Panadola Diction

The Muxtape has been changed. Here’s the new playlist:

1. Broken Social Scene - Lover’s Spit
2. Tapes ‘N Tapes - Hang Them All
3. Joy Zipper - Baby You Should Know
4. Pavement - In The Mouth A Desert
5. Siouxie and the Banshees - Israel
6. The Strokes - The Modern Age (Peel session)
7. The Young Knives - Stand And Deliver (XFM Session)
8. Radiohead - Bangers + Mash
9. Weezer - Pork And Beans
10. The Duke Spirit - The Step And The Walk
11. Operator Please - Leave It Alone

The title was inspired by a snippet of conversation last week on the way home from Broken Social Scene, where it was agreed that “He was milled by a car transporter” would be the coolest epitaph ever.

I’ve also realised that I didn’t list the songs from my first Muxtape, Jimasphixit, and now it’s gone for ever. So, for posterity, as far as I can remember it was something like:

• The Cure - Grinding Halt
• Black Lips - Katrina
• The Breeders - German Studies
• Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks - Cold Son
• Elbow - Grounds For Divorce
• Lykke Li - I’m Good I’m Gone
• Santogold - Lights Out
• My Bloody Valentine - Only Shallow
• Roisin Murphy - Dear Miami
• Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds- More News From Nowhere

About two years ago, I went to the bar in Dicey Riley’s Garden and asked for two pints of Smithwicks. I paid with a red note and waited for my change. “40 cent please,” said the bartender. “Ahahaha,” said I, and I vowed never to go there again.

In the interim period I have heard two stories about the place - one involved Colin Farrell, and the other involved a bare-chested man trying to pay a waiter for a round of drinks with cocaine in the toilets, as he’d run out of cash. I think they were unrelated incidents.

Last night, against my better judgement, I went there to meet some friends, to celebrate multiple birthdays. I arrived at 9:30 and was asked to fork out a fiver to enter. Sigh. As I walked in the door, Ireland equalised against Serbia. Woo. I bought a pint of Smithwicks - €5.50. Argh. I met my friends and they told me I was sunburnt, I told them no, it was merely a hat-mark.

Then began two hours of constant harassment from ‘Praetorian Security’ - laughable suited assholes with hi-vis vests telling everyone that they couldn’t stand wherever they were standing. You weren’t allowed stand anywhere in the beer garden - only constant movement was acceptable, apparently. And then there were the heaters, which were on full-blast despite it being a warm evening. And the overcrowding. And the half-hour bar queues. And the music (bad). And the clientèle (vapid). And the €6 lager ( I felt like a peasant drinking my cheap ale).

If I were the son of a property developer and had a bland stripy white shirt with a little designer logo on it, sunglasses on my head and a slack jaw, I would no doubt go to Dicey’s Coke-yard every week and be very successful at pulling sparkly hellpigs.

I can just about understand why someone who worked nearby might go there for a couple of ciders on a sunny Monday evening, but as a venue for a weekend night out, Dicey’s makes no sense to me at all.

I made excuses, left early, headed for the other end of the scale - Carnival (a half-empty, dingy, perfect gloom-hole, with good music and a poorly-stocked bar), and thought about calling in the air strike.

I’m a bit slow with the review I know, but I’ve been busy managing at the frontline. I bought tickets to BSS a yonk ago, and as I had not seen them before I was looking forward to it, despite the other blogs which suggested that Sunset Rubdown or No Age might have been a better allocation of Tuesday night funds. Meh.

And it was great. The publicised no-support-act, three hour set did not materialise. BSS member, Charles Spearin opened the show with the first public performance of his ‘Happiness Project’ - an interesting piece of linguisto-musical experimentation, whereby he recorded conversations with his neighbours and subsequently chopped them up to find interesting melodies in their speech, to later be played over live. It worked quite well, was short and amusing, and seemed to lighten the mood in the slowly filling Vicar St.

I think there were eight BSS members present in total last Tuesday, including Brendan Canning, Amy Millan, Justin Peroff, Evan Cranley, a couple more whose names I didn’t catch, and of course Kevin Drew. They played a great set with plenty of crowd-pleasers and lots of amusing anecdotes in between, including details of what they had for dinner, and musings on Men At Work. A more detailed review and the setlist can be found here on this nice blog I’ve not read before.

For the last hour of the gig I had the dubious pleasure of standing behind a flailing crazy lady. She seemed determined to injure, and her repeated combo attacks of elbow-arse-stamp left me leaning backwards holding my arm in front of my face for safety. She then called me a bastard and complained that my friends were mocking her (they were merely laughing at my predicament). I told her to fuck off in a light-hearted manner, she seemed harmless enough. A few minutes later, after a wrist-elbow combo to the face, she turned around and hugged and kissed me like I was a long-lost puppy. All very confusing. Her male friend/bag-holder tried to distance himself throughout, and looked relieved when she suddenly announced that she was going home.

Anyway, yes, good gig, impressed, disgustingly talented musicians, good crowd, free tickets in exchange for fake email addresses (a choice of Tapes ‘n Tapes, Joy Zipper, Stephen Malkmus, De La Soul, etc. (already had T’n'T and Malkmus, De La Soul disappeared pretty quickly, so took Joy Zipper), not a bad Tuesday night at all.