Disco-nnect (Re-cap)

Monday: Shambolic messy fun, swopped a ticket for a lovely cardigan with buttons like these:

Tuesday brought Gerardo Naumann workshop on Text And The City. Walked around Dublin all morning, not too far from the sea.

Then to photocopy more headlines for the walls of the gig.
Favourite recession headlines:
















and, despite a weary body, a feeling in the belly of success.

Wednesday brought angry dock people and a horrible knot in the stomach like a cannonball. Floor scrubbing and exhaustion pure like butter.
Doctors recommend that, when stressed worried or depressed, exercise alters the serotonin chemicals in the brain. Neurotransmission is improved.
Disco-nnect has, I think, this affect on me. We were sold out and the crowd were such good people and they danced with such vim and vigour I could not but be happy. The sun came out, I remembered everything, the people smiled and these are contagious:


On Thursday a group of American students came along and owned the gaff. Normally, a mixture of bullying, cajoling, gentle encouragement, showing and enthusing is needed for people to participate, but this crowd were *crunked* and by the end of the gig, the windows were steamed. On this day, for the first time, David Murphy of Queen Kong played guitar on Here is Home and Epidemic and it sounded great.
In the daytime, we got the artwork down for Dot-Dash and put up Here is Home on myspace.

Yesterday was Friday.
In the morning, Fink and I went to the Irish Musuem Assocation to talk about the audiedetour. Afterwards, we ran down the street in the sunshine, with Fink talking about her new project - and digging and fish gutting. Then fish (a whole trout each for us three!) on a Friday.

I got a little shock when I saw the report and that numbers were low, when every other night has been full. I quite like the difference in audience when you play to 1 or 100 or 300 people and would love to play around with that more. However Disco-nnect is a performance everyone carries, like pallbearers at a funeral carry a coffin and it needs a certain number to take off (you can't carry a coffin by yourself!) Also it has to be capped at a certain number (over the 30 mark and it loses a sense of intimacy or communion). Thankfully, just at 7pm two merry groups came marching down the quays and we were just two short of full and we were off.

After the tour/gig we hot-footed it to Navan for a later night gig. After playing with the album tracks all week, it was interesting to go back to using the vinyl. Navan is such a funny place, the people there are so friendly and the gig organiser, Sean, insisted that a barman walk us to our bus. Oh gentleman! On the very very late bus back to Dublin I fell asleep and dreamt of being in a St. Patrick's day float in Navan, holding my passport aloft over my head with both arms, but it was as big as one of those novely cheques that models pose with. Actually, it was bigger!

Today is Saturday and tonight is the last night.
It is really great having a run like this, all the emotion of first night, last night etc.
Hubba hubba big bazookas!

Hubba Hubba

The past week has been a busy one.
Every day I have been singing to myself "I'm a blog" to the tune of the R. Kelly song "I'm a flirt" but I haven't quite made it to sweet internet land yet.
So instead, here are some ever-so-flattering words a lady who came from Sligo wrote about Disco-nnect:

The Diving Bell and the Umbrellas

Last week I got a soaking and sat in the theatre in my damp clothes and contracted a cold.
I will not let it stop me!
But I will not let the audience of Disco-nnect get wet either.
Umbrellas and all that.
Because the spectre of Charles Stewart Parnell is abroad:

Charles Stewart Parnell: (this from Wikipedia)

On 27 September rather than disappoint his followers in the west he addressed a crowd in pouring rain at Creggs on the Galway–Roscommon border and contracted pneumonia.

He returned to Dublin, departing by mail boat on 30 September ("I shall be all right. I shall be back next Saturday week."). He died in his home in Brighton of a heart attack in his wife’s arms on 6 October. He was only 45 years of age.

Adorably human

hell! I am Megan. my belly is full with rosemary chicken and Asian pasta salad and a hazelnut tea cake and coffee.
The Docklands are a foreign country to me.
I arrived yesterday at five o clock but wandered around for an hour before that, knocking on doors of alternative universe door number 403s, being shouted at by men. When you are alone and lost, the Docklands are scarily anonymous and new and vast.But under the firm but playful wing of Maebh ni Shiosta they become smaller and more human and seem paved with opportunity. For instance, after my weary traipsing, Maebh made me a cup of Earl Grey Tea, and we ventured out to a square where we saw a cluster of our friends by the Mr. Whippy. Only a few minutes before, the scale of the area was oppressive and frightening, but now, it is filled with adorably human humans.

Is it for a special occasion?

When I was children, there was an endless vista of time until new clothes were allowed to be worn: aeons until Christmas and a new dress, massive vistas of time until birthday suit costume is finally permissible.

In the endless meantime, articles of clothing sit still somewhere in the home, perfect and still *new*. Still clean and sparkling, not yet bent out of shape or blemished by body.

Now that grown up is the situation, the only limitations are of your own purse.
Still now there can be something pleasurable about waiting for the special occasion to wear the special outfit.

I have been acquiring articles of clothing with Disco-nnect in mind.
July sales must have started early.
I don't think I will be able to wait until Monday to wear them but I try.

The recession is starting on June 30th

The recession is starting on June 30th, at 7pm at Sir John Rogerson's Quay, Dublin.

See you there!

For real real and not for play play

Last night I went to see Love Is A Sniper, by Lola Arias/Compañía Postnuclear.
The piece was very touching and funny and was good to see a piece about love that maintains its sense of humour.

Another touch was made by a post-show comment in the post-show discussion -
about doing something real on stage, like kissing or crying or slapping someone in the face
Ms. Arias mentioned actors who say
"When I kiss on stage, it is not real at all"
But a kiss is a kiss, it is a physical thing,
it is real,
even if the motivation for it is not love or desire.

And if you manage to cry, then you are really crying,
even if the motivation is not the death of your dog but just that you are trying to cry, like it is a skill.

Do you prefer to see something real?
Or do you mind that a performer might not be letting the truth get in the way of a good story?
When you hear a singer sing a song and you know is it biographical - is that cool?
When you see someone crying or sweating or doing something real on stage - is that cool?
Is this cool?
Is that cool?
This guy - cool is he?
Am I cool?