Paddy Hanna of Grand Pocket Orchestra takes us on a guided tour of his favourite music (and cross-dressing in Castlebar…)
1. Tom Waits – Flowers grave
True story, I was waiting for a flight and decided to pick me up a cd, to feed my little ears and distract from the loud obnoxious git bag next to me. That cd happened to be Alice by Tom Waits, and though I thought the cover looked a bit crappy I thought I’d give it a go anyhow. The first two tracks “Alice” and “everything you can think of is true” bored the skull off me and I flirted with getting a refund, but then I heard flowers grave, and it blew my freaking head off (with emotion). We boarded shortly after this and i must have listened to the album on repeat for the whole flight, but had that song been later in the album I might well have gotten a refund, and possibly never developed my obsession with late period Tom Waits (his syrupy 70s piano ballads just don’t stand up to his crazy shit).
2. Maher Shalal Hash Baz – Open field
I once played this to a lad who, upon hearing it, threw the cd out the window. No pleasing some people, especially pricks who throw CDs that don’t belong to them out windows.
3. Converge – Eagles become vultures
If you think that hardcore is just noise you are wrong, the best examples are often just cleverly disguised pop songs, like ‘Eagles become vultures’. Sure it’s angry as boots and loud like mothers are loud, but it’s extremely catchy and has emotion in spades. Long live Converge.
4. The Clash – Train in vain
We were DJ ing after a gig in Mayo and decided to put on a bit of Clash. It was Halloween so we were dressed in drag, bit of fun you know. Anyways Bronwyn (GPO keyboardist and woman) filmed us as we danced our drunken little clown heads off to Train in vain. She put the video up on YouTube under the heading “Two manky tarts dancing in a Castlebar nightclub”. After a week it had almost 10,000 views, mainly I’m guessing from dudes who wanted a wank. Sorry about that lads, although the hate-filled comments you left were damn funny, well worth a read.
5. Lambchop – The old gold shoe
Not much to be said here except Nixon is one of my favourite albums and this is my favourite track off of it. Stoner lounge music I guess you could call it, but I call it love.
Grand Pocket Orchestra’s new album Ronald & Sylma is out now on Popical Island.
