Hummingbird Mentality

I grew up with parents who restricted my television viewing, and just like David Rakoff in last weeks ‘This American Life‘, I became unhealthily addicted. As the quiet bookish kid of two teachers, college educated parents on working class salaries, I spent my free time indoors, avoiding the neighborhood kids’ impulsive violence and myopic obsession with soccer. Instead of participating, instead of being excluded, I watched television. First on our enormous, deathly old, black and white screen, a groaning bloated beast with knobs which had to manually be tweaked; later on a tiny 14 inch color unit donated from a relative; a device that was for a long time my only window into the world beyond 1980’s Ireland. Into that window I stared, watching anything and everything. My preference was for shows featuring quirky comedic characters and action packed sequences, the A-Team, Thundercats, Captain Scarlet. I hated Irish TV and gorged on grainy, weather dependent, BBC and Channel 4, pirated from across the water.

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Just came across this article, via the swearing lady. Apparently Technolotics was mentioned in ye olde paper blog, The Irish Times.

If many young students are not yet using modern technology to express themselves, three have done so successfully. Technolotics.com is billed as an irreverent look at technology, politics and the media by three Irish students and for a year it stood as one of the few Irish videoblogs.

Technolotics is cheap and cheerful and it proves an important point. Viewers don’t need RTÉ-grade production values to engage with new personalities. Technolotics found an audience.

Makes me happy and sad at the same time. At last a media mention from someone we hadn’t met personally, but unfortunately a little after the ship has sailed. Sadly it doesn’t look like a Trinity Digicast society is going to become a reality this year, but who knows, perhaps after this whole final year project ship has sailed, I’ll have the energy for another podcast or vidcast project. There are definitely more avenues to explore in this space than are currently getting attention, particularly in the sketch comedy area.

Back on the air tonight..10pm to 12pm GMT, on Trinityfm - available online or on air on 97.3FM in Dublin city. Also I have a cold, so be prepared to enjoy a nasal whinny from time to time.

I’ll be playing a couple of tracks each from Joanna Newsom, Final Fantasy, John Darnielle and Tom Waits, then moving on to some electronic stuff (think Art of Noise, and Homogenic Bjork) and whatever else I can did out of our digital cupboards. Fingers crossed I’ll have a new (thus far unnamed) ‘oldtime’ country / Appalachian band in the studio doing their thing. Listen up.

Update: Well the show turned into a bit of a shambles, primarily due to some drunks turning up and stumbling about and not taking the hint to leave *cough*, but Fergus and Dearbhla were great, playing something across between Appalachian and Calypso, and they’ll be in The Blue Note Cafe on Caple St, next Wednesday from about eight thirty, at the first regular TFM Session. I also had an interesting time trying to tell samples of Irish and Klingon apart. Without further ado, here are the show notes for Thursday night.

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As promised, here’s our version, direct from Dublin Ireland, ‘Cheated Hearts, Uncutted’!

Direct download: Large Xvid, Small Xvid

Some friends and I recorded a video entry for the ‘Cheated Hearts’ contest run by NY punk band the ‘Yeah Yeah Yeahs’. The contest aimed to put together a host of fan made videos, much in the style of Feeder’s classic ‘Just a Day‘. Well the final cut is out, and should be blanketing MTV right now, and (while the result is not quite as original or exciting as Feeders original) we made the cut. In the coming weeks I’ll chop together a full length version of our entry, and throw it up on Youtube. But for the moment you’ll have to be content with the official video! Check it out above.

Hint: The subtitle to our two seconds of fame is ‘Dublin Ireland’.

Credits: Fiona Doyle, Ronan O’Broin, Daniel O’Donovan, Gareth Stack.