John Kelly

Once you get past your 40s it seems that hardly a day goes by without some shocking revelation about the passage of time.  That U2 released The Joshua Tree a quarter of a century ago is one such head-wrecker. Surely it can’t be 25 years?  There are people with whom I work who weren’t even alive in 1987, never mind actually in the room when this remarkable record was first unleashed on Whistle Test. What’s Whistle Test they’ll ask me?  What’s a record? And what age are you anyway?

Radio Clash 74 first broadcast 28/02/12

RADIO CLASH 74

• Depeche Mode - Never Let Me Down (Split Mix)
• New Order - Blue Monday
• David Bowie - Hallo Spaceboy (PSB remix)
• 23 Skidoo - Coup
• In-Crowd - Mango Walk
• Junior Byles & Rupert Reid - Chant Down Babylon (extended)
• Dawn Penn - No No No
• PJ Harvey - A Perfect Day Elise
• St. Vincent - Cheerleader
• Radiohead - Creep
• Beasts Of Bourbon - Chase the Dragon
• R.L Burnside - Let My Baby Ride
• Lou Reed - Peggy Sue

listen here

or here

• The Cramps - Human Fly
• The White Stripes - I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself
• Blues Explosion - Damage
• Tom Waits - Raised Right Men
• The Rolling Stones - Miss You
• I-Roy - New York City
• Big Joe - In the Ghetto
• King Tubby and Prince Jammy - Breaking Up Dubwise
• Depth Charge - Bounty Killers
• Trost - Cowboy
• Dengue Fever - Sister On The Radio
• Tosca - Rondo Acapricio
• David Bowie - Fashion
• TV On The Radio - Province
• Beirut - My Wife, Lost In The Wild
• Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime

This programme will be repeated Sat at 7pm

or listen back here

Here's an old Mystery Train from the vaults. A Mardi Gras special. Enjoy!

http://www.rte.ie/radio/mysterytrain/2006/0228/mysterytrain.html

Delighted to be part of the The Young Hearts Run Free event in support of the Simon Community. Tues 21st at the Unitarian Church, St. Stephen's Green. Dublin. 8pm.

Last night on RTE's The Works I interviewed Neil Jordan on the set of his new movie Byzantium. Here’s a piece of nonsense I wrote for a web publication called Muse back in 1999 when Neil had just made a very fine movie called The End of The Affair.

“Popular music always had a certain appeal to me but I also felt the challenge of concert music. And I had more of an aptitude for it. In a funny way, in my mature... years I was able to meet up with people in the world of popular music and find that it has not been a very hard bridge to cross. Over the past ten years I have written with people like Suzanne Vega, Natalie Merchant, Michael Stipe and Paul Simon and I wouldn’t be doing it if I wasn’t interested in it. I’m especially interested in certain composers like Brian Eno, David Bowie and Zappa. And this is something I’m fond of saying about talent. It’s the most democratic aspect of humanity. It turns up anywhere – without benefit of university degrees, regardless of skin colour, gender or age. Talent is just talent. Whether it’s John Lennon or Paul Simon you can put them up against someone of any genre, whether it’s Strauss or Mahler, and you can’t say who is the better songwriter. And I would be very reluctant to say that the guy with the conservatory degree is the better songwriter. It might not be true.”