It's coming...

Gorgeous

Gorgeous piece of work by Robert Hodgin using processing (music is by Goldfrapp). I've used processing a little bit before and have seen a good few other projects - but nothing as visually stunning as this. Read all about the project at www.flight404.com.

Morvern Callar

Morvern Callar is an offbeat supermarket girl who takes a devastating event and spins it to her advantage. Its fairly original in style; quietly haunting and with little dialog. Random unimportant events come and go with the one big event still looming in the background. I've not seen anything else by Lynne Ramsay but she knows exactly what she's doing. She completely nails a late night house party scene, hypnotic, and enchantingly authentic. A great soundtrack heard through a walkman glues the film together and acts as the conscience Morvern lacks.

20 Rave Classics on Youtube

Just because it's been 20 years since the big 88, here's 20 Rave Classics I found on Youtube:

I was planning to embed a lot more but the browser just can't handle the hardcore! Here's the rest (not all of them are videos mind):

• Rhythm Section - Comin On Strong
• Together - Hardcore Uproar
• Ragga Twins - Hooligan 69
• Awesome Three - Don't Go
• Two Bad Mice - Bomscare
• Liquid - Sweet Harmony
• Blame - Music Takes you
• Humanoid - Stakker Humanoid
• Jonny L - Hurt You So
• D Shake-Yaaah-Video
• Jack 'N' Chill - The Jack That House Built
• Nightmares On Wax - Aftermath
• N-Joi - Anthem
• Altern 8 - Infiltrate 202
• 808 State Olympic

Skyrockets in flight boom tish!

Can't get this song out of my head recently. Any time I see that clip from Good Will Hunting or Anchorman I'm singing it for weeks. But now SkyRocket is being used as a project name in the office and every time I hear it, I'm that close [--] to breaking into song.

It's funny - the song is about afternoon sex (and pocket rockets) - yet The Starland Vocal band who originally recorded it look like a bunch of hippies who'd be more at home singing about tree hugging.

-----------------------------------------
Gonna find my baby, gonna hold her tight
gonna grab some afternoon delight.
My motto's always been; when it's right, it's right.
Why wait until the middle of a cold dark night.
When everything's a little clearer in the light of day.
And you know the night is always gonna be there any way.

Sky rockets in flight.Afternoon delight. Afternoon delight. -----------------------------------------

The song was inspired by a canopy of canapes labelled 'Afternoon Delights' at a Washington Restaurant. Write Bill Danoff says he's happy with the constant references in popular culture.

Obligatory Youtubes...

Starland Vocal Band - Afternoon Delight

Anchorman - Afternoon Delight

Good Will hunting - Afternoon Delight

Stop thief!

Is plagiarism the sincerest form of flattery? I've come across that article on lots of sites over the years and that's great, I'm very flattered. But none of them have a link on their homepage that says "Click here to read my article".

Mark Ronson @ the BBC Electric Prom

Caught this Electic Proms show on the tellybox the other week. Was a really good show. A few of the performances have been rattling around my head ever since. Here's Kyle Falconer of The View doing a great version of Valerie...

Update (Jan 08): Doh! I seem to have ahd the wrong video embedded for the last few months I had this one there which I can remember sending to someone at the same time. Nice!

This one's been doing the rounds on the wireless at the moment lately, I think. This version has a bit of a history, it's like a re-arrangement of cover of a remix of a mashup or something. Daniel Merriweather - Stop Me. Video isn't great quality though...

Roxanne Shante

Remember Roxanne Shante? Proper old skool b-girl. 'Have a nice day' was permanently in the 7" pocket of my record bag. Back then she was only a 15 year old single mother from Queens, so a record label offered her an education as part of her contract. Well she not only took them up on the offer - she milked them for every penny, and now she's a Doctor of psychology. Excellent!

Have a nice day

Who needs a royalty check?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roxanne_Shant%C3%A9

Creation Party 2007

All worked out pretty well for me. Was dissapointed to be on first, at first but because of bus times etc a good crowd arrived pretty early. I mean good in both senses; friendly, up for it lively crowd. And because I was on first I got a half hour more than any other DJ, which still went by very quickly. Location was great too, I love the woods! And they had some sound system. I'm talking about a seperate tent just for the equipment and a seperate mixing desk with sound engineer kind of sound system. Apparently it was called to a halt at about 4am but I was back in Dublin by then after a generous offer of a lift, cheers Dor! It's a pity the bizzies came because the place would probably have been properly cleaned up, if they weren't forced out in a hurry.

Update/Edit: If you can't see the photo slide show above, you can look at the photos on flickr. Also, turns out the place was left spotless anway. Good stuff!

Blast from the past

Mental. I've been asked to DJ at the next Creation Party. Though I'll never part with them, I've hardly touched my decks in a year and haven't been to a club or anything for years. Couldn't tell you the last time I bought a record. Scared and excited! I mean I'll probably end up playing records older than someone of the people who'll be there! The last time I did a creation party was some experience though, best gig I ever played at, easily. I can remember playing some classic anthems and 100s of people going mental as the sun came up over the sea at Donabate Beach. Sweet. Here's a video from the last Creation party...

Bunnies!

Two of my favorite things share a common theme - bunnies! Donnie Darko and a book by Bill Drummond called 45. Ok, they're called Echo and the Bunnymen, so the link to Donnie Darko is pretty obvious. But another subtle link is that in 45, Drummond (who managed the Bunnymen), becomes obsessed with the album cover for Crocodiles, because by pure coincidence, the tree in the background looks like a big bunny; but no-one else he shows it too can see it.

45 is an absolute gem, it's autobiographical, but it's more like a random diary of highly amusing events between his last book, 33, which he wrote when he was 33, and 45 which he wrote at... well done! Blue Peter badge for you. If you can see the connection here, you'll expect another book at 75. 45 is full of boyish quests, poignant observations, and personal superstitions.

For some odd reason I've always had a lot more time for personal, made-up superstitions than I have for established ones (horoscopes, broken mirrors, god etc). One example of Drummond's hokery pokery is his story about drawing a magical ley line across a UK map, somehow guided by the magnetic poles and somthing to do with Elvis, then making his way along this line by foot, while concocting his own soup, in various locations, for anyone who's happy to eat it.

Anyway, chatting in work this morning, we were trying to remember the first track in the original Donnie Darko, and of course it's The Killing Moon by Echo and the Bunnymen (a couple of minutes in, in the clip above). Of course because I saw this version first, I think it's a much better opening track, than the one used for the editors cut (Never tear us apart by INXS) and almost as good as the school scene with Head over Heels by Tears for Fears. I can watch that scene over and over, it's better than any music video, I'll refrain from adding 'ever'. These are the kind of films I love, where each scene can stand on it's own as a great piece. Mullholland drive is chocka block with these. They're especially potent when crafted around some enchanting music. Silencio!

More bunny waffle; My standard doodle is a cartoon bunny. I get bored very easily, and I always want to be 'doing' something, so I fidget and doodle a lot at meetings etc. I've drawn this bunny hundreds of times. Annuvver fing is that I tend to get carried away with things that I get into. When I was 11 I got a rabbit. One year later I had a hundred foot compound, housing about 50 different rabbits, I mixed my own rabbit food which I sold to people who had previously bought rabbits from me, and I also sold rabbits to pet shops. I had special breeding bucks that were bred to sire litters of 12 or so, rather than a standard 5 or 6. I can honestly say I had more of a disposable income when I was 12 than I do now! I also had terrapins, mice, a single pigeon, budgies, guinea-pigs, koi, a hooded crow, and a gerbil city. They say pets can help teach kids a thing or two about life, the unverse and everything. I'll say! I had to do some things that no 12 year old should have to experience, like mercy-killing sick rabbits and drowning baby gerbils born with no legs. And I still, very frequently, have dreams about rabbits burrowing their way out of the garden!

"You still wake up sometimes, don't you Clarice? You wake up in the dark and hear the screaming of the lambs. "

What a load of waffle! So much for writing about web design.

Music articles

I've chucked up a few old music articles that I wrote years ago. Hardcore you know the score was written for Anorak. And the (rose-tinted) History of Dublin Clubbing was written for DUBfly. Actually they're both fairly rose tinted. And there's my thesis on acoustic phenomena (doo doo do doo doo).

Just had to root out the video for that one. Remember this? Kids TV at its finest.