Each of the 11 tracks represents the germ of a much bigger story, and the themes are major ones: love, bereavement, parenthood, the loss of innocence at childhood’s end, but don’t let that frighten you off; there are plenty of lighter moments as well.
The result is a reflective, elegiac, extremely personal study of love and loss, measuring the yawning absences of bereavement, and testing the fortitude of the relationships which tether us at our most bereft
The Stables in Mullingar has become an essential stopover on the Irish rock touring circuit. Here, the venue's booking man, David McLynn tells Jackie Hayden about the current state of rock in the Midlands.
The former NME rock crit, ZTT founder and hyper of Frankie has written a book. But it s not about pop it s about the suicide of his dad. PETER MURPHY reports on how Nothing matters.
Prior to their recent Dublin gig, THE BLUETONES talked to NADINE O REGAN about the fickleness of fame, artistic integrity, America and the dangers of sausage sponsorship!
In his debut novel writer – and Hot Press scribe – Peter Murphy has created a whole new genre, Irish South-Eastern Gothic. Set in his native Wexford, John The Revelator chronicles a troubled teenager's coming of age against a backdrop of rural strife and spiritual turmoil. He talks about the life upheavals that inspired the book – and explains why he draws inspiration from America's renegade writers rather than Ireland's kitchen-sink literary tradition.
Newly divorced from the Theatre Festival, this year’s Magnet Entertainment Dublin Fringe Festival is a more compact but also more diverse event than ever before.
Journalist Susan McKay's new book, Bear In Mind These Dead, revisits the families of victims, for many of whom the emotional scars have been slow to heal.
Four Weddings And A Funeral and Notting Hill man Richard Curtis is back with another film that has heartstrings and funnybones in its sights. But is Love Actually any good? Craig Fitzsimons and Tara Brady endeavour to find out
First there was the bad shit then the mad shit – the biggest-selling album in Irish history, an international hit and a record you hear “in every shoe shop”. So, having climbed the white ladder to phenomenal success, how does David Gray follow that?
At the end of another eventful year, Andrea Corr takes time out to reflect on life, death, love, health, music and her role, off-stage and on, in the family that plays together. Interview: Niall Stokes
Mexican maestro Alejandro González Iñárritu hasn’t wasted any time capitalising on the critical and commercial success of Amores Perros and 21 Grams. Babel, starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, is being hailed as another masterpiece.
With the release of their hugely impressive Turbulence album, LA/Irish outfit Saucy Monky have emerged as genuine contenders. As the critical plaudits continue to mount up, twin lead vocalists and songwriters Cynthia Catania and Annmarie Cullen step up to the mic.
Padraig Harrington talks about gay golfers, stalkers on the tour, the potential of Rory McIlroy and the death of his father. And, he says, his Open win was just the beginning.
They’ve been heralded as the biggest thing in Irish rock since U2 – a prediction that proved prescient when The Script romped to the top of the charts with their debut album.
At last, now it can be told, is that First Cut really the deepest? Andy Darlington explores the phenomenon of skin versus skinless when it comes to living with genital mutilation.
At last, now it can be told, is that First Cut really the deepest? Andy Darlington explores the phenomenon of skin versus skinless when it comes to living with genital mutilation.
Making her solo debut, Andrea Corr has set about re-casting herself as a vampish singer with a taste for dark beats and sultry wordplay. In a forthright interview, she talks about her unexpected re-invention.
In the nineties, renegade novelist, short-story-writer and establishment-bothering journalist WILL SELF had the additional dubious distinction of being the literary world's most high-profile drug addict. He begins the new decade clean, sober and with How the Dead Live, a new novel many are lauding as his finest work. He talks to KIM PORCELLI about being free of his own past, being alive, being dead, and being 'deader'
The first rule of interviewing LOU REED is that you don t: he interviews you. Peter Murphy survives the turning of the tables and is rewarded with thoughts on Joyce, Wilde, Dylan, Ginsberg and on becoming an elder stateman for the alternative thing .
He is one of our highest profile broadcasters and journalists. Now in his new book, Last Word host MATT COOPER looks at the rot and corruption that festered beneath the surface of the Celtic Tiger. He talks about the sense of anger he feels over the mismanagement of the economy, the damage wrought by the Bertie Ahern years and the apparent unwillingness of RTE to give him any publicity
This is THE CHIEFTAINS as you've never encountered them before - more like mad, trad and dangerous to know than the grand-daddies of Irish traditional music. Smoking dope with Philip Lynott! Busting muscles through wild sex! Yes, it's the bits that aren't in the official biography. But, soft, not a word to Paddy, OK? Part One of an exclusive two-part interview. By JOE JACKSON.
Best known for his Irish Times column An Irishman s Diary, KEVIN MYERS has been denounced as arrogant, bigoted, pompous and prejudiced. And those are just the people who like his witty writing! On the occasion of the publication of a collection of his writings, the journalist they either love or loathe talks to JOE JACKSON about class, prostitution, drugs, relationships, the North, Mary Ellen Synon and more. Photography: CATHAL DAWSON
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.
inishing off a year in which his immersion in the craziness of orthodox religion won him a top journalism award, Liam Fay finds himself standing atop a windswept Hill of Tara in the dead of night in the depths of winter all the better to survey the diverse landscape of paganism and witchcraft in 90s Ireland.
Tony Mac Mahon has never been behind the door in pronouncing the way forward in traditional music. There's a fire in his belly whose flames rarely need fanning, so passionate and fervent is his belief in the one true way.
Semiotics: a branch of linguistics concerned with signs and symbols - Oxford Concise Dictionary
"Sex is largely a matter of semiotics, a language of signs which the body learns, the artful projection of an artful self.
Rosa Luxemburg once wrote that anyone who steps needlessly on a worm on the road to revolution has committed a crime. But even she might be dismayed by how daft the British media sometimes go about animals.
My little sister s getting married. Date not set yet (i.e. she s not pregnant). That hasn t stopped our dearly beloved radical if-a-priest-comes-near-my-coffin-I ll-spit-at-him mother from going wholeheartedly potty with plans to redecorate the entire house in gleeful anticipation of the expected and expectant hordes.
As well as providing a remarkable spectacle, David Best's burning temple at the Burning Man festival also offers a forum for people to deal with feelings of grief and loss.
Atomic Bomb is positively Spector-esque in its ambition, although curiously enough, it’s not a showy record, the playing being mostly subservient to the songs.
It's Bruce and the band given a new coat of paint by producer Brendan O’ Brien, who through his work with bands like Pearl Jam, knows a thing or two about gut feeling and mile-high noise
Last winter, as the cold set in and rock ‘n’ roll seemed about as useful as a paper piss-pot, you could almost hear the voices from the back of Madison Square Gardens hollering, “Bruce, why hast thou forsaken us?”
It hasn’t been an easy time to raise political arguments. I was on UTV’s Counterpoint programme the Thursday after the Greysteel massacre and had sharpened my thoughts in advance for cut-and-thrust interplay with ex-UDA chief Glen Barr, Gregory Campbell of the Democratic Unionists and Mark Durkin of the SDLP.
