Can you explain a bird?

One could argue that the lyrics below mean nothing. One could also argue that it doesn't matter. 'Piper' by Phish. Lovely stuff, hear it if you haven't...

'Piper, Piper the red red worm

Awoke last night to the sound of the storm

The words are the words I sailed upon'

Ekta Kapoor, you should be ashamed of yourself

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080052498&ch=6/9/2008%2011:59:00%20PM

Rocky roads to Dublin

One, two, three, four five,
Hunt the hare and turn her
Down the rocky road
And all the way to Dublin,
Whack-fol-lol-de-ra

The rocky road to Dublin is a 19th century Irish song about leaving home, ogling at girls in foreign lands and getting into fights that one can’t win. This renders its appeal timeless, and nearly every Irish music group worth their salt has taken a crack at it, albeit in wildly varying styles.

“The rocky road to Dublin” – Gaelic Storm
This was the first version of the song I heard, and the closest, one would have to assume, to the original Emerald Isle version. Gaelic Storm, whom some would remember as the band on The Titanic, is a traditional Irish band, in that they play music which is pure Irish, and not Irish Pop, or Irish Rock. Their version is taken at a fair clip, straightforward vocal, some nice violins, but nothing else to distract from the song itself.

“The rocky road to Dublin” – The Dropkick Murphys
Obliterates the Gaelic Storm version from one’s mind – this is the perfect storm. Like most DKM songs, it is the musical equivalent of a mob running towards you throwing bricks. While this lessens the chances of sneaking a violin in there somewhere, its just about perfect for the last paragraph, where the home-sick traveler gets picked on by the boys of Liverpool. The way the singer shouts “I could no longer stand it” leaves you in no doubt that he feels deeply about the situation, and it is this clenched-fist intensity that makes this version, for me at least, the most accurate and heartfelt of the three.

“The rocky road to Dublin” – The Chieftains and The Rolling Stones
The Chieftains have been bringing Irish music to the masses for decades now, as well as coming out with brilliant collaborative albums with country and rock musicians. The Rolling Stones have been singing about every form of excess, as well as indulging in them for decades now. Their version starts off carefully (Paddy Moloney sings, not Jagger) and slower than the other two. Somewhere after the second paragraph, however, a grinding guitar enters, and delicacy is abandoned for the rest of the song. Things get weirder and weirder – Watts forgets that he’s not playing a Stones song and starts thudding about, the two guitars continue to grind, and Jagger, finding nothing to do apparently gets up to dance (you can hear him tapping around in the background). The song ends with an extended instrumental jam, which reminded me of Van Morrison’s theory that the blues derived from Ireland, not Africa (a theory that has roughly the same standing in the musical world as the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis has in Biology). Whatever it is, it sounds dark and jagged and melodious, like drinking a pint of beer with a bar fight going on in the background.

Will someone tell me why they only got four minutes to save the world???

Free Jazz/ Punk Rock

*(Lester Bangs with The Clash)

A brilliant unpublished piece by the great Lester Bangs. He wrestled with his demons in full public view. His imitators make movies now days. His fans make music.

http://www.notbored.org/bangs.html

Capsule review: Iron Man

Were there any hidden layers in the big-screen version of Iron Man? The story certainly lends itself to that purpose - a tale about a man who makes weapons and then stops making them because he realises they kill people and then makes a new weapon which in the end nearly kills him - but I have my doubts. Had the makers equated Iron Man with irony rather than heavy metal, we might have landed up with something more emotionally satisfying. As it stands though, the movie is a weird mixture of fast cars, churning guitars, loud clanking noises, sheep-brained propaganda, more loud clanking noises and in the midst of all this, trying to make sense of proceedings, a bunch of former Oscar nominees. Robert Downey Jr plays his superhero as mocking and flawed (recent Batmen should take a cue) and has a teasing chemistry with Paltrow, who lights up the screen. As for the rest, Jeff Bridges has seen better days, Terrence Howard reprises his accent from Hustle and Flow, and there are a bunch of Arabs from Central Casting. Expect nothing but standard superhero fare and you may not be dissapointed. But its a bit sad that no one seems to be interested in reaching for the kind of artistic vision displayed in Hellboy or the first two movies in the Batman series.

Treasure, sunken

Its a very I-will-tell-you-insignificant-details-about-my-mundane-life type blogger sort of thing to do, but yesterday was kind of remarkable, and I'd rather write about it in the hope that any readers who may be lurking out there do not apply the same weird standards which I do while judging blog posts. More to the point, yesterday i found, in an old dusty cupboard, tucked underneath the spare bed in the spare room, books which I had loved, lost and given up hope of ever finding. For starters, on top, covered in dust and cobwebs, was my Gatsby, with its fantastic foreward stretching almost as long as the novel itself. I found my old Gerald Durrells, including the ones in which he is writing about his family, the funniest reads north of Paul Colhelo. There also emerged a Garrison Keillor, showing a touching determination to keep re-entering my life until I finally read it, and an Anne Rice, reminding everyone that you don't need to read like porn to be erotic. And most astonishingly, there was my copy of Rats Saw God, ostensibly teenlit but actually the greatest book ever written since... (Aaargh. Too much hyperbole). A varied treasure, from a treasure chest of variable quality, arriving months before Thanksgiving, and too late in the day for me to go and light a candle in the local synagogue (I'm kidding. Garlands. Temple).