The most exciting merger of rock and dance since the heyday of The Stone Roses, the Happy Mondays and Primal Scream – meet The Rapture. Words Paul Nolan
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
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
The Jane Parker Band are from Manchester, home of some of the finest music to come out of England in the last four years. From the Happy Mondays to Oasis, it has been something of a musical Mecca.
Violence? Racism? Crack cocaine? Misogyny? It must be the Happy Mondays at Witnness 2000. Rowetta speaks for the first time about coming under attack from the "big-nosed bastard"
Please, please, please ignore this album. Uncle Dysfunktional is a wretched experience. Ryder bellows his way through it all, banging on about drugs and low-life in a voice that can barely muster a tune.
headswim have left behind the "English Pearl Jam" tag that dogged them and are about to release their second album, the tortured pop of Despite Yourself, on an unsuspecting public. Interview: john walshe.
headswim have left behind the "English Pearl Jam" tag that dogged them and are about to release their second album, the tortured pop of Despite Yourself, on an unsuspecting public. Interview: john walshe.
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
They have the tunes to back up their enigmatic image, and it looks like ¡Forward, Russia! will be storming the Winter Palace of indie rock before you can say “Lenin”.
Are they Madchester tribute band charlatans, an even more half-baked Kula Shaker, or swaggering rock monsters from Leicester? The jury is still out in the case of The People vs Kasabian.
He emigrated in '95, sang with jeff at sin-e, acted with denis leary, consoled nyc's firefighters and tripped around the planet with emmylou harris – but for mark geary, the adventure is only beginning
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.
Having survived the Stone Roses and a spell in jail, IAN BROWN briefly toyed with the idea of a career in gardening before re-inventing himself as the man most likely to bridge the gap between rock and dance. Ahead of his appearance at Homelands, he talks to RICHARD BROPHY.
You'd have thought that 12 consecutive top 40 hits would have earned them the key to the executive bathroom but, nope, before the ink was even dry on their Guinness Book Of Records entry, THE WEDDING PRESENT were shown the door by their record company. Unperturbed, everyone's favourite indie popsters found a new label, a new bass player and a new studio accomplice who's helped them produce their best album since the classic George Best. A slightly battered and bruised DAVE GEDGE gives a blow-by-blow account of the events to our ringside reporter STUART CLARK.
Or should that be The Clash? Well no, actually, cos there's no Clash, Damned or Pistols in 1999. But there s still joe strummer, who was there when Shane got his ear bitten off and, 22 years later is back for his own second bite with THE MESCALEROS. I ve seen everything that it s possible to see go down and I ve survived it, he tells STUART CLARK who finds himself shanghaied on a ferry to Stranraer.
Main pix: MICHAEL QUINN.
It's hard-hats and flak-jackets all round as the new improved Carter usm launch a full frontal attack against John Major, Third World repression and Pizza Hut. Frontline correspondent: Stuart Clark. War photographer Cathal Dawson
Returning from an extended hiatus, Manic Street Preachers are in stridently upbeat form. In a revealing interview, they reflect on their enduring cultural imprint and talk about long lost Manic Richey Edwards.
The fourth series of RTÉ Two's highly-acclaimed Other Voices, presented by John Kelly, was recorded over an extraordinary eight days during the madcap run-up to Christmas, in the thoroughly invigorating coastal environs of Dingle. Hot Press reporter Craig Fitzsimons was there to soak up the phantasmagoria, as some of the hottest talent from Ireland and abroad descended on the tranquil Kerry town to make heavenly music.
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.
They'll never go away you know. Despite releasing only two full length studio albums, they have posthumously (and against the original members' wishes) been anthologized and compiled to an extent befitting a band with a far more prolific and extensive back catalogue.
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?
Upwards of two million people do it in Ireland every Sunday - and yet little or nothing is ever written about it in the media. So we asked ourselves a few questions: Why do so many people attend what is by any standards a very strange ritual? Do they enjoy themselves? Is the performance a good one? What do they get from it? And are the sound and lighting really up to the international standards? That's right, a crack Hot Press team of reporters attended Sunday mass recently - this is what they found.
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.
Music Review | Live
32% | 25 Apr 2003
Paul Nolan
"When the group shift the dynamic completely and segue into a typically skyscraping rendition of ‘Revelate’, the effect is dizzying. And as Glen howls, “My human fate/My revelate” with all the fury of Prince Hamlet after being confronted by his father’s ghost, it makes you think Pat McCabe was absolutely spot-on when he pointed to Hansard as being one of the most gifted lyricists around."
30,000 people, loads of A-list stars, four stages on Fairyhouse Racecourse. Yes, we're talking about WITNNESS. KIM PORCELLI reviews the biggest festival of the summer.
