Death of a Nano*

A tad annoyed with myself today. After many weeks of not hitting the Dublin scene, I went out last night with a mission. Met Kevin and caught up and danced and drank and the like. (Saw the ex too after several months - we locked eyes for a few miliseconds which seemed like longer and then proceeded to ignore each other again. Normal service has been resumed ha ha! Felt absolutely nothing though, no nostalgia, regret, anger, anything. It’s like another lifetime that I can hardly remember). I digress…

Left The Dragon and went to the White Horse Inn which was hosting a birthday party of a very attractive young Macedonian acquaintance of Kev’s. Lots of people we knew turned up, but at the end when I went to find my jacket - it had GONE!!!! My lovely blue jacket with the yellow stripes on the cuffs that I spend hours looking for in London last summer. And in it was my iPod Nano which Andrew had given me as a gift last year - with a special message engraved on it. And my Etymotics earphones! About £400 worth of stuff! Aaargh!

I’ve left my details with the bar in case someone took it accidentally and take it back, but I don’t hold out much hope. Damn and blast! Curses! Fie! Etc etc…

*Model shown not actual model. I had no f**king Santana on my Nano.

Downtempo Dance: The 7am Drop

Here’s the latest one.

And it’s a bit of a departure from the usual ‘hands-in-the-air’ diva-vocal predict-a-future-hit stuff. I thought I’d get a bit serious and compile a mix that would be suitable for after the club. So get ready for spacey instrumentals, spooky twinklings and curious urps and bleeps.

We start off with hip ‘n’ doomy producer du jour, Trentemøller, who is having a Moan for himself. That is interrupted by Jesse Rose’s very odd and glitchy repetitiveness, then some euphoric disco sampling before a wave of understated tech-house. That’s followed by some very lovely and brooding stuff from Trentwhat’shisface again before some ethnic noodling and slinky funk stuff from King Britt. The all conquering uber-anthem Discopolis takes us to bed.

Give it a go and tell me what you think.

Tracklist:

1. Moan (Vocal Version Feat. Anne Trolle) * Trentemøller
2. You’re All Over My Head * Jesse Rose
3. I Feel Music in Your Heart (Lifelike & Kris Menace Remix) * Kris Menace Presents Stars on 33
4. Late Night Worries (King Unique No Worries Dub) * John Dahlback feat. Andy P
5. Lucky Heather (Original) * Nic Fanciulli
6. The 7am Drop (Original) * Andy Cato
7. An Evening With Bobi Bros (Original) * Trentemøller & DJ Tom
8. Les Djinns (Trentemøller Mix) * Djuma Soundsystem
9. If I Lost You (Scuba Mix) * King Britt vs. Michelle Shaprow
10. Discopolis (Original) * Lifelike & Kris Menace

Download The 7am Drop (Remastered mp3 68 mins, 66MB) [mediafire link]

If you like any of the individual tracks, go buy ‘em at DJDownload.com or other kewl sites.

Dorian Gray

So one arrived back from Hong Kong to be greeted with some rather wonderful news! A portrait of me is now hanging in a terribly reputable gallery in Dublin.

Some weeks ago, my friend Garvan asked me to be a model for one of a series of photographs he was undertaking. The series was of men looking at something that the viewer cannot see.

“No problem. I’m good at looking at things”, I said.

And then I learned that I would be partially clad. Something about the ’subject’ ‘male gaze’ and other high brow things. It’s art, darling.

“Oh, why not”, I decided.

So one Sunday evening Garvan brought his not inconsiderable photographic equipment and I stripped off in the kitchen. The neighbours were quite curious as to what was going on. The flash was in the back garden, and boy was it bright. Later we saw two girls in an upstairs window straining to see what the hell was going on with all the flashing and a semi-naked guy in a kitchen. Anyway, he took several shots - different poses and different combinations of clothing (or lack of it). He gave me a polaroid as a souvenir. And here it is.

Anyway, he was quite happy with the end result and he submitted it and two others for consideration in the Royal Hibernian Academy’s annual exhibition, a very prestigious affair in the Irish art sphere. Being very talented, of course, not just one of his entries was accepted, but two. An accomplishment to be very proud of, I think you’ll agree.

I’m just amazed at his skill. My kitchen is a dump and he makes even it look good. Incidentally, I’m mid way through Will Self’s Dorian, which is a scary update of Wilde’s The Portrait of Dorian Gray. Maybe I better purchase this pic and put it in the attic and remain forever beautiful (”Em, it might be a tad late for that, love” - Blogosphere).

Congratulations Garvan!

Now, zip along to Garvan’s tasty gallery online. I’m not in there yet, but I’m sure he’s getting around to it (cough).

And here is my portrait of Garvan, taken over a year ago.

Bonkers about Honkers 香港

Bonkers about Honkers 香港, originally uploaded by Enda P.

Well, we’re back from Hong Kong.

I’m sure I could write tonnes about it, but best not bore you m’dears. Here’s the skinny.

1. It looks like something from the future (see above).
2. It’s the safest city I’ve ever been in.
3. It’s a gentle introduction to Asia for a Westerner.
4. They love to shop.
5. Public transport is dirt cheap and hyper-efficient.
6. Wine is ludicrously expensive.
7. It moves hella fast.
8. The gay scene is rather teeny-tiny.
9. It’s near Macau, which Portugal used to own and now is full of Las Vegas stye casinos.
10. I may have to spend a lot more time there if his nibs has to transfer there for a few months. (Poor me!)

Back soon…

One is being in Hong Kong for a week, so unless I get profoundly restless there, I’ll not be back in the blogosphere til the week after next.

I hope the Easter Bunny smears butter all over your hot cross buns!

xxxx

Do you know where I’m off to tomorrow?

I cannot wait.

Rufus! Town! Rip!

A very low-fi radio rip of a new Rufus Wainwright track, Going To A Town, which seems to be a pointed protest track, has appeared. It sounds like the forthcoming album won’t disappoint.

Sample lyric:

Tell me, do you really think you go to hell for having love,
Tell me, enough of thinking everything that you’ve done is good,
I really need to know, after soaking the body of Jesus Christ in blood,
I’m so tired of America

Update: Here is another track from the album. It’s called Between My Legs. Oo-er, missus….

Outbreak of common sense

EMI announced today that they will make their catalogue available in a higher bitrate and free of DRM from May.

The new ‘premium’ versions will be available first via iTunes and will be encoded as 256kbps AAC files. They’ll be a little more expensive than the standard files.

This is rather good news. I very rarely purchase tracks from iTunes as the bitrate is low (128kbps) and the DRM would prevent me from using the track in a mix or any other form of lossless editing. The fact that it’s so easy to find higher quality downloads from mp3blogs or elsewhere, and for free, makes a mockery of the tinny legal downloads. And when I *must* use an iPod to listen to AAC as opposed to the industry standard mp3, it’s even sillier to make a purchase from iTMS.

Sites such as djdownload have made near lossless (320kbps), DRM-free files available for a long time and I’ve given them quite a bit of business as a result.

The first stirrings that something like this would happen was when Apple head honcho, Steve Jobs, wrote a piece challenging the big labels to remove the demand for DRM. It looks like EMI at least were listening.

What next? iTMS should offer a choice of bitrates and formats. There might be some tracks that I don’t mind getting in ultra-compressed form but it would be great to be able to purchase, at a higher price ‘natch, a lossless version of a track that one wanted to burn to a CD or listen to on a superb music system.

Little by little, I guess.