metro Arts & Entertainment Green Day In Town Tonight The multi-platinum selling, multi-award winning whinge-rockers return, their current album 21st Century Breakdown earning comparisons with The Clashs London Calling, The Whos Quadrophenia and the writing of Chuck Palahniuk Tonight, The O2, East Link Bridge, North Wall Quay D1, 6.30pm, 49.20 to 54.54 (returns only). Tel: 0818 719 300. www.greenday.com The Poe Show Premiering last April to mark the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poes birth, this spine-tingling production combining Gothic stories, verse and music is back by popular demand and counts us down to Halloween Until Oct 31, Bewleys Caf Theatre, 78/79 Grafton Street D2, 12.50pm, 15 incl light lunch. Tel: 086 878 4001. www.bewleyscafetheatre.com I See A Darkness II Last week of Mark Cullens solo exhibition which sees The LABs interior divided into interconnecting chambers that refer to notions of cosmology, science fiction, time and space Until Sat, The LAB, Foley Street D1, Mon to Sat 10am to 6pm, free. Tel: (01) 222 5455. www.thelab.ie life With hair that could out- bouffant even Brian May, Wolfmother frontman Andrew Stockdale certainly has stage presence. Psychedelic rock- outs reminiscent of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Jimi Hendrix are standard for this Grammy award winning Australian quartet who have had more irreconcilable differences than an LA matrimonial court. But the dust seems to have settled now the band championed by Alice Cooper and Metallicas Lars Ulrich are about to release album Cosmic Egg, the first record in their current line-up. Pre-sale tickets for this Dublin gig are available now, and includes the option of pre-ordering Cosmic Egg at a discount price; tickets and album go on general sale from Friday Jan 13 2010, Olympia Theatre, 72 Dame Street D2, 7pm, 25. Tel: 0818 719 300. www.wolfmother.com Booking Soon Wolfmother Arts & Entertainment The Big Interview Conor McMahon Using his guts and onor McMahon is a dab hand at zombie disposal. In the directors feature debut, 2004s Dead Meat, he decapitated the living dead with hurleys and skewered them with high heel shoes. His greatest moment of horror, however, was unscripted. McMahon (pictured below) dumped a bucket of maggots onto a table for creative effect, but after shooting the scene he did not know how to get rid of them. Someone suggested the vacuum cleaner. An hour later, he was filming a scene in which a character gets his eye sucked out by the same hoover. The maggots spilled out of the nozzle and onto the actors face. If I remember correctly, McMahon chuckles, he rushed off to vomit. Dead Meat may have been low on budget and taste, but it was big on heart and recalled the early work of Peter Jackson and obscure zombie classics like The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue. The film was also a reasonable commercial success, recouping its 100,000 budget and turning a small profit after selling to 17 territories across the world. It was a fantastic start for the young Irish director, who began crafting tales about killer clowns and Irish banshees in eager anticipation of his next project. Then... nothing. For five years all was quiet on the McMahon front. Why the creative impasse? I really dont know, he says. Not for a lack of trying. I suppose it becomes complicated when you are looking for a lot more production money. Things can drag out forever. I thought Id be making a film the next year. The directors follow-up, The Disturbed (pictured above), which plays at this weeks Horrorthon film festival, was a long time coming. C The story, about two sadists who kidnap a woman for a weekend of torture before strange events disrupt their plans, is hardly comfortable viewing. Then again, the horror genre is not known for fluffy tales of goodwill and chastity. Ive always loved films like Last House On The Left [Wes Cravens 1972 debut] and I did have a soft spot for Hostel, says McMahon. Also, I really liked the Blair Witch Project. So it was almost like, How do I combine these three films? Of course, once you set something in a house in the country, theres always a bit of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The film emerged, in part, from the directors frustration with his stalled career. He rented a house in Carlow with the intention of shooting something anything as an experiment. If I have no money, whats the easiest way I can make a film? A house, a very small number of actors, a video camera. With little in the way of a script, he shot the film over the course of five days, allowing the actors to improvise. S hooting on the fly was hardly new for McMahon, who had been making horror shorts since his school days in Glasnevin. The director showed early promise with Tales Of Terror, a trilogy of ghostly stories that won Limericks Fresh film festival. In 2001, his short film, The Braineater, collected more awards, establishing his skill at mixing shocks with laughs. But although a few decent Irish horrors have emerged in the wake of Dead Meat Billy OBriens Isolation, for example McMahon believes the genre is often a If I have no money, whats the easiest way I can make a film? A house, a very small number of actors, a camera The director from Dublin talks horror and maggots with Pavel Barter ahead of the IFIs Horrorthon GIG Josh Ritter CHARACTER STUDY Colum McCanns favourite fictional 14 metrolife Wednesday, October 21, 2009 The hoTTesT TickeTs in Town We have two pairs of tickets to see WOLFMOTHER Jan 13 at The Olympia, 7pm For a chance to win, e-mail your answer to the question below to life@ metroireland.ie by noon today with Hot Tickets in the subject line. With your answer please include your name, address and a number where you can be contacted between 1pm and 3pm. Strictly one entry per person; entrants must be age 18+. Q. What is the name of Wolfmothers debut album? A Wolfmother B Wolfspawn The winners of yesterdays tickets to see Macbeth/ Das Rheingold are: Conor Berkley & Ed OBrien Hogan There was a time when David Gray held the title of Irelands favourite adopted musical son but that mantel has, in recent years, found a far more deserving recipient in the shape of one Josh Ritter. The indefatigable Idaho-born singer/songwriter who sounds as though he was raised on a no- nonsense diet of Bruce Springsteen, Woody Guthrie and Mark Twain writes splendid little folk songs with a political edge and has a knack for some seriously thrilling pop hooks. For this three-night stint at Whelans, Ritter will revisit a triumvirate of recently reissued acoustic LPs, with the Love Canon String Band in tow to provide lush accompaniment. Tonight sees Americana-seeped Golden Age Of Radio getting a welcome revisit, tomorrow its the turn of breakthrough Hello Starling, while Friday sees The Animal Years, a feisty collection of socially conscious country rock, reinterpreted. Just get there early: the fawning female contingent tend to form a front row carapace thatll be hard for the casual fan to penetrate. Daragh Reddin Tonight until Fri, Whelans, 25 Wexford Street D2, 7.30pm, 27.30 (returns only). Tel: 1890 200 078. www.joshritter.com At the risk of being pretentious, Id like to carry Leopold Bloom (played by Stephen Rea in a 2003 film) from James Joyces seminal novel, Ulysses in my pocket and walk him around with me. We know Dublin through the eyes of Bloom when he walks the streets, encountering drunks and philosophers, vagabonds, teachers, whores, butchers and index.html2.html3.html4.html5.html6.html7.html8.html9.html10.html11.html12.html13.html14.html15.html16.html17.html18.html19.html20.html21.html22.html23.html