Totally Dublin 55 by Totally Dublin

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TOTALLY DUBLIN April 2009 ADMISSION FREE totallydublin.ie

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READMEFIRST

CONTENTS 055

He said one of his heroes when growing up was Frank Stapleton. I had just been on a plane from England and went straight to South William St as quickly as I could but I had to be content with a pint in Grogan’s. The opening of Cheap as Chips, the mixed-media exhibition in Circus, was over. But many of the Dublin creatives were hanging out in the pub across the street. I got talking to David Kitt, and apart from football we were talking about his new album and doing some story on him in the magazine. Yet another plain interview with him in an Irish publication wouldn’t really set hearts racing, we concurred. Walking home I was still thinking about it. He seems to know a lot of interesting people. And I thought of the deadly little publication in New York called Me Magazine and their ‘Me and My Friends’ type concept. Alright, that’s what we’ll do. Kitt and caboodle. David picked a couple of interesting friends, wrote a little introduction on each and took their picture. We asked them about inspiration, first impressions of David, and how they spend their Sundays. All you have to do is run off to the store and buy his album. But is this issue Totally David Kitt? Not quite, we’ve also been fishing.

8 Roadmap Lock up you cupboards

50 Barfly Pantimime

14 Deadly Catch A week as trawler trash on the high Irish sea

52 Gastro Bo’ thai

20 David Kitt and Friends He’ll never be alone again 29 Listings We know what’s happening, when it’s happening 46 Monitor A good natter with Polly Scattergood 48 Upstage Curtains open on Arthur Miller 49 Artsdesk Sweets!

54 Bitesize Another month, another box of cupcake perfection 56 Restaurant Guide Eddie Rockets not included 60 Cinema Monsters! Aliens! Mike Tyson! 64 Games Pegglechess Boy 66 Audio Bringing tapes back into fashion

Peter Steen-Christensen

EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH KATIE GILROY

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Every day, 10am, there she’d be. Our resident sweetheart and Southsider extraordinaire, Katie, bum firmly on squeaky office chair, typing away on her Elliot Smith-emblazoned laptop. She didn’t moan when we set her to licking our envelopes, not a word of complaint when we put her on listing every theatre in Dublin’s 25 mile radius, and not a mutter of dissent when we sent her up the chimney to dislodge the three dead pigeons blocking the passage. Then, and it took us far too long to realize, but then we realized she was an even better writer than she is a chimney-sweep. And that’s saying something. Now, every month she breaks our laptops via the mouth-watering words on Dublin’s tastiest treasures she sends us, causing big wads of drool to circuit-bend our keyboards. We also recently discovered she has a bit of a thing for Clint Eastwood. In a creepy way.

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CREDITS 055 Totally Dublin 56 Upper Leeson St. Dublin 4 (01) 668 8188 Publisher Stefan Hallenius stefan@hkm.ie (01) 687 0695 087 139 0031 Editor Peter Steen-Christensen peter@hkm.ie 087 665 2908 (01) 668 8188 Assistant Editor Daniel Gray daniel@hkm.ie (01) 668 8188 Art Director Lauren Kavanagh lauren@hkm.ie (01) 668 8188 Advertising Stefan Hallenius stefan@hkm.ie (01) 479 1111 087 139 0031 Sofia Thorsell sofia@hkm.ie 085 668 8184 Sean Jackson sean@hkm.ie (01) 668 8289

PA to Publisher Emma Brereton emma@hkm.ie (01) 668 8188 087 279 0179 Credit Control & Accounts John Devine accounts@hkm.ie (01) 479 1115

" XBSN BOE SFMBYJOH SFTUBVSBOU UP HP GPS MVODI EJOOFS BOE UBQBT &VSPQFBO XJOFT UP DIPPTF GSPN 7PUFE CFTU OFXDPNFS CZ UIF SFTUBVSBOU BTTPDJBUJPO PG *SFMBOE 3FDPNNFOEFE CZ UIF .JDIFMJO (VJEF 0QFO -VODI 5VFTEBZ 'SJEBZ QN QN %JOOFS 5VFTEBZ 4BUVSEBZ QN QN 1FNCSPLF 4USFFU 6QQFS %VCMJO 5 XXX EBY JF

Website Cillian McDonnell editor@totallydublin.ie (01) 668 8197 086 384 7639 Contributors Emma Brereton Brian Coldrick Conor Creighton John Devine Rich Gilligan Katie Gilroy Sheena Hadden Ruth Hegarty Andrew Judge Chris Judge James Kelleher Roisin Kiberd David Kitt Darragh McCabe Jamie Nanci Ciara Norton Jade Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Callaghan Loreana Rushe Steve Ryan Kara Solarz Emma Taaffe Kaitlin Young

Sales Manager John Carey john.carey@hkm.ie (01) 668 8185 087 903 6853

All advertising enquiries contact (01) 668 8185 Read more at www.totallydublin.ie Totally Dublin is a monthly HKM publication and is distributed from 500 selected distribution points. The average monthly audit of Totally Dublin for the period January - June 2008 was 50,003 as certified by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or part without the permission from the publishers. The views expressed in Totally Dublin are those of the respective contributors and are not necessarily shared by the magazine or its staff. The magazine welcomes ideas and new contributors but can assume no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs or illustrations.

Totally Dublin ISSN 1649-511X

Front cover image: David Kitt by Rich Gilligan

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Roadmap

Cryptograms :: Andy Gilmore is a New York artist, musician, designer, and allround nice guy. We stumbled across his hypnotic art while dossing one lunchtime, and woke up three days later thinking we were chickens. Recalling those headwrecking optical illusions you’d stare at for hours at as a kid, or, more recently, Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion artwork (suitably Gilmore says ‘Animal Collective has been listened to quite a lot over the years in the development of my work’) but more complex, and less stoner-friendly. Check out more at http://kunstformen.blogspot.com/

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Roadmap

Finger Food :: Israeli clay sculptor Ronit Baranga's work veers from the cutely off-kilter to the smack-in-the-face surreal. Transposing anatomical parts into clay crockery (her hands hauntingly grasping through dinnerplates will make you think twice before eating your granny's Sunday roast off her finest china) in a playful, witty manner, Baranga's work are more psychological headfuck than potential wedding present. Our personal favourites are these fingered teacups. Even if they do want to make us put locks on all our cupboards. www.ronitbaranga.com/

3 It's Eye Time :: The clock. We've done everything with it, right? Sundials. Cuckoos. LCD display. Not quite so, posits Hong Kong designer Mike Mak. Taking an idea so simple it makes Letterland look difficult, Mak has designed the part-practical, part-adorable Eyeclock as a whole new way of, um, looking at time. It's simple: The left eye is your hour clock, while the right is your minutes. You could sit all day staring at the little chap's peepers roving around like a pervert hovering outside Redz on a Saturday night. Nice one, Mak. Next: reinvent the wheel.

Scribblez :: It's perfectly acceptable to waste hours on Facebook, but take out a notebook and pen and you seem no better than a back-of-the-classroom emo teen. However, internet collective Scribble Club gives pen-wielding timewasters a showcase. Founder Lisa Currie sends out monthly 'scribble sheet' templates ,which club members can embellish, scan and send to the club Flickr pool. The results are concise but highly personal and impressively detailed, like little visual haiku, only less mortifying. A more heartfelt approach to the anonymity of the internet, Scribble Club lets you recapture the habits beaten out of you in school. http://thescribbleprojectclub.tumblr.com/

http://www.mikemak.com/

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WORDS JOHN DEVINE The first time I ever paddled out into a surf break was on the sunkissed coastline of Kuta Beach, Bali, mostly as a vain attempt to look cool in my new Bangkok market bermuda shorts. Since then my surfing ventures, like many an Irishman before me, have involved getting changed into a damp wetsuit on the west coast of Ireland while standing on the only towel I've remembered to bring as the rain pelts down on my newly blue complexion; not the scantily-clad voyeuristic displays seen on Hawaiian sports channels. So when I heard that new Irish surf movie, Waveriders, was getting its general release, I jumped at the chance to ask director Joel Conroy what exactly it is that drives Irish surfers to brave our elements.

ABSOLUTE RIDE BUSTIN’ SURFBOARDS

You had a great reception last year, winning the Audience Award at the Dublin International Film Festival... The premiere was great. It was a real early screening, and it was a year later before it was actually released. It took that long to hit the screens because it was a small independent production and we really didn’t have the manpower and the resources to be flying around the world. So quite obviously you have an emotional attachment to the subject matter itself. I do. It happens so quickly, you know, when you’re standing on the coast looking out at a wave and there’s a load of people surfing - you don’t really see what it is. But when you bring your camera out there into the waves with them and film it you can actually get to tangibly see what’s going on. The idea is to take people into the waves with the camera. Why did you feel the need to make a distinctly Irish surf film? I suppose it was a way to show off the beauty of Ireland, specifically the West Coast. You can go away for a weekend, get lashed in the rain and see that side. But surfers see a whole different aspect of the country. When you’re out in the water looking back at land you’re in all these nooks and crannies, nothing beats that. We wanted to make a film to present that not just to the surfers, but to everybody. Was it difficult to maintain a budget? I heard you had to extend the shooting to catch one of the swells. Yeah, it was difficult to get funding but the project built momentum and we were able to get the right people on board. It took a long time to actually get up and running. We had to shoot seasonally in Ireland. We also shot in Hawaii and in California.

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Was it important for you when making Waveriders to steer away from stereotypes, the beach bum attitude to surfing? Very much so, because I don’t think that attitude exists in this country. They’re hardcore here. There’s this whole subculture - surfers out there everyday in rain, snow or hail, but out there exploring the whole country. There’s no one else that would appreciate the natural environment, the coast, the way that they do. Will this film make Ireland a surfing mecca? Jeez, I hope not! There was a lot of discussion between me and the surfers before we made it. We made decisions to film at some spots and exclude others, even though it would have been easier to film at the more ‘secret’ spots. What’s different from this movie and others of its ilk, like Riding Giants or Step Into Liquid? With the exception of Step Into Liquid or Riding Giants, I think there’s a narrative that a bunch of other surf films

don’t have, and I would hope that this film would go into the bracket of Step into Liquid and Riding Giants – it’s got a narrative and it’s got a storyline. We tried to experiment as much as possible and weave a history into it, but to tell the story in the now. I have to ask you, because one of the girls in the office was bugging me: why Cillian Murphy as the narrator? His voice, really. He’s so cool, y’know? He’s understated and underrated, I think. He loved the film. Through his agent we sent him a copy and one day the phone rang and he says ‘I didn’t think a surf film could sustain 80 minutes’ but he was totally into it. Does he surf? He does. He’ll be even dreamier to the girls in the office now. Waveriders went on general release on 3 April.

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WORDS CONOR CREIGHTON PICTURES STEVE RYAN

DEADLY CATCH A WEEK ON AN IRISH FISHING TRAWLER, WITH AN EGYPTIAN CREW, DURING RAMADAN

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t’s important that the last woman you see before you board a fishing trawler is reasonably hot. She doesn’t need to be knock-you-down gorgeous — she just needs to look like she’d do for a wee shag and a cuddle on a cold night. You need to try your hardest to burn her image into your retinas, because after a week at sea surrounded by nothing but smelly men, saltwater, and dead fish, the memory of her and the faint hope that she might be walking along that exact same pier when you return — maybe waiting just for you in those same jeans that made her arse look like a couple of queen potatoes in a swimming cap — is the only thing that keeps you from throwing yourself overboard from boredom and frustration. The fishing vessel Argo K moors in Howth. Howth is famous for couples. There’s a little piece of headland and a windy lane, and that’s where they go late at night to watch over the bay and the city lights and fish around in each other’s pants. Meanwhile, the Argo K leaves the bay every week to go fishing for prawns. It fishes in the most radioactive sea in Western Europe, off the coast of the infamous Sellafield power plant. Its two towers face onto the Irish Sea like a giant “feck you.” And in no amazing coincidence, the Irish

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town directly across from the nuclear plant has the highest rate of cancer and disabled children in the whole country. It’s no big deal to the fishermen, though. “Sure you might find a few three-eyed haddock in the hopper if we go over there,” says Adrian, the skipper of the Argo K. “You find some quare fish over there all right, but sure you find quare fish everywhere these days.” Adrian is from North Donegal. He never sleeps. He’s only 30, and he’s skinny like a teenager — that’ll be all the instant coffee and roll-ups in his diet. At most he gets two hours every couple of days, but you know that he’s just rolling round, awake in his bunk, thinking about what the prawns might be up to. Adrian is a career fisherman. On land he does stupid things and gets his wrist slapped by John Law, but at sea he’s a wise old hunter who smells his way to the prey and pulls in two-ton hauls when everybody else is catching maggots. Adrian loves fishing; the Egyptian crew don’t, but it’s the only work they can legitimately get in Ireland. So that’s what they do. They fish for prawns. There’s not much money to be made on fishing boats in Ireland anymore. Wages are still divvied up depending on the profit the boat makes, but it’s not like the old

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days when fishermen could buy a new car every month just to crash it into a wall. Nowadays the boats go through about a thousand Euro in diesel every 30 hours and most of them are so heavily mortgaged that even if they were to fish every day of the month, they’d still not do much more than chip away at the interest. The Argo K fishes every day. It has two skippers and it never stops. It just barely touches the harbour wall before a fresh crew and skipper do a swap and take it out again. Consequently, it’s the biggest rust heap in the harbour. “If any boat was out this much it’d look this rusty,” says Adrian. “We used to see the Argo up home when I was a kid and I always thought, ‘What a crock it is.’ Little did I know that I’d be skipper of it one day.” The Argo K is a Russian boat from the 80s. The current owner, Adrian’s boss, mortgaged it for a million Euro and put his home up as collateral. Adrian's boss will be the owner of a rusty old fishing boat until he dies. Life on a fishing trawler is simple. Every six hours the nets are brought in and the catch is processed. The prawns get their heads ripped off before they are thrown into baskets (everything else gets dumped overboard — only the crabs and the occasional strong cod are still alive at that stage. The boat leaves behind a mile-long trail of dead fish floating on the surface for the gulls to get fat on). The processing can take anything up to five hours if your skipper’s hunting well. You’re standing for so long that your ankles swell up to the point where you’ve got to nearly rip your boots off at the end of the day. Your wrists swell up too and your back goes through short spasms of pain as you try to keep your balance while beheading a thousand

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prawns. Some of the prawns fight back and bite through your gloves to the flesh, so you crush them and watch them die slowly — that’s the way of the sea, matey. In the remaining hour or so you’ve got before the next haul, you eat, sleep, shit, get stoned, and walk around on deck trying to get phone reception so you can message your girl with a request for something dirty. The Egyptian boys all have Irish girls — they’ve got pictures of them on their mobile phones — big girls with black teeth and IRA tats on their arms. “Irish woman is crazy,” a crewmember named Hassan says. “They happy, then they drink so much that they cry, then they drink again and they happy again.” Hassan has a tattoo of a seagull on his bicep done in Indian ink. Above it he has the letter “M” for his mother. There are two bunkrooms on the boat with four beds in each. They’re blacked out and right next to the engine room, so after a day or two of steaming at sea they’re warm and smelly like saunas. At the end of a shift, you stumble into one and flop wherever you can and hope there isn’t an Egyptian lying beneath you. There’s no shower and the crew never bothers to change their jocks or socks because everything already stinks of fish. You smoke in bed, you snore loudly, and when you need to pull one off, you do — regardless of whoever’s beneath or above you. The boat is rolling and squeaking enough already, so you probably won’t get caught. The crew were observing Ramadan during our time with them. They set alarms all over the boat so they could wake up and say prayers five times a day, individually. That’s six Egyptians with five alarms each, coupled with the skipper’s alarm to let us

know when it was time to haul the nets in. After eight in the evening, we’d all sit down to a feast of the fish that the quotas forbade us from keeping. Sharks, crabs, haddock, black sole, all grilled and boiled and tossed onto plates made out of newspaper. Then we’d all get stoned and listen to Egyptian dance music in a kitchen that was just about small enough to be able to touch both walls when you stretched your arms. That was the only time the Egyptians ate. Apart from that they went around starving, just munching on cigarettes. Most boats in Ireland are crewed by foreigners. Irishmen won’t work that hard for that kind of money. The crews are Filipino, Egyptian, or Russian. All the skippers want Russians because they’re the sort of meatheads who’d lose a finger, stick it back on with fishing net, and keep on gutting. The Egyptians are a bit softer. Once, one of the crew had to be airlifted off the boat when the anchor winch swung loose and caught him in the ear. He passed out. “You have to more than pass out to get out of work on the boats,” says Adrian. “He was only acting up to go home — and he cost me 1,500 euros for the airlift.” He pauses. “But it can be dangerous sometimes, yeah. Lads lose arms. I heard of a guy who got pulled in two by the net cable. He died, so he did.” After a few days at sea you fall into a rhythm. You remember to stand with the roll of the wave so you don’t smack your head on every doorway. Whenever your hands are free for a second you get your tobacco out and roll a cigarette for later. And if you think you’re going to have more than half an hour to yourself, you head down to a bunk and get some rest. According to the British Secret Service, sleep deprivation is the most effective means of torture there is. You keep anyone awake long enough, until their skin is peeling and their nails are chewed away, and they’ll tell you anything. Perhaps this is why Adrian sits up in the wheelhouse all day long and, apart from runs down to the galley to make coffee or bacon sandwiches, talks shit. He’s got nothing to look at but the sea and a shitty television screen that sometimes gets a couple of terrestrial channels — if we come within a hundred kilometers of land. He sits there with chronic red eyes, shifting around in the swivel chair in the same t-shirt he’s been wearing since the trip began. The trawler skippers all chat to each other via CB radio. They speak like they’ve just come out of yearlong comas. “Three of the boys I just spoke to are jacking it in,” says Adrian. “The way the authorities have the quota system arranged, it’s impossible to make money from fishing anymore. It would make you depressed, maybe, but it takes an awful lot to make me depressed. I was thinking of moving to Alaska anyway. Go fish king crabs. I heard a boy went up there and bought a house after one summer. That’s some money!” He pauses to call and check on a few bets on his satellite phone. “I put money on a couple of horses this afternoon,” he says, "And my one's still running now." TOTALLY DUBLIN

The porn on the boat is tame stuff — English-college-students-and-Page-3-girls shit. The Egyptian boys get a bit embarrassed whenever they see the magazines. They’ve got their own pictures of girls on their phones but they get off on headshots alone. They don’t need big-jug specials. “Some guys go out on the boats for a month,” says Adrian. “You would go a wee bit crazy, yeah you would. Boys get back on land and get a feed of pints into them and go a wee bit mad, so they do.” Adrian’s not mad, but given a few more years he might be talking to the seagulls. At sea you spend as much time with them as you do with other humans. They live easy, these birds. The gulls always seem to know which boat is going to be hauling and when they can get a free feed. So do the dolphins and the porpoises. They all come dragging themselves along behind us like starving kids chasing an ice-cream van. Boats are superstitious old things. You should never paint one in green, since it’s the color of land, and you should never say the word “pig” at sea because pigs can’t swim — if they ever try, they end up slitting their own throat with their hooves. The Argo K’s deck is painted boldly in green. So is the roof of the galley. We throw the word pig around like we were fishing for them. The Argo K is an accident waiting to happen. The high point of a fishing trip is the halfway mark because then you can start talking about the things you miss on land without torturing yourself. You know you’re over the hump and will be heading back sooner than later. You can talk about women and know that in just a few days you’ll be in their company again. But Adrian’s more about the drink. He sees a beer advert on the small TV screen upstairs and jumps out of his seat to pretend to grab it. Pulling into harbour at the end of a fishing trip is like no other feeling. You’re shell-shocked. You smell like you’ve been rolling round in dead bodies for a week. It takes a while to get your land legs back again, and then you do and two pints later they’re gone again. The Egyptian boys don’t drink, so they go home and sleep for a day and a night and a day and then call their bits of Irish rough for some loving. Steve and I head back to Dublin City and start drinking. We drink everything in the house, knocking back vinegar and floor cleaner when the wine runs dry. We get refused at a bar and piss all over their doorway. We ask the Dame Street deli girls with facial hair what time they clock off at. We’d have brought homeless girls home with us if we’d found them. We hop on a bin truck until we get pulled off by the bin men. We carry on till the next morning and then collapse and don’t get up again for two days. Adrian meanwhile, drives back to Donegal. It takes him about two and a half hours, doubling the speed limit most of the way. When he gets back home, he says hi to his mum, changes his t-shirt, and heads out for the evening to get himself into mischief and dream of being out at sea again. http://conorandstevetv.wordpress.com/

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live with that kind of uncertainty. I don’t really want to be under that stress while making music. It can give you a certain hunger but... particularly when you’re a solo artist, without the band solidarity, you spend a lot of the time just motivating yourself. Where else does that hunger come from then? When you’re a teenager and you start making music you get such a hit off it and think “This is all I need.” I really feel more than ever, that in the last couple of years, through fumbling around with an idea in my head and working on the vision of it and trying to realize it... that moment you’re chasing the whole time, every second, it’s completely returned. It’s that whole Joe Strummer thing: “No input, no output.” You have to feed it all the time, take in other works, other people’s visions. Somehow I’d been drifting from that, and when I came back to it I couldn’t really stop. It came down to having to restrict myself a little bit, not just sit down at the computer for hours, because that road can go on for infinity. What I’m doing at the minute is I’m collecting samples from other records and building up a library... I want to make a record like Nas’ Illmatic. Ten songs, 40 minutes, but with some singing, as well as just rapping. Illmatic mixed with After The Gold Rush. Any Leaving Cert. English teacher, struggling to make MacBeth more appealing than sending dirty MMS messages underneath the desk will tell you that you learn most about a man by what others tell you about him. So when good friend (and jolly good musician) Neil O’Connor of Somadrone says that at the advent of Ireland’s singer-songwriter era “David stood out, I guess because he was essentially a singer-songwriter but he used different musical elements to take himself away from being one,” we should take out our notebooks and write that quote down. When kindred geek spirit Sharon Phelan styles him as a “a tall, skinny and hairy intellectual and idealist” we should remember that as a key quote. And when I say that David Kitt talks like a blissedout junkie waiting for his next hit when it comes to music-making, with a maniacal intuition for his chosen drug, maybe scribble it down in your character description. Enough of what everyone else has to say on the matter though. What does David Kitt have to say about himself? Is being a musician in Ireland the most inadvisable career path right now? Yeah, I reckon so. Musicians coming through now probably look at somebody like me and think “He’s minted.” Unless you live at home with your folks and get the bus into town every day it’s nearly impossible to live off it. Like Richie Egan said at the Choice Awards “Great, the prizemoney’s going to pay the rent for a month.” I don’t know how much I can

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Would you put that out as David Kitt? Yep. I mean my first record has a Roland 303 and a 909 in it, there’s always been a sort of hip-hop influence there. It’s weird when people tell me “Awh, yer gettin’ well into yer beats.” I saw Wu-Tang Clan on their first world tour, like! Back in 1994, I was working in a bar in Paris and they were playing in a school hall. All nine members, playing stuff like Tearz, black combats, black boots and smoking crack backstage. Did you get the t-shirt? Couldn’t bleeding afford the t-shirt. It was amazing though... Anyway this is talking about the NEXT record! What was the ‘input’ into this record then? With this record, a lot of it was following my imagination without reigning it in. The breakthrough was reaching a point where I had the same freedom with synths and machines that I have with an acoustic guitar. I spent two weeks just sitting at my kitchen table with my laptop, turntable, and CD player, just sampling songs. It’s like making your own stock to make soup, instead of using a stock cube. All these little preparatory bits that need to go in to giving the end product your own flavour. One day I’d be making Detroit leftfield techno, the next some weird Toronto soul thing. That process might have never ended, and I’d have happily played around forever and made a disjointed, weird record (and I’ll probably put that out as an Out-Takes kind of album), but

then it started taking a thematic shape, a lot more personal than the sort of fictionalized, fantastical stuff that I’m singing about on the Spilly Walker record [David’s synthpop side-project with his brother Rob, with an album due out this year too]. Some of it is very dark, but that’s exactly where the songs were coming from. It’s probably bolder, and better. I never considered myself to be a great lyric-writer. If you get two or three really memorable lines you’re happy, and there’s that on there for me. You take a pretty big interest in new, subterranean Irish music, right? Yeah, it’s really positive at the minute. It’s good to see the language changing. Music had got so stale, derivate, predictable, boring. But now college kids, like Angkor-Wat, Patrick Kelleher, Hunter Gatherer are coming through, and expressing themselves individually through this rich heritage of other fantastic music. We got wrapped up in this whole Make It Big, Make It Off The Island thing, but now there’s a new wave of music that’s just about self-expression, personal interest, you can see it so much thanks to the influx of the amount of music everyone can find on the internet. When I was 17 or 18 you HAD to make a choice between the Aphex Twin record and the Plastikman record, and you’d get home with one of them and wish you had bought the other. My big thing at the minute is getting the most value I can out of everything I own. Because I’m so broke, obviously. If equipment doesn’t have any use to me anymore, or I’m done with records, I’ll pass them around. You’re such a sponge when you’re that age, and I like to think I am one to some degree. A slightly less functioning sponge. You’ve always struck me as strongly individualist... Is it more difficult to work without a collective support? I think I’m a... gregarious loner. I like company, but... it’s not like I’m a social retard, but I spend a lot of time alone. The only conflict I see really is that you go looking for something in social situations that isn’t always there. I don’t think anybody’s necessarily a leader the way we paint them out to be, in art, culture, history, wherever you like. We always set benchmarks, but those people are usually people who are good at getting attention and not necessarily innovators. If you look at DFA - they’re not innovators, they just know what way the zeitgeist is moving. I’ve seen trends go around so many times... I’ve seen Hall & Oates go around twice! It all gets quite predictable, but you realize that it’s a collective consciousness thing. When I was making these records I was totally on my own, without any popular culture influence, but I went away to New York and saw other people moving in the same direction as me, it’s just the way we’re propelled forward. David Kitt’s The Nightsaver is out now on Gold Spillin’ records TOTALLY DUBLIN

Ruth Kitt What's your first memory of David? Apart from remembering him as a gentle and easy-going brother frequently refereeing fights between my younger brother and I, I have one distinct memory - at a very young age I went to see him in a school play where he was dressed in an illuminous skeleton costume dancing robotically to Michael Jackson's Thriller, and it scared the life out of me! What's your worst memory of David? At the age of seven he coerced me into spending my communion money on a Duran Duran tape and to this day I still don't like them! Sum up your relationship with David in five words. Close, loyal, honest, supportive and understanding.

David on Ruth

When I started going to The Temple of Sound to see Billy Scurry playing I was often referred to as Ruth The Buzzerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s brother, my sister having earned quite a reputation on the scene as the life and soul of the party. She still has that same endearing glint and appetite for life which these days she brings to her job as a teacher at St. Peter Apostle Junior School in Neilstown. One of my most treasured moments of recent years was seeing her walking up the aisle to get married to her husband Charlie.

If David was a cartoon character what cartoon character would he be? Top Cat, because he's cool and has a great sense of style with that purple hat and waistcoat. Who was the biggest influence on you growing up? My parents even though they didn't always influence me during my rebellious teenage years. Who or what inspires you now? My husband Charlie, my friends and my family. How do you spend your Sundays? I spend a lot of weekends out of Dublin in Wexford or Donegal. If in Dublin I like to hang out in the city and usually catch a movie, or head over to the folks for a Sunday roast. What do you think of The Nightsaver? I love it. It's the best album yet. I'm so proud of Dave's talents. How would the Kitt family fare on Family Fortunes? Pretty good, especially if the surveys had anything to do with music. Although I don't know if Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d get a word in with the rest of the gang alongside me!

TOTALLY DUBLIN

Donal Dineen Where did you first meet David? We met in Brussels at the Royal Botanique Gardens where he was supporting Tindersticks. We were both big fans and still are. The conversation from that night still continues. What were your first impressions of him? Same as now - easygoing, mad to talk and good fun. Sum up your relationship with David in five words. Usually We Avoid Difficult Questions. If David was a cartoon character what cartoon character would he be? I think the Muppet Show would be more his thing, if only it were a cartoon. Who was the biggest influence on you growing up? I grew up in Kerry. Up until I discovered music aged nine or ten, my biggest infleunce would have been my family. We lived on a small farm. Influential things were several ditches away. Who or what inspires you now? The creative things people make or make up and say, or more generally how people cope with what life throws at them.

Will there still be radio in ten years time? Most definitely. What's your most personally valuable record? That changes every day but whichever one’s the current favourite is the most valuable at any given time. Right now, it´s one Kittser passed onto me: Woke Up Laughing by Robert Palmer. What do you think of The Nightsaver? I think it realises potential in lots of departments. The songs are great and the high standard of production is there at all times to back it up. He should be proud of it. What would your rap name be? DJ Wrap.

David on Donal

As with Billy and Brian i was fan of Dineen's work long before we became friends. He continues to nourish the more curious ears and minds out there with his Small Hours Today FM radio show. He's been very generous to me with his time especially over the last couple of years and my regular updates on developments in his musical universe are an essential source of inspiration. That and his verbal dexterity.

Brian Mooney

I make a living on the edge of the music business to live, and to make music.

Where did you first meet David? In The Olympia about ten years ago. He played three songs and the last one was Headphones... it went on for 15 minutes.

What's your most personally valuable record? I lost all my vinyl over the years, but recently got the record player going. Now it's vinyl or nothing. Tom Winslow's Clearwater.

What were your first impressions of him? I thought that this is the music we needed right at that time and this is the man to deliver it... but Headphones should have gone on for 20 minutes longer. Sum up your relationship with David in five words. Always a magical mystery tour.

David on Brian

The two people I’ve worked with most over the last nine years are Jimmy Eadie and Brian Mooney, a lot of the time on the road it’s just the three of us. We’ve been through all kinds of crazy shit together. Quite recently we ended up pulling a cow out of ditch for a farmer in Mullingar between soundcheck and gig, we just got back in time and went on covered in farm juice. They were both members of one of my favourite Irish bands The Idiots. Brian runs Trust Me I’m A Thief records and has a great album coming out soon under the name Beautiful Unit.

If David was a cartoon character what cartoon character would he be? Betty Boop.

What do you think of The Nightsaver? Actually haven't heard the finished work. I've heard most of it in the van through various different stages, and most times it carried us home in the night. The van stereo became reference speakers in a way. It's full of great tunes perfect for late nights/early mornings.

Who was the biggest influence on you growing up? Bob Dylan, Neil Young and the Velvets. Who or what inspires you now? Lily, my daughter, and life itself. Do you prefer being on the creative or the business side of music? TOTALLY DUBLIN

Sharon Phelan (Monster Truck) Where did you first meet David? I first met David a couple of years ago in Whelans through a mutual friend. We spent most of the night talking about the composer Harry Partch. We've now moved on to Moondog. What were your first impressions of him? Kindred geek spirit. Sum up your relationship with David in five words. Sitting-in-Simon's(Place)-drinking-tea. If David was a cartoon character what cartoon character would he be? Phineas Freakears of Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers fame. The Gilbert Sheltondrawn character (based on Abbi Hoffman) is a tall, skinny and hairy intellectual and idealist. Who was the biggest influence on you growing up? As a kid growing up on a desert island, there wasn't much to do except build sandcastles and play music. Two people I remember being around whom I was completely in awe of were my brothers trumpet teacher - a deaf political reformist who had to play the trumpet into the corners of rooms in order to feel the vibrations, and my piano teacher who came from a long lineage of Maharaja court musicians.

Who or what inspires you now? Granny Phelan. Not only can she predict the weather, at 82 she can still do a mean Irish jig. Do you have a personal motto? In this day and age: "Make it new". What's your favourite space to create in? My notebook. Though I do have a nice space in the artist-run Redspace, home to the Joy Gallery and many inspiring individuals. What do you think of The Nightsaver? Based on the well known tautology on natural selection: Those that are fit are those that survive five albums and (re)produce a sixth. Those that survive five albums and (re) produce a sixth are fit. What's your favourite Knock Knock joke? Will you remember me in an hour? Yes. Will you remember me in a day? Yes. Will you remember me in a week? Yes. Will you remember me in a month? Yes. Will you remember me in a year? Yes. I don't think you will. Yes, I will.

David on Sharon

My life would be a lot more dull if it wasn't for Sharon's tips and reminders on matters of musical and cultural significance. She studies Music and Media Technologies at TCD and is a curator at Monstertruck amongst other things, she packs a lot in. She's my most elegant companion and my kind of nerd.

Knock, knock! Who's there? See.. you've forgotten me already!

Billy Scurry Where did you first meet David? Can't actually remember, but then again I honestly can't remember anything... I left all my brain cells in the nineties. What were your first impressions of him? Seemed a very laidback, easy going sort of dude who was into talking about music and when doing so, became quite emotive. He'd even get up dance, gyrate and moonwalk just to show you how the rhythm in a song went. Top class. Sum up your relationship with David in five words. We meet, we talk, we drink, we dance (I know its not five words...) If David was a cartoon character what cartoon character would he be? Garfield. Who was the biggest influence on you growing up? Darkie Bolger. Who or what inspires you now? People who care. How do you spend your Sundays?

TOTALLY DUBLIN

Been doing a Sunday brunch upstairs in No. 3 Fade Street with live music and stuff on the terrace so I'm there every Sunday. What's your most personally valuable record? Have a battered old copy of Procul Harum which belonged to an uncle who died before I was born. It was in our house when I was a kid so I kept it. What do you think of The Nightsaver? Can definitely hear Dave's techno, folk and blues influences melding together throughout the album, which I really like. Sort of reminds me of The Beloved at times. Think it'll be one of those 'lights off and sound up' albums with different aspects and layers which will shine through and grab hold of you with more and more listens.

David on Billy

Presently the host with the most at No. 3 Fade St.’s Sunday brunch, Billy is a connoisseur with a deep appreciation of many of life’s finer things. He’s been working the shoulders and putting a spring in my step with his dj sets since the mid-90s, no matter what he’s playing it’s got that funk. He’s an example to me of how to stay close to music.

Otto from the Simpsons? Only kidding. He’s more of a Millhouse. Who was the biggest influence on you growing up? I was an indie kid at heart, so it was an array of people like Thurston Moore, Lou Barlow, Steve Malkmus. Out of them all, I guess I would go with Thurston. I met him once before and it was strange. Well, Sonic Youth did say ‘Kill Your Idols’.

Neil O'Connor (Somadrone) Where did you first meet David? That’s a tough one. I think it was the Lisdoonvarna Festival in the RDS, 2000. I was playing there with Goodtime John. I had seen David in the Funnel Bar in 1999 and was into it.

David on Neil

I’ve been a fan of Somadrone since the first ep release on ten inch which I have two treasured copies of. Neil’s the doctor who plays in five bands, the scale of his vision and the effort he puts into realising it are a real inspiration to me. He’s also a great man to have on the road. There will be singing on his next record. Exciting times ahead.

What were your first impressions of him? I think you know when you meet a real music fan. It’s the way they express themselves. Music is a hard language to define so when you find a common thread with someone it’s great. It’s like being really into a football team and not wearing the jersey. This was the advent of the ‘singer-songwriter era’. He stood out. I guess because he was essentially a singersongwriter but he used different musical elements to take himself away from being one. Sum up your relationship with David in five words. Social-music-vices-delay-machines.

Who or what inspires you now? I have just finished a PhD in music, so an overexposure and a seven day/twelve hour shifts of research and writing music has left me burned out slightly. Walking, talking, reading and watching movies. I am reading Madame Bovary by Flaubert, its great. Go on the heroine! I recently saw Eureka by Nicholas Roeg. Jim O'Rourke named his albums after his films, Eureka, Bad Timing and Insignificance. All great movies. Who is the wisest person you know? The Internet? Not sure. Being wise is very subjective. What's your most personally valuable record? The one copy I have of my first 10” vinyl E.P. What do you think of The Nightsaver? It's great, I love it. I realize that 'return to form' is generally overused, but i am gonna say it anyway. Feels like a ‘driving’ album. I can tell that most of it was written between 12-4am, after a heavy night or in between it. Those hours can be euphoric, at times. Its Yours is unbelievable. I don’t know how he got that guitar sound. I am gonna steal it. He really hit somewhere on that one... Paddy Irishman, Paddy Englishman and Paddy Scotsman walk into a bar... The barman turns around and says: "What is this, some kind of joke?"

If David was a cartoon character what cartoon character would he be? TOTALLY DUBLIN

DAVID KITT

Billy Scurry

The Idiots

Former DJ at The Temple of Sound, legend, example and now host at No 3 Fade Street Sunday Brunch.

One of David’s favourite Irish bands of yesteryear.

Jimmy Eadie Ruth “The Buzzer” Kitt

Brian Mooney Former singer of The Idiots. Now runs Trust Me I’m A Thief Records and is David’s manager.

Also used to be in The Idiots, is now taking care of the sound for David

Used to be the life and soul of the party. Now teaches at St. Peter Apostle Junior School in Neilstown.

Husband Charlie Married.

Students at St. Peter Apostle Junior School

Donal Dineen

Happy.

Universally famous host of the Small Hours radio show and an endless source of inspiration.

Sharon Phelan Monster Trucker and most elegant companion.

Neil O’Connor Somadrone. Great inspiring artist and one of the nicest people you’re likely to meet.

Would be David’s if not Sharon had been in the way

TOTALLY DUBLIN

me and my friends

Dull life

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ﬁlm live music clubs classical theatre art comedy

listings

where do you think you’re going?

Cinema

Visit our new website for comprehensive Cinema, Gig, Club, Theatre, Exhibition, Comedy and Festival listings - www.totallydublin.ie

Q Coraline

Cast: Jim Sturgess, Rose

euthanasia. When the book

Director: Henry Selick

McGowan, Ben Kingsley, Kevin

is unexpectedly enlisted by

Q Let

Cast: Dakota Fanning, Teri

Zegers.

powerful political figures

Hatcher, John Hodgeman, Ian

Release Date: 10 April 2009

McShane, Keith David, Jennifer

Rating: 16

captured from the wreckage

Bi-polar mall security guard

by a Viking warrior, and

Director: Tomas Alfredson

Ronnie Barnhardt is called into

transported into an unknown

in support of government

Cast: Käre Hedebrant, Lina

action to stop a flasher from

world and his escape seems

Rating: 15A

propaganda, he finds himself

Leandersson, Per Ragnar.

turning shopper’s paradise into

impossible.

Saunders, Dawn French.

Lets all re-hash the Troubles

faced with inconsequential

Release Date: 10 April

his personal peep show. But

Release Date: 8 May 2009

with this harrowing low-budget

decisions with eventually

Rating: 16

when Barnhardt can’t bring the

Rating: PG

thriller, which follows an IRA

devastating effects.

12 year old Oskar is regularly

culprit to justice, a surly police

To Witch Mountain

A girl discovers an alternate

man working undercover for

bullied by his classmates and

detective is recruited to close

Director: Andy Fickman

world under her home in this

the UK police.

never fights back. His wish for

the case.

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Ciaran

quirky, well-crafted stop-motion

Q In

The Loop

The Right One In

Director: Armando Iannuci

a friend is granted when a new

Q Race

Hinds, Anna-Sophia Robb,

feature. With shades of Tim

Q Good

Cast: James Gandolfini, David

girl named Eli moves in next

Q Outlander

Carla Gugino, Garry Marshall.

Burton, Coraline is child-

Director: Vicente Amorim

Rasche, Anna Chlumsky, Peter

door. A romance blossoms but

Director: Howard McCain

Release Date: 10 April

friendly but gleefully sinister.

Cast: Viggo Mortenson, Jason

Capaldi, Paul Higgins.

it is not before long that Oskar

Cast: Jim Cazaviel, Sophia

Rating: PG

Isaacs, Jodie Whittaker, Romola

Release Date: 17 April 2009

learns that his sweetheart is in

Myles, Jack Huston

Las Vegas cab driver Jack Bruno

Garai, Steven MacKintosh.

Rating: 15A

fact a vampire.

Release Date: 22 April

(Dwayne Johnson) picks up two

Director: James Wong

Release Date: 17 April 2009

A political comedy that looks

Rating: 15A

teens with supernatural powers

Cast: Justin Chatwin, James

Rating: 15A

at what might go on behind

Q Observe

From the producer of Lord of

on his journey, and suddenly

Marsters, Jamie Chung, Emmy

A literary professor, Halder,

closed doors in London and

Director: Jody Hill

the Rings, this sci-fi adventure

finds himself in the middle of

Rossum, Joon Park, Eriko

explores his personal

Washington in the lead-up to

Cast: Seth Rogan, Anna Faris,

movie begins in 709AD when

an adventure he can’t explain.

Tamura.

circumstances in a novel

a not-so-fictional war in the

Ray Liotta.

a spacecraft crash lands in a

The trio discover that in order

Release Date: 8 April 2009

advocating compassionate

Middle East.

Release Date: 24 April 2009

Norweigan fjord. Kainan is

to save the world they must go

Q Dragonball

Evolution

And Report

Rating: PG Upon his adoptive grandfather’s dying request, Goku must find

Let the Right One In

the great Master Roshi and gather all seven Dragon Balls, or the evil Lord Piccolo will use

Based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist which the U.K press

the Dragon Balls to take over

heralded as being ‘reminiscent of Stephen King at its best’, this

the world.

feature by Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson is a frightening evocation of childhood innocence and infantile fear. Set in the

Q Fifty

Dead Men Walking

Stockholm town of Blackeberg in 1982, Alfredson strives to strike a

Director: Kari Skogland

in this dark, atmospheric tale of friendship, loyalty and rejection.

balance between the sweet and the sickly, the violent and romantic

TDLOVES

FIVE OF THE BEST... FILMS STATE OF PLAY Release Date: 24 April Rating: TBC Russell Crowe leads an all-star cast in this blistering thriller, directed by Kevin Macdonald, about a rising congressman and an investigative journalist embroiled in a case of seemingly unrelated, brutal murders. CORALINE Release Date: 8 May Rating: PG No stranger to the magical world of animation, director Henry Selick’s fairytale nightmare, Coraline, is based on the beloved best-selling classic by Neil Gaiman. A secret door promises the curious Coraline (Dakota Fanning) a better version of her life, but what seems like a wonderful adventure soon turns out to be too good to be true. IN THE LOOP Release Date: 17 April Rating: 15A Peter Capaldi plays a quick-witted, serrated-tongued, British prime ministerial spin doctor by the name of Malcolm Tucker in director Armando Iannuci’s political satire in which also stars The Sopranos mob boss, James Gandolfini. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN Release Date: 10 April Rating: 16 Swedish Filmmaker Tomas Alfredson strives to strike a balance between the sweet and the sickly, the violent and romantic in this dark, atmospheric tale of friendship, loyalty and rejection, set in the Stockholm town of Blackeberg in 1982. SHIFTY Release Date: 24 April Rating: TBC First-time British writer/director Eran Creevy draws on his own experiences for this vividly sprung drama about a Muslim drug dealer, who is forced to gaze introspectively and dig out his soul.

to Witch Mountain, and they

Adam Drinkall.

State Of Play

must get there fast.

Release Date: 10 April 2009

Director: Kevin Macdonald

Rating: TBC

Cast: Russell Crowe, Ben

Set in 1980s seaside England,

Afleck, Rachel McAdams,

Director: Thomas Guard,

this film traces Edward and

Helen Mirren.

Charles Guard

his childhood spent in the

Release Date: 24 April 2009

Cast: Elizabeth Banks, David

nursing home run by his

Rating: TBC

Strathairn, Emily Browning,

parents. Obsessed with death

Russell Crowe leads an all-star

Arielle Kebbel, Kevin McNulty.

and the afterlife, Edward

cast in this blistering thriller

Release Date: 17 April 2009

passes the time by observing

about a rising congressman

Rating: 16

the old people in the home

and an investigative journalist

Based on Kim Jee-Woon’s

with his camera. His is a very

embroiled in a case of

2003 Korean horror film, this

lonely existence until he finds a

seemingly unrelated, brutal

adaptation revolves around

companion in a new recruit, an

murders.

Anna who returns home from

ex-magician called Clarence.

Q The

Uninvited

a spell in hospital following the tragic death of her mother.

Fast And Furious

The apparition of her mother’s

Director: Justin Lin

ghost goads Anna on a mission

Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker,

to prevent her father from

Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana

marrying his new love interest.

Brewster. Release Date: 10 April 2009

Q Shifty

Rating: 15

Director: Eran Creevy

Yet another instalment of

Cast: Rizwan Ahmed, Jason

the high-octane, testosterone

Flemyng, Daniel Mays.

fuelled action movies, but for

Release Date: 24 April 2009

the first time all the original

Rating: TBC

cast members reunite and come

First-time British writer/

home to where it all began.

director Eran Creevy draws on his own experiences for

Ugly Truth

this vividly sprung drama

Director: Robert Luketic

about a Muslim drug dealer,

Cast: Katherine Heigl, Gerard

who in this compressed 24

Butler.

hour drama, is forced to gaze

Release Date: 17 April 2009

introspectively and dig out

Rating: TBC

his soul.

A romantically challenged morning show producer (Heigl)

Is There Anybody There?

agrees to undergo a series of

Director: John Crowley

her by her colleague (Butler)

Cast: David Morrissey,

with an unexpected outcome.

outrageous dating tasks set for

TDLOVES

In the Loop As a quick-witted, serrated-tongued British prime ministerial spin doctor, it is Malcolm Tucker’s (Peter Capaldi) job to weave yearns with his turn of phrase and sugar coat the truth with his charm. Iannuci’s political satire, ‘In the Loop’ pokes fun at the ineptitude of the people in charge whilst conveying the sobering reality that for the most part, those in power whom we trust to lead the masses don’t really have a clue.

Michael Caine, Linzey Cocker,

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Live gigs Monday 6th April

Visit our new website for comprehensive Cinema, Gig, Club, Theatre, Exhibition, Comedy and Festival listings - www.totallydublin.ie

Q Little Palace

8.30pm, €35

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

Bell X, minus one

Dublin.

Sunday 12th April

Q Jason Mraz

Q Ian Whitty & The Exchange

describes as ‘the sound of something more real...

A chance to see live an act which the eponymous Torn

Q David Byrne

8pm, €10

National Concert Hall, Earlsfort

8 years on, the Irish indie band

Q Ise, Lisa O’Neill &The

The Academy, Middle Abbey

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

Terrace, D2

return

Ragmen

St, D1

8pm, €10

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

8pm, €30

Idiosyncratic Irish pop, with

The Talking Heads legend

Q Brian Canavan

8pm, €TBC

Grammy-nominated for Best

support from Armoured Bear

Friday 17th April

performs compositions from

Whelan’s, Wexford St., D2

Triple bill upstairs in Whelan’s

Engineered Album. Must be

his and Brian Eno’s album

8pm, PWYL

Q Tina Turner

Q Aoife Moriarty

‘Everything That Happens Will

Off-kilter Carol Vorderman fan

The O2, North Wall Quay, D1

Tower Records, Wicklow St, D2

7.30pm, €61.50/55.50

awesome, therefore. Q Antony Joseph and the Spasm Band

Q Bell X1

8pm, Sold Out

5pm, Free

Q Early House (Open Jam)

The Village, Wexford St, D2

Vicar Street, Thomas St, D2

What’s love got to do with it?

Quirky songstress instore

Q Maximo Park

JJ Smyth’s, Aungier St, D2

8pm, €TBC

8.30pm, €35

Tina’s all about the money.

The Academy, Middle Abbey

9pm, €8

One of the few artists in the

St, D1

Blues jam

world as influenced by Lord

Q Peakin’ Trippers

Q Matt Halpin Quartet

The Academy, Middle Abbey

Kitchener as by Funkadelic,

Tower Records, Wicklow St, D2

JJ Smyth’s, Aungier St, D2

St., D1

Trinidadian prince of poetry

5pm

8.30pm, €12

8pm, €24

brings his musical project to

Free retro rock instore

Leaving Certer with saxophone

Aptly named tracksuit-angst

skills far beyond his years

twats return

Monday 13th April

Q Health

Happen Today’

8pm, €25

Wednesday 8th April

Geordies! Q Treasa Levasseur

Q The Enemy

town Q The Third Eye Foundation

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

Q Simon Fagan

8pm, €10

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

So good she’s been nominated

8pm, €10

for three Mapleblues awards.

Classy up-and-coming singer

Q Eskimo Joe

Folk-noir with the multi-

Q My Disco

7.30pm, €13

Three.

takes to the Whelans stage.

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

talented Matt Elliot

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

Percussive post-punk quartet

8pm, €10

with some of the funkiest

Post-hardcore Aussies play

coloured clothes we’ve ever set

bargain gig, with Jogging and

eyes on

Tuesday 7th April

Thursday 9th April

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2 8pm, €13

8pm, €16 Q Bell X1

Australian rockers boomerang

Vicar Street, Thomas St., Dublin 2

back for another slice of

Friday 10th April Q Superjimenez

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

Skul Hazzards in support Q Saville

Tower Records, Wicklow St, D2

FIVE OF THE BEST... GIGS

5pm

Q Gran Casino

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

Free Indie rock instore

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

8pm, €TBC

8pm, €6/7

Affable jangly pop and 60s-

Lushly-orchestrated pop

styled guitars

Saturday 11th April

brigade Q Go:Audio The Academy, Middle Abbey

Ice Cube

Tuesday 14th April

Saturday 18th April Q Declan O’ Rourke

St, D1 1.30pm, €16

Q Johnny Reynolds Band

The Button Factory, Curved St,

Tripod, Harcourt St., D2 8pm, €42.50/48.50 Amerikkka's Most Wanted makes his first Dublin appearance for 15 years. Chick-chicky check out 'Death Certificate' if you need a reminder of what made Ice worth watching in the first place and hit Tripod on the 19th.

Electronic-edged pop-punk in

JJ Smyth’s, Aungier St, D2

Temple Bar, D2

afternoon show. Under 15s to

9pm, €8

7.30pm, €20

be accompanied by adults, the

Irish Blues Club present

Rescheduled show

P!nk

Q Blood or Whiskey

The O2, North Wall Quay, D1 7pm, €52.30/57.30 We much preferred Pink back in her rose-petal covered R&B days (I got a new man, he's waitin' out back), before she got all angsty and start comparing her men to pills and penning hit songs about whacking off. The 3.5 million or so people who bought 'Funhouse', however, probably disagree.

7.30pm, €13.50

Q General Fiasco

We like him a bit, in case you

Paddy-trad punk

The Academy, Middle Abbey St, D1

hadn’t noticed

Ultravox Olympia Theatre, Dame St., D2 7.30pm, €59.80 There's such a demand from 30-somethings wanting to hear 'Vienna' live that Ultravox have had to reform twice. Haunting notes and pizzicato strings hit Vicar Street on the 2nd of May.

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone Whelan's, Wexford St., D2 8pm, €14 Whimsical as-it-says-on-the-tin indietronica artist Eoin Ashworth has been as consistently brilliant as he has been glum across his compelling musical output. Go see him in Whelan's on the 19th of April, and do your best not to want to hug him and tell him it'll all be OK.

RSAG Whelan's, Wexford St., D2 8pm, € 13 Jeremy Hickey's drumming masterclass received vindication when his 'Organic Sampler' was nominated for a Choice award in January. With one of the most innovative and eye-grabbing live shows, we reckon his live show is all the more award-worthy.

little tykes

Wednesday 15th April

Q David Kitt Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2 8pm, €18

The Academy, Middle Abbey St, D1

8pm, €13.50 Q Tina Turner

Soon to be big Belfast indie-boys

Q Record Store Day

The O2, North Wall Quay, D1

in always-small Academy 2

Tower Records, Wicklow St, D2

8pm

1pm, Free Q Starsailor

A celebration of all things

The Academy, Middle Abbey St, D1

black, round, and musical in

Q Dead Cat Bounce

8pm, €25

Wicklow Street’s finest stockist

The Sugar Club, Leeson St, D2

Time to polish off our

8pm, €10

Snoresailor puns

Sold Out

Soon-to-be-on-our-TV-screens comedy quartet

Thursday 16th April

Q Pantone 247 Oxfambooks, Parliament St. 4pm, Free Hand-built pop songs

Q Matthew Lennon Oxfambooks, Parliament St, D2

Q Padraig Rushe

Q AC/DC

4pm, Free

Crawdaddy, Harcourt St, D2

The O2, North Wall Quay, D1

Acoustic folk singer

8pm, €15

7.30pm, €67.70

In aid of the Niall Mellon

Get rolled over by the rock n’

Foundation

roll train

8pm, €8

Q Loney Dear

Q Official Secrets Act

Dullfest featuring the Hot

The Sugar Club, Leeson St, D2

The Academy, Middle Abbey St, D1

Sprockets, Hassle Merchants

8pm, €16

8pm, €12

and Audio

Sugarcoated Swedish popular

Proof that some secrets are

pop

best kept

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

Q David Torn’s Prezens

Q The Big Pink

8pm, €10

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

Crawdaddy, Harcourt St, D2

Period-dressed indie quartet

8pm, €20

8pm, €12

Q Easter Rising Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

Q The Gandhis

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Drone-rock the NME says it’s

As Polski as a Sklep

and all

OK to like Q Casiotone for the Painfully

Q Paul Lamb & Johnny

Q Fifteen Minutes

Alone

Dickinson

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

JJ Smyth’s, Aungier St, D2

8pm, €7

8pm, €14

9pm, €12

Irish punk rockers who

Whimsical as-it-says-on-the-tin

They play blues in the same

recorded their 60 demos in a

indietronica

way Brando used to straddle a

9x12ft garden shed

Sunday 19th April

Monday 20th April

Triumph, apparently Q Earth

Q Doves

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

Q Dickie Rock

Olympia Theatre, Dame St, D2

8pm, €16

Olympia Theatre, Dame St, D2

8pm, €20

Drone rock pioneers and

7.30pm, €30/25

Leave your smiles at home

purveyors of planetary-sized riffs

Mr Miami Showband’s still giving grannies the giggles

Q P!nk 7pm, €57.30/52.30

Wednesday 22nd April

Venetian Snares

7pm, €52.30/57.30

Q Brakes

Q Adrian Crowley

Andrews Lane Theatre, Andrew’s Lane, D2

Pink’s Funhouse is open for all

Crawdaddy, Harcourt St, D2

The Sugar Club, Leeson St, D2

10pm, €21

the world to play in

8pm, €12

8pm, €10

The O2, North Wall Quay, D1 Q P!nk The O2, North Wall Quay, D1

Brighton’s finest pack of

Much-loved songwriter returns

Aaron Funk (aka Venetian Snares) hails from Winnipeg in Canada. Since his debut 12” in 1999 on

Q Ice Cube

WTFsters return in support of

with new album ‘Season of the

a small Minneapolis label he has risen out of the drill’n’bass/breakcore mire to become one of the

Tripod, Harcourt St, D2

their forthcoming third album

Sparks’

most astonishing (and popular) musicians working in the experimental electronic sphere (alongside

8pm, €42.50/48.50

‘Touchdown’

Squarepusher, Aphex Twin and boards Of Canada). Each new album from Aaron brings with it a Q United Bible Studies

new sound, a new atmosphere, a whole new world - he never repeats what’s gone before. “Chocolate

The Boom Boom Room,

Wheelchair”, his 10th commercially available album, is his most hook-laden opus yet - five out of the

O’Connell St, D1

ten tracks include a vocal performance (of some description). It could be described as a mutant post-

Q Innerpartysystem

9pm, €10/15

punk ragga-jungle pop music for an alternative reality. Aaron Funk just it calls his music surrealism.

Q Togetherness

The Academy, Middle Abbey St, D1

Experimental outfit launch

JJ Smyth’s, Aungier St, D2

8pm, €15

album ‘Jonah’, with Jozef van

8.30pm, €10

We never knew emo kids could

Wissem, Cian Nugent & Boys

of such works as 2003’s

8pm, €12

8pm, €23

Continuing on the momentum

dance...

Of Summer

‘Motherfuckers Be Trippin’

Microtonal folk melodies,

Launching his new album

live processing and daring

‘Strawberry Blood’ with an

improvisation from new

ambitious two-night stand in

Bottlenote trio Morla...

Whelan’s

Amerikkka’s Most Wanted makes his first Dublin

Tuesday 21st March

appearance for 15 years

built up from their acclaimed

Thursday 23rd April

Q Polly Scattergood

Q Supersucker & Nashville

Crawdaddy, Harcourt St, D2

Pussies

Q T-Love

8pm, €12

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

The Village, Wexford St, D2

Tipped fem-popster comes to

7pm, €22

Q Morla/Rainfear

Q Mundy

Q UNICEF DAY - 80’s Night

8pm, €22/27

visit, Kate Bush comparisons

Rocker relics and the authors

The Fold, Christchurch, D8

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

The Village, Wexford St., D2

self-titled debut album

national irish visual arts library

Public Research Library of 20th Century Irish Art & Design

National College of Art & Design 100 Thomas Street Dublin 8 T: 01 636 4347 romanod@ncad.ie www.ncad.ie/nival

cal leanings explores her chosen

8pm, €8/10 Featuring Noise Machine

Friday 24th April

Q Grainne Duffy

work on ‘Little Apples’

discipline

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

Q Gomez

An intimate performance with

The Academy, Middle Abbey St, D1

the Canadian singer

Q AU

8pm, €26

8.30pm, €10

Q Sasha Son

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

Still trying to shake off the

Q Pony Club

Joan Baez-invoking beor

The Button Factory, Curved St, D2

8pm, €10

Mercury Prize curse with sixth

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

7.30pm, €TBC

Ay! You!

album ‘A New Tide’

7.30pm, €13

Monday 27th April

Wednesday 29th April

Q The Saw Doctors Olympia Theatre, Dame St, D2

Q NOFX

8pm, €31.80

Olympia Theatre, Dame St, D2

The supergroup and sole reason

8pm, €28.50

for Tuam’s existence leave

Over 14’s fun with one of the

Q Saxon

the set of Killinaskully for the

world’s most powerful punk acts

The Academy, Middle Abbey St, D1

Q A Camp

Sweden has given us hundreds

8pm, €30

The Academy, Middle Abbey St, D1

of memorable pop moments.

Olympia stage

Witty, well-observed pop for Q Basshunter

those of a ‘post-romantic’

Tripod, Harcourt St, D2

disposition

8pm, €38/48

Saturday 2nd May

Q The Virgins

With support from Sweet Sav-

8pm, €16

All of them are negated by

Q RSAG

Q The Rakes

The Academy, Middle Abbey St, D1

age and Doro Pesch

A Camp is a former Cardigan,

Basshunter

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

The Button Factory, Curved St,

8pm, €15

Temple Bar, D2

Cherry-popping rock with

Q Buck 65

sweet spoonful of Scandanavian

8pm, €16

highly-hyped New Yorkers

The Academy, Middle Abbey St, D1

power-pop

Post-punk revival also-rans

a pair of beardy Swedes and

Friday 1st May

8pm, €13 Jeremy Hickey’s Choice-nominated drumming masterclass

Q Revolution For Dogs

8pm, €17.50 Q Stewart Kenny

Probably the 65th time Buck’s

Q Jeffrey Lewis & The Junk

Tower Records, Wicklow St, D2

Q Girls Aloud

Q Kyon

Crawdaddy, Harcourt St, D2

visited Dublin and all

Crawdaddy, Harcourt St, D2

5pm, Free

The O2, North Wall Quay, D1

Tower Records, Wicklow St, D2

8pm, €10

8pm, €14/17

But not a revolution for rock.

7pm, Sold Out

5pm, Free

Keeping it in the family with

Compelling anti-folk trouba-

Instore launch of album

Get the best of the Girls before

Sample-happy Limerick musi-

Cliff Kenny as support

cian treats us to an instore

Tuesday 28th April

dour-come-cartoonist returns

the solo project wars start

Q The Fray

with his roster of Crass covers

Q Sharon Shannon

and odes to the Chelsea Hotel

Olympia Theatre, Dame St, D2

Q Ultravox

8pm, €23

Olympia Theatre, Dame St, D2

Q Vyvienne Long

Olympia Theatre, Dame St, D2

Q Cancer Bats

The Village, Wexford St, D2

8pm, €23

The Academy, Middle Abbey St, D1

8pm, €18/20

Stadium rock in a not-so-stadi-

Q Liadan

Sharon celebrates her Meteor

7.30pm, €59.80

8pm, €15

Cellist of Damien Rice fame

um location

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

lifetime achievement award

Now that’s what I call 80s

8pm, €13

with Shane McGowan on “vocals”

Sunday 3rd May

Q MSTRKRFT

Q Girls Aloud

The Academy, Middle Abbey St, D1

The O2, North Wall Quay, D1

8pm, €23.20

7pm, Sold Out

And the prize for best named Q Squarepusher

Q Wildbirds and Peacedrums

They’ve done America, they’ve

The Button Factory, Curved St, D2

Crawdaddy, Harcourt St, D2

even done Japan. Next stop:

Q Mundy

8pm, €25

8pm, €13

Whelan’s

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

Tom Jenkinson returns to Dub-

Heartcore Swedish duo

8pm, €23

lin for a full live performance

band goes to...

Q John Spillane

Sunday 26th April

Vicar Street, Thomas St, D2

Q A Tribute To Steve McGov-

Thursday 30th April

The soundtrack to a hundred

ern JJ Smyth’s, Aungier St, D2

Q The Chapters

Urban Outfitter’s visits, in

Q Themselves

real-time

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

8pm, €23

Q Rolo Tomassi

9pm, €15

The Academy, Middle Abbey St, D1

Ar aghaidh libh!

The Academy, Middle Abbey St, D1

In aid of the North West Hos-

8pm, €12.50

Q Foy Vance

€13.50

8pm, €14.50

pice, featuring Nigel Mooney and

Phantom favourites and Bruce

The Academy, Middle Abbey St, D1

American whiteboy hip-hop

Q Groom

They say they’re spazzcore. We

Michael Buckley, amongst others

Springsteen fanboys bookend

8pm, €17

duo

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

agree.

the month

Northern Irish/North American

Q Eugene Donegan

8pm, €10

8pm

troubadour

Pensive indie pop, straight from

Q Muktha

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

Q Hillbilly Casino

the ‘Temple of Groom’

JJ Smyth’s, Aungier St, D2

8pm, €10

The Button Factory, Curved St, D2

Q Emm Gryner

8.30pm, €10

The dependable Meath singer-

7pm, €15

Whelan’s, Wexford St, D2

Swiss singer with Indian musi-

songwriter showcases his new

Saturday 25th April

8pm, €15

?dYh[Z_Xb[ jekY^ _d oekh ^WdZi J^[ d[m 8bWYa8[hho Ijehc m_j^ h[ifedi_l[ jekY^ iYh[[d" fkhfei[#Xk_bj \eh LeZW\ed[$ @kj i\jgfej`m\ kflZ_ jZi\\e dXb\j eXm`^Xk`fe Xe[ kpg`e^ \]]fikc\jj% Kf Óe[ flk dfi\ XYflk k_\ 9cXZb9\iip Jkfid jdXikg_fe\# ZXcc `e jkfi\ fi m`j`k nnn%mf[X]fe\%`\&YcXZbY\iipjkfid

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Clubs - once-offs Saturday 11th April

Weekly clubs

11pm, €10/12

snow, here’s hoping it’ll be third

David Moufang AKA Move

time lucky.

Q DJ Edjotronic

D grew up listening to his

The Button Factory, Curved St. D2

parents Pink Floyd and

T+P TBC

Kraftwerk records. From these

Straight off Boys Noize Records,

early influences, along with a

DJ Edjotronic’s ‘Fast & Hard’

fascination of outer space, grew

EP has been causing quite a stir

Mondays Q DJ Ralf

€5 Funky House, R‘n’B

Andrews Lane Theatre, Andrew’s

Q Island Culture

Lane, D2

South William, 52 South William

9.30pm

Street, Dublin 2

Q Ben Watt (Buzzin’ Fly) +

After working in clubs of his

Caribbean cocktail party

Theophilus London

province Ralf finally landed at the

the experimental electronic

Twisted Pepper, Middle Abbey

Cocoricò, where he is the resident

Q Fionn Davenport

Street, Dublin 2

since it’s February release and

techno sounds that he is

St., D1

DJ on the first Saturday of every

Sin, Sycamore Street, Temple Bar,

8pm

features original collaborations

associated with today.

€10/15

month. In addition to Cocoricò

Dublin 2

Femmepop, Motown, 60s Soul

Stylish New Yorker Theophilus

he has worked and still works in

9pm, €5 No cheese eclectic mix

with South African rapper Spoek

Saturday 18th April

along with a remix by Boys Noize

Q Plastician

London is defying convention on

many other famous clubs both in

himself.

Crawdaddy, Harcourt St., D2

Brooklyns hipper-than-hip scence

Italy and abroad.

11.30pm, €15

by emerging with a sound that

Q Venetian Snares

One of the pioneers of the

is truly his own. Described by

see highlight

exploding Dubstep scene is

Sunday 12th April

Tuesdays Q Ready Steady Go-Go! South William, 52 South William

Q Ruby Tuesdays Ri-Ra, Dame Court, Dublin 2

Q Dice Sessions

11pm, Free before 11.30 €5

Q Climaxxx Club

The Dice Bar, Queen St, Smithfield,

after

Bodytonic as ‘more Prince than

South William

Dublin 7

Classic and Alternative Rock

Plastician, formerly known as

Tupac, more art-orientated than

10pm, Free

Free DJ Alley

Plasticman. His early days as a

street’.

Chewy and guests spin disco,

Q Matthew Dear with Sebo K

pirate radio DJ and later on as

Meanwhile in the basement, top

tropical and Balkan beats on the

see highlight

a BBC Radio 1 resident have

house label Buzzin’ Fly lend their

last Saturday of every month.

TDLOVES

Q Le Nouveau Wasteland The Dice Bar, Queen St, Smithfield,

Q The Mission

Dublin 7

top producer, Ben Watt, to the

Think Tank, 24 Eustace Street,

Free

Bodytonic crew.

Temple Bar, Dublin 2

Laid back French Hip Hop and

11pm

Groove

Thursday 23rd April

Friday 1st May Q Carl Cox

Q Past, Present and Future Funk

Q Star DJs

Q Annie Mac/Sinden/Arveene/

Tripod, Harcourt St., D2

The Village, 26 Wexford Street,

Sin, Sycamore Street, Temple Bar,

Kormac (Live)

11pm, €25

Dublin 2

Twisted Pepper, Middle Abbey

Acid house founder and rave

11pm, Free

9pm

St. D1

scene stalwart Carl Cox has been

Funk, Soul, Disco

Disco, House, R’n’B

10pm, TBC

pumping techno tunes since most

Dublin native Annie Mac returns

of ye were in nappies. Always

Q Dolly Does Dragon

Q Jelly Donut

home for what promises to be

at the top of his game, Carl was

The Dragon, South Great Georges

The Village, 26 Wexford Street,

one of the most exiting ‘Mr.

voted Worlds no.1 DJ by readers

Street, Dublin 2

Dublin 2

Jones’ gigs to date as she brings

of MixMag and has been part of

10pm, Free

10.30pm, Free

Pod, Harcourt St., D2

revered DJs Sinden, Arveene and

the foundation that holds up the

Cocktails, Candy & Classic

Minimal Techno

11pm, €15

Kormac along for the ride.

Ibiza and London club scenes.

Tunes

You could throw around generous descriptors and any number

Friday 24th April

Matthew Dear with Sebo K

of genre-locking terms; electronic pop, minimal house, acid

Q Give a Dog a Bone

Sunday 3rd May

Q Soap Marathon Monday/

Panti Bar, 7-8 Capel Street, Dublin 1

Mashed Up Monday

Penny’s in the bar!

techno. But you’d still fail to get to the center of Matthew Dear.

Q Firehouse Skank

With releases under no fewer than three aliases, including False

South William, South William

Q Dirty South

Street, Dublin 2

Q Jezabelle

(M_NUS), Jabberjaw (Perlon), and Audion (Spectral Sound), the

St., D2

The Academy, Middle Abbey

6.30pm, Free

The Purty Kitchen, 34/35 East Essex

Texas native has earned his international status over the course

10pm, Free

St., D1

Chill out with a bowl of mash

Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2

of a decade, getting his bearings on the DJ decks as a teenager

The cream of roots, reggae, and

€25

and catch up with all the soaps.

7pm, Free before 11pm

to flooring sold-out crowds at venues like Fabric, and releasing

culture music since the early 90s

Dirty South stands as one of

universally praised original productions. Thanks to an LCD

on the last Friday of every month.

the hottest and most in-demand

Q The Industry Night

The George, South Great Georges

Live Classic Rock

new artists in house music. His

Break for the Boarder, 2 Johnstons

Q Glam

characterised his recentmost album Asa Breed (and not without

Q Gaslamp Killer + Loxy

remixing credits read like an

Place, Lr Stephens Street, Dublin 2.

The Dragon, South Great Georges

their knowing nods to 70s and 80s aesthetics) we’ve been on the

Twisted Pepper, Middle Abbey

honor role of dance music’s finest,

8pm

Street, Dublin 2

edge of our office chairs waiting for a follow-up.

St., D1

having reworked revered artists

Pool competition, Karaoke

8pm, Free

10pm, TBC

such as Depeche Mode, Mark

& DJ

A pre-Glitz special

Infectious energy from the

Ronson, Tracey Thorn, Snoop Q Glitz

Soundsystem-like approach to funk-inflected pop music that

cemented him as one of the key

man who plays a crazy mix of

Dogg, Roger Sanchez, Josh Wink,

Q Make and Do-Do with Panti

Seb Fontaine

figureheads of the burgeoning

everything from wonky freaky

Tiësto, Chris Lake, Fedde Le

Panti Bar, 7-8 Capel Street, Dublin 1

Break for the Boarder, Johnstons

The Village, Wexford St., D2

Grime and Dubstep movement.

broken beat to hip-hop, dub beats

Grande, Ferry Corsten and TV

10pm

Place, Lr Stephens Street, Dublin 2.

& experimental world sounds.

Rock.

Gay arts and crafts night.

11pm

10pm, €10 UK house music legend and

Q Mr. Whippy Soundsystem

Downstairs in the basement,

veteran Cream DJ Seb Fontaine

South William, South William

Loxy provides drum ‘n’ bass

Q DJ Ken Halford

plays the Village.

St., D2

beats.

Buskers, Temple Bar, D2

Q Trashed

10pm

Andrews Lane Theatre, Andrews

Chart Pop, Indie, Rock

Lane, Dublin 2

Friday 17th April

10.30pm, Free Chilled tunes on the third Friday

Saturday 25th April

Gay club night.

of every month. Q Sven Vath

10.30pm, €5 Q Sourya

Q Euro Saver Mondays

Indie and Electro

Tripod, Harcourt St., D2

Q Martelo

Twisted Pepper, Middle Abbey

Twentyone Club and Lounge,

11pm, €25

Twisted Pepper, Middle Abbey

St., D1

D’Olier St, D2

Q DJ Stephen James

This trance godfather of

St., D1

T+P TBC

11pm, €1 (with flyer)

Buskers, Temple Bar, Dublin 2

reinvention was the founder of

10pm, TBC

Parisian electro/disco rockers

DJ Al Redmond

trance labels ‘Harthouse’ and

After spending a year touring as

Sourya initially grabbed music

‘Eye-Q’ and, since the dawn of

Santogold’s (sorry - Santigold’s),

critics’ attention by their ability to

Q Recess

his career in the 1980s, he has

DJ, Martelo has garnered quite a

incorporate Nintendo Wii’s and

Ruaille Buaille, South King St, D2

Q Funky Sourz

constantly evolved to become one

lot of attention from the mash-up

DS’s into their music and stage

11pm, €8/6

Club M, Blooms Hotel, D2

of the leading dance djs today.

/ Baltimore / Bassline world.

show. Following collaborations

Student night

Having been prevented from

with Santogold and Diplo, their

Q Move D

playing his last two Dublin dates

popularity is set to go through

Q Therapy

Pod, Harcourt St., D2

due to Santigold’s tour and eh,

the roof.

Club M, Blooms Hotel, D2, 11pm,

10pm Chart Pop, Indie

11pm, €5 DJ Andy Preston (FM104) Q Hed-Dandi

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The Dice Bar, Queen St, Smithfield,

Open mic night with special

Q Soundcheck Afterparty Vs

Dublin 7

guests.

Le Cirque

Free Blues, Ska

see highlight Q Space ‘N’ Veda The George, South Great Georges

Q Re-Session

Q Soup Bitchin’

Street, Dublin 2

Wax @ Spy, Powerscourt

Panti Bar, 7-8 Capel Street, Dublin 1

9pm, Free before 10pm, after

Townhouse Centre, South William

Gay student night

10pm €8/€4 with student ID

Street, Dublin 2

Performance and dance. Retro

11pm

50s, 60s, 70s.

Minimal, House, Techno

Centre, South William Street,

Q DJ Alan Healy

Q Jam

Dublin 2

Buskers, Temple Bar, Dublin 2

Think Tank, 24 Eustace Street,

10pm

Temple Bar, Dublin 2

Late club night

Chart Pop, Current Indie and

11pm

Rock Music

Student/ Erasmus party

Q Wednesdays @ Spy Spy, Powerscourt Townhouse

Soundcheck Afterparty Vs Le Cirque

Q The Song Room Spy, Powerscourt Townhouse Centre, South William Street, Dublin 2 11pm, €5

The Globe, 11 South Great Georges

Q Sexy Salsa

Q Mash

St, Dublin 2

Dandelion Café Bar Club, St.

South William, 52 South William

South William Street: home of the after-work-drinks office crowd. But wait, what’s that I hear? That doesn’t sound like standard issue Rhianna/Lady GaGa to me... and why is that girl wearing neon tights and a Sonic Youth t-shirt with a houndstooth fedora balanced on her head? Don’t panic, Urban Outfitters hasn’t thrown up all over her sleek pencil skirt ensemble, she’s probably just en route to Soundcheck Afterparty Vs Le Cirque at Spy. They don’t do suits. They do fashion, fun, concept nights and ridiculously up-to-the-minute indie-rock and electro Dahling.

8.30pm, Free

Stephens Green West, Dublin 2

Street, Dublin 2

Live music

8pm, Free

9pm, Free

Latin, Salsa

Mash-ups, Bootlegs, Covers

Thursdays

Q Jason Mackay

Q We got Soul, the Funk, and the Kitchen Sink Ri-Ra, Dame Court, Dublin 2

Q Mr. Jones

Dublin 2

after

The Twisted Pepper, 54 Middle

9pm

Soul and Funk

Abbey Street, Dublin 2

Dance, R’n’B, House

10pm, €3 donation

Dandelion Café Bar Club, St. Stephens Green West, Dublin 2

Q Antics

DJs Dave McGuire & Steve O

POD, Old Harcourt Station,

DJs, MCs and live percussion

Sin, Sycamore Street, Temple Bar,

11pm, Free before 11.30, €5

11pm, €8/5 Q Unplugged @ The Purty

House, Electro, Bassline

The Purty Kitchen, 34/35 East Essex

Q Fromage The Dice Bar, Queen St, Smithfield,

Harcourt Street, Dublin 2

Q Dean Sherry

Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2

Q Soundcheck

Dublin 7

Q Takeover

11pm, €5

Sin, Sycamore Street, Temple Bar,

7pm, Free before 11pm

Spy, Powerscourt Townhouse

Free

Twentyone Club and Lounge,

Indie Rock ‘n’ Roll student

Dublin 2

Live acoustic set with Gavin

Centre, South William Street,

Motown Soul, Rock

D’Olier St, Dublin 2

night with live music slots.

9pm

Edwards.

Dublin 2 7pm – 11pm

Q Control/Delete

Q King Kong Club

Unarocks and Sarah J Fox play

Andrews Lane Theatre, Andrews

Pravda, Lwr. Liffey Street, Dublin 1

indie rock ‘n’ roll

Lane, Dublin 2

Underground House, Techno,

11pm, €5 Electro, Techno

Wednesdays

Q Ragga Reggae Wednesdays

Funk

Think Tank, 24 Eustace Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2

Q 1957

& WINE BAR

Opening Hours Lunch: Mon to Sat 12.00-5.00 Dinner: Mon to Wed 6.00-10.30 Thur to Sat 6.00 - 11.00 Sunday: 1.00 - 10.00

Ph. 01 675 3577 Email rivarestaurant@gmail.com 1 HQ Building, Hanover Quay, Dublin 2 www.rivarestaurant.eu

Free

11pm, €3/4

Indie and Electro

Fridays

regular guest DJs.

11pm, €10 from 11.30pm

Bia Bar, 28/30 Lower Stephens

Richmond Street, Portobello,

International and homegrown

Street, Dublin 2

Dublin 2

DJ talent.

8pm, Free

Funk, House, Dubstep, Hip

Q Saturday Night Globe DJ

Funk, Soul, Timeless Classics

Hop

The Globe, 11 South Great Georges

Saturdays

Q Annie’s Family Fortunes

Q Mud

The George, South Great Georges

The Twisted Pepper, 54 Middle

Street, Dublin 2

Abbey Street, Dublin 2

Q Strictly Handbag

9pm, Free before 10pm, after

11pm, €10 (varies if guest)

The Sugar Club, 8 Lwr. Leeson St,

Q Friday @ The Village

10pm €8/€4 with student ID

Bass, Dubstep, Dancehall

Dublin 2

The Village, 26 Wexford Street,

11pm, €10 (2 for 1 before

Dublin 2

Q Pogo

midnight)

11pm

The Twisted Pepper, 54 Middle

DJs Frankie & Jay

Abbey Street, Dublin 2

Q Space... The Vinyl Frontier

11pm, €10 (varies if guest)

Ri-Ra, Dame Court, Dublin 2

House, Soul, Funk

11pm, €10 after 11.30

Game show followed by 80s and 90s music.

Q Babalonia Tropical Soundclash

St, Dublin 2 11pm, Free DJ Dave Cleary plays an eclectic mix.

Q Muzik

South William, 52 South William

Q Rock Steady

The Button Factory, Curved Street,

Street, Dublin 2

Spy, Powerscourt Townhouse,

Q DJ Fluffy in the Box

Temple Bar, Dublin 2

8.30pm, Free

South William St, Dublin 2

The George, South Great Georges

11pm

Dub, Ska, Afrobeat

11pm, €5

Street, Dublin 2

Q Download + Tripod

Indie, Pop

9pm, Free before 10pm €9 after

Saturdays

Q The Promised Land

Camp, Commercial, Dance

POD, Old Harcourt Station,

The Dice Bar, Queen St, Smithfield,

Harcourt Street, Dublin 2

Dublin 7

Up Beat Indie, New Wave, Bouncy Electro

Q Nightflight

Soul, Funk, Disco, Electro

The Button Factory, Curved Street,

Q Hospital

Q Thursday night DJ

Temple Bar, Dublin 2

Wax @ Spy, Powerscourt

Q Karaoke Friday

11pm, €12

Free

The Globe, 11 South Great Georges

11pm, €5

Townhouse, South William St, D2

Break for the Boarder, Johnstons

Access all areas at the Pod

Soul, Funk, Disco

11pm, €5 before midnight, €7

Place, Lr Stephens Street,Dublin 2.

complex with local residents

St, Dublin 2 11pm, Free

Q Foreplay Friday

after

10pm

and special guest dj slots over

Q Saturdays @ V1

Indie

The Academy, Middle Abbey

Electro, Techno, House

Karaoke night.

five rooms.

The Vaults, Harbourmaster Plase, IFSC, Dublin 1

Street, Dublin 2 Q After Work Party

10.30pm, €10 after 11pm

Q Al Redmond

Q Panticlub

Q Gossip

R ‘n’ B, Soul and Hip Hop with

The Purty Kitchen, 34/35 East Essex

R ‘n’ B, Hip Hop, Garage

Sin, Sycamore Street, Temple Bar,

Panti Bar, 7-8 Capel Street, Dublin 1

Spy, Powerscourt Townhouse

regular guest DJs.

Dublin 2

DJ Paddy Scahill

Centre, South William Street,

Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 6pm, Free before 11pm

Q NoDisko

9pm

Live Rock with Totally Wired.

The Academy, Middle Abbey

R’n’B, House, Chart

Street, Dublin 2

Dublin 2

Q Wes Darcy

Q Music with Words

Free before 11pm, €10 after

Sin, Sycamore Street, Temple Bar,

Pravda, Lwr. Liffey Street, Dublin 1

80s, Disco, Hip Hop, House

Dublin 2

Q Moog 69s

€5 after 11pm

Q Fridays @ V1

9.30pm, Free

Thomas Reads, Parliment Street,

Indie Rock with regular guest

The Vaults, Harbourmaster Plase,

Indie, Ska, Soul, Electro

Dublin 2

DJs

IFSC, Dublin 1

9.30pm, Free Live covers band + DJ. Funk,

Q Hells Kitchen

Soul, Pop.

The Dice Bar, Queen St, Smithfield,

9pm Q Rubberband

R’n’B

Wax @ Spy, Powerscourt

Progressive Tribal, Techno and

Q Processed Beats

Townhouse Centre, South William

Q Basement Traxx

Trance

Searsons, 42-44 Baggot St. Upper,

Street, Dublin 2

Transformer (below The Oak),

Dublin 4

11pm, €10 (€8 with student ID)

Parliment Street, Dublin 2

House, Techno

11pm, Free

Dublin 7

Q The Friday Night Project

9pm, Free

Q Big Time!

Free

The Purty Kitchen, 34/35 East Essex

Indie, Rock, Electro

The Bernard Shaw, 11 - 12 South

Funk and Soul classics

Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2

Indie, Rock Q Sugar Club Saturdays

10pm, Free before 11pm

Q Go!

The Sugar Club, 8 Lwr. Leeson St,

Q Downtown

DJ Austin Carter

Bodega Club, Pavilion Centre,

Dublin 2

Searsons, 42-44 Baggot St. Upper,

Marine Rd, Dun Laoghaire, Co.

11pm, €15

Dublin 4

Q Sub Zero

Dublin

Salsa, Swing, Ska, Latin

10pm, Free

11pm, Free

Transformer (below The Oak),

11pm, €10 (ladies free before

Q The Panti Show

DJ Eamonn Barrett plays an

Parliment Street, Dublin 2

midnight)

Q Freaks Come Out

Panti Bar, 7-8 Capel Street, Dublin 1

eclectic mix.

11pm, Free

Soul, Indie, Disco, Rock

The Academy, Middle Abbey

Q Saturdazed

Street, Dublin 2

Bodega Club, Pavilion Centre,

Q Scribble

€15

Marine Rd, Dun Laoghaire, Co.

The Bernard Shaw, 11 - 12 South

Dirty Electro and House with

Dublin

Richmond St, Portobello, Dublin 2 You Tube nights, hat partys...

Q Friday Night Globe DJ

make and do for grown ups!

The Globe, 11 South Great Georges

With a DJ.

St, Dublin 2

Indie, Rock, Mod.

10pm Gay cabaret.

Q Ri-Ra Guest Night Ri-Ra, Dame Court, Dublin 2

Q Stephens Street Social Club

Indie, Soul, Chart

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Classical 11pm, €10

Gay cabaret shows.

Chart, Dance, R ‘n’ B

Wednesday 8th April

Q 12 Sundays

Verdi Aria

Q Brian Kennedy

National Concert Hall

8pm

7.30pm

8pm

€25

€26.50/33.50/38.50,/43.50

€38/35/30

Some songwriters, though

A special concert to celebrate

highly prolific, rate only one

20 years in the music business

mention in the Great American

Q Toejam

The Bernard Shaw, 11 - 12 South

Q Carell Krayenhoof y su

The Bernard Shaw, 11 - 12 South

Richmond Street, Portobello,

Sexteto Canyengue

Richmond Street, Portobello,

Dublin 2

National Concert Hall, Earlsfort

Dublin 2

12pm – 12am, Free

Terrace, D2

Afternoon: Car boot sales, film

Funk, Disco, House

8pm

Q RTE National Symphony

€22

Orchestra: Handel Anniversary

clubs, music lectures, t-shirt

Tuesday 14th April

Friday 17th April

Songbook. The NCH presents a guided tour through some of these most famous one hit

making etc.

Q Songs of Praise

Argentine Tango Music in the

Concert

Q RTE National Symphony

Later on: Resident DJs playing

The Village, 26 Wexford Street,

Tradition of the Tango Masters

National Concert Hall

Orchestra

Soul, Funk, House, Electro

Dublin 2

Osvaldo Pugliese and Astor

1.05pm

National Concert Hall

Q A Bohemian Rhapsody

10pm, Free

Piazzolla

€10

8pm

National Concert Hall

Celebrating the 250th

€10/18/24/30/35

8pm

anniversary of the composer’s

Haydn - Symphony No. 96

€20/25/30

death

‘Miracle’, Mendelssohn - Violin

A choral exploration through

Concerto, Dvo_á - Symphony

the songs of Queen

Q Sidesteppin’

Rock ‘n’ Roll Karaoke

Bia Bar, 28/30 Lower Stephens

Saturday 11th April

Street, Dublin 2

Q Zrazy Jazz

8pm, Free

The George, South Great Georges

Q Puccini Turnadot

Old School Hip Hop, Funk 45s,

Street, Dublin 2

National Concert Hall

Q Handel 250 Commemoration

Reggae

4pm – 7pm, Free

7.30pm

Concert

Lazy Jazz Sunday

€26.50/33.50/38.50/43.50

National Concert Hall

Q Saturday @ The Village

Turnadot is the story of the

8pm

The Village, 26 Wexford Street,

Q Shirley’s Bingo Sundays

cold-hearted princess, who is

€27.50/30

Dublin 2

The George, South Great Georges

surrounded by suitors facing

Presented by Our Lady’s Choral

No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70

Saturday 18th April

wonders

Sunday 26th April Q Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Q The World’s Biggest Big

National Concert Hall

11pm

Band

8pm

DJs Pete Pamf, Morgan, Dave

National Concert Hall

€45/60/70/80/90

Redetta & Special Guests

3.15pm

Led by celebrated French

€40/45/55/65

conductor Charles Dutoit,

A whirlwind tour through the

will also feature the supremely

Golden age of Big Band classics

talented pianist Martha

FIVE OF THE BEST... CLUBS

Q DJ Karen @ The Dragon The Dragon, South Great Georges

Carl Cox Tripod 11pm, €25

Street, Dublin 2 10pm House music.

Sunday 19th April

Acid house founder and rave scene stalwart Carl Cox has been pumping techno tunes since most of ye were in nappies. Always at the top of his game, Carl was voted Worlds no.1 DJ by readers of MixMag and has been part of the foundation that holds up the Ibiza and London club scenes. Friday 1st May.

Q Beauty Spot Karaoke The George, South Great Georges Street, Dublin 2

Basshunter Tripod 8pm, €38/48 Dance prodigy, Basshunter, brought us the best selling dance single of 2008 in the form of ‘Now You’re Gone’. The multi-tasking Swede is involved with every aspect of the recording process from writing to producing to singing. Thursday 30th April.

9pm, Free before 10pm, €10 after Karaoke followed by DJs playing camp commercial pop.

Annie Mac/Sinden/Arveene/Kormac (Live) Twisted Pepper 10pm, TBC The irrepressible DJ Annie Mac returns home to Dublin for a set at the Mr. Jones clubnight at Twisted Pepper on Thursday April 23rd. Joining her on the night will be Fabric resident Sinden and Dublin favourites Arveene and Kormac.

Q Panticlub Panti Bar, 7-8 Capel Street, Dublin 1 DJ Philth & Guests

Sundays

Download + Tripod Saturdays POD 11pm, €12 The sprawling and cavernous warren of brickwork walls and black double doors are free of pesky restricting bouncers on Saturday nights so for your €12 you can meet or avoid whoever necessary at the Pod, eh, Tripod (Crawdaddy?). Oh, and you can absorb a veritable plethora of musical varieties to boot.

Q Worries Outernational The Button Factory, Curved Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 11pm

Space... The Vinyl Frontier Ri-Ra 11pm, €10 after 11.30 Resident DJs Gerry Molumby and Glen Hall are joined by special guests at Ri-Ra every Saturday for a night of Soul, Funk, Disco, Electro and House.

Dancehall Styles Q The Workers Party

Anthony Marwood and the Irish Chamber Orchestra

La Sheridan

€10/20/30

National Concert Hall

A performance of Handel’s

8pm

Water Music suites

€15/30/45 Including music from Madama

Wednesday 23rd April Ulster Orchestra

Q RTE National Symphony Orchestra

Weber’s overture ‘Mirth and

National Concert Hall

Melancholy’

8pm

Friday 25th April

Beethoven - Symphony No. 9 in

National Concert Hall

D minor, Op. 25 ‘Choral’

This concert presents music from Ireland, Continental

Trust.

Europe, and the New World

The Globe, 11 South Great Georges

Temple Bar

her heart.

St, Dublin 2

Wednesday 15th April

8pm

Orchestra

€35/40

National Concert Hall

Part of the Ronan Collins Showband Show Hits live series

Sunday evening jazz

All Day

Q Verdi Aria

Q Eurovision Extravaganza

8pm

Lounge around with Penny the

National Concert Hall

€10/18/24/30/35

Hound!

7.30pm

8pm

Mussorgsky -Dawn on the

€26.50/33.50/38.50,/43.50

€11/22/27/33/38

Moscow River. Prokofiev -

St, Dublin 2

Elbow Room

Aida is a story of war, jealousy

Join the RTÉ Concert Orchestra

Piano Concerto No. 3 in C

9pm, Free

South William, 52 South William

and revenge, centred around the

in a nostalgic celebration of

major, Op. 26 and Shostakovich

Rock, Indie, Funk, Soul

Street, Dublin 2

doomed love of the beautiful

the heady days of Ireland’s past

- Symphony No. 10 in E minor

8pm, Free

Ethiopian slave girl, Aida, and

Eurovision glories

Jazz, Soul, Disc & Latin

the Egyptian hero, Radames

Q Gay Cabaret The Purty Kitchen, 34/35 East Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 9pm, Free before 11pm

Monday 13th April

Thursday 16th April

Q Ronan Collins National Concert Hall

Get Over Your Weekend

The Globe, 11 South Great Georges

Saturday 2nd May

Q RTE National Symphony

5.30 – 7.30pm

Q Hang the DJ

Mozart - Piano Concerto, No. 23 in A major, K. 488 and

Society & Temple Bar Cultural

man who can melt the ice in

€10/18/24/30/35

Q Music of the Wild Geese

death if they fail to answer her riddle correctly, and the one

Friday 1st May

€10/18/24/30/35

Street, Dublin 2 Bingo & Cabaret with Shirley

Lescaut and Gianni Schicci

8pm

€16

8.30pm, Free

Butterfly, La Boheme, Manon

National Concert Hall

Dublin 2

Q Jazz @ The Globe

Wednesday 29th April

8pm

1.05pm

With DJ Ilk

Piano Concerto No.3

National Concert Hall

Sin, Sycamore Street, Temple Bar, 9pm

Argerich to perform Prokofiev’s

Saturday 25th April Q More One Hit Wonders

Visit our new website for comprehensive Cinema, Gig, Club, Theatre, Exhibition, Comedy and Festival listings www.totallydublin.ie

Persian Cuisine Parliament Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 1 44/45 Lr. Camden St., Dublin 2

Persian Food dates back many centuries and is culturally based on the freshest ingredients in season. Our food is rich and varied. We use spices such as saffron and fresh corriander. Visit us and try our delicious freshly prepared Kebabs. Choose from ď&#x192;&#x17E;llet of beef, breast of chicken, fresh salmon or vegetarian, all served with freshly baked bread.

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Theatre

Visit our new website for comprehensive Cinema, Gig, Club, Theatre, Exhibition, Comedy and Festival listings - www.totallydublin.ie

Q Submarine Man

Niamh Gleeson

and overworked, they try to

Beezie Gallager was, for over

6pm, €16.50

Tallaght, Dublin 24

Aidan Harney

Draiocht Arts Centre

smile and help the difficult

sixty years, the sole resident of

May 3rd, 4th

Gare St Lazare Players Ireland

Draiocht Arts Centre

The Blanchardstown Centre,

customers whilst coping with

an island on Lough Gill, Co.

The Blanchardstown Centre,

Dublin 15

their own personal problems.

Sligo. Born in the 1870’s and

Q Submarine Man

epic whaling adventure Moby

Dublin 15

The Marietta Showband is

John Godber’s sparkling writing

orphaned in her teens, Beezie’s

The Civic Theatre

Dick by Herman Melville,

dreamed up while Bernie Brady

builds on the success of his ear-

wisdom, robust humour and

Tallaght, Dublin 24

which recounts the story of Ish-

fierce independence gained her

Infused with the inventiveness

mael and his adventure aboard

a reputation as healer, wise

of the eccentric genius, this

the whaling ship Pequod

woman and witch. In Sheila

true-story drama tells the little-

8pm, €20

Flitton’s renowned solo play,

known tale of ‘the father of the

28th April

Beezie returns telling of her

modern submarine’ and one of

youth, her friendship with the

Ireland’s greatest, unsung naval

Q Love Is…

young W.B. Yeats (he wrote of

heroes. It is at times hilarious

John McDwyer

her in his poem “The Lonely

and yet also incredibly moving

The Civic Theatre

One”) and her brief marriage in

8pm, €20

Tallaght, Dublin 24

14th April- 18th April

In this new John McDwyer

Infused with the inventiveness of the eccentric genius, this true-story drama tells the littleknown tale of ‘the father of the modern submarine’ and one of

works on the biscuit factory line in 1968. She drums up four other young ones and they attempt to burst onto the

Ireland’s greatest, unsung naval

Dublin showband scene. They

heroes. It is at times hilarious

have an inauspicious beginning

and yet also incredibly moving 8:15pm, €8 11th April Q The Elves and the Shoemaker Draiocht Arts Centre The Blanchardstown Centre, Dublin 15 A fresh new retelling, in Irish, of the much loved story of the Elves and the Shoemaker. This

in Father Finian’s Parish Hall. Will the unreliable musicians turn up? Will Assumpta’s gippy

is told through the eyes of Sé and Sí, two poor but happy

modern comedy 8:15pm, €15 April 23rd-25th Q Mrs. Whippy Cecelia Ahern Mill Theatre Dundrum Town Centre, Dun-

middle life

Can ‘The Mariettas’ get the

drum, Dublin 14

1:10pm, €15 April 20th-25th

aspects of love from the

The Civic Theatre

viewpoint of two people who experience all the emotions

The soothing sounds of a Mr.

Charming, fun and quirky,

Whippy van arrive at just the

‘The Mariettas’ is a trip down

right time for Emelda, only now

Q Spotlight School of Perform-

Tallaght, Dublin 24

it’s not just the ice-cream that

ing Arts

Eamon Morrissey’s relation-

that relationships create.

Pavillion Theatre

ship with The Brother began

Decorated by two astonishing

Marine Road, Dun Laoghaire

when his solo show opened in

performances from Gerry

Spotlight School of Performing

the Peacock Theatre thirty-

Farrell and Mary Morris. Love

Arts presents the culmination

five years ago. The hilarious

is...is a funny touching evening

of the year’s work of its Stil-

writing of Myles na Gopaleen

of theatre

lorgan School in these shows

and the comic talents of Eamon

8pm, €20

at the Pavilion Theatre. The

Morrissey combine to provide a

30th April- 2nd May

extremely talented students of

piece of entertainment that has

this school ranging in age from

endured through the years

Q Poe Show

three to eighteen years will

8pm, €20

Bewley’s Café Theatre

April 21st- 25th

Grafton St., Dublin 2

memory lane and Hucklebuck shoes are compulsory 8:15pm, €18 18th April

is her only true friend... Cecelia Ahern mixes laughter with tears in equal measure to create this humorous portrait of a woman

Q Shakers Re-Stirred John Godber Draiocht Arts Centre The Blanchardstown Centre,

shoe maker even poorer than

Dublin 15 Our heroines - four waitresses -

finding her own place in the world 8pm, €20 April 7th-11th Q Beezie

2pm, 4pm, €8

offer a wickedly funny glimpse

Sheila Flitton

perform excerpts from musicals

Aprl 15th, 16th

of their world and the many

Mill Theatre

including Legally Blond, Mama

characters they encounter. Q The Mariettas

play, the author examines Q The Brother

crowds on the dance floor?

elves who come to the aid of a they are

absorbing yet tellingly revealing

tummy get the better of her?

enchanting story, full of live music and magical puppetry,

lier ‘Bouncers’ to create a richly

present their adaptation of the

Rushed off their feet, underpaid

Poe Show is a theatrical

Dundrum Town Centre, Dun-

Mia, Chicago and Beauty and

Q Moby Dick

drum, Dublin 14

the Beast

The Civic Theatre

celebration of the work of Edgar Allan Poe, the tormented

Box Office 01 679 3477 www.ifi.ie

APRIL 17-23

Flying Lessons (Lezioni Di Volo) April 17 (6.20) Mid-August Lunch (Pranzo Di Ferragosto) April 18 (2.30) The Girl By The Lake (La Ragazza Del Lago) April 18 (4.30) The Right Distance (La Giusta Distanza) April 19 (4.15) Open City (Città Aperta) April 20 (6.40) Mother Earth (Terra Madre) April 21 (7.00) Black And White (Bianco E Nero) April 22 (6.40) Giovanna’s Father (Il Papà Di Giovanna) April 23 (6.40)

Visual art

maelstrom of one of history’s

Dublin Castle

most frenzied imaginations. Poe

Q Artist’s Proof An exhibition celebrating the stages that lead up to a final fine art print. These limited edition prints by 24 printmaking artists are displayed alongside two working proofs to provide a glimpse of how the print was made. Nine international and invited artists and 15 Graphic Studio dUBLIN members are participating in the exhibition 15th January-19th April

Show is another collaboration between Actor, Michael James Ford and Composer, Trevor Knight (whose previous work in Bewley’s includes The Happy Prince and The Remarkable Rocket). They are joined for this ambitious venture by an exceptional cast of actors and musicians 1:10pm, €15 April 6th-April 25th

Four Gallery

Q Life After Love

11 Burgh Quay, Dublin 2

Bewley’s Café Theatre

Q Dense Mouth (Lindsay

Mann) For her first International solo show, Lyndsay Mann about getting back on the Dating presents an installation of Scene three works held in conspiratorial conversation 1:10pm €15 across a reduced plane of 27th April-2nd May submissive grey walls. 5th March-5th May Grafton St., Dublin 2

An Original Musical Comedy

Q Only An Apple Lower Abbey Street, Dublin

Green on Red Gallery

Tom Mac Intyre is one of the

26-28 Lombard Street East,

most daring and original Irish

Dublin 2

writers working today. His new

Q One year, six months,

play, Only an Apple, takes us on

two weeks and four days

a characteristically mischievous

ago A solo exhibition by Gerard Byrne of both photographic and filmic work. In different subtle ways the works exhibited accumulate a set of questions about the interrelationship of time and representation. The works presented, whilst intentionally diverse and distinct in their ambitions,

Peacock Theatre,

and theatrical journey between our world and that of the imagination 8pm Pricing TBC 28th April-26th May

collectively reinforce a sense of the relationship between photography and the passage of time. 25th March-25th April

Samuel Beckett drew her to explore his country of origin and Makiko moved to Dublin in 1999 where she still resides and works to this day. 3rd April-23rd April

National Photographic Archive

Rubicon Gallery

Meeting House Square,

Dublin 2

Temple Bar, Dublin 2

Q Sherman Sam Sherman Sam thinks a lot about art, and about abstract painting in particular. He favours small panels and sheets of paper. This smallness is important, as he wants his works “to be in dialogue with viewers, not corporations.” Sam seems to be profoundly interested in the encounters that one subjectivity can have with another by means of idiosyncratic marks on a surface. These are the same means by which we can still enter into a conversation with Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, or the cave painters of Lascaux 4th April-2nd May

Q D James Galbraith’s Ireland 1970 – 1997 Galbraith was one of the most celebrated American photographers of the 20th century. With accolades including a Pulitzer Prize nomination for his work on documenting Hartland, a small town in Michigan; his work has also featured in a series of 50-year retrospective exhibitions held in museums, libraries and arts centres across America. 7th March-2nd June

Peppercanister Gallery Herbert Street, Dublin 2 Q Makiko Nakamura Born in Kyoto, Japan, Makiko Nakamura held her third solo exhibition at the Peppercanister Gallery in October 2006 which was a sellout. An abstract painter with an international reputation, Makiko left her homeland a number of years ago to dwell for a time in Paris where she studied printmaking at the l’Atelier Contre Point, Paris (1996) and then in the United States the following year as a visiting artist at the University of Pennsylvania. A special interest in the writings of

10 St. Stephens Green,

Sebastian Guinness Gallery 18 Eustace Street , Temple Bar, Dublin 2 Q John Kenny - The Raven Maker 3rd April-1st May

IMMA

Calder Jewellery

TDLOVES

deliciously dark descent into the

Chester Beatty Library

genius of Gothic literature - a

IMMA Calder Jewellery is the first exhibition of its kind devoted exclusively to the jewellery work by the American artist Alexander Calder (1898 – 1976), one of the most innovative and influential sculptors of the 20th century. Best known for his sculptures and mobiles this exhibition explores Calder’s lifetime production of wearable art pieces which he made for his family and friends. The exhibition comprises some 100 pieces including necklaces, bracelets, brooches, earrings and tiaras. Also included are photographs of those who wore his jewellery, among them are Angelica Huston, Georgia O’Keeffe and Peggy Guggneheim, which give a sense of the pieces when worn and the social dimension of their popularity. 1st April-21st June

Royal Hospital, Military Road, Kilmainham, Dublin 8 Q James Coleman Collections of various works by internationally

CWa[ j^[ ceij e\ dem

Q Elizabeth Peyton: Reading and Writing This is the first exhibition in Ireland by the American painter Elizabeth Peyton, known for her intimate portraits of youthful, romantic individuals ranging from friends to historical figures and celebrities. Through painting and drawing, she has created an intensely personal body of work that confidently allows for beauty in contemporary art. This exhibition of some 20 paintings and works on paper, dating from the 1990s to the present day, has a particular focus on poetry and literature, interiors and photographs, desire and love. 1st April-21st June

Hugh Lane Gallery Charlemont House, Parnell Square North, Dublin 1

painter who has successfully battled against the formal structure of the art world by developing his own style of avant-garde painting. 27th March-25th April

presence on the landscape. McLoughlin uses carborundum and drypoint to convey the rich colours and textures of this wet peaty landscape. 16th April-3rd May

National Gallery Of Ireland

The Stone Gallery

Merrion Square West and Clare Street, Dublin 2 Q Thomas Roberts Presenting an exhibition of over 50 works dedicated to Waterford-born artist, Thomas Roberts (1748-1777). Regarded as the top landscape artist of his time, this is the first major exhibition of his works since 1978. 28th March-28th June

Q VerMeer, Fabritius & De Hooch: Three Masterpieces from Delft This small, but exceptional display will explore the outstanding talents of three master painters of the Delft School: Carel Fabritius, Pieter de Hooch and Johannes Vermeer. Fabritius’s interest in perspective and illusionism is highlighted in his painting. Until 24th May

Q Frequency: Mark Garry,

The Mill Theatre

Padraig Timoney, Hayley

Dundrum Town Centre, D14

Tompkins Three artists hold an exhibition raising questions on ethics, and secular society through their works. 26th Feb-17th May

Collection Mindful of the concept and the ethos of Hugh Lane supporting contemporary practice, the resulting prints are as exceptional as they are rare. Until 26th April

Q Ecce Homo Brian Breathnach explores the themes of loss, grief, recovery and redemption with words and images that weave their way through religion, literature and the history of art. Breathnach’s work comprises of autobiographical painting, collage, sculpture and text which examine the challenges an individual faces in the development and realisation of emotional and spiritual integration in today’s bewildering world 28th March-30th April

Q The Golden Bough: Grace

Original Print Gallery

Q Hugh Lane Centenary Print

Weir: In my own time An installation based on Weir’s film ‘In My Own Time’, which explores the relationship between the sense of life as a narrative, and the concept of one’s self as a being in time. 26th Feb-24th May Q Francis Bacon Studio Display Cases The work of pioneering photographer Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904) was of crucial importance and of enormous interest to Francis Bacon. Muybridge undertook extensive high-speed photographic studies of human and animal locomotion and showed in frame stills how the human body and animal moves. Until 3rd May

4 Temple Bar, Dublin 2 Q Timeswept This new body of work by Margaret McLoughlin conjures up the isolation and desolation of a forest landscape. The power of the elements is seen in the fallen trees, the broken branches and the windswept plane. This constant natural regeneration bears witness to the passing of time. Remnants of man-made structures evoke our fleeting

Q Brendan O’Carroll - For The

So nice they’ll let you in for 8

Love Of Mrs. Brown

quid if you mention “Bebo”.

70 Pearse Street Dublin 2

Olympia Theatre, Dame St., D2

No, seriously.

The Bankers

Q Wayfaring A fantastical element is evident in this exhibition, places travelled to are recorded and places not yet discovered are created. Though fictional landscapes, stock imagery and film stills the artists freely travel though new and imagined realities. These realities combined with personal narrative, dreams, momentary and fleeting memories are transformed and communicated though their chosen medium. The viewer is invited to experience the sensation of these new places and to be inspired to undertake new mental journeys simply by looking. 27th March-25th April

6th April - 18th April

€10/8

16 Trinity St, Dublin 2

The Black Loft

Kerlin Gallery Anne’s Lane, South Anne St., Dublin 2 Q Guggi Dublin-based artist Guggi’s third exhibition with Kerlin Gallery will show the artist’s evolution into an accomplished

much-hated) Mrs. Brown series

The International Comedy Club

sees his geriatric transvestite

23 Wicklow St, Dublin 2

O’Carroll’s much-loved (and

alter-ego Agnes Brown enter

Q Fridays and Saturdays The Bankers Comedy Club 21:00 €10/8

the internet age, meeting a man

Q Mondays

named HairyHarry25 online

20:30

and getting geared up for a

Comedy Improv

Ha’ penny Bridge Inn

Valentine’s date with her new

€8/10

Wellington Quay, Temple Bar, D2

for the grace of God go we,

Q Tuesdays

Q Battle of the Axe

Harry.

20:30

Tuesday and Thursday Nights

€30/35

Andrew Stanley’s Comedy Mish

21:00

Mash (Brand new comedy

Dublin’s most-loved open-mic

Q Colin Murphy

showcase)

night.

Vicar Street, Thomas St., D2

€8/10

€9

object of affection. There but

18th April

Q No Direction 26th March-1st April

Star of RTE’s “The Panel”

Q Wednesdays

Q Capital Comedy Club

embarks on his first ever

21:30

Wednesdays and Sundays

national tour of Ireland

With Andrew Stanley.

21:30

€25

€8/10

The club’s flagship night.

House of Fun: Colin Murphy

Q Thursdays, Fridays and

Talbot Gallery

€7/5

51 Talbot Street, Dublin 1 Q Sanja Todorovic The foremost concern of Todorovi_’s works is the medium of paint and how it can carry the potential for meaning and conviction. Rather than solely relying on relations borne out of line and colour, the works put trust upon paint matter as a precise material substance whose optical properties become, in the process of painting, visibly non-detachable from its tactile properties 30th April-28th May

The Crow Gallery Q Mindscapes An exhibition of paintings by Wicklow-based artist Vauney Strahan. The exhibition features new work in which Strahan continues to explore the relationship between mind and matter / man and the universe. These paintings continue to investigate the dialogue between the conscious and the unconscious. While expanding on these themes, the focus of this new body of work places emphasis on the landscape in which these relationships are played out. 15th - 25th April

TDLOVES

Saturdays Axis Arts Centre, Ballymun

20:30

24th April

With resident MC Aidan Bishop

Ballymun’s own monthly comedy club €16.50 Katherine Lynch Vicar Street, Thomas St., D2 16th + 30th April, 1st + 2nd May The star of RTE’s “Wonder Women” and “Working Girls” brings her outlandish characters to the stage. €28 Paddy Courtney See higlight Turn It On - Kevin McAleer Olympia Theatre --RESCHEDULED due to TV commitments

Comedy weekly Sheehan’s

39 East Essex Street, Temple Bar, Q James Coleman See IMMA

Part four of Brendan

€8/10

7-11 Augestine St., Dublin 2

Project Arts Theatre Dublin 2

Comedy once-offs

TDLOVES

credited Irish Artist James Coleman are to be showcased from March 7th to April 26th in The IMMA, Project Arts Centre and the Royal Hibernian Academy. Coleman’s work, which range from photography, projected still images with soundtracks, film, video and performance, will be split between these venues and it is the first time he has had an exhibition of this size in his home country. Until April 26th

Paddy Courtney Vicar Street, Thomas St., D2 25th April

Chatham St., Dublin 2

Probably one of the less enduring of Freud’s works, Jokes

Tuesdays

and Their Relation to the Unconscious was, I suspect, an

Comedy Dublin: A night of

attempt by a very un-funny man to tease out a formula for

improv and stand-up

humour. Too bad he couldn’t have just asked Paddy Courtney

€15

what the secret is, since he seems to have discovered the perfect ratios of timing, clever observation, originality, and

IMMA

The Flowing Tide

The exhibition features an extensive display of Heaney’s books alongside a selection of artworks by several of the artists concerned, from both the writer’s own collection and IMMA’s Collection. Heaney’s relationship with a wide range of visual artists whose vision and thoughts about art have been a source of inspiration throughout his career are also reflected. 14th April-14th June

9 Lwr. Abbey St., Dublin 1

crowd-pleasing shows. Unless he’s just really well connected

Fridays

to the laugh-box industry. Courtney’s recent forays into

Neptune Comedy Night

acting and script writing would imply otherwise, having led

Price TBC

to work with RTE and the BBC, as well as his own show -

Artists/Heaney/Books: An Exhibition

Peadar Kearney’s

something like charm that results in awarding-winning,

Paddywhackery - on TG4. Check him out before Hollywood lures him away with Hummers, bright lights, and spray-on

64 Dame St., Dublin 2

tanning. It happens.

Wednesdays

€23

PK Live: Champagne comedy.

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NURSERY RHYMES AND KNIFE CRIME A GUIDED TOUR OF POLLYWORLD WORDS Daniel Gray

From her Dickensian moniker right down to her Victorian-horror tinged lyrics (‘spit on my French knickers/and call me a whore’) London-based songwriter Polly Scattergood is gothic in the most classical English sense. Like a doll-house occupant brought to life with an adverse affection for warped horror (from David Lynch to, well, Vampire Weekend), her music is like a ninja trap house -all revolving walls, trap doors, and underground tunnels devised to help her true identity escape or hide from tangible identification. She’s got some lethal death stars for tunes and all. We talked to her about her shinobi skills, her lyrical smoke bombs, and why it’s not a good idea to carry weapons everywhere one travels... One of your lyrics goes “I am a typical sinner with a knife in my back jean pocket.” Are you the reason for England’s knife-crime problem? Do you know what? That lyric! At one point they were talking about wanting to change that one line. I live in London, and it’s the big thing at the minute. I couldn’t believe anybody would actually pick up that line as, like, an endorsement of knife crime. It’s the most horrible thing going on at the moment. Kate Bush is probably the worst person in the world to be compared to, in terms of the expectations it raises. I suppose it’s like if you start making horror films on a handycam and somebody tells you you’re the next David Lynch. Do you feel an adverse amount of pressure on you when somebody mentions you two in the same breath? Categorization of music makes it easier to understand, obviously, if you’ve never heard the artist before. So every female singer-songwriter with a piano that comes out tends to be compared to Kate Bush or Tori Amos. Obviously I’m flattered to be compared to musicians of that stature but, I think I’m much more me than I am them. I think the one artist I most associate you with is actually Patrick Wolf - not in terms of musical style, but the macabreness of your subject matter, and the sort

TOTALLY DUBLIN

of melodrama you employ. Is theatricality an important part of being Polly Scattergood? It’s weird, I never really saw what I did as particularly theatrical. I like songs and stories to have a bit of humour in them, and I guess that my songs, in the way that I write them, tend to take on characters which adds up to being theatrical, and I guess that is an important part of what I do. But then... I don’t know, because live it’s quite a dark show that I need to introduce humour to to make it a lot less melodramatic. I put myself completely into the songs, so it doesn’t feel like I’m acting or putting on a show. With your Pollyworld videos you’re letting us have a look at your own little universe, and your world-view... How does that world differ from everybody else’s? We started off Pollyworld one day when me and my friend Tom got a Handycam and took it around London. Then we decided to cut it together on my laptop and put some of my music behind it. Then I started thinking it was a good way of allowing people to be more, sort of, immersed in this world that’s in my songs, but in a creative way rather than a more straightforward one. I know you’re into Gregory Crewdson’s photography, which is all about fitting the surreal into modern life. Your own music seems to try and do the same thing. Since we live in such a demystified society, what relevance do you think the surreal still holds, and how does it fit into your life? I 100% think that the fact that everything is so documented, and that there’s so little magic and mystery left in the world is

sad. It should be integral to our lives, and our imaginations still need to be let loose. With Gregory Crewdson, his mystery is what drew me to his work – I wanted to understand his photographs but I never really could. I still can’t. You can draw these conclusions, but you’re never sure if they’re the “right” ones. That, for me, is what an artist should do. I don’t have any craving for anybody to really know anything about me. I would like people to make their own minds up about the content of my songs without worrying whether it’s autobiographical or not. I guess that’s part of the Pollyworld videos too. It’s about letting people in to and play around, without having to be obvious about everything. What should we expect when we get our hands on a copy of your album? Somebody the other day described it as “dark fairy tale nursery rhymes”. I like quite obvious melody, and sometimes I write quite simple lyrics. I like you to be able to have something memorable and easy to latch onto, but then if you want to delve deeper there’s a whole load of different textures and layers going on. Nursery rhymes are beautiful, but there’s something quite spooky about them... Polly Scattergood plays Crawdaddy on the 21 April. Her non-knife-crime-endorsing debut album is out now on Mute.

www.totallydublin.ie

AVAILABLE INSTORE AT: -6A Powerscourt Townhouse Centre Clarendon Street -The Gallery, Dundrum Town Centre -Swan Centre, Rathmines Also online : www.genius.ie

Upstage

This April Hatch Theatre Company and Project Arts Centre present the Irish premiere of Love and Money, from the co-writer of BBC 3 hit comedy Pulling Dennis Kelly. A cautionary tale of consumerism gone mad, nobody needs to be reminded how timely this production is. Annabelle Comyn talks to Totally Dublin about the relevance of the production and the rehearsal process. How did Hatch, Dennis Kelly and Project come together for this production? When I read this play over a year ago I was immediately drawn to Dennis Kelly’s quality of writing. He has a wonderful ability to communicate simple and insightful thoughts with great humour and clarity. When I went to Project with this play their reaction was instantly positive and supportive and we all agreed that the time was right for this play. The next step was to approach Dennis’ agent. I have a good relationship with her as I have produced many of her clients work before. Since the rights were agreed Dennis has been very approachable and ready to give guidance and assistance whenever I phoned. He hopes to come and see the show, and I look forward to meeting him.

MOON LANDING

LOVE AND MONEY AT THE PROJECT ARTS CENTRE WORDS

Jade O’ Callaghan

Love and Money first premiered in 2006, pre-recession/credit crunch, so in ways it could be seen as a little prophetic, is this why you have chosen to do it now, when ‘consumerism gone mad’ has taken its toll in a very real and very global way? I think the play has enough layers in it to be pertinent in either the boom or bust years, but it is a reminder to us all of the more important things in life and how the balance between love and money is often a difficult and delicate one to get right. I do think our production may well feel

ALL MY SONS The Gate Theatre will play host to a well-respected cast for their upcoming production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons. Canadian stage and screen veteran Len Cariou will play the lead role of Joe Keller in his first appearance on an Irish stage. The Tony Award-winning actor is particularly well-known for his legendary performance as the lead in the original Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, as well as the films About Schmidt, The Four Seasons, Executive Decision, and Thirteen Days. All My Sons was the first great success of Arthur Miller's supremely influential career and the play that launched him as one of the leading dramatists of the twentieth century. The action of the play is based in the aftermath of World War II, as two families struggle to come to terms with the brutal reality of what they have lost and gained. The confrontations that ensue lead to the uncovering of a shameful family secret. Provocative and heart-breaking, All My Sons is a compelling story of love, guilt and the corrupting power of greed. Under the direction of Robin Lefèvre, the cast includes Barbara Brennan, Donna Dent, and Peter Gaynor. All My Sons opens at the Gate Theatre on Tuesday 7 April

TOTALLY DUBLIN

For more theatre and exhibition previews, interviews and comprehensive listings throughout the month, visit our website - www.totallydublin.ie

different to the original one, not that I’ve seen it, just because of what we know now. How did the casting process go and how are rehearsals going? Casting was surprisingly straight forward - a first for me. I have a wonderful cast almost none of which I’ve worked with before. Things are going really well so far, we’ve been working through the text and have had some great insight from a counsellor who came in to speak to us about some of the issues in the play. Also Cathal, an accent coach, is wonderful; guiding the actors with the various South East English accents. We’re really getting stuck in and moving the piece. Is the set going to be central in this play or are the actors going to be the primary focus as with previous Hatch productions? The actors and text are always the primary focus for me as it’s through them that we are moved and entertained. Having said that I am delighted with the set Paul has come up with. We tend to talk at length about the ideas in the play and look for outside visual reference to feed into the final design. I feel the design we have will work to support this play beautifully. We are also trying some new and exciting technical ideas I’ve not worked with before and that will be a real challenge. You’ve got to come to the play to see what they are. For full interview check out www.totallydublin.ie Love and Money runs at Project Arts Centre from April 20th–May 9th.

Arts Desk

SWEETTALK I WANT CANDY WORDS SHEENA MADDEN

Here at Totally Dublin HQ we can rightly be accused of having a slightly unnatural obsession with all things shiny, stylish and downright pretty to look at; much like a magpie might be drawn to a Cartier watch. Thank heavens, then, for CandyCollective, who regularly indulge thousands of poor sods like us who are in desperate need of a regular, visually stimulating fix. CandyCollective started out life in June 2005 as Candy Magazine, which was launched to showcase the work of the burgeoning but largely underground faction of creative Irish minds alongside their international counterparts. Since the phenomenal success of the magazine, which started out as a one-man-vehicle, Candy has grown to encompass some of the most creative and passionate members and contributors working in every milieu of artistic society today. As a result, CandyCollective emerged and saw the group re-focusing their attentions on a new and diverse range of outlets for the talents that they advocate. Perhaps the most successful and beloved of their endeavours is the SweetTalk series of creative-to-creative live events, which brings together innovators from all walks of creativity in a chilled out and social setting. SweetTalk, which is sponsored by Perrier, has hosted 33 events to date, both in Ireland and further afield in New York, Berlin and Copenhagen to name but a few. The 34th installment of SweetTalk is imminent and, lucky for us, the CandyCollective crew have come home to play. In association with the Illustrators Guild of Ireland, CandyCollective are presenting “an evening of illustration delight”, featuring the talents of internationally lauded illustrators Ros Shires, Jonathan McHugh and Steve Simpson. Ros Shiers is one of the leading illustrators working in the UK today. Based in London, Ros has collaborated with designer and high street fashion heavyweights such as Moschino, Marks & Spencer and Topshop to produce garments infused with her distinctively edgy

femininity. Her wistful pencil lines and carefully placed colour splashes have also been seen adorning book covers, adverts for London Fashion Week and Nokia, and exclusive bespoke jewellers Wint & Kidd. Jonathan McHugh’s client list reads like a who’s who of corporate giants, with clients including the BBC, EasyJet, Toyota, Trocaire and Bank of Ireland to name but a few. His vibrant and powerfully solid drawings have garnered critical acclaim leading to numerous awards, including gold at the Society of Artists’ Agents Illustration Awards. He currently resides in Northern Ireland where he works overlooking Belfast Lough and an old windmill, in stark contrast to the fast paced world in which his work dwells. Steve Simpson has been drawing professionally since the age of 15, when he landed an opportunity to work alongside cartoonist John K Geering. His own drawings have since become some of the most recognisable in Ireland today with his characters garnishing the likes of Tayto crisp packets, An Post stamps and Boyne Valley honey. Simpson moved to Ireland from the UK in the late 80s to work as an animator and anyone who has fond memories of Bee Bop, Rock Steady and co. will appreciate his work on such high profile cartoons as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. With a line-up as collectively accomplished as this, anyone with even a passing interest in illustration will be hotfooting it down to the Sugar Club to check out their wares. All of the artists will be exhibiting and discussing their work and, to sweeten the deal, CandyCollective are throwing in special limited edition prints by each artist – for free! And who doesn’t love free stuff? Especially when it’s as pretty as this lot. SweetTalk 34 will take place on Thursday 30th April at 7pm at the Sugar Club, Lwr. Leeson Street. Tickets are €12 incl. booking fee, available from tickets.ie

GUGGI Guggi is a divisive force. He’s kind of like marmite in human form. He doesn’t do himself any favours by designing the ‘Guggi emblem’ on his website to resemble the ‘Gucci’ logo; or by declaring in a recent Q&A session with The Dubliner magazine that when out socialising he can be found hanging out in Renards or Lillies. Life as Bono’s Official Best Friend can be overshadowing when it comes to the important things in Guggi’s life, like his art. His art, as it turns out, ain’t bad. That his subject matter has remained constant since he began painting professionally in the early 80s is a sure sign of his sheer determination and the conviction that he has in his craft. His collection of urns, vases, bowls and vessels of all manners seem to scream metaphorically towards some deeper meaning within Guggi’s creative psyche. From two-dimensional monochrome drawings, complex colour-splashed masterpieces emerge – proving that Guggi has evolved from the former Virgin Prunes frontman moniker that has dogged him for so long into what he should rightfully be acknowledged as – an artist in his own right. Guggi’s work can be seen between 27th March–25th April at the Kerlin Gallery, Anne’s Lane, South Anne Street

For more theatre and exhibition previews, interviews and comprehensive listings throughout the month, visit our website - www.totallydublin.ie

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PANTIBAR PANTS ON FIRE WORDS

Jaime Nanci Emma Brereton

PICTURES

Run by the High Queen of the Irish gay scene, Miss Panti Bliss, Pantibar is fast becoming THE place to see and be seen on any given night of the week. With its knicker-draped light fittings casting the interior in a soft red glow and a mix of young and old gayers and their fag hags, it has grown in popularity not only because it remains the only gay-owned and -run venue in the city, and not only because of its stunningly attractive barkeeps, but it provides an irregular, unexpected medley of unusual and exciting one-off and monthly theme nights, events and parties. From its weekly “Underpanti” student nights every Wednesday, where drink is as cheap as it was in pre-Tiger days, to the notorious monthly bear parties at “The Furry Glen” it offers a welcome change to the usual run-of-the-mill gay bars and clubs, and has garnered a fierce loyalty amongst its ever growing patrons. Miss Panti herself has branded the place in her own likeness; the walls are adorned with huge poster art depicting the many faces of the goddess herself, taken from the numerous Alternative Miss Ireland ads that her beauty has graced over the years. The in-house soundsystem plays softly during the day - old school classics, everyone from Miss Panti’s own heroine, Dolly Parton, through Prince to The Cure, and as the day fades, the volume gets turned up and the place fills with a heady mix of young and old, gay and not so gay. Mondays see Panti and friends take on the roll of Mary Fitzgerald, for a touch of making and doing, providing punters with an assortment of craft making materials to compete for the best Mala superhero, or the best paper plate mask at the weekly Make-And-Do-Do. With a newly opened downstairs dance-floor, complete with bar and cloakroom, on the weekend the place heaves with hordes of the young and hip, who wouldn’t be seen dead in the likes of the more typical venues the city has to offer. Theme nights such as the fancy dress “Partie Monster”, and alterna-

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tive night “Ait Ait”, have ensured that a truly refreshing mix of clientele frequent the bar, and there is no cliquey-ness in evidence. Anyone could find themselves dragged into some form of onstage appearance (pardon the pun) during Thursdays’ “Panti and Bunny Show”, probably the best drag show this side of Sydney, where instead of the usual lipsynching to Kylie acts you would most likely find in any mainstream gay club, the Hostess and her budding apprentice, Miss Bunny take on the roles of the numerous put upon women from today’s soaps, re-enact scenes from classic films, such as The Prime of Miss Jean Brody and play a rip-roaringly funny game of Pictionary… the winner of which has to then compete in a giant version of Connect Four. Pantibar has resuscitated a scene that was growing cold, and the atmosphere within her hallowed walls is so enticing that its popularity seems to span many barriers. Age, race, class, and gender are all overlooked here in favour of the craic and a good showstopping number. Just don’t let Penny the puppy out! 7-8 Capel Street, Dublin 1 Open 7 days from 5pm

www.totallydublin.ie

THINKTANK WITH AN APPEARANCE FROM JODIE MARSH WORDS

Sheena Madden Emma Brereton

PICTURE

Anyone who remembers The Hub with fondness is either reminiscing through rose-tinted glasses or ought to be institutionalised. It was an awful cesspit of student immorality where a good night was marked by downing the contents of a bottle of tequila and having a teeth-clashing snog with some acne-riddled adolescent who, fingers crossed, you would never see in the harsh light of day or sobriety. If you didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t puke in the corner it was a bonus. This is my recollection of Temple Barâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dingiest dive bar, so it was with great trepidation that I returned, quite some years later, to investigate the scene of many, many teenage crimes. My fears subsided somewhat when I read the mission statement issued by ThinkTank, the latest brave incarnation to be built on the buried bones of The Hub. It read: â&#x20AC;&#x153;ThinkTank can be described as an avĂĄnt-guard artistic melting pot bringing together art, music and visual elements to create a truly innovative club experience. The concept is to offer artists from a variety of creative and original horizons the free space to show the Irish crowd their unique flair.â&#x20AC;? Well, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not ashamed to say that I could nigh on feel the excitement coursing through my easily-pleased veins. In addition to the likes of Le Cirque at Spy and Toejam at The Bernard Shaw, ThinkTank joins the burgeoning mass of concept clubs and events set up by people who are concerned about Dublinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cultural and social wellbeing rather than working out what the ideal ratio of podium dancers to stag nights is in order to optimize profitability. Their calendar boasts an impressively diverse range of events spanning comedy, art, live gigs and djs playing all disciplines of music and their constant, giddy stream of Facebook invitations to events such as â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The Speakeasy Midnight Jam & Comedy Clubâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; all point away from the norm and into a potentially limitless creative sphere. So it was all in the name of research that I found myself drinking tequila and attempting to dance to minimal techno one Friday night in a basement club in Temple Bar. The tunes on the night were provided by technohead Tobias

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LĂźtzenkirchen, whoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s name didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t set my head bobbing with recognition but who I was later informed is a pretty big mover in international techno circles. Even before descending the steps into ThinkTank, I found myself warmly welcomed by clubbers who had spilled out onto the cobbled street above in search of a place to smoke and chill out from the intensity of the pumping bass that could be felt underfoot. Downstairs, the dark lighting and claustrophobically low ceilings conjured flashbacks of The Hub but this was nicely counteracted by the pretty monochrome murals adorning crisp white walls that were set off by soft coloured lighting to avoid looking clinical. The vibe on the night was techno but more cool-European-minimal techno than Temple-Theatre-Ben-Sherman-Nike-AirMax techno. ThinkTank is a small venue, with a capacity of maybe 500 or so, but it provides a welcome antidote to some of the vacuous superclubs that are sucking the life out of Dublinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s personality on a nightly basis. All-in-all, I was pleasantly surprised by my visit to ThinkTank. The lovely team of staff and organisers positively seethe enthusiasm and seem hell bent on creating a fresh and positive experience for the club-weary Dubliner. My only reservations however, were when I saw this posted on their website a few days later: You are invited to the Launch Night of ThinkTank â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Dublinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s newest nightclub. With an appearance from Jodie Marsh!! Ah, so close. And what exactly is the talented Jodie going to do, prey tell - DJ, sing, dance, curate a live art installation? No sheâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s going to, eh, appear. For a club so intent on providing a uniquely cultural experience, the blatant PR stunt is disappointingly mundane. Hopefully ThinkTank will realise that they could have a great little niche carved out for themselves in Dublin before they go hiring Peaches Geldof to DJ. 23-24 Eustace St Temple Bar Dublin 2

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ODESSA FIVER THE BEST WORDS Ruth Hegarty

PICTURE Emma Brereton

The recession has silver linings. It does. It makes restaurants far more competitive. Odessa has introduced a ‘Fivers’ menu based around the Spanish tapas idea. I’ve always liked going to Odessa and felt it was a little bit special. This is mostly due to the fact that if you sit downstairs, you’re on big armchairs, the lighting is low and the staff fantastic. You feel like you’re out for the night, like you live in a buzzing cosmopolitan city and you’re part of it. I arrived before the girl I was meeting. There were lots of groups of girls meeting for food and a glass (or several) of wine. I ordered three of the dishes to start us off. First up - gambas al ajillo. It arrived with a big bowl of iced water for your sticky hands after peeling. They were hot and had clearly just been cooked to order. They were big, plump and tasty. About six or seven of them, a very acceptable quantity. Full marks. Next - chorizo stew with chickpeas. The best chorizo I’ve had in Ireland comes from an import company called Approach Trades which is based in Clonmel. That particular chorizo comes in big coils of paprika-infused meat. It’s soft and subtly spicy. The chorizo in Odessa was a smaller, hardier specimen, but very acceptable with a good kick. Cooked with chickpeas, it tasted authentic. Last but not least - bandade. I was told that ‘Bandade’ was salt cod. I couldn't turn that down. If you walk down any of the central streets in Madrid you’re likely to come across a ‘casa de baccalao’ with its familiar blue lettering. Long strips of white cod hard with salt will be hanging from the ceiling and stacked in the window. It looks really odd, as if the shop is so low on merchandise it only has a few things on display. But this is a delicacy, something that I’m sure contributes to the low stocks of cod in the seas (along with our own predeliction for battered cod and chips). What came was a bowl of salt cod mashed in with potato stuck with three slices of toasted baguette. It worked very well. It was complimented further with chips (€3) dipping in to get a big generous dunking (I know. Potato on potato. Too much. I am Irish though, not Spanish). After three dishes and an order of chips we were full. We even left a little behind. I was surprised. I expected to have to order more. We did order dessert (€6 each) but it was overkill and the options were mostly comfort choices – there’s a toffee pudding, a strawberry and raspberry crème brulee (too sweet for my taste), and a chocolate brownie fudge sundae which sounded gorgeous but proved to be just too much after the rich main course. Ideally tapas should be ordered in-

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crementally – a plate along with a drink and more ordered as you feel like it. In Odessa, I don’t think this would work. The day I went they needed the table back by 8pm. I ordered the three dishes, they took a long time to arrive and I think it wouldn’t have been feasible to add more, have more wine and add more again. That kind of piecemeal eating can only happen in a bar that serves food rather than a restaurant that happens to serve tapas as part of a fuller menu. It is how tapas are best enjoyed however – one dish savoured, then another followed by another, rather than a cacophony of flavours simultaneously. Two glasses of house wines, a Spanish tempranillo and a French sauvignon blanc (€5.75) along with a coffee rounded off the meal before we reluctantly left our table to allow others sample Odessa’s offerings. Odessa 14 Dame Court, Dublin 2 01 6707634

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onions and meat in no sauce. Here, the choices are simple and therefore work better. We ordered a Sashimi Regular (€20) plate to start. We went on a Sunday night, a bad night to order raw fish - they were out of tuna. The plate was beautiful and plentiful with lots of paper thin seabass, prawns (which I can never stomach) and thick chunks of salmon which I loved. Wasabi, ginger, and soya. I ordered chicken yakitori (€7.50) for the little one, though she tucked in to the salmon as well. The mains are all the same - you choose from salmon, chicken (€21), steak (sirloin €21.50 or fillet €24), prawns, scallops, or a combination of these. Your chef arrives at the table and makes fried rice, with lots of good humoured drama with eggs and rice bowls flying around and ending up (mostly) in his hat. A small amount of sautéed potato and vegetables follow on to your plate. He then asks you how you want your meat cooked and cooks it. I had sirloin steak, which was good meat (not cooked rare as I asked for, though probably the better for it). Others had chicken which, while very tasty, was a little on the tofu front.

YO THAI DINNERTABLE DRAMA WORDS Ruth Hegarty

When I went to San Francisco recently I was taken to a buzzy Asian place where everything was cooked in front of you. The chef had great style. He made a huge heart out of the fried rice on the hot plate and a big arrow running through it from him to me. I was touched. Food is always the way to my heart. I’m sure he didn’t do that for everyone. Little did I realise that such wooing is also available in Yo Thai restaurant above Kiely’s pub in Donnybrook. Yo Thai has a simple menu, the mains of which are all cooked on a hot plate in front of you with lots of drama, spinning pepper mills, banging knives and the piece de resistance: a huge fire blow which took us all aback the first time. As we laughed

nervously, it happened again, nearer this time (he was cooking my steak). One of our party started crying, she was so scared. The waiter cheered her up with a big bang and a squeaky voice (she is only one year old, so that worked). Audience participation is encouraged; the one year old was the best at that. She’d bang her chopstick, or my miso soup, and in retaliation the chef would do some fancy knife spinning and twirling. She’d cackle in delight. The place is good for those of a short attention span or lacking in conversation. You can, of course, choose a quieter table and eat food brought without drama from the kitchen. To the food. The only other hotplate experience I’ve had in Ireland was a great disappointment as I was served up burnt

CASANOSTRA

Yo Thai 22-24 Donnybrook Road, Dublin 4 01 2603886

PICTURE Emma Brereton

DAYTRIPS TO GLENDALOUGH

o E]dZc^mEVg`7^`Z=^gZ#Xdb

St. Kevin’s Bus Service

If you are in Dublin for a couple of days why not spend a few hours cycling around Europe’s biggest urban park - the Phoenix Park.

(est. 1927)

t Over 160 bikes in stock, from ones with baby seats, tag-alongs to hybrids to MTBs to racers. We ven have 20 tandems!

Restaurant & Cafe

t We are happy to offer group rates so just ask. t This is the BEST way to see this magniﬁcent park.

Call for details 086 2656 258

www.totallydublin.ie

t Guided tours running Friday, Saturday & Sunday.

Under new management

Relax and enjoy Ireland’s most beautiful scenery

Great Food & Coﬀee in a stylish yet cosy environment.

Bray Head • Sugarloaf Mountains Rocky Valley Roundwood Lakes Annamoe Valley • Laragh

85 Marlborough Street, Dublin 1 Tel: 01 872 8143 Mob: 087 951 1297

From Dublin: €13 single, €20 return From Bray: €9 single, €15 return Tickets purchased on bus Year-round daily departures: 11.30 & 18.00

St. Kevin’s Bus Service Roundwood, Co.Wicklow Tel: +353 (0)1 281 8119 www.glendaloughbus.com

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CRUBEEN CUISINE

BITESIZE ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO EAT WORDS Katie Gilroy

TRIANGLE TREATS

Nineteen years ago, a Meath man by the name of Brendan Gammell set up a delicatessen on the corner of the Ranelagh Triangle. I have often walked by, or rather teetered past, en route to some watering hole in five inch heels that two hours later I will swear never to wear again, and admired the treats in the window but not once ventured inside. Recently, a new addition to the shop front display stopped me dead in my tracks. Amongst the cream cakes and scones, pains au chocolats and croissants were stacks upon stacks of what your mother would call ‘buns’, but you and I know better, and a sign which read: ‘Cupcakes, as seen in Sex and the City’. Brightly iced and beautiful, the sugar-laden lovelies enticed me inside and my suspicions were confirmed; they were the best cupcakes I had ever tasted. His sister Olive bakes the goodies, while Brendan whips up homemade hearty meals each day, such as vegetarian nut loaf, Irish stew, beef casserole and chicken curry pie, usually served with a side of friendly banter, and a few tips on the next horse race. Gammell’s 33 Ranelagh Dublin 6 T: 01 4962311

TOTALLY DUBLIN

THEFUTURE OF FITZER’S

With hopes of transforming it into a gastronomic temple, Marco Pierre White has entered into an exciting venture with Fitzer’s, devising a new menu for the Dawson Street restaurant, as well as personally training the Fitzer’s culinary team in London. Famous for reducing the impenetrable Ramsey to a blubbering mess, it’s probably best that the tempestuous chef will make infrequent visits to the venue, perhaps once a week or so, just to check that everything’s running smoothly. And many Fitzer’s regulars may breathe a sigh of relief as favourites such as the Fitzer’s fish and chips have not been relegated from the menu. Fresh crab with mayonnaise and Carlingford oysters add a touch of opulence to the list of starters, and now you can have your rib-eye Hereford beef steak a l’escargot if the fancy French snails are your fare. Two courses from 12.30–6.30pm, seven days a week, cost €17.95, and the daily lunch special is priced at €12.95. Marco Pierre White Steakhouse & Grill 51 Dawson Street Dublin 2 T: 01 6771155

In Dublin’s fair city, just north of the river, there are some misguided souls who think that an early bird special involves a two for one deal at Supermacs with the missus, before ditching her for the lads, a pint, and Celtic Vs Rangers at the pub. While the IFSC has proved itself a sophisticated quarter for the après work diner, the nearby O’Connell Street and its tributaries still lag behind in the food stakes. That may be set to change, and perhaps soon where a Spar or Centra exists for every Joe Soap with an opinion on the Spire, a bistro will crop up with no need for ultraviolet lights in the jacks. Le Bon Crubeen on Talbot Street is one such revolutionary spot. The French brasserie, taking the last part of its name from the Irish word for pig’s foot, specialises in authentic French cuisine at reasonable prices. Try the pork and leek bangers with mash and red cabbage for €10, or the chicken stuffed with brie and redcurrant jus for €11.50. And after a really big feed of the five spiced pork belly, why not pop into The Celt pub next door for some foot-tapping á la Flatley, and a quality pint of Guinness. Le Bon Crubeen 81–82 Talbot Street North City Centre T: 01 7040126

BRUNCHLINE

It’s not quite breakfast, and it’s not quite lunch… It’s a time of day, usually on the weekend, when it’s permissible to sip Prosecco whilst simultaneously wiping the sleep from your eyes, and order an extra scoop of ice-cream with your stack of pancakes without being judged. Yes, ‘brunch’ was a super invention, and now a staple meal in its own right; it is definitely one that should not be missed. And nobody does brunch like Hugo’s of Merrion Row. From 11–4pm on Saturday and Sunday, you can have your eggs every which way. Breakfast burritos served with home fries are €10.50, as is the full Irish. On Sundays from 1.15–3.30pm, a jazz band led by Thomas Melitt will sooth your sore head, and a dose of French toast with honey and ice-cream will take care of the rest. So roll out of bed, and roll into Hugo’s for a bite of brunch, but make sure to leave the slippers behind. Hugo’s Merrion Row Dublin 2 T: 01 6765955

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CAFE

ÓÎÈÊ "7 ,Ê, / -Ê," ]Ê 1 ÊÈÊ/ \Êä£ { ÇÇäxÇ

“Fresh Pastries baked on the premises, good coffee and delicious sandwiches”

CAFE

LUAS

CAFE

Office Catering Low-call 1890 843 726 orders@tiesan.com CAFE www.tiesan.com

" A well-made hamburger that tastes of good meat and which has been adorned with just enough in the way of trimmings is a rare joy. Gourmet Burger Company in Ranelagh does a seriously impressive version and does some of the best chips in the country." Tom Doorley, Irish Times

97 Ranelagh Road, Ranelagh Village, Dublin 6 Tel: 01 4977821

www.gourmetburgercompany.ie

Y L L A T O T

FOOD

Restaurant Guide

Brasserie Sixty6 66-67 South Great Georges St, Dublin 2 Stylish, buzzy restaurant, right in the heart of Dublin’s shopping and entertainment district. Great food and drink, fantastic surroundings, exciting atmosphere, reasonable prices. Whether it's a lazy brunch at the weekend or a business lunch, or simply a romantic dinner at brasserie sixty6 is always our pleasure. Finger-licking desserts, a full vegetarian menu, carefully selected wine list chosen with accessibility, value and good taste, delicious cocktails to start your evening… you will not be disappointed. Open: Mon-Fri at 11am, Sat-Sun 10am, Until: Sun-Wed til 10.30pm, Wed-Sat til 11pm

t: (01) 4005878 www.brasseriesixty6.com

Café Novo

Harry St, Dublin 2, South Dublin Centre Café Novo, a chic new international bar and brasserie opened it doors in October 2008. This fun and flirty eatery will woo diners with a carefully selected menu that offers traditional favourites with a twist - making it the perfect brunch stop for peckish shoppers or evening dinner and drinks spot for city slickers. Conveniently located on Harry Street, just a few steps from Grafton Street, Café Novo offers informal style drop–in dining, whether you want to grab a modern take on a club sandwich or to simply sip on a cocktail. Mon - Sun 10am to 10pm, bar open to 12.30am.

t: (01) 6463353 dine@cafenovo.ie

Bull and Castle Gastro Pub and Beer Hall Christchurch Place, Christchurch

Ireland’s first and only gastro pub and beer hall, providing restaurant quality food in a pub style atmosphere. Owned and run by FXB, an establishment already well known for its free-range cuisine, we also match different styles of beer with our food menu, providing an interesting twist to dining. We have now extended our opening hours on a Friday and Saturday night to 2.30am. Upstairs our beer hall stocks over 150 different beers from around the world and we are a premiere distributor of Irish craft beers. Mon – Thurs: 11.00-23.30, Fri - Sat: 11.00-02.30 Sun: 12.00-23.00

ely chq

Café Carlo

ely chq is perfectly located just moments walk from both the O2 and Croke Park, making it the perfect destination for pre or post event dinner or drinks. The menu is developed around the family's organic farm in the Burren, Co. Clare. Quality is key with simple preparation and presentation. ely chq is fully licensed with a full range of beers both bottled and on tap. All this comes alongside a wine list which ely has become famous for.

The relaxed and intimate setting of Café Carlo, coupled with its high-quality, reasonably priced food and friendly, attentive staff has made this restaurant a huge favourite with Dublin diners. Not only is it a popular choice with visitors to our fair city, it's also found a place in the hearts of the discerning locals, who return time and again to soak up the Cafe Carlo atmosphere and enjoy some genuinely delicious food. Free glass of wine with every main course when mentioning this ad!

Custom House Quay, Dublin 1

Mon – Sat 12.00 till close

T: (01) 672 0010 www.elywinebar.ie

63 - 64 O’Connell Street, Dublin 1

t: (01) 888 08 56 www.cafecarlo.net

t: (01) 475 1122

FXB Grill @ Ryans 28 Parkgate Street, South Dublin Centre Ryan’s of Parkgate St. is the latest addition to FXB Restaurants. An establishment of outstanding heritage, character and distinction, Ryan’s is one of Dublin’s authentic Victorian pubs. With a history as long as Ryan’s itself, FXB’s is synonymous with award-winning, free range cuisine. Patrons can enjoy a nice bite to eat or just wander in for what is reputably the best pint in Dublin. Whatever you decide, a friendly welcome awaits you in Ryan’s of Parkgate St. Everyday from 5.30pm, Lunch: Friday to Sunday

TOTALLY DUBLIN

t: (01) 677 6097 www.fxbrestaurants.com

ely hq

Hanover Quay, Dublin 2 ely hq is located in the newly developed area of Hanover Quay in Dublin’s South Docklands. The food menu is based on ely’s popular signature dishes, and the all day menu includes such comfort foods as Organic steak sandwich on homemade foccacia bread with red onion marmalade, salad and hand-cut chips, the massively popular ely organic burger with a choice of mouth watering toppings, all this alongside over 200 wines, a full bar serving beers (both bottled and on tap) and a perfect selection of cocktails, making ely hq the gastro pub of the ely trio. Mon – Sat 12.00 till close

T: (01) 633 9986 www.elywinebar.ie

www.totallydublin.ie

SoHo

ely winebar

La Mere Zou

La Paloma

Unpretentious cooking, laid back surroundings, nice sounds, reasonable prices, easy dining and a friendly welcome. Bang in the middle of Dublin city centre - right where you want to be. One all day menu, whether for a quick bite, or a shared platter, or lunch, or casual dinner with friends or colleagues. We offer simple classics and staples prepared using the best ingredients, and executed with style..What you want, how you want it. Laid back eating at SoHo.

Tucked away on Ely Place, ely winebar has earned a reputation for being one of the best places in town to enjoy simple honest food, with all beef, pork and lamb organically sourced through the family farm in the Burren, Co. Clare. ely winebar has over 500 wines available starting from 23.00 Euro, and over 80 of these are available by the glass - sample as many as often as possible!

A solidly French restauramt offering bistro classics with a moden touch, La Mere Zou opened in 1994 and specialises in Classic French cuisine, we also offer a large selection of seafood directly from the local fishmarket. Ay La Mere Zou you can relax in a warm, familial atmosphere while enjoying the very best in cuisine and service.

Mon – Sat 12.00 till close

Lunch: Monday - Friday 12 -3pm Dinner: Monday - Sat 6 - 11pm

Open: Mon-Fri 12pm, Sat & Sun 10.30am Last Orders: Sun- Wed 10.30pm, Thurs-Sat 11pm

t: (01) 676 8986 www.elywinebar.ie

t: (01) 61 6669 www.lamerezou.ie

La Paloma is a casual family run bar/restaurant in the very heart of Temple Bar serving Spanish influenced dishes since 1990.The warm colourful decor with Spanish football on TV and a small bar serving beer, sangria, wines including Riojas by the glass completes a laid back feeling.The menu includes Calamares, Gambas Ajillo, Albondigas, Paellas including Vegetarian, Many Fish dishes, Pinchitos con Gambas and more including a Tapas menu. A Two course Early Bird is available with Seafood or Chicken Paella as main course from 6pm to 7pm at 13.95.

17 South Great Georges Street, Dublin 2

22 Ely Place, Dublin 2

t: (01) 7079596 www.sohodublin.com

22 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2

Asdills Row, Temple Bar, Dublin 2

Tues-Sun 6pm-11.30pm

t: (01) 6777392 www.lapalomadublin.com

Gotham Café

8 South Anne St, Dublin 2 Open since 1993 one of the first casual restaurants in Dublin, Gotham still has the reputation for serving consistently great food at reasonable prices. Most famous for our Gourmet Pizzas, we also offer a full range of light breakfast, lunch and dinner options to suit any time of the day or night. Sun to Thurs 10.30am-11pm Fri & Sat 10.30am-12 Sunday Brunch 11.30-4pm

t: (01) 679 52 66 www.gothamcafe.ie

DAX

23 Pembroke Street Upper A welcoming bar area offers a post-work winddown or light evening meal, perfect for you and your colleagues to enjoy with hot and cold tapas, available Tuesday to Saturday. Ideal for business and perfect for pleasure, or to dine privately for groups of between 10 and 14 people, Dax Restaurant is only a stones throw away from you and your business so why not take the time to visit a restaurant of refreshment, rejuvenation and reinvigoration. LUNCH: Tuesday to Friday from 12.30pm to 2pm DINNER: Tuesday to Saturday from 6pm to 10pm

t: 01 6761494 olivier@dax.ie www.dax.ie

La Vie Restaurant

1-5 Exchequer Street, Dublin 2 La Vie Restaurant on Exchequer St is one of Dublins most exciting new openings. Situated where the Central Hotel’s Ross & Wallpole Bar used to be it boasts one of Dublins brightest and most spacious dining rooms. Serving delicious European cuisine. There are three rooms which can cater for parties of up to 80 people, or you can book a single room for smaller more intimate gatherings warmed by an open fireplace. Check for special events like Salsa and Karaoke. Special menu available on St Patrick’s Day. Also, check out our new cocktail menu. Open 7 days, 12-11pm

www.totallydublin.ie

t: (01) 764 51 77 www.lavie.ie

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Ely Custom CHQ House Dublin Quay 1 *** START Wild M ERS: ushroo m & Devi Piquillo lled Kid Pepper neys €8 s & Sal .95 t Cod € 8.95 *** MA Monk F IN COURSES ish Sur : Organi f ‘n c Slow Cooked ’ Turf €24.95 Lamb S hank € 19.95 *** Total B il

l For 2 People €62.80 Hi-Life Saving €28.90 Total B i

ll To Pa y €33.90

Y L L A T O T

FOOD

Restaurant Guide

Sinners

The Pig’s Ear

Belly dancing and Baba Ganoush, Sinner’s is a traditional Lebanese restaurant in the heart of Dublin City, which combines good food with a vibrant atmosphere. Sinners Lebanese Restaurant is a former recipient of a “Best Ethnic Cuisine” Temple Bar award and continues to serve patrons a wide variety of tantalising Lebanese fare. Guests at Sinners will find a welcoming staff, who provide an excellent service to ensure you have an authentic, fun night out.

The pigs ear restaurant specialises in traditional irish fare which is sumptuous and at afforable prices. The décor is comfy and casual but the real gem is its location, on nassau st situated on the second floor overlooking Trinity college. The food ranges from hearthy shepards pie to bacon and cabbage ,and is sure to cheer you up on a chilly spring night. Open 6 days.

12 Parliament Street, Dublin 2

4 Nassau St, Dublin 2

t: (01) 6703865 www.thepigsear.ie

Open 5pm til late

t: (01) 675 0050

Ukiyo Bar

La Peniche

7-9 Exchequer Street, Dublin 2

Grand Canal, Mespil Road, Dublin 4

Ukiyo Bar is Dublin’s premier late night bar, restaurant and entertainment venue. Open from 12pm till late 7 days a week, especially on Thursday, Friday and Saturday when we keep our kitchen open past midnight. At Ukiyo we strive to provide our customers with a unique dining and entertainment experience - from the best value lunches to great sushi and sake in the evening, attentive and knowledgeable service, top shelf cocktails and some of the best club nights in Dublin at the weekend. Not to mention our private karaoke booths, making Ukiyo the immediate choice for a first date, a birthday party or a corporate bash.

La Peniche offers a beautiful dinner cruise from Tuesday to Thursday. The cruise is available for private hire also by prior arrangement. Lunch Tues - Fri: 12.00-14.30 Dinner Tues - Sat: 18.00-22.30 Dinner Cruises Tues-Thurs

T: (01) 790 0077 www.lapeniche.ie

Punjab Balti

Venu

Old favourite Punjab Balti retains it's popularity and success after 13 years by consistently serving authentic Punjabi cuisine, prepared in the same traditional manner as in the Indian subcontinent's Punjab region for centuries. Over the years this famous Ranelagh restaurant has won major recognition for it's top quality food, intimate ambience, excellent value and service. You can bring your own beer or wine and there are also takeaway and delivery services available that are perfect for a Balti night in. For current special offers check out www.punjabbalti.ie'

Venu has enjoyed a loyal following since it opened in 2006 and it has been renowned for its wellexecuted, varied food menu and for its award winning cocktail bar. If you are looking for a vibrant place that serves great cocktails and quality ‘home-made’ dishes at reasonable prices it is hard to look much further than Venu Brasserie.

15 Ranelagh Village, Dublin 6

t: (01) 496 0808 / (01) 491 2222 info@punjabbalti.ie

t: (01) 6334071 www.ukiyobar.com

Anne’s Lane, off South Anne St, Dublin 2

Tues - Sat: Dinner 5.30 til late Saturday Brunch: 12pm til 4pm

t: (01) 67 06 755 www.venu.ie charles@venubrasserie.com TOTALLY DUBLIN

Cinema

Flash of Genius

Director: Marc Abraham Talent: Greg Kinnear, Jake Abel, Lauren Graham Released: 20 March With the American auto industry falling to pieces in the wake of the recent economic downfall it’s refreshing to watch a film in which automakers assume their old role as the big bad wolves of American industry. Dennis Kearns, played by Greg Kinnear of Little Miss Sunshine fame, is a quiet and gently awkward professor who invents the intermittent windshield wiper in the basement of his home. Kearns tries to sell what the auto industry wants for free, and soon enough he is seeing intermittent wipers on cars without credit being given to his name. Thus begins Kearns’ lengthy legal ordeal of suing the top automobile manufacturers in America for credit for his own invention. His legal undertaking not only pushes the limits of Kearns’ sanity, but also fractures his once happy family life. Although Flash of Genius has all the proper components of a family film, the plot is a most unfortunate combination of slow and predictable. The fact that the main driving forces within the plot are legal battles, paperwork, and changes in U.S. patent law makes watching the film seem more like a day at work than a leisurely activity. Also, Lauren Graham’s character comes across as stale and forced, and she is, in the end, unconvincing as Dennis’ wife, Phyllis Kearns. However, Flash of Genius is remarkable in that it gracefully directs the viewer’s attention towards the smallest of details, such as the blinking of an eye (the inspiration for Kearns’ invention) or the sweeping pattern of a windshield wiper. Despite being based on a true story, Flash of Genius is unlikely to inspire the invention of a new mechanism to wipe away tears. Ultimately, the film is little more than a nostalgic requiem for the height of the U.S. auto industry and the touting of the now tired mantra that justice is more important than money. Kaitlin Young

TOTALLY DUBLIN

Director: Paolo Sorrentino Talent: Tony Servillo Released: 20 March ‘Massacres and conspiracies are the work of Craxi and Andreotti’ reads the graffiti on the backstreets of Rome where the sun’s rays do not permeate the condensation-covered stone walls. Giulio Andreotti strolls gravely and pensively through the hours that daybreak pursues, which is eerily silent despite the troop of watchmen on hand to diffuse any given situation. This is the portrait that director Paolo Sorrentino has painted of the man who has at once been described as Il Divo and Beelzebub, highlighting the ying and yang attitudes of the Italian people towards their infamous former prime minister. Tony Servillo’s flawless depiction of Giulio Andreotti is that of a man whose migraines substitute his conscience and has malevolence coursing through his veins, yet for all his inscrutability Andreotti comes across as a darkly comedic character whose gifted mind cannot fully ignore the weight of his actions. Il Divo’s opening scene provides a macabre glossary of murdered politicians set to an arresting punk track provided by Cassius, paving the way for the slew of political corruption and atrocities that dogged Andreotti’s seven-term premiership. This whirlwind biopic delves deep into the archives of the Christian Democrat’s 44 year monopoly and the accusations of mafia connections which finally ousted them from government. At the centre of this is a forceful, enigmatic politico who, at 90 years of age, is still politically active as a senator for life and a writer. Those not familiar with the tumultuous history of the Italian governmental system may find themselves daunted by the barrage of characters that are introduced and dismissed throughout the course of the film but, this aside, Il Divo is a stylish and confident film that examines the human side of a man considered by many to be a brooding demon. As Andreotti himself declared, "I've never believed one can divide humanity into two groups: angels and demons. We are all average sinners.” Sheena Madden

Tyson

Monsters vs. Aliens

Director: James Toback Talent: Mike Tyson Released: 27 March

Director: Rob Letterman, Conrad Vernon Talent: Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Laurie, Seth Rogen, Kiefer Sutherland Released: 3 April

Jack Johnson, the first black Heavyweight Champion of the World, spoke thusly of his glittering career: “I made a lot of mistakes out of the ring, but I never made any in it.” Troubled by accusations of violence and misogyny, Johnson provided the cast for ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson, the youngest boxer ever to win a world heavyweight title. James Toback, a friend of Tyson’s (the director cast him in his films Black and White and When Will I Be Loved), attempts in his documentary to disentangle the boxer’s knotty legacy. Tyson’s life becomes a rags-to-bitches bildungsroman, a rise and fall of proportions as impressive as the man’s own musculature once was. In the form of a long interview, Tyson describes his journey from pudgy preteen law-breaker to international superstar, finally and heart-rendingly considering his present existence as a bankrupt addict. Toback’s Man-Behind-The-Myth approach is instantly troubled, however, by his decision to base the film around an interview. The explicit expression of a point of view differing from Tyson’s own is no longer possible – we’re forced to take him at his word regarding his domestic violence, a rape conviction and a chunk of Evander Holyfield’s right ear. Yet when Tyson raises these points of contention the director goes all film school on us, and splits the screen into several sections - multi-Mikes protesting too much. Toback subverts his charge’s testimony, refashioning Tyson’s brutish image as one of a conflicted man at odds with himself. He manages to steer Tyson away from the dour waters of interview-based ITV documentary territory and reveals the vulnerable man beneath the Iron mask. Darragh McCabe

Il Divo

Rob Letterman (Shark Tale) and Conrad Wilson (Shrek 2) join forces for Dreamworks’ answer to Pixar’s groundbreaking (and box-office smashing) 3D animation Bolt. The result of their collaboration is a rollicking good kids’ film with myriad references to 50's and 60's B-movies (Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, The Blob, The Fly), and a homage to Stanley Kubrick’s celebrated 1964 parody Dr. Strangelove. The story follows Susan, a California girl who is hit by a meteorite on her wedding day and becomes Ginormica - a 49-foot-and-11-inch tall “monster”. She is apprehended by the military and sent to a detention centre, where she meets and befriends Dr. Cockroach, Link, and B.O.B. (played by Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, and Seth Rogen, respectively). When a giant robot from another planet lands outside San Francisco, the friends are sent to defeat it; in so doing, they incur the wrath of Gallaxhar [Rainn Wilson], who sets out for Earth with destruction in mind. In terms of its narrative, Monsters vs. Aliens does not deviate from the traditional stereotypes of animated film – the charismatic blundering president [Stephen Colbert], the gruff military general [Kiefer Sutherland], the smarmy, sexist weatherman [Paul Rudd]. The animation, however, is a sensorial feast, capturing perfectly the texture of surfaces such as skin, jelly, water, and metal, and accurately portraying their interaction with light. With the 3D technology added, the result is aesthetically astounding. Letterman and Vernon's manipulation of images, frame-depth and experimentation with the placing of the camera and different editing techniques makes for a visual treat not to be missed. Judging by the raucous laughter of the two thirteen-year-olds a couple of rows ahead, the style of comedy hits the child-to-early-teen nail right on the head. Even if you’re out of that bracket by a few years (or a few decades), though, it’s well worth a trip to your closest 3D screen to catch a glimpse of cinematic history, fully rendered in three dimensions. Emma Taaffe

For more movie reviews, trailers, DVD reviews, interviews, movie news and comprehensive cinema listings throughout the month, visit our new website www.totallydublin.ie

The Damned United

Director: Tom Hooper Talent: Michael Sheen, Jim Broadbent, Timothy Spall, Colm Meaney Released: 27 March Brian Clough was no ordinary football manager and The Damned United is no ordinary football film. Starring Michael Sheen, in another biographical role after Frost/ Nixon, the film is based on David Peace's book of the same name - an account of Clough's time as manager of Leeds – and the events leading up to his downfall from that position. Clough courted controversy as a manager. Early on he was praised for his dynamic work at Derby County and before he went on to win the European Cup with Nottingham Forest he was pilloried for his disastrous 44 day reign at Leeds in the early 70s. The film sees Clough, outwardly confident and assured of his own talents, grapple with the limitations of this talent and his relationship with the man closest to him in his professional life: Peter Taylor. Sheen is a charismatic mixture of teeth and bravado, embodying the light and dark in Clough's persona effortlessly. With a screenplay written by Peter Morgan, of The Queen and Frost/Nixon, and directed by Tom Hooper, the film is quintessentially British; the clothing, interiors and bleak weather are painted in shades of grey and beige. Timothy Spall turns in a star performance as the maligned and put-upon Peter Taylor, the man who spent the most time with Clough in the early days, their partnership a deep friendship tested by betrayal and Clough's out-of-control ego. Colm Meaney as Don Revie, the successful manager of Leeds Clough replaces, is easy to dislike, his character is cast as Clough's nemesis and his style of management the antithesis of all Clough stands for. This is an endearing and enjoyable take on a very talked-about period of Brian Clough's career. Quite how real the events are when the real life demons of his life – a battle with alcoholism and illness – are taken into account becomes less relevant during this snapshot of a colourful, controversial and entertaining period in the history of British football and its managers. Ciara Norton

Tony Manero

Director: Pablo Larrain Talent: Alfredo Castro, Amparo Naguera, Hector Morales Released: 10 April Chilean director Pablo Larrain starts his film like a documentary; a handheld camera follows middle-aged Raul, who's obsessed with emulating John Travolta's Saturday Night Fever character in a TV competition. Unfortunately, he's arrived on the wrong day and finds himself surrounded by Chuck Norris impersonators. This first anticlimax hints at the dark humour which will run throughout, threatening to overwhelm the film's political background and graphic sex and violence. Alfredo Castro plays the ageing disco-fiend as a staring, hollow-cheeked lurcher, reminiscent of Javier Bardem in 2007's No Country for Old Men. His eyes are just as dead, his haircut just as tragic. And similarly, Raul turns to murder to achieve his ends, supplementing days in the cinema studying his cinema hero with casual acts of violence. He bludgeons an old lady to death and pawns her television. A cinema projectionist meets a similar fate when Raul's favourite title gets pulled and replaced by Grease. What Larrain really succeeds at conveying is the grime and poverty of life under Pinochet. Men smoke limp ends of cigarettes, families share a bed. Faced with the casual brutality of a corrupt police force, Raul's murderous tendencies start to seem like the logical conclusion. Certainly we understand the feverish and oddly innocent dreams he invests in American cinema. When Raul takes the stage in his flares and slicked-back hair, the camera coyly loses focus, sparing the embarrassment. Raul has all the glamour and charisma of a homemade disco-ball, but Angelica Huston-a-like Amparo Noguera and her luscious daughter Pauli (Paola Lattus) still succumb to his charms. At length Raul sells out his family and friends for TV glory and the possible prize of a blender. The shaky camerawork and grim setting might make Tony Manero seem too self-consciously grimy, but the film is distinguished by its sense of absurd humour; unwaveringly repellent, but still winningly dark. Roisín Kiberd

La Vie Moderne

Director: Raymond Depardon Talent: Raymond Privat, Marcel Privat, Paul Argaud, Germaine Challaye Released: 3 April For a decade, Raymond Depardon documented a group of farmers in a remote, rural region of France. La Vie Moderne is the last of a triptych of films he has made about them, boasting acres of luscious landscapes and yards of insightful, poignant footage on the dying tradition of farming. An established photographer, Depardon took his first photographs on his parents’ farm in 1954, and his wealth of experience in capturing breathtaking aesthetics is filtered through every frame. Unlike many invasive, brash documentarians, Depardon puts his subjects at ease, patiently engaging in conversation with them who, after many years, are now his friends. He travels from farm to farm, and his subjects chat candidly about the events which have occurred since his last visit. Between each interview, the camera mounted on Depardon’s dashboard tracks the terrain as the seasons change. Time’s passing is not only evident as snow-covered fields melt to reveal eager crops and fodder for grazing, but is present in the weary bones of aging farmers, and in their acquiescence to an inescapable force that despite their reluctance, they must eventually bow to. Most of the film’s core ideas are transmitted through the Privat family, headed by two bachelor brothers in their 80s, Marcel and Raymond. The elderly pair are unaccepting of their nephew’s new wife from the city who they feel, throws her weight about the farm. The phrase ‘generation gap’ looms like the grim reaper, because in the hands of the youth and modern technology, with neither scant regard nor passion for the old methods, the future of farming is in the grave. For Depardon’s other subjects, the future is just as bleak, and as he sets off on his journey home to a soundtrack of sorrowful cello strings, there’s a lingering sense of hopelessness and compulsion to lament the past, even in those of us who are very much a part of the modern world. Katie Gilroy

Two Lovers

Director: James Gray Talent: Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vinessa Shaw, Isabella Rossellini Released: 27 March If the viewing public is about to lose Joaquin Phoenix to rap then Two Lovers will serve as a reminder of just how good an actor he is. Phoenix is Leonard Kraditor, a young man struggling with psychological problems and a broken relationship. He shares an apartment with his anxious parents; a cramped place where the walls are full of family portraits and faded snapshots of his ancestors. Though he dabbles in photography Leonard's main occupation is working in his father's dry cleaning business in New York. It is through the business that he meets Sandra (Vinessa Shaw) a polite, dependable and pretty girl his parents envisage him making a life and a future with. As the title suggests, another lover arrives in Leonard's life and forces him to choose between the different paths in his life. Is he a family man helping to run a dry cleaning empire or a bohemian artist in love with the troubled and flighty Michelle Rausch (Gwyneth Paltrow)? Director James Gray is adept at lighting his protagonists and their homes in the light of the New York you so rarely see in cinemas. This is not the city of Hollywood blockbusters but rather a city of small, enclosed neighbourhoods defined by religion, race and class. It is an endearing portrait of the city and its people. Phoenix is almost perfect in the uncomfortable and troubled skin of Kraditor, his gaze shifts almost as much as his mood. Paltrow is, for once, almost convincing in an unstarry role, her character is a flawed princess willing her boss to leave his wife and family for her while simultaneously allowing Leonard to fall in love with her. Isabella Rossellini is understated and powerful as the anxious Jewish mother, her eyes fixed almost constantly on Leonard in an attempt to make sure he is safe and happy at all times. Together with Leonard's father they maintain a hovering presence in the film, as intrigued by what Leonard will do next as the audience is. Two Lovers is powerful in its portrayal of the life at a crossroads and the two paths, lives and loves available to Leonard Kraditor and, in a sense, Joaquin Phoenix. Quite what Phoenix will choose to do at his crossroads remains to be seen. Ciara Norton

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Games

Noby Noby Boy

Peggle

Chess

I don’t really know what’s going on any more. This is true of most things in my life, but particularly when applied to this Noby thing, this... alright then, let’s call it a “game” for convenience’s sake. Allow me to set the scene. There’s this bijou mouse policeman riding on my back – I don’t really know how he got there, to be honest – and I’ve just mistakenly eaten a gentleman with a face like a bum, followed by a strawberry (for dessert, like) and then violently shat out a hybrid man-strawberry in a futile attempt to puncture a cloud. This is the sort of scenario that passes for unremarkable in Noby Noby Boy. The demented nonsense on display here is the twisted brain-wrong of one-off man-mental Keita Takahashi, creator of the very odd (and very compelling) Katamari Damacy games, but NNB makes even those bizarre offerings look like examplars of conventional game design. The player gets to control both ends of a quadruped beast (the Boy in question), one controller stick mapped to the head, the other to the arse. The putative aim of the game is to stretch your Boy, fuelled by eating bits of the abstract world around him, as far as you possibly can, after which you report your length to the Girl, an intergalactic peace envoy who uses the collected stretching of all the players in the world to travel to far-off planets. Yeah, really. Other than that, you make your own jollies: wrap yourself around bits of the scenery, see how many pigs you can fit on your back, drag clouds down to earth, fire a dozen doughnuts out your arse, that sort of thing. It’s all charming enough (and at €3.99, cheap enough to while away a couple of hours) and it’s great to see Takahashi being given a platform for his singular visions, but Noby Noby Boy is also hamstrung by the very worst camera in the world and stupidly over-complex controls that’ll probably alienate the casual market it’s got one dirty eye on. It’s probably because I’m such an unimaginative fan of linearity after decades of corridor-trudging indoctrination by the games industry, but a little bit more structure wouldn’t go amiss among all the sandbox mucking about. Mind you, as far as I know, this is the only game in history where you’re encouraged to take direct control of an asshole. Unless you count the Gears Of War series. James Kelleher

Another version of Peggle, is it? Not that I’m complaining – Peggle is to me as the cooking sherry is to your mother – but if PopCap continue their cheerily sinister world domination at their current rate, you’ll be playing Peggle on your toaster by Christmas. The game’s premise, pitched as a mash-up between pinball, Breakout and hitherto inexplicable Japanese arcade favourite pachinko, is pretty straightforward, as in “left, right, fire” straightforward. You choose a trajectory, launch a limited number of balls at a board of coloured pegs, clear it of the orange ones by bouncing off them, and on to the next level with you. There’s also a ball-saving bucket that moves along the bottom of the screen, score-boosting purple pegs, and green pegs that grant temporary special powers, but that’s about it in terms of complexity. It doesn’t sound, on this bare-bones description, especially compelling or y’know, fun. That’s until you play the blasted thing for five minutes, after which all non-Peggle related activities, like feeding yourself or washing, melt away into that faint, dull, lowestpriority drawer of your brain usually occupied by dentist’s appointments or replacement lightbulbs. Mostly it’s because PopCap understands how to use audio design to play the player like a cheap fiddle – the ascending notes as your ball bounces its way towards the heavenly choir of the free-shot bonus, the guitar riffs for impossible long shots and, most of all, the drum-roll and seratonin blast of Ode To Joy that accompanies that last orange peg strike. More. Want more. No sleep. More. Now. The Peggle haters, shame on them, like to bang on about how it all turns on dumb luck and requires little to no skill to play, and they’re partially correct. You spend most of the game watching a ball ping about the board rather than directly participating and unless you’re a Euclidian geometry savant, you’ll have little clue as to where the ball will go after the second or third bounce. But that’s OK for all you non-savants out there: just as often as Peggle will drop you in the toilet with an unfortunate bounce, it’ll rescue you from certain doom with a chance ricochet that gets you that little bit closer to that heart-soaring rainbows & rockets “Extreme Fever” payoff. And somehow you’ll fool yourself into thinking that it was all your doing. You pushed the button, right? Push-button-makefeel-good? Might as well push it again, in that case. You don’t ever win Peggle: it wins you. James Kelleher

Chess was just about the only ‘sport’ I could win a medal in back in my school daze. Sure, you’re the big man, Scott Sheedy, with your long jump gold medal and your welly-throwing record. Sure, you’re the cock of the playground with your Zippo lighter and your 9-year-old girlfriend (who’s a slut, we all know – she was holding hands with Conor Brabazon at the Leisureplex just last month). Sure, you get to go to Belfast to run cross-country and stay in a four star hotel with Mr. O’Brady, the fidgety, bearded P.E. Teacher. But I bet you don’t have a £20 book token for Eason’s that you won for beating Chris Brennan with just a queen, a knight, a bishop, and a daring sense of adventure. So who’s the big man now? I’d love to claim the reason I started playing chess was upon hearing Wu-Tang Clan’s endorsement of that most noble of board games on ‘Tha Mystery of Chess Boxin’. In truth, though, nothing else could beat the adrenaline rush of slaughtering the class maths lickarse in three moves on the chequered death-board, short of throwing a box of bangers on the kid in the wheelchair and leaving him for dead (Jeff had it coming to him – he was robbing everybody’s pencilcases and hiding them under his seat). I even got a trip to the RDS out of it. The All-Ireland School’s Chessfest 1999 saw we, the milksop knights of St. Mary’s B.N.S., slash the gizzards of chess heathens from up and down the country. Pawn en passant? At this level? What do you think I am, a 3rd classer? Die now, you Fermanagh-schooled cockrag. Our road to the glory, though, was sadly cut short when a boy from St. Patrick’s National School raised a rook with all the smugness of a pampered ferret, plopped it three squares adjacent to my King and declared “checkmate”. No more book tokens, but a well-learned lesson: there’s always someone harder, better, and with a Zippo lighter waiting to punch your lights out just because he can. At least in chess you can kick him in the bits underneath the table and run away. Daniel Gray

PS3 [Namco Bandai]

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Xbox 360 [PopCap Games]

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Audio

The Juan MacLean

Peter Doherty

The Future Will Come [DFA Records]

Grace/Wastelands [Parlophone]

The Juan MacLean’s 12 minute opus Happy House was a 2008 summertime staple across clubs and house parties far and wide. And then there was winter and all of the worrisome drivel that it brought with it. Thankfully, DFA teacher’s pet The Juan MacLean releases his sophomore album just in the nick of time; putting an end to the dark, dreary winter and hinting at lazy, balmy days ahead. Well ok, that may be a bit too glass-half-full, but this is the kind of record that makes you want to barbeque in April whilst excitedly making plans for your annual festival jaunt. The Future Will Come features the vocals of LCD Soundsystem cohort, Nancy Whang. Her curt vocals premiere on album opener The Simple Life only after an indulgent four minutes of retro synths and funky bassline. There is something very soothing in the lackadaisical attitude that MacLean has towards setting time limits on his tracks. A miscellany of concise, radio-ready tunes like No Time, are joined languidly by ten minute soundscapes such as album highlight Tonight. ‘The Station’ recalls The Human League like the words “flux capacitor” would call to mind the 80s, with Whang and MacLean’s deadpan duet layered deliciously over keyboards and synths. The only bum note on the album comes in the form of Human Disaster: a brooding, melancholic song that just doesn’t sit well with the overall tone. It seems that of late the dance music pendulum has swung back in the direction of intelligent, hypnotic basslines. Last year, Hercules & Love Affair delivered a stomper of an uplifting dance tome that broke through the stagnation of some of the more sombre electronic plankton that had been floating about. This album has the potential to become 2009s equivalent, inducing spontaneous joy (god forbid) in those who give it a spin. Although chances are you won’t have to seek this one out – it’s destined for the dance floor. Sheena Madden SEE

ALSO:

Hercules & Love Affair - Hercules & Love Affair [DFA], LCD

Soundsystem - Sound of Silver [DFA]

Anyone who witnessed the mortifying interrogation of Pete Doherty on the Late Late Show recently will recall Pat Kenny patronisingly asking the former Rehab King what he wants from his life. Pete’s answer? “I’ve a deep rooted determination to write great songs and I’ve yet to...” he trailed off modestly with his perfected wide-eyed-lostboy look that has helped his fans to forgive him a thousand sins and no-shows. Pete’s debut solo effort, Grace/Wastelands, has brought his self-proclaimed dreams closer to attainment than it seems even he realises. The fact that Dohertyites will recognise many of the tracks as Libertines-era demos only serves to bolster his newfound focus, actualised by his ability to identify and amass songs that have been floating around in his semi-consciousness for years. Pete has drafted in the help of producer Stephen Street and revered ex-Blur guitarist, Graham Coxon. Their input does wonders for the structure of the album as Pete whimsically dips into various genre pools. Left to his own devices, chances are that the troubled troubadour’s wastrel alter-ego could have warped his album into a meandering vanity project. His subject matter channels the persona that has long been synonymous with Pete; that of a poetic Anglophile yearning for the romanticism of a faded Britannia. His saving grace is that his songs are nothing short of brilliant. Album opener Arcadie is a jaunty number full of quasi-Dickensian lyricism that stops short of pretension thanks to the sincerity so apparent in Pete’s woozy vocals. Sheepskin Tearaway is a heartfelt euphemism for Pete’s drug use; a subject that thankfully isn’t indulgently dwelled on throughout the album’s entirety. But perhaps the most rousing of all tracks is New Love Grows on Trees, a darkly elusive song which contains the lyrics “If you’re still alive/When you’re 25/Should I kill you?/You asked me to.” Gone is the shambling baby that kept many a paparazzo in the job and in his place is a more mature and focused man who is capable of turning out an album as poignantly introspective as Grace/Wastelands. Oh, and he’s called Peter now. Sheena Madden SEE

Babyshambles – Down in Albion [Rough Trade], Blur – 13 [Food]

Malajube

Neil Young

Labyrinthes [City Slang]

Fork in the Road [Warner/Reprise Records]

Okay, so I can’t understand a word they’re saying. But so long as this Canadian band keeps setting French lyrics to the tune of ambient indie rock, I’m not too concerned about what might have gotten lost in translation. Mixing progressive rock with just a touch of jam band, Malajube layers pleasantly light harmonies over escalating instrumentation in this part intense, part soothing follow-up to their critically acclaimed sophomore album, Trompe-L’Oiel. While the lyrics of this Francophone band may be completely lost upon the ears of English-speakers, frontman Julien Mineau’s apparent existential crisis (he claims the album wrestles with the Catholic culture of his hometown, Montreal) is far more evident in the music than in the words. The album’s first track, Uruline, opens with a music-box piano waltz which effortlessly merges into a series of swelling drums and vocals. The band smoothly transitions from one mood to the next, opening the track 333 with heavy metal guitar riffs which switch in and out of sweeping synthesizer melodies. The album slows down to a quiet, simple tone with the relaxing Hérésie and Dragon De Glace, only to finish off with the punchy percussion and synthetic power chords of closing track Cristobald. Despite its puzzling moniker and foreign lyrics, Malajube’s latest album Labyrinthes is easy enough to understand, especially for those inclined towards layered instrumentation and gentle vocals. Kara Solarz SEE ALSO: Explosions In The Sky - The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place [Temporary Residence], Flaming Lips - At War With The Mystics [Warner Bros]

ALSO:

That dog-gone crazy horse has only gone and made a concept album. “What’s so bad about that?” I hear you say. After all, some of the finest musical outputs of our times have spawned from concept albums; The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, The Dark Side of the Moon, Quadrophenia, Arthur... the list goes on. The problem with Fork in the Road is not that it is a concept album, it’s the concept itself: electric cars. Seriously. The rockstar/activist’s ‘LincVolt’ eco-car project provides the basis for the album’s theme and one wonders if this would really fly if it weren’t released by the mighty Neil Young. Would it really sell if it weren’t for his army of blindly adoring fans? Maybe, but only if the quality tallied with the passion in the message. Unfortunately, this album is all about the message. Of the album’s ten tracks, about seven are clunking rock numbers with lyrics such as “You gotta get behind the wheel/If you wanna learn to drive.” It doesn’t get much deeper than that. Or here’s another: “She looks so beautiful, with her top down”, in reference to his beloved Lincoln. The remainder of the album busies itself with America’s broken economy. Cough Up the Bucks contains a bizarre one-line rap which repeats its title followed by Neil beseeching “Where did all the money go?/Where did all the cash flow?” Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, even Bono for all his insufferability, have all used their talents endeavouring to make the world a better place. Where Fork in the Road falls short, is that it’s like a sort of anti-vanity project. Neil clearly cares for his cause but it seems to have escaped him that his fans have a deep love of his music and this album doesn’t do much to foster that love. Sheena Madden SEE

ALSO:

Neil Young – Re-ac-tor [Reprise], Bob Seeger and the Silver Bullet

Band – The Fire Inside [Capitol]

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Micachu

These Are Powers

Jewellery [Rough Trade]

All Aboard Future [Dead Oceans]

How much should an album's context and source affect your enjoyment of it? This is a question Gary Glitter fans probably ask themselves everytime they stick their Boys Will Be Boys vinyl on the record player, and one that is surely to plague Surrey-born ball of curls and hype Micachu like a recurring sinus infection. She's the very epitomy of hipster cool, having graced the pages of Dazed and Confused more often than Jordan upskirt shots have featured in the Sun. By the time her home-shot album cover arrived on these eyes I had my backlash sunglasses firmly in place, ready to block out Micachu's cancerous hype rays. Micachu's star, however, melted the cynicism-shades right off my face. From the frenzied opening of Vulture to its punk-off-and-die feedback ending paralysis struck me. What the fuck is this? Already the internet is abuzz chattering about the so-called 'Micachu sound'. Avant-garde musician Matthew Herbert produced the album, and his values combined with Micachu's obvious pop, grime and UKG inspirations mix together in the most meteoric of fashions. It's like Ariel Pink's ghost pop rolling around in the grass with M.I.A's hit machine. There's American slacker rock making out with DJ Shadow in a dark nightclub corner (Curly Teeth)-. There's IDM shagging Feist-y strum-pop against a wall (Golden Phone). Everybody's at it. Well, everbody except Micachu who sings “And I won't have sex/'Cos of STDs”, in one refreshing anti-slut-careerism line. Like Battles bizzare math-rock mash-up on Mirrored before it, Micachu's Jewellery succeeds in taking the history of electronic music and all the musicmaking possibilities it's inspired and applied them in an acoustic, 'organic' manner without... well, without being at all as wanky as that sounds. Add in its zeitgeisty verve, its sexlessness, and the fluttering joy it induces, and Jewellery comes out as irresistible as robbing fizzy cola bottles from the Pick 'N' Mix. 2009's oeuvre is going from strength to strength.

These Are Powers resemble a band that decided one day, when their broadband cut out and they had to stop downloading Cabaret Voltaire rarities from Megaupload and Genesis P-Orridge's homemade pornos, to collectively wank in front of the mirror for the kicks of it. This art-rock Narccissus then enjoyed the sight of its own titillation so much that it decided to charge others to watch it in action. Except with samplers and retro keyboards instead of penises. Such peep shows are hit-and-miss. Should the subject hit the right rhythm slinky, sexy, and playfully perverse (as on opening double Easy Answers and Life Of Birds) then it's instant amore. If it's that tiny bit gaudier, too much painfully faked emotion, too loud, too quiet, too slow, too fast, too fat, or too skinny (the entire second half of this album) you feel disgustingly guilty with yourself and want to head straight home to your wife. These Are Powers mutant sound seems like it emerged from the green waters of a New York sewer. The no-waveisms of Suicide are present and correct, the vague hints at Liars' early death disco (member Pat Noecker was formerly part of their rhythm section), and a 23 Skidoo approach to freneticism exists, if that band's lavish instrumentation is jettisoned for something a little more ear-wrecking. Like a dodgy custard, the consistency is all wrong, even if some of the flavour remains. The unappetizing lumps floating around in the yellow murk serves to remind that sometimes noise just annoys, no matter what artistic context it's meant to be observed in. Daniel Gray SEE

ALSO:

Clock DVA – Advantage [Wax Trax], Throbbing Gristle – The First

Annual Report [Industrial], Black Dice – Beaches and Canyons [DFA]

Daniel Gray SEE

ALSO:

Matmos – A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure [Matador],

Micachu – Filthy Friends Mixtape [Free download]

Kelly Clarkson

Camera Obscura

All I Ever Wanted [RCA]

My Maudlin Career [4AD]

Did you hear the one about the time Kelly Clarkson took a personality test? She got an F. The stars of end-of-noughties femme-pop have succeeded thanks, predominantly, to an almost cartoonish emphasis on contrived personality quirks (Katy Perry's political incorrectness chic, Duffy's Dusty Springfield pastiche, Lady Gaga's lamé slag-glam). Clarkson sticks out like a banjaxed metatarsal as a pre-Internet 2.0 hangover the management company really ought to get bandaged up as soon as possible. That giggling girl-kisser Katy Perry is the most relevant benchmark for how far off the 2009 popgeist the Texan American Idol victor is - not only do they occupy the same post-Liz Phair niche of I'm-a-guitar-chick-and-I'm-SO-over-you pop-rock, but Perry has contributed songs to All I Ever Wanted's uninspiring stadium pop-fest. Where KP and her production team has mastered the craft of melding rock dynamics with neon-pink electro melody (her songs stick to the same four chords throughout, but somehow escape the snare trap of overrepetition), KC and crew take the hair metal approach: start loud, get louder, end loudest. What comes out of the hit machine is a hookless conglomerate for Clarkson to holler over. Thank Christ she was born with a pair of pipes a plumber couldn't unscrew – just refer to music-box ballad I Want You. The content of Kelly's broad almost-husk is, however, disappointingly asinine. Even attempts to break the thematic mold (lead singles My Life Would Suck Without You and I Do Not Hook Up) err on the nafftastic side of tacky. Tacky, indeed is the operative word for this most trailer-trash of power-pop albums. Like a Power City ad, or a box of Eurosaver condoms, these songs are cheap and in-your-face, but have massive, fun-spoiling holes in it. Go kiss a girl and get back to us, Kelly. Daniel Gray SEE

ALSO:

Three years ago on Let's Get Out Of This Country Scottish Spectorpop band Camera Obscura hit an unstoppable Phelps-like stride in their particularly watery, whimsical discipline of music. They butterfly-stroked their way to victory in Lloyd I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken, plunged headfirst towards victory with If Looks Could Kill, and gracefully waltzed underwater with Tears For Affairs. Time to order a new trophy cabinet, guys: My Maudlin Career's going to keep a whole gold mine in business. Frontwoman Tracyanne Campbell's lyrics have always been enough to steam up the glasses of a library-dwelling bookworm. Hers are stories of heartbreak and missed opportunities to make all but the most hard-hearted of listeners not want to offer her a cup of tea and consolatory hug. Thankfully, Obscura's musical career has not been so Maudlin. Tempering Campbell's teary tales with the most luscious of Ronettes-ready sound chambers, Mazzy Star-like glitter glue innocence, melody ripped right from the Belle and Sebastian songbook, and hooks stolen from an offshore fishing trawler, it's hard to know which party is the most endearing. There's a distinctive dichotomy between singer and band, as in the 60s pop production fashion, but both are mutually independent. Like sepia-tinted photos, dipping your fingers in honeypots and licking them clean, and a second date with someone you're not quite sure about Camera Obscura inflict an inexplicable effect on your gut, somewhere between serenity and a thrilling anxiety, and this is their most potent concoction to date. Daniel Gray SEE

ALSO:

Belle and Sebastian – If You're Feeling Sinister [Matador], The

Ronettes – Featuring Veronica [EMI], The Crystals – He's A Rebel [Philles]

Liz Phair – Exile In Guyville [ATO Records], Ashley Simpson – Pieces

of Me [Geffen]

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TOTALLY CORK 17

CREWGER CASE STUDY The average Irish lm-maker lives in a world far removed from the glitz and glamour of a Hollywood premiere. The task of getting the funding to bring together a cast, crew and the equipment to make even a modest lm is a tough one and it requires commitment and passion, True commercial success is elusive for most– there are much easier ways of making money. Film graduate Brendan Phelan knows this but sees a business model in helping Irish movie-makers realise their dreams. “ In Ireland, when you leave college as a lmmaker, you are left to fend for yourself and there are no established networks to help you make your way in the business,” he says.

organising real world events including screenings and get-togethers in clubs, which are attracting up to 150 guests and Brendan also maintains a blog on the crewger.ie site to maintain interest.

Phelan has worked in directing for a number of independent production companies since graduating with a masters in Film & Television Studies from DCU, but has always wanted to do his own thing.

“We’re creating opportunities for people to come together and encouraging people to organise themselves. There will be a strong local dimension in the way the site is organised. For example, lmmakers in Mayo will be able to interact with others in their area and collaborate on projects,” Brendan says.

His vision is to put his edgling rm, Crewger, at the centre of the Irish lm industry bringing together a community of lm-makers and technicians to pool information and resources, organise training and host screenings – all via an online platform. “All around the country, you have people working in isolation. They might need to hire some equipment for a few days or need cast or crew – or they might want to offer their services. By registering on our site, they can hopefully access what they are looking for.” Phelan’s enthusiasm for the business is palpable but it has been matched from the start with a recognition that he had a lot to learn. “I was always condent in the concept but obviously having an idea is never enough in itself. Two things have convinced me to turn it into a business - market research and professional advice. I approached the Dublin City Enterprise Board early on and the advice they gave me has proved invaluable,” he says. “I have had numerous meetings with members of the internet, business and lmmaking communities. I also consumed books such as ‘The Beermat Entrepreneur’ to get insiders advice on how to turn a good idea you are passionate about into a workable business.” Phelan has been developing the site for the past year with his brother Patrick, an accountant, and has long-term ambitious to attract 4,000 paid members providing subscriptions and other revenue streams. For now, the plot involves getting a critical mass of people to interact with the site for free to provide a launch pad for a more commercial enterprise. At the moment, around 3000 visitors a month are logging onto crewger.ie. The online business is also

He reckons that there are around 1,500 traditional lm-makers in Ireland. However, the explosion of interest in sites such as You Tube, where amateurs can post their videos on the internet, means that interest in lm-making and access to new audiences is growing at an unprecedented rate. “There is a huge hunger out there to create content, particularly amongst the younger generation, something that really frightens the television establishment,” he says. The Phelans’ ambitions are being supported by the Dublin City Enterprise Board. The Board has provided €5,000 in a feasibility study grant - a welcome injection in this embryonic venture which Phelan says has helped them gain credibility. The brothers reckon they will spend €30,000 in the initial phase of their development, with around half coming from their own savings. Attracting additional funding is one of the main challenges the Phelans face. “Crewger is venturing into new territory and it’s a hard sell. We’re a little ahead of the curve and we need to convince people that what we are doing is more than just a website – we’re creating an online community,” says Brendan. With the current slowdown in business lending this may not appear to be an ideal time to be sourcing money for new venture but Patrick’s nance background has been a big help in putting together a professional and coherent business plan for the venture, Brendan says, and he is condent that further nancing can be secured in the coming months.

Getting others in the business to buy into Crewger’s vision has been another challenge. Brendan says that one of the key tasks for Crewger now is to get the owners of production facilities to open up their services and to engage with the Crewger community. While there’s an undoubted benevolent element to the Crewger story in the brothers’ desire to support Irish-lm-making, the Phelans are also convinced that there’ s a compelling business plot. “We’ve ideas around software licensing for the more professional lm-maker and if we can make a success of it in Ireland, there’s every reason to believe we can roll-out our model abroad,” Brendan says. His advice to would be entrepreneurs: “ Don’t make any nancial investments without major market research. Not only will it allow you to conrm how solid your initial idea is nancially, it will also bring up other services or revenue streams you may not have thought of.”

Dublin City Enterprise Board Can Help You Start or Develop Your Business • Business Advice & Mentoring • Enterprise Training • Business Networks – Link!, PLATO, Women • Financial Assistance • Tech-Check • Online ‘Knowledge Centre’ • Online calendar of enterprise events • Free E-Newsletter Contact: Dublin City Enterprise Board 5th Floor, O’Connell Bridge House D’Olier Street Dublin 2 Tel: 01 635 1144 Email: ecurley@dceb.ie Web: www.dceb.ie