ETH in Kansas City

If I say Neil Dorfsman to you, what Irish music do you think of? Paul Brady, Solas? Okay very good, but as it happens I don't actually go around casually spitting out names as challenges to people.

So today is the day Enter the Haggis enter the Record Bar. The brand new album, Soapbox Heroes, as I told you, is not available for regular retail until July 18, but is being sold at gigs.

Reading around the blogosphere I've read of people absolutely loving this ETH tour and of the tracks from the new CD the boys are playing in the set. I don't have any links for you because the relevant blogs had huge convoluted entries (yes, more than mine) with ETH reviews too far buried to explain - so just trust me. Actually one person likened a new track to Marillion - and there was me talking about Genesis

When I was talking with Kirk of Seven Nations recently, I forgot to ask him about ETH, probably because he had me distracted with sordid tales of the road, and he actually made me write them down. So I did.

Singer and Guitarist, Trevor Lewington talks of this fifth album by Enter the Haggis:

For the recording of Soapbox Heroes, we lived in a house that was attached to the studio so we were isolated from family and friends. The only people we interacted with were ourselves, Neil, the studio employees and guest musicians.

The seclusion helped us to focus on the record without any distractions. It also meant that we didn’t have any feedback from family and friends until it was too late

I like people that lock themselves away from the world.

The studio man behind Casualties of Retail, Joao Carvalho is also responsible for mastering Soapbox Heroes, but the producer, according to ETH's label, UFO music, is none other than 4-time grammy winner, with music credits longer than the face of a girl an Irish barman in Kansas City once went out with, Neil Dorfsman.

See also:
     • Listen to Soapbox Heroes Track
     • Enter The Haggis on Irish KC
     • Kansas City Scottish Festival
 

Roger Coleman and Joe Miquelon

The Kansas City Star today features an article on The Elders' keyboard player, Joe Miquelon, and Roger Coleman from midtown's Pilgrim Chapel. It's an interesting read, particularly on the evolution of Danny Cox’s Troost Avenue Blues.

See also:
     • The Elders at Children for Peace fundraiser
     • Joe Micquelon joins The Elders
     • All posts on The Elders
 

Encore: 50 More Conservative Songs

Speaking of the National Review list of Top 50 Conservative Rock Songs of All Time (or the last fifty years, if you prefer), John J. Miller has listed, though alas without numbers we could fight about, fifty more conservative rock songs.

What was surprising about the original article wasn't the list itself, but that people were surprised. Miller clearly stated the songs were chosen based on what listeners felt defined conservative values for them; he didn't say that driving German cars into American residential swimming pools makes you a conservative rock group - though obviously it does.

This time Mr Miller does what he tried to avoid last time, by including five songs by Rush and The Kinks combined. I suspect it's just laziness following the impact of the initial list that has the net not being cast so wide this time.

From the Irish perspective we again have a song by U2, The Playboy Mansion from the much mocked Pop album. Of course because we're Irish we know that anything early when the boys were simultaneously attending prayer meetings and being rock stars would qualify.

And so would anything later when they had established they weren't your average rock stars interested in getting their rocks off. Beyond U2 we're pushing it. But hey, Irish KC likes to push it, so let's claim a couple more.

Elvis Costello, born as Declan Patrick MacManus, and sometime champion of The Pogues to the extent that he married their bass player for a while, Cait Ni Riordain (surely that's conservative?), is on the list with The Other Side of Summer.

Oh and This Night Has Opened My Eyes by that Irish band, The Smiths.

And really we shouldn't, because the sweeping epic rock ballad called Red Army Blues by The Waterboys predates their conversion to Irishness, and is back from the days when everything they did was sweeping and epic. But with their recent second Irish coming, I think we can now claim everything Mike Scott ever did as being Irish.

And this second Irish coming also reinstates The Waterboys as the ultimate Irish Festival band in existence - I mean, for god's sake they have an unending stream of Dubliners on Grafton Street wishing they were Fishermen. So I imagine having the masses of middle America wishing they too were out on trawlers should be no problem. Reason enough for a festival, I'd say.

Truth be told, from an Irish perspective we could make these lists until the cows come home, because we have a Traditional music scene, and for good measure we fuse it into Rock, Pop, and although it's criminal, Country.

I mean Step it out Mary, my fine daughter, Show your legs to the country man embodies a world of conservative values you could write a thesis on. Or a Testament.

See also:
     • Top 50 Conservative Rock Songs
     • U2: Dublin 1979
     • The Easter Bunny in Ireland?
 

Irish Conversation in the American Midwest #11

-Where are you from
-Ireland. Dublin
-Ahh, Jimmy
-Jimmy?
-Yes. I have a friend called Jimmy. He is from Dublin
-I see
-Do you know him?
-Jimmy?
-Yes
-Jimmy from Dublin?
-Yes
-He lives in Dublin?
-Yes
-Just Jimmy? Like Elvis and Madonna, no last name necessary?
-Everyone just knows him as Jimmy
-Sorry, I don't know him
-You are from Dublin?
-Yes
-Everyone knows him. Jimmy

See other conversations:
     • Cats
     • The Driving Range
     • All Irish Conversations
 

Normal Service for Kansas City Irish

It's been a huge three days for Irish KC, with thousands of visitors due to the Celtic Block Party, the Ken Loach Cannes win, and especially the National Review article.

Throw in the fact that it was Memorial Day weekend here in the States, and even more important family commitments, and perhaps Irish KC has seemed a bit out of whack. Normal service should now resume. What normal service is, I have no idea.

If none of this means anything to you, ignore it and go phone somebody you haven't for over six months. Tell them you were thinking of them.

Related(ish):
     • About Eolaí gan Fhéile
     • Post #500 on Irish KC
     • First Ever Irish KC Post
 

Lunasa: Sean Smyth Interview

Although this interview with Lúnasa's Sean Smyth is in advance of a prestigious concert in Ireland, and not one in Kansas city or the Midwest, Lúnasa will be touring the US in September and October 2006, and including venues in Tulsa, OK and Boulder, CO.

Smyth is a native of Mayo and an All-Ireland champion on both fiddle and whistle, and in the interview talks a lot about what constitutes traditional Irish music from the Lúnasa perspective:

I came through Comhaltas myself, and it was a very fine organisation in the way that it introduced me to music in lots of respects. But I've never had anyone come up and say that we are destroying traditional music!

We are very true to the times and the music in that way that it was written. We don't do jazz improvisations within the form of the music, and we are playing on instruments that form part of that tradition.

The music is very much about melody and rhythm within the tune, and that's what Lunasa is trying to achieve. We try to focus on the melodies and on the harmonic variations and all that kind of stuff, but it is still the melody which is foremost, plus the rhythm which I would say is the soul of the music.

That gives it its attractive hypnotic feel. Even though we've been called very modern we're probably as traditional as you'll ever see

It's a great interview with distinctions between the kinds of audiences Lúnasa get on the Theatre circuit in the US contrasted with their Irish & Music Summer Festival audiences, and the story of being given a tune backstage at a gig in Portland, Oregon, which was to ultimately feature on the current album, Sé.

Lúnasa seem very much in the tradition of The Bothy Band, and Irish Traditional Music praise doesn't come much higher than that.

See also:
    • Irish Choral Music and Celtic Underpants
    • Song Sung Traditional: Hold On
    • Seachtain na Gaeilge : Ceol '06

Bubble Hits: Irish Music Channel

Bubble Hits is a new Irish-owned TV music channel that will broadcast to over 8 million homes in Ireland and the UK starting this summer.

Owned by two young Irish buckos in their early twenties, Bubble Hits is planned as a 24/7 music channel with no commercial breaks - such is the power of viewer interaction via SMS, MMS and the web.

There will of course be sponsorship and 'integrated advertising', nevertheless it is this commerical-free format that has attracted interest from cable stations worldwide.

So perhaps Bubble hits is bound for American air space some time soon then, and since the future of television is probably not television (if ya know what I mean), that's likely to speed when that date might occur. I mean if albums are now being released by mobile phones, should Irish TV stations not be viewable on your American cooler?

Can't help thinking about the name though, especially for a business embracing new technologies. Does anyone remember what happened the Dot Com Bubble, often referred to these days as Bubble 1.0?

See also:
    • Irish Radio: 1993
    • Paddy Rock Radio Top 25 CDs
    • U2, That's A Tribute 2U Fran

Feast or Famine: Emigration Assistance

Once upon an unemployed time, I ran out of Unemployment Benefit and was thus applying for means-based Unemployment Assistance. The Benefit that had run out was based on the social-welfare contributions you made while employed.

Or, you got a lot less on Assistance, and formulas applied to calculate your amount were secret (read: arbitrary). Luckily you could appeal if you disagreed with the amount. You just had to give a basis for appeal.

On this occasion it was determined my weekly amount received would be seven Irish pounds. My basis for appeal went something like this:

I wish to appeal the amount you have determined I am to receive as being sufficient to live on while seeking employment.

I cannot afford to live off the seven pounds you have given me, so I have decided to emigrate to seek work. The cheapest way to leave the country on a one-way ticket is by ferry and train. I should be able to get to England for forty-one pounds.

However because I have to get the bus to town (and back) each week to collect my seven pounds, the bus fare reduces my weekly amount to five-fifty. I could walk the four miles to Werburgh Street, but that would make me hungry and chips from Leo Burdock's are really good but not that cheap. And there'd still be the four miles walk back, so it wouldn't save much.

Anyway, eating anything during the week would only eat into savings for the ferry ticket, so it would likely take longer than eight weeks to save to emigrate. As such I'd like to appeal your determination of seven pounds, and ask that you increase the amount so I can buy a ticket to leave the country

Several weeks later I received the Appeal Officer's decision. My weekly Unemployment Assistance was increased from seven to forty-one pounds. Now why would anyone leave a country that great?

Speaking of emigrating rather than staying and suffering through it, the replica of the famine ship Dunbrody, sets sail today from New Ross for Dublin.

See also:
     • Seeking Employment in Dublin
     • Illegal Irish Immigrants in the USA
     • Interview with Failed Migrant Worker
 

English Conversations in the American Midwest

Speaking of things British, you know what I miss leads me to celebrate conversations, well Kansas City based documentary-maker Roldy has been having his own Conversations in the American Midwest. And not once, but twice. Everyone should do this.

See also some Irish Conversations:
     • Leaves Changing Colour
     • Don't Say You're Not American
     • Wind

Flannigin's it is, so

Speaking of women cavorting alone on beds - speaking to myself you understand - I was thinking of everyone's favourite woman of Joyce, Fionnuala Flanagan. And what was I thinking?

Her surname. That's the standard anglicized spelling of the name, and even in America, give or take doubling the 'n', it's the only spelling I've seen. So what?

Well Cameron Russell, guitarist and vocalist, has confirmed that the band you saw at Stumpy's before The Elders are called FLANNIGIN'S Right Hook:

Actually,it's Flanagan's Right Hook, but everyone on the message boards spells it Flannigin's Right Hook, so since that's what most people are going with we switched over too, so Flannigin's Right Hook it is. And I'm gonna give somebody a right hook if they misspell it again. P.S. might even throw in a left hook too

And why the confusion? Blame the masses, the people, and thank FRH (wish I'd thought of that before) for their expediency.

Bloomsday Under Threat

Bloomsday, June 16, 1904 - the date of the setting of Ulysses, and celebrated for about seventy years - might be getting a new holiday for a neighbour.

In Britain, Chancellor Gordon Brown recently called for a new day for their national identity, saying the UK needed a day to celebrate "who we are and what we stand for".

In a surprise result of a poll conducted by the BBC History magazine, the anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta has been chosen as the best date to celebrate Britishness.

Chosen by 27%, the anniversary of the Magna Carta proved more popular than the Second World War dates of VE Day or D-Day, or even anything to do with British military history. That constitutional rather than something jingoistic is preferred is as brilliant as it is startling

Magna Carta is a collection of papers which in theory limited the power of the monarch and gave ordinary people rights under common law. It doesn't matter any more that they were largely copied from a charter 100 years older, or how much has been repealed since.

What matters is the date - 15 June, 1215, because by some considerable time this predates the Union that is the United Kingdom, in all its forms. Is it possible when pushed on the question of UK-ness, that its citizens don't actually know who they are and what they stand for?

And because I live in a region of the world infected with a work ethic that causes most of its holidays to be celebrated on the nearest weekend rather than a school night, the date means before heading off to indulge in a keg of fine American beer, while I'm trying to visualize how many thousand miles it is to the nearest snot-green sea, I'll likely have to answer questions on why I am (or am not) celebrating the history of due process and the Bill of Rights.

It's enough to put you off your kidneys.

See also:
     • St George's Day
     • Kansas City's Bloomsday Books
     • Bloomsday in Kansas City

The Hairdressers Guide to Information Technology #5

HGIT #5 - gruaig : hair

See More Of:
The Hairdressers Guide to Information Technology
Conversations (Like cartoons, just no pictures)
 

Loach Irish Film Wins Cannes Big Prize

Ken Loach's The Wind That Shakes The Barley, the film about the Irish War of Independence and following Irish Civil War, has won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, the Palme d'Or.

Previously nominated seven times for the Palm d'Or, British director Ken Loach has won with what he describes as 'a very little step in the British confronting their imperialist history'. It is for the likes of this that I have maintained Loach is heroic when it comes to making movies.

Focusing on the smaller details rather than, for example, who shot Michael Collins, Loach continues to ground his films in the social realism he has used since before even the fabulous Kes. Reviews on The Wind That Shakes The Barley all have it as even less of a sweeping epic than Loach's excellent Spanish Civil War movie, Land And Freedom

Friend of Kansas City, our Fuchsia Band Man Mairtin from Cork of course had a small part in The Wind That Shakes the Barley with Loach as ever largely favouring relative unknowns. Cillian Murphy is the biggest name in TWTSTB.

The two favourites were Almodovar's Volver, and Inarritu's Babel, which won best screenplay and best director respectively, but the Cannes Film Festival jury has a history of not matching critics' predictions.

As the Cannes Grand Prize winner, will The Wind That Shakes The Barley really not be shown in North America?

See Also:
    • Ken Loach: Movie Making Hero
    • Articles on The Wind That Shakes The Barley
    • The BBC Shakes The Barley
    • Cillian Murphy is not Irish Actor

    • The irish Gay Icon Who Shot Michael Collins
    • US Irish Film Office, Cannes, and The Tudors
    • Irish Tax Movie Breaks Approved by EC
    • Magical Movie Music Moment
 

Irish Conversation in a Dublin Pub #14

-You're doing things different this time
-I know, I even wear shoes most of the time
-But you keep your trousers fastened by a safety pin
-That's to keep my feet on the ground

See also:
     • Rommel
     • Hoffenpurpenburger Day
     • Questions & Answers

Part-time Irish Rock Star Learns Piano

Speaking of Irish singers and Bamoko, there's a podcast interview by Larry Elliott, the Guardian's economics editor, with Mr Bono over in Mali at the moment.

Following last year's Live 8, Bono is checking on, not just the donations from the North, but what the recipient countries in the South are doing with it. He's been getting around on this trip and is largely impressed:

Lesotho - the Mountain Kingdom is a beautiful country that fails to market itself. Yes, don't give a man a fish, give him a fishing rod, but then let him sell you the fish, and teach him to market his fish to you.

Rwanda - blew his mind, not in the way that Beckett did, but because Kigali is a spotless city where people excercise a civic duty to clean their streets. And 995 of the electorate voted. Bono met a Boston entrepreneur who is installing broadband all over the country, which means it will have better coverage than Ireland I imagine.

Tanzania - magical, magical landscapes with an ancient people moving towards a modern era albeit slower than Rwanda. Tanzania makes cotton but would like to be a nation of apparel makers. 1.6 million people are now going to school because of the first round of debt cancellation.

Mali - is also a cotton grower but desperately poor so what hope? Sharp intake of breath because 85% can't read, and very few go to school. Some breaks are happening but not quick enough. 300,000 are working in cotton which affects 3 million, but the country is overwhelmed by fluctuations in the world market which is flooded by American heavily-subsidized cotton. Bono believes the future for Mali is in its relationship with its neighbours.

Nigeria - I.T., along with textiles is the other great industry for the future of Africa. Bono's group brought people from Motorola who want to build, not assemble, build phones in Nigeria. Textiles and Technology are important because they point to the success of India and China

Bono reckons product (RED) will never replace the movement, because it is activism that will change the structural aspect of why 6,500 Africans die every day of a treatable disease.

But what of U2 and music?

Hello, my name is Bono, and I'm a rockstar is how he introduces himself to African kids. For kicks mostly. In reality Bono says he's a part-time rock star, but full-time musician and writer.

Like his teenage days when he worked on a garage (gas station) forecourt filling cars with petrol but dreaming of Saturday and rehearsals with the band, now his activism has him valuing his involvement in music more than ever. Music defines Mr Bono. He is part of the family that houses The Clash and Marvin Gaye.

His daughter's piano teacher has been giving Bono lessons and every lesson he writes a new song. Says he has quite a few, and the lads should be meeting up for the U2 thing they do sometime in June or July.

It's quite a nice interview, so it is.

See Also
    • U2, A Tribute 2U Fran
    • Bono Guest Edits (RED) Independent
    • Voxer & Christie: A Love Story

Irish Conversation in the American Midwest #10

-Hey, you're from Europe, right?
-Yes
-Have you ever eaten their food?
-European food?
-Yes. Don't you think it's weird?
-What do you mean?
-Like the Mediterranean, have you ever been there?
-Yeah
-Places like France and Italy, don't you think they have really weird food?
-Em...
-I mean, how do they eat that stuff? It's not like American food, normal food. I couldn't eat it. Could you?
-I have
-You have? You couldn't have liked it, not like normal food. Don't you think American food is the only nice food?

More Irish Conversations >>
 

Liam O Maonlai News

Liam O Maonlai has just updated his site where he lets us know that he too is now spending too much of his life on MySpace. That's social networks for you, and the contagiousness of music.

Mostly Liam is raphsodizing about the amazing Tioumani Diabate, the famous Mali kora player:

Toumani Diabate is coming to Dublin soon. He is one of heavens gifts. I was given a CD of his Kora playing about four years ago by the great Steve Cooney. It is like woven gold and water. He and his protege play kora for the duration of the album. Very simple. No tricks no accompanyment. The Kora does it all.

I have been listening to Tioumani Diabate for twenty years now - it is utterly gorgeous stuff. I'm a little surprised that Liam doesn't mention the very recent sad passing of the other giant of traditional Mali music, Ali Farka Toure.

As you may know from earlier Irish KC posts on O Maonlai, Liam is a great enthusiast of Africa, and talking about Bamako, the city where Toumani Diabate lives this is evident - especially in how he descibes the social aspect of tea-drinking, a subject dear to my own heart:

You can drink a cup of locally brewed tea at any corner as long as you are willing to spend the time. Three cups is a full cycle. A good two hours of company

Go read. I wonder if Liam will feel the same about Kansas City?

See Also
    • Liam at WOMAD Festival in Spain
    • Hothouse Flowers at the Tivoli (incl. Interview
    • Hothouse Flowers in New Zealand & ALT

Celtic Block Party Music

Just to confirm, with tomorrow's Celtic Block Party at Governor Stumpy's running from 3-9pm, the entertainment starts with Jim Cosgrove at 3:00pm, followed by Fireside, Tullamore, and Flannigin's Right Hook, before The Elders finish the day's music at an estimated 7:00pm.

See earlier Celtic Block Party post for more details.

Handy Irish Phrase: Chomh cinnte is a leanann boige earraigh cuisne geimhridh   (As certain as spring softness follows winter ice)

Daniel O'Donnell: He's Coming to Missouri

You might think of him as a classy Irish tenor; I never have. In five months he'll own Missouri. Right now he's touring the northeast and Canada, and then he squeezes in a nationwide tour of Ireland, a tour of Australia and New Zealand, and one of England, before returning to North America and Branson for five weeks of whatever it is that Daniel does.

I'm telling you now because of this great review in the Ottawa Sun for Daniel's gig last night in Canada. Aside from describing the PBS Hero as a 'classy Irish tenor', Dennis Armstrong uses phrases like:

easy-going pops concert • squeaky-clean entertainer • an oldie-but-golden concert • decked out in a powder-blue suit • schtick of the sentimental Irishman • old-fashioned entertainment and family values • painfully sentimental version • sweet and innocent charm • almost too much sincerity

And on describing his duets with Mary Duff:

Between them, holding hands and smiling, the pair resembled the wedding cake couple and posing, always posing for anyone with a camera

And yet the reporter clearly had a good time - as everybody always does when they go to see Daniel - though he didn't lose his sense of judgment:

Although his stage presence proved unrivalled, O'Donnell's voice was rather light and thin, it went well with his image and the easy-listening band who seemed to be playing just this side of Las Vegas cheese

Last October one of the highlights of my trip home was sitting alone for hours in the cold under a grey sky at the bus station just outside Monaghan.

Such scenes had sent Patrick Kavanagh to Dublin to cheer up, but I was blissfully happy. Earlier I got the bus from Dublin and on the way the driver played, non-stop, Daniel Live in Branson.

You can see Daniel O'Donnell in Branson at the Tri Lakes Theatre almost every night from Oct 30 - Dec 2

See Also
    • Tap Dancer in Scotland Faster than Celtic Tiger
    • Pirate Queen: The Musical
    • Irish Show Folk & Weird Celtic Fox

Irish and British Passports: FIFA Go Mad

Much more important to Northen Irish football than losing to Romania in the Midwest,is FIFA's announcement that to play for Northern Ireland you must be in possession of a British Passport. Let me just think off the top of my head of some reasons why this is ludicrous:

  • A passport is for travel; it is not necessarily a document declaring exclusive nationality

  • In the citizen sense, there are no countries called England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with matching passports. All are part of a single country that qualify for British passports.

  • You can hold a British passport and be not from Northern Ireland i.e. holding that passport proves you may be from Northen Ireland - or Wales, or England or Scotland.

  • People from Northern Ireland are legally eligible for both Irish and British passports

  • Many players who have played for the Republic of Ireland have held British passports

  • Many players who have played for Spain/Italy/Portugal have held Argentinian/Uruguayan/Brazilian passports

  • Requiring players to hold passports of the nation they represent (even if the nation is actually four distinct footballing nations) goes directly against the Good Friday Agreement and makes Northern Ireland exclusively a British team instead of the dual-cultural British-Irish team it has historically been, and is in reality.

What? Well, it means only Protestants are likely to play for Northern Ireland, with Catholics from the six counties opting for the Republic. Now this has been happening anyway for a few years due to sectarianism at Windsor Park but the IFA were making progress in fixing this.

FIFA has acknowledged - for it has no practical choice - that the four parts of the UK give you only one passport, but it's unable to cope with the one part of Ireland giving you two passports.

Wow! Who would have thought that the politicians of Northern Ireland are actually ahead of anybody on the world stage, even if it just footballing bureaucrats. Simplistic madness, and a dodgy precedent if it sticks - which I doubt.

See Also:
    • Irish Lose: O-Dear, O-dear, O-dear, O-dear
    • Former KC Wizard Joins Irish Legend
    • 1-0 to Arsenal

Northern Ireland Lose in Chicago

A team called Northern Ireland just played some football in Chicago's Soldier Field. Romania 2 - N.Ireland 0. But just like the Republic's defeat to Chile in Dublin, it doesn't matter. Because it's a friendly. It only matters when you win. Or when you play England.

For anyone reading who's confused that I'm using the word football and not soccer, it's important to know that all games are friendlies, aside from the World Cup finals or your continental federation's finals, and their respective qualifying games. Nothing else matters.

You can make up competitions, make trophies even, and include great teams and great players, but it's all hooey. Even FIFA's own Confederations Cup is hooey.

See Also:
    • Snow Patrol Tempted to Write N.I. Football Song
    • Irish & British Passports: FIFA Go Mad
    • Seats on the Halfway Line

Top 50 Conservative Rock'n'Roll Songs

Refreshingly, the National Review reminds us that not all Rock'n'Roll is Bruce Springsteen and Mrs McGrath. Yes, much of it is actually conservative - from the Crickets to the Beach Boys, the Beatles to the Stones, and the Sex Pistols to Metallica.

Encore: And There's More: Another 50 Songs

Two Irish acts make the list of the 50 Greatest Conservative Rock Songs. And of all time no less - though I don't see any from the 1340s. At #41 is The Icicle Melts, by Limerick's own Cranberries with vocals of course by the thinking man's crumpet, Dolores o'Riordan. That was thoughtless of me.

And unavoidably, U2 are in the top 10 with Gloria at #6, the latin doing the business for them. Of course they could've chosen dozens of U2 anthems, but NR said they were trying to cast their net wide. These right wing religious types are always laying it on with the fishing metaphors.

I've decided this time to not claim as Irish, the Beatles (Lennon and McCartney, I mean hey), the Sex Pistols (Where do you think Johnny Rotten learned to talk like that?), Led Zepellin (for influencing pipers, Irish and Scottish) or a group at #36 with Government Cheese. Yes it's Kansas City's own Rainmakers:

A protest song against the welfare state by a Kansas City band that deserved more success than it got. The first line: Give a man a free house and he’ll bust out the windows

See also:
   • Immigration: The Economics View
   • Irish Immigrants and Bad Birds
   • Irish Place Names and Illegals
   • Bobby Sands

Irish Conversation in a Dublin Pub #13

-I just think that it's wrong for a society where having divorced parents is the norm
-But surely the fact that divorce is so common, and accepted by society, has to be a good thing because it means that nobody, especially the children, ends up being treated like lepers?
-Apart from the lepers, you mean?

See Also:
    • Disparaging Remarks
    • Leaves Changing Colour
    • All Irish Conversations
 

The Hairdressers Guide to Information Technology #4

HGIT #4 - madra : dog

Despite now using full feeds, subscribers will likely need to click on through to see the latest cartoon:


See all of:
HGIT: The Hairdressers Guide to Information Technology

Claddagh Irish Pub to open in 2007

The Kansas City Star is reporting that the Claddagh Irish Pub is scheduled to open in the spring or summer of 2007 at the Cornerstone of Leawood, a 360,000-square-foot retail and office complex under development. I think people are bigger in Leawood, so that's not as much space as it sounds.

Aiden is Very Popular in Kansas

The Irish name Aiden tops the most popular names for baby boys in Kansas, for the second year running. Connor also makes the top 25 list of boys names, coming in at number 7. The lists of boys and girls names are compiled by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and they aggregate names with alternate spellings, so for example if you called your baby Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh it was added into the count for Mick

The lists are compiled by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, from birth certificates. Strictly speaking the lists refer to babies born to Kansas residents. You could be an immigrant, even an illegal one. Perhaps a whole bunch of illegal Irish immigrants are poisoning lists of good American names.

Enter The Haggis & Soapbox Heroes - Listen

So I've been listening to some of Enter The Haggis' brand new CD, Soapbox Heroes. Track 3, New Monthly Flavour has been available on MySpace for some time now, and if you like Jethro Tull and early Genesis, the chances are you have an older sister. Get a new sister.

Honestly, Prog Rock might have been progressive in 1973, but in the 21st century it's regressive, so get yourself a new sister. I get one every couple of months.

But anyway, back to Enter the Haggis and Soapbox Heroes, or specifically New Monthly Flavour. I'm getting worried because my favourite parts are the pipes, and you're not supposed to like pipes in rock music. I remember being similarly worried when I found myself liking Freedom by Wham!. Perhaps it's the bus driver

New Monthly Flavour is a big explosive, but polished, celtic sound that ETH are getting better and better at. I'm not really sure how you play a small venue when you have such a big sound, but I guess U2, Led Zeppelin, Runrig, and other bands that make you laugh have managed it.

See also:
    • Enter The Haggis play Kansas City
    • U2, a Tribute 2U, Fran
    • Enter the Haggis on Irish KC

Chicago Gaelic Park Irish Fest 2006

Irish Fest, the Memorial Day Weekend Festival at Chicago Gaelic Park is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.

It's a festival with four days of music and five stages, so there should be something for evryone in the audience. Everyone Irish that is.

Music is provided by the Saw Doctors, Tommy Makem, Eileen Ivers & Immigrant Soul, The Fenians, Black 47, the Clumsy Lovers, Enter the Haggis, Gaelic Storm, and quite a few more. Of course there's dancers and exhibits and Irish stories and all kinds of funky Irish things, not least having a festival on a school night.

However, the Irish Fest part of the Chicago Gaelic Park website is one of those that looks great but performs terribly - when it doesn't crash your browser - so I'm not going there again. You can though.

Nonetheless the festival is the place to go for music if you're in Chicago this Memorial Day Weekend. If you're in Kansas City, Governor Stumpy's Celtic Block Party is the place to go, unless you're going to Atchison, Kansas for the music at the River Bend Art Festival.

And if you happen to be in Ireland, well the Goo Goo Dolls at the Ambassador, or the Festival International de la Chanson Francophone presentation at the Royal Irish Academy of Music appeal to me.

See also:
    • Enter the Haggis in Kansas City
    • Kansas City Scottish festival
    • Other Irish Festivals

The Driving Range

-Smack d'arse off it
[whack]
-Ah feck it
-You're hookin' it sham
-What d'ya reckon Pandas?
-I reckon you're hookin' it alright
-Do it like this Mickser. See it's goin' ta roll anyway, there's no need to lift it so high
[whack]
-Nice shot
-The usual, ya know
-Well Pandas, what I am not doing that Stalóg is?
-You've got your legs further apart
-You know you might be right
[whack]
-And you're hooking it
-Ah feck it
-Look Mick, swing naturally
[whack]
-See, another perfect one - except I can't seem to get the distance
-Heard ya didn't seem to get the distance last Thursday night
-Listen Pandas-Can't-Swim, I got more bleedin' distance than you've ever been
-Don't - you're putting Mickser off his hook
[whack]
-Ah feck it
-Change clubs sham
-Where's the point? I'm crap, amn't I Pandas?
-You're pretty bad alright, yeah
-Pandas, you should hit a few
-Nah, not for me. I'm happy enough watching
-You should try out the practice green
-What for?
-To practice
-But I don't play the game
-But ya might
-I won't
-Ya might
[whack]
-Ah feck it
-Anyone going to the video tonight?
-I am
-What about you Mickser?
-Nah, I'm going to that comedy thing with The Bush
-He's not going either then?
-You know he never goes; he doesn't like the small screen
[whack]
Ah feck it anyway
-But that was perfect, no hook at all
-That's the problem. If they all hooked I could aim over there
-Go on Pandas, just hit a couple out of my bucket
-I told you I don't like the game
-Why not?
-I've never seen anyone enjoy it
-We enjoy it
-No yehs don't. Look at Mickser - are you enjoying this?
-Well not today, no


See also, if you're a glutton for punishment:
    • Questions & Answers
    • A Prison Interview with Philo
    • All Conversations on Irish KC

Right Hooks from Flannagin and Finnigin

If you read the same papers as I do, you have a ready supply of brown paper bags.

Actually I'm talking about posters and ads. This Sunday's 4th Annual Celtic Block Party has Finnagin's Right Hook on the bill, and I deliberately left them off because I believed they were called Flannigin's Right Hook.

I'm not actually any wiser now, but you can certainly expect a Right Hook from somebody in Waldo on Sunday. Reading around the various music boards and websites, my vote goes to Flannagin. Or Flannigin.

Irish Music in Stereo

Recently I've enjoyed watching Sullivan's John being performed by Eddie Delahunt and Gabriel Reyes. With both of them playing the bodhran for the tune, if you focus your eyes on the space in between and equidistant from both bodhrans, you can then watch (albeit out of focus) both playing arms, Eddie's and Gabe's, move in that synchonized way that Irish dancers or synchronized swimmers do.

In fact, if you focus on Friday, you can watch Eddie play simultaneously on Wednesday and on Sunday, albeit out of focus.

Irish KC Feeds

-Would you like a Partial Irish Breakfast?
-No thanks, I'm partial

Partial to what, you may well ask. A Partial Belly, Partial Spectrum of Events, Partial-Scale Assault, Partial Disclosure, Partial Metal Jacket, The Partial Shilling, Partial Circle, Partial Throttle, Partial On, and The Partial Monty.

Due to popular demand by demanding, yet popular, subscribers, Irish KC has now switched from partial feeds to full feeds, both Atom and RSS. And you try saying that after a full feed of pints.

Irish Lose: O Dear, O-dear O-dear O-dear

Before Jack Charlton invented Irish football, Ireland had a tremendous record at home. We went thirteen years unbeaten at Lansdowne in competitive games, and the day we lost it those of us at the game enjoyed it enormously, even though we were beaten 4-1. But why? you ask.

Against Denmark, in our last qualifying game for the 1986 World Cup we no longer could qualify for, the result meant little to us beyond our usual pride, but Denmark needed to win to top the group. I recall they had maybe five thousand fans at the game.

We were losing 2-1 when an accountant by the name of John Sivebaek ran with the ball diagonally the full length of the pitch towards me in my corner of the South Terrace, and then he shot a looping chip shot diagonally into the far corner.

It was such an impressive goal that Manchester United bought Sivebaek and always looked back. Lansdowne was abuzz. Watching Ireland lose is generally sickening, and 3-1 down at home unthinkable, but the whole ground was aware that the tour operator who had transported the Danes to Ireland had offered them a refund should Denmark win by three clear goals.

As Soren Lerby was substituted and flown immediately to Munich to come on for the second half of a German cup game, his Danish colleagues were cheered on by Irish and Danes alike, and everybody had a party when the fourth goal was duly scored.

The reverse feeling of that unusal occasion happened for me at the 1998 World Cup Finals in France. Chile were playing Austria. Hans Krankl was a great player, but nobody on the planet likes Austrians. Not even Austrians like Austrians. Meanwhile Chile had Zamorano and Salas, the two best looking footballers in the competition. And Chilean fans had the best songs. And I was sitting among thousands of them.

1-0 up the unfancied Chile were one minute from victory as the gorgeous sounds of Vamos, Vamos Chilenos filled the French stadium. One of the best photographs I never took was of thousands of flag and jersey bedecked Chileans with their faces fully painted after just conceding a goal in the final seconds of a World Cup game. They all kind of looked like clowns wearing downward painted smiles. My finger twitched on my camera, but I didn't have the heart to photograph them in their misery.

I was on the phone twice to Dublin yesterday and both times my callers reminded me that Ireland were playing Chile. Until Jack Charlton sucked the imagination out of Irish football I once didn't miss a game for ten years. Chile is a game I would have liked being at. I mean, you might get to hear Vamos Chilenos.

We lost. 1-0. It was a friendly. Despite FIFA rankings it doesn't really matter. Steve Staunton should not be attacked for that. He should be attacked for speaking exclusively in football cliches. But that's a different blogpost.

See Also:
    • Seats on the Halfway Line
    • Irish Attention for Johnson County Soccer
    • 1-0 to Arsenal

The Bagpipes in Kansas City: Charlie

My first time was on Oak, by 51st. The 51 bus was parked nearby. Second time was the Plaza. I noticed there was a bus close by. And there was the parking lot by 74th and Wornall. The Max was alongside on Broadway, due to depart in 18 minutes.

His name is Charlie. He's a bus driver and he plays the bagpipes during bus layovers. Oak is where I mostly see him, though I really like listening to the pipes in the dark. The first time I saw him actually step off the bus with his pipes was so great as I realized it really was the bus driver who was playing them.

Even though I haven't seen (or heard) a bus driver at home play the bagpipes, it still reminds me of home because of so many things that bus drivers there do, even though they may not be in the job description.

Me, my life + infrastruture has a photo of Charlie in action, which I found through Tony's Kansas City, who shares his own memory. But forget our websites, and go catch a bus.

See also:
    • Majoring in Bagpipes
    • John McSherry: Uilleann Piper
    • Kansas City Scottish Festival

Children for Peace in Ireland: Mini Irish Fest

A 'Mini Irish Fest' entitled a Celebration of Ireland, on Saturday, June 3, is a benefit fundraiser concert for Children for Peace in Ireland

Headlined by The Elders, it also features Bob Reeder, Rob Gavin & Flannigan’s Right Hook

W.J. McBride’s (Overland Park) (Under the 'Big Top')
Saturday, June 3, 2006
Begins at 4:00 pm

Admission: $10.

Tickets available at:
    • W.J. McBride’s - Overland Park, KS
    • Sheehan’s Irish Imports - Kansas City, MO
    • Doherty & Sullivan Irish Goods - Lee's Summit, MO

Children for Peace in Ireland, Inc. is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to promoting peace in Ireland through the education and inspiration of children.

Irish Conversation in a Dublin Pub #12

-Excuse me ladies
-Excuse me ladies, me arse
-What time is it?
-Three, ten after, just turned
-Have you found me a route yet?
-No. You're going to get hopelessly lost
-Oh don't say that, jaze
-Ok. You're going to get hopefully lost

See other conversations:
    • Voxer & Christie: A Love Story
    • Don't Say You're Not American
    • All Irish Conversations

Snow Patrol Start North American Tour

Snow Patrol started a 20-date North American tour last night in Denver.

Eyes Open, the follow-up to the hugely succesful Final Straw album, came out earlier this month opening at No. 1 in the British charts. It was recorded in a cottage in Dingle, Eddie Delahunt's old stomping ground, and I'm all out of stomping jokes. But Kate Bush previously stomped, I mean recorded, in that cottage too.

So what? Well it's a very strong album. It almost seems too good. I like my angst-ridden romance to slant more to the angst side than the romance. That said, in six months the world might well be saying, Coldplay? Who the hell are they?

Snow Patrol are not scheduled to come to Kansas City or Lawrence, as far as I know, but they are scheduled to play Marley Park in Dublin when I'm scheduled to be at home, so ha-ha, I can go, you can't. Unless you're reading this in Dublin.

I was reading recently about a version of John Lennon track Isolation they recorded as part of an Amnesty campaign to raise awareness of the problems facing war-torn Sudan, so be aware. According to the Belfast Telegraph however, you won't catch Snow Patrol writing any political songs about Northern Ireland:

Snow Patrol have revealed that the only song they would ever be tempted to write about Northern Ireland would be a football anthem. The band, who are all supporters of the Northern Ireland football team, said they would consider penning a song for the squad if they reached the World Cup

Gerry Armstrong and 1982 seems so long ago - although not as long ago as Big Pat being able to do nothing about Josimar in 1986.

See Also:
    • U2, A Tribute 2U Fran
    • The Fall at the Record Bar
    • Snow Patrol: In From The Cold

Nelly Don Movie: More Showings

Terence O'Malley's movie Nelly Don: A Stitch in Time about the Kansas City's legendary Irish-American business woman, is just running and running.

The Screenland in downtown Kansas City has added the following showings (see Events Calendar):
  • May 26 Friday - 5:00pm
  • May 27 Saturday - 1:00pm, 3:00pm, & 5:00pm
  • May 28 Sunday - 1:00pm, 3:00pm, 5:00pm

See earlier posts for the background story on the movie, and companion Nelly Don book

See Other Movie News:
  • Uncensored Cinema
  • Cillian Murphy: Not an Irish Actor
  • The Irish Gay Icon Who Shot Michael Collins
  • All Movie News on Irish KC

Irish Attention for Johnson County Soccer

Aother reason why the Wizards should hurry up and move across the State Line, is that soon the people of Johnson County will be watching other species play soccer, if the Kansas City Wizards don't get their act together.

I used to work on a racecourse in Ireland, where it's impossible not to love the horses. And in England and Ireland I've attended thousands of professional soccer games, where things go beyond love. However combining those two loves is not something that's ever occurred to me.

Horse soccer has however occurred to a Johnson County ranch, and Irish radio has already done the interview. I'm reminded of Irish sports writer Con Houlihan and how he would refer to elephants dancing. It's not that they do it well, but that they do it at all. I'm reminded of that when I sit at Arrowhead

See Also:
    • 1-0 to Arsenal
    • Seats at the Halfway Line
    • The Wizards in Kansas

Immigrants More Likely To Start A Business

Immigrants were much more likely than native-born Americans to start a business last year. So says a national survey by the Kansas City-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

Before we get too proud of the local based-foundation, the state of Missouri has one of the lowest rates of entrepreneurial activity, coming in at number 46. Given the limitations in law on business behaviour for legal immigrants, I'm not sure what any of this means, if anything.

Handy Irish Phrase: Is iad ná muca ciúine a itheas an mhin   (It is the quiet pigs that eat the meal)

See Also:
    • Irish Immigrants and Bad Birds
    • Irish Placenames and Illegals
    • Kansas Irish to go Home
    • Other Immigration Issues
 

Phelps Makes Irish News

If ever a man protested too much, it's Fred Phelps. Kansas' loveable Reverend has made the Irish news, you know. And it's not for disliking Irish poets. Or Sweden. Now I have to explain this when I go home.

Five people face criminal charges after a weekend confrontation with members of a Kansas church group that pickets military funerals because it believes US casualties in Iraq are a sign of God’s punishment for America’s tolerance of homosexuality

And just for Fred, check out:
    • Beautiful Day Mr Beckett
    • Understanding God Took Quickly in Topeka
    • The Commitments: Magical Movie Music

Happy Birthday Luka Bloom

Luka Bloom, influential singer/songwriter of the Irish music world - he's a bogman - is 51 today. Baby Barry has come a long way since, and not all of it on his acoustic motorbike. Happy Birthday sir.

This weekend gone Luka finished his 2006 US tour and returns to Ireland where his next gig is in glamourous County Meath for a Jazz festival. Before an extensive tour of Germany in the autumn Luka will of course return briefly to the US when he includes the Kansas City Irish Festival.

Personally I think what Luka does with a guitar is timeless - listen to Cold Comfort - and his songs one day will be sung by all those blokes upstairs in carpeted Irish pubs who have been singing Simon & Garfunkel tunes for, oh, thirty years now. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

See also other Luka Bloom entries:
   • Not Just an Irish Folk Singer
   • Luka Bloom & Christy Moore
   • All Luka Bloom posts on Irish KC

Irish Singer First to Launch Mobile Album

An Irish singer-songwriter from Kilkenny, Majella Murphy, has become the first artist to launch an entire album exclusively on a mobile phone. It must mean either U2 fell asleep listening to their iPods, or Bono is in Africa.

Majella has pre-loaded her debut album Brave New World onto the Sony Ericsson Z530i, which will be made available exclusively from O2 Ireland. Both Sony Ericsson and O2 are understandably tickled by their association with this technological development:

This marks an exciting time for the collaboration of music and mobile phones. Partnering with mobile technology provides a vital opportunity for gifted artists such as Majella to connect with audiences in new and more immediate ways

Majella Murphy's music is a kind of thoughtful pop, which means she's a singer-songwriter with a producer from America.

And what is a Z530i when it's at home? I'm told it's one of those clamshell camera phones with music player and PC connectivity no less. I miss vinyl. You could hold music when it was vinyl, just like you could hold a woman, or a you could hold a sandal.

The BBC check out the Kansas City Wizards

In an attempt to gauge pre-World Cup fever here in the US, the BBC sent somebody to watch an MLS game, and chose our very own Wizards. Alas it was at D.C. they watched them so we don't get a report on Arrowhead.

Perhaps echoing my rant of Little Difference #2 Jamie Coomarasamy finds things rather family-oriented:

As the minutes ticked towards kick-off at the top-of-the-table clash between DC United and the Kansas City Wizards, the atmosphere at the RFK Stadium was closer to that of a school fete than that of any professional football game I have ever attended

And there's more

Irish Minister Lobbies in US for Illegal Irish

The Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern seems to not be on the same wavelength as his President. Because although she sees no reason to give special treatment to the undocumented Irish in the US, Ahearn is traveling to the US today as part of final efforts to ensure up to 50,000 undocumented Irish can remain there.

Some say that figure of 50,000 undocumented is really only 25,000, but nobody seems to have the documentation to back up their figures.

The Irish minister is scheduled to meet a whole bunch of American politicans including Senator John McCain, and do you think he's lobbying on behalf of 12 million latinos?

Handy Irish Phrase: Chomh te teolaí le hubh i dtóin circe   (As warm and comfortable as an egg in a hen¹s behind)

See also:
    • No One Gets Upset With the Irish On St Patrick's
    • Green, White, & Red Apples
    • Sharpie Time For Irish Flags
    • All Immigration Posts

USA & Ireland: Little Differences #3

ROBINS

Dennis Hopper with an oxygen mask. A sliced off ear. A naked battered Isabella Rosellini. A beautiful heart attack with a small dog attacking the jet of water from a hose in a dying hand. A candy colored clown they call the sandman.

What might bother you most about Blue Velvet, if you're like me, is not the horror of Frank Booth, but the Robins. Because nobody told me American Robins and European Robins were different birds.

I mean really different. Not like Jays. The Blue Jay, very common here in Kansas City, is obviously the same bird as the Eurasian Jay. But more common. And a lot less shy. And bluer.

Last time I saw a Jay at home I was up the Wicklow mountains on a bicycle, and that was the first time in years. I had a visitor from Ireland here in KC some time back that was very eager to see a Blue Jay. They're everywhere, I pointed out helpfully. They're the large blue ones, I added.

And for several days Blue Jays swung and arced in front of her face, yet she never noticed them. Until one day in the late October sunshine, she gestured at a bird, and told me that was a Blue Jay, wasn't it?

No, I said, the pitch black bird on the polystyrene gravestone not twenty feet away in somebody's front garden, is actually a raven. A plastic raven. Though it is also in the crow family. Plastic notwithstanding.

But anyway, Robins. The European Robin, is a plump little flycatcher, about the size of a sparrow who has pigged out on some turkey, if you know what I mean. He has a clear red breast, demarcated by a soft grey line. A red breast. Not reddish. Not a hint of red. Not rusty. Red. No messin'.

Like most suburbanites, he and his missus are very territorial, and will fight other Robins that come into their patch. Their territory is little more than one or two suburban gardens. Despite being feisty with other birds, European Robins are very friendly with people.

My friend's parents feed a pair of Robins in their kitchen. From their hands. The Robins are called Jimmy and Jamie. Nobody knows the difference, so the rules are that you call the first one that comes into the kitchen Jimmy, regardless of gender.

Most Robins nest year round, but much like humans, a gang of females typically head down to Spain for the Winter. Torremolinos or the Costa del Sol probably, where they doubtless do the chicken dance with Spanish birds until the morning birdsong. And being such loveable, confident, independent, and red, no messin', birds, the Robin finds himself a symbol of Christmas with his portrait painted for cards, and his wife stuffed to decorate the tree.

The American Robin, on the other hand, is a Thrush. A big old scruffy hang around in large groups Thrush. With gray kinda brown back, and a darker kinda black but not, head. And with a reddish breast not clearly delineated, at best described as dull red. Dull. Already you're thinking of Christmas aren't you?

Its scientific name is Turdus Migratorius, and there's a joke in there somewhere. So what happened? Well, some British pilgrims got on a boat to America, and the first thing they saw with red in the New World, they called a Robin. On that basis they would've renamed a Corvette a Robin Reliant. Supposedly the colonists missed the Robin so much, that they brought millions of sparrows and starlings to North America, but not one Robin.

I've seen another Robin in Asia. The Siberian Blue Robin just looks like a European Robin that's been photoshopped. Think Elvis singing Blue Christmas

I know it's only a little difference, but when I saw the Robin that wasn't a Robin in Blue Velvet, well it frightened me. What a great ending I thought, the bird is clearly an evil imposter - which it was, but I was thinking more Alfred Hitchcock than Big Bird.

See Also: Other Little Differences
 

The Hairdressers Guide to Information Technology #3

HGIT #3 - bád : boat



See all strips of:
The Hairdressers Guide to Information Technology
 

U2, That's A Tribute 2U Fran

It is 1979 in Dublin. You have just become a teenager. You are too young to get into the TV Club or McGonagles. You cannot get to see any of Dublin's groups that you listen to every day on pirate radio.

You are at school. The lads from Inchicore are ranting about one group. They go into the Dandelion Market on Saturdays where you don't have to be over eighteen. They love U2. They use the word love when nobody uses the word love. You think U2 are okay. For a local band. But not good enough to go to the only gigs you would be allowed at.

You prefer DC Nein, The Atrix, Berlin, the Teen Commandments, the Resistors, and Sacre Bleu. Those are the names you scribble on your folders and your copybooks. You even prefer, god love you, Rocky DeValera and whatever he was calling his band. You are excited by local bands. You don't know why they have German and French names but you like them. U2 have a German name also but you think they are only okay.

You listen to U2 live on one of your favourite pirate stations. You agree with the choice of the listeners who vote to choose the first single. You don't vote yourself. You like Out of Control quite a lot, especially for an okay band.

You are in school and the teacher is late. You are listening to the lads talking up U2. But The Atrix, you respond because it is a local debate. And The Radiators from Space, you add, not knowing Phil Chevron will move on to greater glory with The Pogues in several years.

Then you realize the argument is not local. The lads are not talking Dublin; they are talking international. They are equating U2 with bands that have made it. She's So Modern and Rat Trap have been huge hits. You like the Rats. That's making it. Compared to that, you know U2 are crap.

One of the boys is most vocal. He is not even from Inchicore. Fran is from your neighbourhood. How can he be from your neighbourhood and talk so enthusiastically. About anything, let alone a local band. It is a time of begrudgery in a city of begrudgers. You like begrudgery. You don't like hype. And then he does it. Fran proclaims U2 to be about to become the greatest and biggest band in the world.

He is thirteen and in a classroom. If he was in a pub you would allow such nonsense, but it is two years before you can lie to barmen and indulge in such talk. So you ridicule him. Everybody in the class not from Inchicore ridicules him, but you lead the charge. Fran shuts up.

This is not a normal teenage discussion or fight. No other band is ever proclaimed the greatest anything in the world. By anybody. You are a teenager, and most things are crap. You think everybody knows this. You don't understand Fran.

You and Fran somehow go through several years of school without ever hanging out together. The longest conversation you ever have again is three years later on a football pitch when you score a goal to put the school B team ahead against the A team. Fran, alone of the opposition comes over to you and congratulates you. In the second half his A team score seven goals without reply. Fran plays well. He is much better than you, but loses his place to you when the school then votes for the team.

It is four years after you leave school. You are on a football pitch. It is not a soccer pitch this time, but a Gaelic pitch. You are in Croke Park. You were there two years earlier also. For the same reason. Sixty-thousand other people are there also. You were close the night before too, outside on your bicycle.

It is four years after you leave school. It is two years after Wembley and Live Aid. It is two years after the Rolling Stone magazine has declared U2 the Band of the 80s, and the band that matters most, maybe the only band that matters. It is two months after U2 have become only the fourth band ever to appear on the cover of Time magazine. Across that cover are the words Rock's Hottest Ticket.

You were sitting in the upper Cusack Stand but didn't like the sound bouncing off the end, so you went down to the pitch. You crossed the halfway line. You are now close enough to see good without having to join in the air-punching fists or to fight sweaty bodies. U2 are on stage and Dublin is singing. U2 are an international band. They have made it. And six feet in front of you, for the first time since leaving school, you see Fran.

You think back on the last eight years and the words Sorry about that are on your lips, but you are a dipstick. And you are embarassed. You go back to the Upper Cusack unseen, where the bouncing sound doesn't seem so bad. You never see Fran again.


On Saturday, June 24, you can hear 2U-- A Tribute to the music of U2 at the Record Bar in Kansas City's Westport. I've no idea what it'll be like, but it better be funny.

See Also:
    • Bono Guest Edits (RED) Independent
    • Voxer & Christie: A Love Story
    • Bono Watch at Irish KC
 

I love Unionists, or at least, their music

It has been suggested that I'm unfair to Unionists, and favour music represented by the Green third of the Irish flag.

It's probably related to my comments on Gregory Campbell on Michael Flatley, and on Ian Paisley saying no, but I want it on the record that three of my favourite bands are Orange Juice, Agent Orange, and Tangerine Dream.

Irish Conversation in a Dublin Pub #11

-Am I wasting my time with him?
-Well if you are you're not wasting very much of it
-We've got nothing to talk about, and that's bad because he can about nothing until there's nothing to talk about
-I know what you mean
-I left him strumming his guitar and breaking wind to the sounds of Wet Wet Wet

More Irish Conversations
 

Uncensored Cinema

Since we're talking alot about movies these days, you might be interested in Uncensored Cinema, a FREE series offering early sound film before the 'Hollywood Code', that continues this spring at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.

Curated by Rockhurst University’s Michael Fabrizio, the series presents movies made during a brief period in the early ’30s when Hollywood writers, directors and producers were allowed to deal openly with violent, sexual and religious themes.

Films are shown at 2 p.m. on Sundays at the museum.

On June 25 (see Calendar) you can see the fourth film in the series, Personal Maid (1931), a movie where a poor Irish girl (Nancy Carroll) becomes a maid for a wealthy family; soon sexual sparks are flying. With Gene Raymond and Pat O’Brien; co-directed by Monta Bell and Lother Mendes.

See Also: All Movie News on Irish KC
 

Around the World and Mind the Dresser

In the Irish world away from Kansas City:

   • The big sporting news is Munster's European rugby glory, which in golf contributed to Ireland's Darren Clarke not winning the Irish Open at Maynooth - the grounds of which I used to cycle the perimeter regularly, it being only a few miles from home.

   • You know Irish KC likes football soccer, so Belfast Airport being renamed after legendary Irish footballer George Best is good news. If you grew up in Ireland in the sixties and seventies, George Best was the first footballer's name you ever sang. Gratuitous Best quote: In 1969 I gave up women and alcohol. It was the worst 20 minutes of my life

   • Gerry Adams said hey Ian, let's form a government, you be the leader, since your DUP is the biggest party, and Martin McGuinness of our party Sinn Fein can be deputy first minister. Shockingly Paisely said no.

   • Irish KC can never get enough of immigration news and was surprised to see the Kansas City Star (well okay, the AP) catch up with an Irish story of immigration I've been following this last week, where Dublin's St Patrick's Cathedral was occupied by hunger-striking Afghan immigrants demanding asylum. Ireland said no. Or at least no special treatment.

Irish Film Office to Open in US

Speaking of the Cannes Film Festival, the Irish Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, yesterday launched the Irish Pavilion there and confirmed that a new Irish film office will open in LA in September. Even better news was the new tax initiatives which should be a real boost for the Irish Film Industry.

Some of the cast of The Wind That Shakes The Barley were in attendance. Although the Irish Civil War film is where most attention for Irish film is focused at Cannes, there are 13 other Irish films selling in the market there including Paul Mercier's Studs starring Brendan Gleeson, Mark Hammond's Johnny Was and Patrick Kenny's Winter's End. Films by John Boorman and Paddy Breathnach are currently in production.

It would be remiss not to note that at the moment the great Italian director Nanni Moretti has jumped to the head of the favourites for the Palme D'or, ahead of Pedro Almodovar. You never know with a jury but the buzz of the Barley is less than it was.

Meanwhile in Dublin today a major US television series begins shooting. Showtime's The Tudors, stars our friend Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Myers about the early years of Henry VIII. As well as Dublin the series will be shot in studios in Wicklow, stomping ground of The Elders' Ian Byrne. If you go there you can even see where he stomped. Weighed down with a washboard he left quite a mark.

See Also:
    • The irish Gay Icon Who Shot Michael Collins
    • Ken Loach: Movie Making Hero
    • Actor Who is Irish is not Irish Actor
    • Articles on The Wind That Shakes The Barley
    • Colin Farrell for Woody Allen London Movie
    • Irish Tax Movie Breaks Approved by EC
    • KC Filmmakers Jubilee: Razor Fish
    • Magical Movie Music Moment
    • Colin Farrell in a Cardigan
 

Nelly Don Book

Speaking of Terrance O'Malley's Nelly Don movie, I finally got my hands on the companion book over the weekend, and it's a beautiful piece with tons of great illustrations and photos.

Here in Kansas City you can purchase the book from:

   • Bloomsday Books
   • Rainy Day Books
   • Spivey's Rare Books
   • Prospero's Books
   • The Nelson-Atkins Museum
   • The KC Art Institute
   • Jackson County Historical Society

and on-line at NellyDon.com.
 

River Bend Art Fair

The 41st River Bend Art Fair takes place this coming Memorial Day Weekend Saturday and Sunday at the Downtown Atchison Mall, Kansas, May 27th and 28th 10:00am to 5:00pm

Along with over 60 artists showing, there is a full schedule of music and entertainment including many folk/celtic music acts from the Kansas City region.

Music on Saturday includes Scottish singer Hazel Whyte, Celtic and Americana Fiddle music from Tenley Hansen & Michael Frazer, Celtic folk music from Tullamore, and Scottish and Irish music from Glenfinnan. Music on Sunday includes Irish balladeer Tom Meehan.

Also there will be a session during/after the artist reception and dinner on Saturday evening (5:30) which is open to anyone who wants to play some Irish/Celtic/Americana/Old Timey music.

With plenty for the kids too, the River Bend Fair sounds like a great time and a perfect opportunity to visit Atchison.

Music Schedule

Saturday May 27
10:00 am The Carlsons (Don, Mim, and Ralph)- Old Time and Americana
11:00 am Hazel Whyte - Scottish and American Ballads
12:00 n Tenley Hansen & Michael Frazer - Celtic and Americana Fiddle
1:00 pm Mark Twain's Dog - Acoustic Folk
1:30 pm Kaw Valley Shape Note Singers (In the Squire Building)
2:00 pm The Kahlers (Charese and Steve) - Acoustic Folk
3:00 pm Tullamore - Celtic pub tunes and songs
4:00 pm Glenfinnan - Celtic influenced folk rock

Sunday May 28
11:00 am Tom Meehan - Irish Ballads
12:00 n Chuck Pulliam - Acoustic Folk
1:00 pm David Hakan - Acoustic Folk
2:00 pm Kasey Rausch - Acoustic Americana/country and Folk
3:00 pm Konza Swamp Band - Acoustic Americana/bluegrass and folk
4:00 pm Kathy Forste - Swink - Acoustic Folk and Folk rock

More information is available from the Atchison Art Association

Kansas City Irish Post 500

In the short life of this Kansas City website, we have now reached the 500th post.

That means there's an awful lot of drivel on here and only a small amount of it is highlighted in the sidebar as a Most Popular Entry or in a category, like the Irish Conversations, which you'll know stems from what I miss about Ireland - because you've read all the FAIQ.

For the rest you'd have to go digging through the archives. March for instance was dominated by St Patrick's Day and all the events related, but it includes some things like the Paddy Rock Radio Top 25 CDs which don't yet have a category for a home.

April continued the reviews of things like Celtic Music News, though at times it's barely disguised nostalgia, as are my news reactions which also don't have a category - unless they're related to Immigration issues, American or Irish.

Irish politics, in the form of the 1916 Rising, is for now in the sidebar, as are the Irish shows that we inflict on the world, god forgive us. Some people, like Ivor Cutler, Michael McGlynn, Bobby Sands, Damien Mulley and Mark E Smith are just homeless. For now.

This month saw the introduction of drawings, for now concentrated in Eddie Delahunt's section, and the beginning of a new Kansas City Irish cartoon strip The Hairdressers Guide to Information Technology

Meanwhile reorganizing will continue whilst the new version of the site is in development, and all of it should help with finding your way around. Until then click away, get lost, and don't worry about it - navigation is organic. Oh, and tonight has barely started.

Thanks for stopping by.