Playlist: Irish bands

Marco Derksen was making German and Italian playlists on iMeem today, using input from Twitterati. That set me on a quest to try and make an Irish one. Only I didn’t want to pick too obvious songs, but rather unearth some of the late 80s/early 90s bands that nobody really knew or cared about outside of Ireland. Before the internet as we know it. Before bargain flights. Before the Celtic bloody Tiger. Back when every Irish musician was washing up dishes in crappy restaurants and looking for a Green Card. And every Irish drummer played on Larry Mullen’s second hand kits.

I couldn’t find a whole lot of them on iMeem so I had to make do with what I could find, alternate tracks, etc. My own collection is mostly on vinyl. I really must get a USB record player.

As I searched online I found out a lot of the bands are making ‘come backs’ on MySpace (An Emotional Fish, Something Happens, The Golden Horde, Into Paradise, Zerra One, The Dixons, Screech Owls, In Tua Nua, Aslan) and I also found this rather marvellous website hosting the Irish punk & new wave discography.

Is it me or is making playlists on iMeem a lot of work? Search a song, click through to a song, click ‘playlist’, choose profile or group, make playlist… find next song, start over…

You’ll just have to imagine that this playlist also contains: I want too much (A House), You ain’t lovin’ me lately (Aslan), Parachute (Something Happens), Friends in Time (The Golden Horde), The Bridge (Cactus World News), Dog with no tails (The Pale) and my entire obscure Mother Records collection… perhaps I will pick up that USB record player tomorrow.

So, consider this a botched attempt at creating a playlist of the ‘best’ (read ‘available’) Irish bands.

Day trip to Rotterdam

The otters at Blijdorp Zoo weren’t happy with the European wild cat in the adjacent cage. They took out their aggression on each other and the visitors and made a wonderful spectacle.

At the Oceanium, I watched a diver punch a shark in the nose.

The fish at Happy Sushi smelt as rank as parts of the zoo. After three dishes, I went for dim sum next door at Grand Palace.

Travelling back, I texted back the answer to the question: ‘What’s ‘You are beautiful’ in German?

Good stuff, bad stuff

  • My summer break starts on Friday. One more day to go.
  • Postman attempted delivering several packages while I was out.
  • Lovely Google adsense check arrived
  • Two blue tax envelopes arrived
  • It’s wasp season and it’s official: ‘they’re very aggressive this year’
  • ‘Mac user’ still can’t operate iBook, ‘loses’ toolbar
  • Dad remembers I owe him loadsamoney
  • Rumour: U2 to play 3 gigs in The Netherlands next June
  • Dirty laundry pile higher than clean laundry pile
  • Let’s not mention the pile of dishes
  • The nice Pakistani gentleman four doors up the road does great clothing repair
  • I now have H&M brown pin stripe slacks cut to my ‘length’
  • I’d like (and am taking preliminary action) to move to another part of town
  • My neck/shoulders are killing me
  • My physiotherapist isn’t very good
  • I’ve been asked to play a mixed doubles tournament
  • My backhand needs work
  • My tennis shoes are too small
  • My service seems quite effortless this season
  • I haven’t seen a good gig in ages
  • Who’s going to delete my spam while I’m away?

I’m feeling hot hot hot

I hope Mr Diva wasn’t too troubled this morning as a result of our spicy meal at Tempo Doeloe (“one of the two best Indonesian restaurants in Europe” — says who?) here in Amsterdam last night.

I was particularly pleased with the service – outstanding for Amsterdam standards. Flawlessly addressing the Diva in English, myself in Dutch. Some of the dishes were unbelievably hot – my tummy’s a little sorry for that. Quite taken with their … was it beef, was it pork? With aniseed, anyway.

Sorry, no photographic evidence. We were simply too busy talking.