From Oasis to The Ping Pong Bitches, ALAN McGEE is living proof that there s life after
success, excess, Labour, near-death and, oh yes, Creation Records. Even if you re a Rangers
supporter. Interview: STUART CLARK
Everything about The Others should set us against them – the NME’s desperate desire to push them as the next Libertines, the whole London ‘guerrilla’ scene, Alan McGee – but Stan Bowles is a pretty decent punk rock racket, if a little too self-knowing to back up the outsider mythology already being built up around them.
The latest release from the Mr. Beast album, 'Travel Is Dangerous' shows why Alan McGee reckons Mogwai do shoegazing even better than My Bloody Valentine. There's an immense sense of brooding, emotional restraint during the verses, which give way to a stirring chorus. Genuinely powerful stuff.
John Walshe catches up with Teenage Fanclub s Norman Blake and hears about avoiding musical fashions, the realisation that they are growing older and how they are ambitious, despite what Alan McGee says
Stuart Clark meets The Bellrays' vocalist Lisa Kekaula and hears how she developed that voice, why Lemmy is a big fan and why she's in bed with Alan McGee
East Glasgow quartet Glasvegas have nothing to do with the TG4 show. They're the anthemic band discovered by Alan McGee in the same venue he found Oasis.
Bobby Gillespie's still staying up all night but now it's because there's a baby in the house. Otherwise, it's all systems go for Primal Scream at their bunker hq - Witnness cometh, Mani's back and Kate Moss, Kevin Shields, Robert Plant and AndrewWeatherall all feature on the groundbreaking evil high
It's indie Irish supergroups ahoy! as former Rollerskate Skinny man Stephen M, ex-Chick Annie Tierney and Mark Dennehy of Johnny Pyro fame join forces as The Radio
The Jesus & Mary Chain are playing their first Irish gig in over seven years as part of May's Heineken Green Energy Festival. Stuart Clark appreciates their god-like genius.
Relish brothers Ken and Carl Papenfus have joined forces with the jazz funk supergroup, Players, that also features former Style Council-or Mick Talbot, Paul Weller’s drummer Steve White and ex-Ocean Colour Scene man Damon Minchella.
Noel Gallagher and Paul Arthurs of Oasis talk about their staggering rise from being unemployed no-hopers to Top Ten chart act striving to outshine T.Rex, The Beatles and Neil Young to name but three and show Tony Clayton-Lea how to order a peanut.
Well, a little about it, at least. JONATHAN O'BRIEN discovers that jim REID
doesn't have too much to say about The Jesus And Mary Chain's seventh album, Munki.
Actor, musician, professional widow and major-label-baiter Courtney Love spins a few at Alan McGee's Death Disco, soon heading to a Dublin near you. Did we mention the new Nirvana track?
Actor, musician, professional widow and all-occasion noisemaker Courtney Love spins a few at Alan McGee's Death Disco, soon heading to a Dublin near you. Oh, did we mention the new Nirvana track?
THE UNDERTONES have played a series of triumphant gigs since reforming. GEORGE BYRNE met the Derry punk legends, now augmented by Today FM producer Paul McLoone on vocals
He's got a young family and a demanding day job, but that hasn't prevented Davy Matchett, supremo of Only Gone Records, from fighting the good fight on behalf of the Belfast music scene.
Marriage and babies have given The Dandy Warhols a fresh perspective on life. But they aren't ready to turn their back on sleazed-up rock'n roll just yet
Where hip and hype go together, that's where you'll find The Hives who are buzzing to tell Stuart Clark all about Kylie, curling, punk rock, nice forests and bad Norwegian jokes
It just gets better: The Hives and The Dandy Warhols are just a few of the latest confirmations for Witnness... and the next near-definite addition will be no less than Primal Scream. Read on for Bobby Gillespie's album preview ("It's probably the best thing we've done since 'Higher Than The Sun'")
How the mafia did Noel a favour by twatting Liam; the U2 song Oasis might cover; the most he’s spent on cocaine; a great night out in Ireland’ and what it will say on his tombstone. Noel Gallagher answers the reader’s questions. Turning up the heat Stuart Clark.
In the second and final part of an extensive interview, MIKE SCOTT discusses inspiration and influences, recalls his difficult solo years and explains the death and resurrection of THE WATERBOYS. Interview: PETER MURPHY
It's been ten years that's shaken a fair bit of the world and now, suddenly, OASIS are back. what better time for a reflective, confessional, candid and scandalous one-on-one with a man who always gives great quote, NOEL GALLAGHER. Interview: STUART CLARK
Exclusive: Kevin Shields, the missing presumed lost genius of Irish rock, re-emerges to tell the truth about sandbags and barbed wire, the making of Loveless, early Dublin days with Gavin Friday, Liam O Maonlai and U2, and his Bafta-winning work on Lost in Translation.
It's head-scratching, nail-biting, on-the-tip-of-your-tongue time again, as GEORGE BYRNE presides over our renowned annual music quiz [this is for the year 2000]
With ‘Yellow’, Coldplay captured the imagination of even the most resistant of hard-boiled rock’n’roll cynics. Now, as A Rush Of Blood To The Head achieves lift-off in the U.S., even the sky is no longer the limit.
Underdogs who've clawed their way into the top flight, Setanta Records, like Wimbledon, are a premiership act - with attitude. stuart clark gets the rags to (comparative) riches story from label boss, Dubliner Keith Cullen and also seeks the considered opinions of boys-done-well, Neil Hannon and Edwyn Collins.
Although its release in 1991 barely caused a ripple, My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless has since become regarded as the great lost Irish treasure, a sort of shadowy twin sister to Nirvana’s Nevermind.
Released in 1999 Paddy Casey’s debut album went double-platinum, establishing him as one of Ireland’s brightest prospects. but the intervening four years have seen that crown slip, as a succession of homegrown singer songwriters battled their way into contention, outstripping him in terms of record sales – and hard graft. now casey is back in the frame, with his long-waited follow-up, the cheekily titled Living – an album that sees him gloriously back on top of his game. why did it take four years to make? the answer to that burning question may go back even further. because Paddy Casey’s life story is truly a remarkable one.
What happens when post-rock becomes merely post? This is a dilemma confronting Mogwai, once frontiersmen of sonic extremity, now your third favourite band from the ‘90s.
It’s refreshingly pleasant to watch sets by bands that seem so thrilled and honoured to be playing on a decent stage in front of a healthy-sized audience.
At the precise moment that TOWER RECORDS are celebrating their 30th anniversary, they have the youngest managing director in their history – ANDY LOWN. Since assuming his present post in July 1996, he’s masterminded the expansion of the company in Ireland, and is about to preside over the opening of five new outlets in this country. Interview: STUART CLARK.
