Dublin Selected *148

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The world is only going to be speaking of one city for the next five weeks. In honour of this five-ringed fact, we're turning to London this week. The idea was activated a few hours ago when an early-days photo of Suede flashed before our eyes during Gered Mankowitz's compelling talk in South Studios. We spotted a young and gangly Matt Osman, Suede bassist and le cool London editor, among the iconic images of Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Suzi Quatro and..eh...Snow Patrol.   So whilst we pound these words out a few hours later, we've decided to draw your attention to what's creating their buzz of the week. Dublin is clearly lagging behind when it comes to Scarecrow Championships or the world's first Photobooth Festival but we are drawing the line at attempts of urban beaches. Can we suggest Karin Park instead? London's brilliance has always proven a hotbed for magpie modification. But as someone far better than us once said; it's not where you take ideas from, but where you take them to, that counts. Who is more Great than British this week? Michael, Ciaran, or Kate-Frances "The Stations of the Cross would be a dream commission." - Peter Donnelly ... Read More   July 19 2012 where Button Factory, Curved Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 01 670 9202 Location Map when 7.30pm how much €24.50 gig The Fall Scrotum-faced legendary curmudgeon Mark E Smith brings his long-ish suffering band to Dublin once more. It's worth the ticket price just to be in the same room as this kurious genius. We've seen them many times and can guarantee that you will either love it or hate it. If you don't know The Fall, it's too late to try and catch up - you're 29 or so albums too late. Just go anyway and witness this pure Northern soul of a different colour. Post punk, post new-wave, post everything,  in the words of their greatest fan The Fall are 'always different, always the same'. Don't blame us if he spends half and hour 'live-mixing' by twiddling with the knobs on the amps. Use the time to make up your own Fall album titles. How about 'Cake Mix Diktator'? Win Tickets / Mr & Mrs Stevens   July 19 2012 where Screen Cinema, D'Olier Street, Dublin 2. Location Map when 7:30pm how much €5.70-€8.60 cinema Sound of Music The Sound of Music storyline could be that of a porno: a virgin nun seduced by a sadistic ex-navy whistle blower while a tight lipped baroness looks on. Thankfully my childhood innocence wasn't crushed by the aforementioned but instead lungs were strengthened and parents annoyed by constantly belting along to songs about deer, bees and Edelweiss (an Alpine flower apparently). Maria (Julie Andrews) is a renaissance woman; between taming seven unruly children, escaping the convent and enticing her boss she still manages to whittle together ensembles from curtains, engage in woodland gymnastics and frollic on mountain tops Heidi-style. Even those with a cynical disposition (cough) can't help but be enraptured by this not so classic fairytale. And who can blame Maria for shunning her habit, God knows women love a man in uniform. / Sarah Maguire   July 19 2012 where Irish Film Institute, 6 Eustace St, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 01 679 3477 Location Map when 7.30pm how much €5.20-€8.90 screening The Art of Rap “Rap is something you do, hip hop is something you live.” On his seminal 1993 homage to MCing, Hip Hop Vs Rap, KRS-One summed up why fans love this music. The culture of hip hop has been analysed and dissected in a number of brilliant documentaries, including the art of DJing in Scratch, graffiti in Style Wars, and b-boying in The Freshest Kids. But what about the MC? Legendary rapper (and sometime actor) Ice-T set out to fill this obvious gap with Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap. Collecting together a who’s who of rappers past and present was never going to be an easy thing, but somehow the other Mr T pulls it off. With this many egos leering down at you from the screen, it could easily have slipped into the kind of bravado one-upmanship inherent in an MC battle. Far from it, this is one history lesson worth listening to. / Simon Judge   July 19 2012 where South Studios, 27 New Row South, Dublin 8 Location Map when Launch 6pm, shows run until Sunday, 11-6pm how much Free photo exhibition Open South Steve Ryan's exhibition of various virgin Mary's has followed me from a stag party in Berlin to South Studios in Dublin. I've heard of moving statues, but that is ridiculous. Sean Breithaupt's work is glossy, slick and evocative with shimmering fabrics gliding over tufted grass lands. Rory O'Neill brings refugee life down to the bread and butter with Palmer's cocoa butter, mattresses free of sheets and perfect portraiture. Part of PhotoIreland festival's OPEN programme, this show is features these works and more. The result of an open calling, this where your Thursday should really kick off, in the bright and lofty laundry room where the great photos are up on a wall, not stored on a phone somewhere. / Gered Blake     July 19 2012 where Bewley's Theatre Cafe, 78-79 Grafton Street, Dublin 2 01 635 5470‎ Location Map when 8pm how much €10/€8 gig Neil Watkins and Sean Millar In a darkened room in Bewleys above the hubbub of Grafton Street sit Neil Watkins and Sean Millar. Perched on stools, their pairing came about through the well-travelled and widely acclaimed Silver Stars project of song-cycles about the life experiences of gay men. Tonight they delve into some of these tracks, new material and covers. There’s the stunning Everybody Said it About You which allows the space of remembrance to breathe within its delivery. There’s a new track dedicated to the recent Drop Everything Festival on Inis Oirr featuring a walk of shame. Head shops, colonic irrigation and Tori Amos all make cameos. But none overshadow the humour, warmth and genuinely affecting and accomplished performances by Watkins and Millar. Win Tickets / Michael McDermott   July 20 2012 where The Liberties, Dublin 8. when Runs until July 22nd how much See link festival The Liberties You don't need to jingle jangle yer aul triangle to wrangle an angle on this one. The Liberties is the bread and butter heartlands of Dublin 8 with the throbbing mecca of Meath Street at its core. Taking Liberties (Gallery Zozimus, Francis Street) is Shane McCarthy's commissioned series of portraits capturing the faces of the neighbourhood from the cocky Pug in Donore Boxing Club to The Gang in Oliver Bonds Flats. Maser paints a large-scale outdoors portrait of Republican Anne Devlin today while a special Nighthawks takes place in the Storehouse on Saturday. However, the one we really want to sneak a peek at is The Blue Rinse Ball & Talent Competition (Nicholas of Myra Hall) on Saturday. Trust me, I've done the bingo and you know that amongst the 55+ there'll be some dotes and absolute wagons. It all comes out in the Parish Hall wash. Conditioner optional. / Zach Joyce   July 20 2012 where Smock Alley when 7.30pm - Until 5 August how much €15/€10 theatre Playboy of the Western World First performed in 1907, this is one of Ireland’s most enduring and popular plays, despite the fact it was greeted with riots... This production from the Smock Alley Players (their second offering in this historic space) is a perfect marriage of material, actors and venue as they bring the tale of Pegeen Mike and Christy Mahon’s love to life. Pegeen is smitten with the heroic stranger who murdered his father. The only problem is that pretty much everyone else has their eye on him. This is an amazingly physical production that uses the space incredibly well. The set is fabulously simplistic and used to great effect and the ensemble play a blinder. This will make you gasp and laugh in equal measure and leave you feeling like a martyr cos you've never hit your da over the head with a shovel. / Frances Winston   July 20 2012 where Little Ass Burrito Bar, 32a Dawson St, Dublin 2 when Regular Opening Hours how much Depends le other Little Ass Burrito Bar I remember a time - not so awfully long ago - when you'd be hard pressed to find a decent burrito in Dublin. It was a terrible age, because a) we were teenagers and because b) "el burrito" roughly google translates into HANGOVER FOOD OF THE GODS. Deprived. Stick 'em in your belly and let them soak up all the grime. As is the current trend of snazzy Rathminesian grub places, Little Ass Burrito has moved up on into the city centre. "Do we reaaally need another burrito place?", ask the doubting Thomases. "Duh", and "Shut up Thomas" replied everyone.  My lady friend recommends the Joanie Loves Chachi, but that's only for vegetarian pussies (Vagetarians). The chorizo filled So Co is the one for us the summer carnivore with Mojito hangovers (cheap Lidl Mojitos though). So tap it. Tap that little ass. Until a burrito comes out. / Karl Watson    July 21 2012 where The Light House Cinema, Market Square, Smithfield, Dublin 7 Location Map when 1pm-11pm (until July 22nd) how much Free photo exhibition Where Were You? Where Were You? There are two responses and if you fail to select A or B, the question remains pertinent. (A) 'Erm, like not born loser' (B) 'Here. Whaddya mean?' There is no finer photographic eye cast upon 'Dublin Youth Culture & Street Style 1950-2000' than this wonderful compilation under the watchful beady of Garry O'Neill. A selection of images on display in the Lighthouse basement indicate a few things - the anonymous joy of having your photo taken without having it tagged within minutes and the abiding fact that fashions may change but being fashionable remain timeless (see Sinead O'Brien's boys striding down O'Connell Street in '68). The scenes, the fads and the looks may change but the brilliance of this undertaking is the celebration of expression by individuals - in their stance, their look, their defiance. It is a battle that will perpetually rage. Where Were You or Where Are You? / Michael McDermott   July 21 2012 where The Twisted Pepper, 54 Middle Abbey Street, Dublin 1. Location Map when 10:30pm how much €12/10 - members album launch LONE You may have noticed that dance music has been getting a bit of bad press recently. But it wasn't always like that. Oh no. Back in the mists of time, in a magical era known as the late '80s, when it was all fields around here, the Roses and the Mondays were still together (waaaaitaminute) and yokes were a two to a shilling, dance music was all about the love man. Lone might not have been around to experience that vanished Eden first hand, but his music does a pretty good job of summoning up that halcyon (+ on + on) era. After a couple of albums of pleasant but unexciting Boards of Canada-isms, the past few years have seen him upping the tempo, breaking out the drum machines and samplers, and taking it back to '89. Why not join him? Cos no one ever complained about dance music back then. Safe. Win Tickets / Conor McDevitt   July 22 2012 where Irish Film Institute, 6 Eustace St, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 01 679 3477 Location Map when 7:10pm how much €5.20-€8.90 cinema Nostalgia for the Light Set in the utterly alien landscape of the Atacama Desert, Chilean film-maker Patricio Guzmán's Nostalgia for the Light examines both the place itself and the people who inhabit it, chiefly the astronomers who take advantage of the area's uncommonly clear skies and the relatives of those "disappeared" by the  Pinochet regime who roam the desert searching for the remains of their loved ones. At times it reminded me of The Tree of Life in its attempts to situate real human concerns in the context of grander cosmic ones, but whereas Terence Malick's masterpiece followed one family, Guzman broadens the focus to the unexamined past of an entire country. Moving with the unhurried pace and eye for beauty of an art movie but with a deeply felt undercurrent of anger throughout, it's a quietly devastating piece of work. / Conor McDevitt   July 22 2012 where Workman's Club, 10 Wellington Quay D2 Location Map when 8pm how much €12 comedy Fred Cooke - Standing Tilted You may know Fred from the hilarious adverts for a certain convenience store in which he appears but he is also an accomplished comedian who has tickled my funny bone on more than one occasion. A self-proclaimed award winning comic (even before his first gig) his jokes are about topics we can all relate to such as our failure to realise our dreams to become a rock star. Not that he lets that stop him from including the odd bit of musicality in his shows. Exuding warmth and with a physicality that is reminiscent of the great slapstick clowns of yore he has been slowly building up a dedicated following over the past few years. In the meantime he’s giving us his rather unique take on life and you’d be mad as a brush to miss it. / Frances Winston   July 22 2012 where CFCP, 15 Pembroke Street Lower, D2 Location Map when 4pm how much €15 (members €12) event Tibetan Gongs and Bowls Bath Stressed? Hare-hare-krishnaing every time you realise a deadline is creeping up on you? Is your stress apple looking deflated? We're switched on 24/7, emails following us about on our phones, constantly surrounded by the buzz of a laptop and rushing about, aided and abetted by traffic and stifling public transport. We need to chillax, man. And the Venus Gong Bath is probably the way to go about it. The meditative effects of Tibetan gongs is used to relax the listener, and is known to help ease feelings of stress, worry and depression. The Venus gong is a kind of super-gong, named after the planet because it is harmonically tuned into the vibrations of Venus. It's an intense experience, an opportunity to open your mind and silence the whirling thoughts. This is probably why the Dalai Lama always looks cool as a cucumber. Win Tickets / Kate Frances    July 22 2012 where Axis Ballymun, Main Street, Ballymun Dublin 9. Location Map when see link how much see link workshop Paper Dolls Paper Dolls are hosting workshops for adults and children in Ariel Performance (dancing while hanging mid-air, not singing about living in harmony). If you were/are the kid in the playground who could hang onto the monkey bars - or even swing between em, you may well find your calling. While Paper Dolls may look all silky and graceful up there, it takes athleticism and strength. Don't let that put you off though - they'll be catering to several levels of skill/gym-bunniness, and there's something for everyone. As for your kiddliwinks - lord knows they love anything that involves rough, tumble and suspension from a rope! So whet their appetites for acrobatics - but don't blame me when they start using the back of the sofa as a beam. / Kate Frances   July 23 2012 where The Little Museum, 15 St. Stephen's Green Dublin 2 when Until July 31 how much Free exhibition A View Is Where We Are Not Ailbhe Greaney’s latest exhibition delves into the nature of what we call ‘home’, and how our sense of it shifts when the time comes for us to leave. Using diptychs of portrait photography and snapshots from Skype of the same image, the difference between home in the immediate/virtual past and in the physical present is depicted to surprising effect. With a superb sense of concept, some outstanding photography is also used to capture the cultural, aesthetic and emotional contrasts between an old and new home. While the project is quite elaborate, it reveals it’s intentions nicely the more you study the photographs as pairs, and compare them to others in the exhibit. It will leave you with a muted sense of longing for your idea of home, which whilst often overlooked is always held dear. / Jerath Head   July 23 2012 where National Concert Hall, 2 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, 01 417 0077‎ Location Map when 8pm how much €12.30/€10 concert Phronesis In these becalmed Dublin summer jazz days, the upcoming set from Scandinavian/British trio Phronesis will help alleviate the situation, with this, their debut NCH appearance. Led by Danish double-bassist Jasper Høiby, the trio's lineup also features Kent born pianist Ivo Neame and drummer Anton Eger from Sweden. Signalling the quality of the trio's output, their third album, Alive, won best jazz album in both Jazzwise and Mojo magazines in 2010. Phronesis' live concerts have received outstanding reviews, including a very impressive debut Dublin performance at the 12 Points festival in 2011. Their latest release, Walking Dark, is named for series of concerts the trio played in total darkness as a dedication to Høiby’s visually impaired sister. Expect to hear much from this new recording. Win Tickets / Des FitzGerald   July 24 2012 where Copper House Gallery, Off Synge Street, Dublin 8 when Until 4 August how much Free exhibition Sarah on the Bridge When I was little my mother called them "the ladies who picnic". Standing by country roads that disappear into woods, sitting on deck chairs next to fields, always waiting, these women fascinated me as a child. Jean Revillard's photographs of prostitutes (in the countryside outside Turin) document the world of human trafficking. A voluptuous black skinned woman in scant and strange clothing stands next to a fetid mattress in a frozen field - the image jars and looks like a photomontage but sadly is not. Revillard treads a difficult line, attempting to take an unpoetic reality and reveal its cinematic drama, to take what is sordid and give it beauty without fetishizing or victimizing his heroines, and in this, he succeeds, beautifully.  / Róisín Agnew   July 24 2012 where Dublin City Library when Until 28 July how much Free exhibition Dublin Camera Club Annual Exhibition Here is a curious thing about good photography – you’d think you know it when you see it, but apparently it doesn’t always work that way. The novice section of this exhibition (first wall + Robert Keogh), seemed much more striking than some of the intermediate and advanced shots, especially in portraiture. It makes you wonder whether heavy Photoshop use and strict following of the “rules” is healthy for creativity. As always, there is a fair share of foggy seascapes, structured architecture, rustic portraits of Indian population and dreamy nudes, but images of Gerry Andrews really stand out in both quality and variety. For great examples of black and white, film and colour photography check out Gerard Kelleher and Chris Ducker. / Nadia Gativa   July 25 2012 where The Sugar Club, Lower Leeson Street, Dublin 2 01 678 7188 Location Map when 8pm how much €5 screening Mean Screen “Gretchen, stop trying to make 'fetch' happen. It's not going to happen,” snarls Regina George in one memorable scene from 2004 high school flick Mean Girls. Oh, but 'fetch' did happen, and it's just one of a multitude of phrases and one-liners from Tina Fey's eminently quotable script that have since entered the public lexicon. A post-millenial mash-up of the best bits of Clueless and Heathers, Mean Girls teamed pop psychology with scathing satire and it's certainly about time we had a big-scale celebration to mark its brilliance. Enter Mean Screen, a showing of the film at The Sugar Club that invites you to kick back with a Glen Coco cocktail, sing along to Jingle Bell Rock and hark back to a time when Lindsay Lohan's face was still relatively intact. And don't forget: on Wednesdays, we wear pink. / Joey Kavanagh   July 25 2012 where Light House Cinema , Smithfield Market, Dublin 7 Location Map when Until July 30 how much Free exhibition Inland This PhotoIreland’s exhibition focuses on how young people are defining their place and relationships in terms of ever-present spectre of immigration. Curated by Alex Rose and Jane Cummins, 11 Irish photographers have been exploring the subject of home and belonging. In their works, they highlight all aspects of Irish immigrants’ quest for re-establishing the connection with their roots. The exhibition is supported via FundIt campaign, which proves how important the topic is for our society. I feel a personal bond with this project. It touches issues troubling me since I discovered my second home in Dublin... A real must- see. / Anna P   July 25 2012 where The George, 87-89 South Great Georges Street, Dublin 2. Location Map when 11:30pm how much €4/€2 Students club night Space 'N' Veda Space’n’Veda is one of the longest-running club nights at The George and it’s easy to see why. Each Wednesday, drag superstar extraordinaire Veda takes to the stage to perform a mix of covers and original compositions, including a selection of earworms from her newly released EP, Transphibian. Veda is a star – the club night hostess with the mostes’, if you will - and her set is a delight from start to finish. Afterwards, DJ Rocky T. Delgado spins a cavalcade of pop songs - everything from Cheryl Cole to Ace of Base. During my visit to Space’n’Veda, I discussed the merits of Rihanna with some fellow clubgoers, while flanked by a harem of gay men telling me how wonderful I was. “Will you come back again, gorgeous?” one asked. “Definitely,” I replied, my ego inflated and my heart bursting. Join me, won’t you? / Amy O'Connor   The Joinery Miranda Driscoll & Feargal Ward are the duo behind The Joinery. le cool taps Stonybatter's cultural pulse. We met about five years ago in a pub as loose friends and thought about this space. We were looking for a place of work and studio set up. As you walk in the front door, it shouted gallery. The building dictated what happened.  The music came about a year into it. It seems bizarre now we hadn't thought of it. Arbour Hill was always a tumbleweed and then Lilliput Stores and we came a year later. It does fulfill the cliche of being very hipstery around this pocket. Before on a Saturday you'd walk into town, now there are reasons to stay here. Being part of Sitric Picnic was a highlight. Also doing The Wake for Donal Dineen's The Small Hours last year. Our challenges are money, time and energy. We're both photographers and filmmakers. You have to fit your other job around it. We have a number of volunteers who we'd be lost without. Spilly Walker & guests this Friday. €8 BYOB. PHOTO: Mark Duggan