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  • Interview with Peter Bjorn and John

    Peter Bjorn and JohnPeter, Bjorn and John release their sixth album ‘Gimme Some’ in March. The band’s drummer John Eriksson kindly took time out of his schedule to answer a few questions.

    Hello John. Thanks for answering some questions, first off how are you and where are you?

    John: Hi Nessy! It´s all good here in Stockholm, Sweden. We are rehearsing and learning how to play the new songs live. Have to say that some are easier than others.

    You have been playing as a band for 11 years now, how do you keep creativity fresh within the band? You all have been involved in outside projects, does this help?

    John: Defininely. Doing other projects and making music on our own and with other musicians makes Peter Bjorn And John evolve. If you skip thru our six albums I think you can hear a clear progression and I think that the way each album sounds is affected by the stuff the three of us did in between the albums. Apart from our separate “side-projects”, the input also of course comes from art, movies, books, people and other peoples music.

    Gimme Some is out on March 28. Per Sunding produced, did this make you more relaxed during recording as you didn’t have to produce yourselves or did you find yourselves under pressure to impress him? (more…)

  • A Visit to the National Gallery of Ireland

    Turner - Picture taken from NationalGallery.ie
    There are a lot of things those of us who live in Dublin tend to forget about, including our art galleries. An chilled afternoon off meant I had a few hours to pass so I popped down to the National Gallery.

    I remember seeing an exhibition of J.M.W Turner before including Snow Storm: Steamboat off a Harbour’s Mouth. Leaving Certificate Art (Irish A Levels) meant we knew a bit about Turner and his compatriot John Constable, so seeing that an exhibition called  ‘Colour and Light: caring for Turner’s watercolours’ was taking place was an instant attention grabber.

    It was an interesting collection in the darkened Print Room. What I really enjoyed seeing was the cabinet Henry Vaughan had specially made to house the watercolours. There was also lots of information on why the watercolours needed to be in a darkened room.

    Also at the back of the room were some fantastic little portraits in watercolours on ivory as well as mixed media. Really interesting.

    ‘Colour and Light: caring for Turner’s watercolours’ is open until January 31. (more…)

  • Meet Raindance: Get Free Script pdfs

    RaindanceI love film, I love how its made, how it’s shot. How the whole thing comes together fascinates me.  So when I’m on Twitter I like to follow people or organizations that I can learn a little from and those who will pass on links or articles that I enjoy reading.

    One of those is Raindance.  Started ‘by filmmakers for filmmakers’, they started courses and then the Raindance Festival in 1993.  The production company has made 3 features including The Living and The Dead which won 11 international awards.

    Over the weekend I was lucky enough to get chatting with Elliot from Raindance and he emailed me a pdf of the shooting script of Black Swan. On the Raindance website you can also see pdfs of scripts by the Coen Brothers.

    Raindance have a weekly newsletter which is well worth signing up to. For an office of nine people they do a huge amount of work.

    I got an email from Elliot this evening telling me about an update on the Raindance website.  They have agreed that for the price of a Tweet or Facebook status you can download all the pdf scripts for the films which were Nominated for a Golden Globe in the category of Best Screenplay.

    You can get scripts for the following:

    • 127 Hours
    • The Kids Are Alright
    • Inception
    • The King’s Speech
    • The Social Network

    Well worth a tweet!

  • Seán Kangataran: Album Review

    Sean Kangataran
    Los Angeles based Irishman Seán Kangataran released his debut album in late 2010.  It’s quite a find too.

    Seán’s music is acoustic indie. Throughout brass sections fill the album with something quite different. Vocally there’s something reminiscent of Duke Special about Seán, where he stands out on his own though is through the honesty and storytelling in his lyrics. This is especially seen on the sparsely produced ‘Not the Hurt that Hurts’.

    Top tracks for this writer are ‘Be the Dust’ and ‘Hairpins’. ‘Be the Dust’ is an uptempo track with a radio friendly chorus and a great drum track. ‘Hairpins’ blends vocal effects and acoustic guitar in its intro before builiding to an chorus that explodes with energy and sound.

    An acoustic album like this one isn’t anything new but Kangataran takes his lyrics and melodies and turns his ideas into well worked songs which beautifully address your emotions. This album gets better and better with every listen, perfect for a mellow chilled out evening. Well worth a listen.

    Check out Sean on Bandcamp and Facebook

    (more…)