Gavan Reilly's Portfolio writings, ramblings, mumblings

Sugary Memories

Gav Reilly remembers the sweets that we munched when watching children’s television…

Anybody hwo was ambling around the Freshers’ Marquee last September will remember the multitude of sugary freebies being offered by different cliques present – but anyone would splurged and spent €3 joining NetSoc (and thereby helping to break down the invisible nerd-divide between Computer Science and everyone else) really gave themselves something to be happy about. NetSoc, you see, were celebrating their tenth anniversary, and to celebrate were offering a selection of sweets from a decade past.

In it there really was something for everyone: the Desperate Dan bars that we battled with while we fought with elder siblings over the remote (who really wanted to watch Beverley Hills 90210 anyway?)… those candy necklaces that the girls used to wear for days on end while the lads in third las tried to pull and snap them. Fruit Salads and Black Jacks! Remember them? And the weird looks you got whenever someone who didn’t know them gave you when they saw your black tongue? Or the little 10p bags of Meanies that we munched in the pub watching Ray Houghton lob Gianluca Pagliuca in the Italian net in New York, 1994? Or the Monster Munch that your parents tried to shush you with while they watched the OJ Simpson verdict? And God forbid you’d forgotten those little fried egg sweets and the Refreshers (joyfully received from the SU stand on Refreshers’ Day) that we nearly choked on the first time we saw the Spice Girls? Good memories, one and all…

And people say the Eighties were good…

The Choice Awards

Gav Reilly preview Ireland’s answer to the Mercurys…

This month marks the beginning of a new era (okay, that’s a little too emphatic but it’s certainly a sign of consolidation) for the Irish music scene with the announcement of the first winner of the brand spanking new Choice Music Prize for the best Irish album of 2005.

Billed as the Hibernian equivalent of the internationally respected Mercury Music Prize, the winning opus will be selected by a panel of twelve of Ireland’s elite media professionals, chaired by the much-respected music journo from the Irish Times, Jim Carroll. The group’s task is to select the offering that best sums up the year of Irish music that was 2005.

The shortlist reads as a who’s who of veritable Irish musicality. Bell X1‘s Flock, The Chalets’ Check-In and eponymous offerings from both Turn and Hal are all starlets of the scene like Cane 141, Joe Chester and Emmett Tinley among them. Works from Duke Special, Julie Feeney and Nick Kelly make up the rest of the nominated albums. The winning entry will be announced amid much pomp in Vicar Street on February the 28th in a ceremony being jointly hosted by the awards’ sponsors IRMO, IRMA, RAAP and Today FM, who will supply a full advertising campaign free of charge to the winner.

The victorious party will also get 10,000 shiny euros (probably in cheque form so not all that shiny, admittedly) and a specially commissioned award for the occasion.

If you feel like popping along and rubbing shoulders with the Irish musical elite you can, of course, buy yourself a ticket from all the usual places for €25.

Album review: Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not

It surely isn’t much of an understatement to say that the debut from this young Sheffield foursome was one of hte most eagerly awaited offerings of 2005 – it almost seems that the album appeared in January out of spite. Most of the songs on the contradictorily titled Whatever People Say I Am… have been floating about the internet as free demos given out by the band on their website. This in itself has been a cause of interest – and indeed admiration – in the band, that propelled their infectious debut single ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’ straight to No. 1 in the UK. The track is the standout on the offering but that’s not to say it’s the only potential single by any means. ‘View from the Afternoon’ is one such track.

By the closing ‘A Certain Romance’ (a brilliant summary in itself of the albums bipolarity) you know you’re onto something a little bit special. A magnificent offering from Indie’s Next Big Thing.

Sheffield lads surpass ‘new Libertines’ tag with effortless ease.

Rating: 5/5

Film review: Munich

When it was first revealed that Steven Spielberg was mooting an adaptation of George Vonas’ patchy novel Vengeance, the cinematic world wasn’t quite sure how to react; either cinemagoers would be treated to another Jewish-based epic like Schindler’s List or the offering would instead be a continuation of Mel Gibson’s Passion genre of ‘spinach cinema’ (you don’t really want to go and see it, but it’s good for you all the same). The results look as if Hollywood’s self-made money machine has tried to marry the two, but sadly the finality is that it’s a little too much of the latter for comfort.

The movie tells the story of Avner Kaufman (Eric Bana – you remember him, he was Orlando Bloom’s brother in Troy) who is hired by the Israeli Government to leave his heavily-pregnant wife and lead a team of civilian would-be assassins in order to trawl around Europe, in order to eliminate eleven Palestinian terrorists who had previously held eleven Israeli Olympians hostage at the 1972 Munich Olympics before killing them. Among the ensemble is Bond-in-waiting Daniel Craig, who gets some valuable experience working for a secret service in the feature.

The performance are sustaining and the movie does try to have something for everyone – a political commentary, a love story et al – and Spielberg does his brilliant best to turn the offering into a glamorous  70s spy tale (sending the crew to Rome, Paris, Athens, London and the less-glam Beirut). Indeed the ‘climactic’ (inverted commas because it doesn’t seem so) flashback airport massacre scene, though gruesome, is one of the finest passages Spielberg has ever concocted.

The impression, though, is of a work that is probably worth seeing once but that doesn’t enthral enough to demand a second viewing.

Rating: 3/5

The Focking Legend returns – it’s Ross’s return for his last hurrah

Book review: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress by Paul Howard

How do you begin to describe Ross O’Carroll-Kelly to a foreigner? It’s a problem that’s shown itself more than once in the online life of yourrs truly. When asked to explain your favourite series of books (I can hear the Potterphiles complaining already…) to someone who’s never had to confront the caricature of affluent D4 life, you can only ever give a rough explanation that never does it justice. It’s the typical ‘it was funny, but you really had to be there’ kind of scenario. That God that UCD is the very place that spawned and breeds this kind of stereotype, and I don’t have to explain who Ross is. And who should have to? The man is a living legend, after all.

So to the book, then. Anyone who was expecting a Radiohead Kid A-style deviation from a successful formula is going to be gutted. The Curious Incident… is Paul Howard doing what Paul Howard did every other time. But you can’t complain. The titular dog is the mother of Ross’s newfound seven-year-old son Ronan and the book literaly starts off the day after the shambolic marriage to on-off squeeze Sorcha Lalor.

When Ronan features he steals the show; he’s frankly the only character who’s more of a caricature than Ross himself, at the charming age of seven going on twenty. Charming lad who’s really worth his laughs.

Obviously I don’t want to spoil the plot, save to say that there is a real emotional cliffhanger at the end of the book. Draw your own conclusions. But along the way, it’s vintage Ross – only he could go to Tel Aviv and be shocked that the currency is actually called Shekels, and there’s a fantastic incident involving a seal – and it’s exactly what you want. It’s just Ross being the Ross that we love.

How To… Become a Goth in seven easy steps!

1. Throw out all non-black clothing to accentuate the feeling of nelancholy in your life. ‘Cos, like, there is no happiness, maaaan.
2. Buy a white anti-poverty wristband and attack it with a black marker, out of spite. Thereby sticking it to The Man.
3. Take a fancy to wearing eye shadow, regardless of your gender.
4. Listen to nothing but David Bowie from around the Ziggy Stardust era, Elliot Smith, and as much generic death metal as you can. They felt the paaaain, dude.
5. Hang around Central Bank outside of its opening hours. You might want to get hold of a slightly tattered skateboard to fit in here.
6. Wear some chains: some to keep hold of the only worldly possessions worth keeping (probably your iPod and wallet), and some for stupid reasons like symmetry. To be asymmetrical is to be conformist, maaaan.
7. Wear hoods whenever possible and only voluntarily take them down in the bottom floor of Bruxelle;s.
8. Seven steps? Like, yeah, dude. I don’t have to, like, keep to your guidelines, maaaan. Stick it to you, you conformist.

Whatever Happened To… the Britpop bands?

Gav Reilly takes a look at where the main players in Britpop disappeared to…

Blur went weird. Graham Coxon left in 2001, and had a successful solo career (notably the great single ‘Freaking Out’); Damon Albarn lost his hair, went to Mali and made a CD, came back, bought a sampler and started Gorillaz; Alex James and the other one are bumming around waiting for Damon to call them.

Oasis brought out three mediocre albums, got divorced, remarried, settled down, stopped drinking, and brought out a decent album again, a full ten years on, in Don’t Believe The Truth. But they’re talking to Blur again.

Suede bummed around, had one more successful single in ‘She’s in Fashion’ in 1999, brought out a singles collection in 2004, and haven’t contributed to the public everyday life much since.

The Charlatans did nothing but destroy Slane in 2002 after Nickleback had got the crowd going. Brought out a couple of singles last year that made numbers 23 and 24 in the charts. Nobody really cares.

Elastica became less popular once frontwoman Justine Frischmann stopped dating Damon Albarn. Threw in the towel in 2001 after their second album The Menace went down like a lead balloon the year before. Frischmann now presents an interior design programme on BBC 3.

Kula Shaker came back with their second album Peasants, Pigs and Astronauts in 1999 which didn’t nearly match the success of K. Their Greatest Hits came out in 2002. Keyboardist Jay Darlington plays with Oasis now, and singer Crispian Mills is with The Jeevas, who are bizarrely big in Japan.

Radiohead followed up their masterpiece The Bends in 1995 with another one, OK Computer in 1997, regularly voted the best album ever. Then went weird with Kid A, Amnesiac and hit form again with Hail To The Thief in 2003. Currently recording.

Supergrass had hit albums with In It For The Money, Supergrass, Life On Other Planets and again this August with Road to Rouen, marking a more mature sound for the band that some critics are having trouble digesting.

Menswear (remember them? They were the first ever band to appear on Top of the Pops before ever releasing, with ‘I’ll Manage Somehow’) followed up their debut album Nuisance and a sensational Glastonbury in 1995 with their second album Hay Tiempo! in 1998 which due to their waning popularity was only available in Japan. Guitarist Simon White is now manager of Bloc Party while another, Chris Gentry, manages up-and-coming band The Rumours.

Album review: Autamata – Short Stories

To describe Autamata as a band is a tenuous statement – ok, yes, there are three members, but in essence Autamata are as much a band as The Streets, where for ‘Skinner’ read Ken McHugh, who plays a frankly scary list of instruments on Short Stories varying from guitar and ye olde piano to theremin, dulcimer and e-bow.

He’s joined by Carol Keogh (generally found peddling her wares with Tycha Brahe, and sang on Autamata’s debut album My Sanctuary) and newbie Sarah Verdon, who contributes to the songwriting and accordingly (largely) take turns to vocal duties.

The album itself is, a la most albums, difficult to describe without able to refer the reader to the music itself so perhaps it’s best described as what The Chalets might sound like if they were brought up in a house with outer walls made entirely of corrugated iron but with lush, comfy, bright interiors. With Richard X producing. It’s that kind of great album, horrible to have to reduce to words.

And it is a great album. From the opening ‘I Spy’ through ‘Crazy’ and the industrial-strength klump of ‘Bring It On’, past the effortlessly brilliant double-entendre laced ‘Goldilocks’, The OC-friendly single ‘The Tap’ – you are hereby challenged to listen to it and not to have it in your head an hour later – and to the euphoric ‘Liberty Bell’, it’s an album that rarely fails to have head swaying and foot tapping, especially on the pseudo-disco stomper ‘Summer’s Son’.

The only real fault to the album is a tendency for over-elaboration in the instrumental intros and outros, which really detracts from the almost genius songwriting that’s sandwiched in between. But it seems like nit-picking in the bigger face of things: Short Stories will happily find a place in any self-respecting album collection.

Just be warned: you’ll need a great song to get Autumata out of your head.

Rating: 4/5

Boxed in?

My name’s Gav, and I have a problem. I’m hopelessly addicted to Sudoku.

Allow me to set the scene: right now it’s ten minutes to midnight, I’m sitting in bed with my laptop atop my… er… lap (original, huh?) and unlike any other self-respecting student who at this time of night should be (a) schmoozing or (b) betting the year’s drinking budget in poker – and you’re lucky if you’re immune from that addiction, but that’s another column – I am flipping between in one window in which I’m writing about being addicted to Sudoku, and one in which I’m actually doing a Sudoku.

If you’ve been living in a bomb shelter for the last few months, allow me to quickly explain. Sudoku is a Japanese number game in which the objective is to fill in a 9×9 grid such that the digits 1-9 are in each row, column, and 3×3 box. It’s now a staple of any national daily (it was a sad day in the Reilly household when the Irish Examiner latched onto it – boosting my daily intake to nine. Honestly, nine.) and heck, it’s even made it into the hallowed pages of The University Observer, surely the only zeitgeist worth reading.

Why it’s so bloody addictive nobody really knows. It can’t be blamed on maths (when it was introduced it was a ‘crossword for mathematicians’) because the methodology of solving it has no maths in it. But therein lies the beauty – everybody is hooked on the damn things. If you’re one of the lucky few who can do them in moderation, spare a thought for those of us whose every idle thought is consumed by wondering whether that rogue 7 may have just fit in between the 8 and the 3 on the bottom line.

At this point I’m going to give up the ghost and sleep. If it’s a bad night I’ll dream of endlessly messing up a 4×4 SuperSudoku. If it’s a good one I’ll solve them instead.

Album review: Oasis – Don’t Believe The Truth

Review Snapshot: Sixth studio album from Manchester uber-deities. With the score for the brothers Gallagher tentatively weighted at two albums ‘for’ and three ‘against’, a band motto “we didn’t have the songs” is losing credibility. Under attack, our heroes retreat to the studio living on borrowed time. Will Father Time catch up with them forever? Well, in short, no. Slightly muted and (shock horror!) acoustic fireworks ensue?

The Cluas Verdict: 7 out of 10.

There comes a time in every career by which an act can really be measured: the point at which they either evolve or don’t. Take those bastallions of rock and/or roll, The Rolling Stones Incorporated, who have managed to remain credible purely by remaining creative and – well, let’s face it – releasing music that doesn’t quite sound like Ye Olde Rolling Stones. Throw in at the other end: James Brown, the man who at Live8 exposed himself as merely a caricature of himself. While the brothers Gallagher have long been, in a sense, caricatures of the rest of Madchester, Oasis have slipped into Brown territory. And they deserve better for soundtracking the 90s.

Oasis of 2005 are a different outfit to that which gave us the Greatest Hits (usually referred to as (What’s The Story?) Morning Glory). Gone are Paul McGuigan on bass and Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs on rhythm guitar; indeed, gone are both drummers that featured on the album, Tony McCarroll and Alan White. Modern Oasis is comprised of the Gallagher foundations but has the comparatively lavish rhythm section of Andy Bell (“not the Erasure one”) and Gem Archer who fits so well that Noel even gives him some guitar solos. Oasis no longer employ a full-time drummer; Zak Starkey, son of Ringo, takes up most of the duties this time round.

But – and this is the funny bit – Oasis have hit something here. As the album kicks off with ‘Turn Up The Sun’ you know that there’s been a shift in dynamic. The intro/outro teases you into believing that Oasis have mutated into Travis. ‘Mucky Fingers’ which follows is Noel’s first vocal contribution where he sings for singing’s sake and (shock!) enjoys it.

Lead single ‘Lyla’ is deceptively catchy and is, in that sense, a fitting natural evolution to the “Morning Glory era, but is added to purely by the knowledge after two albums and two spare tracks, Oasis have found form again. Then comes ‘Love Like A Bomb’, the first of Liam Gallagher’s three compositions, and itself also an evolution of sorts – the track sounds like the mellowed out older brother of his previous pinnacle ‘Songbird’; then follows second single ‘The Importance Of Being Idle’, an ode to the joys of not wanting to do anything and being happy with it. Semi-autobiographical? Tongue-in-cheek? Maybe.

The album, however, is stolen by two tracks, the first of which is ‘Guess God Thinks I’m Abel’. Liam casts himself as the younger of the biblical siblings but forgets and forgives, realising that his ghost has nobody else to hang out with. “I could be wrong, but what am I to do?” It’s Liam’s most intimate revelation – so much so that the rest of the band are largely devoid of contribution until the last ten seconds.

The second is piano-led ‘Let There Be Love’, Noel mirroring this mellowing and delivers what is effectively a sequel to ‘Stop Crying Your Heart Out’. It’s the first time since Acquiesce that both brothers sing and whether it’s the desired effect or not, you’re left thinking that the decade of (public) animosity and the lingering memories of tours falling apart are just about gone. It’s destined to soundtrack a memorably weepy TV moment but the song deserves – nay, needs – cataloguing somewhere in the public conscience. It has taken Noel most of Oasis’ life to write but benefits from this fermenting as it weighs with a dozen years’ emotion.

So it seems that finally the perennial excuse that Oasis “didn’t have the songs” (” 1998 – 2005) has finally, then, been exorcised. Andy Bell notably improves with the superb ‘Keep The Dream Alive’, and Gem Archer contributes old-fashioned growl with ‘A Bell Will Ring’, far better in studio than at Glastonbury. Oasis have, you sense, grown up, and tried – successfully, at last – not to be Oasis from ten years ago. And what do you know, it’s worked.

And thank Christ, because it would have been a real shame if they’d turned into a parody of the Oasis that you still like from 1994. Roll on the next album.