Talking turkey

Never before has such a plethora of Irish rock ‘n’ roll talent been gathered around the one table.

Cynics will say it’s the free bar which has them assembled in the Pod, but we know that their reasons for attending the HP-10 Summit are altogether more altruistic.
There’s a musical year to be chewed over and, by God, what a fine bunch of masticators we have for you. Waiting to discuss the outrageous highs, desperate lows and creamy middles of the past 12 months – and, alright, get gickered at hotpress’ expense – are:
Duke Special – Also known to the taxman as Peter Wilson, the dreadlocked Northerner made his major label debut in September with Songs From The Deep Forest, and is currently basking in the afterglow of a Later With Jools Holland appearance.
Lesley Roy – The 18-year-old Dubliner signed a deal this year with Britney ‘n’ Justin’s American label, Jive, and is assembling her debut album with assorted A-List writers and producers.
Joe Doyle – Bassist with The Frames who earned themselves yet another platinum disc in 2006 with The Cost.
Niall Breslin – Gave up a lucrative career as a professional rugby player to front Mullingar ska-popsters The Blizzards. Given that their A Public Display Of Affection debut got to number four here, he seems to have made the right decision.
Paul Walsh – Mainman with anthemic Dublin rockers Royseven who made it into the Irish top 20 at the first time of asking with The Art Of Insincerity.
Neosupervital – Ireland’s undisputed Electropop King also answers to the name of Tim O’Donovan and drums live with BellX1.
Michael Moloney – Singer and guitarist with Director whose We Thrive On Big Cities album would have made it to number one here if it hadn’t been for those pesky Killers!
Peter Toomey – Multi-tasking singer, drummer and bassist with The Immediate whose In Towers & Clouds debut had Irish journalists, hotpress ones included, dreaming up new superlatives.
And joining us courtesy of the most modern communications system known to man, a.k.a. the speakerphone:
Julie Feeney – Having landed the inaugural Choice Music Prize with it, the ex-model and Galway Youth Orchestra member is preparing to give her 13 Songs album a UK release.
Marc Carolan – One of Ireland’s most in-demand engineers and producers who’s spent much of 2006 doing live sound for the mighty Muse.

Stuart: Niall Stokes is picking up the bill, so if there’s a particularly cheeky Buckfast or extra premium Dutch Gold you want to try, work away. What have you chaps and chapesses been up to?
Peter W (Duke Special): At this precise moment it’s going AWOL from the studio and leaving Neil Hannon to finish off the B-side to my new single, which he’s guesting on. We’ve just spent a month in the same tour bus and, miraculously, not killed each other!
Lesley: I’ve been in Stockholm doing some writing with Max Martin and Anders Bagge who’s also been working on the new Madonna album.
Stuart: These are the Maratone guys who’ve supplied Kelly Clarkson, P!nk, Celine Dion, Britney Spears and an awful lot more with hits?
Lesley: That’s right. Being from more of a rock background, I wasn’t sure how it’d work out but it went really, really well. One day I’d have a riff and they’d come up with the lyrics, and the next vice versa – every song was different in how it evolved. I’ve Christmas off and then I’m going back to LA to do some heavier stuff.
Niall: Touring the first album, but dying to get started on the second one, which is all written. We haven’t done a B-side with any of them yet, but a highlight of the year for me was how well all the newer Irish bands got on together. We fixed it with Director that our albums came out two weeks apart because we didn’t want to split the vote and affect our chart positions. If there’s competition, it’s being on the same bill as them or The Marshals and not wanting our arses kicked!
Paul: There are loads of Irish bands breaking through at the moment, but unlike England where everybody copies everybody else, we all sound different. The audiences probably cross over a bit, but I imagine there are Royseven fans who’ve never been to a Blizzards gig and vice versa. As for what you actually asked (laughs) a show the other night in The Village with Delays, which was brilliant and waiting to hear if an extremely big band want us to support them in Europe. Before you ask, no, I can’t say who they are!
Niall: Boo!
Michael: Rehearsing for our pre-Christmas Irish tour, which we’re excited and nervous about in equal measure because we’ve never headlined anywhere as big as The Ambassador before.
Tim (Neosupervital): Getting ready for The Human League tour, which starts on December 2 and runs right up until Christmas Eve. After we’d supported them in Vicar St. I sent them an album and they said, “Sure, we’d love to have you along.”
Peter W: How are they looking?
Tim: Phil must be bathing in formaldehyde because he turned 51 recently and doesn’t look any different to when he was on Top Of The Pops doing ‘Don’t You Want Me Baby’. The girls are in pretty good nick too!
Peter T: Doing the 2FM 2Moro Tour – RTÉ come in for a lot of stick, but we’ve no complaints about them – and psyching ourselves up to support The Frames in the National Stadium. Our first time playing to thousands rather than hundreds of people was when we opened for them at The Big Top in Cork.
Stuart: The Frames aren’t the only legendary Irish act who’ve taken a shine to The Immediate, are they?
Peter T: (Looking very bashful) Yeah, U2 and the people at Principle Management seem to like us. They’ve just given bits and pieces of advice…
Joe: …like have a good time all the time! What I love about The Immediate is that they’re not afraid to take risks and experiment. Most bands need two or three albums to develop that level of confidence, but they’ve done it first time out.
Stuart: It hasn’t been too shoddy a year for The Frames either.
Joe: It’s kind of the calm before the storm in that we’re going to be playing pretty much everywhere next year. I’m not saying we don’t get nervous, but having pulled Marlay Park off in 2004 – a gig that had us shitting a brick beforehand! – we know we can go anywhere in any situation and put on a good show. Which wasn’t always the case. Our first time on the Main Stage at Witnness we were crap because we didn’t really know how to do it. We were applying Vicar St.-type principles to a stadium/field environment and it didn’t work. We’ve learned that rather than breaking your bollocks, you let the P.A. and the lights do some of the work for you.
Stuart: Now that I’ve got you cornered, what’s the story with the live album and DVD that Glen alluded to in a recent interview?
Joe: (Laughs) He did do a bit of alluding, didn’t he? We’ve been collecting all this footage for years and just don’t know what to do with it. We also recorded last year’s Point show and us playing The Cost recently in a friend’s house, so we may combine all three.
Julie: I’m at the BBC in Belfast discussing a 30-minute song-cycle I’ve been commissioned to write and perform next May in The Waterfront. I’m doing all the orchestration myself, which means putting the dots on the page for at least sixty players. It’s a big project and, premiere-wise, one where you can’t afford any slip-ups.
Stuart: Talking of getting it right first take, how was Later With Jools Holland?
Peter W: Nerve-wracking! You can stop and do it again if absolutely necessary, but everything inside you is going, “Don’t let it be me, don’t let it be me!”
Niall: So it’s not live?
Peter W: I don’t think the BBC let anything go out live in case you make some grand statement…
Niall: …or are really, really pissed!
Peter W: A pissed grand statement, that’s even worse! You’re meant to go in the afternoon before to sound and camera check, but we had to do all that on the day. You’ve a couple of hours off before the recording, so I went up to the canteen and there was the Blue Peter garden out the window!
Stuart: How did you land what is arguably the most coveted music show on UK telly?
Peter W: My record company, V2, had heard that the producer liked the album, so they invited him to a couple of shows, which he similarly enjoyed. You’re told what songs to play – or at least I was! There might be different rules for The Raconteurs, Muse, John Legend, Amy Winehouse and Gipsy Kings who were also on the show and a bit more established than me.
Stuart: Can Amy Winehouse really crack walnuts with her armpits?
Peter W: I imagine so. You wouldn’t want to cross her, but what a voice! She’s got a real doo-wop Smokey Robinson thing going on.
Tim: Is she tall?
Peter W: No, wee. I was reasonably composed until the opening credits when the cameras panned round and we had to jam along to Stevie Wonder ‘Superstition’ with everybody else. We weren’t allowed a drum-kit so Chip (Special’s trusty lieutenant) was giving it loads on the thumb-fiddle.
Marc: I’m amazed that Duke felt nervous because even in the run-throughs he stood out. Ms. Winehouse was on the next-door stage to Muse, but sadly didn’t attend the after-show drinks, so I can’t give you the gossip on her. I’d love to have hung around, but we literally did the programme, had a drink and headed for the airport because we had rehearsals for the tour in Bilbao. I’m currently backstage in Wembley where Muse sold 33,000 tickets for three shows in one hour! We’ve done these arenas before, but never multiple nights and never so easily. There’s a huge buzz in the States too where we started the year playing 200-capacity clubs and are now looking at moving up to 10,000 to 12,000-seaters.
Stuart: If I were Rachel Stevens or Girls Aloud, I’d be looking at Amy Winehouse and Lily Allen and thinking, “The game’s up!”.
Julie: Neither of them are your stereotypical pop singer, which I think is indicative of a move away from safe by-numbers music. On the other side of the Atlantic too, you’ve acts like Antony & The Johnsons and Joan As Policewoman selling records who wouldn’t have got a look-in a few years ago. For someone like myself who doesn’t fit into a neat little category, that’s very encouraging.
Tim: Rachel Stevens, yes, retire, but some of the Girls Aloud stuff is great and the Sugababes… pop perfection! There’s this guy, Brian Higgins, who runs the Xenomania production company out of a shed in South London and the tunes he comes up with are extraordinary.
Joe: Like anything else, there’s good pop and bad pop.
Niall: We’d kill for some of the choruses Sugababes have. How many of them come from the ladies, who have co-writing credits on the songs, I don’t know.
Tim: The credits for Sugababes’ ‘Round Round’ have something like nine names on them.
Paul: I’m just back from a Sony ATV writing camp in Berlin where you pick three other people to go into a room with and you don’t come out until you’ve a finished song. You could write 95% of it, but if they add one word or one chord change, they go on the list.
Stuart: Lesley, tell us how you snared your deal with Jive who, according to Billboard, are the biggest independent record company in the world.
Lesley: I went to their headquarters in New York, which is real Britneyland, and played an acoustic gig for 15 people including their CEO and President Barry Weiss. I did wonder at first why a company known primarily for pop and R’n’B was interested in me, but they explained they were looking for somebody a bit dark and edgy. There are some other rock acts on the label like Bowling For Soup whom I got drunk with in LA.
Tim: That’s corrupting a minor in America!
Lesley: Beers in the studio are okay! I’ve also been fortunate enough to work with Dave Hodges who’s done the Evanescence records, and in January I’m going to be writing three or four songs with Scott Weiland who has the option then if he wants to produce – and maybe get Slash in! He’s heard my other demos and really liked them, so fingers crossed.
Niall: I think you’re in grave moral danger, Lesley!
Stuart: Are you guys disappointed that at a time when there’s so much original Irish talent, RTÉ don’t have a regular live music show?
Peter W: People think that Later With Jools Holland is just five bands plugging in and playing, but there’s a huge production team that I’m not sure RTÉ could afford.
Tim: They deserve credit for Other Voices, which is as good if not better than most the stuff coming out of the UK.
Julie: Other Voices is brilliant but not really feasible every week, whereas I did a live broadcast recently for Lyric FM’s Blue Of The Night, which would have worked just as well on TV as it did radio.
Joe: You could definitely stick five Irish bands in a studio with a live audience and make a really good hour of television. What has improved is that thanks to The Last Broadcast and Channel 6, there’s a point in making videos again.
Paul: If it wasn’t for Tubridy Tonight Royseven wouldn’t have had any TV exposure, which is “well done” to them but “wake up” to everybody else because there’s a huge market out there that’s going untapped.
Niall: There’s nothing like the Late Late Show for getting the parents off your back! “You’re headlining Glastonbury – so what? You’re going on Pat Kenny – wait ‘til I phone the neighbours!” My dad who’s with the army in Sarajevo hadn’t made it home in over a year, but as soon as he heard we were doing the Late Late – vroom! – there he was claiming his share of the free drink.
Tim: My grandmother said I looked fat on The Late Late Show!
Joe: It gives them something to retaliate with when their friends go on about how well their doctor sons and lawyer daughters are doing.
Stuart: What RTÉ must be commended for is allowing Eyebrowy to run riot on our screens. What does Glen make of his starring role, Joe?
Joe: There was a bit of a “Who are these people?” vibe at first, but all the other bands broke their bollocks laughing and he went, “Yeah, you’re right, this is funny!”.
Niall: I’m actually a bit upset that we haven’t been on it!
Julie: Watching the Eyebrowy video the other day, it struck me that the scene they portray doesn’t really exist any more. Things have changed completely over the past year, which doesn’t alter the fact that it’s very, very funny. One of my proudest moments was Ollie going (launches into bang-on Mr. Cole impersonation), “Julie Feeney, she’s really great” when they talk about the Choice Music Prize in a sketch.
Joe: There’s definitely been a few of ‘em where I’ve thought, “How do they know this?” because the dynamic between people is spot on.
Stuart: My understanding is that they’ve got very good hearing and are sober in Whelan’s at three in the morning when everybody else is rat-arsed.
Joe: They must do ‘cause it’s too close to the bone to be guesswork.
Marc: It’s great that there are enough Irish people into Irish bands to warrant satirising them. If I were Ollie, Paddy C, Paul Noonan or The Thrills I wouldn’t leave the house for a week! It’s more affectionate than cruel though.
Stuart: Who here would risk going on Podge & Rodge?
Niall: You’d have to do what Eminem did in 8 Mile and bring up all your bad points before they’ve a chance to.
Joe: Brian Kennedy kind of tried that and was savaged.
Tim: Daniel O’Donnell was on Mrs. Merton a few years ago and because he’s smart and able to laugh at himself he stole the show. The audience was actually laughing at him taking the piss out of Mrs. Merton.
Julie: I did a hotpress photo-shoot with Podge & Rodge at the start of the year, which nearly had me wetting myself but I’d feel a bit of a lamb to the slaughter going on the TV show.
Stuart: Hands up who’s had an exquisitely awful review?
Paul: I was described in a national paper as being “blowsy” and “a King Lear crying into his designer beer.”
Peter W: A single of mine was described as “The Thrills wearing Christmas jumpers on a big gay day out.” They meant it badly, but I liked it.
Tim: It conjures up such a brilliant image, and an alternate career route if what you’re doing now doesn’t work out.
Joe: It only hurts if you think they’ve got a point. Otherwise it’s an opinion they’re entitled to have but you don’t agree with.
Tim: The most annoying reviews are actually the ones when you know they haven’t taken the CD out of the case.
Stuart: Or decide to dump the funny lines they’ve been saving up on you.
Niall: You sound a bit too knowledgeable there!
Joe: While bands can be overly paranoid about reviews, there are definitely people who hate what you do and can’t wait to put the boot in.
Julie: I had a very funny one where the guy thought I was an absolute space cadet and the kind of girl you’d go out with for a year and then desperately want to break it off with. I’d actually like to meet him ‘cause it was so well written.
Paul: What we do now when we get a bad review is send the journalist a signed poster as a token of our appreciation.
Stuart: On the plus side, it’s rare for hotpress to do an interview with an Irish act without them mentioning a local radio DJ who’s been incredibly supportive of them.
Peter W: Colm O’Sullivan from Red FM in Cork is great, particularly as he’s on a station where the other people don’t seem like to music.
Tim: Mike Knightson of Limerick’s Live 95 is the same in that he creeps in at night and does his shows without the others really knowing about it.
Niall: He’s an insurance salesman who just has a huge love of music.
Paul: Roddy Cleere in WLR-FM is somebody else who goes the extra mile for Irish artists and, of course, it’s great having Phantom back.
Julie: Roddy’s been fantastic with me too. The local stations were great when I started off, and also gave me my first big break when an RTÉ researcher heard me on Anna Livia FM and booked me to do the Ryan Tubridy morning show.
Peter T: I know he’s national rather than local, but Tom Dunne has given The Immediate a lot of airplay and had us in for a session, which turned out really well.
Michael: You can tell straight away if someone’s interested in you or are just reading from a press release. Rick O’Shea on 2FM was great because it was a conversation about all sorts of things like this.
Stuart: What’s the daftest thing you’ve been asked on live radio?
Niall: Coming from Mullingar it’s, “Do you know Joe Dolan?” What the fuck’s that got to do with anything?
Peter W: Do you know Joe Dolan?
Niall: Yeah, I caddied for him! I don’t know what his handicap is, but he used to slice the ball into the rough a lot.
Michael: We did The Strawberry Alarm Clock on FM104 and they prepared a song about Malahide to the tune of ‘Rawhide’. It went on for ages and ages while we sat there nervously wondering what we were going to say.
Tim: At least it means you’re getting out of the indie ghetto. I’m deemed ‘indie’ because I don’t sell many records, but I’d love to be at the top of the charts slugging it out with The Killers and Franz Ferdinand.
Julie: A radio station whose name I instantly erased from my mind showed me a newspaper article and asked which of the guys in it I’d sleep with. I told them I’m not the leering type and would be more into a bloke I met walking down the street than somebody I’m told is supposed to be gorgeous. Which wasn’t the answer they were looking for!
Stuart: Lesley, you’ve all this to look forward to.
Lesley: I’m sitting here thinking, “God, making the record’s the easy bit!”.
Stuart: 2006 was very much the year in which we worshipped elder statesmen like Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen who got the tribute treatment in The Point without the inconvenience of having to die. Who are the legends of the future?
Paul: Somebody who’s halfway there already is Rufus Wainwright. He’s three or four albums into his career and gradually accumulating a fanbase, rather than being force-fed to people. I always think the bond between fan and artist is stronger when you discover them yourself.
Julie: Bjork gets more and more interesting as she goes along, and has a theatrical side to what she does as well as the music. I don’t know whether he’s got the state of mind to go with the talent – they’re both equally as important – but I get a sense from Fionn Regan that he could be an artist of real substance. Another newer artist who’s got that something is Regina Spektor.
Peter W: Sufjan Stevens is someone who impresses me enormously, both musically and personally.
Tim: I’ve been doing a lot of driving recently and I can’t take Beck’s The Information off my CD player. To still be awe-inspiring after 10 albums suggests to me that he’s in it for the long haul.
Michael: I agree with you about Beck. He’s one of the few artists who you genuinely don’t know what their next album’s going to sound like.
Stuart: While we’ve got you being all gushing, what are the Irish venues you like playing?
Paul: The Roisin Dubh in Galway, though I prefer the old, more intimate room to the new one.
Michael: There’s a great place in Bundoran called The Chasin’ Bull, which doesn’t have a stage and feels like you’re playing a house party.
Joe: In Dublin, Vicar St. Around the country, there are some great little theatres like An Taibhdhearc in Galway, An Grianan in Letterkenny and the Everyman in Cork, which is like a baby Olympia.
Peter W: The Spirit Store in Dundalk and the Empire in Belfast, the reason being that they’re both run by music people.
Niall: One of the best gigs The Blizzards played this year was at McGrory’s in Culdaff. By the time our current tour finishes in mid-December, we'll have done 33 gigs, which shows how many venues are out there at the moment.
Marc: I always look forward to gigging in Whelan’s, Dolan’s in Limerick and the Roisin Dubh, which isn’t the easiest place to get good sound in but has an amazing atmosphere.
Stuart: We should also ask you what your favourite Irish studio is?
Marc: Grouse Lodge in Westmeath is fantastic, and obviously close to Muse’s heart because they did a lot of Absolution there. My own one because I don’t have to watch the clock, and Sun which holds so many memories – most of them good! – for me.
Stuart: By the way, have you noticed that Matt Bellamy is the spit of Newcastle United manager Glen Roeder? (See this page for photographic evidence)
Marc: I’m more of a Norwich City man myself, but if they’re as similar as you say they are I’ll have to get them for the screen-drops here.
Stuart: Do you subscribe to Matt’s 9/11 conspiracy theory?
Marc: Er…it’s interesting!
Stuart: Spoken like a true diplomat. We’ve already heard about Tim’s hobnobbing with The Human League, but who else has rubbed shoulders with rock royalty this year?
Julie: Rufus Wainwright was incredible to meet. We had a really good chat, which ended with him giving me his email address. Outside of the fact that I always tend to get on well with gay guys, he had an aura and a soulfulness that you don’t encounter very often. Martha, on the other hand, is in a different headspace.
Paul: (Looking a bit sheepish) We did four or five dates with Bryan Adams, which was a lot cooler than we thought it was going to be. ‘Rock royalty’ is stretching it, but we had a very interesting run-in with Dani Filth after Rock Am Ring in Germany.
Niall: I used to love Cradle Of Filth.
Paul: He’s a rude bastard! We were all having beers when he walked over, grabbed our roadie’s camera and used it to take pictures of his erect penis. Our keyboard-player politely asked for it back and got a punch in the head. Our drummer went over, and got a punch in the head too. So then our bass-player, who’s like a black belt in Tae Kwan Do, jumped him from behind and knocked him to the floor where our keyboard-player tore out one of his hair extensions. None of which is a reflection on our normally peace-loving band!
Joe: Slayer do all that woooaaaaaaargh stuff, but are actually the sweetest people in the world. It’s that classic thing of the most mental acts on-stage being the calmest off it.
Niall: Marilyn Manson’s terribly polite as well, although our producer Michael Beinhorn tells this great story about him being pissed off with the drummer ‘cause he couldn’t get the take or something, and shitting in his bass-drum when he went off to get a coffee. The guy comes back, gives it a whack and “splat!”
Joe: We threw Snoop Dogg his basketball back, but sadly one of his entourage intercepted it. We would’ve challenged him to a game but he had a bit of a height advantage.
Michael: I don’t know if this counts, but I peed next to one of the guys from We Are Scientists.
Stuart: Were your shoulders rubbing?
Michael: No.
Stuart: Afraid not then.
Michael: We’re actually a bit shy in that respect. I was there for ages at T In The Park thinking, “Will I/won’t I go over and say ‘Hi’ to Beck”, and in the end chickened out.
Stuart: (Ex-)Fine Gael councilor Michael Fitzgerald reckons “three or four” are fine, but how many pints would you let your bus driver drink before handing them their P45?
Julie: I’m from a part of the country where the pubs are open until the middle of the night and there are cars parked outside, so you know it’s going on. I’d say maximum one beer, although I’d prefer it if they didn’t have anything at all. To drink two or three pints and drive, Jesus, it’s insane.
Peter T: I wouldn’t want any driver behind the wheel even after one pint.
Paul: Probably none because there are six in the band plus crew depending on the driver to get us home safely. I made a mistake once, which I really regret – it didn’t end up in court, but it gave me a different opinion about it.
Peter W: If we’re about to leave, none. Otherwise, as many as is allowed depending on how long it is until they drive.
Marc: If a Muse driver was seen so much as taking a sip, they’d be fired on the spot. Crew in general don’t drink before or during a gig because the consequences if you fuck up are so great.
Lesley: I wouldn’t get into a car with anybody who’s had even one drink, it’s not right. I’m a strong supporter of a local organisation – M.A.D.D. (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) – set up by my friend’s grandmother Gertie Shields who lost her daughter when her vehicle was hit by a drunk driving on the wrong side of the road.
Tim: None. He’s paid to safely drive us home.
Stuart: Borat – very, very funny or very, very racist?
Niall: Hilarious! Half the reason the world is the way it is today is that the art of comedy has vanished. I know that’s a slightly ignorant way of looking at things, but anyone who finds Borat racist should really try and locate their sense of humour.
Lesley: I think Borat’s funny, but definitely racist towards the Jewish community. I think Sasha just picks the most edgy and taboo subjects to shock everybody. Not that it makes it right, but I don’t feel he does it in a malicious sense.
Peter T: Borat’s a bit overrated, but good to see once.
Julie: If it was singling out one race or religion I’d say the former, but as with Podge & Rodge he’s having a go at everybody.
Stuart: He’s an equal opportunities racist.
Paul: (Laughs) Absolutely! I’m very much of the “get over it and have a laugh” persuasion, particularly as Sasha Baron Cohen’s Jewish himself. A lot of the humour, like the naked fighting scene, is slapstick rather than aimed at a particular minority.
Peter W: Funny for the most part. I like it best when he exposes racism and intolerance in other people.
Stuart: While piecing together a 25-date Scandinavian tour is probably beyond most unsigned Irish bands, putting together a really good MySpace or Bebo page isn’t. How much is it possible to achieve through web presence alone?
Tim: Let’s just say that Sandi Thom must have had an awfully large server to play to 70,000 people!
Niall: Even the basic thing of somebody saying “I love your songs” is important for a band when you’re starting out.
Tim: To be able to put a face to a name is wonderful.
Niall: Especially if they’re good looking!
Peter T: The thing I love about the ‘net is that you can play a gig and by the time you get home there are reviews of it up there. It’s instant feedback.
Joe: The worst thing for a band is to feel like they’re operating in a vacuum.
Michael: It’s a medium like TV or radio, which helps but on its own can’t make a band’s career. Everybody goes on about Arctic Monkeys breaking via-the internet, but they also played hundreds of gigs and signed to a large independent record label before getting to number one.
Stuart: Seeing as they’re in retrospective mode themselves, what’s your favourite U2 single?
Lesley: ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’. Apart from being musically brilliant and having so much passion and energy in it, it sums up the feeling everybody had and still has about that shocking day. Superb song!
Paul: I’m not a massive U2 fan overall, but I really liked ‘Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of’ – as much for the video, which I could really relate to as the song.
Julie: An early one like ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ or ‘I Will Follow’. What they do is still excellent but, I don’t know, a bit too slick.
Peter T: ‘New Year’s Day’. I love the drumming and the video’s good too.
Peter W: Can I cheat and have a favourite track?
Stuart: You’re pushing your luck Special, but okay.
Peter W: ‘Ultraviolet’. I remember walking along with a friend in Madrid and him playing me the song on the headphones. I was a U2 skeptic but I loved it. Achtung Baby is my favourite album of theirs.
Niall: ‘All I Want Is You’. For me, U2 at their simplest is U2 at their best. An amazing lyric and melody, which is what songs are all about.
Tim: Don’t really have a favourite. Don’t own any U2 albums! I do like The Unforgettable Fire though – you don’t hear orchestral stabs very much nowadays.
Michael: Eoin from the band’s a big fan, but the only U2 record I’ve got is the Best Of 1980 – 1990. They don’t have the same huge resonance in my life that they do for some people, though I do like ‘em.
Stuart: Okay team, nuts and bolts time. Best record and gig of the year, in that order.
Niall: Wolfmother and Super Furry Animals.
Marc: It won’t be out until the New Year, but the album Delorentos have been doing with Gareth Mannix is going to be an absolute belter. I really enjoyed the Arctic Monkeys who were on before us in Reading and Leeds and The Flaming Lips in Toronto.
Lesley: I can’t think of any one record that stands out, but I went to see Michael McDonald at Vicar St. with my mum and it was quality! As is the venue.
Michael: Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Show Your Bones and Beck’s puppet show at T In The Park.
Paul: The Killers’ Sam’s Town because there’s so much going on in the songs, and for the way they worked the crowd Franz Ferdinand at Rock Am Ring in Germany.
Peter W: Orphans by Tom Waits and Van Morrison in the Belfast Waterfront.
Tim: Beck’s The Information and Beck live.
Peter T: The Walkmen’s A Hundred Miles Off and their show in Dublin.
Julie: Amy Winehouse Back To Black and Rufus Wainwright in St. James’ Church, Dingle.
Joe: Gig-wise, I’m going to be cheeky and pick the one we did in May on Inishbofin. Everybody got the ferry over with twice as many flagons as there were people and then afterwards there was a big party on the beach, which they sent two coppers over from the mainland to keep an eye on. I asked one of ‘em, “Have you seen The Wicker Man?” and the other went, “He has, which is why he’s brought me with him!” You can’t go playing remote islands every week, but there are too few gigs nowadays that are occasions.
Stuart: Right, there’s still a hundred euros of Stokesy’s behind the bar, let’s get pie-eyed. Happy Christmas!
Everyone: Happy Christmas!b

WHAT THE HP-10 ARE UP TO OVER XMAS

DUKE SPECIAL: Gaiety Theatre, Dublin (December 11); Odyssey Arena, Belfast (21 + Snow Patrol); and the Point Theatre, Dublin (22 & 23 + Snow Patrol)
ROYSEVEN: The Ambassador, Dublin (December 9 + Director); and Vicar St., Dublin (December 11 & 13 + Damien Dempsey)
THE FRAMES: Odyssey, Belfast (December 21 + Snow Patrol); National Stadium, Dublin (23 + The Immediate); and Vicar St., Dublin (31)
THE BLIZZARDS: The Old Oak, Cork (December 4); The Ambassador, Dublin (10 + The Kooks); and Sugar Club, Derry (14)
NEOSUPERVITAL: Vicar St., Dublin (December 12); Gleneagle, Killarney (15); Black Box, Galway (16); Royal Theatre, Castlebar (17) – all with The Human League
DIRECTOR: Dolan’s, Limerick (December 3); Left Bank, Sligo (7); and The Ambassador, Dublin (9)
THE IMMEDIATE: The Ambassador, Dublin (December 11 + The Kooks); Whelan’s, Dublin (16); McHugh’s Bar, Drogheda (17); and National Stadium, Dublin (23 + The Frames)