Kaiser Chiefs and Hard-Fi may have sold more records, but they’re mere also-rans in the tabloid fame game compared to Sam Preston. Ed Power finds out how the Ordinary Boys frontman is coping with life post-Big Brother.
In these days when seemingly any bunch of young independent types with guitars can rocket to global stardom, there’s something fairly reassuring about Preston School Of Industry.
The grim labouring of heavy machinery. The voice of a drugged god. The bottom falling out of heaven. If these are a few of your favourite things, step right up.
Few performances will have done more to shape the future of The Ordinary Boys than the ignoble appearance of frontman Samuel Preston on Celebrity Big Brother. Ironically, his dalliance with trash television, though ensuring the commercial survival of the band, would also signal their exile from the affections of credibility junkies.
The First (and almost certainly the worst) blockbuster to benight our summer thus far, Battlefield Earth is a work of such devastating intellectual incompetence and emotional emptiness as to make Star Wars: Phantom Menace resemble Bergman's Seventh Seal.
A surprisingly gentle, Preston Sturges-inspired satire on Hollywood from the blessed pen of David Mamet, State And Main is almost scarily good-natured coming from the man behind such far-from-gentle classics as the scalpel-sharp Speed The Plow.
Simultaneously an homage to Preston Sturges and a re-working of Homer's Odyssey filtered through the Coens' twisted sensibility, O Brother Where Art Thou? may not quite represent the brothers' finest hour, but still goes to prove that they're wholly incapable of producing anything that doesn't bear some trace of magnificence.
You can take the man out of Phibsborough, but you can’t take Phibsborough out of the man! Wayne Henderson talks about his lifelong love of Bohemians, the greening of the Championship and Ireland’s end of season trip to America.
Songs titles like ‘Lonely At The Top’, ‘Great Big Rip Off’ and ‘The Higher The Highs’ tell the whole story. This is one of those dreaded ‘life in the public eye’ records and we have a right to be particularly worried at the outcome. Actually it isn’t bad.
Music Review | Live
38% | 9 Mar 2005
Steve Cummins
Those in attendance are leaving for home grinning from ear to ear. Some can hardly speak. Those who can are uttering the words "fuckin’" and "amazin’".
She’s the latest Big Brother celeb – a wannabe pop star with a huge crush on Victoria Beckham. And just to be clear, Chanelle isn’t the leggy blonde one who looked a bit like Paris Hilton.
Moore was one half of the Stax duo Sam & Dave, who scored huge hits in the late 60’s with the likes of ‘Soul Man’, ‘Hold On I’m Coming’ and the sultry ballad ‘When Something Is Wrong With My Baby’. Here he duets with a host of big names on songs that range from soul and gospel to country and funk.
They once blagged a soccer scholarship to America as a laugh. Now back in the UK with a number one album, The Hoosiers are at the forefront of their very own scene: “odd-pop”.
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.
The ace bass in the STONE ROSES and PRIMAL SCREAM, MANI is the living embodiment of the concept of largin it . In Ireland to dee-jay and hang out, he sinks a few beers and offers his uniquely colourful thoughts on music, Man U, drugs, Thatcher, Reagan, Blair and Bill Clinton s blow-jobs. Interview: EAMON SWEENEY.
John Banville places himself among some of the century’s most celebrated and notorious figures, in a frank interview which sees one of Ireland’s most revered and controversial writers musing on the raging battle between high art and popular culture, not to mention the war between the sexes . . . Tape: Joe Jackson Pix: Cathal Dawson
Well, not this man perhaps. He s EGIL OLSEN, the new manager of Wimbledon, which means he ll most likely to as much of a spectator as the rest of us, as the new Premiership football season gets into its stride. Our Foul Play columnist, JONATHAN O BRIEN, presents his annual eve of the campaign form guide.
And so, unbelievably another year has bitten the dust. Here, continuing a tradition as Christmassy as the eating of turkey and the consumption of way too much alcohol, The Hog reflects on a turbulent year, when we all grew older and much, much wiser.
Me and Mr Johnson features Clapton renditions of 14 of the 29-song legacy of Robert Johnson, mythical Mississippi bluesman recorded during his brief career in the 1930s.
And in the end times, when the Tower of Babel has crumbled into dust, the empire of empires shall grow fat with things sacrificed unto idols. And as they survey the vast expanse at their command they will say unto each other – “ruling sucks – let us go and inflict brain damage on each other by falling off skateboards and bouncing into ceiling fans.”
Sacreligious even by the standards Hollywood insists on applying to children’s literature, the utterly excruciating C**t In The Hat really should motivate the late Dr.Seuss’s estate to take out a barring order against anyone who would dare fuck with his creations
Sacreligious even by the standards Hollywood insists on applying to children’s literature, the utterly excruciating C**t In The Hat really should motivate the late Dr.Seuss’s estate to take out a barring order against anyone who would dare fuck with his creations
With influences by The Jam, The Clash and the Smiths, shirts by Fred Perry and haircuts grade one, The Ordinary Boys couldn’t be any more British if they embarked on a Bank Holiday tour of sleepy seaside venues with amps draped in Union Jacks.
The full lineup for Co. Carlow's Solas festival has been announced, with Autamata, God Is An Astronaut, Kíla and Republic Of Loose among the highlights.
The last thing we want to see is a forlorn Steve Staunton walking along with a parrot that talks on his shoulder, wondering if John Delaney will pick him out again.
TRAPPED IN a slow motion nightmare, I listen transfixed to the daily reports from a courtroom in Preston in Lancashire. Each day, a few more minutes are added to our knowledge of the last hours of Jamie Bolger's life, the five-year-old who was abducted and killed by boys who are still children themselves.
