Eoin Butler: writer, journalist and Mayoman of the Year
Tripping Along The Ledge
Eoin Butler
Oh, he’s a petulant one alright!
When I first heard DECLAN O’ROURKE’s ‘It’s a Big, Bad Beautiful World’, it seemed as though the singer had somehow smashed open my skull, extracted my inimitable brand of jaded romanticism and physically pounded it into song format. So when tickets for ‘An Evening With Declan O’Rourke’ went on sale then, I was naturally first in the queue brandishing a Kalashnikov rifle. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s closing time on Monday night and Aidan and I are sitting in front of at a pair of empty glasses.
For the last five minutes or so, he has been engaged in a freewheeling mobile phone conversation. I’m not quite sure with who.
“Ah, not a lot now” he’s saying. “Myself and Butler are finishin’ a pint in Grogans. Just scratching our balls to be honest. Probably head home after and see if herself is feeling frisky…”
Then person on the other end says something and Aidan makes a face.
“Sorry, who am I speaking to?” he inquires. Read the rest of this article here.
‘A German audience will stare at you stony-faced for the entire gig and then buy every T-shirt you have’
My wife likes to make a show of me by getting me to list the weirdest jobs I’ve had. When I was a kid I worked in Dunnes Stores in town. There was a strike on and I was supposed to be on strike duty. But I got a little nixer on the side, guarding a giant inflatable can of 7Up in the car park outside The Square in Tallaght. There were legions of kids harrassing me “What is it, mister?” “Can I kick it, mister?” “Can I burn it?”Read the rest of this article here.
‘A German audience will stare at you stony-faced for the entire gig and then buy every T-shirt you have’
THE MIGHTY STEF
Ireland’s last rock n’ roll hero: he sings, he plays, he makes beds
We’re in the middle of a recession. The music industry has all but collapsed… So how does a rock and roller earn a crust these days?
In Dublin? You don’t. I scrape a living by frequently touring abroad. Germany would be one of my main markets. I have a small label over there that puts out everything I’ve done. If I go away for three weeks, and play my cards right, I might come home with a couple of months wages. That’s standard industrial wages. I also do the odd residency where I play folk music anonymously.
What, like Scarborough Fair?
No, not that kind of folk music. I mean, I play acoustic sets. Mostly covers – I do everything from Phil Spector to Bob Dylan. There might also be occasional “DJ” set [he mimes the quotation marks] here and there, which really involves just putting a CD in the machine and pressing play. Basically, I hustle for a living. The wages are modest, but at least I’m doing what I love to do. Read the rest of this entry »
“Christ, if Ireland had just beaten England 4-1 in the World Cup, there’d be bodies strewn in the ditches today…”
The internet was aflame last week with rumours that Tuesday (or was it Wednesday? or Thursday?) was the exact date Michael J. Fox travelled forward to in Back to the Future II. The story was a hoax, of course. The actual date the DeLorean transported to in the film was October 21st 2015.
Insofar as anyone in 1985 would have understood it though, the future already is upon us today. No, we haven’t developed hoverboard technology yet. (Who gives a shit? How many of us even know how to skateboard?) But we have perfected a slew of technologies that would most likely make Dr. Emmett Brown smack his forehead and exclaim “Great snakes, Marty!” Read the rest of this entry »
This is funny
‘Yes well, legibility and correct punctuation might not be “street”… but that’s how I roll, motherfucker.’
The coked-up brother of a middle-of-the-road Irish crooner is at the bar…
He’s mouthing like an auctioneer and buying pints for anyone with an Irish accent who ventures within five feet of him. Read the rest of this article here.
This is not a joke shop. This is an adult fetish shop. Serious shoppers only.
“One particular film has three words in its title: none of which can be repeated in a family newspaper. Sufficed to say it boasts an all-male cast. And given the pride these gentlemen take in one particular aspect of their respective anatomies, the film could be described as, quite literally, an orgy of self-congratulation…” Read the rest of this article here.
Christ, I look like Marcus Sweeney from the eyebrows up!
Urgh. The state of me… Last weekend I went camping with some friends near Newport in Co. Mayo. It was a glorious weekend, so the lads took the precaution of dousing themselves in sun cream. Being freckled, red haired and balding though, I kinda figured I needn’t bother.
It wasn’t until I got back to Dublin that I began to reconsider. I was pretty red.But it could easily get much worse. Believe me, if there’s one thing stupider than a beetroot-coloured bald man, it’s a beetroot-coloured bald man with a peeling scalp. I dropped by my local chemist and purchased a bottle of aftersun lotion… Or at least, I thought it was aftersun lotion. Read the rest of this entry »
They call him Pothole
He’s the son of a well known Dublin businessman and he fancies himself something of a man about town. Read the rest of this article here.