How Does It Feel, Bob?

Barack Obama’s first official visit to Ireland came and went yesterday. It was certainly a success as the US president knocked back a pint of Guinness in the village of Moneygall and got to show off his command of the Irish language in Dublin. Another famous American who has been a regular visitor to these shores in recent years celebrates his 70th birthday today. In the early sixties, Bob’s music had been used to soundtrack the Civil Rights Movement in the US. Dylan’s championing by the movement was not something he encouraged, though he was present at the march in Washington on August 28th, 1963, when Martin Luther King delivered his powerful I Have a Dream speech

All the President’s Kin

Last week the Queen of England popped over to Ireland and today it’s the turn of Barack Obama to visit these shores. The Queen’s visit spanned four days and brought her to a number of historically symbolic sites as well as some commercial ones. Her refusal to sample a pint of plain at the Guinness brewery was rescued somewhat by her successful attempt at an Irish greeting at the start of her speech at Dublin Castle. President Obama is a bit busier than the Queen, however, and he’ll only be on Irish soil for 24 hours. Most of his time will be spent in Dublin, though he’ll also be paying a short visit to the home of his ancestors in Moneygall, Co. Offaly. I’m sure he’ll also make an attempt at the cúpla focal, though I doubt if he’ll refuse a pint of porter if it’s placed in front of him

Apocalypse Not Quite Yet

Every year some nutter announces that the end is nigh and that the world is about to end. This time it was the turn of a US Christian radio presenter named Harold Camping. He’d been telling everyone who would listen that this thing called the Rapture was going to happen on May 21st, 2011. The Rapture is something theological that says that God’s chosen people will be taken up to Heaven and they’ll do so without footwear as their shoes will be left behind. Perhaps slippers and sandals will be big in the afterlife. According to Camping, 200 million people were supposed to have been raptured yesterday. May 21st came and went and it looks like Harold got it wrong. Of course, this is not too surprising as Camping has form in the prediction stakes. He made the same prediction back in 1994 and, rather rudely, failed to explain why he got it wrong. Camping has pencilled in the end of the world for October 21, 2011, which is five months after the Rapture. I’m confident that the world will keep on going after that date, but here are a few tunes for Harold to while away his remaining days

Take It or Leave It

The Arctic Monkeys are about to release their fourth album in a few weeks. I really liked the Sheffield band’s first album and bits of their second one, though I didn’t really give their last one much of a chance. The lads over at Cover Me put up a tribute to the boys from the Steel City a couple of days ago. It consisted of five covers by the band and here are four more starting with their pretty faithful version of Take It or Leave It by The Strokes. Put Up Your Dukes, John appears on the Leave Before the Lights Come On single and was originally by Liverpudlian outfit, The Little Flames. Dion is best known for The Wanderer and Runaround Sue. The Monkeys performed their version of his Only You Know for a session on a radio station called 101.9 RXP. Bad Woman comes from the Teddy Picker single and features fellow Sheffielder and all round good egg Richard Hawley on vocals. The song’s lyrics were written by some guy called Patrick Sickafus. I’m afraid I’ve no idea who he is, so any information would be helpful. Suck It and See will be released on June 6th

Take It or Leave It (Strokes cover) – Arctic Monkeys

Put Your Dukes Up, John (Little Flames cover) – Arctic Monkeys

Only You Know (Dion cover) – Arctic Monkeys

Bad Woman (Patrick Sickafus cover) – Arctic Monkeys with Richard Hawley

Spring Clean For The May Queen

The Queen of England is popping over to Ireland for a few days and her visit has been greeted with fascination, hatred and indifference. Personally, I fall into the latter camp. I’ve always regarded the British royal family as something of a sitcom and have never been too bothered by them. I’m sure I’d have a lot in common with working class English males who cannot relate to royalty’s sense of unearned privilege. To this end, I’ve always been a big fan of two songs written by Englishmen with Irish roots

Hi-Fi on the Wireless

An interesting new series begins this evening on Lyric fm, the station reserved by Ireland’s national broadcaster for music that doesn’t normally fit into the world of contemporary pop and rock. The show is called High Fidelity: A Century of Recorded Song and the first of 26 weekly one-hour instalments goes out at 7.00pm Irish time tonight. As its title suggests, the series will look back on songs and singers from the last hundred years with an emphasis on vocal performances as well as the technological advances in recording and producing music that the last century brought to musicians, producers and listeners. Tellingly, the producers of the show have brought together two of Ireland’s most distinctive vocalists to present the show. Julie Feeney and Jack L (pictured) are not very well known outside Ireland and, unfortunately, they are not as well known as they should be in their own country, either. Unlike many of their more successful contemporaries, Julie and Jack display an eclectic mix of musical influences in their own writing. They are also excellent live performers and will perform their own versions of some of the songs under discussion throughout the series

Stride Over Stride

Five years ago on this date, Grant McLennan died in his sleep from a heart attack at the age of just 48. Along with Robert Forster, he shared songwriting and vocal duties in the brilliant but unappreciated Australian band The Go-Betweens. I’ve always put the pair up there with popular music’s most celebrated writing partnership: Lennon and McCartney. Grant and Robert worked in a similar way to John and Paul, in that both often worked separately on their songs and then the other would tweak it here and make a suggestion there. The writer would then take lead vocals on the recording, though the song would be credited equally to both. Lennon was always my favourite Beatle (Harrison came second), while McLennan was always my favourite Go-Between. Funnily enough, Forster’s songs were more similar to Lennon’s and McLennan’s shared some similarities with McCartney’s. All of the Go-Between’s songs were literate and melodic and most of them dealt with failed relationships. Grant’s songs tended to be more melodic than Robert’s and his lyrics often made reference to nature. Robert had a darker approach and his lyrics tended to be more cynical than Grant’s. It was a creative partnership that combined to make half a dozen wonderful records throughout the 80s

Blitzkrieg Bop

It’s the final day in my 30 Day Song Challenge and today’s selection is my favourite song at this time last year. Now, I don’t know about you, but it’s hard enough for me to remember my favourite song from last week, never mind last year. Fortunately, I have a way of finding out what I was listening to on any particular date over the last few years. It’s all thanks to a music site called last.fm that lists all the songs you listen to on certain sites and music devices. This process is known as “scrobbling” and over the last few years the songs I’ve listened to on iTunes and my iPod have been automatically scrobbled to my last.fm account. It seems that I didn’t listen to any music on the first of May, 2010, as my last.fm didn’t scrobble any tracks on that day. However, it did scrobble three on the next day: Last Nite by The Strokes, Anarchy in the UK by The Sex Pistols and Blitzkrieg Bop by The Ramones. I like all three songs, but Blitzkrieg Bop is my favourite from that trio. Even though it’s the final song in this month-long challenge, it was the band’s first single release in 1976 and was also the opening track on their debut album. A couple of weeks ago, the Cover Me blog posted a number of rock covers performed by Ukranian pianist Vika Yermolyeva. You can check out her instrumental take on Blitzkrieg Bop along with the original version below. “Hey ho, let’s go!”

Blitzkrieg Bop – The Ramones

Blitzkrieg Bop (Ramones cover) – Vika Yermolyeva

30 Day Song Challenge Archive