I wouldn’t want to influence you...’ began the shy rock and roll singer.
Fuck. When Hawks Collins asked me to be a judge at the Feile Battle of the Bands, I assumed I’d be under siege from blandishments and bribes. C’mon, I tried to indicate through subtle eye movement, influence me. At least try. Offer me sex, drugs, anything.
All I got was a Marlboro from one of River, and I couldn’t make them winners because the sound was so manky I couldn’t be certain the singer was singing.
Not that I could decide anything, being out-numbered, out-qualified and potentially out-voted by Sperrins legend Paddy Glasgow of Glasgowbury and famed Donegal musician Martin McGinley, who edits the Derry Journal in his spare time.
Maybe that’s why there were no offers I wouldn’t refuse, which is to say no offers at all. I cursed the Feile’s over-developed morality and accepted the dull chore of objectivity.
Fargo bounced on stage to an as-yet half-full Gweedore which hadn’t decided what mood to be in, and came within an inch of battering the venue into early submission with crisp and tuneful bluesy rock. A twin-striker attack twitchy with energy – Ms. Leigh-lo Cassidy had the ‘name-of-the-night’ – they had listened hard to Hendrix, which is sine qua non. Somebody from Skruff confessed afterwards he’d have voted for them. Now he tells me, I muttered.
River had contrarywise spent time with Lou Reed and Neil Young, who aren’t the wrong crowd, either. But not being able to hear the singer is a snag more than somewhat in any shakedown of songs. Still, the Belfast three-piece – guitar, headless bass and one of those electronic gizmos I’m always too embarrassed to ask about and show ignorance – are serious-minded with sweetness in the mix when into their sound and their stride and with a couple of songs of intriguing complexity. Probably a far better band than on the night. I’ll be back.
Dubliners OFM and the Furious T (or Tree, you can’t tell with Dubliners) were straight into unfussy action, disciplined, punky arrangements ornamented with those bent-note, sub-continental flourishes once associated only with Norah Jones’ da, and funky percussive interjections from the organ. Maybe not enough light and shade, but then they only had 15 minutes. Bags of oomph, a trilby hat (every band should have one), and they filled the floor with whirling revellers – not all of them drunk.
Skruff had instant engagement with the audience, everyone exactly aware of his role, impressive intricate harmonies, and in Conor McGowan a singer with edgy stance and considerable presence who probably struts like a star to the bathroom in the morning. A better, tighter, more self-confident band that they were a year ago. But maybe becoming better they’ve grown a bit more like other bands? London ska? There’s a lot of it about. But a performance polished to perfection.
Cookstown’s Thus had more rock’n’roll ethic than can plausibly be contained within the confines of Tyrone and proper metallic scorn for fey sensitivity. Big bullet-headed singer in black, exuding threat, although you’d believe, too, he maybe does all the washing-up at home. Well capable of mad-maximum howl while even staying in tune. Guitarists hit the floor at full tilt for a duellist workout, which everybody agreed was great fun. A clutch of cracker songs, ‘Valhalla’, ‘Work To Live’ and easily the stand-out new number of the night, ‘Shoot To Kill’. Made Cookstown seem happening, a considerable feat.
Sleepers Union would have won on my card had they not had sound problems it took two songs to put right. Danciest and most soulful outfit of the evening, strong, driving, distinctive lead singer, able to shift gears and mix rhythms at will, grew in authority as the set developed. Might have destroyed rings round them with two more tunes. I think that might have been Colin Farrell on guitar.
Skruff won by a wisp, lifting £500 and whatever kudos comes from the tentative approval of three such as we.
The thought occurred that outside a bit of the North, not many know anything of Fargo, Thus, Skruff, Sleepers’ Union, River.  Maybe OFM and the FT are the rage of all Dublin. I hope so. But where else in the land other than in the realm of rock would it be possible to encounter in a single evening such a disparate range of intelligent work from well-focused artists busting guts to express themselves and irradiate a live audience, and for the most part succeeding?
For four quid in.
Rock and roll. There’s still nothing like it.
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Craigavon Unionist Sam Gardiner MLA sounded suitably embarrassed when explaining on Radio Ulster that he had received a raft of protests about flower beds at a roundabout featuring yellow and white flowers with green stems.
Where are you, Harry Chapin, when we need you?
I’d seen oranges in Sainsbury’s the previous day and had considered organising a picket, but it turned out they weren’t Israeli at all.
I was all set to jeer at the ignorance of Sam’s constituents when I remembered that I’d been motoring through the Bogside the other night and chanced on a team of kerb-painters bringing down the tone of the area by daubing the edge of the pavement in green, white and yellow. I stopped the car, rolled down the window, shook my head in sadness and observed to a chap who ought to know about these things because he’s a regular in Mailey’s that ‘those wee skitters don’t even know the colour of the tricolour.’
He squinted at the scene for a moment before responding, ‘You’re right, right enough. That’s not yellow at all, it’s lemon...’
There’s a history to this green-white-and-yellow business. As there is (we’ll come back to it some time) to the green-white-and-gold confusion.
Two of the three colours, yellow and white, make up the Papal Flag. The significance of a version of the Irish tricolour created by the addition of a green segment was summed up in the 1920s by Lord Londonderry – a far more interesting man than the silly name might suggest – when he observed to Joe Devlin: ‘One third for Ireland...’
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And now for an exciting new columnar feature which I will try to keep going for, oh, as long as I’m able.
Raytheon Fact of the Fortnight:
In 2003, Adam Cherrill, manager of business development at Raytheon, declared: ‘To qualify for self-determination, a people must show some kind of national identity. What political organisations, social institutions, literature, art, religion, or private correspondence express any ties between the Palestinian people to the Land of Israel? ... Israel has a far stronger claim to Judea and Samaria, which is considered the West Bank, than the Arabs.’  
First three questions posted on the Los Angeles Times message board for a ‘conversation’ with T. Blair.
1. “As a hypocrite and a toady, how can you even bear to look at yourself in the mirror in the morning?”
2. “If the Iraq war is so great, why is your able-bodied son not fighting there in his father’s cause?”
3. “Would you eat a live toad if George Bush told you to?”
Very sensible people, Americans.