Irish Music - John Spillane

The Wells of the World

John Spillane on iTunes:



John Spillane now has three solo albums:the latest 'Hey Dreamer' I just recently posted about, his second album 'Will We Be Brilliant or What' for which I did a music video for, and his first album 'The Wells of the World'.

It was this first album, 'The Wells of the World', that first got me into John Spillane. My brother had seen John Spillane perform many times and introduced me to the album, and I loved it. I still do. The album is full of truly beautiful songs, and some 'only-John-Spillane-could-pull-this-off' tracks too. By 'only-John-Spillane-could-pull-this-off' I am referring to 'Johnny Don't Go To Ballincollig' and 'The Bank of Ireland Sean Nòs Blues', and I suppose 'Not Too Bad' also.

Only Spillane could pull them off, because despite being intrinsically Cork, I think each song travels well because they also each deal with a more common, globally shared, symptom of the human condition.

While Cork might be particularly famous for being insular, everybody can relate to not wanting loved ones to venture too far from home as in the classic 'Johnny Don't Go To Ballincollig'. 'The Bank of Ireland Sean Nòs Blues' deals with the yearning for bigger things while working a dead-end job and 'Not Too Bad' examines the lack of communication between people on an everyday basis.

While these three songs deal with their subject matter with humour, other songs are somewhat more serious reflections on love, and John Spillane has an incredible ability, through his music, to make you re-live falling in love.

A lot of the songs on this album have that haunting quality that make you think the songs are written about lost loves, or loves so achingly perfect they can't last.

'Everything's Turning To Gold Cathy' is a perfect example of this kind of song,

"and who are we to go golden, through the streets through the islands, through the long days dying, through the shadow... and who are we to go laughing and smiling, who are we to go hoping and dreaming, who are we to go walking like children home... Evrything's turning to gold Cathy."

As though the singer knows he has no right to be experiencing a love so perfect.

'Seachtain' is a gorgeous song in Irish, written by Louis De Paor (a long time collaborator with Spillane) about the sense of loss 'a week after she leaves'. John sings beautifully in Irish, I hope at some stage he releases an album of the songs produced by 'the Gaelic Hit Factory' which comprises of himself and Louis.

Anyone who has been in love will recognise the sentiments described in 'How Beautiful You Are', the chorus of which says 'how beautiful you are, and how strange', and the feeling that it is a gift to be allowed to witness this beauty - 'given to me, given to me to see you so clearly, given to me to see so clear how beautiful you are.'

In 'While They're All Talking' John manages to infuse the song with the excitement of a new love to be explored, of doing something daring and thrilling with someone who has awakened something in you. While the lyrics are brilliant, it is the sense of urgency in the music and in John's voice that makes this song.

There really isn't a bad song on this album. I've mentioned about half of them here, but they're all great. The full track list is as follows:

• Johnny don't go to Ballincollig
• Everything's Turning to Gold, Cathy
• All The Ways You Wander
• It Wasn't To Be
• Seachtain
• How Beautiful You Are
• Be True To The Girl
• Bank of Ireland Sean-Nos Blues
• While They're All Talking
• The Land You Love The Best
• My Love Will Not Sing for Me
• Not Too Bad

At the time of writing, Amazon.co.uk had the album available at a very good price, new, through it's marketplace. Well worth getting. If you're into Irish music at all, you should really have this album. Christy Moore called it 'an undiscovered gem of the 90’s' and he did a version of 'Johnny Don't Go To Ballincollig' on his album 'This Is The Day'.

They also have his latest album, 'Hey Dreamer'.

If you don't know John Spillane at all, check out the music video I made for a song from his second album.

The Old Negro Space Program

The Old Negro Space Program

An amusing enough short film, in documentary style, about how NASSA (Negro American Space Society of Astronauts) beat NASA to the moon...

John Spillane - Hey Dreamer

FINALLY ! John Spillane's new album 'Hey Dreamer' is available on Amazon.co.uk

Unfortunately his previous album, 'Will We Be Brilliant or What' is not yet available on Amazon.

I did the animated music video for 'We're Going Sailing' from the album 'Will We Brilliant or What', which is by far the most popular item on this site.

People seem to just connect with the song/animation combination... but you can read more about on the animation page of this site, or on another page where I go into some more detail.

The NEW album 'Hey Dreamer' is a lovely album. A lot of people felt the album 'Will We Be Brilliant or What' was over-produced, but on 'Hey Dreamer' John has pared back the production side of things substantially, and the album is simpler, and more beautiful for it.

When I first heard the album I said to John immediately that I felt it was a stronger album than 'Brilliant or What'. My feeling was that it crept up on you when you weren't looking. It took me a few listens for some of the quieter, subtler tracks to exert their full influence on me.

'Dunnes Stores Girl' is a really strong song, with a real 'single' feel - and I love it, whereas other songs, such as 'Beautiful Tears' are real gems which take a little time to fully take their place in your heart.

I mention 'Beautiful Tears in particular because it is one of my favourite tracks on the album now. The other thing I said to John when I heard the album was that I felt he was singing about things that mattered. The first lines of 'Beautiful Tears' include the lines: 'And the first thing you'll do is to stop pretending [...] there's no need to pretend.' One of the things I have always loved about John Spillane's music is he can sing about the simplest things, which we forget are so important - and his music can remind you of the beauty in the world around you.

I could go into some of the other tracks which really grew on me, such as 'The Only One For Me', but ultimately it's an album well worth listening to.

I'm not so crazy about the 'Mad Woman of Cork' track which was written by Patrick Galvin and put to music by John. It's probably the only track on the album that has gone in the other direction, in that I thought it was grand but over time I like it less and less.

Amazon has the album in the 'World and Folk' section, which I suppose is accurate, he's in the subsection 'Folk Bestsellers', but he's quite hard (for me) to categorise. He's a singer-songwriter I suppose, but that's a label I'm not crazy about. John has strong Irish music influences, and there is some Irish language in 'A Song for Rory Gallagher' - in fact I'm sorry there isn't another song or two with some Irish in them. Louis De Paor and John have written some lovely Irish songs together in a partnership they call 'The Gaelic Hit Factory'.

Anyway, I highly recommend this album - if you want to hear John Spillane, have a look at the 'We're Going Sailing' animation, but bear in mind this is from the previous album 'Will We Be Brilliant or What'.

John, who's a man of his word, approached me about doing an animation for the 'Hey Dreamer' album as he had promised he would when we did 'Sailing' but unfortunately, although we had some lovely ideas, the project didn't come to fruition. Maybe next time.

iTunes Newsletter not working in Ireland?

Or, 'how iTunes don't want to sell to me.'

Got an email from 'New Music Tuesday' at itunes a while back which I flicked through rapidly and the Marjorie Fair 'Free Download' item caught my eye. So I clicked on it. I was brought to a page which asked if I had itunes. I said I did. I was brought to another page. i got a warning which said an external application must be launched, I ok'd it. itunes opened, I got a warning which said the item I had requested was not available in the Ireland store, would I like to change to the us store? I said yes, I went to the us store and clicked 'get song' on the 'free' tune, and got an error saying the item was not available for purchase in the Ireland store.

What a great user experience.

So, Marjorie Fair, you might be a wonderful band, but I'm not likely to find out anytime soon.

Then I clicked on the Frank Black link and tried to buy one of his tracks. Not available in Ireland store.

Coldplay x&y - not available in Ireland store.

By now I realised something was up. Coldplay x&y IS available in the Ireland store.

I went back to the previosu email I got from them to verify it wasn't just that one email - couldn't buy anything from that either no matter how hard I tried.


Why, in this day and age, did I get an email which included a link to something I'm not entitled to? Surely they could synch the newsletter with my settings?

I went back to the email and looked at the fine print links to see if there was some way to do this manually, but I couldn't find anything...

So I emailed iTunes support, outlining the above. I got back a long stock response of some sort going on about what countries iTunes is available in and what payment types are accepted. Obviously no one had really bothered to read my email and ascertain what the actual problem was.

The sender of the email included the useful information "The selection of music may vary from country to country." before signing off "Sincerely, ¬?"

"Sincerely, ¬?" - brilliant. I feel like a valued customer right now.

So I wrote back. I pointed out that the mail had not addressed the issue I had emailed about and asked that someone review my original mail and come back to me. I was quite polite and thanked them for their time. I also pointed out the mail had come from somebody called "¬?".

Why did I bother.

Another stock-response came back.

"To access the iTunes Music Store that matches your country of residence, please click Choose Store from the left-hand column of the Music Store. You may also scroll down to the bottom of the page, and choose the store from the Choose Store pop-up menu.

You can only purchase music from the iTunes Music Store that matches your country of residence and your billing address. Each country supports credit cards issued by banks in these countries. For example, a Visa card issued in the United States can only be used at the U.S. iTunes Music Store and so on.

The selection of music may vary from country to country."

Again, the email came from the esteemed apple support guru "¬?".

I lashed back one last email - this time, I admit my tone was pretty snotty. I pointed out that I just wanted someone to look at the specific issue of my not being able to buy music fro the links they send me in the newsletter and let me know if this was likely to be due to a problem at their end or stupidity at my end.

I got a response back, again from "¬?":

We have escalated your report to iTunes Music Store engineering and we will send you an email message once we have a resolution. You can expect an update within 24 to 72 hours. Thank you for your patience as we work to make your experience with the iTunes Music Store more enjoyable.

That was the 27th of July at 17:41.

I checked my account setting to see if maybe my country was set incorrectly. I discovered Ireland does not exist as an option to select.

I have since confirmed that it's not just me either. Other users are experienceing this too. Is it everyone in Ireland. Is it everyone who is not in the US? Anyone care to comment? Coz it sure seems like iTunes don't want to!

Update

Got the following response on 09/Aug/05:

Dear Frank,

Thank you for contacting the iTunes Music Store.

o manage your subscription to New Music Tuesdays emails, verify that you have an active network connection, open the Music Store, and click the Account button in the top right-hand corner of the window (this will have your Apple ID or your email address in it). Enter your Music Store account name and password, click View Account, and on the Account information page, click Edit Account Info. You can subscribe or unsubscribe on the Edit Account Information page.

Sincerely,

The iTunes Music Store team
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ww/

Now, I don't know what this response is supposed to help me with, but it really doesn't help with the issue I'm having, especially since Ireland does not exist as an option for my country of residence... it seems to suggest I should just unsubscribe and stop bothering them.

I did discover that the odd item is available for download in the Irish store, but 99% (rough estimate ;) is not. The fact that the odd item is available suggests to me that indeed this is a mainly American newsletter and that there is nothing wrong with my settings or anything.

So I lashed off a couple of specific questions:

1: Is the newsletter aimed at an american audience and is this why I cannot download most items?
2: Is there a plan for a newsletter which would have all items available for those of us in Ireland?
3: Why is Ireland not available as an option for 'country' in the account area?

UPDATE

Much to my amusement, with my questions still unanswered, I got an email asking me to fill in feedback on my experience in contacting support...

Recently, you contacted iTunes technical support using Apple's online web support form. We're very interested in improving support for iTunes, and we'd love to get your feedback and comments on your recent support experience.

Well, I bet they're sorry they asked now! ;)
I pasted this whole post into the feedback form where they ask for more details. Plus when asked " Please let us know if Apple could have improved any aspect of your support experience. " I answered

Oh my god! YES!!! :)

It seemed to me that I was conversing with someone who had a document in front of them full of 'stock' answers to common problems.

I think they speed read my mail looking for keywords that fit one of the stock answers and lashed the closest thing off to me.

To make matters worse, they must have been using some programme to manage the emails because all the emails I got were signed off from "¬?" - rather than a name.

I don't think ANYBODY yet at Apple made any attempt to read and UNDERSTAND the issue I was describing and CONVERSE with me.

I am left with the feeling that emails into support are looked on as something to get off the desk quickly. Period. No real respect for the customer.

the world won't listen

the world won't listen

Back in the start of July I took part in this project in the Granary in Cork as part of the 2005 programme.

I sang 'Shakespeare's Sister' - which I pretty much learned while waiting to go in as I hadn't realised in advance that it was only songs from the album 'the world won't listen' and had hoped to sing 'This Charming Man' which is probably my favourite Smiths songs - for reasons of nostalgia!

Anyway, I went in, sang the song into a mic with a camera filming it all in front of me.

Thing is, I have no idea what is done with that film now! So if anyone comes across a video of Cork people singining Smiths songs let me know!

secretGeek

secretGeek

Most of this site is of no interest to me, but every now and then stuff like the last two posts pop up on it...

James Bach's Blog: No Best Practices

James Bach's Blog: No Best Practices

This guy is pissed off with people using the term 'best practice' and has written a big long rant about it. But he has a point.

CSS tips and tricks

CSS tips and tricks, Part 1 | 456 Berea Street

Nothing amazing here, but I found it worth a read to refresh my memory and reinforce some good css habits!

You can't avoid the commercials

Nice article Eoin pointed out to me the other day. It tied in with the fact Eoin had noticed everybody always seemed to be drinking Heineken on the 'The Wire'!

CNN.com - You can't avoid the commercials - Jul 28, 2005