He’s spent the past few years hanging out with Kate Moss and Primal Scream, but now it’s time for Irvine Welsh to look up some old pals. Yup, Begbie, Spud, Renton and Sick Boy are back in Porno, an XXX-rated tale which makes Trainspotting look like Harry Potter
It s the morning after the night before and BRET EASTON ELLIS feels like he s got Marilyn Manson playing inside his head. A dinner date with fellow penslinger Irvine Welsh has gone seriously pear-shaped and like his most famous literary creation, the Californian is fit to kill. STUART CLARK offers tea and solpadeine, and in return gets the lowdown on American Psycho, trans-Atlantic stalkers and why both Air Supply and the Teletubbies are evil. Pix: Cathal Dawson.
The Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival offers a take on modern Belfast that rings true, as well as an eclectic musical line-up and some controversial readings from modern UK writers says Colin Carberry
This is the Hotpress Student Guide 2002. We know that the last thing you want is a load of worthy and boring tips on how to be a good boy or girl. So instead, we thought we’d give you a little bit of help in the much more important task of being baaaaad.
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.
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.
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.
Annie Nightingale on BBC Radio One is Dance Music s fixture for insomniac clubbers. But for the BBC s first-ever female DJ this is just the latest incarnation of a career that began, sort-of, by insulting John Lennon. ANDY DARLINGTON reads the book, sits in on the show, and even finds time for an interview.
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.
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.
When it was first published, very few people would have predicted the extraordinary, best-selling success of Fever Pitch. Now, NICK HORNBY s winning story of a chronic football obsessive has been elevated to the big screen. But, in a world of bungs, bootboys, bandwagon-jumpers and the relentless hype of Sky Sports, is he still in love with the (sometimes not so) beautiful game? Interview: CRAIG FITZSIMONS.
When it was first published, very few people would have predicted the extraordinary, best-selling success of Fever Pitch. Now, NICK HORNBY s winning story of a chronic football obsessive has been elevated to the big screen. But, in a world of bungs, bootboys, bandwagon-jumpers and the relentless hype of Sky Sports, is he still in love with the (sometimes not so) beautiful game? Interview: CRAIG FITZSIMONS.
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 .
Once he was the mouthy fop rocker who enraged at least as many people as he delighted; now with a debut novel just published he's a (mostly) critically acclaimed author whose time has apparently come. Peter Murphy meets former Toasted Heretic frontman Julian Gough to discuss a meeting with Morrissey and a near-miss with Sinead, the benefits of being humbled and crushed, fame and creativity on the dole and, one more time with feeling, the epic story of lawyers, lubricants and lunacy at Feile '92. Photography: Phillip Tottenham
From hip replacement to hip and onto hip-hop, the second coming of texas has been one of the most unlikely artistic and commercial triumphs of recent years.
But as olaf Tyaransen discovers, the new-look
sharleen spiteri remains very much her old self.
Latest in the mindbogglingly endless line of feelgood northern-English 'heartwarmers', the curiously engaging Purely Belter derives fairly straightforwardly from a novel by Gateshead schoolteacher (and presumably Roddy Doyle-wannabe) Jonathan Tulloch.
30th Anniversary Retrospective: Looking back at 30 years of Irish literature, best-selling author Joe O’Connor reflects that things have never been better.
He was the underclass delinquent who almost became a chess grandmaster and then stumbled into literary acclaim. John Healy looks back upon a life less ordinary.
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.
