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The High Llamas in Whelan’s, Dublin

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Venue:

Whelan’s, Dublin

Date: 15/02/2025

In short, it was exactly what you’d expect. I texted my wife halfway through to say it made a Josh Rouse gig seem like punk. He’s been the benchmark for low energy, easy listening live music for 20 years or so now. In contrast to Josh Rouse, this seemed totally appropriate – what else would the High Llamas sound like live? They played complex quiet music very competently with polite minimal interaction with the appreciative audience. Odd chords and no sharp edges. Very musical but not much you’d be humming on your way out. The band had sheet music (or cues) in front of them for every song and the keyboard player worked wonders with multiple sound changes within songs. The recreation of their recorded sound was well achieved. Sean O’Hagan’s vocals were fragile but what else would they be? His daughter Lily provided vocal backing and occasional lead which was nice. If you had to picture what a female vocalist for the High Llamas would look like, she’d be what you’d imagine – junior librarian with brown cords that had me reminiscing about my last pair of flares. The only song the audience » Continue Reading.

National Poetry Day UK

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I see from my history that I missed out 2023 but started threads on UK National Poetry Day in 21 and 22 so I thought I’d resurrect the idea and ask, this time, for posters to share poems they find positive, uplifting or inspiring at a time when the world seems grim all round. I have three young children with barely a care in the world, shielded as they are so I can tune out on a daily basis. Instead of my default reposting of Thomas Hardy’s the Darkling Thrush which fits the bill, I’ve gone with this Roger McGough poem that I’ll run past my kids tomorrow.

I met Roger once in a Ladbroke Grove pub and he seemed genuinely delighted to meet someone who’d read one of his books voluntarily outside an official reading or similar event. He discussed some of his poems that I remembered and was happy to show me stuff he was working on. I talked to him about John Hegley and the eccentric Irish poet Pat Ingoldsby and was pleased to see he appeared alongside Hegley a few days later and has regularly featured Pat Ingoldsby on his radio show. He seemed like » Continue Reading.

HMHB Lyric Challenge

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I recall way back on this (or the other) site a very entertaining thread where Afterworders were asked to compose an additional verse to the Waterboys’ song “…and a Bang on the Ear”, ideally in the autobiographical spirit of the original. I propose a similar challenge but using the Half Man Half Biscuit song “Restless Legs”, as the template.

I have a five year old boy who recently seems unable to keep his legs still for more than a minute. As a result I’ve been sharing the song with my children a lot recently. On my commute to work this morning, I found my brain hard at work composing an additional verse that I’ll share in the comments. I thought it might be a fun challenge on here. Over to you contestants…

Vince Power RIP

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Obituary

I’ve just read of the sad death of Vince Power, a man to whom I owe a lot for the vast amount of musical experiences I had in my rock’n’roll years in London (87 to 00) since you ask.

For anyone who doesn’t immediately recognise the name, he was the founder and driving force behind the Mean Fiddler Empire that dominated the London music scene in those years. From the Mean Fiddler itself he expanded his range of venues to the Jazz Cafe, the Forum, the Clapham Grand, Subterranea, the Powerhaus and others that escape my recollection right now. He also founded the very enjoyable*rish flavoured Festival in the heart of London. As my friend Brian just put it “we owe him for so many unforgettable nights that we can’t remember. I’ll leave it at that for now and raise a glass to him. The indie, country, jazz and other scenes in London have a lot to thank him for. I have another angle on those days that I promise to share on here soon but I don’t want to divert from any tributes you might like to pay to the man. RIP.

Poetry Please

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It’s just about coming up to Last Orders on National Poetry Day in the UK. I’m not sure we have one here in the Land of Saints and Scholars (Ireland to save you a Google). Anyway, your challenge should you choose to accept it is to post a poem or excerpt from a poem that you particularly like or that means something to you. The only rule I would like to apply is that you choose a poem that you came to know outside formal education. Fire away…

Poetry Letsbehavingyou!

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Apparently it is National Poetry Day in the UK (not here in Ireland) so, rather than a Favourite Poems thread or artists putting well known poems to music. I thought it might be more Afterword to share examples of your favourite musical artists’ original poetic efforts; good, bad, pretentious, atrocious etc. Here is one of my favourite artists Jonathan Richman with some knowingly bad verse…

#AddTheWordsDueToThePandemicToASongTitle

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Courtesy of Britpop Legend/Landfiller (depending on your opinion) and entertaining Twitter poster Adam Devlin guitarist with the Bluetones, I thought the creative minds of the Afterword might find this a bit of craic of a weekend evening…

“Here’s a fun game you can all play at home. Simply add the words ‘due to the pandemic’ to a song title.

e.g. The Only Living Boy in New York, due to the pandemic.

#AddTheWordsDueToThePandemicToASongTitle”

https://twitter.com/ad_I_am/status/1286638653003960320?s=20

Music Question for the Afterword Hivemind.

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A friend of mine is currently tormented at being unable to identify a song that’s lodged in his head but not to the extent that it has given him enough clues to figure out what it is. I’d normally be able to assist but despite initial confidence it’s eluding me too so his problem shared is now a problem doubled.

It’s a spoken word, low-fi, very indie low key tale of a male and female who, having written to one another for years, decide to meet up with one another, possibly at the seaside. Sparks fail to spark. I’m quite confident that it’s Scottish. My initial thoughts were that it must be Arab Strap or The Beta Band. If it is, I haven’t been able to find it yet on Spotify.

Over to y’all! If you get back to me quickly enough, my friend might sleep tonight.

The Strypes are no more.

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Bamber on Irish rockers the Strypes have called it a day.

Sad news today that the Strypes, the very young Irish answer to Dr. Feelgood are packing it in. A band out of sync with the times perhaps but absolutely phenomenal live. I’ve long reckoned that guitarist Josh McClorey has the makings of a proper guitar hero. Now we’ll find out. Here’s their first appearance on Irish TV.

2000AD at 40!

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Demographic wise, I can’t be the only one here who spent a large slab of their youth preoccupied with the adventures of Judge Dredd, Johnny Alpha, Sam Slade and the numerous other stars of the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic. Please share your most Scrotnig memories with the rest of the Squaxx dek Thargo on this here site…

I was always as big a fan of the artwork as the stories and in my teens would challenge anyone to open a page at random from my collection and name the artist. I always saw Strontium Dog as a stronger story than the higher profile Judge Dredd; Journey to Hell being a highpoint ( and inspiration to Madness). My all time favourite story was the Zenith series, only recently made easily available, mostly for Steve Yeowell’s artwork.

http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/judge-dredd-how-2000ad-predicted-the-future

World Poetry Day…(apparently) Keep it Brief!

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Apparently it’s World Poetry Day. Here’s one of my favourite short poems…

Here we are all, by day; by night we’re hurl’d By dreams, each one into a several world.

Robert Herrick

I could’ve posted the entire text of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”, and had you reading for the next hour but instead lets share bite-sized gems of poetic brevity.

When They Lost It and Why They Lost It…

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Inspired by the recent Sparkle in the Rain thread, I thought I’d start a thread in which people can vent on the subject of when bands they liked completely and irretrievably lost “it”. For example you may feel Fisherman’s Blues was when the Waterboys crossed the line or, like my brother, the Cure smiling in the Lovecats video was the final straw. When Roddy met Knopfler is another watershed.

Over the years I have given more thought to exactly when Simple Minds lost it than any other band. They’re not my favourite band by any stretch and for years, like a poster on the other thread, I thought it was as simple as getting rid of the genius-of-bass Derek Forbes. I felt this was compounded by the pursuit of the American market through the awful likes of Don’t You Forget About Me and allowing producers/writers to influence their vision (Keith Forsey, I think…) Key to this was the inclusion of actual piano sounds as opposed to the wonderfully abstract keyboard sounds of their previous albums…

Anyway, having dwelt on this matter too long and too often, I have come up with the notion that it was on the track » Continue Reading.

Emerald Gems of Ireland…

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In anticipation of this Friday’s BBC4 one hour documentary on Irish Rock Music, I would like you all to use this thread to highlight to your fellow Afterworders those Irish acts that may not have any prominent profile outside Ireland. I have attached (hopefully successfully) a link to a Spotify playlist I put together sometime last year with the intention of linking it on the old site just to spark a discussion about these lesser known Irish acts…Then we had “the Emergency”. Hozier’s profile has clearly risen somewhat since then. Feel free to add to the Spotify list, if you can or to post stuff on this thread…