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  • The London Ear on RTÉ 2XM // Show 165

    The London Ear on RTÉ 2XM // Show 165

    The London Ear RTE 2XM nessymon

    The London Ear on RTÉ 2XM // Show 165

    Greetings from London! It feels like Autumn is kicking in, there’s a cooler breeze in the air and it was dark last night at 8pm.. I miss the extra 28 minutes light you get in Ireland.

    Silly season is just about over, we’ll be back with lots of chat on The London Ear soon, but for now, here’s an hour of absolute tunes for you.

    The London Ear on RTÉ 2XM // Show 165 // September 9 2017

    Here’s what went down on Show 165:

    1. No Audio Dialogue:All To Find
    2. Swimmers Jackson: Life’s Short (Embrace it)
    3. LCD Soundsystem: tonite
    4. The War on Drugs: Pain
    5. Wolf Alice: Beautifully Unconventional
    6. Beck: Dear Life
    7. Queens of the Stone Age: The Way You Used To Do
    8. The Killers: Run For Cover
    9. Ivy Nations: Sentimental Hearts
    10. St Vincent: New York
    11. Everything Everything: Desire
    12. Superfood: Unstoppable
    13. Arcade Fire: Creature Comforts
    14. Session Motts: Plundered Past
    15. Thirty Seconds to Mars: Walk on Water
    16. Gareth Maher: Every Little Step

    Listen On Demand to The London Ear

    Thanks for listening, The London Ear broadcast on DAB radio, Saorview and outside Ireland you can listen online.You can listen to the show again on the RTE player. The show is broadcast every Saturday at 1300.

    Don’t forget to check out the RTE 2XM website. You can keep up with me here.

    Check out The London Ear on Facebook and Twitter

    Listen to the music on Spotify

    You can keep up to date with all the music I play on The London Ear in one handy Spotify playlist. Every track I’ve played in 2017 and that is available on Spotify is in there. You can find it right here.

    Listen to The London Ear on Mixcloud

    You can keep up to date with me here.

  • You Never Stop Coming Out as LGBTQ. Ever.

    You Never Stop Coming Out as LGBTQ. Ever.

    Coming Out Again and Again…

    Something happened last week. Within the space of a couple of hours, I had to explain to a work colleague who Talulah was. Then, a while later on Messenger, an old friend asked if I was in a relationship with a girl.

    I had to come out, again, twice. It occurred to me, once you come out once as LGBTQ, you never stop. You have you keep coming out for the rest of your days.

    I hear you say that I’m exaggerating. I don’t think I am exaggerating. Once you get over the initial telling people you’re LGBTQ, your family, friends, work colleagues, you start getting used to telling people. But, there’s still always that little nervousness. In my case, especially at work.

    I’m not the kind of person who goes round shouting it from the roof tops. To be honest, it’s none of anyone’s business. I’m not a fan of labelled anything. If you’re straight and don’t tell people about your significant other, you’re private. If you’re LGBTQ, you’re in the closet.

    First up, we’re in the pub after work and one guy asks if I would like another drink. I say no thanks, I’ve just texted Talulah and I’m on the way home. He enquires who Talulah is. When I say my girlfriend, he’s slightly taken aback. He goes on to mention that I don’t mention her in the office. I’m not hiding, it’s just my colleague wasn’t at last year’s Christmas party and it’s not an issue so no one felt the need to tell my colleague.

    Smalltown Girl

    Later that night, I get home to a message from an old friend. Someone I haven’t seen in years. We never fell out, just life got in the way and we drifted different directions. On a Friday night with a few drinks in, they mention how life turns out different to what we thought it would. Then there’s a casual ‘I take it you’re in a relationship with a girl, maybe I’m wrong’.

    This was something I had kinda been dreading for years, I have my life now and I’m out and proud of who I am. But there’s still previous lifetime stuff, people you were you friends with then, what would then think, would they care? Ireland was a very different place in the 1990s.  I tell her about Talulah. We’re together, seventeen years. The reaction was one ‘Did you know when we were friends that you liked girls? You should have said. I hope you are very happy. We should meet up sometime.’

    There it was. The reaction a small town girl wanted and didn’t know she’d get in the early nineties. I got it now, twenty five years later. Sometimes, you lose track of people, you lose touch. You make new friends who don’t know the previous lifetime you. They know you now. They didn’t know the struggles to get to be who you are now. 

    At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what these people think of you, it’s you that needs to be happy with you. But when the past catches with the present and the two exist happily together. That’s always a good feeling.

    You can listen to an interview I did on Talk Radio about coming out here

  • Playlist // Requiem for the Red Cow Roundabout

    Playlist // Requiem for the Red Cow Roundabout

    Requiem for the Red Cow Roundabout - nessymon

    I was in Ireland last week. Myself and Talulah got a coach from Dublin airport to Dundrum, extremely convenient for us and they go every 30 minutes. We got on a coach at the airport and before we had even moved, we were asked to change to another vehicle.

    A little while later we set off southbound from the airport, down the M50. First stop was the Red Cow Roundabout which seeing as we were the only ones on the coach, should have been a standard pick up and onward scenario. But, no siree. That did not happen.

    We were asked to change to yet another There was a problem with a door, the driver could not open the door. It required a bit of a kick and a good hard shoulder to give us freedom.

    Now, we had been delighted to get a slightly earlier coach than anticipated but messing around with a door and a driver refusing to budge and waiting on a mechanic that never arrived, meant that we had ended up waiting at the Red Cow for longer than we expected. Long enough to get the coach 30 minutes later to bring us to our destination.

    This is longer than I ever expected in my lifetime to spend at the Red Cow. Literally. You go through it or perhaps wait a maximum of ten minutes for a Luas (Dublin tram) but that’s it.

    So here we are, a requiem to that fine day, wishing I had a car and spending way too long at The Red Cow roundabout.

    Playlist // Requiem for the Red Cow Roundabout

    Vroom Vroom Beep Beep!

    1. Magic Roundabout TV Theme
    2. Sugababes: Round Round
    3. Talking Heads: Road to Nowhere
    4. Gary Numan: Cars
    5. Cyndi Lauper: I Drove All Night
    6. Ariel Pink: Round and Round
    7. Rose Royce: Car Wash
    8. Oh Wonder: Drive
    9. Supergrass: Road To Rouen
    10. Tom Cochrane: Life is a Highway
    11. Incubus: Drive
    12. Tracy Chapman: Fast Car
    13. Simon and Garfunkel: Baby Driver
    14. Gold Panda: In my Car
    15. The Wonder Stuff: The Size of a Cow
    16. Yes: Roundabout
    17. The Beatles: Drive My Car
    18. Dead or Alive: You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)
    19. XTC: English Roundabout
    20. Enigma: The Roundabout
    21. Neil Young and Crazy Horse: Round and Round (It Won’t Be Long)
    22. Arcade Fire: Keep The Care Running
    23. Van Morrison: Who Drove the Red Sports Car?
    24. R.E.M.: Drive
    25. Prefab Sprout: Cars and Girls
    26. Ryley Walker: The Roundabout
    27. Lenny Kravitz: Are You Gonna Go My Way
    28. Stereophonics: Traffic
    29. The Who: Magic Bus
    30. Jimi Hendrix: Crosstown Traffic
    31. Sing Street: Drive It Like You Stole It
    32. Kraftwerk: Autobahn
    33. Kanye West, GLC, Paul Wall: Drive Slow
    34. Miley Cyrus: Drive
    35. The Band: The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
    36. George Michael: Cars and Trains
    37. Inspiral Carpets: Theme from Cow
    38. Fatback Band: Are You Ready (Do The Bus stop) / Suga
    39. Rihanna: Shut Up and Drive
    40. Duke Dumont: Ocean Drive
    41. Scooter: Behind the Cow
    42. Elton John: Circle of Life
    43. Andrew Holdsworth: The Wheels on the bus

    So there you go, fasten your seat belts and you’re off!

    Listen on Spotify

    You can listen to Requiem to the Red Cow Roundabout below or, here’s a handy link for you.

  • Tune of the Week // St Vincent – New York

    Tune of the Week // St Vincent – New York

    St Vincent - Tune of the Week - nessymon

    Tune of the Week // St Vincent – New York

    The first time I heard ‘New York’, I was stopped in my tracks. Annie Clark, aka, St Vincent, possesses a remorseful fragility on this track. A lost love expressed through sparse musicality and carefully chosen words. I can feel the pain in her heart. Beautifully human, tragically painful.

    In years to come, this will be one of tracks I will automatically remember from 2017.

    Update // The track is taken from St Vincent’s new album ‘Masseducation’ which will be released on October 13 2017.

    Find out more on St. Vincent’s website, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

    Spotify Tune of the Week Playlist

    I’ve started putting Spotify playlists together, including a Tune of the Week playlist, which includes all the tracks I’ve chose as Tune of the Week here on nessymon.com. You can find the playlist here. Make sure you follow, it will be updated weekly.

    Watch the video for New York