage of television programmes that attempt to mix politics with satire.

W

hat way do you take your news? Are you old school, relying on newspapers and RTÉ News’ dedicated six and nine o’clock timeslots for your fix? Do you rely on the web, using news sites that update you through Twitter and feverously expanding their content like a hyperactive squirrel searching for nuts?

Or do you rely on 24-hour stations like Sky News whose definition of revealing breaking news every second moment is akin to refreshing your Facebook page every two minutes to see that, again, nobody has yet commented on your interesting status involving a horse and a balloon.

Basically the media is an ever-changing beast, taking many forms that reflect the many ways that we consume our information. Just by looking at a regular TV schedule any day of the week reflects this change; the majority of shows tend to be entertainment based. Factual and current affairs programming, while popular in their own right, don’t command the same viewing figures as The X Factor.

The process of capturing this demographic’s imagination, from the democracy of voting for X Factor hopefuls to the voting of political leaders, has never been the smoothest of transitions. Yet the line separating these two factions has become more and more blurred in recent times, becoming a near regular feature on our TV screens.

The latest programme to attempt this is 10 O’Clock Live, a new flagship show on Channel Four starring David Mitchell, Lauren Laverne, Charlie Brooker and Jimmy Carr. A mixture of interviews, debates, reports and sketches designed to complement the strengths of its cast while featuring a deeply satirical slant. If you’re

familiar with their individual work before this, it’s effectively more of the same. Yet its recipe of balancing the serious and satirical between them sets it apart from what has come before.

Yet 10 O’Clock Live, while taking different steps, is treading a path that has become well worn over the last 30 years. Not the Nine O’Clock News and Spitting Image lampooned and ridiculed political leaders and popular culture during the late ’70s and late ’80s respectively.

Their premise was simple and aimed only to poke fun at the world we lived in. Yet the most influential series, which spawned numerous panel quiz shows, is Have I Got News for You, which debuted in 1990 and to this day is one of the BBC’s flagship programmes.

Featuring the editor of Private Eye, Ian Hislop, and comedian Paul Merton (as team captains), the show managed to stay relevant through ridiculing the week’s events and simultaneously achieved the balance of being both informative and funny. While they focused more on the latter, the fact that they would cover the biggest stories of that week meant that those watching knew who Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, John Prescott (whose weight was constantly ridiculed) were as well as members of other smaller political parties.

Perhaps the best example of those who benefited from this news audience was Boris Johnson, the current Mayor of London. Coming across as a bumbling, eccentric fellow, his appearances were chaotic and included a segment in which he was quizzed about then Tory party leader Ian Duncan Smith. Johnson constantly got everything wrong, including the title of his own book, which at the time he was writing.

His appearances resulted in some of the shows most memorable comedic moments and yet his mayoral

election victory could be partly attributed to his wellreceived stint on the show.

Other panel shows quickly followed the same format, but began to wander from the beaten track. Mock the Week, presented by Dara Ó’Briain, focused more on standup comedy. Meanwhile, the closest Ireland has gotten to this has been RTÉ’s The Panel, which went into a tailspin once Ó’Briain left for the BBC. Podcasts such as The Bugle, hosted by comedians Andy Zaltsman and John Oliver, allow you to listen at your own convenience. Even QI educates viewers about culture and history while keeping its satirical origins.

When commenting on Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s design and engineering of London’s sewage system, Stephen Fry mentioned that his great-grandson created Big Brother and effectively undid his work by “pumping shit back into our homes”.

Ultimately, what these shows have done is ignore the traditional methods of news reporting and informing, presenting it in a more accessible format. They package normally serious and sometimes tedious topics into more manageable segments with a light-hearted spin.

There’s a reason why remembering jokes from The Daily Show is easier than remembering the exact quote from a party speech, its presentation and delivery are the factors that make such moments memorable.

But what’s happening isn’t a replacement of media platforms, but instead the ways in consuming the same information has diversified. Once, keeping up to date with current affairs was only for those who could sit through an hour-long news bulletin without falling asleep. These days, it’s there in a form that suits your tastes and lifestyle. Now to think up some witty jokes to cover the upcoming general election…

Games

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1 February 2011

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Ducked up The original poultry shoot 'em up classic, as remembered by Rachel Heavey

A

s retro games go, you don’t get more nostalgtastic than Duck Hunt, one of the first games out for the NES in 1984. Duck Hunt is a basic, target-shooter style game. Each round the player has ten ducks to hit, three shots for each duck. When the player is feeling confident in her/ his abilities, another mode introduces two ducks at a time on screen. This is the most challenging aspect of the game whereby a lovable dog appears to retrieve the ducks or taunt the player when they escape.

Similarly to every Nintendo game ever created, the whole experience is absolutely adorable. The Mallard ducks flap around, looking cute and making silly noises. The colours are vibrant, friendly and attractive. The score is magical, written by Koji Tondo of Super Mario Bros and Zelda fame.

The game was released in a double pack with Super Mario Bros and it acts as the perfect partner. When searching for the princess became too difficult, one could play Duck Hunt for a few minutes of mindless entertainment. The mindlessness only added to the addictiveness, and it’s scary how long you can spend pretend killing pretend ducks in lieu of improving activities such as sleeping or eating.

It is difficult to say whether Duck Hunt would have succeeded without the help of Super Mario Bros video games. The latter are often viewed as a solitary discipline. However, Duck Hunt provided for a more social gaming experience. It came with a neon orange Zapper gun (it originally came in grey but had to be changed to stop people holding up banks with it) which, through the magic of 1980s technology, allowed you to aim at the screen in a way that only caused mild epilepsy.

I remember many fun-filled evenings where my cousins and I passed the Zapper around, partaking in a spot of duck-hunting or clay pigeon shooting.

The Zapper gun was also pretty handy for playing ‘Cops and Robbers’ too, but the lead did get in the way ever so slightly.

Duck Hunt is and was a classic, repetitive, simple game. Like a ‘little black dress’; not to everyone’s taste but you cannot deny its timeless allure.

Duck Hunt required gamers to use a Zapper gun for added effect.

Is there such a thing as a useful accessory? Not in the gaming world apparently.

Unnecessary accessories

From a $100 World of Warcraft mouse to the Wii golf club, Joe Murphy takes on pointless gaming accessories

A

fter scouring the archives of game consoles from retro to new age, the most pointless of all accessories has come only in recent times.

From the NES glove to the eye toy for PS, nothing has made less sense in the gaming world than the Wii steering wheel.

This popular contraption is used in games such as Mario Kart so you gain a more realistic feel for the gameplay and an even more accurate steering sensation. Of course, what could be more realistic than cartoon mushrooms becoming professional race car drivers?

Basically, these driving games require you to hold the controller horizontally and tilt it from left to right in order to steer your car in the appropriate direction.

Now with this 20 odd euro steering wheel, we can slot the controller into a large plastic circle in order to do what? Oh that’s right, the exact same thing.

My advices, get some plastic, bend it into a circle and sellotape your controller to it. Problem solved and €20 saved.

Companies like Nintendo create these useless products all the time and we buy into it as their

advertising makes us all want to look just as cool as Ant and Dec do when they’re playing against fiveyear-olds on their TV ads.

And the madness doesn’t stop there. Wii Sports also has a tennis racket, and a giant dart which do pretty much the same thing as the steering wheel. Quite frankly, these devices offer nothing to enhance your gameplay. Although the creators may claim that the weight of the accessories increases accuracy of gameplay, I for one will not be convinced that swinging my arm in front of sensors will be made easier the more ridiculous I look with fake sporting equipment.

My forecast for the future is that one of these days we’ll have a Wii archery bow that can be used to fire the Wii dart. At least that way we can have a new way to fling the controller at the wall when some Koopa whoops our asses, or when Link refuses to do what we tell him. I’m still waiting for the Cooking Mama Wii Whisk attachment; to add realistic weight to the fake pancakes you spent all day making. Just 20 more euro and you’ll finally feel a sense of achievement.

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1 February 2011

MUSIC

O-two

Cloud nine Dylan Baldi of Cloud Nothings chats to Aoife Valentine about basement beginnings and playing to hardcore crowds

Coco pop Between awards and music lists, Cormac Duffy manages to steal a few minutes with Cocophone to chat about their unique boy/girl dynamic and violin-infused folk

Cocophone have been lauded as Irish music’s next big thing by publications such as The Ticket.

H

Cloud Nothings have toured with acclaimed indie bands such as Wavves and Fucked Up.

J

ust over a year ago, 19-year-old Dylan Baldi began making some lo-fi recordings in his basement, but after putting a couple online under the name Cloud Nothings, Bridgetown Records were quick to take notice. An EP, Turning On, came out very soon after.

“Right after I put the first Cloud Nothings song online, [Bridgetown] contacted me and put out Turning On originally, so that’s how I met him, just through MySpace.”

Baldi has since moved from his parent’s house in Cleveland, Ohio to Baltimore where he recorded the band's debut album with Chester Gwazda, known for his production work with Dan Deacon and Future Islands. Baldi found working with a producer, in a professional studio to be a different ball game to recording alone in the basement. “It was the first time I worked with an outside producer, so I wasn’t sure what it was going to be like,” he admits. “But Chester stayed out of the way in terms of the songs and just made everything sound good, so it all went really well.”

The EP has a fuzzy, distorted sound, which fans have come to recognise as distinctively Cloud Nothings, and upon entering the studio Baldi was intent on keeping their DIY aesthetic intact. “All the records I really like all have a raw element to them and I wanted

mine to still sound like that.”

With the success of the EP and in advance of a live show, supporting Real Estate and Woods, Baldi added TJ Duke (bass), Jayson Gerycz (drums) and Joe Boyer (guitar) to the line-up. “They were friends of mine from playing shows in Cleveland and going to shows.

It’s a small little scene and everyone kind of meets the same people.”

Within three months, the band was touring America; something of an overwhelming start surely?

“Yeah, it was pretty weird. It has definitely gone at a slow enough pace so that we’ve been able to figure out how everything works. It hasn’t been too fast of a rise even though going from not doing anything to touring the country in three months is pretty fast.”

Along the way they played some shows with hardcore band Fucked Up, a drastic change from touring with indie-rock band Wavves and their usual, more responsive crowd. “Yeah, it was different. There was no reception; they just kind of looked at us. It was a weird tour.”

Despite how successful the last year has been, Baldi seems fairly relaxed about what’s next for the band: “We’re just touring the album. That’s all we have planned so far, and we’ll probably be writing some more songs.”

The debut album, Cloud Nothings, is out now.

ype is a curious thing. It can come out of nowhere, dragging an act out of obscurity in seemingly no time. Cocophone can tell you what that feels like. In the last few months, the Dublin folk two-piece have been named Becks’ Band of the Year, featured in The Ticket Bands to Watch 2011 and interviewed on Phantom FM. And just when they thought things couldn’t get any better, they land a spot in O-two – heady times indeed.

Despite this sudden burst of fame, they are by no means an overnight success. Speaking to Freya Monks, the band’s violinist and vocalist, we learn the duo’s back-story. “We started playing together about five or six years ago.” The story involves a friend stealing her copy of Smashing Pumpkin’s Siamese Dream, and finding her practising violin when he returned it. This led to a jam session where Monks met Cocophone’s guitarist and singer Fin Divilly. Since then, the band have been touring extensively around Ireland, an experience they cite as an important part of their development.

“Playing live and playing around different venues: the amount of experience you pick up.” They soon realised they weren’t the conventional Irish indie act. Their boy/ girl vocals and acoustic set up, married with their unique brand of atmospheric folk is a break from the ordinary.

“We definitely noticed we were standing out,” Monks explains.

O-two asks her where the band’s sound is rooted. “You are shaped in a way by the stuff you listen to. We both really enjoy acoustic music, but we’re [also] both into much bigger band sounds.” Monks loves lyrics-based folk music, mentioning Leonard Cohen and Nick Drake’s Pink Moon as favourites.

At the same time, Monks is a big fan of “experimental bands, where it’s not exactly lyrics-based, it’s about sounds”. The experimental touches of Sigur Rós, Dead Can Dance and Radiohead all partly inspire their sound: “Radiohead would be a big influence on us, just for how dynamic they are.”

Listening to their debut EP, Special Offers, it’s easy to spot these influences. It also makes it clear the band have a promising future. Given the extensive backlog of material the band has, surely an album is on the cards soon?

“Yeah, definitely. It’d be a bit of a war over what goes on it though,” Monks laughs. She tells O-two the band are looking to play this summer’s festivals as well. One thing is for certain though, if the publicity keeps up at this rate, everyone will know the name Cocophone by then.

Cocophone play The Academy 2 on February 11th.

MUSIC

O-two

1 February 2011

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With the release of Mogwai’s seventh album imminent, the band’s bassist Dominic Aitchison talks to Anna Burzlaff about their deceptive simplicity and being big in Japan

This is hardcore

W

ith the disturbing rise of pop culture’s vacuous dark side, it is comforting to see that bands such as Mogwai are still around – a picture of consistency and quality to restore O-two’s faith in the world (and music) at the most opportune time. It’s gratifying to see that the Glaswegian band has managed to maintain a significant fan base over the past 16 years, whilst playing an exceptional, if divisive, brand of instrumental post-rock.

For bassist Dominic Aitchison mainstream success has never been a pervasive motivation: “I think we’ve realised if you’re bothered about getting on the radio and getting famous and big, you wouldn’t play really long instrumental songs.

It’s not a good way of going about it.”

Aitchison has been part of the group since meeting guitarist Stuart Braithwaite when he was 15 years old and has weathered the release of six albums and a plethora of live tours, but he is quick to assert that time has not stif led the dynamics of the band. “It’s easy, after doing it for so long, to do the same things, tunes, that you would always do, so you have to make the effort to try and not constantly keep doing the same things just because it's habit and it's easier.”

Aitchison believes that f luidity and spontaneity have always been paramount to Mogwai's work, despite the fact that creative process has hardly changed since 1997’s debut album, Mogwai Young Team. “Any time you make plans before making a record, while it [may be] a grand idea that you come up with, the record ends up being nothing like that. We realised it’s much better just to get on with it and see what happens.”

With a conf licting range of styles and inf luences within the band, it should be no surprise that Mogwai’s discography has been so varied. “All five of us have got quite different music tastes from each other, and I suppose that’s because we all write songs for the band (it’s not like there’s one guy that writes the songs). I think that different aspects of our music tastes can’t help but sneak through, which is not a bad thing.”

A distinctive feature of Mogwai songs is the lack of lyrics, a quirk that many would see as a source of alienation for audiences. It definitely has its drawbacks, but Aitchison is happy with

Mogwai, pictured above, create simple and modest music stemming from their spontaneous nature.

the audience the band have. “It’s either one or the other. There either seems to be people who like it or people who really, really hate it.”

Instrumental music has reaped its benefits in terms of an international and non-English speaking market though. As Aitchison points out: “It means we can go places like Japan, and we probably do better there [with our music] than we’d have of done with singing.” While it could be viewed by some as a musical statement, for the band, their lyrical absence is based solely on the fact that none of them can sing.

The question of hidden meaning and metaphor in Mogwai’s work is a prevalent one, especially amongst ostentatious students such as those of

“It’s just music and there’s no meaning behind it all”

us at O-two. Constantly assaulted with inquires surrounding song and album title choices, Aitchison finds such deep analysis to be mind boggling, he almost desperately insists that “it’s just music” and “there’s no meaning behind it all”.

The whole emphasis on hidden meaning and many people’s refusal to accept the simpler facets of Mogwai’s music is a source of entertainment to Aitchison: “It really does provide us with a lot of amusement, especially on a press tour before a record comes out; [people’s suggestions] can break up the day quite nicely.”

In spite of their music’s intricacy and the aweinspiring soundscapes they often create, that notion of simplicity is at the heart of Mogwai and the band themselves appear to have remained modest and humble over the course of their lengthy career. “For an instrumental band, I think we’re a lot more popular than we’d ever have expected to have been anyway. I think we’re all pretty happy with the way things stand as it is.”

Their latest album, Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, is sure to be yet another exciting chapter in the band’s musical history. When asked what we can expect, Aitchison says that “it’s quite upbeat, well for us, it’s upbeat. It’s not like The Beach Boys or anything, but compared to the last one it’s quite upbeat.”

While perhaps remaining on the periphery of the majority’s musical vocabulary, Mogwai are key figures in the instrumental genre. Their method of creating music on impulse and inspiration has left listeners with a sound of pure and ingenious simplicity. For Aitchison and Mogwai, it really is “just music”.

Mogwai play The Olympia on February 15th. Tickets are €29-31. The album, Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, is out on February 11th.

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1 February 2011

MUSIC

O-two

Write Like Apes This fortnight, Pockets examines the bonkers world of celebrity-related conspiracies and shell suits

As Oscar season approaches, Sophie Lioe selects some of the most memorable moments in movie soundtrack history ‘Twist and Shout’ – The Beatles (from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) This is your chance to relive (or pretend to relive) the 80s. It will never fail to get you up dancing on the table wishing you were as cool as Ferris. You are not as cool as Ferris.

‘You Got a Friend in Me’ – Randy Newman (from Toy Story) This song can bring a tear to the eye of even the most cold-hearted cynics. We all hark back to days of watching Toy Story on repeat and waiting for our toys to come to life...no such luck.

‘The Bare Necessities’ – Phil Harris and Bruce Reitherman (from The Jungle Book) You can never have enough Disney songs. We probably started to perfect those dance moves that we’ve worked so hard on, listening to this impossibly catchy classic.

‘(I’ve Had) the Time of My Life’ – Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes (from Dirty Dancing) You certainly swayed to this at your first school disco, and whilst it may have been a bit naff, at least the Black Eyed Peas hadn’t mangled it. Its cheesiness should’ve been left untouched.

‘Anyone Else But You’ – The Mouldy Peaches (from Juno) This laidback ditty provided the perfect ending to one of 2007’s finest films and the soundtrack was one of the best in recent years – easy listening and romantic, without being sickly sweet – kudos to Juno.

‘And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going’ – Jennifer Hudson (From Dreamgirls)

Watching Jennifer Hudson belt this out in Dreamgirls simultaneously left audiences’ jaws on the floor and the general public dismayed that she didn’t win American Idol. This powerful number is never far from our ears as a prominent X Factor audition song, though nobody has come close to recapturing the magic of Hudson’s rendition. Sorry, Beyoncé who?

‘Independent Woman’ – Destiny’s Child (from Charlie’s Angels) Oh, that Beyoncé. This one’s for girls only and serves as the mantra for any ambitious ladies hoping to navigate the tricky world of ludicrously attractive secret agents.

‘Send Me on My Way’ – Rusted Root (from Matilda) Eggs, milk, flour, and Matilda Soundtrack: all the ingredients needed to make delicious pancakes.

‘Diamonds are Forever’ – Shirley Bassey (from Diamonds are Forever) This is one of the most iconic songs on this list, by one of the most incredible, distinctive voices in the business – definitely the best Bond song of them all.

‘GreaseD Lightnin’ – John Travolta (from Grease) Always the song played at the end of the night when everyone’s drunk enough to do the accompanying dance moves. Pelvic thrusts, wild arm actions and all...

‘Harry Potter Theme Song’ – John Williams (from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone) Not exactly one you can sing along to, but the films just wouldn’t be the same without it playing as we zoom in on Hogwarts, waiting for the magic to begin.

After Jim Corr’s colostomy bag of an interview on the Late Late on Friday night, it got me thinking about other “past their prime” celebrities who, rather than falling gracefully from the spotlight, decided to invest their time in the meticulous study of the absurd.

Anybody ever wondered why Robbie Williams really rejoined Take That? He was an extremely successful solo artist, who had at one point achieved the biggest publishing advance the music industry had ever seen, somewhere in the region of £80 million. Was it friendship? Nostalgia? Money? Or Aliens…

It was both money and Aliens to be fair. Robbie had spent much of his fortune on building an observatory in the Nevada Desert to look for the tiny green men who had visited him three times during his lifetime.

Rejoining the lads probably seemed like a good idea cash wise. I think he’s saving for a new tinfoil gaff.

Remember the Troggs? Most of our generation probably know them best as being the band that provided ‘Wild Thing’ as entrance music to Charlie Sheen’s character in the Major League movies. Well, Presley also wrote a book in 1990 called Wild Things They Don’t Tell Us in which he poses interesting questions such as...

Did human beings actually walk with the dinosaurs?

AND is the world actually controlled by lizards that eat gold?

Enticing stuff, no doubt. His tale goes from to the Old Testament up to 1990 and includes detailed accounts of Moses hanging out with the lizards whilst drafting the ten commandments and God flying around in the spaceship trying to kill all the other Gods because there could only be one.

Another person who buys into this nonsense and probably needs little introduction is David Icke, a former BBC sports commentator and spokesman for the Greens.

Icke holds very similar beliefs to Presley and has been the culprit of the most bizarre behaviour I’ve come across.

• The Turquoise period: In 1991, he began to only wear turquoise because he believed it channelled positive energy.

• The Terry Wogan interview: In which David claimed to be the Son of God. This is priceless viewing. If you haven’t seen it, watch it now.

• The Lizards and the Jews: A Channel 4 documentary on Icke following him around Canada as he sought to present his views on lizards ruling the world. The Jewish community went up in arms over a fear that Icke actually meant Jew every time he said lizard. The documentary went on the pose the question: “Was Icke an absolute racist? Or just a total muppet?”

With all this talk of climate change denial, Holocaust denying, Moses hanging out with lizards, God rocking around in a spaceship, Robbie Williams’, ‘Angels’ possibly being code for aliens and turquoise shell suits being, in fact, a positive thing, it makes me wonder what I’m gonna do if the band ever goes tits up.

I was thinking I might dress my dog up in a Santa outfit, sing Christmas carols to him in June and subsist only on a diet of lollipops… oh wait Britney Spears already did that.

MUSIC

O-two

1 February 2011

24

Florescent adolescent The hype machine has spit out another gorgeous young blonde with a knack for catchy electro-pop.

George Morahan talks to Xenomania protégé Florrie

W

hen Florrie Arnold first entered Xenomania’s country mansion HQ, she was starting as the new in-house drummer and amazed at the scale of operation in the Mecca of 21st century pop. Two and half years and a number of well-received singles later; she is now being touted as the über-production company’s latest chart starlet.

“I think when I came to Xenomania, I was thrown in at the deep end. Two weeks after I had started, I was drumming on [Girls Aloud’s smash-hit] 'The Promise'.” In her first few weeks on the job she had not only met the chart-topping girl group, but also icons such as the Pet Shop Boys and Johnny Marr. Such rapid change had to be taken in stride as she focused on the transition from anonymous drummer to singersongwriter.

“I’d be writing these songs and I’d want to sing them myself,” she laughs. “It was a drawn-out process, I would demo the tracks and then I would play them to Brian.” Brian Higgins, Xenomania founder and the mastermind behind many of the songs playing on your radio right now took Florrie under his wing two years ago and exerted a great influence on the 22-yearold Bristolian.

“Brian has an amazing ear; he will hear things that I wouldn’t notice. I think he has a unique talent as a producer’s ear which is not something you can learn to have.”

Having been in various bands since leaving school, Florrie was no stranger to writing and performing, but her professional music career has originally been exclusively as a drummer. It seems logical that going from the shadows to becoming the focal point on stage would be a daunting proposition, but apparently it hasn’t even fazed Miss Arnold.

“The drummer is like the backbone of the band, but I guess there is more pressure on me now. I don’t get as nervous out front as I did when I was drumming.”

While she is unconcerned about the rigors of live shows, Florrie tries to avoid the talk of her spearheading Xenomania’s latest wave of attack on the pop charts and the added expectation it puts on her. Florrie is the most prominent among a new breed of Xenomania acts that includes the likes of Jessie Malakouti and Alex Gardner, but her “quietly confident and driven” nature allows her to focus on her own work rather than fretting about her competition.

“I don't take a lot of notice of other stuff going on,” she insists. “I just like to work with other musicians

Florrie, pictured, recorded a cover of Blondie’s ‘Sunday Girl’ that has become ubiquitous ever since it featured on an ad for Nina L’Elixir perfume.

“You can’t pin Xenomania to one singular sound, because it’s constantly evolving, and I’m perfectly happy to do that” and make the music I want to make. It may not fit a mould or go to number one; but I like to think there is something different about it.”

It seems that Florrie has truly embraced the Xenomania ethos; the one that preaches innovation and originality in the face of pop music’s inferior reputation, of formula and naked profiteering, to more storied genres.

“I think our style of music is quite adventurous. You can’t pin Xenomania to one singular sound because it’s constantly evolving, and I’m perfectly happy to do that.”

Such an aspirational approach to writing mere pop songs is the key to the mass acclaim garnered by Xenomania. However, people will look at the songs’ agents, such as Florrie, and see a blatant attempt to follow in the footsteps of similar, popular acts such as Little Boots and Ellie Goulding, but it’s not a problem that she dwells upon.

“I think as long as I have fun, I’ll be happy. That’s the reason I'm doing it; to make music that people want to listen to and to enjoy myself on stage.”

Away from the music, her appearance in a commercial for Nina Ricci perfume, she assures O-two, was a one-time thing.

“I’m definitely not a model, not for me,” she claims.

“I was dancing around dressed as a princess, which isn’t how I am. It was a very dream-like scenario.”

The clip, scored to Florrie’s cover of Blondie’s ‘Sunday Girl’, was shown in 56 countries last year and has been deeply beneficial to Florrie’s fledgling career, but it remains that Florrie will more likely be seen on Popjustice rather than in the pages of Vogue.

Having grown up with a “Beatles nut” for a father and an anachronistic taste for ’50s singers such as Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis, Florrie has always had a taste for music outside the trends, which can only help when working at Xenomania. Yet, like most young girls circa 1996, she also loved the Spice Girls, showing an understanding of and a respect for pop’s vivacious essence – a requisite quality for someone creating a career out of making that song that’s stuck in your head.

Florrie plays at The Academy 2 on February 26th.

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1 February 2011

MUSIC

O-two

CD reviews Album of the fortnight

Artist: Anna Calvi Album: Anna Calvi

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Artist: Thin Lizzy Album: Jailbreak

✮✮✮✮ Thin Lizzy specialise in the type of music that this writer normally avoids like the plague.

Instead of tunes encompassing soothing, melodious guitars with cryptic, melancholic lyrics, they create songs for boozy nights that epitomise good old-fashioned rock‘n’roll.

However, over the course of Thin Lizzy’s career-best effort, my indie snobbery was firmly tempered. Phil Lynott’s combination of simple lovelorn lyrics, big dumb choruses and laidback vocals has always seemed like a guilty pleasure.

He also often wears his influences on his sleeve, as on venerated tracks such as ‘Running Back’ (Van Morrison) and ‘Warriors’ (Jimi Hendrix).

So what separates Thin Lizzy from the legion of contemporary piss-poor ’ 70s revivalists such as Jet? Well, perhaps it’s the warmth and sincerity that imbues every note on this wonderful record, notwithstanding the band’s plainly limited musical palette.

The reissue also comes with a second disc of remixes and rarities that should be roundly ignored by all but the staunchest of Thin Lizzy fans.

In a nutshell: Something to buy your dad for his birthday.

- Paul Fennessy

It seems that female artists are often forced to conform, as evidenced by a market rife with bland Lily/Amy/Gaga copyists. However, Anna Calvi has created something truly unique with her remarkable self-titled debut. She inhabits an impressive range of musical characteristics; going from utterly seductive on ‘No More Words’ to closer ‘Love Won’t Be Leaving’, where we find her possessed by yearning desire.

There’s a heightened sense of emotion to Calvi’s lyrics throughout – especially on the magnificent ‘Suzanne & I’ – that is superbly blended with her musical accompaniment, which is never less than epic in scope and execution.

Calvi occasionally falters, but there’s enough here to suggest a bright future ahead for British songstress.

In a Nutshell: Imagine an Ennio Morricone soundtrack with Kate Bush singing over it, then you’d only be somewhere near Anna Calvi.

- George Morahan Artist: Cold War Kids Album: Mine is Yours

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Artist: Content Album: Gang of Four

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Content is a tricky album to evaluate. In one sense, it’s an exhilarating listen. The band’s fusion of left-wing punk agitprop with funk and dub grooves still excels. Abandoning the austerity of old for a warmer production has paid off, giving the album a cohesive, inviting atmosphere. Fans of the band’s iconic early output will find much to love. Songs like ‘Who Am I?’ and ‘Second Life’ somehow manage to make social commentary danceable.

In another sense, the album has none of the fierce originality of their earlier output. Their signature sound, once so groundbreaking, has since been reborn and played to death by the Death From Above label and Franz Ferdinand, robbing Content of its impact and freshness.

Still, those bands should listen up, as their musical forefathers Gang of Four amply demonstrate how it’s done.

In a Nutshell: Perfect for getting your groove on, Marxist style.

- Cormac Duffy Artist: Funeral Party Album Review Album: The Golden Age of Knowhere

✮ With soul-soaked vocals layered upon an all-too-familiar indie sound, Cold War Kid’s Mine Is Yours fails to bring much of note to the table. Sonically, the album sounds much more refined than the band’s last effort, Loyalty to Loyalty. To make a dangerously simple comparison, it sounds like a superior Delorentos crossed with a synthless version of The Killers.

To call it bad would be a lie, as there are some genuinely intriguing songs on the album.

‘Sensitive Kid’ features an infectiously catchy bass line and electronic beat, and ‘Out of the Wilderness’ sounds like a soaring Mumford & Sons track. Along with the curiosities, there are some excellent songs – most notably the exceptional ‘Finally Begin’ and ‘Skip the Charades’, which provide the album with much-needed memorable moments.

In a Nut shel l: Some brilliant moments mixed in with some awfully formulaic songwriting that makes for a frustrating listen.

Strange.

- Conor O’Nol an

The Golden Age of Knowhere is the debut album of LA indie-rock threesome Funeral Party. In light of the considerable hype surrounding its release, it disappoints hugely.

‘New York City Moves to the Sound of LA’ is a relatively good start to the album, but it goes violently downhill from there. With eight more similar sounding, high-tempo tracks complete with a screaming vocalist (who seems to have a constantly sore throat), cutting guitars, and everyone’s quota of cowbells for 2011, it gets old fast. Despite slowing down and becoming less in-your-face in the relatively decent penultimate track, ‘Relics to Ruins’, you’ll be bored long before you ever reach it.

Funeral Party don’t bring anything new to the table; we’ve heard it all before, only better.

A couple of catchy tracks you’d dance to, but it’s all a bit same-y, without any real memorable moments.

In a nutshell: A fun record, despite being a little too similar to their previous releases.

- Aoife Valentine

Food & drink

O-two

1 February 2011

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Blogging delicious You will never be short of a recipe with Elaine Lavery’s guide to food blogs

The Canal Bank Café is open every day of the week until 11pm.

Restaurant Review: Canal Bank Café The appearance of a very special guest was enough to make a trip to the Canal Bank Café worthwhile, writes Elaine Lavery

T

Ruth Clemens: runner up in the Great British Bake Off and blogger extraordinaire.

I

must admit that even I, the self-professed nerdy student who always sits at the front of lectures, spend half my time in college creeping around on Facebook. Sometimes on really slow days, after refreshing my homepage several times in so many minutes, I realise that I need to cop on and get a life.

In these moments of boredom, I turn to food blogs.

There are HUNDREDS of blogs published on the web, most of which are pure self-indulgent rantings from nobodies. Blogs are by their nature personal online diaries, so you have to rake through a good few to find a blogger whose food journey you enjoy following.

My favourite kind of food blog is one that provides interesting recipes with an explanatory introduction/ background to the dish. Photographs are a bonus, but for the true foodie, they are not essential. The words and descriptions are enough to invoke tastes and textures and often I find inspiration, discovering new flavour combinations.

My top blog in this respect is http://dinnerdujour. org/, an archive of food exchanges between two working mums living on opposite sides of the Atlantic. They source their recipes from all over the place; books, magazines, television and often add

their own tweaking/tips for improvement. Recipes are archived by category, i.e. stews, fish, desserts, which make this site a winner when you’re looking for a new twist on a particular dish. Check out http://www.thegoodmoodfoodblog.com/, for a similar style of blogging, with excellent photography to boot.

For those of you with a sweet tooth and a slightly more tentative approach to cooking, I recommend http://www.thepinkwhisk.co.uk/, created by the runner up in the BBC’s Great British Bake Off. Ruth Clemens gives excellent step-by-step guides accompanied by staged photography, to producing top-notch desserts and goodies.

For food news, supermarket offers and restaurant deals, you can’t beat http://www.cheapeats.ie/.

However, if you come from the nutrition-is-no-morethan-removing-a-cardboard-sleeve-and-piecinga-plastic-film-with-a-fork school, http://www. readymealreview.com/ is very good. Meals are rated on a scale of 1-10 for three factors: taste, nutrition and foodiness, with widely available Tesco and M&S meals featuring regularly.

Check out Elaine’s own food blog at http://the-amateurcritic.blogspot.com/

he Canal Bank Café on Upper Leeson Street has long since been one of my top places to eat in Dublin. Being the younger, hotter and all-round better sister of Tribeca in Ranelagh, it has always done cool, laidback chic effortlessly.

The Canal Bank does a plumper, juicier, saucier version of the famous chicken wings with celery and blue cheese sauce. It does posh fish and chips with mushy peas and top-notch hamburgers. Also on offer is a great range of salads, as well as offering substantial mains. Desserts are made on site and devouring them is a definite must. The point of the trip was to coax the family out of the house after a week of encumbering snow and three days of turkey and ham sambos.

Craving nothing else, three of us opted for the irresistible chicken wings as a main. We also had fish and chips and a confit duck leg with potato, sausage and chestnut stuffing, roast celeriac, orange and port jus for the only adventurous diner of the night. For starters, two French onion soups and a token basket of chicken wings were ordered for the two having a main course. Abstaining from a starter myself, the wings were unscrupulously gobbled up as were the soups, though one of the soup’s recipients deemed it unusually spicy and not entirely traditional.

I was taken aback to be disappointed when the mains arrived. Two of the baskets of chicken wings were perfect, but Murphy’s Law dictated that mine were cold and dry. I immediately pointed this problem out to the waiter, who made a rather rude response that he had just brought all three fresh from the kitchen. This was clearly not the case and dutifully, he changed them (not before spitting on them maybe) but the difference was noticeable. Cutting corners like this gets a big black mark in my book.

Pondering whether I would ever be able to overcome the ordeal, my night took a 180 when who walked in but Mr Colin Farrell of Hollywood fame.

After Christmas, I was going to be healthy and not order dessert, but it would have been rude not to with that sweet bit of eye candy in the corner of my eye. Having tried most of the desserts before, I opted for the exceptional cookiesand-cream-baked cheesecake. It has a particularly tart flavour achieved, I would guess, by including sour cream in the mix.

Being broke after Christmas, thankfully I was not the bill payer, but prices are listed on the website.

Encountering the manager before leaving, he made amends for his rudeness. I hope he realised that he was mistaken, but perhaps it was simply that he too had a skip in his step after being graced with the presence of a star.

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1 February 2011

O-two

Musical beauty

CULTURE

With the UCD Community Musical set to stage their version of Beauty and the Beast, Steven Balbirnie talks to the show’s producer Aileen Ryan

B

eauty and the Beast is one of the most beloved of Disney’s animated feature films, so it is no wonder that when it was adapted into a stage musical, it became one of the longest-running productions on Broadway. And now, the musical will be coming to Belfield as Beauty and the Beast was chosen for this year’s UCD Community Musical, and looks set to be the biggest production yet.

O-two caught up with the show’s producer, Aileen Ryan, to find out how preparations are progressing and just what audiences can expect from a production of this magnitude. The aim of the show, according to Ryan, is “to give back to everyone something that they might enjoy.”

It is clear that an immense amount of effort is being put towards achieving this, with preparations for the show having begun as early as July 2010. The show will be an incredible collaboration, as Ryan told O-two. It includes a cast of 50 people and a crew of up to 80 people, drawing not only upon the efforts of students, but also of staff and alumni, all of whom are giving their time for free.

Great progress has been made in preparations and Ryan pointed out that this was due to the dedication of everyone involved, saying: “Everyone’s so enthusiastic about it.”

“Ryan says that they are making every effort to try and stay as faithful as possible to the original” Ryan was also eager to thank the college authorities: Vice President for Students Dr Martin Butler, the Students’ Union, the Musical Society and Dramsoc for their help and support in what is truly a university-wide collaborative effort. The pool of skills available on campus meant that the UCD Community Musical is able to benefit from expertise in many areas, such as the production skills of Dramsoc.

Even with such support, putting on a show the size of Beauty and the Beast must be a daunting task, so O-two asks Ryan about the reasons for such an ambitious choice. Ryan replies that they

Preperation for the highly anticipated UCD Community Musical began last July. wanted to put on a show suitable for all of the UCD community.

Beauty and the Beast is a fondly remembered part of the childhood of many among the current generation of students, and it is also a show that staff and alumni can bring their families to see. Ryan also said that the reason for a bigger show was that it could build on the successes and experience of previous productions.

Experience is clearly an important factor in the production, as while the cast includes a mixture of new talent and experienced performers; the main cast of Meabh Carron as Belle, Alec Ward as Beast and Stuart Pollock as Gaston, all have previous experience performing in musicals. In fact, Alec Ward starred in the first UCD Community Musical, West Side Story, in 2008. Auditions for the parts were in October and rehearsals have been ongoing since January 5th, which Ryan says “are coming along really well.”

So what can audiences expect from the production?

To those who’ve seen the animated film about the Beast’s struggle to find love and redemption, this stage version should seem very familiar. It follows the same story as the Disney film and includes all of the original songs, as well as a few new ones.

Ryan says that they are making every effort to try and stay as faithful as possible to the original. The

set and costumes should be impressive and lend the production authenticity, as they are being sourced from a UK touring company. Alongside the characters and sets retaining their elaborate appearances, the show will feature the visual spectacle of choreographed song and dance numbers, as well as projections and pyrotechnical effects. The production will also boast an orchestra and choir to further enhance the experience.

Yet there are still several challenges to be confronted before the production begins. While sets, rigging and lighting have been booked months in advance, the crew will only have three days in which to transform O’Reilly Hall into a fairytale world before the show opens. However, the fruits of these labours will be an immersive fantasy experience that Ryan says “really is something that hasn’t ever happened in UCD before.”

The show looks set to be a spectacular event, so in the words of its director, Emily Leonard, “come join us in the fairytale.”

Beauty and the Beast will run in O’Reilly Hall from February 15-19. Tickets are on sale now online, in SU shops, the Arts block, Richview, Roebuck and Quinn, while some tickets will be available at the door. Adult tickets are €18 while tickets for students and children are €15. Tickets for previews and matinees are €12. For more information visit www.ucd.ie/musical.

BACK PAGE

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Please Talk!

What would you change about UCD?

Peter Roche, 2nd Economics – It’s fairly large and there’s not enough seating for lunch especially outside.

Soldiers Can’t Dance are one of the hungriest Irish bands out there.

Campus Band Questionnaire:

Soldiers Can’t Dance

Victoria Broad, 3rd Year Computer Science – The architecture! It’s very 70s and we need more swans to brighten it up.

Conor Cuffe, vocalist and guitarist for indie-rock band Soldiers Can’t Dance, talks to O-two about his Connemara connections and the band’s upcoming Dublin gigs Who are your members and what do they play?

My name’s Conor Cuffe and I’m on vocals and guitar, we have Luke Fitzgerald on the drums and vocals and James Kennedy plays bass and sings vocals too.

Where did you get the inspiration for your name?

Well, Luke (the drummer) thought of it one day and has refused to tell us where it came from, so I guess we'll never know that!

Where do you gig?

We’ve played Whelan’s, The Village, and Crawdaddy.

We’ve a gig coming up in Crawdaddy on the February 21st and the Purple Room, in Drogheda on the 28th of the same month. We formed the band in June last year and have serious support locally but we’re going to start playing all over Ireland on tour, heading to Limerick in March, to expand our fan base.

What do you play on the tour bus?

On the way to gigs, we like to listen to the xx, Lyric FM (honestly, it calms the nerves!), The Maccabees, and Kings of Leon’s first album [Youth and Young Manhood].

What’s the best thing about college?

Right now, we’re taking the year off from college to start our tour around Ireland. But when we were in Galway the craic was seriously great, meeting loads of new people and making friends, surfing in Cliften and swimming in the sea. I made loads of mates in Connemara because I studied in the Gaeltacht so there

we always had a laugh.

What is the worst thing about college?

Well, obviously early mornings are bad, and so was the drive home on the weekends! I guess the worst bit was being so busy and the lack of time to write music, so that’s why we’re taking the year out: the gigging and writing new songs!

What acts would headline your dream festival?

Arctic Monkeys, The Maccabees… Sounds like the Oxegen lineup! Paramore for Luke and Biffy Clyro for James.

Where would be your dream place to play?

Definitely Glastonbury. That would be incredible!

How would you differ from other college bands?

We try to be original; no one else out there really has our sound at the moment. We’re new, but we’re a hardworking band and are just trying to be heard. We’d love to do a few campus gigs to get our name out there to as many people as possible. Our first track ‘Lego’ has been really popular and the Brit Indie Rock Blog and a New York Indie Blog have reviewed us, which was amazing. Getting this university paper interview is great too, especially when it’s UCD as we’re playing loads of upcoming gigs in Dublin so hopefully people will check us out and like what they hear!

In conversation with Laurie Dool.

For more information, visit myspace.com/ soldierscantdanceband.

Emi Prior, 1st Science – I’d make the shops accept laser cards.

John Muldowney, 2nd Science – Labelling for lectures and rooms cause you to get a lot of people looking around here (Science building) for help. It would help to have a little map for each building.

- Quinton O’Reilly & Emer Sugrue