Surviving the exit of Darren Emerson, as well as various personal traumas and professional challenges, Underworld have re-emerged with their most positive album yet in 100 Days Off
The supposed one-hit wonders who are now big – no, make that massive – in Japan, Underworld are celebrating ten years of stream of consciousness, musical collages and, er, the greyhound form book.
Earlier this year, the dance music community was shocked by the sudden departure of Darren Emerson from Underworld. However, the band continues to blossom, embracing new technologies and ideas to remain at the forefront of electronic music. Richard Brophy catches up with Rick Smith to find out more.
A few years back, Underworld were viewed as one of the most important bridging links between the mediums of rock and dance. Album number two Second Toughest In The Infants had consolidated their enviable position as darlings of the rock press, and 'Born Slippy' had blown up the mainstream following its inclusion on the Trainspotting soundtrack.
It is the more laid-back grooves that typify this new approach with mellower outings echoing the more soporific tracks off Leftfield's Leftism, complete with tribal beats
It is the more laid-back grooves that typify this new approach with mellower outings echoing the more soporific tracks off Leftfield's Leftism, complete with tribal beats
In her latest movie, the supernatural gothic thriller Underworld, Kate Beckinsale plays a slick vampire warrior entrusted with fending off maurading lycanthropes. with love entanglements, engagements and sniping press coverage to deal with off-screen, her personal life has been no less eventful recently.
Their name is full of Oriental promise but, far from growing up in the land of rice-bowls and speaking toilets, retro techno-heads THE JAPANESE POPSTARS hail from the mysterious land of, er, Derry.
And even worse, they took it to heart. Thus was Sebastian Horsley refused entry to the United States for the launch of his book Dandy In The Underworld.
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.
...or at least a fan of dance music: rumours that Creamfields '02 was off, are scotched as Faithless and Underworld among others are confirmed for the late August bash
More than Leftfield, more than Underworld, it was Orbital that managed to translate dance music into a form acceptable to studious (ale drinking) big brothers all over the land
Day two, and Franz Ferdinand provide pure entertainment, That Petrol Emotion win the attention of a new generation and the Body And Soul area hosts the mother of all night parties.
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.
They're hardly typical festival fare, but Interpol know how to leave an impression. Sam Fogarino talks drugs, on the road insanity and being huge in Ireland and Mexico.
Hot Press has teamed up with Gohop.ie to offer Irish punters the chance to visit Hungary's premier music extravaganza, the Sziget festival. Duan Stokes has the details.
As the Creamfields dance juggernaut heads towards Punchestown we catch up with the carnvial at Prague in the Czech Republic and offer a preview of what’s to come
As the summer festival season goes into overdrive, Richard Brophy talks to Slam's Stuart Mc Millan about his involvement in the T in the Park knees up in Scotland next month.
Funk, Disco, Breakbeat and a testicle-admiring Gary Numan. All this - and more - is to be found on the new Plump DJs album. Ronan Fitzgerald meets the Glaswegian dance mavericks.
Or how TONY BENNETT survived drugs, near-death and the mafia, to become possibly the coolest man on the planet at the age of 72. Interview: Joe Jackson.
Annual article: War, famine, pestilence, plague and death...it’s been a cheerful 2005. Here is the Hot Press summary of the events that shook the world.
Taking time out from his stag weekend, baroque retro-rocker The Mighty Stef talks about the influence of film on his writing, his enduring love for Nick Cave and his friendship with Shane MacGowan
Why are the Spice Girls animals ? Why would Crispian Kula Shaker benefit from a hefty spell of National Service? And why should you never trust a hippy? These are just some of the burning issues that Dr. Alex Paterson of The Orb would like to address. Oh yeah, and he also talks about his band s ace new album Orblivion, as well as his exotic, not to say erotic, yesteryear escapades on the road with LL Cool J and Motvrhead. Our man with the shiny black Panasonic tape recorder: jonathan o brien.
From self-contained sound system to collaborators of choice for everyone from Mutya Buena to Kylie, Groove Armada have perfected the art of beat science.
on the eve of the arrival of a brand new Smiths release hitting the record shops, Hot Press talks to the band's chief architect Johnny Marr about the music that inspired a generation.
Lisa Dorrian was popular and fun loving. Then she fell foul of the North’s paramilitary underworld. A year since she vanished, her family is still trying to uncover the truth about her disappearance.
Twelve years since he retired his blood-stained Die Hard vest, Bruce Willis is back for another bite at the franchise. He talks about his see-saw acting career and why he and ex-wife Demi Moore will always be friends.
Frank Oz may be the man behind those cuddly muppets, but he’s no pushover in person. Now, his chequered career as a director culminates in the darkly comic Death At A Funeral.
From Sister Sledge to The Spikes, plus non musical attractions such as massage, fortune-telling and art exhibitions, Castle Palooza promises a festival in the conventional sense of the word.
The inside story of Veronica Guerin, directed by Joel Schumacer and starring Gerard McSorley, Ciaran Hinds and Cate Blanchett. Rolling tape Tara Brady and Craig Fitzsimons
Director PADDY BREATHNACH, producer ROB WALPOLE and writer CONOR McPHERSON take time out from polishing their latest haul of gongs to talk CATHY DILLON through the making of I Went Down.
It’s a literary high wire act with a difference. Dubliner Colum McCann talks about his 9/11 meditation Let The Great World Spin and the challenges of mastering the New York idiom.
By dragging leprechauns into the new millennium, Wexford author EOIN COLFER has enraptured children and adults alike and given Harry Potter a right run for his money. FIONA REID meets the brains behind Artemis Fowl
In the first of a new Hot Press series, in which we ll be asking well-known Irish people to step onto a national podium, author and
publisher dermot bolger delivers his state of the nation address.
As the son of horror writer Stephen King, Joe Hill has a great deal to live up to. Far from being over-shadowed by his father, however, Hill has crafted a chilling and original debut novel.
While the end of the eponymous film might give the impression that organised crime and hard drugs disappeared from Ireland after the reporter’s death, latest garda figures offer a very different picture. And the harsh reality, many insist, is even worse.
The inside story of Veronica Guerin starring Joel Schumacher, Gerard McSorley, Ciaran Hinds and Cate Blanchett. Rolling tape Tara Brady and Craig Fitzsimons
He may have already seated his place in movie history with searing performances in the likes of Scarface and Dog Day Afternoon, but legendary screen icon Al Pacino remains keen to seek out fresh challenges. Hotpress caught up with Pacino to discuss his role in People I Know, the gritty New York thriller which sees the actor go back to his lo-fi indie roots.
From the tragic death of Cliff the fish to turning Madonna down, praise from Nick Hornby and fanmail from Bono, Badly Drawn Boy ’s life is certainly bewildering.
and that’s before you consider his hellenic aspirations…
Tabloids, those small, square, screeching newspapers in which England in particular specialises, have never really caught on in Ireland, certainly not in the same way that they have across the water. It’s certainly not because we don’t have the shock! horror! scandals needed to feed their hungry maw. In fact, some of the stuff that goes on in this country is actually too sensational for the sensational press.
Below, Liam Fay looks at some of the secrets in the lives of four famous Irish figures from the past hundred and fifty years or so and attempts to reinterpret them as a modern day tabloid would.
All of the ‘scandals’ alluded to are factual. Joyce was a coprophiliac, Yeats did have sheep glands inserted into his body, James Clarence Mangan was a phenomenal dipso and Michael Collins was, well, inordinately fond of wrestling.
An ex-con, a foe of The Krays and a man capable of such acts of violence that he once sliced off a prison guard s ear, Mad Frankie Fraser now makes quite a nice living for himself spinning yarns about his gangster years. Stuart Clark interrogates him about prison, drugs, the IRA, Arsenal and a novel theory on Veronica Guerin s murder which, Fraser insists, the Irish media haven t had the bottle to print. Mugshots: Cathal Dawson
Creativity for depression? It s an exchange he can live with, says PAUL WESTERBERG, whose days of excess with The Replacements continue to haunt his latest acclaimed solo album Suicaine Gratification. Interview: JOE JACKSON.
White English writer WILLIAM SHAW spent months in South Central LA documenting the lives of would-be rap stars and the young men fighting to survive in the ghetto. His book, Westsiders, is the result. He spoke to PETER MURPHY
Johnny Ray invented rock ’n’ roll. Elvis Presley marked the beginning of the downfall of popular music. The Beatles only ever wrote one great song. Cranky stuff maybe, but when the speaker is Tony Bennett – the man Sinatra called “The best singer in the business” – you have to listen. Joe Jackson does and, in this exclusive interview, hears how a Jewish-Italian New York kid grew up to be a musical legend, a respected painter and a man who, at 67, can still kick ’90s rock off MTV.
If you know who to call, it's as easy to buy a gun in Dublin as a microwave. No wonder there are more firearms in the streets – and more gangland murders – than ever before.
After an undoubtedly slack 2003, 2004 was the year in which TV comedy once again came into its own. In addition to to further series from Monkey Dust, Peep Show, Little Britain, 15 Storeys High and Curb Your Enthusiasm, there were also excellent new shows in the shape of The Smoking Room, The Mighty Boosh, Nighty Night and Catterick. In particular, the forum for alternative humour provided by BBC3 and BBC4 continued to provide an invaluable creative outlet for the oddballs, misfits and mavericks of British comedy.
Fianna Fail justice spokesperson John O Donoghue wants the Gardam to pursue a policy of zero tolerance. But how would it work in reality? liam Fay conducts a social experiment. Artist s impression: david rooney.
From schlock kingpin to master of understated horror, auteur David Cronenberg has travelled a long way. His latest movie probes the underbelly of Russian criminals in London.
Once he cleaned up in the charts, now he s cleaned up himself. Bruised but unbroken, MARC ALMOND is back and busy on all fronts. And, whisper it, there s even talk of SOFT CELL reforming. Interview: NICK KELLY.
We re surrounded by American culture from the breakfasts we eat through the beer we drink to the music and movies we define our lives by. And with Independence Day coming on July 4th, you might as well go ahead and enjoy it to the full. Here EAMON SWEENEY suggests how to become an American for a day.
From A to Z, Paul Nolan and Ronan Fitzgerald introduce all the runners and riders for Punchestown – throwing in a baker’s dozen of acts who are not to be missed* along the way
Fresh from the success of THE DIVINE COMEDY in the Hot Press Readers Poll, NEIL HANNON drops his guard(s) for some candid talking on love, sex, aesthetics and the whole damn thing. Interview: JOE JACKSON
There is a serial killer on the loose in London, who has targeted the male gay community. But because of the spanner ruling, which has made a criminal offence of consenting SM sex practices, those who are most at risk are finding it impossible to talk to the police. And inevitably, the sensational distortions of the british media are only making matters worse. This year's Gay Pride March took place against that disturbing backdrop. Fay Wolftree reports. Pix: Leo Regan
Dutchy Holland, currently serving an eight-year sentence in Wandsworth Prison, gives a remarkably revealing interview where he discusses all aspects of his life as a career criminal.
The Irish star opens up on sex, drugs, racism, crime, acting, actors and actresses, as well as slamming the Irish film industry and RTE.
Text: JOE JACKSON. Portraits: CATHAL DAWSON
He’s been a Scottish warrior, a Panamanian revolutionary, a sheriff, a banker and a robot rag-and-bone man, all in the last eight years. in Scorsese’s new epic Gangs Of New York he plays, of all things, an Irishman. Brendan Gleeson holds forth on 19th century squalor, his late blooming as an actor, and the pleasure of working with big Marty.
Leaving behind his desk job, Paul Oakenfold has enlisted a galaxy of stars to perform vocal duties on hs new album Bunkka including Tricky, Nelly Furtado and, uh,
Hunter S. Thompson
They may be about as prolific as giant pandas, but now the waiting is over. The mighty LEFTFIELD are back with their first new material in almost five years - the new album Rhythm And Stealth - and it looks set to have the same genre-redefining impact as their debut long-player Leftism. BARRY GLENDENNING talks to mainman PAUL DALEY about media critics, professional jealousy, John Lydon, banned videos and that Guinness ad.
Having just bagged the coveted Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival, John Boorman's eagerly awaited biopic of Dublin's most notorious fun lovin' criminal, Martin Cahill, has been hailed as a silver screen masterpiece. Craig Fitzsimons hears about the physical, moral and financial perils of making The General.
A former drug dealer, he’s been shot at nine times and lived to tell the tale, emerging as one of the most controversial and uncompromising figures in rap. But there's more to 50 Cent than the popular legend suggests. For a start, there’s a new commercial edge to the music, as his US and Irish number one album The Massacre demonstrates. Plus, as one of the new faces of Reebok’s ‘I Am What I Am’ campaign, he’s taken to the role of cultural icon with considerable zest. Oh, and besides, he’s a bit of a wow with the ladies.
A smart, savvy actress with a wry take on the vagaries of fame Sarah Michelle Gellar has her feet planted more firmly on terra firma than the average Hollywood starlet. In an exclusive interview with hotpress, the Buffy The Vampire Slayer star discusses her blood-curdling new movie The Grudge, being a teen icon, marriage, celebrity and much else besides. Just don’t mention the English coffee.
Peter Murphy meets former Led Zeppelin bassist JOHN PAUL JONES as he releases his first solo album. On the agenda pacts with the Devil, Jones musical education, and thoughts on Eno, Nico and Charles Mingus.
Berlin s LOVE PARADE attracts over one million people for an event mixing techno and hedonism.
Olaf Tyaransen went there with high expectations, but found something empty at the heart of it all. Pics and handcuff props:
PETER MATTHEWS.
You know you re doing something right if your book disturbs both Cat Stevens and Snoop Doggy Dogg. But Sligo-born eamonn sweeney s debut novel, Waiting For The Healer, with its explosive mix of booze, blood, manic comedy and rock n roll, is also winning rave reviews for its uncompromisingly forthright author. Interview: liam fay.
It is an old Republican principle. But it could also be applied to the attitude the authorities have taken to Ireland’s longest serving political prisoners, Paddy McCann and Colm O’Shea. Jailed for the killing of two Gardai during a bank raid in Roscommon in 1980, as the peace process reached its final stages they were asked to sign up to the Good Friday Agreement. They subsequently put their names on the dotted line. That was ten years ago. So why have they not been released in the meantime, like dozens of other former Paramilitary activists? In an extraordinary, confessional interview, PADDY MCCANN makes his case against the State.
Bono, Adam and Larry. Not to mention the self-styled King Boogaloo himself, Mr B. P. Fallon, whose new book U2: Faraway So Close offers an intimate visual and verbal diary of the band’s world-record shattering ZOO TV tour. For good measure the, um, also self-styled Mr Ramalama talks about Jimi Hendrix and the Mafia connection, toting guns with Tone Loc, giving Little Richard a hard-on, and other little, um, side voyages into other territories, man. Er, tape recorder thingy: Joe Jackson.
Watching David Bowie on television recently one couldn't help but think of Neil Hannon. Not that he is a musical "chameleon"—to use the phrase most often applied to Bowie—but he does seem to be a person more comfortable presenting to the world a series of ever-changing poses designed to conceal rather than reveal his "real self", as in vocally situating himself somewhere between Barry White and Prince on the magnificent Charge, or satirising—while still relishing—his role as the eponymous sexist hero in Becoming More Like Alfie. Strangely enough, Neil confesses that he was thinking something similar while watching Bowie being interviewed
After a lengthy silence, TRICKY is back with an impressively upbeat new album. But the man himself still insists on going against the grain. Here he talks about his aversion to celebrityhood, his dislike of the music biz, his fondness for Bryan Adams and Bono, and how he copes with the terrible burden of having hundreds of women who want to have sex with him. Interview: OLAF TYARANSEN
With his new album sex, age and death in the shops, BOB GELDOF, songwriter and performer, is back in our midst. but after the traumatic personal events of the last five years - events which inform the songs on the new record - the private man is arguably under scrutiny as never before. In this heartfelt, eloquent and, at times, angry interview with JOE JACKSON, Geldof talks about the loss of Paula Yates, the death of Michael Hutchence and his own painful journey back to happiness
The outlaw loved by the in-law, Willie Nelson can draw 4,000 people outside Dublin virtually by word of mouth. But it ain't all middle of the road: as befits a veteran of the honky-tonks who had done battle with the IRS and the law, the country music legend can still get in touch with the dark side of Hank
Twelve months ago The Cranberries were unknown outside of the hippest rock circles, now with the platinum success of Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? they stand as the first Irish band to genuinely crack America since U2.
Much of the media attention given to them has focussed on Dolores O'Riordan, a singer whose unique approach to her craft underlines the defiantly independent path the group has trodden all the way to the top of the Billboard charts. Here she talks to JOE JACKSON about what by any standards has been a perfect year. .
The initial rumours were that it was going to be a rock n roll record . Then subsequent whispers hinted at everything from trip-hop to techno to ambient. But U2 s eighth studio album, Pop, is all of these things and more. It s the first album since 1983 that they ve made without the assistance of Brian Eno, it s been a long time in the making roughly a full year, all told and it s selling like the proverbial warm buns. Here, NIALL STOKES talks to BONO and ADAM CLAYTON, as well as co-producers FLOOD, HOWIE B and THE EDGE, about its lengthy genesis and what the band hoped to accomplish in creating it.
Pix: STEPHANE SEDNAOUI .
Ireland's most hyped event of the year, the MTV EUROPE AWARDS may have had as many gossip columnists as winners thanking God, but after hours it was IGGY POP and heavy friends who made the real headlines on a night when rock'n'roll bit back. Report: OLAF TYARANSEN and PETER MURPHY. Awards Pics: PETER MATTHEWS. Iggy Pics: Cathal Dawson
During the late eighties, Aslan were among the most celebrated of Irish rock acts, immensely popular at home and signed to EMI, a major multinational label, on which they released their debut album, Feel No Shame. And then it all came unstuck, amid squalid tabloid accusations of drug addiction, egotism and recrimination. Now they re back, older, wiser and more resolute but with their musical batteries recharged, a new contract with BMG under their belts and that old emotional band intact. Report: Liam Fay (with additional reporting by George Byrne).
Criminologist paul o mahony is one of the country s most progressive and radical thinkers on Irish criminal
justice. olaf tyaransen hears his provocative and important analysis. Pix: cathal dawson
During the late eighties, ASLAN were among the most celebrated of Irish rock acts, immensely popular at home and signed to EMI, a major multinational label, on which they released their debut album Feel No Shame. And then it all came unstuck, amid squalid tabloid accusations of drug addiction, egotism and recrimination. Now they’re back, older, wiser and more resolute – but with their musical batteries recharged, a new contract with BMG under their belts and that old emotional band intact. Report: LIAM FAY (with additional reporting by GEORGE BYRNE). Pix: MICK QUINN
The HP-7 Summit is back with Michelle Doherty, Rocky O'Reilly, Niall Breslin, Mark Greaney, Niamh Farrell, Messiah J and Danny O'Donoghue sat around the only table that matters this Christmas.
THE FINAL YEARS OF peter cook
The father of modern British comedy, peter cook s death in 1995 brought the strangest chapter of his life to a close. Ravaged by alcoholism, he dedicated his final years to sloth, drink, drugs, porn, daytime television and late-night radio phone-ins. But even in his darkest hours, the black humour and brilliant wit that marked him out as the towering comedy talent of his generation just kept on breaking through. liam fay reports.
THE FINAL YEARS OF peter cook
The father of modern British comedy, peter cook s death in 1995 brought the strangest chapter of his life to a close. Ravaged by alcoholism, he dedicated his final years to sloth, drink, drugs, porn, daytime television and late-night radio phone-ins. But even in his darkest hours, the black humour and brilliant wit that marked him out as the towering comedy talent of his generation just kept on breaking through. liam fay reports.
Damien Rice contributes a new track, ‘Making Noise’, to the Songs For Tibet – The Art Of Peace compilation, which receives its Stateside release on August 12.
Cheesy and manipulative in the extreme, but unfailingly competent and well-executed, What Lies Beneath represents the ever-reliable, never-original Zemeckis' attempt to do Hitchcock, a task which he just about pulls off.
Loud, buzzy, fast-moving and colourful – if more than a little preposterous – Daredevil compares favourably with other recent comic-book spinoffs such as SpiderMan and X-Men.
A new Danny Boyle flick is never complete without a hyped to the hilt, in yer face compilation of the current cream of trendies, and The Beach is no exception.
High with the same menacing swagger that characterised Gangster No. 1, I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead reunites Croupier director Hodges with Clive Owen, here playing a bearded hermit retired from the ‘scene’. When his coke-dabbling, skirt-chasing younger brother (Meyers) cuts his own throat having been raped down an alley by – wouldn’t you know it – Malcolm McDowell, the scene is set for his elder sibling to seek horrible revenge.
The 98,575,983rd Cockney-gangster thriller of the last year or two, Essex Boys could never be accused of excessive originality, but does at least treat its gratuitous-violence quotient with a deal more sensitivity than the last few flicks of this ilk.
"Thanks to everyone and apologies to no one" Manor have stepped onto centrestage. This Keady quartet have been plugging away on the live circuit and in the recording studios for quite a while with ne'er a glance in the direction of the corporate music business for handouts.
Intially conceived as the third single release from Amnesiac, the project gloriously mutated into another 40 minute goody bag akin to the extended Airbag/How Am I Driving? package.
Fractious post-punk is the order of the day: bits of Slits, a soupçon of Pop Group, shards of Birthday Party, screeds of Breeders, shreds of Dead Kennedys, the odd surf riff pilfered from early B52s by way of Poison Ivy or John Doe, all rendered Anglocentric via a quirky lyrical sensibility (tales of rotgut shut-ins and Valleylands paranoia and Asperger’s syndrome savants).
It’s a pleasure to report that Guerin’s hair-raising story has finally been committed to celluloid in a manner that does the tale justice, and the result is a gripping and supremely-acted piece of work.
A real humdinger of a noisefest which firmly refutes charges of noodling self-indulgence and stays well wide of any meandering musical cul de sacs, apart from the very best kind
It’s not as nebulous as their last album – and it doesn’t deliver the melodic thrills of Last Splash – but Mountain Battles has personality, spirit, warmth and tenderness in abundance.
Though Pavee Lackeen’s thorough depiction of the disenfranchised included Ireland’s new ethnic minorities around the fringes, David Gleeson’s follow-up to Cowboys And Angels is the first indigenous feature to take the immigrant experience as its central theme.
Canadian director John Fawcett last dropped by with Ginger Snaps, a pleasing rush of lycanthropy, menstruation and goth angst in suburbia. Excluding the Nicole Kidman bits from Moulin Rouge, it was the best horror show of 2000. His delayed sophomore venture lacks the chic indie innovation of that earlier film, but it’s an intriguing knot of Celtic mythology, girl-ghosts and killer sheep just the same.
For those who’d prefer not to listen to the shrill cockney choruses of Carol Reed’s 1967 musical version, this slavishly faithful adaptation should hit the spot, if, of course, one feels inclined to revisit such an overly familiar Dickens’ tale.
This year’s Hollywood hymn to tainted hippy-era rock’n’roll excess – think Boogie Nights meets Drugstore Cowboy – the overblown but highly engrossing Wonderland provides an unexpectedly riveting memorial to the life and times of legendary ’60s and ’70s porn-star John Holmes.
Pop fans d’un certain age will remember the jolt: the electrifying shock of the new, followed by the realisation that nothing will ever be the same again.
A home-grown, low-budget offering about a Dublin-based dope-dealer and his struggles against the forces of law and order, Flick is by no means as bad as the recent glut of gangster Britflicks - but for a movie with such a promising and praiseworthy agenda, it suffers from a curious lack of heart and charm.
Directors and their wives have, down the ages, accounted for a hell of a lot of used celluloid. Sometimes, as in the case of Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate on The Fearless Vampire Killers, they’ve only just found love on the casting couch. Then there are the genuine married muses of cinema – Anna Karina for Jean-Luc Godard, Gena Rowlands for John Cassavetes, Melissa Mounds for Russ Meyers.
Now here’s something you don’t happen upon everyday. Rian Johnson’s sui generis debut feature, a high school noir of all things, took a Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision at Sundance. All told, the writer-director spent six years getting Brick into a cinema near you, and no wonder. Potential investors must have thought him quite mad.
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
Fantastic, sadistic and sublime, Pan’s Labyrinth, the director’s latest work, is a coruscating fairy-tale breeding horror, politics and unblemished innocence to produce the hands-down, honest-to-God, best movie of 2006.
American Doll Posse is Tori Amos's most ambitious role-playing exercise to date. She’s stepped outside the comfort zone of her Bösendorfer piano and seen to it that the boys and girls in the band earn their pay.
In which our resident theologian takes issue with George Bush and Mel Gibson and manages to get in a reference to “energetic humping”. Praise the lord.
In an unusually frank interview, Dave Clarke talks legal wrangles, crap trance, techno survivalism and government sponsored drug conspiracies. Richard Brophy listens in amazement.
Oh, how I’ve prayed for this day. George Lucas’ increasingly unappealing franchise has spluttered its avaricious last and not before time. May the force be gone. True, Revenge Of The Sith, the final instalment of this tweenie space opera is infinitely preferable to the previous two films (in much the same way as an enema is nicer than a bullet in the head) but the same old problems are annoyingly in evidence.
It's been a hell of a ride at Hot Press central over the past few weeks, what with a controversial drugs issue to defend, and a whole new look to usher in.
And that’s just the politicians we spoke to... The publication of a major new anthology of Hot Press interviews by Jason O’Toole, focused primarily on the Irish criminal underworld, gives cause for reflection on what it takes to ‘get good interview’.
An occasional series in which our TOM MATHEWS visits an exotic location and, under the guise of attending some class of conference, proceeds to get very drunk on the local hooch
SNORRRRTTTTT whewwww SNORRRTTT whewww SNORRRTTT whewww Ah, it s yourselves. Excuse me while I remove this mask and put the cylinder to one side. Yes, folks, it s that time of year again. Esteemed Ed is off on his annual hols leaving me, Samuel J. Snort Esq world s leading rock journalist, porn movie stuntman and brain chemist in charge.
THREE men are murdered in horrific circumstances in the seaside town of Scheveningen in Holland. The descriptions of the torture inflicted on them, and of the final brutal manner of their murder, are harrowing in the extreme. Putty or plaster of some kind, it is reported, had been rammed into the orifices of at least one of them. All three were dowsed in inflammable material and set alight. The bodies are so badly disfigured that they are unidentifiable. To contemplate it, even in the abstract, is enough to stop you in your tracks, to render you speechless at people s unbelievable capacity for evil.
For the average expat Irish criminal living in Spain, life is a blur of booze, prostitutes and drug deals with the threat of violence, and even death, never far away.
Our culture still hasn’t figured out how to deal with mortality, and experiments with a bewildering range of panaceas. But an encounter with death can be invigorating.
Reading a controversial article on “bug chasing” – gay men who deliberately have bareback sex with HIV positive men – inspired our columnist to go public for the first time about a traumatic episode in his own love life.
This fortnight's Hot Press is our Electric Picnic special to celebrate we've teamed with O2 to put together a collection of the best Irish talent to grace the festival in a 16 track free CD. There’s something here for everyone; in fact, it’s the perfect picnic spread! Not only that, but we've got some of the bands in question to preview the festival for you (and us!!)
Liverpool club Cream has, as expected, announced a major change in their DJ booking policy for 1997. From January the club will be concentrating on resident DJs in its main rooms, and guests will now only occasionally appear in the club’s Courtyard area.
Hot Press, in association with ritz, presents the definitive guide to the Irish dance scene, incorporating our regular dance column Digital Beat. Your authoritative host: mark kavanagh.
The relationship between drugs and creativity has always been a hotly debated subject. But narcotic indulgence has proven to be the downfall of many a gifted artist.
Twelve months ago The Cranberries were unknown outside of the hippest rock circles, now with the platinum success of Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? they stand as the first Irish band to genuinely crack America since U2.-Much of the media attention given to them has focussed on Dolores O’Riordan, a singer whose unique approach to her craft underlines the defiantly independent path the group has trodden all the way to the top of the Billboard charts. Here she talks to JOE JACKSON about what by any standards has been a perfect year. Pix: Michael Quinn.
