Great/brilliant song by Belgian/Australian singer/songwriter Gotye (his spelling of the French name ‘Gaultier’). I was watching the video (posted on Facebook by my musical maven friend, Jill Deering) and thinking he looked a bit like Sting, just without the high voice. Then he rips into the chorus…! Superb stuff. I’m a big fan of Kimbra, too, who guests beguilingly on this track (the whole thing—even the stop-motion video—prompting comparisons for me with Peter Gabriel). I. Love. It.
I also found this great cover of Rush’s ‘Subdivisions’ by Jacob Moon, recorded on the rooftop of a theatre in Hamilton, Ontario (a town I *think* I visited when I was in that part of the world in August 2000—it certainly has a beautiful twilight that I remember).
My Dad was a big fan of Phil Coulter. He was at Queen’s at the same time as Phil and liked to tell us about the time Phil locked him and a bunch of other students in a room on the campus to rehearse them! As a boy, I went to hear Phil Coulter and his orchestra a number of times—in Craigavon Leisure Centre, in the Grand Opera House at least once—and his albums were staples of family car journeys. I enjoyed his arrangements of Irish folk songs and I still remember going to Matchett’s Music in Belfast one Saturday morning to get a copy of his piano book (which I still have, complete with pencilled-in letters on ‘The Town I Loved So Well’ under the ledger line bass notes that Anna and I hadn’t learned yet). Actually, it’s through Phil Coulter that I got to know most of the tunes in the first place. Definitely a big inspiration to me. I still have a couple of signed photos somewhere with him posing at the piano in a billowy white shirt 🙂
His songs were what particularly made an impression on me. He started his songwriting career at a run, penning a Eurovision winner and a one-point-off-the-top runner-up at a time when doing so meant that, (a) it was a good song, and (b) they were destined to be massive hits. Check out his website for more of his story—it’s very readable, clearly written by him, and filled with loads of stories about the amazing career he’s enjoyed.
I was prompted to write this today by one song in particular, though, ‘Scorn Not His Simplicity’. Written from Phil’s personal experience, this song was first introduced to the world by the wonderful Luke Kelly. Here’s a lovely, intimate recording from a Tallaght pub in 1974:
Today parents, teachers, pupils, Special Needs Assistants and others are taking to the street outside the Dáil here in Dublin to protest the cutting of funding for SNAs. Listen to this song and let your heart go out to them.
This is quite cool indeed—a speeded-up view of what goes into making a music video. Watch this and then the finished version of this catchy tune, ‘Cameo Lover’, by New Zealander Kimbra. Her album will be out in August and it’s looking like it’ll be a cracker.
I supported the barbershop quartet, 4 in a Bar, at their CD launch at The Workman’s Club on Wednesday. I did my three best Sting covers: ‘Roxanne’, ‘Seven Days’ (with obligatory story…), and ‘Message In A Bottle’. I also did ‘The Wild Rover’, and would’ve dearly liked to have played my own ‘Trust You’ but for the small problem of having a total mental blank. I still can’t think how it starts. Brilliant.
Anyway, 4 in a Bar are actually brilliant. They showcased the songs from the CD and threw in a few others (including the haunting ‘All The Fine Young Men’, originally by White Raven). I thoroughly recommend buying their CD and getting along to see them perform. Barbershop music is vocally virtuosic, camply complex, and entrancingly entertaining. These guys are the best in Ireland and recently got a silver medal in international competition. Get them while they’re hot. I hear they do weddings…
Here’s another poem done as an exercise from Stephen Fry’s ‘The Ode Less Travelled’. It’s from the chapter on Anglo-Saxon Attitudes and the apprentice poet is tasked with writing some lines on food using the alliterative principle. Each line of this type of poetry follows the pattern BANG BANG BANG — CRASH! Here’s my attempt (this should definitely be read aloud):
The serrated slicer spreads the butter.
Today it’s toast with trickly honey;
Golden and good and gloopy and sweet.
Nimbly I manipulate the knife to stop drips:
The quickness required! The requisite speed!
Twisting and turning this stainless steel cutter;
Move hastily—hesitation holds no reward.
The ground is the goal where gravity’s concerned—
It wants you to waver, it welcomes your wobbling—
But you must usurp it, exuberantly wielding
The slicing device in your vice-like grip.
This condiment, carefully curated by bees—
Those mini magicians transmuting the flowers,
Zipping and buzzing with zeal round the garden.
Alarmingly, of late they say that apiary is greatly threatened.
Bees are besieged and it’s we who are to blame;
They need a certain space, a certain freedom.
There’s a paucity of pollen in the places that we’ve built up;
Those vexing environments, their views distinctly gloomy.
“Think twice,” they’d say, “your tarmacadam tendencies are ruining
Our ability to ‘bee’ in this bud-forsaken world!”
But enough about that stuff, bees are tough and I am hungry
So it’s “Honey, you’re home!”, then it’s HHOM in my mouth.
It’s my friend Jonny Boyle’s birthday today. He is a brilliant guitar player—melodic, jazzy, and musical beyond belief. He is doing a couple of workshops in his home town of Carrickfergus on 25 June, one called ‘Jazz Up The Blues’ and the other on ‘The Modes’. If I know Jonny, it’ll be a great, inspiring session (astonishing value—3 hours for £20, only 5 in the class) and you’ll come away with lots of tasty licks to use in your playing.
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Here’s Jonny playing a selection of solo guitar tunes suitable for weddings:
I picked up Stephen Fry’s excellent book, ‘The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking The Poet Within’, after stalling with it a few years ago. All through he advocates reading poetry aloud and gives space for lots of practice.
This is one exercise—to write some lines of dactylic pentameter on the subject of cows—that I did today:
Cows are quite massive—it’s hard not to feel slightly freaked out
Crossing a field in your Wellington boots as the sun sets.
They stand around and they ruminate, watching you pass by;
You hold your head high, pretending you all know who’s boss here.
John Adams gave the commencement speech at Juilliard this week, where he was being presented with an honorary doctorate (along with the amazing Herbie Hancock—if you love music, get his album ‘The Imagine Project’). It’s a great speech about being an artist.
Twyla Tharp, Herbie Hancock, Derek Jacobi, John Adams
AC Grayling, one of my very favourite writers and thinkers, talked at the Sydney Writer’s Festival yesterday about his latest work, the culmination of three decades of living as a philosopher. In ‘The Good Book’, Grayling aims to open up the “casket of jewels”— the great ideas about living that have been set down through the ages and that belong to us all.
Suzanne Savage singing this great song. I was supporting Suzanne and her talented triumverate in Bewley’s Theatre a while ago and they played this. Agog, I was. Catch them live and watch out for their EP ‘Dizzy’, which is being released soon…
jay wilson :: music 