Author Archives: Lisa McInerney

About Lisa McInerney

That cranky young wan from award-winning blog, Arse End Of Ireland, Lisa’s also noted for her dedication to cobbling together unrelated imprecations to make new and bemusing insults, mostly because she’s not eloquent enough to otherwise explain her deep-seated terror of genre fiction and Fianna Fail. In 2006, The Irish Times called her “… the most talented writer at work in Ireland today”, and her mam still can’t understand why this is better than being the new Marian Keyes. Which it totally is. Alright? Website Twitter: @SwearyLady Facebook.com/sweary Last FM: LeislVonTrapp

Album Review: Lana Del Rey - Born To Die

  By Lisa McInerney | February 2, 2012 - 12:00 pm | Featured Post, Music
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I genuinely wanted to like Born To Die. I knew I’d never love it, because the charm of Video Games, Lana Del Rey’s breakthrough hit, was largely lost on me, but I hoped with Born To Die there would be enough substance underneath the style for me to connect with. There wasn’t. Still, I thought I should be measured about the whole thing, that I shouldn’t indulge my disappointment and instead write a professional, thoughtful album review. I don’t want to take the side of those depressingly predictable Lana haters, after all. On the other hand, one really should be honest with one’s album reviews; it’s an obligation I can’t in good faith run away from. So to honour my place as a sensible critic and placate my sense of critical honour, I’m going to give you two reviews of 2012’s most anticipated album. The first is basically my Lana-notes, … There’s more →

New Video: White Rabbits - Heavy Metal

  By Lisa McInerney | February 1, 2012 - 3:00 pm | Music
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We told you last week that White Rabbits were giving away new single Heavy Metal as a teaser for Milk Famous, the album due this March. Now here’s the video for Heavy Metal, which is creepy and stylish (and also styley and creepish) and complements that durty, durty funk beautifully. Take a look. This is exactly what we imagined Santa Claus got up to in the Lapland summer. The creepy, stylish bastard. Heavy Metal is still available as a free download from the White Rabbits website. Did we already say “Durty”?

New Movie Trailer: God Bless America

  By Lisa McInerney | January 31, 2012 - 9:00 am | Movies & TV
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Spotted today over with our friends at Pajiba (at least, we wish they were our friends), this is incredibly NSFW, because it’s very inspirational. God Bless America is a blacker-than-black comedy directed by Bobcat Goldthwait and expected this summer. Take a look at the trailer and tell me that it’s not a fairytale for simmering semi-psychos, like… well, like me. Possibly you too. Possibly anyone who’s gotten sucked into YouTube comments or broken their Sky remote just before Tallafornia came on. Remember to turn the autoplay feature off if you’re not ready for a trailerload. See what we did there? Bated breath, fellow haters. Bated breath.

New (Free) Music: The Dying Seconds - All In The Dark

  By Lisa McInerney | January 27, 2012 - 12:00 pm | Music
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Dedicated readers (hi, Nana!) will remember that The Dying Seconds‘ Glimmerers was one of our Albums Of 2011. You’ve probably bought it already, seeing as Culch’s opinion is a weight around your neck from which not even an iron spine can save you, but just in case, Glimmerers is available digitally - on iTunes - from today. To celebrate the melodious witchcraft of the Information Age, the Seconds are making album closer, All In The Dark, available for free download from today from their website. Jolly generous of ‘em. G’wan, grab a taster and roll it round your earholes.

Album Review: Delorentos - Little Sparks

  By Lisa McInerney | January 26, 2012 - 11:59 am | Featured Post, Music
1 Comment

Any dismissal I’ve heard of Delorentos’ charm seems to centre on the undeniable fact that they’re easy to listen to. They’re not challenging. You don’t have to wince through an album twice to “get” them. They don’t grow on you. They are immediately accessible, stirring from the get-go, and joyfully addictive. Anyone who believes this makes them a lesser band, or that they need to somehow atone for their user-friendliness, is a sneering numpty who needs to be clattered with an anvil. That said, there’s no doubt that new album Little Sparks is greater than the sum of everything that came before it. It’s an expansion of Delos’ sound, reintroducing them as an almost hyper-real version of themselves. Their trademark hooks are even punchier, their melodies sweeter, their danceability more likely to imperil the soles of your shoes. Album opener Did We Ever Really Try? is classic Delos deliciousness, hookier … There’s more →

Sweary’s Jaw: Lana Del Meh

  By Lisa McInerney | January 25, 2012 - 12:00 pm | Celebs, Music, Sweary's Jaw, The Culch
6 Comments

A couple of months back, we were all very excited about Lana Del Rey. Oh, buzzin’ at the chops, we were. A doe-eyed meta-ingénue with big hair and cartoon lips, calling herself a “gangster Nancy Sinatra” and droning like an orgasmic swarm, she was hipster-fodder of the most wonderful composition. And then there was Video Games, her gorgeously retro launch song, which was accompanied by a video that looked home-made and augmented her ethereal growls so beautifully, the entire effect was nigh-on creepy. Lana Del Rey was perfect. But, like everything that the cool kids enjoy, she had to be torn down and picked apart by the cooler kids. What they discovered was that Lana Del Rey’s real name… wasn’t Lana Del Rey. That, far from being a bedroom dreamer who spliced together her own music videos from footage she kept on projector rotation, she was… a professional artist. With … There’s more →

COMPETITION CLOSED: Well Luke What We Have Here. It’s Invasion Dublin!

  By Lisa McInerney | January 19, 2012 - 3:00 pm | Competitions, Events, Movies & TV
22 Comments

Everyone knows that the best convention ever was the one at the end of Galaxy Quest, but as that was kind of a one-off, and also entirely fictional, your best bet for geeky frolics and detailed debates about protocol for computer systems that haven’t been invented yet is to get yourself along to Invasion Dublin. Yup, Ireland’s Star Wars convention returns to Citywest from the 4th to the 6th of May. May the FOURTH be with you, in fact. Ha. Ha-ha. Invasion Dublin promises to be stuffed to Jar-Jar’s gills of the entertaining, the educational, the bizarre and the nostalgic. This year there’s a pleasing and very healthy emphasis on the science in science fiction, with talks and demonstrations on space travel and robotics. Fans will have the opportunity to check out beautifully detailed replicas, including – eek! – the Emperor’s throne room from the Death Star, the Mos Eisley … There’s more →

New Music: Santigold’s “Big Mouth”

  By Lisa McInerney | January 18, 2012 - 5:00 pm | Music
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I do like a bitta Santigold of an unseasonably sweaty winter’s evening. This is crankin’, spankin’ new song Big Mouth. Now that you’ve finished excitedly bopping your nearest neighbour and/or humping the leg of the couch, you can download Big Mouth - for free! - at Santigold.com. Just give the lovely lady your email address and consent to be periodically mailed at. Totally worth it.

New Video: Fanfarlo’s “Shiny Things”.

  By Lisa McInerney | January 11, 2012 - 2:30 pm | Music
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I still maintain that Fanfarlo’s “I’m A Pilot” is the most sublime free download on LastFM (you can nab it for yourself here), so my expectations were higher than my Junior Cert art teacher* for the indie-pop darlings’ new song, “Shiny Things“. Expectations, consider yourselves well met. Here’s the perplexingly daft video for Shiny Things. You wouldn’t see this kind of carry-on on Got To Dance. Ashley Banjo is many things, but a crafter of gymnastic golems is not one of them (we think). Shiny Things is from Fanfarlo’s second album, Rooms Filled With Light, which is due at the end of February. *Might be hyperbole, might be a lie. Might be that I never even took art.

New (Free!) Music: White Rabbits’ “Heavy Metal”

  By Lisa McInerney | January 10, 2012 - 4:36 pm | Music
1 Comment

This was a seriously pleasant surprise. Not the quality of the track - New York/Missouri band White Rabbits have been treating us to quality tuneage since 2007′s superb Fort Nightly - but how goddamn sexy this is. Heavy Metal is a slice of dirty, dusky funk-rock where one might expect the Rabbits’ customary punk-polka, and I like it very, very much. With new album Milk Famous due this March, Heavy Metal is available now as a free teaser for fans and a hook for new initiates. You should love it. Download it in exchange for your email address here.

New Music: The Manhattan Syndrome

  By Lisa McInerney | January 4, 2012 - 3:30 pm | Music, Music Videos
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It’s January, and we’re all hungover, broke and enormous, so we need inspiration. Here’s something very nice for the time of year that’s in it. The Manhattan Syndrome is a Dublin indie band specialising in the kind of swelling melody and gorgeous sentiment that would have even the most dead-eyed malcontent composing epic music videos in their heads where everyone is better-looking and is totally in love despite themselves. A little of The National, a little Stornoway, a little of the guilty pleasure in the best 80s power ballads, The Manhattan Syndrome was made for stadium singalongs. It’s not often you hear such a massive sound from an Irish indie band. Yes, I think you’re going to like this. This is Cold Company, from their debut EP “And We Left It Behind”. Side effects include: punching the air, weeping attractively, marching purposefully to win back the love of your life … There’s more →

Review: ‘Yeah, Yeah’ - Dylan Moran

  By Lisa McInerney | December 19, 2011 - 9:00 am | Comedy, The Culch
2 Comments

There was a point, about halfway through Dylan Moran’s latest stand-up DVD ‘Yeah, Yeah’, where it suddenly came to me in glorious Technicolour that it’s impossible to find a comedian funny unless you’re entirely on his side. I don’t mean that people can’t be won over by a stand-up they had previously dismissed; the funny bone is not the most consistent of props, after all. Admittedly, you’d be unlikely to ever find me laughing at Lee Evans, Michael McIntyre or Ronni Ancona, but it wasn’t long before the previously perplexing Mitchell and Webb got a giggle out of me, and Sean Lock’s hilarious turn on Ideal has earned him a free pass, at least for the time being. No, in this instance I’m hypothesising that you have to be able to see where the comedian’s coming from before you can laugh with him. There has to be, at the very … There’s more →

Fecquin Hilarious

  By Lisa McInerney | December 16, 2011 - 4:00 pm | Comedy, Music, Random Whimsy, The Culch, The Internet
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If you’ve logged onto the internet at all in the last couple of months, you’ll probably have heard me bleating on, and on, and on about my recent move back home to rural South County Galway, a place with rocks where fields should be and reality where Killinaskully should be. Since I got settled back in Connacht, I’ve struggled with how best to explain this reclaimed lifestyle to my urbane urbanites back in my adopted city of Cork. Should I send them photos of cows in flagrante delicto? Elderly priests falling off their bicycles? Perhaps videos of boy racers speeding their Massey Fergusons up and down the community school car park? For a while, it was as perplexing a quandary as our disappearing lakes. And then Garry Carroll sorted it for me, just as he had sorted Fade Street and Coldplay. I should never have doubted him. Garry Carroll, also … There’s more →