Having scored critical and commercial success – not to mention putting Irish cinema on the map with the likes of My Left Foot and In The Name Of The Father – Jim Sheridan has now mined his own past for in America, a haunting remembrance of the film-maker’s time as a struggling immigrant on the streets of New York.
Seducing Whoopi Goldberg, Ten Danson remarks: "I don't mean to be crass, but my sperm has been in your body." Crass is hardly the word. Since the stars are now an item, one assumes that Danson's off screen patter was a little better than that with which the scriptwriters have saddled him...
This Brooklyn-based, Minneapolis-reared quartet, currently the most raved about band in America, are no spring chickens and my goodness, doesn’t it show.
Jim Sheridan’s wonderful In America forces us to think seriously about many things: family, children, immigration and the importance of making movies in Ireland.
In what may well be the most effective marriage yet of rock and pragmatic politics, U2, Sting, Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed and others are pushing the Amnesty International message on the 'Conspiracy Of Hope' tour. Pat Singer joins them on the road.
Helena Mulkerns catches up with the charming Dublin-based chanteuse on a tour of East Coast college campuses, and finds a wilfully free spirit at ease with her sexuality – if not with the industry’s categorisation of such guitar-wielding women.
Vampire Weekend, the preppy Ivy Leaguers whose Afro-beat references indie pop, talk about instant fame, their fondness for nice trousers and class politics in America.
David Power's done a brilliant job of researching the notes on the tunes for the CD booklet, and one only wishes he'd applied the same thoroughness to displaying his clean, elegant playing in the best possible light: too often, irregular foot thumps and other minor glitches mar the overall effect.
There s very little torture involved in making a record until it s released and then the audience gets to suffer. PETER MURPHY meets the one and only LYDIA LUNCH.
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
The star of what s set to be the summer s hottest movie, High Fidelity, on love, obsession, movies, rock n roll, his pal Bruce Springsteen and the records he turns to when he s had his heart broken. With support from co-star Lisa Bonet and director Stephen Frears. Text: CRAIG FITZSIMONS
The Corrs hit paydirt with In Blue, an album of memorable pop songs that topped the charts in over twenty countries around the world. It gave them the breathing space they needed to re-establish their roots, to live a little and to reassess their purpose as a band. Now, with the release of Borrowed Heaven, they’re back in the music biz frontline – slightly older, considerably wiser, but still with the same hunger to make great and honest records.
The first single to be taken from the Devlins’ forthcoming ‘Consent’ album, ‘Static in the Flow’ is the kind of single that seems ideally suited to the airwaves in America.
At 26, Leeds-born Bailey Rae is already being groomed for success in America. Even her name has an American sound to it. Taking her cue from Natasha Bedingfield, Joss Stone and Nelly Furtardo, ‘Put Your Records On’ is urban soul, ripe for chick flicks and a safe bet to dominate airwaves over the coming months. As to its quality, a different, arguably better, producer would have preserved Bailey Rae’s raw undertones rather then pop produce with a glisten and a twinkle to seal every gap.
Tim Wheeler out of Ash recounts their near-miss in America. Meanwhile, the worst of their injuries - drummer Rick's - may cost them Reading and Leeds slots
The Man From God Knows Where is a folk opera. American country legend Tom Russell and friends each play a role, as Russell attempts to chronicle his Irish/Norwegian family's history in America, from the 1820s to the present day, through a mix of country, blues and traditional Irish and Norwegian folk music.
In an exclusive interview, Once stars Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova talk about the love affair that sneaked up on them, recall their Oscar-winning adventures, give us the inside track on the movie's remarkable success and explain what it's like to hang out with the Coen brothers for an evening.
They're fronted by a dead ringer for Xena, Warrior Princess; they've just won the Heineken Hot Press Best New Band Award; and, like inbreeding, they're big in Alabama. They're junkster, and here, deirdre o'neill and graham darcy tell jackie hayden exactly what they've been up to since they first "trespassed" on the American Dance Charts.
Welsh singer Jem Griffiths has become a firm favourite in the US purely on the strength of word-of-mouth. And if her debut album Finally Woken is anything to go by, audiences this side of the Atlantic are likely to follow suit very soon.
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.
An Irish bouncer at closing time and a plague of frogs in America EAMON SWEENEY hears about the weird and wonderful inspiration for the new album from LOOPER
Having done serious box-office damage in the States, Our Lady Peace are now looking to conquer Europe. Mainman Raine Maida tells Patrick Hedlund why failure is not an option
The American interior has long influenced the music of Wilco. But frontman Jeff Tweedy, a confirmed member of liberal 'blue' US still feels deeply alienated from his nation’s conservative heartland.
Having bagged an Oscar for the angst-ridden Brokeback Mountain, director ANG LEE lightens the tone with his new movie, a paean to the Woodstock festival. He explains why he chose to honour the high-point of hippy culture
The fall of the Republican party in the US has been hailed as good news, but perhaps we should not be too optimistic about what the future holds as the Democrats prepare to take over Capitol Hill.
The fall of the Republican party in the US has been hailed as good news, but perhaps we should not be too optimistic about what the future holds as the Democrats prepare to take over Capitol Hill.
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
Barely out of school, Dublin sister duo Heathers are already turning heads with their melodic punk-pop. They talk about what it's like being one of the country's buzzing newcomers.
For so many bands, touring is a drag: months on the road away from home; living in the back of a van or a bus; surviving on large amounts of fast food and alcohol. Andy, lead singer with Therapy? enjoys it a hell of a lot and gives his advice to young bands going on the road.
Their groove-laden mix of sleaze and glamour captures the spirit of Britain’s scuzziest ‘burbs. But this morning, all Hard Fi want to talk about is colonic irrigation.
Together for only a year, MR NORTH are causing more polarisation on the Dublin rock circuit of than any band since the legendary Muff Divers.
Within the past six months they've been tipped for world domination by some and written off by others as nothing but ground up Chili Peppers. Which side will you be on when lines are drawn? Interview: TARA MC CARTHY
Tara Brady talks to Niels Muller, director of controversial thriller The Assassination Of Richard Nixon, which portrays the social and political factors which caused real-life ‘70s malcontent, Sam Byck, to plan the killing of Tricky Dick himself.
Angeline Ball tells Joe Jackson why she s delighted to get away from her image as that bimbo from The Commitments , with her role in The Plough And The Stars.
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.
Exiled in America when war erupted in his hometown of Sarajevo, author Aleksandar Hemon taught himself to speak and write english – with stunningly powerful results. Portrait Mick Quinn
Having knocked ’em dead in America, the Oscar-nominated MONSTERS INC is ready to repeat its success here.
CRAIG FITZSIMONS meets the film’s director, PETE DOCTER
For the first time in human history, the number of overweight people in the world rivals the number of underweight. 1.2 billion, a landmark reached in February. And while the ranks of the hungry are thinning slowly, those of the obese are growing. In America, 55% of adults are classified as overweight. Some 23% are considered obese. There are 400,000 liposuction operations each year.
Let's start with a crescendo and build to a climax.
Being Irish, we talked a lot about the weather. Right from the start. Tornadoes in America and cyclones in east Africa. Doomsday. Biblical torrents raged down the Limpopo and Save rivers. The lucky ones clung to the tops of trees - there was even a baby born in one. But thousands perished. Villages too. A million or more were homeless. Family and tribal networks were destroyed. Roads and rails were in ruins. Thousands of landmines were washed away from their known zones to who knows where.
DESPERATE TO start your own white militia but don t know where to find the necessary hardware?
Well, fret no more my fascist friends, because The Small Arms Review has finally made it over the Atlantic. A must-read for anyone who wants to build their own fortified compound in the Wicklow Mountains, the magazine is packed with ads for companies like US Ordenance, who can fix you up with a Vickers Semi-Auto .303 machine gun for just $4,495 (including p&p).
ned o'hanlon and maurice linnane, the men behind media company dreamchaser productions, aren't given to false modesty. And why should they be, given that their recent list of clients includes Garth Brooks, U2 and the Rock 'N' Roll Hall Of Fame? siobhÁN LONG meets the men who once adopted Gary Oldman for an all-night bender in America.
LIAM CLANCY is in sparkling form as he looks forward to the release of a documentary on his life, which explains how he escaped the Irish Ayatollahs and wowed a young Bob Dylan in Greenwich Village.
Anybody who has lived their life up to this point without managing to see Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal 1960 horror-flick Psycho is hereby urged to drag their lazy ass down to the IFC
While one Irish Ronan is currently attempting to break the US market, another already has. COLM O'HARE meets RONAN HARDIMAN, the music composer behind Michael Flatley’s successes and discovers a considerable solo talent
So what does the arab world really make of Saddam Hussein and the threat of war? En route to Baghdad, Peter Matthews stops off in Amman, Jordan and hears the word on the street.
With her new movie The Heart Of Me having just hit theatre, acclaimed english actress Olivia Williams here discusses her breaththrough role in The Sixth Sense and what it takes to succeed in hollywood. words Tara Brady
RICH HALL has survived working with David Letterman and having his love life exposed in the Sindo, to take his rightful place as one of the top attractions of this year's Cat Laughs Festival. Interview: BARRY GLENDENNING.
Manchester bands may be notoriously bad travellers, bur Nine Black Alps are planning to do what the likes of the Mondays, Roses and New Order failed to do before them and that’s conquer America.
Ian Pooley s third album, Since Then, is his finest to date. It s also potential crossover material, but that doesn t make any difference to one of house music s most gifted producers. Richard Brophy investigates
Susanna Clarke’s debut novel, the epic Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, is putting new blood into new magic, not to mention proving something of a sensation on the bestseller charts.
Going back to the deep-seated roots of music is the route taken by THE PALACE BROTHERS on their stunning debut album. GERRY McGOVERN goes to meet them at the crossroads where cultures collide . . . well, The Baggot Inn actually.
The annual Johnny Keenan Banjo Festival has put Longford on the world music map. Jackie Hayden talks to the festival’s originator Chris Keenan about how it grew from initially being laughed at to becoming one of the most important folk festivals in the international calendar.
Former Wonderstuff motormouth Miles Hunt is coming to a town near you, acoustic guitar in hand. But as John Walshe finds out, that s no reason to expect a folk extravaganza.
Deciding he d achieved as much as he could within the confines of the music scene in Ireland. Barry Moore changed his name, packed his bags and took off for the USA. There, as Luka Bloom, he was fjted for his live performances, awarded a major international record deal and his debut album, Riverside, given the four-star treatment by Rolling Stone. On a visit home, he tells Bill Graham about his emigrant s success story and explains how a man who was regarded as a folky in Dublin came to cut a rap track in New York.
Not all refugees who seek asylum in this country are granted it. Niamh Connolly talks to some Cubans who have been lucky enough to squeeze through the rigid vetting process in operation and teases out some of the political issues that lie behind some of the decisions as well as the social implications for the successful ones.
With the 2008 battle for the White House turning into the most gripping saga in years, the best-selling novel The Race, by Richard North Patterson, could hardly be more timely.
If I ever attempt to write the Irish novel please feel free to kill me . Best-selling thriller writer JOHN CONNOLLY assures GEORGE BYRNE that he only has murder and mayhem on his mind.
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!
The criterati may not like them but Adrian Young doesn't care. and why should he when No Doubt have crafted a most excellent pop record, with dancehall rhythms, in rock steady
40 years after the Clancy Brothers brought Irish ballads to an international audience and won famous fans like Bob Dylan, Tommy Makem is still committed to the power of song – but appalled at the way modern Ireland treats its own culture.
Forget The Sunset Grill or Whisky A Go Go, it was Osborne Mushet Tools that gave birth to the only hard rock band capable of giving Madge and Wacko a run for their money. The man who put the steel into Sheffield tells the story
ANYONE HOPING to learn about the Irish troubles from the cinema would probably conclude that Sinn Fein and the IRA had better declare a cease-fire quickly, before they do themselves some serious damage.
Bono:
I can't imagine how the people in Hot Press are feeling right now. From the beginning there were four or five in there who were like a band - losing Bill, for them, must be like how I'd feel if something happened to Edge or Adam or Larry. He was like a brother to his colleagues and a cousin to us.
Commitments director Alan Parker and actress Laura Linney on their new movie, The Life Of David Gale, which explores the murky territory of the death penalty.
In the wake of Metallica’s Some Kind Of Monster, any rock band that’s been together more than five minutes has to ask themselves if they could benefit from the services of a therapist. Bon Jovi’s Richie Sambora is no exception.
Back with another volume of Woody Guthrie songs, BILLY BRAGG talks to Siobhan Long about supersonic boogie, the act of collaboration and why Tony Blair s Labour Party still has his respect.
Honing his Best-Of set, working on a “secret” documentary for RTE, being compared to Bill Hicks, lollygagging at Dr Quirkey’s… it’s just another day at the office for Des Bishop.
with a higher profile internationally than at home, and the support of heavyweight friends, The Devlins have recorded an impressive third album. COLM O'HARE reports
He may possess formidable academic credentials, but Road To Welville author TC Boyle refuses to take an elitist stance on his chosen art-form. “If it’s not entertainment at its root, it sucks!” he tells Peter Murphy
QUADROPHONIC diarist DONAL SCANNELL chronicles the Dublin-based collective s recent jaunt around the US of A, and reports that Uncle Sam is currently welcoming drum n bass with open arms. Pic: Bruce Dye
In the last issue of Hot Press, Noel Gallagher said his piece - this time out it's brother Liam's chance to shoot from the lip, as only he can, on love, life, OASIS and the whole damn thing. Interview: GEORGE BYRNE.
1980s heroes Echo And The Bunnymen have pulled off the seemingly impossible - they ve made a credible, well-received comeback. Interview: peter murphy.
It’s time for the tobacco industry to pay the price for the damage caused by cigarette smoking. Solicitor PETER McDONNELL explains why he’s leading the campaign in Ireland and why the Government “needs to push the button now”.
Report: COLM O'HARE
A brace of new albums from Lambchop suggests the soundbyte generation is ready for something more substantial. Eamon Sweeney talks it out with Kurt Wagner.
Dave Caplice is a man with a knack for being in the right place at the right time. So far, he’s recorded with Wizardz Of Oz, played at Washington’s White House and signed a five-album deal with Telstar, and he’s only just begun
Tori Amos’ new album, the acclaimed Scarlet’s Walk, was inspired equally by her joyous pregnancy with daughter Natashya and the tragedy of September 11, which led the singer-songwriter on a musical quest to discover the true soul of America
Guitarist richArd hawley explains why legal wrangles and a lack of media exposure have not affected the meteoric rise of Sheffield s longpigs. Askin t questions: peter murphy.
Gigs with Mick ’n’ Keef and Angus ’n’ Malcolm, and a potential ding-dong with The Strokes – it’s only rock’n’roll but Jet like it as does Stuart Clark.
BIG IN BRITAIN! BIG ON THE CONTINENT! BIG IN THE STATES! YET IRELAND STILL HAS TO FULLY SUCCUMB TO THE DELIGHTS OF FOUR MEN AND A DOG. HERE, THE TRAD SUPERGROUP EXPLAIN THEIR CURRENT SITUATION TO COLM O'HARE AS THEIR SECOND ALBUM *SHIFTING GRAVEL* HITS THE SHOPS.
Adam Duritz of Counting Crows and Kieran Kennedy a mutual appreciation society that went public during the Heineken Green Energy Festival get together to discuss songwriting, critics, genius, mediocrity and what it takes to be a rock n roll outlaw. Referee: PETER MURPHY.
Twenty five years after The Jam went their separate ways, bassist Bruce Foxton and drummer Rick Buckler are back playing together under the name From The Jam.
Undiscovered genius, ahoy! liam fay finds Pierce TurneR still struggling for the recognition his rich talent deserves. And to coincide with the release of his own Best Of, he asks Turner to compile the album of his dreams.
Leeside took the honours at the recent PPI radio awards with Red FM's Red Rooster winning Best Breakfast Show. Co-host "KC" talks about the challenge of entertaining listeners.
Rolling Stone's most promising artist of the year and Dylan/Stones endorsed songstress Kathleen Edwards tells all about her acclaimed new record Back To Me, life on the road in the US and why she just might make the move to those shores in the not-too-distant future.
The creator of Bowling For Columbine, this year’s most devastating big screen documentary, shoots from the hip on violence, gun control, Charlton Heston, George Bush, satire and the Canadian solution to an American problem
‘Looking after number one’ was the record that kick started Ireland’s passage toward punk, and the man who penned it is still vitriolic about the time and place that inspired the song.
A surprisingly mellow Tom Ayara of Slayer thinks that calling God Hates Us All “ugly” is unaccurate. “It’s more angry and hateful,” he tells Phil Udell
They toured the world throughout the ‘70s, earning rave notices from Bono, The Edge and Melvin Bragg, upsetting the clergy, terrifying the American public in the company of Blue Oyster Cult and the J Geils Band and out-glamming even Bowie with their flamboyant sartorial taste. With a new DVD on the way and much speculation about a possible tour, legendary Celtic rockers Horslips here talk to Hot Press about a decade of adventure, decadence and great music.
THE WAR between the sexes certainly seems to be dominating Dublin stages these days. In The Mai at the Peacock, the male character is slowly marginalised, and in Refugees at the Eblana, the man exists only as an object of mockery, whose prick has been removed by his wife’s knife.
THE WAR between the sexes certainly seems to be dominating Dublin stages these days. In The Mai at the Peacock, the male character is slowly marginalised, and in Refugees at the Eblana, the man exists only as an object of mockery, whose prick has been removed by his wife’s knife.
rob thomas is cautiously optimistic that his multi-million selling outfit, matchbox 20, will not succumb to the Hootie syndrome. Interview: colm o'hare.
From Chet Baker through Joe Cocker to The Cranberries, the world of music owes the late Denny Cordell an enormous debt. Bill Graham pays tribute to an inspirational craftsman who made Ireland his final home and resting place.
Former Prayer Boat frontman Emmet Tinley on the break-up of his old band, the challenges of forging his own solo career and the joys of artistic independence.
When Iain Archer decided to get away from it all for the making of his latest album, he didn’t settle for half measures. He packed up his guitars and vanished for several months into the depths of Germany’s Black Forest. But can the resulting record transform the career of a singer still best known for helping write Snow Patrol’s ‘Run’?
In Belfast recently for the Film Festival, Albert Maysles talks to Tara Brady about his early days with the Drew Collective and the challenges he faced pioneering fly-on-the-wall documentary making.
Well, it all goes to show that you can’t predict anything. There I was, like all distant observers, predicting an apocalypse in Mid-Africa, and what happens?
John Walshe meets Paul and Ashley from The Frank & Walters and hears all about their latest album, Beauty Becomes More Than Life, why they don t want to go to posh parties and how major labels take all the fun out of being in a band.
LA, Joshua Tree, Alabama, New Orleans . . . Kristin Hersh verbally back-packs her way around the most significant places in her life and career thus far.
Interview: Nick Kelly.
They invented 'nu rave', bagged the Mercury Music Prize and gave Noel Gallagher the mother of all migraines. You could say the Klaxons have had a busy 2007.
Australian singer SIA's song `Breathe Me', was destined to become a great lost classic, until the folks at Six Feet Under gave it a new lease of life. Next stop, duets with Beck.
Actress, singer, chat show host, Vogue model and girlfriend to Mick Jagger and Marc Bolan – Marsha Hunt was all of these things and more, and survived to tell the tale. And then she became an acclaimed best-selling author. Interview: Olaf Tyaransen.
Pix: Mick Quinn
Journalist STEVEN POOLE has, inspired by Orwell, written a riveting book documenting the insidious abuses of the English language perpetrated by politicians and powermongers.
He plays guitar for Springsteen, plays The Clash on his radio show and plays it fast and loose as Silvio Dante in The Sopranos. Colm O’Hare meets the three-in-one Steven Van Zandt
Andy Williams may have a reputation as a bland M.OR. crooner but beneath the squeaky clean showbiz facade lurks an interesting man indeed, who reveals a knowledge of modern art, a past laced with drug use and an unhealthy interest in Shirley Temple. Joe Jackson travels to Branson, Missouri to hear his confessions.
…for a while anyway. In a few short weeks Belfast's GHOST OF AN AMERICAN AIRMAN will leave home once again to tour distant lands. That's the bad news. The good news is that while they're here, Ghost... take time out to tell TARA McCARTHY what the hell they've been up to for the past two years.
The release of her second album Blue Planet should prove beyond all reasonable
doubt that DONNA LEWIS is no One Hit Wonder.
Interview: BARRY GLENDENNING.
Almost unheralded, in "Raintown" Scotland's Deacon Blue have made one of the year's outstanding albums. Despite extensive critical kudos, however, the first two singles from the album - "Dignity" and "Loaded" - failed to make any inroads into the charts. A third single, the excellent "When Will You (Make My Telephone Ring)" looks as if it might enable Deacon Blue to prise open the door. Nevertheless the band must be perturbed at their relative lack of success to date.
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.
With paranoia running rampant among US immigration officials in the wake of September 11, even a seemingly straightforward holiday in the land of the free can turn into a Kafka-esque nightmare.
He may have been nominated for a Mercury, but don’t expect Wicklow’s Fionn Regan to go changing his spots. Hannah Hamilton meets a musician who’s weathering the media storm, but sticking steadfastly to his own trusted path.
I’ll have at least one foot in the grave – or at least that’s the dominant feeling as JOE JACKSON joins the Country Music U.S.A. crew on their visit to BRANSON – a bizarre small town in the Ozark Mountains that now rivals Nashville as a centre for country music tourism, of the blue-rinse variety.
Who better to launch this year’s Music Show than Irish band of the moment The Script? In a taster of what to expect from October’s RDS weekender, Danny, Glen and Mark treated a roomful of fans, music students and industry professionals to their thoughts on illegal downloading, songwriting, the dreaded Auto-tune and touring with Macca and U2.
His dreamy electro-pop is winning Ulrich Schnauss an international fanbase. In his native Germany however, they’re still not convinced. Maybe it’s something to do with all those guitars.
Ted Hawkins, in Dublin recently to play a never-to-be-forgotten gig in Whelan’s, talks about his journey down the long and winding road which led him from an early, joyless life of petty crime and racial discrimination to his belated fame as one of the most respected of contemporary blues men. Interview: Gerry McGovern.
Danu may just be the hardest working band in trad. With their fourth album The Road Less Travelled only recently released and another promised for the spring, When Jackie Hayden put a number of key issues to the band’s accordionist Benny McCarthy and bodhran player and uilleann piper Donnchadh Hough he found that they don’t just work hard, they talk hard too.
Akron singer-songwriter Tim Easton has just settled in Alaska, a place where people “go mad or die”. Thankfully, he’s still alive and sane enough to tell the tale.
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.
Tara Brady talks to Catalina Sandino Moreno, star of Maria Full Of Grace, the gritty Colombian drama which tells the story of a seventeen year-old girl attempting to escape the dead-end environs of backstreet Bogota.
The Walls are about to embark on their most extensive Irish tour yet, including their biggest Dublin gig to date at the Ambassador and may be about to finally break the bank
Songwriter to the stars Gretchen Peters on record company inertia, the need for revolutionary new artists, and what it means to be an American musician in these highly fraught times. words Jackie Hayden
Fifteen years on and still in a league of his own, Dan Oggly talks to Mark E. Smith about fame, footie and the truth behind his 'difficult' reputation.
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.
placebo have probably garnered more column inches in the British press for frontman
brian molko s effeminate appearance than for their music.
colm o hare meets the men who want to be a band that parents hate .
The Walls are about to embark on their most extensive Irish tour yet, including their biggest Dublin gig to date at the ambassador and may be about to finally break the bank
Vid-phones, global warming, biotechnology, cyber-sex, extra-terrestrial intelligence, the abolition of race . . . Peter Murphy gets his crystal balls out.
Albums such as Streetcleaner and Pure have established Brummie noise terrorists godflesh as one of the most exciting alternative bands on the planet. Their latest effort, Love And Hate In Dub, is a radically overhauled remix version of its predecessor, Songs Of Love And Hate. The band s
talkative mainman justin broadrick explains all to jonathan o Brien.
Sprawling across four restless, angry and sometimes contradictory sides, "Rattle And Hum" is nothing less than U2's most ambitious album yet. Review by Bill Graham
The enigmatic DJ Shadow - aka Josh Davis - on why the time is right to speak politically, how hip-hop is regaining its radical edge and why most advertising sucks
Glaswegian quartet TRAVIS may have spent much of the last year playing
support to Manc legends Oasis, but deep down, all they want to do is rock. Interview: NICK KELLY
Employing naked female man-slashers in their videos, hanging out with Lee Renaldo, Alex Kapranos and Rosanna Arquette – there's never a dull moment with The Cribs.
Best known as the author of the modern noir classic LA Confidential, JAMES ELLROY is back in the spotlight with his new book The Cold 6000, a factional encounter with late 20th century America.
Here, the straight-talking Ellroy tells why JFK was second-rate and J. Edgar Hoover a fiend, why Bill Clinton is a horrible human being and George W. Bush not as bad as we think, and why Martin Luther King was the greatest American man of the last century
Words: DANNY ILEGEMS
At 81 years of age, folk pioneer PETE SEEGER is still active in the politics of song. SIOBHAN LONG meets a man fully deserving of the title 'living legend'
Michael Franti has taken a personal stand against George Bush by leading a peace delegation to the Middle East. Now back in the States where he’s vigorously campaigning against the president, he talks to Danielle Brigham about his experiences in two of the world’s most deadly war zones.
Controversial Irish webmaster Stephen Ryan caused a bit of a stir recently when he circumvented the rules on website name registration with his p.orn.ie website.
Fifteen years since they first topped the Irish charts, The Saw Doctors remain one of this country’s most successful bands. So why do so many people still consider them a novelty act?
The Prodigy may be one of the most potent acts on the dance scene but they've got a rock'n'roll attitude to live performance. STUART CLARK finds out why from the prodigy himself, LIAM HOWLETT.
Purveyors of pristine psych-pop, cult rock heroes and musical innovators par excellence – Mercury Rev may be many things, but garrulous interviewees they certainly aren’t. Frontman Jonathan Donahue grants hotpress an audience and grudgingingly opens up enough to discuss music, religion, quantum theory and the delicate balance between commercial success and artistic integrity.
Dublin is a shithole basically! that's the opinion of Kevin Shields, one of the two Irish members of My Bloody Valentine, who quit the fair city six years ago because of what they saw as the stifling atmosphere of the place. Since then they've lived and gigged all over Europe and their 1988 album Isn't Anything has put them on top of the critical approval lists and independent charts. Here, taking a break from their US tour, the band reflect on their art, their careers and what they see as the general awfulness of the Irish music scene. Interview: Helena Mulkearns
The Rolling Stones, The Who, Tom Jones, Van Morrison, Sinéad o' Connor... The Chieftains are on first-name terms with all of them and as they pocket another Grammy for Celtic Harp Paddy Moloney tells Siobhán Long how the band retain their freshness after over twenty years together.
There have been a lot of musicians, but only one Beethoven; there have been a lot of artists, but only one Michelangelo; and there have been a lot of footballers, but only one Pelé.
LIAM MACKEY meets the Brazilian soccer legend who really does deserve to be called “the greatest”.
Ever feel like chucking your job and doing something completely different? John Bishop did. The result is Stick Your Job Up Your Arse, the comic's journey from the corporate to the comedic world.
DANIEL DAY Lewis, John Malkovich and Gerard Depardieu were all considered for the role of the vampire Lestat, in Neil Jordan's forthcoming film version of Anne Rice's complex, erotic horror story Interview With The Vampire.
Would illegal Roma immigrants be treated differently if they were Nigerian or Somali? Are economic refugees suffering from a rose-tinted view of life in Ireland?
It was hardly the perfect start to guitar-based London outfit Rialto’s career when, after scoring three hit singles and recording their debut album, they were unceremoniously discarded by their record label. Interview: Nick Kelly.
Back in the saddle witha politically charged new album, Burning TimesChristy Moore and co-collaborator Declan Sinnott are putting the agit-prop back into folk. In a rare interview, Moore speaks frankly abot Hattie Carroll and Rachel Corrie, Richard Thompson anoraks, interpreting Morrissey and recently being detained by British authorities under anti-terrorism laws.
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.
Domestic metal bands may find it difficult to make themselves heard over their hipper contemporaries, but Dublin rockers Mike Got Spiked look set to add to their growing army of devotees courtesy of their scorching debut album, Caveat Emptor.
They've masterminded recordings by Lily Allen, Estelle and Kate Nash, to name a few. In this exclusive interview, Future Cut lift the veil on their whizz-bang production techniques.
With an Irish tour approaching and a new album in the shops, Luka Bloom looks back on three decades that have taken him from busking in a pub in Newbridge to the big stages of Europe and America. In this candid interview with Jackie Hayden the man also known as Barry Moore talks about brother Christy, overcoming stage fright, finding an original voice, dealings with the music business, the need to combat racism - and why he remains a wannabe bogman
Although the acclaimed C Mon Kids was conspicuous by its absence from the
Best-Of-96 polls, The Boo Radleys sice and martin carr aren t bitter. As they prepare for an assault on the States, peter murphy gets the lowdown on their hatred of videos, their contempt for producers and their disapproval of outfits such as Dodgy, The Lightning Seeds and Everything But The Girl.
Not since The Bothy Band in 1976, has an Irish traditional group signed to a major international label. By linking up with Virgin, ALTAN have confirmed their status as the pr-eminent force on the Irish scene and signalled their readiness to take on the world. Of course, theirs has been no overnight success story and, with the tragic loss of Frankie Kennedy, one that has also involved an immense amount of emotional courage. Interview: BILL GRAHAM. Pics: COLM HENRY
BONNIE PRINCE BILLY is the new moniker of cult hero WILL OLDHAM. NICK KELLY spoke to him about his album I See A Darkness. And received a lot of curt replies.
First she learned to pout - then she learned to kick butt. from Revlon to Resident Evil, Milla Jovovich explains how a girl from the Ukraine conquered the world. In Prada boots, of course
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.
One of the finest white soul voices Britain ever produced, Rod Stewart reminisces about the sozzled Faces days, discusses Bob Dylan, his penchant for blondes, and recalls the thyroid cancer that almost robbed him of his voice seven years ago.
[oops this was mis prompted as oxegen video interviews in our e-zine - they're here ]
Cast as fictional conjoined twins who start their own punk band Harry and Luke Treadaway have delivered one of the year’s funniest and most moving performances in the mocumentary Brothers Of The Head.
On the eve of the release of Tour De Flock, BellX1’s live album and DVD from Dublin’s Point Theatre, Paul Noonan, Brian Crosby and Dominic Phillips answer the weird and wonderful questions of hotpress readers, from the swimming habits of monkeys to ripping the gusset of your pants on stage.
Their sombre, melancholy music has seen The National tagged as arch-moochers. Face to face though, frontman Matt Berninger turns out to be a stand-up fellow.
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?
Charlie Parker may be gone – at least for the time being – but then he probably wouldn’t have survived crimewriter John Connolly’s latest outing anyway.
It’s a long time since they graced the stadium circuit, but Simple Minds are still thinking big. Jim Kerr takes time out from sunning himself in Sicily to tell Ed Power their plans.
PIGEON-HOLE THEM AS BELFAST HARDCORE MERCHANTS AT YOUR PERIL - IN THE PAST FEW MONTHS THERAPY? HAVE RELEASED TWO CLASSIC PUNK-POP EP'S THAT SHOOK THE BRITISH CHARTS, AND EVEN GOT THEM INTO THE PAGES OF TEEN-BIBLE SMASH HITS. AS THEY BEGIN RECORDING THEIR NEW LP, THEY TAKE TIME OUT TO GET NERVOUS ABOUT FEILE, GET ANGRY ABOUT THE BEATLES, AND EXPLAIN WHY THE DAYS OF THE NINE-MINUTE INSTRUMENTAL EPIC ARE OVER. INTERVIEW: LORRAINE FREENEY
He's the Hollywood enfant terrible who refuses to mellow with age. In a rare interview, John Waters talks about the aesthetics of trash, and looks back on his career.
La Rocca drummer and canine aficionado Alan Redmond relates how he and his bandmates have risen to the top in the dog eat dog world of greyhound racing
In the second part of our world exclusive interview, Dolores O’Riordon talks about the upside of leaving The Cranberries, her debut solo album and what she's been getting up to on the phone with Angelo Badalamenti.
Pigeon-hole them as Belfast hardcore merchants at your peril in the past few months Therapy? have released two classic punk-pop EPs that shook the British charts, and even got them into the pages of teen-bible Smash Hits. As they begin recording their new LP, they take time out to get nervous about Fiile, get angry about the Beatles, and explain why the days of the nine-minute instrumental epic are over. Interview: Lorraine Freeney.
The pen behind "My Beautiful Launderette" and "Sammy and Rosie Get Laid", HANIF KUREISHI has been treated as an outsider in his home, Britain, and as a traitor by some elements within his own race. But, he maintains, it's the job of the writer to "stir the shit" - and now he's got the fundamentalists in his sights. Interview: OLAF TYARANSEN
COLM O HARE catches up with MARY BLACK, as the singer helicopters her way around the country and talks about her new album, the song writing of Ron Sexsmith and unfair criticism. Pics: PETER MATHEWS.
Well, okay, it's SOMETHING HAPPENS, so that's overstating it a bit. Still, having taken a fair few industry beatings over the years, the band are no longer inclined to simply turn the other cheek. At the end of a year in which they toured the States with Warren Zevon, released a "Best Of ..." and are bringing it all back home for Christmas, Olaf Tyaransen finds the band can snarl as well as smile.
Having already conquered Ireland and the UK, SAMANTHA MUMBA is poised to join Britney and Christina at the top of the American pop chart. Not bad for someone who two years ago was fired from a panto by Twink! Now, with her new album Gotta Tell You ready for release, the Dublin singer talks candidly to JOE JACKSON about drugs, sex and the break-up of her parents marriage
The Irish Blood Transfusion Service has for some time been making life extremely difficult for homosexual men who wish to donate blood. Whilst the ban has largely gone unnoticed until now, as Ciara Cunnane reports, gay men are no longer prepared to tolerate what they see as a discriminatory system. Photography by Cathal Dawson
The Irish Blood Transfusion Service has for some time been making life extremely difficult for homosexual men who wish to donate blood. Whilst the ban has largely gone unnoticed until now, as Ciara Cunnane reports, gay men are no longer prepared to tolerate what they see as a discriminatory system. Photoography by Cathal Dawson.
Mark McClelland was a feature and music writer for Cork's Evening Echo for four years. Here, he presents his top ten most significant musical acts to emerge from Cork.
You wanted the best, you got GENE SIMMONS. Here, the motormouth frontman of KISS, the world s greatest showband, talks about sex and women at length (quelle surprise), discusses his Jewish heritage, explains why Kierkegaard and Nietzsche obviously never got laid, and announces to an increasingly bemused JOE JACKSON that he Gene, that is possesses the world s smallest penis.
The Christy Moore Interview by Bill Graham
Christy Moore is out on his own. He can't be limited as just a folk singer or a popular artist. Rather he's increasingly an Irish national fixture with an influence far beyond the mere entertainer's reach.
It’s been a hell of a year for The Thrills, propelled from rehearsal rooms in rainy Dublin to a number one album, sell-out shows and limo-driven tours of L.A. at night. Hotpress catches up with the band as they kick off an irish homecoming trek with an exclusive Dublin fan club gig.
He was one of America s greatest writers and he wrote almost nothing but record reviews. PETER MURPHY on a new biography of the rock crit s rock guru, LESTER BANGS.
And we ain’t talking turkey. Miles Hunt, lead singer and songwriter with The Wonder Stuff doesn't give a flying, er, saucer what anyone thinks of the band, their image, their videos or even their P/E ratio. Interview: Stuart Clark.
First kisses, hanging with the hip-hop aristocracy and why life is better on the wagon are some of the topics for conversation as Hot Press hitches a ride on the tour bus with domestic goddess and soapy bath enthusiast Amy Winehouse.
In Ireland, he’s the biggest name in comedy – a superstar who can pack them into live shows and shift DVDs by the jumboload. But having conquered his homeland, Tommy Tiernan faced the question: where to from here? The answer was America, the Holy Grail for anyone in the entertainment business. The story of his battle to win hearts and minds is captured in Jokerman – Tommy Tiernan Takes On America, a documentary series that is about to hit the screens on RTE. But first, there’s the important matter of a Hot Press interview to attend to.
When THE JIM ROSE CIRCUS comes to town, some very strange people want in on the act. STUART CLARK met them and ended up talking about body piercings, glass eating, and the legality of public displays of female genitalia. Pics: CATHAL DAWSON.
At the tender age of 20, he s already the most successful Irish DJ ever. Mark Kavanagh chats to Fergie, the first Irish DJ tipped for Premier League superstardom.
Running a marathon, writing the folk-pop equivalent of Dante’s Divine Comedy, buying a house, releasing the finest record of his career. All in a year’s work for Josh Ritter. John Walshe travelled to Boston to meet the young songwriter.
from reagan to bush; from radio free europe to clear channel; from green to reveal; from the sfx to marlay park. REM call time out and Peter Buck fills in the gaps from 1983 to 2003. interview Peter Murphy
WHAT motivates a writer to consign words to page? By what method do they arrive at their chosen subject matter? Is the writer more or less a voyeur than those who read their scribblings?
The latest wave of right-wing attacks on US musicians is likely to have a knock-on effect here, with the words and actions of our own artists coming under increased scrutiny. In a special hotpress report, Ed Power enlists the help of Marilyn Manson and a number of major Irish players to pick his way through the censorship minefield.
Whether starring in popcorn blockbusters or thoughtful art-house movies, Gabriel Byrne is a reassuring presence on our screens. But he reserves his deepest passions for keeping alive the flame of Irish culture among the diaspora.
They may refuse to play the media game, but whether it’s dating page three models, accepting awards dressed as the Village People or earning the ire of Keith Richards, there’s never a dull moment in the world of Alex Turner and Arctic Monkeys.
In Dublin recently to lend his support to the AIDS Action Alliance all-star Olympic Ballroom bash, Tom Robinson took time out to reflect on his Spokesman For A Generation past, his nervous breakdowns, his sexual re-orientation and his re-embracement of the Quaker faith
Having spent decades trying to cast off the legacy of colonialism are we now in danger of being sucked into the anglosphere at the cost of our European identity?
Back in the saddle with their eagerly anticipated second album Demon Days, subversive animated quartet Gorillaz here talk to Paul Nolan about striking out against celebrity culture, what went wrong with the Gorillaz movie, collaborating with Shaun Ryder, Roots Manuva and Dennis Hopper, and why they didn’t vote Labour. Oh, and Mexican brothels.
Even though he s just as acerbic and witty as he ever was, these days GRAHAM PARKER isn t what you d call the man of the moment. Which is a shame, because the veteran new-wave critics darling is currently writing some of the best material of his life, including last year s Acid Bubblegum album, which he describes as a fucking great record . And as if that wasn t enough to be going on with, he s also got plenty of short stories on the go.
Tape: Peter Murphy
Visionary singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright has built up a loyal cult following for his epic tales of love, lost and unrequited. But as he admits himself, that’s only half the story. “Usually interviewers are obsessed with one thing or the other – whether it’s the gay thing or the drugs or the politics,” he tells an intrigued Phil Udell.
He found fame in Queer As Folk and is currently to be seen in the acclaimed US crime drama The Wire. Now Aidan Gillen is burning up the Irish stage in an acclaimed new production of a David Mamet classic.
Blow me down, it’s that chirpy Counting Crow adam duritz again, flapping his vocal chords on everything from bunking off the MTV awards, why the Rolling Stones are still “fucking great” and why he won’t be emigrating to Utah just yet. Witness for the defence: Niall Crumlish.
Nearly a decade after the release of their debut single, U2 are widely regarded as the No. 1 rock band in the world. But the album and the film "Rattle And Hum" depict another kind of reality entirely. Larry, Adam and The Edge talk to Niall Stokes.
MORE PEOPLE SMOKE IT IN THE UK THAN GO TO CHURCH, THE AMERICAN LAW JUDGES ADMIT THAT IT'S THE SAFEST THERAPEUTICALLY ACTIVE SUBSTANCE KNOWN TO MAN BUT STILL THE WAR AGAINST CANNABIS RAGES ON. OLAF TYARANSEN EXAMINES THE VESTED INTERESTS WHICH STAND IN THE WAY OF ITS LEGALISATION.
Acclaimed Sandman creator Neil Gaiman has turned his dark imagination to children’s fiction with Coraline, a book whose subject matter is even more timely in the light of the tragic events in Soham
When Martin Scorsese made Leaving Las Vegas director Mike Figgis an offer he couldn’t refuse, the result was the British component of an unprecedented film history of the blues.
Evan Dando of Lemonheads is one of rock's new wave of sex gods. But for a man of such apparently heavenly looks, he is rather short on statements of, er, philosophical gravitas. Bearing witness: TARA McCARTHY
As the management force behind Boyzone, Westlife and Samantha Mumba, LOUIS WALSH is Ireland s Mr. Pop. In a candid interview with Joe Jackson he talks about his relationships with his acts, the ones that got away, the importance of the producer, the uselessness of critics and why he s unlikely to end up managing Van Morrison. Portraits: Cathal Dawson
Not all Irish emigrants spend their time crying into their green pints of Guinness in Biddy Mulligans. HELENA MULKERNS previews STATESIDE, an ambitious new TV series that chronicles the flesh and blood reality of life in the Big Apple for the so-called Greencard Generation.
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.
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
For many years a 'musician's musician', TOM PACHECO is now enjoying the commercial recognition he deserves thanks to a collaboration with Steiner Albrigtsen that's stormed its way to the top of the Norwegian charts. Here, the American singer-songwriter reflects on a remarkable career which has seen him hanging out with Jimi Hendrix and The Doors in New York, taking on the Nashville establishment and finally settling in Ireland where his star is also firmly in the ascendent. Interview: SIOBHAN LONG.
The recent murder of
the notorious b.i.g., following the killing of Tupac shakur six months ago, has been linked by many to the prolonged East Coast-West Coast feud which threatened to tear the US hip-hop community apart. jonathan o brien reports on how life
chillingly imitates art in the gangsta rap wars.
CRAIG FITZSIMONS talks to KURT JONES and DAVID KELLY, writer/director and star respectively, of Waking Ned, a gentle comedy set in Ireland, but shot in the Isle of Man. Pics Cathal dawson.
the frank and walters are back addressing the nation. Our man on the inside, Peter Murphy, shares a day in the life of the Cork threesome as they record a radio session for RTE.
AGEING PUNK STUART 'CIDER'N'SPIT' CLARK REHEATS THE WHITE HOT CAULDRON OF 1977 IN A DISCUSSION OF TIMES PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE WITH THOSE CHARMING MEN FROM MANCHESTER, BUZZCOCKS. PIC: CATHAL DAWSON
What do you get when you lock indie gods Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine and Dublin's up-and-coming Blink in a room with unlimited booze and a tape machine? Well, you're about to find out as Blink ask their tourmates Carter how many pairs of underpants to bring along, whether or not you can leave stage to prevent wetting them and who washes them if you can't. Pix: Leo Regan
What do you get when you lock indie gods Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine and Dublin's up-and-coming Blink in a room with unlimited booze and a tape machine? Well, you're about to find out as Blink ask their tourmates Carter how many pairs of underpants to bring along, whether or not you can leave stage to prevent wetting them and who washes them if you can't. Pix: Leo Regan
The reclassification of cannabis in Britain was a good day for the UK’s estimated five million users. But not a great day. A drug that is much less damaging than alcohol or tobacco remains illegal in most parts of the world, including Ireland, a situation which criminalises the user and benefits only the criminal gangs. It’s high time for a change, argues Olaf Tyaransen.
As evenings lengthen and winds shift, as light becomes harder and higher and as summer edgily advances, Ireland blinks and shakes its head. A strange year entirely so far. And no story has preoccupied attention like the Catherine Nevin murder trial.
Inspired by a renewed interest in Christianity, MAIRE BRENNAN of CLANNAD has spread her solo wings again. It s better to be addicted to faith than to drugs, she tells JACKIE HAYDEN
Jackie hayden meetsjournalist turned PR guru, Tony O Brien and speaks to him about his rock n roll adventures with the likes of U2, Michael Stipe and Bruce Springsteen.
Many Irish holiday-makers will be heading for the United States this year. But there’s much more on offer in that vast playground than the dubious prospect of sweltering in the crushing heat of an Orlando football stadium in June. Jackie Hayden travelled with a bunch of media types to the small town of Lynchburg in Tennessee and visited the source of one of the world’s great spirits, Jack Daniels, making some musical connections along the way.
With his work on the soundtrack to In The Name Of The Father bringing him into the full glare of media attention Gavin Friday takes this opportunity to put to rest any accusations of riding on U2’s coat-tails. Confident and brimming with ideas for his solo career, The Spotlight Kid gives the lowdown to an eager BILL GRAHAM.
Irish fiction continues to grow in both popularity and hipness. In this special feature we talk to three of its most prominent young exponents: John Connolly, Conal Creedon and Julie Parsons.
Where hip and hype go together, that's where you'll find The Hives who are buzzing to tell Stuart Clark all about Kylie, curling, punk rock, nice forests and bad Norwegian jokes
His TV breakthrough came when he told Pat Kenny about how he hung weights from his penis. Since then it’s been wild globetrotting and fluent Irish all the way. And now, in his latest spectacular for the viewing public, Hector O hEochagain has only gone and bought himself a share in a racehorse.
After years of slogging in the undergrowth of comedy, whimsy-merchant David O'Doherty has suddenly become an 'overnight' success having won a top prize at Edinburgh.
We asked the fans to vote for U2's Greatest Hits and they did - in their thousands. The result is a selection of 20 tracks which, without doubt, would combine to produce a record to rank among the weightiest and most powerful anthologies in the history of rock. The full track listing is not without its controversial selections and omissions, however. Bill Graham and Niall Stokes take us through the fans' vision of the fab four's dream album.
More people than ever may be smoking it but Ireland s marijuana laws remain among the most draconian in Europe. In the second part of our series on drugs in Ireland, STUART CLARK presents the dope on dope.
Opening our U2 special, DERMOD MOORE catches up with ADAM CLAYTON during the UK leg of the Elevation tour, and delves deep into the physics of music celebrity, politics and, er, penises
When Tommy Tiernan held court in the Hot Press Chat Room at Electric Picnic recently, he had no idea the kind of shit storm that would unfold. During what was in effect a spontaneous, unscripted live performance – not unlike an appearance on The Late Late Show that also sparked controversy – he told a story about a couple of Jews who reproached him after a performance in New York. The result? He has been accused of anti-semitism and widely vilified. But those who know Tiernan are quite clear that the accusations are completely wrong. So – in order to allow people to judge for themselves – here is the full text of the Chat Room interview.
Neil Young is God, the Riot Grrrls are a cod and Hot Press is the greatest music magazine in the Northern hemisphere. So says Monica Queen of ‘hard alternative country rock band’ thrum. Interview: Patrick Brennan.
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
The dark, romantic Raining Down Arrows is the latest milestone in the creative
liberation of Mundy, a man whose thoughts on love, friendship and connecting with the audience are at the core of his music.
phish
are a bone-fide American underground phenomenon who have gone overground in a very big way. Word of mouth rather than record company hype, initially made their reputation Stateside and now they can boast of chart success,
mega-audience attendance and their very own devoted following of Phisheads. But is Europe ready for the 90s equivalent of The Grateful Dead extended jams, waccy baccy, patented ice-cream flavours and all?
peter murphy
investigates.
Age has not withered them. twenty years after they rose out of the new york underground, Sonic Youth have managed to grow old and stay hardcore. Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon reveal how it’s done
The young Carlow-based actress Saoirse Ronan is on the brink of Hollywood stardom, thanks to her Golden Globe-nominated performance in Atonement and her upcoming starring role in the next Peter Jackson movie, The Lovely Bones. In her first ever in-depth interview, she spoke exclusively to Hot Press about her sudden rise to fame.
DAVID HEFFERNAN pays tribute to the producer/director whose many and varied professional credits included some defining images of Irish and international music
History is likely to remember FW de KLERK as the man whose most significant political accomplishment ensured his own political downfall. Peter Murphy meets the last South African President to hold power in the era of apartheid. Pic: COLM HENRY.
On the release of a double CD retrospective of his forty years as a performer-songwriter, Johnny McEvoy talks to Jackie Hayden about his early days as Ireland’s answer to Bob Dylan, meeting the great man himself, supporting and introducing The Rolling Stones, defending The Wolfe Tones, not apologising for the troubles in the North, U2 and the key albums that have inspired him.
For a creature like Siouxsie Sioux, where does persona
end and person begin? ANDY DARLINGTON tries to discover the girl behind the mask, but winds up talking about Hugely Inflated Breasts and spooky doppelgangers from The Twilight Zone instead . . .!
It sounds like the stuff of hype and overnight success – from struggling garage band to next big thing and accolades from noel gallagher, morrissey and bono – but even at an average age of 23 The Thrills have paid their dues. Olaf Tyaransen hears how the summer’s hottest band went from worshipping whipping boy to having beck’s da play on their debut album.
Few Irish albums have been as eagerly awaited as THERAPY?’s Troublegum and while the jury has yet to deliver its final verdict, early indications suggest that the band from Larne may be about to fulfil their own prophecy and become multifuckingnationally huge. But does taking on the world mean having to compromise the hardcore principles they’ve fought so hard to protect?
ANDY CAIRNS and MICHAEL McKEEGAN tell Hot Press trouble-shooter GERRY McGOVERN that displaying your gums doesn’t mean having to sacrifice your teeth. Pix.: MICHAEL QUINN.
It's one of the most heartwarming and deserved success stories in music - how Beth Orton learned to cope with illness, rebuilt her career and found herself sharing studios and stages with artists as diverse as Emmylou Harris, Ryan Adams, The Chemical Brothers and David Kitt
It s taken ten years, but AGNELLI & NELSON have finally made it to the top of the DJ pile with their Hudson St. album. COLIN CARBERRY meets the Ulster dance merchants whose superstar fans include U2
Hip Hop guru, political activist and occasional visitor to Inishturk, Speech tells Paul Nolan why his group are still as relevant in the 21st century as they were during their mid ‘90s heyday.
Guitar heroes Rodrigo Y Gabriela have gone from busking on Grafton Street to jamming with Metallica. The acoustic duo talk about their long, strange journey, their fantastic new album – and their debt to the metal world
It is hardly a surprise to learn that the fifth Super Furry Animals’ album was due to be christened Text Messaging Is Killing The Pub Quiz As We Know It.
For years, Holly Johnson delayed having a HIV test. When he did, it checked positive, and Holly began a journey of self-discovery that has seen him develop enormously. Now, the former lead singer with Frankie Goes To Hollywood is proud, committed and highly politicised . . .Interview:Joe Jackson
When we catch up with Bell X1 frontman Paul Noonan on a fine August afternoon, he’s bracing himself for a grueller of an autumn schedule that will begin with a handful of festival appearances – including an Electric Picnic set – and culminate in full-on month-long European and US tours. Reading dispatches from the band’s recent blogs, it’s apparent that the landscape of modern touring is far from Beat Generation romance and way closer to a Ballardian landscape of endless petrol stations, motorways and ferry docks.
Hoot Press talks to the perennially busy Ed Byrne about his hectic schedule, partying hard at comedy festivals, sexing up his audience and why he won’t be doing a McDonald’s voice-over any time soon.
Christmas is the time of the year when thousands of Irish emigrants return home to link up again with families and friends. All over the country, for a brief interlude, towns and villages will come alive with stories, songs, drink and craic. And then all will be quiet again. Gerry McGovern examines the impact of emigration on Irish society – and the sense of alienation which many emigrants feel about their treatment by the authorities here.
He has strong views on Republicanism, Israel, George Bush and Steve Staunton. But, as a TD for Dublin South Central, Michael Mulcahy also reveals how much he loves Fianna Fáil – and how he wouldn’t mind a coalition with the Greens.
Re-telling the story of September 11 with a measured hand and lightness of touch hithertoo unhinted at, director Oliver Stone proves a more serious thinker than his paranoia-soaked canon would suggest. Here, he explains how his experiences as a soldier in Vietnam framed his outlook on life and art.
With her own debut album, ELEANOR McEVOY, one of the stars of 'A Woman's Heart', has come out of the folk closet and revealed herself to be a real rocker - feedback, distorted guitars and all. Interview: COLM O'HARE
With her own debut album, Eleanor McEvoy, one of the stars of A Woman s Heart , has come out of the folk closet and revealed herself to be a real rocker feedback, distorted guitars and all. Interview: Colm O Hare.
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
It's been sniffer dogs and paddywagons all the way as The enemy visit some of Britain's less salubrious Rock n' Roll locales. If they can stay out of jail, though a support tour with Oasis awaits.
When former IRA prisoner Marion Price decided to go public about the intimidation she claims to have suffered,
she did so on Radio Free Iireann. STUART CLARK reports on the New York station that s providing a focal point for dissident Republican opinion.
1998 Bloom With A View
John Walshe talks to Luka Bloom on the eve of the release of his fourth studio album, Salty Heaven, about his return to Ireland, the inspiration behind the songs, older brother Christy Moore and the latest generations of the Moore dynasty.
Luka Bloom doesn't look 43, when I walk into the room in the Berkeley Court Hotel where our interview is to take place, he's standing in front of the window, guitar strap around his neck and an acoustic six-string in his hand - he strums it and I'd swear that he's 12 years of age. Every time he plays on stage the look is the same, one of wonder and even serenity.
As Barack Obama gets ready to take up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Bob Geldof, Josh Ritter and Laura Izibor offer their views on his presidency. Plus what the rest of the rock ‘n’ roll community including Bruce Springsteen and Ani DiFranco are saying about the new man in the White House.
Critical brickbats aside, the success of TRAVIS seems to know no bounds. Here FRAN HEALY and co talk to STUART CLARK about drugs, Oasis, Paul McCartney, Ali G, and drunkenly dancing on computers! The man who took the photos: STEVEN FISHER
Bobby Gillespie's still staying up all night but now it's because there's a baby in the house. Otherwise, it's all systems go for Primal Scream at their bunker hq - Witnness cometh, Mani's back and Kate Moss, Kevin Shields, Robert Plant and AndrewWeatherall all feature on the groundbreaking evil high
RADIOHEAD are just about to release one of the most uncompromising and controversial records of the year in Kid A. As the band prepare for their upcoming Irish dates, mainman THOM YORKE talks about the genesis of a record that seems destined to divide rock fans for years. Not to mention Bono, Britney and Alicia Silverstone! Interview: DAVE FANNING
As he prepares for the release of his band s third album, Cold And Bouncy, high llamas mainman
sean o hagan tells an awestruck
nick kelly exactly why there s always been a Beach Boys element to his music.
Just one meeting with Scottish anarchist phil kay is enough to convince barry glendenning that when a tree falls in the forest and nobody s there, it lands with a thunderous
crash.
Striking Gold and setting a new World record might be enough to satisfy some athletes but for Sonia O'Sullivan such exploits are merely a warm-up for the glories that lie ahead. Ireland's athletics superstar talks to Liam Fay about winning, losing and the personal sacrifices she's prepared to make in order to become the best.
John Walshe talks to Luka Bloom on the eve of the release of his fourth studio album, Salty Heaven, about his return to Ireland, the inspiration behind the songs, older brother Christy and the latest generations of the Moore dynasty.
Pics: Colm Henry
Ang Lee mightn’t have been the most likely candidate to put the jolly green giant on the big screen, but he has rendered Stan Lee’s Incredible Hulk as a greek tragedy.
Hong Kong director Stephen Chow is the closest thing to an auteur in the explosive and surreal world of Far East action cinema. His latest feature, Kung Fu Hustle, could be the one to finally break him in the West. But impending worldwide stardom hasn’t erased Chow’s modest streak, he reveals in an exclusive interview.
On the eve of his appearance in the Dublin Theatre Festival and with a nationwide Irish tour pending, Jimeoin, the award-winning Irish comedian, talks to Tony Clayton-Lea about his journey to fame, from his early jobs as a builder in London and a carpenter in Sydney to his current status as the funniest man in Australia. He may own ten Van Morrison albums but he's still the best man around to liven up a night on the town.
On the eve of his appearance in the Dublin Theatre Festival and with a nationwide Irish tour pending, Jimeoin, the award-winning Irish comedian, talks to Tony Clayton-Lea about his journey to fame, from his early jobs as a builder in London and a carpenter in Sydney to his current status as the funniest man in Australia. He may own ten Van Morrison albums but he's still the best man around to liven up a night on the town.
30 Seconds To Mars' Jared Leto talks about the challenges of juggling a music and Hollywood career and sheds light on his run-in with the authorities in China.
We are going to spare you all the obvious puns about going back to basics, catching this particular fish in the raw or even the irrefutable truism that fins ain t what they used to be. But as you can see from the accompanying pictures, there is something particularly vulnerable about people when they re naked. Dropped by Atlantic Records, stripped of all the corporate support, funding, and of course bullshit this is how An Emotional Fish stand before the public, on the launch of their independently-produced Sloper album. Not that either the band or lead singer are without the support of people who matter. Ger is photographed with his wife Lorraine . . . Interview: Colm O Hare.
A year ago they were being paid fifty quid a gig, now they’re one of the biggest rock ‘n’ roll bands on the planet and about to take the Oxegen main stage by storm. A pun loving Stuart Clark discovers how Franz Ferdinand have become Top of the Fops.
Famously opinionated Dubliner and textbook Renaissance man, ULICK O'CONNOR still has plenty to say about everything – even if RTE, he claims, don’t want to hear about it. following the recent publication of his first volume of diaries, the great man offers his views on marriage, drugs, the North, art, corruption, wild times in the Chelsea hotel and more.
Words: OLAF TYARANSEN
Kill Bill is widely seen as a vehicle for director Quentin Tarrantino to express his deep-seated fascination with his favourite leading lady, Uma Thurman. But the character of The Bride – the super-deadly vixen played by Thurman in Kill Bill – is based on the blood-thirsty heroines of a bevy of B-Movies with which modern cinema’s most deadly talent is obsessed. So, as Kill Bill 2 hits the screens, we ask who are these foxy ladies, and what makes them such ruthless killers?
To give him his full title, he's the Minister of State at the Department of Tourism, Sport and Recreation with responsibility for local development and the National Drugs Strategy. But it's for the latter responsibility that EOIN RYAN TD has earned the unofficial title of "Ireland's Drug Czar". As a new seven-year strategy is unveiled, STUART CLARK enquires about leisure, legalisation, decriminalisation, health, creativity, crime and punishment – and whether or not cannabis really is "a gateway drug". Photographs: PHILLIP TOTTENHAM.
Every year thousands of film fans make the trip to the southern capital for the feast of cinema that is the Cork Film Festival. Hot Press looks back over the history of one of Europe’s longest-running cinematic events and checks out what this year’s packed programme has to offer. Report: Patrick Brennan
The tears have stopped falling – because those who bitterly mourned the demise of The Go-Betweens soon discovered that what they got instead was a double-helping of the weird genius which had inspired the band in the shape of solo albums from Grant McLennan and Robert Forster. With both of them releasing new records and working on a film script together, everything seems to be coming up roses. Why Lorraine Freeney even got to see a breathtaking reunion gig . . .
As frontman of Galway’s Toasted Heretic Julian Gough was an enfant terrible of Irish rock. Then he jacked in music to become a best-selling writer. With his old band preparing to reform, Gough reveals his loathing of television and explains why his home town is the cosmopolitan capital of Ireland.
It may be that she will forever be associated with the Zipless Fuck, but if her new book, Of Blessed Memory, takes off like Fear Of Flying, erica jong could yet become synonymous with another hot erotic scenario, The Three Slipperies. Still creating controversy after all these years, the author talks feminism, Judaism, rock n roll, fashion and but, of course sex, with Joe Jackson.
Pix: cathal dawson
California-born, Harvard-educated, Alison Brown is not your everyday bluegrass flagbearer. But her emotive playing – and the contribution of her Compass Records label – have made her a leading figure in the American roots scene.
He has already courted controversy with comments about lapdancing and criticisms of Michael McDowell and Michael Martin. now, in this candid interview with Olaf Tyaransen, the new Lord Mayor of Dublin lets fly at the Taoiseach's brother, Noel Ahern; recalls wild days in the hotel trade and Amsterdam; talks about the depths of his despair following his father's death; and reveals how he was more likely to become a tap-dancer than a member of Boyzone. photos: Mick Quinn
We are going to spare you all the obvious puns about going back to basics, catching this particular fish in the raw or even the irrefutable truism that fins ain’t what they used to be. But as you can see from the accompanying pictures, there is something particularly vulnerable about people when they're naked. Dropped by Atlantic Records, stripped of all the corporate support, funding, and of course bullshit, – this is how An Emotional Fish stand before the public, on the launch of their independently-produced Sloper album. Not that either the band or lead singer are without the support of people who matter. Ger is photographed with his wife Lorraine . . . Interview: COLM O’HARE. Pix: MICK QUINN.
With his first two albums, Streets mastermind Mike Skinner established himself as one of the most eloquent, idiosyncratic and gifted vocalists and worsdsmiths of his generation. But the 27 year old came close to blowing it all on spread-betting and crack, not to mention engaging in an XXX-rated tryst with an unnamed pop starlet. Thankfully, he’s bounced back with the tell-all confessional of The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living.
John Walshe talks to The Wannadies Pdr Wiksten and Christina Bergmark about their new album, Yeah, tribute bands, Swedish soft rock stars and the Abba legacy.
Will genetic engineering be a force for good or for evil? And since the genie is already out of the bottle, is even that profound question becoming redundant? GERRY McGOVERN delves into the worrying, wonderful and definitely weird world of genetics. The future starts here.
From Dublin to Hollywood and from hanging around in Ballykissangel to hanging out with Al, Bruce and Tom, actor Colin Farrell is making the most of life as 'the next big thing'. "I'm a lucky bastard," he tells Craig Fitzsimons
For the launch of his second album, UNDER THE MOON, MARTIN HAYES returned from his new home in Seattle to his native town of Feakle, deep in the heart of Clare. BILL GRAHAM travelled west to meet one of the musicians responsible for the resurgence in Irish music and discuss his roots in the local tradition, and speculate on the possibilities and conflicts opening up within the genre.
Having dominated the charts here for the past ten years, Ash are gearing up for a full-scale invasion of America. Stuart Clark dons his hard hat as Tim, Mark, Rick and Charlotte tell him about their new record of mass destruction Meltdown, and the A-list celebrity company they’ve been keeping in the city of angels.
Western spin depicts it as a blow for democracy, but for Raied Al-Wazzan, an Iraqi doctor based here for 15 years, the occupation of his country is illegal and must be resisted.
British director Bernard Rose hit paydirt over decade ago with Candyman, but his uncompromising single-mindedness has made him a virtual Hollywood pariah. However, Snuff Movie looks like putting him back in the game.
After years when her triumphs were in danger of being masked by her tribulations, DOLORES O RIORDAN is back in defiantly upbeat form. She talks to STUART CLARK about confidence, critics, Calvin Klein and her confirmation-size breasts ! Pics: MICK QUINN.
Responsible dad or not, Liam Gallagher is still capable of some serious rock’n’roll hellraising and giving good quote. Roy Keane, Patsy Kensit, Nicole Appleton, Yoko Ono, Bono and magic mushrooms are all on the agenda as the Oasis singer shoots from the hip. Getting the beers in: Olaf Tyaransen
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. .
Ex-Python turned film-maker Terry Gilliam watched his latest movie project the man who killed Don Quixote collapse after a succession of production disasters. Yet two young film-makers who accompanied the director on the shoot have released a documentary film about the making, and un-making, of Gilliam's epic
Reporting from the frontline of the Palestine-Israel conflict has convinced RTÉ’s Richard Crowley that the spiral of violence is likely to continue. But it is wrong to believe that the blame is equal.
CRAIG FITZSIMONS speaks to young Irish director DAMIEN O'DONNELL, whose debut feature East Is East takes a controversial look at Pakistani immigrant culture.
Scissor Sisters are back, and this time they’re on a mission to channel Elton John, Paul McCartney and the Bee Gees into the first soft rock masterpiece of the 21st Century. In an exclusive interview, the group’s main songwriter, Babydaddy, gives us the lowdown on their second coming.
He may have an image as a political bruiser, but even if he is prepared to engage Bertie in a head-butting contest, Michael Noonan would rather win over the electorate by the more gentle art of persuasion. Joe Jackson meets the Fine Gael leader to discuss public issues and personal traumas, and discovers why he's partial to drink and Bill Clinton but opposed to Sinn Fein, the Bertie bowl and tax breaks for sports stars.
BRENDAN O’CARROLL is bringing his latest opus
Good Mourning Mrs Brown to the Olympia theatre, Dublin, in January. But STEPHEN ROBINSON discovers that the author and comedian has quite a serious side
In a remarkably honest interview, which directly preceded the death of his mother, Jonathan Rhys Meyers reflects on his spells in rehab and discusses life as one of Hollywood’s hottest young actors.
Coke is it. Coke is the real thing. It's not the choice of a new generation but the choice of countless generations past, present and future. Coca-Cola knows how to get American presidents elected and is even responsible for Santa Claus as we know him.
Here BILL GRAHAM delves into Mark Prendergast's unauthorised history of the company, For God, Country and Coca-Cola, and discovers over a century's worth of evidence that Coke is no ordinary soft drink.
And that s just the band! Galway s finest, The Stunning, take time out from sticking pins in themselves as their debut album Paradise In The Picturehouse finds itself perched atop the Irish charts to explain the secret of their success to an attentive Michael O Hara, who undergoes a road to Damascus experience en route.
The drink, the drugs, the fights, the sex, the loves, the hates, the hits and the Taoiseach's daughter - here are Ireland's most successful boy band as you've never heard them before.
Hearing their confessions: Joe Jackson
Stuart Clark – himself a black belt in origami – discovers how The Ramones and kickboxing chinese detectives have helped Ash to overcome their sordid heavy metal past and become Top of the Chops.
For the second year running, Hot Press and Heineken have despatched music business professionals to the far corners of the country for one-to-one meetings with local bands. The mission? To help Ireland's new talent make progress in the music business. IAN CAMPBELL reports.
A top American psychologist claims she has unearthed disturbing evidence of CIA involvement with British Intelligence in Northern Ireland.
Olaf Tyaransen reports.
Banned by the Iraquis and ribbed for “liberating” Kabul, veteran foreign correspondent John Simpson is one of the world’s most recognisable journalists. “I want people to think of me as a little bit like a grenade with the pin out,” he insists
The good and beneficial use of music and the hard and brutal treatment of junkies next big thing finley quaye delivers the sublime and the ridiculous in equal measure to jonathan o brien.
Martin Sheen has starred in at least two of the greatest films ever made, survived a massive heart attack, found God, and campaigned tirelessly for social justice in the Third World. Now, he’s gone back to school, studying Philosophy and English at (of all places) the NUI in Galway. Jason O’Toole meets him for his only Irish print interview.
...And the kids just keep on comin’, as Hot Press investigates another assortment of motley crews with songs in their hearts and stars in their eyes, and concludes that the future is indeed so bright, you’ve gotta wear shades.
FLEXIHEAD, MEXICAN PETS, THE GLEE CLUB, IN MOTION
KEN RUSSELL is one of the most
controversial film directors of our time. Now, he s published his first novel. OLAF TYARANSEN met him. Pics: CATHAL DAWSON.
So this is Christmas and what have we done... As U2 prepare to enter the final yearof the decade, Bono devotes a long night at his home in Dublin to reflecting on his life, his music and U2's extraordinary career to date. Interview: Liam Mackey
Acclaimed music writer Simon Reynolds has revisited the post-punk era with a fascinating set of interview transcripts. He talks about prising choice quotes from Phil Oakey, David Byrne and, after a tense stand-off, Pere Ubu’s David Thomas - and explains why the internet has taken some of the fun out of music
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.
In a rare interview, US alt culture icon Tom Waits talks to Dave Fanning about touring with Zappa, getting the nod of approval from Dylan, his fastidious approach to songwriting and why Bill Hicks remains America’s foremost political commentator
Meeting the Pope, marriage to the Taoiseach’s daughter, the trouble with relationships, why they couldn’t have a hit with Bono, bad language on kids’ telly, golf in drugs out, Louis’ biggest lie and other tales from the lives of Westlife.
The industry may not have always liked them but their fans couldn’t be more passionate. Ten members, four studio albums, three managers and two major labels later, The Frames still managed to add up to more than the sum of their parts. Peter Murphy, with help from Glen Hansard and other key players brings the story of the band up to date in this, the final part of our two-part special [Photo Mick Quinn]
Shorn of his beard and pony-tail GERRY RYAN is to join forces
with Barney the dinosaur, Twink and OTT in a poptastic pantomime
in The Point, SLEEPING BEAUTY (SORT OF).
Interview: CHRIS DONOVAN.
Trip-hop legend Tricky on how he's falling in love with Europe, why he's dying to work with Kylie and why if you live in a rough part of the UK, it's best to carry a knife.
Make no mistake about it, cocaine is more widely available in Ireland than at any time in the past. But is it the nasty, evil and dangerous drug of tabloid legend? In this Special Hot Press Report, Olaf Tyaransen goes behind the myths to uncover the history of, and the facts about, what has been dubbed the Champagne Drug. He talks to the Gardai and to dealers – and offers an honest assessment, from his own personal experience, of the drug that's widely used by musicians, media types, accountants, advertising execs and lawyers.
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.
“All men are bastards” Country star trisha yearwood firmly believed – until she met the one who would become her husband. Here, she talks to Joe Jackson about how her marriage to Robert Reynolds of The Mavericks has changed the way she looks at the opposite sex. She also discusses her rivalry with LeAnn Rimes, and the darker side of the Nashville country ’n’ western scene.
Pix: Cathal Dawson
On the face of it, the show is like any other Brian Kennedy night. Young girls become giddy. Mothers are impassioned as they shove themselves to the front, wailing along with the words and leaving piles of flowers at the singer s feet. The singer, bless his heart, is trilling and wowing at the reception, resplendent in crushed velvet, letting his all-embracing charms soften up the crowd.
Ahead of the reformed Pistols' Electric Picnic set, we caught up with the guitarist, Steve Jones, who spoke about kicking heroin, his dislike of Malcolm McLaren, his on-air confrontation with Jerry Lee Lewis, and why he'd love to do an album with Cliff Richard.
From piano-plonking crooners to nihilistic electro-pop duos, the UK and US are bursting at the seams with fresh talent in 2007. Could there be a new Arctic Monkeys out there somewhere?
Snow Patrol‘s Gary Lightbody waxes eloquent about burnout, creativity, exotic fowl, and why David Healy should be made First Citizen Of The Republic And Overlord Of The Universe.
Jailed in the '70s and '80s for gun-running and membership of the IRA, Kerry-born MARTIN FERRIS was one of the most senior Republican figures in the south to throw his weight behind the Sinn Fiin-backed peace process. Now, a Kerry County Councillor with ambitions to take a Dail seat, Ferris has earned a particular reputation for being tough on drugs in his native Tralee.
Interview: NIALL STANAGE.
Since writing her book The Morning After: Sex, Fear And Feminism, author Katie Roiphe has been subjected to an unprecedented level of private and public vilification for her outspoken views on rape. Here, she talks to Liam Fay about the growing complexity of sexual politics in the States.
Pix: Cathal Dawson.
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.
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
Over the past number of years, Today FM has consistently supported Irish music, playlisting records by local artists and doing in-studio sessions on a regular basis. in the process the station has played an important part in the increasingly impressive chart and sales achievements of irish acts.
He might have been a young Einsten but instead MARK OLIVER EVERETT ended up as EELS aka a man called E aka the Souljacker. PETER MURPHY discovers how it all went horribly right
So you thought the Religious Right had all but disappeared? Wrong! NIALL STANAGE gets that sinking feeling as he witnesses the Dublin leg of Human Life International s Call To The Nation Tour. Photographic Evidence: CATHAL DAWSON
Peter Murphy catches up with former Ash guitarist Charlotte Hatherley to talk about 'crazy woman's music', writing songs and collaborating with XTC's Andy Partridge.
From badass bunnies via political incorrectness to the mightiest drummer in rock ’n’ roll, it’s all in an interview’s work for Queens Of The Stone Age mainman Josh Homme.
The devil may have all the best tunes but, as readers of The Irish Times and Hot Press can tell you, Tom Mathews has all the funniest cartoons. Liam Fay meets the man behind the flash moustache and finds him making an exhibition of himself . . . but at least he’ll be able to pay for his charcoal!
After more than 15 years in the business, Aslan are still able to command massive, devoted audiences in music venue and record shop alike. John Walshe joins the Lions' club on the road
A once high-flying solicitor who was jailed for fraud, David Elio Malocco is now a budget film-maker with a strong anti-establishment view, a man who says he has swapped a "disgraceful" materialistic lifestyle for a social conscience. Here, he talks about crime, punishment, Sinn Fein, Shelbourne, God and the movies
With 1993 going down as the year that Irish rock finally emerged from U2’s shadow, HOT PRESS takes an introductory look at four of the rapidly emerging outfits that are poised to make headlines and sell bucket–loads of records in ’94.
Schtum, Ash, Joyrider, Compulsion.
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.
In the run-up to Bloomsday, gay rights activist Senator David Norris explains why he hates iPods and he wouldn’t have wanted James Joyce as a neighbour.
From small-time ramshackle punk'n'Irish troubadours to 'international touring act' in the space of six incident-packed years, The Pogues have not only produced music to consistently surprise and delight - they've put it in the charts too! With the help of band members Phil Chevron and Jem Finer, Bill Graham examines The Pogues' enigma in advance of the outfit's impending Christmas single 'Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah' (phew!) and their seasonal show at The Point Depot in Dublin.
In all of Ireland s hydra-headed entertainment industry, no other act simultaneously inspires as much love and loathing as The Wolfe Tones, a band who, annually, attract huge support at Siamsa Cois Laoi, while, no less vociferously, their detractors continue to dismiss them as the musical wing of the IRA, and worse. On the occasion of The Wolfe Tones celebrating 25 years together as a group, Eamon McCann went to meet them.
The story of how Paul Brady was transformed from a superlative folk artist into a superlative rock artist in a blinding flash of light (well, fifteen years actually). Today's reading is by Niall Stokes.
By any standards, The Corrs are an extraordinary phenomenon. It won't be long before the combined global sales of their albums to date top the 20 million mark. In Ireland alone, by the end of the year, they will have sold over a million records - at which point they may well have established themselves as the biggest-selling Irish act of all time on home turf.
After enjoying spectacular success in the early 1970’s, Gilbert O’Sullivan suddenly found his career brought to an involuntary halt by legal red tape that took five years to unravel. The Waterford singer–songwriter managed to survive those dark days, though, and is now back doing what he loves best – playing live and making records.
By rights that should make him a happy man, but, as Joe Jackson discovers when he locks horns with the former ‘Bisto Kid’, there are certain aspects of the past that are hard to reconcile.
When Rory Gallagher hits the stage at this year's Macroom festival gig, it'll be his last appearance in Ireland, a year that has seen him forgo some of the spotlight he's enjoyed over the previous ten years in Britain and Ireland in particular.
He brought the plight of the Guildford Four to the silver screen and shot a weepy film about the Irish diaspora. Now Jim Sheridan has made a movie with the sultan of bling, rap star 50 Cent. It’s all Bono’s fault, he tells Tara Brady.
Cum On Feel The Noize of turning pages as Slade s NODDY HOLDER does a literary tour to promote his autobiography, telling tales of
Phil Lynott, Oasis, Gary Glitter, Glam-Rock Excess, MERRY XMAS EVERYBODY and Suicidal Groupies. ANDY DARLINGTON tags along.
He believes that country music can make people "turn their hearts away from sin." He also believes that Jerry Lee, Elvis and The Beatles failed to answer the call of Jesus and that many rock groups - U2 consPICUOUSLY not included - are now doing the devil's work. JOE JACKSON hears the gospel according to Ricky Skaggs.
Painter, sculptor, composer and, of course, the all-action hero who got everyone kung-fu fighting. Tailor made for a part in Kill Bill, renaissance man David Carradine discusses his eventful life and times.
Robert Fisk is one of the most insightful war correspondents on the planet, his reports from Iraq and elsewhere the scourge of spindoctors, warmongers and tin-pot dictators alike. Craig Fitzsimons finds him on the frontline.
30 years after the music was originally recorded, Led Zeppelin topped the record and DVD charts in 2003 with the sound and vision of the band in all their pomp and glory. The guitar hero’s guitar hero, Jimmy Page reflects on the passion for music which inspired him then – and now.
The Streets’ new album, A Grand Don’t Come For Free, looks set to skyrocket Mike Skinner’s status as the voice of hedonistic British youth. Hot Press meets up with Skinner backstage in Derry to discuss the creation of his latest masterwork, the perils of fame, superstar collaborations, hanging out in Ibiza and the art and artifice of his onstage persona.
STUART CLARK meets man-of-the-moment NORMAN COOK (aka FATBOY SLIM). On the agenda - tabloid intrusion, drugs, his love affair with Zoe Ball, and The Housemartins.
Having survived a flirtation with coke-addled infamy, nice-boy Britrockers Keane natter about the long road to recovery and how it feels to be Bret Easton Ellis' favourite band.
You thought Noel V Ginnity was a bland cabaret funnyman, peddling lite entertainment to American tourists and OAPs at the Burlington Hotel. But you were wrong! Wince as the 59-year-old Meathman unleashes an unstoppable torrent of vitroilic bile at virtually every other stand-up comedian in Ireland and a whole lot more besides. Interview: liam fay. Pix: mick quinn.
Is football hooliganism really the new rock ’n’ roll and should little boys be wearing Boot’s No.7 blusher? Stuart Clark fears for the moral wellbeing of the nation’s youth as Manic Street Preachers wage holy war against MTV, Take That, Kate Moss and poor old Gerry Ryan.
Pix: Cathal Dawson.
They redefined the parameters of contemporary music, creating weird, eerie and magnificent soundscapes. Now, as they prepare to release a career retrospective, Massive Attack talk about their choice of collaborators and why they agreed to soundtrack a porn movie.
Grant Lee Buffalo's debut album Fuzzy was the best record of last year - Michael Stipe said so, so it must be true. Its successor, Mighty Joe Moon, has just been released, and while everyone else may expect them to be apprehensive about its reception, the band seem happier and more confident - and in Grant's case, more bonkers - than ever before. Interview: Lorraine Freeney
The fact that it's just over ten years since Pac-man was wowing the world's computer buffs, shows the vast leaps that the gaming industry has made since. Hot Press investigates the cult of the console.
LET'S GO SHOPPING
Gerry McGovern embarks on a mission to steer you through the sea of software.
Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden? It doesn t get much
better than this. JOE JACKSON goes
backstage for a brief but revealing encounter with Joni and, from a vantage point to die for, finds two 60s legends who can still send shivers up the spine at the end of the millennium.
JULIET TURNER seems to have turned an emotional corner with her more effervescent new album Burn The Black Suit. Here she talks to COLM O'HARE about faith, hope and songwriting
What better way for an indie musician to spend an evening than checking out the wares in one of Europe’s biggest and best stoked music stores? Welcome to XMusic, guys!
When blues legend B.B. King came to town for his recent bash at College Green, as part of the Guinness Blues Festival, BILL GRAHAM caught up with the man whose extraordinary career has spanned many decades and which shows no sign of abating.
Pix: CATHAL DAWSON.
And why is young America going overboard about over-weight, over-30 jazzers? john walshe forgoes the pleasures of Dublin versus Kildare to pop across the Atlantic and investigate one of the most unlikely success stories of recent years.
The master of the historical psychological thriller,
CALEB CARR's own life has not been short of drama.
Here, he talks to OLAF TYARANSEN about growing up with the Beats and the shock of discovering that his father was a convicted murderer. Pics: Mick Quinn
The master of the historical psychological thriller,
CALEB CARR's own life has not been short of drama.
Here, he talks to OLAF TYARANSEN about growing up with the Beats and the shock of discovering that his father was a convicted murderer. Pics: Mick Quinn
The master of the historical psychological thriller,
CALEB CARR's own life has not been short of drama.
Here, he talks to OLAF TYARANSEN about growing up with the Beats and the shock of discovering that his father was a convicted murderer. Pics: Mick Quinn
It's off to the most Northerly gig in the country with the island angels of Altan as Bill Graham spends a weekend in Donegal with our most dynamic traditional outfit and posits the theory that by looking to the past for inspiration Altan may hold a significant key to the future.
When it was announced in Hot Press that a new incarnation of De Dannan was about to hit the road, it came as a surprise to one of the group's founders, Alec Finn. Here, he talks about why he objects to the use of the name by his former musical partner, Frankie Gavin.
If you’re Randy Newman you’ll also need a piano, some borrowed dominants and lashings of irony. And that’s just for starters. Joe Jackson hears about the private, public and musical lives of one of American music’s most singular talents.
Professor Ivor Browne has observed more cases of mental illness than the editor of Oireachtas Report. Siobhán Long takes a seat in the psychiatrist’s chair and hears Ireland’s leading man-in-a-white-coat give his diagnosis on the links between creativity and schizophrenia, the dangers of psychosurgery and the inevitable demise of the Catholic Church.
Journalist, essayist, atheist, author and, above all, agent provocateur, Christopher Hitchens has not shied away from controversy over the last 30 years. But in his new book, the writer takes on his biggest adversary to date – God.
Over the past few weeks, the Irish media has been agog with the problems associated with the online phenomenon that is Bebo. So is it the den of iniquity its detractors would like us to believe?
Hot Press crime correspondent STUART CLARK
preaches zero tolerance to MASSIVE ATTACK and in return gets the
lowdown on their new album, Bruce n Tarby-style hobnobbing with Radiohead, and why Bristol City piss all over Bristol Rovers
In the second and final part of an extensive interview, director Jim Sheridan discusses his troubles with Gabriel Byrne and Noel Pearson, explains why he could marry Daniel Day-Lewis but would fail to measure up against Richard Harris, and suggests the best way forward for the embattled Irish film industry. Plus: the ouija board prophecies which seem to have shaped his life. By Joe Jackson.
ave Fanning: We just played "Wild Things Run Free" (sic) and as you say yourself you are "back in the harness". Now, except for the vocals would it be a fair assumption to call the music on the new album pop with a rock steady beat?
It’s off to the most Northerly gig in the country with the island angels of ALTAN as BILL GRAHAM spends a weekend in Donegal with our most dynamic traditional outfit and posits the theory that by looking to the past for inspiration Altan may hold a significant key to the future.
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.
A flyover near the old Harland & Wolff shipyard was the starting point for a remarkable three months that has seen Franz Ferdinand challenging U2 and Coldplay for the title of ‘Biggest Band In The World'. Daredevil photographic exploits completed, Hot Press jumped on their tour bus and got the lowdown on Snoop, Bono, Kanye West, Natasha Bedingfield and nights of debauchery with the Scissor Sisters.
The still vibrant 64-year-old on why Morrissey’s like Father Frank, why Iraq is like Vietnam, and on her meetings with Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, Bono, Phil Spector and a whole Oval Office full of presidents.
The trauma of his mother's death; the joy of his marriage to Yvonne; the truth about his sex life; the pressures of growing up in public; the importance of peer respect; the offers of a solo career; and how America might hold the key to keeping boyzone together. In his most personal and revealing interview to date, ronan keating talks to joe jackson
The trauma of his mother's death; the joy of his marriage to Yvonne; the truth about his sex life; the pressures of growing up in public; the importance of peer respect; the offers of a solo career; and how America might hold the key to keeping boyzone together. In his most personal and revealing interview to date, ronan keating talks to joe jackson
The trauma of his mother's death; the joy of his marriage to Yvonne; the truth about his sex life; the pressures of growing up in public; the importance of peer respect; the offers of a solo career; and how America might hold the key to keeping boyzone together. In his most personal and revealing interview to date, ronan keating talks to joe jackson
Credible clothing at an affordable price, dressing up Pulp and remodelling Tony Blair as a transvestite it s all in a day s work for wayne hemingway of hip fashion label red or dead.
Interview: Olaf Tyaransen
Origin of Symmetry? Freak of Evolution more like. The common response to Muse’s Showbiz debut in 1999 was akin to a primitive people’s first glimpse of a spacecraft over the prehistorical landscape. Here was an unlikely but hugely accomplished hybrid of prog-rock flash, quasi-symphonic attack and ferocious virtuosity, spearheaded by Matt Bellamy’s soaring tenor and Dick-ian lyrics. An impressive sound, even if you didn’t know what the hell it was.
Our annual HP-7 summit brings together some of the pre-eminent movers and shakers in irish music to reflect on everything from backstage catering to the end of war, pestilence and famine. Your host: Stuart Clark.
It's all changed for DAVID GRAY. Within the past month he has played a series of sell-out gigs across the US, gone top ten in the UK, and returned to this country to celebrate the release of Lost Songs. In a hotpress exclusive, NIALL STANAGE reports from New York, Boston, London and Dublin on the globalisation of Ireland's favourite Welshman. Hotshot hitman: STEVEN FISHER
Although critics have discerned all manner of political and religious significance in There Will Be Blood, director Paul Thomas Anderson insists that it's a horror film about the birth of California.
“Crossover” may be a favourite buzz-word at the moment but as rap and the rock mainstream strike an uneasy alliance, it’s clear that a huge gulf still exists between black and white culture.
Cast by certain sections of the media in the role of villain, Ice-T has spent the past decade pounding home the message that unless America is willing to accept a major race war, something has to change.
Here, the Iceman talks to GERRY McGOVERN about censorship and the politics of rap and gives him an exclusive preview of his Return Of The Real album. Pix: CATHAL DAWSON.
Hotpress hitch a ride on the Wilt tour bus for the band’s whistle-stop tour of Europe. For tales of on-stage abandon, backstage debauchery and bizarre drumming accidents, read on. Plus Cormac Battle’s tour diary
Having written his own obituary on his latest album, RANDY NEWMAN rises from the grave to discuss love, age, irony, honesty, the importance of melody and the tightrope act of being an idealist in pessimist's clothing. JOE JACKSON helps roll away the stone.
30 years after the savage Tate/LaBianca murders that epitomised the dark side of the American hippy dream, CHARLES MANSON aka God aka The Devil, continues to exert a potent influence on popular culture. In part one of a two-part feature, PETER MURPHY recalls the twisted vision of a charismatic man whose personal interpretation of The Beatles Helter Skelter helped give rise to one of the crimes of the century.
Harder, faster, louder... Motorhead have been rocking the planet for the past 26 years. As they prepare to do battle again at the Xtreme festival, Lemmy answers your questions. Warts and all
Ireland’s biggest transatlantic TV star, Graham Norton has come a long way from his humble beginnings in Bandon. In his new tell-all autobiography, So Me, Norton writes about his tumultuous rise to the top, living in the media spotlight, keeping A-list company and coping with emotional upheaval. “It’s an uncertain time in my life,” he tells Olaf Tyaransen.
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.
Or that's what the proponents of the phenomenon of Virtual Reality might want us to believe. GERRY McGOVERN enters this brave new world and discovers that its capacity to transform our lives - at work, rest and foreplay - is truly mindblowing. Now, put on your headset and start reading!
From that piano-ballad cover of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ to her new-found fascination with Gnostic texts, Tori Amos has remained one of the most compelling and enigmatic solo artists of the past ten years. Here, she fills Peter Murphy in on the intriguing background to her latest album, The Beekeeper, her reasons for relocating to the bucolic splendor of Cornwall, and the difficulties of maintaining artistic integrity in the face of corporate profiteering. Oh, and beekeeping, of course.
JOHN FARRELL was brought up in an Irish working–class neighbourhood in Brooklyn. From a very young age he knew that he was gay. But it took twenty–five years before he could go fully public, with this powerful, funny and tragic telling of his own journey to sexual maturity.
With the Dutch having just taken over from Ireland as EU President, paul o mahony looks at their liberal domestic drugs policy and visits Amsterdam s unique hash and marijuana museum.
As none of the three people named in the title of Something Happens new album Alan, Elvis And God was available for interview, Tom Dunne, Ray Harman and Ted Ryan took on the roles of all three to discuss how the planet-fab foursome are moving into overdrive with the acquisition of a new record deal and the imminent release of that new album.
Tape: JACKIE HAYDEN.
The wild rise and fall of the coke-snorting, heavy boozing, rampantly horny music biz mogul who knew Dylan, Jagger, Jackson, Springsteen and Streisand better than most. And now he’s ready to tell all.
Liam Fay talks to the three men behind the first “unmissable” movie smash of '95 SHALLOW GRAVE and hears why comparisons with the American death-and-glory tradition are a misnomer.
He has warts on his face, chemical paste in his blood, viagra in his dick and a heart full of rock 'n' roll. "There are occasions when I do preach temper
