Everybody else can see it clearly, except us it would seem
Concrete Isle
Sunday, December 05, 2004
what do they do they do on a rainy night in rio?
Those songs bugs bunny sings on the banjo are great, there should be an album put out (done my research, amazon shrugged), it would be a cool party piece for christmas.
Thoughts on Bob Dylan, Galway July 2004
An idiot behind me ( some gob from the unploughed depths of mayo only in here because it's easier to find than Dublin, and cheaper to drive to in daddys cortina ) grumbles that Dylan sounds like crap. He does sound like crap, because HE’S LIVED THROUGH IT! This voice that confuses his purple ears is the voice of experience, the sheer sound of wisdom, not the tone perfect warbling of Paddy Casey, his vague safe lyrics are those of a musician not a visionary. One of my favourite quotes from Elvis Costello which comes to mind when you have to listen to people like Casey, and especially Gary Moore who was on before him is that “musicians should be kept away from music”, they bring a technical expertise which results in mediocrity. If Moore knew how much I truly hate ‘Parisian Walkways’ and how I consider it one of the most god-awful examples of a musician trying to milk one riff for all ever he can he would not have turned it into six minutes of hell (or maybe that’s why he did).
Same thing has happened to most Irish traditional music, (exception; Martin Hayes) it’s become an expressionless technical exercise and little else, serving no better purpose than to amuse tourists and hypnotise you if you’re drunk enough. I heard a historian describe it once as a ‘heroic re-enactment of a lost tradition’ and he was right. He could have saved himself a few words and just said that it’s a bit dull.
At once all the power chord spitting bands are reduced to incompetent rubbish - and you are reminded of the underlying self destructive flaw of every other Irish band, namely a lack of lyrical vision. At work in the corner of the stage is a mind still unhinged from all we have tying us down, this is his laboratory, where he opens the caskets of thoughts and emotions he bottled one by one over the years, re-tells them in that ‘sand and glue’ voice that will sing them next Tuesday night in Germany, then in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, New York, and all across America in the months that follow. Like a wandering preacher, spreading his word, his personal interpretations for us whither we like it or not. It can’t be for money that he keeps this endless wandering in motion as he enters his mid sixties. Unlike Willie Nelson who’ll be paying back the IRS until he’s laid to rest, Dylan is doing this to satisfy his muse and has more integrity in his pursuit of this than anything else that has stood upon the stage today peddling their safe soundtracks for the dreary.
My overall reaction to the performance is the same as it was in the point depot last November. I cannot help but be reduced to feeling like a child, like I have not even begun to experience the things that could lead me to think or create on this level, that what I pursue is nothing on the scale of what I could be.
Same thing has happened to most Irish traditional music, (exception; Martin Hayes) it’s become an expressionless technical exercise and little else, serving no better purpose than to amuse tourists and hypnotise you if you’re drunk enough. I heard a historian describe it once as a ‘heroic re-enactment of a lost tradition’ and he was right. He could have saved himself a few words and just said that it’s a bit dull.
At once all the power chord spitting bands are reduced to incompetent rubbish - and you are reminded of the underlying self destructive flaw of every other Irish band, namely a lack of lyrical vision. At work in the corner of the stage is a mind still unhinged from all we have tying us down, this is his laboratory, where he opens the caskets of thoughts and emotions he bottled one by one over the years, re-tells them in that ‘sand and glue’ voice that will sing them next Tuesday night in Germany, then in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, New York, and all across America in the months that follow. Like a wandering preacher, spreading his word, his personal interpretations for us whither we like it or not. It can’t be for money that he keeps this endless wandering in motion as he enters his mid sixties. Unlike Willie Nelson who’ll be paying back the IRS until he’s laid to rest, Dylan is doing this to satisfy his muse and has more integrity in his pursuit of this than anything else that has stood upon the stage today peddling their safe soundtracks for the dreary.
My overall reaction to the performance is the same as it was in the point depot last November. I cannot help but be reduced to feeling like a child, like I have not even begun to experience the things that could lead me to think or create on this level, that what I pursue is nothing on the scale of what I could be.
Monday, October 04, 2004
Friday, October 01, 2004
Dinner
Suprisingly tasty chicken and mushroom pie
yesterday was an equally suprising
chicken and white wine sauce
i wonder what chameleon meat tastes like.
yesterday was an equally suprising
chicken and white wine sauce
i wonder what chameleon meat tastes like.
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
question of the day
Why do my local tesco store the pregnancy tests beside the condoms, hardly promotes confidence in their products
I'll stick to using mars bar wrappers for all my contraceptive needs i think