things and things

I missed the whole Radiohead thing a few months back. I didn't get involved in any free downloading of their In Rainbows album and I managed to ignore the whole hooha when it was going on. That was, until now. I picked up the seven inch of 'Jigsaw/Falling into Place' when i saw it the other day. I reckoned that all the press, blogging and tv stuff about the album justified me spending €3.99 on the single. Fuck, that's probably more than they got from most of the people who downloaded their album. As it turns out I'm happy enough with the price of the seven inch. I've paid far more for far worse over the years but I'm beginning to quite like this one. It has an understated rocky feel to it and I've just seen the video for it which isn't too bad. It's the band wearing bicycle helmets that seem to have cameras strapped on to them. They couldn't have made a cheaper video. In fact they might have made a better video if some of those scabby shites who took their music for free had paid them in the first instance.

My Home Schooled album arrived last week but I forgot to mention it here. For anyone who has missed me banging on about it. It features seventeen tracks of bubblegum soul recorded by various child groups in the US. Most of the originals on it were released in the late sixties but most of the kids who recorded them faded away into obscurity. Luckily they left their legacy behind them and the people at Numero managed to collect them and present them on double vinyl for people like me. The version of Tie a Yellow Ribbon is my current favourite but I've only listened to the album once. It's great.

A couple of sevens also arrived in the last few days. I've already mentioned them in an earlier post but I'm glad I bagged them. The first one is Christine Harwood's version of 'Wooden Ships' just released on Finders Keepers whilst the second is the Jape remix of 'Darling' on Domino Records. On a related note I bumped into Mattie from The Redneck Manifesto and also from M&E, the design company that did the video for 'Floating' by Jape. M&E have also done artwork for other Irish bands and artistes such as Kittser, Somadrome and Messiah J & The Expert. Mattie is an all round top bloke and explained how they filmed the Floating video. He also told me that he'd bought a gaff with his missus Emelie, the other half of M&E design, but that it was in Malmo in Sweden. I'm not sure when I'll be seeing Mattie again. Bon voyage me aul mucker. Here's the video for Floating in case you've missed it.


And here's a great interview with Richie admitting to crying at Féile and warning young festival goers not to drink two litres of cider in 5 minutes.