Hanging up the headphones... Just for a bit!

That's it: I've had my fun on the radio. Now I better go back to learning Irish irregular verbs. Though it scares me to say it, the commitments of the Leaving Cert will take up most of my time over the next year. I have ambitious plans to study from the crack of dawn on Sunday mornings. If I stick to my plans, I'm going to need to be full of beans and enthusiasm when I wake up. Currently on Sunday mornings I am mentally and physically at my weakest - think of the guy who says 'YARP' in the film Hot Fuzz (that's before I have eaten my Weetabix*). Therefore, it would make sense that I would put my radio interest on pause for the next year to focus on academia.

I suppose one could say that I'm going on 'hiatus'. However I always feel a bit cautious around using that term. It's most often associated with bands who've washed up and been dropped by their record label. Usually these groups don't survive the hiatus and become regulars on reality TV or featured on 'Where are they now?' articles on Buzzfeed. I hope I won't suffer the same fate. I'm still with FM104 and I'm looking forward to covering shows over holiday periods next year and coming back next summer.

I have had a blast presenting 'the Takeover' on Saturday nights over the last year! It has been a challenge to fill the 5 hours with interesting patter and to sound as enthusiastic at 5 to midnight as I am at 7pm. In all honesty, presenting that show has been one of the highlights of my life so far. Yes, talking to myself in a room for 5 hours while all my mates were out partying was surprisingly enjoyable!

Talk to yis' soon!

Gavin.

*I wasn't paid to say this.

Comments

We've been spending most our lives livin' in an Anglicised paradise...

DISCLAIMER: This article has absolutely nothing to do with the 90s rap one hit wonder Coolio. He probably Googles himself from time to time and might come across this. There we were, about 10 minutes into a 3 hour journey on the Italian autostrada .. air conditioning was at full blast, we were slowly but surely getting the hang of driving on the right hand side and learning the local drivers idiosyncratic inability to indicate when changing lanes. I was sitting in the back and remembered a question posed to me by someone before I jetted off: “Do you have any Italian?” - a fair question, to which I responded: “Does the word pizza count?” . I asked the same question to my fellow travellers, hoping that when we reached our destination at least one of us would actually be able to converse in the vernacular. They admitted that they only had a few words. "How do you say ‘hello’ in Italian?” I piped up, alarmed by my own ignorance. There was an awkward silence as nobody could g...

The Unwatchable.

Source: The Sun - https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/nintchdbpict000351308634.jpg?strip=all&w=960 I don't know if your perception of a good evening's entertainment is watching people with intellectual disabilities being mocked on television? It certainly isn't mine. Channel Four's The Undateables advertises itself as a "documentary series following people with challenging conditions who are looking for love." The title itself portrays the protagonists of this show as having such "challenging conditions" to the extent that they are rendered "undateable". According to Wikipedia, a spokesperson for the show defended criticism about the show's condescending name, stating that it is the public's perception that these people are 'undateable'. I do not identify as a member of the public, if this is the case. Furthermore, if this is the genuine public perception, would it not perhaps be more constructive...

Live vs. Studio?

It is often said about artists - particularly the mass-produced pop variety - that they simply can't reproduce the slick sound of the studio recordings when performing live. Be that as it may, I think singer-songwriters (which are not of the said category) have the power to really bring something special to a tune when performing it live. And I don't necessarily just mean through the atmosphere or intensity that is present at a concert, but through the manner in which they perform it - the instrumentation, the speed, the style etc. Mundy is an Irish singer-songwriter, he sort-of shot to fame in the late 1990's when one of his songs was featured in Bazz Luhermann's remake of 'Romeo and Juliet'. He has had a mixed career since - got back into the charts about a decade later with a cover of Steve Earl's song 'Galway Girl'. His version has become a classic and continues to be heard in country discos in the west of Ireland!! A song of Mundy'...

If in Dowd

Search This Blog