Tag Archives: music

Dolly Mixture

Dolly Mix 22.06.10 – Paddy Games, Tour de Picnic, eCSStender

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Just when you thought sillyness had left our shores for another summer, the Paddy Games comes along. It takes place on August 14th in Cork city and is open for registration.

The common man’s games, Paddy Games founding principle is taking silliness very seriously.

Events include Retro Running (i.e. Backwards running), Irish Dancing Hurdles and Mobile Phone throwing.

Fancy free entry to this year’s Electric Picnic in exchange with raising some cash for Temple Street Children’s Hospital? Check out the ‘Tour de Picnic‘ – essentially it’s a 90km charity cycle from Dublin to EP in Stradbally, Co. Laois. Raise €500 and you’re in. Info is available here.

The text shadow is becoming the glossy button effect of old in the web design world at the moment. More and more designers and developers are dabbling in the visual gems that CSS 3 affords despite the fact that CSS 2.1 spec has yet to be signed off. An article on A List Apart today highlights the dangers of ‘forking’ that this adoption of these proposes and offers the solution of a new JavaScript library called eCSStender.

I don’t know how I feel about this. While I agree that forking isn’t ideal I don’t think that loading pages with yet more JS libraries is the acceptable path to take either. What do you think? Will you be using eCSStender? Are you using CSS 2.1 and 3.0 properties yet?

Reviews

Beg, borrow or blag TIR by Cerys Matthews

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I’m literally just in the door from an evening of Celtic poetry and song with Cerys Matthews at the National Library on Kildare Street.

I wasn’t sure what to expect but after seeing and hearing Mike Scott & Co give the work of Yeats musical treatment earlier this year I had a hunch it could be pretty good. It was that. That and more.

Cerys was armed with a huge and long love of Yeats, Burns and Thomas and an amazing ability to deliver a ballad. I was hooked from the first few bars of her opening ballad. Her gorgeous delivery of Spancil Hill brought me back to my own childhood – in scary vivid fashion – to when I would play a set of traditional tunes for my grandmother (by request) on my keyboard. I think it was second or third song on my playlist and I can’t wait to get home to have a look for my little setlist and handwritten sheet music.

Anyway, back to the gig. Having the memory of a goldfish at times I sadly can’t recall names of songs of the setlist, most of all the beautiful Welsh hymn and traditional songs she treated us to in between affectionate readings of her favourite poems. The Welsh ballads brought me back to my home turf in Ballyvaughan, Co.Clare where an impromptu “Welsh weekend of music” has been taking place every Spring for years. I wonder could the travelling songlovers bring her with them in 2011?

Something magical happens when a singer takes up a song that means something to them. They don’t sing it from the throat, it comes from the centre of their being, almost like they expend part of their soul in the expression and delivery. It’s powerful feel, it’s powerful to hear and it was there in bucketloads tonight.

I could have listened to her for hours. Thanks Cerys.

Dolly Mixture

Dolly Mix 04.05.10 – HTML5, Absolut Gay Theatre, Solsbury Hill etc

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DrupalCamp takes place at the Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare on May 15th and 16th. See www.drupalwest.com/ for info.

The Absolut Gay Theatre Festival Dublin is on until May 16th. I saw an amazing production last night at The New Theatre called Whore Works which runs until the 8th. Check out the programme here.

Innocent Drinks Consumer Cam.

iPhone and Android app builder and CMS that integrates with YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter in one neat looking package – MobileRoadie.

Jeremy Keith’s HTML5 for Web Designers looks tasty.

Solsbury Hill gets the Scala treatment in Cork:

Events

Keeping track the Cork International Choral Festival 2010

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So I’m down in the fair city of Cork lapping up some wonderful, diverse choral performances from choirs that have travelled from as far afield as Singapore and Japan and loving it.

I enjoyed the festival so much last year I decided to get stuck in and volunteer this year. If you can’t make it down to catch any of the live music you might like to keep track of things including results of the various national and international competitions via these channels:

Here’s one of the most amazing performances I’ve seen so far – really looking forward to hearing them again later on this weekend. The University of Santo Tomas Singers from the Philippines:

Events

Choral festival here I come :)

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Tomorrow afternoon I’m hitting the road to Cork for the choral festival. Yes I’ve been harping on about it here for a while but I love my choral music in all shapes and sizes and my ears will be completely spoiled this weekend.

I’ll be down there until Monday morning and getting as much of the festival in as possible. Thankfully, I have access to a much better camera than last year and will hopefully get some video clips up over the next few days as the performances roll on .

Will I see you there?