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.
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
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.
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
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.
In The Time Of Shaking opens this week at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, with special guests Yoko Ono and The Edge lending their high profile support to the Art for Amnesty exhibition
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
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.
peter murphy meets the multi-faceted pelvis, whose debut album Who Are You Today marks them out as one of the most formidable new Irish
talents in years.
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
Not so long ago mavericks and experimentalism were thin on the ground in Ireland. But with the growth of an independent scene, all of that has changed. for confirmation, look no further than the rise to eminence of The Jimmy Cake.
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
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
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.
Neil McCormick, a friend of U2 in their earliest days, who, as a writer, has closely monitored their progress since then, analyses Eamon Dunphy's much-touted 'authorised' biography "Unforgettable Fire" – and can't quite believe what he reads
