Iggy Pop Gives Mik Artistik The Serious Nod

NPR, that venerable American broadcasting institution, have recently been asking the good and the great to nominate their favourite song of the last ten years as the new decade hoves into view and allows us a 2020 vision, if you will (thank you). This past week it was the turn of none other than raging shirt-o-phobic and punk progenitor, Iggy (of Loyola) Pop. Our man in the see-through kacks plumped for the glorious and suitably epic 'Sweet Leaf Of The North' by Mik Artistik's Ego Trip.

Now, this will come as no surprise to us few, us happy few, who piled into The Grand Social on a couple of occasions to catch Mik's mind-blowing show (Plastic Fox! PLASTIC FOX!). Hot Press also fondly remembers Mik showing up in Marty Mulligan's Word tent at an Electric Picnic, although he did try to pinch my Stetson, taking not only that hat, but also his life, into his own hands.

Anyway, Mik is a bit of a treasure who describes 'Sweet Leaf Of The North' as an "anthem of hope" and it is in no way cynically constructed just to get punter's lighters and mobile phones in the air as a show closes. To celebrate this wondrous melding of melody and word, which some people have called "the Purple Rain de nos jours*", Mik N' The Trip have woven this poignant piece of (digital) celluloid, charting said leaf's biblical trip South, a journey of discovery that would have Joseph Campbell himself in a right old two and eight.

You've done it again, Osterberg! This truly is unique.

You - and don't you even think about missing it - can catch the full Mik Artistik Ego Trip experience in Dublin's newest dancing den, Bloody Mary's, this coming March 6th.

(*I did, in the third paragraph.)