A tetchy-as-ever John Lydon deigns to speak to us mere mortals on the occasion of the announcement of a London live date in June - wherein The Sex Pistols will be reminding people, he says, "what being British is really about"
The Sex Pistols are back! In what has the look of a major coup for the event, punk’s great trailblazers are among this year’s headliners at Electric Picnic 2008, which takes place in Stradbally over the final weekend in August.
While Electric Picnic did not lack for non-musical highlights, the hottest action was to be found on stage, where the likes of the Sex Pistols and My Bloody Valentine whipped up a storm.
WITH JULIAN Temple's film going a long way towards restoring the legend the Pistols themselves did their damnedest to defile on the reunion tour of '96, it's inevitable that we'd get the soundtrack of the repackaging of the resurrection.
On the occasion of the Queen of England's golden jubilee, the Sex Pistols re-release God Save the Queen, probably the most controversial record of all time. Why thank you, says her Maj, doubtlessly: exactly what we wanted
They were Ireland’s original of the punk species, and thirty years on from their debut, Paranoid visions are still fizzling with anti-establishment fury. The difference, they say, is that nowadays they are more likely to channel their rage through music rather than chuck a bottle through a shop window
As Dublin readies itself for the Holidays In The Sun festival, Stuart Clark talks to Menace mainman Noel Martin about the birth of punk, Shane MacGowan's Union Jack and why John Lydon wasn't the most popular boy in school!
It was a Jubilee ago that The Sex Pistols exploded onto the world stage and changed music forever. Except little has changed, according to John Lydon and that's why he's back
To mark the occasion of the release of a near definitive punk compilation, GEORGE BYRNE fondly recalls the days when pogo was go-go and gabba gabba was hey.
They've tangled with the legends of Krautrock, extended the hand of friendship to Eastern Europe and campaigned against light pollution. But what you really need to know about British Sea Power is that they're being hailed as this year's answer to Arcade Fire.
This soundtrack is essentially a collage of the work of three bands - Joy Division, New Order and the Happy Mondays - with a few house tunes and the Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks and The Clash thrown in for good measure
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
It's been ten years that's shaken a fair bit of the world and now, suddenly, OASIS are back. what better time for a reflective, confessional, candid and scandalous one-on-one with a man who always gives great quote, NOEL GALLAGHER. Interview: STUART CLARK
Comparing the insipid, whiney ramblings of The Offspring and Rancid to the incendiary anthems of movement-instigators The Sex Pistols, The New York Dolls and The Ramones is like comparing a firecracker to a nuclear explosion. But then you already knew that
Ian Brown’s fifth solo album is about the big issues. And while he's picked all the right targets, lyrically and musically it’s still a bit disappointing.
what good was rock’n’roll in 2001? No good at all – and yet we couldn’t have got through without it.
Peter Murphy reflects on a year in which some old codgers stood up to be counted and many of us lived “on songs and hope”
The legacy of a punk great is scrutinised in a new documentary Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten. Filmmaker Julien Temple explains what motivated him to make a movie about his old friend.
Never mind CD:UK, Top Of The Pops and Later With Jools – you really know you’ve made it when the phone rings and it’s Sparks telling you they love you. Stuart Clark hears about the irresistible rise of Glasgow hotshots Franz Ferdinand.
INTASTELLA ARE ON A ONE-BAND CRUSADE TO BRING GLAMOUR BACK TO BRITISH POP BUT WHERE DO SHAUN RYDER AND THE MAN WHO DISCOVERED THE SEX PISTOLS ENTER INTO THE EQUATION? STUART CLARK JOURNEYS TO MANCHESTER TO FIND OUT.
The work of Birr fashion illustrator Sorcha O’Raghallaigh is attracting nods of approval even from those who have little interest in fashion. Jackie Hayden talks to her as her second exhibition comes to Dublin.
Are they genuine punks or just an amped-up, radio-friendly version of the real thing? Good Charlotte‘s twin frontmen Benji and Joel wouldn’t like to say for certain.
Having parted company with Primal Scream, Kevin Shields has remixed two Bow Wow Wow tracks for Sofia Coppola’s latest blockbuster-in-the-making, Marie Antoinette.
He has one or two other things going on at the moment, but if The Edge happens to be free on the first day of the Electric Picnic there’s a good chance you’ll find him and his wooly hat front of stage for reformed post-punks Magazine.
It’s a rags to riches fairytale of Disney proportions, but winning the overall prize in the Global Battle of the Bands contest, a world tour and E85,000 is just part of Kopek’s story.
Kopek are the best band in the world, according to the Global Battle Of The Bands contest, which held its grand final at the London Astoria last night.
Britrock icon Paul Weller speaks about his new album 22 Dreams and why his influence on acts like Arctic Monkeys and The Enemy has proved a source of gratification and inspiration.
Fashion designer, punk Svengali, musical maverick, filmmaker and occasional pervertor of justice. MALCOLM McLAREN has been all of these things – and more – in a rollercoaster career that's seen him become a hero to some and an unscrupulous villain to others. STUART CLARK tools up at Ron & Reggie's Gangland Surplus Store for a showdown with the man who manufactured cash from chaos! Scene-of-the-crime photographer: COLM HENRY.
From being bottled off stage in Italy to supporting Garbage on a major European tour, to their excellent second album I Am Not A Doctor, life has certainly not been boring for Moloko. John Walshe caught up with them.
You know that your pop star interviewee is confident about the quality of his splendid new album, when he's happy to talk about everyone else under the sun. So it is with Pet Shop Boy Neil Tennant as he gives the thumbs up or down to Eminem, Liza Minelli, Kylie Minogue, So Solid Crew, Boy George and Westlife. Keeping score: Stuart Clark
AGEING PUNK STUART 'CIDER'N'SPIT' CLARK REHEATS THE WHITE HOT CAULDRON OF 1977 IN A DISCUSSION OF TIMES PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE WITH THOSE CHARMING MEN FROM MANCHESTER, BUZZCOCKS. PIC: CATHAL DAWSON
Irish-based video streaming service Muzu TV has agreed a deal with ITN which will see up to 80,000 hours of archive footage becoming freely available online.
In a major interview to be published next month by Hot Press, Manchester City and (more importantly) Ireland centre-half Richard Dunne reveals that him and his partner have named their 10-month-old daughter ‘Lyla’ in honour of City supporters Oasis.
andy darlington meets skunk anansie with a live grenade in his hand
Peter Murphy s damning Hot Press review of their latest album Stoosh. You could cut the tension with a knife
which appears to be exactly what Skin wants at this very moment. Will anyone here get out alive?
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.
Jesse Hughes of Eagles Of Death Metal takes time out from showering with nubile fans to explain why the Republican party is too left-wing for him, sings the praises of George W Bush and tells us what it’s like to have a former Sex Pistol as a post-rehab sponsor.
He may be able to put more bums on stadium seats down under than INXS but elsewhere no one seems to give a XXXX about Jimmy Barnes. That could all be about to change though as Stuart Clark
discovers when he has his hand broken by Australia's best-kept secret.
When the decision to dump Rattlebag and Mystery Train from the RTE Radio 1 schedule was taken, accusations of dumbing down were rife. So is there scope for arts and music programmes with a bit of depth in Montrose? John Kelly insists that there should be.
Dublin anarcho-pop five-piece The Camembert Quartet have just released their debut album Music Is War, but with song titles such as 'Boybands Are C**ts' it's unlikely they'll be joining westlife on tour
The Smiths: the band who helped re-write the book of guitar rock, the indie darlings who became mainstream legends, the dream of a group which gave the world the unique reality of Morrissey. guitarist Johnny Marr recalls the thrilling heyday of Manchester’s finest.
Best-selling author Colin Bateman has just published his 21st book, which is being hailed by critics as a cracker. He talks to Hot Press about cutting his teeth as a writer in Northern Ireland
Hey pal - fancy a record deal? We like your style, we luuuurve the music and we're practically guaranteed to make you a star. So what's the hitch? Absolutely nish, my friend. Just sign the necessaries, and we'll proceed.
Just think of that lovely £500 advance. Sure, you're signing up for a six album deal, but what the hell? Maybe you fancy a management settlement for, say, 12 years? What is there to lose, little guy? In fact we're such an awesome organisation that you should maybe go for a record deal and a management contract, all in the same tidy package. Tell you what, my man, if you really want, we can throw in the publishing rights, also. Wouldn't that take care of all your problems at a stroke?
With that long awaited third album in the pipeline, and an imminent Electric Picnic slot, Franz Ferdinad's Alex Kapranos talks to us about utilizing the doppler effect.
The Sultans of Ping may have a penchant still for fetishwear and dirty three-minute pop songs but they’re definitely mellowing as Stuart Clark discovers when he meets Niall O’Flaherty and Pat O’Connell for
afternoon tea. Pix: CATHAL DAWSON
Cakes: Mr. Kipling
Known for his hyperactive - even threatening - live performances, Iggy Pop is sure to deliver one of Féile '93's most invigorating performances. Here, with an overview of the ex - Stooge's unconventional career, Hot Press prepares you for what's to come.
Ahead of the reformed Pistols' Electric Picnic set, we caught up with the guitarist, Steve Jones, who spoke about kicking heroin, his dislike of Malcolm McLaren, his on-air confrontation with Jerry Lee Lewis, and why he'd love to do an album with Cliff Richard.
A House are really good! That s just one of the shocking claims Graham Linehan makes in this award winning article based loosely on an interview he did with the band.
Noel Gallagher and Paul Arthurs of Oasis talk about their staggering rise from being unemployed no-hopers to Top Ten chart act striving to outshine T.Rex, The Beatles and Neil Young to name but three and show Tony Clayton-Lea how to order a peanut.
When massive attack decided that they'd meet the press in Dublin, stuart clark got just thirty minutes to prepare for the
interview. But he still manages to talk to 3d about music, football, the band's new album Mezzanine - and the difficulties of making sweet leurve to the sound of your own records.
To celebrate hotpress’s thirtieth anniversary issue, we thought we’d break out the bubbly (and the tea!) and invite round a collection of Ireland’s biggest stars.
Super Furry Animals are yet another Welsh band poised for huge success on the back of their new album. They talk to STUART CLARK about their rejection of Brit Pop, strange Japanese fans and the glory days of The Free Wales Army. Pics of Super Furry Animals with super furry animals: Mick Quinn.
For a creature like Siouxsie Sioux, where does persona
end and person begin? ANDY DARLINGTON tries to discover the girl behind the mask, but winds up talking about Hugely Inflated Breasts and spooky doppelgangers from The Twilight Zone instead . . .!
As one half of D’unbelievables, Jon Kenny became one of Ireland’s most famous and successful entertainers. but the hard touring took its toll and, he believes, may even have contributed to the cancer which threatened not only his career but his life. now fully recovered, Kenny is back as a solo artist but one still hugely inspired by small-town Ireland and its rich crop of characters. Photo Cathal Dawson
Long before boomtime Ireland there was boomtown Ireland, a country where the national symbol was not a tiger but a rat. to coincide with the release of the best of the boomtown rats, Bob Geldof looks back to the tepid Irish scene of the mid-’70s from which the rats emerged, biting, snarling and laughing, to take on the establishment, Britain and, almost, the world.
Dismissed in some misguided quarters as “merely” a bunch of singles with some other stuff to help make up the numbers, The Undertones debut album now sounds as it did back then, like a unique collection of rampant and furious stabs of instant, sunny, funny, glorious pop.
With Cameron Crowe s Almost Famous putting rock hackery on the silver screen, no less, Peter Murphy wonders if Seventies rock journalism is the new rock n roll. Helping him with his enquiries: PAUL MORLEY and GREIL MARCUS
While 2004 has not been an especially spectacular year to date, there is good reason to believe that rocks big guns are likely to deliver the kind of records that will revive spirits in the industry. Chris Donovan previews some of the albums that are likely to top the sales – and the critical – charts before 2004 is out...
How the mafia did Noel a favour by twatting Liam; the U2 song Oasis might cover; the most he’s spent on cocaine; a great night out in Ireland’ and what it will say on his tombstone. Noel Gallagher answers the reader’s questions. Turning up the heat Stuart Clark.
As the Magnificent Seven prepare to mosey into Thurles, Stuart Clark probes Chas Smash's - or should that be Cathal Smyth's? - split personality and continuing flirtation with Madness
whinging, yak-herding and masturbating over the sunday dinner are just three of the tenuously-related subjects that come up for discussion as stuart clark gets completely wireless with radiohead plankspanker from hell colin greenwood.
He has warts on his face, chemical paste in his blood, viagra in his dick and a heart full of rock 'n' roll. "There are occasions when I do preach temperance," Lemmy tells a startled STUART CLARK Woooooargh! Photography: SIMON ROCHE
Boyzone are, irrefutably, Ireland s first ever bona fide Pop gods. Reviled by many but dreamed about, screamed at and lusted after by far, far more, they are the men boys of the moment. Joe Jackson meets Louis Walsh and John Reynolds, the Svengalis behind Boyzone, and asks Steve, Shane, Ronan, Mikey and Keith what it s like when every female alive wants to shag you senseless. As if he doesn t know.
Joe Jackson sneaks a peek at Wayne Studer’s new book Rock On The Wild Side, which gender-bends its way through three decades of gay imagery in rock music from Jimi Hendrix’ first kiss to George Michael’s shuttlecock.
Whether with THE SMITHS, ELECTRONIC, THE PRETENDERS or in brown trouser mode sharing a stage with PAUL McCARTNEY, GEORGE MICHAEL and NEIL FINN, he remains, by his own admission, the best JOHNNY MARR-style guitar player around. GEORGE BYRNE meets the cat others like to copy.
Heard the one about the Irishman, the Bronx and the tab of industrial-strength acid? Stuart Clark hadn t either until that most eligible of bachelors, David Holmes, talked him through the mad month in New York that inspired his Let s Get Killed album.
They may have been one of the most consistently hotly-tipped bands in Ireland over the past three years but Lir are still mere babes in the great rock’n’roll scheme of things. It’s ironic then that they should so often be accused of harking back to the ’70s. Interview: Jackie Hayden
Hot Press is 20 years old? Drokk it , so is 2000 AD! The mag edited by an Alien, produced by Art & Script-Droids, and read by Earthlets everywhere the one which revolutionised the comic industry, and of the Graphic Novel. ANDY DARLINGTON assesses its cultural impact and legacy.
Carl Perkins, the rock pioneer who wrote Blue Suede Shoes and no less than four songs for the Beatles, is dead. ANDY DARLINGTON remembers his career from Sun Records and the legendary Million Dollar Quartet , through to Johnny Cash s Live At San Quentin . . . and a movie knife-fight with David Bowie
Duff McKagan has exclusively revealed to Hot Press that Velvet Revolver are in pole position to support Led Zeppelin if they decide to go ahead with a full-blown reunion tour.
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.
Olaf Tyaransen sings the reunion city blues as an unhappy DEBBIE HARRY forces him to take the scenic route through the rise, fall and rise of BLONDIE. But, hey, it all ends happily ever after...
As the punk revolution took hold in the UK, Manchester was notable for the bleak, industrial soundtrack even its most successful bands were making. But that all changed with the explosion there of a new and hedonistic culture, centred in and around The Hacienda, a club run by the city's most influential music biz entrepreneur, the boss of Factory Records, TONY WILSON. The story of the transformation of the city into the centre of rock'n'roll's emerging drug and club culture – of the change from Manchester to Madchester – is told in 24 Hour Party People. With the Happy Mondays as it primary musical focus, there's no shortage of on-screen drugs and fighting – but this is really the extraordinary saga of one of the great rock'n'roll towns, in all its gory glory… Tara Brady reports
Boyzone are, irrefutably, Ireland s first ever bona fide Pop gods. Reviled by many but dreamed about, screamed at and lusted after by far, far more, they are the men boys of the moment. Joe Jackson meets Louis Walsh and John Reynolds, the Svengalis behind Boyzone, and asks Steve, Shane, Ronan, Mikey and Keith what it s like when every female alive wants to shag you senseless. As if he doesn t know.
And that s just the band! Galway s finest, The Stunning, take time out from sticking pins in themselves as their debut album Paradise In The Picturehouse finds itself perched atop the Irish charts to explain the secret of their success to an attentive Michael O Hara, who undergoes a road to Damascus experience en route.
Boyzone are, irrefutably, Ireland’s first ever bona fide Pop gods. Reviled by many but dreamed about, screamed at and lusted after by far, far more, they are the men – boys – of the moment. Joe Jackson meets Louis Walsh and John Reynolds, the svengalis behind Boyzone, and asks Steve, Shane, Ronan, Mikey and Keith what it’s like when every female alive wants to shag you senseless. As if he doesn’t know.
and didn’t like what he saw... Fatboy Slim tells Stuart Clark about an encounter with Man Utd so unpleasant that even Zoe Ball is thinking of switching her allegiance to Brighton. Plus: the highs of Normstock and the lows of So Solid Crew
Champagne corks were popped last week as Snow Patrol joined that elite group of bands who’ve simultaneously topped the charts in Ireland and the UK. It’s all a far cry from the days when their fame was confined to the University of Dundee Students Union bar. Gary Lightbody takes time out from wowing the masses in Dublin and Belfast to tell Stuart Clark about their twisty and turny route to the top.
He pioneered the art of glam-punk excess with the New York Dolls and now he's learned to grow old gracefully. Peter Murphy meets the boy from New York City, the ever cool David Johansen. Photos: MYLES CLAFFEY
Pioneering ambient artist, film-scorer, and producer of choice for everyone from Willie Nelson to U2, Daniel Lanois has assembled one of the most impressive CVs in modern rock. And with his new album, Shine, having just hit the racks, he’s far from done yet, as he tells Peter Murphy
The journey from Tallaght to the Premiership hasn’t always been an easy one, but this season has found Richard Dunne in the best form of his career for both club and country.
MARILYN MANSON may be the epitome of Middle America's worst nightmare but, as STUART CLARK discovers, he's not that bad, really. On the agenda: Bono, Eminem, Moby, George W. Bush and the Columbine shootings
From Oasis to The Ping Pong Bitches, ALAN McGEE is living proof that there s life after
success, excess, Labour, near-death and, oh yes, Creation Records. Even if you re a Rangers
supporter. Interview: STUART CLARK
You re the frontman with The Stunning, you make an innocent remark about farmers and acid house and you end up creating banner headlines in The Western People. Lorraine Freeney assures Steve Wall that this is the sort of stuff Hot Press never stoop to, and also hears about the new album, Deco in The Commitments and the art of bridging the rural-urban divide.
1 guitar + 1 drum kit + 1 boy + 1 girl = The White Stripes. In other words, sweet, sweet noise meets the best brother and sister penned pop since The Carpenters. Eamon Sweeney meets Detroit's finest, who play Dublin Castle on Saturday, May 4th as part of the Heineken Green Energy Festival
Andy Darlington travels to Manchester to meet the Stone Roses, an outfit who’ve progressed past the point of being just a band to become something altogether bigger...
Award-winning director and actor Ed Burns talks about enjoying success on your own terms, his lifelong music obsession and the fact that he’s about to make his first big-budget Hollywood movie.
In Auckland, it was punk rock, gang wars, heroin and prostitution. In Cavan, it s rolling countryside, a recording studio in a church and more dogs than you could throw a stick for. It s been a long way from there to here for BRENDAN PERRY, the former partner in Dead Can Dance who now has a solo album on release.
Interview: NICK KELLY. Pix: CATHAL DAWSON.
The star of what s set to be the summer s hottest movie, High Fidelity, on love, obsession, movies, rock n roll, his pal Bruce Springsteen and the records he turns to when he s had his heart broken. With support from co-star Lisa Bonet and director Stephen Frears. Text: CRAIG FITZSIMONS
With compass in hand and their newly unfurled Map Of The Universe nestling comfortably on their laps, Blink are boldly going where few Irish bands have gone before. But what happens when they get to Cork and Ballybunion? Intrepid explorer LIAM FAY dons his rucksack, climbs aboard the Blinkmobile and survives to tell the tale.
As founder and director of the acclaimed choral group, Anuna, MICHAEL McGLYNN has established himself as one of the country's most gifted and innovated composers. However, he has also become a figure by some elements in the Irish Music Industry and been dismissed by others as a "pig ignorant arrogant bastard" Inetrview: LIAM FAY
THE CHARLATANS are back firing on all cylinders, and talking global domination. TIM BURGESS and JON BROOKES talk to STUART CLARK about the joys of L.A., the dangers of Jack Daniel s and falling down Noel Gallagher s
marble staircase. Pics: MICK QUINN
Damien Dempsey has battled his way centre stage, winning the support of luminaries as diverse as Morrissey, Robert Plant, Sinéad O'Connor, Larry Mullen and Brian Eno along the way. Now with the release of his third album Shots, he is poised to make a major breakthrough. Interview by Tanya Sweeney. Photos by Cathal Dawson.
...IS COMING TO TAKE YOU AWAY! WHEN JOE JACKSON WENT TO INTERVIEW BONO AT U2'S SECRET DUBLIN RECORDING BASE, HE HAD NO IDEA WHAT TO EXPECT. WHAT HE GOT WAS A CRAZY ROLLERCOASTER RIDE THROUGH THE EXTRAORDINARY WORK-IN-PROGRESS WHICH WILL BECOME U2'S FOLLOW-UP TO THE ACCLAIMED "ACHTUNG BABY!", WITH BONO AT THE WHEEL AND AN UNSEEN PRESENCE WORKING THE ACCELERATOR LIKE A DEMON. "RECORDS SHOULD BE MORE OF A TRIP," SAYS THE MAN IN THE WRAPAROUND SHADES. FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS THEN. THIS WILL BE NO ORDINARY RECORD. AND THIS IS NO ORDINARY INTERVIEW.
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.
So this is Christmas and what have we done... As U2 prepare to enter the final yearof the decade, Bono devotes a long night at his home in Dublin to reflecting on his life, his music and U2's extraordinary career to date. Interview: Liam Mackey
A self-styled dandy, painter, writer and poseur, Sebastian Horsley seems to do everything to excess – whether that be drink, drugs, sex, sending shit to a critic or, literally, being crucified for his art. Olaf Tyaransen hears about his agony and ecstasy.
The future is here. Well, somehow it always is. And, as usual, it is both familiar and strange. Nothing seems to change, but one day you turn around, it is 1995, and you are cybersurfing on the internet, summer seems to last all winter, ambient-acid-techno is bubbling away on the radio, your fax machine shows up on the Antiques Roadshow and papa’s got a brand new drug.
U2 are about to unleash their new album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. The world’s media are descending on Dublin. And Bono is back at the punch-bag, getting into fighting shape before the shit storm really explodes. The gloves are off. He’s got work to do. And he’s going to do it. Words Stuart Clark, additional reporting by Niall Stokes.
Nirvana - Ten years after. Peter Murphy talks to producer Butch Vig, musician Mark Lanegan and critic Greil Marcus, and gets the inside story of the making of Nevermind, the classic album that changed the face of music, unveiled the anthem 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' and brought the world face to face with a screaming soul called Kurt Cobain.
The sceptics might argue that for a group with such a troubled recent past to preach of increasing the peace is a touch hypocritical but, as that cover suggests, this has been something of a learning experience for all involved.
Irish acts have always excelled at blowing hot and cold, but they've never been too good at playing it cool, never had the kind of urban avant-garage tradition that fosters a Sonic Youth or a Pere Ubu.
I VE been in Vivienne Westwood s shop in the King s Road in London a few times. There s a very striking architectural feature to the place. It s a simple idea but genuinely original and somewhat startling. The floor is pitched at an angle, as if you re on board a ship that s about to go down, or the building you re in is beginning to implode. The shop is called World s End.
Does anyone give a toss about Badly Drawn Boy anymore? A lot of people, judging by the sell-out crowd at The Village tonight, though I have to say I’m a little surprised.
The sun shone on our Sunday Chatroom, with talkative adventures aplenty and guests The Flaws, Gemma Hayes, Mark Geary, Hadouken, Foals, The Roots, Michael Franti and more!
THEY RE NOT quite in the Tommy Hilfiger or Yves St. Laurent league yet, but 1998 found the Los Angeles County Coroner s Office selling over $1 million worth of its death-themed fun wear.
Seven hours and ten DJs later, it seems clear at this, the first Smirnoff Experience since the summer break, that dance music is in shockingly good health
IN WHICH Liam Howlett, in the wake of the half-great but ultimately overblown shitstorm that was The Prodigy's Fat Of The Land album and panzer-campaign, holes up in the culture bunker, getting back to his B-boy bleach bum roots.
There s no sign of Derry s finest turning into the Rolling Tones but neither is there much sign of any new contenders ready to challenge the supremacy of THE UNDERTONES
As the Summer festival season kicks in, our Nostalgia Correspondent recalls the heady, pioneering days of rock in the great Irish outdoors. Keep a hose handy.
Some pay good money for it, some advertise in small print for it, and some recording artists send written requests for it. Put it down to a religious upbringing, or unrequited longings, but whatever the sad reasoning, some people seek abuse.
Metallica have emerged as the most popular metal band in Ireland to judge by their showing in the chart of the one hundred best metal tracks of all time as chosen by the readers of Hot Press and the listeners to 2FM’s increasingly popular Metal Show.
Galway’s Acid-Jazz weekend wasn’t without its problems, but the highlights made it all worthwhile. Stuart Clark reports and Aengus McMahon takes the pictures.
RELISH
Another Downpatrick act with the chance to make good. Now signed to EMI Ireland, a single is due presently. Previous demos found them mixing a gleaming American rock sound with soulful vocals, not unlike Roachford or Terence Trent d Arby. A challenge to anyone s marketing department, but still preferrable to the average indie toss.
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
...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.
RTE2 have plenty of live music action to keep us placated for the next few weeks - here's the line up of bands and when to catch them. For more about the Other Voices series, click on the link at the very bottom.
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
