The University Times Magazine, Vol 3, Issue 5

24.01.12

The University Times

Magazine

The University Times Magazine

FEATURES.

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EDITORIAL.

THE WRITING IS ON THE WALL

CIARA HENEGHAN TAKES US THROUGH THE GIRLS TOILET’S GRAFFITI

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STORYLAND

THE PRODIGIOUS COMPETITION THAT PRODUCED THE HARDY BUCKS IN 2009 IS BACK, AND MICHELLE O’CONNOR MET THE PEOPLE BEHIND TALK IT OUT, A 2012 HOPEFUL.

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I’M SURE TO GET RICH WITH THIS SCHEME, & QUICK.

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I’M SURE TO GET RICH WITH THIS SCHEME, & QUICK. AS ZACH EUSTACE KNOWS, THE INTERNET CAN BE AN ODD & MYSTERIOUS PLACE

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THE RUBBERBANDITS

AS ZACH EUSTACE KNOWS, THE INTERNET CAN BE AN ODD & MYSTERIOUS PLACE

SHAUNA WATSON INTERROGATES IRELAND’S FAVOURITE RAP DUO

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RADIO NA LIFE

INSIDE DUBLIN’S IRISH LANGUAGE RADIO STATION WITH A PIRATE STATION MENTALITY, RACHEL LAVIN REPORTS.

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AN INTERVIEW WITH EXECUTIVE STEVE THE MAN MAKING IRISH COOL

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INDEPENDENCE DAY

DAVID DOYLE TALKS TO THE OWNERS OF THE LOFT BOOKSHOP AND THE GUTTER BOOKSHOP ABOUT COMPETING WITH STRUGGLING CHAIN STORES

REGULATION. 3

LOITERING WITH INTENT IN FOCUS

A photo-essay by George Voronov

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@UTzine

REVIEWS Eoin Hennessy reviews all the latest albums and EP’s.

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STREET STYLE

Aoife Considine checks up on the stylish young things around college.

[SIGH]

Editor: Tommy Gavin Creative Director: Dargan Crowley-Long

Culture Editor: David Doyle Photographers: Tommy Gavin, Harriet Burgess

age, Jamie Wright, Shauna Watson, Katie Abrahams, Ciara Heneghan, Eoin Hennessy, Michelle O’Connor, Rachel Lavin, Zach Eustace, Jay MacDonnell.

CSC Katie Abrahams takes a look at the activities of college societies over the year.

Cover Photo courtesy of: George Verenov

CONTRIBUTORS

Illustrator: Sadhbh Byrne Contributors: Colin Gallagher For-

Are we becoming subtly more alienated from ideas we disagree with? Jay MacDonnell thinks so

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e finally made it. 2012. A new year and the dawn of a new age. In fairness, anyone can announce the dawning of a new age whenever they want, but we feel like the first issue of the new year is as good a time as any to make grand proclamations. For one thing, it’s fun, but it also gives the opportunity to break with the accepted norms and formulate new traditions to be broken from later. Here we announce our emergence from that suspiciously mild yet dark winter, into a glorious new Spring. The Mayans weren’t wrong, they were just referring to the first 2012 years of mediocrity and banality. That world is dead, and we shall construct a new world, one with new prophecies and new challenges. In that respect then, allow me to congratulate you on your implicit association with us towards that end by reading our magazine. In this issue then, please find for your satisfaction the product of many sleepless nights and fear-stricken days. One resulting feature is a photo essay George Voronov about the life he left behind in Russia. Then we have a revelatory interview with noted ‘RA members the Rubberbandits, who actually stole every light-bulb in house 6 in Front Square, despite that not being where the interview was done. Then we have a profile of the Dublin based Irish-language radio station Raidió na Life, which has all of the trappings of a pirate radio station, but none of the legal worries (Don’t take that as a dissuasion from starting a pirate radio station though, as I said, this is 2012, if anything, start two…).

I first heard RnL last summer, and hearing DJ Executive Steve say “Baile Átha Cliath, Éist” over jungle music destroyed any notion I had of what Irish was or should be.

We hope you enjoy the fruit of our toils, and are inspired to similarly labour under unnecessary burdens for unquantifiable gains.

CULTURE.

Colin Gallagher Forage is an Irish-TexanAmerican in Dublin. He tells us what he’s learned.

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LOITERING WITH INTENT...

OBSERVATIONS OF AN IRISH AMERICAN IN IRELAND

TACO TACO

F Colin Gallagher Forage is native Texan, and here he gives his take on life in Dublin

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iving in a new country for the first time is always an adjustment. Oftentimes a person will be bombarded with cultural and social norms that differ from his or her own.

Sometimes these differing norms will be enjoyable, and others embarrassing. As an American from Austin, Texas, I admit to having experienced both as I continue to adjust to life in Ireland. First and foremost, Ireland’s positive differing societal norms. Before traveling here I believed that common courtesy towards one’s fellow human beings is a virtue that seems lost in many places in the world. But Ireland sets the gold standard of courteous behavior.

Having spent my first week extraordinarily lost on a daily basis, I had to ask for directions many times. My previous experiences dabbling in the I’m-lost-can-you-please-helpme realm, generally lead to a convoluted path followed up with a vague directional gesture. In Ireland, this is not the case. People over here went

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above and beyond the call of duty to help me. Instead of the ambiguous “go that way” that I am accustomed to, the Irish people I met actually took the time out of their day and walked me to my destination or at least until my destination was in my field of vision. But the common courtesy goes beyond directional help. People here are, simply put, friendly.

You can start up a conversation with people at a pub or walking on the street and they don’t take offense. From all I’ve observed, the people here simply take more joy out of living and connecting with other humans than most anywhere else.

Now, as it’s almost a law of the universe, if you go to a foreign country you invariably are going to make a public faux pas now and again. When read by a Texas native the following phrase is an innocuous plea for help: “Hey Rachael, can you give me a ride?” Normally, this would be read as me asking Rachael for some help getting from A to B. To the Irish, I just asked Rachael if she

was up for a bout of copulation.

Likewise a Texan would read “taking someone for a ride” to mean the Irish equivalent of taking the piss out of someone.

In my introductory weeks living in Ireland I definitely made that mistake a few times.

While the embarrassing verbal blunders only make me smile, I miss Walmart. Yes, it is a company that has destroyed small businesses all around the world but god do I miss one-stop shopping. Ireland brings new meaning to running errands. Once I used to be able to get groceries, school supplies, cleaning supplies, pharmaceutical paraphernalia and the occasional item of clothing all in one store. Now running errands is like being sent on a wild goose chase. All I’m asking of Ireland is this: embrace the American mentality of one stop shopping. You won’t regret it. The time and money one-stop shopping will save you can be spent with your friends and family enjoying life.

You can thank me later.

ounded way back in 2000 at the Epicurean food hall on lower Liffey Street, Taco Taco was at one time the de facto place in Dublin to satisfy your burrito cravings, and has since been eclipsed by most if not all of its competitors (of course not counting Burritos and Orange, which is offensive to the very idea of burritos).

The menu in Taco Taco is huge, but, with an extremely small range of burritos; you can get tacos, quesidillas, enchiladas, mollete (Mexican pizza apparently), and even soup(!). The burrito variety meanwhile is limited to 3 set choices; beef, chorizo, and chicken… and vegetarian, if you count that. The service was good and they brought us our fare which is always nice, but the atmosphere is cafeteria-esque; which you either will like or you won’t, the Epicurean food hall being what it is.

We applaud any use of chorizo in a burrito (and Chorizo burritos are this issue of The University Times Magazine’s Lock of the Week). The only way to describe the rest of the ingredients though is inoffensive; they’re not of high quality and you can get better elsewhere. The sour-cream and guacamole are, in fair-

Service/Atmosphere -- 2.5 Ingredients --2 Flavour -- 2 Construction -- 4 Value -- 3 Overall -- 13.5/25

ness, very good, and basically required in a Taco Taco burrito, but at 50c extra each, you’re really talking about an implicit extra charge. Most outrageously though, it the lack of any choice of salsas.

At all. Whatsoever. In this day and age, after all we’ve accomplished, after all our forefathers fought for, this grievous deficiency is simply unacceptable. The Taco Taco burrito itself then is inherently flawed. What might have passed muster ten years ago will not do today. In the age of the burrito enlightenment, innovation is key, and the Taco Taco burrito is, while not unpleasant, bland. The Chorzo burrito is tasty, but where is the taste-scape?

At least they’re constructed well, and here is where Taco Taco demonstrates it experience. One of the few places to toast the burrito after wrapping, which it must be said are big, the tortilla is characteristically crispy, with the ingredients being mixed together well inside it.

At 7 euro for a lunch deal and no student options, Taco Taco doesn’t stand out for value, especially with the expensive extras. But if they just upped their ingredients and got some new salsas, who knows what they could do. Your move Mr. Taco, Taco.

Graffitti

THE WRITING IS ON THE WALL Since people could write, they have graffitied. The women of Trinity are no different. Ciara Heneghan elaborates.

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f you go to Trinity and you’re a female and a toilet-user(which I assume the majority of females are) then you’ve seen it. No, I don’t mean the customary ‘ Arts Degrees’ gag written on the toilet roll dispenser (haw-haw), I’m talking about the graffiti on the cubicle walls. Recording observations, quotes and posing questions on the walls of public toilets is a long standing practice worldwide and, by all appearances, one that the girls in Trinity are keen to preserve.

Even looking at the primitive practice of cave wall painting, it’s easy to see that what our Aurignacian ancestors chose to reproduce on their cave walls (various animals) speaks volumes about their interests and engagements (hunting and eh, hunting). Similarly, the content written within toilet cubicles gives enormous insight into the group who utilize said facilities. In primary school; teachers were admired (I <3 Mr. Kelly), in secondary school classmates were defamed (so-and-so is a slut) but what about Trinity?

After much research, several recurring trends emerged. The first was boys.

From boyfriends to guy-friends, ex-s and even TAs, you girls sure like to write about them. ‘So there’s this guy I like...’ one scribbled confession begins, and in the following few sentences she sums up her situation of (seemingly) unrequited love. The opinions written all around vary from the blunt, ‘don’t waste your time, move on’, to the more sanguine, ‘life is for living, go for it!’

These kind of pieces are common. Too common. Replies are generally split, with one half insisting that men ‘like the chase’ and the other insisting that in the 21st century women should be able to make the move, though in one case someone has simply written ‘it depends on how hot you are.’ End of debate, apparently.

Following on from the topic of boys is sex, which is hardly a surprise as desire for one often leads to the other. ‘I’m 21 and still a virgin, is that weird?’ writes

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one purple penned enquirer. The replies are abundant. Along with a few simple ‘me too’s there are some longer replies counseling her that ‘sex is not a race’ and that ‘it’s not when you do it but with who that matters’. Fairplay to some punter sitting on the loo to take pity on someone who had previously sat on the same loo and impart their best advice. Other more racy sex Q&As litter the walls, but the less said about them the better. Really.

Next come a common staple of toilet walls, those ubiquitous upbeat quotes.

These are a personal favorite for the sheer oddness. When you think about it, who writes this stuff? Who wakes up one morning thinking ‘what I need to do now is write a nice quote in permanent marker on the wall of the toilet in college. That way when everyone is pissing they can see it. GREAT!’?

Well, evidently many of you DO, based on the high frequency of those ‘love like you’ve never been hurt, dance like nobody’s watching’ quotes.

But the more I read the less I cared about the finer details of the graffiti at all. Who cares what they are writing about, I said to myself, be it boys or sex or whatever, is it not just lovely that they are writing to each other at all?

Assuming that the 21-year-old-virgin girl revisited the cubicle to see the responses, any worries she had would have been allayed by the messages of support left in reply. Who knew that a bacteria ridden toilet door could carry so much hope and solidarity? (This epiphany may or may not have been related to the amount of toilet air and bleach residue in my system at the time.)

After the epiphany though, while still basking in my renewed faith in womankind as a whole, I did notice another category of graffiti, of genuine people looking for advice. No boys. No sex. No ridiculous quotes. One choice example, ‘I dread coming into this college every day’ and is densely surrounded by words of encouragement and support, as are similar other pieces

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When you think about it, who writes this stuff?

Who wakes up one morning thinking ‘what I need to do now is write a nice quote in permanent marker on the wall of the toilet in college.

about friendship problems and the like. Now isn’t that nice?

Researching this article has taught me a lot. And I don’t just mean that hanging around the arts block toilets with a notepad and pen makes you look like a massive creep or that you girls can tell some nasty jokes. (I suppose it’s called ‘toilet humor’ for a reason.) Nestled in there amongst the boys and the sex and all-that, are some genuine problems getting sound advice, which made me feel all warm and fuzzy. Though not as warm and fuzzy as seeing the words ‘ministry of magic’ and accompanying arrow written over one of the toilets did. Bravo.

Television

TALK THAT TALK The prodigious competition that produced the Hardy Bucks in 2009 is back, and Michelle O’Connor met the people behind Talk It Out, a 2012 hopeful.

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he first year we were a bit naive and rushed into the competition, thinking we’d get through, but obviously we weren’t prepared enough,” says Ian Duffy, director of Talk it Out, Fail Safe Films’ latest project, an entry for RTÉ’s fourth Storyland competition; a veritable viral X Factor for promising film-makers. Although the notion of a ‘web series’ might conjure up images of poorly shot, grainy, badly edited youtube videos, RTÉ’s Storyland is nothing but serious. For now, Talk it Out, is a web series, but with a fantastic cast already on board, it’s looking promising. Mark Doherty (A Film With Me In It), Peter Coonan (Love/Hate), and Bernard O’Shea (Republic of Telly) are the main cast, so this is no clichéd, web series, and Fail Safe Films are not lacking in experience, either.

The company was set up in January of last year by Ian and three other guys, Simon Doyle (producer) Evan Barry (cinematographer), and Richard Boland (producer), with Caitlin Hogg working on the marketing side of things. Darach

McGarrigle, the writer of Talk it Out is an ‘honorary member’, working with the company on occasion. The guys worked on their final year project together in IADT and they then decided that they’d “make it official” and set up Fail Safe Films as a registered limited company. For a new company the work they’ve done is varied and successful; both viral and for television. RTÉ’s Nationwide, Vodafone’s Random Acts of Kindness videos and the newest EBS commercial on the TV are all Fail Safe Films productions, and they also did a viral for marriageequality.ie as part of their same sex parent advocacy campaign which received around sixty thousand hits.

Storyland is one of the first steppingstones to build up connections with RTÉ and although the public vote for the winner it is RTÉ that choose the initial entries, and they’re not just working in the background. Both the competitors and RTÉ have the potential to gain from the web competition; Hardy Bucks are previous winners of Storyland, and look at them now. The Storyland people are there and approachable dur-

ing the entire production process; if the crews have any questions they’re willing to help. They give feedback on the earlier cuts of scenes; all in all they want to produce a show that could potentially lead to a TV series.

After the submitted script is accepted by the Storyland judges, the filmmaking begins. Pre-production is a long and arduous process, getting a location, cast, crew and props on a limited budget is problematic in general, but for Talk it Out there were further complications.

Storyland is a rounds-competition; after each week of voting, two entries are knocked out. The remaining entries then have two weeks to shoot, and two weeks to edit the next episode before the voting is opened again, so Talk it Out needed to find somewhere willing to let them shoot the first episode, while also being open enough to allow for further shooting on very short notice. The entrants are also contractually required to release three short promotional videos for each episode, which puts further pressure on the already tight deadline.

After the location was found, “the toughest challenge was killing our babies

a little bit,” said Ian. The episodes must be six minutes long, and as Darach had originally written Talk it Out as a twenty-two minute episode, there was a lot of rewriting and cutting down to be done.

So far the show is already ending quite differently to what Darach and the rest of the crew originally had in mind, and a lot of dialogue had to be lost, simply due to lack of time. Their cast was relatively easy to get a hold of, much to their surprise. Ian put it down to Darach’s script, “we were lucky enough to actually have a script that we’re passionate about.” A lot can be said for passion, as it is the driving force behind innovation, if Fail Safe Films didn’t have confidence in their script and the passion required to spend hours working out the specifics of the call sheets (a document used to outline shots, their lengths, and the time they’ll be shot), editing, sound-mixing and every other minute detail involved, their chances of success would undeniably be reduced. The lads sold their scripts to the actors and now they have to sell their show to the internet.

Unsurprisingly, facebook has a role to play in the Storyland competition, just like facebook has a role to play in almost everything web-based, ever. For all its faults, however, in this instance facebook could be responsible for Talk it Out being developed into a full-length television series for RTÉ as for the first time Storyland voting will be accessable through this inescapable, omniscient social networking site. This means the week of voting isn’t a week off for the teams, either. With online voting and anything viral, a steady stream of content is needed to keep the hype and the buzz up, not only for the crucial week of voting, but hopefully for the month in between each round when the next episodes are in production. The Talk it Out facebook will need to be consistently updated, and a lot of the material that would otherwise be lost in the editing room can be used as bloopers, or sneak peeks.

The first round of voting for the eight entries starts on February 13th and runs until the Sunday, by Monday morning the remaining six will begin making their second episodes. The Talk it Out facebook page (http://www.facebook. com/talkitout.storyland) is already up and running, with behind the scenes photos, promos and stills.

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Media

I’M SURE TO GET RICH WITH THIS SCHEME, AND QUICK! As Zach Eustace knows, the internet can be an odd and mysterious place.

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e’ve all been there, trawling Facebook drunkenly late at night, friend requesting people who look amusing, or with hilarious names.

Time passes, and as the sun rises, the shame sets in, and sleep offers an escape from late night depressive techno-activity.

The remnants of these sort of binges are easily brushed under the carpet., as the majority of the people in this connected world obey social norms and ignore the friend request from someone they don’t know, from 5000 miles away (I like to think that Mr. Willy Phelan and Ms. Mo’ Spliff have the self-awareness to realize exactly what’s happened.)

Sometimes though, people want to be your friend. That’s when it gets worrying.

I awoke with a new friend, Mr. C, and he had left me a message.

“Greetings from Rayong, Thailand, good to be a friend with you. Make sure to find me on twitters and enjoy new interesting business opportunities” my new friend pasted into my message inbox, as his bright yellow suit and hands clasped-in-celebration profile picture gave me an inkling as to why I had made his acquaintance in the first place.

As my LinkedIn profile states, I am always open to new business opportunities, and my interest had been piqued, and I discovered Talk Fusion. Mr. C’s profile had plenty of further information allowing me to proceed with due diligence.

According to their website, Talk Fusion are “The Unchallenged Leaders In Video Email” with many products in their portfolio including, but not limited to, Video Email which “Works on Mac or PC, ending the battle of

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cross compatibility!”, and which can be used for “Business or Personalmarket your business or showcase the kids”. Showcase the kids, you say?

Shut up and take my money!

Before we go further, it’s quite evident that something is not right here. Even before I can get to the bullet points where Talk Fusion promise me that I can “Be Everywhere- saving time and money!”, the soulless eyes of the diverse Stock Photo characters that fill my screen let me know that something is not right. Friendly stock photo faces are meant to make you feel safe, seeing them immediately puts me on edge.

The fact that nothing on their website encourages you to actually use these products, but rather talks about the business opportunities these products provide to you, makes me even more suspicious. I would give my right nut to send some “eye catching video e-mails” but all the website seems to want me to do is read about their groundbreaking “instant pay compensation plan”.

I am, it becomes increasingly evident, at the bottom rung of a nu-pyramid scene: a multi-levelmarketing opportunity.

Before the internet and facebook, a savvy pyramid seller would have to

leverage their contacts to find people willing to invest, but Facebook puts a world of rubes at your fingertips;

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...selling a terrible product becomes a lot easier when your access to stupid people exponentially rises. The game done changed.

selling a terrible product becomes a lot easier when your access to stupid people exponentially rises. The game done changed.

A quick hop, skip and a jump away is a facebook search for Talk Fusion, and there they are, thousands of would be entrepreneurs setting up their own poorly realized facebook pages, where I can hear more about the revolutionary Fusion Wall, the world’s first 3-D social network.

I’m torn: are these Talk Fusion-ers being preyed on, lured in with a promise of a lucrative future and equipped with only a cursory understanding of the internet? Or are they lazy opportunists searching for a get-rich-quick scheme, that would be no better if it was built on the much more scalable trapezoid model.

Mr. C seemed like a good guy, and I go to seek solace from my new friend, who will prove to me that there’s more substance to him than an outdated software suite and a hawkish desire to make money from the good people of the internet.

And then, I get to see my first ever Talk Fusion video e-mail, Mr. C has put it up on his profile for everyone to see. Embedded onto a garish purple gradient background, which itself is ornamented by pictures of dogs in party hats and sunglasses (one of Talk Fusions exciting template designs), is a video of Mr. C. He strolls down a rural Thai road, and awkwardly expounds on the virtues of Talk Fusion in broken English: “We live in a computer world; people today they don’t want to receive a long mail, a short video is much personal”. I feel our friendship slip away as he continues: “It’s going round the world like a bushfire, it is everywhere, it’s fantastic!

Money returns quickly!”

“I think many of you are wondering, wondering why I am walking”, his pace having visibly slowed as he nears his destination too soon while some dogs bark in the background, “Well, I am walking home to my computer to send video e-mails.”

Of course you are Mr. C. Of course you are.

Media

AN OPEN LETTER TO WACKA FLOCKA FLAME

Mr W. F. Flame

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ou may not remember me, but I’ve heard your music on the internet. Initially I wasn’t a fan, as I thought your music was just more posture-heavy gangster club rap. While your music may indeed be all of those things, it says nothing of the syncopated onomatopoeic fills you embellish your songs with, or the unrestrained and uncompromising emotive aggression that goes so well with the intensity of producer Lex Luger’s percussion-roll lead beats. I was won over, and came to consider myself something of a fan. That’s not the reason I’m writing this letter though, you don’t need me to tell you your music is good. No, this letter is regarding your association with cofounder and former CEO of Death Row Records, Suge Knight. In October last year you confirmed that he will be helping you oversee your record company and helping you in your ill-conceived movie career. You said that “it is what it is, you gotta start pulling in people in the game who know the game. Suge helped me get a good movie deal. He’s helping me oversee the company; I’m not trying to be ‘Pac, I’m not trying to be Death Row.”

I can understand your motivation, Death Row put out a lot of good music. Dr. Dre’s The Chronic, Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle and Tupac’s AllEyez on Me are seminal hip-hop albums, all released on Death Row Records under Suge Knight. Then there is the whole he’s a blood, you’re a blood thing, which is sort of understandable, if not lamentable. That’s good that you’re not trying to be Tupac though, because according to the best evidence, Suge Knight had Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls killed. Or at least, that’s the opinion of former Robbery-Homicide detective Russell Poole who was assigned to the investigation of Biggie’s murder, detailed along with further investigation in his book compiled by Randall Sullivan, the subtitle of which is condemning enough, “Labyrinth: A Detective investigates the murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., the implications of Death Row Records’ Suge Knight and the Origins of the Los Angeles Police Scandal.” According to Poole’s theory, Tupac was killed by Knight for attempting to break away from Death Row Records, and Biggie Smalls was killed to put suspicion on a fictitious east coast/west coast feud.

Poole sets it out that Tupac, who was recruited to the label from jail in exchange for Knight using Death Row resources to help with both his money troubles and secure his release from jail, had made attempts to break from the label. Suge Knight ostensibly invited Tupac to the now infamous Mike Tyson fight in Las Vegas to show that there were no hard feelings. Following the fight, Shakur’s bodyguard saw one of Suge’s bodyguard’s whisper in ‘Pac’s ear, prompting him to assault a Southside Crip on the other side of the hall. It is this Crip, Orlando Anderson who would later be blamed for Tupac’s death by drive-by on the strip, and later testified defending his supposed sworn enemy, Suge Knight, leading the judge to believe he was in the pay of Knight. After this time, the case is still unresolved due to the highly embarrassing involvement of off-duty LAPD officers working as security for Death Row Records, and the subsequent efforts to cover up the dirt.

It was one dirty cop, Officer David Mack who was the connection the deaths of Tupac and Biggie and Suge Knight. After being arrested for an unrelated bank robbery, he bragged in jail about being a Mob Piru Blood (with whom Suge Knight is associated) and was visited by one Amir Muhammad. A reliable informant had said that the shooter in the Biggie case was a contract killer and member of the Fruit of Islam, the elite security division of the Nation of Islam (Have you seen the Wire, Waka? I saw an internet rumour that Brother Mouzone was based on this guy). Anyway, David Mack and Amir Muhammad became friends in the University of Oregon in the late 1970’s, and Amir bore a distinct resemblance to the composite sketch of Biggie’s shooter. If you want to read a detailed account of the Sisyphean legal attempts being made against Suge Knight and the mountain of evidence implicating him, as well as the institutional pathologies of the LAPD, Randall Sullivan has an excellent thirteen page long article on Rollingstone.com.

But that’s beside my point, my point being that Suge Knight is a bad man. You say that you’re not trying to be ‘Pac, but you named your debut album Flockaveli, knowing full well that Tupac’s last album was under the pseudonym Makaveli! Are you trying to trick us? Then last week you tweeted about going going, back to Cali Cali, like a certain east coast notorious rapper sang. The parallels are getting too weird for me Waka, and I don’t want to see another young rapper exploited and killed by the criminal Suge Knight.

Just be careful about how you break it off.

Your friend, Tommy Gavin

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Feature

THEY’RE IN THE ‘RA Shauna Watson interviews the notorious Limerick blaggards , and conspicuously neglects to question them on their theft of all the lightbulbs in House 6.

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asked in their plastic bag façade sporting the ‘Centra’ brand, the only element that seemed irregular about the usual Rubberbandits act was the air of refinement brought by the teacups they sipped from gracefully throughout their interview.

When their publicist warned me that this ‘chat’ wasn’t going to be as relaxing as I thought, I wasn’t expecting my reactions to their dark humour to be tested or boundaries to be pushed. As they talked about a battle between Limerick and America, Wexford’s tall boys and Matt Cardle singing about doing heroin on a bus, I found myself asking them would they eat their own shit. It was then the realisation occurred that I had just tested the limits of their own boundaries.

The Limerick comedy duo, comprised of Blindboy Boat

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Club and Mr. Chrome, are just as chaotic as the origin of their stage names themselves. Blindboy was the apparent imagination behind the name “The Rubberbandits” giving credit to nothing more than his daily wash.

“I was just having a shower and it just came into my head.”

It wasn’t the first time Mr. Chrome had heard of bathroom muses. “That happens, like.

My cousin had a little baby boy called Oscar and she thought of the name while she was having a shit.”

The first comedy sketches the bandits’ embarked on were prank calls, each recording receiving thousands of YouTube hits, but surprisingly, the pranks weren’t to their own personal taste. “We didn’t find them funny. They weren’t really pranks. We were just ringing up people normally

and someone recorded us. It was a guy who robbed brown Christmas trees who recorded us. He’d line the trees up against a random person’s front door, ring the doorbell, run away and then all the trees would fall in on top of them.” Evidently, the pranks impressed many others as the bandits’ went on to play top Irish festivals such as Electric Picnic and Oxegen, received a regular slot on RTE’s Republic of Telly and most recently filmed Comedy Blaps for Channel 4.

“Comedy Blaps was great craic.

Declan Lowney was on that one with us and he did little tricks to make us work harder. Like, he injected oranges with vodka and left them around the set. He kept changing clocks as well and we think we’d be coming in late but we’d be on time and have to work harder then.”

Feature

Mr. Chrome also described his bizarre encounters with the director who also produced Father Ted. “He wears a big curly wig and once he ordered pizza and there was no peppers on his pizza and he just started balling crying. He’s a mad lunatic.

He supplies the meat for Burger Mac in Wexford as well.” The two rambled on about their experiences of Wexford town itself and remarked on a gig they played in a local nightclub.

Mr. Chrome, “Someone chipped my tooth in ‘The Stores’. He wasn’t a man, he was a really tall boy who was on work experience and we were in there setting up for a gig and he came over with a brush. He says it was an accident but I don’t believe him. He was only 9.”

Blindboy: “That’s Wexford. It’s full of giant boys. Do you ever hear of the giants of the Wexford Mountains? My mother wrote a play about the giant boys of the Galtee Mountains and the Forestry Commission sued her but it was really about the giant boys of the Wexford Mountains. They keep them there with giant Lega. Where’s my fucking coffee? I love the way you don’t have to wait for your coffee to steep.” Not questioning their random train of thought I continued to ask them about their expedition to America for MTV’s “Rubberbandits in NYC” which they admitted was just a glorified holiday. But when compared with Limerick the boys remained true to their City origins.

“In a battle between Limerick and America, Limerick would definitely win because there’s nicer food in Limerick. They just put sugar in everything in America.”

Mr. Chrome’s choice also lied with his homeland and their modest use of sugar. “The Americans just dip their balls into the sugar and then put it into their mouths. Some of them stick their fingers in your mouth on the tube. They’re called the honey boys and they have honey in their pockets and then they rub it on the inside of your mouth on public transport. It happened to Blindboy.” “Ya, I got stung on the tongue by a wasp that came out of the letter box and then the honey boys cornered me. You never see that in limerick. Sure, there are no wasps in Limerick.” Through the ramblings of the conversation about Brendan Gleeson’s hermaphrodite status, and their belief that if you see a younger version of yourself, it would be a paradox, the world would

“

Declan Lowney was on that one with us and he did little tricks to make us work harder.

Like he injected oranges with vodka and left them around the set.

implode and you’d be left with a kettle full of piss, we managed to get onto the subject of Brian Cox. “If I could listen to someone for the rest of my life it would be Professor Brian Cox. He’s got a lovely voice.” As Mr. Chrome proceeded to hum Things Can Only Get Better, Blindboy asked his partner the ultimate question.

“What would you choose if it was between Professor Brian Cox reading your eulogy, a tit wank off Jordan or Morgan Freeman giving you a head massage?” After some deliberation, Mr. Chrome decided that the option of a tit wank would be more enjoyable.

Fortunately, they didn’t look to me for a preference.

In 2010, The Bandits’ first single Horse Outside narrowly missed the number one spot in the Christmas charts as the X Factor dominated the position another year running. But a number one single was not what the pair had in mind. “Everyone else wanted us to be Christmas number one but when you get that it brings you to the attention of idiots. No, I shouldn’t say that. It brings you to the attention of people who can’t spell. No, I shouldn’t say that either. It brings you to the attention of people you don’t want to be brought attention to.” Both of them insisted they didn’t know enough about the X Factor to have an opinion on it but they were however, aware of the meaning

of Matt Cardle’s single that beat them to the top spot. “Matt McCardle’s songs were about doing heroin on a bus. It goes I’m on the top of the bus I’m up the back I wanna chase you I wanna chase you until you’re inside my body, oh heroin. We’re getting in trouble over saying fuck a couple of times and he’s singing about doing heroin on a bus?”

Last year, the bandits closed the Trinity Ball and when I reminded them about how Jessie J reacted to the audience being so drunk, they surprisingly agreed with her.

“She was right. We’ve never ever played a gig with so many drunken people. But Jessie James has no tits so I don’t think she’s one to be talking.”

Given their numerous encounters with Trinity I asked them what they would do for RAG week.

“Eat human shit. But I don’t believe in a charity strong enough to eat another man’s shit,” which I took as a perfect moment to enquire “What about your own?”

A resounding no was accompanied by “I hope everything doesn’t make it into the article except for that question about shit. If you want to make a career out of interviewing people, ask them would they eat their own shit and they’ll definitely remember you.”

Best advice I’ll ever get.

The Rubberbandits’ debut album Serious About Men is out now.

9

RUSSIA//InFocus This personal photo essay depicts what George Voronov left behind before leaving Russia.

Words and Photographs

By George Voronov

Above:

This photograph was shot in a small village where I used to spend my summers.Every year I visited, this women could always be found in the same field knitting while her goats grazed.

10

Below:

This is one of my last photos taken in Russia and it is a deeply personal one. Pictured is one of my best friends, someone I can honestly call a brother. As I took this picture I did not know when I would see him again. A few months after I left Russia t return to Ireland, Victor was concripted into the Russian army wher he has recently finished his term.

In Focus

Left:

The ‘Russian’ car was an ever-present figure of my childhood.

Despite their mechanical flaws, these cars are special to me.

They are survivors, this one in particularly.

For years it has survived hot and cold, sun and snow. It has accumulated much more rust since I first saw it but it is still functioning.

t to re

Left:”The

chain has come off again.” I heard this phrase grumbled behind me and turned around just in time to witness the scene pictured.

After a few minutes of poking around, the chain was finally put back on.

11

Feature

Community interest or pirates in disguise?

Inside Dublin’s Irish language radio station with a pirate-station mentaity Rachel Lavin reports.

“I

grew up in Dublin speaking Irish as my first language but with no interest in the cultural tie-ons, Irish set-dancing, the GAA, any of that. I think Raidió na Life is about the growing Irish language movement, which is saying ‘get over all that’. I don’t for a second doubt the cultural importance of these things but the fact is, you can be a Gaeilgoir and a heavy metal fan.

There is no reason why the two should be mutually exclusive.’ Such were the words of Muiris Ó Fiannachta, Station Manager of Raidió Na Life 106.4fm, and DJ on Ireland’s longest running radio metal show.

12

The idea for Radio na Life stemmed in 1992, when a group of Dublin based gaelgoiri who felt there was a huge gap in the media outlet for Gaelic broadcasting in the previous few years. Radio stations such as 98 fm and fm104 were seen as geared fully towards Dublin’s English speaking populous.

“The only radio surfacing at the time towards Gaeilge was Radio na Gaelteachta and now that’s part of RTE, and is still to this day extremely focused on a rural parochial service. A lot of Irish-speakers in Dublin and the surrounding areas wouldn’t really relate to, you know, news headlines talking about sewage systems in Connemara, so that was the gap and that was where the idea came from to establish the station.”

After a short piloting period in 1992, 1993 was the year of Radio Na Life’s birth. The station was established as an independent sector of radio, which is distinct from state services like RTE, and distinct again from commercial local stations. With community radio, the emphasis is on doing something because it is worthwhile for the particular community in which they are serving. And not necessarily just based on listenership figures, which are at the end means of selling advertising. Raidió Na Life foesn’t know its own listenership figures. Muiris defines it rather as a ‘community of interest’. “We are not just serving the are of Dublin, it is serving the Irish speaking population of

Ireland primarily.”

Despite the lack of pressure to meet listenership quotes and sell advertising Muiris admits the strain of competing with commercial stations. “Between our three full time staff, that’s including myself, Cian, our programme co-ordinator and Fearghal, our technician, we also have a weekend steward, so basically you’re looking at 3.5 people to run a radio station. If you take a station like Newstalk, for example; their advertising department alone has 15 staff, So when a specific department in one station has five times the multiple of your entire staff, it shows you just how much were doing on so little resources, it is something we’re

Feature

quite proud of.”

‘We do however get a lot of Volunteers, but it changes from time to time, you might get some people who are very into politics and we’ll have brilliant current affairs programs, but it’s totally dependent on who is volunteering. The fact of the matter is; if ten people come and say they want to do Drum and Bass shows, and one person says they want to do a Jazz show, you’re going to get ten Drum and Bass shows and one Jazz show.”

“Usually they start as a researcher and we might move on then to do short items, like we might do a gig guide which would be a minute long, and then we’ll ask would you like to have your own show. Very often it depends on what that stations particular needs are at that very moment in time. Once people have served their time if you like, then we tend to give them as much freedom as we can.”

Previous Volunteers of Radio na Life include, Sharon Ni Suillleabhan, Sinead Crowley and other current employees at Newstalk, 98 FM and Setanta Sports.

“And it’s a good mix of people as well, form different backgrounds, different age groups, different parts of the country. Currently, we have one girl whose studying Business and Irish in DCU on an internship with us, and one of the guys there whose called Stiofan from the Mayo Gaelteacht has actually got a learning disability. He’s made a programme with us called ‘Is Feidir Linn’ and its showcasing people with disabilities and how they get on with it, more or less.

And we have a few volunteers here with disabilities and that’s something commercial media would never even fathom. We’ve one guy who probably spends a month of solid work to make a programme, but because it’s non-profit and we’re not driven towards selling adds, it allows us the freedom to conduct activities that are more along a line of social benefit. And Michael, an elderly gentleman, is a newsreader with us and he has a wonderful fluent Irish, yet this is his only time to come in and speak Irish. He used to be the EU secretary for the European schools.

You’ve got people from all kinds of backgrounds, and Radio Na Rife is just something that joins them together.”

‘Some of our music shows in particular, they would really compete, we reckon, with shows that are made by fully paid professionals on far more resourced stations, you know, stations with the backing of millions of euro and we’re functioning with grant of just over

200,000 a year.”

There is definitely a pirate-station ethos at Raidió Na Life; and you’re liable to hear just about any kind of music on it; from pop to classical to salsa to indie to metal to dance music, but there has always been a certain focus on the dance. In a city that may not have as many pirate radio stations as other capitols, RnL fulfills a niche that might otherwise go unfilled. It is not only the one Dublin radio station where you can hear Dub, Dancehall, Drum and Bass, Electronica, and Jungle, but in this new internet era, a place to hear the newest releases of each. Many of the shows are on only once a week but have picked up fans that engender pocket communities.

“We have the likes of Executive Steve, and a lot of DJs who would be quite well-known in the dance underground, in Dublin in particular but in Ireland in general and even further afield, Ireland and the U.K. very often. `’This is very much reflected in the anecdotal feedback which we get back from people, particularly music fans, and a lot of them say Radio na Life is far better than phantom as a source of independent music. Obviously while Phantom is geared towards independent music, it is very much constrained by the commercial license and having to have a certain amount of advertisers, and to have to play certain playlists. Once you bring that kind of constraint into a station, very quickly a lot of the creativity and independence of presenters can just vanish. What we find people saying quite often is that Radio na Life is kind of what they remember Phantom being like when it was a pirate station”

So at least with Radio na Life, if you tune in, you’ll get a good mix and with the DJ you’re getting somebody picking music they really love which comes across in the show”.

Despite all their successes, Radio na Life has received occasional complaints on regarding the standard of Irish, when English words or phrases get thrown in to a mix of pidgin Irish.

In response to this, Muisis says he “would have some sympathies with the langugae purists. When there are perfectly natural things to say in Irish as they have been said in the last 3000 years, why should we just accept direct translations from English? But you do have to accept that all languages evolve and accept influence, and, at the end of the day you have to make a decision; if the language is to survive through evolution or whether it’s to be kept in this little box on the

west of Ireland where it will inevitably die out. Start with a view that it’s far more important to promote Irish as the modern living language in the modern living context”.

“Part of major problem is that for leaving cert there is huge hypocrisy at government level. They have this compulsion for people to learn it but they’re not providing the resources fro them to successfully learn it in. People are forced into this language that they are not equipped to learn `and thus they will resent a language they are not being taught properly. If they are taught better from the start, it wouldn’t be as controversial topic now. Overall

it seriously needs a better system in place. “ But what kind of system exactly? He looks around the studio and shrugs.

‘When people come into Radio na Life, they find it very easy to communicate because of the interest. Using Irish because they want to do it.

Giving people the opportunity to use Irish in a context attached to something they also like. And I think that’s what, If you could give people on a national level the opportunity to do things which they liked through Irish then I think you’d be on to a winner”.

Raidió na Life is 106.4fm.

13

Interview

AN INTERVIEW WITH RAIDIÓ NA LIFE’S EXCUTIVE STEVE

The prolific drum and bass DJ gives a glimpse into his experience in Raidió na Life and the Dublin Scene.

Interview by Tommy Gavin

University Times Magazine: When did you start DJing?

Executive Steve: Well I started buying records, which isn’t quite the same thing, around 2000. I started going to the Basement Exchange Record shop, and seeing what they were up to was inspiring. They were one of the first big collectives in Dublin or Ireland even, to do Drum and Bass properly. They has 8 residents, they had a record shop, they had a big label going, they were the first crowd to make the rest of the world sit up and notice Dublin. I’d go to their record shop every Saturday, and record shops used to be pretty intimidating places back then. You’d ask for something and be terrified that they would laugh in your face for being cheesy, or they’d say “take this its brilliant,” translation: nobody else wants it. So I bought records there, and there would always be house parties, inevitably with a pair of decks, so you bought your records for that. Worldwide, that’s how you start off. Then in 2003 I got the chance to train-wreck my way through a set in the Legal Eagle.

UTM: And when did you start at Raidió na Life?

ES: Back then you used to have a bit more of an eco-system of good pirate radio in Dublin; you had Power FM, Jazz FM and Raidió na Life as well which obviously isn’t pirate, but it does fulfil a role that pirate radio fulfils in other cities, like Rinse FM in London; music outside the commercial frame of reference. Even so, Power FM and Raidió na Life have always had a different ethos to the rest of the pirates here. Ireland was always a European capital of hard house rave and trance, but Power FM would have these weird Saturday morning electronica shows, and three prime time drum and bass and garage shows, stuff not being done by the other pirates.

Raidió na Life would be similar, and four years ago I took over the show I do now, but there has been a Wednesday night programme in my time slot

14

for the guts of twelve years now. After that Quality Mark comes in, and it’s cool because it’s the same vibe we had back with the basement; you meet people, swap fliers, pawn someone off with your shitty mixtape.

UTM: What is your preferred method of DJing?

ES: Vinyl and acetate dub plates, we cut maybe two or three of them a year for fifty quid each and you get something that nobody else has. We use a crowd called Transition who look after most of the main dubstep guys and a lot of the reggae heads use a lot of dub plates as well.

UT: How unusual is it that Raidió na Life has a pair of vinyl decks in the studio?

ES: I know Play FM have nice turntables, and Power FM studios have decks. But the last frontier for vinyl is the clubs, and there are a lot of DJs now who will consider them to be those things we put our laptops on.

UTM: What do you prefer about Vinyl?

ES: One thing is they’re heavy so you have to be very selective about what you bring and think about what you want to do. But it’s tactile; it’s a ritual format. I can point to any record in my collection and say I got this in that shop on that day and got roaring drunk and I still had it. It reflects the relationship you have with the music.

People talk about the superior sound quality which I’ve always found to be a myth. It just rolls off the high frequencies and accentuates the bass. Big deal, put on a cd and turn down the top eq of your mixer and voila, you’ve achieved vinyl. The one time I ever touched a cd-j at was at my friend’s house and I abandoned my principles and tried to use it. Have you ever picked your nose with a surgical glove?

UTM: No…

ES: Well, it’s like that. There’s a weird disparity between the amount of touch and to what degree the music is being manipulated. Keep it simple; two turntables and a mixer was good enough for Afrika Bambaataa, its good enough for me.

UTM: So how would you describe your show on Raidió na Life?

ES: The way I describe it to my friends is drum and bass music with celebrity news and light banter as gaeilge.

We have a bit of a running gag about Samantha Mumba and the girls from Fade Street, Mary Harney. “Samantha Mumba is texting us in a fashion report from Occupy Cork.” Anyone who listens regularly and hears the jokes is hopefully laughing. I don’t know what level of Irish my listeners have, we get most of the feedback from emails to the station, but we’ll get Polish heads email-

ing saying “I can’t understand a word but great tunes.”

UTM: What has your experience of Irish language radio been?

ES: I’ve learned the Irish I know to be able to do this, without knowing much in the way of Irish slang. Our motto has always been “broken beats and broken Irish.” But everybody’s blueprint for being a radio host is either 50’s southern State’s soul and rock ‘n roll DJs, Funkmaster Flex in New York in the 80’s, and 90’s UK Pirate DJ’s. If you can channel those three into a language you don’t quite speak, you’ll be alright.

But it would be a real shame if Irish was reduced to woolly jumpers and line dancing.

Executive Steve is the host of An Fhuaim with his co-host Bonz on Wednesdays 21:0022:30

Feature Books

INDEPENDENCE DAY David Doyle talks to the owners of the Loft bookshop in The Twisted Pepper and the Gutter Bookshop in Temple bar about competing with struggling chainstores.

W

hat makes a bookshop?

Someone once told Rob Brown that it was somewhere which had five thousand titles for sale. His shop, the Loft Bookshop, doesn’t quite meet that definition with only around four thousand titles on offer, but it certainly is a bookshop, and one of the most unique in Dublin’s strong independent bookshop landscape.

Brown opened the shop on May 1st 2011 in the upstairs space in The Twisted Pepper, having been involved in the book business for ten years. The shop is one of a number of independent bookshops around the city which are surviving in tough economic times; when bookshop chains and the online market appear to be dominating the industry.

Brown opened the shop in the midst of a recession in a move that he himself concedes was “unorthodox,” but then again the Loft Bookshop isn’t your average bookshop. Set in a venue that doubles as a nightclub makes it a far cry from the carefully managed conformity of chain bookshops but in a sense that’s what makes it so unusual.

In fact Bob Johnston, owner of the Gutter Bookshop in Temple Bar, also believes that one of the defining characteristics of an independent bookshop is its ability to be different. His own shop was named for that very reason after a famous Oscar Wilde quote, as he wanted the shop to stick in people’s minds, and two years on it seems to have done just that, with the shop having become one of the main-

stays of the Dublin literary scene. The shop isn’t just a shop though; it acts as a destination for literary and cultural events throughout the year and this has become an integral part of the shop’s success. There is no way that small independent bookshops can compete in terms of choice with either online or chain bookstores, so this multiplicity of uses has become one of their central ideals.

It is the fact that bookshops like the Loft Bookshop and the Gutter Bookshop can offer something beyond simply being booksellers is their inherent strength and the best hope they have in the age of Amazon; they can offer the personal touch which purchasing online never can. Spending just a short time with Rob Brown is more than enough to see why the service that places like his are offering remain so popular. He exhibits a contagious enthusiasm for all things literary; with our conversation punctuated by recommendations to customers on everything from historical fiction to poetry.

Brown admits that he gets a “kick out of recommending” and customers seem to genuinely appreciate the time taken with each of them. This approach is something that Bob Johnston also sees as being integral to the independent bookshop business with the personal service appealing to customers desire to be recognised.

It’s this personal service aspect of these independent bookshops that sets them apart. Due to the high footfall of chain bookstores and the impersonal glow of the computer

screen, neither the high street bookshops nor their online equivalents have the ability to remember the every customer that walks through their doors and it seems that it’s this personal experience that the public wants. As high street bookshops have been shutting down in recent times, more and more independents have been opening in Dublin, and while the business is at times challenging, both the Loft Bookshop and the Gutter Bookshop have had strong Christmas periods and the future for both continues to look bright.

In fact business looks so bright for both that expansion plans are being mooted by both. Rob Brown at the Loft Bookshop hopes that within the next eight weeks that the shop will have relocated to the downstairs of the Twisted Pepper, something which he hopes will give the shop more of foot fall every day and open the shop up to a broad spectrum of shoppers. One of Brown’s early concerns was that the shop would become something of “a hipster’s bookstore” but that concern has proved to be far from the case with a broad range of people through the door. A mixed demographic is something that the Gutter Bookshop has encountered as well

with a mix of ages attending the regular book clubs as well as visiting the shop to peruse and purchase.

However despite the recent successes, all is not certain for these independent boutique bookshops as both Brown and Johnston freely admit.

The industry has changed hugely in recent years and though both have a plethora of experience in the trade it is almost impossible to predict upcoming trends and the advent of the ebook has once again changed the face of the industry. Indeed Rob Brown, who is currently in his Junior Freshman year studying English in Trinity, admits it’s hard to know what the future will hold for the industry and his shop personally, though he does hope that the shop grows enough to ease the workload on him as he moves in his sophister years. Johnston is equally unsure of how the bookshop industry will be in years to come although he does believe that the larger stores will struggle more than independents in the internet age. However both owners are determined that their shops will continue to grow, and given their success to this point, they could find themselves to be the vanguard of the printed word.

15

Culture

Music C

leveland punk rockers Cloud Nothings are back with an album entitled Attack On Memory but this time, instead of going for their normal electronic-almostsurf-rock type feel, they have opted for an angrier, heavier sound. For their album they worked with Electrical Audios owner and all round brilliant producer Steve Albini.

Albini has worked with Nirvana, PJ Harvey, The Jesus Lizard and most notably The Pixies. This shows throughout the album as lead singer, Dylan Baldi’s vocals sound akin to Black Francis. This eight-track album, which stands at just over half an hour long, is the sound of a band who have really found their muse. The opening track, “No Future, No Past”, is a firm message that Cloud Nothings are no longer the band they used to be. Even the name of the album is a reference to the change the group has made away from their previous sound. Tracks like “Fall In” and “Wasted Days” sound as if they could be put to a slow motion video

Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory

of an American frat-house party as everyone downs cups of beer out of red cups (well at least what I imagine these parties to be like).

All of the songs are “feel good” but in some sort of warped Queens Of The Stone-Age type way. The highlight of the album is hearing Baldi sing out “No one knows our plans for us/We won’t last long” on “Our Plans”. As clichéd as it sounds, it almost feels as if Baldi is speaking for our generation. While this album is brilliantly put together in all musical forms, one can’t help but feel that Cloud Nothings were lacking confidence while making it. Although they have taken a new musical direction, they certainly haven’t given us a lot to go on, what with the album being as short as it is (and with 8 of the 33 minutes taken up by one song). However, I suppose I shouldn’t complain in these dire days of rock. I should cherish the good rock as it so rarely comes along and in this case Cloud Nothings have made an album that most certainly deserves to be appreciated.

“

...I suppose I shouldn’t complain in these dire days of rock. I should cherish the good rock as it so rarely comes along...

Eoin Hennessy

pared this album with Foals’ Total Life Forever and Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs it would definitely come in last place. Given To The Wild made a decent attempt to be good, however it just hasn’t stood up to the albums it sounds so like. If they brought back the lyrics about wave machines, maybe this wouldn’t be the case.

Eoin Hennessy

The Macabees - Given to the Wild

T

he Maccabees have come a long way since their debut album Colour It In. It’s now been five years and the band are no longer in the realms of writing lyrics about wave machines. On their third album, Given To The Wild, their lyrics have moved into deeper, more meaningful territory about getting older, moving on from relationships and the loss of innocence. It would be difficult to review this album without making the obvious comparisons

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to Foals and Arcade Fire. All three bands’ most recent albums have almost exactly the same arrangements and use of vocals. The Maccabees’ 55 minute long album, while not being unlistenable, is no masterpiece. For the album they have adopted the same tactic as Arcade Fire on The Suburbs, the album begins with more poppy upbeat tracks and eventually develops into slower, more melancholic territory. Although songs like “Glimmer” and “Unknow” are very enjoyable, you cannot help

but think that you have heard them before. However, the last track on the album, “Grew Up At Midnight”, is one of the most enjoyable pieces of music The Maccabees have made in a while.

Orlando Weeks’ soft vocals blend perfectly with the pristine arrangements on the track, while a slow build-up eventually peaks in the song’s closing seconds. Despite this, we are still left with God-awful tracks like “Heave”, which sounds bad enough to be a Coldplay B-side. If we directly com-

“

Despite this, we are still left with God-awful tracks like “Heave”, which sounds bad enough to be a Coldplay B-side.

Spoek Mathambo – Nombolo One

D

oes Nthato Mokgata (a.k.a.

Spoek Mathambo) ever sleep?

From remixes, singles and collaboration projects with Schlachthofbronx and Playdoe, the man has already had 33 releases. And here he is again, just two months before his second album Father Creeper comes out, Spoek Mathambo has given us a compilation of covers of 70s, 80s and 90s popular South African songs. The man from Johannesburg, who has recently signed to the Sub Pop record label which has been home to artists such as Nirvana, Fleet Foxes, Foals, Shabazz Palaces and many more, has teamed up with friends Theo Tuge and Ayanda Sithole to make beats under the name of Nambolo One. The album, which was commissioned by music and art gurus Motel 11, sees Mathambo rediscover some of South Africa’s finest pieces of music. Throughout the twelve songs, Mathambo chops and changes the originals until they are almost unrecognizable. Tracks like “Jacknife”, which was once a garage track by legends

Kwaito, now sounds like something Silkie or Mala could have produced.

“Sfun’abantwana”, one of the highlights on the album, mixes fantastic African lyricism with clubby Modeselektorsounding beats. There are few bad moments on the album, with most of songs sounding very original. Although some of the tracks can drag on a bit, they never lack in musical direction and with lyrics like “Walk to the bar, take someone else’s drink/spend an hour wonderin’ if someone roofied it” one can never get bored. However, it must be said that some of the beats seam very cheaply produced and a bit thrown together at times. While the album is free online (from motel11.tv), it is encouraged that you make a donation, or if you feel like it, you can purchase a physical copy of the album which comes with fantastic artwork designed

by Love&Hate. Despite this being an album of covers, Spoek Mathambo has managed to pull it off. Definitely not his finest work but most certainly a sign of great things to come.

Eoin Hennessy

Wiley - Evolve or Be Extinct

I

t has only been six months since Wiley released 100% Publishing, his second full length release on the Big Dadda label, and already we’ve gotten a follow-up. The product is Evolve Or Be Extinct. The result is one of Wiley’s finest albums to date. The songs

cover all realms of music, from grime to house, from comedy to electro.

Wiley has truly created an album with immense diversity, both lyrically and beat wise. On the last track, “This Is Just An Album”, Wiley even says, “It’s crazy trying to make an album that you

want to connect with so many people”.

Despite this, the great man has pulled it off. Instead of making all of the beats himself, like he did on 100% Publishing, this time Wiley has enlisted the help of Mark Pritchard of Harmonic 313 and Africa HiTech fame for two songs, “Scar” and “Money Man”. Both styles blend seamlessly on the tracks, as Wiley’s cocky rhymes glide over Pritchard’s spacey beats. Wiley’s stab at comedy isn’t too bad either on the track “Can I Have A Taxi Please?”. Each verse is sung in a different accent and is all part of phone call to a taxi service.

Wiley’s “posh” rhyme is one of the highlights, where he says “I read the Guardian, Observer, Evening standard/I

see MPs on tele trying to reach my standard”. Despite him rhyming the same word, it’s still very funny sung in Wiley’s rich boy accent. Although the album is almost perfect, it still contains the awful Wiley trademark, which is one really sappy, emotional song which features average guests and is only there to achieve some form of chart success (“Only Human”). But as Wiley says, he’s trying to make the album appeal to everyone and I think he may just have done that. Songs like “Boom Blast” and “Only Human” are obviously going to appear somewhere in the charts, whereas tracks like “Money Man” won’t make it much further than a basement in Croydon. An album for everyone.

Eoin Hennessy

Pinch & Shackletone - Pinch & Shackletone

A

lthough the word dubstep now brings about negative feelings, it has not always been like that. In its heyday (let’s say around 2006) labels like Skull Disco, Hyperdub and Tempa brought us the darkest of beats which anyone would be proud to say they liked.

In 2012 however, we are faced with the rotten, filthy, disgusting abominations that are Skrillex, Excision, Nero, Datsik and many more. Despite these monstrosities, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Good dubstep is still being made by some of the pioneers of the game including Dygital Mystikz, Appleblim and Kryptic Minds. In this case however, it is the legends Pinch and Shackleton who have come to save the day. Pinch, who is best known for his deep dubbed-out sounds and for running the label Tectonic, has teamed up with Skull Disco founder and all round genius producer, Shackleton. The death-obsessed Sam Shackleton, who disbanded the Skull Disco label in 2008 and moved to Berlin, brings us back

to the glory days with his weird tribal drums and floating synths while Pinch lays down intense sub-bass rhythms.

“Rooms Within A Room”, which recently featured on Pinch’s fabriclive CD, is a mind blowing piece which sounds like some sort of apocalypse of the soul. Albums don’t get much darker than this. One of the eeriest tracks on the album is “Selfish Greedy Life” which chops the vocal sample “you have a most selfish and greedy life” into something that sounds like it came from the abyss.

The Pinch-like bass on “Burning Blood” is enough to make you think your boiler is broken, while the drums on the track “Jellybone” are very reminiscent of Shackleton’s Skull Disco days. Although this album isn’t the most original of pieces, it still delivers beautifully crafted tracks. It must be noted that not everyone is going to love this album as much as this reviewer. However, if you like your beats dark and bass heavy, it’s an essential listen.

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fashion

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STREET STYLE Aoife Considine evaluates the fashion she found while wandering around Trinity.

J

anuary is dull; Christmas is over, shops are full of the dregs of sale items and the weather is perpetually on the fence and indecisive as to whether it wants to be rainy or sunny, calm or windy, or hot or cold.

It’s understandable that in this dreary month picking an outfit to suit the changeable weather is a difficult task, accomplished successfully by few. I took to campus this week to see how Trinity students were dealing with this in-between seasons dilemma.

I chose to do my style hunting in the Arts Block, notorious as Trinity’s catwalk and usually ripe with stylish pickings. The January blues seem to even have cast their dark shadow over this sartorial haven too however. As I wandered through the concrete jungle, eyes peeled for some pop of colour, I was left disappointed.

I took my hunt outdoors to the smoking area, another place that’s generally awash with stylish young things, and to my pleasure I came across Kate, who in her taped-up glasses and Dr.Martins was like a modern, stylish twist on Titch Miller (you know, from that poem we were all forced to read in school). Kate is a European Studies student garbed in a fur coat from Moscow, how very European, I know.

The coat is what jumped out at me first when I saw Kate.

Although similar to many of the high street versions that riddle the streets these days, Kate’s coat was subtly chic but when paired with her Docs, that she picked up in an army surplus for €10, and a pair of bright blue ankle socks, she immediately gave this imperial classic a quirky twist. Her smile

was simply the cherry on top to brighten up any drab January afternoon.

If you’re looking to brighten up your January wardrobe without looking too summery, it would seem maroon is the way to go.

Although quite a dark colour, when juxtaposed with black it makes a striking impact as with Kate’s shoes and can give an otherwise dull outfit that spring lift.

This black and maroon combo caught my eye again when I bumped into Stephen, a street style blogger at www. stitchesfabricandsoul.com who was more than happy to let me photograph him from the other side of the lens for once.

In a structured, leather sleeved, Kooples-esque coat and a pair of super skinny jeans, Stephen let me in on a little secret of his that I think is key to men’s structured dressing; wear women’s clothes. It’s so simple, yet so effective. With androgyny all over the catwalks for the past few seasons, dressing in clothes designed for the opposite sex is becoming more and more acceptable and is even the premise upon which The Kooples brand, that I’ve already mentioned, was built. Gender clothing boundaries are being broken as more women are leaning towards unstructured blazers and tailored pants as men are opting for tighter, skinnier fits all round. So, if you’re looking to brighten up your wardrobe this January, there’s no need to go all neon rave or anything, a simple black ensemble with a splash of colour will do the job and make a much chicer impact.

B

y the time you read this, we will be at least two days into Rag Week 2012. Sure, some naysayers may deem it little more than a public display of binge drinking from the SU hacks. Keep saying nay, I say; It’s all in the name of aiding those less fortunate. Remember that all money raised this week will be donated to a number of Trinity based charities. Those which the proceeds from RAG Week go towards are: Vincent De Paul , the Voluntary Tuition Programme, Sudent 2 Student, Suas, Trinity’s Free Legal Advice Centre, Amnesty, Cancer Soc, and the Student Hardship Fund. It must be said, It really is such wonderful fun to witness the look of abject digust on tourist’s faces as they misguidedly wander over to investigate Iron Stomach. Furthermore, there’s nothing quite like ambling into lectures, covered in partially digested sour milk that was projectile vomited at you by the possibly insane/certifiably stupid.

Kate

The VDP will have students endeavouring to go deaf/blind for the day of Wednesday 25th, and then have guest speakers coming in for the evening from the Irish Deaf Kids and the Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind. These fantastic, awareness-raising discussions commence at 6pm in the JCR Common Room.

This year for the RAG BALL, Ents are taking us back to the 80’s! THE Grandmaster Flash, and nationallyacclaimed Spring Break will headline on Wednesday night. Tickets are 10e in the SU office.

The Law Soc is doing ticket sales for the Maples Law Ball on Tuesday between 10 and 4 in the Arts Block, and on Thursday 26th Trinity Music Soc present ‘Awakening’; it’s a concert of early and Baroque music both vocal and instrumental. 7.30pm in the Chapel, and tickets are €10/€7 Katie Abrahams

Stephen

18

RETURN TO THE 36 ECHO CHAMBERS by Jay MacDonnell

A

friend recently told me that while in New York, she encountered an outdoor meeting of pug owners. At this point in the story, my reaction was merely that sense of low level alienation one gets upon hearing about someone with interests radically different from one’s own- that mild anxiety that comes from knowing that if I ever met any of these people, we’d probably have nothing to talk about- in other words, a standard contemplation on just how boring life’s rich tapestry can be. However, the next part of the story was to completely blow my mind with the sheer depth of its awfulness: the owners of these ridiculous dogs were discussing, of all things representation of pugs in the media. At first I didn’t understand why my reaction was so strong.

I knew instinctively that this was depraved, that there was a “last days of Rome” sense of civilization abolishing itself about it.

But why? Our traditional frames of reference for a society that has stopped caring about its own survival are the dramatic spectacles of Roman orgies or Weimar German cabarets- established narratives of people so consumed by gratification that they do nothing about the barbarians/Nazis who are about to prove themselves to be serious buzzkills.

Something about the vast opportunity cost incurred when you apply relatively sophisticated concepts of media theory to something as self-indulgent and trivial as a toy dog made me very uneasy, but I couldn’t quite place it. Then it hit me: these people had developed an interest so pointless and yet still taken so seriously (by themselves, at least) that they must have insulated themselves from anyone who would tell them they’re wasting their time. They were living in an echo chamber.

For society to tear itself apart you don’t need debauchery on massive scale, all it takes is for people to decide that they won’t talk to people who disagree with them. In a sense, this has always been the case- it would be naive to expect everyone to be everyone’s friend- but there has usually been a basic level level of interaction. Those with the craziest views would be forced at various points in the day into situations where other people would tell them just how crazy they are and with any luck

19

they would agree that maybe they are indeed a bit crazy, and that they should shut up. This is no longer necessarily the case. As social media becomes the default mode of interaction for more people, fears have been raised of what are called filter bubbles. What this means is that not only are people self-selecting what kinds of news and opinions they want to hear, but that search engine results are being tailored specifically to individuals based on what Google, for instance, thinks they want to see. Take Facebook’s “like” system for example. People are hardly going to “like” a link to a story about genocide or famine, and with Facebook taking note to prioritise stuff people do “like”, which more often than not are baby animals and cakes shaped like things from Star Wars, results are delivered accordingly.

In other words, people’s worlds and their range of experience become limited to the point where they only ever read or listen to things that they already agree with. That this is dangerous should be self evident- all capacity for self-criticism is lost in the echo chamber, leaving lonely cliques of specialised interest that are at best, ignorant of the outside world, and at worst contemptuous of it.

Suddenly, these gentle yuppies going on about their dogs seemed a warning of just how far this heightened self-filtering could cause so many people to fall through the cracks. Forget kids on drugs and rural isolation, if you want to know what dropping out of society really looks like you should read the articles on any llifestyle blog by the people chattering endlessly about antioxidant berries and Reiki and what their lunch looked like- things that are of consequence to approximately no one, and yet, through the new media have perversely come to make up the bulk of what many people experience. Far worse than any new “killer death drug” or act of terrorism, this trend is not dangerous because it pits one group against the rest of society, but rather it implies the simultaneous dropping out of society by everyone at once into countless hermetically sealed islands of thought. And then we’ll have a much bigger problem than people talking about dogs in the media without anyone around to tell them how stupid they are.

We’r e goi to th ng bac k e 198 0s!

5t h

N

DAYJANUARY 2

E TH

WE D

ES

FLASH

SPRING BREAK PM

GRANDMASTER

VI 0 1 LLA GE, DOORS

TICKETS €10

AVAILABLE FROM SU SHOP & WWW.TRINITYENTS.COM FROM WEDNESDAY 18TH JANUARY TCD Ents, proudly sponsored by