Author Archives: Nick Kelly

The results are in

Last week, with a €50 Golden Discs voucher redeemable in any Golden Discs store on offer and inspired by a new documentary that argues 1971 was the greatest year for music, I wanted to know the top music year of your life with the top tune of same.

You answered in your dozens.

But there could be only one winning year.

Third:

Running Free by Iron Maiden

Clampers Outside writes:

“1985… was the year I fell in love.. With HEAVY METAL! Metal of all types! If it was gnarly or heavy I was listening :)

“Guns N’ Roses, Janes Addiction, Sabbat, Stormtroopers of Death were some of the bands formed that year.

“Album releases included Anthrax ‘Spreading The Disease’, Slayer ‘Hell Awaits’ and ‘Live Undead’, Exodus ‘Bonded by Blood’, S.O.D. ‘Speak English Or Die’ … And a whole heap of great metal albums from the like of Onslaught, Motley Crue, Celtic Frost, Loudness, Kreator, Overkill, Pantera, Faith No More, Twisted Sister, Megadeth… Ireland’s own Mama’s Boys ‘Power & Passion’ … and of course, Iron Maidens’ ‘Live After Death’. As well as, special mention for The Cult ‘Love’ :)

“How was I going to get a hold of all this new music? Well, a summer job of course!

“And what made things even much better was working in my local Esso station and all those drivers not collecting Tiger Tokens!!! Best dual-brand promo ever! That Golden Discs /Esso promo meant that I got at least one album every week and sometimes two or three, aaaaall summer long :)

“It was Maiden’s Live After that solidified my love of metal, but that didn’t come until later in the year, well after that glorious summer.

“And the track from the album… It has to be…Running Free (Live)

“Enjoy! :)”

Runner-up:

Waterfront by Simple Minds

GoldenBrown writes:

“1985 was of course Live Aid the year before my Leaving Cert and that Saturday was a day very like today – beautiful, sunny and warm. We lived on the edge of Dublin in a town technically in a different county but totally “down the country”.

“Up to my much wealthier best mate’s gaff to organise a very busy day (and because I fancied his sister rotten although she was 3 years older than me), started off with a round of par 3, then jumping off the bridge into the canal, back to his gaff for food, underage drink and watch the events of the day on an expensive Sony Trinitron.

“Had been through a couple of genres already in my early teens up to that point but the band that caught my eye for some reason was Simple Minds…playing live in Philadelphia – LIVE I tells ya!! (it’s hard to put into words just how awesome that was at the time), super confidently stole a kiss. One of the best days.

“The following week I went straight into town to Freebird and bought an album called “Sparkle In the Rain” by Simple Minds with the money I’d saved from picking strawberries at the fruit farm up the road (not a lot because I mostly ate the strawberries).

“I still have it on the shelf and it gets the odd spin to this day some great songs on that album but I will nominate “Waterfront” .

“Simpler times and very glad and fortunate that I lived my teenage years in the ’80s!”


Winner:

Fight The Power by Public Enemy

Capernosity & Function writes:

“I was too young for punk and new wave and there were no equivalent movements in the early 1980s that I could get my teeth into. By the late 80s I was moving beyond the Top of the Pops/Smash Hits phase to the NME/Hot Press phase. MTV Europe had arrived and opened up new horizons.

“1989 was the end of first and the beginning of my second year in college. It was a very disruptive and turbulent time in my life so my bedroom with headphones and my music was my retreat. For me my late teens and early twenties were THE period when I had the most passion for music. I started owning it and looking for other stuff beyond the charts, started going to gigs and clubs.

“What signified 1989 for me was the Madchester/Baggy scene and the wave of rap and hip hop coming from the US. Indie music was also a separate entity then with genuinely independent labels with their own charts and songs that barely skirted the Top 40. Taping off the radio and Fanning’s Fab 50, happy days.

“Here are the albums that meant most to me. I played these to death at the time on my radio cassette player:

De La Soul – Three Feet High and Rising
The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses
The Pixies – Doolittle
New Order – Technique
Beastie Boys – Paul’s Boutique
NWA – Straight Outta Compton
The B-52s – Cosmic Thing
The The – Mind Bomb
Faith No More – The Real Thing

“Song of the year would have to be Public Enemy – Fight the Power from Spike Lee’s “Do The Right Thing”: ‘1989/Another summer /Get down /To the sound of the funky drummer’.

“I don’t mind if I do.”

Nick says: Well done Capernosity & Function and thanks all.

Last week: Win Nick’s Golden Voucher

Pop Wallace – Synthetic Dancing Shoes

Do you wanna trance?

Born in Carlow but now living in Phoenix, Arizona, singer/producer Pop Wallace (top) goes all in with this instrumental deep house groove that might take some listeners back to the halcyon days of The Kitchen.

Pop writes:

“For anyone who’s ever done yolks while watching the cyberpunk collection ads on manga entertainment videos…”

Nick says: Pop art.

Pop Wallace

Chris Short featuring SJ Talbot – Flint And Steel

Come on, baby, light my fire.

Dublin singer/songwriter Chris Short (top) teams up with SJ Talbot for a duet crackling with tension and emotion.

The song can be found on his debut 4-song EP Somewhere.

The video was directed by Robert Montgomery and stars dancers Andrea Williams and Kevin Hayes.

Nick says: Get Short.

Chris Short

SJ Talbot

EMR – Stuck On The Puzzle

“I’m not the kind of fool who’s gonna sit and sing to you about stars, girl.”

Skerries, County Dublin singer/songwriter/ sound engineer/multi-instrumentalist and podcaster Eimear O’Sullivan (top) pays tribute to one of her inspirations with this gorgeous cover of Stuck On The Puzzle by Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner.

It’s great to see an artist blossoming like this, and singing with such poise and confidence.

EMR writes:

“I made a cover and a little music video to say thanks to one of my all time favourite songs. It’s Stuck on the Puzzle by Alex Turner. I hope you’ll have a listen, and if you enjoy it, give it a like! I really appreciate all the support you guys have given me in the last two years, it’s all starting to pay off.”

Nick says: A shoo-in for the Turner Prize.

EMR

Thank Foden it’s Friday.

It’s a wonderful summer’s day where you could fry an egg on the stones here… if you had a stone. So let’s have another music competition.

This week, dear readers, inspired by a new documentary that argues 1971 was the greatest year for music, I want to know the top music year of your life with the top tune of same.

For me, I’m gonna go with 1985:

Albums I binged on from that year included The Smiths – Meat Is Murder, REM – Fables, New Order – Lowlife, That Petrol Emotion – Manic Pop Thrill, Microdisney – The Clock Comes Down The Stairs, and 10,000 Maniacs – The Wishing Chair.

My song of 1985 has to be this.

Over to you…

Reply below to be in with a chance of bagging yourself a €50 Golden Discs voucher redeemable in any Golden Discs store.

The winner will be chosen by my archivist.

Lines MUST close on Saturday 11.15pm

Nick says: Good luck!

Last week’s winner: Harold Molloy

Golden Discs

From top: A High Court decision yesterday denied planning permission to provide the country’s first legal drug injection centre at  Merchant’s Quay, Dublin. A nearby school and the Temple Bar Company were among those opposed to the project; ‘Temple Bar’ by Billy Treacy

This afternoon.

Singer/Songwriter Billy Treacy writes:

I was brought up not too far away in Capel Street and so was both sides of my family from the surrounding streets. I had family that lived in Crampton Buildings in Temple Bar. I remember Temple Bar before it was a huge tourist industry.

I have been a working musician in Temple Bar for years. Some of this work also involved showing tourists around the area. It used to pain me to have to warn the tourists about the perils of walking around Dublin.

I wrote a song once called Temple Bar (above) written from a personal and a Dubliner’s perspective. It was a humorous but truthful song about Temple Bar as I had witnessed over the years. The song both helped and hindered me in equal measures over the years but I felt I was best placed to comment on it as I worked there and grew up a stone’s throw away.

Temple Bar is a fantastic tourist hub and great for the City. The atmosphere is vibrant and you can soak up the best of Irish Music in a few square miles. Nobody is forced to go there. If it’s too expensive for you then there are other vibrant places in the City to go to.

But anybody who frequents town can’t help but notice the drug and anti-Social problems that have been there for years and have been largely ignored. How anyone can be against a Safe Drug Injection centre is beyond me, especially when it will help users and keep the streets clean.

It seems like a win/win situation. What baffles me is how can a company in Temple Bar object to this when it is proposed to be on Merchant’s Quay (where they already do fantastic work with addicts). It has the potential to make the streets safer all the way along the quays.

What particularly sticks in my throat is that Noel Dempsey [Chairman of the Temple Bar Company] an ex minister and member of a government who lied to the people about the troika and IMF coming/not coming to Ireland can stick his head above the parapet again. This man along with all his colleagues decided to retire from politics back then after running the country into the ground, rather than face the wrath of the public in another general election.

Why does he suddenly get a say in the runnings of my Dublin (and yours)?

Dublin is not perfect and neither are all of its people, but a lot have been left behind by successive governments and what is the solution? Do we let them die on the steeets? Do we let  our children witness this? Why don’t we have an injection centre run by the Merchant’s Quay Project?

I can only see it as a positive for the people that need it, for the people that frequent the city and for the tourists. It cleans the streets and makes them safer for everyone and could possibly be the first step to rehabilitation for users. It’s a no brainier!

Nothing else has worked over the past 40/50 years. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Thanks for reading and sorry for the rant. Up The Dubs and enjoy Dublin City everyone. See you for a pint in the glorious sunshine in one of the fabulous outdoor drinking establishments.

Yesterday: High Court rejects drug injection facility plan

RollingNews

The results are in.

Last week, from an idea prompted by marathon-missing reader Janet and with a €50 Golden Discs voucher redeemable in any Golden Discs store on offer, I asked you for your favourite song to go long-distance running to.

You replied in your dozens, creating an exhausting but worthwhile playlist that might jog the memories.

But there could be only one winner.

Third Place:

Sweet Disposition by the Temper Trap

Millie writes:

“Perfect for an early morning run (if I ever manage it). I frequently listen to it when out walking and it never fails to lift the mood.”

Runner-up:

Lose Yourself by Eminem

Fez writes:

“Running is quite a religious thing for me, got me out of a depression that lasted for my latter teens and most of my 20s, and helped me drop 40kg. It’s also religious in that I feel weird if I don’t do it, kinda like my mother having to go to mass, even in a country where she doesn’t speak the language.

“Eminem’s Lose yourself is a proven 20s per km pace increaser, in particular this verse, when you feel like giving up…”

‘Gotten me to the point, I’m like a snail I’ve got
To formulate a plot or end up in jail or shot
Success is my only motherfuckin’ option, failure’s not
Mom, I love you, but this trailer’s got to go, I cannot grow old in Salem’s Lot
So here I go, is my shot
Feet, fail me not, this may be the only opportunity that I got.’

Winner:

Claire de Lune (with two pianos) by Claude Debussy

Harold Molloy writes:

“Long distance running is about running slow, especially starting slow, which is something that I’m learning and struggling with.

“As such, I need music that is serene and so I choose classical. And my favourite piece is Clair de Lune by Debussy – must be a recording on two pianos, like.”

Nick says: Well done, Harold and thanks all.

Golden Discs

Rushes – Funds

Lost in the supermarket.

Alt.pop newcomer Rushes (top) returns to the scene of the old late night job he held as a teenager in Fields, Skibbereen, West Cork.

The creative director of the promo is Stephanie Naughter.

Rushes writes:

“I was spending all the money I had on travelling to London, Berlin, anywhere that I could work on my music and I was in sessions all day, forgetting to eat, then going somewhere starving and my card gets declined, so I was saying to myself, fuck it, you’re going to be experiencing this now, but hopefully that won’t be the case once things start going right.”

Nick says: Amen.

Rushes