history collides

TNC and sullivan

not much more to be said; except...

January 11, 1992: Nirvana's Nevermind reached number one on the US Billboard album charts, replacing Michael Jackson's Dangerous. "...that was the revolutionary tipping point": Cobain's goal for the 1990s "to debase every known form of pop music" had happened.

the spirit of grunge: a retrospective from radio 4. miranda sawyer examines a significant slice of GenX history on this side of the Atlantic - the impact of the commodified and co-opted grunge music and aesthetic. shame it's only half on hour long as it's an astute critique.

(friday 8 april, 1994)

...

And now you are dead.
I was in San Fransisco, driving up the 101 past Candlestick Park when the news came over the radio, LIVE 105 - the news that you had shot yourself.
A few minutes later I was in the city and I pulled the car over and tried to figure out what I felt.
I had never asked you to make me care about you, but it happened - against the hype, against the odds - and now you are in my imagination forever.
And I figure you're in heaven, too. But how, exactly does it help you now, to know that you, too, as it is said, were once adored?

D.

- extract from Letter to Kurt Cobain, in Polaroids From The Dead,
by Douglas Coupland (1996)

with the lights out, it's less dangerous

LB

for the love of a good show tune

neil patrick harris took the tony's by storm it seems,

"This show could not be any gayer if Liza was named Mayor and Elton John took flight!”

bravo, doogie hoswer, MD, bravo. :)

LB

sOnic soundtrack

a very dear friend of my bro's, phil grier, has a radio show going out on rte's 2XM digital station for alternative music.

sOnic prOjector podcaster, including a link to the iTunes podcast

Music from the Silver Screen. The Sonic Projector radio show features soundscapes. Film, television, gaming, advert and internet scores are the order of the day.

Featuring scores from Steve Jablonsky to Bjork, Carter Burwell to DJ Shadow The Sonic Projector is the essential ticket to your score at the movies. (See what I did there). Playing out bi-weekly Thursdays 2200GMT and Sundays 1800 GMT.

nice one, Phil.

LB

more in the human

" Will the world ever learn? ...

The time must come. It's enough -- enough to go to cemeteries, enough to weep for oceans. It's enough. There must come a moment -- a moment of bringing people together.

And therefore we say anyone who comes here should go back with that resolution. Memory must bring people together rather than set them apart. Memories here not to sow anger in our hearts, but on the contrary, a sense of solidarity that all those who need us. What else can we do except invoke that memory so that people everywhere who say the 21st century is a century of new beginnings, filled with promise and infinite hope, and at times profound gratitude to all those who believe in our task, which is to improve the human condition.

A great man, Camus, wrote at the end of his marvelous novel, The Plague:

"After all," he said, "after the tragedy, never the rest...there is more in the human being to celebrate than to denigrate."

Even that can be found as truth -- painful as it is -- in Buchenwald. "

- elie wiesel; buchenwald; june 5, 2009

music: Henyrk Górecki - Symphony No. 3, Op. 36

sounds like gospel

TodayFM is playing one of those all-day-commerical-free-A-thru-Z-greatest-hits-playlists for the bank holiday. wall-to-wall sing-a-long pleasure.
this old favourite pleased me. muchly.

Now I'm relieved to hear
That you've been to some far out places
It's hard to carry on
When you feel all alone

The wisdom that I seek
Has been found in the strangest spaces
Feels a lot like love
That I feel for you

Drawn by the undertow
My life is out of control
I believe this wave will bear my weight
So let it flow

Oh sit down oh sit down oh sit down
Sit down next to me
Sit down, down, down, down, down
In sympathy

Swing from high to deep
Extremes, of sweet and sour
Hope that God exists
I hope, I pray

Now I've swung back down again
It's worse than it was before
If I hadn't seen such riches
I could live with being poor
Oh sit down oh sit down oh sit down
Sit down next to me
Sit down, down, down, down, down
In sympathy

Those who feel the breath of sadness:
Sit down next to me
Those who find they're touched by madness:
Sit down next to me
Those who find themselves ridiculous:
Sit down next to me
In Love, in fear, in hate, in tears

Down
Down

Oh sit down
Sit down next to me
Sit down, down, down, down, down
In sympathy

Down.

- James, 1989, rough trade

that's what it's probably all about in the end i guess...

LB

my brother

for my bruvver,
with love and congratulations. i think this was on the infamous "All Aboard" kids' compilation album.
regardless, ewan and i used to love singing along to this.

c,xo

" "

there's a nice story to go with this but i've been scrubbing the kitchen most of the day and now with some pints in me i'm ready to drop. so, in the meantime, if you want some good (really good) music out of nashville, check out Quote. also here for their latest multimedia project.

i met half of the duo tonight and he, justin, was good people. more on it all and other good music sent my way over the weekend once i've slept.

thanks to julie lee for sorting my first night out in dublin. good loving work from over 3,000 miles away, sister.

zzzzzzzzzz,

LB

this is somethin' else

Pachelbel's Canon in D major as arranged by Trace Bundy, playing with Sungha Jung.

sacred questions before this 21st century cross

interrogate everything
- ikon, lessons in evanDelism, '08

i've been listening to david's talk at ffm 09. which is about as frustrating a thing as a person can do for pleasure of a rainy sunday. my brother said he enjoyed it because it's like having david in the room. a comfort in a familiar voice. and that's why it's frustrating. david peppers all his talks with, does anyone have anything they want to throw in on that?

and david means it. which is one of the reasons i like him so much, why he's one of my favourite people to be in conversation with. he's got, what seems to me, something like an instinctual Ricoeur thing going on. it's all about the space inbetween, in the exchange, in the Q&A, the back and forth of that inbetween where things get electric. that to me is the space of divine happening.
so i'm speaking to the laptop. saying, yes, i do... i wanna talk about this. wonder around this. i want to see the space spark and breathe. i want how i envisage it to be expanded. see its edges perforated, where my limitations only now see solid boundaries. i want cracks to appear so that more light comes in... but all i have is the laptop and me responding to an audio recording...

perhaps when we have a space in between that's closed, small... claustrophobic, only reaffirming of what we already think or finding ways to reaffirm what we desire to achieve, then the possibility of divine happening is being squeezed out. it's the kind of space in which politicians sit with lawyers and find doublespeak loopholes that will make, pervert, justice to be synonymous with brutality. that's a space that's not opening up room for revelation, for truth. in those spaces, people become bodies. and we become God, rather than G-D being revealed... and i don't know what to do with that... not a fucking clue other than to pray... and praying to G-D i pray is outside of my head... the G-D that suffers here:















david quotes Marx,

religious suffering is at one at the same time the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering.
religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature the heart of a heartless world and the soul of souless conditions.

the man who also said, "religion is the opiate of the masses"... and david poses a question about how we define religion. global consumerism as religion perhaps...?

and so i'm there speaking back to the laptop and asking, what happens if we say it's democracy that's the opiate of the masses? or maybe, the drug's a two party system played out in the media as a false dichotomy of left v. right, that reduces what should be moral action to mere party political?

what is it that's keeping us asleep?

because religion, when it's weak, when our G-D is weak, by which we might mean self sacrificing, might help us speak to power... i'm trying to make sense of how interrogate everything without adding to the brutality... faced with this cross, what do we stand for...? what will i stand for?

i was reminded of this:

If anyone asks: "How did Jesus raise the dead?" kiss me on the lips, say:
like this!

- Rumi, Like This, translation from Rumi's Divan by Fatemeh Keshavarz

when i heard this:

justice is what love looks like in public
- cornel west, ffm09

that's about as religious statement as i've ever heard. we need this space for the apocalyptic, for the conversations from the war room to the campus to the check out aisle to the hospital room waiting room to the prison to keep being broken open with our questions, out interrogations. i know i need it, 'cause i don't know what to do with all of this.

and so by way of cornel west and solomon burke and all the other poets, i find those edges of the conversation that david and others keep bringing to the table, that i talk to as i stand at the kitchen counter with coffee and scrambled eggs... those edges are pushed out wider for me... this, i say, i believe:

it's not the religion of Jesus that keeps me numb... that's what keeps me hoping there's something impossible around the corner... that justice, which is beyond any impeachment, but looks like heart rending change in the name of full force goodness... it keeps me questioning everything, even when i'd rather sleep easy and not have to look this cross in the face.


::

this i used to believe. 4 very different stories on this american life. all worth hearing.

edited to add: as is this sobering conversation between bill moyers and co-creator of the wire, david simon on the truth about what he calls the war on the underclass.

"If you don't need 'em, why extend yourself? Why seriously assess what you're doing to your poorest and most vulnerable citizens? There's no profit to be had in doing anything other than marginalizing them and discarding them."

::

thy kingdom come
thy will be done

LB

(photo from this in the daily dish.)

when all possible outcome seems dark

last night at tuesday group we talked through brueggemann's reading of jeremiah's prayer in Jer32:16-25

it was conversation filled with struggle and doubt, the tension of contradiction and many more questions than answers over what "Jeremiah has YHWH say"...
we talked of the sins of the father being wrought on the child, and our varying struggles to understand or conceive of divine intervention. balanced by the knowledge that to live by the sword means almost inevitably one will die by it. and that even if one generation does not, the next one will reap what has been sown. you don't need to believe in an interventionist G-D to believe in that...

when we pray, we are not meant to systematic theologians, we are meant to be human...

some of the discussion was a wrestling within on what to do as individuals who are part of a national or even international us. i found the themes difficult in light of all the talk of torture... and i thought, not for the first time this week, of Jeremiah Wright's controversial sermon post 9/11... and wondered with the others what it is we are called to be... how do we intervene? what is my responsibility?

someone cited australian activist and writer, dave andrews, who after many years of trying to change others, came to the conclusion that ultimately his job was to change himself and be a witness. someone talked of us being G-D's hands, G-D's light in the world. another spoke of us willing ressurrection with life and compassion. to step out beyond ourselves... if the Bible tells stories of how G-D listens to those who are on the edge, who suffer, then that is our job too...

blessed are you who are care-full for you will find yourselves cared for... and each of us must choose if we want to be doing the caring for, or walk on by...

::

andrew sullivan quoted neil gaiman - i lay awake with a heavy heart.

::

The memos refer to other classified documents -- including an "Effectiveness Memo" and an "IG Report," which explain how "the use of enhanced techniques in the interrogations of KSM, Zubaydah and others . . . has yielded critical information." Why didn't Obama officials release this information as well? Because they know that if the public could see the details of the techniques side by side with evidence that the program saved American lives, the vast majority would support continuing it.

Marc A. Thiessen, The Washington Post

Tuesday, April 21, 2009
(highlights, my own.)

i lay awake hoping that isn't true.

::

yep. i hope not. <-- i fell asleep watching this.

i still believe G-D is the impossible happening...

LB

lost love 2

no amount of coffee
no amount of crying
no amount of whisky
no amount of wine
no no no no no
nothing else will do
i gotta have you
i gotta have you

- the weepies, gotta have you on :: Say I Am You ::

so much of life is spent living with what you cannot have, however much you gotta have it...

LB

for lost love

secret love

i have an online news alert set for the South West USA and was shocked to see the reports of fires in Oklahoma and Texas. yet another sobering reminder of the power of nature and the fragility of human life in its path...

my eye was caught by several place names - Wichita, Amarillo, Choctaw...

the Choctaw Ridge in this song is, as far as i know, in the Mississippi delta, but no matter - the report got me to remembering a car journey, possibly through France, when i was about 9, in which i got into country music thanks to a mixtape my dad had playing on the car stereo. it was this song that did it.

it's been a couple of years now since i (port fueled) sang this at our (much missed) sessions in the kitchen (sometimes at the cottage or at Pádraig's)... it remains for me one of the most haunting songs ever penned. and i think it always will.

LB

when the night has come...

and the land is dark
and the moon
is the only light we see
no i won't be afraid
no i won't be afraid
just as long
as you stand
stand by me

it's curious how singing helps us feel safer in the dark. this video (served up on the daily dish) seemed like an invitation to have faith and solidarity as we wait for what we hope will come...


Stand By Me from David Johnson on Vimeo.

so, 'til the new dawn easters in, i'll keep watch. you, find some rest. i'll try and sing softly.

LB

harsh and delicate

from Sunday: Will and Stox discuss the CFC legacy on the Northern Irish music scene with Stewart Bailey on Sunday Sequence. surreal way to start one's Sunday. were it not for the listen again button i'd have thought i'd dreamt this conversation while dozing. (see the highlight from latest programme Hidden Sermons...)

::

from today:
bravo to Vermont. another significant step in the right direction for gay rights in the US. let's hope 2009 proves to be the year that Ireland achieves marriage equality for all its citizens.

(might as well celebrate something good, since news today is now shifted from the tragic scenes in Italy to be dominated by the brutal emergency budget. the next couple of years will be lean. as if on cue, the weather has turned brutish and we're being blasted into the night by driving wind and rain. just to add to the mood. it's being called the toughest budget in the history of the Irish state. but will the government fall? time will tell.)

another welcome thing: nathan phillips has sent me a lovely gift of his new cd, Postcard. (couple of tracks at that link). i'm gonna curl up under the duvet for the first listen and pore over the lyrics. i think nathan's voice is like dandelion clocks in slow motion. aaron & whitni roche and julie lee feature. it's gonna be good.

you are giving it up
to the one in the rough
of the Cyclamen, violets and thorns
there is life to be won
there are things to be sung
so you pull down the guard
and lift up your voice
to know your not all alone

high on the hill
where you are in the sun
peace comes to you
where you are in its beams
through the sky, over the trees
leaps in patches along the leaves

- where you are, nathan phillips, on Postcard

LB

sounds irish

i have had, for many years, a serious love/hate thing going on with music-related best of lists... but this one avoids the very thing i hate. the irish times has created a list of the 50 best irish music acts right now. which allows for both established and new acts to have an equal crack at the whip based on what their currently up to and their impact on the irish music scene. so it naturally means those lower down the list will rise up on the basis of well received work in the future, and equally those in the top 10 might drop if they don't have longevity or influence on other artists.

if nothing else it's a good reminder of just how distinctly established the irish music industry is, and thus how different the perspectives can be in dublin and belfast. only 100 miles between them but undeniably these are two very distinct scenes. on several levels.

regardless, this is possibly the first music list of its kind i've not felt the need to have an argument with... this is why it's good to have some provisionality...

LB

Mixed with girl not so peaceful, angel and animal*

competing for winner of the stunning CD packaging award of the year, are the latest offerings from bjork, volta and tori amos, american doll posse.

musically, both are concept albums, but very different with it.
have only had a first listen to volta, having heard nothing about this pre-release, bar one personal recommendation, which featured the word challenging. definately in the avant garde bracket, there's a duet with anthony hegarty that's quite beautiful. i admire bjork so much, but i find it hard not to long for her earlier work. this is gonna take several listens to work out in what setting this will be best listened to. she's pushing boundaries still but i can't help but think the challenging nature of the arrangements competes with the sheer beauty of her vocals.

tori on the other hand, has given a much more accessible and rather brilliant 23 track album featuring songs by tori and 4 alter egos, (roll your mouse across that page for names and there's at least 2 great tracks to hear just by leaving the page open), each of whom will perform on her upcoming tour. i spent an extra quid and got the special edition with a dvd. she is exquisitely beautiful, like porcelain. well worth hearing is her interview with jonathon ross yesterday. you can listen again at the bbc 2 website. it's quirky and funny, and restores my faith in the institution of marriage. or her's anyway.

that interview featured a live performance of father's son, which is a gorgeous gorgeous track...with 23 tracks there's a lot of lyrics to get a handle on, and i'm yet to distinguish the identifying characteristics of the different members of the posse by sound alone. this is a multi media project (tori's words) and this is an album that's gonna give hours of discovery and playful interaction.

her vocals and piano playing are, as ever, perfection. in response to a remark by ross that her playing was incredible, she said, "but it's all i can do. i [can't] cook and clean. husband says, 'i didn't marry you to cook and clean so, please, don't'."

this makes me want to go get the albums in her back catalogue i've missed.

so, if you have to make a choice, go for tori. JMHO.

right ikon is tonight. much to do.

LB,x

* from Secret Spell by t. amos

unplugged in toronto

message from my LB's l'il bro with some great live footage...

"saw the frames a couple of weeks ago - an early show which was a bit crap (they only got an hour and a half) but it was magic nonetheless... the cool thing was that i got a pass for an advance screening of ONCE and there was a q&a with the director and an acoustic set from glen hansard afterwards - it was in a word AMAZING...
here are some youtube links to some fan footage of the night:
falling slowly
all the way down
say it to me now "

thanks bro, hoping QFT will include this in their summer screenings...

LB,x

all these ices

hey,

in a major rush packing for ikon cyndicate weekend in corrymeela so this'll be v short.

go here for an alanis morissette cover of my humps by the black eyed peas. thanks to jonny for the headz up. a brilliant bit of pop critique. if the lyrics in the original are disturbing, then in this version they are something like chilling.

have a great weekend folks.

LB,x

nice to announce...

iTunes' free single of the week is from none other than iain archer.

i missed iain's gig at the empire last week but Chris says it was a good 'un.

worth checking out for some late night chillage.

LB,x