Audience-involved spin-the-bottle, colourful strobe lights and a man wearing a feather boa while crooning Marlene Dietrich’s ‘Lili Marlene’ and ‘Falling In Love Again’? A remarkable ‘Ave Maria’ coming from an opera singer who could be the lovechild of Gene Simmons and the bride of Frankenstein? The combination may seem a bit puzzling – but when it’s coming from the bold and brilliant mind of Gavin Friday, it all makes perfect sense.
Gavin Friday has been talking about his involvement in a Johnny Depp-inspired project that also involves Bono, Andrea Corr, Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Bryan Ferry, Antony & The Johnsons, Richard & Linda Thompson, Loudon Wainwright and some of his former Virgin Prunes bandmates.
PETER MURPHY meets GAVIN FRIDAY and discovers a fascination with Kurt Weill that has led to Friday and Maurice Seezer’s Ich Lieb Dich revue at the Tivoli Theatre
AGNES BERNELLE s death last month brought a truly remarkable
life to a close. SIOBHAN LONG looks back, in the company of
Gavin Friday, Philip Chevron and Alan Amsby.
Gavin Friday’s been a Virgin Prune and a glam cabaret torch singer, he’s done Brecht and Weill, and most recently stole the show at Hal Willner’s Leonard Cohen tribute concert Came So Far For Beauty.
t certainly would, Joe. But you can have a toot on my megaphone if you like! Gavin Friday discusses the finer points of sexual politics not to mention the post-Freudian subtext to his stunning new meisterwork Shag Tobacco with Dr Joe Jackson. Our man in the white coat concluded: Gavin s time has come. But is the world finally read
They may sport one of the most original sounds in rock’n’roll – but along the way they’ve been influenced by some of the greats.
STUART BAILIE identifies the ten (plus!) key influences on the music of U2
Despite having to contend with muscular dystrophy, the inspiration of working with some well-known musicians has given Fergus O’Farrell of Interference a whole new lease of creative life.
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.
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
After years as son of Charles , ERIC MINGUS is forging his own musical identity. He talks to PETER MURPHY about jazz purists, hip-hop and playing bass with Nick Cave.
Guggi first emerged into the public eye as a member of the Virgin Prunes – the band that shared their early growth and development with U2. Having departed the Prunes fold, he turned his attention to art and has since become one of the country's most bankable painters.
Notorious in her native China for her sexually graphic novel Shanghai Baby, Wei Hui looks sure to upset the authorities even more with her next literary outing. Fiona reid meets the controversial young author.
photography: cathal dawson
Veteran producer Hal Willner has revealed the preliminary line-up for this July's Rogue’s Gallery concert in Dublin, which will feature top artists performing sea chanteys and pirate ballads.
Exclusive: Kevin Shields, the missing presumed lost genius of Irish rock, re-emerges to tell the truth about sandbags and barbed wire, the making of Loveless, early Dublin days with Gavin Friday, Liam O Maonlai and U2, and his Bafta-winning work on Lost in Translation.
For many people it is U2's greatest album. Twenty years on, to mark it's re-release, Colm O'Hare talks to Daniel Lanois and reflects on the extraordinary background to a monumental album.
JJ 72 have been hailed by some critics as the finest thing to come out of Ireland since U2 - and no wonder. With a hugely impressive debut album under their collective belt, the expectations are even higher for the follow-up, I To Sky. They share with their illustrious predecessors a predilection for intense songs of spiritual yearning - and a desire to make music that truly stands the test of time. But is it rock'n'roll?
Rogues’ Gallery – traditional sea songs, pirate ballads and chanteys, interpreted and performed by an eclectic mix of artists – is part high art, part punk aesthetic.
The official opening of The Music Show will take place in Trinity College, with an interview with Island records founder Chris Blackwell conducted by our very own Stuart Clark.
The absence of a venerable frontman would render most live performances ineffectual, but this rare outing from legendary Irish punks The Radiators disproved that theory.
U2, Simon Carmody and Kila have led a collaboration on a special tribute to Ronnie Drew, which was recorded in Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin, over the past few days.
Canadian songstress Emm Gryner has toured with David Bowie and released a collection of Irish rock covers. Her new album might just be her most ambitious, and mysterious, yet.
Imaginative variations on the theme *The Pure Thrill of Living* were the focus of attention at the 9th Smirnoff Young Designer Awards which took place in Trinity College, Dublin recently.
You might not have heard of Leya, but Elton John, Ronan Keating and Jools Holland have. Peter Murphy meets the band who are putting Bangor on the rock’n’roll map
U2 Live: A Concert Documentary - possibly the definitive book on U2's history as a live band - to be given an update and re-release following the tragic death of its compiler
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
Steve Lillywhite, who produced U2's first three albums – and has featured on the production team of almost all of their records – looks back over the band's career and recalls the highs... and the lows
...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
The Dublin Theatre Festival is fast approaching its 50th anniversary, but the organisers haven’t let anticipation of next year distract them from the task in hand. There’s a rake of quality shows to check out over the coming weeks, from Ibsen to Leonard Cohen.
Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves can't but arrive as a Big Statement. The Virgin Prunes were always elitist, dissembling, treacherous spies in the house of Irish rock.
The Corrs hit paydirt with In Blue, an album of memorable pop songs that topped the charts in over twenty countries around the world. It gave them the breathing space they needed to re-establish their roots, to live a little and to reassess their purpose as a band. Now, with the release of Borrowed Heaven, they’re back in the music biz frontline – slightly older, considerably wiser, but still with the same hunger to make great and honest records.
FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM is a major new six-part RTE series. Directed by DAVID HEFFERNAN, and featuring new interviews with the major players including Van Morrison, Bob Geldof, U2 and Siniad O Connor it traces the history of Irish music, from showbands to boybands and beyond. By PETER MURPHY.
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.
The man behind the Mystery Train is a bit of a mystery himself but, at Peter Murphy's request, writer and broadcaster JOHN KELLY steps forward to talk about Enniskillen, friends in high places, the fall and rise of his broadcasting career, his lack of intercourse with Dave Trimble, "taking the soup", desert island music and Uaneen.
Broadcast Views: Cathal Dawson
Since 1914, the PRS has administered the rights accruing to Irish songwriters, composers and publishers from the use of their music in public places throughout the world. However, the campaign to establish Ireland as a separate territory, with its own independent music rights organisation, has been gathering momentum. Now in a controversial move the PRS have declared that this change can only take place with the approval of two-thirds of the Society’s members in Ireland. Niall Stokes – himself a member of the PRS – examines the issues and concludes that subsidiary status is no longer enough for IMRO.
The godfather of the modern Irish gothic tradition, Patrick McCabe, has released what critics are hailing as his darkest, and arguably finest, novel yet, Winterwood.
Bronagh Gallagher, Autamata, The Radio and The Divine Comedy are among the artists that will be performing as part of RTE's new season of Other Voices, Songs From A Room
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.
Giant lemons, 100ft toothpicks and enough lights to put Las Vegas on full-scale UFO alert. Helena Mulkerns watches with gob well and truly smacked as U2's PopMart extravaganza opens for business at the Sam Boyd Stadium.
Pix: All Action
Er, perhaps not, but after 25 years of waxing, back-combing and tottering around on six-inch heels, Mr. Pussy has certainly earned the right to call himself ‘Ireland’s Most Misleading Lady’. LIAM FAY gets a lesson in cross-dressing from the man who’s stripped Bono to the waist, offered solace to Charlie Haughey and stuck a hairy appendage under Ringo Starr’s nose. PIX: Colm Henry
All over Ireland, at any time of the day or night, hundreds of musicians are at work in recording studios, getting their sounds down for your delectation. So which are the trailblazing facilities? COLM O HARE reports.
Making her solo debut, Andrea Corr has set about re-casting herself as a vampish singer with a taste for dark beats and sultry wordplay. In a forthright interview, she talks about her unexpected re-invention.
To mark World AIDS Day, JOHN M. FARRELL reports on the continuing socio-political discrimination against those living their lives under the shadow of the deadly virus, and talks to a number of people – mostly teenagers – who fall into the high risk category. This is their story . . .
pat mcCABE is on a roll. Neil Jordan s film adaptation of his acclaimed novel The Butcher Boy has been rapturously received. His latest meisterwerk Breakfast On Pluto about a border county transvestite is about to be published. He s going on the road with Jack L. And what s more he was recently named Monaghan Man of the Year! Interview: liam fay.
Pics: Mick Quinn
When he was with PiL he ate cheese rolls and guzzled vintage wine by the neck in Maxim s of Paris. Having gotten the rock n roll lifestyle out of his system, he literally went underground, working as a driver on the London tube. Now he s back, mining the divine power of music with his latest album, The Celtic Poets. saraH Mcquaid meets the inimitable jah wobble.
It’s the guide Ladbrokes, the Central Bank, Mystic Meg and Mark Lawrenson turn to at the start of each year – Jackie Hayden’s cultural, sporting and political forecasts for the forthcoming twelve months.
Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison and Lewis Carrol may all be touchstones for the muse of sinÉad lohan, but this is one talented and increasingly successful singer-songwriter who definitely does things her way. joe jackson meets a self-confessed "spacer".
Pix: Mick Quinn
In a Hot Press exclusive brian kennedy is interviewed by his friend Pat McCABE. On the agenda: Belfast, religion, Joni Mitchell, The Beatles and the current state of popular music. Pics: Cathal Dawson
With the launch of a commemorative series of Irish postage stamps celebrating four of the nation's most important rock legends, we revisit some of the seminal moments in the careers of Phil Lynott, Rory Gallagher, Van Morrison and - first - U2
Despite the controversies in which she has recently bee involved, when SINIAD O'CONNOR starts talking music it becomes evident why she ran away to join the rock'n'roll circus in the first place. Citing Bob Dylan, Bob Marley and Van Morrison as her ultimate trinity, she discusses the spiritual forces that drive and inspire. Interview: BILL GRAHAM
For close to a decade, Lillie’s Bordello has been the nightclub of choice for the famous and not-so-famous of Dublin cultural life. But with the passing of the Celtic Tiger era and the current uncertainty over the club’s future, can Lillie’s retain its position as the capital’s number one celebrity haunt?
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.
Well when you've conquered the world, what else can the biggest band on the planet do except go into space? BONO and LARRY discuss matters cosmic and personal with Olaf Tyaransen
Are Bono and the boys just a really good rock band or have they succeeded where the priests and politicians have failed and unlocked the neuroses of our colonial past? Joe Jackson indulges in a spot of cultural sparring with John Waters and finds the author of Race of Angels: Ireland and the Genesis of U2 well able to maintain his guard.
Journalist NEIL McCORMICK was a schoolmate of BONO when U2 were taking baby steps. Over the past 25 years their paths have frequently crossed, inevitably in rather more exotic circumstances than a classroom. As another year draws to a close, they meet up again: the result is an unusually intimate portrait of a man who came not to save the world but to serenade it. Plus: a close-up look at some of the most striking songs on All That You Can t Leave Behind
The first rule of interviewing LOU REED is that you don t: he interviews you. Peter Murphy survives the turning of the tables and is rewarded with thoughts on Joyce, Wilde, Dylan, Ginsberg and on becoming an elder stateman for the alternative thing .
Having been catapulted to fame by their debut, the knives came out for GARBAGE with the release of Version 2.0. But their crifical mauling has only served to bring the band closer together. PETER MURPHY saw them triumph at The Point, and spoke to SHIRLEY MANSON about fame, performance and one-night stands.
Niall Stokes draws on his best-selling book Into The Heart: The Stories Behind The Songs Of U2 to offer a unique insight into the way in which some of the greatest songs in the history of popular music came into being.
With her new volume of autobiography, AGNES BERNELLE has turned the spotlight away from the stage and onto her own life illuminating both the happier and dark chapters of a turbulent personal story. Interview: JOE JACKSON. Pix: COLM HENRY
After being a magnet for A&R men during the 80s, Dublin has recently developed into something of an underachiever. The city may have the second biggest growth-rate in Europe but there are a hell of a lot of gigs and records that simply aren t selling. peter murphy casts a critical ear over the capital s music scene and decides that what s required is a full-scale artistic enema.
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.
It s easy to trace the tracks of DAVE GAHAN s tears. Like the illustrated man, the marks on his body tell their own story. But not the whole story for this is a man who took heroin abuse to such a lethal extent that he was once clinically dead for two minutes. Now, after a long and painful battle, he s clean, sober and delighted that depeche mode have released the album that few ever expected them to make. Interview: Olaf Tyaransen.
IN THE FIRST PART OF A WORLD EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW IN THE LAST ISSUE OF HOT PRESS, BONO UNVEILED THE NEW U2 ALBUM, SPOKE ABOUT ITS GENESIS IN CYBERPUNK LITERATURE AND THE BAND'S HUNGER TO PUSH ROCK'N'ROLL TO ITS LIMITS. HERE HE ELABORATES ON HOW U2 GO ABOUT WRITING THEIR SONGS AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF GLOBAL CHAOS, HIS ARTISTIC REFERENCE POINTS OUTSIDE MUSIC, THE SUBVERSIVE POWER OF HUMOUR, AND HOW HE ADMIRES THOSE WHO 'PARTICULARLY AGGRESSIVELY' DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD. AND THEN THERE'S THE STORY ABOUT JOHNNY CASH AND THE EMU. CAN THIS MAN BE FOR SURREAL? INTERVIEW:JOE JACKSON.
With a new 'best of' bringing the band's story up to date U2's guitar man steps forward to riff on good times and bad, the private life of a public figure, discovering the secrets of the universe on mushrooms and why, after all these years, few things match the high of being a member of U2.
Special hotpress.com members edition: "director's cut" featuring interview sections unavailable anywhere else.
At the end of an exciting, painful and earthshaking year, Bono reflects on the political and the personal – from drop the debt, September 11, Afghanistan and Genoa to the death of his father Bob, the birth of his son John and the enduring friendship which underpins U2’s music and career. Interview: Niall Stokes
[this interview originally appeared in the spectacular Hot Press Annual 2002 - used in the pictures below - a very limited number of this unique collectors item will shortly be on sale - email u2@hotpress.ie to reserve a copy]
Tracing Scott Walker’s journey from reluctant 60s teen idol to leftfield dignitary, this award-winning doc should please both neophytes and dedicated champions alike.
Rumours of Bono and Len himself turning up proved to be unfounded, but that didn’t stop Came So Far For Beauty: An Evening Of Leonard Cohen Songs being the stuff legend is made of. Click to view the gallery
Live music industry stalwart Vince Power and classical guitar guru John Feeley are the latest additions to The Music Show, set for October 4-5 in Dublin's RDS.
Baz Luhrmann’s forthcoming musical is set in the 19th century, features classic songs from the 20th and was made in the 21st. A lot of big names – Bowie, Beck, Bono – have been co-opted to make this soundtrack more interesting than your average movie tie-in.
It was a year of cut-backs, cut-ups, cut-offs, cock-ups, condoms, market crashes and country music! A year also where the song and anti-song vied or dominance – and both survived.
It was often emotional stuff of course, but if this was O’ Farrell operating on one third of his lung power and tired after two days of intensive rehearsal, then most of the vocalists on the scene could be thankful for their egos he wasn’t on full throttle.
Rumours of Bono and Len himself turning up proved to be unfounded, but that didn’t stop this Dublin Theatre Festival shindig being the stuff legend is made of.
"In dreams begin responsibilities" – is the Delmore Schwartz line that's been used by both Lou Reed and U2. But it doesn't quite suit the latest album from another member of their coterie, T-Bone Burnett.
Fancy taking a trip down to Dr John’s bayou, with Andy Weatherall’s decks appeal, Nick Cave’s religious fervour, and Johnny Cash’s outlaws as your inlaws?
Four years is a hell of a long time in pop music – the fact that The Corrs could afford to lay low for such an extended period is a testament to the band’s confidence in their audience...
There could be no better illustration of how U2 have become global icons. Kick-starting the European leg of their Vertigo tour in Brussels’ King Baudouin Stadium on June 10, the old anti-sectarian favourite ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ electrified the crowd like no other. Here, however, it had been transformed from its original intent as a plea to end bloodshed in Northern Ireland into a hymn for religious harmony among the ‘sons of Abraham’ – Christians, Jews and Muslims.
Some of the country's leading music industry figures joined thousands of people for the Music Show, a two-day celebration of all that's good about the recording arts in Ireland.
Rogues Gallery, can be roughly – if fancifully – described as a Hallowe’en masqued ball staged on a decrepit ghost galleon. Featuring a cast of hundreds arrayed over two albums and 43 tunes, it’s an unruly assembly whose various belchings, bilgings and bemoanings lurch in tone and timbre from the bawdy to the doleful.
Getting inside the head of one of modern music’s deepest enigmas was both a challenge and a privilege, says documentary maker Stephen Kijak, director of Scott Walker 30 Century Man.
It was a year when all manner of ecological malaise seemed to come home to roost. In particular the Sudan was in turmoil, putting our own nasty little problems of smog, toxic waste and criminal fish kills into sharp relief –
As revealed earlier in the year, Bono, Andrea Corr and Gavin Friday are among the artists contributing to the CD Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys.
There is a huge wealth of music talent in Ireland today. In this economic meltdown, the government should help the industry live up to its potential through the introduction of initiatives that would make Ireland a better environment for musicians.
At the precise moment that TOWER RECORDS are celebrating their 30th anniversary, they have the youngest managing director in their history – ANDY LOWN. Since assuming his present post in July 1996, he’s masterminded the expansion of the company in Ireland, and is about to preside over the opening of five new outlets in this country. Interview: STUART CLARK.
Budget cuts almost spelled the end of Other Voices. But the team behind the Dingle music institution rallied around – with the result that this year’s line-up is arguably among the strongest in the history of the show
Q: Which top Irish quiz-masters’ pathological obsessions include Something Happens, Shamrock Rovers and the amount of shopping days left to the next Suede gig? A: George “You Started, So I’ll Finish” Byrne
With the death of Kurt Cobain in April casting a shadow over the following months 1994 will hardly go down as one of the most joyous in Rock history. Your guide to a month-by-month account of the names and events of the past year. Stuart Clark.
