Irish indie supergroup Concerto For Constantine have been announced as the support act for the Smashing Pumpkins' eagerly-anticipated visits to Dublin and Belfast.
By some bizarre coincidence, the new album from The Smashing Pumpkins hits the shops within a week of Oasis' new offering, as both bands approach their latest outing on the back of line-up unheavals, mounting media opprobrium and a previous release which sold roughly half of the one before that.
Melissa Auf Der Maur, the former Hole and Smashing Pumpkins bassist, on working with Courtney Love and Billy Corgan, and finding her own space in the male locker room. Interview by Peter Murphy.
If, as the coolest of the cool are prone to say, grunge is dead, nobody has told it. More importantly, nobody's informed all the common folk who, at least in the States, are pushing Pearl Jam's Ten into its eighty-third week on the Billboard Album Charts.
They're the hottest thing to come out of the Midlands since, well, ever. Slinker rockers Zing talk about growing up hooked on Michael Jackson and give us the lowdown on the Portlaoise scene.
A pyrrhic victory? Don’t the Manic Street Preachers own the rights to that phrase? Anyhow, London’s most epic rock band return after an extended hiatus, and it’s like the tenner in the pocket you forgot you had: you were fine without it but it’s a surprise and bonus in equal measures. The Smashing Pumpkins-esque lead track ‘War Of The Worlds’ is not quite as melodic as 2000’s ‘Grounded’, nor as driving as ‘Losing Touch’, but the layers are denser and the musicianship even more refined. Elsewhere they cover Martika’s ‘Toy Soldiers’, and ‘ElectroWar’ is a stunning instrumental that’s a textbook example of how to create atmosphere. Superb.
She's swapped her Cardigans for a blanket of mid-life melancholia. From her new home in Harlem, Swedish indie-babe Nina Persson talks about her downbeat new album as A Camp,
hooking up with a former Smashing Pumpkin and why life in a band can be like a prison sentence.
The debut single from the band formed by ex-Hole/Smashing Pumpkins bassist Melissa Auf Der Mar is a ditchwater-dull attempt to mine the same stoner-rock territory favoured by Queens Of The Stone Age, Kyuss et al.
With the tragedy which disfigured their last Irish appearance still fresh in people's minds, SMASHING PUMPKINS' return to a Dublin stage was never going to be an ordinary affair. As it turned out, PETER MURPHY witnessed an act of redemption and spoke to BILLY CORGAN about surviving troubled times.
Malahide’s DIRECTOR may not be any kind of tabloid headline generators, but with an accomplished second album produced by Pumpkins and Placebo veteran Brad Wood in the bag, they’re confident enough to let the music make the fuss.
In a highly revealing interview, Bloc Party frontman Kele Okereke talks about the inspiration behind one of the albums of the year, his current listening and the band's plans for the future.
From Radiohead to Springsteen, the twelve months ahead are already packed with highlights. But will Led Zeppelin be among the group’s hitting the comeback trail?
Ghostly, synthetic and smeared, possibly, in charcoal eye-liner, Billy Corgan’s first solo record throws a bleakly affectionate glance towards the ‘80s and the decade’s parade of sombre new-wave groups.
A mish-mash of different sounds and styles from goth to Pumpkins-esque alternative to moany-sleazy-girl rock, Auf Der Maur’s album is lacking anything worthy of a mere toe-tap.
Those who loved the Pumpkins circa the sublime Siamese Dream should rejoice: although Zwan exhibit a far more poppy, straight-ahead musical approach, Corgan and his one remaining Pumpkins bandmate Jimmy Chamberlin seem to have rediscovered the freshness and liveliness that characterised that album.
Billy Corgan didn’t get to be Billy Corgan without a serious sense of the perverse, and these days it’s there for all to see. It’s in the little things; like his tour stage design of grotesque twisted reptilian metal, Alien-esque; or his insistence on arriving on the Ambassador stage in a trenchcoat, winter scarf and knee-high army boots, while the midsummer heat has everyone else in the venue evaporating.
Arising from the ashes of aborted supergroup Zwan, onetime Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan returns with a hotly anticipated solo debut. Still brimming with that patented goth angst, he tells Paul Nolan about his collaboration with fellow doom-merchant Robert Smith, his friendship with the two Davids – Lynch and Bowie – and, oh yeah, why he's still sore about the Pumpkins.
Seneca's sorrowfully spirited anthems don't exactly fit in with today's high-energy trends, but that hasn't stopped them from creating a major buzz in the US.
PATRICK JONES is the brother of the Manics NICKY WIRE. And his new play explores similar themes to the band s music. Poetry and politics and action changed the world, he tells Joe Jackson
Headgear’s debut album proves that the ‘have portastudio, will travel’ theory can yield ace results, especially when mainman Daragh Dukes gets a little help from his friends.
RTÉ is doing its bit for Irish music with the 2FM 2moro 2our. Patrick Freyne went along to the live launch to catch a glimpse of the hit bands of the future.
Having broken up Pavement, STEPHEN MALKMUS has had plenty of time to devote to making his eponymous solo album and indulging his obsession with all things Irish from U2 to Thin Lizzy to Planxty. NIALL CRUMLISH cocks an ear and raises an eyebrow
It’s hard to believe, we know, but occasionally Dave Fanning likes to put his feet up and switch off from the outside world. Who would have thought, though, that he’d have such an interest in kitchen renovation?
Live at the Marquee on Friday June 29: They were the gaudiest of the ‘80s pop sensations. 20 years on, Duran Duran leader Simon Le Bon explains why the good time boys are a band for the long haul.
A Private Members' Bill which aims to put ticket touts out of business will come before the Dail in September. Here we talk to some of the scalpers themselves, to get their reaction. By Peter Murphy.
They may be one of the hottest bands of the year, but Las Vegas synth fiends The Killers are planning to cool off this Christmas with some well-earned down-time and a skiing holiday in Utah. But not before they’ve discussed texting Charlize Theron, hanging with Elton John and that David Bowie tribute with Stuart Clark.
With the last broadcast up for a Mercury and Slane just around the corner, Jimi Goodwin of Doves is happy to enthuse about Planxty, U2, The Streets and Sean O'Hagan. Just don't call his band "the new Radiohead"
Elstree, remember me, went the old Boggles tune. The location is a far-flung suburb of north London, former nerve centre of an entire B-movie industry, now home to television shows like East Enders, Holby City (wandering through the corridors, your correspondent comes across a room identified by the rather ominous notice: Make-up - GUTS), and of course Top Of The Pops.
The world waited with bated breath when UNKLE released Psyence Fiction four years ago. As the man behind the Mo Wax label, and with DJ Shadow in tow, in had seemed that James Lavelle could do little wrong.
After 14 years together Silkworm have become intuitively complex and inventive. But despite building a loyal fanbase, they’ve yet to earn the recognition they deserve.
JOHN WALSHE talks to top Irish 400m hurdler Susan Smith about what it means to devote yourself completely to athletics and her need to challenge for gold at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Pix: COLM HENRY.
EDITORS’ new album finds them re-booting their sound with the help of super-producer Flood and the Prussian soldier’s helmet gifted to him by Bono. Also on the agenda when the band meet Stuart Clark are fatherhood, baby poo, Brooklyn block parties and stealing Michael Stipe’s megaphone.
DERMOT HANRAHAN, Chief Executive of Dublin's FM104, is in fighting form. He tells Joe Jackson about the station's transformation from near-insolvency to runaway success, slates the station's critics, praises Eamon Dunphy and defends late-night talk shows. Dermot-ologist: MYLES CLAFFEY
GARBAGE are a band who absorb all the detritus, darkness and despair of the pre-millennial zeitgeist and spit it back out in a torrent of searing guitars, futuristic technological trickery and lyrics that freeze the blood. They've also made two of the most sinister pop records of modern times - the second of which, Version 2.0, is due for imminent release. PETER MURPHY met them in London to discuss sex, surveillance, studio strife, pre-2000 tension and their special fondness for The Beach Boys.
Sometimes the smallest things can make you love something even more. Amongst the series of press platitudes adorning Nerina Pallot’s debut album is one quote that stands out. “This really is quite good, even if it isn’t Celine Dion”: Nerina’s mum.
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.
The first time The Killers played Oxegen they fretted whether anyone would turn up to see them. Now they’re sweeping in to headline the main stage. They talk to us about being chased by papparazi, growing up in Middle America and sharing a bill with Bono and, er, Gary Barlow
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?
Criticising dance acts for not playing live is a bit like slagging dogs for their inability to fly, but this is the first time I’ve been at a gig where the headliners’ presence isn’t required.
Unless Tom and Ed are triggering the giant clouds of dry ice or pointing the lasers at the balcony, their contribution to tonight’s proceedings is somewhere between zero and fuck all.
This is a classic OST - the kind that enhances and embraces the moods of the film, rather than simply adding the cool tunes that you know (and want to buy) to its closing credits
You might think that the Crash Test Dummies are a strange bunch now but you should have seen them four years ago! Dan Roberts and Mitch Dorge tell Stuart Clark how a big-haired Winnipeg bar band with a penchant for the Clancy Brothers have managed to hit the big time. Pix: Cathal Dawson
Recorded in sunny California, under the sonic supervision of Nick ‘Foo Fighters’ Raskulinecz, Ash’s fourth studio album is one big-sounding, drums-pounding, amps-to-eleven, NOISY MOTHERFUCKER of a record (as the irate neighbour said to the policeman).
It’s the second night of The Pixies’ three-gig run in the Olympia, and like the other two shows, this date is completely sold out. It’s not hard to fathom the level of interest, as the pitch is pretty irresistible – the legendary quartet performing Doolittle, one of the greatest ever alternative albums, in its entirety.
Edwyn Collins, late of Orange Juice and whose third solo album was recently released, gets all acidic about the state of the music business. Interview: Patrick Brennan.
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 fact that almost the entire American population of Dublin was up the front shaking their stars and stripes notwithstanding, at The Shelter, Yorn and his band had a pretty blank canvas on which to paint their honest and catchy rock and roll
Damien Rice and Snow Patrol have both been confirmed for the London leg of Al Gore’s Live Earth extravaganza, which takes place in multiple locations on July 7.
Last year, Dermot Lambert (Blink) and Dave Brown (Little Sister Sage) developed an idea to host a showcase night offering young bands the opportunity to be seen and heard by representatives of the music industry. Now, the Garage gigs are back with a vengeance.
IT WAS straight out of Reservoir Dogs. Six men, all in black, most in suits, lope onto the stage, a cigarette nestling between fingers or dangling from
the side of the mouth. You half-expect them to open with 'Stuck In the Middle With You' and drag out a member of the Garda Siochana from the side
of the stage with a gag in his mouth and the contents of an extra-large can of Castrol GTX dripping from his fettered uniform.
Contrary to the negative way in which it's so often portrayed by the national media, Limerick is a city that combines a rich sense of tradition with an eye for innovation and in recent years has developed into one of Ireland's leading cultural centres. Kevin Barry takes a look at the people - and the places - breathing new life into the mid-western capital.
In the second and final part of an extensive interview, MIKE SCOTT discusses inspiration and influences, recalls his difficult solo years and explains the death and resurrection of THE WATERBOYS. Interview: PETER MURPHY
How did Brandon Flowers, Ronnie Vannucci, Dave Keuning and Mark Stoermer go from the Las Vegas dive bar circuit to selling four million copies of their debut album, Hot Fuss? On the eve of the band's highly-anticipated Oxegen 2005 appearance, Stuart Clark talks to the people involved in the making of The Killers.
After two decades of electro-pop hits, the PET SHOP BOYS have gone back to basics with their new album Fundamental – and thrown some timely political digs into the mix while they’re at it. But the real battle is getting people to take them seriously.
Out goes Bernard Butler, in comes Richard Oakes and Suede seem to go from strength to strength. LORRAINE FREENEY discovers that Brett Anderson and co. are shiny, happy people again.
Sometimes it's hard to be a woman, especially when it involves piling on layers of latex, strapping on corsets, and getting to grips with false eyelashes. And yet, whether it's Kurt Cobain donning a scruffy frock, Robin Williams in full matronly guise for Mrs Doubtfire, or the 6'7 Ru Paul co-presenting The Brits, transvestism seems to have acquired a stronger multi-media allure than ever before. Andy Darlington examines the portrayal of TVs in cinema and the arts, and considers the sexual and social implications of the ancient art of cross-dressing.
It’s all about broken down tour buses, Alan Partridge, high speed collisions, Moby, broken ribs, Mina Suvari, MTV stars and David Bowie as Ash launch a sonic assault on America. So riddle me this: can Ireland’s hardest-working rock’n’roll outfit crack the big one?
It would not be stretching the truth to say that JJ72 are currently Ireland’s tightest rock band, and the intimate surrounds of tonight’s venue only confirmed this.
. . . and ready to go. Mercury Rev s recent album Deserter s Songs was met with a rapturous critical reception, even topping the Hot Press critics end-of-year poll. On their recent Dublin visit they spoke to Peter Murphy about the album, The Band and their volatile past. Jonathan Donahue pics: Cathal Dawson
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.
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.
Prince may be content just to party but in a four-page special the Hot Press journalistic elite takes a look at everything 1999 has to offer. And then some.
First, the facts. Everything Picture is 102 minutes of music spread over two CDs, an audacious debut from an encouragingly unconventional Newcastle-originated quintet with a long and tumultuous history of in-fighting.
As openings go, Kissin' Time really could not have a worse beginning than 'Sex With Strangers', the first of the much vaunted Beck collaborations
After such travesties, Kissin' Time does rally somewhat in its closing moments
THE CRITICS PANEL WHO VOTED FOR THE TOP 30 ALBUMS AND SINGLES OF THE YEAR ARE AS FOLLOWS: BILL GRAHAM, LIAM FAY, GEORGE BYRNE, STUART CLARK, LORRAINE FREENEY, TARA McCARTHY, GERRY McGOVERN, NEIL McCORMICK, DERMOT STOKES, OLIVER P. SWEENEY, SIOBHAN LONG, STEVE AVERILL, ANDY DARLINGTON, COLM O’HARE, JOE JACKSON, HELENA MULKERNS, DAN OGGLY, CATHY DILLON, NIALL CRUMLISH, OLAF TYARANSEN, PATRICK BRENNAN, JACKIE HAYDEN AND NIALL STOKES.
THE BALLOT–BOXES HAVE BEEN OPENED, THE VOTES SCRUTINISED UNDER THE STRICTEST OF SECURITY AND NOW THE RETURNING OFFICER STEPS UP ONTO THE STAGE TO ANNOUNCE THE RESULTS OF THE 1993 HOT PRESS READERS’ POLL
From Primal Scream to Patrick Kielty, and everything in between. On our cover in '98 were Smashing Pumpkins, Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker, The Verve, R.E.M. and more.
Nobody beats the skins harder than Jimmy Chamberlain. Well okay, Dave Grohl gives them a decent hiding as well, but Jimmy has earned just as good a reputation by banging the drums for Smashing Pumpkins and Zwan.
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.
