. . . watchingA couple of music videos, including Fergal Brennan's mesmeric video for Shit Robot's Losing My Patience(url.ie/arhe) and the spot-the-Dublin-locations fun of Colour Fade(url.ie/arh9) from The Funeral Suits.
. . . saying
I want us to be as big as The Beatles, as big as The Stones. I want our music to stand the test of time
Liam Gallagher sets modest ambitions for his band Beady Eye in Monday's Life & Culture
. . . doing our Spartacus routine
Druid Theatre Company has been receiving plaudits not only from the critics in the US, now that one of Hollywood’s greatest stars has added his voice to those paeans of praise for the company’s production of Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan.
Kirk Douglas and his wife, Anne, saw the show in Los Angeles at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. The reason the venue is named after the actor has something to do with the $2.5 million (€1.7 million) the couple provided towards its cost. Douglas caught the production on its sixth stop on the current nine-city US tour.
In a letter to the cast, the 95-year-old actor says, “I want to thank all of you for giving my wife and me such a pleasant evening . . . I must tell you, I have never seen such a balanced performance. Each character seems to be perfect in their part. It’s a wonderful production and I’m proud it is playing in the Kirk Douglas Theatre.”
Spartacus has spoken.
. . visiting
Human+ at Dublin’s Science Gallery. It may have “science” in the title, but each exhibition at the gallery proves it be the most creative, innovative and artistic venue in Ireland.
... reading
Proving that Ireland is going through a fertile period for young adult fiction, Bridget Houricans smart, funny Bad Karma Diaries.
Conor Fitzgeralds second novel, The Fatal Touch. Set in Rome, in the murky world of art forgery, it’s beautifully written and has a deliciously laconic sense of humour.
Declan Burke’s cracking and funny Sligo-set crime novel Eightball Boogie. He is using Kindle to bring his first novel back into print.
. . . seeing
Post-War American Art at the Glucksman Gallery, UCC. Brian O’Doherty and Barbara Novak’s collection is there until July 3.
. . . listening to
Cmon, the new Low album by husband-and-wife team Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker – 18 years as a band and this is one of their best.
Bob Dylan and the poetry of the blues
Part lecture, part critical analysis, part history lesson, part cultural dissertation you certainly get value for money from Michael Gray, noted critic and all-round Dylanologist.
If you have a problem with Dylanologists then someone as erudite and discerning as Gray will leave you reasonably well disposed, for this evening with the writer at Droichead Arts Centre in Drogheda is no hagiography but rather a measured look at the influence of the blues – and blues lyrics – in Dylan’s music.
So far, so good? Yes, but there are several inherent flaws in the show: the first hour focuses on the first five years of Dylan’s recorded output. After an intermission, the remaining 50 minutes or so hurtles through the following 45 years; albums that you think would be pivotal for Gray to mention are ignored (not a whisper of Blood on the Tracks or Time Out of Mind, for example, and no word of last year’s The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964).
Gray’s one-man-show presentation, too, lacks sparkle; you can’t deny the man’s depth of knowledge, but a bit more zip in the narrative style would prevent the eyelids from occasionally drooping.
As if to pick up the slack, though, Gray pulls out of the bag some brilliant television footage, promo videos and unreleased songs; these, and indeed the evening itself, prove Dylan to be as odd as two left socks, but possibly far more interesting than any other figure in contemporary music.
Tony Clayton-Lea
