you make me like charity

thursday night i turned up to an anticipated night of fancy disk jockeys - loreana of pandamonium fame and jay and frankie of antics fame playing some personality rather than your usual tripe - expect the knife, the smiths, animal collective and your ilk. however the free admission, cheap cocktails on a thursday night was none to pull a crowd. where are you city slickers at? off complaining about the quality of other venues of course. get to spy on south william street beside the powerscourt centre.

nothing changes nothing changes in the sunday times suplement

i want to talk about freak artists i want to talk about last night

on stage is a naked person. the person in question has long sandy brown hair stretching in length of their six foot skeleton frame to below their waist. they are wearing high heels and rubber speedos packed with a bulge and no ass. the hair is thin and untouched and hair falls in front of their torso covering large bare breasts. this is no bra.

no bra keeps a concerned but confident stance and speaks and sings with a refined london town accent. she speaks dirty things with a human sentimentality throwing double standard morality to the wind. the songs are spoken word and also rhymes to the sound of keyboards, loops and beats. no bra is a woman and has toured with acts such as patrick wolf. the venue tonight could be crawdaddy, it could be whelans but it is the george ( presumably for safety reasons being dublin’s most popular gay bar). the crowd look stunned and watch with awe. this is a place accustomed to drag queen djs and caberet acts yet tonight there is a very mixed reaction to the performer. speaking to some of the punters they seem disgusted and outraged by the presentation of tonights performer. is it a girl, a boy, a drag queen, a feminist, an activist? no bra tears appart beliefs systems and toys with issues throwing them back at us with disabandon and walks away for us to pick up our own pieces

i come to believe that there would be less outrage and more acceptance in a straight club or venue tonight. ive seen the likes of islands, deerhunter, dan deacon, commanechi, peaches, patrick wolf and yacht take the stage with little criticism to their outlandish appearance or methods rather it is the music that everyone is concerned about but of course this a gay club where politics, gender issues and sexuality are on the tips of every tongue. frankly i think this is the most innovatory use of performance art i’ve ever seen.

next act tonight are cocorosie produced act - bunny rabbit. they are a crude lesbian new york hip hop outfit that sing about bitches. black cracker one half of the duo doubles as cocorosie’s beat maker and thustly creates a noticeable link to the songstresses style but of course more crude and crunk. enough said.

the thing about no bra is the freak artist element that many people tend not to get or understand or bother to. the detroit electro outfit adult coin a phrase “un easy listening” to describe their brand of freak music. similar artists les georges leningrad, dandi wind and the knife use masks, monster like voices and zany lyrics to create something dark, dirty and well, bloody brilliant. worth a dabble.

remembered for setting the world on fire

i watched george hickenlooper’s factory girl recently. this blockbuster as it would appear features the worst actors and actresses from the cull. think every high school romance comedy since 1997. so on first draw, you would assume that a biopic of edie sedgewick painted through these premises would be unforgivably dire and you would be correct. alas, it is the ridiculous shambles of a performance, the discontinuities, anachronisms and goofs which makes this film work as a whole - on an andy warhol level of shambles. i adore this film - even the casting of hayden christensen as a young bob dylan is hilarious (cast as “musician” for legal purposes of course).

what is wonderful about this is that as much as this film dedicates itself to the glamour of the seedy and ridiculousness that surrounded edie it shows a full scale approach to the factory, particularly andy warhol’s cool as the antarctic, one dimensional, unaffected character that toys with these artists and musicians like any other prop but keeps an impersonal distance at all times to conceal any other dimension that might be lurking and spawning the art that he has made.however, a film about a factory girl would tease you to think you might know somthing about edie sedgewick after exiting the cinemasphere. sienna miller as edie works for glamour and publicity purposes and nothing more which leaves questions floating for the visceral appeal of whoever that girl in black tights who liked horses was

a simple pedestrian biopic at its best but like any good film or piece of art it does set a whirlwind of thoughts and ideas rolling

teenage dreams so hard to beat

so i came across my junior cert recently and had a little laugh. i did all of these when i was oh fifteen

good friday

ahoy. street party

6-9pm at Road Records, fade street, dublin 2.

the underground exhibition launch is going down in the basement of road while the beer & chats will continue outside on fade street! music on the night comes from dj’s mici durnin (maximum joy) & david beattie - beers courtesy of becks.

be at filmbase for 4pm for the music doc on the 1970’s punk era in northern ireland, plus dublin 90’s music doc the stars are underground

later friday - i shall be djing from 10pm til late downstairs in doyles (on the corner of fleet street and d’olier street)

so it goes

pj harvey, portishead, the knife, massive attack, xiu xiu, the long blondes, the duke spirit, the fiery furnaces, beat happening, yeah yeah yeahs, electrelane, camera obscura, animal Collective, a hawk and a hacksaw, dandi wind, high places, beck, handsome furs, clinic, cat power, why?, the kills, the birthday party, echo & the bunnymen, the horrors, cocorosie, yacht, tegan and sara, dublin duck dispensary, so cow, the smiths, sonic youth, weezer, glass candy, edith piaf, modest mouse, jay reatard, the white stripes, bo diddley, metronomy, air, no age, hot chip, neutral milk hotel, british sea power, grandmaster flash

also i think it is really important that people look at this petition for the new nightclub curfew