Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Hooleygan: Music, Mayhem, Good Vibrations by Terri Hooley & Richard Sullivan

 

book review of Hooleygan: Music, Mayhem, Good Vibrations by Terri Hooley & Richard Sullivan

by Dubliner's Daughter columnist (Notes) on Friday, February 22, 2013 at 11:03am
Hooleygan: Music, Mayhem, Good Vibrations
by Terri Hooley and Richard Sullivan

Book & movie review by Lorraine Chambers
lorraine92627@gmail.com
Dubliners Daughter columnist

This March 2013 in the UK and Ireland is the film release of Good Vibrations which is the real life story of Terri Hooley and his record shop Good Vibrations which opened in Belfast while others were leaving or being blown away during the Troubles. Here is the book by the man who still walks the streets of Belfast, a town he loves so much though it breaks his heart at times. I had the unexpected pleasure of already viewing the movie at the Galway Fleadh Film Festival last summer and it is in my Top 10 favourite movies. What a story of music, survivial, sorrow, loss, love and joy. It rocks. After the screening there was the nightly afterparty at the Rowing Club by the lake and Terri Hooley was the DJ with such soulful tunes that even the women in the loo (bathroom) line were singing along as the tented marquee had dancing amongst the drinkers. I wanted to meet Terri yet it was a crowded night and I had my taxi to catch back to my host family.

Terri's book is his recollections of the life of punks and music lovers trying to weather a terrible co existence. Former friends were now divided by where they lived and drank, by their names and culture, yet the music was the peace amongst the broken pieces of a beautiful city trying to find sanity while waging war amongst itself. Terri is a man who embraced a new group of voices in his hometown - the cries and anthems of the punks. Their music support kept his store going and he pressed their songs to bring their songs to a wider audience.

Terri Hooley, the founder of Good Vibrations records, is responsible for bands such as The Undertones making their mark on the national music scene in Britain. After playing Teenage Kicks on BBC national radio John Peel became a big supporter of Good Vibrations records. The label celebrated its thirty-year anniversary in April 2008. The biopic based on the life of Terri Hooley began filming in 2009. Hooleygan is Terri's remarkable story, from his tireless commitment to local bands and the chequered history of his shop and record label Good Vibrations to his volatile enounters with the mainstream music industry.I predict that this book will be very popular upon the release of the movie and you can say you read it first here. (Or in my published book review at www.UJNews.com March issue).

Though I didn't meet Terri, he saw my review of the movie and he contacted me. He offered me to return back in Belfast to see the reunion of the band Mighty Shamrocks on a barge and take his walking Belfast music tour plus stay as a guest near the bells that Van the Man writes about. I was on my final few days of my journey in Ireland so I couldn't make it yet it is on my list for my next visit.

If you want to know more about the book, go buy it. Like a record, you must own your own copy to make your own decision. Commerce needs participation. Go to Belfast, find the latest location of Good Vibrations Record Store and tell Terri that Lorraine sent you. Write me back and tell me about it. Tell me if Terri told you any of his stories about his encounters with Bob Dylan, John Lennon and Phil Lynott as well as Snow Patrol, Rory Gallagher. He is a living legend of music. Go meet him!

Hooleygan: Music, Mayhem, Good Vibrations

Paperback, 229 pages
Published January 28th 2011 by Blackstaff Press
0856408514 (ISBN13: 9780856408519)

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Being an extra with the Royal Danish Ballet for Napoli!

My experience as an Italian grandma onstage in Act 1 and Act 3 with the Royal Danish Ballet began as a simple audition at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts for a 'large and tall' woman. I tried out a few years ago for the American Ballet Theatre as an extra yet there was a lot of competition. I am very supportive and involved with the arts in OC as I work at the Center as an usher captain as well as a volunteer tour docent plus show media distribution with the street team so I check out the Scfta.org site often for the latest news for upcoming events.

At the audition was young female ballerinas and a few boy dancers plus some college age male dancers. We all got to be in the show! Auditions were on Wednesday morning followed by a quick rehearsal overview. The Royal Danish Ballet's staff was so nice and personal. Very easy to work with. I was impressed by the parents/guardians with the young talent. The young dancers were so well behaved and professional, better than most adults I encounter!

On Friday we rehearsed from 1-4:30 as a full cast in costume which included a cast picture which included the local 'foreigners' as referred by one of the Danish Ballet staff, then we returned at 6:30pm for the 7:30pm opening night performance of Napoli - a comic fairy tale set on the Italian coast. Downstairs in the dressing rooms, I got my very own lighted counter space alongside the ballerinas. In the center of the room is the garment racks with all the costumes labeled for the performers. Most of the dancers are from Denmark, yet some were originally from the USA. The banter is usually in Danish. My costume is a simple oversize print dress which I throw over a tank top and black slip with the black tights and low heel shoes they provided plus the clip on big earrings and cocktail ring. The Danish lady at the audition loved my wild curly hair so I didn't have to wear their usual short grey wig plus my stage husband is a young male so the long hair as an Italian grandma worked out well.

My first appearance onstage is with my stage family as we sit at the outdoor cafe - US dancer Holly Jean Dorger from Michigan sits with Danish dancer Gabor Baunoch and the three young Danish dancers who portrayed their children. We sip on wine aka punch and pretend to eat eternal rubber pasta which never goes away! Our local dancer Noah plays a waiter who keeps the red liquid pouring and we actually get to munch on long thin breadsticks as the Danish dancers dance nearby our table in center stage. The dirty face young Danish dance students keep nicking the money and extra food from our table. Before the Act concludes, a thunderstorm interrupts our outing and my comic contribution is being dragged across the stage by my son-in-law as I hold onto my pasta plate attempting to get a few more bites in! This will be a great before picture for me as I look to lose my midlife weight as I am so inspired to return to dance to regain the size 9 fit model body I once had for many years.

The mix of dancers as village characters plus the main dancers is a contrast of fun and entertainment plus the live music of the symphony is like being in a movie. I want to pinch myself that this is real. The theatre is filled with patrons yet the professional theatre red interior absorbs the details of the audience so it just feels like we are really in Napoli yet without the seaside breeze and fish smells! One of the background actors is a dancer who has been with the company for 58 years! I understand this is his final year and his last production as retirement beckons. 'Who knows' kids dancer Gabor to him, maybe 'Florida'!

Act 2 must be great as the costumes of the underwater experience look beautiful yet I am in Act 3 so I hear the orchestra play in the dressing room room speaker as I wait in the dressing room chatting with the local union dressers and makeup staff while I teach myself to knit as I was inspired by the two dancers who knit onstage during Act 3. There is TV monitors on stage and with longtime sewing room staff Barbara Poppas but I am content to be in the dressing room for a break. There is a freight elevator to go the one floor up to the main level yet most of the orchestra, cast and crew quickly race up and down the flight of stairs. Quick a flurry of costumes and musicians in black and white plus the stage crew in black.

In the halls is the wheel bottom wood box base garment racks which were shipped in several containers with the sets for the shows. Big silver cases line one hall as they are the airline travel containers for the cast's makeup bags and other items. Lars from Denmark oversees this production and he has been with the company for 32 years.

In the green room is Jeanne, the required teacher for the school age extras from Southern California. She usually works as a teacher at film sites and she has been with the Center since it opened. Some of the young girls are making embroidery floss tri colour bracelets to pass the time. The teacher clears out the students during the show breaks when the musicians from the Pacific Symphony Orchestra pile in to relax and invade the vending machines.

As a familiar supporter at the Center, some of my co-workers and volunteers did a double take of me in costume. I went on Friday to the Calling Center trailer to visit my former co-workers who busily help keep the donations flowing into the non profit center. Before the audition, Theatre Operations manager, David Leavenworth, said he knew he recognized me yet he was wondering why I wasn't in the usher uniform.

During Act 3, my onstage Italian grandpa/husband is dancer Andrew from Anaheim Ballet who is from La Puente and he is a paralegal major at Mt. Sac College. We sit on a small bench on stage left as the festive dancers rejoice for the festive wedding of the reunited lovers. The Tarentella folk dance is timeless for this sparkling finale where we all clap and dance on the sidelines of the main dancers. Above the stage is the bridge with a mix of the Danish young student dancers and the local dancers from various dance schools.

I want to go visit the Royal Danish Ballet in Copenhagen because of this experience with the world's oldest ballet company which was founded back in the 1770s. The handsome Artistic Director Nikolaj Hubbe is very captivating in his presence backstage with the dancers as well as in the dress room hallways . The dancers are his children and the theatre is his lifeblood pumping in his veins yet there is a collective calm one feels as he passes by. Tomorrow is Sunday and the final performance at the matinee. Where did the past few days go? It has been a wonderful bubble being with the Royal Danish Ballet and the Segerstrom Center for the Arts. It has been 15 years since they have performed here and I hope it will be more often. They don't need to be strangers to our sunshine.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Summer of 2010....

This photo was taken on Saturday August 21st, 2010 at the Harp Inn Pub in Costa Mesa, So. California. I was at the Wild Geese Gaelic Football Pub Quiz in the afternoon to help the team with a fundraising goal for their upcoming Chicago trip. It was a fun afternoon with a team with three other girls who I had never met before yet we found out we had a lot of connections via our Irish roots locally as well as back in Ireland. Usually I'm the one going about taking pictures so it is nice when I get to be on the other side of the lens!
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