Bananas, Jumpers & Red Herrings

The recent popularity of Scandinavian crime fiction and its various adaptations has brought characters such as Lisbeth Salander and Kurt Wallander to a wider audience outside of the (fictional) Swedish terrain they normally inhabit. Over the last few months, a detective called Sarah Lund has been added to that list. A schoolgirl has been murdered in Copenhagen and Lund has been put in charge of finding the killer. This forms the premise for a show that was originally titled Forbrydelsen (Crime) in its native land, but goes by the moniker of The Killing for its British screening. It was originally shown four years ago on Danish TV and has been making its way all over Europe before turning up on BBC Four ten weeks ago. It’s a 20-part series that’s set in and around Copenhagen over three consecutive weeks during November. Each hour-long episode covers a 24-hour period and begins in the afternoon and finishes in the darkness of the following evening. The characters and the viewers are kept in the dark for most of the series, with the occasional flicker of light peeping through from time to time

Just Because I’m Irish

It’s Ireland’s national holiday today, a day off for many who live on the island and a day to celebrate for the many more who live in the USA, Britain, Australia and around the world. Jonathan Richman isn’t Irish, but the Bostonian manages a decent enough Irish accent on his duet with the actress Julia Sweeney from his 1995 album, You Must Ask the Heart. In the song, Julia tries to explain to Jonathan that just because she has Irish ancestry, it doesn’t necessarily mean that she knows the location of every Irish bar in Boston. Flogging Molly are an Irish-American rock band who formed in California in the late 90s and are about to release their fifth studio album this year. The full title of the song below is (No More) Paddy’s Lament and it’s taken from their fourth album, Float (2008). Dublin’s Whipping Boy released three albums between 1992 and 2000. Heartworm from 1995 remains one of the best albums ever released by an Irish act and was the only one I had by the band until I picked up their self-titled third album in a charity shop last week. That’s where I got the Velvet Underground-influenced Pat the Almighty, a song that may or may not be about one of our patron saint’s descendants. Happy St Patrick’s Day to anyone who’s Irish or just loves the country and its people

Just Because I’m Irish – Jonathan Richman with Julia Sweeney

Paddy’s Lament – Flogging Molly

Pat The Almighty – Whipping Boy

Image taken from here

How Bazaar

Later today, I’ll be visiting a bar boot sale at the Raggle Taggle Studios space on the corner of Sarsfield St and Henry St in Limerick. It’s basically a car boot sale without the cars. I guess it would be more correct to call it a jumble sale or a garage sale or even a flea market, but what’s in a name anyway? As you can see from the top half of the event’s poster (above), the sale will include clothes, footwear, records, CDs, DVDs, books and other stuff that people no longer want. Sellers have paid €10 each to set up a stall in the hope of swapping their unwanted goods for some hard-earned cash. I’ve accumulated quite a bit of “stuff” over the years myself and I should actually be trying to flog some of it from behind a stall. Instead, I’ll be popping down to have a browse and no doubt hand over some euros for items I don’t really need and have no place in which to store them. I can’t wait. The sale begins at 1:00 and runs until 6:00. It’s free entry for punters, though they may donate a few bob if they wish. It only costs a tenner for stallholders to set up and they get to keep any money they earn. Donations collected by the organisers will be used to fund an annual interactive digital arts festival called Tweak

The Return of Ash Wednesday

It’s Ash Wednesday today and, like last year, I present a number of tunes for the day that’s in it. Warmer Than Fire by Little Hell is performed here by Northern Ireland’s Ash (pictured) and it appears on Cosmic Debris, a bonus disc with 2002’s Intergalactic 7″s. Emm Gryner recorded Ash’s Shining Light on her Songs of Love & Death album of Irish covers from 2005. David Bowie’s Ashes to Ashes has been covered loads of times since its original release in 1980. Recently, Warpaint were one of two acts to each record a version for We Were So Turned On: A Tribute to David Bowie. Last year’s post features another cover of Ashes to Ashes, loads more tunes from Ash and a couple of songs about Ash Wednesday. This one is dedicated to Dan O’Sullivan, a fellow fan of Ash and Wednesday

Warmer Than Fire (Little Hell cover) – Ash

Shining Light (Ash cover) – Emm Gryner

Ashes To Ashes (David Bowie Cover) – Warpaint

Shinners & Losers

The Irish general election came and went last weekend and it delivered its fair share of winners and losers. The biggest losers were the two parties who have been “running” this country for the last four years, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party. The Greens lost all six of its representatives while Fianna Fáil’s representation fell by nearly three quarters. The party had been in power with other coalition partners since 1997 and its decline was unsurprising but completely welcome. The biggest winners were the party that’s been in Fianna Fáil’s shadow since Ireland became a republic. Fine Gael won just under half the number of seats on offer and will most likely form a coalition with the Labour party, who also had its best election. The same was true for Sinn Féin, the Socialist Party, People Before Profit and independent candidates, who all won more seats than Fianna Fáil’s solitary one in Dublin. The new government isn’t going to turn the country’s woes around overnight, but at least it’ll bring in a few fresh faces and, hopefully, some new ideas