Monthly Archives: April 2012

Mad Men Episode Reviews: A Little Kiss (5; 1)

  By willok | April 30, 2012 - 2:00 pm | Movies & TV, TV
Comments Off

Mad Men returned to our shores (albeit courtesy of an imported UK channel) this week and I now find myself with a week in between to mull the complexities of the episodes. In the spirit of embracing US TV terminology, the season premiere took a moment to catch on; I felt uneasy reacquainting myself with the characters, worrying for a minute that in Season 4 the sheen might slip. I was always catching-up, courtesy of box sets and had inhaled the episodes at pace and re-watched with anyone willing to road test the series. There were never any suggestions that quality had faded - what if now that I was to watch and discover along with the rest of the baiting TV audience and find the stories were stretched, the characters exhausted. The pace seemed off in early scenes - period details are being observed, civil rights are on queue to … There’s more →

Sea Sessions 2012 Non-music, Fun bits!

  By seanear1ey | April 26, 2012 - 1:07 pm | Festivals, The Culch
Comments Off

So, we’ve been looking up the treats on offer ahead of our summer trip to Bundoran, and if you thought Sea Sessions was purely the choons and the sandy sambos you were dead wrong! The festival also incorporates surf and sports events to boot and will host the UK and Ireland’s only Association of Surfing Professionals European specialty event. The more we hear about it, the more we can’t wait to get to Donegal this June to experience the likes of this stuff. Take a look, because a lot of requires advance booking. The Barefoot Wine Expression Session: 29th June–1st July Taking place during the festival weekend the ‘Barefoot Wine Expression Session with Billabong’ has €3000 worth of prizes including an 11 day sumatrian ‘Surf-cruise’ worth €2200 for best Irish Surfer. The main event will feature an event of Europe’s Top Waveriders! The event will be captured on video and posted … There’s more →

Livesets

  By seanear1ey | April 23, 2012 - 2:33 pm | The Culch
Comments Off

Sometimes Culch/the Format collaborator Gerard Walsh has been working away on a side project for some time that he calls ‘Livesets’. The premise is simple he solicits local bands and song writers looking for a video to be made of them performing acoustically outdoors around Dublin - Temple Bar, Grand Canal etc. Busking to you, the viewer. The result is roughly three minute, single shot performances. Filmed in HD the post-production is gorgeous with subtle colouring and focus blur. I like them. Then again I may be biased because I happen to think Mr Walsh is pretty insanely talented. I’ll let you decide. So far there have been a total of eight Livesets videos from five different musicians / musical groups and Gerard is always on the hunt for more. See below for my top 3 fave. The Youtube channel is http://www.youtube.com/user/LIVESETSWMM/videos with a combined total of hits for all … There’s more →

Event: Dr. Sketchy’s Dublin and Molly Crabapple

  By Kitty Catastrophe | April 20, 2012 - 1:44 pm | Events, The Arts
Comments Off

Molly Crabapple is an award-winning New York artist, author and all round kickass lady whose Victoriana-steampunk-Rococo work has appeared in places like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Marvel comics. Forever finding ways to fund and create personally fulfilling art projects, in September of last year she locked herself into a hotel room for a week, covered the walls in paper and filled every available square foot with her gorgeous, intricate brand of art. The project was called Molly Crabapple’s Week In Hell, it was funded by myriad backers on Kickstarter, and has since been turned into a book. Not one to stay idle for long, right now she’s in the middle of Shell Game, another Kickstarter-funded project, this time an art show inspired by Occupy Wall Street and the assorted global economic disasters, which will result in nine huge paintings that will deal with themes such … There’s more →

Game Review: FIFA Street

  By Anto | April 14, 2012 - 1:08 pm | Games, The Culch
Comments Off

If there’s one sport franchise that was well overdue a reboot, it was FIFA Street. The original game, released in 2005, and it’s subsequent titles weren’t really taken seriously and they were quite cartoonish. The past five years has seen a major shift in football games with the rise of FIFA as the dominant, accurate simulation (for my money anyway). The advances they’ve made in terms of player models, game engine, variety and depth are really something to be admired and they’ve brought that passion to the reboot of Street. The focus here is all about individual ball skills, trick dribbling, faking out opponents and building up fluid momentum while moving the ball up pitch. The controls are similar to the main FIFA franchise and the left-stick, for example, is used for flicking the ball around to produce heel-chops, feints and step-overs. Some practice and rotating it in set patterns … There’s more →

Festival: Spirit of Folk launch 2012

  By Anto | April 12, 2012 - 9:50 pm | Events, Festivals, Gigs, Music, The Culch
Comments Off

Myself and Peter popped along to the Spirit of Folk festival launch last week in Whelans. We were treated to a brilliants night of entertainment with TRAZ, Bunoscionn, The Young Folk and The Hot Sprockets. We had a chat to Martin & Natasha Duffy who are behind the festival on what they have in store for 2012: listen to ‘The @spirit_of_folk 2012 Launch #sof12’ on Audioboo Tickets are on sale now with day tickets for €35 and a weekend one for €65/family €120. You can find them at spiritoffolk.com, on Facebook here and Twitter at: @spirit_of_folk

The Format: Sea Sessions Launch 2012

  By seanear1ey | April 10, 2012 - 2:38 pm | Events, Festivals, Music, The Culch, Tourism
Comments Off

We recently headed down to the Workman’s Club for the launch of this year’s Sea Sessions Surf & Music festival. The Bundoran beach fest takes place from June 29th to July 1st and this year features one of its best line-up’s to date. Complete with must-see recommendations from the likes of Phantom’s Derek Byrne, Goldenplec‘s Aidan Cuffe and the Indo’s Aidan Coughlan, here’s our festival preview.