This bunch of anonymous San Francisco parodists have been deconstructing pop music for well over 30 years with mixed results. While their avant-garde approach makes them an acquired taste at best you have to admire their longevity and refusal to conform. Personally, I hated this!
Given Eardrum’s previous involvement in avant garde projects like Ice and God, it’s hardly surprising that they serve up three helpings of ultra complex rhythmic drumming frenzy coated in Satanic percussive wig outs. Keep music evil, kids.
The cross-dressing avant garde experimentalists get the remix treatment courtesy of Carl Craig, Carter Tutti, Motor, Radcliffe and Two Lone Swordsmen who steal the show with their mash up of ‘United’.
This Chicago based outfit used to be called the Blackbirds and formed when they backed a singer-songwriter who subsequently ditched them. In truth they’re more of an art ensemble than a band proper and are involved in all manner of design work. The music comes across as an avant-garde blend of freeform, bass-heavy, piano-led tunes with not much to grab onto melodically.
The debut solo album from Moloko singer Roisin Murphy embraces the avant-garde end of dance music. But it's still a great pop record. Interview by Peter Murphy.
As one glance at her CV shows, Barbara Hammer is not your run-of-the-mill avant garde, militantly anti-establishment lesbian film-maker. Tara Brady spoke to the acclaimed documentarist and harvard fellow ahead of her upcoming appearance at the 12th Dublin Lesbian & Gay film festival.
This may be their first foray onto a major label, but Babatikidido is still a typically unconventional project.. As the soundtrack to avant-garde choreographer Merce Cunningham’s 50th Gala Performance, this three-track instrumental wonder is appropriately fluid and dramatic.
Graham’s Sonic Youth/Pavement fantasies may have marked him out as the exception within Blur, but appreciated in any other context, he’s defiantly traditional. Far from sounding oddball or avant-garde, Coxon now peddles gnarled indie-punk almost entirely devoid of quirks and innovation.
Few bands in history have attracted an avalanche of slippery rockspeak semantics quite like Pere Ubu, and frontman David Thomas’ seminal musical mobius trip has variously (and aptly I guess) been proclaimed as the statelier emanations of jazz-punk, post-punk (via either Detroit or New York scenes), Dadaist art-rock, demi-no wave, pre-Pixies rumbling, avant-garde and just about any hip, broad church you care to mention.
Personal catastrophe invites two possible responses – surrender or quiet, dignified resistance. Eels, the American indie-pop band who flaunt their private traumas like couture fashion, have stumbled upon a third way. They’ve learned to laugh at the grisly comedy that is life.
Not that you’d know it from their records, which are awash with avant-garde moroseness. Their most celebrated, 1998’s Electro Shock Blues, recalled the protracted death from cancer of the mother of singer and group leader, Mark Everett.
In the '90s, hip-hop moved out of the streets into the world of big business. An avant-garde street art that expressed black consciousness lost its DIY ethic and became a commercially driven industry, spearheaded by Suge Knight and Puff Daddy.
In the '90s, hip-hop moved out of the streets into the world of big business. An avant-garde street art that expressed black consciousness lost its DIY ethic and became a commercially driven industry, spearheaded by Suge Knight and Puff Daddy.
On her first (brilliant) album, Supa Dupa Fly, Missy Misdemeanor Elliott and her producer, Tim "Timbaland" Mosley, effortlessly mastered the trick of mixing the avant garde with the accessible, in the process giving a welcome injection of energy to American R&B.
Wicklow’s own electro-rock trio God Is An Astronaut are heading to Russia to play a festival in Moscow this July, alongside acts like Mudhoney and Shitdisco.
STRIKING THE RIGHT CORD'
Film soundtrack buffs and nattily-attired acid jazz whippersnappers CORDUROY tell peter murphy about their strange
passion for Dave Allen's theme tune.
Nobody actually shouted “hit the bitch” during the previous Dublin run of Oleanna – as happened on Broadway – but Irish audiences were sharply divided in terms of the male and female adversaries in David Mamet’s controversial play. Personally, I found the polemical exchanges at the heart of the production a little ham-fisted.
RAP BAND Niggers With Attitude, who once sang the song 'Burn Hollywood' would be more than pleased to hear of the success of the Irish Film Centre which came to Dublin's Temple Bar Area a year ago.
Ghost Of Mae Nak is a love story with a difference. For one thing, it’s set largely in the afterlife. It’s also the latest piece of Thai cinema to catch the attention of international audiences, says English-born, Bangkok-based director Mark Duffield.
Scanner In The Works
SCANNER aka ROBIN RIMBAUD is a technological maverick, surveying the airwaves for random mobile phone calls which he then samples for use on his records. But there s more to the Londoner than just a penchant for electronic eavesdropping, as his cracking new album Delivery proves. He talks to JONATHAN O BRIEN.
SCANNER aka ROBIN RIMBAUD is a technological maverick, surveying the airwaves for random mobile phone calls which he then samples for use on his records. But there s more to the Londoner than just a penchant for electronic eavesdropping, as his cracking new album Delivery proves. He talks to JONATHAN O BRIEN.
She came to our attention with a disturbingly convincing turn as a bondage queen. Now Emma De Caunes joins an ensemble cast for a whimsical deconstruction of the Hollywood musical.
They've been known to hand-craft their own instruments and, just for the hell of it, once toured Korea. Little wonder that boy/girl partnership Mirakil Whip are fast earning a reputation as one of the country's most eclectic new bands.
German dance music may be characterised by the likes of Paul Van Dyk, Sven Vath and Hardfloor, but the country has always boasted an underground
alternative. Richard Brophy talks to one of its main proponents, Pole.
Guggi first emerged into the public eye as a member of the Virgin Prunes – the band that shared their early growth and development with U2. Having departed the Prunes fold, he turned his attention to art and has since become one of the country's most bankable painters.
JASON PIERCE of SPIRITUALIZED comes on down to talk about mythology versus reality, art versus autobiography and the economy inherent in a cast of hundreds.
Interview: PETER MURPHY
PETER MURPHY meets GAVIN FRIDAY and discovers a fascination with Kurt Weill that has led to Friday and Maurice Seezer’s Ich Lieb Dich revue at the Tivoli Theatre
Roo are confident, savvy and unflinching in their aim to make remarkable music. There s something about their looks and attitude that remind you of George Best in 68: blessed with handy skills and unfazed by older, less talented rivals. Roo are the best new prospect from these parts. They can be funny, too.
This is a 22 track (though many are short fillers) trip through instrumental hip-hop, backed up by strings, cello, double bass and other bits and bobs.
Six months ago, Kaiser Chiefs were complete unknowns. Now, they’re making appearances on the Ant and Dec show, playing Letterman, being saluted by Damon Albarn and heralded as the spearheads of “the new Britpop” movement. The group here give the lowdown on what’s been a hectic 2005 to Ed Power.
Belgian folk-grungers dEUS have returned, five years after their last acclaimed album The Ideal Crash. A cursory listen to Pocket Revolution’s opening track, ‘Bad Timing’ confirms that they are not about to alter their gameplan, and remain dedicated to slowly filling their melancholy-tinged pop songs with extra sheets of guitar noise.
Following a strong start with a slew of slickly produced soul/dance singles, including 'All Around The World' and 'This Is The Right Time', Lisa Stansfield has failed to live up to her initial promise as a soul diva of substance.
Manic Street Preachers have turned the guitars down, but not the bile. A slimline James Dean Bradfield tells a pleasantly plump Stuart Clark why John F. Kennedy, Billy Connolly and Jesus Christ Superstar are in league with Satan. Or words to that effect.
Given her association with The Strokes (Gordon Raphael sits at the production helm) and history of touring with bands like the Kings Of Leon, one might reasonably approach Regina Spektor’s major label debut with certain expectations – drums, guitars, that sort of thing for a start. Should we be surprised, then, to find that this is a largely solo piano-and-voice kind of record?
Brit-rock heroes Maximo Park are back with a new album – and without the novelty hair-cuts. Here they talk about death metal, hip-hop and missing notebooks.
They named themselves after a Japanese biker gang, they won t give details of their line-up to the music press, and their first ever recorded release was limited to 33 copies. GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR also happen to be one of the most exciting new bands to emerge in years. PETER MURPHY investigates.
Not so long ago mavericks and experimentalism were thin on the ground in Ireland. But with the growth of an independent scene, all of that has changed. for confirmation, look no further than the rise to eminence of The Jimmy Cake.
Think about direction, wonder why . . . It’s eleven years since Stano released his debut album Content To Write In I Dine Weathercraft. Despite his genuine originality and dedication to his art over the intervening years, he remains one of Ireland’s most enigmatic performers, more appreciated on the continent than in his homeland. Interview: Joe Jackson
Denounced by the Christian right in America and the Catholic church in Italy but championed by rockers as diverse as Marilyn Manson and Led Zep’s John Paul Jones, Diamanda Galas is unlikely to be hollywood’s flavour of the month as she rips into the oscar-winning Monster
Made up of some of Ireland’s finest session musicians, who have played with artists ranging from Damien Rice and Paddy Casey to Sister Sledge and the Bee Gees, The Carnival Saloon offer a promising debut.
Eleven years on from their debut and New York avant-garde guitar manglers Sonic Youth have reached an ever-growing audience without compromising their ideals of integrity. Here, GERRY McGOVERN offers a personal testimony to their recorded output in anticipation of their appearance at Sunstroke '93.
Goodbye 20th Century is a double-CD compilation of various Sonic Youth collaborations and reinterpretations, with a cast including Christian Wolff, John Cage, Takehisa Kosugi, Steve Reich and Pauline Oliveros and even Yoko Ono.
Well, a trio of humans, to be precise. Confronted with the flesh and blood reality of Phil, Susanne and Joanne munching sandwiches right in front of his eyes, Nicholas G. Kelly accepts that we must come to terms with the fact that The Human League have indeed risen from the grave. But not, repeat not, the ’80s.
One of the greatest penslingers in rockdom, he’s championed U2, Joy Division and Kylie and taken a critical scalpel to Oasis, The Strokes and their “miserably narrow mates”. he’s also locked horns with Germaine Greer, helped Frankie to relax and let The Frames slip through his fingers.
Back in the '60s the MC5 made it on to the CIA's 'Most Wanted' list. Now, they're a chi-chi fashion accessory beloved of Jennifer Aniston and her Hollywood pals. Guitarist Wayne Kramer explains it all to Stuart Clark.
U2, Elvis Costello, The Pogues, The Waterboys, Emmylou Harris, Hothouse Flowers, The Everly Brothers, Christy Moore just some of the dozens of artists who contribute to an adventurous new five part TV series which traces the extraordinary return journey that Irish traditional music has made to America and beyond. Here, Liam Fay previews the programmes, talks to Philip King who originated and nurtured the project and hears many of the participants explain how they discovered the importance and influence of Irish music.
From balmy folk revivalist to angst-rock totem, there are many Neil Youngs. Sometimes, you wish there was only one: the feckless, snarling fallen angel of On The Beach and Rust Never Sleeps.
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
Those angry young Marxist Punk-Rockers THE MEKONS are back with a new album I Love Mekons and a contribution to a pro-abortion Woman’s Rights compilation . . . but they’re no longer quite so angry or young, not exactly Marxist, and their Punk is reinforced by Folk, Country and World Music! ANDY
DARLINGTON finds out what the hell is going on in Club Mekon.
THERAPY? are back. ANDY CAIRNS talks to Peter Murphy about losing (and re-finding) the plot, hardcore, and the new album s resonances with the Northern peace process.
Following in the footsteps of Joy Division, The Smiths and The Stone Roses, Mancunian rockers Doves have continued the tradition of musical excellence for which their hometown is internationally renowned. With their new opus Some Cities in the offing, vocalist Jimi Goodwin here discusses apocalyptic weather, urban decay and those abandoned recording sessions with Madonna’s producer.
Hot Press’ senior art aficionado, john m. farrell, reviews the main attraction currently on s how at the Irish Museum of Modern Art and argues that the title of the exhibition may in fact be a misnomer.
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.
Having played alongside the likes of B.B. King, Keith Richards and Bob Dylan, American jazz/rock legend Larry Coryell makes his maiden voyage to Ireland
WILLIAM GIBSON is no ordinary science-fiction writer. Aside from coining such essential nineties' terms as Cyberspace and Cyberpunk, his work has also influenced everyone from computer hackers to scientists developing virtual reality technology. In the rock world, he's regarded as a visionary and artists as diverse as U2, Billy Idol and The Rolling Stones have all claimed inspiration from his novels. Interview: Liam Fay. Cyberpics: Cathal Dawson.
The sixty-plus former Velvet Underground lynchpin and producer extraordinaire has long enjoyed legendary status, his prolific solo output ensuring continued interest and sold-out live shows everywhere.
Graduates of the Manhattan avant-garde scene The Virgins join us from somewhere to the left of the middle of nowhere – that would be Madison, Wisconsin – to talk hype, art and modelling shoots.
Patti Smith has been an avant-garde icon and punk poet idol for more than two decades. We thought it would be interesting to see what Cathy Jordan, the stylish singer with folk supergroup Dervish, would make of her recent performance in Jordan's hometown of Sligo.
They may have started out as avant garde indie noisemongers, but The Flaming Lips have matured into one of the greatest and most musical bands on Planet Earth. Plus, they do an utterly magnificent live show!
It’s hardcore heaven this autumn as Dischord records release a 20-year retrospective CD, the story of Hope Promotions is chronicled in a new book and Fugazi return for an Irish tour
The Flaming Lips, whose new record is a 'concept album about death' are possibly the most life-affirming band you’ll hear this year. Frontman Wayne Coyne explains why
STEPHEN MORRIS takes time out from humming the theme to Green Acres and terrorising everyone within a five-mile radius of his newly-aquired Yorkshire farm (with his equally newly-acquired heavy artillery) to talk to STUART CLARK about his and Gillian Gilbert's New Order offshoot The Other Two.
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
Sharp suits, a global fan base, his own luxury recording studio - David Gray has certainly come a long way. On the eve of the release of his latest album, he talks about the dark side of success and explains why he wants to leave the singer-songwriter tag behind
25 years into his
career and with a
new album set to be
followed by a video
documentary of his life
and times, liam o'flynn
is the acknowledged living
master of the uileann pipes.
Interview: Sarah McQUAID.
Pics: Colm Henry
not to mention a thousand and one instruments to flesh out their exhilarating new wave trad. kMla take to the road, with puns, poetry and party atmosphere to spare. Adrienne Murphy accompanies the merry pranksters.
Kieran Hebden, aka Four Tet, chooses to open his addition to the DJ Kicks series with the twisted electronica of David Behrman, and follows that with the altogether funkier Syclops. Hearing those two tracks segue into each other is a reminder of how glorious mix albums like this can be in the hands of someone as skilled as Hebden.
...or was it? U2's recent Irish dates were greeted with everything from wide-eyed adoration to open hostility. BILL GRAHAM was in the crowd at Pairc Uí Caoimh and the RDS and puts the Zoo TV experience into perspective. Pix: COLM HENRY
Texas native Jonathan Caouette has caused a sensation in underground circles in the US with his brilliant and groundbreaking debut, Tarnation. A dazzling mix of autobiographical scenes, TV clips, movie footage and cutting-edge music, it might just be the best movie you’ll see this year.
t certainly would, Joe. But you can have a toot on my megaphone if you like! Gavin Friday discusses the finer points of sexual politics not to mention the post-Freudian subtext to his stunning new meisterwork Shag Tobacco with Dr Joe Jackson. Our man in the white coat concluded: Gavin s time has come. But is the world finally read
At the end of the last decade, Philip King was best known as a founder member of Scullion and writer of the music to the Frank O’Connor translation of the Irish lyric ‘I Am Stretched On Your Grave’. However, since setting up Hummingbird Productions with his partners Nuala O’Connor and Kieran Corrigan in 1987, he has established himself as one of the country’s leading makers of films about Irish music and culture, including acclaimed series such as Bringing It All Back Home, A River Of Sound, and Sult. Here he talks to Peter Murphy about the current Irish climate for independent film-makers, his stop-start relationship with RTE, and post-Riverdance Irishry. Pics: Cathal Dawson
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.
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
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.
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.
Never met a dyke he didn t like! Joe Jackson boogies the night away with Zrazy, one of Irish music s most determined combos. 1993 saw this radical lesbian dance due release their debut album in the face of widescale indifference from the national media and here they tell of their struggle to assert their music and sexuality against overwhelming odds.
Private, reserved and self-controlled, Tanita Tikaram seriously wonders if there’s a place for her music in the world of frantic rock and frenetic rave. Interview: Joe Jackson
Never met a dyke he didn’t like! Joe Jackson boogies the night away with ZRAZY, one of Irish music’s most determined combos. 1993 saw this radical lesbian dance duo release their debut album in the face of widescale indifference from the national media and here they tell of their struggle to assert their music and sexuality against overwhelming odds.
A full-blown reunion tour may have persuaded a majority to alter their views favourably, but a proper comeback now looks unlikely. So, those who had their appetite whetted for more Floyd material last summer will have to make do with projects like On An Island, guitarist/vocalist David Gilmour’s first solo album since 1984. Happily, it delivers at least some of what they may be looking for.
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
Cork is happening enough at the best of times, but when the annual Guinness Jazz Weekend comes around, it's all too much. Where to go? What to do? What hangover cure to concoct? Let KEVIN BARRY show the way.
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.
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.
In the making of their third album, Coldplay may have abandoned all hope at one juncture and come within an inch of splitting up, but the record has now finally arrived in the shape of X & Y. Chris Martin and co. here give Peter Murphy the inside story on the fraught creation of perhaps the most anticipated album of the year.
Back in their terrifying heyday, they threw pigs’ heads around on stage, covered themselves in muck, provided Marilyn Manson with a career and wrote ‘Community Games’ for Aidan Walsh. Having escaped the clutches of a sinister born-again Christian turned transvestite, they’re now making movies with Neil Jordan, dining with Damien Hirst and consorting with Tony Blair. All in all, it’s been a long, strange trip for The Virgin Prunes
Shirley Manson, Tom Waits and Suzanne Vega are among the many heavyweight champions of US cult author JT LEROY, a 21-year-old who survived childhood abuse and a period as a truckstop hustler to become what he calls “an accidental novelist”.
He was a midwife to grunge and has worked with artists as diverse as Marilyn Manson, Hole and Ozzy Osbourne. Far from being a studio boffin, though, Michael Beinhorn believes modern music is too often reliant on technology.
Though their second album, All The Way From Tuam, has yet to hit the shops in Britain, The Sawdoctors are beginning to pack em in in the strangest of places like Norwich and Leeds. Bill Graham talks to Leo Moran about the band s phenomenal success to date and, against a backdrop of cynicism among rock s self-conscious cognoscenti, asks the perennial question: what is hip?
When Pulp released the obsessively carnal This Is Hardcore, it was widely touted that the band's main mover, Jarvis Cocker, had lost the plot entirely. But Pulp are back on the road now and Cocker is in fine form - as eloquent when talking about pornography and sex as he is reflecting on the vagaries of the press and his relationship with his father. Interview: peter Murphy.
When Pulp released the obsessively carnal This Is Hardcore, it was widely touted that the band's main mover, Jarvis Cocker, had lost the plot entirely. But Pulp are back on the road now and Cocker is in fine form - as eloquent when talking about pornography and sex as he is reflecting on the vagaries of the press and his relationship with his father. Interview: peter Murphy.
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.
With the release of The Best of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, it's obvious that someone's been rummaging around in the grim annals of ol' Nick's extraordinary back catalogue. But who?
Interview: Peter Murphy
With the release of The Best of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, it's obvious that someone's been rummaging around in the grim annals of ol' Nick's extraordinary back catalogue. But who?
Interview: Peter Murphy
With the release of The Best of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, it's obvious that someone's been rummaging around in the grim annals of ol' Nick's extraordinary back catalogue. But who?
Interview: Peter Murphy
With the release of The Best of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, it's obvious that someone's been rummaging around in the grim annals of ol' Nick's extraordinary back catalogue. But who?
With the release of The Best of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, it's obvious that someone's been rummaging around in the grim annals of ol' Nick's extraordinary back catalogue. But who?
Interview: Peter Murphy
With the release of The Best of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, it's obvious that someone's been rummaging around in the grim annals of ol' Nick's extraordinary back catalogue. But who?
Interview: Peter Murphy
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
(N.B. This is a work of faction. All names have been changed in order to protect the guilty from certain incarceration in state mental institutions or correctional
facilities.)
Comic book artist and file clerk turned movie star, Harvey Pekar must be one of the most unlikely and somewhat reluctant celebrities of our time. An ordinary man whose work has produced extraordinary art, the anti-hero of American Splendour here talks about his friend Toby, Robert Crumb, James Joyce, David Letterman, fame and misfortune, surviving and more.
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
Exclusive: Kevin Shields, the missing presumed lost genius of Irish rock, re-emerges to tell the truth about sandbags and barbed wire, the making of Loveless, early Dublin days with Gavin Friday, Liam O Maonlai and U2, and his Bafta-winning work on Lost in Translation.
It's been a long strange trip and no mistake, one that describes a discernible line from
Harry Smith's Anthology Of American Folk Music through to the Handsome Family.
But there's even more going on beneath the surface. GREIL MARCUS, the music critic's music critic,
is PETER MURPHY's guide on a mystery train whose other passengers include Elvis Presley, Robert Johnson, Mark Twain, Nick Cave, The Blair Witch, Bill Clinton, The Band, Siniad O'Connor, Beck, William Burroughs, William Faulkner and Bob Dylan. And that's just the first class carriage. All aboard
While the entity that is U2 continues to be the dominant focus in the creative lives of its four members, away from the band, Bono, The Edge, Adam and Larry have all indulged in extra-curricular activities, bringing them – and their music - into contact with such legends as Bob Dylan, Robbie Robertson, Keith Richards, and Roy Orbison, By Dermot Stokes
Are Bono and the boys just a really good rock band or have they succeeded where the priests and politicians have failed and unlocked the neuroses of our colonial past? Joe Jackson indulges in a spot of cultural sparring with John Waters and finds the author of Race of Angels: Ireland and the Genesis of U2 well able to maintain his guard.
They love Ireland and Ireland loves them. As the Arcade Fire ramp up for world domination, the band talk about love, death, war and making music in churches.
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.
They go together like a horse and carriage. You can't have one without the other - or words to that effect. In fact, however, even rock 'n' roll has yet to invent an erotic language that does justice to the breadth and complexity of human desire. In pushing out the boundaries, madonna has taken on the role of sexual pioneer, and done it with courage and no little success. Niall Stokes weighs up the evidence . . .
If anyone, up to and including those who receive special messages from Jesus during weather forecasts, gets anything at all about Revolver, I’d be terrifically surprised. Frankly, it’s the most godawful mess of this or any other year.
Gathering together Dublin maverick Stano’s work from his first recording, ‘Room’ in 1982, to the title track, recorded this year, Reverse Presence is an absolute gem of a collection and a must-have for alternative muso lovers.
Lead by leather-skirt clad, shape-throwing glam diva Mika, the ‘Bomb deliver a supremely melodic collection of glitter-flecked garage-punk, reminiscent of early-’90s Nirvana faves Shonen Knife.
Question: Who are God Speed You Black Emperor!? Answer: They're a nine-piece ensemble from Montreal, Canada who refuse to be interviewed, issue press releases or publicity shots, remain wilfully non-specific about who plays what on their records, and are singularly wary of allowing outside forces to interfere with their music. So put that in your pipe and toke it.
ACCORDING to All Eyes and Ears, they are a band that create atmosphere but don’t sond like Phil Coulter! The opening track ‘Wishing Your Life Away’ maps out the route that follows.
Here’s the pitch. Take one ’60s pin-up turned crawler from the ’70s wreckage turned Weimar Republican and furnish her with a body of songs drawn from co-writes with and original compositions by PJ Harvey and Nick Cave.
"Those who have discerned the link between Goldfrapp’s sartorial caprice and her tendency toward seemingly arbitrary shifts in musical direction will have twigged what’s in store on Black Cherry"
What a piece of work is Rent. How ill-conceived in form. How displeasing to the eye. How stupidly far up it’s own arse. Happily, I have never suffered through the hit Broadway musical of the same name. Unless I am kidnapped and nailed into a seat with my eyeballs duct-taped open, that is unlikely to change now.
What a piece of work is Rent. How ill-conceived in form. How displeasing to the eye. How stupidly far up it’s own arse. Happily, I have never suffered through the hit Broadway musical of the same name.
Beck's The Information veers between two distinct styles – the kind of blues/folk/hip-hop mash-ups that Beck has made his own, and a more melancholy, plaintive type of tune that he has increasingly favoured in recent years.
Though oscar-nominated screenwriter Menno Meyjes has received criticism from some quarters for his portrayal of the young Adolf Hitler in his directorial debut Max, the Dutch-born film-maker insists that the humanity of history’s most notorious tyrant is all too clear. “And that’s what we should be afraid of,” he tells Tara Brady
Tim Booth is not a man who has ever been unduly troubled by contemporary notions of cool and un-cool. In the early nineties, when Nirvana were storming the barricades, Primal Scream had the nation under an acid-drenched groove and Kevin Shields was in the process of reinventing guitar music with Loveless, Booth and his cohorts in James were encouraging patrons at Student Union discos all around Britain to literally sit down to the strains of the anthemic stadium rawk number, er, ‘Sit Down’.
I would be guilty of gross hyperbole if I asserted that John Coltrane has been largely forgotten by all except jazz fans, but there's little doubt that his place in history has been considerably obscured due to the shadow cast by his contemporary and one-time bandmate, Miles Davis.
That they sound this vicious after a three decade hiatus is a 50-something affront to Converse-sponsored plastic punkers whose only honourable response would be to slink away in a posture of abject humiliation. So here we will pay homage to the Stooge noise – a pent-up, piledriving, relentless, menacing, volatile, elemental, feral and utterly uninhibited din that manages to be equal parts industrial and organic.
Buckley was the original crazy mixed-up kid, a brilliant dilettante who could flit from jazz fusion to classic hard rock to vocal stylists like Nusrat and Nina to lo-fi garage rock to French chansons/chanteuse
Hot new Irish release this fortnight is the Vorsprung Durch Celtik EP on Belfast label Nice & Nasty Records. This quality package from Desy Balmer’s long running imprint includes a couple of deep and uplifting Irish techno soul productions from Derek Carr, Teknik and Slow Chocolate Autopsy, plus remixes by Fabrice Lig and Tomas Jirku…
You can very much hear the band gradually piecing together the constituent elements that would make Bleach such a bewitching sonic brew; the gonzo experimentation and guitar pyrotechnics of the ‘80s US underground, married to Cobain’s Beatles-like melodic sensibilities and, of course, that searing, indelible voice.
From weirdo avant-garde art to desecrated classic album sleeves to right-wing Boer paraphernalia, there’s hardy a dull moment on the web this fortnight.
