That music’s lost its taste, so try another flavour: Chart Music

This blog has always been behind the times. It doesn’t wear this as a badge of honour, partly because it can’t be bothered to go out and find one. The tragedy of it is that I Have Grave News took a six year hiatus (and no one noticed because they were all getting on with […]

Memoir of a Soho square

Lately, I’ve been catching up with a month’s worth of weekend supplements. It’s a nice thing to do, especially when you have very little money. All that culture, most of it out of reach and well out of the range of my rather functionless wallet. One thing I love above all else is to read […]

Saviours of Irish rock? The return of 79Cortinaz

They’re back! Back?! BAACK!! Carlow’s foremost rock ‘n’ roll sons (i.e. band) 79Cortinaz have risen from the grave and seem intent on returning to the studio to entertain us with further adventures in rural indie guitar rock. They released their debut album Hopioki in early 2008, before apparently breaking up in December of that year. […]

Weebles wobbly wonders

This is a silly anecdote about plastic toy eggs – not much craic here, I assure you. Some years ago, in Dublin, I was reminiscing about Weebles, that society of egg-shaped characters with the slogan, “Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down”. I never actually owned any Weebles but my cousins did, and these toys […]

I never never want to go home, because I haven’t Gok Wan…

Clever old spammers. No sooner is Gok Wan in Dublin to peddle his range of retro frames at Specsavers than the cookies get to work trying to find appropriate blog posts to spam. Congrats to the cookies, then, for finding several posts on IHGN which, for some obscure reason, seem to suggest that I’m a […]

2002 – A Hella Good year for music?

This week, BBC 6 music is a decade old, a fine landmark for a station which almost didn’t make it this far. Thanks to the efforts of listeners and well-wishers, it was saved from the chop, and thank heavens. The station’s birthday celebrations have kicked off in earnest this week and, as these things tend […]

A shed of one’s own

In a damp, misty corner of the garden, in the shade of a dangerously overgrown, gnarled tree, sits an unimposing, unkempt little shack. For many years, it has been unloved and, frankly, unlovable. Filled to bursting with torn boxes, rusting tools and mouldy furniture, all concealed behind a warped door, it looks forlorn, abandoned and […]

Working class heroes?

A wafer, God’s sake. For some obscure reason, the shockingly awful song “Blue Riband Blues” is stuck in my head today. This song, sung by Mike Berry in the 1980s’ commercial, advertised Blue Riband biscuits – lightweight chocolate-covered wafers that were “the very thing”, as my late Granny used to say, to have with a […]

Memories of Bob Holness, 1928 – 2012

Like anyone of an age, I’m very sorry to hear of the passing of former Blockbusters host, Bob Holness. His show was essential tea-time viewing for me in the mid 1980s, being a quiz with questions I had a reasonable chance of answering correctly. Not that I was ever brave enough to apply to take […]

Jeremys #4: Healy

Fourth in a “series” of short tributes to well-known people called Jeremy There was a short period of time when Jeremy Healy was a hero of mine. Back in 1982, before I really knew what clothes were for, I was smitten by a pair of musical designer tramps called Haysi Fantayzee, featuring Jeremy ‘Jeremiah’ Healy […]