Tolstoy-esque

Not blogging is a crime!

And the punishment is not blogging!


Proper service will resume (or begin, depending on your definition of 'proper') very shortly.

Enjoy the sunshine.

Radiolab -

Just a quickie to highlight the recent return of RadioLab, WNYC's science documentary programme presented by Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad, and one of the most forward-thinking, exciting, innovative things being done of the radio right now. I wrote a considerably over-the-top, gushing explanation of my love for this programme around this time last year for one of my M.A in Radio and Television Production assignments. Thinking back on it, my style, my attitude to radio producing is definitely informed by RadioLab more than any other single series.

If you like interesting science, beautiful aural soundscapes, or the idea of sound being used not just as a basis for documentary but as a tool that provide as many gasp-inducing, spine-tingling moments as any other artform, you will love this. Excellent programme for beginners include the Musical Language episode, the Deception episode, or the Laughter episode.

Go forth and enjoy - http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/

The Books -

Just got my tickets for this...






The Books are close to being the perfect band for me, one of those bands that turn you into a missionary, setting forth to convert all to the worship of their glory. They use a strange mix of electro samples, lo-fi instrumentation, and sensuous synth to make songs that punch holes in your head. They're halfway between music and radio drama...creating disjointed narratives built on layers of juxtaposed sounds and voices. To utilise a very over-utilised phrase...they sound like nothing you've ever heard before... and they play the Button Factory, in Dublin, on Thursday 13 May.

Tiger Woods' Dead Father Would Like To Know What He Was Thinking

An indescribably horrific/hypnotising new advert from Nike has just appeared on Twitter feeds across the land....




The disembodied voice is that of Earl Woods, the pushy father-extraordinaire who turned Tiger into the ultra-competitive super-being he has become.

A frank and ad that pierces the media hurricane that T-Woods has created, to touch the soul of the man underneath? Or just a really, really weird and exploitative of a fallen hero?

"Did you learn anything?" Earl rumbles. Good question...one that gets no answer from a sombre and silent Tiger. And really, one that doesn't deserve an answer. Tiger's a golf player with a sex addiction...not a paragon of virtue, contrary to what the previous ten years of Nike ads would have you believe. Let the man eat golf!

The Pacific

There are certain moments of television that, no matter how low the medium sinks, no matter how warped tv schedules become under the massive, tedious weight of antique programmes and teen soap operas, prove that the boxes in our living rooms are capable of producing incredible, heart-stopping, breath-squeezing art. People throw out The Wire, The Soprano's and Six Feet Under as indisputable masterpieces in televisual art (although I'd argue long and hard as to the real worth of the middle contention), and for me, you can add Band of Brothers to that list. It's worth noting at this point that all these series have gestated within the humble womb of the HBO cable network, which just reaffirms the shadow that HBO have cast across the oft-lauded American drama output.



Band of Brothers, as I will probably unneccesarily inform you, was a ten-part miniseries that was broadcast in 2001, and can be most succinctly described as Saving Private Ryan without Private Ryan, produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. It was fantastic. Considering I haven't watched it nearly ten years, the amount of moments that have stuck in my consciousness is quite impressive. Blithe's first shot, with it's ever-so-perfect slow-motion moment, the laundry pick-up when the men on leave in England, the whole Bastogne episode...Band of Brothers was chaotic, poignant, muddled, and direct. It had no hesitation in going for the blatant emotion, the blatant drama of war. Subtle moments of pathos were hidden beneath overwhelming action and straightforward characterization. But most of all, it was touching. Barely an episode went by without a tear being conjured from my seldom-used ducts. In a very American way, it was programme that was easy to love.



Now, a mini-sequel has been launched. The Pacific, which aims to do to the Pacific theatre of conflict what Band of Brothers did to European, is now being broadcast on Sky Movies (the first episode was shown on the 5th), and on HBO in the States. I've seen three episodes now, and I'm flummoxed. I hate it. I can't understand it. It's the same producers, some of the same writers, the exact same visual asthethic...but it doesn't work. It really doesn't work.

Is it a reflection of the lack of glamour, the lack of emotional attachment to the US-Japanese conflict that the veterans themselves claim was the reason that they petitioned Spielberg to follow BoB with a Pacific-based drama? I somehow doubt it...'Flags Of Our Fathers' and its companion piece 'Letters From Iwo Jima' are two of the finest films about war that I've seen in a long time, and they managed to do exactly what The Pacific did not. It emotionally involved me. There is a sense, when watching The Pacific, of blankness. Rather than the dozens of men explored in BoB, three Pacific characters are highlighted; Eugene Sledge, Robert Leckie and the Medal of Honour-winning John Basilone. Sledge and Leckie are actually based on the real memoirs of two G.I's of the same name, while Basilone is one of the best-known Marine heroes of World War 2. Which makes the failing of the writers to embody any kind of personality or humanity into these characters even more of a crime. Without strong, distinct characters (such as Capt. Winters from BoB) to focus the swirling chaos of war on, the programme quickly descends to extended sequences of men firing through jungle at each other. Which is a damning indictment of war, but also does the men involved a disservice. This is just dirt-filled explosions and fizzing bullets. Of course, war is that. But more importantly, it's also the personal conflict that's happening inside these warriors' heads, the ripping apart of civilization and morality inside the mind of a soldier struggling to survive. BoB managed to translate that to screen, along with sorrow, friendship, hatred, pity, passion and panic. The Pacific doesn't.

And that's a crying shame.

Dark Was The Night

"Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground"...words that are fairly apt for the way things seem to be going in my small-town/suburbia. I'd like to take the credit for them, but unfortunately, Blind Wille Johnson, the blues great, got there before me. They're words with an incredible amount of pathos instilled in them, words which etch a scene of desolation, hardship and longing. Words that share a sense of the darkness, the despair of someone suffering from the devastation caused by HIV/AIDS. Fitting then, that "Dark Was The Night" is the title of a two cd, 2009 compilation album from the Red Hot Organization, an international charity dedicated to raising money for HIV/AIDS treatment. The album's made up of a pretty extraordinary cast of American musicans, most of them critical darlings in the vein of Grizzly Bear, Bon Iver, Feist etc. If those kind of names get you excited, then this album is an injection of pure bliss, a glorious roll-call of the kind of bands and artists that dominate the fantastic NPR "All Songs Considered" playlists.

There's a little bit of a danger that this album could be regarded as a fanboy collection, a series of artists with pretty rabid, avid fanbases who just rolled out a couple of tunes, knowing that no matter what the quality, a certain level of sales (for charity, remember) would be guaranteed. But there is something lurking in the depths of Disc 1 that changes the whole game, that turns this from a worthy exercise in fundraising into a glittering, glowing, mesmerising foray into what electronica can achieve.

Remember Sufjan Stevens? Stevens came galloping into our consciousness with Illinoise and Michigan, a veritable icon of the arrogance of youth, proudly espousing his plans to make an album for every American state...claims that he has since admitted were cheques his mouth was writing, but his mind will never be able to cash. Illinoise was one of the greatest albums of the last ten years, and Sufjan appeared to be one of the most exciting prospects for the next generation of music...and then he disappeared. Following up on Illinoise with Christmas albums, an Oddities and Rarities album, and finally his operatic opus "The Brooklyn Queens Expressway", Stevens has managed to disappoint many, including myself.

But then there comes "You are the Blood".




The video above is the original version of "You Are The Blood", by Castanets, which is the the moniker that Raymond Raposa of "freak-folk" fame plays under. Not too impressed? Mind not blown? Me either.



When I first heard "Someone Great", the LCD Soundsystem track, hidden in the post-disco mix that James Murphy made for Nike, "45:33", it was one of those moments when a beat, a melody, a thick bassline made a mark on me that I'll never be able to erase. The first time I heard Steven's "You Are The Blood", it made that same indelible impression on my mind. The Youtube version doesn't even quite do it justice...this is one of those rare (ever rarer in these days of mp3 and Youtube) tracks that doesn't just need a quality sound system...it demands one. To listen to this on a pair of computer speakers or a pair of cheap headphones is like looking at a blood-red sunset over the Grand Canyon through a pair of glasses smeared with vaseline. The sharpness of the glitches, the thick, fuzzy bass, the sweetness of the vocals...this is a precise piece of noise, and to cheapen the experience and blur the edges of its perfection with poor quality sound would be a crime.

So if you have the time, the ability and the inclination...please...close the door, ramp the level up, download the official version (it's for charity!), close your eyes and let a mark be made upon your mind.

Delorean : Progress Report -

In the course of recording a report for ARENA about this new exhibition in Dublin's Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, I spoke to the artist, Sean Lynch, about his work, a gorgeous series of photographs that trace the history of the Delorean car-making enterprise after the famous arrest and bankruptcy of Northern Ireland's greatest sports car entrepreneur, John Delorean.

What made this an interesting work was the clear undercurrent of the idea of cultural preservation. Lynch followed the machinery and basic components of the Delorean DMC-12 on their journey from manufactoring cultural value (the Delorean itself has massive power as a pop culture icon, from its famous image as the time machine in Back To The Future to its basis as the subject of albums from Neon Neon and the reverently titled Delorean, a band from Barcelona) to abandonment and reappropriation. Lynch is interested in documenting the recent past, in the same way that an archeologist is interested in documenting the slightly less recent past. Photographs provide the evidence of the story, the links in the chain that tell us what happened next to the DMC-12, photographs that stretch from the desolate back lot of the original Delorean factory to the current resting place for some of the machinery vital for the cars' production, the bottom of Galway Bay (above). But they are not enough for Lynch.

In the centre of the white space that is the Kevin Kavanagh gallery, lies a wooden box with metal propped against it, metal that is bent and hammered into the instantly-recognisable shape of a Delorean gullwing door. This is where the crux of the exhibition lies. Lynch has spent considerable time and money arranging for these handmade parts of the DMC-12 to be made, for the first time since since the Belfast factory closed in 1982. And it was these panels that let me into the heart of the exhibition.



This is an exhibition about failure, the documentation and representation of a great failed enterprise, a dalliance with hubris and arrogance that left nothing behind itself, but an underwater home for some Galway Bay lobsters. Although Deloreans are amazingly collectable, and still recognised by a huge amount of people (myself included) who weren't even born when the factory closed down, the bones of the enterprise lie at the bottom of the blue-black sea. The cultural myth may live on, in Back To The Future DVDs and collector clubs, but Delorean's reality is buried treaure, fossilized remains laying on the oceanbed, as dead as dust.

Lynch, of course, totally disagrees. You can find out his opinions for yourself on Saturday 23rd Jan, when he speaks to the writer Caoimhin Mac Giolla Leith in a public lecture which will be held in the Kevin Kavanagh Gallery at 12pm.