Brendan and Declan Murphy have never been especially careerist or commercial-minded. They’ve always done their own thing, which hasn’t always been a good thing.
This is from the the Northern band’s forthcoming Fingerprints album and is in much the same vein of their older material. The only difference is that, this time, The 4 Of Us are addressing Big Questions, specifically climate change and what it’s doing to the planet. Leave it to Al Gore lads.
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
Father Ted writer Arthur Mathews talks about his latest movie, Wide Open Spaces, an evocation of "Crap Ireland", set in a Famine theme park, with shades of Flann O’Brien and Beckett.
Civil liberties in Ireland are being gradually eroded. But, then, it’s just part of an international trend. If we’re not careful, we will we soon be living in a Big Brother nation.
With the next government looking increasingly like another Fianna Fáil/Labour coalition, BILL GRAHAM questions what role the Fine Gael Leader will play now that he has missed the boat yet again.
Billed as the publishing event of the century, Crossing The Threshold Of Hope by Pope John Paul has already netted its author an advance of $10 million and is currently topping bestseller lists the world over. LIAM FAY wades through this extra helping of papal bull and comes to the conclusion that His Holiness is now, certifiably, as crazy as a shithouse rat.
JAMES HANRATTY, the son of Irish parents, was hanged for a notorious murder in England in 1961. Following the recent release of the Bridgewater Three, another miscarriage of justice now looks set to be overturned, posthumously clearing the name of a 25-year-old who was wrongfully sent to the gallows. Report: RICHARD BALLS.
Lee Dunne is reputed to be the most banned author in Europe and, by his own reckoning, has slept with over 1,000 women. You could says he’s got a story or two to tell.
Over the hills and far away, Chumbawamba come out to play! They get knocked down. But they get up again. They get dropped by Indie One Little Indian, and then get signed up by Capitalist major EMI. Then the Tub-Thumpers Anonymous go on to score the most unlikely hit single of 1997. So what now for Alice Nutter and her chums? ANDY DARLINGTON reports.
Over the hills and far away, Chumbawamba come out to play! They get knocked down. But they get up again. They get dropped by Indie One Little Indian, and then get signed up by Capitalist major EMI. Then the Tub-Thumpers Anonymous go on to score the most unlikely hit single of 1997. So what now for Alice Nutter and her chums? ANDY DARLINGTON reports.
With his work on the soundtrack to In The Name Of The Father bringing him into the full glare of media attention Gavin Friday takes this opportunity to put to rest any accusations of riding on U2’s coat-tails. Confident and brimming with ideas for his solo career, The Spotlight Kid gives the lowdown to an eager BILL GRAHAM.
Never has a leader of a government so suicidally snatched defeat from the jaws of victory as Albert Reynolds has. BILL GRAHAM mulls over the reasons why.
In a remarkable interview, the legendary David Kelly looks back on a long and adventurous career including parts in box office smashes, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and Waking Ned.
It’s all about broken down tour buses, Alan Partridge, high speed collisions, Moby, broken ribs, Mina Suvari, MTV stars and David Bowie as Ash launch a sonic assault on America. So riddle me this: can Ireland’s hardest-working rock’n’roll outfit crack the big one?
It is five years since rapper TUPAC SHAKUR was gunned down on the streets of las vegas in a gangland-style shooting that took place on September 7, 1996. Since then he has become the subject of one of modern music’s most bizarre death cults, as he continues to sell millions of records and to top charts all over the world. but behind his death lies a story of hip-hop babylon – a sordid tale of intrigue, egos, drugs, sex, intimidation, violence – and, almost by the way, some great and enduring music.
By PETER MURPHY
The year began with contrasting and contradictory alignments. On the one hand, the United States were about to invest a new president, a young, rock’n’roll-loving sax-playing boyo from the south called Bill Clinton, offering the possibility of America as the last great hope again.
Yours To Keep is a warm, understated record that contrasts with the brashness and immediacy of The Strokes, the album meanders melodically through ten perfectly-formed pop tunes.
The cars are fast, the hero is video-game superhuman and the women are slutty. Indeed, everything right down to the shoes gets fetished in this splendidly trashy affair which sees Jason Statham’s unflappable driver embroiled in some nonsense about a child kidnapping.
Thomas Vinterberg (Festen) directs this splendid displaced western from a script by madcap fellow Dane Lars von Trier, and on paper at least, Dear Wendy sounds suspiciously like a hipper, teenage Dogville.
In the past Paul Simon has successfully drawn on diverse American musical traditions and has worked with, among others, the gospel group the Jesse Dixon singers and the South American folk-group Urubamba.
Galway Bay FM has become home to some of the best in-studio sessions. Jeff O'Connell was on hand to see DJ Jon Richards play host to THE MARY STOKES BAnd
Fantastic, sadistic and sublime, Pan’s Labyrinth, the director’s latest work, is a coruscating fairy-tale breeding horror, politics and unblemished innocence to produce the hands-down, honest-to-God, best movie of 2006.
Brothers Brendan and Declan from The 4 of Us will be performing tracks from their new album Fingerprints in November at the Seamus Ennis Centre in Naul.
The 4 Of Us go for chart glory again with the September 29 release of ‘What’s To Come’, the first single to be lifted from their Fingerprints album which follows in September.
...it was a year like any other year at Féile - except that there were dozens of extra acts on show, on not just two but three stages. There was also the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow, the Chris de Burgh stripper incident, Michael Hutchence dispensing condoms...and a rather loud Little Red Rooster that nearly got itself strangled. And the crack Hot Press team of reporters who attempted to keep up with it all? Words: Bill Graham, Stuart Clark, Tara McCarthy, Lorraine Freeney and Chris Donovan. Pix: Cathal Dawson.
