Hello, world. I’m MacDara Conroy, and this is my blog.

Date: May 2017

Just started the Japanese lessons in Duolingo. Well I need something to distract myself from today's awful news #aside

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Roger Ailes is dead too? Chris Cornell can kick his racist, sexist ass down to Hell #aside

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Lost a bunch of work tabs ‘cause my internet went down in the middle of a Chrome update; they got overwritten with the modem address FFS #aside

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Same feeling in my gut when I read that D Boon was dead. Soundgarden were MY band, the thing that set everything rolling #aside

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Holy shit, Chris Cornell #aside

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Spooked a fledgling starling in the garden when I opened the front door this morning; hopefully its parents came back for it #aside

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Couple of muscle cars just zoomed past on the road from Monasterboice; one looked like a Dodge Charger, the other I'd know it to see #aside

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Traipsed all the way to Blanch for hiking shoes and they didn't have my size. Feck it, bought them online instead #aside

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Pretty sure Amazon translates ‘free shipping’ as ‘eh we just won’t bother picking your order for a couple of days’ #aside

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Wait, the BOSJ starts tomorrow?! #aside

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This Greedy Pig on the gentrification of the Italian-Irish chipper

I’ve seen a couple of these ‘Chipmonger’ places and I can understand, at least on an intellectual level, the need to compete in an increasingly hipster marketplace, minimalist and fashionably distressed and all that. But even at that, they look fairly bland and soulless; at a glance, could be a barber shop as much as a chipper. Give me a Macari’s or a Romayo’s (or a Milano’s, for our current go-to local) any day. #link

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Some days you just get the urge to listen to Huevos by the Meat Puppets and today is one of those days #aside

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Jay Rayner’s Observer review of Le Cinq, Paris

Bad restaurant reviews are the best restaurant reviews, and Jay Rayner brings us a doozy here. I normally think of Rayner as an insufferable dick, the smug dandy from MasterChef and that, but I can warm to comments like this: “I have spent sums like this on restaurant experiences before, and have not begrudged it. We each of us build our best memories in different ways, and some of mine involve expensive restaurants. But they have to be good. This one will also leave me with memories. They are bleak and troubling. If I work hard, one day, with luck, I may be able to forget.” #link

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Someone please tell me there’s a supercut of movie gunmen shooting at people from the Sixth Street Viaduct #aside

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My Letterboxd reviews of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3-6, A Walk in the Woods, and Akira

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors:

The third entry in the Freddy franchise trades the inventive gore and straight-up weirdness of the original, and the sexuality allegory of the unfairly maligned second effort, for a more fantastic scenario that nevertheless has its queasy moments (the ‘string puppet’ scene near the start, especially). It’s not as well paced as you might remember it (Freddy’s barely in it; I doubt Robert Englund had to wear the makeup for more than a week) and pretty much runs out of steam in the final act, where it’s more a showcase for the technical skills of the special effects artists than a story worth following. Indeed, I forgot about the Harryhausen tribute at the end; I burst out laughing, but not in a bad way.

More…

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Just startled awake by my alarm to watch the UFC show at 3 in the bloody morning so it better be worth it #aside

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Towards a Poetics of Audio: The Importance of Criticism

The academic tone meant I really only skimmed this (lo, the spectre of TL;DR!) but I thought it still worth a link: as the format matures with the freedom accorded by the availability of the necessary technology (for production and distribution alike) we’ll need deeper critical studies of some kind to grow along with it. [c/o 5it] #link

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Just remembered the Carlingford Lough ferry starts sailing next month. A day out on the bike to Kilkeel, maybe? #aside

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Dame: Why Is Male Anger So Threatening?

Read the whole thing. Patriarchy, toxic masculinity, etc is so fucking damaging, and men who can’t see that simply haven’t been looking hard enough in that particular closet. I guess for me, the door’s always been slightly ajar, not conforming as I do to the usual ‘man’ stereotypes (I don’t drink beer, I don’t like football, etc). But I still raise my voice and yell when I’m frustrated by situations, and I do not like that about myself. #link

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#NowPlaying NASA Space Universe - 70 AD #aside

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Wanted to go see Miss Sloane this weekend (after missing two early screenings) but it's not showing in Dundalk #aside

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#NowPlaying GOLD - Optimist #aside

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Ebook exporting from pre-CS5.5 InDesign is a bit shit #aside

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You know the saying about liberals getting more conservative as they get older? Yeah, I’m not feeling that #aside

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It’s a measure of my week that I’m considering 8am a late start today #aside

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When in doubt, listen to the Minutemen #aside

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The sun might’ve gone away but I’m still lighting the coals to grill some meat this evening (with A+ bulgur wheat salad, too) #aside

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Confession time: even after all these years, I’ve never knowingly heard The National #aside

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Is it a coincidence that our broadband started dropping regularly when the sun came out? #aside

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Sometimes I sit and wonder how Deerhoof got over with the Marlay Park crowd when they supported Radiohead that one time #aside

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Was just thinking, this is a nice evening to maybe see a bat in the garden; looked out the kitchen door, feckin’ bat flies right past #aside

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Blade Runner second trailer thoughts: they’ve adjusted the white balance and added more shadow and grime compared to the first one #aside

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So the people that own Ring of Honor are right-wing shitbags? Not really surprised #aside

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Weeknotes #818-820

Not a whole lot to report from the last few weeks:

  • My reviews of Lady Macbeth and Mindhorn went online. I’ll have one for The Red Turtle later in this month. I won’t have one for Alien: Covenant this week, since I appear to have slipped off the Fox press list. My press screenings calendar is clear for the time being.
  • I still have a lot of music promos to listen to. Also, I went to my first gig in forever the weekend after Easter, but I didn’t write about it.
  • I blogged this list of SST artists still going today. For no particular reason other than that I was curious about it.
  • I left my bicycle in the shop for a long-delayed service at the end of April. Turns out I’d buckled the hub of my rear wheel what with all the potholes Irish Water have left around town since last October, so a whole new wheel was in order. Once I got it back I took advantage of the good weather to ride out to the Cooley Peninsula. But my second trip, yesterday in fact, ended abruptly when I ran over a nail on the cycle path. Result: one exploded inner tube and one shredded rear tyre. So my bike is currently back in the shop. Sigh.

More current updates via my Twitter account, as always.

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Not the best start to today, but at least the braai was good. Might do another tomorrow, though if we do burgers it won't really be a braai #aside

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Rats, got a puncture on the Newry Road cycle path. That's Irish Water and their shitty road works for you #aside

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Ah, what a perfect day for a braai #aside

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Are we the only people who weren't at Iron Maiden tonight? #aside

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Some evil misogynist scum just dropped a ‘pro-life’ booklet through our letterbox #aside

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Bass lesson #3: with a bit of practice, I think I could play ‘Bubble’ by the Red House Painters pretty well #aside

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How many SST artists are still going today?

SST Records sign at the label's final LA location in Long Beach

A few days ago on Twitter, I wondered out loud how many artists from the classic era of SST Records (from 1980 to 1997, though some would cut it off at 1989 or earlier) are still going today. By still going, I meant still active as a performing and recording entity, whether as an ensemble or solo artist, that released records under the same name (or as essentially the same entity) on SST.

For all the relatively big-name acts who did their time on the label, there are few intact in 2017, and pretty much all of them took a break at some point between recording for SST and now. Indeed, if Sonic Youth hadn’t broken up a few years ago, they would have been the only career band still actively recording and touring straight through from their SST days.

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