Archives for December 2010

I am taking a blog break over the next week. Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas and all that and look forward to more blogging in 2011.

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I've been remembering Live Aid today watching "When Harvey met Bob". It's a one off BBC drama about what happened when music promoter Harvey Goldsmith and Boomtown Rat Bob Geldof created the now iconic Live Aid concert.

Billed as the Oddest of Odd Couples, Domhnall Gleeson and Ian Harte put in remarkable performances as respectively Bob and Harvey. Both seem to inhabit the characters rather than just doing a caricature.

What were you doing on the 13th July 1985? I remember being glued to the tv that day in our house in Derry. From the Quo opening with Rockin all over the World to Bruce Springsteen hooking up from Philadelphia it was the biggest day in my youthful rock memory.

I still have the 7 inch vinyl record of "Do they know it's Christmas", bought the previous Christmas. I had watched the now legendary BBC news report by Michael Buerk about the famine in Ethiopia. The tv drama shows Geldof going to Ethiopia and crying with anger and frustration about the death all around him. Domhnall Gleeson is excellent as the gobby popstar who seems to stumble into the world's biggest humanitarian crisis while "effin" and "blindin" at all around him.

While not on the scale of Geldof, I remember getting all worked up, anger and tears in equal measure, about those images. I even started a letter campaign in my school, writing with teenage indignation to various politicians to do something about it. Not much happened but it was one of those defining moments when you wanted to change things, make things better, get your voice heard.

Live Aid was the making of Sir Bob, but it was also the making of a vision of global fundraising. If the behind the scenes drama of it is even half true it should have been the most chaotic shambles ever. But it became one of the defining moments of the 20th century. Watch Sir Paul McCartney's solo of "Let it Be" and I defy you not to be moved.

When Harvey Met Bob, BBC 2 26th December @ 21.15.

My husband pointed out to me that I hadn't done a blog in a while. He's a big fan of Stuart Baillie's so I know he reads his first and then remembers mine and links across. What can I say? I've been caught up in school nativities and plays, collecting money from parents for teachers' presents and forgetting to get friends to buy tickets for the parents association raffle so am in the carpark minutes before the raffle guiltily filling in two books myself. Christmas! 

So I've had one school play already, my P2 year old's very impressive christmas songfest set in a fictional toyshop in which there are jack in the boxes, dancing dolls and chuff chuff trains. I particularly enjoyed the fairy on the ladder at the back of the Christmas tree who kept hitching her knickers up without a care in the world. All accompanied by the P2's in their PJs. I was down the back (remember I was in the carpark with the raffle tickets) so I didn't see much. But they sounded great. 

Tomorrow morning is the second Christmas show. Our 3 year old. She's been singing Away in a Manger, Jingle Bells and When Santa got stuck up the Chimney. We've been practising at home. Not that I'm competitive or anything. But I am beside myself to find out who's playing Mary. I was never Mary. My eldest wasn't Mary. So I am pinning a lot on the youngest. What characteristics define a good Mary? I've been quietly assessing the youngest child, thinking she might have it, then she ruins it by shouting at her older sister "Shut up, you're stupid, I'm going to kill you". Peace and goodwill to all men, except your big sis! 

Chuffed to bits for Susan Philipsz winning the Turner Prize 2010. Her win has created the usual "is this art" annual debate around the prize. She's the first sound installation artist to win, using her singing voice to create sound installations in unusual places.

But while the national press are full of her Turner win, she actually had her first ever sound installation in Glengall Street bus station in Belfast. I just spoke to her friend and fellow artist/musician Bill Drummond who remembers the Glengall Street bus station installation! Her singing would come over the tannoy system, punctuating the bus arrivals and departures notices. He also remembers putting her up in his house in London when she came over to do a similar installation in a Tesco in Bethnal Green. And back here, he collaborated with her on a one off record, in which she recorded herself singing "As Tears go by" in an alcove of the Curfew Tower in Cushendall, and he got it pressed in a one off 7" record where the record now lives and can be played.

I'm chuffed too for Susan because I write this blog not just as a Northern Ireland based arts journalist interested in Philipsz time here, (University of Ulster Masters of Fine Art, director of Catalyst Arts Belfast ) but as a proud big sister. My brother, James Kerr, gave Susan her first ever solo show in the Context Gallery in Derry in 2000.

So it only seems right that Derry should be the first place outside of London to host the Turner prize. In 2013 the plans are that the site of the former Ebrington Barracks will host the work of the competitors and prize giving ceremony.

But a word of warning, if you are passing the Curfew Tower in Cushendall and thought you would drop in and listen to Susan's rendition of "As Tears go by", apparently Bill's son broke the Dansette record player last summer. And he hasn't got round to getting it fixed yet!

I found myself using strong language on the radio show today. Except it wasn't quite on the scale of James Naughtie and Andrew Marr on Radio 4 earlier today. Naughtie's slip of the tongue on the Today programme this morning, in which he gave the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt a new surname, was 11 seconds of car crash radio that has been the talk of the web today. An hour later Andrew Marr on Start the Week found himself in a discussion about freudian slips repeating verbatim what Naughtie had said! It even made the Channel 4 news tonight. I hope Jon Snow didn't slip too!

In my case, I was quoting a line from a novel. "Trash" by Andy Mulligan. The line reads "you look like a piece of shit", the words of one character to another, in this case words uttered by a policeman to a young boy. And this word, and a second use of it, this time in the past tense, saw the book removed from a shortlist of books for the BBC Blue Peter Book Award. Blue Peter issued us a statement saying that they didn't want to expose their audience, from ages 6-12, to this language. Mulligan argued passionately that his book shouldn't be judged on this alone and that, in his opinion, books like Harry Potter exposed children to much darker material. Listen here to Arts Extra, his interview with me earlier is the second item.

You do wonder though what your children hear, what language they are exposed to and how you protect them. For the moment the strongest word my two say to each other is "stupid". And even though I hate hearing them say it, I know the stronger four letter words are only round the corner. Is it better to talk about the words now, explain them, demystify them, take the taboo out of them?

I remember sometime in the late 70's early 80's Blue Peter getting criticism for showing one of their presenters, Lesley Judd, getting a scan on the show when she was pregnant.

Maybe if our writers don't take risks with what our children are going to learn anyway, slips of the tongue will achieve what happened today on Today- either extreme criticism or sniggers behind the bike sheds.

Belle & Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch told me he was watching "An Education", starring Carey Mulligan when he wondered if she could sing. So not only was she nominated for an Oscar, but the next thing she's singing on B&S's new album. I'm sure it didn't happen as quickly as that but he certainly lucked out there as she can really sing. It's not uncommon for actors to find their singing voices. Gwyneth Paltrow, Nicole Kidman, Keanu Reeves, Scarlett Johansson, all sound great. Then there's William Shatner, although the former Captain Kirk's bad singing is legendary, spoofed even by himself on tv ads!

My favourite actor turned singer is Ewan McGregor and his version of "Your Song" in Baz Lurhman's "Moulin Rouge". And in a bizarre twist of fate, Carey Mulligan is about to appear as Daisy in Baz Lurhman's remake of "The Great Gatsby". If Baz wants her to break into song, she's got her calling card with Belle & Sebastian's "Write about Love".

Update - part 2 of Blog......23.43

I'm just back from seeing B&S live in the Ulster Hall, the first gig in their first UK tour in 4 years. Stuart asked for the lights to be put up in the hall so he could see the audience. "Young" he said, almost surprised. Well the older ones, me included, were down the back, loving "Fox in the Snow" and "Judy and the Dream of Horses", a trip through their back catalogue with a few from the new album too, There's an after show party going on right now. I'm looking forward to my bed. Rock n Roll!