Classic Irish Rock from Horslips

St. Patrick’s Day has arrived and it’s beautiful outside. It’s perfect weather for landscape photography – plenty of light and an interesting sky with fluffy clouds floating on-high. I’ll be on the streets of Cork photographing the crowds and the parade so look out for me if you’re around!

Just because of the day that’s in it, and because I was dancing around the kitchen with Oscar this morning to this song, here’s Horslips playing “An Dearg Doom”.
Video of the aforementioned dancing will not be making it’s way onto the Internet any time soon…

Just back from town now. We met Linda and went to Luigi Malones for lunch, hoping to catch the last bit of the parade afterwards, but as we reached Patrick’s Street at 2pm the crowd started to disperse! The parade lasted barely an hour! Conor saw the whole thing and he said we didn’t miss much. I got some great shots of the crowd and as everyone was in good mood many people posed and acted a little crazy for the camera.

A few minutes later we met Conor and Sylvia, headed to the farmers market where Linda and I took long exposure shots of the carosel and we eventually ended up in a nearby cafe for further refreshment.

Looks like some photos of the parade are showing up on Flickr already. I saw an insane number of people with digital SLRs. Folks, why aren’t you all blogging?

I think Linda might have found a new passion in street photography too. Can’t wait to see her shots!

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More photos: Red Mum took some excellent shots of the parade in Dublin. Monasette did the same in Galway. Gallery to follow! Flickr has lots to offer today! Anyone else I can link to? Leave a comment!

Everyone’s very quiet! No more photos? I have a few photos on my photoblog, and I’ll be posting some more over the next week.

Craic agus ceol ar an gCeadaoin

My brother Donal who I mentioned a few days ago is going to Lesotho in mid-April to help build a school and raise funds for the ISPCC here in Ireland.

As part of his fund raising effort there will be a charity trad gig on Wednesday night, that’s tomorrow night! Sounds like a great line up and I’m going to try get in for an hour or so. Watch out for the guy in the WordPress tshirt with the camera. That’ll be me!

Charity gig

Performers on the night include The Fuchsia Band, back from their travels and who always put on an energetic and entertaining show; Cork singer Ger Wolfe singing some of his distinctively Cork ballads; Dan O’Callaghan, a piper from Cork who has travelled around the world playing music; Tommie Cunniffe on accordion, who is currently recording his debut album; and, last but not least, John Mitchell on flute accompanying Donal O Caoimh on the uilleann pipes.

Update! The gig was great. A huge crowd gathered to watch and listen and we even had a few dancers! I hope to post some photos tomorrow if I find time to work on them tonight.

What song defines Christmas for you?

Which of the following songs says “Christmas” to you? Which song makes you think of Christmas as soon as you hear it? Ian Dempsey on Today FM this morning asked this question and the result surprised me.

Silent Night
Fairytale of New York

Continue reading “What song defines Christmas for you?”

Fred and the Nail Drivers

Great news for music fans this summer! The Spiegeltent is returning to Cork as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival 2006!
Fred The Band are playing there on June 20th. Tickets are 15 Euro.
The Nail Drivers will play in the Angler’s Rest on June 17th in a charity event so get along and support them! See you there!
Here are a few pictures of the Nail Drivers from a while back. They played a blinder at my wedding and I definitely recommend them!

Queen's Death on Two Legs .. who is it dedicated to?

Over the years there has been much speculation over the years as to who this song is dedicated to. A post on songmeanings.net states that it is about Norman Sheffield, their manager in the early days who “locked Queen into a slave like contract where they saw almost nothing in terms of royalties and artistic freedom.” Nasty!

I searched about a year ago for the answer to this question but couldn’t find anything as “concrete” as the answers above. It is still hear-say but I believe it could be true..
Last night while channel-flipping I came across “Classic Albums” on BBC1. The show was about Queen’s, “A Night At The Opera”, the album which really set the ball rolling for them and included the huge hit Bohemian Rhapsody.

I missed the start of the show but came in when they were talking about “Death on Two Legs”. Brian May spoke for up to a minute about the early days, saying they had a manager then who handled everything. He named the manager but I can’t recall what the name was. It was most likely Norman Sheffield.

They showed a grainy black and white group photo, and the camera zoomed in on the smiling young face of a man in a suit and lingered there for a few seconds. The scene changed back to May who looked into the camera for a few seconds saying nothing.

If you want to know what others think about this album, here are some critical and not so critical reviews.