Image by Umpqua via Flickr

The legend that was Gary Coleman died yesterday, Friday at 7.05 pm Irish time after his life support machine was switched off. Coleman, the star of hit 80s sitcom , “Diff’rent Strokes” suffered from a congenital kidney disease that halted his growth. He was hospitalized after suffering an intracranial haemorrhage on Wednesday night at his home in Santaquin, Utah.

I decided to put together a short report/tribute in his honour:

[See post to listen to audio]

(Please note I do not own the copyright to anything in the clip and I will take it down if requested).

Ar dheis De go raibh a h’anam.

Some time back I wrote about the new RTÉ series “Fame – The Musical” in which director Robert C. Kelly, actor Simon Delaney, actress Jacinta Whyte and former “Kids from Fame” star Erica Gimpel are searching for an actor and an actress to play the roles of Nick Piazza and Serena Katz in the upcoming production of “Fame – The Musical” which begins its run at Dublin’s new Grand Canal Theatre before touring Ireland.

Little did I know back then that a great friend of mine, Michael Joseph (O’Brien) would be auditioning. Not only did he ace the audition, he has also made it through the “Fame School” bootcamp and is now one of twelve (six male and six female) contestants who have progressed to the live shows at The Helix in Dublin!

Michael has done very well to get this far in the competition, however to progress further and hopefully attain the role of Nick he needs YOUR VOTE.

His first appearance in the live shows will be on Sunday May 2nd.

On the night once Derek Mooney announces that the voting lines are open, please call 1513 71 71 11 or text FAME 11 to 53125.

How can I support Michael right now?

What a great question, I’m glad you asked!

You can become a fan of Michael’s on his official Facebook page and you can spread the word (and the voting numbers while you’re at it!)

Michael Joseph’s credentials

Born and raised in Waterford City, Michael is well known to audiences in his native city and further afield. He has played starring roles in countless local productions at the Theatre Royal, Waterford including Nanki-Poo in The Mikado, Tommy Keeler in Annie Get You Gun, Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors and John The Baptist in Godspell to name but a few.

Michael often teaches drama part time at The Richie Hayes Stage School (of which I am a member) and has also worked with Waterford Youth Arts, Red Kettle and the David Hennessy Junior Stage School.

Michael is a graduate of The Academy of Musical Theatre, Wales. Away from Waterford Michael has played the roles of Mac in 42nd Street (The Gaiety Theatre), Sweeney in Sweeney Todd (Riverfront Theatre) and Michael Spoffard in The Witches of Eastwick in addition to ensemble roles in Michael Collins (Cork Opera House) and The Pirates of Penzance (The Helix). Most recently he played Garavan Gobdaw (the lowly servant of the nasty Felix Fleshcreep) in the 2009/2010 Gaiety Theatre pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk alongside Fair City’s George McMahon (Mondo), Leanne Moore, Richie Hayes and Michael Grennell.

Not just an “actor who sings”, Michael has proven himself as an excellent concert performer. He has worked as a backing singer on Tommy Fleming’s A Journey Home at the INEC, Killarney and as a cabaret singer on board the “Oscar Wilde” cruise ship.

Suffice to say, he’s qualified!

Like a lot of people, I’ve wanted an iPhone for quite some time now. The problem: I already have Vodafone and 3 sim cards and really don’t want to have to move over to O2 (nothing against them, just the hassle) who have had the exclusive right to sell iPhones in Ireland for the last few (3?) years.

A few months back, Vodafone finally announced that they would soon be selling iPhones, as O2’s exclusive contract with Apple was coming to an end. I was delighted and pre-registered immediately. “Finally, some competition” – or so I thought.

Today around lunchtime I read an announcement from Vodafone Ireland on Twitter that Vodafone would be launching the iPhone 3G and 3GS on the 25th of this month. Almost instantly updates began to appear in my twitterstream bemoaning the fact that Vodafone do not appear to be competing with O2 on price and that the tariffs were not at all as good as those currently offered by O2 (which themselves are dismal compared with those available in the UK!)

Today’s announcement disappointed me for a number of reasons:

1. First and foremost is the fact that I had made the effort to pre-register, yet a public announcement was made without one coming to those who are pre-registered first. One is promised, but as I write this (17:46) none has materialised in my inbox. (I’m not the only one with this gripe, Michele Neylon is not best pleased either)
2. Secondly, I only last week called into an O2 store to check prices and was amazed that I’d have to pay €519 for the 3GS on prepay, if I wanted to move to O2 or unlock it and put in my Vodafone sim. I honestly expected Vodafone to make some effort to undercut that but no, they matched it exactly.

As a young student I don’t have the kind of disposable income to sign a bill pay contract and thus get a free iPhone. On the other hand I don’t believe anyone should have to pay over €500 for what is essentially an iPod with a phone built in. I’ll already be spending a lot on data once I get the phone, so how can I possibly be expected to pay half a grand for the phone itself. At this stage I’ll pay the €519 (from Vodafone most likely) just to get the phone, but I still think it’s an awful lot.

It’s not all bad news though with a very special offer planned for launch day (more details on which closer to the time), I just hope Vodafone don’t forget about their beloved prepay customers .

Anyway, that’s just my opinion. Make up your own mind here:

Full details of iPhone Tarriffs from Vodafone.

Full details of iPhone Tarriffs from O2.

To be fair to Vodafone I must say before I finish that Vodafone’s online customer service on Boards.ie and Twitter is always top notch. Kelly who operates the Twitter side of things is always eager to help with even the smallest of issues and recently got a sim re-activated for me in less than half an hour!

When I watched the 2009 version of Fame in the cinema last year, (having first seen the 1980 version on DVD some months previous) I could never have imagined how much more this show would come to mean to me just a few short months later.

Auditions for “Fame – The Musical” (presented at the Theatre Royal, Waterford by Stella Maris Secondary School, Tramore) were announced in my school, in late November. I remember my very first thoughts were “please, don’t be full of 80’s cheese!” followed by “I hope I get in, this could be a lot of fun!”. I’m glad to say that I auditioned and got in, that there’s only a little bit of cheese and the craic is mighty!

Tramore’s own Anne O’Riordan (star of countless local productions and had a small parts in the RTÉ’s “The Clinic” and the film “32A”) is making her directorial début with a bang up-to-date production of the musical version of Fame. Music Teacher and all-round musical genius Damien O’Brien is Musical Director and is currently working on all the various songs with us and putting together our impressive harmonies.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been sinking my teeth into the lead role of Nick Piazza, an “ambitious, enthusiastic, classical actor who is very serious about acting and has hidden romantic interest for Serena Katz”.

A lot of my closest friends are heavily involved in the show and I’ve made loads of new friends (for life) along the way too! Here’s to the best production of Fame ever seen, break a leg everyone!

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Just when I thought Fame couldn’t possibly seep into my conciousness any further, I was watching The Late Late Show last night when on came an item launching a new TV talent search produced by RTÉ and ScreentimeShinAwiL entitled, you guessed it: “Fame – The Musical“.

From the press release:

RTÉ Television and Screentime ShinAwiL (Popstars, You’re A Star, The Apprentice & Dragons’ Den) today (Friday 22 January), launched Ireland’s biggest ever musical-theatre search to find the male and female stars of Fame The Musical. The search for the male and female lead will feature in a 10-week TV series on RTÉ One television in April, with the winners embarking on a nationwide tour of the West End production, Fame The Musical.

Leading the search will be stage producer Robert C Kelly, actor and director Simon Delaney and actress and singer Erica Gimpel, who starred as “Coco Hernandez” in the original “Fame” TV series. Auditions will take place in Dublin, Cork and the heart of the West End in London where budding Irish performers can showcase their talent.

The judges are looking for singers with a strong dance and acting ability to step forward and wow them. After auditions and an intense workshop phase where performers will be put through their paces, the judges will select who will go through to the live TV shows and battle it out over eight weeks, on the Helix stage, live in front of the nation. Only two will be crowned the winners and take their pride of place in the nationwide tour of Fame The Musical.

In case you’ve never heard of Erica Gimpel before, heres a video of her in action in “The Kids From from Fame” performing “Showtime”.

A very experienced director, Robert C Kelly; an absolutely legendary actor, Simon Delaney and an actress who starred in the classic TV version of the show, what a super team!

So, it sounds like it’ll be a great show and an interesting watch for the Tramore cast of Fame given that we’ll know the script back to front by the time this show airs in April!

My name is Dónal and I’ve been a Gleek for three months now.

Glee.

Like High School Musical crossed with Top Of The Pops, this show has stormed to success across America and is catching on very quickly over here too! The show, which is less than six months in existence already has a huge group of hardcore fans known as Gleeks.

I first came across this show through a chance conversation at stage school and fell in love with it instantly. If you haven’t experienced the glee that is Glee (or even if you have) take a moment to listen to some of the best of the songs from the series so far.

Also, keep an eye out for it on TV. It’s currently showing on TV3 and E4 and will be on Channel 4 very soon too! Also, a friend of mine came across this particularly handy link to watch all the episodes in great quality, just make sure your pop-up blocker works! (Disclaimer: I don’t specifically endorse the use of this link, but reserve my right to share it! )

Image via Wikipedia

Some of the brilliant cover versions recorded by the cast

Episode 1 – Pilot

Don’t Stop Believing – Journey

Rehab – Amy Winehouse

Can’t Fight This Feeling – REO Speedwagon

On My Own – from the musical Les Misérables

Episode 2 – Showmance

Take A Bow – Rihanna

Episode 3 – Acafellas

Mercy – Duffy

Episode 5 – The Rhodes Not Taken

Somebody To Love – Queen

Episode 6 – Vitamin D

Halo/Walking On Sunshine – Beyoncé/Katrina & The Waves

Episode 7 – Throwdown

No Air – Jordin Sparks

Episode 9 – Wheels

Defying Gravity – from the musical Wicked

For all the songs from Glee check out LeelooDoyle’s Youtube channel (or you could just buy them on eBay or iTunes )

Yes, I know I’m about a week late on this, and I’ve been reminding other people to mention it.

On Wednesday last, 9th of September 2009, WLR FM, the local radio station for Waterford City and County celebrated twenty years as a BCI (then IRTC) licensed independent local radio station.

Congratulations to all at the station for achieving this milestone, at a time when their listenership figures are higher than ever before!

A Short History of WLR FM

Waterford Local Radio, WLR

The original WLR, which was a pirate station, launched on June 23d 1978, broadcasting from Killotteran just outside the city. This unlicensed operation was one of the longest lasting in the country and continued for just over a decade until its closure at the end of 1988 when new radio licences were to be awarded by the then Independent Radio and Television Commission (now the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland) in 1989. WLR, with a number of local businessmen on board formed a consortium to apply for the franchise to broadcast to Waterford city and county. This application had competition from two other applicants, one, the Deise Broadcasting Company involved former pirate ABC Radio and local business people including the Reid family (owners of the well-known ‘Egans’ licenced premises where ABC was based before its closure), and another application, Waterford Radio WRFM which was backed by the then Waterford Foods and The Munster Express newspaper. The IRTC held oral hearings for the Waterford licence at the Tower Hotel in Waterford city on the 27th April 1989 where all three applicants presented their case. Shortly afterwards it was announced WLR’s consortium was victorious. The licence has gone unchallenged on subsequent renewals.

Licensed by the IRTC / New Broadcast Centre

The licensed WLR FM launched on the 8th of September 1989 from studios on Georges Street above the Georges Court Shopping Centre in Waterford City centre.
The station broadcast from these studios for fourteen years until the building of it’s purpose-built Broadcast Centre, at Ardkeen in the city which was oficially opened by An Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern on the 2nd of April 2004 and was Ireland’s first purpose built studio complex since the building of RTÉ headquarters at Montrose in Donnybrook, Dublin 4 in 1961.

Bought by Thomas Crosbie Holdings

On April 13, 2007, Cork based Thomas Crosbie Holdings (TCH), owner of the Irish Examiner and 17 other Irish newspapers, announced it had acquired 75% ownership of both WLR FM and Waterford based regional station Beat 102-103, in a deal worth a combined €14 million while WLR FM Managing Director Des Whelan kept 25% of each.

Dungarvan Studios

WLR FM’s first studio in West Waterford was opened at Harbour Bay in Dungarvan in 1997 (on the Quay, near the Old Market House Arts Centre). In November 2007, the station relocated to a new larger studio on the Plaza, Dungarvan Shopping Centre (overlooking Dunnes Stores).

Recent Deaths

In the past few months, two former WLR FM presenters passed away.

Tony Weldon, was probably best known for his popular “Sunday Morning Melodies” programme and the catchphrase “get up out of the feathers”. Every week Tony began his show with the song “Morning Has Broken”. Many of his former colleagues paid tributes to him on hearing of his passing at the age of 71 on Sunday 28th of June 2009.

Ben Gavin, former chairman of the Waterford Port Company and former Mayor of Tramore died on the 27th of August 2009, aged only 51. For many years Ben presented WLR FM’s weekly religious affairs programme “Credo”, and more recently he was presenter of “Busines Brief”.
As Port Company chairman, Ben was heavily involved in the securing and organising of the Tall Ships Race held in Waterford in 2005. The chairman of the event, architect Nicky Fewer died on Thursday March 26th this year.

It was announced this week that Nicky Fewer will be replaced in the post by none other than WLR FM Managing Director, Des Whelan.

(Text above from Wikipedia is used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.)

Image via Wikipedia

This week’s Great Site all started as a result of a blog post. Darren Solomon was writing a post for the blog on his Electronica group’s website when he discovered that you can embed more than one Youtube video in a web page, and play them simultaneously. Being the music lover that he is, he wanted to see if he could do something more interesting with this new found knowledge than having five videos, and boy did he succeed.

His first attempt led to this (Play a few of the videos together!). On those videos, he played all the instruments himself and all in the key of B flat.

“How amazing!” you say. I couldn’t agree more, but you haven’t seen the Great Site at all yet. Having discovered the fantastic sound he could make by himself, he then sent out emails, and “put up an open call on the website for submissions”.

The end result of Darren’s efforts was inbflat.net, “a collaborative music and spoken word project conceived by Darren Solomon from Science for Girls, and developed with contributions from users.”

This week’s link comes via @lecraic on Twitter. It seems that the Ballsbridge area of Dublin has now got its first ever Dunne’s store (no, the apostrophe is not a typo!) but it’s not Dunnes as you know it. “D4 Stores” (at least that’s what I think it’s called) opened it’s doors on Friday, but the official opening is on Monday.

They have a very special guest lined up to cut the ribbon too! The Sunday Independent has the story.

Image via Wikipedia

Puns abound: “Dunne’s Store”, “Lidl for Ladies”, or maybe just for the opening “Muhammad’s ALdI”?

What do you wish Gayle Dunne had named her new discount supermarket?

Please let us know in the comments!

Hey there,

Welcome to Musicalit.ie! A blog about music, media, technology, and well….  just about anything else that enters my head.

I’m Dónal, the main author here on Musicalit.ie, I might have other people writing for the site from time to time, I’m honestly not quite sure yet.

And why am I welcoming you now?

Glad you asked, the six or seven posts below this one were written before the website came online, while I was testing the site offline.

Speaking of coming online, I want to thank a few people who helped me along the way:

AJ O’Flaherty of lecraic.com very kindly answered an email from  a complete stranger (that’s me) asking about how to customise a WordPress theme for the site. Ironically, he changed his theme just a day after my email. Having explained the ins and outs of the theme which now graces this website, he told me about how to go about acquiring a .ie domain  name for the site (he after all acquired the ingenious name culch.ie). Thanks AJ!

Also thanks to Michele Neylon and his wonderful team at Blacknight who answered a myriad of support queries from me. Thanks guys!

Anyway, thanks a lot for visiting, feel free to have a look around or leave a comment,

Bye now!

Dónal

Image by paulafunnell via Flickr

Scottish singer, actor, and TV/Radio presenter John Barrowman had an unexpected top ten hit in the iTunes download chart last week, thanks to BBC Radio 1 breakfast presenter Chris Moyles and his team.

Having taken a liking to the singer’s version of the Barry Manilow classic “I Made It Through The Rain” which appears on Barrowman’s current album “Music Music Music”, Chris began to plug the song on the show on Monday, playing excerpts and having his whole team singing along, while pretending that John was standing just outside the studio door, serenading them every time they opened it.

On air and via Twitter, the popular breakfast DJ asked his listeners to download the song from any legal music download service, such as 7Digital or the Apple iTunes Store, so that it would be played on his station’s “Chart Show” (which plays the UK’s Official Top 40 Chart) on Sunday evening.

On Tuesday morning, Chris was joined on the phone by John Barrowman who had returned from Los Angeles on Monday, to a bombardment of text messages.

Through the week, the song got as high as number 5 in the iTunes Chart, but eventually it ended up at number 14 in the Official UK Singles Chart, becoming the singer’s first charting single (although I don’t think it was ever officially released as a single) to date, after his digital only release of the Gary Barlow written “What About Us?” from the same album failed to chart. The song was also last week’s highest new entry.

This is not the first time that Chris Moyles has raised the profile of a song so as to get it into the charts. “Chocolate Salty Balls” by South Park charachter Chef, “Mysterious Girl” by Peter Andre and (while testing new download chart rules,) Billie Piper’s “Honey To The Bee” have all been propelled up the charts by Moyles in the past.

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John Barrowman is no stranger to the BBC, having appeared on and presented many BBC shows on television and radio, including:

• BBC children’s Saturday morning variety show Live & Kicking (reporter)
• The Movie Game, a children’s television game show (presenter)
• Reading bedtime stories on CBeebies
• BBC One’s How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?, Any Dream Will Do and I’d Do Anything musical talent shows alongside Andrew Lloyd Webber (judge/coach)
• Elaine Paige on Sunday, a pre-recorded BBC Radio 2 weekly musical theatre and film music showcase (presenter)
• Doctor Who / Torchwood (actor – Captain Jack Harkness)
• The Sound Of Musicals, a show with a live orchestra, showcasing some of the best songs from musicals (co-presenter/performer)
• BBC One’s Tonight’s The Night, a musiclal entertainment show, helping guests dreams come true (presenter). A joint venture between BBC Entertainment Productions and Barrowman Barker Productions (run by John and his agent, Gavin Barker)

He has also guest presented on ITV’s This Morning, filling in for a holidaying Phillip Schofield, and has appeared numerous times on ITV mid-morning show, Loose Women.

John will be appearing in La Cage Aux Folles at the Playhouse Theatre, London, for a limited run from 14 September to 28 November 2009 (excluding 20 November). He will play the role of Albin, a drag queen whose iconic number “I Am What I Am”, in which he comes out as being gay and proud of it,  has become John’s own anthem and appears on the album Music Music Music.

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Chris Moyles visited Ireland recently to film much of his appearance on Who Do You Think You Are? The TV show on BBC One, in which celebrities trace their family tree back as far as they can. During the programme, he discovered that his grandmother had lived for some time in Dublin, and worked at the Jacobs Biscuit factory, which ironically is now the home of the Irish National archive, which he had to visit to search for family records.

Eventually, Chris traced some of his family back to Ballina Co. Mayo, discovering that his family must long ago have worked for monks, hence his surname “Moyles” from the Irish “maol” which of course means “bald”! (It is historically regarded that many monks were bald).