Currently reprising her role of Mrs. Johnstone in Willie Russell’s Blood Brothers, Rebecca Storm here enthuses about both the play and her own burgeoning musical career
The Irish Blood Transfusion Service has for some time been making life extremely difficult for homosexual men who wish to donate blood. Whilst the ban has largely gone unnoticed until now, as Ciara Cunnane reports, gay men are no longer prepared to tolerate what they see as a discriminatory system. Photoography by Cathal Dawson.
The Irish Blood Transfusion Service has for some time been making life extremely difficult for homosexual men who wish to donate blood. Whilst the ban has largely gone unnoticed until now, as Ciara Cunnane reports, gay men are no longer prepared to tolerate what they see as a discriminatory system. Photography by Cathal Dawson
For this year’s crop, it’s entirely possibly that Blood Mountain could be their Number Of The Beast or Wheels Of Steel. Those with the benefit of slightly more experience, however, will find that Mastodon offer little that’s particularly new.
Stop the presses. Ed Zwick, director of such dreary though lavish efforts as Glory and The Last Samurai, has made a reasonably exciting film. No, really. At its best, there are shades of the shackled escapee movie about Blood Diamond.
Alice and Blood Money are Siamese twinsets written by Waits and his wife Kathleen Brennan for a stage production directed by Texan image alchemist Robert Wilson
One of the things that becomes clear as the wonders of A Rush Of Blood To The Head unfolds is that Coldplay are making a truly startling sound within a basic rock format
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.
Following the exhumation of Padre Pio's body, two teenaged entrepreneurs are asking ten grand for a phial of what they say is the bearded bi-locationist's blood.
From dark age to middle age, Nick Cave is such a far cry from the blood-spilling junkie of rock legend that these days you’re likely to encounter him commuting to his 9 to 5. Except of course that his job is writing and making music, his new album is called Nocturama and there are, he admits, some sizeable blow-outs in the memory banks.
They must be sick of the Pogues comparisons by this stage, but listening to Blood Or Whiskey’s third studio album it’s impossible not to think of Spider Stacey bouncing his head off a beer crate and an early Shane MacGowan screeching into the microphone with two fingers aloft as the squaddies chucked their chips at him. Blood Or Whiskey evoke those sort of memories. The Rum, Sodomy And The Lash era when The Pogues stuck to their punk and traditional origins.
Set to support the Levellers at their December Academy date, Irish trad punk outfit Blood Or Whiskey are already plotting their return to the venue next year.
The violent life and death of the Florida prostitute Aileen Wuornos, who was executed in 2002 for a string of murders, is the subject matter of the debut film feature monster by Patty Jenkins. Craig Fitzsimons talks to the writer-director about the controversial, Oscar-winning movie
In the definitive life of two halves, GEORGE BEST has been both the supreme footballer and a raddled alcoholic . With a new paperback biography just published and a movie version of his life on the way, LIAM MACKEY reflects on the genie who got trapped by the bottle.
It seems that supergroups just aren’t what they used to be. These days the term can apparently be used, albeit prefaced by the ‘indie’ clarification, for a band featuring two members of The Electric Soft Parade, someone from The Tenderfoot and Eamon Hamilton, the Canadian percussionist with British Sea Power and head honcho for the project. Blind Faith it ain’t.
Undead, shape-shifting ghouls who can only be killed by fire may be the stuff of lore. But Dublin resident and ‘sanguinarian’ Lily will happily feed on the intoxicating lifeblood of her fellow mortals. Here it is folks: an honest-to-god interview with the vampire
FIONA REID meets SEAN MILLAR, the acclaimed singer/songwriter who’s currently overseeing a music workshop for inner-city youths and talks to one young participant, IAN FAGAN
Daemon Codell – aka Joe Daly – is an illusionist with a difference, who likes nothing better than the sight of blood on the stage. It’s only when it’s his own blood that he gets worried.
This graphically personal and confessional album is reputed to be about the agonising and acrimonious break-up of Dylan’s marriage to Sara Lowndes, and it sees him alternately at his most vicious and his most vulnerable.
After a pair of critical and commercial misfires, Joel and Ethan Coen have returned with what many critics are hailing as the best film of their career, the dark noir No Country For Old Men.
Although critics have discerned all manner of political and religious significance in There Will Be Blood, director Paul Thomas Anderson insists that it's a horror film about the birth of California.
He's famed for his method-acting obsessiveness and supposed reclusive streak. But could the real secret about Daniel Day-Lewis be that he's actually rather normal?
Finns can only get better as dodgy England World Cup songs, credibility-destroying Coke ads and blood-spurting Eurovision entrants star in our C.I.N. music special.
Ja Rule sounds like the meanest rapper in da hood, possessing a husky rasp that screams don’t fuck with me. “It’s all about sex, money and murdah”, he exclaims on ‘N***s & B*****s’, which is likely to have been christened with a more politically correct title so it can be sold at K-Mart.
He has warts on his face, chemical paste in his blood, viagra in his dick and a heart full of rock 'n' roll. "There are occasions when I do preach temperance," Lemmy tells a startled STUART CLARK Woooooargh! Photography: SIMON ROCHE
When your personal background includes dusting down knives for sex and walking up the aisle wearing a white shirt with your husband’s name written in blood on it, then playing all-action heroine Lara Croft on the big screen probably seems like the very essence of normality. Angelina Jolie describes the joy of death-defying work, explains why England is more attractive to live in than the US, underscores the importance of her UN role and, finally, talks about life and love post-Billy Bob. interview Tara Brady and Craig Fitzsimons
Popular culture has seldom been this unremittingly grim. Resurrection Man is based on the blood-curdling activities of
the Shankill Butcher, and it stars
stuart townsend.
Interview: craig Fitzsimons.
It’s hard to think of two artists less alike than MUNDY and LAURA IZIBOR. But they do have one thing in common: they’re Irish outsiders who have overcome challenging circumstances and, with new albums under their belts, are set to sweep all before them in 2009.
How The White Stripes turned the bare essentials into an essential noise, insisted that three is indeed a magic number and wound up becoming one of the most phenomenally successful rock acts in the world
The glitz and glamour is but the tip of the iceberg a lot of blood, sweat and tears has also gone into making THE CORRS the huge success they are. And it s not just about the music either the tricky business they call show has to be negotiated too. NIALL STOKES gets the inside story from the captain of the ship, manager JOHN HUGHES, with supporting testimony from some of the crew.
You know you re doing something right if your book disturbs both Cat Stevens and Snoop Doggy Dogg. But Sligo-born eamonn sweeney s debut novel, Waiting For The Healer, with its explosive mix of booze, blood, manic comedy and rock n roll, is also winning rave reviews for its uncompromisingly forthright author. Interview: liam fay.
In pre-judging the guilt of those arrested in connection with the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, and fomenting a desire for vengeance, elements of the media have behaved abominably
It was only a matter of time before some bright spark fused the sexy swagger of French acid house with glitchy Germanic funk. Young blood Sebastien Bouchet is the first to serve up this fusion with the gritty ‘Manievelle’.
Fairuza have cheekbones, pouts, and occasionally, a memorable tune. Given to wild self-praise, they are a band with the capacity of vex and thrill in equal doses. This, though, is marvelous – an absurd, flamboyant chunk of neo-glam, with grinding riffs and a chorus worth spilling virgin blood for.
No surprises then to discover that the fourth album from this long-time Dublin punk collective sounds exactly like you expect it to. Cue blood curdling vocals, fuzzy speeded-up guitars and car-crash drumming. But despite their “stuck in a time-warp” musical ambitions the production here is pretty impressive and they remain unrepentantly faithful to the genre
One of the stand-outs on their patchy The Life Pursuit LP, ‘The Blues Are Still Blue’ is classic Belle And Sebastian bolstered by the glistens of a shiny pop melody amid quirky lyrics drawing comparisons between laundry and relationships. Where it receives it’s injection of new blood is in the shades of glam rock guitars, and if that wasn’t enough to entice you, then a wonderful cover of ‘Whiskey in The Jar’ as a b-side should seal the deal.
If it's "alternative organic pop" (ahem) you're after, your long lonely search is over with the release of Rory Faithfield's Blood, Bones & Soul later this spring
Another of Blood And Fire's excellent collection/samplers from their range of classier '70s reggae/dub plates - and it's good! Heavyweight 3 features 14 tracks from the likes of Horace Andy, Bim Sherman and Johnny Clarke, showcasing some of the era's most exciting sounds, punk notwithstanding.
Th’ Legendary Shack * Shakers' blend of blues, R‘n’B, hillbilly, rockabilly and countless other strands is an intoxicating mix that makes the heart beat faster and the blood pump quicker.
Already being hailed as a mighty return to form and a worthy successor to the groundbreaking Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik, Californication sees the Red Hot Chili Peppers back on the block and re-energised.
No longer the nascent, impressionable - though hugely ambitious - young quintet who unleashed the blood-splattered masterpiece The Bends in the mid-'90s, nor the newly crowned kings of modern rock who enjoyed virtually unprecedented levels of acclaim circa-OK Computer, they have instead settled into a role as sort of latter-day alt. culture godfathers
As a fish-out-of-water piece, you’d have to admit that Green Street is audacious. It’s not everyday that a blood-splattering football beat-‘em-up featuring Elijah Wood – bless his little webbed socks - as a visiting American West Ham hooligan comes along, although the diminutive actor’s valiant efforts to avoid Mark Hamill Syndrome have already seen him get up to much worse. Remember his impressively dweebish knicker-sniffing in Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind and mute cannibal-butchery in Sin City?
Once Like A Spark is a brilliantly brief headrush, a mad dash through the realms of punk, rock and metal that is the perfect pick-me-up for anyone who’s tired of post-rock, fed up with the new wave of cooler-than-thou US supergroups and longing for a bit of old-fashioned blood, thunder, sweat and bollocks.
Swords fly, blood splatters and comely wenches wobble like never before in glorious motion capture animation. You wonder why the filmmaker didn’t, you know, go and make a real film.
Rumours that the whispery-voiced McRae was going to rock out on this, his third album, have proved totally unfounded. All Maps Welcome boasts the same acoustic, string-soaked arrangements as his near-perfect eponymous debut and so-so sophomore release, Just Like Blood. Even a move to Los Angeles, for so many the home of rock ‘n’ roll, or the inclusion of some of Beck’s backing band haven’t caused McRae to let rip. That said, the sound throughout is remarkably full, considering the lack of fuzzed-up, distortion-driven wig-outs, and plenty of the songs manage to build up quite a head of righteous steam without the need for electric agonising.
A relentless, blood-soaked grand-guignol bombardment of cheapo SFX-on-genocidal-rampage destruction, Final Destination boasts one of the worst scripts of all time, but it's an inordinate amount of fun, shining from start to finish with an idiotic magnificence reminiscent of Ed Wood (almost).
Whether it’s the suicide bomber, the pilgrimage stampede or a blood sacrifice closer to home, religion is at the core of a lot of the world’s worst thinking.
Filmed in permanently wintry Minnesota, drenched in spilled blood and bleak snow, A Simple Plan invites comparisons to the Coens' Fargo. It is, however, much warmer in tone and more immediately affecting, a result of palpably human performances from the four individuals at the centre of the tale.
IF PEDIGREE alone paid the rent, The Floors' mastermind David Donohue would be a made man. Always ten years ahead of his time, this Carlow-born film-maker, musician, songwriter and alternative entrepreneur first made his mark in 1989 with Put Blood In The Music, an excellent documentary study of a downtown New York downtown scene that included John Zorn and Sonic Youth.
Gone, or at least sidelined, is the four-piece purity perfected on Blood Sugar Sex Magik in favour of noodly guitar soundscapes, synths, choral harmonies and full orchestral arrangements
IF THE truth be told I'm not normally much of a lad for war movies. I'm generalising here, but they're too long, their scripts tend to stink, there aren't many women to be seen, and I never did dig the sight of human blood in huge quantities.
Can you really have too much of a good thing? The Mars Volta’s debut De-loused In The Comatorium was such a blood red feast, this listener’s digestive juices were still busy breaking the thing down when word came of a follow up. And whaddya know – the scope, scale, complexity and ambition of Frances The Mute, recorded in NY, LA, Puerto Rico and Australia, make its predecessor seem almost straightforward.
A rock star having sex with his 19-year-old girlfriend whilst drenched in blood – no, it’s not Sam Snort’s latest escapade, it’s the new collaboration between God of Fuck Marilyn Manson and Titanic director James Cameron.
A BLOOD-CURDLING howl of violent white rage that looks set to reverberate around the world for some time to come, Fight Club is an almighty, disturbing, monstrous motherfucker of a movie which power-drills its way into the viewer’s head like few films since the heyday of Martin Scorsese.
Despite the resolutely Irish blood coursing through his veins, Barry Glendenning nonetheless committed the heretical gesture of celebrating with the blighty faithful following England’s world cup win. Read on for the full shocking details…
After cutting her teeth (ouch!) in Bachelor’s Walk and Shimmy Marcus’s Headrush, Derry actress Laura Pyper has squeezed herself into thigh-high boots and corset for Hex, Sky One’s teenage witch riposte to Buffy.
Manic Street Preachers have turned the guitars down, but not the bile. A slimline James Dean Bradfield tells a pleasantly plump Stuart Clark why John F. Kennedy, Billy Connolly and Jesus Christ Superstar are in league with Satan. Or words to that effect.
With the Five Nations Championship up and running again, Paul O’Mahoney discusses the state of the union game with Scotland’s straight-talking captain, Gavin Hastings.
A Soldier’s Song With A Difference
Although the Northern Irish conflict has been the subject of countless books, many authors have become bogged down in an attempt to explain the major issues, and have thus neglected the individual testimonies which are often more revealing.
Never mind Cradle of Filth and their “Jesus Is A Cunt” t-shirts, if it’s real, honest to Beelzebub offensiveness you’re after look no further than Norwegian death metallers Gorgoroth who’ve been charged with blasphemous obscenity following a particularly boisterous gig in Poland.
Gardai and other authorities are giving greater attention than ever these days to the issue of ‘drug driving’. But the culprits may not always be who you think…
It s gas. Some idiot in a world observatory of finance or somesuch has dropped Ireland down the least corrupt league. S/he thinks we are more corrupt than, say, five years ago. And why is this? Because we have these tribunals, that s why. Logic? Don t talk to me about logic. It s no wonder the financial order goes pear-shaped from time to time if that s their logic. Because, of course, the tribunals are a sign that we were once corrupt, that we know it and are getting better, not the other way around.
Bet you thought we’d gone all literary for a minute there. Not a chance! Europe is about to get a dose of The Cramps – so we decided to get the low-down on what to expect from the band’s prime-mover and trash philosopher extraordinaire Mr Lux Interior. Ear to the phone: Colm O’Hare.
He’s one of the most modest figures on the Northern Ireland music scene. But with David Holmes and Duke Special among his cheerleaders, it’s clear that Robyn G. Shiels is a special talent indeed.
Masters of the macabre the League Of Gentlemen have now extended their reign of terror beyond the confines of sinister township Royston Vasey. Their feature film sees Tubbs, Edward and the rest of the gang set their sights on a fresh target – the real world. Interview by Tara Brady.
Garda heavy-handedness isn’t confined to Donegal. As stories of harassment, corruption and cover-ups escalate, we report on the treatment suffered by one grieving family, whose son mysteriously died after a short time in police custody.
Controversial Welsh filmmaker Marc Evans discusses his new project, violent reality-TV parody My Little Eye, and fondly remembers the mayhem his last one caused
When Donna Karen bought three of Helen’s prints and subsequently commissioned her to design a line of scarves, she realised the potential in bringing the two disciplines together
Art with a capital ‘F’ or the real, raw thing? In London, Phil Udell strolls among – and at one point nearly falls over – an exhibition of controversial, cutting edge, headline-grabbing work from Hirst, Emin et al. But is it, like, y’know, any good?
Trinity College Dublin boasts the oldest Lesbian, Gay and Bi-sexual (LGB) Student Society in Ireland. Society president Tadhg O’Brien explains how and why the group can benefit those who are questioning their sexuality, while students Nasa and Fiona offer some personal experiences of queer college life
Paddy Courtney is one of the country’s hardest working stand-ups with hundreds of live gigs under his belt, a lucrative side-line as a warm-up man for Patrick Kielty and Gay Byrne and further plans for a television show which should make him a household name.
Irish fiction continues to grow in both popularity and hipness. In this special feature we talk to three of its most prominent young exponents: John Connolly, Conal Creedon and Julie Parsons.
Newly divorced from the Theatre Festival, this year’s Magnet Entertainment Dublin Fringe Festival is a more compact but also more diverse event than ever before.
SEX, HUMOR And Truth it proudly proclaims on the cover and, sure enough, Hustler is almost as famous nowadays for upholding the Fifth Amendment as for what the porn world so sensitively titles hamburger shots.
The furies have been unleashed over the small matter of a wash and blow-dry for Mary Harney. In the spirit of Christmas, it might be wiser to think: let he who is without sin cast the first stone...
He’s the PT Barnum of Rock, with Irish blood coursing through his veins and a penchant for encasing himself in translucent space bubbles. Ahead of THE FLAMING LIPS’ much-anticipated visit to Portlaoise, true believer Peter Murphy gets the gospel according to Wayne Coyne.
Twelve years since he retired his blood-stained Die Hard vest, Bruce Willis is back for another bite at the franchise. He talks about his see-saw acting career and why he and ex-wife Demi Moore will always be friends.
A smart, savvy actress with a wry take on the vagaries of fame Sarah Michelle Gellar has her feet planted more firmly on terra firma than the average Hollywood starlet. In an exclusive interview with hotpress, the Buffy The Vampire Slayer star discusses her blood-curdling new movie The Grudge, being a teen icon, marriage, celebrity and much else besides. Just don’t mention the English coffee.
Susanna Clarke’s debut novel, the epic Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, is putting new blood into new magic, not to mention proving something of a sensation on the bestseller charts.
The Alien vs Predator movie has resurrected two of the most successful action movie franchises of recent years. You’ll kick yourself – in slow motion, and with gratuitous blood loss, of course – if you miss it, according to the film’s star Colin Salmon.
Kill Bill is widely seen as a vehicle for director Quentin Tarrantino to express his deep-seated fascination with his favourite leading lady, Uma Thurman. But the character of The Bride – the super-deadly vixen played by Thurman in Kill Bill – is based on the blood-thirsty heroines of a bevy of B-Movies with which modern cinema’s most deadly talent is obsessed. So, as Kill Bill 2 hits the screens, we ask who are these foxy ladies, and what makes them such ruthless killers?
You know, Nick Lowe was right when he asked “What’s so funny about peace, love and understanding?” Lately, I try to avoid the news as often as not, because it seems that every day there’s another atrocity: more carnage, more blood, more tears, more misery, more grief.
The days of pop dominance are over. The worm has turned, and a whole new slew of blood and guts rock and roll bands are coming through with records that carry more than a hint of greatness. The darkling posse is headed by the Kings Of Leon – but there are outfits from all over the world who will be vying for poll position over the coming 12 months.
Blood, parties, testosterone, gonzoid lyrics – that nice ANDREW WK has a little something for just about everyone. "Hell, I don't even mind if your other favourite artist’s Enya," he tells STUART CK
GARBAGE are a band who absorb all the detritus, darkness and despair of the pre-millennial zeitgeist and spit it back out in a torrent of searing guitars, futuristic technological trickery and lyrics that freeze the blood. They've also made two of the most sinister pop records of modern times - the second of which, Version 2.0, is due for imminent release. PETER MURPHY met them in London to discuss sex, surveillance, studio strife, pre-2000 tension and their special fondness for The Beach Boys.
Well, a trio of humans, to be precise. Confronted with the flesh and blood reality of Phil, Susanne and Joanne munching sandwiches right in front of his eyes, Nicholas G. Kelly accepts that we must come to terms with the fact that The Human League have indeed risen from the grave. But not, repeat not, the ’80s.
Not all Irish emigrants spend their time crying into their green pints of Guinness in Biddy Mulligans. HELENA MULKERNS previews STATESIDE, an ambitious new TV series that chronicles the flesh and blood reality of life in the Big Apple for the so-called Greencard Generation.
"It was a Saturday afternoon, and I was alone in the Hot Press offices, heavily doped." So begins a story, possibly involving sex and violence, about reggae legend Dennis Brown. As it would
Is style important? We asked six musicians, and the answer was a resounding ‘you betcha’.
Step forward Maria Tecce, Jerry Fish, Gabriela, Ollie Cole, Nina Hynes and Bjorn Baillie
They’ve recorded with Broken Social Scene and once shared a flat with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Now Toronto avant-rockers Metric are set to make a splash of their own.
After an initial reluctance to tell the outside world about his predicament, author and poet PAT TIERNEY this year went public about his HIV-positive status, and encountered a far more compassionate response than he had anticipated. Interview: LORRAINE FREENEY
Following the implosion of Suede, drummer Simon Gilbert quit the rock'n'roll business and moved to Thailand, only to hook up with a pair of fellow ex-pats, making big music under the Futon banner.
We’re not sure whether it’s having one of the coolest names in music or boasting a killer live show that’s got Kilkenny four-piece Myp Et Jeep where they are today. But we certainly aim to find out.
Say what you like about the Stereophonics – and let’s face it, the Welsh superstars have taken their share of flak over the years – but 10 years since they first emerged they’re arguably bigger than ever.
Kristen Hersh’s new solo effort The Grotto is being released on the same day as her first album in seven years with her former band, Throwing Muses. she explains this curious coincidence – and lots more – to Eamon Sweeney
Nobody actually shouted “hit the bitch” during the previous Dublin run of Oleanna – as happened on Broadway – but Irish audiences were sharply divided in terms of the male and female adversaries in David Mamet’s controversial play. Personally, I found the polemical exchanges at the heart of the production a little ham-fisted.
Annual article: There was no love lost in 2005 between the ‘art’ and ‘middlebrow’ literary factions, but as long as Cormac McCarthy puts pen to paper, who cares? Plus round-up of the books of the year.
World AIDS Day will take place on December 1st. In an effort to raise awareness of issues surrounding the virus, Stephen Robinson offers personal reminiscences
It may well be wall to wall war on our tv screens but for all the
spectacular images and crazed punditry, we’re getting very little sense of
the truly brutal reality of violent conflict. Jonathan O’Brien found it
elsewhere
Following the lukewarm reception accorded Jackie Brown six years ago, Quentin Tarantino reached a crossroads in his career. now, following a prolonged retreat from the media spotlight, a rumoured struggle with writer’s block and his break-up with Mira Sorvino, the most influential film-maker of the nineties has made a stunning return to form with the explosive samurai thriller, Kill Bill. Craig Fitzsimons travelled to london to meet the director and discuss the film he describes as “the movie of my geek boy dreams.”
Tanya Donelly has returned with a new album, Beautysleep, which features the cream of Boston's musical talent. But Peter Murphy discovers that the ex-Belly vocalist's pregnancy at the time of recording forced her to re-evaluate her singing technique
Adrienne Murphy reports on the aftermath of the violence which engulfed the Reclaim The Streets protest in Dublin and finds many wondering, not for the first time, 'who will guard the gardai?'.
The Adidas Wellness Centre in Stockport is a state of the art facility, in which your entire physical condition is tested and assessed. So how would Hotpress’ Carol O’Hanlon stand up to the scrutiny – not to mention the endurance test through which she would be put?
Part two of our glance back over the year that was, complete with clickable quotes so you can read each and every article in full, if you like. And you know you like! So don't just sit there. Get reading...
Dara O'Briain has made it through hundreds of comedy gigs, only to come close to expiration in Dublin, choking on a grain of rice in the company of our interviewer.
Below is an extract from a new book by michael mccaughan which tells the story of how rodolfo walsh, an irish-argentinian writer and activist, met his bloody end at the hands of the state in buenos aires in 1977
The Irish government plan to implement the fingerprinting of asylum seekers from the age of 14. Meanwhile, Amnesty International, the Irish Refugee Council and the African Refugee Network have all reported a rise in race-hate attacks on blacks and non-nationals in recent months. Report: Peter Murphy. Pictures: DEREK SPIERS/REPORT
Below is an extract from a new book by michael mccaughan which tells the story of how rodolfo walsh, an irish-argentinian writer and activist, met his bloody end at the hands of the state in buenos aires in 1977
LA, Joshua Tree, Alabama, New Orleans . . . Kristin Hersh verbally back-packs her way around the most significant places in her life and career thus far.
Interview: Nick Kelly.
Brody Dalle is tired – but then she has had a pretty intense few years of it. Peter Murphy learns how The Distillers survived marital discord and peer disapproval.
Broadcaster and journalist PADDY O GORMAN has outraged the medical establishment with his view of AIDS as a gay virus . He defends himself to STEPHEN ROBINSON, while NOEL WALSH and MICHAEL CRONIN of Gay Community News put their side of the argument.
When he first arrived in the Northwest to attend college last year, Josh Clarke had no aspirations of becoming a radio DJ. Pretty soon, though, he had caught the bug in a serious way.
FANS OF this column have complained that in my preview of the Dublin Theatre Festival, in the last issue of Hot Press I paid only lip service to the "most prestigious and biggest show on offer," the RSC's production of Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale (Gaiety Theatre).
A white man inducted into aboriginal culture, 29-year old Australian singer-songwriter Xavier Rudd eschews western-obsessed pop for more indigenous spirits.
Public Enemies is an extraordinary and controversial book of photographs of British neo-Nazis, taken by Hot Press’ London photographer Leo Regan. “You’re never going to combat racism unless you know where it’s coming from”, he says. Report: Stuart Clark.
From sweeping the steps of lauren hill’s manager’s house to teetering on the brink of a massive hit – native american Jason Downs tells his story to John Walshe
Akron singer-songwriter Tim Easton has just settled in Alaska, a place where people “go mad or die”. Thankfully, he’s still alive and sane enough to tell the tale.
The most hyped show on earth may not have lived up to expectations but the year 2000 did provide the usual mix of giddy highs, horrible lows and the odd blast of flat out weirdness. THE WHOLE HOG reflects on 12 months in the history of our world, while our regular columnists have their last word on the first year of the new century
Known for his hyperactive - even threatening - live performances, Iggy Pop is sure to deliver one of Féile '93's most invigorating performances. Here, with an overview of the ex - Stooge's unconventional career, Hot Press prepares you for what's to come.
2006 has been a busy year for Dublin-born Shaz Oye, capped by the release of her mostly self-penned and self-financed debut album Truth According To Shaz Oye. In conversation with Jackie Hayden she looks back on her story so far.
The north did not witness such seismic changes in Y2K as it had in preceding years. But there was still plenty going on, as a society in which war had become the norm stumbled towards peace.
Jeff Buckley, fresh from his recent triumphant gig in Whelan’s, and with his debut album Grace just released, tells Patrick Brennan why he doesn’t want to live or die in L.A., how Cooney and Begley are getting on in New York and about why he needed therapy after meeting Bob Dylan!
With The Commitments, Black Velvet Band, Hothouse Flowers and a range of acting credits already to her name, MARIA DOYLE KENNEDY is finally releasing her debut solo album.
PETER MURPHY is charmed
Earlier this year, the dance music community was shocked by the sudden departure of Darren Emerson from Underworld. However, the band continues to blossom, embracing new technologies and ideas to remain at the forefront of electronic music. Richard Brophy catches up with Rick Smith to find out more.
Coldplay, White Stripes, Strokes, Queens, Garbage, Oasis, JJ72, Franz... With a whole slew of major albums in the pipeline, it looks like ‘05 will be the wrong year to kick that addiction to noise.
Two years after the cocaine scandal, Liam Kelly tells his side of the story and talks about attempted extortion, alcoholism and his decision to retire from politics.
JOHN WALSHE talks to top Irish 400m hurdler Susan Smith about what it means to devote yourself completely to athletics and her need to challenge for gold at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Pix: COLM HENRY.
During a career spanning almost forty years as a professional musician, Van Morrison has created an extraordinary body of work. A masterful musician, songwriter, producer, arranger and musical director, he possesses one of the most uniquely recognisable and powerful voices in music. His influence on contemporary music has been profound but far from resting on his laurels, his latest work Back On Top ranks among his finest albums to date. For Van Morrison, the search goes on. It was particularly appropriate, therefore, that he was chosen to become the first inductee into the Hot Press Irish Music Hall of Fame, at a special ceremony there last week. Report: Niall Stanage.
Consistency and continuity. Hmmm. These are things we value. Like when Ireland used to be hard to beat at football. That was good, wasn t it? You ll never beat the Irish. Not at football. Not then, anyway.
It would be different if we were talking about rugby. But that, sadly and predictably, is another story. A very other story. About which nobody can do nothing. As it were.
tomais o saoire is an Irish immigrant living in New York. He is also HIV positive. This is his heartrending story a tragic tale which includes brushes with alcoholism and depression. Tape: DYLAN FOLEY.
He can't sing, he can't play but Jim Rose can sure wail on a pile of glass! STUART CLARK meets the man behind the travelling freak show that took Féile by storm and Ray Darcy by surprise. Pix: CATHAL DAWSON
The man formerly known as Dennis Pennis, Paul Kaye, has made a return to form as hedonistic DJ Frankie Wilde in the new Ibiza-set comedy, It’s All Gone Pete Tong. A rollicking mockumentary following the fortunes of its errant lead character, it aims to do for the dance scene what This Is Spinal Tap did for heavy metal.
Michael Moore, Billy Joel, Rupert Murdoch and “pussy vegan” Chrissie Hynde are all on the menu as gonzo New York chef Anthony Bourdain gets lightly grilled by Stuart Clark
Exiled in America when war erupted in his hometown of Sarajevo, author Aleksandar Hemon taught himself to speak and write english – with stunningly powerful results. Portrait Mick Quinn
They came out of Ballyfermot Rock School,now they are capable of rocking the world! Gerry Mc Govern talks to a band who had the good sense to think of a name that was made for headlines.....flexihead!
While An Taoiseach insists that being presented with thousands of pounds in a suitcase by shady businessmen is completely ‘normal’, the rest of us have our doubts.
Slash can go boil his silly hat, but Iggy Pop, The Rolling Stones and Kraftwerk are welcome to come and stay in Fagersta any time they want. Howlin’ Pelle and the boys talk heroes and zeros with Stuart Clark
Critically-acclaimed novelist LISA ST AUBIN DE TERAN's latest book, The Hacienda, is a gripping
autobiographical account of how she and her daughter escaped from a tyrannical, insane
husband in deepest Venezuela.
Interview: ADRIENNE MURPHY.
Pic: Cathal Dawson
He s so vain, but brian molko is also one of the most astute men in rock n roll. Having put his hedonistic days behind him honest! the placebo mainman talks to stuart clark about martyrdom, maturity and Marilyn Manson.
Sunshine, killer skunk, low riders and being cool in the barbershop – even allowing for all the “shooting people and shit”, it’s easy to see why Tricky is happy with life in Los Angeles. And he’s also just made his best album since Maxinquaye.
Fresh from a starring role in the Readers Poll, Josh Ritter has even more reasons to be cheerful – like touring with Joan Baez and getting to know Damien Rice.
Despite sharing a home with fellow troubador Paddy Casey, singer-songwriter Declan O’Rourke isn’t one for late-night acoustic sessions. You’re far more likely to find him kicking back with a Coen brothers box-set and musing on the early exploration of Antarctica.
In Jon Ronson’s new collection of his newspaper columns, this most provocative of commentators turns the spotlight on his own life and family, where things are not quite as normal as you might think.
It took 277 attempts at cloning to create dolly the genetically engineered sheep that took the world by storm during 1997. Here adrienne murphy attempts to explain just what the hell is going on in the bizarre world of biotechnology, with a little help from dr. ian wilmut the man who made Dolly what she is today (out of another sheep s breast).
Shaz Oye has been described as having the most extraordinary voice ever to come out of Ireland. On the eve of the release of her much-awaited debut album, she talks to Jackie Hayden about her Irish upbringing, and its highs and lows.
Just in time for Halloween, the government and the media are conspiring to demonise public servants. All the while, the real monsters are being allowed go free.
Grappling with weighty political themes is grist to the mill for Colin Meloy of Oregon art-rockers The Decemberists. He’s even written a song about the Shankill Butchers.
A glorious Olympic opening ceremony suggests a world at peace. But burning villages in Georgia and South Ossetia reminds us that human conflict is never far away.
I don t believe in horoscopes. At all. They just don t make sense. How could the stars influence our lives? It seems so utterly improbable. But there s a lot of credulous people out there. First page they ll turn to in a magazine. They must answer some fundamental need, some vacant space in people s lives.
For most bands, a gritty rehearsal room or their parents’ garage must suffice. But Belfast indie popsters Heliopause have opted for a rather more individualistic practice space – their drummer’s kitchen.
With a huge world-wide No.1 album to their credit, Green Day are among the hottest bands on planet earth right now. Their visit to The Point in Dublin was widely anticipated. But would they live up to the promise? Hot Press’ teenage rock aficionado Rolo Black went along to find out…
THAT OLD scapegoat for all of society’s ills has reared its ugly head again: the Video Nasty. As soon as the guilty verdicts were returned on two young boys for the brutal murder of Liverpool toddler Jamie Bulger, politicians, policemen, priests and parents began casting around for someone to blame.
There may be growing opposition to the impending war in Iraq, but the British and American governments seem unwilling to learn from their predecessors’ mistakes.
My mother says that she didn t hear a bang. It was a couple of whooshes, she says. I was chatting to her on my mobile. What was that? she asked. I told her it was a bomb, I had just watched a bomb go off across the road from me, and I had to go.
With 2009 entering its final months, it’s time to take stock of the quality of northern releases thus far. If this year’s batch of stand-out records have anything in common, it is their determination to break boundaries and confound expectations
They say they’ve come from hell to bring us foot and mouth. But in reality they come from a small village outside Ipswich. STUART CLARK meets CRADLE OF FILTH, metal maniacs and purveyors of blasphemy, horror and gore – and, as you might expect, ends up talking about mums, kiddies, Winnie the Pooh and moisturiser
Gregory David Robert‘s life reads like the most sensational book, a painfully true but scarcely believable saga of academic success, crime, heroin addiction, incarceration, torture, escape, re-capture, and finally, literary acclaim. Peter Murphy hears the extraordinary tale of australia’s ‘gentleman bandit’ turned author. photography Liam Sweeney
Billy Scanlan takes a long day’s journey into night at the celebrated new york hotel, which has been a home from home for Bob Dylan, Brendan Behan, Sid Vicious and Mark Twain.
There may have been a time when Irish women were under the thumb of the Church- a state of affairs that was reflected in our collective attitude to sex. But in 2005, as the results of the new Durex survey show, we have taken control of our own sexual destinies-with absolutely no apologies to men!
If you’re going to follow up a hit like East Is East, best to do it in style – by turning to Blackpool, darts and morris dancing. Damien O’Donnell tells Craig Fitzsimons about his “uncool” new movie
Comedian JACK DEE, the supremo of sarcasm, the sultan of sardonicism, is back on the road and he s headed for this green and pleasant land, for a string of dates in April. Interview: Andrew Darlington
From seven long days journey into nightmare, from a city where the Medjugorge Herald is displayed hard by Big Uns From Fiesta, from a city where the local headline runs Padraic O Conaire s Head Recovered and everyone else wishes theirs would; in short from the Czirt Festival Of Literature in Galway the writers week that makes writers weak what s left of TOM MATHEWS sends this report.
If we care about the lives of Irish women, then a no vote in the march 6th abortion referendum is a must. Adrienne Murphy poses the questions and offers some answers
TV celebrity chef Richard Corrigan's latest project is his new Bentley's Oyster Bar and Grill in Dublin. He talks to Jackie Hayden about his passion for food, tricky customers and more.
30th Anniversary retrospective: From the murders of Tupac and Biggie to the bizarre implication of Marilyn Manson in the Columbine massacre; from Courtney, Axl and Spector’s falls from grace to the canonisation and demonisation of Peter Doherty... here’s a potted history of the most controversial events in the last 30 years of rock ‘n’ roll.
WHAT motivates a writer to consign words to page? By what method do they arrive at their chosen subject matter? Is the writer more or less a voyeur than those who read their scribblings?
Her work is brutally explicit and fired by an anger that seems to know no limits. GERRY McGOVERN plunges into the black heart of two new works by one of contemporary art's most controversial women, Lydia Lunch.
1 guitar + 1 drum kit + 1 boy + 1 girl = The White Stripes. In other words, sweet, sweet noise meets the best brother and sister penned pop since The Carpenters. Eamon Sweeney meets Detroit's finest, who play Dublin Castle on Saturday, May 4th as part of the Heineken Green Energy Festival
Brendan Kennelly s Book Of Judas is soon to hit the stage. Peter Murphy reports on a work which had Bono enthralled, and predicted many of the more unappealing features of contemporary Ireland
Visionary singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright has built up a loyal cult following for his epic tales of love, lost and unrequited. But as he admits himself, that’s only half the story. “Usually interviewers are obsessed with one thing or the other – whether it’s the gay thing or the drugs or the politics,” he tells an intrigued Phil Udell.
After research into the cover-up of clerical sexual abuse Amy Berg was shocked to uncover the story of Father Ollie, the serial paedophile who agreed to participate in her film Deliver Us From Evil.
Choosing a contraceptive method you can be comfortable with will not only prevent pregnancy and/or disease but will also give your love life a boost as you feel more confident
YOU WON'T GET STRONG ODDS ON THESE
ROMANTIC PAIRINGS HITTING IT OFF IN 1995 BUT THE BOOKIES HAVEN'T RECKONED WITH Hot Press RESIDENT CUPID PROTEGé LIAM FAY DONNING HIS CLERICAL GARB ONCE AGAIN.
Perhaps no men have gone further in the name of daft entertainment than the Jackass team. And certainly no woman has taken on a more testing assignment than Tara Brady when she gatecrashes their stag party.
. . . Here’s T.P. McKenna, one of Ireland’s most eminent actors – and a punk at heart. In an outspoken interview he savages Marlon Brando, Joseph Strick, Ian Paisley and Margaret Thatcher – and talks about his desire to be held in the arms of young girls again . . .
Interview: JOE JACKSON
WELL, IT'S obvious, isn't it? The authorities helping the IRA out with their target practice, that is. Doubtless part funded by bodies with a vested interest in at least partially recreating an olde worlde war-time atmosphere. If the message to the IRA is Coo-ee! Over here!, what, then, I wonder is the message to the British public?
A long way from there to here
With 35 years on the road behind them, THE DUBLINERS are the roots of Irish music. Interview: Colm
O'Hare. The Rolling Stones aren't the only ones celebrating 35 years on the road this year.
Robert Fisk is one of the most insightful war correspondents on the planet, his reports from Iraq and elsewhere the scourge of spindoctors, warmongers and tin-pot dictators alike. Craig Fitzsimons finds him on the frontline.
“Come up and see my snails sometime,” is hardly the best chat-up line ever coined, but an undaunted Jackie Hayden decides to brave all and call on Today FM jockette Ann-Marie Kelly.
When someone dies in a car crash, alcohol is routinely blamed. But a close look at the figures shows that, beyond the tabloid hysteria, the truth is sometimes very different.
In her latest movie, the supernatural gothic thriller Underworld, Kate Beckinsale plays a slick vampire warrior entrusted with fending off maurading lycanthropes. with love entanglements, engagements and sniping press coverage to deal with off-screen, her personal life has been no less eventful recently.
In a candid interview, Sylvester Stallone talks about his lost years and explains why he’s happy that America’s Christian right has embraced the new Rocky movie as a ‘spiritual’ film.
When DAVID DONOHUE set out to make a television documentary about horse racing he had no idea of just how high the stakes would become.
Reporting: LIAM MACKEY
Torquil Campbell, singer with Canadian indie achievers Stars, is a thoroughly nice guy – when he’s not plotting to put photographs of his naked, crucified, Spiddal-born wife on his album covers.
Welsh pop extroverts Super Furry Animals have delivered their most cohesive and rewarding record yet. Frontman Gruf Rhys explains why Wu Tang Clan as the band's new role model.
Hitmen are hot. Ain’t it always the way? You can never find a well dressed, cold blooded killer when you need one, then half a dozen all come along at once.
Author Barbara Ehrenreich worked in a variety of low-paid jobs in the USA to research her book Nickel & Dimed - Undercover In Low-Wage USA. The conditions and terms of employment she uncovered make frightening reading
Somebody up there likes us -that's for sure! Slane Castle 4pm on Saturday 25th August 2001 and the sun is shining down through deep blue skies like it hasn’t done all summer.
Cecilia Peck, director of music documentary-political travelogue Dixie Chicks: Shut Up And Sing reminisces about her Dingle childhood and explains what it’s like being part of a great Hollywood dynasty.
EMINEM s supposedly knowing take on the violence, homophobia and misogyny endemic to rap has lost its lustre with his wife s suicide attempt. Report: Peter Murphy
When My Little Funhouse signed on the dotted line with Geffen, they were precisely 12 gigs old and probably knew more about the inner workings of a thermo-nuclear reactor than they did a recording studio. Since then they’ve toured the world, taken on the same heavyweight management as Guns N’ Roses and moved to Los Angeles where Slash and Matt Sorum are among their best buddies. Brendan Morrissey tells Stuart Clark why the Kilkenny metallers will either end up filthy rich or six feet under.
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.
Colm O’Hare talks to Kerry King, guitarist with thrash-metal outfit Slayer, and discovers that under that murderous, violent exterior lies a great big pussy cat . . . almost.
It's been sniffer dogs and paddywagons all the way as The enemy visit some of Britain's less salubrious Rock n' Roll locales. If they can stay out of jail, though a support tour with Oasis awaits.
Loved by the Kaiser Chiefs and bushy moustached Ukrainians alike, The Chalets have partied their way round most of the western world in recent months. Stuart Clark hears about backstage beerathons, ding dongs with Kele from Bloc Party and monkeys in track-suits.
Peter Greenaway’s latest film The Baby Of Mâcon has aroused critical opprobrium due to its blend of religious imagery and unnerving violence. Here, the director defends the movie, outlines his attitude to the moral guardians who object to his work and explores the importance of ritual in cinema and contemporary advertising. Interview: Patrick Brennan
Back at the turn of the decade there were three mad bands from Downpatrick Vietnam, Lazer Gun Nun and Confusion. The first of these dropped the dodgy heavy metal element and became Ash. The second toned down the Stooges sound to give room for the Backwater experience. Two-thirds of the last act have come back to haunt us in the form of Griswold.
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town – groundbreaking news spoof The Day Today is back on the agenda courtesy of a brand new DVD, and the show’s gleeful send-up of current affairs broadcasting is now more relevant than ever.
andy darlington meets skunk anansie with a live grenade in his hand
Peter Murphy s damning Hot Press review of their latest album Stoosh. You could cut the tension with a knife
which appears to be exactly what Skin wants at this very moment. Will anyone here get out alive?
Intrigued by the ridicule and bad press being generated by London s Millennium Dome, BARRY GLENDENNING pays a visit to Greenwich and discovers why Tony Blair is having trouble sustaining his massive erection.
A mere 112 years after the infamous Transylvanian Count made his literary debut comes the official sequel to Dracula. Bram Stoker’s great grand nephew, Dacre Stoker, working with screenwriter Ian Holt, has brought the events and characters forward 25 years, taking their inspiration from Stoker’s original manuscript and notes.
He may be a man of few words, but alvin youngblood harT's artistic lineage is not to be sneezed at: this is one bluesman whose experiences include a spell in the US Coastguard and a stint in Switzerland. Tape: siobhÁn Long.
With feelgood fables like Jerry McGuire and Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe has forged a reputation as one of the Good Guys of American cinema. His new film Elizabethtown does nothing to change that perception, no matter how much he protests. "I'm more caustic than you think," he tells Moviehouse.
A surprisingly mellow Tom Ayara of Slayer thinks that calling God Hates Us All “ugly” is unaccurate. “It’s more angry and hateful,” he tells Phil Udell
I’d always have said that Irish people were good at huddling. Our history and our climate, not to mention the controlling influence of the Roman Catholic Church, had tended to give us an inward-looking aspect. We had a thing about bars, matter a damn how dark or gloomy they might be. What we wanted, it seemed, was good place to whisper and to hide.
In his most revealing interview yet, Dick Roche explains why he doesn't trust Libertas' Declan Ganley and shares his thoughts on the use of Shannon airport by US military.
Having survived classical and punk obsessions, not to mention an Adam Ant gig when she was 14, Joan Wasser may have finally found her true self in the role of Joan As Policewoman.
Psychic and physical disintegration! Quacks, pulsars and Marshall amps! The sound of the end of space and time! And, oh yes, silly song titles too! Welcome to the world of WAYNE COYNE and The Flaming Lips. Interview: Peter Murphy.
The indie director's female lead of choice (I Shot Any Warhol, The Addiction), Lili Taylor is perfectly cast as a Liquored Up Fuck Machine in Bent Hamer's screen adaption of Charles Bukowski's classic Factotum.
One of the biggest teen rock sensations of the early noughties, Avril Lavigne continues to draw the black-clad adolescent hordes in record numbers. But can Canada’s most famous skater girl make the transition to adulthood without losing the affection of her notoriously capricious audience?
Exclusive: The new Coldplay album, X & Y, is set to finally hit the stores next month, and Hot Press has been granted a special sneak preview. Ed Power here gives a track-by-track guide to one of the most anticipated albums of the year.
From Dublin to Hollywood and from hanging around in Ballykissangel to hanging out with Al, Bruce and Tom, actor Colin Farrell is making the most of life as 'the next big thing'. "I'm a lucky bastard," he tells Craig Fitzsimons
If not quite a Valentine's night massacre, the recent Dublin appearance of GOLDFRAPP should certainly have shaken the city's more innocent lovebirds. But as KIM PORCELLI discovered when she met ALISON GOLDFRAPP and WILL GREGORY, just because the music is serious, that doesn't mean everything else is.
With his new book, How To Murder A Man, novelist CARLO GÉBLER has written a compelling account of the hatred and animosity that fuelled Ireland's land war of the 19th century. Here, he discusses the ideas behind his work and the motives that drive him, with ADRIENNE MURPHY. Pics: Colm Henry
...IS COMING TO TAKE YOU AWAY! WHEN JOE JACKSON WENT TO INTERVIEW BONO AT U2'S SECRET DUBLIN RECORDING BASE, HE HAD NO IDEA WHAT TO EXPECT. WHAT HE GOT WAS A CRAZY ROLLERCOASTER RIDE THROUGH THE EXTRAORDINARY WORK-IN-PROGRESS WHICH WILL BECOME U2'S FOLLOW-UP TO THE ACCLAIMED "ACHTUNG BABY!", WITH BONO AT THE WHEEL AND AN UNSEEN PRESENCE WORKING THE ACCELERATOR LIKE A DEMON. "RECORDS SHOULD BE MORE OF A TRIP," SAYS THE MAN IN THE WRAPAROUND SHADES. FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS THEN. THIS WILL BE NO ORDINARY RECORD. AND THIS IS NO ORDINARY INTERVIEW.
Darina Allen, eat your heart out. New York chef ANTHONY BOURDAIN has done it all, from chopping out lines to chopping off fingertips, along the way dealing with the Mafia, Madonna, a dead man in a freezer and the palpitating heart of a cobra. STUART CLARK hears about cooking as rock'n'roll. CATHAL DAWSON serves up the pictures
Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden? It doesn t get much
better than this. JOE JACKSON goes
backstage for a brief but revealing encounter with Joni and, from a vantage point to die for, finds two 60s legends who can still send shivers up the spine at the end of the millennium.
Yes readers, it s that time of year again when TOM MATHEWS hacks his way through the vin and verbiage of dear old Galway town for the cuirt festival of literature.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers visited Lansdowne Road, Dublin on July 8 but we caught up with the band in Paris recently and heard why the west coast warriors of funk-rock have never been hotter
In the second and final part of our exclusive interview, JONI MITCHELL tells her story from the ground-breaking Blue to the present day.
Having grown increasingly disenchanted with a music biz providing junk food for juveniles it took the classic songs of Billie Holiday and Etta James to restore her faith and give her own career a new lease of old life. Once a romantic always a romantic, she tells JOE JACKSON
In the second and final part of our exclusive interview, JONI MITCHELL tells her story from the ground-breaking Blue to the present day.
Having grown increasingly disenchanted with a music biz providing junk food for juveniles it took the classic songs of Billie Holiday and Etta James to restore her faith and give her own career a new lease of old life. Once a romantic always a romantic, she tells JOE JACKSON
In the second and final part of our exclusive interview, JONI MITCHELL tells her story from the ground-breaking Blue to the present day.
Having grown increasingly disenchanted with a music biz providing junk food for juveniles it took the classic songs of Billie Holiday and Etta James to restore her faith and give her own career a new lease of old life. Once a romantic always a romantic, she tells JOE JACKSON
In the second and final part of our exclusive interview, JONI MITCHELL tells her story from the ground-breaking Blue to the present day.
Having grown increasingly disenchanted with a music biz providing junk food for juveniles it took the classic songs of Billie Holiday and Etta James to restore her faith and give her own career a new lease of old life. Once a romantic always a romantic, she tells JOE JACKSON
One of the most disturbing developments in the Middle East over the past number of years has been the rising number of female suicide bombers. Colm O’Hare talks to Barbara Victor, the pulitzer prize-nominated journalist who examines this alarming trend in a compelling new book, Army of Roses.
Massage parlours? Escort agencies? The sex industry is nothing new in Dublin – once upon a time, in one small part of the city, there were over 1,500 “poor, unfortunate girls” servicing clients (including King Edward and James Joyce) and being terrorised by madams. Until, that is, the Legion Of Mary came along. Billy Scanlan investigates the history of the battle for the soul of the city’s once infamous red-light district
What was I thinking of when I wrote my last column about water? What strange movements were in the skies? Damned if I know, but its references to possible wars over water supplies, and the specific instancing of Israel seems uncannily prescient in the light of that country's latest brutish incursion into the south of Lebanon.
For many years a 'musician's musician', TOM PACHECO is now enjoying the commercial recognition he deserves thanks to a collaboration with Steiner Albrigtsen that's stormed its way to the top of the Norwegian charts. Here, the American singer-songwriter reflects on a remarkable career which has seen him hanging out with Jimi Hendrix and The Doors in New York, taking on the Nashville establishment and finally settling in Ireland where his star is also firmly in the ascendent. Interview: SIOBHAN LONG.
‘THE CASE in Ireland of the 14-year-old girl who got pregnant as a result of rape was a key issue in our formation,” said Jessica Neuwirth, President of the New York based organisation of Equality Now.
There’s more to our national holiday than drowning the shamrock you know. In fact, no matter what your interest, St Paddy’s Day has something to offer.
Will we go to orgies for sex every Friday night and speed date for romance on Saturdays? Perhaps we will bypass all the messy, physical business and just pop a pill to give us an orgasm? Thus begins a fascinating three part series on the ways in which our sexual activities are likely to change over the next ten years, as technology invades the bedroom and the old assumptions about sin and guilt are finally, thoroughly disposed of.
Black Francis talks to Hot Press about his friendship with U2, his relationship with the rest of the Pixies and why he's reverting back to his original stage-name.
‘When A Man Loves A Woman’ used to be a pretty good song before it became a fairly awful movie. Now it will be impossible to listen to Percy Sledge’s tremblingly emotive cry from the heart without thinking of Andy Garcia giving moist-eyed Meg Ryan that puppy dog on prozac look.
Editors mainman Tom Smith is pining for his mainsqueeze Edith Bowman. HP advises him on an anniversary gift. Aw, bless. Still, he hasn't gone soft, as is borne out by copious potshots at Keane and Sugababes.
Having a right royal laugh at monarchies is all very well in what we loosley describe as the free west, but Olaf Tyransen is alarmed to find it's no laughing matter in Thailand
The books of author PATRICK McGRATH depict insanity and psychological breakdown with a detail and accuracy that are second to none. LIAM FAY meets the mental hospital worker-turned-writer to discuss the very particular nature(s) of madness. Pic: CATHAL DAWSON.
Irish journalist, novelist and musician JOE AMBROSE has JUST published The Violent World Of Mosh Pit Culture (book), an explosive first-hand account of life inside the mosh pit. STEPHEN ROBINSON spoke to him about the sex, brutality and freedom to be discovered within the ‘pits.
Why ARE Veggies on a demographic roll? Who says THAT by the middle of the next century we could all be Veggie? Who are the radical outer fringes of the Paramilitary Provisional Wing of the Vegetarian Society? And what is the hideous secret behind . . . Jelly Babies ???
Andrew Darlington, who gave up eating meat five years ago, HAS THE ANSWERs.
With the Tour de France scheduled to kick off in Ireland on July 11th this year, the subject of drugs in international sport has become a hot topic again. Not only did PAUL KIMMAGE take drugs himself as a professional cyclist - he wrote an award-winning book about it. Interview: BARRY GLENDENNING
Getting press accreditation for the world’s greatest cycling race seemed like a dream come true. Then the Tour de France turned into the Tour de Farce. SHANE STOKES recalls the death of innocence during three tumultuous weeks in July.
They're one of the biggest names in indie-dom but, with album number three about to be unleashed, Kaiser Chiefs can still go out on the town without being pestered by paparazzi.
With A Head Full Of Blue, music journalist Nick Johnstone reveals the harrowing story of his alcohol addiction - not just from first drink to last, but right back to the childhood "faulty wiring" that also led him to cut himself and through to the sometimes difficult process of recovery which has allowed him to reclaim his life
In a year that saw events which will forever change the world in which we live, selected hotpress contributors offer some personal recollections of the past twelve months. We begin by listing the critics’ choice of 2001’s single and album releases
With even the comparatively tranquil Euro 2004 marred by trouble on the Algarve, the issue of football hooliganism remains a live one. Now, one of its definitive texts has made it to the big screen. Craig Fitzsimons meets the men – and learns about the hard men – behind The Football Factory
Astronomical record sales, sell-out tours and critical plaudits have not dimmed Coldplay's reputation as the worried men of pop. Bassist Guy Berryman gives us the lowdown.
Pete Cummins, has just released his first album as a solo performer, from which the single ‘Flowers In Baghdad’ was picked up by Neil Young’s website chart
She has spent her life being defined by the men around her - as daughter of Arthur Miller and wife of Daniel Day Lewis. With the release of her big screen adaptation of her novel, The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee, Rebecca Miller proves that she is very much her own woman.
The books of author PATRICK McGRATH depict insanity and psychological breakdown with a detail and accuracy that are second to none. LIAM FAY meets the mental hospital worker-turned-writer to discuss the very particular nature(s) of madness. Pic: CATHAL DAWSON.
As part of a scam to exaggerate the weight of the cannabis they sell, ruthless Irish criminals are lacing their wares with pieces of glass – thereby putting the health of consumers at serious risk.
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
Freebird Records owner Brian Foley explains why over the past 25 years his store has become a firm favourite with such luminaries as Sonic Youth, Elvis Costello and U2.
Are they Madchester tribute band charlatans, an even more half-baked Kula Shaker, or swaggering rock monsters from Leicester? The jury is still out in the case of The People vs Kasabian.
Denounced by the Christian right in America and the Catholic church in Italy but championed by rockers as diverse as Marilyn Manson and Led Zep’s John Paul Jones, Diamanda Galas is unlikely to be hollywood’s flavour of the month as she rips into the oscar-winning Monster
As the world gears up for a war in which US president George Bush has said the use of nuclear weapons cannot be ruled out in the event of Iraqi chemical attacks, Aideen Sheehan speaks to a survivor of the world’s first a-bomb attack in Hiroshima.
Following the Green Party’s decision to go into coalition with Fianna Fáil, former MEP Patricia McKenna felt disillusioned and angry. Now those emotions have subsided, she has decided not to run away – but to fight…
From his early punkish, defiantly anti-establishment indie flicks like The Doom Generation and Nowhere to his latest effort, the child sex-abuse drama Mysterious Skin, Gregg Araki has remained the most uncompromising alumnus of the early ‘90s new wave of queer cinema.
Eleven years on from their debut and New York avant-garde guitar manglers Sonic Youth have reached an ever-growing audience without compromising their ideals of integrity. Here, GERRY McGOVERN offers a personal testimony to their recorded output in anticipation of their appearance at Sunstroke '93.
Adored by Hollywood’s elite and admired by everyone from the dearly-departed Oasis to Bruce Springsteen, Kasabian’s career has gone into over-drive this year. Main songwriter Serge Pizzorno dishes the dirt on those swine flu rumours, how Quentin Tarantino might be the next alumni from Tinsel Town to fall under their spell and why he’ll need to take a few days off after their Arthur’s Day celebrations in Dublin.
Ireland has gone mad for sex toys. Blokes, women, married, single, gay, straight and any and every combination of the above – they’re all indulging as though there were no tomorrow. But what are the hottest tickets in the country’s most successful sex emporia? We sent Tanya Sweeney to find out.
The Flaming Lips, whose new record is a 'concept album about death' are possibly the most life-affirming band you’ll hear this year. Frontman Wayne Coyne explains why
The Answer have played to almost a million people on the current AC/DC tour. Not bad for an indie hard rock band from Norn Iron. Singer Cormac Neeson gives us the skinny on Angus Young’s love of Rory Gallagher, meeting Alice Cooper, and why Hunger is required tour bus viewing.
A new book attempts to shed light on the life and violent death of
ROBERT NAIRAC, one of the northern conflict s most mysterious victims. But, as NIALL STANAGE reports, it is unlikely that the whole story will ever emerge.
30 years after the savage Tate/LaBianca murders that epitomised the dark side of the American hippy dream, CHARLES MANSON aka God aka The Devil, continues to exert a potent influence on popular culture. In part one of a two-part feature, PETER MURPHY recalls the twisted vision of a charismatic man whose personal interpretation of The Beatles Helter Skelter helped give rise to one of the crimes of the century.
While 2004 has not been an especially spectacular year to date, there is good reason to believe that rocks big guns are likely to deliver the kind of records that will revive spirits in the industry. Chris Donovan previews some of the albums that are likely to top the sales – and the critical – charts before 2004 is out...
Time magazine dubbed him The Renaissance Man Of Rock . With and without Talking Heads, he s made some of the most innovative music of the last two decades, as well as being an author, photographer, director, sound-track scorer, Academy Award winner, and all-round friendly neighbourhood psycho-killer. David Byrne allowed Hot Press to put him on the couch for thirty minutes when he arrived in Dublin for his recent Olympia Theatre show.
Peter Murphy was there to hear the Head man
talking.
Californian-born JIM PAGE is no ordinary protest singer. Best known on this side of the Atlantic as the writer of such classics as 'Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Russian Roulette', his music has continued to move hearts and minds well into the corporate nineties. Here, he traces his roots from Bob Dylan to Public Enemy, and explains why he wrote a special song in tribute to Sinead O'Connor. Interview: GERRY McGOVERN
Although arguably the outstanding female country artist of her generation, Emmylou Harris has always distanced herself from the Nashville
mainstream. From early recordings with Gram Parsons and Bob Dylan through to her most recent Daniel Lanois-produced album Wrecking Ball, her work has been characterised by a maverick spirit and real fire in the belly.
PETER MURPHY caught up with her in Dublin.
Self-styled sex siren Diablo Cody has moved into the mainstream with the acclaimed, Oscar-nominated Juno. What’s more, the movie is so good, she might just prove to be a winner.
The siege of Derry was a pivotal moment in Irish history. But contrary to popular opinion, it was fundamentally about land and not religion, says Carlo Gebler. Photography by Cathal Dawson.
Donegal fiddle player john doherty died relatively unheralded in 1980 at the age of 86. Now, a new CD bears ample testament to his almost supernatural skill with a bow and strings.
By peter murphy.
"This is hell, dude!"
- Ascanio Pignatelli. L.A. based graduate student and would-be actor, interviewed during the Malibu fires by the Los Angeles Times.
QUADROPHONIC diarist DONAL SCANNELL chronicles the Dublin-based collective s recent jaunt around the US of A, and reports that Uncle Sam is currently welcoming drum n bass with open arms. Pic: Bruce Dye
Neil McCormick embarks on a verbal showdown with Hollywood's most famous drug store cowboys and discovers that 1994 was the year in which the hot shots traded in their smoking guns for a pill called Prozac.
Having survived a flirtation with coke-addled infamy, nice-boy Britrockers Keane natter about the long road to recovery and how it feels to be Bret Easton Ellis' favourite band.
A hit album, critical acclaim, sell-out shows… everything was going swimmingly for DAVID KITT until a sunday paper made serious allegations about him and his Government Minister Dad. In a gloves-off interview with COLIN CARBERRY, Kittser responds to his detractors and explains why, despite the journalistic flak, 2001 has been a great year
Long before boomtime Ireland there was boomtown Ireland, a country where the national symbol was not a tiger but a rat. to coincide with the release of the best of the boomtown rats, Bob Geldof looks back to the tepid Irish scene of the mid-’70s from which the rats emerged, biting, snarling and laughing, to take on the establishment, Britain and, almost, the world.
Neil Jordan's controversial new film Interview With The Vampire has angered both the gay community, who objected to the dilution of the movie's homoerotic content, and the author of the novel from which it is adapted, Anne Rice, who disagreed with the choice of Hollywood golden boy Tom Cruise in the starring role.
However, with Anne Rice conspicuously recanting and the critics in the U.S. responding rapturously, signs are that this is one Vampire which won't lay down and die. Report: Helena Mulkerns
It's one thing to suffer in some abstract way for your art, it's another to have some coked-up crazy attack you for it. But that's what happened to one joker-man after a gig in Dublin.
With their fifth album Push The Button, the Chemical Brothers have replaced big beats and star names with subtlety and even the odd anti-war protest tune.
They came from sunny Melbourne to Chipping Norton, England to record their debut album, and thence to Ireland on a whistlestop tour that took them from the capital to the wilds of Leap and beyond. SIOBHAN LONG urges THE KILLJOYS to put down their back–packs for a while and make time for a chat.
Credited with being a pioneer in the field of confessional singer-songwriting, it is only now, at the age of 55, that JONI MITCHELL is able to talk openly about the private trauma behind the songs on such classic albums as Blue. On the occasion of the release of a new album Both Sides Now, that sees her revisit some former glories, the legendary Mitchell takes JOE JACKSON on a journey through her personal, and professional history.
This is part one of an exclusive two-part interview
PETER TAYLOR is one of the most experienced journalists to have covered the Troubles. Midway through the screening of his most recent TV documentary, Loyalists, he spoke to NIALL STANAGE about the North s pivotal personalities, his hopes for a peaceful future, and why Provos was keenly watched by Loyalist paramilitaries.
With Lights Of The City, underground faves JUBILEE ALLSTARS have finally made the album they ve always talked about. And they re still talking about disappearing Dublin, real Irish pop, love songs, dinner parties and much more. words: EAMON SWEENEY. Star Charts: Declan English
SINEAD O'CONNOR has been many things - bona fide pop star, tabloid target, controversial activist, mother and priest. But, above all, she is one of Ireland's most compelling musicians.
With a new album due for release, she talks to NIALL STOKES about love, sex, the Church, fame, racism and why "it's important to make it soul music." Pictures: MYLES CLAFFEY
With a career-best new album under their belts, Razorlight's Johnny Borrell talks about bling, mid-career reinvention and Britain's battle with metrosexuality.
In Zaire, Irish journalist David Orr stumbles upon a village massacre, part of a horrific epidemic of tribal slaughter which the country's authorities seem in no rush to end.
In the making of their third album, Coldplay may have abandoned all hope at one juncture and come within an inch of splitting up, but the record has now finally arrived in the shape of X & Y. Chris Martin and co. here give Peter Murphy the inside story on the fraught creation of perhaps the most anticipated album of the year.
With The Story Of O, poet and journalist OLAF TYARANSEN has written an Irish memoir like no other before, a remarkable, powerful, controversial and outrageously funny book that s set to catapult him into the literary
limelight and to the top of the best-sellers lists over the coming weeks. If you think that the accompanying pix tell the naked truth, just wait till you read the book. Ireland s first outlaw autobiography, it s an uncompromisingly confessional tale of literature, sex, drugs, rock n roll and rebellion. But it is also a beautifully-written tour-de-force, a love story that will entertain, shock and move readers. In this short extract, the author battered by the rigours of his pro-cannabis election campaign and broken-hearted by the apparent collapse of a long-term relationship goes completely off the rails. Nude portraits: MICK QUINN
The star of what s set to be the summer s hottest movie, High Fidelity, on love, obsession, movies, rock n roll, his pal Bruce Springsteen and the records he turns to when he s had his heart broken. With support from co-star Lisa Bonet and director Stephen Frears. Text: CRAIG FITZSIMONS
As The White Stripes prepare to unleash another work of scuzz-bucket genius, frontman Jack White talks about his Catholic upbringing and explains why, as a teenager in blue collar Detroit, he fell hopelessly in love with the blues.
In a heartfelt interview, Dolores O’Riordan talks to Hot Press about her new solo record, her decision to move to Canada and the debilitating effects of fame. Plus, why a Cranberries reunion may be a matter of ‘when’ rather than ‘if’.
Back in their terrifying heyday, they threw pigs’ heads around on stage, covered themselves in muck, provided Marilyn Manson with a career and wrote ‘Community Games’ for Aidan Walsh. Having escaped the clutches of a sinister born-again Christian turned transvestite, they’re now making movies with Neil Jordan, dining with Damien Hirst and consorting with Tony Blair. All in all, it’s been a long, strange trip for The Virgin Prunes
Michael Ondaatje wrote The English Patient, and is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language – but his latest tome, Divisadero, has confounded and impressed critics in equal measure.
Back in the '60s the MC5 made it on to the CIA's 'Most Wanted' list. Now, they're a chi-chi fashion accessory beloved of Jennifer Aniston and her Hollywood pals. Guitarist Wayne Kramer explains it all to Stuart Clark.
At the end of a year which saw (most of) Fleetwood Mac reunited, on CD and stage, drummer Mick Fleetwood recounts the story of a legendary band and the making of a classic album – Rumours.
In Dublin to promote his latest book, Smiths-loving author Douglas Coupland explains why the Apocalypse keeps raising its seven-headed head in his avowedly modernist novels.
The winds of change have been blowing through Northern Ireland in 1998, with the endorsement of the Belfast Agreement and the establishment of the Assembly. But that only made it more likely that extreme loyalists would portray the march to Drumcree church near Portadown, and the July 12th parades, as an opportunity for Protestants and Orangemen to make a final stand. It was surely shaping up for a season of discontent – until the Quinn brothers were murdered in a loyalist sectarian petrol bomb attack on their home. By Niall Stanage. Photos: Peter Matthews.
He’s the joker in the Irish music pack, a working class hero who has at once conquered and subverted the mainstream. For his first album in six years JERRY FISH and his MUDBUG CLUB have also roped in some top-tier collaborators including rockabilly queen Imelda May and Carol Keogh.
Not since the death of Elvis has the passing of a music legend so gripped the world. As fans and detractors alike struggle to come to grips with the sad, strange end of Michael Jackson we assess his legacy – as musician, celebrity and enduring icon and talk to some of the people who knew and understood him best.
Sexual Politics and Pixies, P.J. Harvey and the Marquis de Sade, Sexism and self-loathing, Black Sabbath and Doris Day. THE BREEDERS aren't always quite what you'd expect them to be. Interview: ANDY DARLINGTON
As the dust settles in the wake of the Stormont Settlement, eamonn Mccann assesses the situation and wonders just how much of their ideology Republicans are in the process of jettisoning.
Harder, faster, louder... Motorhead have been rocking the planet for the past 26 years. As they prepare to do battle again at the Xtreme festival, Lemmy answers your questions. Warts and all
While 2004 has not been an especially spectacular year to date, there is good reason to believe that rocks big guns are likely to deliver the kind of records that will revive spirits in the industry. Chris Donovan previews some of the albums that are likely to top the sales – and the critical – charts before 2004 is out...
As the Magnificent Seven prepare to mosey into Thurles, Stuart Clark probes Chas Smash's - or should that be Cathal Smyth's? - split personality and continuing flirtation with Madness
Being a strange, terrible, wondrous and uplifting saga of pints, goats, monsters, Malcolm McLaren, jokes, art and, er, lettuce. Or, to put it another way, the inimitable tom mathews reports from The Galway ARts Festival.
With his first two albums, Streets mastermind Mike Skinner established himself as one of the most eloquent, idiosyncratic and gifted vocalists and worsdsmiths of his generation. But the 27 year old came close to blowing it all on spread-betting and crack, not to mention engaging in an XXX-rated tryst with an unnamed pop starlet. Thankfully, he’s bounced back with the tell-all confessional of The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living.
From that piano-ballad cover of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ to her new-found fascination with Gnostic texts, Tori Amos has remained one of the most compelling and enigmatic solo artists of the past ten years. Here, she fills Peter Murphy in on the intriguing background to her latest album, The Beekeeper, her reasons for relocating to the bucolic splendor of Cornwall, and the difficulties of maintaining artistic integrity in the face of corporate profiteering. Oh, and beekeeping, of course.
The most famous beards in rock 'n' roll are back with a new album that's guaranteed synthesiser-free and hotter than a Tex-Mex jalapeno pepper. As ZZ Top do a John Major and return to basics, DUSTY HILL tells STUART CLARK about the danger of eating chili-dogs, what he used to get up to under the bed-clothes as a kid and the nature of his relationship with long-horned steers.
WHILE HE WAS BEING TERRORISED AND BRUTALISED IN MONNOWITZ, LEON GREENMAN MADE A DEAL WITH GOD: IF HE WAS TO BE ALLOWED TO SEE THE OUTSIDE OF THE DEATH CAMPS AGAIN, HE WOULD DEVOTE HIS LIFE TO TELLING THE WORLD WHAT HAPPENED THERE. NOW, AS DENIAL OF THE HOLOCAUST CONTINUES TO AID THE INSIDIOUS RISE OF THE FASCIST MOVEMENT IN EUROPE, IT IS MORE VITAL THAN EVER THAT HIS STORY IS TOLD. REPORT: GERRY McGOVERN.
With Hello Starling Josh Ritter has emerged as one of the finest songwriters who's operating today. John Walshe meets the reluctant hero who's storming the Irish charts.
Liam Fay talks to the three men behind the first “unmissable” movie smash of '95 SHALLOW GRAVE and hears why comparisons with the American death-and-glory tradition are a misnomer.
You might think that the Crash Test Dummies are a strange bunch now but you should have seen them four years ago! Dan Roberts and Mitch Dorge tell Stuart Clark how a big-haired Winnipeg bar band with a penchant for the Clancy Brothers have managed to hit the big time. Pix: Cathal Dawson
With the release of The Best of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, it's obvious that someone's been rummaging around in the grim annals of ol' Nick's extraordinary back catalogue. But who?
Interview: Peter Murphy
With the release of The Best of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, it's obvious that someone's been rummaging around in the grim annals of ol' Nick's extraordinary back catalogue. But who?
Interview: Peter Murphy
With the release of The Best of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, it's obvious that someone's been rummaging around in the grim annals of ol' Nick's extraordinary back catalogue. But who?
Interview: Peter Murphy
With the release of The Best of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, it's obvious that someone's been rummaging around in the grim annals of ol' Nick's extraordinary back catalogue. But who?
With the release of The Best of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, it's obvious that someone's been rummaging around in the grim annals of ol' Nick's extraordinary back catalogue. But who?
Interview: Peter Murphy
With the release of The Best of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, it's obvious that someone's been rummaging around in the grim annals of ol' Nick's extraordinary back catalogue. But who?
Interview: Peter Murphy
Director Morgan Spurlock has caused quite a stir with Super Size Me, the McDonald’s-baiting documentary that highlights the perils of a fast-food diet. With McDonald’s currently on the counter-offensive in an attempt to soften the impact of the movie, Spurlock discusses corporate subterfuge, media stardom, losing his libido, and the near fatal toll his super-size diet exerted on his health.
When writer and documentary film-maker Jon Ronson set out to discover the truth about the secret group which conspiracy theorists believe rules the world, he expected an interesting trip. What he didn’t anticipate was a brain-rattling, five year-long odyssey, by turns wacky and scary, that would bring him into contact with neo-nazis, religious fundamentalists, twelve-foot lizards, Mr burns from The Simpsons, David icke, peter mandelson and, ahem, Ian Paisley. Olaf Tyaransen hears the story that’s coming to a bookshelf and television screen near you. undercover pictorIal evidence: Cathal Dawson
ned o'hanlon and maurice linnane, the men behind media company dreamchaser productions, aren't given to false modesty. And why should they be, given that their recent list of clients includes Garth Brooks, U2 and the Rock 'N' Roll Hall Of Fame? siobhÁN LONG meets the men who once adopted Gary Oldman for an all-night bender in America.
Attending the infamously repressed St Peter’s College in Wexford gave a young Colm Tóibín an insight into ‘70s Ireland’s twisted attitudes to sexuality.
It's been a year of momentous upheaval throughout the planet. Wars have flared up, governments have fallen and the hole in the ozone layer has continued to grow. Inside the global y-fronts, however, was where the real cut and thrust of 1994 was going on. A cross-legged Liam Fay reports on twelve months which have seen a huge increase in the rate of worldwide castration and which prove beyond any doubt that the penis is not mightier than the sword.
Ross Fitzsimons goes to Portugal’s Euro 04 in search of the beautiful game and the perfect bowl of cataplana, and discovers more than he bargained for – including the ribbon of death.
With the departure of Shane McGowan a couple of years ago, it was fashionable to write off The Pogues as mere also rans. But the band have proven to be one of the success stories of 1993, with the release of their superb Waiting For Herb album putting them right back on course. Now they can afford to tell their detractors: kiss my ass (under the mistletoe of course). Interview: Siobhán Long.
Republic Of Loose are one of the most exciting bands to emerge from Ireland during the last decade with one of the most charismatic lead singers ever to bestride a stage in the country.
Sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll, George Bush, religion, torture, hangovers and, of course, the smelliest member of the band. The readers leave no stone unturned as they seek the truth
from Kirk Hammett. Your host Olaf Tyaransen
Following his Man of the Match performance against the Czech Republic, Paul McShane has been hailed as one of the finest young Irish players of his generation.
Does ABSINTHE really make the heart grow fonder or are the Conservatives right in calling for its ban? STUART CLARK and his showbiz chums check out the drink that s taking clubland by storm. Pix: CATHAL DAWSON.
Tori Amos’ new album, the acclaimed Scarlet’s Walk, was inspired equally by her joyous pregnancy with daughter Natashya and the tragedy of September 11, which led the singer-songwriter on a musical quest to discover the true soul of America
To celebrate hotpress’s thirtieth anniversary issue, we thought we’d break out the bubbly (and the tea!) and invite round a collection of Ireland’s biggest stars.
Seven years after his last solo LP, David Holmes lost his father. That trauma, and working on the Bobby Sands-era drama Hunger, seem to have brought a new humanity to his work.
OUT FROM BEHIND THE GREASE-PAINT THAT ADORNS HIS FACE ON THE COVER OF ‘SPIKE’, ELVIS COSTELLO EMERGES TO TALK ABOUT THE MUSIC THAT RUNS IN HIS FAMILY FROM BIG-BAND TO SPEED-METAL, HIS MUCH-TOUTED IRISH CONNECTION, WORKING WITH PAUL McCARTNEY, HIS CONTEMPT FOR MUCH OF TODAY’S POP MUSIC AND THE FEELINGS THAT INSPIRED HIS DEATH-WISH FOR MARGARET THATCHER.
She began her career as a police reporter before taking a job in the Chief Medical Examiner's Office in Virginia. There, she spent as much time in the morgue as possible, watching autopsies - including dozens on bodies which had been savagely maimed and mutilated in the course of being murdered. Now she writes crime novels, but Patricia D. Cornwell keeps going back to the morgue to witness the kind of gruesome sights that would give an angel bad dreams.
Interview: Liam Fay Pix: Colm Henry
Most people know Philip Lynott and Thin Lizzy as the swashbuckling rock ‘n’ rollers who produced hard rock classics like ‘The Rocker’, ‘The Boys Are Back In Town’ and ‘Don’t Believe A Word’. But there were other fascinating forces at work in Ireland at the end of the ‘60s, with poetry and folk music both influencing the rock scene hugely. Philip Lynott was at the heart of that development – a charismatic star in the making with a deep romantic streak and an innate lyricism that separated him from the crowd. Now, these qualities have been captured, as never before, on a remarkable CD, released for the first time, free with HotPress. Read on...
The best electro-rock outfit since KLF or this year's Sigue Sigue Sputnik? The jury's still out, but Fischerspooner's Casey Spooner tells us he's more than just a cheap stunt
While the entity that is U2 continues to be the dominant focus in the creative lives of its four members, away from the band, Bono, The Edge, Adam and Larry have all indulged in extra-curricular activities, bringing them – and their music - into contact with such legends as Bob Dylan, Robbie Robertson, Keith Richards, and Roy Orbison, By Dermot Stokes
The publication of EMILY O'REILLY's Veronica Guerin: The Life And Death Of A Crime Reporter, has stirred up a hornet's nest in Irish media circles, with journalistic heavyweights such as Paddy Prendeville, Vincent Browne and Gene Kerrigan queueing up to take pot-shots at the author. Here, she takes the opportunity to answer her critics.
Interview: OLAF TYARANSEN. Pics: COLM HENRY
She learned her craft with the Wild Oscars and Kaydee, and more recently featured on the John Hughes album Wild Ocean. Now, Tara Blaise has taken flight with the release of her debut album Dancing On Tables Barefoot – a record that unveils an impressively free-spirit and a desire to live life to the full.
The end of the Republic of Ireland’s World Cup qualifying campaign was deeply unimpressive, not so much for the poverty of the results as for the manner in which they were achieved. And just when everyone was breathing a collective sigh of relief at the whisker-fine nature of our qualification, worse was to follow with the news of Niall Quinn’s critical knee injury. So what is the best way forward for Jack Charlton’s embattled troops? Analysis: Niall Stokes
They called them the Magdalen Laundries, where fallen women were sent to atone for their sins. There, thousands of Irish women were imprisoned, often for life. They worked for nothing, literally like slaves, and they died. And then one hundred and twenty-three of them were dug up with the approval of the Catholic Church.
Report: Gerry McGovern
While the senior team have been stumbling their way through the World Cup qualifiers, the Ireland Under-20s have been making back-page headlines for all the right reasons.
In an interview that's guaranteed to ruffle blazers in Merrion Square, youth supremo BRIAN KERR tells Jack Charlton exactly where he can stick his long-ball and outlines his masterplan for future international glory. Slight groin-strain: STUART CLARK.
“There doesn’t need to be any problems conjured for wrong interpretations,” says Clown aka Shawn Crahan. And while you’re chewing on the prime gibberish, here’s the Slipknot view on humanity (“filthy, disgusting, disease-ridden”), fans (“they’re all cows”), piss (“i like the way it smells”) and life in a band (“i’m so bored, so trapped”). Prepare to shake your head in disbelief
Critical brickbats aside, the success of TRAVIS seems to know no bounds. Here FRAN HEALY and co talk to STUART CLARK about drugs, Oasis, Paul McCartney, Ali G, and drunkenly dancing on computers! The man who took the photos: STEVEN FISHER
Dropped by Warners, but buoyed up by mega-sales of a soundtrack hit, Nick Lowe is back with a great new album, The Impossible Bird, and lots to say about Johnny Cash, Elvis Costello and a benevolent devil with the feet of a chicken. Interview: Joe Jackson.
For a man who was working in Galway nightclubs and renting damp rooms in dilapidated hotels at the turn of the decade, PERRY BLAKE hasn t done too badly since. After releasing two acclaimed singles for Polydor, he s now set fair to emerge as one of Ireland s brightest new
songwriting talents.
OLAF TYARANSEN hears his intriguing story.
For a man who was working in Galway nightclubs and renting damp rooms in dilapidated hotels at the turn of the decade, PERRY BLAKE hasn t done too badly since. After releasing two acclaimed singles for Polydor, he s now set fair to emerge as one of Ireland s brightest new
songwriting talents.
OLAF TYARANSEN hears his intriguing story.
GREG BAKER on the rise of neo-fascism and the disturbing - and violent - implications of the election of a British National Party councillor in the East End of London.
“I grew up in a tough neighbourhood, and we used to say, ‘You can get further with a kind word and a gun than with just a kind word’.”
- Robert De Niro as Al Capone in The Untouchables
Best known as the author of the modern noir classic LA Confidential, JAMES ELLROY is back in the spotlight with his new book The Cold 6000, a factional encounter with late 20th century America.
Here, the straight-talking Ellroy tells why JFK was second-rate and J. Edgar Hoover a fiend, why Bill Clinton is a horrible human being and George W. Bush not as bad as we think, and why Martin Luther King was the greatest American man of the last century
Words: DANNY ILEGEMS
ANI DiFRANCO is one of contemporary music's most impressive originals. Without compromising her independence or political radicalism, she has scaled the heights of commercial and
critical success. In this, her only Irish interview, she speaks candidly to NIALL STANAGE about TAFKAP, her battles with the music industry, American 'gun culture' and the troubled family life which lies behind one of her most moving songs.
The outlaw loved by the in-law, Willie Nelson can draw 4,000 people outside Dublin virtually by word of mouth. But it ain't all middle of the road: as befits a veteran of the honky-tonks who had done battle with the IRS and the law, the country music legend can still get in touch with the dark side of Hank
The tears have stopped falling – because those who bitterly mourned the demise of The Go-Betweens soon discovered that what they got instead was a double-helping of the weird genius which had inspired the band in the shape of solo albums from Grant McLennan and Robert Forster. With both of them releasing new records and working on a film script together, everything seems to be coming up roses. Why Lorraine Freeney even got to see a breathtaking reunion gig . . .
No mere actor boy moonlighting as a rock star, Billy Bob Thornton is steeped in music and also in the kind of brooding Southern gothic aesthetic which informs his compelling album of song and story, Private Radio. Peter Murphy meets a singular man of stage and screen
In the second and final part of the ultimate interview, elvis talks about colonel Tom Parker, marriage to priscilla, his '68 comeback, his quest for enlightenment and the truth about his drug intake. but as he dreams of an exciting future, at 42 he doesn’t realise that the end is close at hand
*The quotes in this recreated interview are drawn from a wealth of reliable sources and involved extensive research into many rare articles and books
Actor, writer, musician, director, and husband of Angelina Jolie, BILLY BOB THORNTON is currently a very busy man, with one album on release and no less than three movies queueing up at the box-office. All this and he’s constantly on his guard against germs
At the time of writing indications are that Tori Amos’ ‘Cornflake Girls’ single will hit the No.1 spot in the British charts this week. Celebrations may indeed be in order – but for Tori right now there are far more burning issues to be talked through and dealt with. In an extraordinarily intimate, open and at times devastatingly honest interview, she talks about the horrific knife-point rape documented in ‘Me And A Gun’, the lingering wounds inflicted on her by the experience and the difficult healing process she has begun – including, she says, accepting the ‘prostitute’ in herself. Along the way she challenges a wide range of assumptions on love, sex, violence, religion, masturbation, feminishm, lesbianism and the main
man himself, Jesus Christ. By Joe Jackson.
After his celebrated band the blades failed to make a breakthrough in the 1980s, PAUL CLEARY more or less turned his back on music for 15 years. But now unexpectedly, he’s back with a terrific solo album crooked town and more than a few tales to tell.
Interview: LIAM MACKEY
"Hope is a scarce commodity in the Inner City," writes Gerry McGovern. Here, he hears from Paul Hansard, who has lived in the Inner City all his life, about the many and varied injustices aimed at the working class, the frustration of never rising above the level of subsistence and about trying to wish for better for your children
When Pat Kenny steps before the cameras every Saturday, he attracts an audience-rating which is increasingly likely to threaten the long-standing supremacy of The Late Late Show in Irish broadcasting. But despite his popularity, the host of Kenny Live remains something of an enigma. In the first part of a wide-ranging interview he talks about everything from his first kiss to, well, the meaning of life. Interview: Niall Stokes
Never mind the naysayers, Dublin 2006 is spilling over with white hot talent. Steve Cummins and Shilpa Ganatra run the rule over the capital's new breed.
That was the original headline, back in November 1985, when Tony O'Donoghue - now best known as a presenter on RTE radio - spoke to Joe O'Herlihy (sound engineer with U2, we called him) about the torturous life of the roadie for the following year's Hot Press Yearbook. This is what went down . . .
A fresh generation of bands is tearing up the rule book and redefining what it means to be Irish. To celebrate this new wave of talent, we catch up with the best of them.
There is only one way to combat AIDS and that is to resist it - with information, education, safer sex, condoms, awareness, agitation and solidarity. We're all in this together - and we're in it for the long haul. Report: Liam Fay.
It s hardly surprising that the neurotic Monica Geller is widely regarded as the least popular member of the Friends ensemble. Nevertheless, you ll be pleased to hear that Courteney Cox, the 33-year-old Alabama native who plays the Big Apple s tidiest twentysomething, revels in the role. What s more, with her success in Wes Craven s masterful suspense chiller Scream, she remains the only cast member from the smash-hit sitcom to have achieved major box office success. And now there s a sequel on the way . . . Interview: chris donovan.
Their debut Hot Fuss sold over 4 million copies and in the process set The Killers up as one of the brightest young hopes of the modern era. On the eve of the release of their second album Sam’s Town, the band look like settling for nothing less than U2-sized supremacy. Now, if only Brandon Flowers would shave off that, ahem, controversial face fuzz.
Even though he s just as acerbic and witty as he ever was, these days GRAHAM PARKER isn t what you d call the man of the moment. Which is a shame, because the veteran new-wave critics darling is currently writing some of the best material of his life, including last year s Acid Bubblegum album, which he describes as a fucking great record . And as if that wasn t enough to be going on with, he s also got plenty of short stories on the go.
Tape: Peter Murphy
...or was it? U2's recent Irish dates were greeted with everything from wide-eyed adoration to open hostility. BILL GRAHAM was in the crowd at Pairc Uí Caoimh and the RDS and puts the Zoo TV experience into perspective. Pix: COLM HENRY
