Yes, folks, the recession - or a certain journalists have called it, the ression - is well and truly with us and I, like a lot of you, am stony broke. So, I’m going to form a new town under Dolphin’s Barn bridge. I will be Mayor, and as such, will have the biggest and most elaborate cardboard box to reside in. You are invited to live in my town, but you must arrange your own accomodation - i.e. cardboard box and smelly sleeping bag and you must abide by the rules.

1. No Fianna Fail supporters. Yer a shower of c*nts and you got us in this mess in the first place

2. No bankers ( see above) unless you’re going to become the grovelling servants of the good citizens of Dolphin’s Barn South New City.

3. No Chavs. Cos yer bastards

4. Winos will be allowed, but only the entertaining kind that shadow-box and shout at trash cans. Very smelly individuals wil be ousted. There’s a canal on site, there’s no excuse for not having a wash.

5. The first Tuesday of every month, we will send a war party into Rathmines to kill all the crusties and anybody who is responsible for things like bus lanes, clamping, and the Government policy of criminalising and harassing motorists. Dublin City Manager’s bollocks and head to be placed on a spike outside the Dail.

6. Castrate all the cops. Harsh, I know, but it will end the phenomenon of generations of gardai - fathers, sons, grandfathers and even wives that follow each other blindly into the service solely to completely ignore proper crime, and stop people for minor infractions of the Road Traffic Act.

7. Re-open all the ’70’s Dublin ballrooms, so we can all go and dance with chunky nurses from the country. As rule 6 will have been implemented, we’ll have no competition from the historic rivals in this field, the police force.

This is a brave new world lads and lassies…come follow me!

Your suggestions are welcome.

Got the keys to my new house, so instead of doing anything creative, I’m labouring like the common man. Good for the soul, they tell me. Maybe so, but it’s hard on your back!

Now, I have been composing songs in my head as I go along and will take some of them to the development stage once I scrape some of the white emulsion off my hands. Working titles include " Painting is A Mugs Game ( unless you’re Gaugin)", " I wish I Could..( Pay Someone To Tile My Kitchen)" and " Strimming The Bank In The Irish Summer ( Eric Clapton Has A Gardener Song)".

I’m not moaning, it’s a great thing to have your own place, I’m just a bit tired and sore, and a little bored with soem of the more monotonous jobs. But this time next year, I’m sure I’ll be glad of it.

In music news, our video shoot is postponed for now, because of I’m so busy with the move, and the fact the Irish weather has come through for the rice paddy farmers of the midwest. It’s only raineed twice here this year. Once for 3 months, and once for two months…

Farewell for now, pop-pickers! 

My brother called me and said he’d found a blog about a solo gig I did in Temple Bar…

http://queenbeemusic.blogspot.com/2008/03/broad-ripple-gazette-vol-5-no-7-ireland.html

There’s me a couple of pieces down. Now if I knew how to link to that properly, it’d be very handy, but I’m brutal at all that stuff. The thing about those little solo gigs is that they can be good or bad, depending on who’s in and how drunk they are, and also if I was able to find parking easily or not. it’s Dublin City after all!

So I was lucky that the gig this lady went to was a gud ‘un, and also that, in my unrefined flailing guitar technique, I’d managed to demolish the tip of my right index finger. The sight of blood on the guitar sent her searching for a Hello Kitty plaster. Absolute diamond as I recall.

At these little gigs, it’s interesting to watch people reacting to your original tunes. One person was singing along to " Not Like Me", which gave me pause for thought. How did she know it? Was she just a little clairvoyant, and if so, could she stand beside me as I pick next Saturday’s Lotto numbers? Or was it just a catchy little tune and she got the hang of it quickly? I dunno. Great feeling though!

The world is indeed a small place…

Interesting week for me. I had a mishap with the computer and everything - including all the demos and work-in-progress for the second album - were all deleted. Off the back-up disc. What sort of person does that??? Haha!!

Now, those of you who know me are aware I did this before in 2003 and lost the entire first album!! In short I am a dufus. 

However, Ronan Kennedy, who played piano on Day Like Today, has a sideline recovering the data of dufuses and those who look at a lot of internet naughtiness and milfs and such and subsequently have a lot of data lost and he assures me he’ll get a lot - if not all - of it back.

Makes one wonder if  we weren’t better off with boxes of cassettes on shelves?

Just when I thought "Galway Girl" couldn’t get any worse as a song, no matter WHO did it, Mundy releases a version sung entirely in the Irish language. It’s National Irish Week too! What a coincidence!! Awful awful awful and inexusable. Bound to be a huge hit so.

I don’t want to criticise other artists, or be negative, but jaysis!!

In other  news, the Moving On Music session culminated on Monday with composer Brian Irvine’s creative workshop. I am still grinning! The atmosphere was amazing, as Brian turned just about anything into a creative idea. The vibe was jovial, the mix of instruments eclectic (a stick with a guitar string stretched over a bean can and played with abow, anyone? Best instrument of the day!) and we all eventually laid down our inhibitions to really get into what he was doing. Brilliant!

His website:

http://www.brianirvine.co.uk

I am ashamed to say that I was the only participant asked to turn his amp down!!! Haha! But I’m NOT loud, I swear!

Mick 

One of the advantages to being signed to a small but perfectly formed indie label is when you have to visit the office, you can "borrow" (ahem!) the newest releases from your stablemates. These are invariably lying around in boxes on tables that are meant for coffee and televisions that are meant for watching.

So I managed to get my hands on "Charm Offensive" by The Radio, and an unreleased Perry Blake CD.

I can heartily recommend "Manmade" from The Radio’s offering, and Perry’s CD doesn’t officially exist yet, so you’ll have to take my word for it when I tell you it’s very pretty indeed. I had to promise not to "put it up on the internet"!! As if!!!

Paypal me €15 and I’ll send you a copy!! Only kidding Elvera…

Sponsored by downloadmusic.ie

Have a look at what the whole thing is about here:

http://www.downloadmusic.ie/wordpress/2008/02/29/the-irish-blog-awards-reminder/

I attended one of these last night on the invitation of one of the lads from Origins, Cavan, the original music venue making great headway at the moment in their endeavours to promote original artists in these here parts.

There were a fair few acts who got up and played - some better than others obviously -  but they were all having a ball. That’s missing in an awful lot of the events we play at, and it was great to see people genuinely enjoying the music they were playing, and others genuinely egging them on. No snide comments in the bogs here, thank God!

I performed 3 tunes at the start of the night (Pictures Of Today, Not Like Me and Still Here,  for those interested!), and a few more at night’s end (Pop Song, A Day Like Today, Discovered and Who). The set seemed to go down well, but not much in the way of cd sales. Students can’t afford to drink AND buy cd’s fer Gawd’s sakes!!

If I could offer a word of advice to those of you planing to get along and participate at an open mic night. Play something in a major key and keep the tunes snappy. A lot of the acts last night played very mellow, minor key tunes of much longer than the pop standard of 3 or 4 minutes. It’ll make your tunes stand out from the herd

Who’d have thought so much craic could be had on a Wednesday night in a provincial town? Great stuff!

The open mic night in Cavan is on Wednesday evenings from 9 pm in Mustang Sally’s. 

Mick 

A bit late chiming in with this, but there’s been a lot of criticism about our feathered friend Dustin the Turkey going to represent Ireland in the Eurovision. All the naysayers should be quelled by the idea that he is not the first turkey we have sent to Eurovision by a long chalk.

The Irish, and more specifically, Dublin sense of humour may be lost on anyone outside of Ireland, but what the hell. I, for one, think it’s hilarious.  Best of luck to him!

We’ve been toying with the idea of entering the competition ourselves for a wee while, but we don’t know if what little credibilty we have would survive such a thing. Chime in if you have any opinions on that, folks…

Unless you’re the guy who invented the Rubik’s cube and Ned Steinberger.

Anyhoo, this guy, Derek Abbot recorded a version of Not Like Me ( a Sundrive song!!!) and posted it on YouTube. Very nice it is too…

http://www.youtube.com/user/derkman

It’s the second video there. 213 views???? That’s more than we got!! Bloomin’ ‘eck!