The Benefactors is about grift, abuse and minor acts of kindness in Belfast. Wendy Erskine’s tremendous first novel is stacked with many voices and disparate sounds as it slices through the strata of a city in motion. There is new money in tech and hospitality. Execs in the voluntary sector are pitching for the post-conflict dollar and can play the Troubles card on demand. There is a rotten character to much of the effort, plus a teen culture in the ’burbs that sneers about smicks, free school dinners and DLA sportswear. Continue Reading…
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Liam Gallagher is playing drums on my head. I hear a few rhythmic taps, like he’s keeping time on the snare. There’s an occasional swish across the top of the bald napper, casual and cool, Ringo-style. This is happening by the doors of the Astoria on London’s Charing Cross Road and a few music fans are watching, bemused. As they might be. They’ve just been to a feverish gig by the band Ash, but here’s Liam, the most significant face in popular music just now, on the beat with a music journalist.
I’m thinking of a comedy precedent. When I was a child I would watch Benny Hill on the television, taking the rise out of his sidekick, Jackie Wright. The percussive head taps that Benny served out to Jackie were speeded up on film to humorous effect and because of it, the little Belfast entertainer was forever famous. So, this moment on the evening of August 18, 1995, is my own piece of minor acclaim. Continue Reading…
Shellshock Rock – the John T.Davis short documentary film that gives this epic triple CD and DVD compilation its name – has assumed mythical status since it was first briefly released in 1979. Not surprising perhaps, given that it was initially banned from the Cork Film Festival, went on to win awards around the world, and yet has never really had a proper commercial release until now, a mere 41 years later.
Thankfully it more than merits all the hype, being a brilliant piece of filmmaking, quite unlike anything before or since. Yes, it’s a perfect 45-minute snapshot of the original punk rock scene in the North in the late 70s, but somehow Davis and his tiny team manage to make it a whole lot more than just that, through an inspired mix of music, interviews, archive footage and, best of all, pure silence. The usual clunky narrative voiceover would have killed it stone dead. Instead Davis just lets it all play out, the local brass band murdering ‘Good King Wenceslas’ crashing straight into ‘Big Time’ by RUDI, some old-school native Belfast chancer raising his hat to The Outcasts’ ‘You’re A Disease’, a brief helicopter ride zooming us straight into The Undertones onstage in Portrush with the inevitable ‘Teenage Kicks’. Continue Reading…
Bill Kirk by Stuart Bailie
Bill Kirk is 88 and alert. He has a gracious style that has informed so many excellent photos of Belfast. He has walked the lesser-known parts of the city, noting the dereliction and neglect. Mostly though, his camera finds light in the human faces and gestures.
His film archive amounts to over 20,000 images plus an ongoing collection of digital pictures. It’s an immense resource, showing us slum clearance, conflict, a gun-toting wedding, a bishop, a bookie, city barbers, Irish pipers and street drinkers.
Grá mór to RÓIS and her album Mo Léan. This hidden story of the Irish keening tradition has become a shared fascination. She has liberated voices, long silenced by Church, State and Empire. A wonderful coup.
Last week, there were two distinctions for RÓIS at the RTÉ Radio 1 Folk Awards – Best Original Folk Track for ‘Caoine’ and Best Emerging Artist. The week before that, she was saluted at the Gradaim Nós event in Belfast. And now this week, the album is shortlisted in the Choice Music Prize, alongside peers like Fontaines DC, Kneecap and New Dad. Might there be an outlier victory that upsets the bookies? Continue Reading…
Artwork AJ Mawhinney
As the dark nights taper off, the streets of Belfast are perhaps safer. The band Gender Chores have chosen to mark the new season with a shudder, a farewell and a grievance. A few weeks ago, they released a song called ‘January Blues’:
“Don’t take shortcuts,`
Don’t look down`
Watch the shadows,
Hear every sound.” Continue Reading…
You can’t accuse The Wood Burning Savages of caring less. Every track on their second album is a retort, a legitimate wail, a Ken Loach storyline. They itemise loathing, furious at the major lies and petty cruelties. It’s a parade of militant incels, grasping landlords, party ideologues and the children of immigrants who want to outlaw a system that gave their own families a point of entry. Continue Reading…
Dani Larkin sings ‘She Moved Through the Fair’, reeling with the fever and surprise in the words. It’s a story of intense attraction but it also hints at a love affair that may not be realised in this world.
The ghostly aspect of this trad tune is joined by another presence – the sound of a field recording that Dani made in Nablus, Palestine, in 2016. We shiver as the noises converge. Continue Reading…
There are many arresting moments across the new Everlasting Yeah record, but there’s none better than the pure flow of ‘Myself When I Am Real’. Sure enough, you have great musicians with a provenance that goes back to The Petrol Emotion and then further, to Damian’s place in The Undertones. And for this track, they roll and coil for over seven minutes, relishing their simpatico groove, clearly aware that a cool thing is in process.
Raymond and Damian throw down expert guitar lines like card sharks, upping the other’s expectations. It’s not frivolous to compare this to the work of Television’s Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd. It’s all surprise and invention, and when the vocals arrive after four minutes of this, you find yourself grinning broadly. Continue Reading…
Ursula Burns has written a bunch of memorable lyrics over the years, from ‘Sinister Nips’ and ‘Continental Boys’, to ‘Small Square Parks’ and ‘Heartbreak Was Heartbreak’. But on the new record, words are banished and the harp has full dominion. It’s a chance to indulge and evoke, to let the maverick style contend with bardic traditions, Latino flourish and semaphore bleeps. It sounds rich and unfettered. As the album title suggests, the tunes indicate roots and blossom, endurance and ecology. Continue Reading…
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