It’s great to see that Bodytonic have started a new night called Kosh Kosh at the Savoy as they have some exciting artists lined up to play. Things started with a bang recently with Roni Size wrecking the place and Carl Craig and Mr. Scruff will be touching down over the coming weeks so stay tuned and make sure you turn up to support what promises to be some good times dancing to some fabulous music. I’m going to shut up now and let you peruse the pictures of nice people enjoying the Roni Size gig. Enjoy!

Roni Size Bodytonic

Labels: DJs, Drum'n'Bass

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.  Go on, ya know ya wanna leave a comment! (2 have vented their spleen so far)

I go to see a lot of djs play and I thought I’d seen it all but when Hoonboy took to the decks at the most recent DnB Impact night and proceeded to don a face mask that would make Hannibal Lecter proud before launching into his own particular sinister blend of dark, electronic breakcore, I was pretty much forced to wake up and take notice. However, for once, I think I’ll let the pictures do the talking this time while simultaneously apologising for the poor quality of same as the venue was full of artificial smoke by the time I got round to taking some photos. Also, I didn’t bother removing the red eyes as I think they suit his somewhat disturbing image.

The DnB Impact crew deserve a lot of praise for continuing to organise and promote their regular drum’n’bass nights at An Cruiscín Lán, their next night being held on Saturday 5th April headlined by the Teknoist with support from the rest of the Impact crew. I'm going to miss it though as I'll be busy rock climbing, abseiling, kayaking and doing other fun stuff for the weekend down in Skibbereen!

Hoonboy The Teknoist DnB Impact

Labels: DJs, Drum'n'Bass

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.  Go on, ya know ya wanna leave a comment! (2 have vented their spleen so far)

What with all of the recent Oscar fuss surrounding the Irish film “Once” I decided it was time to borrow (ok, steal then!) the dvd of same from the desk of an unsuspecting work colleague, the plan being to watch it that same evening and to return it the following day before they were any the wiser. Stop tutting, as plans go it was a damn good one and it also serendipitously saved me €5 down the local Xtravision.

Glen Hansard’s music wouldn’t really be my cup of tea (calm down Betty, step away from the knife, remember it’s just my ever so humble opinion) and given that half of the fecking movie consists of Glen giving it loads accompanied by his trusty guitar and the wistfully captivating Marketa Irglova, the movie could quite aptly have been titled “Once Glen finishes singing we might have time to squeeze in a bit of the film if we’re lucky!”

Still, for reasons probably best kept to myself, I consider the ginger one a dear friend of mine so I’m not going to be bitchy and I can honestly say that “Once” is a nice, heart warming and charming film best watched while lounging on a couch that you’re sharing with someone you wouldn’t mind kissing.

Finally, am I the only one somewhat unsettled by the fact that Glen and Marketa are now a couple? I mean in all fairness, he’s 38 and she’s 19... ok, you’re right, jealousy is indeed a terrible thing.

Once Glen Hansard Marketa Irglova

PS: Anyone else besides me slightly annoyed by the ending? Although maybe they’re planning a sequel, which would be cool as they would surely have to call it “Twice!”

Labels: Cinema

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.  Go on, ya know ya wanna leave a comment! (3 have vented their spleen so far)

I’m going to be a complete Grinch here and declare that I think that the whole New Year’s thing is an absolute load of bollox but just to save you all from a tedious rant, I’ll leave that for another day. Looking back on the year that has gone I’ll have to come clean and admit that I was an utterly lazy langer when it came to putting up posts. I kind of got stuck in a music groove and the self-enforced formality of it just sucked the motivation right out of me and, as those of you that know me in real life will be happy to testify, I’m much happier and more prolific when I’m giving out about something!

Speaking of which, have any of you actually ever gotten what you really wanted from Santa? Oh yeah, that’s a picture of Vyvienne Long at the side there, just in case you’re wondering. I saw her play in Cyprus Avenue during the summer and instantly fell in love with her. When she plays and sings, she’s like some kind of feisty kick ass Siren and you can’t help but be impressed yet when she speaks to the audience in between each song she’s like a timid little angel and all you want to do is rush up and just give her a big hug. Unfortunately, I missed her follow up trip to Cork late last year but hopefully she will visit Cork again in 2008.

Anyway, back to that Santa dude. Like seriously, down through the years I’ve been the recipient of some really naff presents from friends, family and relations. It’s like they have a latent talent for buying crap that completely turns me off, you know the kind of present that you hold at arms length from your face while struggling to hide the disgust bubbling behind the cool façade of your best faux “gee thanks, I love it” face. This pisses me off because I like to buy people thoughtful and decent presents and given that I don’t even fucking wear slippers, how anyone could conclude that I need several pairs of zoo animal slippers is pretty much quite beyond me. So when in such a context, Santa is your last hope at getting what you really want, I bloody well expect the bastard to pull out all of the stops and come through for me. In all fairness, how hard can it be to deliver a hot woman with a cello down my fucking chimney!

Santa Claus Vyvienne Long

PS: Pendulum played at the Savoy over Christmas and they were shit. It just had to be said.

Labels: Acoustic, Bands

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.  Go on, ya know ya wanna leave a comment! (5 have vented their spleen so far)

Let me preface this by clearly stating that us drum’n’bass headz are lovely people to a man, woman and child and that if you happened to accidentally bring your Gran to one of our regular get-togethers then you could rest assured that she would be greeted with nothing but politeness and good manners from the varied assortment of indigenous and pan-European lovers of musical goodness, of which our motley collective is comprised. I mention this upfront in the hope of assuaging any negative reaction to the fact that on the night the infamous Dillinja, ably supported by the less notorious Jet Li, played at the Savoy ended with all of us being politely handed a refund and escorted to the exit by the local constabulary roughly after about twenty minutes into Dillinja’s set. Never mind, I had a good dance floor workout during Jet Li’s preceding set, although it was a pity that Dillinja didn’t bring the legendary Valve Sound System with him just for a laugh.

Dillinja Valve Sound System

Labels: DJs, Drum'n'Bass

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.  Go on, ya know ya wanna leave a comment! (0 have vented their spleen so far)

You are Sasha and you are one of the world’s most popular and well known djs and people love you. Dauntingly, your career spans the past twenty years of dance music and you’ve more or less been everywhere and done everything, you’ve rubbed shoulders with the rich and famous and worked with some really influential and well respected musical personalities and - heck! - you’re practically a celebrity yourself! You’ve won countless awards and are voted as one of the world’s top djs every year. Let’s fucking face it, you are a God walking amongst us mere mortals.

So when you came to play at the Savoy in Cork I dutifully went to see you and unflinchingly handed over my thirty Euro at the door and made my way through the teeming masses of adoring fans and onto the main dance floor. A half an hour later I was bored out of my head and had come to the conclusion that you hadn’t packed enough tunes into the wonderful software that is Ableton Live. Technology is great but it’s easy to become over indulgent and forget about the fact that I want dance to some tunes and not just the same snippets regurgitated over and over again. I’m sorry about this but I just had to leave as I simply wasn’t feeling it but hey, look on the bright side, the rest of the punters didn’t seem to give a shit and appeared to be having a really good time and I’m sure you got paid so no harm done... right?

Sasha Ableton Live

Labels: DJs, House

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.  Go on, ya know ya wanna leave a comment! (0 have vented their spleen so far)

Don’t ask me why I decided it was a good idea to travel to Roscommon for The State of Mantua Music & Arts Festival during the height of the summer sunshine because despite the fact that I was never quite convinced that Roscommon actually existed until I arrived in the sprawling metropolis of Ballaghadereen, the mere thought of spending a weekend in a bog in the arse end of nowhere up to my knees in muck coupled with the delightful prospect of exposing my tender bottom to sanitation facilities that would make the Chernobyl radioactive no-go zone seem positively homely should have been more than enough to convince me to stay at home in the relative luxury and comfort of my own home.

That said, once I was at peace with the fact that everyone and every thing was covered in mud, it wasn’t such a bad affair and to be perfectly honest it was a damn riot. The weekend was a blur of musical styles delivered by umpteen djs and numerous live acts including the Skatalites and the Sultans of Ping and I learned that surprisingly it is possible to sleep next to an event tent pumping out 50,000 watts of continuous drum and bass goodness.

I took lots of photos of nice friendly people and a few are displayed below. If you're interested and would like to see the rest then simply click here.

The State of Mantua Music & Arts Festival

Labels: Bands, DJs, Festivals

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.  Go on, ya know ya wanna leave a comment! (0 have vented their spleen so far)

Every summer the Spiegeltent comes to town and pitches itself smack bang in the middle of the plaza in front of the Cork Opera House and plays host to a wide variety of musical and cultural acts under the umbrella of the Cork Midsummer Festival. Scandalously, it wasn’t until this year that I had the actual pleasure of finding out what all of the fuss was about. Ya, ya, I know you’re all agape with amazement as to how a social whore like myself could not possibly have been at least once before but to be honest while I had intended to go many times in the past the simple truth is that I’m a lazy bastard and anything that involves me having to pre-purchase tickets anywhere other than at the venue in question and particularly at any time other than the time for which the event is scheduled always sounds too much like hard work to me.

Also, I had convinced myself that the tent in question was going to be some grotty, smelly run down affair reminiscent of some of the circus tents that travel round this isle conning innocent parents into parting with good hard earned cash in return for laughable, piss poor entertainment. (For now I’ll leave those issues burning under the surface for another day.) Luckily, this time round some nice person convinced me that going to see a band called Wiggle in the Spiegeltent was a truly fabulous idea and even offered to get the tickets beforehand, which kind of left me bereft of any plausible reason not to go and lets face it, a girl uttering the words wiggle and tent in the same sentence is a sure fire way to convince me to do practically anything.

Upon entering the Spiegeltent on the evening in question, it would be fair to say that I was pretty damn impressed and quite honestly calling it a tent is like labelling a high class escort with a tag that reads five dollar ho... um, er... that’s not to say that I’d be intimately familiar with either class of aforementioned woman you understand. Anyway, Wiggle took to the stage and belted out their characteristically feel-good, ethnically-charged, dance-friendly electronic sound for a good hour and a half. Not surprisingly, there was much dancing most of which took place on the superb wooden dance floor that takes pride of place in the epicentre of the Spiegeltent and it was nice to have an equally crazy dance partner, which meant for a change that the usually bemused crowd had more than just my antics to gawk at. On mature reflection, quite possibly the best wiggle I’ve had in a tent this year!

Wiggle Cork Midsummer Festival

Labels: Bands, Electronic

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.  Go on, ya know ya wanna leave a comment! (2 have vented their spleen so far)

How come when you give people the heads up about a gig that turns out to be a monster that no one turns up yet fifty gazillion of the very same people spontaneously decide to go to the one gig in ten that turns out to be an utter flop - I can only conclude that someone up there is taking the absolute piss!

So it was when I over-hyped the Very Be Careful gig that took place at An Spailpín Fanác recently. Very Be Careful are a bunch of guys from LA who play a type of traditional Columbian merengue music, who decided to start their European tour in Cork of all places. Ok, so they weren’t that bad and in fairness to them the sound engineer on the night was absolute shit - I swear to God if I never hear another cowbell again it won’t be too soon.

On the upside, it was nice that so many of you turned out on the night and if anything, that was the saving grace for an otherwise not so great gig, so to all of you, thanks for that. Now all I have to is find another fabulous gig that I can convince you to go to in a vain effort to salvage my by now tattered reputation.

Very Be Careful

Labels: Acoustic, Bands

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.  Go on, ya know ya wanna leave a comment! (3 have vented their spleen so far)

It’s Thursday night - you have work in the morning - and you’ve just come out of a great gig with Cork’s finest swing jazz band at the Crane Lane and given that it has finished at the very respectable hour of 11pm you have plenty of time to head home and get a good night’s rest, which sounds like a good idea seeing as you’ve spent the last hour or two dancing. So that’s obviously what you’re going to do then... um, er, surely?

Don’t be ridiculous, the obvious answer is that you walk down the road to the Savoy to go and see DJ Zinc, a drum and bass dj who happens to be playing that very same night. I suppose the thought of swing jazz followed by drum and bass is probably something that would cause most sane people to turn their eyes up to heaven and plead for mercy but to be honest I just don’t see the problem - you go to the swing jazz and dance your ass off and then you go to the drum and bass and do the same - it's all good. Although it would be fair to say that both types of music are usually frequented by a decidedly different class of woman... of course what I mean, that is to say, now that I think about it more clearly... different but both equally attractive and interesting. (Almost got myself into a world of trouble there!)

Anyway, enough of the bullshit, it turned out to be a great gig and Martin Gorelka took some terrific pictures on the night, some of which I have displayed, if you want to see the rest then just click here.

DJ Zinc

Labels: DJs, Drum'n'Bass

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.  Go on, ya know ya wanna leave a comment! (0 have vented their spleen so far)

Regular readers of this blog - that would be me, my mom and my sister - already know that the Roaring Forties - Cork’s greatest and internationally renowned swing band - and Jon Kenny - some comedian from up Limerick direction - recently joined forces and recorded a new single called “Oh Marie!” Personally I think it’s fabulous that the band took some time out to help Jon kick start his career again and hopefully at least one of them and preferably both of them will soon achieve their long time dream of appearing on “The Late Late Show” as guests of Pat Kenny, RTE’s chat show dynamo whose primary raison d’être seems to be something to do with making Joe Duffy appear talented.

To celebrate this momentous occasion, the band and Jon threw a damned decent shindig at the Crane Lane and George, being the kind hearted patron Saint that he is, made sure our names were placed prominently on the guest list. True to form, the music was great and the dancing was terrific fun - pretty much what you’d expect from any Roaring Forties gig - and we all had a wonderful time. Donal took some fabulous photos on the night, which you can see by clicking here.

A few weeks prior to that, the band had also played at the (new) Bodega and it was brilliant to have such a big dance floor to prance about (note to self: in future when you drag two women onto the dance floor at the same time it might work out better if you can actually dance as good as Brendan Fraser in that scene from “Blast from the Past,” as demonstrated here) and to make a good night even better, it was followed up by a big band dj set from Gary Baus, whose own monthly Doubletime night remains ever popular.

The Roaring Forties new single should be available in most records stores so just go out and buy the fecking thing - it’s not rocket science you know!

The Roaring Forties Jon Kenny

Labels: Bands, Swing Jazz

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.  Go on, ya know ya wanna leave a comment! (1 have vented their spleen so far)

Unless you’ve seen the Cuban Brothers live for yourself it’s a little difficult to quite convey the experience - madcap, crazy, fun, insane - are a few words that are probably on the right track. If guess if I had to sum them up in a single phrase then a highly entertaining fun-filled Latin house music comedy act would probably be the best I could do. Yes, I know, it does sound stupidly silly but that’s what they are and, believe it or not, it actually works quite well.

They played at the Savoy over the June bank holiday weekend and delivered the goods once again from their wacky stage show to the incredibly delicious tunes that Clemente dishes out on the decks. Surprisingly, unlike their previous gig at the Savoy last year, Miguel didn’t strip bollox naked and prance around the dance floor accosting unsuspecting girls as he went - if you really need to see photos of that night then click here! Instead, this time one of the audience did the honours and took it upon himself to hop onto the stage and bare all seconds before a collective of bored and slightly stunned security staff pounced upon the said misfortunate and escorted him to wherever it is they bring you when you’re bold.

If the Cuban Brothers play at a venue near you, drag your sorry ass to see them, if you like dance music then you won’t be sorry.

The Cuban Brothers

Labels: Bands, Comedy, DJs, House

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.  Go on, ya know ya wanna leave a comment! (2 have vented their spleen so far)

I was in Dublin for the weekend and I happened to visit the National Botanic Gardens as they were nearby. I often bring my camera with me to most places but I’m usually way too lazy to take any pictures. However, the sun was shining and there were so many good photo opportunities that I just couldn’t help myself... fifty five photos later.

I have included a few low-res samples below but if you would like to check out the rest in all of their hi-res glory then simply click here.

Labels: Places

# Forged from the fiery depths by Pure Cork Boy.  Go on, ya know ya wanna leave a comment! (5 have vented their spleen so far)