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My Da would have been 75 today. I miss him terribly.

Man At Work II

BiG PRiEST

Man At Work

BiG PRiEST

Kingtrashcan FM Show #2

Checking In

Is It Time

to take this up again?

Nothing But The Rent

I never seem to get around to this anymore. If you're interested, I report more regularly on Facebook and, the odd time, on Twitter.

More God Than Man

If I may paraphrase George Bernard Shaw, to not love Stevie is to not love life. More, due to popular (one) request, in the next few days.

New To Me

The National - very good indeed, roll on the picnic

McLaren

He didn't just talk a good fight, check it out. R.I.P.

I Must Get One Of These To Go Outside The Gaff

Isn't it great to be part of Europe?

Carty's Best O' 2009

the votes are in
In no particular order...

If You Go Down To The Woods Today

Heading off to the Electric Picnic in the morning, chomping at the bit. Full report next week. If any one's looking for me, I'll probably be hanging around Trenchtown, paralysed with booze and island rhythms.

1001 Albums To Hear Before You Die

What took some of us years to collect can now be yours in a very short time indeed. It's a good thing I suppose. Plenty here to keep you going until death. Dig.

Rock N' Roll Summer Part I

First things first, the boys and I took a trip down to Punchestown about a month ago to see the mighty AC\DC. If you don't like the DC then you really don't like rock n' roll at all, there's no poncing about, they don't ever feel the need to get Brian Eno in to "expand their sound", they never harp on about getting back to their roots because they never left them in the first place. The arguement has been made that they only have one song but even if this was true, it's a very good song indeed.
The day started well enough with beers over in Kenny's gaff discussing the relative merits of Back In Black and Powerage (my favourite), then the Coff turned up and we got our pre-hired lift down to the gig, a fine affair, drinking beers in the back cracking jokes about poor old Michael Jackson.
Problem 1 - we got to about 5 miles from the gig and were told by a lovely police man that we had to walk from this point. It's been said before but it's worth saying again, once they get your money, MCD don't give a shit.
A long power walk, with beers, got us finally into the gig where there was supposed to be 70,000 punters or there abouts but there was at least twice that again and it was only six o'clock at this point. See the point above about MCD. The only consolation is that these days are coming to an end thanks to the world falling apart.
The bar next, pints of foam for €6, we drank a lot of them and here was Carty's fatal mistake, the rookie error, for as much as I'd like to tell you about how great the DC were, I can remember very little of it. Sigh, the fellas tell me I had a great time but I may very well have got up and done a song, I can't remember (one of the few vague memories I have is of the sound being taken away by the wind during the encore, rock and roll, for the most part, belongs indoors). Anyway I got home straight away after, unlike a lot of other unfortunates who got stuck walking all over the country, see point about MCD above.

Onwards to Bruce Springsteen's two day stop at the RDS. Does it ever stop fucking raining in Dublin? Wille, Ken and I head over to Crows in Balsbridge on the Saturday, hundreds of us huddled under the awning outside the boozer "enjoying" our booze and fags. Two birds who flew down from Donegal (huh?) knocking back the doubles like they were endangered, they surely did not last the whole gig. Jason shows up, in we go to the show, more foam, Bruce comes on and shows what a genius he is straight away by covering Creedence's "Who Will Stop The Rain" resulting in the man now having what ever amount of soaking Irish people eating out of his hand. The papers call the show a religious experience and they weren't far wrong. Highlights for me included Because The Night, Tenth Avenue Freeze Out, an Awesome Born to Run and Waiting On A Sunny Day where the boss appeared to indeed stop the rain. That can't be true can it? Sadly I missed Thunder Road cause I was in the Jacks, sickened. Keogh's after, hazy to say the least.
Sunday morning, bad pain but staggered back to the Palace to meet the Coff for round 2 with the Boss. Stout and plenty off it and then straight out to the show. A point of order, why are all the rock shows in Ireland associated with the shittiest beers? who the hell wants pints of Coors Light? Worse again, who wants slightly warm bottles of Budweiser? The Coff and I moaned about this in the queue and then bought four bottles a piece (and that wasn't the end of it either). Ran into my cousin Adrian and his wife Tara off the TV, good people. Springsteen kicks off, if anything even better than the night before, the rain, for the most part held off, Coff and I danced and laughed like idiots. I said to Coff at one point "Jacks N' Bar" indicating where I was off to, " I hope he plays that tune" replies the Coff to much guffawing. Highlight? Jungleland and Trapped - amazing. Great moment when Bruce gave the mike to a little girl, she manages a full chorus and the whole place erupts. The man is a class, class act. There was some confusion over a curry in a hotel on the way home but that's a story for another time due to some legal complications.

I was in a right old heap on the Monday but I had tickets for Allen Toussaint in Whelan's so had to go out and do it again. How do you think all this was going down at home, bearing in mind this was the weekend of my wedding anniversary? Headed in with Kenny, the first stout was something akin to trying to ingest a pint of warm treacle, although strangely by pint 3 things were improving immensely. Whelan's is a great spot to see anyone but , yet again, they sold too many bloody tickets so to say the view from upstairs was restricted was putting it mildly but the sound was great as was the man himself, taking us through a potted history of New Orleans music, shame he didn't have a little band with him as I'm not the biggest fan of people playing on their own even if they are as unfairly talented as Mr. Toussaint. A plus point in the fact that there were very serious music fans at the show, you know the type who laughs at every single thing the artist says just to show everyone else how hip they are. These people are not interested in drinking so the Ken and I had a clear run at the bar which we took full advantage of. We then hightailed it back to the Mullingar house and got wrecked, laughing away.
I took Tuesday off work.

The weekend just passed found me in Croke Park for the mighty U2 on both the Friday and the Saturday night. Let me point out first of all that I do not number myself among the Irish men and women who have turned on U2. I'm a fan, the new record has it moments although it's not their best. Bono pays his taxes in Holland because it saves him money? That's what I'd do, although I would refrain from telling other people what to do with their cash, but anyway. My other though about them is that if I was lucky enough to be, say, Larry Mullen, the one thing that would really piss me off is the fact that the singer in my band spends most of his time off saving the world while he should be concentrating on making more records. All that being said, live U2 have always been exceptional, it's over twenty years since I first saw them play and they have never been less than very, very good.

What's the story with not being able to have a drink in Croke Park, Ireland's national stadium? A Big sign saying that drinks were not allowed on the pitch by law, no such problem in the RDS, what's that all about? And while I'm giving out, Dublin is a major city, Croke Park is it's finest stadium and yet you must walk to and from it, no attempt at public transport. All the foreign visitors for the U2 shows must wonder about this one.
The show itself was even better than expected (second only in my U2 experience to the fantastic gig they did in Slane shortly after Bono's father passed on), the first thing I noticed on the Friday night was the great sound they'd manage to get in the stadium which they must certainly did not have the last time the '2 played there. The much talked about Claw was very impressive, although Springsteen didn't need any such messing to turn a stadium into a small club, discuss.

Highlights, although it was all pretty great, included a brilliant Unforgettable Fire, Until The End of the World, Pride, Sunday Bloody Sunday, the acoustic Stuck In A Moment. All overshadowed of course by the truly exceptional Bad.
For me, the new dance version of "I'll Go Crazy" is rubbish and what's the point of writing a great bridge to a mediocre song and then leaving it out when you rejig it?
pints afterward in the Living Room , the smoking area out the back now combines the smoking area of three pubs. The day is coming in Ireland when all pubs are just outdoors, the smoking ban is just stupid, nobody lives forever.

Saturday night, into the Palace at 5, outside (again) smoking, drinking and carrying on. Up to the show for 9, another great performance although for me Friday was better as they seemed to be working harder to prove something, nice to hear In A Little While and the best song from the new album, Unknown Caller, but it was all good. A lot of guff goes Bono's way but the man can hold a tune. Back to the Living Room for more beer but the tank was running low at this stage, home relatively early.
The Sunday, didn't even get dressed till about 7.30 in the evening and that was only because I couldn't go and get the paper in my jocks.
Nearly forty boys, nearly forty.

Michael Jackson

Forget everything else, this is what you should remember;

Just A Little Louvin

As much Louvin Brothers as you'll ever need.
Here they are from a long time ago

Remember, Satan is real.
Which is a fine excuse to show you the greatest record sleeve of all time;