tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5007946474287016672024-03-19T10:42:22.532+00:00Vapour Trails<i>lines drawn in smoke by emigrants, tourists and fugitives -
log books of internal flights -
a dog chasing phantom rabbits in the undergrowth - nose twitching along trails of virtual vapour </i>Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.comBlogger512125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-48695336898599390732020-10-27T08:57:00.000+00:002020-10-27T08:57:15.877+00:00<p><b> Thoughts and Videos.</b></p><p>I seem to be feeling an attraction to blogging again, after a number of years. I don't know if it's strong enough to actually get me writing regularly or even non-regularly but I'm thinking about it. Anyway, it's a chance to blow some of the digital spiderwebs from this dusty corner of the internet.</p><p>Perhaps it's the need to find some sense of purpose at the moment as Covid19 has just been making me feel like I'm drifting even more aimlessly than is usual. </p><p>One of the 'projects' that I have been pursuing is making videos for old songs by my band and putting them on Youtube. (I've actually been trying to write and develop a bunch of new songs but that will not be complete until we can actually get back together as a band when this current situation has ended..)</p><p>Anyway here are some of the recent videos I've assembled, mostly using silent films. This first one, however, uses footage I shot myself. </p><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>
<b><div style="text-align: center;">
<p><b>Cold</b></p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aBLiF-SebJc" width="560"></iframe>
<p><b>Airwaves</b></p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DM8UIJL7-fg" width="560"></iframe>
<p><b>Toothache</b></p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CSLhTzCf7qs" width="560"></iframe>
<p><b>El Mariachi</b></p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mZaB4VmujLg" width="560"></iframe>
<p><b>Resurrection</b></p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pqR_S1yfMBg" width="560"></iframe>
<p><b>Worse</b></p>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DeIr2tMYLV0" width="560"></iframe></div></b>Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-7314911892069857072020-10-02T21:37:00.005+01:002020-10-02T21:37:40.352+01:00<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEFdwY3Kj2oMn9p2va0TSVpFvbzG4aqB_ITTllSRMwCv0YOL-VNfpD42iRyLZI82-ehp1qfzS6TwM8pjUeZqgNyY7Do3OHAE5gpuwELznl9PXTLBnhtmmSweOdvr_y04201NpKT05FXL2v/s2048/IMG_20201002_211750.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1176" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEFdwY3Kj2oMn9p2va0TSVpFvbzG4aqB_ITTllSRMwCv0YOL-VNfpD42iRyLZI82-ehp1qfzS6TwM8pjUeZqgNyY7Do3OHAE5gpuwELznl9PXTLBnhtmmSweOdvr_y04201NpKT05FXL2v/w115-h200/IMG_20201002_211750.jpg" width="115" /></a></div><br />Derek Mahon.<p></p><p>Today, the death of the great Irish poet Derek Mahon was announced. It inspired me to try and capture the passing relationship I had with the words of his poem <a href="https://apoemforireland.rte.ie/shortlist/a-disused-shed-in-county-wexford/" target="_blank">A Disused Shed in County Wexford</a>. I read it when I was young and felt a poet was something to be. </p><p>Although the ambition has borne little fruit, it remains a fascination. It seems to call me back but I am aware that I am an amateur versifier - while Derek Mahon made phrases that change how you see the world.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Thoughts upon hearing of the death of Derek Mahon<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">"<i>Web-throated, stalked like triffids, racked by drought<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">And insomnia, only the ghost of a scream<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">At the flash-bulb firing-squad we wake them with<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Shows there is life yet in their feverish forms."</span></i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">When first I read these words there was a shiver <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">of recognition.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Once, opening the small door <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">into the unconverted eavesliding attic<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Confusion turned to fascination<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">And a slight unease.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">The creeper from the front of the house<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Had grown into the dark<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">White, grasping,<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">like roots above ground<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">searching for sustenance in the air.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Triffids, I thought <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Reaching for my sleeping throat<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Marooned in the bloodless dark. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Now it feels that I have sprouted<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">In the dark<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Poems without soil. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">As you enter the wordless mouth-shuttering clay<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">I wonder will my unflowered stems<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">Ever feel the sun. <o:p></o:p></span></p>Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-10846107431254684142018-08-23T20:51:00.003+01:002018-08-23T20:51:58.980+01:00Homelessness in Dublin<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI7wQGr63GWXvW7uYhAONx_5quEnkxATia3WIehSWZi8zuupMmJePaW715q4XkNucfFaqrivtqhB0WDOfr38c-XDTnjymrX2ouZ3JTu-oYMYOkE5FpYdZJwKQTAhXZicIIdkoM_5bYk5bC/s1600/homeless+statue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI7wQGr63GWXvW7uYhAONx_5quEnkxATia3WIehSWZi8zuupMmJePaW715q4XkNucfFaqrivtqhB0WDOfr38c-XDTnjymrX2ouZ3JTu-oYMYOkE5FpYdZJwKQTAhXZicIIdkoM_5bYk5bC/s640/homeless+statue.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> “Homeless Jesus” by sculptor, Timothy Schmalz of Canada at Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<b><br /></b>
<b>Homelessness in Dublin</b><br />
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This is way off my usual posts (which have recently consisted mostly of silence, it has to be said). However I feel strongly about this subject so I'm going to put this out there.<br />
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The visit of the Pope to Dublin this weekend has brought attention to the homeless crisis in the city. The many families who rely on emergency accommodation in Hotels; B&B's and Guesthouses are possibly going to be moved out of the city to make way for the crowds attending the events over the weekend. Recent pictures of families sleeping in Garda (Police) Stations have recently brought this issue home to many in a powerfully visual way.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br /><br />
My wife Nora had an idea when looking at the expected crowd for the Papal Mass - 500,000 plus. What if everyone going were to give €5? It would add up to an awful lot of money and would lead to a positive outcome for some of the homeless if it was channelled through the Peter McVerry Trust, one of the leading charities highlighting and working to alleviate the plight of the homeless.<br />
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Everyone should have a home. But sharply escalating rents and a shortage of available housing has created a major crisis in Dublin. If you can afford to please give €5 (or more if you want!) at the link below. And please share the link. It has already raised over €300 and if it goes even moderately viral it has the potential to raise far more.<br />
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<a href="https://www.gofundme.com/pope-hope-for-the-homeless/"><span style="font-size: large;">https://www.gofundme.com/pope-hope-for-the-homeless/</span></a><br />
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Here are some recent stories highlighting the issue of homelessness in Dublin and the work of the Peter McVerry Trust.<br />
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<a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/homeless-crisis-has-reached-huge-proportions-crosscare-1.3604545">https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/homeless-crisis-has-reached-huge-proportions-crosscare-1.3604545</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/an-avalanche-of-homelessness-is-coming-says-mcverry-1.3592017">https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/an-avalanche-of-homelessness-is-coming-says-mcverry-1.3592017</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/jesuits-gift-dublin-buildings-to-be-converted-to-social-housing-1.3596462">https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/jesuits-gift-dublin-buildings-to-be-converted-to-social-housing-1.3596462</a><br />
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<a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/homeless-families-could-end-up-living-in-garda-stations-during-pope-s-visit-mcverry-1.3537234">https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/homeless-families-could-end-up-living-in-garda-stations-during-pope-s-visit-mcverry-1.3537234</a><br />
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*The photo above was taken from <a href="http://momentumeurope.org/attractive-jesus-10-17-2016/">http://momentumeurope.org/attractive-jesus-10-17-2016/</a><br />
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<br />Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-72367961993955894782018-04-15T00:01:00.002+01:002023-04-13T20:30:51.551+01:00Liam O'Flaherty - Four BooksLiam O'Flaherty - Four Books<br />
<b>Skerrett</b> / <b>Return of the Brute</b> / <b>Famine</b> / <b>Insurrection</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUbVfKl0ZZFsUV-UwN4YMWN9MAO_Sr7qODcpmrYzJG4Cv0xwYNOZzeTJprzJnCbmLFlmxb9Kjr_O6Ik3Fdi4soKxrKU_DEzuZquO4FJiRTUUKgsRD0fIoAlooxqWdpTUs0tu_ZLJkDn18W/s1600/IMG_20180414_235154.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="836" data-original-width="1600" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUbVfKl0ZZFsUV-UwN4YMWN9MAO_Sr7qODcpmrYzJG4Cv0xwYNOZzeTJprzJnCbmLFlmxb9Kjr_O6Ik3Fdi4soKxrKU_DEzuZquO4FJiRTUUKgsRD0fIoAlooxqWdpTUs0tu_ZLJkDn18W/s640/IMG_20180414_235154.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
I have long been aware of Liam O'Flaherty and a huge admirer of what short stories I have read. Indeed, when picking four short stories to write about <a href="https://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2014/06/four-stories-and-me.html">HERE</a> I chose one by O'Flaherty. For some reason, however, I never moved on to reading any of his novels, until this year when, having read one, I ended up reading four.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
I started out with <b>Skerrett</b>, the story of a teacher who gets a job on one of the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland, called Nara in the book. The book opens with Skerrett and his wife heading out from Galway towards the "<i>dismal, sea-lashed rock</i>". Skerrett is described as through the eyes of the islanders sharing the boat trip "<i>They saw a man in the prime of his life, tall, of heavy build, with a brown beard that masked the almost brutal coarseness his countenance. His thick, moist lips curved outwards and his nose was like that of a prize fighter, being short, thick and flattened at the end. His brown eyes were bold and sullen.</i>" <br />
We learn from a conversation with the rate collector that Skerrett has no Irish and is heading out to a place where they have very little or no English. Skerrett sees himself as their better. O'Flaherty draws an ambiguous, unflattering portrait of a man with many flaws and many victims, himself not least among them.<br />
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I followed this up with <b>Return of the Brute</b>, a First World War novel which clearly draws on O'Flaherty's own experience. He came home from the war with shellshocked and the novel is stark in it's representation of the horror of trench warfare. I described it somewhere as like Beckett in the trenches and it is probably my favourite amoung the four novels.<br />
"<i>It was all to no purpose. In the pitch darkness, orders, officers, Sergeant-Majors, trenches, positions and the enemy, with his rival organisation of officers, orders, trenches and positions, all disappeared and became meaningless, just as reality becomes transformed in a wild nightmare. They were lost in No Man's land, floundering in the mud, while the ceaseless rain fell upon them with a monotonous drone.</i><br />
<i>Mud, rain, darkness and babbling men!</i>"<br />
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"<i>God forbid me, I have bad news</i>."<br />
<b>Famine</b> is the novel which seems to have the greatest reputation amoung O'Flaherty's novels and the vividness of his portrayal of the physical world of the time is memorable. The gradual defeat of the family at the heart of the novel is imbued with a sort of tragic inevitability and the sweep of the novel is that of a classic novel from the nineteenth century.<br />
"<i>Their faces were unlike those of children. The queer, unholy wisdom begotten of hunger had already made them look old and unhappy</i>."<br />
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"<i>One can't describe things that are purely sensual. They are beyond words. Passion is silent</i>."<br />
While he seems to have ben able to write of Famine and World War 1 without the weight of history bearing down upon him I did feel at times that <b>Insurrection</b> was burdened by the romantic notions of the Easter Rising of 1916, to which the title refers.<br />
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Maybe I was sensitised to that given the sonorous tones that came over radio and TV presenters when they were announcing many of the raft of tributes in the centenary year, which is when I read these books, and started this post..<br />
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Rather than leave it here in the drafts folder gathering a century of dust I have decided to set it free, without much addition or tidying.<br />
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<br />Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-64314013378401425052018-03-02T20:38:00.002+00:002018-03-02T20:38:41.504+00:00From snow covered Ireland.From Snow Covered Ireland.<br />
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The weather, and the shortage of bread due to panic buying have dominated the news in Ireland for the last few days.<br />
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I've even taken to doing some reporting myself.<br />
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You can see my first news story here - <a href="https://www.facebook.com/seamus.duggan/videos/1861192673890909/">https://www.facebook.com/seamus.duggan/videos/1861192673890909/</a>Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-30248571104294495842018-02-16T17:43:00.001+00:002018-02-17T09:16:12.741+00:00Songs for CitiesSongs for Cities<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" height="400" src="https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2FSeamusDuggan%2Fcities%2F&light=1" width="100%"></iframe><br />
Every so often I get the urge to make a mixtape and, having been long ago released from the constraints of the C-90 these have tended to become long sprawling beasts which, if released into the wild are too unwieldy to be of much interest to anybody else. Doesn't matter as long as I enjoy them though, so nothing changes this time.<br />
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I had started a playlist on the theme of cities and there were around ten songs and I decided to listen to it - but by the time I had played the ten songs I had added another 100. I've been messing around with the order and after a few attempts at finding thematic or musical links I moved to geography, focussing on Dublin, London and New York in a sort of anglophone ascending order of distance. After that there is whatever remained of my earlier attempts at organisation, in other words a mish-mash.<br />
<a name='more'></a>I guess I made it to go along with the irregular bouts of nostalgic melancholia which cities seem to rouse in my head. Dublin, as the city which has played by far the biggest part in my life, and which I still regularly visit is now as much made of memories as brick and glass and concrete. What was seems always to be pushing through the boundaries of what is. Places I lived, worked, attended and played gigs have disappeared but still exert a gravitational pull on my senses. Other places have survived, some now seeming like endangered species, still quivering prey sitting quietly hoping to avoid the avaricious eye of the slavering, reanimated green, white and gold tiger that stalks the streets.<br />
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In the face of the increased wealth and conspicuous consumption it is disheartening to see the increased signs of homelessness and the harried faces of people clearly finding that their budgets attempts to meet their aspirations are like Joyce's pier, a disappointed bridge.<br />
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I wish my daughter and her generation had, like I did, the opportunity to live cheaply in the city. The stories of people calling rooms overcrowded with bunks and shared with total strangers 'home' are dispiriting. Whatever about heat, light, plumbing etc surely the first thing you want in a home is a door you can close on the world and a space to call your own.<br />
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When I think of the Dublin of my youth it was full of cheap (if often nasty) flats where you weren't catapulted onto the hamster wheel of having to earn money simply to exist. This is necessary for the energy and experimentation that drives the cultural scene. In the Dublin of the eighties, Temple Bar, the area now deemed the 'cultural quarter' first became a cultural hub because, having been designated a development site for a bus terminus the buildings were let deteriorate and were only available on short term leases. These were cheap and artists and musicians could find studio and rehearsal space right in the centre of the city. You could always hear bands as you walked around and see people in paint spattered clothes.<br />
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Anyway, I hope someone else, somewhere, enjoys this metropolitan sprawl.<br />
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<br />Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-57303424298334702722017-12-21T19:05:00.001+00:002017-12-21T21:32:17.988+00:00In Concert - Favourite Gigs of Ireland's Music Community - Part 4<b>In Concert - Favourite Gigs of Ireland's Music Community - Part 4</b><br />
This post has been sitting in my 'drafts' folder for a while so I thought I'd let it go. It's more of my imperfectly remembered tales of gigs in the eighties.<br />
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<b>Iggy Pop</b> - National Stadium Monday, 12th December, 1988<br />
I thought this gig was circa 1990 but have recently discovered that it, too, was in the 1980's. This was Iggy with Steve Jones on rhythm guitar and my memories are shot through with vivid moments like when Iggy shoved the microphone in my face during Wanna Be Your Dog and my head turned into some sort of mush; the faint tracery of scars all over Iggy's torso; the sheer excitement of being so close to such abandoned shamanism, his zipper open far enough to suggest exhibitionism; the sheer physical exertion - At the time I thought "He's 41 and he's still like this!" Now I think "He was only 41!"<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This crowd picture seems to feature me in the top left. I remember the position and the shirt...</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Me</td></tr>
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<a name='more'></a>Phoenix Park Festival - <b>U2</b>; <b>Simple Minds</b>; <b>Eurhythmics</b>; <b>Big Country</b>; <b>Steel Pulse;</b> <b>Perfect Crime</b><br />
I've moved on from trying to choose my favourite gig to trying to mention any gigs that left a sufficient mark on my memory. This was the first, and one of the only, festivals I attended. It was certainly an experience.<br />
From almost being stabbed to witnessing one of our party turning blue after an overdose it certainly did seem like stepping out into the big bad world... Indeed the crowd was swollen by an extra 5,000 plus when a long length of fencing was pushed over and the line of bouncers breached by sheer weight of numbers. An air ambulance was stoned when it tried to land, a group of happy anarchists created a drinking fountain by breaking and bending a water pipe, saving many from the extortionate price of drinks; Annie Lennox getting pissed off when pelted with piss (don't blame her!); the gig being stopped because of dancing on the tin roof of the stand...<br />
The night was brought to a suitably violent conclusion when the crowds from the gig and the simultaneous laser show rioted and the victims included an English journalist batoned by some over eager Garda as he sheltered in a doorway...<br />
It's more the event I remember than a gig. U2's bluster started the process of waning for me soon after and by the time I went to see them in Croke Park the following year it was R.E.M. who were the main attraction.<br />
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<b>R.E.M.</b> - Croke Park and RDS<br />
R.E.M. at Croke Park in 1985 were the support to U2. My love affair with U2 was ending and a love affair with REM in full bloom. R.E.M. were roundly ignored by the vast majority of the audience and seemed a little out of place on the stadium stage, Stipe's raincoat and self-absorption seemed built for small intimate venues but the larger stage would soon be their home.<br />
My memory of the U2 gig is the audience jumping in time to the strains of 11O'Clock Tick Tock causing warm gusts of wind to rise from below. It was BIG, and synchronised, and less and less interesting to me...<br />
A few years later I saw R.E.M. again and this time it was again the support group I was most excited by. However an out of control drinking game (having a drink in every pub between Kehoes on South Anne Street and the RDS) on the way to the venue and desperate sound made this a less than compelling gig although the line up still excites me, even in retrospect.... My memory is that the bands sounded years away even on the day, although my internal sensory imbalance may have contributed...<br />
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Rosskilde Festival, July 3rd, 1987 - <b>Iggy Pop</b>; <b>The Pretenders</b>; <b>Echo and the Bunnymen</b>; <b>The Triffids</b>; <b>Sort Sol</b>; <b>Curtis Mayfield</b>....<br />
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This was a strange day. I had gone to Copenhagen with some friends and we decided to go out to Roskilde to see if we could hear much of the festival from the perimeter, or even gain entry somehow. Being pretty broke, buying tickets was not an option.<br />
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We got the train out to Roskilde and started to circle the perimeter fence. There was camping around outside as it was a three day event. We passed through one of the comping areas and went through another gate. Fifty yards further on the fence turned and when we went around the corner we realised that we had entered the main festival area and so were set up for a days free music.<br />
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I retain fairly clear memories of The Bunnymen (a lot better in the SFX), The Pretenders (disappointing - like a so-so Pretenders covers band) and Iggy (mighty). The rest of the day is hazy and although the line up was stellar I remember coming away with the sense that outdoor festivals weren't at the same level as 'proper' rock gigs. The atmosphere, and the sound, dissipated somewhat in the open air...<br />
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<b>Public Enemy</b> & <b>The Golden Horde</b> - Cricket Ground, TCD and Trinity Ball 20th May, 1988<br />
Seeing The Go-Betweens at the cricket grounds in Trinity was strange enough but the sight of Public Enemy, flanked by their military style "Security of the First World" posse was truly bizarre.<br />
Supported by the irrepressible Golden Horde their appearance at the lunchtime gig was one of the most improbable sights I have seen. Their fake uzis caused some frisson with college authorities - I forget the details.<br />
They played in College Square later that night and I have vague memories as I was in full on drunken student mode. The story of the night has a neat bookend as on the dart home from the Trinity Ball the next morning we were playing with a cheap plastic gun when what sounded like a gunshot rang through the carriage and a girl in the seat next to us suddenly had blood running down her face.<br />
I saw a man in the seats across the aisle pull back his coat and reach for a Uzi which he had concealed there and start to draw it out. He stopped and came across, sweat starting to drip from his forehead, introducing himself as a Garda and taking the cheap plastic gun. At this stage it became clear that a stone had been thrown at the train and it had cracked the glass against which the girl had been leaning her head.<br />
The detective walked away, out of the carriage but came back later, still sweating. He had clearly almost pulled the trigger and was angry with himself, and us. Had our gun been a more convincing replica I could have missed out on lots of gigs..<br />
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<br />Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-78896509789512988182017-10-04T02:38:00.002+01:002017-10-06T09:53:42.836+01:00In Concert - Favourite Gigs of Ireland's Music Community - Part 3<b>In Concert - Favourite Gigs of Ireland's Music Community - Part 3</b><br />
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These posts are becoming like a trip through my memory designed by Escher. Once again I finished with the eighties only to be tripped up by further memories as I tried to make my way into the nineties...<br />
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<b>The Fall</b> - Sadler's Wells Theatre, September 1988<br />
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This was my first time seeing The Fall and remains possibly the strangest 'rock gig' I ever attended. This is largely because it was NOT a rock gig but a ballet, with The Fall playing live while the Michael Clarke dancers performed a ballet.<br />
A choreographed dance representing a football match between Rangers and Celtic; Brix being wheeled around on a giant hamburger and Mark E. walking forwards and backwards declaiming as if there were no distractions.<br />
The scene where the dancers 'played' a football match was the visual highlight and New Big Prinz and Dead Beat Descendant the remembered aural ones.<br />
I would see more Fall gigs, some better, some worse, but none quite as memorable as this one. Perhaps you can see why in these photos - <a href="http://thefall.org/news/pics/88oct08_photos.html">http://thefall.org/news/pics/88oct08_photos.html</a><br />
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<b>Foetus Interruptus</b> - September 1988, Town and Country Club<br />
Jim Thirlwell had a great line in names featuring Foetus to ensure commercial traction - Scraping Foetus off The Wheel; The Foetus All-Nude Revue; You've Got Foetus On Your Breath and many more. He had briefly been a member of The Bad Seeds and worked with many, many people from Matt Johnson (The The) to Lydia Lunch & on & on. It can be confusing because many of his 'collaborations' are between two and more of his own personae.<br />
Foetus Interruptus were a live band he had put together and it was a gig that seemed mysterious in advance. There was no telling what would happen. In the end it proved to be a relatively straightforward rock concert, no buckets of blood or performance art antics.<br />
However Thirlwell himself was compelling. I remember coming to the conclusion that he was a smaller, younger, steroid addicted psychopathic version of Gary Glitter; with a stare you didn't want to be on the end of.<br />
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<b>The Go-Betweens</b> - 15th May, 1986 - Trinity College Cricket Pitch<br />
There is something magical about my memories of this day, from the sun showers to sitting next to half the band in The Buttery Bar later in the afternoon, too respectful of their privacy (tongue-tied and shy) to start a conversation. It was this afternoon that came back to me when I heard Grant McLennan had died and it remains a treasured memory. I would see them again a couple of times, including as support to R.E.M in the RDS, memories of which are somewhat marred by alcohol, although I do remember being so frustrated by the appalling sound that I said I would never go to a gig in the R.D.S. again. However, if alcohol can distort sound it may have done so on that occasion..<br />
I also saw them in the 1990's but that belongs in a different post, I'm still stuck in the eighties here..<br />
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Here's what I wrote at the time of Grant's death about that day in Trinity:<br />
"<i>On a spring day in the early Nineteen Eighties I saw them play Spring Rain to a crowd on the cricket field in Trinity College. Their performance was interrupted by showers in the sunlight. There were fears of electrocution and there was certainly electricity in the air. I could feel it all along my spine. They were one of the major claimants to the throne of the perfect pop band.</i><br />
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<i>That they didn't have showers of No 1's was a great injustice and a loss to popular consciousness. The afternoon of that transcendent performance I sat at a pub table beside half the band and mumbled echoes of my admiration.</i><br />
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<i>Once again I mumble my admiration but through the echoes of tears. A little paragraph in todays paper placed a final full stop on the late renaissance of The Go Betweens with news of the death of Grant McLennan. That No 1 will have to be No 1 in heaven. Lucky heaven. But we still have the music, Lucky us.</i>"<br />
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*****I was sent the photos after posting this. Much thanks to Jessica Moss who took them! I think they are the only photographic evidence on the net! Click on them to see them LARGER. Kudos to anyone who can pick themselves out in the audience..<br />
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<b>The Sugarcubes</b> - SFX, 14th October 1989<br />
Memories of this gig are a bit like fog being blown away by the wind. I remember that Motor Crash was a highlight for me, as it was on the album. I also remember that the personality of Einar came across very strongly (too strongly!) but they are half grasped memories. Drink or other intoxicants may have played a part in this vagueness or simply time, which erases some things while leaving others clear and distinct (although perhaps inaccurate).<br />
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<b>Aidan Walsh and The Screaming Eagles</b> - McGonagles - mid/late 1980's<br />
I do remember Aidan Walsh in McGonagles though. There was always a thin line with Aidan where you wondered were we laughing with him or at him. He would seem lost as the words evaded him but then he was also more audacious that any other rocker in town and I remember a cracking version of Rock my Brainy Head which lit up the gig. Stumbling, shambling and shamanic, Aidan is a true original, and there ain't enough of them.<br />
Some sense of the wonder that is Aidan is captured here - <a href="http://www.rte.ie/archives/2017/0330/863821-aidan-walsh-master-of-the-universe/">http://www.rte.ie/archives/2017/0330/863821-aidan-walsh-master-of-the-universe/</a><br />
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<b>Bob Dylan; Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers; Roger McGuinn</b> - Valby-Hallen, Copenhagen - September 21st, 1987<br />
This was a strange gig where my twenty year old self felt incredibly young and edgy amoung the ageing middle class audience that had gathered to be disappointed that Bob hadn't given them the benediction of a "Hello Copenhagen", or even a 'Hello' instead of marvelling at his brilliant guitar playing and the wonderfully sympathetic backing supplied by Mr Petty and the Heartbreakers. The show did open with what I found a pretty insipid solo turn from ageing Byrd McGuinn.<br />
The Heartbreakers gave a good performance and were better than I had expected but it has not stuck in my memory in any significant way. However it was my first time to see Bob live and it was not a disappointment to me. He played a couple from the peerless Highway 61 Revisited which was what I wanted to see.<br />
The set lists I can find online don't mention the return of McGuinn to the stage including a blinding 'electric' version of 8 Miles High with the Heartbreakers and Dylan as his backing band. Pretty wondrous performance which redeemed him in my eyes. If I imagined it I must congratulate myself... But it is Bob, often turning his back on the audience and seeming to live inside the music that I remember most. I would see him again, and again....<br />
Here's the setlist from Expecting Rain.<br />
Forever Young / Shelter From The Storm / When I Paint My Masterpiece / Seeing The Real You At Last / Dead Man, Dead Man / Clean-Cut Kid / Ballad Of A Thin Man / Joey / Watching The River Flow / Desolation Row / License To Kill / In The Garden / Chimes Of Freedom / Gotta Serve Somebody<br />
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Thanks again due to all at <a href="https://hopecollectiveireland.com/">https://hopecollectiveireland.com</a>, who are selling the book that inspired me to try to excavate my own gig-going past...<br />
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The scans above were located on the web and are not my own...Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-51152888386978752472017-09-21T22:50:00.001+01:002017-09-21T22:50:13.997+01:00In Concert - Favourite Gigs of Ireland's Music Community - Part 2<b>In Concert - Favourite Gigs of Ireland's Music Community - Part 2</b><br />
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I woke up the next morning after writing the first part of this post and realised that there were at LEAST three or four gigs from the eighties that I had omitted that really couldn't be omitted. So my plan to do the next post from the 90's onwards is being parked while I do a further return to the eighties.<br />
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<b>The Smiths</b> SFX, Dublin 18th May, 1984<br />
I first saw The Smiths on TOTP performing This Charming Man and the next morning I bought the 12". It immediately felt like one of those seismic events. The cooler (and older) kids might have had Hand in Glove, and even seen them play the Freshers' Ball in the JCR in Trinity the year before but for most of us this was going to be the first chance to see The Smiths. They had released What Difference Does it Make? and their debut album by the time the gig came around and the crowd was well up for it.<br />
The crowd was one of the most mixed I had ever seen, with other dark clad Bunnymen fans like myself, ageing hippies, slightly less ageing punks and other, less defined groups of people. But many, many had flowers in their hair, or pockets, or hands. Indeed gardens on the routes to the SFX had been stripped of all sorts of plant life. A Smiths crowd were not a gardeners best friend.<br />
It was a celebration.<br />
Marr seemed like a member of a sixties band in shades and Byrds fringe but Morrissey was Morrissey, in maternity shirt and with a bouquet in his back pocket.<br />
At one point Morrissey threw his shirt into the audience. My friend caught it but by the time he landed all that was left was a sleeve, which I had for years before it disappeared. I was recently part of a Facebook discussion of gigs in the SFX and someone shared the picture above, another part of the instant jigsaw that Morrissey's shirt became.<br />
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<b>Tom Waits</b>, Olympia Theatre Dublin, Nov 15-17th, 1987<br />
Swordfishtrombones was one of those albums that changed my life. I had seen Tom Waits on The Late, Late Show a few years before and was aware of The Piano Has Been Drinking, particularly the live version which had been recorded in The Olympia and was played regularly enough on the radio.<br />
But when I saw him on The Tube, in the brilliant video for In The Neighbourhood and performing Frank's Wild Years at a pool table interest was translated into obsession. I got some money when I turned eighteen and a whole load of it was spent on the whole Tom Waits back catalogue in Freebird Records. So I was pretty psyched when I heard he was coming to Dublin for three nights.<br />
I went to two of these three gigs and I just remember after the second night I went, wishing I'd bought tickets for all three. From Waits emerging in a white suit after an intermission and playing I Wish I was In New Orleans to Ralph Carney playing two saxophones simultaneously these shows were filled with high octane theatricality, patter, incredible musicianship and songs - what songs - with a different setlist each night... I remember thinking as I emerged onto Dame Street that I would never see another gig quite like it. And I haven't.<br />
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<b>That Petrol Emotions</b> / <b>The Young Gods,</b> Town and Country Club, London 1988<br />
I saw that Petrol Emotion supporting Echo and the Bunnymen in the SFX, shortly after the release of their rather excellent Keen single (if memory serves me right). Perhaps they had even released V2. The gig was slightly spoiled by a bunch of people who kept shouting for Teenage Kicks. Their decision to cover Pere Ubu's Non Alignment Pact showed that the Petrols were more interested in experimenting than in repeating their pasts...<br />
By the time I went to see them in The Town and Country Club in 1988 they were on to their third album and there was a sense that they were about to finally get the commercial acclaim their music merited. Their confidence was reflected in their choice of support band. The Young Gods made an absolutely huge sound and the mix in the room was absolutely pristine. I remember us all commenting on it after the first song. They were so good, and so loud, that the question of how any band could follow it was in the minds of many.<br />
But the question didn't last long after The Petrols emerged. This was a celebration of all that is good in live rock music. Confrontational, loud, fun, danceable, boundary crossing, uncool, totally cool - it really seemed like they had an unstoppable momentum - the breakthrough never really came but the memories remain. This was a fantastic night and it is one that I can revisit, as it was recorded for posterity...<br />
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<b>The Pogues</b>, The Olympic Ballroom, 19th December 1985<br />
This is here not just because of the gig but because of the whole day. A group of us had planned to meet in The Buttery Bar in Trinity to start the days drinking early. (It was a Pogues gig after all!) For some reason the Buttery was closed and a few of us decided we would venture elsewhere to get some flagons. As these were the days before mobile phones there was some doubt as to whether we would meet up with the rest of our fiesta - a fiesta of Pogues fans would be the proper collective pronoun, yes?)<br />
We did, we got drunk, we got sick, we got drunk again, we went to the gig where all of us, apart from one who 'slept' through the gig, went absolutely manic and sweated out all the alcohol and other liquid more quickly than it could be replenished.<br />
This was punk rock, retooled for the mid-eighties and relevant to a generation who were tired of the stultifying, claustrophobic idea of Irishness that had been stuffed down our throats. The Pogues were both the embodiment and the explosion of those cliches.<br />
And the songs were things of wonder. A Pair of Brown Eyes, The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn .. The Old Main Drag!<br />
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<b>The Golden Horde </b>and <b>A House</b> - St Patricks Park, Dublin June 1986<br />
I couldn't leave the eighties without a mention for the phenomenon that was The Lark in The Park, a series of free outdoor gigs in parks around Dublin and elsewhere run under the auspices of RTE2. I went to a number in Blackrock, Raheny and possibly elsewhere but this was the best...<br />
I'm not even 100% sure that this was an official RTE2 event but it was brilliant. (I think it my have been connected to the Dublin Street Carnival -yes, the internet tells me it was, and that the pictured ep was in fact a promo for the event!) The Horde were in their earlier, funnier incarnation with Bernie and Des doing some great simultaneous jumping, go-go girls in cages and fun, fun fun.<br />
A House were more serious but still fun, and had some of the best songs, and song titles, in the rock handbook. Kick the girls up the mountains again, Jesus.<br />
All this, sun, shades, six packs and sandwiches. Hard to beat.<br />
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Enough bathing in the warm waters of nostalgia... If you've enjoyed this you'll find far more reminiscences (of a higher quality) in In Concert, the book which inspired these posts, which is available from the Hope Collective for €15 including P&P. All moneys raised go towards the Irish Red Cross. <a href="https://hopecollectiveireland.com/category/in-concert/">https://hopecollectiveireland.com/category/in-concert/</a><br />
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Next time out - the nineties and beyond...<br />
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<br />Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-67383081954752192192017-09-16T02:37:00.001+01:002017-09-16T08:46:03.103+01:00In Concert - Favourite Gigs of Ireland's Music Community<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>In Concert - Favourite Gigs of Ireland's Music Community</b><br />
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This book came out last year and I've been meaning to get it ever since. I finally got around to buying it this week and am enjoying dipping into it.<br />
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I remember when I was younger there were many conversations about who would win if Ali fought Dempsey, or if Superman fought Batman... The very fact that these were unanswerable questions was what made them interesting.<br />
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Best gig is one of those questions. I can't really answer it for myself let alone hope to come to a consensus with any group of people. The other question is what gig would I go to if I could travel through time? This book asks people to name their favourite gigs and provides ample material for me to consider when I think upon these things.<br />
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I know some of the contributors and was at some of the gigs. The book is probably mostly of interest to people who have some familiarity with the Irish rock scene of the seventies, eighties and nineties. It brings up feelings of envy, nostalgia and sometimes, bafflement. Rather than try to review it in any objective way I am going to spend some time reminiscing about some of my favourite gigs. A infamous pub bore like myself doesn't do one favourite, this will be many favourites.<br />
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<b>The Blades</b><br />
Let alone pick a favourite gig I would find it hard to pick a favourite gig for some artists. One of my very first gigs was The Blades in O'Shea's hotel in my hometown Bray, in, I think 1983. The gig took place in an L shaped room and I was unable to actually see the band but that only added in a strange way to the purity of the gig. The music, driven by a huge brass sound and some of the greatest pop songs to ever come out of Ireland was enormous, infectious and still rings in my ears.<br />
The next Blades gig that really stands out was their 'last' gig at the Olympic Ballroom. Enormously drunk as I was I still cling to a huge sense of occasion and a memory of dancing and pogoing and sweating; a celebration tinged with sadness.<br />
My memory of these Blades gigs has been changed by their extraordinary return to the stage after a few decades. when they walked out onto the stage at The Olympia it was as if we had all spent the previous 25 years waiting for this moment. Some possibly had.<br />
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And my favourite? - probably the last time I saw them, in Whelans, leaning on the stage, watching them mix new songs effortlessly with the old and coming away with a copy of their new album... It seemed that resurrection was possible...<br />
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/seamus.duggan/videos/1515790578431122/" style="text-align: center;">https://www.facebook.com/seamus.duggan/videos/1515790578431122/</a><br />
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<b>Echo & the Bunnymen</b> - SFX Dublin, 10th February, 1983<br />
I remember getting dressed to go to this. I was nervous, and wore a studded belt which I could whip off and use if fighting broke out. At the time I had an unhealthy obsession with The Bunnymen and doom laden post punk in general. Most of the practice I had had in going to mass gatherings was well, from going to mass.<br />
The concrete walls, the high space, the smell and haze of dope and cigarette smoke, soon to be added to by clouds of dry ice. The backcombed hair, the overcoats, torn tights and eyeliner, an army of outcasts - the excitement is still there, somewhere in my bones. I had found a religion to replace the one that had lost me.<br />
And they were a great live band, particularly the drumming of Pete DeFreitas, who was situated right front of the stage rather than at centre back. And Mac, who I thought the coolest man alive, getting a tap on his shoulder when he was walking past the mic stand which he proceeded to cling to for the whole gig. His chronic short sightedness had even led to him walking off a stage somewhere. I would have known when and where back then, when Bunnymen trivia was my Mastermind subject in waiting.<br />
I would see them again, and perhaps they played even better gigs, with impassioned covers of Roadrunner, It's All Over Baby Blue and Fiction lifting one gig into the stratosphere but this was my first time going in to Dublin for a gig and it will always retain a special place in my memory..<br />
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<b>Billy Bragg</b> - The TV Club 1983/84<br />
I saw Billy Bragg on an all night rock music programme that was broadcast across Europe with sections from various countries. He was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L3U91X1ekA">on the BBC section</a> and made an immediate impact on me. I bought Life's a Riot with Spy vs Spy for the bargain price of £2.99 When he came to play the TV Club in 1984 a few friends and I headed in to Dublin in my friend John's Fiat 850. We had to push it on more than one occasion on the way in but it only added to the sense of excitement. We were in for all the support acts - a really good set from a band with a lead singer in full convent schoolgirl uniform who had an almost Morrisseyesque line in humourous angst and the dull (or so I thought) guitar and effects noodling of Pat O'Donnell and Steve Belton, soon to morph into The Fountainhead.<br />
But all that was forgotten when Bragg took to the stage. We were leaning on the stage and there was a large, almost empty ring behind us filled with slam-dancing skinheads who would occasionally bump into us. One man and his guitar made a rousing, exciting noise and the he peppered the gaps between the songs with stories, jokes and calls to arms. It was a revelatory gig and on the way home, fuelled by our excitement, the Fiat 850 made it all the way even with a few extra passengers somehow squeezed into it. And my friend Dave had the setlist. Would that all gigs were so much fun..<br />
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<b>The Stars of Heaven</b> - Dublin, mid to late eighties.<br />
I probably saw the Stars of Heaven more than I have ever seen any other band that I wasn't involved with. I still remember counting up sixteen at the time. Some gigs are misty but moments and venues stand out - McGonagles, The Underground, The Waterfront, The New Inn, Sides, Trinity College. They never progressed to bigger stages, let alone stadiums but when I heard they had broken up all I could think of were the gigs I had missed, and that there would be no more.... They were a great band and live they had more edge than on record. Their nervous intensity added an extra something. I think my strongest memories are of a gig in a basement club that was called Hawkins if you entered from the Hawkins Street side and Club 21 if you entered from the D'Olier St side. I loved their songs and the covers, from Alex Chilton, The Seeds, Richard Thompson and Neil Young amoung others. They helped kick start an odyssey into music which still continues.. And somewhere in my head the opening chords of Hey! Little Child ring out and I'm falling in love with music, myself and the world all over again.<br />
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There is a live recording of The Stars here - <a href="https://fanningsessions.wordpress.com/2015/11/27/stars-of-heaven-in-concert/">https://fanningsessions.wordpress.com/2015/11/27/stars-of-heaven-in-concert/</a><br />
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<b>These Immortal Souls </b>- 12th September 1988, The Loft, Berlin<br />
There is a neat link between The Stars of Heaven and These Immortal Souls - both included covers of Hey! Little Child in their sets. We had gone to Berlin partly in the hope of seeing Nick Cave but I was just as excited to see his compatriot in crime from The Birthday Party, Rowland S. Howard, playing with These Immortal Souls.<br />
Rowland was one of the most charismatic performers I have ever seen, is one of my touchstone guitarists and seemed to be almost luminescent, almost transparent. Impossibly thin, he just effortlessly wrung incredible sounds from his guitar while his haunted, despairing vocals were lightened by a swaggering black humour and yearning romanticism which was already apparent in Shivers, written by the 16 year old Rowland "I've been contemplating suicide / but it really doesn't suit my style". It was the only time I got to see him and remains a touchstone gig, heightened by the fact that <a href="https://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2012/12/top-102-albums-no-80-teenage-snuff-film.html">I stalked him later that night.</a>..<br />
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<b>Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds,</b> The Town and Country Club, London Town<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhno3HmnPvWfI70N_u19wenT6nD4MvcN8pRYvHngSd13KJtFngON4aj3bEn3fuLbRy7DPomp3V0K8uRB1SnordqFF4W-j3nv4kZg9ZRthe0Y47EopEeTyFj5DJt_s_fx40IRro2sK3JfKwE/s1600/Nick+Cave+SFX+1992.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhno3HmnPvWfI70N_u19wenT6nD4MvcN8pRYvHngSd13KJtFngON4aj3bEn3fuLbRy7DPomp3V0K8uRB1SnordqFF4W-j3nv4kZg9ZRthe0Y47EopEeTyFj5DJt_s_fx40IRro2sK3JfKwE/s320/Nick+Cave+SFX+1992.jpg" width="320" /></a>Anyone who knew me in the 1980's is probably aware the I was a little bit obsessed with Nick Cave. In the summer of 1988 I went to Berlin, partly because there would surely be an opportunity to see Cave up close, in his chosen habitat. Unfortunately it was not to be, as Cave ended up spending much of the summer in rehab as a result of a court order. But we got to see his one time conspirator (above).<br />
We bought tickets for this gig on the way home through London, and the gig involved a return trip via ferry and train. We were all wondering what the gig would be like. Would Cave be a shadow of his former self? Could he still cut it or would he be more like the broken shadow of Johnny Thunders we had seen that summer?<br />
It didn't take long to find out. Stalking to the front of the stage Cave perched like an angry, evangelical raven on the monitor at stage centre and he wanted to tell us about a girl, hurling himself backwards, flailing and screaming... The venue erupted and over the course of the gig relief turned to astonishment as Cave drove himself into paroxysms of rage, wallowed in the depths of despair and held the crowd between his bloodied claws....<br />
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The highlight, as it would be during many of the shows I saw, was a long, loose despairing howl of bruised and broken blues that was/is Knocking on Joe.<br />
I would see them again a few times and they were all great gigs but this was the one that stays.<br />
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<b>Einstürzende Neubauten</b> - Saga, Copenhagen September 9th 1989<br />
This was the second summer I had spent in Copenhagen, both sides of my Berlin sojourn and I guess the two gigs above and this make a neat trilogy linked by The Birthday Party, Blixa having played with The Birthday Party before becoming a mainstay of The Bad Seeds for many years.<br />
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Einstürzende Neubauten were an extraordinary live band and the use of strange hand made metal instruments, drills, barrels, shopping trolleys and such, alongside the hypnotic, ferocious Blixa and the pumping bass and metallic guitar was a gripping spectacle, visually and sonically. (If you can have a sonic spectacle)<br />
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The fact that the fuses blew twice and that Blixa almost roused the crowd to riot saying he would walk away if it blew again and inciting us to get our money back if that happened.<br />
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I have been able to find footage of this gig on Youtube and as well as opening with shots of the poster to match my own photograph it also appears to feature me and my friends standing outside the theatre for a few brief seconds. That's made this post worthwhile for me!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.800000190734863px; text-align: center;">Not my Setlist, found on the net..</td></tr>
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<b>Sonic Youth / Teenage Fanclub</b> - McGonagles 1990<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs8Q4O6eTPjmN3MOymVade0-EwBy7ipwfOU51PICM-U7HGsIEjmqN9qR-jA8LEvC_ir0arjnF-mgFsNcOVFxGk61CDPkQ6H6axS_Om1UumSOH3ciPAonjCnTOvCzdj5jdlNHt5nbSrf0Jo/s1600/sy090290.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a>The following year I would see them at The Top Hat in Dun Laoghaire and hear great reports of their support band, one Nirvana. However, this is the Sonic Youth gig that I remember as the best. McGonagles was jam packed far beyond any reasonable fire regulations. It was fairly well known that a fiver to the bouncers at the door was every bit as good as a ticket which is why I was surprised to be offered over £100 for my ticket. I'm glad I wasn't tempted to take it.<br />
Although this was the Goo tour the <a href="http://www.sonicyouth.com/mustang/cc/090290.html">setlist</a> leaned heavily on earlier material, even going back to their debut album's metallic, feedback washed no wave material. Incredibly the feedback seemed almost exactly as it was on the records... It was a blistering, loud frenetic gig and the walls and ceilings were dripping and my skin was as white and wrinkled as if I'd been soaking in a bath for hours.<br />
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I've stuck with the 1980's (and 1990) here, mainly because I've run out of energy and really need to go to bed. I hope you've enjoyed it and perhaps some of you may even want to comment with memories of your own 'best gigs'.<br />
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In Concert, the book which inspired this post, is available from the Hope Collective for €15 including P&P. All moneys raised go towards the Irish Red Cross. <a href="https://hopecollectiveireland.com/category/in-concert/">https://hopecollectiveireland.com/category/in-concert/</a><br />
<br />Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-90946649484557127302017-06-04T16:31:00.000+01:002017-06-04T16:31:43.094+01:00From a Box of Cassettes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>From a Box of Cassettes</b><br />
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I'm returning once more to the dusty corner of the world which is this blog to share something from the dusty corner of the accumulated mess of things that I have gathered over the past fifty years.<br />
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At our last rehearsal the band (The Knocking Shop) were trying to put together one of our old songs from twenty years ago with a poor live recording as the guide. When Dave, the guitar player, told me a couple of days later that he had a better recording on cassette, plus some other 'forgotten' songs I decided to go through my own pile of cassettes with a bit more rigour. And I was rewarded with a copy of what was a work in progress towards a third demo.<br />
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Strangely it included songs that I had completely forgotten. It's an odd experience hearing your own voice sing songs that are completely unfamiliar. To add to the strangeness many of the songs were about memory and resurrection. Plus one which was a my twenty something vision of middle age.<br />
"<i>I dig the garden and cut the grass</i><br />
<i>Pay for the electricity and gas</i><br />
<i>My mortgage payments are always on time</i><br />
<i>My bank manager thinks that I'm a fine man</i>"<br />
Apart from the fact that bank managers have been largely replaced by computer programmes not far off.<br />
<br />
I've uploaded some of the songs and they are below for the listening pleasure of the curious. We'll probably play a couple when we play live again in July.<br />
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<br />
<iframe frameborder="no" height="520" scrolling="no" src="https://www.reverbnation.com/widget_code/html_widget/Album_165960?widget_id=55&pwc[included_songs]=1&context_type=album&spoid=artist_473460" style="max-width: 100%; min-width: 100%; width: 0px;" width="100%"></iframe>Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-68296184219402772922017-04-08T13:54:00.000+01:002017-04-09T21:29:55.835+01:00Top 102 Albums, No Minus 18 - No Such Place<h2>
Top 102 Albums, No. Minus 18 - No Such Place</h2>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5W1cb2sFPsWE5ebnf_iRo-su4jF14-opz2FApsOOj628U1qq3mzrEET8tcOVTf3jtMHP9x2zgfkJUnIRo9sQtVPmSKksr5QuLvdx9wEeNEH4N9mYCJ0jc-mhlugEhcfeEZbV6Snd-2MyS/s1600/Jim-White-No-Such-Place.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5W1cb2sFPsWE5ebnf_iRo-su4jF14-opz2FApsOOj628U1qq3mzrEET8tcOVTf3jtMHP9x2zgfkJUnIRo9sQtVPmSKksr5QuLvdx9wEeNEH4N9mYCJ0jc-mhlugEhcfeEZbV6Snd-2MyS/s320/Jim-White-No-Such-Place.jpg" width="320" /></a><b>No Such Place</b> - Jim White<br />
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In the early 21st Century this was the album that dominated my listening more than anything else and while it has never left my playlist I haven't listened with quite such intensity until these last few days as I prepare to see Mr White play live for the first time.<br />
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I have previously written about White as a filmmaker - his documentary, <a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2010/09/you-got-to-get-it-in-blood.html">Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus</a> is a trawl through the south of Harry Crews, Flannery O'Connor, Raptures, Snakes and Mr White.<br />
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I've been searching for the right word to describe him and I keep coming back to fatalist. There is a richly humorous and life affirming fatalism that permeates these songs. Life may be bad, you may be at an all time low, but hell, it could always be worse, as in the opening song, <b>Handcuffed to a Fence in Mississippi</b>:<br />
<a name='more'></a>"<i>I see the guitar that my cousin played in prison / </i><i>Floating with the tv in the swimming pool</i><br />
<i>I'm calling for the owner of the motel / </i><i>Then noticing the bloodstain on the door</i><br />
<i>I'm reaching for the shoes under the bushes / </i><i>Just in time to hear the sirens sing</i><br />
<i>I'm handcuffed to a fence in Mississippi / </i><i>Where things is always better than they seem</i>"<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_6KIWE58C-g" width="640"></iframe><br />
<b>The Wound That Never Heals</b><br />
We know we've got one foot in the weird, old America when the second song turns out to be a tale of a female serial killer who has had a difficult childhood, it seems:<br />
"<i>She runs from devils. She runs from angels</i><br />
<i>She runs from the ghost of her father and five different uncles</i><br />
<i>Blinded by their memory, seared by their pain, she'd like to kill 'em all...then kill 'em all again</i><br />
<i>She don't think much about what she's done or the funny feelings that she feels</i><br />
<i>No, she don't</i>"<br />
All this is delivered in a voice that is 37% whisper and that seems to be singing over a pulsing electronic beat even when the backing is a skeletal folk. It's somehow like Son House was refracted through Throbbing Gristle and then most of the tracks were wiped. It's a sort of modern primitivism, like ancient recordings found in the Appalachians beside cave drawings of a drum machine.<br />
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Here's a version from <b>Searching for the Wrong Eyed Jesus</b>...<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Cw4tr0wsfjQ" width="640"></iframe><br />
<br />
<b>Corvair</b><br />
The next song up is the one that most often gets onto my playlists and has me hitting the replay button most often. It even gets a reprise to close the album.<br />
The song is a spiritual, concerning itself with the transmogrification of material objects:<br />
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It also expresses the feeling of being left behind, of the clock ticking away your sense of purpose and power. The 21st century boy is middle aged, greying, and slightly out of breath. He ain't going to die in a car crash but if he gets into the drivers seat he may be pecked.<br />
You can her the sands of time blowing through the track..<br />
"<i>Got a Corvair in my yard. It hasn't run in fifteen years</i><br />
<i>It's a home for the birds now. It's no longer...a car</i>"<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ghE_ZiimU6I" width="640"></iframe><br />
<b>The Wrong Kind of Love</b><br />
After all this Jim thought it was time for a straight up love song, well, straight up with a twist. Save the ice for the bruising afterwards:<br />
"<i>Your love's a tale told by idiots, signifying nothing more than a wise hunger for destruction, for in the temple of your loving, scrawled upon the wall just there behind the portrait of yourself there lies a prayer written in your hand, it says, "Girl, come and destroy me.</i>""<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Lahclmo7HKI" width="640"></iframe><br />
<b>10 Miles To Go On A 9 Mile Road</b><br />
If love is a journey, it's longer than the road. How do get to the end, well maybe you never will. If you're lucky. "<i>From the splinter in the hand, to the thorn in the heart, to the shotgun to the head, you got no choice but to learn to glean solace from pain or you'll end up cynical or dead</i>."<br />
There is a price on everything, "<i>'less of course you steal it.</i>" This is another standout track on an album of stand outs. It is a real song of endurance in the face of whatever life throws at you... "<i>life's nothing if not a blind rambling prayer, you keep your head held high, a'walking and a'talking 'til the power of Love deliver you there</i>"<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8qWahwJOM1I" width="640"></iframe><br />
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<b>Christmas Day</b><br />
What is an album without that Xmas No.1? Well Jim's attempt to take on the mirror hatted majesty of Slade is slightly lower key, or perhaps no-key??<br />
"<i>I remember quite clearly, a bad Muzak version of James Taylor's big hit, called "Fire and Rain" was playing as you crouched down and tearfully kissed me, and I thought, "Damn, what good fiction I will mold from this terrible pain." So seldom a door...so seldom a key...so seldom a gift like the gift you gave me.</i>"<br />
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<b>Bound to Forget</b><br />
The words on this album are a huge part of what attracts me. They are snapshots in time like short, short stories, although all the time White undercuts any sense of serious meaning. They remain just marks on the emptiness.. fading before they are spoken.<br />
"<i>I tailgate a truck-load of tabula rasa...'til my mind go clearer than the highway west of El Paso. Guess I'm traveling faster than the speed of regret. What I was born knowing I was bound to forget.</i>"<br />
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<b>God Was Drunk when he Made Me</b><br />
Tom Waits said "<i>you know there ain't no devil, it's just god when he's drunk</i>". Jim takes this a bit further and right into the nexus where stand-up comedy meets evangelism: "<i>See if it was God who made forgiveness, then before that he musta made sin / And who built the house of brotherly love, then let the Devil come dancing in?</i>"<br />
Here is a live version with the folk mass farce elements of the song amped up...<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AViS_xA6NJA" width="640"></iframe><br />
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<b>King of the Road</b><br />
This album is immersed in the imagery of cars and roads and billboards and so this cover of Roger Miller's hobo claasic fits right in. White's version is a kind of country dub, like something overheard from the motel room next door...<br />
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<b>Ghost Town of My Brain</b><br />
The Specials found their <b>Ghost Town</b> on the streets and in the clubs but Jim finds his in the space between his ears, where memories ceaselessly unwind and Joyce's "<i>cracked looking glass of a servant</i>" has evolved into "<i>the testimony of a fun house mirror that some fool broke apart</i>".<br />
"<i>Seek the misty trail beyond the veil where the world gets torn asunder</i><br />
<i>Gimme needles in the haystacks, Lord and riddles in the rain...</i><br />
<i>Cause I like to go out walking in the ghost-town...ghost-town of my brain</i>"<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QouQZc5Cb4s" width="640"></iframe><br />
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<b>Hey! You Going My Way</b><br />
or Hitch-hikers guide to the Star System...<br />
"<i>Blank billboards on the highway of life. Counterfeit bills in the neon lights</i><br />
<i>This stick-shift driven saw-dust dream, show-biz sho' ain't what it seems</i>"<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kteK-Ic0wlA" width="640"></iframe><br />
<br />
What way is Jim going? Well, tonight he hits Kilkenny but he seems to be always chasing <b>The Love that Never Fails</b>, however little he believes it might be there, "<i>stuck on the corner of "Confused & I Don't Know"</i>" as he is.<br />
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The album finishes with a reprise of <b>Corvair</b>, even more ghostly than take one...<br />
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Looking forward to seeing flesh on the bones of some of these songs tonight.<br />
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<br />Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-60226356828316242582017-03-26T03:19:00.000+01:002017-03-29T15:29:08.933+01:00Top 102 Albums, No Minus 17 - Teens of Denial<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEBpE4uwYGBFTowXe044e4352vkp0dTBz3uNi7n4-tBhoi00ReFuuLHLdbs3kNoowmvWVm9frm1XcBaz3bogMipclgdvrEaaQiouLLW0oKHFNrceYh2yAukewzSv0s3lY0Ef5MS36VDPFc/s1600/R-8797601-1468970221-4767.jpeg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEBpE4uwYGBFTowXe044e4352vkp0dTBz3uNi7n4-tBhoi00ReFuuLHLdbs3kNoowmvWVm9frm1XcBaz3bogMipclgdvrEaaQiouLLW0oKHFNrceYh2yAukewzSv0s3lY0Ef5MS36VDPFc/s320/R-8797601-1468970221-4767.jpeg.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><b>Top 102 Albums, No. Minus 17</b><br />
<b>Teens of Denial </b>- Car Seat Headrest<br />
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"<i>I am freaking out in my mind / </i><i>In a house that isn't mine</i><br />
<i>My end goal isn't clear / </i><i>Should not have had that last beer</i>"<br />
<br />
Sometimes age feels like a fog. Everything becomes less distinct, and those things that are distinctive are often only so because they are aided and abetted by memory / nostalgia for eyes that were less cynical and more full of the pulsing expectations of youth.<br />
<a name='more'></a>Reeling through the posts that make up these now 120 albums it is clear that very little post 1990 has dug deep into my heart, let alone from the 21st century. But here to redress the balance comes a record from last year that feels a bit like like The Modern Lovers refracted through The Pixies and Pavement, a record which has edged further and further into my heart after I listened to one song shared on Facebook and ordered the album the same day.<br />
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It's a record full of genuine hooks, pop music for the disaffected without the grief removed, or the joy. The guitars at time squeal atonally at others they chime and drive with the abandon of chart toppers from an alternate world.<br />
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I'm looking forward to seeing the band live on Monday in Dublin. Here's some wandering ruminations on / quotes from / tangents to / the songs.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/s_a1hPwXiWw?list=RDs_a1hPwXiWw" width="427"></iframe><br />
<b>Fill In The Blank</b><br />
<span style="white-space: pre;">"<i>You have no right to be depressed / </i></span><span style="white-space: pre;"><i>You haven’t tried hard enough to like it</i></span><br />
<i><span style="white-space: pre;">Haven’t seen enough of this world yet / </span><span style="white-space: pre;">But it hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts</span></i><br />
<i><span style="white-space: pre;">Well stop your whining, try again / </span><span style="white-space: pre;">No one wants to cause you pain</span></i><br />
<i><span style="white-space: pre;">They’re just trying to let some air in / </span><span style="white-space: pre;">But you hold your breath, you hold your breath, you hold it</span></i><br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"><i>Hold my breath, I hold my breath, I hold it</i>"</span><br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bEsItsZphwQ" width="427"></iframe><br />
</span><b>Vincent</b><br />
"<i>For the past year I’ve been living in a town / That gets a lot of tourists in the summer months</i><br />
<i>They come and they stay for a couple days / But hey, I’m living here every day</i>"<br />
I grew up in a seaside town. The town often felt that it was being dismantled by the tourists, like your identity as a permanent resident was becoming somehow dragged into liminal fields. Fractured lines somehow coalesce and at times reach sublimity.<br />
<br />
<b>Destroyed By Hippie Powers</b><br />
<span style="white-space: pre;">It's hard to go wrong when you've got such a great song title but it's still hard to get it this right. Opening bars are Pixied to the max and the repeated chorus line "<i>Tell my mother I'm going home, I have been destroyed by hippie powers / Tell my mother I'm going home, I have been destroyed by hippie powers</i>" is delivered with just the right mix of humour and heartbreak. </span><br />
<span style="white-space: pre;">Here Christopher Lloyd and Tom Hanks improvise a scene based on the song:</span><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SSl0X4heQBQ" width="427"></iframe><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4mouHs3aH6k" width="427"></iframe><br />
<span style="white-space: pre;"><br />
</span> <b>(Joe Gets Kicked Out Of School For Using) Drugs With Friends (But Says This Isn't A Problem)</b><br />
This tale of drugs misadventures, guilt and visions of talking Jesus reminds me of the overwrought world of Gordon Gano of The Violent Femmes - humour and celebration always walking side by side with the self-excoriation.<br />
And then there's the echoes of Mr Richman on "<i>Now everybody, everybody, everybody’s going along with the modern style</i>" and after listening to the voice of Jesus and his father condemning him the song exits on variations of "<i>Drugs are better, drugs are better with / Friends are better, friends are better with / Drugs</i>..."<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
<b>Not What I Needed</b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
This is a deconstructed howl against the failure of meaning when there is just too many answers patting you on the head and telling you what you want to hear. It even ends with distorted answers from an interview about the album, which, apparently was<br />
"<i>You know, with Teens of Denial it was sort of contemporaneous when I was writing it. You know, and what I was experiencing at the time. And, uh, I guess I was just out of my teenage years when I was writing things for Teens of Denial. (...?) really feel like anything had changed. So, um, yeah I guess (...?) two of those items together (...?) what I'm doing in the present tense</i>"<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="240" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ccztRby3FAk" width="427"></iframe><br />
<b>Drunk Drivers / Killer Whales</b><br />
"<i>We are not a proud race / </i><i>It's not a race at all</i><br />
<i>We're just trying / </i><i>I'm only trying to get home</i>"<br />
I can feel the teenage me singing this when walking home from a party with friends. Its a sprawling wondrous thing that should be number one. Once again the earnest plea at it's heart reminds me of The Modern Lovers in their pomp. making the best rock'n'roll public service announcement since Joe Strummer told you to Know Your Rights.<br />
"<i>Please listen to him / </i><i>It's not too late</i><br />
<i>Turn off the engine / </i><i>Get out of the car</i><br />
<i>And start to walk</i>"<br />
<br />
<b>1937 State Park</b><br />
The skeleton of Adam Ant's Prince Charming stalks through 1937 State Park. God this takes me back without being a memory, reminding me with tidal power of the explosive, fragile egotism of youth.<br />
"<i>I didn’t want you to hear / </i><i>That shake in my voice / </i><i>My pain is my own</i>"<br />
<br />
<b>Unforgiving Girl (She's Not An)</b><br />
Close to throwaway but not close enough to be disposable.<br />
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<b>Cosmic Hero</b><br />
"<i>If you really wanna make it last / </i><i>You could commit yourself completely</i><br />
<i>You could lie down in the river at last / </i><i>And let the dread complete you</i><br />
<i>And if you really don't want the pain / </i><i>You can disengage completely</i><br />
<i>Because it wasn't healthy anyways / </i><i>And you've got a job and a family</i>"<br />
In which the battle between good and evil is sorted out by the hurling of some playground taunts: "<i>I will go to heaven / </i><i>You won’t go to heaven</i>" Superheroes should always be this petty (not Tom Petty).<br />
<br />
<b>The Ballad Of The Costa Concordia</b><br />
"<i>How was I supposed to know? / And God won’t forgive me</i><br />
<i>And you won’t forgive me / Not unless I open up my heart</i><br />
<i>And how am I supposed to do that</i>"<br />
In which a list of mundane quotidian reasons for teen angst grow into a litany of shame which climaxes with a comparison to the captain of the infamous shipwrecked ferry Costa Concordia.<br />
Eleven minutes long and not without the moments such length incurs this still showcases the risk taking at work across all the album and it hits many highs.<br />
<br />
<b>Connect The Dots (The Saga Of Frank Sinatra)</b><br />
The dots add up to the journey from boy to man, with the desire to hit people's hearts replacing the desire to establish one's manhood by the fist. Something of the stale smell of male frustration stings through the welter of punk riffrains.<br />
<br />
<b>Joe Goes To School</b><br />
Just over a minute of melancholic abstract cycling, with horse.<br />
<br />
Some stuff I've been reading while listening:<br />
<a href="https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/car-seat-headrest-teens-of-denial-will-toledo-interview-profile-2016">https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/car-seat-headrest-teens-of-denial-will-toledo-interview-profile-2016</a><br />
<a href="https://genius.com/albums/Car-seat-headrest/Teens-of-denial">https://genius.com/albums/Car-seat-headrest/Teens-of-denial</a><br />
<a href="http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/features/7595913/car-seat-headrest-will-toledo-interview-kanye-west">http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/features/7595913/car-seat-headrest-will-toledo-interview-kanye-west</a> : "<i>The whole album is an example of improperly internalized religious thought. I think it’s important to note that the ideas expressed on the album represent a thought process. There are impulsive moments of judgment that aren’t necessarily the conclusions that I would want to draw</i>"<br />
<br />
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Addendum:<br />
The gig was great - here's a taster - the final track: Destroyed by Hippie Powers.<br />
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Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-617731585436957662017-01-20T14:48:00.000+00:002017-01-20T14:48:15.418+00:00Live Tonight! The Re-Animation of The Knocking Shop continues.<b>Live Tonight! The Re-Animation of The Knocking Shop continues.</b><br />
<br />
The Knocking Shop are supporting the rather wonderful Mik Artistik's Ego Trip tonight in <a href="http://www.thegrandsocial.ie/events/mik-artistiks-ego-trip/">The Grand Social</a> in Dublin City Centre. There are worse ways of spending your Friday night and all for a measly €12!<br />
<br />
We'll be dedicating this one to President Trump!<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/k1J7ifilk54" width="854"></iframe>Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-87879681884316262862017-01-20T00:38:00.000+00:002017-01-20T00:38:15.158+00:00Books Read 2016 - Part One<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Books Read 2016 - Part One</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
2016, despite being a bitch of a year for heroes and an ominous year for politics, has been a pretty good year for reading, even if my blogging muscles have largely withered away. I started this post on December 31st in order to try and have one final post before the years end and to clear the decks somewhat for 2017, when I hope to get back to writing a little more regularly. However, it has since been sucked into the purgatory known as the 'draft' folder.<br />
<br />
Rather than group my reading as many have done, or select my favourites I thought it might be interesting/easier just to list the books in the order I read them and add whatever few thoughts (if any) come to mind as I go through them.<br />
Perhaps when I get to the end I will highlight a few as my 'Best Books of 2017", but really I see all as part of the same book somehow, a larger sprawling multi-referential, oddly interlinked, post-modernist roman fleuve.<br />
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1. <b>Beatlebone</b> - <a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/search/label/Kevin%20Barry">Kevin Barry</a><br />
Perhaps they brightest star in the current firmament of Irish writers Barry showed yet more of his range in this imagined journey taken by John Lennon to his real island off the west cost of Ireland. The epigraph is from the great John McGahern - "<i>---the most elusive island of all, the first person singular</i>." and Barry allows himself great freedom in creating his "John Lennon" secure in the knowledge that no matter how public a life a person lives that elusive island remains hidden and indistinct.<br />
It's a novel about creativity. Lennon hopes to experience something on his journey that will help him to create a new album, the Beatlebone of the title. Barry, or at least a fictional version of himself, takes one of the chapters to describe some of the processes, journeys and ideas that led him to write the book, including a trip to the island.<br />
I'll leave the last words to "John": "<i>What's it about? Fucking ultimately? It's about what you've got to put yourself through to make anything worthwhile. It's about going to the dark places and using what you find there.</i>"<br />
<br />
2. <b>How Music Works</b> - David Byrne<br />
This was a present from one of The Knocking Shop, hoping, perhaps, to inspire in me some similarities with Mr Byrne, but other than a nagging sense that I share many of the traits that led him to acknowledge his Asperger's I fall far short in terms of focus, productivity, creativity and that vague fog known as genius.<br />
The book isn't anything like a standard autobiography as Byrne turns his attention on various areas of "How Music Works" such as the rooms that the music is played and recorded in, the social context, the technology, the ability to survive and how collaborations can happen. However he draws on his own experience to illustrate all of these areas and I was left with a feeling that I knew him better than the authors of many straight autobiographies I've read.<br />
Writing about this now, almost a year since I read it, I am drawn back to it and it is a book I am sure I will read parts of again, if not all of it.<br />
<br />
3. <b>Brooklyn</b> - Colm Tobin<br />
"<i>She had never considered going to America. Many she knew had gone toEngland and often came back at Christmas or in the summer. It was part of the life of the town. Although she knew friends who regularly received presents of dollars or clothes from America, it was always from their aunts and uncles, people who had emigrated long before the war. She could not remember any of these people ever appearing in the town on holidays. It was a long journey across the Atlantic, she knew, at least a week on a ship, and it must be expensive.</i>" ---- "<i>She tried to work out how she had come to believe also that, while people from the town who lived in England missed Enniscorthy, no one who went to America missed home. Instead they were happy there and proud. She wondered if that could be true.</i>"<br />
Ellis Lacey is torn between the opportunity she is given(forced to take?) to leave Ireland and the desire to stay. It asks the question can freedom be a prison - the chance to change and embrace new things tell a story of lost identity? There is something here of the ache apprehended by Gabriel Conroy in Joyce's The Dead when he realises that a part of Gretta's heart is buried in a graveyard in Galway. Ellis will forever leave a knot of frustrated desire in Wexford.<br />
<br />
4. <b>Super-Cannes</b> - JG Ballard<br />
One of my books of the year. Ballard doesn't ever seem to have lost his ability to make you feel that you are on the crest of a wave slightly ahead of the time you are living in, somewhat strange yet unsettlingly familiar.<br />
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5. <a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2016/05/signs-preceding-end-of-world.html"><b>Signs Preceding the End of the World</b> </a>- Yuri Herrera<br />
I managed to weave Kevin Barry into my review of this. "<i>I was reminded of Kevin Barry's City of Bohane, which shares many traits with this book, not least a nod to sci-fi and a world run by crime bosses and borders that are hard to cross and more difficult to cross back again. And as Barry's novel is and is not set in the West of Ireland so Signs is and is not set on a journey across the border between Mexico and the US. Both books also share tough women protagonists who can dish out violence when required - "she let him get used to the idea that a woman had jacked him up and then whispered, leaning close, I don't like being pawed by fucking strangers, if you can believe it.</i>"<br />
The fact that it was one of the few books that inspired a review says something, but not everything. Other books were just as good, but I remained silent. This is a timely and powerful novel and the subject matter only became more pertinent as the year passed.<br />
<br />
6. <b>The Invention of Morel</b> - Adolfo Bioy Casares<br />
This suffered somewhat from the weight of expectation. I had read a few extremely positive things about the book and wanted it to be life changing. Life changing it wasn't but still this is a haunting and memorable excavation of the sort of territory that Poe made his own. Perhaps on the second reading it will change my life.<br />
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7. <b>A Wet Handle</b> - Ivor Cutler<br />
Small and relatively inconsequential yet filled with some of the moments only found in Ivor Cutler 's work.<br />
<br />
8. <a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2016/06/a-weekend-with-claude.html"><b>A Weekend with Claude</b></a> - Beryl Bainbridge<br />
Not Bainbridge at her best but Bainbridge all the same. "<i>there's plenty of fumbling and bedroom farce, broken antiques, attempted suicide and even a shooting. The three narrators have a rather ambiguous relationship with the truth and may romanticise their misery. But there is a ring of truth to their "rackety" lives, to the smell of mildew and disappointment. And there are plenty of suitably acid phrases:</i><br />
<i>"After a time one has to pretend that certain things matter in order to appear normal - it's all so feeble."</i><br />
<i>"I do understand her predicament - to be always missing the crucifixion she craves..."</i><br />
<i>"I get so irritated and my words are only a form of vomit.</i>""<br />
<br />
9. <b>The Slaves of Solitude</b> - Patrick Hamilton<br />
The pall of WW2 falls across life in a dingy boarding house in London's outer suburbia. Hamilton reveals a world where the veneer of respectability covers a wriggling mess of fear, desire, racism, sexism, jealousy and whatever else you're having. Like Rising Damp without the laughs and with added world war. I'll be returning to Hamilton.<br />
<br />
10. <b>Heaven and Hell</b> - Jón Kalman Stefansson<br />
This one is fading into an Icelandic ash cloud. I remember being a little disappointed but not anywhere like the 'stop reading' stage.<br />
<br />
11. <b>The Carpenter's Pencil</b> - Manuel Rivas (translated (wonderfully) by Jonathan Dunne from the Galician)<br />
"<i>He thought the voice would be thin and incoherent, locked in a pathetic struggle against Alzheimer's disease. He never could have imagined such a luminous demise, as if in reality the patient were hooked up to a generator.</i>"<br />
The lasting impression of this book is the language, it is full of poetry and was a pleasure to read. However, the bones of the story beneath the seductive flesh of word have become indistinct. The Spanish Civil War, prison, death sentences fail to part Dr De Burca and Marisa. It starts with a journalist interviewing the old man, Dr De Burca, who is anything but old in his mind and who, although on his deathbed still has eyes"tattooed with desire" for his wife.<br />
<br />
12. <b>The Rain Before it Falls</b> - Jonathan Coe<br />
Like the only previous Coe I have read, <a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2014/12/what-carve-up.html">What A Carve Up!</a>, this novel is largely a reconstruction of a family history. However, it is a very, very different book. A woman and her daughter's listen to some cassettes left by a dead relative, telling the story of her life through descriptions of some photographs. Family secrets and tragedies are revealed in an emotional and poetic book. Left me looking forward to my next Coe.<br />
<br />
13. <b>Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink</b> - Elvis Costello<br />
Lots of polished anecdotes from the long respectable once king of vitriol. I finished suspecting that the vitriol is still boiling away. For his friends and family I hope it stays underground. For the listening public I hope he blows the showbiz platitudes away in an unlikely return to the permanently sneering, dissatisfied, bitterness of his magnificent early years. Still, I enjoyed much of this while still feeling that the more Mr C revealed the more he found ways to hide himself away.<br />
<br />
14. <b>Wide Sargasso Sea</b> - Jean Rhys<br />
One of the many holes in my reading that I've been meaning to plug for quite a while. I think this was recommended to me by a pen-pal when I was around seventeen so it only took a few decades to get around to following their recommendation. Thanks Julia!<br />
It would have made sense to have re-read Jane Eyre before reading this, which (in case you don't know) spins a tale from the trailing Carribbean roots of Bronte's novel. Rhys adds race and colonialism to the proto-feminist fury burning at the heart of Jane Eyre.<br />
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15. <b>Something Wicked This Way Comes</b> - Ray Bradbury<br />
This is quite an ornate confection, verging on the overwritten but delivering enough fun and memorable scenes to carry off the whole thing with some style.<br />
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16. <a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2016/07/tres.html"><b>Tres</b></a> - Roberto Bolaño<br />
"<i>What is surprising (or not) is that the work fits seamlessly into Bolaño's oeuvre, and readers who have read a number of his works will find themselves again in that large reverberating echo chamber which all his books seem to exist in. Partly it is that the writer's life is stitched into his work and partly the language and the fascination with geometry.</i>"<br />
<br />
17. <b><a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2016/08/the-literary-conference-episode-in-life.html">The Literary Conference</a></b> - César Aira<br />
"<i>Aira manages to make the very flippancy and even apparent failures of his work into a keystone of it's success. The world is an absurd and meaningless place but it must be taken seriously as we are stuck inside it, for better or worse. It is easy to see what drew Bolaño to him. He too, took. the absurd seriously without being serious</i>."<br />
18. <a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2016/08/the-literary-conference-episode-in-life.html"><b>An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter</b> </a>- César Aira<br />
"<i>I felt while reading this that Aira had a vision of the novel complete when he started out and the wild imaginings are all in the service of a journey from craft to vision as Rugendas almost literally, absorbs the landscape into his own body and cuts some of the strings that tie him to 'civilisation' and allow him to enter more fully the world of the monstrous and savage.</i>.."<br />
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19. <b>The Return of the Soldier</b> - Rebecca West<br />
This has been on my TBR lost for a very long time and it didn't disappoint. In many returning soldiers tales it is what they bring back from the war that dominates but here it is what is left behind that is key. West is a quite brilliant writer and she gets right under the skin of the class divide. She also gives us a wonderful portrait of a dependent woman, also our narrator and one who carefully balances her need not to make herself unwelcome with the curdled hopes and sceptic eye she turns to the perfect marriage and priviledge at the heart of this book. <br />
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20. & 21. Two Spanish Picaresque Novels: <b>Lazarillo De Tormes</b> and <b>The Swindler</b><br />
Lazarillo has to be one of my books of the year. When I was studying English Lit in college the influence of the Spanish picaresque form on the early English novel was regularly referred to but I never actually went back to the source. There is something primal about this book, sitting on the cusp between the oral and the written. It's gritty and irreverent, funny and tragic. It's at once old and new. It's easy to forget sitting here in the privileged west that life hasn't stopped being this hard for many across the world. Morality is partly a function of need, and opportunity.<br />
"<i>Pliny says there is no book, however bad it may be, that doesn't have something good about it, especially as taste very and one man's meat is another man's poison</i>."<br />
<br />
"<i>I'd also like people who are proud of being high born to realize how little this really means, as Fortune has smiled on them, and how much more worthy are those who have endured misfortune but have triumphed by dint of hard work and determination.</i>"<br />
<br />
At some stage, hopefully in 2017, I will follow this up with the rest of my reading from 2016. Don't hold your breath...<br />
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Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-77939530179245502232016-09-20T23:21:00.001+01:002016-09-21T14:39:36.588+01:00Rossmore Road<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><br />
</b> <b>Rossmore Road</b> - Barry Andrews<br />
<br />
"<i>White and yellow lines and street signs</i>"<br />
<br />
A love song to a song.<br />
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I first (re) heard this single about two weeks ago on Youtube. I can't remember what led me there but ever since this has grown into a minor obsession. It was the second single released by Barry Andrews who had been a founder member of XTC but left after <a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2013/01/top-102-albums-no-61-go-2.html" target="_blank">Go2</a>. I am not really familiar with his other solo work and only vaguely familiar with the band he then formed, Shriekback. In some ways it is a close relative of Beatdown from Go2. "Beatown, it's a capital city and all roads lead to<br />
Beatown, beatown"<br />
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When I say (re) heard what I mean is that it sparks with a haunting, nostalgic electricity that suggests that I heard it at the time of its release when I was a young teenager listening to John Peel under the bedclothes. Perhaps this is some of the appeal of the song for me, which every few plays brings me to the edge of tears. I would often listen every night high on the expectation of hearing again some masterpiece that remained un-identified. The search, conducted on the radio for the names of these songs was often fruitless, and even if you identified the song and the artist it was often impossible to get them on vinyl. You had to tape them if you wanted to listen to them again. That often meant songs having their intro replaced by the sound of the record button being released. Click.<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="120" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XZ2RvSHK_B8" width="204"></iframe><br />
But there is more to it. This has the fragile beauty of Wire's Outdoor Miner or Map Ref 41°N 93°W, two of my favourite songs from the era. It also has a sort of blank modernism that I like. It is the ultimate paean to the HUMdrum. It reminds me of the Modern Lover's Roadrunner, of Kraftwerk's Autobahn.... Need I say any more? Well, it also has a few touches that remind me of Madness and The Kinks.<br />
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Its a hymn to the city street, and to London. The sound of the traffic and human voices and telephone wires and electricity rising into a swelling, celebratory hum.<br />
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It reminds me of the excitement of wandering around London when I lived there for a summer as an eighteen year old. (An experience I have referred to <a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2012/12/top-102-albums-no-85-dread-beat-n-blood.html" target="_blank">here</a>). Both the familiar and the unfamiliar were suffused with the chest filling anticipation of youth. Andrews cites Baker Street, Marleybone Street and Regent's Park, all familiar London landmarks but they are just the incidental setting of this hymn to the anonymous, to the belisha beacons* that mark out pedestrian crossings, to the DHSS office, the 'safety barrier down the middle of the road', the bus route that runs along it.<br />
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The cover, with its view of the street and the graphic representation of the make-up of the road surface and the services that run underneath it is also somewhat perfect. The back cover shows what is presumably an aerial view of the Rossmore Road area and lists the impressive cast of musicians, including Robert Fripp, Steve New and Patti Paladin. Thanks to the open handed munificence of the internet I have a copy for myself to hold while I listen. I haven't been this excited about a single for decades. The next time I visit London I will ensure I make a pilgrimage.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rossmore Road on Google Maps</td></tr>
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I have listened to this song maybe a hundred times and more over the past couple of weeks and it has shown no sign of diminishing returns. If you asked me now to nominate an under appreciated musical masterpiece, this would be my choice.<br />
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As Wire might say Here it is...again.<br />
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<b>Rossmore Road</b><br />
The 159 runs along it<br />
Round the corner from Baker Street<br />
There's a dolls house shop on the corner<br />
Of Lisson Grove and<br />
Ross more Road / Rossmore Road<br />
<br />
Turn left at the DHSS in Lisson Grove<br />
You find yourself in Rossmore Road<br />
And there's a number of public buildings<br />
And a safety barrier down the middle of the road<br />
In Rossmore Road / In Rossmore Road<br />
<br />
In Rossmore Road<br />
White and yellow lines and street signs<br />
And public phones and traffic cones<br />
And belisia beacons* on the central reservation<br />
All humming now, all humming now, all humming now<br />
<br />
To the north<br />
The Grand Canal<br />
Round the corner<br />
Regent's Park<br />
Next stop on the tube<br />
Marylebone Road<br />
And you can see<br />
Balcombe Street from Rossmore Road<br />
<br />
The 159 runs along it<br />
Round the corner from Baker Street<br />
There's a dolls house shop on the corner<br />
Of Lisson Grove and<br />
Ross more Road / Rossmore Road / Rossmore Road / Rossmore Road<br />
<br />
In Rossmore Road<br />
White and yellow lines and street signs<br />
North of the river<br />
South of the circular<br />
Under the road<br />
Above the railway<br />
All humming now, all humming now, all humming now<br />
All humming now, all humming now, all humming now<br />
All humming now, all humming now, all humming now<br />
All humming now, all humming now, all humming now<br />
All humming now, all humming now, all humming now<br />
All humming now...<br />
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*Belisha beacons - (in the UK) an orange ball containing a flashing light, mounted on a striped post on the pavement at each end of a zebra crossing. You can find out a lot more about them here - <a href="http://therantyhighwayman.blogspot.ie/2015/02/why-did-zebra-cross-road.html">http://therantyhighwayman.blogspot.ie/2015/02/why-did-zebra-cross-road.html</a><br />
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Appendix: Here is something I found, Barry Andrews himself writing about Rossmore Road. You can eat the full blog post at <a href="http://shriekbackmusic.tumblr.com/post/86912275487/all-humming-now-situationism-shriekback-and">http://shriekbackmusic.tumblr.com/post/86912275487/all-humming-now-situationism-shriekback-and</a><br />
"'<i>Rossmore Road’ was, I think, my first original song, the first that owed nothing much to precedent, that was fuelled by direct inspiration.</i><br />
<i>Perversely attending to everyday objects: the railway line, the safety barriers, the street names I pursued Uninflected Road. But mythology just seeped in, most notably the Balcombe street siege of 75 when English coppers first brandished guns on TV -the IRA terrorists holding hostages in little Balcombe street (which you ’can see from Rossmore road’). </i><br />
<i>Musically it was almost a music-hall song -the walking bass making it slightly jazzy, then, in the chorus it turns into a dubby half speed thing that opens up, all glowing vocals, and speaks of epiphany: 'all humming now’. The vision-enhanced glory of something totally mundane made beautiful.</i>"<br />
<br />
And More:<br />
<a href="http://shriekbackmusic.tumblr.com/post/86393110582/squat-part-2-breakingenteringspeedingdrifting">http://shriekbackmusic.tumblr.com/post/86393110582/squat-part-2-breakingenteringspeedingdrifting</a><br />
"<i>She and I had a few Blues-fired all night wanders and there were some magical moments: listening to a band recording in Matrix Studios, Bloomsbury through the grate in the pavement like the streets were pumping out music. Wandering the Alexandra Road Estate in it’s Brutalist glory.</i><br />
<i>Observing Sacred Ibises in the Snowdon aviary. Seeing the dawn come up on the outwardly unremarkable but -with the right eyes- astonishing Rossmore Road. It was another world: the City beneath the City. My subsequent musical forays into psychogeographical places owed a lot to these nocturnal adventures</i>."Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-74705524431413109532016-08-27T13:10:00.001+01:002016-08-27T13:10:44.436+01:00LIVE!! TONIGHT!! LIVE!! TONIGHT!!<br />
<br />
This blog and the blogosphere in general has suffered some neglect recently as all my focus has been on tonight's gig in The Grand Social in Dublin. Somewhat more activity may start taking place next week...<br />
<br />
It will the first Dublin gig in twenty years for The Knocking Shop and at the moment my nerves are making it feel a bit like Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum but I'm sure it'll be a great night.<br />
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There's an event page on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/events/1045545818885717/<br />
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and you can like the band page here - https://www.facebook.com/knockingshop/<br />
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Here's one of the songs we'll be playing, taken from our comeback gig in January in London. Hope some readers will make it along..<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8iabHnEhsNo" width="640.5"></iframe>Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-80541931986200141972016-08-09T22:43:00.000+01:002016-08-11T06:57:03.118+01:00The Knocking Shop to hit the Dublin Stage.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix82olY0G3eaj81CBjDyuklg_Jd1C_rFw1T89NV_shyk1P-ihQDqQ0dczwisRVxXKuWEwAp23RVdroRIFWqlhyxYfLkWhFr9kzqiu6rFL7XONWzsAcBjQlbwhxGV58VoQ5oghNcI_t0CCQ/s1600/RetroRevivalFacebookHeader.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix82olY0G3eaj81CBjDyuklg_Jd1C_rFw1T89NV_shyk1P-ihQDqQ0dczwisRVxXKuWEwAp23RVdroRIFWqlhyxYfLkWhFr9kzqiu6rFL7XONWzsAcBjQlbwhxGV58VoQ5oghNcI_t0CCQ/s640/RetroRevivalFacebookHeader.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Grand Social</td></tr>
</tbody></table><b><span style="font-size: large;">The Knocking Shop to hit the Dublin Stage!</span></b><br />
<b><br />
</b> The revival of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/knockingshop/" target="_blank">The Knocking Shop</a> hits a high point with our return to the Dublin stage at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thegrandsocialdublin/" target="_blank">The Grand Social </a> on August 27th<br />
<a name='more'></a>We are set to headline a night with <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Buffalosunn/" target="_blank">Buffalo Sunn</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/LateCityEdition/" target="_blank">Late City Edition</a> and a <b><i>Mystery Guest Band. </i></b>Any of the other bands are worth the €7 admission and more so you are practically being paid to come and watch us!<br />
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Having recently scouted the venue at a rather wonderful Kevin Rowland dj set I am even more excited. It's got a real atmosphere, the canvas on the roof giving it a carnival vibe. ( I live the life of a hermit deep in the Irish midlands so Dublin in the 21st century is a bit of a mystery to me.)<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;"></div>You can see the event page on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1045545818885717/" target="_blank">Facebook </a><br />
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You can like us on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/knockingshop/" target="_blank">The Knocking Shop Facebook Page</a><br />
<br />
You can even come to the gig, boost my fragile ego and allow me a brief rekindling of the delusion that I am a rock star...<br />
<br />
Here we are on our London debut in January, which was our first gig in twenty years. Afterwards people were comparing us (quite favourably) to The Birthday Party, The Go-Betweens, Joy Division and The Fall.<br />
<br />
I want to see that band - (or have some of their drugs!)<br />
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Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-17696922544889502662016-08-05T00:56:00.002+01:002016-08-05T01:18:31.150+01:00The Literary Conference & An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>The Literary Conference</b> (translated by Katherine Silver) & <b>An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter</b> (translated by Chris Andrews) - by César Aira<br />
"<i>In my case nothing returns, everything races forward, savagely being pushed from behind by what keeps coming through that accursed valve. This image, brought to its peak of maturation in my vertiginous reflections, revealed to me the path of the solution, which I forcefully put into practice whenever I have time and feel like it. The solution is none other than the greatly overused (by me) "escape forward."</i>"<br />
<br />
Having started a long translated novel and lost interest as it seemed opaque to me (perhaps the original, perhaps the translation, perhaps just me) I decided that I would reread the César Aira novellas I had read and enjoyed last year but never made it to a blog post apart from a listing in my <a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2016/01/books-of-year-2015.html" target="_blank">Books of the Year</a>. This would allow me to contribute something further to <a href="http://caravanaderecuerdos.blogspot.ie/search/label/Spanish%20Lit%20Month%202016" target="_blank">SpanishLitMonth</a>..<br />
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I started with <b>The Literary Conference</b> as it was the one that had left the greater trace. I had really enjoyed both books but neither had left as much of an impression as their companion in the three novella set I had purchased <b><a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2015/01/ghosts.html" target="_blank">Ghosts</a></b>. This may have a lot to do with the fact that I had posted on <b><a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2015/01/ghosts.html" target="_blank">Ghosts</a></b>. It is as if blogging has become an essential part of fully digesting a book I've read and committing it to memory.<br />
<a name='more'></a>I quickly picked up on the plot of <b>The Literary Conference</b> and started to remember it piecemeal but it defies memory with it's cavalier plotting, humour and oddity. The switches from section to section are bravura, and would, I am sure, strike some readers as silly. It's as if Aira had taken one of those compendia of Adventure Stories from the fifties and segued each story into the next. Our hero is a writer and a scientist and finds the secret of a quasi-mystical device used to hide buried pirate treasure. He has also made some huge breakthroughs in the area of cloning, although the practice, he finds, is subject to the vagaries of chance. He is then caught up in an invasion of giant blue worms who blindly crush all before them.<br />
<br />
No time is spent trying to convince of the reality of any of these scenarios nor does Aira involve himself in setting out any of the theoretical background to the science involved. Indeed he laughingly brushes aside the need to explain..<br />
"<i>I won't go into the whole explanation here, because it would take many pages, and I have imposed upon myself a strict length limit for this text (of which this is inly a prologue) out of respect for the reader's time.</i>"<br />
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The narrator is, naturally, a classic mad scientist with megalomaniac tendencies when the story requires him to be. But he decides to reverse part of the classical plot, and to clone a genius so that he can take the role of "<i>the bootlicker, the heinous clown.</i>" His plan requires him to become the sidekick. "<i>To clone a genius! This was the decisive step. This would set him firmly on the road to world domination (because, among other reasons, he'd already covered half of it).</i>"<br />
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The plot is fun, and so are the constant stream of asides on all subjects that the plot races past. During the course of the book there is a production of an early play of the narrators, which allows him to elaborate on his aesthetic. "<i>I didn't know how to resolve the difficult problem this plot line presented. Because if Adam and Eve were, respectively, the only man and the only woman on the planet, then Adam's wife - the absent wife whose existence prevented him from living out his love with Eve - couldn't be anybody other than Eve herself. The idea (very characteristic of me, to the point that I now believe it to be how I conceive of literature) had been to create something equivalent to those figure that was both realistic and impossible, like Escher's Belvedere, figures that look viable in a drawing but could not be built because they are but an illusion of perspective. Such a thing can be written, but one must be very inspired, very focused. I fail because of my precipitousness, my rush to finish, and my desperation to please.</i>"<br />
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Aira manages to make the very flippancy and even apparent failures of his work into a keystone of it's success. The world is an absurd and meaningless place but it must be taken seriously as we are stuck inside it, for better or worse. It is easy to see what drew Bolaño to him. He too, took. the absurd seriously without being serious. Life is contingent, and the things that make our voices individual may be as slight as the books we've read but nevertheless we all have small idiosyncrasies which mean that we can never be fully certain that we do not have something valuable to contribute to the world. (See, he almost has me spouting positivity!)<br />
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<b>An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter</b> is a very different book. It occupies a similar position in the Aira books I've read to that The Elephant Man did in the early films of David Lynch, being possessed of a quasi-realist narrative and featuring a genuine historical character and some genuine historical facts. However, as you might expect, Aira doesn't stop with the facts, and indeed it is difficult for one so unversed in the actual history as I am to tell where facts end and fiction begins.<br />
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This is not just in terms of the life story of the Landscape Painter, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Moritz_Rugendas" target="_blank">Johann Moritz Rugendas</a>, but the descriptions of nature and of things like the carts that transport goods across the pampas to Buenos Aires seethe with the fantastical eye of Aira: "<i>The ends of the shafts seemed to disappear among the clouds; their length can be deduced from the fact that they could be used to hitch ten teams of oxen. The sturdy planks were reinforced to bear immense loads; whole houses, on occasion, complete with furniture and inhabitants. The wheels were like fairground Ferris wheels, made entirely of carob wood, with spokes as thick as roof beams and bronze bulbs at the centre, laden with pints of grease.</i>"<br />
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The artist moves from a quest to codify nature according to an aesthetic based on the systematic methodology of Alexander von Humboldt towards a quest to find a less trammelled vision of the world. He also considers the production of his art as a career, as an aesthetic pursuit and in the way it bears upon his own emotional and intellectual life. "<i>How could he be sure that the physiognomic representation of nature would not go out of fashion, leaving him helpless and stranded in the midst of a useless, hostile beauty? His youth was almost over in any case, and he was still a stranger to love. He had ensconced himself in a world of fables and fairy tales, which had taught him nothing of practical use, at least he had learnt that the story always goes on, presenting the hero with new and ever more unpredictable choices.</i>"<br />
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I felt while reading this that Aira had a vision of the novel complete when he started out and the wild imaginings are all in the service of a journey from craft to vision as Rugendas almost literally, absorbs the landscape into his own body and cuts some of the strings that tie him to 'civilisation' and allow him to enter more fully the world of the monstrous and savage...<br />
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And once agin he raises the question of what the value of life, and work is:<br />
"<i>Why this obsession with being the best? Why did he have to assume that only quality could legitimise his work? In fact, he could hardly even begin to think about it except in terms of quality. But what if he was making a mistake? Or indulging in an unhealthy fantasy? Why couldn't he be like everybody else (like Krause, for example), simply painting as well as he could and giving more weight to other things? That kind of modesty could have considerable effects; for a start it would allow him to practice other arts, should he wish...or all of them. The absolutist ambition came from Humboldt, who had designed the procedure as a universal knowledge machine. But that pedantic automaton could be dismantled without giving up the array of styles, each of which was a kind of action.</i>" There are echoes of Frankenstein in this '<i>pedantic automaton</i>' and further echoes in the transformation of Rugendas himself.<br />
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But perhaps there are even more present echoes of another book. Krause, his companion and a lesser painter, is reminiscent of Sancho Panza and Rugendas of the long, gaunt knight. Both have to struggle to escape how they mediate reality, and when Rugendas immerses himself fully in the moment he finds that "<i>Reality was becoming immediate, like a novel.</i>"<br />
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A perfect paradox on which to end. I firmly recommend these two novellas and their partner in the slipcase edition I own - <b><a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2015/01/ghosts.html" target="_blank">Ghosts</a></b>. And having gone through the process of blogging on these two novellas I find that my opinion has shifted and I find <b>Landscape Painter </b>to be the equal of <b>Ghosts</b> while remaining enamoured of the oddness of <b>The Literary Conference</b>. <br />
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Now to decide which Aira novel is to be next. Suggestions welcomed. And to get around to writing that novel.<br />
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"Argentine soldiers under Indian attack" by Rugendas</div>
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"Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-14208521850380212882016-07-21T00:19:00.002+01:002016-07-21T00:19:42.369+01:00Top 102 Albums, No Minus 16 - Suicide<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Top 102 Albums, No Minus 16<br />
<b>Suicide</b> - Suicide<br />
<br />
"<i>Frankie put the gun to his head</i><br />
<i>(Inarticulate visceral howling of demons)</i><br />
<i>Frankie's Dead</i>"<br />
<br />
The death of Suicide frontman Alan Vega has me listening to Suicide and remembering the key part they played in the development of my musical 'taste'. I first came across Suicide on a mixtape that was made for me when I was repeating the Leaving Certificate and which also included Patti Smith, The Velvet Underground and John Cale. I already knew The Velvets through my early Bowie obsession leading to Lou Reed and Patti Smith and John Cale I had vague intimations of. However, even if I had heard of Suicide I had not heard them and had never even imagined their pulsing, echoing, synth heavy rock 'n' roll.<br />
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And even if I had imagined their pulsing, echoing, synth heavy rock'n'roll I hadn't ever imagined <b>Frankie Teardrop</b>, one of the most frightening songs ever committed to tape. At the time I was also mildly obsessed with The Birthday Party and their landscapes of violence and despair and both became a late night fix for me, much to the annoyance of flatmates and residents of nearby bedsits. This is aural Dante, the human voice hanging precariously over the halting, pulsing breath of a machine made Mephistopheles. Starting like a close relation of Patti Smith's <b>Piss Factory</b> it ends like <b>The Mercy Seat</b> without the mercy.<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="120" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VFa9wSgG5p8" width="213"></iframe><br />
This leads into a funeral march for Ché Guevara, the face that launched a million bedsit wall posters. The half-hearted '<i>hurray hurray'</i>s echo the "<i>Let's Hear it for Frankie</i>" refrains that intersect Frankie Teardrop's descent into the underworld. It feels like Alan Vega is inviting us to sing along, like the audience on some ghastly game show.<br />
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The first side opens with <b>Ghost Rider</b>, a song I already knew. It is urgent, pulsing, primitive and futuristic. It is as if the world has accelerated forward into the past. The actual world seems more and more like this time travelling phantasm on his plasmatic motorcycle, all death's heads and napalm breath. It insistently whispers FOLLOW ME while silently asking WHERE?<br />
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<b>Rocket USA</b> stays on the motorcycle, all the way to doomsday. This is the real Motorcycle Emptiness.<br />
"<i>Rocket rocket USA</i><br />
<i>Shooting on down the highway</i><br />
<i>TV star riding aorund</i><br />
<i>Riding around in a killer's car</i><br />
<i>It's nineteen seventy seven</i><br />
<i>Whole country's doing a fix</i><br />
<i>It's doomsday doomsday</i>"<br />
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This is followed by the haunting, obsessive, erotically charged <b>Cheree</b> with twinkling beauty in the background, like cheap tin stars falling from the sky. Who shot the sheriff? "<i>Shut the door baby</i>", we make our own laws in here.<br />
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<b>Johnny</b> could be Thunders or Rotten or any male who covers need with braggadocio, leather and studs barely holding the pulsing heartskin from splitting.<br />
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Side One ends up close and personal, not with death but life in its nagging, insistent, fumbling desire to carry on.<br />
<br />
And carry on it does, still sounding fresh and ominous after nearly forty years. Goodbye Alan, you left your mark. Not a saint, But essential.<br />
<br />
Hurray Hurray.Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-73911392525973748992016-07-13T00:42:00.004+01:002016-07-13T07:38:15.057+01:00Tres<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><br />
</b> <b>Tres</b> - Roberto Bolaño<br />
Translated by Laura Healy<br />
<br />
Tres is a collection of three poems by Bolaño, although two could just as easily be called prose fragments. Indeed the first 'poem' is called <b>Prose from Autumn in Gerona</b> and the third "section" is called <b>A Stroll Through Literature</b>, a title that might seem more at home in a middlebrow essay collection. The central poem is called <b>The Neochileans</b> and centers on a tour by a band of that name. It is a short book, despite it's 170 plus pages, as many pages contain just one short paragraph and the facing pages feature the original Spanish texts.<br />
<br />
What is surprising (or not) is that the work fits seamlessly into Bolaño's oeuvre, and readers who have read a number of his works will find themselves again in that large reverberating echo chamber which all his books seem to exist in. Partly it is that the writer's life is stitched into his work and partly the language and the fascination with geometry. Bolaño often seems to see the relationships between characters and the effect they have on each other in terms of a geometric theorems, as if a formula could be derived of the forces pulling the characters together, or apart. The word features in the very first paragraph of <b>Prose from Autumn in Gerona</b>.<br />
"<i>A woman - I ought to say a stranger - who caresses you, teases you, is sweet with you and brings you to the edge of a precipice. There, the protagonist gasps or goes pale. As if he were inside a kaleidoscope and caught sight of the eye watching him. Colours arranging themselves in a geometry far from anything you're prepared to accept as okay. And so begins autumn, between the Oñar river and the hill of las Pederas</i>."<br />
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The kaleidoscope, the woman, the protagonist, all reappear, rearranged, throughout the poem. It concerns the struggle to write, to exist, to connect, to understand. It is particular and general. Dates and places are named but they are only sketched schematically. We see it all through the kaleidoscope but we also see the eye looking through the kaleidoscope, the eye of RB looking back at his passport from 1981 with a visa to live but not work in Spain for three months.<br />
<br />
A woman breaks the surface of his loneliness and then sinks from view like the lost city of Atlantis. A man remembers looking in a mirror, remembering his face remembering her face in it. What does poetry mean in the face of war? Where does it fit in the urban landscape. <b>Prose from Autumn in Gerona</b> is all this and more. I've read it twice and will certainly return to it. It is a very close relative of <a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2014/03/antwerp.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Antwerp</a>. Both are full of empty rooms, loneliness and unfinished tales. It feels like one of the first steps of a writer trying to believe in his feet.<br />
<br />
"<i>THE KALEIDOSCOPE OBSERVED. passion is geometry. Rhombuses, cylinders, pulsing angles. Passion is geometry plunging into the abyss, observed from the depths of the abyss</i>."<br />
<br />
......................................<br />
<br />
"<i>This is like a vapor trail</i><br />
<i>Straight out of </i><br />
<i>World War II</i>"<br />
<br />
<b>The Neochileans</b> is a far more conventional in form. It looks like a poem. pages filled with adumbrated lines. It concerns the journey of a band through Chile and north into Peru. It is a fever dream of a journey, a journey into identity, through countryside both real and imagined, full of the febrile philosophies of hallucinogenics: the what ifs and the sci-fi fantasising...<br />
"<i>And if we weren't</i><br />
<i>In Peru? we</i><br />
<i>Neochileans</i><br />
<i>Asked ourselves one night.</i><br />
<i>And if this immense</i><br />
<i>Space</i><br />
<i>That instructs</i><br />
<i>And limits us</i><br />
<i>Were an intergalactic ship.</i><br />
<i>An unidentified </i><br />
<i>Flying object? </i><br />
<i>And if Pancho Misterio's</i><br />
<i>Fever</i><br />
<i>Were our fuel</i><br />
<i>Or our navigational device?</i>"<br />
<br />
The journey is both real and a fantasy. Perhaps Bolaño truly appreciates that the past is always both real and a fantasy, and the future is not real at all.<br />
"<i>We left Arica</i><br />
<i>And crossed the border</i><br />
<i>Of the Republic.</i><br />
<i>By our expressions</i><br />
<i>You'd have thought we were crossing</i><br />
<i>The border of Reason.</i><br />
<i>And the Peru of legend</i><br />
<i>Opened up in front of our van</i><br />
<i>Covered in dust</i><br />
<i>And filth</i><br />
<i>Like a piece of fruit without a peel, </i><br />
<i>Like a chimeric fruit</i>"<br />
<br />
It clearly echoes the works that were yet to come, particularly <b><a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2012/01/savage-detectives.html" target="_blank">The Savage Detectives</a></b>. The band resemble the poets; both share journeys into the landscape. It also echoes <b><a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2011/01/100-books-in-2011.html" target="_blank">2666</a></b>, with an undercurrent of violent sex providing the backdrop in some of the most isolated places the band tour through.<br />
"<i>..the screams that came</i><br />
<i>Through the windows and</i><br />
<i>Echoed though the cement courtyard</i><br />
<i>Through outhouses</i><br />
<i>Between stores full</i><br />
<i>Of rusted tools</i><br />
<i>And sheds that seemed</i><br />
<i>To collect all the moon's light,</i><br />
<i>Made our hair</i><br />
<i>Stand on end.</i><br />
<i>How can so much evil exist</i><br />
<i>In a country so new,</i><br />
<i>So minuscule?</i>"<br />
<br />
The journey is one of discovery, but the band's singer Pancho Ferri (who changes his name to Pancho Misterio) seems to be losing rather than finding his. The whole thing may be a wild goose chase, a lost cause. That which they wish to express is fading from their grasp as they express it.<br />
<i>"A friend of don Luis Sánchez,</i><br />
<i>Asked what the fuck we were trying to say</i><br />
<i>With all that Neochilean shit.</i><br />
<i>New patriots, said Pancho,</i><br />
<i>As he got up </i><br />
<i>From the table</i><br />
<i>And locked himself in the bathroom</i>."<br />
<br />
And, of course, there is geometry:<br />
"<i>Our home</i><br />
<i>Positioned within the geometry</i><br />
<i>Of impossible crimes</i>"<br />
<br />
There are echoes of the Beats in this poem. <b><a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2010/09/that-finnish-beat.html" target="_blank">On the Road</a></b> seems to worm its way into most reviews and its easy to see why. Ken Kesey's trip with the Merry Pranksters seems an even closer precursor. I enjoyed this poem immensely. It is both immediate and memorable...<br />
<br />
......................................<br />
<br />
The last of the three pieces, <b>A Stroll Through Literature,</b> represents another trend that runs through all of Bolaño's work, the referencing of many writers and the sense that books and writing are fundamental, essential things.<br />
<br />
The poem is made up of 57 numbered passages of ranging from single short lines to half page paragraphs. They detail a landscape of dreams filled with writers. It starts and finishes with a dream featuring a three year old Georges Perec, and the many other writers referenced include: Alonso de Ecrilla; Manuel Puig; Macedonio Fernández; Efraîn Huerta; Enrique Lihn; Stendhal, Thomas de Quincy, Aloysius Bertrand, Gui Rosey, Li Po, Archibald McLeish, the Goncourt brothers, Gabriela Mistral, Philip K. Dick, Archilochus, Nicanor Parra, César Vallejo, Martin Adan, Virgil, Paulin Joachim, Franz Kafka, Mario de Sá-Carneiro, Anacreon, Mark Twain, Alice Sheldon, Anais Nin, Carson McCullers, Alphonse Daudet, Robert Desnos, Roque Dalton; Walt Whitman; Boethius; Theodoric; Pascal; The Marquis de Sade; Marcel Schwob; James Matthew Barrie and, of course Roberto Bolaño.<br />
<br />
Once again identity, and the difficulty of writing and the search for love are central:<br />
On Identity: "<i>Sometime I'd look at myself casually in a mirror and recognize Roberto Bolaño</i>."<br />
<br />
On Writing: "<i>I dreamt I was translating Virgil with a stone. I was naked on a big basaltic flagstone and the sun, as fighter pilots say, hovered dangerously at 5 o'clock.</i>" / "<i>I dreamt I was translating the Marquis de Sade with axe blows. I'd gone crazy and was living in the woods.</i>"<br />
<br />
On The Search for Love: "<i>I dreamt I was fucking Carson McCullers in a dim-lit room in the spring of 1981. And we both felt irrationally happy</i>."<br />
<br />
Apocalypse stalks the landscape, and home is a lost place, "<i>I dreamt the Earth was finished. And the only human being to contemplate the end was Franz Kafka</i>."<br />
<br />
It's tempting to see this section as a reiteration of the first where the kaleidoscope is literature and Bolaño is learning how to use and maim the methodologies and revelations of other writers; making something that became his.<br />
<br />
He succeeded, here and repeatedly, to find the stubborn alchemy that gives a voice to the world in such a way as to change how we see it.<br />
<br />
<b>Appendix.</b><br />
Laura Healy deserves a mention. The language is delicate, precise, robust, alive and elastic. Whether it is accurate or not this mono-linguist cannot tell.<br />
<br />
<b>Further Appendix</b><br />
This is my first contribution to this year's SpanishLitMonth hosted by Richard at <a href="http://caravanaderecuerdos.blogspot.ie/2016/06/spanish-lit-month-2016-man-without.html" target="_blank">Caravana de Recuerdos</a> and Stu at <a href="https://winstonsdad.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Winstonsdad's Blog</a>. My favourite literary blog event on the calendar.<br />
<br />Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-87852702063904315362016-07-08T22:55:00.002+01:002016-07-10T10:37:37.420+01:00But For the Lovers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><br /></b>
<b>But For the Lovers</b> - Wilrido D. Nolledo<br />
(Foreword by Robert Coover)<br />
<i>"You never actually bury a volcano. There's always a resurrection."</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Last year I posed a question to Rise, meister of the wonderful <a href="http://booktrek.blogspot.ie/2015/09/but-for-lovers.html" target="_blank">in lieu of a field guide</a> blog. What book by a Philippine author would he recommend? This was the book and you can read his better informed blog by clicking the link to his blog. it is a while since I read it and I could easily leave this patchy, unfinished post in my drafts folder but I have attempted to put some shape on it because I believe this novel deserves more attention. It deserves a better post but this, I hope, is better than nothing. I intend reading it again at some point in the future and maybe I can make a more coherent and considered case then.<br />
<br />
Barring Rise's introduction this is not a novel or writer that I have encountered anywhere else, an obscurity that seems thoroughly undeserved and unfortunate. This is a sprawling; energetic; humourous; mysterious; sometime brutal; poetic book that brought to mind <a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/search/label/Kenzaburo%20%C5%8Ce" target="_blank">Kenzaburo Õe</a>, <a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/p/gravitys-rainbow-hegels-phenomenology.html" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">Gravity's Rainbow</a>, Juan Carlos Onetti and <a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2013/01/hopscotch.html" target="_blank">Julio Cortazar's <b>Hopscotch</b></a>, just for starters. And I haven't come across so much shapeshifting since reading <a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2015/08/the-mulatta-mister-fly.html" target="_blank">Asturias</a>, especially in the poetic, dreamlike opening section.<br />
<a name='more'></a>"<i>Demented in the marshes in the moonlight, he thought he saw a deer and straddled it. It was a girl wearing an army trench coat.</i><br />
<i>She howled.</i><br />
<i>He climbed an acacia tree to seek safety from his dreams.</i><br />
<i>Midnight. He felt her tugging at his shoes. </i><br />
<i>Centipede! Centipede! she shrieked.</i><br />
<i>They grappled with a beastie. Pulling out the bolo from the knapsack, he started to slash, slash, slash in the thicket. Chuckling he dropped the blade and examined: the bulk of a man. An arm lay unsocketed. He grabbed it and flogged the perforated body: the solar plexus, the vertebra, the collarbone.</i><br />
<i>Wake up! he ordered.</i><br />
<i>No comment.</i><br />
<i>He towed it to the river, genuflected, and commended it to the brine.</i><br />
<i>In the morning, while he was watching the girl disrobe, the corpse swam to the surface like a crocodile. He hauled it in and kindled a fire around it.</i><br />
<i>You can get up now, he said cheerfully.</i><br />
<i>Still the carcass demurred."</i><br />
<br />
This section is quite different to the rest of the novel. It acts as a kind of febrile presentiment of the novel's action, suggestive of fever dreams of the characters. Sometimes it is difficult to pin down but I found that it worked best if I just followed wherever it seemed to lead. And all roads lead to war:<br />
<i>"What year is it?"</i><br />
<i>"Nine-Teen-For-Ti-Two," she answered loftily.</i><br />
<i>"Then we are at war...."</i><br />
<i>"War hissed grotesquely in the stratosphere, rumbled in the creeping gullets; not the burp of infiltrators, nor thunder (The Bomb would be heard later), neither lightning: but the crackling of the bush, the cackling in the canyons, and the Apocalypse coming into its houri.""</i><br />
<br />
It is clear that Nolledo sees how war fractures society, buildings, families, neighbourhoods and minds, amoung other things.<br />
<br />
We are then introduced to the first of the characters, Hidalgo, an old Spaniard removing his clown makeup in "<i>a closet'</i> while outside people are "<i>hollering for him like a coolie</i>". He has clearly fallen from what he once was but keeps a lid on his pride - "<i>The poorhouse was full of proud Castilians who'd talked back to their bosses.</i>" There is an air raid happening and "<i>Manila trembled in his old Spanish bones.</i>"<br />
<br />
He finds it hard to remove the clown make up, and underneath it lies his age - "<i>Santa Maria, how ancient he was!</i>" The teardrops are the hardest to remove, it is almost as if he is turning into a clown. He has accelerated his act to escape the roughnecks who are only there for the striptease and not the audience of children he had expected: "<i>Misinformation had matured into menace, a beehive of it</i>" and he has withdrawn "<i>like a blind torero gored by a blind bull</i>". Hidalgo's thoughts, his surroundings and the background noise create an overflowing impressionistic biography of the ageing clown, once "<i>a prewar hero in the provinces of the Philippines</i>". Before leaving the '<i>dressing room</i>' for what he thinks amy be the last time he pays his respects at the "<i>altar to his art</i>": "<i>In the name of the Father (kissing talismanic vestments), and of the Son (blessing a faded photo of Chaplin), and of the Holy Ghost (genuflecting before W.C. Fields' unsmiling visage in a gilded frame), Amen, he'd severed the umbilical.</i>"<br />
<br />
He exhales into a Manila over which his imagination tries to pull a veil of nostalgia: "<i>By refusing to acknowledge its eyesores, por ejemplo, those dingy restaurants, their raucous clientele, would he not, perhaps by indirection, retain that part of Manila which he'd helped forge out of a pagan wilderness?</i>"<br />
<br />
Hidalgo is pulled forcibly into the present by a meeting with a girl:<br />
"<i>Like him, she had been walking aimlessly. Dark-eyed, delicate of bone, a storm had combed her hair. Certainly she had not eaten, for how long, her blank gaze enumerated calendars beyond human reckoning</i>."<br />
"'<i>Who are you?' she asked.</i><br />
<i>And overhead, the bombers had come again....</i><br />
<i>Gravely: 'I am a clown and I'm going home to die.'</i><br />
<i>... All traffic had stopped, they were rushing to shelters....</i><br />
<i>Holding out her hand: 'Are you going to save me?'</i><br />
<i>...The city shook, women screamed...</i>."<br />
She is being followed by a Japanese officer of the occupying force while the city is being bombed by the US liberating force. Hidalgo gives in to a romantic fantasy and takes her home.<br />
<br />
Home is room thirteen in Ojos Verdes, a dingy boarding house overseen by the huge, sexually rapacious landlady Tira Colombo ("<i>her bulbous nose could sniff out a man's genitals in a suit of armour</i>") and room thirteen, which Hidalgo already shares with young street urchin; Hidalgo's "<i>muchacho</i>", Molave Amoran, whose thieving somehow keeps bodies and souls together and the rent paid. ("<i>One day soon, my Barabbas, with those itchy claws of yours, you will pick the grass clean from the mound, the honey from the bees, the saints from the Bible.</i>") Paying the rent means that Hidalgo does not have to pay Tira in kind, a form of payment she takes more pleasure in than money, when the payee meets her high standards, and she has high hopes of Hidalgo.<br />
<br />
Tira has some mercy, though, and she allows the girl to stay in room thirteen after listening to her tale. "<i>Professional tragedians had milked Tira Colombo dry with similar narratives. The Pauper Orthodoxy, she'd gathered, was founded on compulsive storytelling, the legitimacy of which was corroborated by the number of breadlines in Manila.</i>"<br />
<br />
Other characters include the prisoner Vanoye, who is to Amoran "<i>a poet with a golden tongue.</i>" He takes the girl to hear him speak: "<i>Listen to Vanoye. They hate him. They steal his food and plant horse manure in his feed can, but they listen to him.</i>" Vanoye is like a preacher, using religious imagery and speaking in a code that carries intimations of the coming American invasion.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Captain Jonas Winters is a harbinger of that invasion, flying low over the bay and downing Japanese planes and destroying gun placements and hypnotising the inhabitants: "<i>For now there was only this divine madman in the aluminium chariot.</i>" Finally hit "<i>he drifted, drifted, drifted in the sky, thinking how very close holocaust was to heaven.</i>.." Downed, he becomes a sort of relic, carried by the resistance on a stretcher which "<i>no longer bore a man, but a mandate-the future of mankind</i>."<br />
<br />
Japanese officers, resistance fighters, other residences of Tira Colombo's house all play a part in this poetic tapestry, pulsing with a living, somewhat unstable language which seems born of the American bombs that tear through the Spanish, Philipino and Japanese areas mixing all together and creating strange constellations of identity. "'<i>I wonder what they are eating in America,' somebody would say. 'Hot dog! Hot dog!' chorused the skinny children. 'Are they bombing Tokyo now?' another asked. 'Night and day, day and night!' screeched the skinny children</i>."<br />
<br />
Nolledo is not afraid to echo the classics and surely he is here inverting Joyce: "<i>No, no, no and no again for the thousand terrifying terrified others who would ask each other please please to do it, and no, please, no ever and ever again no, for all the rabid roaming lovers waiting for the anguish, for the night, for the fireflies, so they could say no, no, no, upon their self-destructing sex . . . and no, and no, and no again no. . </i>. ."<br />
<br />
<b>But For the Lovers</b> has a large sprawling cast of characters; sexual obsession; brutality; religion; beauty; the horror of war; low comedy and high seriousness. The language is enlivened by the use of slang, tagalog and Spanish. Indeed, it has much to say on the politics and evolving history of identity. This is a novel that deserves wider recognition and more readers. Published in 1970 to some high praise (Robert Coover writes a fanboy's foreword in the Dalkey Archive edition I have) but general silence. I would not be surprised to hear that Thomas Pynchon read it and that it influenced the WW2 novel he was writing at the time. There is an ecstatic yearning for the bombs to fall that will be echoed in the later, much garlanded novel. Nolledo couldn't even find a publisher for three later novels, or so <a href="http://booktrek.blogspot.ie/2015/09/but-for-lovers.html" target="_blank">I read at Rise's post</a>. I hope they find a publisher soon. Even if they are little more than glosses to this they will be of interest.<br />
<br />
I will finish with a further quote, one which may give us a little picture of Nolledo at work and a blueprint for the novel itself:<br />
"<i>So they left him alone at last - for lost. And perhaps he was. For closeted in his modest library, removed from his own squalling children, a bed away form his ailing Victoria, Placid Rey, in an attempt to exorcise his current fixation, plunged furiously into his journal on Ojos Verdes. On ruled, yellow tablet paper, with a jug of tea and no tobacco, he wrote his blood pressure high and low with all the figures of speech at his command; carving curlicues out of a vernacular that defied his salutations, his emendations, his immolations; recanting, reviling, demythologising a legato of facts; reconstructing with vicarious military acumen every facet that had engendered and ennobled Intramural - all with a historian's unjaundiced eye.</i> ..."<br />
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<i><br /></i>Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-61447859213296573402016-07-02T16:40:00.003+01:002016-07-02T16:40:57.127+01:00August 1914<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><br />
</b> <b>August 1914</b> - Barbara Tuchman<br />
"<i>When at last it was over, the war had many diverse results and one single dominant one transcending all others: disillusion. 'All the great words were cancelled out' for that generation, wrote D.H. Lawrence...</i>"<br />
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I have decided to try and finish this draft post today as #Brexit and the centenary of the Battle of the Somme attest to it's relevance in today's world. History can be misquoted to mean anything and the density of Tuchman's research and the way she manages to enter the deluded, prejudiced and overly privileged minds who led various countries and armies in the lead up to WW1 is still redolent with lessons for today.<br />
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The name Barbara Tuchman drew me to this book more than the subject matter. I read her masterful history of the fifteenth century <b>A Distant Mirror</b> many years ago and it is one of those books that comes to mind when I try to compile lists of favourite books. I may well read some more of her work after this for once again she makes distant history human, compelling and full of narrative drive and compelling characters.<br />
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Tuchman opens this story a few years before 1914 on an somewhat disconnected note. "<i>So gorgeous was the spectacle on the May morning of 1910 when nine kings rode in the funeral of Edward VII of England that the crowd, waiting in hushed and black-clad awe, could not keep back gasps of admiration. In scarlet and blue and green and purple, three by three the sovereigns rode through the palace gates, with plumed helmets, gold braid, crimson sashes and jewelled orders flashing in the sun. After them came five heirs apparent, forty more imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens - four dowager and three regnant - and a scattering of special ambassadors from uncrowned countries. Together the represented seventy nations in the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last. The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortège left the palace, but on history's clock it was sunset and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendour never to be seen again</i>."<br />
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But of course this is central to the book. The First World War is the dying gasp of the Old World. The personality of these Monarchs plays a huge role in the build up to the war and the way in which it is initially fought. The expansionist ambitions of the various kingdoms and empires bubble underneath the pomp and ceremony, sometimes laughably so: "..<i>King Ferdinand of Bulgaria" "annoyed his fellow sovereigns by calling himself 'Czar' and kept in a chest a Byzantine Emperor's full regalia, acquired from a theatric customer, against the day when he should reassemble the Byzantine dominions beneath his sceptre.</i>"<br />
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The king who has died, although largely a figurehead, has helped to end England's isolation amoung her neighbours, becoming popular even in France. The funeral is "<i>a tribute to Edward's great gifts as a sociable king which had proved invaluable to his country. In the nine short years of his reign England's splendid isolation had given way, under pressure, to a series of 'understandings' or attachments, but not quite alliances, for England dislikes the definitive, with two old enemies, France and Russia, and one new promising power, Japan.</i>"<br />
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Germany, however, was nursing a grievance and the Kaiser felt it too. Others didn't give them their due respect: "'<i>Soon, with my great Navy to endorse my words, they will be more respectful.' The same sentiments ran through his whole nation which suffered, like their emperor, from a terrible need for recognition.</i>" This goes against the advice of the man mainly responsible for the unification of Germany in the nineteenth century: "<i>Bismarck had warned Germany to be content with land power but his successors were neither separately nor collectively Bismarcks.</i>"<br />
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Germany's military ambition serves to help bring France to an entente cordial with Britain. "<i>M. Clemenceau shared Napoleon's opinion that Prussia 'was hatched from a cannonball' and saw the cannonball coming in his direction.</i>" The Kaiser rages at the sight of the English king being lionised in Paris, something he intensely desires. Indeed Tuchman says that it "<i>is perhaps the saddest story of the fate of kings that the Kaiser lived to be eighty-two and died without seeing Paris.</i>"<br />
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As well as kings and Empires, Tuchman sets the scene for the war in the military literature of the years leading up to it. First she highlights "<i><b>The Great Illusion</b>, by Norman Angell" "which proved that war was impossible</i>" as "'<i>A twentieth-century war would be on such a scale," "that its inevitable consequences of commercial disaster, financial ruin and individual suffering' would be 'so pregnant with restraining influences' as to make war unthinkable</i>." It is never too wise to bet on humans not doing the unthinkable! This book held sway in discussions in Britain and America and may have undermined their preparedness for war.<br />
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On the other side "<i>General Von Bernhard</i>" "<i>was engaged in 1910 in writing a book called <b>Germany and the Next War</b>, published in the following year, which was to be as influential as Angell's but from the opposite point of view. Three of its chapter titles, "The Right to Make War", "The Duty to Make War" and "World Power or Downfall" sum up its thesis</i>." Ideas of nationality can drive a nation to think the unspeakable quite reasonable. Cherry picking the common past can feed prejudice and raise dangerous forces and give them an environment in which a form of determinism can fester and grow. "<i>War, he stated, "is a biological necessity"; it is the carrying out among humankind of 'the natural law, upon which all the laws of Nature rest, the law of the struggle for existence'. Nations, he said, must progress or decay.</i>"<br />
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Tuchman is brilliant on how the machinery of war, once prepared, can pull the machinery of state. Military leaders in Germany, itching to put their theories and military infrastructures to the test want to mobilise as soon as there are rumours of war. They want to get the jump on their opponents and put enormous pressure on the possibility of last minute diplomacy. "<i>Appalled upon the brink, the chiefs of state who would be ultimately responsible for their country's fate, attempted to back away but the pull of military schedules dragged them forward</i>."<br />
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Wishful thinking overtakes an exploration of the possible outcome of the decision to make war - the Kaiser's speech to his departing troops "<i>You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees</i>" is a lot more reassuring than "You will fall like the leaves from the trees". The potential negative consequences are glossed over in order to mobilise support. (I can't help thinking of the Leave campaign in Britain. OK, things may work out alright but there are other possible scenarios.)<br />
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The gradual descent into war is shown in great detail and the way the management of armies by men blinkered by their attachment to ideals of proper conduct, which allows columns of men to be flung to their deaths without any clear sense of how this will help other than deluded concepts of courage and honour. But wars are still waged without any real sense of what the outcomes may be, and in many ways I can't help seeing #Brexit as, in part, an attempt to escape the fruits of the wars engaged in by Britain in the Middle East.<br />
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I cannot do justice to how Tuchman explains how geography, theories, personalities, technology and all the other influences converge to set Europe on the road to horror. And she finds many voices that express that horror:<br />
"'<i>The battlefield afterwards was an unbelievable spectacle,' reported a French officer dazed with horror. 'Thousands of dead were still standing, supported as if by a flying buttress made of bodies lying in rows on top of each other in an ascending arc from the horizontal to an angle of sixty degrees</i>.'<br />
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From a French soldiers diary: "<i>the guns recoil with each shot. Night is falling and they look like old men sicking out their tongues and spitting fire. Heaps of corpses, French and German, are lying every which way, rifles in hand. Rain is falling, shells are screaming and bursting - shells all the time. Artillery fire is the worst. I lay all night listening to the wounded groaning - some were Germans. The cannonading goes on. Whenever it stops we hear the wounded crying from all over the woods. Two or three men go mad every day.</i>"<br />
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Tuchman quotes a book by Emile Verhaeren "<i>Belgium's leading living poet, whose life before 1914 had been a flaming dedication to socialist and humanitarian ideals that were believed to erase national lines</i>." Verhaeren dedicates the book to the man he once was: "<i>no disillusionment was ever greater or more sudden. It struck him with such violence that he thought himself no longer the same man.</i>"<br />
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"<i>The world that used to be and the ideas that shaped it disappeared too, like the wraith of Verhaeren's former self, down the corridors of August and of the months that followed. Those deterrents - the brotherhood of socialists, the interlocking of finance, commerce and other economic factors - which had been expected to make war impossible, failed to function when the time came. Nationhood, like a wild gust of wind, arose and swept them aside</i>."<br />
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We must all try to stand in those corridors that have led to tragedy, and see how those gusts of nationhood can be fanned by desire and remember "<i>Arguments can always be found to turn desire into policy.</i>"<br />
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<br />Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-71495708542977980422016-06-20T08:01:00.000+01:002016-06-20T08:01:12.272+01:00A Weekend With Claude<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><br /></b>
<b>A Weekend With Claude</b> - Beryl Bainbridge<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">(I read the revised 1981 issue of what was her first published novel. The dust jacket describes it as "<i>virtually a new book</i>". Having not read the original I can make no comment on this.)</span><br />
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"<i>With each circlet of grease I rubbed away one or more layer of romantic love and sat exposed with shiny nose and oily mouth, suburban, self-tormenting, waiting to be hurt.</i>"<br />
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I have been inspired to try to put together this post by the <a href="http://www.annabookbel.net/reading-beryl/" target="_blank">Beryl Bainbridge Reading Week</a> (which ended yesterday). I participated in a previous iteration of this event in 2012 and have been gradually accumulating a number of posts on novels by Bainbridge, who has become firmly ensconced in my own personal canon over the lifetime of this blog. In it's original form <b>A Weekend With Claude</b> was Bainbridge's first published novel, but given that the rather brilliant <b><a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2012/06/harriet-said.html" target="_blank">Harriet Said</a></b> had been written before meant this didn't dampen my expectations.<br />
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The book is framed by scenes in the present tense where Claude, who deals in antiques from his home in the countryside, comes across a photograph in a desk that he is selling. It is the photograph that adorns the cover of my edition of the book. I don't know if the photo was set up to adorn the book or if Bainbridge used an actual photo to inspire the book. The most a quick google search will tell me is that there is much of a biographical nature in here so I guess that might indicate Option 2 but not with any certainty.<br />
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It does have the feel of something improvised and it certainly lacks the focus and exuberance of <b><a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2012/06/harriet-said.html" target="_blank">Harriet Said</a></b>. As well as the framing episodes which focus on Claude we have chapters recounted from the point of view of Lily (second from right in photo (Bainbridge) - "<i>she leapt from one piece of suffering to another</i>"); Victorian Norman (on right - "<i>In a decent society we should all be pushed to the wall - if not shot, then at least put outside the confines of the city, to roam like wolves in the great wastes beyond the gates</i>.") and Shebah (Centre - "<i>Shebah's one of those people who once seen are never forgotten. She wears bright red lipstick and her upper lip is quite hairy. Most people refuse to walk down the street with her. Norman says she looks like a demented nun, but I think she's more like a crazed pirate</i>."). Other characters include Edward (far left - "<i>He was awfully nice. Quiet, but very nice</i>."), who Lily intends to use as a convenient father for the child she is carrying - the father having left; Claude's partner Julia, who tidied up the mess Claude was in after his first wife Sarah left him and the couple who are there to buy a desk but (as far as I remember and can be confirmed by a quick glance, are never named).<br />
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As the events recounted are in the past and the characters seem mostly connected by past events and interested in their history there is a sense that this is like watching a fireworks display made up of the fireworks falling back to earth, very little evidence of the energy and display that drove them there remaining in the sky. These are lives that are coming apart at the seams, more seedy than bohemian, dingy rather than debauched.<br />
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Claude is introduced as someone who has been patched back together by his second wife, having fallen apart along with his first marriage: "<i>There was a time, after all, to cease being beautiful and a time to cease being young, and for him it had been when his wife left him</i>." Most of the characters seem to revel in self-pity, and Claude is no different, blaming his ex-wife for taking what was probably less than her due: "<i>When my wife left me, she didn't even take a toothbrush. But later, when I was ill, she sent a van and cleaned me out, lock, stock and barrel</i>."<br />
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Claude seems to enjoy making his customers awkward with his louche behaviour, including a rather pronounced oral fixation.."'<i>A child that's denied food when it cries is also denied love, I reckon. The withholding of food by the mother object is a withholding of love. And it doesn't just stop there. Most mentally disturbed adults crave sugar - you know, sweets and sugary drinks, all the fattening things</i>.'" He follows this up with the sort of lines delivered by Gareth Keenan in The Office: "'<i>That's why you girls like having your breasts sucked,' said Claude. 'You know instinctively you're giving the man both food and love.' He leaned forward and put his arm round the woman's shoulders and shook her. 'It's true, isn't it, girl? It's the truth, isn't it?</i><br />
<i>She was consumed with embarrassment and excitement. It was as if he'd shown her a pack of obscene photographs</i>."<br />
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The bridge between Claude and the rest of the visitors is Lily who arrives trailing her diffident and awkward train of friends on the mission to convince Edward that it is he who has made Lily pregnant and she is the one he should marry. Lily is always conscious of the effect she and the others might be making. Everything seems to be an act. "<i>We did look rather interesting in a sort of a way, and I felt rather proud and rather ashamed of us all.</i>" She had gone to boarding school in the building next door to Claude's house and she thinks back to those days, in particular one picturesque Christmas scene: "<i>It was a bit like a Christmas card , and I think I felt like crying. I don't mean I was homesick or anything. It's just that sentimental moments like that generally make me forget how special I could be if only I had the chance, and I get all lost and puny and dwindle right down to almost nothing</i>." She can't even share attention with the weather.<br />
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Bainbridge wanders into Ivor Cutler territory when she recounts the meeting of Lily and Victorian Norman. He comes to view a room in her decrepit house, subject to floods and falling apart at the seams. "<i>I felt very like a landlady, which I was, and I behaved very formally at the beginning. I started to say that I liked to be quiet, but Norman didn't stop at a distance to listen; he advanced closer and closer, neck stuck out like a tortoise above his wing collar, till we were nose to nose, and my skirt began to smoulder. Oh ho, I thought, this is a right one all right, and then he spun me round and beat at my bottom with his flat check cap. After he had come to live in the house he said he couldn't believe his luck - me catching fire like that</i>."<br />
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Lily loves drama and doesn't underplay it. "<i>A knife thrust into the personality, Claude says, can lead to loss of life</i>." However this might not be quite so dramatic, Lily as fragile as she is dramatic. However (minor spoiler alert...) everyone survives in this novel, not something one can be sure of when entering a Bainbridge novel.. But these are the sort of people who survive without prospering, except maybe for Claude.. ("<i>I know he's had his troubles, his sufferings, though God knows he's done it in comfort, in opulence.</i>.")<br />
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Bainbridge is not one to sentimentalise her characters, or to lionise them either. She includes the stuff polite society would prefer to leave out, at least of funeral orations: "<i>He omitted to mention that my father suffered from severe melancholia at least once a month; nor did he mention the misery he caused my mother, the long evenings she sat in the is bedroom with red eyes, the sugar bowl dented because it had missed her and hit the wall behind, the smashed window in the hall</i>."<br />
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It is the messy end of Lily's relationship with Billie that is the real reason for this trip. Although they had never quite taken the plunge into marriage, or even living together ("<i>Billie didn't actually live with me, in case my mother dropped in and accused me of being a whore</i>.") Lily and Billie had been an item and there was some expectation the relationship might become permanent, at least in Lily's mind. When Billie leaves for Australia there are plans for her to follow but when he returns he doesn't collect her but instead leaves her with child, and a problem - "<i>I simply have to get married this time, because of the baby not yet born, and that's why we all came here this weekend - for me to make Edward the father of the baby.</i>"<br />
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How does this pan out? Well there's plenty of fumbling and bedroom farce, broken antiques, attempted suicide and even a shooting. The three narrators have a rather ambiguous relationship with the truth and may romanticise their misery. But there is a ring of truth to their "<i>rackety</i>" lives, to the smell of mildew and disappointment. And there are plenty of suitably acid phrases:<br />
"<i>After a time one has to pretend that certain things matter in order to appear normal - it's all so feeble.</i>"<br />
"<i>I do understand her predicament - to be always missing the crucifixion she craves...</i>"<br />
"<i>I get so irritated and my words are only a form of vomit.</i>"<br />
There are also darker narratives lurking in the shadows of this book, and reconstructing them is another pleasure, if a rather unhealthy one....<br />
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Appendix:<br />
There is also a presentiment of one of Bainbridge's future books: "<i>I remember going to see Peter Pan when I was small and thinking how weird it was when Peter said to the lost boys that to die must be an awfully big adventure</i>." I think <b>An Awfully Big Adventure</b> may be my next dose of Beryllium*.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">* Beryllium is a chemical element with symbol Be and atomic number 4. It is created through stellar nucleosynthesis and is a relatively rare element in the universe.</span><br />
<br />Séamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-500794647428701667.post-90339874388828225122016-06-03T13:31:00.000+01:002016-06-03T13:31:13.406+01:00Another mix of my Favourite Songs<b>Another Mix of my Favourite Songs</b><br />
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The last time I tried to put together a list of Favourite Songs it got out of control - <a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2016/02/favourite-songs-part-one.html" target="_blank">One</a>; <a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2016/02/favourite-songs-part-two.html" target="_blank">Two</a>; <a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2016/02/favourite-songs-part-three.html" target="_blank">Three</a>; <a href="http://theknockingshop.blogspot.ie/2016/03/favourite-songs-part-four.html" target="_blank">Four</a>. This time I was trying to put together a Top Five but that proved impossible so I expanded the parameters. Here are five songs from: Before 1950; the 1950's; 1960's; 1970's; 1980's; 1990's and the 21st Century.<br />
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The list is totally subjective and would be different if I did it again. For a couple of the decades I had alternate lists and simply 'pinned the tail on the donkey'. But I like it and hope that you do too.<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="120" src="https://www.mixcloud.com/widget/iframe/?feed=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mixcloud.com%2FSeamusDuggan%2Ffive-favourites-per-decade%2F&hide_cover=1&light=1" width="100%"></iframe><br />
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<br />
<a name='more'></a>And here is the list.<br />
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1. St James Infirmary - Louis Armstrong<br />
2. John the Revelator - Son House<br />
3. Strange Fruit - Billie Holiday<br />
4. Over the Rainbow - Judy Garland<br />
5. Die Moritat von Macke Messer - Lotte Lenya<br />
6. The Natchez Burnin' - Howlin' Wolf<br />
7. Got You Under my Skin - Frank Sinatra<br />
8. House Rent Boogie - John Lee Hooker<br />
9. Rambling' Man - Hank Williams<br />
10. Don't Be Cruel - Elvis Presley<br />
11. Both Sides Now - Joni Mitchell<br />
12. Breakfast in Bed - Dusty Springfield<br />
13. King Harvest (Has Surely Come) - The Band<br />
14. Like a Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan<br />
15. T.V. Eye - Iggy and The Stooges<br />
16. Katie Cruel - Karen Dalton<br />
17. Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)byMarvin Gaye<br />
18. Ambition - Subway Sect<br />
19. Poptones - P.I.L.<br />
20. Uptown Top Ranking - Althia and Donna<br />
21. Sacred Heart Hotel - Stars of Heaven<br />
22. Ghost of a Chance - The Blades<br />
23. I Could Never Take The Place of Your Man - Prince<br />
24. Geno - Dexy's Midnight Runners<br />
25. Mutiny in Heaven - The Birthday Party<br />
26. Sheila Na Gig - P.J.Harvey<br />
27. Show Me Around - Luggage<br />
28. Which Kind - Jubilee Allstars<br />
29. Step On - Happy Mondays<br />
30. Brimful of Asha - Cornershop<br />
31. How To Be Invisible - Kate Bush<br />
32. I'm Not Your Typical Boy - Television Personalities<br />
33. Rock Bottom Riser - Smog<br />
34. Hurt - Johnny Cash<br />
35. Playground of the Rich - The Drays<br />
36. Half Orphan - The Knocking ShopSéamus Dugganhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00574186409184247059noreply@blogger.com5