Except with more colour.

Sometimes.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

]]> http://seanear1ey.wordpress.com/2011/12/31/my-year-in-photos/feed/ 0 seanear1ey photo photo(1) photo(2) photo(3) photo(4) photo(5) photo(7) photo(8) photo(10) photo(13) photo(11) photo(12) http://seanear1ey.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/lana-del-rey-oran-mor-glasgow-051111/ http://seanear1ey.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/lana-del-rey-oran-mor-glasgow-051111/#comments Sun, 06 Nov 2011 15:49:14 +0000 seanear1ey http://seanear1ey.wordpress.com/?p=453 ]]> August, and a friend of mine posts a video he found on, youtube’s HD older brother, Vimeo on his Facebook. It’s a bricolage of old super8 videos and stock footage from the 60s/70s set to the most haunting and beautiful singing you’ve heard in your life. My exact words at the time were ‘Jesus she’d break your fucking heart with a voice like that’…

That video in question was the first original cut of Video Games by Lana Del Rey. Lana Del who? Well, at the time no one knew. Fast forward two months and she has become the internet’s latest musical sensation. Since then a few “little” things, just an Interscope record deal, Jools Holland appearance and a sold out UK tour. An unbelievable twenty minutes is all it took for Miss Del Rey to sell out dates from Manchester to Glasgow to London.

Oran Mor - Glasgow

Packed into the crowded cellar of the Oran Mor in Glasgow, a former 17th century church refurbished with a restaurant/bar and venue, hipsters to newly won fans stood; sardines in a tin. The lights dimmed as the orchestral theme from Hitchcock’s Psycho blasted through the PA. The band took their positions and Miss Del Rey appeared.

Stunning, she shimmered under the spotlight and gained roaring approval from a crowd who needed nothing from her to prove herself. They were already crazy about her.

‘Blue Jeans‘ and ‘Video Games’ were mixed into the set with six other, presumably upcoming tracks from a big label debut. Including ‘Without You’ and followup single ‘Born to Die‘. Being a bit of a Del Rey fanatic, I was tentatively hoping for a track or two off of the debut EP maybe ‘Mermaid Motel’ or ‘Say Can You See’ but this is all about the new, and the crowd loved it. Dusty Springfield incarnated at every oppurtunity and Nancy Sinatra channelled often, their nostaglic swoon-inspiring aesthetic given a modern edge with Lana’s gangster hip.

“Blue Jeans”

At times it was great to see,  Lana herself, in pure amazement at the instant adoration she drew from the assembled masses. It brought a smile to see her blush or awkwardly stick out her tongue bashfully when met with insane applause and woops. Rather bravely, she announced just before the last track that she had no encore and that this would be it for the night. A few disappointed ‘awws’ but generally an audience accepting of the fact that a mere two months previous the lady’s name had virtually no resonance on this side of the pond, so no one could’ve expected a two hour set with numerous indulgent encores (no matter how much we’d have liked it.)

I travelled to Glasgow with three complete strangers, I’d tweeted about going to the gig and got a DM saying ‘Fancy a travel buddy? I’d love to go see her’. Don’t get me wrong I love, and have often travelled alone for gigs to the UK. But through some happy fate and a mutual love Lana Del Rey’s music; myself, Ciara, Eimear and Una all ended up in Glasgow on Bonfire night having booked the cheapest Ryanair flights we could find.

Being on a complete shoestring budget, we’d not booked any beds for the night. We figured we’d meet the morning head on as our flight was a 6.30am job. So, we skulked around the Oran Mor thereafter, pints in hand. Eventually deciding the only right thing to do on Bonfire night was to light a solitary firework commemorating a great trip. Myself and Una ventured off in search of said firecracker or skyrocket. By some sheer luck we ended up finding Lana in the back bar of the Oran Mor. After a time, we plucked up the courage to go over and say hello.

Me and Lana Del Rey

We talked Jools, the Internet haters, the issues with the original cut of Video Games, Glasgow, Twitter and Ireland. (Lana was planning on stopping by the Founders conference here last week, through some familial involvment with the event). We got photos, she thanked us for coming and signed my Una-pilfered setlist. Talented, gorgeous AND incredibly friendly.

Outside we met and chatted with Lana’s touring minstrels; namely Leonard Tribbett Jr, Byron Thomas, CJ Alexander and guitarist Mr Blake Lee.

A mere 3 hours later and we’re all freezing our arses off on the airport lounge couches, sleeping while waiting for our flight. Completely worth it.

If you get a chance to see Lana Del Rey on this tour before she completely explodes and is playing huge less-intimate venues I urge you to do it now. You will not be disappointed!

For more photos from the gig etc see @seanear1ey

http://antisepticandtiredness.tumblr.com

Here’s a sneaky preview

Since I’ve departed from Today in Dublin duties this is one of the last remaining blogs I’m involved with. (The other being an occasional Culch.ie contrib) I guess that should give me more time to try blogging here.

So at the moment I’m reading this…

It’s very different to the film, but I really like it. If not, moreso.

I’m listening to this, well as of today, thanks to Ben Keenan @bursaar.

Lana Del Rey – Video Games from The Cool Hunter on Vimeo.

And tonight I shall be seeing this with Mister @anthonymcg

New favourite band at the moment. Who are playing Oxegen! Thought this was worth a blog post. Oh and this photo…

For those of you who cannot read the small print, it basically details that David works about seventeen jobs concurrently. This is the gospel truth, although it’s more like 4 jobs, which require David to leave the house at 5am and get home after 8. Insanity, the likes of which a normal person could only handle if they had infinite clones of themselves… Hence the blog!

The blog asks you to devise and storyboard the many grisly ends that David’s clones meet. There’s only been one so far. But, I am submitting mine tonight and encourage you to do the same! If you know David or if you don’t it makes no difference, we can all enjoy killing him off!

Go! Do it!

http://thedeathofdavid.tumblr.com/

Bored to Death had been on my ‘to-watch’ list forever. Then that film came out. You know the one with Robert Downey Jr and ZG where they drive across the country together. Ah I can’t remember the name of it. *after a quick google* Due Date. After Due Date, the series went back to the pile of my ‘to watch’ series pile. But alas soon forgot about it again.

But recently in the last week or so I have started watching it. Just before it comes out on Sky Atlantic over here so I’m still slightly ahead of the curve however slight it might be. I love it though. Jason Schwartzman is brilliant, Ted Danson hilarious and the only character that doesn’t bowl me over is Galifianakis funnily enough…

What is it about? Well Schwartzman plays Jonathan Ames, struggling novelist, who turns to a double-life of un-licensed Private Detective after suffering writers block and an upsetting break-up with his girlfriend. His girlfriend believes he has a drinking and pot-smoking problem. Danson is Ames’s boss at the magazine he writes for. Danson is basically a big kid who wants part in whatever adventure Jonathan is having despite being outside of Jonathan’s generation. Danson plays the role so well it makes you wonder where he has been all these years. ZG is Jonathan’s best mate who is in a long suffering relationship and is trying to be a good friend to Jonathan and keep his girlfriend happy.

I love it. You will love it if you enjoy – The sleuthy-ness of Pink Panther and the subtle humour of Community.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of spending St.Patrick’s Day at the home of the black stuff. (Although, I was informed while being instructed on how to pull the perfect pint that ‘It’s not Black but very dark dark Ruby Red’ doesn’t have the same ring to it though…) Anyway the day was organised by Ogilvy/WHPr on behalf of their client Guinness. We were greeted with giftbags containing Guinness thermos flasks and tickets / schedules for the day. The suite we were in was a little away from the action but we were entertained with a pint pulling lesson, a caricature illustrator and some delicious Guinness based food…

Guinness Bread and Salmon
Guinness marinated Beef Skewers
Guinness and Beef stew
Guinness and Garlic Mussels
Guinness Mushroom Risotto

Darragh doing what he's best at

Now you may bawk at the mention of these combinations, as did I, but I must confess they were all delicious. I’m not a fish-person so didn’t go near the salmon but did get adventurous enough to try the mussels which were nyom. The Risotto was my favourite though. I’d have never thought to cook with Guinness but will definitely be trying some of the recipes on http://www.guinness.com/en-ie/food-main-courses.html

The 'Spit' of Dena

One nice touch was anyone called ‘Paddy, Patrick, Pat, Patrice, Patricia’ or any Patrick related variants were treated to a VIP (Very Important Patrick) lanyard and a Guinness ‘Who’s Your Paddy’ Tee to help them be instantly recognisable!

Our V.I.P

The Storehouse was buzzing with people from all over the world enjoying the craic. In the foyer were a marching band from Dearborn, MI giving it socks with their parade setlist. On the fifth floor there was a great Mumford & Sons-esque trad band in the Source Bar followed by a great Irish rock covers band. But the highlight of the evening for all concerned was ‘Spring Break’. Spring Break are a cheese-on-toast 80′s cover band with all the bells and whistles. They played a packed Arrol Suite, rocking out tunes like ‘Africa’ by Toto and Van Halen’s ‘Jump’. A lot of us had bruises on our knees this morning from sliding across the floor or dropping to the ground for air-guitar solos. It was the best part of the day and mighty craic!

From Dearborn, MI

We finished the evening with a trip to the Gravity bar and slurped down our last Guinness of the evening with gorgeous views over a streetlamp-lit Dublin. We’d been at the Storehouse since 2pm and it was coming up til 9pm but I’d have easily believed it was 2am. The DJ in the Gravity Bar belted out some Mo-town floor-fillers before the event simmered down.

View from the Gravity Bar

As a Dubliner, I would have never considered the Storehouse as the venue for my St. Patrick’s Day and always thought ‘ah it’s just for the tourists’. But honestly after yesterday I can’t see myself spending future Paddy’s days anywhere else! The place had 700 people turn up in a mere 20mins and the mix of friendly tourists and locals who were there for the craic was a welcome departure from the usual scum-baggery that can so often taint St.Patrick’s Day in town.

A huge thanks has to go to out to Aoiffe at WHPR for organising the event, Jules Keeley for inviting us along and all at Guinness Storehouse for looking after us and a fantastic Paddy’s Day!

He was the Wrestler, the bad guy in Iron Man 2 and an Expendable. Now, could he be an Taoiseach na hÉireann? Probably not. But I genuinely burst out laughing when I saw his Vote No.1 poster in support of German lager Bavaria.

There’s a great ad to go with the campaign showing Rourke being duped into drinking non-alcholic Bavaria in a swanky New York hotel. Which you can check out below. Really like this campaign, perfect timing although the poster may not completely fit with the billboards it worked for me.

With no. 1 albums and top 10 singles in the UK & Ireland and a rapidly growing audience in the US, these boys can do no wrong. Their Arthur’s day visit coincides with the recent release of their follow-up album ‘Science & Faith’ and the announcement of three sold-out dates at the O2 for March 2011. The interview took place in the Morrisson where I also took an elevator with Paolo Nuitini, bumped into Westlife’s Shane Filan and saw Example sitting in the lobby.

The guys (Mark, Danny and Glen) were true gents and a pleasure to interview.

Here’s a copy of the interview from Culch.ie:

Local lads, The Script, return to Dublin to play Arthur’s Day 2010. The lads were very excited to be here and Culch.ie got a chance to sit down with them and talk Guinness, touring and what it is to be Irish. Here’s how things went with Danny, Glen and Mark.

Culch.ie sits down with the Script

So you’re playing Arthur’s day 2010 at Vicar St tonight, what does that mean to you?

It’s our first time. We’re excited and nervous. It means a lot to us to be invited we’ve been a fan of it [Guinness] for a number of years. It really means a lot to us, we’ve been wondering when they were going to ask us and I think finally we built up enough points to get asked to do it. We’re delighted. I was wondering when they were gonna ask, throughout our career all we’ve ever done is talk about Guinness. Around the world, in Australia or the US people ask us about our Irishness and when we see a pint of Guinness with the words “St. James’s St” we are reminded that’s how it all started, we recorded our debut album on St. James’s St.

What did you do for Arthur’s day last year?

We were actually in Australia. We just got to have a pint and then back to work. We did the usual and found an Irish bar, sure what does any paddy do when he’s away? Find an Irish bar!

Was ‘Science & Faith’ the clichéd difficult second album? or was it a pleasure to make?

Our first album was the difficult album. It was tough to come up with a new sound, a sound that you feel comfortable wearing. The second album was just a continuation of that sound , we recorded the first album then went our on tour but were still chomping at the bit to get back into the studio again. I guess we didn’t really re-invent the wheel with the second album we didn’t want to come back as some Indie-Electrco band or re-invent the wheel because it took us so long to invent the wheel in the first placer. But no it wasn’t difficult at all.

I saw in 2008 you dueted with Kelly Rowland for the Stevie Wonder number ‘Part-time Lover’? Any more plans for some more collaborations?

That was a lot of fun but came along on a whim. There was just a knock on the door asking us if we’d like to do a song with her. We only got to rehearse it once but had a lot of fun. We never have plans like that it’s purely spur of the moment. It’s great because all that nervous energy ends up going into the performance and it’ll either hit or miss. But that day we hit.

Anyone else you’d like to work with?

Bob Marley, but we’d have to resurrect him. Elvis, but he’s left the building too. David Bowie he’s still alive, that’d be interesting. It’s a weird one for us because we all write and produce separately when we come back and record it’s like we’re all collaborating with each other at all times. I think that thirst is always quenched with us we never really think about other people at all.

Which is  your favourite side of the Atlantic to play?

[Hahaha] a gig’s a gig. You’re asking us on home soil? [haha] you gonna put me on the spot like that? A gig’s a gig, but there’s something about an irish crowd, and only certain parts of the world have this and Ireland’s certainly one of them. Where we buy a ticket and we actually buy the ticket to go and enjoy ourselves. We dont go to judge the band, we dont fold our arms and watch the band. But in this country it generally doesn’t happen. People let their hair down. We see that reflected in our shows in the US, Irish people in the US come out to see us because we’re Irish. It’s a great time to be Irish and be in an irish band it opens so many doors for us in terms of being a non-threatening country to just come and entertain people. and then of course there’s the accent which people seem to love.

You had a record deal as MyTown what made you keep at it?

It was only two of us that were in MyTown at the time myself (Mark) and Danny. Glen was doing other things. What keeps you going is that you have no idea about this industry when you’re a kid and there are so many ways to get into this industry. We were in many different things at the time but that was one thing that got a light shone on it. When it failed because it failed for us you have that blind faith that you will do something else. So, we went into producing and writing and learning our craft a bit more because we lost control over that thing when we were kids, but with the 10 years experience that we’ve built up we can come back and make music that people love. Because we perservered and went out to get a record deal is how things worked. Hitting your head off a wall and walking away because you’re bleeding is the worst thing to do, you figure another way around. Go over the wall, go under the wall, tunnel but there’s always another way.

What makes you appeal to such a wide audience, my little sister (15) all the way up to my mum (44) love you. How do you appeal to such a large demographic?

It’s just the music, we take ourselves out of it. we dont put ourselves on the covers, we just come out as a live band and play songs that we can connect to, and music that we like. Because we like going to bars and listening to chart music or sitting at home and listening to albums by our favourite artists it’s all very much within this genre. From the Police, U2, Coldplay to Kanye West. That’s the stuff we like. We do it in a very honest way and people relate to that, I dont think it’s us that people like it’s more the music.

For a band used to playing Shea stadium, Croker etc What’s it going to be like playing a small bar tonight?

It’s going to be brilliant to be honest we’ve been playing the small bars at longer than the big stadiums. We’re going back to what we know best. Our manager said not to get used to it now, because we prefer those shows. It’s more of a challenge because people are so up close. There’s no barriers its stripped down. It’s a real test. The first gig is acoustic tonight. At the hieght  of the first album in the us we were still playing small bars in America. We left croker and played to a gig playing in front of 10 people in the States. So we’re well used to it.

If you were not playing tonight who would you be seeing at Arthur’s Day 2010?

Paolo Nuitini for sure, love what he’s doing with music these days. Oh and the Manic Street Preachers, we’re loving the new album.

Script play Vicar St tonight and a surprise gig elsewhere in the city – Arthur’s day 2010

(As it transpired they also played Burxelle’s just off Grafton St)