Cheebah and all that - Limerick, Ireland

A town out of time

Town Out Of  Time is a short Irish film by Micheal Twomey. Using the town of Youghal as a representative environment for an investigation, Twomey takes a sociological perspective in questioning how a combination of planning, landscape and job loss act to define contemporary place.
The film’s purpose is to present the issues as a macrocosm of a national and international trend of what happens when external forces take a stranglehold of a community’s destiny.
Town Out Of Time recently featured in an Irish Times series of articles focusing on the same issues and has attracted interest from communities in Germany and Italy who are seeking to screen it as an example of what went wrong in Ireland.
Twomey is a recent graduate of UCC where he recently completed a Masters in Film Theory and Analysis. He currently teaches English and History and contributes as a journalist to various Munster newspapers.
There will be a Q and A session with the director after the screening hosted by Paul Tarpey Joint Programme Leader from the Masters Course in Social Practice and the Creative Environment LSAD.

Belltable this Friday 4th November 2011

 

Suite for Ma Dukes

Irish premier of this film by B+ in cool new intimate space of the loft, upstairs at corner of Georges Quay and Bridge Street. Q+A with director afterwards and following that matters move uptown to Mickey Martins for DJ set. More on Suite for Ma Dukes and here are some of the people attending.

Movie Club

Good turn out at the first movie club night organised by Roots factory. Running in the underground every second Wednesday, the next film is Dub Echoes. More info here.

Master tape of the Universe

 

Each week I flick through the Video tapes in second hand Limerick shops, often ending up with peoples TV compilations on Maxell or Bush tapes that i end up fast forwarding, shifting analogue chunks from someones attic. Its all history. Today in Oxfam a BBC copy of Midnight Movie, Dennis Potters last film, but even better, Shimmy Marcus's film from 2000, ‘Aidan Walsh – Master of the Universe’! Both  pristine and mine for 3 euros. I was aware of the Walsh film but had never actually seen it so once home it was first into the deck.

Walsh had  all the trappings of a 15 min Superstar when I lived in a battered Dublin in the 80s .The Temple bar glimpsed in parts of this tape brought back memories of crossing traffic light streets on many a nights wander from East Wall to Rathmines. Often in the City centre one would come across some sort of performance spilling from the Project Arts centre. Events such as the 24 hour continuous Art and Music ‘Dark Space’ gig where the likes of The Virgin Prunes shared room with Nigel Rolfe and other performers. Amongst the clusters of painted leather jackets congregating on the cobblestones on these nights one would occasionally see the ever smiling Aidan Walsh .

Dialled in from the future

Cheebah presents as part of the Tweak festival
Dialled in from the future.
A short Audio visual preformance with a turntable interpretation of a space drenched 80s bronx. Selectors Doobs and Devient will play off a video edit by Paul Tarpey saluting a time when Africa Bambattas discovery of Kraftwerk put the future into funk.

Venue-The Spiritstore Art Cafe on the corner of Rutland st across from The Hunt Museum. Performance at 5pm approx Fri 25  September. Admission free .

Paul Tarpey

Out

• In recent years Limerick has often missed out on new Irish film releases. Thus it is great to see Saviours which is already getting excellent reviews obtaining it's first (outside of Dublin) screening in Storm Castletroy from Friday. Go check it out. UPDATE: Radio interview with director Liam Nolan here

• Two exhibitions continuing this week are Kieran Herlihys one in the printmakers and Collisions in the Georgian House.

• RSAG launch in Trinity rooms tonight and later in the week, will see many of us at Mamuska.

• Two of the cities leading arts and entertainment correspondents from the last few years are now blogging. Ciaran Ryan and LEG crew have sites packed full of other great things to do in the city.

• And if you didn't hear it, Paul Tarpey has won an award for his epic post which appeared 'On the Record'. Joining other Limerick bloggers Fustar and Bock the Robber on this particular role of honour. Nice one

Shane

Saviours

Saviours is a new documentary coming out in early October. It is the result of two years filming following the progress of three boxers from St Saviours in Dublin's North Inner City. One of them happens to be Darren 'Dazzler' Sutherland. Looks good, as the chancer calls it like the Irish 'Hoop Dreams'. At present unfortunately it appears that it will only be shown in Dublin.

Madhouse

We have featured some work by Luke McManus here before and saw this over the weekend. Recently shown on RTE 2, Monitor is the first production from Madhouse films. Nice pace and flow to this and would be perfect for the big screen at mamuska. Their second film Danger High Voltage is described as a modern love story set at the Electric picnic. It is due out over the summer.

Babylon

A signficant current release finally on dvd is the 1980 classic Reggae film Babylon by Francis Rosso. This dramatised tale based around the lead up to a London Reggae Soundclash between the Ital Lion Soundsystem and the Mighty Jah Shaka contains much more than the conflict and struggle that's strung around the films narrative. The youth live for the sound and the Dance, the Selectors vie for the latest dubplates and throughout all this the Police and National Front prowl the scene.
Highly evocative of the London of late 70s with its raw city landscapes paced by soundmen, the films nighttime deep blues and blocks of shadow are fundamental in hiking up the tension as the story of the character ‘Blue’ unfolds. The film is almost documentary in following the racist tribulations of Brinsley fordes Blue (Aswads singer in real life) and as a true representation of soundsystem culture in the era of intense police pressure and Conservative rule, this drama remains an important cultural reference. A review of Babylon by the esteemed commentator Stuart Home is in the latest issue of Woofah magazine (a fantastic publication on Reggae Dubstep and Grime), and it references the directors previous work on the politico/reggae heavy works by Horace Ove. This is well worth reading, as is the Dvd insert notes.
If the Cheebah Boathouse gigs were the first experience of soundsystem culture for any Limerick  readers out there I recommend you check Babylon on this Italian (Raro Video) reissue Dvd.

Paul Tarpey