The Sigla Blog

Before giving in to the urge to post a mid-year music list, one of the earliest contenders as one of 2006’s finest albums was Kelley Stoltz for his very fine Below The Branches on Sub Pop.
It still gets regular rotation round these parts and I’ve just heard that Stoltz is finally making a trip to […]

Speaking to a weary Josh Davis in Korea, it’s easy to forget that the Californian turntablist and musician is still only 33. It’s even easier to bypass the fact that it’s ten years on from his ground-breaking debut Endtroducing. The album, which crept into the Guinness Book of World Records as the, “First Completely Sampled […]

Finally, I get around to answering the question posed by Kevin about the very addictive Library Thing discovered via Copernicus.
It’s an online library database that allows you to to catalogue all your books online as well as see what books you share with other users. Logging 200 books is free, and after that it’s […]

Music bloggers will love this piece of genius, (thanks Ciaran) the fictional story of psycho music promoter Clell Tickle and his mission to plug Tapes n Tapes. Watch out for the bit where he gets his muscle goon to hassle the ‘Editor’ of Pitchfork into giving the album a good review (”7.4! 8.3!”). Tapes n […]

The Premiership kicks off this weekend and anyone with even a passing interest in the beautiful game has probably signed up for Fantasy Football. I’ve been doing it for years, and this year, I’ve signed up for Sluggerotoole’s league and a (male) friend invited me to join the League of Gentleman. Both are hosted via […]

Well Julian Barnes apparently once said so but is it just me or has there been even less fuss than usual about the announcement of this year’s Booker Prize longlist? I was half hanging around the MBP website yesterday ahead of the announcement and then fed up waiting. Definites for the short list include […]

Fairly hectic this week but just wanted to mention a couple of things of note:
* The Leechrum festival in Drumshanbo last weekend was great fun. Halfset rocked, so did a psychobilly band I came across at about 3am. All good except for lots of us bumping in to the gigantic metal pegs of the teepees […]

Speaking of cover versions, I’m not sure what to make of We Are Scientists’ version of Sigur Ros’ ‘Hopipolla’, found via You Ain’t No Picasso. Aside from all the bum notes, I can’t decide if it was a really brave or really bad idea.
Oh, and Mr. Hopkinson’s computer has added a new bonus page […]

Hurrah! One of the best live bands I’ve ever seen are coming to town. God Bless Wayne Coyne with his giant hands, plastic hamster ball and dancing humans-dressed-as-animals. The Flaming Lips play Vicar Street on November 18th. Tickets are €44.25 and go on sale next Friday August 11th at 9am.

I wish Damien had told me about this a couple of weeks ago. I’ll be talking about Radiohead, covers of their songs and what qualifies as reinterpretation on this Sunday’s Interpretations. Specifically, I was asked to look at different approaches to covering or reworking ‘Exit Music for a film’ from Ok Computer. It was pre-recorded […]

Oh good. I’m glad to see I’m not the only person who thinks that writers don’t come more irritating and talentless than Toby Young. A few years ago, I reviewed his first book How To Lose Friends and Alienate People and wasn’t very favourable about it. In hindsight, it’s an awful book and I was […]

During the birthday phonecall from Paul in Japan*, we discovered our mutual love of Kelly. She’s one mouthy lass who sings about clothes, shoes and breaking up by text message and while she’s actually the brainchild of actor Liam Sullivan, I have firmly embraced her to my comedy bosom as I did Vicki […]