Always in the moment
For whatever reason, I stuck it out and am still watching the Walking Dead and all of it’s spin offs including Daryl Dixon, along with all of it’s flaws.
In The Book of Carol Recap: "L'Invisible" episode, Daryl says ”Day-pay-ee-zon” , reciting a new French word he had been taught Dépaysant,.. “that thing that makes you look at things a different way or describes a change of scene that shifts your perspective”
That was definitely 2024, a change of scene for me and another great year for live music.
Getting Older
I was reading a wonderful interview with German electronic artist Hans-Joachim Roedelius who has an amazing outlook at 90 years old!
“Time is fiction. I’m not bound by time and the idea of time—I just do what I am able to do.”
Ostensibly, our perception of time or what is referred to as “chronoception”, changes as we grow older. “Aging” and the speed of time is something that came up with Kevin Drew’s 2024 reflective record too.
To slow down time the advice is that we must inject new, exciting experiences into our lives because technological acceleration hasn’t helped in that regard:
For exciting experiences I attended the following gigs in 2024 and wrote reviews for some of them over on Medium
Bombay Bicycle Club - Olympia
The Smile - 3Arena, Dublin
Adrianne Lenker - Blackbox Galway
Jane Weaver - Roisin Dubh, Galway
Bruce Springsteen - Croke Park
The Black Keys- 3arena, Dublin
The Killers & Travis - 3arena, Dublin
Liam Gallagher - Thomond Park, Limerick
Kevin Drew - Roisin Dubh, Galway
Two Door Cinema Club- Carnmore, Galway
The Waterboys - Carnmore, Galway
Local Natives - The Ambassador, Dublin
Kasabian & The Streets - 3arena, Dublin
Villagers - Leisureland, Galway
Thankfully, the dark weeks of January are finally over and the days are starting to stretch a little. It was a productive start to 2025 and I got the opportunity to interview a bunch of different and interesting indie acts, from various countries and genres from around the globe. Acts included Denver EMO band A Place for Owls, Ferdia Gibbons from Blonde, a new alternative rock quartet from West Cork, Juli from Argentina’s Fin Del Mundo , Kat Five aka Terry Tyldesley, and Emile Milgrim, drummer with Miami based Las Nubes . All the interviews are available via Mixcloud and Spotify , for now. But what they all had in common was they are carrying on the D. I. Y ethos of the early punk and hardcore scene.
Two interesting projects worth noting that are also tapping into that energy are Metalabel and Subvert, who are championing the power of the co-operative movement. I encourage you to take a look at both especially if you are in the creative industries.
But while time is flying by, I have been listening to more music in the past few months and I have found myself exploring more genres and revisiting some others.
My first couple of radio shows of the year aired and featured the best new and emerging indie music from Ireland and around the globe, you can listen to the Mixcloud playback here
Outside of the music
Some other reading for you, I had a hoot interviewing Canadian freelance journalist, blogger, author, science and technology writer for the New York Times Magazine Clive Thompson. (You can sign up to Clive’s linkfest newsletter here on Buttondown.com). He shared a bunch of helpful nuggets for bloggers, writers and journalists during the conversation and you can read it here:
Will the things we wrote today sound as good tomorrow?
Thanks for reading and listening to The Human Recommendation. If you have discovered music you like in any of the shows, please let me know!
In the mean time, check out ‘All in good time’ which is a magical arrangement from Sam Beam’s Iron and Wine collaboration with Fiona Apple from his 2024 record ‘Light Verse’ which is available on Sub Pop Records. I missed him when he played Dublin :(