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NELSON’S PILLAR, THE Carlton Theatre, and little boys gazing in the window of a cake shop – they all feature, in living colour, in what appears to be a newly-released video of Dublin in the 1950s.
The footage, published by Dutch filmmaker Michael Rogge on his prolific YouTube channel, captures a number of the city’s landmarks.
Like Nelson’s Pillar…
and the Savoy…
But it’s people of the city who are the real stars.
Like these two lads staringly longingly in the window of a cake shop…
Cyclists, motorists, and horse-and-cart men battling for space on O’Connell Street…
What looks like a scene straight out of Mad Men…
And Dubliners of all descriptions strolling about College Green on a sunny day…
The footage also seems to have caught Arthur Fields, the legendary man on O’Connell Bridge, plying his trade as a photographer…
Rogge says in the video description that it’s 16mm amateur footage from 60 years ago, but as of yet we’re not exactly sure when it was shot, and by whom.
A short scene featuring strikers outside the Irish Assurance Company, however, would suggest at least some of the footage was filmed during the summer of 1956.
The audio track appears to have come from a rather more recent walk around the city, but for the most part provides a nice accompaniment to the warm, very high-definition images.
Curiously, the footage also seems to feature a few seconds each of the Cat & Fiddle pub in Macclesfield in Cheshire, and the famous crooked spire of the Church of Saint Mary and All Saints in Chesterfield, Derbyshire.
Perhaps a leftover from a trip to England around the same time?
Never mind – watch the video for yourself. You’ll see why there’s so much to say about it…
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Is this a sponsored article?
@Gary Tuohy: It says it’s supported by Schweppes.
A beverage brand that is sold around the world. It includes a variety of lemonade, carbonated waters and ginger ales.
I personally recommend this beverage. ‘Schweppes’, probably the best beverage in the world.
@Gary Tuohy: Hey man. Not sure! Nice to be asked for the interview though. Cheers for giving it some of your eye time ☺️
Musicians once sang for enjoyment. Then they sang for payment. Then they teamed with the music replicators and distributors who could take sell one performance thousands of times which made many people embarrassingly rich and gave others a living.
They could charge well because the general public had no other way to hear a pristine performance than to pay the “industry”
Then came cheap non-decaying digital replication and the internet ( paid for by the end user through hardware purchase and broadband subscription btw) which enabled them to share and replicate a performance themselves.
It’s not the making of the music that made musicians rich – it was a monopoly of the replication and distribution channels
That game is now up. Time to go back to performing for payment – or enjoyment..
@Nydon: Hey. Agree in that it’s always been about the enjoyment of making music together for us and a big thing for us was to not feel any creative pressure making music for money to survive …thankfully too as we are in the era of free streaming illegal downloads etc. We never wanted that feeling or pressure. That’s why we both still have job jobs. Anything else we make from music music is extra extra ✌️Makes this whole new process of getting our music out there even more enjoyable, no pressure regardless …and it’s been a success so far comparatively ….and look we’re in the journal! Yay! Now to sleep soon…we both have to work tomorrow! Good night ! N & P
@Deadbots:
I hope you can and will make enough out of performing live to have a good life and income. But I’m afraid recording and mass distribution may in future be only a way to advertise what you can do live.
If you can get your biggest fans to become patrons and subsidise some of that advertising cost by paying for downloads then all the better – but I think it’s back to the days of the wandering minstrels singing for their supper :-(
@Nydon: I’m afraid you’re take on the history of musicians/composers and the music industry is overly simplistic and rather disrespectful. The major ground shift that changed the industry for the worse was that people saw the internet technology as a way of sharing and getting music for free and the recording companies didn’t know how to cope with that level of copyright theft. Their way out was to allow Spotify access to their artists at relatively low cost by reducing the artists share to virtually nothing. I’m not sure what you do for a living but if your job was suddenly dropped to a fraction of minimum wage but you were expected to continue to work the same amount because “you enjoy doing it, don’t you”, maybe then you would understand of the damage Spotify and such services do.
@Nydon: Or they can write a mega hit tune or tour relentlessly for 40 hrs a week and sell merch etc
I hear Brewing Up A Storm often on the radio. Should there not be an income stream from IMRO seeing how they charge every little corner shop that has a radio on?
@Squiddley Diddley: Sorry just realised that song was mentioned as an example.
how much did they get for radio play?
@steve white: Hear ya. We don’t plan on income from radio play. Or even sales really. It’s all in the syncing these days. That’s why we want to own our tracks 100% and have our own cyber house for them. Night :)
Crap Bands don’t make any money shocker
@Stevie Doran: Yo! The song we got a payment check for 10 cents for was the same song being given away on so many free download sites the labels profits were being affected. But even still free downloads help get ur music heard n out there. Months later that song was used for a tv show, video game and Milan fashion week. #payday but we didn’t get all the pay cause we gave away too much of our publishing rights.
Now we own all our own music.
Most money to be made these days for bands at our level is in syncing & we’ve already synced 3 songs off the upcoming album it’s not even out yet, and yeppers, that money went straight to us.
You don’t have to like our music. Not everyone will. But want to push message for others to maintain their ownership cause when syncs come calling, hello
Still getting 97p is actually good money for work done 30 years ago.
Joking aside it’s never been better for up and coming musicians. A decade ago some guy in a suit decided whether or not you’d have a career and more often than not went with the safe bet and offered washed up “superstars” millions rather than spreading it around to new talent. Some musicians lament the fact that if it had been ten years earlier they’d have made a fortune but they’re ignoring the fact that they might not have even been heard.
have your say