blog moved!

I've moved the blog to www.scrabopower.wordpress.com on the recommendation of more experience bloggers. Hope to see you there!

Music for free and the death of the album

I recently got two new albums for (next t0) nothing - In Rainbows by Radiohead and Ray Davies' new album Working Man's Cafe. They're both very good in different ways. But the way I've acquired the albums makes them seem inessential, and I haven't revisited them much.

This time ten years ago it took me a few weeks to save up the money to buy the album Urban Hymns by The Verve. Back in those days(!) you bought the single(s) first and then waited for the album to follow. It was all very exciting. I can still remember heading round to Music World in Newtownards straight after school (parting with £13.99!!) to buy it - getting the last copy he had in stock.

Due to more disposable income I've bought a heck of a lot of albums since then, nearly half of them online, and any new stuffI can download in advance of the release date to hear what they're like before I buy. Only now its just not as exciting. The expectation of waiting for a new piece of music has been watered down by convenience. Radiohead's album was news for a few days now it's dropped off the radar.

New albums have been released this year by some of my favourite bands - Wilco, Crowded House, Bruce Springsteen, to name a few. But I'm bombarded by so much music all the time that I don't get to appreciate new music properly. At times I'm a victim of my own greed for possessing the latest album. I've started selling off some albums I bought simply because I could - what a waste.

I can remember queuing for tickets to concerts as well - the nervous excitement, the bleary-eyed album track discussions with fellow early-morning queuers as the time crawled by out in the cold. Now the die-hards are overtaken by casual fans with high speed internet bandwidths. Queuing is a waste of time. Buying tickets is like booking a flight, or ordering your shopping. Maybe I'm being over-sentimental - but everytime I queued for a ticket I always got one.

I re-lived the Monday release day experience in July when the new Crowded House album came out. I deliberately didn't order it online - and I have actually listened to it more than a lot of other albums I've bought since. This could be coincidence.

Great poem

This is an excellent poem I read on another blog:

The God Who Loves You
It must be troubling for the god who loves you
To ponder how much happier you'd be today
Had you been able to glimpse your many futures.
It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings
Driving home from the office, content with your week—
Three fine houses sold to deserving families—
Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened
Had you gone to your second choice for college,
Knowing the roommate you'd have been allotted
Whose ardent opinions on painting and music
Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion.
A life thirty points above the life you're living
On any scale of satisfaction.
And every point A thorn in the side of the god who loves you.
You don't want that, a large-souled man like you
Who tries to withhold from your wife the day's disappointments
So she can save her empathy for the children.
And would you want this god to compare your wife
With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus?
It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation
You'd have enjoyed over there higher in insight
Than the conversation you're used to.
And think how this loving god would feel
Knowing that the man next in line for your wife
Would have pleased her more than you ever will
Even on your best days, when you really try.
Can you sleep at night believing a god like that
Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives
You're spared by ignorance?
The difference between what is
And what could have been will remain alive for him
Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill
Running out in the snow for the morning paper,
Losing eleven years that the god who loves you
Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene
Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him
No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend
No closer than the actual friend you made at college,
The one you haven't written in months.
Sit down tonightAnd write him about the life you can talk about
With a claim to authority, the life you've witnessed,
Which for all you know is the life you've chosen.


Carl Dennis

Thirst for Romance

Thirst for Romance by Cherry Ghost is a brilliant wee album that I picked up recently. North of England alt-country that pulls no punches lyrically. The title track is a poignant story of an elderly (possibly dying) man's plea to be shown some dignity by those around him as he recounts snap-shots of his life. It's one of the most moving songs I've heard in a long time.


Here's the first verse:

Remember me with a smile on my face.
replace the tears in your memory with
two heroic arms that twisted lids from jars
and dragged you home after drinking in the park.

England rugby win again - oh crap!

Can't believe these cloggers have penaltied their way into another final. 14-9 against France.
Please South Africa give these guys a last minute DEFEAT for a change.

Worship Services

I don't want to harp on too much more about modern Church worship, but this is a great quote.

“People at worship services close their eyes and, as ecstasy spreads across their faces, begin to rock rhythmically, arms out, mouthing the lyrics. It’s more than a little sexual and a tad uncomfortable if you’re sitting next to an attractive person who’s been overcome by the Spirit. Worship tunes tend to evince an adolescent theology, one that just can’t get over how darn cool it is that Jesus sacrificed himself for the world… Moreover it’s self centred in a way that reflects evangelicalism’s near-obsession with having a personal relationship with Christ. It’s me Jesus died for. I just gotta praise the Lord.”

This review was written by Andrew Beaujon after he had attended a worship service at the Gospel Music Awards in Nashville in 2005. Beaujon was researching his book Body Piercing Saved My Soul, which he wrote after spending a year researching the Christian Music industry.

Lesser known Dylan pt. 1 - Nashville Skyline

As another Bob Dylan compilation hits the shelves I started to dig out some of his old albums that I started collecting a few years ago. Sure everyone should own Highway 61, Blood on the tracks blah blah blah according to rock critics. But I think some of his lesser known and less critically acclaimed work has its merits. Nashville Skyline is one of them.

How long should an album be?I used to think it should be on average forty four minutes. Or is it based on number of tracks? Love Over Gold by Dire Straits only has five songs but one of those is fifteen minutes and the other four 7 minutes each.

This is a short album clocking in at just over twenty-seven minutes. I think it got a bit of a mauling at the time of release in 1969 for being a bit too insubstantial time-wise and lyrically, plus he veered straight into unfashionable country and western territory. Bob's delivery is pretty odd as well, adopting a strange nasal drawl. I think it works. it's a fun album that doesn't overstay it's welcome in a way unlike an album like Blonde on Blonde that drags on a bit to be honest.

Me, Rick and Gaston listened to it in the car three times in a row one Saturday in June 2006 while stuck behind a herd of cows in Kilkenny. We were on our way to see Bob Dylan play in Kilkenny town with the Flaming Lips and Ray Lamontagne also on the bill. The whole album made sense sitting there in a way I can't explain! The drunken duet with Johnny Cash on Girl from the north country, Nashville Skyline Rag's instrumental shuffle contrasted nicely with our lack of movement, and Tell me that It isn't true mirrored our frustration at arriving late for Ray Lamontagne's set.

There were rumours that Michael Jackson was in town with his kids, having flown in specially to see Bob. It was an odd day - Flaming Lips were a blast - everything that's good about music. As for Mr Zimmerman, it was a curious performance. Strange listening to the crowd singing songs word by word perfectly, only for Bob to sing over them however the heck he liked. Great to say I'd seen him play. At least I think it was him. His on-stage movemenst were a bit "Weekend at Bernie's" at times.

Atonement

Saw the film Atonement last week with Lisa and was glad I went.

Ian McEwan's books haven't yet made their way onto my (long) reading list but this film has gone some way to hopefully changing that.


It's not a Keira Knightley vehicle at all. Hers is a key role but just one of a trio of characters whose intertwining stories ask plenty of questions about the implications of telling (or not telling) the truth. Lisa grasped the intricacies of this discourse within the film better than me though!


The scene that won me over (see the picture above - I can't believe it was filmed on Redcar beach!) was Robbie Turner's (James McAvoy's) arrival at Dunkirk hoping for a swift escape from France back over the channel to England only to encounter thousands soldiers swamping the ruins of the town. The panoramic shot of the town is absolutely breathtaking - taking in all walks of life who fought in that war in all their ragged glory squeezing the last drops of pleasure from their painful lives - singing hymns in a male voice choir, riding dilapidated fairground carousels, drunken singalongs, card games, reading the last rites, it was a depiction of the human cost of war that moved me more than any of the overtly war-themed films that I've watched over the years.

Getting on with Church

I was reading a blog by a local theologian/writer. In it he talked about being "in exile in the church" - the idea that being part of a fellowship of believers is even more of a challenge than being part of this world.

I thought about this tonight walking home from an outreach event arranged by my church (this was one was aimed at men). I can't bring my friends to these things, it's a non-starter. We don't have conversations or encounters anymore that will come to a nice clean ending at a church service. I used to think I did in my teens when I was a fired-up wannabe evangelist type. Back then I never saw my friends as what they should be..just friends. They were targets, notches on a belt rather than caring individuals whose acts of kindness and selflessness meant more for me than I ever did for them. I still believe that becoming a Christian is an idea that's worth sharing - but it's one that's worth sharing. You learn to share -and I'm learning it's a two way thing between me and the other person.

We have yet to find a niche or a ministry, as they call it, since we moved into the area and decided to attend the local church. Lisa and I are involved in bits and pieces of work in our spare time that don't seem to fit directly into these categories. I'm starting to think that good gifts are just gifts, when did they stop or start being "spiritual"? Every good gift comes from God after all.

I've realised I have a huge list of social, political, even musical grievances against the established evangelical church, but that I need to get over myself. God has shown me more than enough grace to get by and I need to show more of it too. Despite the frustrations the blessings are still abundant inside and outside the four walls of that building. Church is a struggle - it's meant to be that way but thank God there's more to faith than two meetings on a Sunday. I need to realise this before I start hightailing it somewhere else at the first signs of getting pissed off with something.

Good lyric from Zimmerman

A lyric jumped out at me yesterday while listening to John Wesley Harding, probably my favourite Bob Dylan album.

From 'I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine:'

"Now go your way accordingly and know you're not alone.."

Simple, being given the independence to go your own way - yet safe knowing it's not a solitary journey.

Spurs 4 - 4 Aston Villa

Sometimes you have to be experience the depths before you see something really special!!

Faith in premiership football (partially) restored after tonight's result. You can keep your predictable top-four results if the rest of the games are like this!

Yes we were still pretty awful (especially the 'keeper) but what a comeback. We're going through the doldrums this season but experiences like tonight remind me why I decided to support this club.

Whatever happens to Spurs in the future as the game drifts away from the fans and becomes a millionaire's plaything - I have had some great years of ups and downs, laughs with friends and family, frustration and anger at throwing games away, relief holding onto one goal leads. Dreaded Monday mornings in school after drubbings, had my head held high after (occasionally) scalping the big teams. I know it's only football but it's a big part of your social life, and you make friends and build relationships through shared relationships over football teams. How to handle defeats with dignity after getting raked by your mates in school has been good discipline!

Thanks Spurs. Happy 125th Birthday - football is changing, please (please) don't you change too much.

The Link Family and Community Centre

I've been privileged to be involved with The Link Family and Community Centre in my home town of Newtownards over the past ten years.

They do fantastic, groundbreaking community development work and need as much help as possible!! Their website is www.thelinkcentre.org. I went on a training residential with some of the volunteer team to Lucan, Dublin earlier this year and was asked to write a bit about it for their newsletter.

Pulling up at the Clarion Hotel in Lucan with the rest of the group on Friday night I realised it was ten years since my last visit to this ever-expanding Dublin suburb. Back in 1997 I’d been getting to know a group of friends through The Link’s Friday and Saturday night drop-ins for a few months and the prospect of a weekend away with them all was too good to turn down. As a sixteen year-old veteran of church youth club weekends I thought I knew what to expect. Instead it was the first of many experiences with The Link when you feel a bit uncomfortable with something while realising you’re benefiting from it at the same time.

I tried to keep this feeling in mind at a reception for Link volunteers and staff in the Aras An Uachtarain, the residence of Mary McAleese the Irish President on the Sunday afternoon. Like the memorable weekend spent in a draughty monastery overlooking the Govan area of Glasgow, this residential was another Link experience that would undoubtedly be for my benefit in the long run. People as diverse as Link volunteers, Loyalist representatives, and Protestant clergy have all been welcomed through the Irish President’s gates – if only we were as welcoming to people in our own (much smaller) backyards. In Belfast over 40 “peace” lines still exist across the city, racially motivated attacks are rarely out of the local news, and up at Stormont the Good Relations strategy “A Shared Future” sits gathering dust.

In the meantime, organisations such as The Link continue to take risks and deal with social issues that remain unresolved. At Lucan youth centre in 1997 we looked at our perceptions of the Roman Catholic community and we were back at Lucan Presbyterian Church ten years later still asking the same questions, this time with an added multi-cultural dimension. Ten years ago we took the bus into central Dublin and for the first time I encountered young children begging for food and money along O’Connell Street. Fast forward to June 2007 and the forlorn roadside caravans of Dublin’s travelling community dotted along the motorway on our journey to Kilmainham Gaol was a stark reminder that the increased prosperity promised by the Celtic Tiger has widened rather than narrowed the gulf between rich and poor in the South. Over same period of time The Link has developed it’s services to continue to meet the needs of the marginalized in Newtownards, and trips such as this serve the dual purpose of being a reminder of the work to be done yet also an encouragement that we are struggling in the right direction!

Ten years on my involvement with The Link has progressed from young person to volunteer, from volunteer to staff member, and back to volunteer again. Yet each residential still manages to be challenging, stimulating and fun. I look forward to comparing notes at the Clarion Hotel in 2017!

Arsenal are pure evil

I endured an unpleasant couple of hours at White Hart lane in North London Saturday as Spurs bottled it against our rivals Arsenal yet again - going down 3-1 despite having been in front.

It's hard to put into words how much I don't like that lot. But I'm starting to come around to the fact that they're not a bad team. What is so galling is that they're playing the sort of football Tottenham have traditionally been renowed for. It's frustrating that a team who built a tradition around dour route-one football now regularly dish us out a lesson on how to play the game.

Quite frankly the two teams were a class apart. I was in the second row behind the goal posts at the park lane end and so was privileged (?) to see the three Arsenal goals all too closely.

I usually go to White Hart Lane once a season and to be honest I've enjoyed less and less the last few visits. I know that I'm purely viewed by the club as a customer - but the greed in this league is unbelievable. Transfer fees may be too high but what about the wages? Club directors and investors hang around clubs like vultures ready to cash in and make money on disgustingly over-inflated ticket prices and replica shirts. Yet we as fans fuel it by giving them our money.

Arsenal's Emirates Stadium is the best example of this - a debt-laden soulless corporate cavern of an arena. Supporters are crammed into another atmosphere-less library with huge chunks of the ground allocated to corporate customers that lie empty for much of the game due to hospitality being quaffed in the swanky lounges. Don't get me wrong the Spurs board or any other board would love this as well.

Back to the football - which the premier league's power that be seem to have forgotten about - Spurs' season can only get better. Martin Jol I fear is soon to be shown the door though.

The Protestant Revolution

I managed to catch the second episode of this four part series tonight - and although it was on BBC 4 I was still able to understand it OK!

It was refreshing to hear the development of family life that Protestantism served as a catalyst for - the programme interestingly traced how it's emphasis on individual conscience served both liberal and conservative ends of the Protestant spectrum. I was glad that all these bases were covered for a change.

I'm no theologian but after watching it I felt glad to be part of this tradition. There has been too much cheap TV recently focussing on the wackier, extreme, unreasonable elements of the denomination so this was a welcome change.

NI music - where are all the girls?

Bit of a random one this..

I was lucky to be invited to the launch of the Oh Yeah project - a recording facility in the cathedral quarter of Belfast aimed at supporting young up and coming musicians to get their foot on the ladder of the music business.

Talented local musicians and Snow Patrol were there to give support and it looks like a great idea. Local journalist Stuart Bailie arranged a display of his own Northern Irish music memorabilia as well which was very impressive.

One thing struck me - where are all the female artists? Not one to be found among the memorabilia - nor in any of the acts performing at the launch.

The only female artist from here that I can think of with any recognition is Juliet Turner.

NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't believe Northern Ireland lost against Iceland tonight!

The consensus in the Longfellow was that we would go on and win after Healy's equalising penalty. Sadly it was not to be, and I had to watch the second half of those English prima donnas strutting past Russia with a particularly long face.

What made things even more galling was that we completely bossed the game in terms of possession and chances. Performances in the past have been a matter of shutting up shop and playing for a point - we really went for it here and I'm encouraged by that. The team played with passion and a lot of skill!!

I fear Worthington will get a lot of undeserved stick for this. Our away record under Sanchez was pretty poor too!! And Sanchez was tactically naive in the home defeat against Iceland. A poor start and poor finish were our undoing tonight. How much of that can you attribute to the manager. I will concede that taking off Davis was a strange decision though.

We'll pretty much drift off the agenda of the national press now too but stuff 'em - we're better as underdogs. I wouldn't be surprised if we still came pretty close to qualification come November.

Now what about the Scots!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Great result against France.

The big man breaks it off

It was announced on Friday night that Dr Paisley will step down as moderator of the Free Presbyterian church at the end of the year. Ever since he led the DUP into government with Sinn Fein trouble has been brewing in the fundamentalist heartlands.

And in those early days leading up to May 07 Paisley tried to paint himself as some sort of martyr, bullied into government with Republicans by the British government, and sacrificing himself for the good of the people of Ulster. But this clearly hasn't washed with his church and the writing was soon on the wall.

I for one am glad that the Free Presbyterian church no longer has a moral foothold in the running of our country and in that respect this secularisation of the DUP is no bad thing. Some of the comments from their leadership which surface in the press from time to time are a few beard trimmings short of the brand of fundamentalism peddled by the likes of the Taliban.

But on the other hand I can understand the frustration of the Free Ps at Paisley's abandonment of their stance of no government with terrorists. There was no evidence of Paisley gradually softening his views over a sustained period of time like Trimble and the Ulster Unionists, or even the journey undergone by loyalism's more eloquent spokesmen. This seemed like too much of a smash and grab lunge for power as soon as the opportunity arose.

Commentators have spoken of a changing of the political wind, as if something magical, mystical even, has taken place - as if there was no other way that Paisley could have led his party in this direction.

In my opinion it's simply the return to NI of "normal" politics which we as a country have longed for. Sadly along with the bread and butter issues comes the politics of opportunism, personal gain, and lust for power.

No wonder this half of the chuckle brothers has had such a smile on his face. He's grabbed the opportunity of a lifetime.

Joel Osteen (aka. Pastor F Gump)

Have you seen the state of this guy? Unbelievable.

I wasted 30 minutes of my life watching his church broadcast on God TV and it took my breath away.

Random quotes from the Bible, endless anecdotes of how God has moved traffic for him to get to important meetings, how friends have mysteriously got jobs they weren't qualified to do, neighbours were able to get higher than expected offers on their houses, people getting moved to the front of the checkout queue supermarkets - all because they had "God's favour resting on them." Ridiculous!!

Never have I seen such a sermon that cross-referenced Jesus with economic prosperity as much as I have in this programme.

Oh, not to forget the delivery - think Forrest Gump only with even more inane platitudes.

ipod therefore i am

My world has ground to a halt...

The ipod, which has never been more than a few metres from my person since I first got it, has packed in...

It's a gadget that's enabled me to listen to my huge range of CDs with the click of a wheel. Forget downloading - just being able to hear so much of my own music conveniently is just brilliant.

I would liken it to when people moved from manually changing channels on their TVs to using a remote control instead.

Apple are sending me out special packaging for me to return it to them. Thankfully it's under warranty.

Don't be too long!!

The glory game?

Football (and English football in particular) is an increasingly dirty business.

Although Spurs have had a successful few seasons, and I still (reluctantly) am giving them my money when I go over to the North London derby next month, the events of the last week at Tottenham leave a bitter taste in the mouth - with no-one coming out of it smelling of roses. It's symptomatic of everything that's destroying this wonderful game.

The Spurs board openly went behind Martin Jol's back to seek out a new coach, after THREE games of the season. After they failed to get their man from Sevilla, the bare-faced lying to cover-up the whole sorry affair was disgusting. Spurs are now the laughing stock of the premiership both on and off the pitch.

Meanwhile Martin Jol has allegedly been talking to other clubs such as Newcastle and Ajax over the past year in order to lever a pay-rise from Tottenham.

Our supposed "star" player (for on the pitch reasons, for the second half of last season only - let's not get carried away) Berbatov said today that he's staying at Spurs of his own free will, and also let the press know that the club were giving him a huge pay rise.

"Of his own free will" - what happened to contracts? We all know that he'll be off to Man United as soon as the next opportunity arises.

Money is ruining the integrity, value for money, entertainment, and competitiveness of this league. To the clubs we're no longer supporters, just customers.

Only the recent success of the NI football team has kept my faith in football alive - a bunch of modest players united only by a desire to play for a team and country that have been getting results against the odds.