Favorite Sound: the sound of a poring tea pot

Real or fake, Bigfoot: fake

What would you be if you weren’t an artist: maybe a product designer

Favorite Sport? rowing is number one and rugby is number two

Most relaxing activity: rowing or knitting

What makes you laugh? Hanover talk

Guiltiest pleasure: America Next Top Model

What are you really good at? Talking

If you could have any superpower, what would it be? slowing down time

Introvert or Extrovert? Extrovert

In a fight between 50 kangaroos with baseball bats and the Munster Rugby Team who would win? Munster Rugby Team

Food, if you could you would live on: Reasons chocolates

One thing I’ll never understand: Time Travel

Something no-one knows about me: I would love to be a Bella Dancer

What would your Mobster name be? Sparkle

What was your mother right about? Leaving U.L and going to the Limerick School of Art and Design.

A movie that makes you cry: ‘The Road’

A movie that makes you laugh out loud: ‘He just not that in to you’

Four people you’d invite to dinner: the people I am working with in Vodafone, I have not met all of them in person.

Favorite quote ? ‘ feel the Rhythm fill the Rhyme come on kid it is bobsleigh time’

Spend your time & money well, L.E.G style

8gb iPod Touch | Compu-b, 17 O’ Connell Street | from €189

Stay connected with the latest iPod Touch available from Compu-b on O’ Connell Street. Stocking the widest range of Apple hardware, software and accessories in Limerick, Compu-b’s friendly and knowledgeable team can hook you up with the latest in the iPod range keeping you in touch; with your music and with built in Wi-Fi you can surf the web, send email, check out gig listings and get directions from anywhere.

Speakeasyjazz welcomes Niwel Tsumbu | Shannon Rowing Club | Thursday March 25th | €12 / €10 with booking

Congolese born, Cork based Niwel Tsumbu’s love for playing guitar bloomed in his teens while experimenting with the music of his homeland and blossomed when he learned jazz. Tsumbu’s elegant and fluent style draws from African rhythms, rumba, jazz, classical, flamenco and more. Playing electric and acoustic guitars and singing mostly in his native Lingala, Niwel commands a range of music from contemporary versions of Congolese traditional music to modern Jazz. His love of the Spanish style of guitar playing beautifully exposes Rumba’s Latin roots and his live shows are a spellbinding musical journey, infused with optimism and joy.

Roots Factory meets Rootical Sound System, Dixie Peach & Jonah Dan | The Underground |  Tuesday March 16 | €7

With a wall of speakers rolling into The Underground for this very special return of the Rootical Sound System expect belly wobbling, leg trembling bass as Limerick’s most skillful purveyors of all things roots and reggae meet one of Ireland’s pioneer Sound System crews. Joining the bill for this special pre Paddy’s party are two heavyweights of the UK roots scene, Dixie Peach & Jonah Dan from the Disciples. Rooty Fantooty. Get down early.

Limerick Jazz Society presents Arguelles, Guilfoyle & Black |  Dolans Upstairs | March 10 | €13/ €10

Arguelles, Guilfoyle & Black are an international trio, featuring three leading contemporary jazz musicians of their generation and respective countries - British saxophonist Julian Arguelles, the Irish bassist Ronan Guilfoyle, and the American drummer Jim Black – their new recording ‘Live in Dublin’ captures the excitement and ‘in the moment’ feel of live saxophone trio playing. Mixing original compositions and standards, creating a free-wheeling spontaneity and powerful rhythmic drive, with each member showing an almost telepathic response to the playing of the others -  the music unfolds  seamlessly with a great sense of swing and much rhythmic intrigue.

Supermodel Twins Single Launch | Baker Place | Friday March 19 | €5

Limerick five piece Supemodel Twins launch their lush, layered and power-poptastic single Bruises in Baker Place on Friday the 19th. Blending gentle vocals, big guitars and perfectly placed percussion Bruises begins gently leading to a big finish, further displaying their prowess as purveyors of tight, right and bright three minute bangers. As a taste of their debut album now in production Bruises bodes well for the record due for release soon and has L.E.G looking forward to the launch in Bakers where they will be ably supported by Remma and Dead Red Light

SpeakeasyJazz Limerick invite you to enjoy the sounds of  Blue Noise with Steve Hanks, Joe O Callaghan, Fiach O Brien and Barry O Donoghue on Thursday March 11th at Shannon Rowing Club. Having graduated from Leeds College of Music Steve Hanks picked up sticks (flute, sax and any other pipe he could get his hands on!) and settled in Ireland bringing his music. He has been teaching music over at The Limerick Jazz Workshops for around two years now and he can be seen jamming with his students in Bentleys on a Tuesday night after workshops. Returning on the night will be Joe O Callaghan trained on guitar with Ronan Guilfoyle and is a member of the Limerick Jazz house trio and is also a teacher at The Limerick Jazz Workshops, his nimble talent is well known to Jazzer’s in Limerick. Fiach O Brien on Drums and Barry O Donoghue on Bass, both hail from the Newpark music center in Dublin and introduce original music by the next generation of Irish Jazz muso’s at Newpark nights, Tuesdays at The Twisted Pepper in Dublin until March 20th.  This fearless bunch of Jazz cats will be performing original and improvised compositions and will be joined later in the evening by DJ Leon, a master of scratch who will add an interesting element to the fusion created by the band.  This one promises to be a hard-boppin, swingin and funky show!

For info and booking contact speakeasyjazzlimerick@gmail.com/facebook.ie

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What the F&*k is Tech House? welcomes Lerosa Live in The Underground @ Baker Place on Saturday March 13th from 10pm with support from Jack Buckley and Jim Plug’d. Born in Rome, Leo aka Lerosa’s love of electronic music was began with  the Italian pop music of the 1980s via his discovery of hip hop and acid house . He began djing in the early 90s and in 1995 moved to Dublin where he immersed himself in darker, deeper electronica and electro by the likes of Autechre, Drexciya and the extended Detroit- inspired musical underworld. Leo began producing his own music in 2000, concentrating initially on electro but broadening his range into unconventional house and techno styles. His debut release was the Maike ep on Dublin’s D1 Recordings in 2005. He followed this up with a critically acclaimed Ruski  released on Real Soon following up with the equally outstanding Seeker E.P on Enclave Recordings. More recently he has released on the seminal Millions Of Moments  imprint as well as the ace new label Quintessentials. Lerosa continues to produce original music and is increasingly in demand as a remixer. This is going to be fun night of house and techno sounds.
For more info & sounds visit www.myspace.com/lerosa or http://www.myspace.com/whatthefuckistechhouse

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Dane Bowers, fresh from the Big Brother house comes for a exclusive DJ Set on March 16th at Trinity Rooms. The Big Brother star started his career with Another Level and had seven Top 10 singles in two years in the UK, including 1998’s UK Number one “Freak Me”; and a platinum selling, self-titled debut album. 1999’s gold selling Nexus followed, along with BRIT Awards nominations and the opening slot on Janet Jackson’s European tour. After the group split, Bowers wrote and fronted two UK Top 10 hits, for the UK garage act Truesteppers in 2000, “Buggin’” and “Out Of Your Mind”. The latter featured the first solo outing of Spice Girl, Victoria Beckham.
In 2001, two solo singles released under the moniker of ‘Dane’, “Shut Up And Forget About It” (allegedly written about his relationship with Jordan) and “Another Lover”, both stalled at number nine on the UK Singles Chart; and an album, Facing The Crowd remained unreleased. Bowers subsequently went on to focus on behind the scenes work, writing and producing, including a collaboration for Victoria Beckham’s debut solo album, in the autumn of that year. He also ventured into presenting in 2002, co-hosting Popstars: The Rivals “Extra” show with the former Pop Idol contestant, Hayley Evetts. In 2004, Bowers wrote and starred in a sitcom pilot called “Bow to the Bowers.” It was a satirical look at the music industry, casting Bowers as an egotistical, vain version of himself. Bowers appeared in the follow up TV show to Totally Scott-Lee, called Totally Boyband, in which five boy band members from past groups were modeled into a new singing act. January 2010, Bowers entered Channel Four’s Celebrity Big Brother and won the hearts of the nation to finish 2nd! Dane was underdog in the contest but his likable and honest personality really made a impression on people helping him stay in the BB house till the last night. Now he comes to Trinity Rooms on March 16th for our Paddy’s Eve Big Bash.

For more info logo onto www.trinityrooms.ie

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Floyd Soul & The Wolf return to Limerick on the second spell of the band their now legendary Full Moon Shows for 2010. Word is that they’ll be playing renegade shows in such far flung places as an abandoned castle, a forest, and to top it off, a graveyard. Floyd Soul & The Wolf roll into Baker Place on Saturday March 20th for a free show which promises to deliver another night of action bordering on the primal driven by the catchy, the shocking and delectable. This Waterford four-piece have found a distinct sound, equal parts modern and classic. It’s only a matter of time before they bring their sound to back to the States after their recent return from recording their debut album in Nashville, Tennessee with Nanci Griffith producer Thomm Jutz, it  is set for release in 2010.  A full moon won’t be necessary though, as the four-piece are an acclaimed live act, described as ‘playing as if our very lives depend on it.’
For more info and howling sounds visit www.myspace.com/floydsoul

Fionn Regan

Shadow of an Empire

EMI
On release now
****/5

Right, I’m gonna tell the truth from the off here. Fionn Regan’s ‘Shadow of an Empire’ got handed to me, I put it in the computer, did the itunes thing and pressed play. Did some quick flicking through the tracks and then pressed stop. Mainly cause I, ahem, didn’t really like it.

Now, I’ve been asked to write some words on it, so I said fine, and pressed play again, and within 8 bars I realized I’d slipped up the first time. Not sure what was wrong with me, maybe I was expecting something totally different when I went at it the first time, something along the lines of the good old Irish singer songwriter favourites we’re used to from the good old Irish singer songwriters. But, and as much as I love the good olds, gladly this is very, very different. When I came at it cold for listen two, the first thing I heard was a healthy slice of Grant Lee Buffalo. And I love Grant Lee Buffalo.

Flanked either side by Bob Dylan and Neil Young, Regan wears his influences on his forehead, and the result is a great, country/folk/rock-tinged upbeat and only positive record. One track after another plays like a gentle, young Kings of Leon, ‘Coat Hook’ trips along with punchy Camden guitar & yelps, ‘Violent Demeanour’ like a modern Christy Moore/acoustic Supergrass bastard, ‘Little Nancy’ harmonicas its way into the record and waltzes perfectly and morosely for the next 3 minutes before the title track closes an expertly crafted 35 minutes.

A more than accomplished follow up to Regan’s acclaimed debut ‘The End of History’, ‘Shadow of an Empire’ sounds like a tenth record, not a second one.
-jody

Two Door Cinema Club

Tourist History

Kitsuné / Glassnote Label

On Release Now
****/5

Hailed as one of the most exciting bands to come out of Ireland this year (they were longlisted in the BBC Sound of 2010 Poll), Two Door Cinema Club certainly live up to the hype with “Tourist History”. The album is saturated with gripping hooks, breezy rhythms and all round feel good vibes.  The songs amass to between three and four minutes in length resulting in a wonderfully punchy directness.
“I Can Talk” is a guaranteed dancefloor killer with its driving rhythm and soaring melody. Alot of the time you would think you are listening to a less serious-Foals.The guitar work is frenetic but never overbearing.
Some may say their sound is quite similar to the many indie guitar bands to dominate the UK in recent years (e.g Bloc part, Futureheads etc.) but it appears they have fused those bands sound into an indie pop engine of their own. The indie scene in Ireland needs its own heroes to admire and maybe,just maybe Two Door Cinema Club are those heroes. Adventurous it ain’t, but “Tousist History” is godammn infectious.
A warm and zesty debut that most certainly lives up to the hype.

E.P

The Superblondes

***.5/5

The Superblondes offer a debut EP laced with throbbing basslines and lush vocal work. The duo of Eoin and Lory adopt a retro electro sound akin to that of LCD Soundsystem in tandem with an underlying slice of indie rock. There is a soothing tone inherent in the Superblondes material that puts the listener in a placid mindset. “Traffic Flow” is a real standout here with its pulsating beat and twinkling synths. This EP does what a good EP should do; offering the listener a taste and leave them with an appetite for more.

Superblondes play Baker Place on Monday March 15th / www.myspace.com/superblondes

-David Morrissey

Free E.P Download

Walter Gross

LA Pink Filth

I had an accident records

Distortion. Crunch. Static. General dissonance. These are the spheresthat Mr. Gross operates within. Tearing up the hip hop template with genuine aplomb LA Pink Filth makes deathcore trash metal seem positively tame, the Gaslamp Killer seem like Funkmaster Flex and will, in all likelihood, give you a savage pain in your head. The music is visceral, horrific and wildly imaginative, snatches of grunged up breaks juxtaposed across the spectrum of experimental art music, musique concrete thrown in the blender with Kool G Rap. The intro “In America” sets the tone for what is to follow, a 400 second assault on the cerebrum, the LP reaches somewhat of a zenith with “Allie McRaw”, the “straightest” track on LA Pink Filth yet still a mindfuck of boombap beats and vomiting distortion before settling into drone terror-tory for the final third of the release. Lest I’m not making myself clear, these are all good things.A cacophony perhaps, but a glorious cacophony nonetheless.

www.myspace.com/waltergross

-Andy Connolly

ev+a returns this year with a new preoccupation and theme MATTERS: spaces, places, old, new, derilect and reclaimed, form, function and folklore. As Ireland’s preeminent art exhibition prepares for opening on March 12 L.E.G looks forward to ev+a returning to the heart of the city centre with a new hub on Thomas Street / Catherine Street.

As a collaboration among artists, curators, sponsors, workers and committee members, e v+ a annually presents to its audiences in Limerick the best of contemporary art for assessment, to promote understanding and engender celebration of the contemporary culture that surrounds us.

The artists exhibiting and participating in ev+a are selected through two forums:

OPEN ev+a is the yearly submission exhibition, open to all artists working through any materials, mediums, styles, genres, practices and concepts. This year’s curator, Elizabeth Bonde Hatz of Sweden, has selected artwork from the submissions received and has designed and placed these pieces within the formal and off site spaces for ev+a in Limerick city centre. Bonde Hatz also determines the ev+a awards and contributes to the exhibition catalogue essay.

INVITED e v+ a occurs every other year when the curator personally invites artists of international standing to participate and includes their work as a counterpoint to OPEN ev+a. 2010 is one such year.

This year’s Curator: Elizabeth Bonde Hatz / SWEDEN

Hatz is an architect and Professor of Architecture at KTH, the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. She has taught at SAUL School of Architecture, University of Limerick since the school was established in 2006. She adds, “I practice architecture and was born with art. The two are from the beginning inter-twined and mutually fertilising. I divide my time-space between Sweden and Ireland, between Stockholm and Limerick.”

As head of the Swedish Association of Architects in 93-94, Hatz is a co-founder of Fargfabriken, the internationally renowned polestar for Art and Architecture in Stockholm with a new satellite venue in Östersund, in the north of Sweden. She has been an active member of the board since 1995 staging exhibitions of work from Maurizio Cattelan, Carsten Höller, Jan Håfström, Moment Ginza, Gunilla Leander, Mike & Doug Starn: Gravity of Light, Brion Gysin: INFLUENCE, The Expanded Book, Bo I. Cavefors, as well as events like Stockholm at Large.

Hatz leads a project within the Government funded “Artistic Research within Architecture” at KTH, within the AKAD, the Academy of practice-based research in Architecture and Design. Her work was exhibited at Fargfabriken in 2004, at the Art & Science Festival 2005 and at Lund Art Hall in 2006, with the AKAD event “Beginnings”. She has evaluated Practice based research at Aarhus, Denmark.

Her writings such as Architecture Ireland; Love Letter to the Island of Desire have been published in Sweden, UK and Ireland. Performances include “Dark Light – Architectural Wanderings”, a video performance at Lund City Hall at the Culture Night 1994 and at the symposium “Form Follows Anything,” Fargfabriken 1996. Hatz curated the exhibition “The Dream Museum” at the National Museum in Stockholm and designed the international exhibition “Traces of Congo” which toured the four Scandinavian capitals from the Ethnographic Museum in Stockholm to the National Museum of Copenhagen 2002-2007.

Hatz was on the board of Eva Bonnier Art Fund and headed the jury for the Kalmar Stortorg competition in 2004, won by artist Eva Löfdahl Stockholm and architects Caruso & St John London. She is currently on the Strategic Board of The National Museum in Stockholm. She was elected member of the Royal Academy of Agriculture and Forestry of Sweden as a result of her work for LRF Culture Board and the exhibition “Geometry of Milk” in 2003.

What Matters to the Curator for ev+a 2010?

“Limerick has grown on me – I have become attached to it, because I cannot make it out. It is not charming – it is irresistible. It’s a city of contradictions and conflicts, the most segregated of places in Ireland, physically and mentally. It is rough and gentle in the weirdest mix. Planned for the car, fragmented and smashed apart and left with a truly lovable – neglected and dying – city centre, truffled with great little butcher shops. It defies 21st century idea of urbanity and urban living by the persistent and perplexing presence of animals; sheep and cows, rare birds, horses pulling sulkies in the middle of the streets or grazing impediments within the road spaghetti. Both invisible and highly physical walls cut across the city, pulling neighbourhoods far apart. Remnants of crashed Celtic Tiger Dreams stand like monuments with their halted cranes and half finished towers. In many ways, Limerick is like a miniature image of current conditions, displaying in a single glimpse the passionate absurdities and restraining certitudes. Limerick is longing to be seen.”

For the OPEN / INVITED e v+ a mapping work done during past summer by The Intelligence Unit at SAUL, University of Limerick will be made available and offered as factual material on the city and its region for those who wish to find out more about the place in which e v+ a 2010 will take place.

The annual ev+a bus tour leaves Thomas Street / Catherine Street corner on Saturday March 13^th at 12pm visiting all 11 ev+a sites.

SpiritStore CAT DIG at ev+a 2010 | A weekend of events on Catherine Street| Friday May 7^th – Sunday 9^th 2010

The Spiritstore returns as part of ev+a 2010. This working art group presents The Catherine Street Culture Dig, a project positioning the street as an artform. The street’s residents and traders are participating with The SpiritStore as instigators of a series of cultural events. To realise this, SpiritStore and the Catherine Street traders and residents have held weekly meetings in various street venues to broker links between creative practitioners and the spaces offered by Catherine Street.

The result of this process will be a weekend of events - CAT DIG. The programme will include elements of experimental music, dance, theatre performances, workshops, film projections, writing, drawing clubs, a twitter treasure hunt as well as many other events to be announced.

The weekend will begin on Friday May 7th at 5.30 and finish at 5.30 on Sunday 9th. To introduce SpiritStore’s’ Catherine Street Cultural Dig we will be serving the traditional Limerick dish Packet and Tripe as part of ev+a’s tour from the corner of Thomas St and Catherine Street on Saturday March 13 at 6pm.

It will be served free and accompanied by excerpts read from Mike Finn’s Limerick play, ‘Pigtown’. A film of tales and times associated with the dish from a generation of Limerick women who prepared, and still prepare, the meal for themselves and their families will be screened in the space during the event.

The inspiration to present this unique Limerick recipe in this manner was reference to the continuous presence in the city centre of family butchers, the social history of Limerick as Pigtown and of course the ever present meat processing tales of Catherine Street.

To keep up to date with ongoing details on this collaborative project visit www.spiritstorelimerick.blogspot.com or keep an eye on the noticeboard outside French’s café on the corner of Catherine Street and Roches Street.

Packet & Tripe Recipe

Packet and Tripe is a real Limerick city dish. The whitish part, Tripe, is the lining of the cow’s stomach and the blue-balckish packet is a varietal of pigs blood pudding. It is very easily digested. They say packet and tripe should only be eaten if the letter “r” appears in the spelling of the month.

Ingredients

* 1lb tripe

* ½lb packet

* 2-3 onions, diced

* 1 pint water

* 3/4 pint of full-fat milk

* large knob of butter

* salt and pepper

Preparation

• Rinse the tripe in running water, and cut into small 1cm-2cm squares.
• Add the tripe to a pint of boiling water, and simmer for ½ hour to 1 hour, until the tripe is tender.
• Drain the tripe, add to the pot with the milk, and the diced onions. Bring to the boil.
• Remove the skin from the packet. Dice it into small cubes and add it to the pot. Simmer for 30 minutes, then spoon into a bowl.

Serve with a large knob of butter, salt & pepper and enjoy.

Limerick historian and scholar Jim Kemmy Jim Kemmy wrote, “Packet and tripe, washed down with strong sweet tea has been found to be easily digestible and rests gently on the stomach, especially one ravaged by an excess of alcohol. For this reason the dish is very much in demand after a weekend “feed of porter” has rendered the stomach hostile to other forms of nourishment Packet and tripe is reputed to give a “lining” to the stomach so the dish has been traditionally been a weekend treat, a distintive Saturday night/Sunday morning ritual.”

The opening of the ev+a will take place on the evening of 12^th March at the LSAD Gallery, Limerick School of Art & Design, Clare Street. This year’s exhibition will feature the work of over 42 OPEN artists and 16 INVITED artists installed in more than 11 venues throughout Limerick City. For details on the artists, OPEN & INVITED, participating in ev+a 2010 please visit www.eva.ie

Dan Le Sac V Scroobius Pip are live in Limerick on Friday April 23 at The Warehouse having delivered their new single in the shape of the Italo-tinged anthem Get Better released on Sunday Best which premiered by Zane Lowe on Radio 1, Get Better is an appeal for positivity, responsibility and self-education, and should more than launch the second wave of the Dan V Scroobius tidal as they release their brand new album The Logic Of Chance a beat heavy lit-pop tour de force on release from March 15th on Sunday Best. With the free-flowing rhyme’n'bass opener Sick Tonight, old school dancefloor hip-hop of The Beat, rants about government statistics, teenage pregnancy and music snobbery, le sac Vs Pip have delivered a second album of beat led polemics. Instantly danceable, yet increasingly vital, The Logic Of Chance is a great leap forward for alternative conscious pop. Since the launch of their first album, ‘Thou Shalt Always Kill’ the duo have toured Europe and the US to a growing live following, kicking off a new UK & Ireland tour in March. Dan V Scroobius  land at Streetlife in Dolan’s Warehouse on Friday 23rd April with tickets on sale now from Empire Records & Dolan’s. www.dolans.ie

The Priests   | University Concert Hall   |   June 12th

After a barely explainable 2009 The Priests return to Limerick in June for a show at the University Concert Hall. Few pundits would have predicted that an unkown vocal group of practising priests from Northern Ireland would sell a million records. Their debut album “The Priests” and their second, “Harmony” have sold over 2 million copies in more that 40 countries and topped the charts all over the world from New Zealand to Norway. At St. MacNissi’s College near Carnlough in Co Antrim, Father Eugene O’Hagan, Father Martin O’Hagan and Father David Delargy met for the first time and realised their musical prowess as a singing trio. After 20 years of being parish priests, Eugene, Martin and David’s talent was recognised by Sony Music after a scout sent a demo to Sony’s head office.  They signed a contract on the steps of Westminster Abbey in April 2008. The Priests will perform songs including Ave Maria, Pie Jesu, Amazing Grace and You’ll Never Walk Alone at the UCH on June 12. Tickets from UCH box office on 061-331549 or www.uch.ie

Great Friday   |   secret location   |   April 2nd

The third incarnation of Limerick’s home-grown music festival, Great Friday, is coming up thick & fast. On Friday April 02, Limerick’s music players & lovers will once again line up at Arthurs Quay bus stop and be shuttled away to a big field to stand & love the likes of Jamie Behan, Kevin Blake, Dan Sykes, Ruan Flood, Andy Mooney, Benoit, Acoustra, Brad Pitt Light Orchestra, Funzo & Heirs to Nothing.
Great Friday 2010 was launched, jelly shots and all in Baker Place on February 27th and if the huge crowd the rocked the house are any indicator of form this years festival will be another riotous romp in the county, come mud rain or shine.  Five years of very serious partying by the people of Limerick caused the Great Friday House Party to burst at the seams and in 2008 the move came from house to field. The cream of Limerick’s music scene came out to entertain and the legendary atmosphere of Great Friday survived the transition.  The Great Friday Festival runs April 2 at a secret location. Check www.greatfriday.ie or www.myspace.com/greatfriday for tickets & more details.

God’s Official   |   LIT Millennium Theatre   |   April 29th

The country’s favourite, Mick Lally, will be stepping on stage at the Millennium Theatre in April in his new role as a rogued football fan in ‘God’s Official’. This madcap comedy sees Mick joined on stage by George McMahon who plays Mondo in Fair City and rising star Edwin Mullane. Playing a kidnapped referee is not what the bould Mick would be best known for, but this is the premise of his new show where two football fans have just seen their side relegated after said referee disallowed a perfectly good goal, allowing the opposition to go down the other end and score! Trying to force him into changing his mind on the all-important goal sets up the rest of this comedy. To some people football is a matter of life and death, to others it is far more important that that. God’s Official runs at the LIT Millenium Theatre on April 29. Contact the box office on 061-322322 or log on to www.litmt.ie for tickets

John Lillis talks to the Barry Lynn a.k.a Boxcutter before he brings his music made of space, time and something heavenly to the first of a trio of parties presented by Tweak.

One night about three years ago, I found myself at the Irish kick-boxing championships in Clare watching two girls wallop the shite out of each other.  This was a new experience for me although ultimately not a very rewarding one, so I decided to slip out mid-fight and walk the five miles or so home along a quiet rural road.  Taxis were out of my financial bracket at the time. The trek turned out to be a far more interesting experience than the kick-boxing as I blasted Boxcutter’s ‘Glyphic’ album through my ear canals for the first time and surveyed the clear sky and shining stars above.

I’d heard a lot about this young electronic producer from the North and knew he was making seismic waves across the bass community in the UK with labels such as Hot Flush and Planet Mu picking up on his monstrous sound.  Here was music brimming with intelligence and a profound sense of wonder only enhanced that night by gazing into space and letting one’s imagination run asunder.  Sound and vision intermingled into shapes under the grand theme of space.  Either that or I was trippin’ balls in the Clare countryside.

Turns out I wasn’t too far off the mark, as I discovered when we started chatting for this interview.  Space – be it the spatial quality of music or the cosmos itself – plays an essential role in the arrangement of Boxcutter’s work.  Now with four albums under his belt (three as Boxcutter and one under his own name of Barry Lynn), he’s extensively explored the realms of sonic environments using the techniques of electronica and dub culture. Barry explains more, “One of the things your ear is constantly doing is helping the brain build up a picture of the area it’s in, it’s really sensitive to acoustics. So I like messing with sound so that it confuses the part of your brain that deals with spatial information. Originally got the idea from dub reggae, which I’ve been heavily into for a long time.  I think electronic music has been tangled up with ideas about space (as in astronomy) for as long as it’s been about, and I’m into both, so it’s cool, and pretty easy, to get one to evoke the other.”

There’s no point in trying to pin down Boxcutter’s music, because it doesn’t really sound like anything else.  He’s spent most of his years consuming music from various eras and crates, so much so that his approach to production is one informed by the medium of sound itself, not just the stylistic trends associated with certain genres.  He tells of how a life spent listening has blurred the lines along which he treads. “My parents are into music so we always had a decent stereo at home when I was growing up.  My Dad had a sizeable record collection so I heard a lot of jazz rock and fusion from the 1970s, with less interesting stuff from the same era mixed in, nearly always with a heavy slant on lead guitar. But he was always into Brian Eno too, and some Kraftwerk. I never went out much in my teens so I heard everything in isolation mostly, did a lot of digging and taught myself about different music. I have spent a lot of time in clubs since then though, and would definitely agree that proper bass isn’t something you’re gonna get at home. Northern Ireland isn’t exactly a hotspot for soundsystem culture. I’ve been heavily influenced by producers like Aphex and Squarepusher, and they opened the door to a lot of other stuff for me too, older acid house, electro, electroacoustic music, the Radiophonic Workshop, jazz funk, loads of stuff. But dubstep, grime and 2-step are very important too. I think the confusion about what genre I’m in comes about because I’ve made both DJ friendly tracks, and stuff for playing at home, and then presented it all together. I leave it to the listener to decide what fits where.”

One of the most exciting electronic musicians on the live circuit, Boxcutter will bring his low-end frequencies and cavernous echoes to the Shannon Rowing Club in Limerick on March 26th, courtesy of the good people at Tweak.  Now in its final year, the interactive-media promotors will be hosting three events over the coming months in the run-up to the annual festival in September.  Lovely stuff.

For more make friends with Tweak Festival on facebook or visit www.tweak.ie

Lisa Ledger, Danielle Sheahan, Jamie Walters and Myles Breens are rehearsing in Halla Ide in Conradh na Gaeilge on Thomas Street, on very tiny chairs. They’re not for dramatic effect and won’t be part of the set, this space is normally a classroom for kids and the tiny people furniture doesn’t hinder their lively reading of the script, it just adds to the buoyant atmosphere in the room.  LYT’s artistic director Angie Smalis sits just outside the reading circle and Bud, who I met on the way into the building is readying his camera to take some pictures, while I pull up a tiny chair of my own.

The Youth Theatre players are animated about their latest production, DORIAN, which sees five actors playing the character of Dorian Gray at various stages of his life. This approach allows for an deeper exploration of Dorian’s journey without getting bogged down in telling the tale step by step, as director Myles adds, “It gives everyone a chance to shine and explore a different facet of the character. This interpretation is a little bit mad and experimental but the story will be quite clear. People are familiar with the story-ish, the general arc of the story, about the portrait in the attic but the whole part about falling in love with Sybill and how he kills the painter, a lot of people won’t know the details of his life.” Jamie Walters adds, “This is our first day with the script. I was reading for Dorian in Love, Lisa is reading for Evil Dorian the Murderer and Danielle is the Dancing Dorian who does all the physical dances. So it is good to see how each person has a different take.” Two members who couldn’t make this rehearsal will be playing Dorian’s Wish and Dorian’s Death bookending the story.

Limerick Youth Theatre has five members in second year and a group of thirteen first years. Members learn about directing, scriptwriting, lighting and sound aswell as participating in classes and workshops in acting, dance and song making the Youth Theatre a self reliant full service company in and of itself. The principal five actors in DORIAN will be joined on stage by extras from the first year class with other members filling the roles backstage.

I ask Myles what prompted him to take on The Picture of Dorian Gray, “It’s one of my favorite books and the LYT were looking for proposals to work with the second years and I, sillily, put in a proposal to do an adaptation of The picture of Dorian Gray. Not so much a dramatisation, but taking some of the themes and scenes from the novel and exploring them theatrically. So we’ve been working for four weeks taking bits of the texts and messing around with them and talking about the themes from the novel; the idea that if you could not age, if you could anything you wanted and it would never affect you morally what kind of consequences does that have? In Oscar Wilde’s day, as it is today youth is adored and since this is Youth Theatre what does that mean?”

Lisa Ledger says, “ The language of Dorian Gray was very racy at the time, and still is today.” The beauty and the energy of the language lends itself to dramatic interpretation and Myles Breen sees as his job maintaining that brilliant sense of drama. “The book is a modern fairytale, Oscar Wilde wrote this novel which we all sort of think is an ancient story but no, he came up with this completely new idea of this picture in the attic as an image growing old and more decrepit and diseased and yet Dorian the man stays perfect. With this, the Youth Theatre get to dip their toes into everything, it’s like dipping your toes into a classic but we will play it with a twist staging it as a sequence of dramatic scenes with physical interpretaion of Wilde’s language, which is just fabulous.”

Costume Designer Ella Daly has dropped down some garb for the press shots that Bud is here to take. As a former member Bud returns as LYT’s photographer underlining members, past and present, loyalty and input into the ongoing success of LYT. Within a couple of minutes the trio are working with a very large picture frame and the laughter that accompanied pulling on their livery dissipates as Myles sets up the shots. Tiny chairs and youth aside, Lisa, Danielle and Jamie segue into character for beautifully composed images. No fuss, no drama, all action.

Limerick Youth Theatre present DORIAN - an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s Novel The Picture of Dorian Gray  at the Belltable, 36 Cecil Street on Friday 19th & Saturday 20th March. For more info visit www.lyt.ie or www.belltable.ie

Gúna Nua Theatre is renowned for producing vibrant new work. Their latest production Little Gem is a touching, hilarious and brilliantly performed piece of theatre which has proved so successful that the story of it’s making and phenomenal success would make a fine play in itself | Sarah talks to Director Paul Meade

When Gúna Nua Theatre’s Artistic Director, Limerick man Paul Meade, read an unsolicited play from an unknown scriptwriter, Elaine Murphy, which arrived in the post he was immediately taken with the idea of producing it because the story was so great. He had no inkling that Little Gem would become the runaway success of theatrical dreams,  “It was an unsolicited script we received here at Guná Nua and I thought immediately we have to do it because it is so good, you know. So we talked to Elaine the scriptwriter, I think she sent it to every theatre in Ireland but no one had picked up on it, we were very lucky in that regard. Then we cast it, with a brilliant cast and we performed it in the Dublin Fringe Festival in 2008 originally. It got a great reception and a really popular reception too, it wasn’t a show that only theatre people went to. The production then went to Civic Theatre and we got loads of women’s groups from Tallaght and around the area to come and see it and they loved it and told all their friends to go and see it so it has kind of developed it’s own momentum that way, you know.”

Little Gem won the Carol Tambor Best of Edinburgh Award which brought the play to New York for a two week showcase where it was critical and popular hit. The play continues to traverse the globe hitting Paris and London after their run in the Belltable this month. The critics love it because it is a sensitively crafted, perfectly cast and poignantly directed piece of new Irish theatre; the audiences love it because it is an hilarious, cheeky, irreverant, touching story everyone can relate to. Paul explains the simple premise behind this wonderful play, “It’s about a family in the northside of Dublin, a sort of year in the life of a grandmother, mother and daughter, and alot happens in that year; everything from birth, death, new releationships. It’s a beautifully crafted play because each of them starts off in the beginning with a dilemna and the events that happen are big and affect them but the central dilemna is resolved alongside that. It is a beautifully written play and just really very funny, real salt of the earth humour and everyone can recognise these women, it could be your grandmother or sister or mother. Everyone comes out of the play crying or laughing. I think that is why it has been so successful. But that is not to say it is a total weepy, people do cry but it is a very very funny play.”

The impact of Little Gem is immediate and down in no small part to the magnificent cast of Anita Reeves, Hilda Fay and Aoife Duffin who, in a special judges decision, were granted Best Female Performance of the Dublin Fringe Festival in ’08, recognising their spectacular ensemble effort. Elaine Murphy won the Fishamble Award for Best New Irish Writing but before the awards came flooding in the piece had to be produced, how did the production begin? “Well it was funny, I had to convince an awful lot of people to get involved at the start. Luckily Anita Reeves who plays the Grandmother loved the script from the beginning and her being on board made people believe in it more because it is really difficult to get new theatre on in Ireland, it can be really really hard. Then Hilda Faye, who you might know from Fair City, auditioned and she was great so we cast her. It’s funny if we had more money we might have got more P.R out of Hilda and Anita but we didn’t even have the money to be able to capitalise on that so we were lucky that the play was quite strong and it built on that, from small theatres and the audience reaction. The play itself is a celecbration of ordinary people and how they cope with what life throws at them, and it focuses on the idea of families and things that happen in families are universal.”

Awards, accolades, critics praise and wild fire word of mouth recommendations from delighted audiences means there’s no stopping this Little Gem. Book your tickets fast.

To book your tickets for Little Gem visit www.belltable.ie or call the Box-Office on 061 319 866

Welcome to March, spring sprung last week for a bit but if you missed it fret not, there’s March Madness in the air to lift your spirits. Munster Rugby Team may kick Good Friday’s closing laws to touch this year. Seen as an antiquated throw back, the only official barman’s holiday or a quirk of Irish society that makes us, well, so Irish. Good Friday traditionally means an at-home-hooley. Whatever your take, hosting a home game on a day when you can hardly buy a meal in town let alone go on the rampage seems a short shrift for fans and Limerick businesses alike, so L.E.G is all for opening this Good Friday, if only for a few hours.  This government’s over-regulation of Irish society needs some monitoring of it’s own. As an independent State, Ireland is pretty young. The excesses and abandon of the Celtic Tiger era can be seen as a sort of wild adolescence; when bankers speculated like teenagers, teenagers lived like twenty-somethings and the government lived as plan free as a pre-pubescent boy. So, have we reached a wiser age? I hope so. Like most grownups, you appreciate some advice and input from your parents but you don’t expect them to still dictate what goes on your wall happened in the case of a Limerick garage owner who has been ordered by the Health and Safety Authority to take down his topless Pirelli calendar from the wall of his workshop where he works alone or face closure.  Which brings us to the quote of the month from T.D Michael Noonan, “We now have a situation in Limerick, where we have no minister, no bishop, no hurling team and you can’t even hang a Pirelli calendar on your wall,” Indeed.

sarah