Punk/Hardcore in Seomra Spraoi

Gigs have started happening in Seomra Spraoi, Dublin's Autonomous Social Centre, proceeds go towards the rent on the building. First one was Crowd Control, Ended and Droppin' Bombs. Putrefaction were supposed to play but unfortunately had to pull out. Good crowd and a great night.

Droppin' Bombs.


Ended.


Crowd Control.


More here.


From the Seomra Spraoi webpage:

"Seomra Spraoi is an autonomous social centre in Dublin city centre. It is run by a non-hierarchical, anti capitalist collective on a not-for-profit basis. It hosts workshops, gigs, political meetings, language lessons, film screenings, a vegan cafe and lots more. The centre seeks to be a hub of positive resistance in a city and society where public spaces have been eaten away by consumerism, property speculation and the culture of the car."

Next one is on the 12th of September, details below:

Excuses 7inch Launch, The Tap.

Excuses, Moutpiece and Sort It Out played but I only have pictures of Moutpiece and Excuses. You can get the 7inch from Stitchy Press and Distroy.

Excuses.



Excuses myspace.

Moutpiece.




Moutpiece myspace.

More pics of the gig here.

Iron Lung and Gruel, London.

Went to see Iron Lung and Gruel a while back while visiting my mate Cormy in London. Both bands were amazing go check them out if you don't know them already. I also have Gruel double lps for sale, if anyone wants one get in touch.

Iron Lung.

Click on the image for a decent sized version.

Iron Lung myspace.

Gruel.


Gruel myspace.
More pics of the gig here.

We also went to the Natural History Museum and saw this lad along with too many people and lots of shitty interactive posters.

The Devil On 45

I have a nice two page spread in the latest issue of the great zine "Devil on 45". It's a collage of mostly gig pictures across the centre two pages, my first centrefold!!

From the zine myspace:

"'The Devil On 45' is an independently published zine focussing on the weirder side of music, from censorship, the music culture and folklore. From the controversial to the downright outsider, and everything in between. This is a zine for those who truly live for music!"

http://www.myspace.com/thedevilon45

Also the cover art by Boz is amazing (and huge):

Weed, Grand Canal, Dublin

This is a series of some fresh water weed growing in the Grand Canal, one of the more pleasant things growing in there. Spent a good while getting the right balance between the intense green of the weed and the surface ripples, definitely makes the pictures for me.

Earthless Vinyl

I'm pretty proud of this. Gruel album with my photo inside is out now too, will post a picture when I get my copy.

Earthless myspace

Gruel myspace

Black Sister//Rockfest IV

Just a few pictures of Black Sister to get this thing back on track. Black Sister are a Hungarian/Scottish trash band with a bit of crossover thrown in for good measure.

Check 'em out at Black Sister myspace







This was also our fourth gig put on under the Rockfest moniker. Here's the poster done by Karen.



Rockfest myspace

Stream

Another one while I'm here albeit with a bit of colour this time. This one was taken back in April, 2007 in my dad's back garden. Yeah he has a stream running through it. This was the first time I'd ever used a tripod which was essential seeing as it's a 3.2 second exposure.

The Poison Glen, Donegal

To very different views of the same area. The first is looking across at the Poison Glen from most of the way up Mt Errigal and the other is of a small stream on the side of Mt Errigal. There's a lot of great stories of how the Poison Glen was so named but in I'm told it's just another dodgy Anglicisation of an Irish place name and has nothing to do with the area being poisoned. Still it's a stunning area that should be visited if you get the chance.


(This looks way more impressive viewed larger.)

Bull Island, Dublin

Seeing as I'm not up to much at the moment I thought I'd stick up another post even if the photos do happen to be from last summer. They were taken around Bull Island just North of Dublin City.







They were all shot with the 50mm 1.8 lens and treated in photoshop using the alien skin plug in which I swear by for black and white stuff. For full details you can click on the picture and check the more properties feature on flickr.

Sexman III

This was taken when these guys were known as Sexman 4. The guys play some sorta deranged punky acoustic stuff. I reckon Decky is one of the best front men around and the other two are legends in their own right as well. As usual you can hear their stuff on myspace.

"Batter your leaders" is the highlight for me.

Ended and Bacchus

Some pics of two great bands in the world of Irish hardcore. Ended are fairly straight up hardcore while Bacchus are more in the epic crust vein. You can check out their myspaces: Bacchus ; Ended.

First time taking gig pictures with my 17-35mm lens, really happy with it so far.

Ended.




Bacchus.

Captain A - New Year's Tide

Here's the the first of what I hear is gonna be monthly instalments from the multi-talented Captain A (aka Eoghan and various collaborators). In his own words: "Captain A is topical electro-psychedelic folk music carved out of the expansive boglands and beaches of donegal, on the north-left coast of Ireland."

As well as Captain A, he also runs the Angel Electric studios in Letterkenny(where Zafaranchos did our recordings) and plays bass in Aurel and the Evangelists. A busy man. You can download the albums for free from the myspace.




Lyrics:

ice cream and dew and the fresh air and views
the pastel palisades and the buckets and the spades
the footsteps on the crumbling peer and tiny storns of sand
and the postcard sent without a word

no one lives in these coastal towns
but the ghosts of you and me
who've come to wet their feet
to walk out in the new years tide
the violent northern brew
to cleanse them of their silent summer blues

Chords:

verse: F

chorus: Bb / C / F / Dm / Bb / C / F


There's also a bunch of collaborations between us two in the works, but more about that some other time.

Lights

I'm determined to be a bit less sporadic with the posts so here's a random 13 second exposure of a country road at night.

Beach Bleakness in Donegal

Here's a few pictures I took when we went for a walk on the beach in the last few days of 2008. This area (Fanad) is one of my favourite places in the world. In either winter or summer it's amazingly beautiful. We even get some quality surf on this beach, although you mightn't think it from these pictures. Cheers.