Big Rock Candy Mountain - Recent Messages

Do Anything: An Island Tale? (Book Review)

2012-04-29T20:38:00Z

Do Anything? What does that mean? Can anyone ever really do anything? Is it more a matter of thinking or feeling that you can do anything, or, more to the point perhaps, acting as though you can? If so, what does it take to think, feel or act that way?

Do Anything. (2010) is also the title of a short book by the English writer Warren Ellis, based on a series of columns written from 2009 for the comic book website bleedingcool.com. Distilled into book format, Ellis’s reflections afford a backward glance both at a fast-receding twentieth century and at one of its characteristic art forms – namely, the comic book.

The end result is exuberantly resistant to classification – part memoir, part collage, part cultural history and part fabulation of alternate realities. It all begins with – and repeatedly re-converges upon – a robot replica of the head of jack Kirby, sitting on the author’s desk. For those who (like me) didn’t already know, Jack Kirby was one of the most influential, prolific and widely published comic book artists of the latter half of the twentieth century, whose work inspired both his contemporaries and subsequent generations of comic book artists and whose credits include Captain America, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men and the Fourth World series.

Stuffed with fragments of the work of, interviews with and anecdotes about Jack Kirby and fed on a diet of Cuban cigars, the head’s oracular pronouncements set the itinerary for a journey traversing time and space and encompassing the late twentieth century world of comic books, along with those who draw, write, publish and read them.

It is a journey composed both of abrupt spatio-temporal shifts – from New York’s Lower East Side in the 1920s and ‘30s (where Jack Kirby grew up) to the Viking Museum in present-day Oslo; from a Parisian hotel suite off the Champs Elysées to the Japanese film industry – and of a succession of often random but nonetheless productive encounters – Ellis meting the French architect François Roche in the course of being interviewed together for Icon magazine; William Burroughs and Arthur C. Clarke introduced to each other by Michael Moorcock; David Bowie, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp and Tony Visconti gathered together in a studio 500 yards from what was then the Berlin wall to record Bowie’s track “Heroes.”

Fast forwarding from 1977 to the present, the book ends with “Heroes” – understood as a sort of Do Anything anthem – blasting from Ellis’s desktop speakers as he writes. In fact, the phrase Do Anything – or variants on it – recurs throughout: Stan Lee, the future editor of Marvel Comics, complaining that his then employers won’t allow him to produce the kind of comic books he wants to produce and being told by his wife that he should go ahead anyway; the Japanese film director Takashi Miike claiming that the absence of a mass audience could, in fact, be a creative advantage “if audiences don’t go to the cinema, we can make any movie we want”; Brian Eno recalling his time at art college in England in the 1960s: “Everybody thought they could do anything”; or the American composer and sometime free jazz improviser Anthony Braxton – “a non pareil Do Anything case” – who has likened his compositions to space vehicles, intended to relay signals from distant galaxies or to transport the listener into the cosmic ‘idea space’ of the music.

The lateral shifts and transverse linkages that organize Ellis’s account of the comic book medium afford at the same time a series of glimpses of alternative possible futures (SF writers, Ellis notes, use the phrase “Jonbar Hinge” to refer to such a point of divergence between timelines). In one of these, the editorial staff of DC Comics, deranged by hallucinogen psychosis, commission a series of re-drawings of Superman by, amongst others, John Lennon. In another, the British comic book artist Bryan Hitch directs a remake of Star Trek, starring Samuel L. Jackson as Captain Kirk, who “plays classical music on a baby grand piano in his quarters while the Enterprise phaser-strafes the Klingon homeworld from space.” (Hitch did in fact supply designs and artwork for J. J. Abrams’s highly profitable 2009 reboot of the Star Trek franchise).

Yet if such excursions into the might-have-been create a sense of augmented possibility by pointing out that things could always have turned out otherwise than they did, the fact that the possibilities thus envisioned were not actualized serves as a reminder too that it’s not always possible to Do Anything.

Jack Kirby, moving in 1970 from his long-term employer Marvel to DC Comics, found that he couldn’t Do Anything. He couldn’t, for example, draw Superman’s head the way he wanted to. Kirby had been hired by DC ostensibly to update and reinvigorate their visual style. When it came, however, to the head and face of their best known and most lucrative product, DC’s editors decided that the demands of continuity and brand-recognition overrode those of stylistic innovation and one of their house illustrators was brought in to redraw Superman’s head – but not the rest of him – in a style familiar to his audience.

But that, I take it, is part of Ellis’s point. The possibility of doing anything rarely, if ever, amounts to a condition of pure, unrestrained freedom. More often than not it needs to be looked for and seized upon in the face of apparent – even apparently overwhelming – constraint. The important thing, Ellis suggests, is to believe in the possibility of a future – not a future that is predetermined, scripted in advance, but one yet to be imagined and made – a Do Anything future.

Are there then particular times, places or circumstances in which it really is, or seems, possible to Do Anything? The short essay “Desert Islands” (1953) was an early work by the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995), who would go on to become one of the most influential thinkers of his generation, both on the basis of his own writings and of his collaborations with the radical psychoanalyst and political activist Félix Guattari. Deleuze is interested in islands primarily as a source of creativity, of new beginnings, demanding as such a particular kind of attunement to one’s environment on part of their human settlers.

According to Deleuze there are two kinds of islands – ‘continental’ ones, broken off shards of existing landmasses – and ‘oceanic’ ones – the result of the petrification of coral reefs or of magmic up-wellings from beneath the ocean floor, rising, cooling and solidifying to create new formations.

Both kinds of islands testify that the elemental ‘strife’ of land and sea is not yet at an end (much as humans residing in more settled and stable localities like to pretend otherwise). They thus serve as a reminder that nothing is settled, that the forms of the existing world are not definitively fixed and that it is, therefore, is still possible to Do Anything.

The strife of land and water is one that precedes and will continue beyond the limited time-span of humans’ presence on earth: “Islands are either from before or for after humankind.” In this sense, for Deleuze, all islands are, in effect, desert islands, belonging to a time that is at once pre- and post-historical.

Human imaginings about islands participate in and carry forward the movement that gives rise to islands themselves. The arrival of humans, whether as refugees, colonists or castaways, does not put an end to the desertedness of desert islands but rather completes it, brings it to consciousness of itself.

But the individual human imagination is not capable on its own of immersing itself fully in the movement – the élan – that produces islands. To do so requires the engagement of the collective imagination, as revealed most profoundly in the guise of ritual and mythology, the very mythology that Kirby, in his later years, saw himself as attempting self-consciously to revive through his comic book art: “I felt that we ourselves were without a mythology. Even the Saxons had their own mythology, and I thought that there was a new mythology needed for our times.”

Crucially, for Deleuze (I can’t speak for Kirby), mythology was not an explanatory framework imposed upon reality, not something simply “willed” into existence, but a human creative act participating in and giving expression to the other-than-human creative energies and forces that give rise to desert islands as privileged sites of new beginnings.

Last February I attended Papay Gyro Nights, a weeklong arts festival held on the island of Papa Westray in Orkney. Papa Westray (or “Papay” as it is usually known locally) is the second smallest and second most northerly of the Orkney Islands, an archipelago lying 16km north of the coast of Caithness on the Scottish mainland and comprising around seventy islands, twenty of which are inhabited.

The islands of Orkney are of Deleuze’s second, ‘oceanic’ type. Not off-cuts of an already constituted Europe, they are, rather, the remnants of a mountain chain formed between 400 and 600 million years ago by a collision between long-since dispersed prehistoric super-continents – the great southern continent of Gondwanaland and the great northern one of Laurasia. As the continents were forced apart by magma welling up from the earth’s core – present-day Europe separating from North America and the Atlantic ocean opening up between them – the mountain ranges were eroded by sea to form the present day island chains of Orkney and its northerly neighbour, Shetland.

Today, Papay is home to around seventy people, some of them recent arrivals, some the descendents of families who have lived there for generations. The organizers of the festival were Sergei Ivanov and Tsz Man Chan, two artists who moved to the island five years ago and established a studio and arts center. The festival drew inspiration directly from Deleuze’s essay but also, equally importantly, from the history, geography and folklore of Orkney, Gyro (or Grýla as she is known in other Nordic countries) being the name of a giantess or ogress figure commemorated both in a nocturnal children’s game once played on the island at the end of winter and in a variety of folk tales and performances recorded across the North Atlantic region.

The aim of the festival, however, was not to preserve or revive ‘folk tradition’ but to use an established repertoire of stories and performances as a spring board for experimentation and invention. In doing so, it sought, at the same time, to draw upon the environmental resources that the island made available. As the organizers put it on their website: “[The] Island is a special place where impossible assemblages are created by a blend of isolation, routine of the seasons, stories brought by travelers, strange objects washed on the shore – where history and folklore are personal creations as everyone and every rock has got a name. …and every [piece of] road-kill is amending the eco-system.”

The festival sought to explore and manifest a vision of islands – and of the island of Papa Westray in particular – not as places decisively cut off from communication with a wider world but as zones conducive to encounters of a singular and unforeseeable kind.

Across the centuries – and millennia – such encounters have taken a variety of forms. They have included the clash of continents that provided the impetus for the formation of the islands themselves and, later, the arrival of successive waves of migrants, including the early Neolithic settlers (builders of, amongst other things, the village of Skara Brae and the chambered tombs that dot the Orcadian landscape) and the Norse sea raiders turned farmers and fishermen who came, from the eighth century onward, to form the majority of Orkney’s population (and who account for the continuing preponderance of Norse personal and place names in Orkney).

In all of these comings and goings, the surrounding water has played a decisive role, determining, for example, the fate of the driftwood, wreckage, ships’ cargoes and, occasionally, human castaways deposited over the centuries on Orkney’s rocky shores. Its influence was to be felt too during the festival, as rough seas necessitated the cancellation of ferries to and from Orkney Mainland and the neighbouring island of Westray, and continues to manifest itself in the guise of the marine erosion that constantly re-sculpts Orkney’s shorelines and that will, eventually, cause the islands to disappear beneath the waters from which they first emerged.

A further series of encounters was materialized in the artworks, some local, some from as far away as Argentina and China, brought together for the festival and exhibited at a range of sites across the island.

These drew on a variety of media, from paint on canvas to video to the oral tales of the Orcadian storyteller Tom Muir.

Some sought explicitly to forge links beyond the geographical confines of the island.

The Papay Night Sky project, for example, created a live artwork by staging an encounter between festival audiences and members of Drawn Together, a London-based group of artists known for their live action performance drawing projects. A camera in Papa Westray, pointed at the night sky, transmitted video images and atmospheric sound live via SKYPE to London. These sounds and images were then projected in a gallery space where the group made spontaneous drawings charting the night sky in Papa Westray. These were recorded by a camera in London and a live video feed was sent back to Papa Westray, again via SKYPE, where it was projected onto a wall in front of festival attendees. (My own presence at the event was, of course, another such encounter – one that has thus far resulted in this and one other piece of soon to be published writing).

The story Ellis tells appears, at first glance, to be far from insular, spanning as it does decades, continents and time zones, along with the aftermath of global conflict, in the form of the Second World war, in which Kirby and others served as combatants. Nonetheless, much of its action does, in fact, take place on an island, the island of Manhattan, home to the offices of both Marvel and DC Comics, the principal US publishers of comic books during the postwar decades and the employers at various times, not only of Kirby but of many of the most influential comic book artists of the period. Manhattan also provides the setting for many of Marvel and DC’s productions, appearing as itself in Marvel’s publications or in the pseudonymous and stylized guise of Gotham or Metropolis in those of DC.

For all its eclecticism and world-historical reach then, it is perhaps not too fanciful to consider Ellis’s narration of the comic book medium and its multiply entangled histories as an island tale. After all, islands are, at least according to Deleuze, the quintessential Do Anything places.

Deleuze makes the point that the creativity exemplified by islands is, more often than not, a matter of re-creation, of beginning again rather than beginning from scratch. Ellis too begins with an act of re-creation – the head of Jack Kirby in fact began its existence as something else, as an android head of the science fiction writer Phillip K. Dick, designed by Hanson Robotics, stolen by Ellis from an aeroplane and refashioned by him into a likeness of Kirby. Papay Gyro Nights too was, not least, as testament to the efficacy and inventiveness of insular recycling – an upturned, abandoned boat becoming a painted sign, a disused kelp store converted into an exhibition space and, not least, a mythic Norse giantess recast as the pretext for a series of contemporary artistic explorations.

The point is an important one for Deleuze because the second creation, the act of re-creation, affirms creativity itself as an ongoing and endlessly open-ended process, a capacity not to create ex nihilo, nor simply to repeat what has gone before, but to repeat and differ (Difference and Repetition being the title of one of Deleuze’s best known philosophical works). The notion of such a second beginning finds one of its most forceful expressions, for Deleuze, in the myth of the Flood, in which the Ark, as the crucible of a new beginning, finds its resting place on a de facto island, a solitary mountain peak protruding above the otherwise ubiquitous waters.

The beginning anew associated with desert islands in effect usurps the privilege of any single, unique and self-identical origin. Creativity is not the act then of a transcendent creator god or other higher power (an authority figure commanding obedience and respect) but is rather a generative, transformative power that inheres in the very stuff, the material substance, of the world as it already exists, a power that predates (and will outlast) the arrival on earth of the human species and that is exemplified in the ongoing and unresolved strife of land and water through which islands – all islands – are called into being.

For Deleuze, it is the water, the ocean or sea surrounding the island that embodies a principle of segregation necessary for such second creation to begin: “as though the island had pushed its desert outside.” In order to begin anew, he suggests, it is necessary, at least provisionally, to separate oneself from what came before.

Ellis too invokes the ocean, but for him it is less a principle of segregation than a medium of interconnection. He suggests that what Kirby’s work and Kirby himself gesture toward is an aqueous realm of ideoplasm” – “A place where everything connects to the same central ocean” – and where, equally importantly, you can perceive that everything is connected and that you too are a thing full of connections.” For Ellis, and he claims, for Kirby, comic books – words and pictures – are the quintessential art and medium of connection. Indeed, considered in this way, comic books are everything and everything is comic books: cave paintings, the Bayeux Tapestry, woodcut novels, army maintenance guides, airplane safety cards (to list a few of Ellis’s own examples): “Comics are everywhere, the ideoplasmic universe of human culture from is dawn to one second ago and up to the time when the sun goes dark.”

Juxtaposing Ellis with Deleuze’s reflections on desert islands and the events of Papay Gyro Nights allows us perhaps to go a step further. Could not only human ‘culture’ but also what we are accustomed to think of as ‘nature’ be understood in similar terms, that is, as a generative and proliferating power of interconnection (and, as Deleuze would insist, of self-differentiation) that is continuously producing new things and dissolving existing ones? Realization of this is, perhaps, part of what it takes to Do Anything.

Certainly food, shelter, lack of censorship and freedom from political persecution are important, but to avail of all that such fleeting and historically contingent spaces of opportunity make available demands also the affirmation of a Do Anything world, a Do Anything cosmos – even, or perhaps especially, in the face of the myriad obstacles placed in the way of the same by, amongst others, bureaucracies, employers and financial, political and religious institutions.

To do so requires, arguably, both the imaginative act of separating oneself from the seeming restrictions imposed by one’s present circumstances and a willingness to forge and experiment with new connections. The challenge and urgency of locating the possibility of such an affirmation surely appears all the greater at a time when the voices of power assert, not only a narrowly entrepreneurial vision of human creativity, but also the non-negotiable givenness of existing political and economic realities and their associated imperatives – the ‘need’ for public spending cuts, the ‘necessity’ of work, the unquestionable authority of market forces etc. etc.

Ellis finds such a possibility of affirmation in comics and in the example of Jack Kirby.

Deleuze found it, in part, in desert islands and the human imaginings to which they have given rise.

The organizers of and participants in Papay Gyro Nights found it in the demographic histories, ecological vicissitudes and tidal contingencies of their own island environment.

And, finally, it is through the connections he himself has established, or attempted to establish, between these apparently disparate dreams and undertakings that a glimpse of the same appears to a forty-something, US-based, British academic (a stranger to comic books since adolescence and, latterly, acutely embarrassed by the fact), nearing the end of a sabbatical year spent in Scotland, as he sits in a rented apartment in Edinburgh’s (mostly eighteenth century) New Town and wonders if and how in the perplexing here and now of the early twenty first century, it might indeed still be possible to Do Anything.

Stuart McLean is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Global Studies at the University of Minnesota. He has conducted research in Ireland and, more recently, the Orkney Islands. His interests include historical memory, perceptions of environment and landscape, and the relationship between the living and the dead. He is the author of ‘The Event and its Terrors: Ireland, Famine, Modernity’ (Stanford University Press, 2004) and is currently completing a book of essays on the topic of creativity. We at the Mountain & Silo404 are thankful he took the time to review Warren Ellis’ ‘Do Anything’ for us.

Psychiatric Tales – Darryl Cunningham (Graphic Novel Review)

2012-04-27T19:52:00Z

This little book from small independent publishing company “Blank Slate”: http://www.blankslatebooks.co.uk/ is my favourite of everything I have by them.

This little book from small independent publishing company Blank Slate is my favourite of everything I have by them.

While some of their other graphic novels I have read; ‘Spleenal’, ‘Sparky O’hare’ and ‘Trains are Mint’ have a warmer funnier quality that allows you to drift – escape for a bit. ‘Psychiatric Tales’ stands unique.

The blurb from the publishers own website reads;

“Psychiatric Tales delves inside the mysteries of mental disorders – presenting explanations and recollections using the cartoonist’s own experiences as both a psychiatric and care nurse and as someone who himself has suffered from depression. Being able to see the issue from both sides allows Darryl Cunningham to present matters in a forthright and instantly accessible way, which will allow many to understand the trials of both sufferers and those connected to them – perhaps for the first time. Topics covered include Bi-polar disorder, self harming, suicide, depression and the author also shows how for some famous people mental disorders were part of what may have made them great. Frank, hard hitting and moving.”

There are a lot of books out there claiming to try and explain things – to frame difficult addictions, behaviour and medical conditions in easy ways so that all may come to them in a humane and understanding way.

Things like ‘Narcotics and your five old’, ‘Downs syndrome for beginners’ ‘Josey has AIDs – she’s not a slut ,it was a blood transfusion’ or the much talked about ‘Stop throwing chalk at Nigel – he’s autistic’. My personal favourite being ‘Put the cake down, it’s glandular.’

Often they come across condescending – the literary equivilant of a gimlet eyed vicar patting you on the arm as he explains “That would be an ecumenical matter”. They are largely lopsided publications with agendas – out there to terrify rather than properly educate – the brief belief in the eighties that crack cocaine will cause rats to burst out of your chest being a good example of this.

They miss the mark with the same force as a cricket ball thrown by a drunk wearing a blindfold.

Which is why ‘Psychiatric Tales’ is such a rare and special book.

I can without hesitation – say that – that this should be in every school – in every country. It should be covered as essential life material in that period of time when children are just hitting wider awareness of the world around them.

It neither stresses itself nor strays into condescension and is an important and insightful work of thoughtful humanity.

Please read it if you have the time.

Buy it here – direct from the publisher

Blood or Whiskey – The Workmans Club (Dublin 21st April 2012)

2012-04-26T20:00:00Z

It would I think – be a small bit of a misnomer to try and class Blood or Whiskey as some sort of Trad-Punk band.

It would, I think – be a small bit of a misnomer to try and class Blood or Whiskey as some sort of Trad-Punk band. They fall more with The Pogues in being poetic punk than most other bands people may threaten to say are of their ilk. There is a Larkin-esque “This be the verse“ quality to the lyrics of lead singer Dugs, that speaks to the there on the ground quality of every day life in Dublin. It rings painfully close to the bone, while at the same time shaking its fist at the “At least I’m not a leper” malaise that infects every corner of Irish society.

Held in The Workman’s Club – a small venue known for its sound quality – the gig on the 21st of April was Blood or Whiskey’s first in two years due to an illness enforced absence.

Filling late due to the typical Irish belligerence of not turning up for any support act – the gig had a good turn out, the club being comfortably full.

What followed was not just the triumphant return of a band at the very height of their powers but also perhaps one of the best gigs of the year. Tumbling out, swinging and roaring with the central thread of Townsend’s banjo tying each of these talented musicians (Colly Morrison – bass , Pete Townsend – banjo, Chris O’Meara – drums and vocals, Dugs – vocals and guitar, Chuck – electric guitar, vocals, Andy – tin whistle, accordion and vocals) into a tight ball of magnificent stomp. Tight? They were as close to CD perfect as I’ve heard in a long time. Whatever magic they’ve been working behind the scenes of their absence – I can only hope they keep it up.

The set list included old classic standards such as ‘Poxy Pub’, ‘Doors of Hope’ and ‘They Say No’, as well as a heap of new material from their coming album ‘On The Rocks’, such as the brilliant ‘Gernika’ and ‘Gone and Forgotten’, ‘Black Pits’ and ‘Shot by a Thief’.

With an album launch to come – and more gigs, hopefully – it’s about time this band got the success and recognition they deserve. Find their old stuff, get the new album and above all try to catch them live – you won’t be disappointed.

Here, have a listen to one of their songs from the last album.

<u>Note</u>
Blood or Whiskey are a small independent outfit. If you like this music – buy it. To steal it online is counterproductive to getting anymore music from them.

OSI - Fire Make Thunder (Album Review)

2012-04-13T07:03:00Z

Take one middle-aged progressive rock guitarist and blend with one equally middle-aged, quirky progressive rock keyboardist gone full-time electronic knob-twiddler. Add one of the world’s premier drummers and sprinkle with a few insanely talented guest artists. Let bake in a Connecticut studio for a week and garnish with a smattering of wry, ambiguous, politically charged lyrics.

The result, as it turns out, is the next level of progressive rock, or as we normally call it — OSI.

You might say that I am predisposed to love OSI. My father is a bassist and I have been taught to love good music. In my teens I was a major metalhead with a love for progressive rock and since, I have gotten heavily into electronic music with a particular focus on industrial — and I am politically… let us say recalcitrant…

Also, my favourite Dream Theater album is Awake, which has the strongest Kevin Moore influence. I loved Moore’s Chroma Key albums. Yes, OSI was right up my alley. However, while I adored Office of Strategic Influence and Free, I was not really too keen on 2009’s Blood. The sound was too compact and with the exception of ”Be the Hero”, the songs did not really seem to go anywhere.

I approached Fire Make Thunder, then, with the kind of trepidation you feel towards a strangely wrapped gift from a rich but ravingly senile relative — sniffing it suspiciously.

My eyebrows are still moving about my forehead as I try to think how to describe its aroma.

What grand uncles Moore and Matheos have sent us is not another neatly packed symphony of constipated movements — that much is certain — but it’s no Free, either. It moves between being excruciatingly tense and piercingly melancholic in a beautiful but somewhat confusing manner.

Perhaps the problem is thematic. Office of Strategic Influence was clearly making cutting remarks about U.S. policy and warmongering, whereas Free reflected on the idiosyncracies of contemporary U.S. (and indeed, Western) life. Their themes served as an emphatic drive for the music as well as the lyrics. Blood, in contrast, seemed to lack a central theme, tumbling all over the place. Now, Fire Make Thunder clearly has a theme, and it seems to be a deeply heartfelt one, but it is somewhat unclear what it actually is.

The lyrics frequently use Native American references along musings over life and society. I get a sense that age and youth is an element… and being lost — a favourite topic of Moore’s. Perhaps that is why Fire Make Thunder feels more haunting and intimate than the previous albums — it is more focussed on people.

The mixing and guitar work does a lot to amplify that sense. Matheos is tighter than earlier — more precise, and the guitar has the same compact drive as on Blood, while the samples and synthesizers are more spacious. In a sense, it sits in between Free and Blood in sound, which, bewilderingly — makes it remind me more of the debut album.

Percussion never falters from the superb. Gavin Harrison is in his element, pushing his trademark double bassdrum accents over spiralling syncopations. It would not surprise me at all if he ends up a permanent member of the band by the next release.

…but that knotted sensation of not quite coming into stride — of being almost but not quite there — keeps tapping the listener on the proverbial shoulder, interrupting the enjoyment just on the verge of spoiling it.

On its own, Fire Make Thunder is a poignant, beautiful album, and it is a much more rewarding listen than was its predecessor. While I am likely to be listening to it a great deal in the coming months, though, I would be very surprised to ever prefer it over 2006’s frankly outstanding and musically less tightly wound Free…

…although ”Wind Won’t Howl” has become one of my favourite tracks of all time… and ”Big Chief II”… and ”Invisible Men”…

(Maybe just one more listen through.)

Mass Effect 3 and the quantum singularity of asshole

2012-03-23T14:08:00Z

The first thing I do most mornings is stumble to the computer. I used to do this with a certain amount of joyful expectation – what would the Internet have for me today; who would be on; what cool, bizarre and interesting stuff would fuzz to the surface?

Now, most mornings I stumble to the computer – eyes squnting, fists clenching – mumbling “Please, please don’t make me hate the Internet any more than I already do, just not today, no more.”

Then – Mass Effect 3 happened.

A quick summary for those who do not game goes something like: created by Bioware, Mass Effect 3 is the final part in a trilogy of action roleplaying games. Within these games, the player’s momentum through the story is decided in detail through a vast array of decisions – conversation or action based. Designed so that as you progress with your character through a larger story arc, no one play through should be the same.

It will end, as all things do – and, based on your decisions, you reach one of a few endings – again based on the machinations of the larger story arc. Bit like life really.

What happened is that players played through, and reached a series of endings that were quite stark, at times bleak and at times with a glimmer of hope. Again, a bit like life really.

Presented with these endings, many players were happy, some – and there will always be some – felt it had been a lame fuck around (i.e. life). Others now, and this is where it gets depressing, were incensed. This is not what they paid for; this wasn’t fair; this wasn’t the ending they wanted. Hand wringing posts were made around the Internet, about people’s emotional investment, about being gutted by the ending and that if they wanted to be gutted they would turn on the news. You might say the story touched them.

You might think that this is the point: good art is meant to strike a chord within the person viewing it. Mission accomplished – good job Bioware.

Except it didn’t stop there.

A militia formed, then mutated into a movement: Retake Mass Effect 3. Through direct action – the use of their voices and taking whinging to new, intergalactic levels, these gamers, whose safety bubbles had been wobbled and grunts dissed, would force Bioware to provide them with endings they could be happy with.

And they got so loud that they made it to the front page of the BBC and other news outlets.

I think, for anyone involved in creative endeavours, the thought of being told what to do is met with blanket horror and tide like rage. Yet, I probably would have done my best to ignore this entire thing were it not for the fact that along the way they dragged the children’s charity Child’s Play into the fray, for no benefit other than simply to validate themselves; to use as a bludgeon.

For those who don’t know – Child’s Play is a charitable organisation founded in 2003 by the authors of Penny Arcade. It aims to provide toys and games to children’s hospitals. Through Child’s Play, donors have sent over twelve million in toys and games to sick children around the world.

That’s a pretty solid and noble endeavour right there. Nothing to quibble about.

However, the people behind Retake Mass Effect 3 attached a Child’s Play donation drive to their cause. Seems good in theory – but it just becomes a big stick, creating confusion as people think that by paying into the charity they are actually funding new endings. I realise that the founders of Penny Arcade have to be very careful in how they deal with this problem. They have a very successful charity that is doing actual good to protect and the only measure they can take is softly softly. But if I were them, I would be livid that my charity had been co-opted and used as a very passive aggressive, public eye cudgel against a creative gaming company. I could never be as diplomatic as Tycho has been in posting about it on their site.

The one thing the people involved in Retake Mass Effect 3 have shown – is how little they read. Science Fiction – the good stuff – often doesn’t have explicable endings. Or they are bleak. Open ended. Trail off the way life does. Often whatever victory is presented is Pyrrhic, or our perceptions of a protagonist we may have been tricked into feeling for turned on our heads. The very best – and I mean the very best – touches us; changes us; stays with us. Years later we will be sitting in a bar saying something like ”Man, just the ending in ‘To Marry Medusa’ – just Sturgeon’s ending – I never saw it coming and I still drift and think about it and go ‘wow’.” Or the reach is wider and tenets and concepts from the futurism of Science Fiction lodge in the public consciousness, affecting change in society as a whole. (John Brunner, Asimov and Clarke for instance.)

Yet here we are – standing on the edge of the future – presented with a group who will bring a game company to its knees because the game… ”didn’t have a happy ending. “

Because effectively what they are saying – all those complaints about decisions they made not entirely affecting the larger story arc, really pale into “the ending wasn’t happy enough.” Shepard did not come riding home to victory atop a burning Reaper he’d bioformed into a unicorn that vomited rainbows and blowjobs.

That, in the end, against a larger story arc – decisions, while changing some things – affected nothing for the larger arc. That, like in life, whether you have a cheese burger or kill that hooker will do nothing to affect Israel and Iran. Or even the decisions of some great military minds during the course of wars – might have done little but delay the outcome that wider events were bringing to play.

The ending of The Lord of the Rings was not particularly happy – but it was an ending. I dread the campaign that will start when someone figures this out.

One of these Retake Mass Effect 3 people even tried to file suit against Bioware for lying to him under trade laws.

People could not even wait for the first downloadable content for the game before rattling their sabres.

Now that this has happened – how long before more small minded safety bubbled people start taking to Internet initiatives to get various works of art changed because of elements they don’t like?

This takes Neil Gaiman’s ”George R. R. Martin is not your bitch” explanation to a reader who complained Martin was not writing his series fast enough and turns it on it’s head. Bioware capitulated. Bioware are now your bitch.

The stone is rolling now. They’ve done it once, they can do it again.

I, for one, was actually enjoying the beginning of this period where the safety catch was off – a slight return to the grittier, more interesting and just lived in games of the ‘80s and lesserly ‘90s.

Now that is all in jeopardy. Now that it’s been done once, what is to stop a group of these unlettered cretins from attempting to force another company or author to change their art because they got a bit upset about the ending?

Aside from that – they have single handedly just made the plight of game/script writers in general, worse.

So…

To all involved in Retake Mass Effect 3:

A doff of the cap to you all for setting the gaming industry back ten or more years.

For casting a pale shadow over the continued integrity of other artistic works.

Thank you. I hope you enjoy your sanitised, saccharine faeces.

You pathetic, unlettered bullies.

The Keep (Film Review)

2012-03-22T10:52:00Z

At some point I heard mention of a film called ‘The Keep’. It was described as a supernatural Lovecraftian horror movie set in a remote castle in the Carpathian mountains…with Nazis.

This – of course – ticks all the boxes.

If it had just said horror movie with Nazis – I would have been sold. Nazis more often than not (aside from irritating teenagers and hipsters) make the best villains in movies. Attach something to that like say Nazi werewolves, Nazi vampires, Nazi zombies and it is even better.

A little bit of research showed that the film had been directed by Michael Mann (Manhunter / The last of the Mohicans / Heat). This was his second film, arriving in 1983, three years before Manhunter.

Michael Mann? Nazis? Supernatural Lovecraftian Horror? In a Castle? In The Carpathian Mounta-Nazis?

Based on a bestselling book by F. Paul Wilson with a soundtrack by Tangerine Dream and an impressive cast; Scott Glenn, Gabriel Byrne, Jürgen Prochnow, Alberta Watson and Ian McKellen. I had to track this film down.

I’m not quite sure what I found.

Visually, the film is at times close to the beautiful. Mixing rich Gothic elements with World War 2 – and a wonderfully designed castle that looks perfectly out of time. It is pretty enough as to be worth tracking down just to see. It also serves as an impressive class in smoke and fog effects and their cinematic manipulation. The soundtrack – while not up to Tangerine Dream’s ‘Sorcerer’ levels (William Friedkin’s 1977 remake of ‘The Wages of Fear’) is also great. There is a lot to be said for an option to turn off dialogue and just watch a film with its soundtrack.

The acting is serviceable. Prochnow being the best of the lot. Mckellen’s choice of voice and accent grates at times, at others it’s laughable – like we’re watching a Comic Strip Presents… parody. Perhaps the acting would be better judged if the film was not gibberish.

It starts with some semblance of story and structure then quickly dissolves into incomprehensible nonsense. It often feels as if we’re watching something salvaged from the vaults – a studio destroyed edit of a film that is missing an hour of its original length, maybe even an hour and a half. Part of you remains watching because it’s pretty, part of you remains watching just to see where they’re going with this mess. Confused, it trips over itself and jumps about the place. It is such a mess it’s hard to believe it was released and I found myself laughing at particularly lost bits quoting Rick James “Cocaine’s a helluva’ drug” to the co-victim I had inflicted the film on. Left as we were, wondering has anyone ever asked any of the actors just how much drugs were present during filming.

At times this train wreck feels like a weird cross between an Outer Limits episode and the edgier side of 70s/80s Doctor Who and no amount of hazy head explosions can save it.

It is scatty –as if someone has edited a film to show you the effects of Alzheimer’s – constantly forgetting just where it was what it was doing and why – anyway moving along to the next scene – have you seen these pictures of my children? Everything is partially disconnected – at one point – abruptly – two of our protagonists have sex – after which they are suddenly entwined as if they had been star crossed earnest lovers for an age. There is the monster and then it ends.

Curious we fled to the Internet – only to find out there is an extended cut with the full ending. You’d never know though. But just looking it up and finding that bit of information sort of cleared a bit of the what the hell fog it leaves you in.

At the same time – it is a hard movie to dislike. There is something about its lumbering celluloid disaster that leaves an air of affection – possibly the same you’d feel for a simpleton who is just trying to be helpful but keeps breaking things in their wake.

I could say more about the film, but instead I’ll leave you with this Add N to (X) song that makes far more sense.

Treason and other Occupations

2012-03-07T17:32:00Z

The sense of impending…something – is never far from any corner of Dublin these days. It’s not quite doom, it doesn’t have the energy to be doom, it’s something more ignominious.

On Wall Street – the spirit of Huey Long is alive and well.

Yet in Ireland – the sense of impending…something – is never far from any corner of Dublin these days. It’s not quite doom, it doesn’t have the energy to be doom, it’s something more ignominious.

The hot blood of Irish rebellion has petered away into blind sectarianism and old tired hatred that sounds more schoolyard than anything else.

It has become the fat guy wheezing on the stairs angrily extolling people to wait up.

It says something when Occupy Dame street, ostensibly part of the youth movement catching a fire around the globe, is viewed with disinterested distrustful eyes by Dublin youth. Who consider the Occupy Dame Street people as “Idiots” and wonder if they’ll ever riot. The rebellious youth are so disenfranchised even the disenfranchised protesters can’t sway them on side.

It possibly says more when you talk to Dubliners in their sixties who also wonder when they’ll riot. Not that – that is the point of the Occupy movement but then things are different here.

Ask around people will tell you things like ”Leave them to it” or when asked how they think they could help “They’re professional protesters they know what they’re doing” , “Yeah sure some of them have been at G8s and the like.” The feeling that it is people in their forties, having a last grasp-gasp at rebellion is never far away from peoples tongues.

There appears to be feelings of alienation from the Irish Occupy movement – on a myriad of levels. The message – the goals, in peoples minds seem muddled, aimless – which gives the sense that Ireland is actually so fucked up they can’t even decide where to start – so on many levels – why join them – may as well wait it out see what they come up with.

When a couple of European programmers offered to build the movement a website that correlated all food and relevant supply stores in a two mile radius of the occupation – including all websites and emails. So it would be easy for supporters to logon – make food donations or purchases. They were turned down – told low tech was the best tech and to prepare some messages that they could copy and paste every couple of hours. Which just equals another drift and alienation.

Bad enough that Irish people can be found arguing in the pub what point of our necrosis to be angriest about. But worse when you have able bodied non-Irish tech heads watching quietly online pondering about helping but then are either refused or finding that they are put off by the angry dissonance amongst the movement being voiced on Facebook and about the web. As one Scandinavian programmer watching online pointed out to me “They can’t even seem to decide what they want on their posters.” And went on on to say “They seem more about sharing buzzy images on Facebook than saying anything.”

The feeling some Europeans watching get from our Occupy Dame Street movement is that what they portray online is that they don’t fully see themselves as “of the people” and in that – it doesn’t feel welcome for not just a broader mainstream dialogue with them but even involvement. People can only say what they feel based on how the information presented to them makes them feel.

Which almost makes this like a moment outside an anger management therapy group. “Look Michael – if you can’t – stop clenching your fists and making that sound – please – look if you can’t articulate what you want to say – if you’re too angry – maybe you should go for a walk – come back when you can.”

Maybe that’s it – as has been put about the elite academic circles that are the Dublin pub scene – the view of professional protesters. Maybe – like a distant cynical career guidance councillor – that’s what they’re good at – getting the first shovel in and the initial bodies. But when it comes down to cohesion and clear rousing articulation they stagger then woefully crumble amidst a lot of shouting and muttering – rather like drunken political Jenga.

As one person pointed out over a pint – “They’ve killed the peoples movement.” To those people – the site has not proved unwelcoming. Yet another voice adds – (one there from the sites inception) – the occupy site is unfriendly – when visited now there is an air of who are these people – suspicious they think every shadow is CIA. And their website – when searched for just the word manifesto – yields nothing.

If you don’t count Goon show like excursions of May Day running around Dublin trying to find the riot so you could shout a bit on workers day. The last time I protested was at an all night sit-in sleep-in with the homeless outside the Dáil. Numbers were scant. It was cold. A couple of us and some homeless people gathered around cans and placards for warmth.

Voices have to rise – if the best they’ve got is trotting out Christy Moore and the like. To put it plainly – we’re – they’re fucked.

Without intelligent – well considered articulation – put out there – in the right places. There is nothing. All this becomes is another twisted peoples crusade and those few (in the peoples eyes) professional activists like Peter the Hermit.

There exists – out there – some wonderfully articulate pieces on how badly Ireland is being raped. Take this short film about our Oil and Gas for instance – Here. Put like this – so wonderfully succinct it cannot help but make you splutter. Perhaps they would be better served gathering their funds and handing out cheaply burnt DVDs of this short video.

Maybe the 99% don’t know to such a clear level and maybe that would help.

Maybe focusing on just that one – really clear point – would help.

Maybe in focusing on that one clear point – would help them gain cohesion and allow them to scrabble in the others.

Truth is – a lot of these people are – actually living far too hand to mouth to be able to dedicate much of their time to camping.

The police are never much liked anywhere – bar perhaps Norway – and now with the NYPD being caught smuggling arms and they and all their brethren police stations dealing out unnecessary brutality. Egypt, Syria, the UK and USA all have common rousing points.

Therefore what the Irish Police have done is a stroke of genius. In almost completely ignoring the Occupy Dame Street movement – they have stripped it of much of its power. They now seem lonely, at the four courts – trying to preempt a maybe coming court order to move along but ending up only looking forlorn, as if maybe had it happened a fire may have caught.

Which is about the only area they seem to act with prudence – should events on Dame Street ever even reach the boil – they – the protesters may well have bitten off more than they can chew – with an angry police force that never much cared for the people outside their ranks in the first place.

The Green Party’s mutter-push for Economic Treason to become reality seems to have faltered. Poorly worded – easily fudged against trade unions– it’s just another distraction of wishful thinking to make the public think something is being done. Throw the dogs a bone. As I am aware – the current legislation for treason is only applicable if someone or some parties have endangered the state toward war. This seems a no-brainer really – if only three rendition flights landed here – then those in the Government aware and allowing of this – would appear to have committed treason. If the rendition of prisoners by a foreign government across Irish soil is the involvement of Ireland in war – that sounds a lot like – Treason. It’s just a thought though. For anything to happen – you’d need gumption and a crazy wild eyed solicitor the likes of which may not exist in Ireland.

Sometimes you get the feeling amongst the vaguely older Irish that there is a sort of worried abused housewife feeling to protest and rebellion. The smokey worry that – don’t get them mad – properly mad – Bruce Banner mad – cause when you get them (the Irish people) mad – people die – get executed on the edge of bogs – disappear and interned.

Perhaps drawing in other examples – such as those orphans used for medical experiments back in the sixties/seventies – might also help. They would gain clear minded articulate help. But then, perhaps allowing the clamour of all – has softened them and as one elderly Dubliner pointed out “An effete movement.”

Right now – with the new Budget – there should be cohesive planned protests that allow time to gather everybody in to voice their disapproval against the household tax, health service cuts, vat, child benefit reductions, the oil and gas and all the rest. Not everyone is in a Trade Union or part of ODS. And anyway – a march on a Saturday? The only people that disrupts are the shoppers – if it was midweek and ending on Molesworth street – while the Government was in session – it might be worth something. You never see the taxi drivers disrupting weekend traffic.

There is no lodestone – and we are in dire need of one.

The spirit of Huey Long is alive and well across the Atlantic and I’m not referring to any other portion of the Occupy movement other than Dame Street. Of course even muttering in the shadow of this sacred cow means I’m a crypofascist rising. But our movement is barely in the news – it’s so peaceful – it’s barely there – almost a happy camping art project.

Honouring the bonds is the equivalent of waiting outside a bookies for each bad day gambler, checking his spent stubs and reimbursing him for every failed bet and poor tip. Only in Ireland would we treat inveterate squandering gamblers like spoiling parents and cover their loses so they can do it again. Only in Ireland would we not riot over this.

Greece stands tall and shouty – gets a 50% reduction of its debt.

Ireland tugs its forelock mumbles an assurance and scurries to the bottom of the workhouse soup line.

We get some of the worst returns on our oil and gas in the world – behind even what they call third world countries get – yet Pat Rabbite is in the media demanding more licenses will bring in jobs? Jobs there is no contractual obligation for?

We beat them to a guilty retreat on the reduction of youth disability benefit – yet they breach the set government pay cap for their “special advisors”. Earnestly telling us they are needed – were in higher paid jobs before and need this wage to be kept. That only tells me two things – they can’t do it on their own – more to the point they’re fucked on their own and if someone left a better paid job to be a government adviser they’re only in it for the power and connections.

Warmly with a nod and a wink our government pushes the Irish into the waiting arms of Sinn Fein if only because there is nothing else, no other hope and sure we may as well try them before it’s gargle a bullet time.

We have become the worst parody of a country. All the racist depictions of corrupt countries like Albania, Kosovo, Romania, Moldova etc are proved laughable against what Ireland is beneath the veneer. The worst of western European kleptocracies. The Swedish used to refer to us as the black pit of Europe – sadly they were just calling it as they saw it – astute and honestly.

I’m now from a country where it will soon cost me €500 an hour to call the fire brigade to a domestic fire. €610 an hour for a vehicle fire and €610 for both chimney fires and road traffic accidents. That all but gives away its natural resources – resources that could get it out of its current crisis.

It’s hard not to laugh when someone tries to comment on corruption in Russia.

And…

In truth – this piece was written sometime before Christmas – harsher and more cynical. I held off publishing it and its far more directed (at Occupy Dublin) ending due to a desire to see what would happen. Probably partially due to the squint eyed look I’d got from a few people in and around the circles and fringes that make up Dublin. Some I did not wish to be aligned with – some I felt vaguely apologetic to – engendered as it were with the cowardice to give them a minute or two.

Nothing happened.

No mission statement – no righteous disruption – we – the Irish – are content to go quietly into the pockets – I mean night.

Quite simply.

We’re fucked.

Run to the hills.

Knelt as we are before the Internet – stale croissants glued to our temples – maybe our last and final hope is that this man – will continue and get more outspoken and with any luck rouse the slumbering people who marched in the ‘60s and ‘70s to do something where the rest of us appear to fail so miserably.

Here is Irelands new and then future President Michael D. Higgins dismantling Michael Graham

Not to leave you too hopeful – here is an article by the Irish Times on the €650 million wasted on unrealised public projects

El rey de la montaña / King of the hill (Film Review)

2011-12-15T10:04:00Z

I am ostensibly a fan of found footage films – when they are done well ala ‘The Poughkeepsie Tapes’ or ‘Diary of the Dead’. With ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ rating as one of my all-time favourite films. Others are so bad I’ll disavow ever having seen them.

I was so surprised by the quality of Apollo 18 – regardless of the odd plothole – that I found myself online looking at their truth about the moonlandings website. My friend and I were left so curious about the quality of Apollo 18 that we ended up on IMDB – doing a bit of reseach on its director Gonzalo López-Gallego.

This led us to the page for a film called ‘El rey de la montaña’.(King of the Hill)

The description on IMDB was not clear and perhaps not translated very well – the gist of it was; Quim gets lost in a rural area, whilst trying to find his way he gets shot from a hill. Escaping, he meets Bea, a woman from before who is apparently lost as well. Suspicious of each other, they join forces to run away through the forest from those hunting them.

Finding out that back in 2007 that he’d made a Spanish Independent survival horror/thriller – was too tempting. At 2:30 AM we set off into the wilds of the Internet to track it down. It wasn’t easy and was often frustrating but after sometime, we finally managed to get a Spanish version for which we still had to track down subtitles for.

Survival Horror is a favourite genre of mine. Even when done badly they tend to fare well. But when done well – like the English ‘Wilderness’ (2006) or the Australian TV movie ‘Fortress’ (1985) or more – the stunning Norwegian ‘Rovdyr’ (2008). They become exercises in tension that are often more immersive more gripping and far more satisfying than other genres.

We were not disappointed. I’m not sure what I was expecting – even something approaching the quality of ‘Bosque De Sombras’ (Backwoods 2006) would have left us both happy with the effort. Satisfied with the directors’ skill. But no.

Damn it – this is a fine, fine film – one worthy of more attention. One not to be forgotten and definitely one that needs to take its place in the great and long pantheon of survival horror/thrillers.

It feels lovingly made – set in a particularly beautiful part of Northern Spain – with a stunning stark soundtrack – it kept us on the edge of our seats until the final reel. Jaded as I am – I was not expecting the twist thrown up. As the credits rolled – reminiscent of ‘Bosque De Sombras’ – there came a perfectly placed piece of singer-songwriter music called ‘Another Mind’ by Russian Red. It served like a whiskey espresso after a good meal. A digestive we sat and listened right through to the end – nearly clapping the screen when it finally went black.

Find this – Watch It.

I can’t find this film on iTunes – but it is apparently available here at Netflix

White McKenzie - Absence (E.P Review)

2011-12-11T04:33:00Z

The plethora of artistic talent in Ireland- be it in the realms of music, dance or the visual arts- remains an undamped factor in preserving the Irish spirit in the face of economic hardships.

The Dublin based alternative/indie rock band White McKenzie is one such promising musical force.

<center> Alternative Rock, Indie Rock ~ 26:33 mins</center> <center>Debut E.P 5, 99 €</center> <center>

Tempting the Irish Rockscape

</center>

The plethora of artistic talent in Ireland – be it in the realms of music, dance or the visual arts- remains an undamped factor in preserving the Irish spirit in the face of economic hardships.

The Dublin based alternative/indie rock band White McKenzie is one such promising musical force. Consisting of six local musicians, Kieran O’Reilly, “Ziggy” Zdziarski, Ciaran Cusack, Éamonn Young, Neil O’ Brien and Ian Corr, White McKenzie was originally conceived merely as an exploratory musical collaboration between musicians of diverging musical backgrounds. Nonetheless, the project has since matured to potentially become one of Dublin’s hottest new rock acts.

Indeed, the release of White McKenzie’s debut E.P on 30 September 2011, demonstrates that the musical ventures of White’s skillful musicians have recently assumed a more concrete nature. Appearing under the title ‘Absence’, the album is now available on iTunes, Tower Records Dublin and Amazon to name but the main outlets.

‘Absence’ compiles six original White McKenzie songs that follow an introductory soundscape entitled ‘torment’. The intro, despite the title suggesting otherwise, provides a well-rounded instrumental build-up to ‘on your heels’, a guitar-heavy, fast paced piece. It aptly opens ears and hearts to the songs presented on the album.

‘4 a.m’ continues to grip my very core. Featuring as the third track on the record, the piano intro which then becomes interlaced with soft guitar sounds initially caught my attention. Then, the amazing lyrics of the piece really captivated me. They bear witness to lead singer Kieran O’Reilly’s emerging lyrical talent. The metaphor “neon-soldiers” who are described as “marching from the side of the room” particularly stood out to me, as it is powerfully evocative. This is a song about death, and acceptance at the same time.

A second slow paced favorite of mine is ‘the clock winds on’, which provides another opportunity for pianist Ian Corr to shine. Accompanied by soft guitars and interspersed with trumpets reminiscent of ‘Beirut’ – a band which, as a Tribal Fusion dancer, I highly respect. This song recalls memories of a loved one, and induces nostalgia. These two songs aptly capture White’s current lyrical objectives which are to relate internal processes, and channel life experiences that listeners can intimately relate to.

Songs like ‘crawling the walls’ and ‘the big man’ add to the album’s intrinsic musical maturity. The first features piano sounds coupled with dreamy vocals; the second evokes REM in certain parts. Both certainly contribute to creating an excellent debut E.P.

The only one song which is a bit of a downer, personally, is ‘forget’. While similar in nature to ‘on your heels’, I did not feel the vocals were delivered with consistency. Nonetheless, the quality of all the songs combined point to White McKenzie’s ability to excite the Irish and international (!) music scene in the future.

‘Absence’ suggests that White McKenzie’s current soundprint is a hybrid between Pearl Jam (largely) and Coldplay. While intermittently evoking R.E.M and the National, there is also a healthy splash of Aqualung, producing an Indie-rock flavored broth with commercial tendencies. I thoroughly enjoyed the accomplished musicianship and vocals of ‘Absence’ although the genre would generally not be my first choice.

The album offers strong ballads as lead singer Kieran O’Reilly’s voice nicely compliments the skillfully manipulated instruments and slow songs really seem the band’s forte at present. While I thoroughly enjoyed ‘Absence’, the fast vocals provide some room for improvement. However there are no doubts in my mind that White McKenzie will use the potential shining through in their debut album to reach even further heights in their next.

The synergy of White’s musical talents is not only striking in ‘Absence’ but also in White’s live shows. Their gig in Dublin’s Grand Social on 30 September 2011 engendered a large turnout of enthusiastic supporters cheering the band on. Not only are live performances a testimony to the bands’ joy of music but “Absence” strongly highlights the musical maturity of the six-some.

‘Absence’ is not to be missed for anyone eager to discover new rock acts and White McKenzie promise to sway the Irish music scene with their musical presence in this debut E.P .

Availabe to buy here at iTunes here

Sparky O’Hare Master Electrician by Mawil (Graphic Novel Review)

2011-12-09T20:02:00Z

Sparky O’Hare Master Electrician serves as my introduction to Mawil whom the Internet tells me is one of Germany’s best loved comic book artists. He has been the recipient of the ICOM award for best independent comic four times (2007 being the last.) I am immediately a fan.

Years ago – the only way I could stop my comics and graphic novel addiction from destroying my life was to stop going to comic shops altogether.

To save money for my habit – I had stopped eating all but cup of soup and could often be found twitching looking nervously around scratching my arms at the graphic novel section in Hodges Figgis.

Later when I landed up in the sort of higgledypiggledy dream second hand back issues store. I could be found behind the counter – face contorted – eyes squinting as I tried to fuzzy my peripherary and stare into a fixed point in space lest I snap and spend my pay on stock.

So when the person that leant me Sparky O’Hare Master Electrician comes calling for it back I will find it hard to part with and may well have lost it “in the books”. Just so I can hold onto it.

Sparky O’Hare Master Electrician serves as my introduction to Mawil whom the Internet tells me is one of Germany’s best loved comic book artists. He has been the recipient of the ICOM award for best independent comic four times (2007 being the last.) I am immediately a fan.

In small pocket format it is his second book published in English by Blank Slate and presented beautifully. From the cover to the pages everything about this book feels nice – demands that you hold it, keep it and show it proudly to guests.

Translated from German it originally went by the title Meister Lampe a name that apparently doesn’t translate well to English. Complete with a flip-book, puzzles and a maze it really is a treasure.

Sparky O’Hare backcover

About a master electrician rabbit whom electrical items may be adverse to. The central story is warm and engaging, silly and often funny. At first I left it on the table in my apartment so people would read it. After a time it moved to the bathoom – it says a lot that almost all guests could be found wandering from the bathroom with Sparky O’Hare in their hands to finish.

With the dread time of Santa coming close – this book would prove the perfect gift.

Buy it here – direct from the publisher

I Draw Slow – Downside (Album Review)

2011-08-20T14:51:00Z

I Draw Slow are an Irish five piece peddaling Irish-Americana folk roots old timey like a gimlet eyed carpetbagger will sell you an elixir for beauty, another for snake bites and in the saloon later – will swagger away with your maiden head.

Course Daddy won’t talk to ye now and it’s probably only ‘til the thaw ‘fore he throws you out and it’s the brothel for you – what with you not finishin’ your schoolin’ and that limp…’course what man would want you on accounts of yer droopy eye…

Their claw hammer banjo player tells me each album is like a storybook, each song telling its own story. Where not traditional arranged, the lyrics are often exquisite rolling and unfolding things of melody and thought.

It’s good daydreaming music – a nice soundtrack to writing or whatever else you’re doing. You may even suddenly find yourself swaying in an apron with cloth wrapped freshly baked bread wondering if that rabbit has hung long enough…

Little Switzerland – the album opener – reminds me of Heaven’s Gate or another similar western and sets the scene in my imagination. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be gritty, a feller or two may get shot and there may well be a squabble over land, whores perhaps even opium.

Lighthouse Daughter, follows with a slight ‘Thousands are sailing’ Planxty vague hint. A story in its own right, I’m off having the scene set for the other lead character. In a segue – a man has just been shot dead on a fancy mattress with a Derringer – the camera mingles the spread of his blood with images of the coast.

Bowling Green has the jaunt of a travelling montage perhaps to the town where she grew up – it meddles with the flashback of a teenage marriage to the man that might well become that gunfighter prospector preacher railroad feller. There’s sepia infidelities and bright happiness.

Halfway cuts away back from the city to the towns, maybe to the youngest or eldest sister. A mismatched bar fight and a wooing. A man gets beaten half to death and there’s a miscarriage.

Santiago stumble drunken through the saloon doors, frowning as it tries to focus on its pocket watch. He needs help getting his boots off – their laughter acts as a counterpoint.

Sisken song – The story in my head abruptly stops at the lyric “I heard a bird singing in a tree – his dead brown eyes a’followin’ me” I’m left in the horrors thinking about birds and their dead brown eyes. I have to walk through a leafy part of the city later and I’m going to have to take my long coat – the one I can pull the collar up on. Damn birds – damn birds and their cold dead brown eyes always looking at me.

Low High Low – the story has entered an exercise in speed editing – as the ladies argue sense and sensibility, the hooker with the heart of gold, the virgin bride and the practical knife hiding middle child who always wipes and washes short after by the porcelain bowl. He may mention how he always hates it how she gets up right after, but she may amble off on some oblique story about her daddy and cleanliness and the soul. It trails away with a blossom laden mountain wedding and an ominous darkening of the sky.

Oh Sally brings me roaring back to Heaven’s Gate. A rousing track of love and jealousy, of drunkenness and lies. We cut from lush scenes of community, colour and love to moments of abrupt jarring violence. She just caved that man’s skull in with a horseshoe, the knife slips accidentally deep and he just blew that man into the creek. In between we are always cutting back to the train coming through the snowy mountains.

Little Satchel – a wonderful instrumental breaks up the run to the last two tracks – the new comer smokes aromatic tobacco, you can tell in the silence, the reactions, the faces.

That Boy’s Not Fair – starts with a fight, she gets a good few slaps in before he has her wrists – he goes down with a shocked look, head trying to crane down to the hole in his chest. And we’re back to the brothel, he looks hurt and she’s running her mouth – his hand raises but not faster than the Derringer she has in her garter. After the house is ransacked, we pan sideways to the reflection in the window as they drag her towards the railroad tracks.

Dead In The Morning – back once again to the brothel, the three of them have met as the remaining sisters share a drink and a cry. The other other middle one seems intent on leaving with her youngins and man saying something about P’aw and Mexico. We finally hear the man with the aromatic tobacco speak and we’re still unsure whether he’s the past teenage husband – a brother or adopted. It doesn’t matter, he’ll most likely be dead in the morning. It’s snowing outside and we can clearly see this in the reflected light as the saloon doors are opened…

This has nothing much to do with the lyrics and the stories they tell.

This is just where the album takes me.

That is has enough power to take me away to somewhere as detailed, perhaps as beautiful – is enough of a testament to the power of this band.

I Draw Slow Website

While I’m here – they have this video – for this song that wasn’t on the album I just bamboozled. It’s on the next one. It was filmed live, in a forest – it’s utterly splendid – have a look, a listen.

<u>Note</u>
I Draw Slow are a small independent outfit. If you like this music – buy it – to steal it online is counterproductive to getting anymore music from them.

Tonight, from Inside The Writer's Studio: The Worm Spittoon

2011-08-19T18:48:00Z

I guess it was mid-june when I felt I was missing the literary limb.

Before that it had been slipping by degrees, but around then concretely I felt my number was up and sent the shudder all the way to Messages From The Big Rock Candy Mountain in the form of half-comic, half-deranged alcho stuff.

Bad writing followed worse writing. Unprintable guff.

There was nothing left to say and I was backed into a banal corner of my own making. I had made clumsy inroads and the fevered, good draining of the salts seemed close to a finish.

Bought some Henry Miller, ate that and tried again, binning the results as I went.

Nothing but the open trash and the wondering. Washed up, a year after first tapping a keyboard to lay down the dirty facts of the past and the worse blights of the present.
Write about what you know right?

I never wanted to do anything as badly as this. I have have never drank so hard as this or missed anything as badly as this. Given a chance via friends to put something however vague into words and I have been shitting over it.

Tonight, laying in bed after a few medicinals I threw the whole thing around and realised that anything even vaguely resembling Art or Honesty should be flung out without edits, trying to be clever or any of the things I despise.

One long piece of vomit.

The Foggy Dew (Dublin Pub Review)

2011-08-19T18:48:00Z

A rustic rock bar filled with memorabilia paid for by you.

Music played so it can be heard over the people shouting to hear each over the loud music.

A rustic rock bar filled with memorabilia paid for by you.

Music played so it can be heard over the people shouting to hear each over the loud music.

Televisions constantly running and cunningly placed in every corner so that conversation is the element of those in possession of only the most iron concentration.

Poor Guinness – if you must order it, make sure it’s from the front bar – which has the appropriate pub superstition of having the better pint.

It suffers from a good location so it will get a constant stream of people.

The bar is rumoured to be fairly famous amongst the visiting Spanish, Italian and Basque crowds so expect a great of variety in clientele.

Also a favourite haunt of the Tattoo and Body modification crowd in Dublin should you be one of those people with a need to go where they go.

Quiet mid-week in these the days of the recession, attend the wallet emptying on Friday and Saturday to experience the Foggy Crush of yore.

Like most trendy hipster pubs in Dublin – The Foggy Dew has Reggae most Sundays. Which is rather like watching the tide – as it will fill up, then empty out as soon as the Reggae is finished.

Quite expensive – as in when you mention it to other Dubliners as a change of scenery they may well spit on the ground and say “That place is a bleedin’ rip off” they may then contend to you that it is perhaps filled with people you may relate to as imbeciles.

Seats are at a premium also, attaining a gold dust status that even getting one is cause for phoning your friends so you can relate the story around the fire.

Another fine feature of this bar is the toilets filled with all the appropriate security features…

Since the smoking ban, on a good day, their odours will climb the stairs to linger around the pub. And walking down the stairs through that stench is rather like trying to swim through curtains. Attending the mens toilet is a bit like tripping and falling face first into the crotch of a tramp.

The Foggy Dew hosts a glut of middle aged scene rockers and punks who still barfly their old dingy pub even though it has been renovated into a modern memorabilia filled rock bar. They swing about each other in small concentric circles and it has been said that the place can be slightly off putting to new comers not familiar with the often stand off-ish cliques.

This however will not apply to you if you have tits and are between the ages of 16-50.

You can do better and frankly, you and your liver deserve it.

Hanley's Cornish Pasties (Dublin Restaurant Review)

2011-08-19T14:51:00Z

Cornish Pastie?

Cornish Amazing.

32A Dawson Street, Dublin, Ireland and 2 Merchants Arch Dublin.

Cornish Pastie?

Cornish Amazing.

Small – perfect for the flying lunch visit – I had the chicken and vegetable pastie with a can of coke for five euros.

Hot, delicious awesome.

Server was friendly, going so far as to advise me to get the chicken over the steak and gravy.

Not too filling either like some lunch portions, it was just perfect, leaving me still a bit hungry.

The Butcher Grill (Dublin Restaurant Review)

2011-08-18T12:45:00Z

Situated in an converted butchers in Ranelagh, The Butcher Grill is the newest venture by the people behind Dillingers. The decor is plain wood and the original shop tiles. Seating is at the bar or a selection of high tables with stools and benches.

92 Ranelagh, Dublin 6, Ireland.

Arrived for our reservation on a Sunday evening at 8:15pm to no waiting, which is always a bonus, but not always a given in Dublin.

The staff are full of smiles, very friendly and don’t make it an overly formal experience. From making drinks that were not on their menu to their general attentiveness, they helped make the experience extremely pleasant.

For drinks we had a Martini and a Gimlet. The Gimlet was not on the menu, but the tender did an excellent job with it.

To start we had the baby back ribs and four oysters on the half shell. My companion assures me the oysters were wonderful. The baby back ribs were delicious, the sauce was great, so much so, I found myself mopping it up with the entree bread we were given upon sitting down.

Main course was the strip-loin surf and turf medium rare for both. The steak was served on a wooden board with the prawns, in shell, on top with just the right amount of sauce.

The prawns were lovely, the sauce neither too busy nor too heavy. For someone who isn’t normally so fond of the strip-loin cut, the steak was great and brought no complaints.

Desert was an amaretto fogatto – homemade icecream in a martini glass with espresso and amaretto poured over it. A first for me and a wonderful combination.

Having arrived relatively late in the evening for a restaurant whose kitchen closes at 9:30 – we were left hassle free to drink and relax in our own time with no pressure to leave from the staff who were always up for a little bit of banter.

It is worth noting that while the restaurant says children are welcome until 6pm, with the high stools and tables I can’t really see how this would be comfortable. It is also, perhaps, a little on the pricey side for some. You can do it for between €20 – €40 per person, but for a full meal with drinks and wine, you could be spending quite a bit in comparison with some of the other places around the city.

The Butcher Grill is a superb addition to both the Ranelagh night life and the greater Dublin. I will be going back when I can. Try and go here.

Check here for The Butcher Grill website for photos and menus