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Last Post 4/11/2005 9:28 AM by  Pilchard
The Irish singer-songwriter virus is spreading
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Pilchard
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4/11/2005 9:28 AM
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0%2C%2C176-1558841%2C00.html
    Rev Jules
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    4/11/2005 9:46 AM
    Yeah, I read this. I think its a little too late. I have been in twice to Tower Records over the last couple of weeks, to check out the latest country releases, and both times there were in store sessions by young irish acts and neither of them were S/S. Instead they were groups of young rockers turning it up to eleven. The significant thing is that the audience was made up of teenage girls. I guess they got sick of hearing themselves be bitched about by a bunch of ultra sensitive jerks, who don't wash, cant grow a proper beard and just hang around organic cafes. Who really runs the record business ? A teenage girl with 25 euros in her jeans pocket. The tousle haired troubadours are dead, long live the long haired rockers. Oh, and Motley Crue are back on the road again. Now, if only Suzi Quatro would come out of retirement, put away the shotgun, maybe hit the gym so she could slide into those leather pants one more time, I'd die a happy man. V sign here
    Pilchard
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    4/11/2005 9:55 AM
    i agree with the good Rev. I just think its very funny that the UK are now cottoning onto the accursed S-S thing. good riddance to it. there were (and are) some good uns but as u point out, the sheer ceaseless nature of these sensitive eejits was too much. be gone. dont come back. especially u paddy casey
    Wicker
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    4/11/2005 10:56 AM
    could someone cut'n'paste the article please.... don't want to register for the sake of 1 article. Thanks
    Norman Schwarzkopf
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    4/11/2005 10:58 AM
    Check out the Acoustic stage line-up in Glastonbury... www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk
    jmc105
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    4/11/2005 11:36 AM
    quote:
    Originally posted by Pilchard
    i agree with the good Rev. I just think its very funny that the UK are now cottoning onto the accursed S-S thing. good riddance to it. there were (and are) some good uns but as u point out, the sheer ceaseless nature of these sensitive eejits was too much. be gone. dont come back. especially u paddy casey
    wicker - i didn't have to register to read it... "A brilliant crop of young singer-songwriters is emerging from Ireland, says Mark Edwards..." an interesting article. it's worth noting that an outside and, presumably, unbiased perspective sees the current singer/songwriter scene in ireland as an abundance of talent in a particular genre, and not, as it is often labelled by some on this forum, a musical plague of biblical proportions. the writer also makes an effort to understand why this abundance of talent has flourished, tracing a line back to david gray and his diy approach to white ladder, pointing out that the geography of ireland is conducive to profitable touring, and suggesting that ireland is a more musical culture, where "everyone has a song in their hearts." why these conditions favour singer/songwriters over bands is unclear. whatever about the reasons why they have enjoyed so much success, i don't think, as pilchard seems to be suggesting, that paddy casey & friends will anytime soon be transplanting themselves to the uk en messe, never to return, so i think 'good riddance' is a little premature. as for 'rev' jules' colourful description of todays common or garden irish singer/songwriter (with the possible exceptions of damien dempsey and gemma hayes), i wonder if, like the homophobe who doth protest too much, he may be found of an occasional evening hiding in the closet, wearing a false straggly beard and a scruffy wooly jumper, sipping a cup of fair-trade organic decaffeinated tea and wistfully strumming the opening chords to the blower's daughter... probably not.
    Eoin
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    4/11/2005 12:45 PM
    all we need now for the Frames to go the way of Buddy Holly & The Big Bopper and we'll be laughing. Also it would be cool if they turned Whelans into a McDonalds. That would piss the feckers off no end !
    Mully
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    4/11/2005 12:59 PM
    quote:
    Originally posted by Eoin
    all we need now for the Frames to go the way of Buddy Holly & The Big Bopper and we'll be laughing. Also it would be cool if they turned Whelans into a McDonalds. That would piss the feckers off no end !
    Dunno, with Whelans gone, they'd probably still be there .... flipping burgers
    Eoin
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    4/11/2005 2:10 PM
    quote:
    Originally posted by Mully
    quote:
    Originally posted by Eoin
    all we need now for the Frames to go the way of Buddy Holly & The Big Bopper and we'll be laughing. Also it would be cool if they turned Whelans into a McDonalds. That would piss the feckers off no end !
    Dunno, with Whelans gone, they'd probably still be there .... flipping burgers
    true ! at least they'd have found something the'd be good at !
    Rev Jules
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    4/11/2005 5:31 PM
    I have two words for Mark Edwards or, in fact, anyone who agrees with his article. Chris Rea. Old Chris couldn't get a gig anywhere, the Irish took him up, the road to hell beckoned all the way back to the UK. Did he appreciate us for it in the end ? Did he F*ck.
    stroller
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    4/11/2005 5:54 PM
    God that John Hughes guy talks a lot of boll*cks. Check out this quote "Ireland is a great place to serve your apprenticeship. On the one hand, the audience will be open to you. We love music and we love words. But we’re also fabulously critical. We can be mercilessly honest to our own." If we're so mercilessly honest why wasn't Paddy Casey's last album savaged by the Irish music press for being a bland souless crock of sh*t? Instead Hot Press declared it to be one of their top 5 albums of the year. Fabulously critical my hole!
    Gar
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    4/11/2005 6:17 PM
    I'd slightly disagree about the singer/songwriter movement being dead or blossoming. I thought Mark Edwards' article was pretty pointless in a Sunday supplement which usually has good music writing. He didn't touch on any new terrority or even provide solid quotes, I thought it was a weak subject to tackle because he only really mentioned Damien Rice, David Kitt and Paddy Casey aswell as John Hughes' new pet project. There will always be an array of Irish singer/songwriters and getting rid of Whelan's isn't going to do anything to dent that. And Rev Jules, hasn't Chris Rea played on these shores almost every year since he broke big here? (just to throw it into the mix, his latest 'The Blue Jukebox' is superb).
    Rev Jules
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    4/11/2005 6:39 PM
    quote:
    Originally posted by Gar
    And Rev Jules, hasn't Chris Rea played on these shores almost every year since he broke big here? (just to throw it into the mix, his latest 'The Blue Jukebox' is superb).
    Yo Gar, not sure what you mean about Rea playing every year. My point is that Ireland essentially gave Chris Rea a career he came to regret, one which sent him off course from his first love - The Blues. Please click on the following article from the Guardian to see what I mean. http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/fridayreview/story/0,12102,790672,00.html For those of you who couldn't be bothered to read the whole thing, here is an edited extract. "A very serious operation saved Chris Rea from MOR purgatory. Chiefly remembered for songs like The Road to Hell, which is about the frustrations of driving on the M25 during the rush hour, he could have continued to record the kind of music that finds its spiritual home in the CD deck of a Ford Mondeo. Then he discovered that life was too short to devote yourself to making money for other people, and went back to plough the grittier soil from which his musical roots first grew Last year I nearly died," says Rea, who hasn't done too badly from the MOR years himself - his Berkshire home, a converted mill built over a tributary of the river Thames, has its own recording studio. "I had my pancreas, duodenum and half my stomach removed. The operation has a one-in-three survival rate, and it leaves you with diabetes and a lot of problems in dealing with fat. When I had the operation, they thought it was cancer everywhere and I didn't have a chance." Before the 14-hour operation began, Rea said goodbye to the wife he has been with since he was 16, and realised that throughout an extremely successful musical career, he had never released a record that reflected the kind of music he actually liked, which is the blues. At the point when he was about to go through something he had a good chance of not coming out of, Rea returned to the memory of the first record he bought: an album by the delta blues great Charley Patton. "That album made me learn the slide guitar," says Rea. "So just before I went into that operation, I thought: if I get through this, I've got to make the record that I would have done if nobody ever got in the way." Now Rea plans to make up for lost time. "My weakness has always been cooperation, being afraid of executives and thinking that they know something when they don't. Now that I don't care what they think, I'm having my second chance."
    Gar
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    4/11/2005 6:47 PM
    So you think that Rea has insulted Irish people because he basically spat on his previous success which Irish audiences lapped up?
    Rev Jules
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    4/11/2005 11:18 PM
    quote:
    Originally posted by Gar
    So you think that Rea has insulted Irish people because he basically spat on his previous success which Irish audiences lapped up?
    No, I don't. I think that he realised two things: a) The fact that the Irish like you does not mean that you are any good. b) If, as an artist, you keep pursuing a particular path simply because people tell you that they like it and you make money from it - if you lose sight of who you truly are - then you may one day regret it. Big time. Its a life lesson Gar, its a life lesson.
    Gar
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    4/11/2005 11:37 PM
    Cool. Get ya now..... I like Rea anyway, excellent guitarist and good songwriter with a rough voice.
    Antistar
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    4/12/2005 12:04 AM
    There is only one singer-songwriter that the Brits should truly get excited about and that's Damien Dempsey. The only true diamond amidst all the singer-songwriter sludge. Really can't see any of the others making any sort of an impact, despite what Mark Edwards thinks.
    jmc105
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    4/12/2005 10:55 AM
    quote:
    Originally posted by Gar I thought Mark Edwards' article was pretty pointless in a Sunday supplement which usually has good music writing. He didn't touch on any new terrority or even provide solid quotes, I thought it was a weak subject to tackle because he only really mentioned Damien Rice, David Kitt and Paddy Casey aswell as John Hughes' new pet project.
    i thought he made a commendable effort, in a short piece, to discuss the irish singer/songwriter scene and the reasons for the recent ploriferation of same. he certainly managed more intelligent comment on the subject than is often seen on here, as typified by eoin and mully in this thread. and while it may well have covered old territory for users of this forum, for the average sunday times reader it almost certainly wouldn't have. incidentally, the fact that the irish like you doesn't mean you are good, or bad. in fact, being liked, or disliked, by anybody means nothing in terms of how 'good' and artist is. which is why it's a shame that people seem to find it so difficult to respect opinions that differ from their own.
    Mully
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    4/12/2005 11:02 AM
    quote:
    Originally posted by jmc105
    he certainly managed more intelligent comment on the subject than is often seen on here, as typified by eoin and mully in this thread.
    Cmon Jmc, you cant keep a smartarse down ...
    jmc105
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    4/12/2005 11:20 AM
    mully, you know damn well that there is a height requirement for flipping burgers - there's no way paddy casey or damien rice could ever be employed by mcdonalds... unless paddy got onto damo's shoulders... standing on the shoulders of midgets?
    Gar
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    4/12/2005 11:25 AM
    Yes but he didn't mention any other singer/songwriter other than the norm. For example, Mark Geary has just been profiled in respected American Magazine Paste as one to watch in 2005. There are many more that are worth mentioning. As for respecting someone's opinion, I think just because I disagreed with what he wrote doesn't mean I don't respect his opinion or look down upon him in any way. I just thought that the article could've been better written.
    aidan
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    4/12/2005 11:30 AM
    “Ireland is a great place to serve your apprenticeship...We love music and we love words.” “I don’t want to lapse into clichés, but it really does feel like everyone has a song in their hearts there,” - this is the usual stage-irishness and stereotypical view of the celtic countries as being wild and artistic; by inference, being illogical and emotional. I'm surprised that a good writer like mark edwards is recycling this sort of stuff; I thought it had died out with queen victoria. but then, john hughes has done well for himself by selling the 'oirish' product... edwards' article is typical of the reviews/features that damien dempsey gets - always talking about how authentic and raw his subject matter is and how his accent embodies these same qualities; rarely any in-depth discussion (apart from rare instances like celine's review of 'shots' on this site, where she talks about intrumentation, styles, etc) of whether the music itself is actually any good; usually just patronising 'working-class hero' stuff - to which dempsey himself contributes e.g. by posing for photos as a boxer. fine, he boxes, but he's not slow to use this to contribute to his image. however, edwards is spot-on when he talks of the 'male mid-life angst' market which laps up oversensitive, humourless singer-songers like paddy casey and damien rice. think of how we over-do celebrity mourning and are so zealous about football because we yearn for communal experiences to replace religion and our lost community-spirit - perhaps in a similar way we as a society have a need for expressing/sharing our feelings that can only be filled by whining, whinging singer-songers.... any sociologists out there who can explain this?
    jmc105
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    4/12/2005 11:43 AM
    sorry, i wasn't clear. didn't mean to suggest that you don't respect his opinion, in fact i wasn't referring to you at all. i was referring to the tendency some people have to go overboard in rubbishing genres/artists they don't personally like. as for the article itself, yes, he could have mentioned some newer, lesser known, promising musicians - and mark geary would have been an excellent example, altho the writer's focus was more on the uk than the us, which is where mark has made the biggest impression outside of ireland. i got the impression that this was a 'product-placement' type piece for this tara blaise character, and the sunday times is not a dedicated music magazine, so i'm guessing that he had to keep his references fairly 'mainstream', hence kitt, rice etc. so in that context i still feel he managed to raise some interesting points, especially the question of just why there are so many successful singer/songwriters around ireland at the moment.
    jmc105
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    4/12/2005 12:12 PM
    quote:
    Originally posted by aidan
    “I don’t want to lapse into clichés, but it really does feel like everyone has a song in their hearts there,” - this is the usual stage-irishness and stereotypical view of the celtic countries as being wild and artistic; by inference, being illogical and emotional. I'm surprised that a good writer like mark edwards is recycling this sort of stuff
    in fairness, that quote formed only part of the article's efforts to explain why there are more singer/songwriters per capita in ireland than is apparently the case in the uk - and i'm not sure every reader would share your view that the inference is that all irish people are wild, illogical, emotional and artistic. then again i remember a party i was at in london where an english girl asked me if i could sing, then said 'of course you can, you're irish'. she had recently graduated from the royal academy of music, where quite a few irish musicians study, and her impression was that irish people are, typically, better singers than english people. i didn't feel like i'd just been called wild, emotional and illogical tho...
    quote:
    Originally posted by aidan
    however, edwards is spot-on when he talks of the 'male mid-life angst' market which laps up oversensitive, humourless singer-songers like paddy casey and damien rice. think of how we over-do celebrity mourning and are so zealous about football because we yearn for communal experiences to replace religion and our lost community-spirit - perhaps in a similar way we as a society have a need for expressing/sharing our feelings that can only be filled by whining, whinging singer-songers.... any sociologists out there who can explain this?
    i take it you like your music hilarious and numb? i wonder why it is that for some it is whining and whinging, and for others it is emotional honesty? there is no doubt tho that music is, to some extent, a source of spiritual comfort for many people. gorecki's famous 3rd symphony and the recent popularity of plainchant (gregorian chant) are good examples from the world of classical music.
    Pilchard
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    4/12/2005 12:29 PM
    quote:
    Originally posted by aidan
    “ edwards' article is typical of the reviews/features that damien dempsey gets - always talking about how authentic and raw his subject matter is and how his accent embodies these same qualities; rarely any in-depth discussion (apart from rare instances like celine's review of 'shots' on this site, where she talks about intrumentation, styles, etc) of whether the music itself is actually any good; usually just patronising 'working-class hero' stuff - to which dempsey himself contributes e.g. by posing for photos as a boxer. fine, he boxes, but he's not slow to use this to contribute to his image.
    the whole damien dempsey thing to my mind is the most interesting singersongwriter development of them all. Forget the softshoe marketing of Damien Rice to british roses looking for a bit of stubbly rough or The Frames becoming the 21st century Sawdoctors, with "Shots", Damien Dempsey has crossed over to the mainstream - a Number One album, slots in all the usual places and i believe even a "guest spot" in Lillies Bordello. He is now as mainstream as Westlife or Royston Brady - and yes, I know how silly that looks. However, despite the fact that Damien seems to all intents and purposes to be a very nice bloke, there has been no real indepth examination of what's behind him. For instance, the only reference I have read to his Sinn Fein fundraising activities came in The Irish Times - this to me is a very significant aspect of Dempsey's past yet no-one else has picked up on it bar that interviewer. Not even Hot Press, where the piece on him was as soft as s**te. Given what Aidan is saying about authenticity and rawness, this is where I would start and to hell with the boxing and the hard-chaw Dubbbbbbblinese. Just how does Damien Dempsey's SF sympathies effect the music? And does it matter a damn to his audience here or elsewhere?
    aidan
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    4/12/2005 12:42 PM
    quote:
    Originally posted by jmc105 i take it you like your music hilarious and numb? i wonder why it is that for some it is whining and whinging, and for others it is emotional honesty? there is no doubt tho that music is, to some extent, a source of spiritual comfort for many people. gorecki's famous 3rd symphony and the recent popularity of plainchant (gregorian chant) are good examples from the world of classical music.
    hilarious and numb, yes!!! at LAST, someone who understands me
    jmc105
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    4/12/2005 12:45 PM
    pilchard - just curious about how much you know about damien dempsey's fundraising activities for sinn féin? haven't heard anything about this before...
    Mully
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    4/12/2005 12:56 PM
    quote:
    Originally posted by jmc105
    pilchard - just curious about how much you know about damien dempsey's fundraising activities for sinn féin? haven't heard anything about this before...
    He had a fundraising gig (in Liberty Hall, I fink) for a SF canditate that was running in Donaghmede in the local elections. I was at the gig, but not as a condoning of SF. Without steering the conversation (invarably) to politics, for me, as a National Party, I have no time for them, BUT I cannot deny that locally, they've done a lot of good where I grew up. Damien has an opinion, & a vote. Its his business what he does with them.
    jmc105
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    4/12/2005 1:13 PM
    well, it's an old debate - should the value of the art depend on the the actions of the artist. by all accounts wagner was a complete bollix, but in the history of western music, he is regarded as a giant of the 20th century.
    Pilchard
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    4/12/2005 1:38 PM
    quote:
    Originally posted by jmc105
    pilchard - just curious about how much you know about damien dempsey's fundraising activities for sinn féin? haven't heard anything about this before...
    as above, he did a fundraising gig for Sinn Fein's Killian Forde (ex-Power of Dreams and Ultra Montanes manager, for those with long memories) in Libery Hall, Forde went to top the poll in Donaghmede in last year's local elections. Full piece at http://www.ireland.com/theticket/articles/2005/0225/863679432TK2502DEMPSEY.html I dont want to get into a political discussion but while I agree with Mully that SF may be doing good things for some communities on the ground, the same might not be said by communities who are dealing with SF/IRA criminality in Belfast and, at the moment, the Liberties in Dublin, I raised Damien Dempsey's SF connections really more to see if anyone thinks if this was better known would if effect his audience given his new-found popularity. I wont get into any debate about jmc105's slighting of poor ol wagner.
    Rev Jules
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    4/12/2005 2:47 PM
    quote:
    Originally posted by jmc105
    well, it's an old debate - should the value of the art depend on the the actions of the artist. by all accounts wagner was a complete bollix, but in the history of western music, he is regarded as a giant of the 20th century.
    a) I wouldn't hoist Dempsey onto the level of Wagner b) the political affliations of musicians do matter, why else would Neo Nazis be so interested in developing a skinhead music scene ? c) I read somewhere over the weekend, Sunday Indo, Paul Brady being critical of a Sinn Fein rep because he castigated artists because they didn't rally behind the party line.
    Unicron
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    4/12/2005 2:55 PM
    I've never really had much time for Dempsey's music, I find his singing style grating, don't have much time for how he plays guitar and find him massively naive as a political songwriter (but negative vibes is a pretty funny song), to me he will always be "that comedy rap asshole", but have only heard good things about him as a human being. To be honest I'm not really surprised to learn that he has SF sympathies, he's a working class guy and his lyrical content (on Seize the day anyway, I haven't really been forced to listen to Shots much in work yet) seems to cover the right "the rich are bastards/it's all the Brit's fault" bases. But this is a free country and he's entitled to support whoever he wants and personally I think that so long as he doesn't wave it in peoples faces it's his own business. As to whether or not if this knowledge was more widely known it would affect his audience/popularity it would really depend on the individual views of his fans, if someone was a SF supporter I'd imagine they might welcome the news but I would assume that some people would lump him in with the Wolfe Tones. I think it's probably an issue that is unique to Sinn Fein (and I understand why), do people hold it against David Kitt that his dad is a FF TD?
    Unicron
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    4/12/2005 2:59 PM
    Jules, Am I right in thinking that this isn't the first time that Brady has upset republicans? I believe that "The Island" annoyed a few people upon it's release.
    Pilchard
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    4/12/2005 3:16 PM
    quote:
    Originally posted by Rev Jules
    c) I read somewhere over the weekend, Sunday Indo, Paul Brady being critical of a Sinn Fein rep because he castigated artists because they didn't rally behind the party line.
    really? was it definitely the sunday indo? i'd like to read that. do u have a link by any chance?
    Pilchard
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    4/12/2005 3:20 PM
    quote:
    Originally posted by Unicron
    I think it's probably an issue that is unique to Sinn Fein (and I understand why), do people hold it against David Kitt that his dad is a FF TD?
    not comparing like with like - has Kitt Jr ever done any fundraisers for Kitt Sr? Ever canvassed for him? I dont think so, I think David Kitt is fairly apolitical. Its like Ardal O'Hanon and his father Dr Rory O'Hanlon the TD, Mundy and his relations in the FG family, that dreadful comic Dave McSavage and his father/brother the TDs - just because theyre family, we should not assume they have the same political beliefs.
    Rev Jules
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    4/12/2005 3:41 PM
    quote:
    Originally posted by Pilchard [br really? was it definitely the sunday indo? i'd like to read that. do u have a link by any chance?
    Will see if I still have magazine and, if so, will scan and email page to you. All the best
    Rev Jules
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    4/12/2005 3:43 PM
    quote:
    Originally posted by Unicron
    Jules, Am I right in thinking that this isn't the first time that Brady has upset republicans? I believe that "The Island" annoyed a few people upon it's release.
    Oh defo, and in particular that well known republican Christy Moore, who made reference to it on his ordinary man album.
    Pilchard
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    4/12/2005 4:59 PM
    quote:
    Originally posted by Rev Jules
    quote:
    Originally posted by Pilchard [br really? was it definitely the sunday indo? i'd like to read that. do u have a link by any chance?
    Will see if I still have magazine and, if so, will scan and email page to you. All the best
    cheers jules, much obliged, even if u just have a link, that would be good


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