There’s not a festival in sight this weekend as the hype spreads for Electric Picnic in a few weeks time. There’s plenty to keep one occupied in Dublin all the same, with a Norwegian bringing disco to outer space via the Button Factory, not one but two types of experimental folk and an interactive, entertaining tour of south Dublin city courtesy of the IFI and the IAF so you can learn about this city you call home. We can’t teach you everything, you know?
View TD Weekender 17/8 in a larger map
Josh T. Pearson (Whelan’s, Friday, 8pm. €16.50)
A rambling acoustic troubadour with a live reputation beyond compare, Josh T. Pearson takes everything you know about country and folk music and turns it on its head. Pearson constructs epic personal stories of laughter and heartbreak, threading a sharp wit through long tales of intense emotion. After the splitting of his band Lift To Experience at the beginning of the millennium, it took a full ten years for his solo full-length, the devestatingly sparse and beautiful Last Of The Country Gentleman, to appear. If ever an album was worth the wait.. Don’t miss this.
Word: Typography Exhibition (Little Green St. Gallery, Friday-Saturday, Free)
The folks at Little Green Street recently sent out a call for submissions of artistic work based on the vagaries of printed word. The results are in. The varied explorations of fonts, words and typography come in all shapes and sizes and show off the beautiful possibilities open to anyone committing ink to paper in the service of language.
http://www.facebook.com/events/491037567589069/
Dublin Plays Itself: South Tour (45 Merrion Sq. East, Saturday, 10am/2pm, €10)
The IFI and the Irish Architecture Foundation have teamed up to offer a detailed walking tour of Dublin’s culturally rich south city. The tour combines a guided walk around the city with selected film and newsreel footage, bringing to life the changing face of the capital in an entirely new way. Led by Dr. Ellen Rowley of the IAF and Sunniva O’Flynn of the IFI, taking in Trinity College, Dame Street, City Hall, Dublin Castle, Thomas Street and James Street and features footage from Ireland; the Tear and the Smile, Gael Linn’s Amharc Éireann newsreel of the collapse of tenement buildings in 1963 and ends with two films based in the Thomas Street and Guinness area, Clubs are Trumps and Gael Linn’s Torramh an Bharaille (Wake of the Barre) both from 1959.
There are only thirty places on each tour and you must book tickets in advance from the IFI box office.
http://www.ifi.ie/film/dublin-plays-itself/
Nightflight & Hidden Agenda Present: Lindstrom + I Am The Cosmos (Button Factory, Saturday, 11pm. €15)
Are ya dancin’? You better be. The original Norwegian disco don Hans-Peter Lindstrom (take a hike, Todd Terje) is making his first appearance on Irish soil in five years and Irish space cowboys I Am The Cosmos are on support. Lindstrom’s sets are a heady mix of classic disco beats, future funk and shiny, synth-heavy house aimed firmly at your feet. Dress appropriately, space helmets will be confiscated at the door.
Temple Of Psychic Youth (Kevin Kavanagh Gallery, Until Sept. 8th. Free)
It’s rare you’ll find such a gathering of Irish artistic talent as this. The whopper line-up includes Michael Ashur, Miranda Blennerhassett, Oisin Byrne and Patrick Hough, M&E, Mark Durkan, Jim ‘Che Guevara’ Fitzpatrick, Dorje De Burgh, Elaine Reynolds, David Joyce and Jonah King. The immense bundle of talent was put together by Pádraic E. Moore and sees the group taking on the idea of extra-sensory or alter-sensory perception. A suitably out-of-this-world theme for an altogether magickal exhibition.
http://www.facebook.com/events/363282710412321/
Aine O’Dwyer, Imogen Gunner Trio & Sabre Series (Designist, Sunday, 6.30pm. €6)
Deserted Village team up with Designist again to present an evening of acoustic music in an intimate setting. Aine O’Dwyer is a long-time member of underground alterna-folk super-group United Bible Studies and her recent solo work, such as the amazing Music For The Church Cleaners cassette, shows that her way with drones and tones continues to grow in richness and depth. Imogen Gunner Trio do forward-thinking trad the right way and Sabre Series is an exploration of pop and folk history through the minds of Suzzane Walshe, Gavin Prior, Ailbhe Nic Oireachtaigh, Fiona Lucia McGarry and Siobhan Kelleher.
