Volume XX – Otwo – Issue 1

the university observer culture magazine

Patrick J. Adams ari shaffir • editors • Mount Kimbie • ORLA GARTLAND

otwo

Star of SUITS

letter from the editors ISSUe 1—barney STInSon eaT yoUr hearT oUT

hI NeW FrIeNd! Welcome to volume XX of the OTWO magazine (sexy, but not too sexy to warrant treble X rating). This year’s OTWO is packed to the rafters with new and very exciting stuff, and you’re seeing our very first issue of the year.

The OTWO (unlike its serious brother that neatly shelters us from the rain) is the place guaranteed to talk about the latest cultural and banterful happenings in Ireland and abroad. In case you were wondering, no, we are not simply a thousand monkeys working on a thousand typewriters, we have iMacs.

If this is your second ever week in UCd, muchos congratulations on getting here. Your time at UCd really is the greatest experience of your life. Or maybe it won’t be. I’m really not an authority on the matter and shouldn’t be making promises.

If this is your first glimpse of the OTWO, this is how we do things.

Mittens has been sharpening her claws and is up and atom to get your pathetically zany lives in order. @ tila the hun is our new resident Queen Bee, and she’s on hand ready to dole out advice on everything from smoky eyeliner to plundering the Balkans. everyone’s favourite sketch comedy trio, Foil arms and hog, have been roped in to make your life even funnier than the predictable sitcom it already is. The elegant Orla Gartland has also stepped up, and OTWO will be given exclusive access to her inevitable ascension to the Iron Throne of the international music scene.

Music sees rebekah “lazer-eyes” rennick talk to editors, along with interviews with Mount Kimbie and funny man ari shaffir, and album reviews from NIN to haim. While Laura “The Tower” Bell meets all your Tv needs with a not-to-be-

missed autumn/Winter preview of what’s on the small screen.

Niall “#beballin’” Gosker chats to holy Wow studios (famous for titles such as icarus Proudbottom) and we’ll give you the lowdown on saints row 4 and killer is dead. The unlikely combination of Travel & Food sees steven traverse through Florence, with Jack showing you the ins and outs of how to be a classy beer person.

Fashion, meanwhile, is in the know for issue one, with our resident

fashionista emily “Win or Bin” Mullen looking at just how pretty UCd students can look, and on a budget.

Finally, Jack had the honour of interviewing one Patrick J. adams (aka Mike ross in suits) who was as much of a gentleman as a person can be. steven was away in england for the week, but luckily he was able to assimilate into the force, and his presence was felt sometimes in the most inopportune of moments (see above).

The beauty of the OTWO is its diversity. In 24 pages, you can be brought completely around the world, and be entertained by some of the very best and brightest student writers, singers, comedians and actors working today.

We hope you’re as excited as we are for the year ahead, we can only promise organised mayhem.

aLLONs-Y, JaCK & sTeveN

mystic mittens arIes

leo

SAGiTTARiUS

One in every hundred sU condoms has been clawed apart. May the odds be ever in your favour.

Ketchup is for the table, not for the bedroom. Catsup on the other hand…

TAURUS

viRGo

You will undergo double aCL surgery after attempting your first twerk session. Miley Cyrus will then tweet your angrily worded letter to her 13,811,380 followers on Twitter. enjoy your five seconds of fame.

You will meet your soul mate in row a, sitting in seat number 4 at the Wednesday showing of star trek in the cinema.

You missed out on your first elective choice TMNT: 10010 – Becoming Leonardo and are now stuck with TMNT: 40010 – Becoming donatello. heh.

GeMini

liBRA

I was meaning to say it to you last week, you were meant to meet your soul mate at the Patrick J. adams visit. In unrelated news, you will meet your mortal nemesis in row a, sitting in seat number 5 at the Wednesday showing of star trek in the cinema.

You’ll accidentally chat up an underage fresher. The deepest ring of hell is reserved for people like you, and people who talk when the sports are on the Tv.

SCoRPio

CAnCeR You will find your spirit animal.

Unfortunately, it will be in the form of some crabs you picked up on Black Monday.

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a curse upon your chIldren!

CAPRiCoRn Leaving that last bit of rice in the takeaway container is the only known guaranteed way of getting a six-pack.

AQUARiUS You will start wearing a suit to college for absolutely no raisins and demand caviar in the student centre just because you can. Wearing a suit is coupled with major responsibility, y’see.

PiSCeS Your first shift will be from someone who placed last at the iron stomach. You will receive the compliment of “having the legs of Tina Turner”.

They didn’t even make it through the You’ll laugh shyly, eyes slowly butter sandwich round. degradation drifting to the bloody remains stuffed squared. in your locker.

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12

centre

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comedy

regulars

——————————————— Mystic Mittens has awoken from her slumber and is set to invade your brain with hilarious and probably dangerous reasons. Letter from the editors sees the best OTWO editors in the OTWO universe welcome you to the OTWO universe.

regulars

——————————————— In soapbox, dónal Ó Catháin rants and raves about how UCd just can’t seem to get their various acts together. In WhWN, emily Longworth is sick and tired of watching your tragically unhip week, and is on a mission to indeed show you how hot or perhaps not hot several things are.

15 4 5 6 9

ColUMnS

——————————————— In our columns, the beast of the east @ttila the hun welcomes herself to yourself with a monumental bang.

Foil, arms & hog stop in for the first of twelve times to tell you about the problem with foreigners.

travel & drInk

——————————————— killer is dead and saints row iv are put to the test, and Niall Gosker has a sit down with the brains at holy Wow studios. Niall then continues his dominance of the Games section by discussing region Locking.

fIlm & tv

——————————————— Laura Bell goes all out describing the best of Tv’s autumn line up. rush, White house down and cold comes the night make up what you should or maybe not see. Finally, eva Griffin cries herself to sleep at night telling you about the Top Ten deaths That Killed Our Childhood.

——————————————— Jack Walsh had a sit down with the most beautiful man to grace the OTWO covers so far. Patrick J. adams aka Mike ross from suits proved to be a profound and honest interview that is not to be missed!

MUSiC

——————————————— emily Longworth had a phone call with Mount Kimbie, while rebekah rennick and Jack Walsh tag teamed editors. album reviews a plenty, from haim to NIN. rebekah rennick plays an 80’s boombox outside your window signalling the return of Mixtape, which is back to College choons this issue.

Finally, the elegant Orla Gartland starts her exclusive column for the OTWO.

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CoMinG To TeRMS WiTH THe MyRiAD oF HooPS WHiCH MUST Be JUMPeD THRoUGH in THe CoRReCT oRDeR, DÓNAL Ó CATHÁIN venTS ABoUT THe STUDenT WeB SeRviCe

——————————————— Comedian and all around cynic ari shaffir chats to Jack Walsh about the dangers of censoring art along with the new arena for stand-up comedy.

fashIon

——————————————— steven Balbirnie goes all Italian job and shows you the dos & don’ts of Florence. Jack Walsh shows you the ins and outs of “hairy Goat”, a new Irish craft beer.

games

soaPboX— sisWeb of lies

——————————————— Fashionistas emily Mullen and Christin McWeeney give you the lowdown on the hottest trends in back to college wear while #Winning or #Binning tells you what parts of your wardrobe to cherish and what parts to cast into a fiery pit of eternal damnation.

——————————————— We chat to the creative director of the dublin Theatre Festival Willie White, while our resident Culture Woulfe checks out some rather different shades of grey at the National Gallery.

fatal fourway

——————————————— a new year and a new gauntlet is cast down before our plucky verbal gladiators. Best Fictional representation of an american President in a Comedic setting —a suitably verbose contest to start the year.

eaCh Year, thousands of fresh-faced youths (and not-so-fresh-faced, not-so-youths) have the privilege of joining the UCd experience. It begins with filling in a simple dN course code on a form, but only becomes real after round 1 CaO offers are doled out.

This is when the real fun starts. One must become quickly acquainted with the array of ways in which you are required to engage with UCd. For some, filling out their CaO forms was a challenge. and boy, was registering for modules an eye-opening barrel of laughs for them.

Those who have siblings who are wise and cognicent of the ins and outs of the mystical sIsWeb are at a distinct advantage over their technologically-challenged newbie counterparts. Were it not for the sage advice of my sister, I would not have been up at 8am, pecking at F5 like a woodpecker to ensure the acquisition of the earliest possible start time.

The opening and closing of start time offerings came and went. Many incoming students were still asleep, unaware of the grave atrocity they had committed with this ignorant neglect. some may now find themselves in the interesting situation of having lectures to attend at 8am in the morning and 8pm at night. This is the penance they must endure during their time in the cyber sinbin.

When students finally got around to putting their timetable together, the volcano of confusion, which had been registering a few flares during its dormancy, finally erupted. Oddly and meanly enough, it is the Orts students who have the toughest task in registering for modules. I counted at least 68 offerings for “Intro to arts”, a convenient number to stop at admittedly.

Modules, cores, tutorials and electives are all part of the secret language of university speak, in which these many young souls were yet unversed. The glorified memory test that was the Leaving Cert was easy compared to this supremely daunting task.

UCd are testing its students. If one can persevere and click on every possible page in every sIsWeb tab they will eventually stumble across what they’re looking for, whether by chance or process of elimination.

We were told in the President’s Welcome that college life is “a journey of discovery”. New students must take their difficulties with a pinch of salt.

They may be bewildered by module registration, they may enter the Newman building and never return, heck, they may even fall into the lake. It is these life experiences which will mould them, or just leave them as baffled as before.

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foil, arms & hog— the Problem With foreigners in their brand spanking (but let’s hope not too violently spanking) new column, irish sketch comedy trio Foil, Arms & Hog present “The Problem with Foreigners”

as YOU LOOK around your campus, you notice there are these people… these unusual people. People who possess sun tans that aren’t orange or smell like feet, people whose symmetrical bone structures speak of diverse gene pools and whose accents trick you into initially thinking they might be from Cork.

These are, in fact, foreigners and we must welcome these peculiar specimens/attractive bastards with open arms, but there is a stumbling block. as Irish people, we have bred into our heritage a deep mistrust of foreigners and developed strong defensive mechanisms within both our language and culture. This makes integration trickier than Buckaroo with Parkinson’s.

Most difficult of all is the language divide. Not that their english is bad, it’s just we don’t really speak english.

Our version of it, hiberno-english, can at times be so far removed from the Queen’s that to many we might as well be speaking Gaelic.

For instance, here are some phrases that may leave our foreign friends with a blank expression.

Press—‘The jam is in the press’.

To them the jam is now about to be compressed between two giant metal plates. What we meant to say was ‘cupboard’. sliced Pan—ask your new friend however it’s not just the language from overseas to pick you up a ‘sliced barrier you have to watch out for. pan’ and you have a greater chance There are also many cultural traps of them returning with a mangled that you can easily fall into. For frying pan than Brennans’ best. example, if you take one of these foreigners on a night out, you must craic (pronounced: crack)—We be sensitive to the fact that they all know this is not a reference to have had a very different drinking drugs, but if you explain craic to education. your foreign friends as ‘having a For them it is not a badge of hongreat time’, they’re still going to think you’re on about drugs and will our having one’s stomach pumped in Tallaght hospital early on a Tuesday tighten their grip on their iPhone. morning. also note that on the way Likewise, ‘I’ll do it now in a while’ home they probably aren’t going to enjoy the traditional Irish e. coli is an oxymoron that will give any kebab or Camden street chipper foreigner a migraine.

brawl. That is not to say these new arrivals are all innocence and cupcakes.

If you do manage to bed one of them (in a dramatic bid to improve your world 11), be prepared to have your mind, along with your... socks... blown off. These folks weren’t brought up in Catholic Ireland or educated in single sex prisons, and you’re about to feel like a rank amateur. Imagine they’re don Conroy and you’re an owl. and if you’re wondering how the hell one of these exotic beauties is interested in you in the first place, it’s

your accent (unless you’re from Louth).

One last thing to keep in the back of your mind. If a foreigner refuses a cup of tea the first time you offer it, it is because they actually don’t want it.

Thanks for reading and good luck.

You’ll need it. check out foil, arms & hog on youtube, facebook, twitter (@foilarmsandhog) and foilarmsandhog.ie for more updates from ireland’s best comedy sketch group

@tilla_da_hun Heya Hun, I really wanna get that smokey eye look, but I can never get it right and I seriously wanna get stuck into this lad in Dutch Soc… I’ve gone through 3 eye pallets and my optician can’t deal with my self-inflicted retinal damage… Is the smokey eye actually necessary for getting the ride or are Cosmo lyin’ through their hole? Viola xoxo

u ok hun?

Been dealing with da huns problems since 445AD… Ur resident agony aunt & Hunnic emperor lol! Don’t mess wit my girlos or i’ll wreck u like i wrecked da city of Aquileia . xoxo. Tweet me!

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C’mere to me hun, this is a little-known fact about the smokey eye, but it actually originated back in 444, this one mad funny time when me and my motts were breakin’ into da roman empire for shits and giggles.

We had to stall it across the river danube, but none of the girls brought their MaC liquidlast liner so we were in a hoop by the time we got over with mascara all down our faces. Classic scaldy birds like.

But we were actually all still lookin mad class! so we abandoned Illyricum and took some photos of da huns with cans on the river bank. Messier than Black Monday, but the lads were all over us later.

Cosmo can be a slut of a publication, but it’s not lying, smokey eye is so integral to getting the ride. Try to go for the impromptu look, by holding your smokes too close to your eye when you’re mouldy and it should blur just enough to achieve the right look. Glam! xoxo

Howiye Hun, I think the lad I’m scoring is trying to get stuck into my younger sister… But he’s only ever seen her in her junior cert photos on facebook, and he’s been asking all these pet questions like when she’ll be 17 since… He’s also mad impressed that she got four Bs but one of them is CSPE so it doesn’t count? In bits over this plz help! Coulis xoxo aw, u ok hun?

Look, he’s actually not even worth it if ur stressin over him like this… although if he’s a wetzer then you’re probably feelin really torn over what to do…

But here like, this same thing happened to me in 450ad when honoria proposed to me as a plea for help, but she had the bang of a Jeremy Kyle bird offa her and I knew she couldn’t be trusted so I insisted on getting half the Western empire as a dowry. she actually had the nerve to refuse me so I pushed her down the stairs of diceys next time we were all gargling. don’t let any boys wreck your buzz!

Luv all my huns! xoxo

florence—the dos & don’ts Spelling out the dos and don’ts, steven balbirnie walks through the highs and lows of the birthplace of the Renaissance

beer of the

fortnight

do

try some of the local ice-cream. florentine gelato is an exquisite treat suitable for any time of the day and still made according to a traditional recipe which popular myth alleges was invented by the sixteenth-century florentine artist bernardo buonatalenti.

don’t

cross a road without carefully looking both ways. This seems like very obvious advice for any part of the world, but motorists in florence seem to have a particularly scant regard for the rules of the road, with running red lights at speed a common occurrence, even when pedestrians are in the process of crossing. pedestrians should take great care when crossing any roads.

do

visit the duomo di firenze. This cathedral, which was built over the course of 140 years, is a magnificent piece of architecture and a UneSco World heritage site. designed by arnolfo di cambio, with a dome engineered by filippo brunelleschi and a beautifully ornate tower designed by Giotto; the cathedral is a fitting monument to the artistic triumphs of renaissance florence. The surrounding piazza also functions as a great meeting place.

don’t

arrive late in the day to the Uffizzi Gallery. as one of the world’s most established and prestigious art galleries, featuring works from da vinci to raphael, and caravaggio to rembrandt, the museum understandably receives masses of tourists every day.

With queues to buy tickets sometimes taking up to 90 minutes, it is advised to arrive early to avoid disappointment.

do

check out the palazzo pitti. an imposing palace constructed in the fifteenth-century whose residents have included the Grand dukes of Tuscany, the Italian Monarchy and even napoleon bonaparte, the palace is now one of the city’s largest art galleries. The museum houses the collections of the Medici family and offers an excellent alternative to the Uffizzi. palazzo pitti also offers discounted admission to anyone under the age of 25.

don’t

expect to be able to go for an inexpensive meal in any of the restaurants in the city’s central squares. The most affordable dish tends to be the local tripe which costs a minimum of €15 while a specialty florentine steak can set you back €50. Much more cost-effective pizza and pasta restaurants can be found in the more outlying areas of the city.

do

take a bus uphill to the town of fiesole. only 15 minutes away from florence, the picturesque town of fiesole boasts an impressive view of the city and the surrounding Tuscan hills. fiesole also features the remains of a theatre and baths dating from roman times. It is well worth the short trip from florence.

don’t

forget to learn some basic Italian phrases. for many of florence’s residents, even in the service industry, Italian is their only language. With english quite often being met by shrugs of incomprehension, it is very important to try to talk to the locals in their own language as much as possible.

do

cross the ponte vecchio. The ponte vecchio is the most famous bridge spanning the river arno and the only one of the city’s historic bridges to survive the nazi occupation during the Second World War. The ponte vecchio offers wonderful views of the city and has the novelty of hosting the premises of several jewellery shops and art dealers.

don’t

travel without picking up a bus ticket. These can be purchased from any of the city’s numerous newspaper stands and offer a discounted fare. ensure to validate your ticket once on board as inspectors are not always sympathetic to the plight of the confused tourist.

by Jack Walsh

PerhaPs the most colourful producers of the Irish craft beer scene, Mountain Man Brewing Co. have ensured a remarkable substance along with style.

Founded in 2012 by Phil Cullen, MM is currently west Cork’s only representative within the Irish craft beer industry, with “hairy Goat” being their second beer following the success of “Green Bullet”, a golden coloured american style Pale ale. debuting their “hairy Goat” at this year’s Irish Craft Beer and Cider Festival, MM have crafted an Indian Pale ale (IPa) with an english twist. remarkably drinkable with a balanced blend of hops and barley, this IPa is full bodied, and without an overpowering aroma. at 4.5%, hairy Goat is the perfect introduction to your craft beer journey. smooth, with a light copper colouring and a grapefruit and peachy blend, that is simply not tiring on the senses.

With this type of craft, it’s perfect for a long night, or simply as a twist along with Thai or Meaty dishes. Break the IPa mould; serve ice cold.

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saints roW iv

saint’s roW iv is the latest release in the bizarre openworld series, and by far the most insane yet. While it is technically a new game with a plot that continues on from saint’s row the third, the latest instalment is set in the same city. despite it being a billed as a full numbered sequel, saint’s row iv is unfortunately better described as downloadable content in disguise.

The plot itself continues directly from the previous game, in which the Third street saints have become heroes in their city of steelport. From this, the protagonist, simply referred to as The Boss, becomes the President of the United states.

It’s all fun and games until the presidential shenanigans are interrupted by an alien invasion.

The Boss is then captured and put in a simulation of steelport for the amusement of the alien overlord.

There has always been a heavy element of silliness, which was harshly expanded upon in the third game of the series, but the saint’s row games seem to be running out of jokes. however, the option to have a character voiced by Nolan North as Nolan North, is an admittedly inspired character customisation gag. however, the level of seriousness that previously contrasted and counterbalanced the lunacy has been eradicated. saint’s row iv is very much saint’s row the third with even

more pop culture references thrown in. Keith david plays himself and at one point brawls with roddy Piper. There are customisation options available for weapons so that they resemble han solo’s blaster or even Malcolm reynold’s revolver from firefly.

While all of these are amusing for some time, and the dubstep Gun is stupidly fun, they wear thin relatively quickly. The newly added super powers, which allow for rapid traversal of the environment are initially fun, but equally become repetitive.

They also have the side effect of making travel by car useless.

The activities from saint’s row the third are all still here, just with new skins. helicopters become flying saucers, tanks become hover-tanks, and destruction merely becomes destruction with super powers.

Graphically, it’s very much the same as its predecessor. The landmass is almost identical, save for some superficial additions. Minus the super powers and plot, there is almost nothing genuinely new here. despite all of these flaws, the game’s twenty hours of gameplay is certainly an entertaining experience. still, the lack of any real replay value, combined with its status as a half sequel with not enough original content, make saint’s row iv a difficult purchasing recommendation at full price. karl Quigley

TiTle SAinT’S RoW iv PlATFoRMS PC, MAC, PUBliSHeR DeeP SilveR xBox 360, PS3 DeveloPeR voliTion, inC. ReleASe DATe oUT noW

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killer is dead

OUTLaNdIsh PLOT? Check. Bizarre bosses? Check. distinctive visuals? Check. heavy emphasis on combat?

Check. Breaking the fourth wall? Check. killer is dead bears all of the hallmarks of a Grasshopper Manufacture game, though perhaps this is to its detriment more than anything else. killer is dead sees you taking on the role of Mondo Zappa, a professional executioner who is basically James Bond with a katana and a robotic arm. There isn’t much point in discussing the game’s story as it just doesn’t make sense; suffice it to say it involves the moon a lot.

Mondo is quite strange for a suda51 protagonist; stoic, uncharismatic and lacking clear motives, he doesn’t really stand up to the mark set by Travis Touchdown in no more heroes. In many ways this is symptomatic of the game as a whole. killer is dead is attempting to channel no more heroes, but ends up as an inferior derivative; due to its cel-shaded graphics or a soundtrack that is not up to akira Yamaoka’s usual par. The game’s combat system is a combination of the swordplay from no more heroes and the gunplay of shadows of the damned, with Mondo’s robotic arm morphing between different fire arms in a style similar to that of Johnson.

The controls are a great improvement on previous

Grasshopper Manufacture games, feeling fluid and natural, unfortunately this improved combat is wasted on overly brief levels and uninspiring boss battles. There are occasional sparks of brilliance, but these merely underscore the feeling that this game could have been so much more.

The most controversial and talked about aspect of the game is Gigolo mode, a bizarre dating sim which sees Mondo attempting to seduce women in the hope of gaining upgrades for his robotic arm. some critics have seen Gigolo mode as blatant misogyny, while others argue that it is instead a parody of the sleazy womanising antics of the James Bond archetype that Mondo Zappa is based on. either way, these side missions should be criticised for being a generally pointless and poorly implemented game mechanic which killer is dead could do without.

Overall, killer is dead isn’t bad, but it fails to live up to the legacy of its predecessors. It lacks the insanity of killer 7, the intriguing characters of no more heroes or the atmospheric environments of shadows of the damned. The game is also far too short to merit a full-price purchase. On the bright side, suda51 has teased a new no more heroes game, which you’d be better off saving your money for rather than supporting this missed opportunity. steven balbirnie

TiTle killeR iS DeAD DeveloPeR GRASSHoPPeR PUBliSHeR DeeP SilveR MAnUFACTURe PlATFoRMS xBox 360, PS3 ReleASe DATe oUT noW

flying Proud The duo behind holy Wow Studios talk to Niall Gosker about the charmingly subversive Icarus Proudbottom teaches typing game and the future of the franchise.

The GeNesIs of New York-based holy Wow studios is surprisingly appropriate, given the random nature of the games they produce. Jaclyn Lalli and dan vecchitto first met in college where, according to Lalli, “we were both majoring in a poorlyplanned graphic design program.

“It was pure luck we met, since the class I met him in I was incorrectly assigned to by my guidance counsellor. I was pissed at the counsellor because it filled none of the credits I needed, but, in retrospect, I should go back and thank him.”

It is then fitting that a mentality steeped in controlled, yet free flowing, chaos would find its way into their games. The studio’s recently well-received release icarus Proudbottom teaches typing is a clear affirmation of this. Those of a certain generation will hold either a nostalgic reverence or a deep-seated hatred for the educational games of old, which aimed to blend the fun of video games with the learning value of teaching. embedded in pop culture more than any other series in the ‘edutainment’ genre is the mavis beacon teaches typing series, which aimed to improve the keyboard skills of young children to better equip them for an increasingly computer-focused world. More often than not, however, these games were painstakingly dry, devoid of any personality or humour. It was from this problem that teaches typing was born.

“I thought up the basic idea for the game a while ago: a typing game that starts off innocent and then, over time, becomes more and more sinister as you type out these evil contracts that sign away your rights.” explains dan vecchitto, the other half of holy Wow studios.

“To be honest, I don’t remember how or why this concept came to me,” he continues, “I love typing of the dead, but otherwise there aren’t re-

I thought up the basIc Idea for the game a whIle ago; a typIng game that starts off Innocent and then, over tIme, becomes more and more sInIster as you type out these evIl contracts that sIgn away your rIghts.

ally any typing games I love,” The idea of turning a well-established type of game on its head was always there, but the something awful Gamedev vIII challenge provided the perfect opportunity.

“When the sa contest was announced and we heard the theme we had to adhere to (subversive edutainment), it was too perfect. and, having the month’s due date

is great motivation,” says Lalli. icarus Proudbottom teaches typing, at its most basic interactive level, is virtually identical to the edutainment games of yore; it is the aspects that surround it that set it apart.

Given that much of the game’s strengths lie in its ability to surprise the player, it’s difficult to discuss teaches typing without giving too much away. Broadly speaking, vecchitto explains that “a common thing we do in this game is implement all sorts of stuff that you’d never expect to see in a typing game, while avoiding having things be just purely random.

“Part of what makes these elements surprising, I think, is how we establish a really specific look and feel early on. at the beginning of the game, everything adheres to a strict colour palette of light blue, yellow, and orange-red, and everything is extremely light-hearted and upbeat.

“This makes all of the surprise

elements later on feel even more jarring, because you’re shattering not only expectations, but the visual look and feel of the world.” This challenge of surprising players is indicative of larger problem where it is becoming more difficult to experience games completely cold with Lalli claiming that players will “feel much more connected going in blind.” vecchitto echoes this sentiment, and sees it as a potentially unsolvable conundrum, describing it as “just the world we live in now; how you can go on YouTube and see a game in its entirety on release day.

I’m not sure if there’s anything a game-maker can do to address this.

“No matter what you do, if people are interested in your game, some of them will read about it beforehand and spoil it for themselves. When you think about it, it’s almost like a compliment; ‘I want to know about your game right now, I can’t restrain myself.’” humour in games is notoriously difficult, but with a constant barrage of well-written jokes, teaches typing has a genuinely good sense of humour that is delivered with confidence and style.

It’s what gives the game a sizeable chunk of its charming personality. vecchitto himself is big fan of comedy, saying that “I like to deconstruct what makes things funny.

What definitely helps the humour

grow is the improvisational way we make our games. We’re constantly thinking of new stuff as we build the game, and I’m constantly re-writing lines. That’s one of the great things about being indie; we’re just two people so there’s no approval process. If we think something is a good idea then bam; it goes in.” holy Wow studios is hard at work on their next games in the series, called icarus Proudbottom: starship captain. Mechanically speaking, it’ll be a very different affair, but the whacky dNa the series thrives on will remain the heart and soul of the game. “starship captain is going to be totally, 100% different from a gameplay perspective”, explains vecchitto.

“That’s kind of what I’d like to do with the Icarus Proudbottom franchise.

Make a series of completely unrelated games, except with a lot of the same cast members and, hopefully, a similar level of humour and writing.”

The duo are hoping to launch a Kickstarter later this year to support development and, with a couple of games already under their belts and widespread acclaim for their unique brand of design, surely this is only the beginning of greatness for holy Wow studios. for updates on starship captain’s continuing development visit www.holywowstudios.com

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on lockdoWn Looking at the past, present, and future, Niall Gosker discusses the contentious issue of region locking

It may seem strange that It was nIntendo, the cuddly famIly frIend company, who were responsIble for IntroducIng what would become a standard held wIth such contempt reGION LOCKING, since its introduction in the video game industry with the release of the Nintendo entertainment system back in the mid-eighties, has often been viewed as a slimy and mystifying practice.

The reasons for its existence can be difficult to justify to consumers, commonly presenting itself as a barrier to entry and a major downside to limited localisation.

In 2013, some thirty years later, region locking is still a source of discontent among enthusiasts. however, with both the Xbox One and Playstation 4 foregoing such limitations, are we about to enter a new age of freedom? Or is this simply yet another example of an indecisive back and forth mentality on the part of console manufacturers?

The idea of restricting game playback based on region didn’t come about until the third generation of consoles launched. This marked the end of video games crash of 1983, a period of recession for the industry in which its future relevance in culture became a big question mark.

It may seem strange that it was Nintendo, the cuddly family friend company, who were responsible for introducing what would become a standard held with such contempt. viewed in the context of a dwindling market though, the business reasons for doing so become easier to understand.

Perhaps the most important and obvious commercial upside is the

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ability to maintain different pricing models appropriate for different markets. The recommended retail price can vary by country based on factors such as the average income or demand. essentially, this forces consumers to pay whatever the asking price is in their country, rather than looking to purchase from outside their borders where it can often be significantly cheaper.

There’s also the relationship between developers and retailers to consider, which has become increasingly devious in the past couple of years. The mechanism of launching a game nowadays consists of a lot more moving parts than in the past, with the massive marketing and scrappy bite-sized pre-order campaigns. Both of these exist in order to create hype and secure as many sales as possible before a game’s release.

Often they’re shaped specifically to appeal to the sensibilities of certain markets. ensuring a player can’t jump the gun and have the game five months ahead of when it’s supposed to be released in their territory traps them in their designated spot in the balance books. Most of the time, it’s all about numbers.

There is another side to things; one based on the cultural and societal differences that present themselves when dealing with a potential market so large in size.

Certain content may be perfectly acceptable in one country, but offensive in another. One recent

example came with the release of post-apocalyptic rPG Fallout 3 in 2008, which contains mutated cows named Brahmin.

In India, the cow’s significance in the hindu religion ultimately led Microsoft not to release the Xbox 360 version of the game there in order to avoid any controversy. It’s a decision that seems to make sense initially, but one that arguably causes more harm than it prevents.

In trying to manage positive public relations, they end up hurting the people who care most and, because of the region lock, leave them with no options.

Thankfully, it hasn’t remained a constant fi xture, but there have been several exceptions to the rule.

Nintendo themselves have backtracked, most noticeably with the ds in 2004, which was region free. somewhat bafflingly, region locking returned with the release of the dsi hardware revision and has since remained a permanent Nintendo fixture.

Nintendo aren’t the only company to lack consistency on the matter. sega’s saturn was even more convoluted, with Japanese consoles able to play the majority of foreign version games, while european and american consoles were unable to play most games from other regions.

The reasons behind such indecisiveness are unclear. Perhaps these instances are large-scale experiments and nothing more, a test to

discover the ramifications of the lack of region locking from a business standpoint. Certainly it would seem that companies who have dabbled in it and then regressed are still finding it a necessary evil.

With the news that both the Playstation 4 and the Xbox One won’t enforce regional restrictions by default, it is possible that we are on the verge of a new era where such restrictions could come to be viewed by those in the decision making process as archaic. sony hasn’t enforced it since the Playstation 2, so perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they’re continuing down the same path. Given the history of the issue though, nothing should be taken for granted. With Microsoft, it’s hard not to wonder what changed their stance, especially considering the company’s usually quite stubborn mentality, at least prior to their huge u-turn on many of Xbox One’s major policies.

While there are reasons for region locking to be put into practice, none of them are good enough to justify its draconian end result. It’s even more ridiculous as the popularity of digital downloads as a delivery method increases.

If console manufacturers care as much about their fans as they claim, region locking shouldn’t even be an option. hopefully with this coming generation of consoles, it won’t ever be again.

to Watch—neW to tv this autumn dazed and confused by the redundancy of aertel? Let Laura bell sit you down, throw a blanket over you and tell you about the best new releases of Tv’s autumn/Winter schedule

THe CRAZy oneS Watch out Mad Men, a new show centred on the glamour of advertising and the existentially tortured men behind the scenes is on the block. Just kidding. The Crazy Ones, features the unlikely pairing of vampire slayer-alum sarahMichelle Gellar and robin Williams in his first Tv role since 1978’s Mork & Mindy. The pair play a father-daughter advertising executive duo; Williams as don draper on ketamine and Gellar as his level headed, type-a protégé. despite robin Williams’ statement that he’s returned to television to pay the bills, describing his alimony payments to his two ex-wives as “ripping your heart out through your wallet”, the show features real world brands without money or contracts changing hands. In spite of its sitcom standard formula, The Crazy Ones might just have something interesting to say. the crazy ones premieres on september 26th.

MARvel’S AGenTS oF S.H.i.e.l.D. AlMoST HUMAn

DRACUlA

DADS

This J.J. abrams produced cyberpunk crime drama centres on Los angeles 2048, wherein a robothating cop is coincidentally paired up with an anomalously sentient android. detective John Kennex, played by sci-fi fixture Karl Urban, opens the series by waking up from a 17 month long coma to discover that his old, fleshy human leg has been replaced by a super-efficient mechanised limb. Furthermore, he must learn to understand and accept his new emotional friendroid in order to uncover the mysteries of this new world. No, I didn’t just tell you the plot of i-robot.

ah, there’s nothing in the world quite like flogging a dead horse, is there? Marketed as being “america’s Original vampire”, the show created in part for sky Living tells the story of dracula’s return to Britain under the guise of being an american businessman looking to bring scientific enlightenment to the dark, foggy streets of victorian-era London.

Of course, “vlad” has ulterior motives that seem to centre on the general concept of revenge unto painful death. The showrunners promise dracula to be an “original, sophisticated, and sexy take on Bram stoker’s classic novel.” after all, it’s not like we’ve ever seen Jonathan rhys-Meyers being evil in a period drama before.

If ratings staying power could be determined by pedigree alone, then dads could surely become a fixture of the sitcom rerun circuit. Produced by seth MacFarlane, best known for Family Guy and that Oscars opening monologue the academy won’t talk about, and starring seth Green of robot Chicken fame, dads follows two thirty-something video game developers who have their annoying fathers suddenly re-enter their lives.

Objectionable hilarity is sure to ensue. Judging by its pre-release reviews, dads is an audience pleasing, critic affronting, 30-minute ball of offensiveness. “We don’t want the show to be the racial insult comedy show,” says exec producer Mike scully, in response to a scene in which a woman dresses like a schoolchild in order to seduce an asian businessman. Well, you can’t always get what you want.

almost human premieres on november 4th.

dracula premieres on october 25th.

Because director Joss Whedon didn’t already have enough cult SleePy HolloW hits (Buffy the vampire slayer; a thoroughly unofficial follow Firefly) under his belt, he makes up to Tim Burtons’ 1999 ode to his almost assuredly triumphant Johnny depp and beheading, FOX’s return to television with agents of upcoming sleepy hollow gives the s.h.I.e.L.d., a spin off from the tale a modern twist. The plot is avengers franchise that focuses on simple: Inspector Ichabod Crane the suspiciously badass bureaucracy wakes up dead in the future to behind the Marvel heroes. Whedon find that the headless horseman attests that the show is less about (somewhat regrettably not played by supercharged superpowers and more Christopher Walken) is up to his old concerning “the peripheral people… neck severing tricks. Ichabod finds the people on the edges of the grand himself forced to team up with local adventures”, though it ties in neatly law enforcement in order to finally with the film franchise and promises put the supernatural forces behind the most important thing of all: the hessian to rest. Because original lots of cute crossover cameos sure ideas are like, so 18th century. to strike at the heart of fandom on earth. sleepy hollow premieres on september 16th. marvel’s agents of s.h.i.e.l.d. premieres on september 24th.

dads premieres on september 17th.

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rush

cold comes the night

DiReCToR Ron HoWARD STARRinG DAniel BRÜHl, CHRiS HeMSWoRTH, oliviA WilDe ReleASe DATe oUT noW dId YOU ever think that maybe there's more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking? Perhaps not, but Chris hemsworth, starring here as the notorious Formula One bad boy James hunt, seems determined to figure it out. Granted, he doesn't come up with a whole lot; but sex, champagne, and race cars seem like a good place to start. rush, the latest offering from director ron howard, tells the story of the most celebrated frenemies to ever start their engines. daniel Bruhl of inglorious basterds fame plays the icy and technical Niki Lauda who serves as the foil for hemsworth's affable sophisticate.

The film follows the events of the 1976 Formula One World Championship in which hunt and Lauda were pitted against each other at every turn. The story portrayed of rivalry doesn’t even culminate in Lauda's near fatal crash at the German Grand Prix, but continues into Lauda's return to the track and the controversial end to the season. howard, of course, amplifies the antagonism between hunt and Lauda for dramatic effect; their on screen counterparts can barely have a conversation that doesn't end in eye rolling and hand gestures. In reality, the pair spent a good deal of time together off the track, even sharing a flat at the F3 stage early in their careers. despite the liberties howard takes with his source material, however, rush

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manages to be an exhilarating and magnificently entertaining two hours. Bruhl's brilliant performance steals every scene from his co-stars. In the words of the real-life Lauda, “shit! That's really me.” hemsworth brings off his role well enough, though the James hunt he portrays is difficult to care about; charismatic, passionate but somehow dull. supporting roles go to Olivia Wilde as socialite suzy Miller and alexandra Maria Lara as Marlene, hunt and Lauda's respective wives, while the cinematography is striking and stylish. race scenes are intense and thrilling, but in moments of drama the pace is suitably tempered down. With rush, howard has created nothing short of an immensely enjoyable film. any cracks that show in this retrofitted story are filled in by the truly engaging nature of the subject matter and howard's unapologetically cinematic retelling. as hunt scolds his wife, “don't go to men who are willing to kill themselves driving around in circles looking for normality.” do, however, go to them looking for a rush.

IN a NUTsheLL an almost-biopic about fast cars and the men who drive them, packaged up inside an audience pleasing drama. laura bell

DiReCToR TZe CHUn STARRinG AliCe eve, BRyAn CRAnSTon, URSUlA PARkeR, loGAn MARSHAll-GReen ReleASe DATe 20TH oF SePTeMBeR TaLes OF financial misery in the Usa have been plentiful since the recession began. such themes are in full effect here in cold comes the night, which is set against the murky grey backdrop of Middle america. It is certainly a wellintentioned film; with some sharp work from this, the second feature film of Tze Chun’s directing career. at the outset, we are introduced to Chloe (eve), a single mother trying to make ends meet whilst living with her young daughter (Parker, whose warm performance is similar to her turn in the Tv series louie) in a run down motel. Being a desolate motel, naturally it coaxes in trouble, as evidenced by the murder of a criminal late one night.

Upon witnessing the crime, Chloe crosses path with the sinister Topo (Cranston), a criminal with an incredibly poor sense of vision. This leads to Topo kidnapping her and forcing her to track down a pile of money, taken from the motel crime scene by a crooked cop (Marshall-Green).

On the back of the popularity of breaking bad, Cranston puts in a good performance here as he utilises that Walter White intensity. The problem, by all accounts, is the accent Cranston adopts. Topo is a man of eastern-european descent and so Cranston adopts a suitable accent.

It does, however, range from pretty poor to hilarious at different stages throughout the piece, stealing from his strong, character driven performance. eve and Marshall-Green put in better performances after very forgettable ones in star trek and Prometheus respectively.

Though certainly with eve’s character, they are given only so much to play with in regards to writing. cold comes the night is a movie wherein motivations become increasingly scattered as it wears on. This is only further hampered by the sometimes blunt writing and a sharp fall in direction for the fi nal fi fteen-minutes. By the end the audience are left with a lot of dead bodies wondering exactly what it was all for.

The film has its points. The cinematography on display here crafts a vivid picture of the Middle america in a tantalisingly grey perspective. When it wants to, the film can get pretty tense alongside the decent score from Jeff Grace. cold comes the night, a film with a fine foundation that only thwarts itself by the end.

IN a NUTsheLL a decent thriller which may leave you cold by its climax. martin healy

White house doWn

toP 10—

Movie DeATHS THAT RUineD yoUR CHilDHooD

10 DiReCToR RolAnD eMMeRiCH STARRinG CHAnninG TATUM, JAMie Foxx, MAGGie GyllenHAAl ReleASe DATe oUT noW White house doWn is the second film this year to feature the White house under attack, the first being antoine Fuqua’s olympus has fallen starring Gerard Butler and aaron eckhart. With such a similar subject matter, some comparison must inevitably be drawn before looking at White house down based on its own merits.

The premise for both films is obviously ridiculous, though White house down’s plot is marginally more plausible than that in olympus has fallen tale of North Korean terrorists. Indeed, the fact that the villains of White house down represent a domestic threat rather than being stereotypical foreign “turrurists” hell-bent on destroying “Murica” is somewhat refreshing.

The film sees police officer and army veteran John Cale (Channing Tatum) on a visit to the White house with his daughter where he fails his job interview with the secret service but ends up joining a tour of the building. While on the tour they meet President James sawyer (Jamie Foxx) who is in the process of proposing an international peace deal that would see Us forces removed from the Middle east.

This may sound rather pedestrian, but it isn’t long before the Capitol building explodes and the White house is overrun by mercenaries and right wing extremists with the assistance of an insider. at this point the fi lm kicks into

gear, with Tatum left as the only man inside the White house capable of saving his daughter, the President, america and the world.

Tatum’s character is very clearly inspired by die hard’s John McClane and 24’s Jack Bauer, though Tatum lacks the grit and world-weariness of Bruce Willis or Kiefer sutherland. Jamie Foxx is decent in his role as President sawyer, who seems to have been influenced by Obama; while Maggie Gyllenhaal is underutilised in her role as a secret service agent.

White house down is much more like a standard over the top action movie than roland emmerich’s previous disaster movies and sci-fi blockbusters, though he does still manage a good few explosions and some substantial property damage to central Washington dC. Basically, this is a ham-fisted critique of the power of the military industrial complex and the dangers of american overseas commitments, though this quickly becomes confused and derailed by petty revenge plots culminating in a conclusion that ties things together far too neatly. White house down is certainly a competent if unremarkable action film, albeit one filled with cheesiness.

IN a NUTsheLL a bit of fun if you can turn off your brain. steven balbirnie

THe SnoWMAn

Not even the most magical of snowmen can survive those harsh rays of sunlight. The coldhearted end to a majestic night between a boy and his frosty friend prevented a generation from ever enjoying building a snowman. This is a cruel level of emotional attachment to allow children to build up for a character that can be melted by that cruel ball of fire in the sky.

9 8 7 6

babe

In order to set an appropriately darktone for a movie about a cute little pig making his way in the world, Babe’s mother is torn away from him before embarking on her journey to the slaughterhouse. We can take solace in the fact that she probably made a scrumptious rasher sambo.

charlotte’s web

a spider being best friends with a pig is quite far-fetched, but Charlotte was such a loveable character that, after her death, smushing all those icky spiders with a worn-out copy of the book almost felt like genocide. almost.

5 4 3

tarZan

as a child, it’s natural to be constantly rooting for the meanie pants with the gun to go away. honestly though, did our then untainted eyes need to bear witness to Clayton’s lifeless body dangling from a vine? We’re not so sure, disney, we’re not so sure.

fIndIng nemo

Whoever decided to include the mass murder of a mother and her babies into the opening scenes of a children’s movie is an atrocious human being. No, the fact that they were fish does not console anyone.

eva griffin

2 1

the land before tIme a precious baby dinosaur watches his beloved mother die slowly in front of him. alright, dinosaurs being dead is like, so 65 million years ago, but Littlefoot was way too innocent to lose his mammy like that, okay?

PokÉMon: THe FiRST Movie If the sight of the Pokémon gang sobbing over ash’s death didn’t hit you right in the childhood, then you’re probably dead inside. Okay, about a minute later the combined Poké-tears of Pikachu et al. miraculously revived him, but many of us are still reeling from those 60 traumatic seconds spent believing that our idol had died.

bambI

ah, the inherent evil of man. an important life lesson relayed to the young wide-eyed disney lover in the form of a hunter separating Bambi from his mother. Why must animated films be so callous? even the manliest of men can admit to having shed a tear (i.e. bawled their eyes out) at that gut-wrenching moment.

my gIrl

“Open your eyes, she’s eleven years old! her only friend in the world is dead.” seriously? seriously?!

the lIon kIng

The ultimate tear-jerker from disney’s dN10101: destroying Childhood Naivety. Those few moments of simba struggling to understand why his dad won’t wake up are legitimately soul destroying. If you look closely, you can actually pinpoint the exact moment his heart breaks in two.

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11

Patrick J. Adams

“This Can’t Surprise You Anymore” Patrick J. Adams talks to Jack Walsh about Burning Man, his ending for Mike Ross and being a protégé of Dustin Hoffman

I auditioned for the drama Mad Men in its first year believing it was a comedy.

I made a fool of myself, but I also got a call back

There’s a reserved energy to Toronto-born Patrick J. Adams. A distant stare, an uncertain confidence in his surroundings, all the signs of the superb casting decision Aaron Korsh made in giving Adams the role of Mike Ross, a character echoing each man in different ways.

“I wish I could say I was a better actor but pretty much every part of Mike is me.

“That whole naivety in the first season, I’m falling over myself and tripping and dropping files that was me just going ‘I’m terrified’. All actors are supposed to be beacons of confidence and any young professional is supposed to exude this confidence like you know what you’re doing. I was in a format where I was able to play out those nervous qualities.”

Suits follow the trials of Ross (a university dropout with an eidetic memory) as he traverses the corporate legal world of New York City.

Adam’s performance is an act built upon thirteen years after leaving his mother’s apartment to attend the University of Southern California, where he studied Theatre; a feat he describes as his Dawson’s Creek romantic ending.

This is a journey Adams simpli-

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fies as, “There was a lot of struggle, a lot of difficult times, made a lot of mistakes, and I mean a lot of mistakes. I do think that’s the time to do it though. Those four years that I had were all about making as many mistakes as possible and learning from them as quickly as possible.”

One of those mistakes involves a casting mix up, in which Mike received word of a pilot known as Mad Men. The problem? Another pilot (albeit a wild comedy) was also receiving auditions, also called Mad Men. Adams appeared in front of the future Emmy winning drama’s creators, and in his own words, “I auditioned for the drama Mad Men in its first year believing it was a comedy. I made a fool of myself, but I also got a call back.”

In eventually discovering Mike Ross, Adams discovered a role fitting for an actor of his kind at this stage in their career. Speaking about the character, Adams said, “It’s a part that was really about this young kid who despite having not followed a conventional path and who saw an opportunity to take advantage and prove to himself that finally he could do the things he thinks he’s capable of doing.

“I really related to that, and the

audition was very very easy for me, because I got to sit there in front of network executives to do this scene with Harvey Spectre saying that I deserved this. ‘Give me my shot, this is me, this is my time’. It was just sort of meant to be, it was easy”.

Mike Ross has emerged as the calling card for Adams. His primary inspiration for advice came however in working with Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman on the HBO Horse Racing Drama Luck. Cast as Nathan Israel, Hoffman “saw in me someone who he could teach and mentor over the course of filming Luck, which we worked on together”.

He continued, “We keep in touch still, he’s just been so supportive and so kind and I think he really knows the struggle of a young actor and his story of being 30-years-old when he became successful and so he knows how hard it can be. I think he saw that I had the right intentions and that I was working hard and he saw over those few weeks me really grow up not only as a man but as an actor.”

The breakout moments within the show are often times the exchanges between Mike Ross and his legal mentor Harvey Spectre (Gabriel Macht). A show known for its witty

remarks, Adams admits his most difficult scene came in the season two episode “High Noon”.

Spectre and Ross spend a time engaging in drinking and smoking weed, which inevitably opens age old wounds the two never knew existed.

It was an important scene, and one unexpected from the usually dapper programme. “That was why it was one of the most difficult scenes to film. The relationship between Harvey and Mike is that those lines were never crossed again.

“That’s why I believe the scene was so funny and worked so well. I remember in person, it was about twice as long as it was, and when we started doing it I was like stoned people don’t move that fast. So we started taking our time, it was suddenly the dynamic of Mike and Harvey had changed. After that, the relationship became much closer, but they had to go through that. Once you go through something like that with someone, you can’t go back”.

With a new guard of established names darting through the Suits cast, most notably Michelle Fairley and Conleth Hill (Catelyn Stark and Lord Varys of HBO’s Game of Thrones), many question the strength that the relationship between

Harvey and Mike have in the shows dynamic. “It just gets stronger and stronger. We are still good friends and we have a lot of respect and support for each other and to have Michelle come in and spice up the cast was incredible.”

He continued, “Every time an actor like that comes into the mix, it brings everyone else up a notch.

It forces us and allows us to take it more seriously and work harder and encourage them to give their best performance as well.”

For Adams, as an artist, it is become apparent that his ambitions don’t merely limit him to work in front of the camera. “I definitely will be directing an episode of Suits next year. I’m excited, I don’t know which one, I can’t tell you which as this may be a disaster. I’ve been shadowing directors; I directed a lot of theatre and I’m a photographer, so I will spend a lot of time working on it”.

When an actor in television establishes themselves with a role to emote day-in-day-out for a specific vision of a person, it’s only customary to want the best for them. Adams had a glint in his eye, excited and looking forward to seeing what Ross becomes.

“With that final few moments in Suits I hope it is a tease to what this character will become following Suits that he goes from a falling all over the place disaster, a person who was uncomfortable and unsure of who he was as a person and that it is left open for the audience to see who he has become.

“Not just a Harvey Spectre model 2.0, but a model of himself that people have invested so much time and energy into the show all over the planet which is so insane that so many people do but it’s our inspiration,” said Adams.

Aware that the show also draws in lots of different kinds of viewers, Adams said, “There are so many young people that watch the show and I know a lot of different people watch it for a lot of different reasons and not just Mike, but I think that Mike represents that sort of hope and that drive for something more. He is that part of ourselves that is reaching for the next step and I hope that type of people who watch the show are satisfied with whatever that final moment is.”

Gratification can come in many forms for an actor. Monetary gains, social standings, award shows. Adams experienced his whilst walking through the Nevada based Burning Man festival. “I met this guy who started telling me about how he and

his wife watch suits on a weekly basis and how moved they were. Not just watch it, but they love it and believe it’s a story about mentorship.

“She was a mentor and she used the show as a means to teach some of the kids she looks after. It was an amazing moment in the middle of all of this. That’s when I knew that just maybe we had gone from being just a cool trendy television show to something that people really invested in.”

When asked about what his original motivations and intentions were to study acting, the cheerful Adams became solemn, and asked if it was ok to get real for a moment, “My father was a journalist; he was a man who sold stories. I knew that wasn’t the direction for me, I loved fiction and storytelling.

“Being a part of an imaginary world, there was just some part of me that was so transported by that type of work and be able to take the feelings that were in my own body and so much in our daily lives I had been told not to feel things and not to experience things and not to express things.”

He continued, “To hide everything away and be cool, always be cool.

I was never cool. I was the type of person who couldn’t help but say what he was feeling and would talk about what I was going through and hear what other people were going through and so acting when I saw it for the first time was live and onstage and when I saw the effect it could have on me and other people then I knew there was nothing else in the world that I want to do.”

As a child, Adams wanted to be Michael J. Fox, and when asked about actors he admired as a youth said he “couldn’t believe that human beings could be completely capable of transporting us.”

As children, there are interests and beliefs that slowly and surely stop being special. Some stay. As an adult, Adams describes his process as an actor as, “[It] pulls me out of the fear and doubt and all that stuff and all that stuff inside each of us that sort of pulls you down and makes me feel like I’m part of a huge community of people and I’m part of something bigger than myself.

“I think when someone finds that thing in their lives that makes them feel bigger than themselves or makes them feel like part of something bigger then that’s when you have to pay attention to it, and at this point it has been acting. I don’t know if it’s always going to be what it is, but for now that’s still what it is.”

I met this guy who started telling me about how he and his wife watch Suits on a weekly basis and how moved they were. Not just watch it, but they love it and believe it’s a story about mentorship

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Passive aggressive scePtic ari Shaffir tells Jack Walsh about his experience starting at the comedy Store club, what it means to be a comedian and his problems with the Tv Industry

arI shaFFIr doesn’t believe in watershed moments of realisation in life. To him, his path negotiating through the traditional stand-up comedy forte was black and white.

“It was never a question of how am I going to make my living at this, that wasn’t even on the table, maybe some people thought about it. For most of us, it was let me try and make a good joke.”

Growing and maturing under the gentle and rambunctious guidance of the Los angelas-based Comedy store, where shaffir learned the trade by noticing “a lot of people who were the best around at one facet of the game. I would see them eighty, a hundred times and eventually I would read and comprehend their technique and not just what they were writing about”. during these raconteur days, shaffir recalls a conversation with ralphie May, who, having listened to shaffir’s complaints of the state of his early career, warmly stated, “That’s when it’s fun. It’s all about the joke.

Just the fun of the writing. I got it way later, there was no commerce involved.” an onlooker of the evolution of his business, shaffir, it seems, is more interested in the internet’s ability to influence. “anybody who started within the last five years got to watch almost every piece of stand-up that’s ever been recorded whenever they want and so they didn’t just come in contact with a couple of guys on Tv, they came in contact with everything.”

In terms of the business, a subject shaffir detests even speaking about, this has allowed a shift in power from the networks who “really aren’t representing the art”. shaffir halted his train of thought, and quietly broke down the state of the industry. “here’s what’s going to happen with television, because that’s still the form that people watch. It’s switching, but I don’t know how fast it’s switching. There is a time when industries change where you can adapt or go away.”

This adaption requires an artistic mindfulness, as shaffir notes that “any time you tell a comic or any

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performer these are the things you can’t do, you’re stopping a free flow of creativity. That’s really dangerous in any art form.”

Podcasting has become a worldwide platform of this creative flow. shaffir has repeatedly flirted with podcasting, having appeared on the Joe rogan experience 26 times and founding his own podcast sceptic tank as a response to “any comic who has been on the road, and done morning radio, almost all of them thought ‘I could do this’.

The only problem is I don’t live in Omaha and the California one seems pretty hard”. a natural aversion to the long form style used by rogan, shaffir prefers a focused discussion, with each week encapsulating a certain topic, a favourite of his being “how magical it is to have kids”.

For american comedians, shaffir notes an overdependence on used material something he ascribes to a lack of work ethic. a conversation with Louis CK in Montreal regarding CK’s ability to write a new hour every year opened shaffir’s eyes on the most simplistic effective of writing forms. “Louis CK told me he just throws out his material. all of it, all gone.” ari shaffir, as a writer, would change with what came next.

any tIme you tell a comIc or any performer these are the thIngs you can’t do, you’re stoppIng a free flow of creatIvIty. that’s really dangerous In any art form

“Then [Louis CK] said something interesting, he said, ‘If you couldn’t do any of your material anymore would you stop being a stand-up comedian?’ It’s an obvious answer.

No. You’re just going to write new bits because you’re just not not going to be a stand-up. That’s who you are.

You’re just a comic.

“To become a comic it’s not about money or anything you just be a comic. and you don’t stop until you reach an age where you get driven out by lack of income or family life.” shaffir spent the last year of his life ascribing to this belief. The result? Passive aggressive, his very own hour. available online for $5, shaffir detailed his beliefs on the importance of allowing the world to see you. “It’s rewarding as an artist and not a chance you would get without the internet letting you put your stuff out for other people.

“If you don’t put your stuff out and you just move on, it is like a painter painting a painting, some art, he finishes it and he’s happy with it. he looks at it for a minute and then he shows it to a few people, then takes out a lighter and sets it on fire, and says, ‘I’m going to move onto my next painting.’ You made it, let people enjoy it!”

mount kimbie

dom Maker and Kai campos of electronic music duo Mount Kimbie chat to Emily Longworth about collaborations, their live performances and how an album can grow over time

“I ThINK a lot of people were taken aback by how different this album is, but to us it just sounds like our music. It doesn’t sound like anything different.” dom Maker sounds distinctly at ease when explaining the transition Mount Kimbie have made in their music since the 2010 debut crooks and lovers.

The most notoriously difficult downside to releasing such an amazing first album is that an artist can easily become the master of their own demise if they don’t meet the exceptional standards they set for themselves.

Contrary to the self-fulfilling prophecy of the difficult second album, cold spring fault less youth has been adorned with critical acclaim since its release in May, and both dom Maker and Kai Campos of the band are reassuringly satisfied with what they’ve made.

“I guess the thing for us is that the first album was such a small window into what we enjoyed, and what we wanna make with our music. I think it was working with a small pallet of sounds, a lot smaller than we have on this record.” dom tries to dispel the idea that their sound changed with the deliberate intention of being

I guess the thIng for us Is that the fIrst album was such a small wIndow Into what we enjoyed, and what we wanna make wIth our musIc

uniquely different, he describes it as a response to the aftermath of the first album. “We’re not trying to be different every time, we’re just trying to push ourselves to things that we find exciting in sounds.”

This is an important distinction to make in an era where namedropping is currency and avantgarde is a way of life. speaking to Mount Kimbie, you get the impression they want to depart from the stigma of the hipster stereotype, a perception which can distract hugely from the importance of the craft. additionally, Maker believes in the growing strength of their new work, instead of treating a record as disposable on the basis of how new it is. “I think there’s a lot more that the album can give, because I think it’s quite a grower.

“We’ve been listening to it for a long period of time. The way I view it has changed and obviously playing these shows gives a better chance of using the ideas we had on the album and change them up a little bit and play them out live to as many people as possible.” reflecting on what it was like playing Boiler room as ‘Mount Kimbie and Friends’ earlier this

year, they agreed that the experience sounds like the best house party ever. “Yeah, definitely, it’s such a funny environment in Boiler room because with the audience watching and listening it’s a lot more of a wholesome experience.

“That’s what it’s tailored for. We had a lot of fun and it was great to have as many of our friends down as possible playing records, and it felt like a really nice kind of launch to the album and it’s just important to remember who your close friends are in music.”

The duo are also noticeably grateful to have friends like James Blake and Gilles Peterson supporting them through their career thus far. “Just people who have always been there for us and who’ve always been really hot on the music, so it’s so good to get them all in one room.”

While on the topic of collaborations with friends, possible plans for upcoming projects with James Blake arise, which the duo expand upon, “Yeah, there’s always a possibility, the thing is that we’ve both got such busy schedules, so it’s just trying to find the right time to do it.

“We’re not worried about it; we’re in no rush. We just want to make sure that what we do is as good as it

can be, and we don’t really want to force it is the main thing”.

It inspires a lot of confidence hearing them place so much emphasis on the quality of their work, it’s a refreshing departure from the somewhat fickle style of music making that’s exhibited by their pop chart contemporaries. and it’s a lot more credible than the fleeting overnight popularity of viral stardom.

This is how the craft of producing really should be. as the friendly phone call nears its end, their performance as very special guest in the Body & soul stage at electric Picnic at the start of the month comes up. The question transforms into a fumbling array of fan girl compliments that don’t really merit an answer, as Maker notes that their small 2:00am set in Body and soul was much better for them than the daytime slot in the electric arena.

Maker remarked, “I think the first set was a bit of a shambles because the sound limit was really low, we do well occasionally at festivals, but it’s not the best place to hear us. It’s better in a more unique environment rather than a tent, and the Body and soul thing was absolutely incredible, we loved it.”

Continuing to speak of how much enjoyed the Body and soul stage, Maker felt the experience was very revitalising. “I think it was really refreshing for us, because we played to a load of people who had absolutely no idea what music we were making or who we were and it just felt good trying to win over an audience.

“We got some really good comments and feedback from people who were there which never happens; so it just felt really good and we came away really satisfied.” a perfect set-up for their dublin show in October, we’re reminded that Mount Kimbie are still ever improving. mount kimbie play the button factory on 9th november. tickets are on sale from ticketmaster.ie.

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editors

After four years of absence, Russell Leetch of Editors breaks the silence and chats to Rebekah Rennick about new band members, new tunes and new enthusiasm

None of us were very happy

Between nuances of Joy Division melodies, Depeche Mode-esque synth ballads and broody posturing common form of a teenage anarchist, Editors have been a solid formation in our musical landscape for quite some time. Removing themselves from that position for the past four years, however, has transformed the band in more ways than one.

The 2009 installment In This Light & On this Evening saw the Birmingham quartet delve into their most experimental territory to date. The rollercoaster ride between then and now has seen not only the remodeling of their newest album, but also the reshaping of the band itself.

The departure of guitarist Chris Urbanowicz left the band in a recovery position, both personally and artistically. “The tricky situation came before he left the band. That was when we were in a kind of place where things weren’t going very well for all of us”, explains bassist Russell Leetch.

“None of us were very happy. Afterwards, that’s when things started to work again, everything started to click back into place. The new band members brought a lot of new things to the table and we started to be a band again.”

The English West Midland lilt

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echoing from Leetch’s accent is a far cry from the moody, gothic front characteristic of Editors. Yet he speaks fondly about both Chris’s departure and the new path the band are currently undertaking, “Obviously it feels like a different band now. Chris did our signature sounds and that was very present on the first three records but it’s a fresh beginning.”

The bellowing, rumbling acoustics of Editors’ tunes have always been reminiscent of arena fillers including U2 and The Killers, yet this time around the band have chosen simplicity over complexity. “We realised we wanted to make a record that was straight to the point. The last record wasn’t experimental, everything was just done quite quickly really, there was no lingering on any of the thought processes.

“There’s a lot of layers on it, but this time we didn’t want as many and we wanted it to be quite clear.

That was the starting point for us”, contemplates Leetch. “I think it’s another side of Editors that perhaps people mightn’t have heard before.

There’s a lot more orchestration and use of horns. We’ve captured an acoustic element that we have never captured before.”

Although the fabric of previous Editors albums were heavily layered

and tainted with several different themes, The Weight of Your Love sees a new lease of life flowing through each track. Leetch himself confronts the issue of a somewhat loss of enthusiasm in the band before new band members, Justin and Elliot, joined the team, “There wasn’t really any enthusiasm in Editors for a while. For them to come in and add this enthusiastic working approach, it transforms the way you work.

“I mean, Chris didn’t really enjoy being in a band. It sounds funny, but he didn’t like a lot that was to do with it. I think that puzzles some people, but there’s some football players out there that don’t like playing football”, chuckels Leetch. “It does become a job with some people and when that happens with music, it’s never a good thing.”

Channeling the sombre undercurrents of Ian Curtis, Editors have produced an eleven track ensemble of love songs. Varying from ones of isolation without said love, heard in ‘The Weight’, to others questioning the person of their adoration, “Would you butcher my love, To understand it, To know where it lies?” opening the newest single ‘Formaldehyde’ their repertoire growls with emotion.

“Some of them are hopeful, but other times there’s more sinister type of work going on”, says Leetch.

“There’s some creepy, stalker type of love songs as well so it’s not your traditonal red roses sort of thing either. You could say that the album is really out there, but it’s just a great record. Sometimes there’s a stigma attached to what Editors are, but I think this changes what we are again.”

Injecting the energy from a live show into a recorded rendition is the hurdle all bands find most difficult to clear. Although the magic of a live experience is the fact you’re in the moment, sharing the electricity of the band and creating an atmosphere not even the most durable container could bottle up, Editors have tried just that.

“We just wanted to let people hear the band”, professes Leetch. “Let them hear the power of what we were doing, [we] didn’t want there to be any kind of tricks. I think it’s the start of a new thing for us.”

With their fourth installment reinstating their presence in today’s musical sphere, Editors’ once slouched, broody posture is standing straight and powerful as they embrace us once more. It’s quite a comfortable embrace at that.

Editors play the Olympia on 20th November. Tickets are on sale at ticketmaster.ie

album reviews

CHVRCHES

The Naked & Famous In Rolling Waves

The Bones of What You Believe In

NINE INCH NAILS HAIM

Days Are Gone

Following a myriad of appearances on the bill of major European festivals such as Glastonbury, CHVRCHES have certainly built up both a dedicated following and a bubbling excitement that follows a fresh sound of such calibre.

The album opens with ‘The Mother We Share’, a mid-tempo synth-pop ballad. Here we get a taste of what lead singer Lauren Mayberry is really capable of.

Mayberry’s voice is at times as soft and delicate as the likes of Lisa Mitchell before completely u-turning to resemble powervoices of yesteryear such as Susanna Hoffs or Stevie Nicks during the chorus.

The album progresses from here in a bittersweet manor with feel-good dance beats and infectiously catchy synth lines complemented by more sombre lyrics of tragedy and separation seen in ‘We Sink’ and ‘Gun’.

The album continues much in this fashion (save for synth player Martin Doherty taking lead vocals in ‘Under The Tide’) before reaching its climax in ‘Recover’.

The listener is treated to some clever vocal tricks in ‘Night Sky’, some dirty bass that Dizzee Rascal would give a nod of appreciation to in ‘Lungs’ and a slow, emotional outro with ‘You Caught The Light’, but the strength of this release really lies within its first half. Although in perhaps a restricting genre, CHVRCHES manage to keep coming up with fresh hooks to keep your attention firmly in place.

From anonymity to soundtracking the opening credits of cult TV show Made In Chelsea, The Naked & Famous keep on giving with their newest instalment In Rolling Waves. Its unexpected mellow and ambient air allows us to question whether or not it will be as successful as their first, but it is Alisa Xayalith’s dominating vocals that solidify the album.

The opening track ‘A Stillness’ offers an acoustic preface, setting the pace for the rest of the album, as an energized stillness remains throughout. This loose sound avoids stagnancy with ‘Kill Giants’ as they revert back to their original new-wave revival sound that we all fell in love with first time round, proving that a healthy mixture of upbeat and dreary is possible. This track opens with the trademark synthesizer while Xayalith’s evanescent repetitive vocals curl and twist around each swooping melody, lifted just by the introduction of a heavy rhythm on the drums.

The closing track ‘A Small Reunion’ recapitulates the acoustic vibe bubbling throughout the album, while offering an unpredicted introduction of string instruments. The classical injection highlights the diversity of The Naked and Famous’ musicianship while pulling the song forward into a climax involving the prevailing drum beat, keeping their alternative rock sound alive.

The album is something a little different, yet something to be loved all the same.

In A Nutshell Here’s hoping The Bones of What You Believe is just the bones of what this young trio has to offer.

In A Nutshell An enchanting, sincere and exhilarating album that should be loved as much as the first.

In A Nutshell With a combination of both new and old tunes, Days Are Gone is the perfect appetizer for what will no doubt be a stomping career ahead.

Marcus Dalton

Jordan O’Regan

Rebekah Rennick

From the moment the heavy drum beats of opening track ‘Falling’ gently tug on your ears, you can already feel the Californian breeze emanating from Haim’s debut album ‘Days Are Gone’.

And after what seems like an eternity waiting for this 11 track delight, it’s a very welcoming, warm breeze at that.

Exploding on our musical radars less than a year ago, Haim’s sun-kissed, Fleetwood Mac-esque melodies swoop you up into an aural embrace that leaves you wanting more.

Building upon their tenacious yet hypnotic live performances, Haim have produced an album to soothe the soul.

Newly released tune ‘The Wire’ not only sees primary vocalist and eldest Haim sibling, Danielle, sharing the microphone with her sisters, but perfectly encapsulates the “It’s not you, it’s me” situation. With voices that mould together in only a familial way could, the syrupy melodies that drip from each track only cares to accentuate the true musicianship bubbling within these sisters.

‘Go Slow’ shivers with restrained lust and regret, coated with haunting harmonies and rumbling reverb while ‘If I Could Change Your Mind’ captures the tumbling desperation in recapturing lost love. The sensitivity behind some of the lyrics comes as a pleasant surprise, and fuels this debut from start to finish.

Hesitation Marks

Nine Inch Nails have long been associated with the counterculture: depression, drug abuse and despair, all of which form a core part of Reznor’s influences and sound. In recent years however, having tucked an Oscar under his belt for his music composition in The Social Network, people were beginning to worry whether NIN would ever make a reappearance.

With the band on indefinite hiatus, Reznor experimented with new sounds, all of which lacked the bite and fervour characteristic of the tenacious front man. His newest offering sees a reassuring return to form.

Second track ‘Copy of A’ channels NIN’s previous album The Slip in spades and does it amazingly well. The rest of the album descends into classic NIN territory: deeply unsettling samples, slow beats building up to crescendos, and dark lyrical composition.

Yet variation and experimentation prevails. ‘All Time Low’ displays a more groove laden sound, almost worthy of dancing to rather than wallowing in self-pity. Everything echoes the more rock oriented sounds of With Teeth, while ‘Disappointed’ contains samples that wouldn’t be out of place on a Disclosure record.

None of this is bad, it simply serves to deepen NIN’s sound, adding modern influence’s to Reznor’s classic sound. Be under no illusion, 1992’s The Downward Spiral is, and always will be, Reznor’s masterpiece.

Hesitation Marks is a great addition to his back catalogue however, and your NIN collection will not be complete without it.

In A Nutshell Welcome back Trent.

Michael O’Sullivan

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gartlandia—gaP year In an exclusive column, dublin born singer/songwriter orla Gartland writes about following the dream

miXtaPe— back to ucd

DeliveRinG A ClASSiC PlAyliST, REBEKAH RENNICK GiveS yoU THe eSSenTiAl BACk-To-UCD AnTHeMS

levelS—AviCii You’ve got your glad rags ready, the cans assimilated from higgins’ and the all important guest list secured in this club everyone seems to talk about; dandelion, you think. You put the fresh in fresher and you’re ready to hit up the big shmoke. There’s been an avicii tune on all fresher soundtracks since 2010 and the monotonous, repetitive drone of ‘Levels’ is yours. You lucky thing.

BlURReD lineS—RoBin THiCke FT. T.i & PHARRell WilliAMS We’ve all been there; walking into Newman, the wave of faces and smell of stale coffee clouding your vision. Thank goodness for those coloured lines of wisdom guiding you from theatre L to the seomra Caidrimh. after a summer of lackluster concentration, separating the yellow from the white line can get a little tough and before you know it you’ve walked into a stage 4 russian lecture instead of art history.

I just really don’t fancy endIng up at an X factor audItIon at fIfty, beggIng for a fInal chance at the dream that scared me too much at eIghteen Fresher’s WeeK is going to hit me like a brick. With every declined Facebook invitation, I think of new ways to keep myself distracted whilst all my friends start college. It’s an odd one really. I’m so happy for them, but I can’t help but feel a little left out as all the excitement brews around me.

It’s my own fault though of course; I’m taking a (pause for effect) gap year. I never meant to be the awkward one. I never aspired to be crazy or different, I never tried to fight any system; yet here I am, going against the grain. Well, for the foreseeable future at least.

I’ve played music for years but never felt cool enough to call myself a musician. My reasoning behind the gap year was simple enough. I thought, right now I have no strings attached. No real commitments, no 9 to 5 - and that was it.

I’m not desperate to leave dublin but there’s nothing tying me down here either, nothing to stop me hopping on a plane and frolicking about with my guitar for a couple months.

I just really don’t fancy ending up at an X Factor audition at fi fty, begging for a final chance at the dream that scared me too much at eighteen.

Not very many musicians ‘make it’.

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CHASinG PAveMenTS—ADele The question, “have you found the secret lake yet?”, has been one echoing through UCd for decades now. some have been successful in their first expedition, while others have made it as far as Conway only to become lost forever by the enticement of starbucks and shiny floors. To all of those still unsuccessful in their quest, just remember that adele’s still unsure whether those pavements are worth chasing. You might get an award-winning album out of your attempts though.

Money, Money, Money—ABBA

It’s really great that so many people like to remind me of this when I tell them my plans for the year out. some say, “best of luck!” while in their head they’re thinking; she’s going to end up playing gigs to an audience of two; her Mam and dad.

I’m cynical by nature, but I’ve never seen the point in having absolutely no optimism. I’m lucky enough to have a few friends in the UK pursuing music and the advice they’ve given me has been invaluable.

They remind me, even when it’s bleak, when you’re in a dingy venue shouting over a noisy crowd, you Need to convince yourself that things are on the up; no matter how slow the climb feels.

I’d love to travel. My end goal in life is to be one of those pretentious, well-travelled people who must tell you just one more ridiculous story about their crazy time in Thailand last year. Or the time they navigated the country in a golf buggy with ten new friends strapped to the top or something.

I’d absolutely love to visit the states, so I’ve began the tedious quest for a working visa with the aim of booking a few gigs out there next year. I’ve met a few americans this

summer and they just love the Irish!

You don’t even need to win them over; they hear the Paddy accent and it’s an instant connection, and they must tell you how their uncle’s best friend’s neighbour’s granny was from Kerry. My party trick for americans who claim to be born and bred Irish is to write down dún Laoghaire and ask them to pronounce it.

I have no idea what will happen this year for me, but I guess that’s the most exciting part. I’m looking forward to moving to London, to playing a crazy amount of gigs, to meeting new people, to enduring countless ryanair flights, to writing lots of horrifically bad songs and (hopefully) a couple of good ones.

I’m looking forward to a bucketful of new experiences as I embrace one of the toughest industries in the world in one of the scariest cities I know. It builds character as they say.

I’ll put everything I’ve got into the music. Of course it could be a total flop, but so be it. I’d come back home a little sore and bitter, but I’d get over it eventually. If it comes to that I can just join the CaO party once again! Until then, I’m happy to be a total dosser.

Best, Orla

It’s week four and you suddenly realise you have spent your entire savings account for the year on domino’s meals and chicken fillet rolls in Centra (not spicy). even the special offers in the discount area of your local are making you sweat. Nobody said student living was going to be easy, but not even the discount codes on your eNTs card can take your mind off them dolla’ bills.

We like To PARTy! (venGABUS)—venGABoyS One moment you’re at a friend’s house party and suddenly you’re clambering into a zebra print emblazoned van. Mother always said never get into a stranger’s van, but the fluorescent lights and darkened walls push all inhibitions out of your mind. everyone has been vengabused at some stage and it’s only a matter of time before you fall out onto harcourt street, shivering and wondering what on earth just happened, with the night only beginning.

UnDeR PReSSURe—QUeen remember that assignment dispatched five weeks ago? Or maybe those relentless lectures warning you not to leave anything until the last minute? Well, come exam season, you’ll see students wallowing in their own self-hatred for doing absolutely nothing, zilch, nadda for the entire semester. Pressure levels rise to such a degree the James Joyce Library will have to install an extension in their roof to accommodate the escalating tension and empty coffee cups.

no SHiRT, no SHoeS, no PRoBleMS—kenny CHeSney We’ve all heard a story about someone we know waking up from a night out and missing just about everything except a traffic cone they scavenged from Camden street. That ominous wave of dread following a night on the tiles is one nearly every UCd student can relate to. But sometimes these oblivion nights of loss bring us back to the simpler things in life, realizing there were too many problems attached to that iPhone 5. Maybe.

neW season, neW semester URBAN OUTFITTERS, £38 URBAN OUTFITTERS, £40

AMERICAN APP, $72

sINCe FashION is constantly changing, it can be financially difficult for people, especially students, to keep up with the many trends that are ‘in season’. The good news is that, by simply structuring your entire look around a few staple ‘in season’ pieces, you can transform your wardrobe from being so last year, to being right on trend.

First off, the midi skirt is an essential item for your fall wardrobe.

The midi skirt allows for an endless amount of looks to play with whether you want to rock an edgy, but feminine look, or sexy and playful, the midi skirts versatility allows you to create various looks.

Take risks; play with your moods and personal styles when wearing your midi. Moreover, don’t be afraid to dress down with an oversized knit creating a cool but casual look.

90’s grunge revival has seen a lot of styles and prints resurface.

Tartan is one of autumn’s must-have

prints this season. Feeling preppy? a pleated tartan skirt can work many looks, as well as holding the right amount of edge. a simple white blouse or t-shirt is the best investment piece this season. It can be worn with virtually anything and it will never go out of style. The power of simple basics can pull any wardrobe together beautifully. a woven or flannel shirt is the perfect addition to building up your fall wardrobe. a tartan button-down can be styled to look grungy, western or hipster.

This staple piece can be worn under an oversized cardigan, a skinny jean and accessorised with a beanie.

The great thing about the trends for autumn is it’s all about layering. a single loose fitting sweater or knit can complete a look, but by playing with proportion or layering up you can form a trendier take on your outfit. The knit is a versatile piece for all looks and works well with

H&M, €39.95

trousers, skirts, shorts or dresses; creating a transitional look. a black skinny jean is the essential wardrobe staple and it’s important to know how to rock this look as the skinny jean is here to stay. a black skinny jean will work for a variety of looks, styles and occasions.

Leather jackets are a wardrobe essential and can be worn as a great layering tool in the winter but also as a light jacket in the summer.

Pair with one of your summer floral dresses, a pair of modern combat boots and your leather jacket creating a 1990s grunge inspired look. a pair of IT shoes can complete a look and make your outfit go from decent to outstanding. The buckle boot gives your look the grunge makeover, and by pairing them with a simple black legging and an oversized shirt they can make your outfit casual but stylish. christin mcWeeney

BOOHOO.COM, €38

ZARA, €39.95 RIVER ISLAND, €95

BOOHOO.COM, €15 RIVER ISLAND, €30

BARRATTS, £35 ZARA, €29.95 RIVER ISLAND, €30

WheTher YOU are starting college or returning for another year, you’re going to have to stock up on new clothes. You can’t really go to class in that exact same hoodie you wore last year, can you? Unfortunately, it is always slightly daunting, no matter how up to date you believe your wardrobe is, to find something new (and clean) to wear every. single. day.

Get your notepad out though, because here’s the simple trick. The best way to keep your spending down is to pick items that interchange and that go with most other things in your wardrobe, as opposed to buying outfit after outfit. as the seasons go by, it marks a change in high street fashion for men, with each label presenting ever more diverse collections that at times equal their female counterparts in terms of creativity. This makes it easier and easier for men to experiment and change up their looks.

For autumn, the key is always to layer up. Choose light t-shirts like

the classic white tee from Topshop, or fun t-shirts in acid wash, print or tie-dye like this little bargain from Boohoo.com. Wear your t-shirts on their own, if you can bear Belfield’s arctic winds. If not, try some under pullovers or woolly jumpers.

You can find class pullovers and jumpers in vintage shops for pretty cheap prices. although, if the worry of dead peoples’ clothes and the risk of scabies gets the better of you, Zara and Urban Outfitters have a great collection of vintage style woollens to choose from.

Team your tees, jumpers and pullovers with a good winter coat that will carry you through until spring. Basic denim jackets and parkas are a good call; river Islands’ new Khaki waxed parka looks the part and is functional to boot.

Bomber jackets are also having a little bit of a renaissance. This one from Boohoo.com is a steal at only �38; wear it with skinnies and a plain shirt for day or night, plus having a lion on your chest is a good talking

ZARA, €79.95

point when you find yourself outside Coppers at 3am in the morning. skinny jeans are a failsafe, light blue or black tend to go with absolutely everything, and they do break away from the chino-monotony. river Island and Urban Outfitters have great collections of track pants and joggers out at the moment, if you like comfort and style in one.

For shoes, you should opt for functionality for college-wear, given the size of the UCd campus and the amount of ground we are expected to cover between lectures. desert boots are surprisingly warm and hard-wearing.

The Nike air Base Trainers are the comfiest shoes on the planet.

Failing that, choose vans, Cons or whatever works for you. Top your new look off with a warm beanie, a scarf if you’re feeling adventurous, and a functional backpack to carry all your new washing home.

TOPMAN, €15

ASOS.COM, €29.93

ASOS.COM, €19.52 ZARA, €49.95

SCHUH, €92

emily mullen

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19

Street Style Jamie Mann Studying Sociology & Economics Wearing: Shirt – Vintage shop, Shoes – Nike, trousers – Penneys, Knitted Jumper – River Island, bag – bought at a reggae festival in California.

Style Inspiration: London street style.

Biggest bargain: An oversized shirt from Fresh Temple Bar for €15.

Most expensive purchase: Barber jacket €200.

Anna O’Connell Studying Human Nutrition Wearing: Shoes – Office, Leggings – Miss Selfridge, Jacket – Urban Renewal Urban Outfitters, Sunglasses – Topshop and Bag - River Island.

Style Inspiration: Bands, Sister and fashion sites.

Biggest bargain: A £5 Denim jacket at a London market.

Most expensive purchase: €250 Thigh high boots from AllSaints.

Dayna Van de Hoef

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Studying Medicine Wearing: Jacket – Zara Leggings – Canadian brand Aritzia, shoes – Ecco, necklace – Vintage (owned by her mother), t-shirt – self-made using photo transfer sheets and iron.

Style inspiration: Aimee Song and her songofstyle on instagram, Tumblr and pinterest Biggest bargain: €200 Ecco shoes bought for €30.

Most expensive purchase: Canadian goose jacket for €500

sander van der koeln Studying Business Wearing: Shoes – Timberland, Shirt & Trousers – Tommy Hilfiger, Jumper – G Star, Hat – Polo at Ralph Lauren.

Style Inspiration: Tommy Hilfiger, and Business Attire.

Biggest bargain: €13 trousers from Zara in Madrid.

Most expensive purchase: €500 long oversized body warmer coat worn over suits, high fashion brand.

#Winning #binning

/

or

WoRRieD ABoUT lookinG Cool DURinG FReSHeRS’ Week? Don’T WoRRy, EMILY MULLEN TellS yoU WHAT ACCeSSoRieS ARe #WinninG & WHAT’S WoRTH #BinninG

#Winning

#binning

loAFeRS FoR WoMen

novelTy nAil ColoURS

Never underestimate the power Back to black and classic red on that a good loafer can have; they fingers and toes we go, sigh. go with everything from tea dresses to jeans. Tees and are insanely comfy too, like slippers in disguise.

PReTTy in Pink

This colour is having a little bit of a moment.

Keep it ladylike with a light dusty pinks, stay away from neon with a ten foot pole as its #trending days are now numbered.

SloGAn TeeS

No, no, no, no. Less of the sW@G now please.

oveRSiZeD ClUTCHeS

We like this. Big bags mean more room for ridiculous items on nights out. Two hipflasks, yes please! a hat? sound. The less we have to spend on the cloakroom fees, the better.

neW look’S neW ColleCTion

WinTeR CloTHinG in SePTeMBeR

easy on the oversized coats, thermal underwear and woolly tights already. save them until October at least.

studs, furs, embellished fabrics, killer boots and even some kitten motifs thrown into the mix. absolutely outrageous #kantkope.

Me, Me, Me CoSMeTiCS

Benefits’ more affordable younger sister is rumoured to be coming to Irish soil in the coming months.

Good news for poor students with expensive taste.

steven mACmanus

WHiTe ConS

a college staple for many, but tread lightly and dodge puddles when wearing you’re white cons because there is a fine line between a bit of grungy grub and online STUDenT DiSCoUnTS just plain filthy.

Thank you asos.com, Boohoo.com and Motelrocks.com, that 20% off really sweetens the deal.

Studying Engineering Wearing: Shirt, trousers, jacket, shoes and bag— all from AllSaints.

Style Inspiration: The Kooples, AllSaints, Burberry, & Theo Hutchcraft.

Biggest bargain: Vintage Reiss Military coat bought online for €30.

Most expensive purchase: A black AllSaints winter wool coat with a diagonal cut for €300.

BEFORE

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Culture Woulfe Shades of Grey—Painting without Colour In the first installment of her new column, Laura Woulfe encourages you to set aside some time for the Shades of Grey exhibition in the National Gallery of Ireland

Dublin’s a Stage The Dublin Theatre Festival’s creative director and former UCD student, Willie White, talks to Steven Balbirnie about this year’s festival programme and the challenges of organising such a huge cultural event

Wunderkammer

September has returned and, with the fluorescent lights of Electric Picnic blinking ever so softly in your memory, you find yourself walking through the grey concrete jungle of UCD. Who, therefore, would be crazy enough to voluntarily visit the National Gallery of Ireland’s ‘Shades of Grey: Painting without Colour’ exhibition, which is bound to reinforce your post summertime blues?

Having gallantly risen to the challenge, I can now assure you that this colourless exhibition is not quite as dismal as it sounds. The Shades of Grey exhibition is reintroducing, or at least remembering, the 500-yearold debate between disegno (design) and colore (colour).

This thirty-painting exhibition is not merely aligning itself with Renaissance art critic Georgio Vasari’s affirmation that colour is inferior to design. The curators have done quite the opposite by demonstrating the powerful effects on meaning, mood, and design that a lack of colour can produce. Quite ironically, this elevates the role played by the presence or absence of colour in any given artwork.

The first section of the exhibition’s trio, unlike those to follow, acts as a welcoming introduction to the exhibition. Displaying paintings of varying different artistic styles such as French Impressionism and Spanish Romanticism, this setup creates the sense that we are spectators looking into a world of black and white.

Yet, no painting does this more effectively than Strickland Lowry’s Trompe L’oeil, which is the first painting on the left upon entering. The title, meaning ‘trick of the eye’, could not be more fitting; as the twinkling eyes of the man,

assumed to be Lowry himself, invite us into his colourless world commencing this powerful exhibition.

The second and third sections are much more demonstrative in contrast to the interpretive first section. The genre paintings on the right of the second section reveal how lack of colour in a painting is used to convey a sombre tone or mood correspondent to a painting’s subject matter, as seen in William Orpen’s The Knacker Yard, 1909. On the left, the landscape paintings show the importance of grey tones to convey oh-so-familiar dreary atmospheric conditions.

The culmination of the exhibition, however, is none other than a work by our very own Louis le Brocquy.

Dominating the final section, le Brocquy’s abstract painting, A Family painted in 1951 [pictured], shows how lack of colour can be used to accentuate the design of a painting as well as vitally contribute to tone and subject matter which boils down to the purpose of the entire display.

A Family is composed of large geometric shapes and bold well defined lines that may be paradoxically dulled by the inclusion of a superfluous use of colour while concurrently illustrating how the dull palette contributes to the overall grim tone of the painting. This, along with the many other works included and the clever curatorial layout, establishes Shades of Grey: Painting without Colour as a must-see exhibition.

National Gallery of Ireland— ‘Shades of Grey: Painting without Colour’, free admission, closes 29th September

22 otwo fashion

At the Gaiety Theatre 25—29 September

Exclusive offer—€10 tickets for Otwo Readers for the performance on 25th September 2013, 7.30pm

Quote the promo code: Observer to avail of this special discount*

BOOKING­—01 677 8899 / At the Festival Box Office, 44 East Essex Street, Temple Bar.

*Offer valid until 12 noon on Wednesday 25th September.

Subject to availability, T&Cs apply.

Displaying paintings of varying different artistic styles such as French Impressionism and Spanish Romanticism, this setup creates the sense that we are spectators looking into a world of black & white

Since its inception in 1957, the Dublin Theatre Festival has been at the forefront of bringing top-quality, and innovative, Irish and international theatre to the capital’s audiences. As Walsh explains, “Often it can really revolutionise their idea of what theatre is, what it’s about and who it’s for and there’s a long precedent of people’s minds being blown and worlds being rocked by stuff they’ve seen at the festival.”

This year’s festival will see 27 productions taking place in a variety of venues across Dublin over the course of 18 days. These will feature a variety of styles ranging from the circus and burlesque of Wunderkammer to the Noh theatre seen in Ground and Floor; and a range of languages from the French of Germinal to the Portuguese of Three Fingers Below the Knee, which reflects on the country’s experiences under the Salazar regime.

The incredible diversity on display in the festival programme is a deliberate decision, as Walsh said, “Very few people will see everything, the idea is that it’s diverse enough that hopefully there will be something there that will appeal to most people, not just to adults, but also there’s a family season as well where people can go as adults and children together. So really, the entry level to the festival is from two and to end of life, to infinity.”

The festival also challenges common perceptions of theatre through site-specific events, such as podcasts, and performances driven by audience participation. Walsh said, “It’s cool that we’re doing While You Wait on the internet as well as in Dublin Airport, which is

a place where people wait, so we’re occupying their time with something more artistic.”

This Is Not My Voice Speaking, a production taking place in the Temple Bar Gallery, employs the use of old media such as vinyl, tape decks and 60 mm film. “It’s a performance where the audience member participates in order to make it unfold, so there are buttons to press not in a kind of heavy or intimidating way, but you become enfolded in the performance and you get to actually touch the stuff and to make it advance.”

The job of running such a massive and eclectic event is certainly not an undertaking without its challenges as Walsh explains, “Before we’ve even delivered one year’s festival we’re already thinking about the next one so I’m already thinking about what’s going to happen in 2014.”

He continued, “Raising the money to put on an ambitious programme is challenging. Our funding comes from a number of sources. It comes from the Arts Council, the state’s arts funding agency, it comes from the audience who buy the tickets during the festival and also from businesses, from private individuals and from corporate supporters.”

Summing up the festival’s core objective, Walsh said, “The audience is the people in Dublin and you must try to reach as many of them as possible within the resources you have.” With such a diverse programme on display this year, there certainly should be something for everyone.

Dublin Theatre Festival runs from the 26th of September to the 13th of October. For more information see www.dublintheatrefestival.com

Fatal Fourway Best fictional representation of an American President in a comedic setting The Fourway returns with bigger egos, landscape destroying graphics and sharpened pens. This week the gang fight to the death deciding on the best presidential performance on the big and little screen

Richard Nixon—

George H. W. Bush—

Head-In-A-Jar Nixon—

Steven Balbernie

Jack Walsh

Laura Bell

Few remember the rivalry between the writers of The Simpsons and the Bush family. Jabs throughout the 90s peaked when President George H.W. Bush pictured his ideal American family as less like The Simpsons, more like The Walton’s.

The Simpsons quickly responded with: “We’re just like the Walton’s, we’re praying for an end to the depression too!” Cold!

Within “Two Bad Neighbors”, rather than attack any of Bush’s policies, The Simpsons highlighted the famed deadpan and even crotchy nature of the 41st President of the US, setting up him up as an early equivalent of Frank Grimes, a real life “nerd do well” trapped in a sitcom. *Cue necessary attack on my own bad neighbours* I’m pretty sure Nixon is passed away, but if he was alive he still never would have even heard of his parody in Black Dynamite. As for Futurama? Laura please, you barely have a leg to stand on with that one.

I have no idea what Emily went with, but she is a vegetarian, so her choice is infinitely inferior.

Disregard my grappling with the local oafs. This has been a good, but not great argument championing a good but not great president. Vote Bush, the second best President of the 1990s.

When the 37th president of the United States of America appeared inside a glass jar mounted upon Bender’s robot frame, it was obvious to audiences worldwide that Richard Nixon’s disembodied head was destined for great success.

One single vote and a colossal robot body later, a political renaissance of the highest order had begun. Unlike most presidents, headin-a-jar Nixon fulfilled each and every one of his campaign promises.

Plans to “sell children’s organs to zoo’s for meat” and “go into people’s houses at night and wreck up the place” were undoubtedly executed, along with all communists.

Known to join the Robot Devil for poker nights, Nixon’s famous catchphrase, “Quick, shoot ‘em in the back while they’re not looking!” has also been immortalised on the $1000 bill.

A man who is not afraid to face his past, Nixon has been known the stay at the Watergate Hotel and shout “expletive deleted!” in place of actual profanities; a show of consideration towards anyone who may be planning on blackmailing him with audiotapes.

While newer political upstarts might make grandiose promises, there’s really no greater quality in a leader than honesty. In the words of “M” D Zoidberg, “I’ll stick with the evil maniac I know, thank you.” Aroo!

Black Dynamite

The Simpsons

Futurama

George H. Bush—

Will Ferrell’s You’re Welcome America Emily Longworth

As one of the most outrageously funny films of the last decade, Black Dynamite always deserves a shout out and so too does the film’s nefarious villain, none other than President Richard Nixon himself.

Playing a foul mouthed, top notch Kung Fu master armed with presidential seal nunchaku and the derringer that John Wilkes-Booth used to assassinate Abraham Lincoln, none of the other candidates can come close to matching his absurd badassery.

This Nixon also has the distinct advantage of not only possessing his own body, but a body capable of going toe-to-toe with modern martial arts legend Michael Jai White.

Check out 2009’s Blood and Bone if you want to see his amazing skills.

The only things more absurdly brilliant than Nixon’s ace combat skills are his outlandish and unfathomably evil schemes. Whether it be a plan to swamp orphanages with drugs or to co-operate with the fiendish Dr. Wu of Kung Fu Island to create the villainous, dick-shrinking ‘Anaconda Malt Liquor’, (yes you read that correctly) Nixon proves himself to be a candidate with vision, albeit an utterly depraved one.

There’s only one logical course of action: vote for Tricky Dick. Can you dig it?

For many, Will Ferrell’s depiction of George Bush Jr. is indistinguishable from that of his Ron Burgundy. With this fact alone, I have already won this debate. But I’ll elaborate, because I wouldn’t want to rob you of the truth of its full hilarity.

In his stand-up set-long impression of George, mispronunciations and “Actual Quote” indicators abound, he struggles to bring home his arguments, and at times, becomes confused as to what his arguments really were anyway.

We also get an invaluable insight into the real politics of the White House when he introduces his cabinet (“Dick Cheney, there’s a man so charismatic he could shoot a guy in the face with a shotgun, and have that guy apologise to him… That’s some real Clint Eastwood shit right there”).

They say the best satire makes you forget that you’re not seeing the genuine article.

Despite his best efforts to completely piss all over George Bush’s public image, we still want to believe we’re watching the man himself. You stay imbecilic, Washington.

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The Back Page “Our idea was to make a Gradius-like sidescrolling game where you play as a guy who can’t stop pooping, and he’s flying through the air like a jet, powered by the force of his poops” Holy Wow Studios on how they created the character of Icarus Proudbottom

18,960 €19 138 the number of twitter followers UCDSU Education officer Adam CArroll has

the number of tweets UCDSU Education officer Adam CArroll has tweeted

Photograph of the week:

the gym doggie To submit photos to the University Observer photograph of the week contest email design @ universityobserver.ie

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the number of euro it costs to buy 15,000+ followers online