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Archive for the ‘Marketa Irglova’ Category

The Swell Season (Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova) (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, July 29, 2025)

Posted in Glen Hansard, lnterference, Marketa Irglova, Once, Philadelphia, PA, Snacktime, The Frames, The Swell Season, Van Morrison on July 29, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: July 29, 2025] The Swell Season (Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova)

Three years ago my wife and I saw Glen and Marketa (interestingly announced as Glen and Marketa of The Swell Season) and the show was wonderful.  So when they came back around (this time announced as The Swell Season) I grabbed tickets right away.  (Incidentally, The Swell Season is the formal name of this duo–Glen has several other bands as well.

We were delighted to be reasonably close and right in the middle.

And there were to be lots of surprises tonight.  Glen and Marketa were joined by a bass player and drummer (whose names I don’t recall).  But before the first song started, they had a big surprise–four member of Snacktime came out to play horns on several of the tracks.  Glen explained that he had met Snacktime at the Newport Folk Festival and since they were going to be in Philly at the same time, he asked them to join him on a few songs.  I’m not typically a fan of horns, but their horns added so much depth to these songs, it was terrific.

And what was so much fun was that Glen instructed them how to play some of the songs while on stage–almost like an improved jam session.  The opened with Low Rising and Glen asked them to stick around for any songs that seemed good to have horns on.

The Swell Season just released a new record and they played all of the songs from it (except A Little Sugar).  But as I told my wife, I don’t really listen to The Swell Season all that much, but everything I hear from Glen (especially live) I enjoy immensely.

After a couple of new songs they played When Your Mind’s Made Up and the crowd was rapt as their gorgeous voices (and that piano) melded beautifully.

They played a few songs that they’d played last time, and that’s great because those are obviously the catchiest ones.  They played a few of Glen’s solo songs (three in total) but none of Marketa’s solo songs–although she did get some gorgeous solo moments where it was just her and her piano and her voice is still gorgeous.  This was especially evident on I Leave Everything to You, which Glen said was so beautiful as soon as he heard it he knew it would be the centerpiece of the album and the tour. (more…)

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Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova of The Swell Season (Merriam Theater, Philadelphia, PA, March 14, 2022)

Posted in Glen Hansard, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Leonard Cohen, lnterference, Marketa Irglova, Merriam Theatre, Once, Pete Seeger, Philadelphia, PA, The Frames, The Swell Season, Van Morrison on March 17, 2022| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: March 14, 2022] Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova

Back in November, I was surprised and delighted to see that Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova had announced a small tour (like six shows) celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of Once.

S. and I loved the movie and the music and she insisted we get tickets.  So I grabbed them in a pre sale.  Not as close as we would have liked, but not bad at all (there’s really no bad seats in the Merriam).

In the meantime, shows were cancelled and rescheduled, but this show fell in the safe zone and didn’t get moved at all.

We arrived just barely on time–I always forget what a pain it is to get to the Kimmel Center.  But then it took a while for the show to start.  Start time was 7, but they didn’t get on stage until 7:30 (he told us why later).

It was wonderful. (more…)

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Terry Wiley & Dave McKinnon–Sleaze Castle: The Director’s Cut Part #0 (1992, updated 2012)

Posted in Aida Shahghasemi, Blindness, Church of the SubGenius, Dave McKinnon, Funny (ha ha), Graphic Novel, Huh?, Jeremy Dennis, Jimi Hendrix, Lee Brimmicombe-Wood, Lee Kennedy, Marketa Irglova, MWOWN, Neil Gaiman, Once, Religion, Sci-fi, Set at School, Sinéad O'Connor, Siouxsie Sioux, Supernatural, Terry Wiley, Time Travel, Tiny Desk Concert on May 2, 2016| Leave a Comment »

sleazeSOUNDTRACK: MARKETA IRGLOVA-Tiny Desk Concert #174 (November 10, 2011).

marketaMarketa Irglova came to the world’s attention in the film Once, where she duetted with Glen Hansard.  They formed The Swell Season and made some beautiful music together.  But he has another band and she has done some solo work, like in this Tiny Desk.  Incidentally, watch the video, but listen to the audio.  For some reason the sound in the video is all wonky and weird, but the audio is fine.

This concert is a little surprising because Irglova plays a synth, rather than a piano, and she is accompanied by Iranian singer-percussionist Aida Shahghasemi whom she met in New York.  And Shahghasemi and her drum (called a daf) are actually a bit more interesting than Irglova.

Irglova has a nice voice, and I have really enjoyed a lot of her music, but I found these songs to be a little long and a little undramatic.  However, once you accept that she’s not going for drama, these songs are mellow and lovely.

The opening song, “We Are Good,” has an interesting main riff on the keyboard and her voice blends nicely with the music.  The end section has a very nice melody as it builds and builds.  But as I mentioned, it the daf that is so fascinating.  The drum itself looks like an Irish bodhran (or any other hand-held drum, I suppose), except it has a much bigger diameter and is very thin.  It also has a series of dangling items on the inside, which bring about a lot more percussive qualities.

“Dokhtar Goochani” is a traditional Iranian song sung in Farsi.  Shahghasemi sings the song while Irglova plays.  With the keyboard, the song doesn’t really sound very Middle Eastern until Irglova joins in on harmony vocals in the chorus, when it takes on a very cool quality.  And the drum and percussive sounds in the middle are really enticing.

After this song, Shahghasemi talks a bit about her drum and says that it can be much louder than she’s playing it here.  It’s a traditional Kurdish drum with “jangles” which she explains is usually made of goatskin, but this one is synthetic because the humidity doesn’t affect it as much.

The final song, “Let Me Fall In Love” is about the idea of being in love, with lyrics that are a bit didactic, but whatever.  I really like the middle section where the two women harmonize quite beautifully.  But again the song is a little long.

[READ: October 25, 2015] Sleaze Castle

The cover of this book is crazy.  The full title appears to be:

Markosia/Gratuitous Bunny Comix
Sleaze Castle : The Director’s Cut
Part Zero: “Tales from Sleaze Castle”
Reprinting “Takes from Sleaze Castle” #1-#4
Screenplay by Terry Wiley & Dave McKinnon  Art Direction by Terry Wiley

And then a drawing of a woman with what looks like a magic wand and another woman standing by watching her.

And then there’s a whole list of “Starring” (these names are actually characters in the stories)
and then Film Sound Track Album by MWOWM available on Gratuitous Bunny Audio #GBA3

That’s a lot to take in and it made me wonder if the comic would be that busy.  And it is.  This book is a wonder to behold.  Self published in 1992, this book is just chock full of story, with an astonishing amount of detail included in the drawings–nods to other comics, musical appreciation and all kinds of fun things to look at.  It took me a pretty long time to read this because there was just so much to see and read.  It was a lot of fun.  Even if the plot was a little confusing.

This book collects the original books and adds material (which is not at the end of the story necessarily (so art quality varies).

The book opens on a planet far away.  A blonde woman is talking about the trip she will take which will last for ten minutes their time.

Then we jump to the Prologue set in Jo’s house.  Her sister Petra is giving her a hard time.  Jo wants to take her watchman to school (she is a film studies graduate student) but it was Petra’s new present.  So they are fighting of course.  The amazing detail starts here with books on Jo’s shelves and all manner of other things to look at. (more…)

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Gene Luen Yang–Level Up (2011)

Posted in All Songs Considered, Culture Shock, First Second :01, Gene Luen Yang, Glen Hansard, Graphic Novel, Marketa Irglova, Set at School, Short Books, The Swell Season, Thien Pham, Tim Buckley, Van Morrison, Video Games on August 25, 2011| 1 Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE SWELL SEASON-Live at the Newport Folk Festival, August 1, 2010 (2010).

This is the second show by the Swell Season that I downloaded from NPR (even though it is not chronologically second).  The Newport Folk Festival proves to be an excellent venue for Glen Hansard and The Frames.  For yes, in this show, The Frames play with them.  A (very brief) history: Glen Hansard was the red-haired dude from The Commitments (yes, seriously).  After that movie, he started The Frames and they were HUGE (in Ireland and Czechoslovakia).  They even released a record with a few songs that appear in the film Once.  Then Glen met Marketa and formed The Swell Season, which was really just the two of them.  And they recorded a couple of those Frames songs for their debut album.  And then they made Once, and they rerecorded some of those songs for the Soundtrack.  So you can get quite a few versions of a couple of these songs.  The Swell Season was originally just the two of them.  But as of late they’ve been playing with the Frames as well.  So it’s like a full circle, sort of.

The big opens space of Newport, combined with a rowdy but appreciative crowd prove a perfect venue for them.  Glen is in wonderful storytelling mode, regaling the crowd with funny introductions to songs (that was Elijah!) and dealing with an overzealous fan (who I believe calls Glen a red-headed bastard–out of love: Hansard replies “I liked you for about two comments…I’ve been wanting to play here forever, you’re kind of wrecking my day….  I’m kidding”).

But it’s the music that is so good.  I’ve thought that he sounds not unlike Van Morrison, and this version of “Low Rising” that opens the set brings out the Van.  Its’ really outstanding.  The really makes some of the songs rock out, too, like when he burst into a chorus of “Love Reign O’er Me” during the otherwise mellow “Back Broke.”  Also, the full band version of “When Your Mind’s Made Up” is tremendous–when the band is rocking out and then stops on a dime for that final “So” I am blown away every time.  And yet, despite the presence of the band, some of their solo songs are the most striking.  Marketa’s, “If You Want Me” holds the crowd rapt.  And Glen’s emotionally gut wrenching “Leave” is stunning–and a little hair-raising.

Interestingly, when you download the show (by subscribing to NPR podcasts), you only get 43 minutes, rather than the entire 62 minutes of the show.  I assume they didn’t have the rights to give us the covers that the band played.  They open the set with Tim Buckley’s “Buzzin’ Fly,” and he plays Willie Nelson’s “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” while they tune some strings and they rock out Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks” (this furthers my assertion that there’s a Van Morrison connection here, although I didn’t know this was played live until I streamed the concert.

The Swell Season seems like an awesome band to see live.

[READ: August 21, 2011] Level Up.

Gene Luen Yang is also a wonderful storyteller.  His book American Born Chinese is fantastic.  This is another slice of life story, although I suspect it can’t be true about himself (well, I mean there are angels that do his laundry so obviously it isn’t true).  But I don’t know a thing about him personally so maybe he is a video game champion and a gastroenterologist as well as a novel writer.

Anyhow, the story is a fairly simple one: When Dennis is six years old, he sees a Pac Man video game console and he is instantly hooked.  The problem is that his parents want him to be a successful student–specifically, they want him to become a doctor–so there’s no fooling around with video games.  He gets good grades in school.  But when his father dies, he finally feels free to get a video game console and he finds himself playing more video games than studying.  And by the time he gets to university he actually flunks out.

His mother doesn’t learn about this disgrace because before he can do anything more drastic, the aforementioned angels threaten the dean of admissions until she lets him back into school.  They angels (who came to life from a card his father had given him) then monitor him carefully, doing all of his chores for him while ensuring that he studies his brains out.  Which he does.

And he gets into med school! (more…)

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Louise Erdrich–“The Fat Man’s Race” (New Yorker, November 3, 2008)

Posted in Cat Stevens, Dreams, Glen Hansard, Louise Erdrich, Marketa Irglova, New Yorker, Once, Short Story, The Frames, Van Morrison on November 14, 2008| Leave a Comment »

tny 11.3.08 cvr.inddSOUNDTRACK: Once Motion Picture Soundtrack (2007).

onceSarah and I saw a preview for this film a long time ago and promptly forgot about it.  Then, she remembered it was called One or The One or something….  Luckily Netflix set us straight, and we rented Once.  We were amazed at how much we liked it.  It’s clearly a labor of love for the creators.  You can tell it didn’t cost a lot of money to make, but the performances are top notch.  What was particularly cool about the movie (aside from the music) was that it starts like a typical romance of boy meets girl: they play music together and he falls in love.  But it very quickly deviates from that path and turns into a much more complex storyline.  It’s not hard to follow, but it’s a lot more complex than you’d at first think.  But clearly the movie is a showcase for these songs.

We were also delighted that about a week after we watched the film. “Falling Slowly” won the Academy Award for Best Song.  That was nice synchronicity for us.

“Falling Slowly” is a beautiful song, as are just about all of the songs on this soundtrack.  Glen Hansard (the redhead in the Commitments, currently of The Frames–who I’ve not heard aside from this disc, but who I’m led to understand are quite good) has a great, strong, rough voice that sounds a bit like Cat Stevens mixed with some Van Morrison.  Marketa Irglova (about whom more in a moment) is a Czech singer with a really heavenly voice.  Together, their harmonies are really something.  His, rough and strong, hers soft and delicate.

One of the strongest songs on the disc, and in my opinion better than “Falling,” is “When Your Mind’s Made Up.”  The movie shows the band recording this song in full in the studio.  I was happy that the scene wasn’t one of those where the band screws up and they do take after take.  Rather, they play it through solidly and it sounds great. It really makes the song stand out in the movie.  And, there’s something about the way that Hansard screams the chorus as it builds to an impossible crescendo that is really breathtaking.

The rest of the disc features more songs from the movie (there’s a special version of the disc with extra tracks but we didn’t feel compelled to get it).  And the selection is fairly diverse within the strictures of his acoustic guitar and her piano.  She has a ballad of her own, and they do many duets.

As for Marketa Irglova, I didn’t know this until I just looked her up, but apparently, she was “discovered’ by Hansard when she was 13, and she toured the Czech Republic and Ireland with the Frames.  Evidently she and Hansard started dating sometime around the filming of the movie.  I’m not really prudish but there’s something about the 38 year old Hansard dating the 19 year old Irglova that’s a little creepy.  Nevertheless, the music they make together is pretty great.

[READ: November 6, 2008] “The Fat Man’s Race”

The author’s name sounded familiar so I thought I’d give this a read.  Then when I saw it was about a page and a half long, how could I refuse?

Recently I’ve read a number of stories that seemed like the weren’t finished.  I am happy to say that despite its length, this story was clearly done.  (more…)

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