Off the Record - Girly Man O’ the Gridiron

It's a typical Sunday in a typical living room on a typical winter day. The dinner plates are being cleared and it’s not a moment too soon for the men around the table.

Their eyes dart nervously between the wall clock and the black expanse of my big television screen.
With a nod from one of the wives, they rush to the living room and fumble with the remote in time for the big football game to begin.

There I sit at the kitchen table, too manly to lift a finger in the direction of womenfolk and the dirty dishes, yet not feeling a testosterone rush from the cheers and jeers in the next room.
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And so it goes for pretty much every Sunday of my life.

I never had an interest in sports. I’ve watched a total of an hour of ESPN in my life, and even then, it was one of those gauzy documentaries about an injured athlete overcoming odds that moved me to tears. Heck, it might as well have aired on the Oxygen Network.

My lack of interest in sports has produced countless hours of uncomfortable pauses in conversation between myself and male co-workers over the years.

I never get asked to join March Madness contests or football pools. I usually check my Blackberry or engage in some activity that has me look downward as the men around me swivel their necks from one screen to another when I find myself out for an after work drink at some sports bar.

Anyone who has ever worked in corporate America knows that the first 10 minutes of a Monday morning conference call are usually devoted to gridiron concerns.

After a while, it gets tedious and I find that I can stop the conversation in its tracks by saying something like, “Uh, can someone tell me why the Green Bay Packers have yellow tights? I mean, they are GREEN Bay! HULLOOOOH!!”

Just calling a part of the uniform “tights,” like it was a ballet or something, infuriates most diehard sports fans, and the verbal assault on my manhood ensues. Deflecting a shortcoming with humor got me this far in life, so why should I stop now?

On Sunday, emotions run high around the television among the men in my family as the New England Patriots squeak by the Baltimore Ravens and advance to the Super Bowl.

While all this was going on, I was curled up on the far side of our horseshoe-shaped sectional with my nose deep in The New York Times. I guess you could forgive me if I read the sports section to my redeem myself, but I found Maureen Dowd’s literary crucifixion of Newt Gingrich’s campaign and the bitchy advice doled out by Phillip Galanes in the “Social Q” column infinitely more interesting.

Now, in my defense, I don’t watch much television of any kind. While most men assume quarterback position in their recliners and guzzle beer for hours at a time, I spend my Sundays writing books and columns.

Except, of course, if there’s a one day sale at Macy’s. Then I am the only straight guy at the mall on Super Bowl Sunday.

Then again, who can be sure of that? I know I am a red blooded male deeply attracted to my luscious wife and the curves on a woman.

Still, if a blaze consumed my home and they pried the DVR from my charred and dead hand, the fire marshal would use it as evidence that the owner of the house was a flaming queen who probably got tangled up in an equally flammable throw blanket.

Sure, I could blame my wife and daughters with filling up the DVR memory banks to capacity with Color Splash, House Hunters, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Toddlers and Tiaras, Hungry Girl, Say Yes to the Dress, RuPaul’s Drag Race, and My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, but I’m a willing party who plops down on the couch whenever it is suggested we have a “TV night” as a family, and it was me who bookmarked Lisa Vanderpump’s website on my browser.

I’m sure some lack of interest on my part comes from my less-than-stellar athletic career in school. I was a big boy all my life, which means I completely rocked the defensive end on a soccer field while my wiry brother ran up and down the field for goals.

I was a decent enough soccer player locally, but my skills proved no match for the talent in the regional Catholic boys high school that I attended. After one too many cuts from teams, I resigned myself to a life of being picked last at gym class and lost all flavor for organized sports.

But hey, if you want to take me out to the ball game, I’m down with that! Buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks! I don’t care if I ever come back!

Just don’t ask me to regurgitate stats on the pitcher. He’s the one on the big mound in the middle of the field, right?

A blizzard of joy for Snow Patrol, new album 'Fallen Empires' - VIDEOS

Snow Patrol

Snow Patrol's new album, Fallen Empires, arrives with a serious reputation attached, and I said “ho hum” when an advanced copy made its way into the mailbox.

This Irish/Scottish five piece used to be my little secret, a cool cache of a band to prove that this aging hipster still knows what’s hip.

But then they had to go and sell 11 million albums, have a monster hit with “Chasing Cars,” and then spend the rest of the last decade rewriting the same tepid ballad that sold all those millions for them.

Imagine how surprised I was when I discovered how many surprises were inside of Fallen Empires!

The album begins with “I’ll Never Let Go,” an industrial electro-landscape with a caustic guitar riff that doesn’t sound very radio-friendly -- and that’s a good thing!

The five piece -- singer Gary Lightbody, guitarist Nathan Connolly, bassist Paul Wilson, drummer Jonny Quinn and keyboardist Tom Simpson -- began a musical road trip around California. They recorded tracks at Eagles Watch, a house in Santa Monica with widescreen windows and panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean. Long-term collaborator Garret “Jacknife” Lee brought that sunny vibe into the mix.

“This is your life/this is your time,” sings Lightbody, sounding as thrilled as a guy like this can be.
According to a press release, the band was inspired by the Left Coast and a little competition.

"We wanted to make a massively ambitious record," says Lightbody. "Arcade Fire's last record The Suburbs made us realize that we had to up our game. It was amazing. We decided that we wanted to make a record unlike any other we've made before.”
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They succeed mightily. The disc is awash in distorted studio trickery that includes electro guitar riffs, club-friendly Eurotrash drum beats and, of course, the kind of anthemic choruses that inspire people to wave the lit screens of their smartphones above their heads in a stadium setting.

If LCD Soundsystem swung from The Joshua Tree, it might sound something like Fallen Empires.

"We started writing songs that were more playful, even rawer than before -- we were brave enough to do what we wanted as a band, rather than what convention dictated to us. It was tough at times, we were out of our comfort zone for most of it, but I think it's given us a great album,” says Lightbody.

“The cool wet grasses/the summer passes/frightened under attack/fallen flat on my back/arms and legs I’m too scared to bed,” Lightbody sings in the sinister, New Order-like title track.

It’s another whiplash twist in an album full of them. You can just hear it pulsing through the speakers of a nightclub or in an action sequence in the next Tom Cruise thriller.

Lightbody tells the press that band decided to release their "inner dance monkey" during recording sessions.

"’I'll Never Let Go’ is a proper night out track," he says. "It's full blown electro. There's always been a dance element to our music, but this time we've been a bit bolder with it.

“I'm looking forward to hearing some of these songs in a club because it'll get people going. I always see people walking off the dance floor when they play our records -- we're not that kind of band. ‘I’ll Never Let Go’ might change that."

Tracks like “The Symphony” and the tentative piano ballad “New York” will probably make it on the radio -- the other 13 brilliant tracks exist for the little underground hipsters who missed them so much!

Here, give 'I'll Never Let Go' off Snow Patrol's newest album 'Fallen Empires' a listen!:



An oldie but a goodie here's Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars":

Saw Doctors on call in the US - VIDEOS

The Saw Doctors will be making their biggest house call to America this spring! 
The lads from Tuam have just announced four shows in California in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Sacramento, as well as an extra date in Florida in St. Petersburg, as part of the their 28 date tour of the U.S. and Canada in February and March.

Their Northeast stops include Pittsburgh on March 5, Providence on the 6th, Worcester on the 8th, Boston on the 9th, New York’s Irving Plaza on March 10, and Philadelphia TLA on March 13.  On St. Patrick's Day, bet on the black that they will play the Music Box at the Borgata in Atlantic City.
In other band news, their young drummer Eimhin passes the sticks to an even younger drummer, Rickie O’Neill.

“Rickie is 21 and an incredibly talented drummer, and Eimhin has worked with him over the last few months in order to make the switchover as smooth as possible -- and it couldn’t have been any smoother,” reports guitarist Leo Moran.

“Rickie, being a national record-holder in the butterfly, will know how important it is to have smooth switchovers in relay races, and the smoothness of his and Eimhin would definitely put any team in the running for a record performance.

“Rickie already has a Glasgow Barrowland and a Manchester Apollo under his belt, among other shows from the end of the winter tour around Britain and Ireland, and he and the rest of us are seriously looking forward to the two upcoming shows in the Olympia in Dublin and then on to the six-week adventure around the U.S. (and a bit of Canada). It’ll be a pleasure to be introducing the Claremorris Man to the cities, venues and fans across North America, on this, our most ambitious trip in a long time.”


An interesting side note -- Rickie wasn’t born the year the band’s first album, If This Is Rock and Roll I Want My Old Job Back, was born!

Another interesting side note -- Davy Carlton is going to be a granddad in 2012!

No matter what age they are, the band continues to get better with each year. Just recently, they scored an international hit with a duet of the Petula Clark hit “Downtown” with Ms. Clark herself!

Keep it right here for more Saw Doctors news as the tour approaches. Check out www.sawdoctors.com for the rest of the tour dates.

The Saw Doctors and Petula Clark doing 'Downtown':



And here, a Sawdoctor's classic 'N17':

Warming up with Ashley Davis - VIDEO

Ashley Davis

A real Celtic Woman! 
Just as the arctic winds blow through Manhattan this week, Celtic chanteuse Ashley Davis serves up a chilled collection of songs called Songs of the Celtic Winter.

For this collection, Davis partners with Welsh musician Gawain Matthews (who co-produced with Davis) and Irish harpist Cormac De Barra (from Moya Brennan’s touring and recording bands), and Joanie Madden of Cherish the Ladies to create a winter wonderland for your ears.

The gentle harp melody that gently wafts through songs like “Faucht” and “Wild Mountainside” conjure up images of heavy snow licking the bare tree branches as Davis weaves her poetry about making tracks in the white powder. It’s an intoxicating blast of ethereal Celtic mysticism evoking vivid imagery of the natural world and our ever-shifting place.

To be sure, Davis tips a heavy, snow-covered hat in the direction of Moya Brennan and Clannad. But her music hop-scotches across all the Celtic nations as well, with “Faucht” borrowing from a traditional Breton melody, the New Year’s Day ditty “Auld Lang Syne” hailing from Scotland, and the words from “Banquet” lent to the singer from Turlough O’Carolan.

Davis’s otherworldly musical aesthetic and sparkling personality allow her to claim these influences as her own, making Songs of the Celtic Winter a heartwarming dose of Irish storytelling by the hearth fire on a cold night.

Davis has been touring the Midwest this month before her big gig at Joe’s Pub in Manhattan on February 23. I caught up with her right before a gig over the weekend about the new disc and how this is not a Christmas album. Here’s how it went:

What does a Celtic winter mean to you? It certainly conjures up many images.

Winter is the time of the year when nature takes her rest and we have our shortest days. I tried to bring this sense of quiet with the anticipation of rebirth on the horizon to this album.

Certainly in many of the Celtic regions there were areas that were quite isolated once winter set in and the nights grew longer. This is when the stories and songs of the Celtic culture became a necessity to pass these dark times. Many long nights were spent around the fire with the promise of spring around the corner.

I tried to capture the feeling of these nights on this album. I chose darker keys, wintry lyrics and lulling melodies to paint the landscape of these winter nights times long ago.

What makes this different from a Christmas album?

It was important to me to find and write songs that were only about winter and purely secular. There are so many Christmas albums out there, and so I wanted to create an album that would be accessible to all backgrounds and last throughout  not only the holidays but through the winter season. An album you can buy in January or February to serve as the soundtrack to these days of winter. 

Love the choice to end with "Auld Lang Syne.” What went into the choice and what does the song mean to you?

This was a late addition to the album and felt like a natural choice once I had a clearer picture of what the album as a whole was going to sound like. It is one of the few songs that everyone from any background can gather around to reflect upon the year past and wish one another good tidings into the New Year.

I put it as the last track on this album as a bookend, a period if you will, to the 10 tracks before it that have hopefully taken you to quiet nights long ago.

Loved Joanie's playing. What was she like to work with and what are your memories of recording with her?

Joanie has been so good to me since I came into the trad scene in New York City a decade ago, and I will never forget that. Her playing is so incredible it's hard to not want her on everything once you have had the good fortune of having her play on an album.

She played on two tracks on my last album Down By the Sea, and so when I wrote the piece "Fare Thee Well" for this new album and needed a low whistle, she was the obvious choice and so graciously agreed to put down a part during her one night home between being on the road!

Cormac did such great work on the last Moya record Voices and Harps and does great work here.

What did he bring to your creative process?

I had many artist epiphanies on this album, and one of them certainly was my general overall sound and what components make up that sound. And certainly Cormac's playing is a large part of that equation adding up properly.

Cormac is truly my right hand man. If I could have him with me for every gig I would because he is simply the best out there and our styles really compliment one another.

This album is the first time that I actually worked with a purely harp piece ("Banquet,” a/k/a "Missus McDermott") and loved doing so and would like to do more of that in albums to come. I am delighted that he will be at Joe's Pub with me to help launch the CD!

For more information on Ashley Davis, visit www.daisyrings.com.

Here, watch Ashley Davis perform 'This I Do':

Off the Record - Great but pricey U2’s Achtung Baby 20th anniversary box set

Box set for U2's 'Achtung Baby!' 20th anniversary (RollingStone.com)

Santa was particularly good to one of my good friends, and he got some U2 under his tree in the form of the Achtung Baby 20th anniversary super deluxe box set.

This edition contains six CDs, including the original Achtung Baby album, the follow-up album, Zooropa, B-sides and re-workings of previously unheard material recorded during the Achtung Baby sessions and four DVDs, including From the Sky Down, Zoo TV, all the videos from Achtung Baby plus bonus material, in addition to a 92-page hardback book and 16 art prints in a wallet.

Some snarky music industry friend of mine nicknamed this the box set that only Bono could afford and at many hundreds of dollars, it seems that only the diehard collector should shell out this kind of money. If you’ve picked up the singles and B-sides along the way as I have, you probably own most of this anyway.

There are 57 songs and 4.8 hours of music, most of it consisting of unnecessary remixes. It’s always nice to get shiny remixed versions of tunes and the digital makeover on these murky originals add a nice kick of aural spice! I love how the box set bridges Achtung Baby with Zooropa, a lesser-known album born from the same sessions.

Out of the four bonus discs, the only remarkable one is the one marked Baby.  It contains demo versions and scratched lyrical ideas that offer interesting deviations for the fan that knows every space of these songs like the liturgy of the Mass.

“Ready to slip/ready to slide/ready to accept what I once denied,” is an example of one lyrical gem from “Zoo Station” that hit the cutting room floor at the time but makes it into the Baby version.

You can hear Bono playing with the words to match the melodies as he goes along, making a delightful insight of the band’s creative process.

“So Cruel” contains a previously unheard Johnny Cash-like spoken vocal -- it’s cruel that this didn’t make it on the final album!

Some folks have no doubt loaded these goodies into their iPod, which explains why used versions of the collection are popping up online. That might be your best bet to access these goodies without paying an arm and a leg. Proceed with caution, baby!

This is your brain on Shamrocks - what makes us Irish?

A road sign in Gort, Co. Galway

I was ambling through Co. Clare en route to Athenry after landing at Shannon Airport not long ago, and smiled at the sight of the familiar “Welcome to Gort” sign that announces your entry into Galway.

“That place is gone to us,” said the driver. “It’s just full of foreigners taking our jobs away from us.”

Indeed, some 40% of the residents of Gort are non-Irish, according to the 2006 census, a massive majority of these being Brazilians. These people originally came to work in the meat processing plants in Gort where the pay is generally much higher than in similar plants in Brazil.

I could smell a strong whiff of xenophobia in the pubs throughout my last short stay in Ireland. There was a loud cry of foul over how immigrants from Poland and Algeria either took jobs from the Irish, or sucked on the Celtic Tiger boom years like vampire bats that drained their blood and then flew away when the cat got sick.

There was a high resentment of these outsiders intermingling with “the natives” was how it was delicately put -- as if Ireland has its own thing going and we don’t appreciate outsiders messing it up.

Really?

Does anything belong to Ireland anymore? It begs the question -- what makes something Irish in 2012?

It could be debated that the land on the island itself is no longer theirs.

The self-inflicted banking crisis forced Ireland to swallow its pride and accept loans and bailout money from their neighbors to stay afloat. It’s debatable as to who actually owns Ireland now.

The Chinese? Germany? France?

It makes you want to take to the pub and have a good drink, but you won’t find anything Irish in there to whet your whistle.

Bushmills and Guinness are both owned by the Diageo corporation, whose offices reside in downtown London. The lifeblood of Irish culture is owned by the Brits!

Irish breakfast tea, or “tay” as they call it in the auld sod, is actually a blend of Assam tea leaves from the carmelia sinensis plant that lines the Brahmaputra River in India!

Not even the Celtic Tiger was born in Ireland! American companies like Baxter, Microsoft, Boston Scientific and IBM have been fueling the job growth in Ireland for many decades, ever since Ireland aggressively marketed the highly educated nature of its natives and cut corporate tax rates.

The influx of American companies makes the big cat that made Ireland roar more “Tony the Tiger” than Celtic Tiger.

Much of the stuff you buy in an Irish shop nowadays is made in China, especially the tschotkes that were sold at the Cliffs of Moher gift shop.

Even my most Irish memories have gone up in smoke, so to speak. I remember hearing stories about my father’s hardscrabble life growing up, in which he described cutting turf in the bog as a means to provide fuel and heat for the house.

Europe and the Irish government recently introducing laws planning to prevent families (domestic turf cutters) who have been cutting turf for fuel for hundreds of years from doing so.

This seems ridiculous to have a natural resource lay idle and force the Irish to find costly fuel alternatives, and downright criminal when one considers how it tears at our very Irishness! 

I host an annual holiday open house for the family each New Year’s Day, and I was struck by how many nationalities have infiltrated our Irish brood.

My girls are half-Jewish and so is my godson and his sister. During December, we all hosted Christmas dinners and Chanukah menorah lighting get-togethers in the same week.

My brother married an Italian/Polish woman. My cousin’s twin boys are half Jamaican and do a credible Michael Jackson moonwalk.

I grew up in a Catholic enclave in Jersey City in which Irish, Italians and Polish were the nationalities of choice. I didn’t meet a Jewish person until seventh grade.

Genetics and technology guarantee that my family’s next generation will have a broader view of the world than I had growing up at the expense of some Irishness, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

Even though there were plenty of races and creeds huddled around the piano singing as my daughter played “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” during our open house, the chorus of voices was evidence enough that the tradition of tight Irish family ties was stronger than ever before.

(Check out Mike Farragher’s essays on www.thisisyourbrainonshamrocks.com)

Off the Record - Sinead O’Connor is still making great music - VIDEO

Sinead O'Connor (Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images)

Sinead O’Connor has made headlines in recent years for her crazy blogs and flameout marriages. It was good to hear that she got back to what she does best -- sing her hear out!

According to Hot Press magazine, Ireland’s most famous female singer ran through darkly atmospheric versions of classics like “Stretched,” “The Emperor’s New Clothes” and “Troy,” interspersed with three or four new songs from her upcoming album, How About I Be Me (And You Be You) which is due February 20. 

“I was always crazy,” Sinead sings in one of the new ones. “I had a baby/ When he asks about you/ I don’t know what to tell him/ I wish I wasn’t so crazy.”

She not only lays herself bare to the audience but also introduces Roisin, her beautiful daughter, who sings angelic backing vocals.

Hopefully, we’ll see Roisin with her mom when she plays the Highline Ballroom in Manhattan on February 23 and 24! 

It must have thrilled the crowd to no end to have Gavin Friday join her onstage for a song. The two look delightfully goth with their heads shaved dressed in leather in the online pictures that are out there.

You can check out Sinead’s new single, the title track from the new album, on YouTube (that is, until someone sues the site and takes it down). 

“I wanna make love like a real full woman every day/don’t talk me starting of/I got to find what I’m dreaming of/always have to be the lioness/always taking care of everyone else/a woman likes me needs a man to be stronger than herself,” she sings on the reggae-fied title track “How About I Be Me.”

Sinead also broke the news on her website that she may tell her side of the story with a book.

“Have asked a writer i think is f***ing amazing called Olaf Tyaransen to write my first official biography,” she writes.

“Since so many other f***ers have done them and got everything arse-ways. Book isn't going to be about personal stuff like boyfriends or husbands and such... maybe touch on growing up but only glimpses… it’s to be a rock n roll story is all.”

I have had the pleasure of interviewing Sinead a few times and the conversation is always wild, entertaining and revealing.  Tyaransen is in for the ride of his life!

Looking forward to reading less about the antics and hearing more of that lioness voice of hers in 2012 because as the new single proves, nothing compares 2 Sinead!

Here, listen to Sinead O'Connor's 'How About I Be Me':