My Top 9 songs of the year from Irish artists… It was going to be a Top 5, but I got carried away!
Jason Sweeney - Carry On
Daithi - Mary Keanes Introduction
King Kong Company - Spacehopper
Delorentos - Everybody Else Gets Wet
Maria Kelly - Thunder
Keith Plunkett - Long Way Down
Foreign Affairs - Television
Mindriot - Low
Nella - Revolution
I headed along to the King Kong Company album launch at the Academy in Dublin last week. What a night it was, no sign of the album though, it’s still being mixed by some bloke called Neil McLellan (does a bit of work for the Prodigy…).
Anyway, as you can see from the photos below, that didn’t stop us having a good time!
All photos are from November 27th 2015.
Brrrrrr…… It’s going to be a cold one tonight. Not a cloud in the crystal clear night sky.
I got a chance to go to London to see U2 on their iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE tour, so obviously I took it!
All photos are from the 3rd gig at the O2 London on October 29th 2015.
Sometimes you hear a song that stops you in your tracks. I was at a festival a month or so back and was lucky enough to catch this guy live. His name is Jason Sweeney from Donegal. If you get a chance, check him out. If you get another chance, check out his sister Aíne also an amazing talent.
Originally published 26/02/2015 on Chunk.ie
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Late last year I decided I needed a break, somewhere nice and quiet, somewhere with history, somewhere with culture… Somehow I ended up in Las Vegas for 5 days. The lord truly does work in mysterious ways.
I left a cold and wet Dublin at 7:10am and arrived in a warm and dry Las Vegas 15 hours later after a brief stop over in London. Normally I would collapse in a heap and relax for the night, but I had tickets for a concert that night and the show was to start at 8:00pm! That left me with only a few hours to clean up, grab a bite to eat and get to the gig, no time to rest!
Kiss Rocks Vegas
So I guess you know who was playing by now. Yeap, that’s right, it was KISS. I’m not the greatest KISS fan in the world, in fact, I probably only know 2 or 3 of their hits, but as it was a choice between Celine Dion, Rod Stewart, Britney Spears and KISS, there was only going to be one winner.
Anyway, KISS were incredible. They might be pushing on in age and the music might be a tad 80s, but they put on a phenomenal show. Big screens, Lasers, Fireworks were all expected and delivered on. What I didn’t expect was to have Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley fly out over the stage on wires and land on a stage above my head for 3 songs. To put it simply, KISS rocked and I’d go see them again in a heartbeat. Simply fantastic.
Later that night as I strolled around the backstreets of Vegas lost, I got stopped on numerous occasions by people asking about the gig (I was wearing a KISS Rocks Vegas t-shirt). My surprise at their friendliness was matched by their surprise at hearing a thick Irish accent telling them all about it! Fun times indeed.
Absinthe
I had pre-booked Absinthe one night after coming in at about 4:00am. At that hour, I thought it wise that I go for the VVIP ticket… The next morning looking at the confirmation email that told me I spent $171.00 on a ticket, I was wondering just how wise I was.
Absinthe is set in a large Spiegeltent on the grounds of Caesars Palace and the show is difficult to explain to be honest. It’s a mix of everything from burlesque to trapeze artists and on to roller skating duos swinging each other round by the neck.
According to the Las Vegas Sun, Absinthe is “the most inventive and daring show to open on the strip in years!”. I can’t help but agree. I laughed so hard (courtesy of Penny Pibbets and the Gazillionaire) that tears ran down my glitter covered face at times! Why did I have glitter on my face? Well I blame the lovely Melody Sweets, but to find out why, you’ll just have to go to the show!
If you like acrobats, dancing girls, rude comedy and nipple tassels, then Absinthe is a must.
Nellis Airforce Base
This one might not be for everyone, but whilst I was in Las Vegas, Aviation Nation was on at Nellis Airforce Base. Nellis is the home of the U.S.A.F Thunderbirds, the US equivalent of the Red Arrows. The air show is a 2 day affair with 80,000 people attending every day. It’s a well run show, plenty to see and do and you certainly won’t go hungry or thirsty!
Many many years ago when I was a kid, my father brought me to see an air show here in Ireland. It was like someone had wound back the years, I was giddy with excitement watching the show, chatting with the pilots and checking out the exhibits. It was a fantastic day out.
One point, don’t do as I did, make sure to bring a hat and some sun block. It gets very hot in the desert!
Machine Gun Vegas
Vegas allows you to do things that you normally don’t get a chance to do here, like shooting big guns… I don’t know of anywhere in Ireland (legal or not) where a member of the public can walk in off the streets and shoot an M249 Saw! After doing some research online before I left Ireland, I settled on Machine Gun Vegas. One afternoon with some time to spare, I picked up the phone and within the hour one of their people carriers was waiting outside to bring me to the range. There are quite a few different packages available, but the SEAL Team 6 Experience package was what I was after. It included the aforementioned M249 Saw, an M4 Assault Riffle, a SPAS-12 Shotgun and a SIG SAUER P226 Pistol.
Gambling
On to the good stuff, the gambling! My game of choice was Blackjack. It’s a simple game with simple rules, score higher than the dealer without going bust. See, it’s simple, I told you!
In reality though, well… it’s not. You have to be disciplined, don’t take extra cards when you don’t need them. There are 4 times as many 10 cards in the deck as any other card, so the chances are higher that you’ll draw a 10 and probably go bust. Let the dealer draw that 10 card and let them go bust.
Anyway, I hit a few casinos over the week, Hooters, the Excalibur, Caesars Palace, the Hard Rock, the Golden Nugget and a locals bar called the Red Label. I’m sure there were others, but I’m damned if I can remember then!
Over all I held my own, in fact I think I might have actually come out slightly ahead courtesy of some good coaching by other gamblers.
Gambling in Vegas is great fun, but you have to be sensible. The casino will always win in the long run. If you manage to get ahead by a decent sum, call it quits for the night and go off and enjoy the winnings. Set yourself a daily limit for gambling and don’t bring your bank card with you! It’s easy to get carried away and increase your stakes to chase your losses. That very rarely works out unfortunately and that’s how the casinos win in the end.
Conclusion
I was once told that 3 days is more than enough in Las Vegas. I beg to differ, I would have stayed another week if I could. I travelled to Vegas on my own, so I had to go out and meet people. I met roadies with stories of excess on the road in the 80s, I met adult movie stars who just wanted to sing karaoke till the early hours of the morning, I met motor racing team owners from Canada who drove non-stop for 24hrs just to see KISS live and I met some great people in some great bars who I’ll probably never meet again!
Vegas, do it, you know you want to!
Originally published 15/11/2012 on Chunk.ie
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As some of the crew know, I’m just back from a week long trip to Tokyo. They say New York is the city that never sleeps, well compared to Tokyo, New York is comatose! I had planned on writing on my adventures in Tokyo, but then I figured that self incrimination was not the way to go. Instead, you get this Tokyo Top Ten list.
Is there a tastier burger in all of Tokyo? I don’t think so! I have no idea how they cook their burgers, but they just melt in your mouth. The best burger I have ever tasted and worth going off the beaten path for.
What’s 634m tall and towers above Tokyo? No, not Godzilla, its the Tokyo Skytree. It’s the tallest tower in the world and the second tallest structure after Burj Khalifa. You can’t go all the way to the top unfortunately, the highest point visitors can get to is the 450m floor, not too shabby I think you’ll agree, you are almost .5km above Tokyo city! It’s well worth a visit and you truly get a feel for just how big Tokyo is as you look out the observation windows and see the city fade into the distance.
Oh and don’t forget to visit the aquarium at the base of the Skytree too!
Ever since I was a child I wanted to ride on a bullet train. There is something about the bullet train that captures the imagination… The speed of the train, the look of the train, the way the train banks around a corner at full tilt. If you like speed, take a trip on one of these trains, you won’t regret it.
Uptown Bar, Ginza
Tokyo seems to have more bars in one street than the whole of my home town. There are hundreds, if not thousands of bars throughout the city, some large, some small, some good, some bad… This one just happened to be the bar I visited most often. Good food, good craic, good people. Need I say more?
Are you fed up with normal waiters and waitresses? Is your typical Japanese restaurant too quiet for you? If so, get yourself along to the Shinjuku Robot Restaurant. I’d try to explain, but I’m struggling for words. Take a read of this article on the Daily Mail website, they do a good job of explaining it.
Remember Kill Bill? Remember the scene where the Crazy 88 met their demise in a restaurant? Well that set was actually based on a real restaurant! You’ll be stunned when you slide back the wooden door into the restaurant, it’s like walking into the film, apart from the complete lack of murderous bastards that is… Depending on which review you read, the food and service is either awful or good. At 2am in the morning, both were fine for me.
Kobe Beef
Any steak lover out there will have heard of Kobe Beef. Depending on who you talk to, the cattle are massaged regularly and fed on a quality diet that includes copious amounts of beer. I don’t know and don’t care how they do it. It’s an incredible piece of meat that tastes like angels dancing on your tongue. I paid approx. €115 for a 100g fillet, yes you read that right, but don’t let the price of it put you off, if you are in Tokyo, it’s a must do!
Six floors of high tech goodness. It’s like Toys R’ Us for gadget freaks. Everything and anything you could possibly need from the tech world can be found in this store. Take your time, don’t rush this store otherwise you will end up freaking out and buying nothing, just like I did!!
Yoyogi Park
What a strange place this is… From the Cos play boys and girls near its entrance, to the Rock n Roll Dancers and on to the drummers… You could spend hours just sitting and watching people go by in this park. Think of St. Stephens Green, but larger and without the junkies or the risk of getting mugged. I sat and watched the drummers beat out a rhythm for an hour, a great way to wind down from the night before.
No trip to Tokyo would be complete without a trip to a Manga shop. There are far too many to list, just pop down to Akiba and take a walk around. you’re sure to find something to interest you! Be warned though, the comic books range from the nice happy family stories to the weird world of an octopus with very very strange tentacles!
One major omission from the list is Roppongi, the party area of the city… Think of Temple Bar except louder, ruder and even less safe. I paid a visit one night and couldn’t wait to get out of the place. It just felt dangerous. Too many drunken tourists falling around, packed into bars like sardines in a tin. You can get the Roppongi experience in almost any city anywhere in the world, so why bother with it? On the other hand, if you like bad strip clubs and girls with, and I quote, “Big ass titties, bigger than your head”, then do pay a visit, but be careful with your drink and leave your credit card at home!
So, that’s my Top Ten in no particular order. There is plenty more to see and do in Tokyo obviously. If you can, I’d suggest a visit to a Hostess Bar, its a very interesting experience. Maybe a trip to the New York Grill Bar in the Park Hyatt hotel, or how about having a drink and a chat in one of the many Maid bars scattered throughout Akihabara. Oh and how could I forget the magnificent Imperial Palace, shame on me for that!
Don’t be put off by the language. By all means try and utter some local phrases just out of politeness, but when you get stuck, and you will get stuck, use English. Someone will understand and will be more than happy to try and converse in English with you. Oh and as I found out, try to have a cúpla focal also, it breaks the ice and differentiates you from Americans and British (not that there is anything wrong with being either, but…). One last bit of advice, Tokyo has a lot of steps, a lot!! Bring comfortable, sturdy shoes or boots, you will be doing a lot walking!
I’m looking forward to Round Two with Tokyo, hopefully next year. So much done, so much more to do over there!
You may have noticed all those Chunk.ie interviews being posted on the site recently. Well up till a few weeks ago, I used to do some interviews, write some pieces and draw some cartoons for Chunk.
Unfortunately Chunk.ie is no more, so rather than have those pieces disappear off the face of the internet, I thought I’d post those them on my own site.
There are more to come, some with models, sports stars and authors… I’ll post them over the coming days. Who knows, you might even like them!
Originally published 21/10/2013 on Chunk.ie
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Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats. That’s a name you won't forget in a hurry. What's the story behind it, presuming there is a story...
Its about a psycho killer who thinks he's God and then goes out into the desert to start his own death cult.
I've been listening to Mind Control for the last few weeks and I've been trying to classify your sound, but failing miserably. It seems to flit between many different genres. Having said I have noticed that the album does go well with Queen of the Stone Ages latest opus, Like Clockwork. How would you guys classify yourselves?
Its hard to say. There's elements of rock, metal, pop, psych....
Cambridge is noted for many things, education, boat races, and most recently, Silicon Fen. It's not exactly known worldwide for producing hard rocking bands. What happened with you guys? Are you all Cambridge locals or did you meet there at college?
No, none of us are from Cambridge. I just happened to live there when I started the band with some friends. There aren't many musicians in Cambridge. Its a small place, but its not a musical place at all. A lot of people in the Cambridge scene hate me because I'm always slagging the place off, but that's fine. It's recent track record speaks for itself. Venues closing down, music licenses getting revoked....its just not a healthy place to be in a band. Now, the band is really based in London which is where I found the best musicians.
Mind Control is your third studio album in 4 years, that's a pretty impressive record. How do you work in the studio? Who's the main creative genius of the band or is it, as Roy Keane would say, a team effort?
Well, I write all the songs. I would still say its a team effort, but at the end of the day I suppose it comes down to what I want. We mostly go for a live sound in the studio. Just crank everything up till there's smoke coming out of all the amps and machines, then hit record.
I've bought your album (no freebies here!) and it's bloody amazing and I'm looking forward to seeing you guys here in Ireland later in the year. Is this your first time to play in Ireland? Will you have some time to sample the good life here?
I hope so! A lot of my family were from Ireland but this will be our first time there and its always been top of my list of places to go to. Looking forward to it.
Some light hearted questions to finish up with...
Simon Cowell, god’s gift to the music industry or the spawn of Satan sent from hell to ruin rock and roll?
Spawn of Satan. I actually walked past him in London recently as he was getting out of his ridiculous 4x4 and I can tell you he looks every inch the cunt in person as he does on TV.
Every band is guilty of writing bad lyrics at one stage or another, what's the worst you've come up with?
'I'm the devil and I'm here to do the devils work'. Horrible lyric.
Robin Thicke has recently shown that having scantily clad ladies in your video can make a catchy song an international hit. Can we expect similar videos from Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats?
Our videos are pretty sleazy as it is but I suppose we need to try harder!
And that's it, the Q&A with Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats is over. Many thanks for taking the time out of your hectic schedule and we look forward to seeing you live later this year.
Thanks a lot! See you soon!
Check out Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats on their website, Facebook and YouTube!
Originally published 14/05/2013 on Chunk.ie
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A few weeks back, I noticed I had a new follower on Twitter. I don’t have many, so when someone decides to follow me, I get curious. My new follower turned out to be My Tribe Your Tribe. The name alone was interesting so I decided to take a look at their profile and see what they were about. It turns out that MTYT are a band and George Mercer is the creative force behind them. Oh and as luck would have it, they had just released a free EP for download.
Since we are nice people here at CHUNK.ie and we like to promote up and coming acts, we thought we’d get in contact with George and see what MTYT were about. You can read how we got on down below!
Hi George, no dilly-dallying here, we’ll get straight in to the questions! “My Tribe Your Tribe” is a great name for a band. It conjures up a meeting of minds and people, marriage even. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and where did the idea for the name came from?
Thanks. Your thoughts on the name are on the button and it’s been pleasing to see that people are picking up on that communal/communicative aspect. I come from Portarlington, Laois, and I think that growing up there has made me aware of different personality types and how the music I write relates to the people I’ve spent the majority of my life around. It’s a good and bad habit but I fantasize about the idea of relating to both the more specialized alternative listeners and also to the people who just like to dance and don’t have as deep a connection to music.
The name My Tribe Your Tribe came about quite naturally. I tend to think about life in quite an abstract way, narrowing a lot of events in a persons life down to simple or primitive habit. That kind of survival reference kept on creeping into my lyrics for about three years. When I started writing demo parts for “Outside Red“, My Tribe Your Tribe was the working title.
Your artwork is very striking. Do you see this as integral to your image, almost as important as the music or is it purely incidental?
The artwork was done by a very talented guy from Belfast called Paul Irwin, of Ogopogodesign. He’s a very talented bloke both musically and artistically. I’ve never actually met him but have worked with him on other music projects and he had a way of using abstract imagery to hint to a depth in the music that I really like. Usually I fire all my concepts to Paul, and then I leave him to interpret those concepts with his own vision. I never know what it’s going to look like, so it’s really a form of collaboration. The imagery is an extra atmospheric layer that takes the listener down a different imaginative path than the music does.
On to the music… You’ve posted three tracks so far on your Bandcamp site. My own personal favourite is “Outside Red“. Can you tell us a bit about the tracks and how you create them. Is it a case of lyrics first and working the music around them or is it music first and hope the lyrics come to you?
I started writing demo’s for MTYT about a year and a half ago. It was a fun experiment at the time, as I was really enjoying the fact that I had so few limitations, in contrast to the guitar-based music that I had been struggling to write beforehand. It really got my imagination flowing again. After writing the drums, bass and synth parts, I actually let the songs breath for nearly a full year before going back to rearrange the song structures and add guitar parts, vocal parts and extra ambiance.
I pen down a lot of lyrics while I’m out traveling around, that may or may not make it into songs at a later date but “My Friends Live Here” is an example of that. (The lyrics written whilst waiting for the ‘Green bus of doom’ at the Red Cow roundabout outside of Dublin actually, on the way home from a loud and intoxicating party that I was happy to escape.)
Writing electronic music allowed me to build songs from a percussive base. I’d start with a beat and layer up with other sounds and on reflection, I felt I was using rhythm as the dominant communicating element, which I guess relates to the tribal imagery. While this is apparent in some of the songs, I think it’s a good template to work from, not to mention, insanely fun to band a big floor tom on stage!
The EP was a steep learning curve as it was the first time that I decided to self-produce and record an entire project from home with the view of attaining a professional production standard. I had a lot of learning to do, and still do. The joy of the chase!
How do you class your style of music? Obviously it's electronic, but not in a Calvin Harris fists in the air style. Do you have plans to play live or are you strictly studio based?
This is definitely the most difficult question! I think each track on the EP leans to a different place stylistically. I would probably class the EP as a form of slower-paced atmospheric electronic music each relating to a different mood. It’s my first opportunity to let the music be as deep and atmospheric as I want it to be. I used to record a lot of rough, elongated ,ambient tracks when I was a teenager and just fill the recordings with lots of smaller details and flowing textures, and I guess this is my way of returning to that fun creative place where anything can happen. But ultimately, the rhythmic flow is the focal point on this EP and I’d like to maintain that in the next recordings.
My Tribe Your Tribe, for me, is a vessel, for the music to go wherever it wants to go and I definitely plan to make an EP primarily for the function of dancing. That could be a lot of fun. I’m a big fan of darker electronic music styles too, but regardless of where the style goes, I want to make sure the music has a direct connection to the listener, as this isn’t just for me. I’m writing thinking of how the listener can relate to the music as much as possible. My friend made a ‘MI-WADI ‘joke the other night about the band-name. It’s not Your Tribe..it’s Mine… ‘
However funny, it’s the opposite of my intentions for this music!
LIVE:
I’ve already done two shows with a five-piece live group: Drums, Guitar , Bass, Backing Vocals and Keyboards/Drum Pad. Our first gig was at Louth’s Vantastival Festival and the power actually went on-stage at the start of our second song (Outside Red). I thought I’d cry at a moment like that, but once we got the laptop and tracks back running everything went uphill. I wanted the music to be functional both a live-band setup and also a more minimal one or two man show. I’m lucky to have some great people as the current live band, and there’s an exciting energy on-stage. I think having a larger line-up is much more interesting for the audience, more energy, we can cover nearly all of the sounds ourselves and not be as reliant on backing tracks. I think people like to see a chemistry on stage between band-members and it’s really nice that the shows seem to be more about watching each member of the group add their own taste and personality to the music.
I've made it this far in the interview without asking about your influences? That's pretty good going, even if I may say so myself! But now that I've brought it up, who are your influences? Are there any strange ones buried in there?
Ha, the dreaded influences question! It’s a nice question to be asked actually, as finding influences of other artists in your own music, makes you feel more confident about your own. Well, it does for me anyway! Makes you feel like you’re on the right tracks.
There’s probably about three or four influences that are undeniable in how much they’ve changed my approach to writing.
Certain bands like Wild Beasts, Phantogram, Beach house, Bat For Lashes ,Caribou, Jape, Radiohead. These guys seemed to construct both their musical arrangements and live sets with a sort of central rhythmic authority.
Straying away from the obvious influences, I remember seeing a band called Great Lakes Mystery supporting Jape in Spirit Store when I was in college in Dundalk. They were a two-piece group with a large visual backdrop of underwater scenes and I was completely blown away by how ethereal, colourful and how much comfort music can provide an audience with in a live venue.
So, what does the future hold for My Tribe Your Tribe? Is there an album in the offing? A world tour? or will you just have to settle for a collaboration with Rihanna?
Exciting q! The next step is to release another single in June. It’s probably going to be a bit of a surprise as it leans more towards the dance style that I mentioned having an interest in pursuing.
After that, one more EP and then the album process begins! Other than that we are developing the live set and getting some more live experience. I’m itching to write new songs too, as the live shows are giving me ideas!
Obviously our learned readers will want to find out more about My Tribe Your Tribe, how can they do this?
The EP is a free download Bandcamp. Facebook is where we post most pics and gig updates and you can also follow me on Twitter.
