going underground

I think I might have mentioned it before here but I've more info on it now and its closer to the mark, so I'll bring it up again. It's nice to have mates that do interesting things, that way you can save yourself all the creative heartache and hang on to their coat tails instead. One such bloke is the ubiquitous Dennis Mc Nulty. He's at it again and this time I was determined to get a piece of the action.

Underground takes place in the basement of Road Records. It begins on the 27th of this month and ends on the 6th of July. The exhibition and accompanying publication look at the changes in independent music culture in Dublin over the last 15 years, tracking the relationship between the local and the global, society and technology and charting the erasure of the boundary between the public and the private. Some of you will note that I've just robbed that last sentence from the blurb as I'd never write anything as complicated as that myself. Contributors to the collaborative project include such artistic heavyweights as droid + slug/weareie, David Lacey, Daragh McCarthy, Dennis McNulty, Naptha, Stephen Rennicks, Dave & Julie Road and of course , me! There's a host of others involved but by giving you a short list it appears that I've contributed much more than I actually have.

When I started to look back at the rock scene in Dublin just over ten years ago I came across a movie by the above-mentioned Daragh McCarthy called 'The Stars are Underground'. I find it brilliant that such a snapshot in time exists on the interweb. It post-dates my own involvement in the band scene here in Dublin. I was fortunate enough to be in a couple of second rate bands where I met lots of interesting people. As one of Jubilee puts it in the film, we were a bands band. Only bands liked us. The film is that much more fascinating because I know so many of the people in it. You can check out a youthful Lee Casey from Jubilee (later the Jubilee Allstars), Conzo and Dave from Female Hercules, Rocky and Dennis from Cruiser, Dylan and Kevin from Pet Lamb. The sad thing is that most of them never went on to achieve the fame or cash that they deserved, but the rock worlds loss has been Dublins record and clothing stores gain.

Check out the film in three parts:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

little guys, big hearts

I was struck by the resemblance on the front page of Friday's Irish Times between a new Garda and a famous cartoon character from my youth.

The Gary Sheehan Medal, for the best all-round performance during training, has been awarded to Garda Patrick Ahern. Mr Ahern is a married father of one from Southhill, Limerick city. He is currently based at Thurles Garda station, Co Tipperary.

On the other hand, Inch High, Private Eye was a miniature detective who worked for the Finkerton detective agency, where his cranky boss Mr. Finkerton constantly dreamed of the day that he would fire him.