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.

Another day at the zoo

artis-lions.jpg

I turned my day-ticket into a year-card today at Artis zoo and ended up spending four and a half hours there.

The lions were very entertaining. Mrs Lion (One visitor thought she was a tiger. Elsewhere, lots of visitors thought the wild dogs were ‘wolves’. Sigh.) tried to get a rise out of Mr Lion – I’m guessing she fancies him. Shooting pictures as they play-fought, I quickly understood why one would like to have a bigger buffer in the camera. I would like to have been able to shoot continuously:

  • Artis – lions

    They’ve got plants too.

  • Artis – horticulture

    (Most of the shots I took in the hothouses still have to be developed – I used my ‘new’ A-1.)