Labia reduction operations, emetophilia, bizarre oedipal frictions, open heart surgery, douching, anal anaesthesia, toy soldiers being inserted where no GI has any business to be (unless of course he’s running an Iraqi Prisoner of War camp) – it seems extremely unlikely that Mr. Moodyson’s fourth feature will make the Daily Mail’s compilation of best films this year, but A Hole In My Heart does confirm his rep as one of the most unpredictable transgressors around.
Melissa Auf Der Maur, the former Hole and Smashing Pumpkins bassist, on working with Courtney Love and Billy Corgan, and finding her own space in the male locker room. Interview by Peter Murphy.
I can't say I'm exactly in the Ester Rantzen-league when it comes to caring for other people but something I've just said to Ed O'Brien hasn't so much pricked my conscience as stuck a dirty great big hole in it.
Most of us agree that the Eurovision Song Contest is a load of arse, but at least we can switch to another channel. The Irish Times' KEVIN COURTNEY, however, attended this year’s contest in Copenhagen - and got sucked into the black hole of rock 'n' roll
‘Feel Me’ is what would happen if Switch went minimal: clipped vocals, off-kilter percussion and a jackin’ one-note bassline meet quirky stabs, blips and hisses. Top. ‘Steady Road’ disappears further down the FX hole.
Michael Stipe talks about REM's new album Accelerate, looks back at their 'working rehearsals' in Dublin and explains how their Irish-born producer helped them through their mid-life crisis.
Mobilee made its name with tripped out k-hole techno, but London-based Sleeper Thief is focusing on deeper tracks. ‘Full Of You’ starts off with jittery percussion, but progresses into a brooding piece of dancefloor groove. ‘Chasing Rainbow’ is more atmospheric, but once again, the growling bass and dissected percussion will satisfy the dance floor.
Mobilee puts out two uncharacteristically sweet and soulful releases. Sebo’s ‘Moved’ is a beautiful low-slung acid affair with a resonating vocal from Prosumer, while Nhar’s ‘Hexoflip’ grooves along without a kick drum but is similarly emotive. Then there’s the flipsides, ‘Horizons’ and ‘Silkcut’ – sweeping cavernous tracks that appear from the K-hole to face the sunlight of a beautiful new day in Berlin.
With ghostly rhythms, sashaying horns and some typically possessed growling, 'The Hole In The Boat' is textbook Jerry Fish. Guest vocals come from the ever-lovely Imelda May, whose deliciously feverish whooping takes proceedings to a spooky new level.
Hailed as the new Courtney Love, Distillers vocalist Brody Dalle has surely been taking tips from the ex-Hole star on how to keep herself in the headlines.
The debut single from the band formed by ex-Hole/Smashing Pumpkins bassist Melissa Auf Der Mar is a ditchwater-dull attempt to mine the same stoner-rock territory favoured by Queens Of The Stone Age, Kyuss et al.
Here we have a good-but-not-great anthology of lost songs and remixes from City Slang - home over the years to alt-faves as diverse as Gallon Drunk, Hole and Sebadoh, and more recently Calexico, Yo La Tengo and Lambchop - who are celebrating ten years in 2000.
About as substantial as the middle of a Polo mint, and with considerably less depth or wit, the horrific Sandra Bullock vehicle Miss Congeniality wastes no time in drilling a hole in your head.
In an explosive interview, even by her own uninhibited standards, with Hot Press, controversial rock star and actress Courtney Love has spoken about her past lovers Gavin Rossdale, Billy Corgan and Edward Norton, as well as her relationship with supermodel Kate Moss and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Love also talks about her time working for Hot Press as a photographer in the early 80's.
Basement Jaxx have never been purveyors of any kind of pigeon-hole dance music. From early excursions like the ragga-influenced ‘Flylife’ to the anthemic Latin groove ‘Samba Magic’ and especially on the 1999 album Remedy, they’ve always experimented with a varying array of styles and steals.
Deco Cuffe me bollix. With the release of his debut album Andrew Strong has finally left behind his Commitments' character and launched his solo career in earnest. Interview: Colm O'Hare
She's the red-haired electro-pop debutante of the year. La Roux frontwoman Elly Jackson talks about her love of the 80s and tells us why Blur were the only decent rock band of the past 20 years.
As the escalation of illegal downloading continues to dog the global music industry, last week’s Digital Music Report from the record industry’s global representative body looks to governments for help, with Ireland at the forefront of the struggle.
She’s been dubbed America’s answer to M.I.A. and blown Bjork off stage in Madison Square Garden. Brooklyn rapper Santogold explains how it feels to be hyped as New York’s next big thing.
Ahead of his visit to Dublin, the legendary Booker T discusses songwriting techniques and his encounters with such iconic figures as Bob Dylan, Neil Young and The Beatles.
Dublin-bound electro-experimentists PVT talk to Edwin McFee about their new album, their change in sound and why being hated isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
PATRICK JONES is the brother of the Manics NICKY WIRE. And his new play explores similar themes to the band s music. Poetry and politics and action changed the world, he tells Joe Jackson
We should be asking questions about Catholicism's warped teachings on sexuality, rather than wasting time on John Charles McQuaid's alleged homosexuality, writes NELL McCAFFERTY.
Citing “irresolvable conflict”, grunge legend Chris Cornell has packed in his day job with Audioslave to pursue a solo career. Here, he explains why he’s decided to go it alone.
The Department Of Justice has denied asylum to Elizabeth Onasanwo and her four children, who are due to be deported back to Nigeria, where the two girls - Bolu aged 6 and Christina aged 18 - will face female genital mutilation, a traditional practice frequently resulting in death
Returning with an album of dark, alluring sonic journeys into the avant garde, Laura Sheeran talks about a tough year, ‘80s soundtracks and her little cousin Ed.
Who needs Abbey Road or The Power Station when you ve got Connolly s Of Leap? Failed Keith Richards impersonator martin stephenson tells nick kelly about a wild week in County Cork.
The former NME rock crit, ZTT founder and hyper of Frankie has written a book. But it s not about pop it s about the suicide of his dad. PETER MURPHY reports on how Nothing matters.
She’s the Irish chanteuse on everyone’s lips. Even if nobody is quite sure who she is. Here, The Danger Is breaks her silence for an exclusive interview
He was a midwife to grunge and has worked with artists as diverse as Marilyn Manson, Hole and Ozzy Osbourne. Far from being a studio boffin, though, Michael Beinhorn believes modern music is too often reliant on technology.
It's been a year of momentous upheaval throughout the planet. Wars have flared up, governments have fallen and the hole in the ozone layer has continued to grow. Inside the global y-fronts, however, was where the real cut and thrust of 1994 was going on. A cross-legged Liam Fay reports on twelve months which have seen a huge increase in the rate of worldwide castration and which prove beyond any doubt that the penis is not mightier than the sword.
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
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.
Superheroes, talking animals, three fingered dressmakers and more populate the weird and wonderful world of the soon to be massive Empire of the sun and Edwin McFee steps inside the mind of main-man Luke Steele for a journey he’ll never forget.
Cockney football pundit Tony Cascarino recently paid a visit to the Ballydung abode of potty-mouthed puppets Podge and Rodge. Here both sides reflect on the historic get-together.
As Live 8 looms closer, rumours have been circulating that artists are being told that they cannot criticise politicians from the stage. HotPress' guest writer looks at the issues from an artist’s perspective. Bob Geldof responds below.
ED BYRNE can t wait to do The Late Late Show. Hopefully then, Irish people might realise who he is. BARRY GLENDENNING meets a young Dubliner who s being hotly tipped to win this year s Edinburgh Festival Perrier Award.
Our worst fears have come true – the bankers have bankrupted Ireland for a generation. What to do now? Well for one thing, let’s stop despairing. And when the next election comes around, be prepared to make your vote count...
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.
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
Just in time for Halloween, the government and the media are conspiring to demonise public servants. All the while, the real monsters are being allowed go free.
This fortnight s postbag brings another serious dilemma from an unsigned Irish band. Last year they recorded a demo and it aroused some record company interest.
Russian born, New York reared, Regina Spektor writes songs that seem to inhabit their own dark little world. No wonder she’s been compared to both Tori Amos and the anti-folk movement.
She's never been one to pull her punches but even by her standards, Mary Coughlan's latest album is a rollercoaster. Here, she talks about a life of love, loss, pain and redemption.
Knockanstockan-bound rhythm and blues devotees the Strypes tell Edwin McFee all about those record label rumours, how they feel about their famous fans and why they’re hoping to make waves at this year’s festivals.
Evan Dando may have very mixed memories of his days with the Lemonheads and hanging out with Kurt and Courtney but with the dark stuff consigned to the past, he’s much happier where he is today.
Aslan's Billy McGuinness grew up on Dublin's northside. Now, he's living in the sticks loving every minute of it – especially when friends call around for karaoke.
ON YET another wet and brisk February morning, Professor Poe was to be found in his kitchen, a cup of coffee in one hand and his definitive books on speakers in the other.
She’s been beaten up and bruised by the record industry but now, after a multitude of set-backs, Luane Parle is finally getting her career on track. She talks about the long road to redemption.
GREAT WESTERN SQUARES frontman gary fitzpatrick has built a career out of crafting beautifully heartfelt C'n'W vignettes, prowling around ancient pubs and being "a sad bastard who drinks too much". nick kelly says: "Cheers!"
They’re the hottest thing to have come out of Belfast in years. Ahead of the release of their hugely anticipated long-play debut, guitar-abusing noiseniks and so I watched you from afar, give us a track-by-track lowdown on the album.
Ahead of the release of their comeback album Not Your Kind Of People, Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson talks to Edwin McFee about break-downs, major label bust-ups and why she’s over the moon to be bucking the trends.
The head of the European Central Bank thinks public spending must be slashed if countries such as Ireland are to claw their way out of recession. Why is the opposite point of view not given equal weight in public discourse?
The head of the European Central Bank thinks public spending must be slashed if countries such as Ireland are to claw their way out of recession. Why is the opposite point of view not given equal weight in public discourse? ... asks Michael D. Higgins
Fresh from releasing their debut album, Cork noisemakers Time Is A Thief are ready to make their mark. Bassist Michael Murphy talks studio, stage and why nu-metal wasn’t so bad after all.
They may claim that they’re not interested in world domination, but US underground infatuated Dublin rockers Angels Of Mons are nonetheless brewing up a storm on the Irish indie scene.
David Michôd, director of critically acclaimed Australian crime drama Animal Kingdom, talks to Roe McDermott about the Melbourne crime scene, Jackie Weaver’s Oscar nominated performance and why not going to therapy has helped his art.
With RTÉ’s new stand-up show, Stand And Deliver, debuting this week on TV Kevin Healy of Galway’s Roisin Dubh explains what it’s like to host some of the best Irish and international talent in his venue.
He’s the joker in the Irish music pack, a working class hero who has at once conquered and subverted the mainstream. For his first album in six years JERRY FISH and his MUDBUG CLUB have also roped in some top-tier collaborators including rockabilly queen Imelda May and Carol Keogh.
Duffer’s move to Newcastle is a boost both for the Toon Army and Ireland boss STEVE STAUNTON. But if you’re looking for dark horses in this year’s Premiership, stick a few quid on Everton.
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.
Ronnie Wood reveals that his autobiography, a rather entertaining account of his hair-raising life as the 'new boy' in the Stones, was a toil of love to write.
Shakespear s Sister siobhAN FAHEY makes her acting debut in a powerful new short movie that goes to the heart of the Dublin heroin epidemic. Here, she tells craig fitzsimons about the legitimate highs of working in both music and film.
So says Phil Harnoll of the hugely influential electronic duo, Orbital, but then he's a man whose views are just as radical and progressive as the band's music. Interview: Helen Toland
An addiction support service in Limerick has been forced to close due to savage funding cuts, leaving many vulnerable recovering addicts terrified about what the future holds.
Armed with an album that looks set to steamroll its way into the charts and hearts of the world, Edwin McFee meets up with NI’s latest success story The Japanese Popstars to talk about mainstream acceptance, signing to a major label, why Lisa Hannigan isn’t as bad a dancer as you’d imagine, and the joys of working with The Cure’s Robert Smith.
Meet hot new Dublin quintet THE HIGH BABIES. They re endorsed by Bret Easton Ellis, produced by Kim Fowley and wanted by Madonna. Could this be the first great Irish rock sensation of the 21st century?
PETER MURPHY reports. Cathal Dawson gets the pics in.
Fourteen years after Richey Edwards disappeared without trace, THE MANIC STREET PREACHERS have summoned the courage to fashion an album from the lyrics he left behind.
Adrienne Murphy reports on the aftermath of the violence which engulfed the Reclaim The Streets protest in Dublin and finds many wondering, not for the first time, 'who will guard the gardai?'.
Whether it's a four-minute love song about a caress that lasts ten seconds, a journey through the universe in a silver plane or a simple escape form war, Air promise that you'll never have a bad trip with their music. Danielle Brigham talks to Jean-Benoit Dunckel, one half of the enigmatic French duo.
WITH THEIR LONG AWAITED SECOND ALBUM *JUNK PUPPETS* ABOUT TO HIT THE STREETS AN EMOTIONAL FISH ARE BACK ON THE ROAD AND READY TO TAKE THE WORLD BY STORM. BUT FIRST, THERE'S THE SMALL MATTER OF A TRIP TO THE WILDS OF WEST CORK, DURING WHICH THE BAND CAN RELAX, REFLECT, INGEST LARGE QUANTITIES OF LIQUID REFRESHMENTS-AND PLAY THE ODD STORMING GIG. A TIRED AND VERY EMOTIONAL LORRAINE FREENEY REPORTS.
"Hope is a scarce commodity in the Inner City," writes Gerry McGovern. Here, he hears from Paul Hansard, who has lived in the Inner City all his life, about the many and varied injustices aimed at the working class, the frustration of never rising above the level of subsistence and about trying to wish for better for your children
One of Britain’s leading music journalists Charles Shaar Murray has taken the plunge into fiction. He talks about the challenge of moving from critic to novelist with his explosive debut The Hellhound Sample.
Yes readers, it s that time of year again when TOM MATHEWS hacks his way through the vin and verbiage of dear old Galway town for the cuirt festival of literature.
Messiah J and The Expert aim to put Dublin hip-hop on the map. To do so, they must tackle several deep-set prejudices – such as the belief that Irish people can’t rap.
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.
What was I thinking of when I wrote my last column about water? What strange movements were in the skies? Damned if I know, but its references to possible wars over water supplies, and the specific instancing of Israel seems uncannily prescient in the light of that country's latest brutish incursion into the south of Lebanon.
Maybe it was the time of year, the inspiring music or the hours spent in a tiny church in the tranquil setting of Dingle, but the Other Voices festival seemed to bring out the philosopher in all its performers. Roe McDermott caught up with Marina and the Diamonds, Ellie Goulding and ASIWYFA as they talked about the highs and lows of 2010.
In advance of his latest movie, From Hell, in which he plays a policeman investigating Jack The Ripper, American superstar JOHNNY DEPP is adopting a low-key profile. Here, however, he talks extensively about on-set pranks, the lure of acting, sobriety versus excess and how movies, movie stars and moviegoers might cope with the world after September 11.
Words: JANE GARDNER with additional input by EARL DITTMAN
And you will know him by the trail of defenders... almost as elusive off the pitch as he is on it, the 23-year-old from Ballyboden is being tipped by many to be one of the sensations of the forthcoming World Cup. But away from the pitch, you're unlikely to find 'the duffer' turning up in the pages of Hello. Though you may bump into him at a u2 gig...
Growing up alongside the nascent U2 in the ’70s, Neil McCormick dreamt that one day he too would rank among the rock’n’roll greats. having quit songwriting to focus on journalism, his musical ambitions were ironically realised when he found himself included among such heavyweight talents as leonard cohen, bob dylan and elvis presley on The Passion Of The Christ soundtrack.
Not so long ago mavericks and experimentalism were thin on the ground in Ireland. But with the growth of an independent scene, all of that has changed. for confirmation, look no further than the rise to eminence of The Jimmy Cake.
Ahead of their much anticipated Electric Picnic spot, Bloc Party talk about going mad in Westmeath and explain why it’s time for a post-punk concept record.
Despite the sell-out success of the Monster tour and a shelf-load of awards for Black Books, Dylan Moran remains as steadfastly gloomy as ever about the art of stand-up comedy. “You’re standing there pandering to a couple of hundred swivel-eyed, maroon-faced, braying fucks,” he groans to Barry Glendenning.
Kíla’s Lance Hogan has overseen a new musical project, which is set to shatter people’s preconceptions about the flute. Olaf Tyaransen gets the inside skinny.
You re the frontman with The Stunning, you make an innocent remark about farmers and acid house and you end up creating banner headlines in The Western People. Lorraine Freeney assures Steve Wall that this is the sort of stuff Hot Press never stoop to, and also hears about the new album, Deco in The Commitments and the art of bridging the rural-urban divide.
Contrary to the negative way in which it's so often portrayed by the national media, Limerick is a city that combines a rich sense of tradition with an eye for innovation and in recent years has developed into one of Ireland's leading cultural centres. Kevin Barry takes a look at the people - and the places - breathing new life into the mid-western capital.
His good humour apparently unblunted by years of drug addiction, Aslan’s Christy Dignam talks about heroin, sexual abuse and his belief in the redemptive power of music.
He predicts rocky times ahead for the economy and says the housing boom is unsustainable. But what’s really troubling David McWilliams is all the flak his latest book has attracted.
The Flaming Lips, whose new record is a 'concept album about death' are possibly the most life-affirming band you’ll hear this year. Frontman Wayne Coyne explains why
People are dying on the streets of Dublin. Sometimes it’s a result of the lethal cocktail of homelessness and drugs. For others, it’s just that the wear and tear catches up with them. In a country awash with money, will no one give these outsiders an even break?
They’re different, they’re fun, they have their critics but more and more people seem to love them. But enough about the trams; it’s all aboard for an interview with another Dublin
sensation Republic of Loose.
In the years ahead, the government is set to invest billions in education to kick-start Ireland’s “smart economy”. With this in mind, many people are now returning to third-level education to avail of the retraining opportunities on offer.
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.
Psychic and physical disintegration! Quacks, pulsars and Marshall amps! The sound of the end of space and time! And, oh yes, silly song titles too! Welcome to the world of WAYNE COYNE and The Flaming Lips. Interview: Peter Murphy.
Californian-born JIM PAGE is no ordinary protest singer. Best known on this side of the Atlantic as the writer of such classics as 'Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Russian Roulette', his music has continued to move hearts and minds well into the corporate nineties. Here, he traces his roots from Bob Dylan to Public Enemy, and explains why he wrote a special song in tribute to Sinead O'Connor. Interview: GERRY McGOVERN
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.
That, according to Shane MacGowan, will be the title of his next, and exceedingly long-awaited album. in the meantime there’s Sean Nós, the war, his dad, drink and Celtic football legend Jimmy Johnstone to be going on with.
The siege of Derry was a pivotal moment in Irish history. But contrary to popular opinion, it was fundamentally about land and not religion, says Carlo Gebler. Photography by Cathal Dawson.
A hit album, critical acclaim, sell-out shows… everything was going swimmingly for DAVID KITT until a sunday paper made serious allegations about him and his Government Minister Dad. In a gloves-off interview with COLIN CARBERRY, Kittser responds to his detractors and explains why, despite the journalistic flak, 2001 has been a great year
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.
She’s no saint. She swears and smokes and doesn’t think she’ll go to heaven. But the one-time Dublin street kid has used the nightmare of her own past life to help make unlikely dreams come true for abandoned children across the world. Peter Murphy hears her extraordinary story.
There's another Belfast, an alternate dimension populated by C.S. Lewis, Van and your host and spirit guide, Duke Special, who's just released his latest album.
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!
Peter Murphy considers Nirvana’s legacy and wonders will we ever hear their like again. Producer Butch Vig and Josh Homme of Queens Of The Stone Age help him with his enquiries
The country’s most famous impersonator Mario Rosenstock discusses his new chat show, rumours of an RTÉ v TV3 feud over him – and his relationship with the Special One, Jose Mourinho.
Any self-consciousness was quickly dispelled by the notion of how ridiculous I d look with my head and shoulders buried a few feet in the earth. A frankly terrified olaf tyaransen embarks on his first ever parachute jump and lives to tell the tale.
It’s been a long, strange trip for David Grohl, from Nirvana drummer to Foo Fighters frontman, via Queens Of The Stone Age and Tenacious D. Now he’s back with a new Foo album, he’s buried the hatchet with Courtney Love and he’s still as rock’n’roll as ever
The Winner In Me - Don Baker's Story, by Jackie Hayden, is the painfully honest account of the private life of one of Ireland's best-known musicians, and describes his efforts, as an adult, to come to terms with an unhappy childhood and a past littered with violence, crime and alcoholism. In this exclusive extract, Don describes how he believes his troubled childhood relationship with his mother left him with an enduring fear of betrayal in his relationships with women.
Padraig Harrington talks about gay golfers, stalkers on the tour, the potential of Rory McIlroy and the death of his father. And, he says, his Open win was just the beginning.
It wasn't too long ago that The Blizzards were unknown outside of their native Mullingar. Now they've three top 10 Irish singles to their credit and an album, A Public Display Of Affection, that has the potential to explode internationally.
The inspiration for ‘Fuck Her Gently’; Kyle’s stoned scene from Almost Famous; did KG really eat JB’s shitzel? And the best way to do cock push-ups. Tenacious D answer the readers’ questions. Turning up the heat Patrick Hedlund.
Mary Bannoti, Ireland's goodwill ambassador for the United Nations population fund, visited Afghanistan in March. Here, she records some lasting impressions of a place at once brutal and beguiling, and describes her often moving encounters with men, women and children, many still in refugee camps in Pakistan, who are struggling to return home and rebuild their lives.
Sexual Politics and Pixies, P.J. Harvey and the Marquis de Sade, Sexism and self-loathing, Black Sabbath and Doris Day. THE BREEDERS aren't always quite what you'd expect them to be. Interview: ANDY DARLINGTON
When Alan McLoughlin scored in Belfast on November 17th he not only set the entire country off on an orgiastic rampage but allayed the fears of a pair of filmmakers who’d gambled heavily on Ireland’s qualification of USA ’94. So, it’s happy endings all round as Robert Walpole and Paddy Breathnach of Treasure Films release our official World Cup video The Road To America and detail the trials, tribulations and traumas of the venture to a suitably impressed George Byrne.
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.
What do Q-Tip, UNKLE, U2, PJ Harvey and Depeche Mode have in common? They’ve all at some point been an influence on Paul Noonan and Dave Geraghty who sit down with Peter Murphy to talk about musical heroes, the evolution of their own chart-conquering career and how they learned to embrace the Gary Numan within on their new album, Bloodless Coup. Plus, find out courtesy of our exclusive Hot Press competition how you can lure the Bellies to your living-room for a private gig.
Love, sex, filth, money, sex, abortion, politics, sex, family, marriage, sex – and the whole damn thing. The BRENDAN O’CARROLL interview by JOE JACKSON. Pix: Michael Quinn.
. . . by regular Hot Press contributor
HELENA MULKERNS, is one of nineteen short stories by young Irish writers collected together in Shenanigans, a compendium of darkly humorous end-of-the-century fiction.
In 1990, 22 year-old college graduate Christopher McCandless donated his $24,000 in savings to Oxfam and hit the road. Two years later he died in Alaska, after approximately 112 days in the wild. Legendary actor and director Sean Penn tells the story in his fourth film Into The Wild.
Seven years after his last solo LP, David Holmes lost his father. That trauma, and working on the Bobby Sands-era drama Hunger, seem to have brought a new humanity to his work.
Yes, it's the long-awaited return of the world's greatest politically incorrect headline. Michael Hutchence of Féile headliners INXS explains why he's flying a flag for the old-fashioned values and going back to his musical roots. All this plus: condoms, Mick Jagger at 50 and the best-hung member of INXS. Interview: Neil McCormick.
Wank, bollocks, Chris Evans. These are dirty words.
Pop isn t.
STUART CLARK refrains from ruining their career for long enough to discover whether
IN UTOPIA have got what it takes to become Ireland s next three minute heroes.
Pix: Cathal Dawson.
Victor Bartley is on the edge - publicly humiliated by criticism of his son's ailing TV show, he has had enough. Once a successful showband manager in Ireland, he is now a sad resentful alcoholic. He bears most of this resentment towards the rock star Richie Earls, one of Ireland's rock and roll elite who has everything that Victor wants... But now Victor has what Richie wants... Murder, menace and middlemen from a great new Irish talent. Let the music begin...
was born in Navan, discovered comedy in Dublin, paid his dues in London and then conquered Edinburgh in 1996. Liam Mackey meets Dylan Moran, the stand-up comedian with the world at his feet.
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.
BECKETT ON FILM is one of the most ambitious cinematic projects ever. Nineteen of Samuel Beckett's plays have been made into movies, directed by and starring numerous A-list figures. To mark the occasion, JOE JACKSON talks to Bono, John Hurt and Enda Hughes about one of the 20th century's greatest dramatists
Roddy Doyle is one of Ireland's most important writers. Having made his initial breakthrough with The Commitments, he won the Booker prize in 1993 with Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. Now with his new novel Oh, Play That Thing – the sequel to the critically acclaimed A Star called Henry – he is back to one of his guiding passions, music, as he takes his protagonist Henry smart through the scrum of 1920s New York, and on to Louis Armstrong's Chicago.
They may not be that just yet but if current plans for global domination go according to the script Linkin Park will be very soon. Stuart Clark travels to London to hear the band’s new album Meteora and finds that American rock’s hottest property are surrounded by the kind of security normally reserved for Michael Jackson
Dylan is a farmer with a difference – he's a cannabis cultivator. He is squeezed by both criminals and the Gardai. But he aims to put Ireland on the map for quality, organically grown weed.
In the past, many Irish people suffered from an inferiority complex about their own culture – about the language, music, film and literature of this island. But music is one arena where things have changed dramatically. Report: Jackie Hayden
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.
Tom Baxter's second album, Skybound, has just topped the Irish album chart. But it was a record that only got made after Baxter personally financed the sessions with his other talent of figurative art painting.
Well and truly punch-drunk and punch-lined, BARRY GLENDENNING rounds
up the gargles and the giggles at this year's CAT LAUGHS COMEDY FESTIVAL
in Kilkenny. Pix: Kevin Clancy
As the body double for Saddam Hussein's son, Latif Yahia suffered several assassination attempts. Having escaped to Offaly, the controversial figure is now seriously at odds with his adopted country.
Sting – all dull AOR anthems, mawkish charidee singles and empty celeb blather, right? wrong! The artist formerly known as Gordon Sumner here talks to Hot Press about the lingering fall-out from the break-up of The Police, hanging with über-hip filmmakers Terry Gilliam and David Lynch, and getting the seal of approval from the late Johnny Cash...
...or was it? U2's recent Irish dates were greeted with everything from wide-eyed adoration to open hostility. BILL GRAHAM was in the crowd at Pairc Uí Caoimh and the RDS and puts the Zoo TV experience into perspective. Pix: COLM HENRY
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.
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 new Radiators From Space album features re-workings of tracks by Dublin-based beat groups from the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Jackie Hayden caught up founder members Steve Rapid and Pete Holidai in Dublin, and Philip Chevron, touring Australia with The Pogues, to explore the thinking behind what is a Remarkable Record.
A House are really good! That s just one of the shocking claims Graham Linehan makes in this award winning article based loosely on an interview he did with the band.
Exclusive: Kevin Shields, the missing presumed lost genius of Irish rock, re-emerges to tell the truth about sandbags and barbed wire, the making of Loveless, early Dublin days with Gavin Friday, Liam O Maonlai and U2, and his Bafta-winning work on Lost in Translation.
GREEN DAY have had a meteoric rise over the last 18 years, from poky Dublin dives to colossal international stadia. But despite their maturing worldview and increasing political articulacy, they’re still as exciting a kick-ass punk rock group as ever.
With cork set to become european capital of culture just over a year from now, Colm O’Hare reports on the cultural attractions punters will be treated to by the lee in 2005
BECK is one of the most eclectically talented musicians of his generation. STUART CLARK sees the man play a stormer at Witnness and hears him talk about fame, musical obsession, heroes like Bowie and Black Sabbath and 'Britney fascism'
He's already made the transition from underground hip hopper to blue-eyed soul boy du jour. Now Plan B has written and directe Ill Manors, a damning indictment of cameron's broken Britain, and is also about to star alongside Ray Winstone in a reboot of classic 70's cop caper The Sweeney ("Get dressed, you're nicked!") A wellied-up Stuart Clark meets him and his crew in a north Yorkshire forest.
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
For close to a decade, Lillie’s Bordello has been the nightclub of choice for the famous and not-so-famous of Dublin cultural life. But with the passing of the Celtic Tiger era and the current uncertainty over the club’s future, can Lillie’s retain its position as the capital’s number one celebrity haunt?
With A Head Full Of Blue, music journalist Nick Johnstone reveals the harrowing story of his alcohol addiction - not just from first drink to last, but right back to the childhood "faulty wiring" that also led him to cut himself and through to the sometimes difficult process of recovery which has allowed him to reclaim his life
In the second and final part of an extensive interview, MIKE SCOTT discusses inspiration and influences, recalls his difficult solo years and explains the death and resurrection of THE WATERBOYS. Interview: PETER MURPHY
Jerry Fish – or if you prefer, Gerry Whelan – is what you might call a happy man right now. In fact, if the guy were any higher, the boys in blue would probably stop him on the street and ask him to piss into a cup. Not only is he preparing to close on his most successful professional year in a decade, he’s also received a rather momentous early Christmas present. Some 28 hours before our meeting, the singer’s partner Niki had given birth to a baby boy, their second child. Mr Fish, as you can imagine, is coasting on cigars and brandy and goodwill to all men.
One of the nation’s most acclaimed playwrights, Conor McPherson has examined the Irish condition in forensic detail in plays and films such as The Weir, Port Authority and Saltwater. In his new play Shining City, McPherson uses the disturbed psyches of his lead characters as a means to explore loneliness, isolation, friendship and salvation in the ghostly setting of contemporary Dublin. “The city holds some very dark feelings for me,” he admits to Kim Porcelli.
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.
He’s made the Man U and Ireland right-back positions his own this season, and is playing what he admits is the best football of his career as a result. As the Republic gears up for a play-off crack at World Cup qualification, JOHN O’SHEA talks about life under Trapatonni, and reflects on another successful year at Old Trafford.
Five years after the collapse of The Irish Press Group, CON HOULIHAN suffered a fall of his own. Here, he reflects on broken hips, broken dreams and the road to recovery. Interview: SIOBHAN LONG
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.
The Kooks' first album was a million-selling sensation. As they unleash the long-awaited sequel, frontman Luke Pritchard talks about the death of his father, his feud with television presenter Simon Amstell and much more...
He may well be a prime target for the jibes of other Irish comedian-types, but right now brendan o carroll is
riding the crest of a wave of popularity of quite phenomenal proportions. With three best-selling books to his credit, a smash hit play and a movie already in the offing, he s back on the road with his sell-out one-man show The Story So Far. Here, in a startlingly honest interview, he talks about his addiction to gambling, his contempt for the theatrical establishment, the fear and paralysis that is endemic in RTE, Father Ted, the Catholic Church, groupies and (cue fanfare please) his plans to become an M.E.P. Tape recorder: liam fay.
Pix: MICK QUINN
Nirvana - Ten years after. Peter Murphy talks to producer Butch Vig, musician Mark Lanegan and critic Greil Marcus, and gets the inside story of the making of Nevermind, the classic album that changed the face of music, unveiled the anthem 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' and brought the world face to face with a screaming soul called Kurt Cobain.
On the centenary of the Titanic disaster, how appropriate that Fianna Fáil should have a sinking feeling after its culture of corruption and cronyism was unmasked by the Mahon Report
Robbie Williams has enjoyed stratospheric success, both with Take That and as a chart-topping solo artist. But he's also experienced the dark side of stardom, wrestling with a variety of demons – and suffering the occasional knock-out blow. Now, with the release of Take The Crown he's determined not just to reclaim his title as pop's heavyweight champion, but to do it in style.
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.
They ve been gigging for 27 years and they were doing Words when Boyzone were still in the balls zone. They are Big Chief Flaming Star, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Little Thunder, Wild Hawk and Dull Knife (not their real names). They are
THE INDIANS
and they hope to still be on the warpath in the next millennium.
LIAM FAY
pow-wows with an authentic showband phenomenon.
The Dublin-born editor of Marie Claire, one of the world's most successful magazines, answers to charges that her title promotes hypocrisy, air-headedness, sexism and sycophancy. remarkably, she doesn't throw troublesome Hotpress out of her office
The old fashioned virtues of talent and charisma, combined with the latest innovations in media technology, look set to make JACK L Ireland's first superstar of the new millennium. JOHN WALSHE has the inside story on a man who is about to get to The Point.
The old fashioned virtues of talent and charisma, combined with the latest innovations in media technology, look set to make JACK L Ireland s first superstar of the new millennium. JOHN WALSHE has the inside story on a man who is about to get to The Point.
CHRIS DONOVAN looks at the incremental progress of the would-be King of Slane, who tells him about life, love, Christianity, veganism and scoring for films Plus: Profiles of Slane s other attractions, MACY GRAY, MEL C, BRYAN ADAMS, THE SCREAMING ORPHANS and DARA. Also: A Quickie with LORD HENRY MOUNTCHARLES
His career was almost over before it began. But hard work - and a surprise hit - have turned Edmund 'Mundy' Enright into one of Ireland's most widely adored stars. Here he reflects on some of the high points of what has been an amazing journey, during the course of which he has rubbed shoulders with some of the greats.
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.
They say he s a Man Of The World it s just that for two decades the world in question happened to be Saturn. andy darlington meets peter green, the man who created fleetwood mac, then wrote the longest suicide note in rock n roll history.
Angry, irreverent and iconoclastic, David McSavage is a singular presence in Irish comedy. Lately, his career has taken its strangest twist yet, via hit RTÉ show The Savage Eye. At a time when sketch comedy is too often content to scrape the catch-phrase barrel, the Dubliner takes a cleaver to national stereotypes. In his frankest interview yet he discussses his alcoholism, being the blacksheep of a political dynasty and his unlikely rebirth as a TV sensation.
One of the greatest penslingers in rockdom, he’s championed U2, Joy Division and Kylie and taken a critical scalpel to Oasis, The Strokes and their “miserably narrow mates”. he’s also locked horns with Germaine Greer, helped Frankie to relax and let The Frames slip through his fingers.
While the path to rock n roll stardom is never smooth, RICHARD ASHCROFT has experienced more ups and downs than most. In a wide-ranging interview with DAVE FANNING, he talks about drugs, The Verve, his new solo album and why the old hometown doesn t look so bad.
The master songwriter's new record is called Tempest – and it includes both a tribute to John Lennon and an epic chantey on the sinking of the Titanic. A world exclusive preview by Anne Margaret Daniel.
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.
In the nineties, renegade novelist, short-story-writer and establishment-bothering journalist WILL SELF had the additional dubious distinction of being the literary world's most high-profile drug addict. He begins the new decade clean, sober and with How the Dead Live, a new novel many are lauding as his finest work. He talks to KIM PORCELLI about being free of his own past, being alive, being dead, and being 'deader'
A small, neglected country, precariously placed in the world’s poorest region, Malawi has a troubled past and an uncertain future. Now, at a time of potential revolution, as a loathed leader gives way to their first female president, Hot Press meets Aidan Clohessy, an Irishman who is doing his bit to usher in an era of change.
When Jeff Buckley drowned in the Wolf River, Tennessee, five years ago, the world lost a fledgling musical visionary, his lone album Grace becoming a sacred text of loss and unfinished beauty. In his short 29 years on earth, his power and grace touched many, especially his mother Mary Guibert and his former bandmate Gary Lucas.
He was the shock winner of the Progressive Democrats leadership race. In his first major interview Ciaran Cannon sets out his vision for the beleaguered party, explains why Michael McDowell was really a sweetheart, decries the rise of the nanny state, calls for the legalisation of prostitution and lifts the lid on his misspent youth as a mod.
In the second part of his examination of the cult of CHARLES MANSON, PETER MURPHY looks at the cult leader s trial, his continuing influence of left-field heroes and the controversy over his recordings. Also: BONO on U2 s decision to include Helter Skelter in their Rattle And Hum set.
She’s the post-modern starlet who is stalked by paparazzi wherever she goes but is as comfortable talking about Andy Warhol and John Updike as she is hanging with fashionistas. Say hello to Lady GaGa the good-time pop princess who went to school with Paris Hilton, cultivated a drug habit ‘cos that’s what David Bowie did in the ’70s, but thinks fame is just a game.
An Irish football legend shoots from the hip: the highs and lows of the World Cup, the pain in the ass of being 'Saint Niall', the reason players get fed-up with the FAI, why Kevin Kilbane would make a good husband, and where to now for Mick McCarthy, Roy Keane and Ireland after that disastrous start to the European Championship.
In the magical, wind-swept landscape of Ireland's remote north-west the cameras roll as U2's Bono and Maire of Clannad make the video for their collaborative single "In A Lifetime". Bill Graham joins the entourage at work and at play and talks to the main protagonists.
DAVID HOLMES is about to leave his native Belfast for New York City, where he will record his third album. STUART BAILIE took a final opportunity to speak to the artist also known as Homer. On the agenda: Hollywood soundtracks, rumours of brawling, past glories and future plans.
Pics: MICHAEL TAYLOR.
GARBAGE are a band who absorb all the detritus, darkness and despair of the pre-millennial zeitgeist and spit it back out in a torrent of searing guitars, futuristic technological trickery and lyrics that freeze the blood. They've also made two of the most sinister pop records of modern times - the second of which, Version 2.0, is due for imminent release. PETER MURPHY met them in London to discuss sex, surveillance, studio strife, pre-2000 tension and their special fondness for The Beach Boys.
Eleven years on from their debut and New York avant-garde guitar manglers Sonic Youth have reached an ever-growing audience without compromising their ideals of integrity. Here, GERRY McGOVERN offers a personal testimony to their recorded output in anticipation of their appearance at Sunstroke '93.
At just 30 years of age, Lisa Hannigan has gone from being Damien Rice’s sidekick to establishing herself as one of the most important new artists in contemporary Irish music. With the release of her second album, Passenger, she is set to take the world by storm. But behind the natural beauty is a remarkable woman who is beginning to reveal the depth of her mysteries…
The Boomtown Rats came burning out of Dublin in the late ‘70s, railing against the Irish establishment to the audible gasps of the nation’s more conservative elements. With their remastered back catalogue having been recently reissued, Bob Geldof here looks back on a period of notoriety, controversy and personal angst, and also reflects on his ongoing efforts to highlight the issue of Fathers’ Rights. Interview by Peter Murphy. Photography by Mark Harrison.
He s the editor of Private Eye, a regular on one of television s most populAr shows and he got his big career break from Peter Cook. Notwithstanding all those bruising court battles, IAN HISLOP has more reasons than most to be cheerful. Interview: BARRY GLENDENNING.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers visited Lansdowne Road, Dublin on July 8 but we caught up with the band in Paris recently and heard why the west coast warriors of funk-rock have never been hotter
Fourteen years on and people still come up to BRUCE ROBINSON and quote chunks of Withnail & I to his face. But if you don t know more about this talented, opinionated, chain-smoking, wine-guzzling writer/director, then that may be because, to put it at its mildest, he and Hollywood have never seen eye to eye. PETER MURPHY meets the angry older man
His brother, John Bruton, was the leader of Fine Gael and served as Taoiseach. Now, Richard Bruton is a key member of the opposition front bench. Would he have anything different to offer if he was Minister for Finance?
Known from the TV sitcom as the Man who Behaves Badly, actor Neil Morrissey is confounding the laddish caricature with his work for an anti-landmine charity. In this candid interview with Paul Nolan, he also reflects on childhood trauma, death in the family, that affair with Amanda Holden and his encounters with Olivier, Burton and Mel Gibson. main photography Cathal Dawson
Known from the TV sitcom as the man who behaves badly, actor Neil Morrissey is confounding the laddish caricature with his work for an anti-landmine charity. In this candid interview with Paul Nolan, he also reflects on childhood trauma, death in the family, that affair with Amanda Holden and his encounters with Olivier, Burton and Mel Gibson.
NIALL STOKES takes a very personal journey back through the music and memories of a friendship with a man he was proud to have known
THE DRIVE to Cork was a lonely one. Ry Cooder on the deck, that sweet slide guitar shooting off tracers: the memories, stacked up like a vast
rack of on-line CDs, kept slipping in and out of the engagement slot. No need ever to press the play button. Now and then I had to hold back the
tears as the music of past friendship flooded the car and, with it, a terrible awareness of all the things that might have, but hadn't, been done.
The news of Rory Gallagher s tragic death has sent seismic shock waves through the music world. Here was a man who managed to combine the gift of being an authentic creative genius with the even rarer gift of being a genuinely decent, honourable human being. Over the next six pages, Hot Press pays tribute to both the legend and the person, with contributions from the stars, friends, fans and colleagues who were touched by the Gallagher magic, and takes a trip through the backpages of an extraordinary career.
In the first of a new series about life at the rock n roll coalface, musician and writer Peter Murphy recalls the night the devil wrecked all his best tunes. Confessions Of A
Rock n Roll
Survivor
His scandalous debut novel The Ginger Man made J.P. Donleavy the enfant-terrible of the Irish literary scene. In the decades since the book has sold tens of millions of copies and influenced everyone from Hunter S Thompson to Johnny Depp. Here, the author reflects on his run-ins with Brendan Behan, his struggles with the censors and his upbringing in a gritty corner of the Bronx
From A to Z, Paul Nolan and Ronan Fitzgerald introduce all the runners and riders for Punchestown – throwing in a baker’s dozen of acts who are not to be missed* along the way
He may have done time in Long Kesh for possession of explosives but Progressive Unionist leader DAVID ERVINE has left behind his terrorist past and embraced a future based on shared social democracy which, he says, the peace process can bring about. Interview: JOE JACKSON.
In 1982, a band emerged on Dublin’s northside that would go on to write some of the biggest songs in the Irish rock canon. Still going strong thirty years on, Aslan are about to embark on their busiest period ever. As they ready themselves for the fray, the iconic Dublin rockers tell their remarkable story.
He’s the original rock and roll poet, a punk icon worshipped by rock stars, movie-makers and at least one of Galway’s discerning homeless population. Bard of Salford John Cooper Clarke talks about his long struggle with drug addiction, his second career as a Ronnie Wood lookalike and his influence on The Simpsons.
Winning an oscar was a culmination of a life-time's struggle for GLEN HANSARD. But success extracted a heavy toll on the singer, plunging him into self doubt and leaving him feeling confused and adrift. As The Swell Season prepare to release their second album, he talks about the long road back to sanity, his romantic break-up with songwriting partner MARKETA IRGLOVA and why, having derided Ireland in the press, he’s now proud of his home country
again. Plus Irglova talks about the end of their love affair and the challenges that fame and Fortune bring.
Is she a manufactured pop act made to look like a rock chick? is she a rock chick who sells records like a manufactured pop act? or is she something else entirely? Why’d Avril Lavigne have to go and make things so complicated?
One of the ten most photographed people in Ireland, TV presenter Caroline Morahan isn’t just a pretty face. Fame, fashion, drugs, the Antisocial Behaviour Order and George Dubbya are all on the agenda all she pours scorn on John Walshe's ten-year plan and vetos Caroline – The Fragrance. Photography by Liam Sweeney.
. . . and ready to go. Mercury Rev s recent album Deserter s Songs was met with a rapturous critical reception, even topping the Hot Press critics end-of-year poll. On their recent Dublin visit they spoke to Peter Murphy about the album, The Band and their volatile past. Jonathan Donahue pics: Cathal Dawson
. . . she was reet petite! That's not true, actually. Instead, the maverick motorbike-riding DUP councillor and former Lord Mayor of Belfast talks about loyalist paramilitary violence, the assassination of prison officers, the indifference of London, his hostility to Mary Robinson, his scorn for the Official Unionist Party - and his own willingness to take up arms in the cause of keeping the six counties out of a united Ireland. Interview: JOE JACKSON. Pix: CATHAL DAWSON
For close to twenty years, MARTIN CAHILL led the forces of law and order a merry dance. Known as the General, he was suspected of masterminding virtually every major crime committed in Ireland – but for as long as matters, the Gardai had been unable to pin anything on him. And when he was brought to court on petty charges, he posed outside for press photographers, dropping his trousers to reveal a pair of Mickey Mouse boxer shorts. Last week, however, the game was cut brutally short when Cahill was blown away within 100 yards of his South Dublin home by an IRA hit squad. Report: NEIL McCORMICK.
He wrote speeches for Bertie and then criticised him in the press using a pseudonym. He turned down an offer to party with Bono. And Richard Boyd Barrett once nicked one of his crass albums. All this plus the importance of economics, the threat posed by the Bush administration and the truth about power are on the agenda, as Paul Nolan meets David McWilliams.
He’s the theoretical physics graduate turned comedian who conquered mainstream TV. Now Dara O Briain has published his first book, Tickling The English, part tour diary, part travelogue, part historical/sociological treatise. Here he talks about the myth of national identity, the loneliness of the long distance comedian, drink as a creative laxative... and that infamous Tommy Tiernan Electric Picnic interview.
One of the leading lights in Irish music since the 1970s, Dave Fanning has led the life, brilliantly heading up the rock posse in RTÉ and rubbing shoulders with a vast array of music legends. Back in pole position on RTÉ 2fm’s night-time schedule, he has seen off rivals elsewhere to remain at the centre of the broadcasting action. With his autobiography just released, it’s time for a natter. As ever with the man they call Fanning, what we get is a remarkably open and honest exchange
It’s been a tumultuous few years for Josh Ritter. Against the dramatic backdrop of the Swiss Alps, he talks about his number one fan Stephen King, recalls the day he met Bob Dylan and explains why it’s never a good idea to drink before a show
Ex-IRA man Gerry Kelly talks to Jason O'Toole about his run-ins with the British Army, his near death experiences, the part he played in inflicting civilian casualties and his time on hunger strike.
With their biggest dates ever in Ireland looming, LIAM MACKEY dips into voluminous hotpress archives and selects a small sample of what the paper said about U2 over the years
Ireland's most hyped event of the year, the MTV EUROPE AWARDS may have had as many gossip columnists as winners thanking God, but after hours it was IGGY POP and heavy friends who made the real headlines on a night when rock'n'roll bit back. Report: OLAF TYARANSEN and PETER MURPHY. Awards Pics: PETER MATTHEWS. Iggy Pics: Cathal Dawson
Kieron "Wolf" Ducie, describes what happened on the night Katy French passed away in compelling detail. He also recalls the build-up to the tragic events that unfolded.
inishing off a year in which his immersion in the craziness of orthodox religion won him a top journalism award, Liam Fay finds himself standing atop a windswept Hill of Tara in the dead of night in the depths of winter all the better to survey the diverse landscape of paganism and witchcraft in 90s Ireland.
Over 50% of the electorate in the forthcoming General Election will be under 30 years of age. With this in mind, the main political parties are popping policies like smarties in their attemps to court the youth vote. LIAM FAY stands on their doorsteps.
Since fortune first began to smile on The Script, the band has been plunged into an extraordinary saga of injury, death, personal loss and heartbreak...
As the General Election looms, many polls suggest Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny is the next Taoiseach in waiting. So what is he really like? And where does he stand on the issues that matter to Hot Press readers?
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?
Well when you've conquered the world, what else can the biggest band on the planet do except go into space? BONO and LARRY discuss matters cosmic and personal with Olaf Tyaransen
Upwards of two million people do it in Ireland every Sunday - and yet little or nothing is ever written about it in the media. So we asked ourselves a few questions: Why do so many people attend what is by any standards a very strange ritual? Do they enjoy themselves? Is the performance a good one? What do they get from it? And are the sound and lighting really up to the international standards? That's right, a crack Hot Press team of reporters attended Sunday mass recently - this is what they found.
They’re the comedy rap duo who have lit a fire under Irish music, brought the zeitgeist to Limerick and proved that it is possible to be funny, groovy and a little bit scary at the same time. Twelve months since 'Horse Outside', The Rubberbandits are STILL the plastic-bag bemasked twosome on everybody’s lips. Accompanying their exclusive seasonal photoshoot with Hot Press, they talk Christmas number ones, being shadowed by journalists and stuffing a flann under Dolores O’Riordan’s door...
The Manson Family at work, rest and play, in sickness and in health. Peter Murphy travels to britain and the US to bring back the full, intimate story of a band on the run
Are Bono and the boys just a really good rock band or have they succeeded where the priests and politicians have failed and unlocked the neuroses of our colonial past? Joe Jackson indulges in a spot of cultural sparring with John Waters and finds the author of Race of Angels: Ireland and the Genesis of U2 well able to maintain his guard.
He is best known as a pro-Cannabis campaigner. But Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan has established himself as a significant force in politics in Roscommon, becoming Mayor of Roscommon town no less, in 2010. With a changing of the guard almost inevitable at the upcoming General Election, there has never been a better opportunity for a highly committed, plain speaking, local radical to win a seat in Dáil Éireann. Which is when the fun will really start… pic: Andrew Fox
With the launch of his new RTÉ 2fm morning show, the world has changed for Hector Ó hEochagáin. No more late nights! Tucked up in bed with the kids by 9.30! Drinking Horlicks to beat the band (alright, we made that last bit up). But his bizarre new regime doesn’t seem to phase the Navan-born broadcaster and comedian, who is taking everything in his stride. He is also preparing for his upcoming appearance at the Bulmers Galway Comedy Festival.
As they hit the road on a major stateside tour, U2 had left the memories of those first rehearsals in Larry Mullen’s kitchen far behind. Here we present an intoxicating trip down memory lane. By Bill Graham, April 5, 1981
EMINEM s Marshall Mathers LP has gone 12 times platinum in Ireland. He s been voted Time magazine s Man Of The Year. And, having broken through into the mainstream with the remarkable Stan , he s just been nominated for four Grammys. So why is the world suddenly falling at the feet of a venomous bottle-blonde rapper who s penned some of the most repugnant, hate-filled lyrics since the invention of the gramophone record? Peter Murphy tells one of pop music s most extraordinary stories ever
Sex and sanctity, grit and glitter, penthouse and pavement, God and the Devil, and all conical points in between!
PETER MURPHY dials M for ADONNA, the pre-eminent pop icon of this and every other year
Selected as the Best Irish Male singer at the Meteor Awards 2010, CHRISTY MOORE first emerged as a performer towards the end of the 1960s. Since then, he has become one of the most distinctive and influential voices in Irish music. A magnetic performer, his work variously with Planxty, Moving Hearts and as a solo artist, has been widely acclaimed and he is regarded among his international peers as one of the pre-eminent folk singers.
The recipient of a Late Late Show tribute and the outgoing presenter of The Arts Show, MIKE MURPHY avails of a timely opportunity to reflect on the highs and lows of his personal and professional life and to assure JOE JACKSON that, contrary to certain popular mythology, he is neither a marshmallow nor a flowerpot man
Selected as the Best Irish Male singer at the Meteor Awards 2010, CHRISTY MOORE first emerged as a performer towards the end of the 1960s. Since then, he has become one of the most distinctive and influential voices in Irish music. A magnetic performer, his work variously with Planxty, Moving Hearts and as a solo artist, has been widely acclaimed and he is regarded among his international peers as one of the pre-eminent folk singers.
For many people it is U2's greatest album. Twenty years on, to mark it's re-release, Colm O'Hare talks to Daniel Lanois and reflects on the extraordinary background to a monumental album.
U2 are about to unleash their new album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. The world’s media are descending on Dublin. And Bono is back at the punch-bag, getting into fighting shape before the shit storm really explodes. The gloves are off. He’s got work to do. And he’s going to do it. Words Stuart Clark, additional reporting by Niall Stokes.
Niall Stokes draws on his best-selling book Into The Heart: The Stories Behind The Songs Of U2 to offer a unique insight into the way in which some of the greatest songs in the history of popular music came into being.
With the unpleasant tabloid scrutiny she’s been under recently, it’s easy to forget that Sinéad O’Connor is one of Ireland’s most powerful creative musical forces. Her soon-to-be-released new album, How About I Be Me (And You Be You?), already has critics purring with delight. When Sinéad travelled to the City of Angels to perform at a pre-Golden Globe event, Olaf Tyaransen went with her to report on the latest chapter in her remarkable life.
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
The future is here. Well, somehow it always is. And, as usual, it is both familiar and strange. Nothing seems to change, but one day you turn around, it is 1995, and you are cybersurfing on the internet, summer seems to last all winter, ambient-acid-techno is bubbling away on the radio, your fax machine shows up on the Antiques Roadshow and papa’s got a brand new drug.
New Nirvana best-of, including the previously unreleased 'You Know You're Right', to hit the shelves before Christmas, says Courtney Love. News to us, say Universal Records
The premise, though uninspired, could at least have served as the basis for a mildly diverting enterprise, but there’s just nothing by way of drama or suspense on offer, while even the guts-and-gore quotient falls far short of what genre devotees have a right to expect.
Despite their protestations, the Dixie Chicks are being marketed as the Spice Girls of country (references to Chick Power can’t be mere coincidence), but that shouldn’t take away from the spunky aggression of the three former buskers from Texas, nor prevent the unconverted checking out Fly, their second album.
A mish-mash of different sounds and styles from goth to Pumpkins-esque alternative to moany-sleazy-girl rock, Auf Der Maur’s album is lacking anything worthy of a mere toe-tap.
Trapped bears all the signs of having been scripted by an illiterate chimp on ketamine, while the awfulness of the acting defies conception or description.
With an exhausting tour schedule already behind them it’s only fair to expect Relish to be a tightly knit unit but it’s their unwavering enthusiasm and good cheer that surprises and lends the sound an unmistakeable sheen of charisma.
The Shanks have manfully fought the good fight over the past few years. Now, at last, with their Brang album, they're beginning to fulfil their potential and knit their disparate personalities and musical tastes together into an eclectic and fascinating whole.
Like a bizarre cross between Nick Cave and Johnny Cash, "God," or so the man says, "does not answer this type of prayer," and – to be honest – I’m not surprised.
An unsatisfying year for albums. In this video age I’m rapidly falling victim to the 'Instant Gratification Syndrome’. Why wade through 45 mins of uneven music for the sake of one or two highlights when it’s so easy to make video and audio recordings of favourite songs.
Despite a mix that virtually eliminated keyboards and favoured bass and drums over vocals that needed all the help they could get, the hits came thick and fast.
It’s been an age since David Hopkins’ name has been whispered within the Irish music industry. Formerly of Dublin prog-rockers Lir, he elected to call it a day during a mid-90s US tour.
Who was it that said that beauty is a double-edged sword? True, it could be all too easy to denounce Mainline as six pretty boys, looking for all the world like a band of spruced-up Fonzies. Luckily their sound tells a different and much more substantial story.
Deafeningly loud, in-your-face, overheated, overlong, bereft of braincells and not half as much fun as the trailer might lead you to expect, Gone In Sixty Seconds is the latest plague to be visited upon the planet by Jerry Bruckheimer
Is it sexual liberation in handy CD form? Well, we can’t know for sure, but listening to Peaches, one can momentarily forget that we live on the same planet as the faux girl power of the Pussycat Dolls.
While The Great Destroyer is a much more straightforward rock record, there is certainly still much to be admired in Parker and Sparhawk’s muted chemistry. Their cuddly intimacy has given way to a much more charged sound.
The best bands have a gift for making connections even when they’re tearing things apart and – on tonight’s evidence – the Primals have a desire to join things up that verges on the evangelical
Best known on these shores for his Under The Table And Dreaming album, and if you're still saying 'huh?', bear in mind that this current album sold 732,000 copies in its first week of release in the US.
Though decent actresses, Fanning and Stewart are a little underpowered to play aggressive, hip-thrusting rock stars and the film seems somewhat unsure in its period detail.
In one of his most candid and revealing interviews ever, folk legend Christy Moore tells Hot Press that we currently have a "flawed and corrupt system."
How to be happy in a sad sad world? It's deceptively simple. Why not "go to the Zoo/and say 'Boo' to an Ostrich?" suggests John Shuttleworth.
Former punk chartster Jilted John, aka Graham Fellows, has reinvented himself as the bastard love-child of Richard Stilgoe and Percy Sugden.
The voice of a new generation? A poor man’s Kaiser Chiefs? The band from the Lifestyle Sports ad? However one views the Staines phenomenon that is Hard-Fi, you can’t argue with a performance that sells out months in advance.
Ten Canoes weaves together a string of bawdy jokes to create a richly textured folk-tale, deftly demonstrating that accessible and funny doesn’t have to mean retarded.
The title of this album could refer to the fact that this is 29-year-old Detroit rapper Obie Trice’s second long-playing release. Alternatively, it might be a reference to the events of last December 31st, when he was shot twice while driving on the Lodge Expressway by Wyoming Avenue in Detroit (he was also one of the late Proof’s best mates).
For excitement and edginess you’ve come to the wrong place, but when a lot of that these days means having the correct haircut or right brand of eyeliner, perhaps there is something to be admired in the way Athlete are resolutely unfashionable.
A MORNING of meditative Japanese arthouse cinema might not normally strike me as the most inviting way to spend a couple of hours, but whatever it was that took hold of me, I was seriously looking forward to this occasion.
Directed by Lauren Greenfield. Featuring David Siegel, Jackie Siegel. 100mins
Documentary about the dangers of excess is an entertaining tale of the times
Filmmaker Gregg Araki’s shock tactics have frequently raised eyebrows and heckles, and for a while, during the late ‘90s, he threatened to become the oldest angry teen not actually a member of Sonic Youth. Though Mysterious Skin revisits many familiar Araki themes (sexual deviancy, rape, alien abduction, fucking the pain away, terminal youthful boredom, you know, the usual…) – it’s a far cry from the addled nihilism and indiscriminate buckshot of his earlier movies.
Nothing could prepare one for the shimmering beacon of awfulness that is Trust The Man. As useless as a volleyball court in a hospital for landmine victims, to gaze on it’s ineptitude is an act of masochism far greater than anything visited upon Wanda von Sacher-Masoch.
Of all their undeniable qualities, it is Ash’s bone dry sense of humour and their eye for unnervingly absurd detail that bodes most auspiciously for their long-term future.
By this stage, you're no doubt aware that Bono co-wrote this movie and provides no less than six songs on the soundtrack, some with his old muckers in U2 and others with The Million Dollar Hotel Band, which prises the likes of Lanois and Eno away from the desk and into more standard musical roles.
A record that is simultaneously more expansive and microscopically intimate, and in places (‘Paper Machete’, ‘In Rivers’) even makes you think of Talk Talk – so sophisticated is the music on offer.
Passion. And faith. Gavin Harte's got it by the bucketload. And Random Acts Of Kindness is as articulate and combustible a calling card as he could possibly wish for.
I would like to begin this fortnight by grappling with an issue of great controversy. I will raise the cudgel, grasp the nettle, take the bull by the horns, seize the hour. Or not, as the case may be. It’s to do with golf, and Irish golfers in particular.
The Point is stuffed with row upon row of kids with glow sticks, light up bunny ears, pop corn and hassled-looking parents. They’re waiting for the Sugababes. And waiting. And waiting.
Given the recent avalanche of brain-dead teen-Yank movies, all apparently striving to out-dumb whichever one came before, it was only a matter of time before we hit the rock bottom of the shit-pit.
IT CAN hardly be a year since John Martyn's last LP outing, the rejigged retrospective Couldn't Love You More, yet hot on its heels comes this updated back-tracking exercise.
It’s an unappetising mix of Mills & Boon sentiment and yuppie vacuosity, with the unimaginative plot pitching obnoxious workaholic ad-exec Nelson Moss (Reeves) and bland nonentity Sara (Theron) together
MUNDY
The Borderline, London
Standing centre stage before a throng comprised of an astonishing number of nubile young rock chicks and their “how-the-fuck-did-that-nerd-pull-her” boyfriends in the smoky bowels of Time Out magazine’s current live music venue of the year, Mundy radiates a hitherto unseen confidence.
I cannot tell you how appalled I am by the explicit sexual content in Michael Winterbottom’s latest. There’s but one lousy cum shot, Ms. Stilley’s breasts look steamrolled flat and our central couples’ idea of kinking things up involves knee high boots and blindfolds. I mean, yawn. This might pass for filth among incredibly sheltered fifteen year olds, but really, this is coy first date stuff.
For 14 years The Frames have conducted the business of their art like filmmakers who reached a détente with the studio system through operating on a one-for-us/one-for-them basis.
Hot Press has been on the set of 'Killing Bono' – the Irish musical comedy film loosely based on former Hot Press writer Neil McCormick’s hilarious 2004 memoir, 'I Was Bono’s Doppleganger'.
Sheeran has a personality to match her songs – she shows this by giddily tripping over her words, making the audience chuckle and generally being completely adorable.
Fantastic, sadistic and sublime, Pan’s Labyrinth, the director’s latest work, is a coruscating fairy-tale breeding horror, politics and unblemished innocence to produce the hands-down, honest-to-God, best movie of 2006.
SAME LABEL, same country of origin, same release date, different acts, same effect. On the evidence of the treasures currently being produced by the Constellation label, Canada looks like becoming the post post-rock capital of the globe.
SAME LABEL, same country of origin, same release date, different acts, same effect. On the evidence of the treasures currently being produced by the Constellation label, Canada looks like becoming the post post-rock capital of the globe.
THIS ORIGINALLY started life as a mere play on the New York art circuit, but Hurly Burly's crackling dialogue and caustic observational sharpness meant it could hardly stay out of sight forever - genius always rises to the surface eventually.
THERE WAS a Spencer Davis in the Spencer Davis Group, a Manfred Mann in Manfred Mann, and even a Dave Dee in Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich. But the first thing to realise about Simon Dupree & The Big Sound is that there was no Simon Dupree.
He was the man whose evidence put a huge hole in the stern of Pirate Bay, in a landmark judgement in Sweden earlier this year. Now the CEO and Chairman of the International Federation of Phonographic Industries, John Kennedy, is set to speak at The Music Show, which takes place on October 3 and 4, at the RDS in Dublin. He will speak on the issue of illegal downloading and the threat it represents to the Music Industry, which is currently undergoing massive changes as a result of the impact of the internet. The Music Show is run by Hot Press magazine.
An accomplished but uncontroversial second album that sticks rigidly to the template established by its predecessor. Not that adhering to form and formula is necessarily a bad thing. Shakespeare did it. So did Chuck Berry.
Don’t let the kooky punctuation fool you – armed with a ukelele, a looping machine and an unstoppable vocal, an experimental New England duo have just created one of the most thrilling albums of the year. Celina Murphy catches up with the quirk-happy mastermind behind tUnE-yArDs, to talk rejecting lo-fi, rebelling against pop, and performing with Yoko.
Whilst Ireland’s hopes of a first grand-slam win in 55 years were being unceremoniously dashed in Lansdowne Road, your correspondent jostled for viewing space in a crowded D4 hostelry.
While we're sure it's a fabulous place, Larne's Older Fleet bar does seem a rather surreal choice of venue for Houston outsider folkie Jandek to kick off what will be his first ever tour.
Paddy C. Courtney may be bidding “adieu” to The Comedy Cellar, but there’s a new crop of testosterone-filled freaks waiting to take over at dublin’s most famous chuckle palace.
It's Bruce and the band given a new coat of paint by producer Brendan O’ Brien, who through his work with bands like Pearl Jam, knows a thing or two about gut feeling and mile-high noise
Last winter, as the cold set in and rock ‘n’ roll seemed about as useful as a paper piss-pot, you could almost hear the voices from the back of Madison Square Gardens hollering, “Bruce, why hast thou forsaken us?”
2fm’s own tribute to GERRY RYAN, just over 24 hours after he died, was conducted by Evelyn O’Rourke, who was among those who had worked closely with Gerry on his show over the years. Among the guests were Bono and Edge of U2. Gerry had been a good friend of the band, and so what they had to say – edited here for print – was both personal and eloquent, saluting the man Bono called Ireland’s weather vane.
Better to say your piece and suffer the consequences than remain one of the fearful silent – as your correspondent discovered when he weighed in on the Cathal Ó Searcaigh scandal.
12 steps to help make the most of your time in the Spanish city of, Córdoba, with all the best hotels, restaurants, and hot spots. Plus, top travel news from around the world
I WENT to the opening night of comedian Brendan O’Carroll’s new show at the Tivoli shortly after a visit to the dentist which had left my gums stitched from one end to the other. Smiling was difficult, laughter painful. By evening’s end most of the stitches were burst and an expensive return to the dentist was necessary.
Till now, Pogues' compliments have invariably centred on Shane MacGowan's singular songwriting. The group's erratic performances which could descend into some ramshackle acoustic heart of darkness meant the praise wasn't always extended to his fellows.
Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da
da-da-da-da-da-da
da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da
I thought that I’d begin with the lyrics, so to speak, of the Match Of The Day theme-tune.
ADMIRING THE beautiful shorn features of Matthew Devereux on the cover of the last issue, mischievous, curiously boyish and teasing, I would like to know whether the skinhead image appeals erotically to women as much as it does to me.
More and more of us are losing our jobs – but we shouldn’t blame so-called ‘low-skilled’ workers for joining the construction sector when times were good. Their contribution to the economy was no less valuable than anyone else’s.
JONATHAN O BRIEN is distinctly unimpressed by this season s footballing fare, and Leicester s omnipresence on TV coupled with Celtic s fallibility is doing nothing to improve his mood.
This fortnight, BARRY GLENDENNING discovers that a love of birds and an ungainly gait on the football field are the only traits he shares with Duncan Ferguson.
Once a beacon for new talent, the Eurovision song contest has become dreary and predictable, which is why we shouldn't be too upset about the failure of Dustin and Dervish.
Had he not died tragically in the early seventies Gram Parsons would turn 65 this year. But his legacy lives on and he has transcended the relatively limited popularity he enjoyed in his lifetime.
*Well, it's 9th and Hannepin/And all the donuts have/names that sound like prostitutes/And the moon's teethmarks are/on the sky like a tarp thrown over this...*
The suicide of a popular, pretty academically distinguished 15-year old-girl forces all of us to examine our own private desires for self obliteration.
THOSE OF us who watched the highlights of Shelbourne's victory over a Ukrainian outfit in the European Cup-Winners' Cup, were wondering if perhaps we had stumbled onto the wrong channel.
While lots of Northerners have moved on to fresh pastures over the past few years, new Hit The North columnist COLIN CARBERRY believes that it s a good time to stick around
An area of outstanding natural beauty is under grave threat, having been earmarked by rapacious planners as ripe for ‘development’. Who will shout stop?
An area of outstanding natural beauty is under grave threat, having been earmarked by rapacious planners as ripe for ‘development’. Who will shout stop?
Best known as one third of the Apres Match ensemble, Gary Cooke is branching into straight-up acting – well sort of – in the latest Ross O’Carroll Kelly play, which finds the south Dublin twat coming to terms with the recession. Taking a break from rehearsals, Cooke explains why Ireland is on the way to becoming the new Bulgaria
It’s an oldie but still a goodie. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean you’re not right. Especially where the abuse of modern technology is concerned...
The new found confidence of Oxegen 08, more than made up for the overcast weather and chilly temperatures. Hot Press were there to catch the best of the best.
Introducing The XXX Factor, a talent show that auditions wanna-be young things for a future in the porno industry. Oh, and a guy from Wisconsin sets fire to his todger. No, really.
Before he treks around Europe with Lou Reed, Grammy-winning engineer and producer Marc Urselli stopped off to record with local heroes Preachers Son in Grouse Lodge. Jackie Hayden talks to the man who has also worked with an impressive galaxy of stars, including the legendary Les Paul, Laurie Anderson and John Zorn.
Despite routine speed limit violations, Dublin's Port Tunnel is one of the country's safest stretches of road. So why install cameras to police a speed restriction that is too low?
Liverpool club Cream has, as expected, announced a major change in their DJ booking policy for 1997. From January the club will be concentrating on resident DJs in its main rooms, and guests will now only occasionally appear in the club’s Courtyard area.
When students demonstrated in Dublin, elements within the Gardai used excessive force against them. The people to blame are at the top... words Niall Stokes
Tom and Jerry have a dream – they want to do for their parish what Bono has done for his. And now that they’ve won the Golden Microphone Award, D’Unbelievables are well on their way to being the biggest thing since Sean Slattery & The Rough Club. Olaf Tyaransen meets the kings of comedy.
Following the demise of the Music Board last year, hopes are high that the incoming Culture Ireland committe will herald a new era in state support for traditional music. Plus the usual round-up of trad and folk news from around the country.
...it was the worst of times. In fact – the pleasures of rock’n’roll aside – there was virtually nothing to celebrate on this small island in 2009. And to seal our misery, we had to deal with the bishops ducking and diving again.
The US army graverobs Hendrix… the death of the man who exposed the Turin Shroud… the international court hamstrung at birth… the lonely death of Annie Kelly
To some it’s the real capital. It certainly is one of Ireland’s pre-eminent sporting and cultural centres, with dazzling architecture, a sensibility all its own and a chilled-out atmosphere which Dublin can only envy.
For a very long time the emphasis has been on making prison sentences tougher in Ireland. But the new Minister for Justice Alan Shatter signalled a different approach last week...
Bearing in mind the chequered history of his predecessors, Eamonn McCann reckons Pope Benedict XVI may be letting himself in for a hell of a lot more than he bargained for.
Frank Hutchins, a well known connoisseur of hotel chic, checks himself into Dublin's latest home away from home The Horse and Carriage and finds much to his liking . . .
Okay, the opening day of the English Premier League may have bored some to tears, but make sure to dry those eyes in time to feast upon some of the fine sporting events coming doewn the turnpike.
The Nama debacle has exposed the rottenness at the core of our political culture. But how do we go about reforming a system that has become so deeply entrenched in the psyche of the nation?
There can no longer be any doubt – the country is in a terrible, terrible mess and we’re all going down together. Better to take the pain now than suffer death by a thousand cuts
With an €85 billion ‘rescue package’ being foisted on us by the IMF and the EU, the avenues of escape are fewer than ever before. But there may just be another twist in the scéal yet…
The winner of the British Open is entitled to do it his way – including the celebrations afterwards. Plus: the illusion of the Confessional comes under close scrutiny.
By the time you read this, you’ll know whether Ireland have qualified for the World Cup. One thing’s for sure – a home defeat to France has left Trap’s men facing an uphill battle. Well, at least the rugby team is humming along nicely...
Why the similarities between FF and SF may be greater than first anticipated. Plus: linguistic weirditude on The Irish Times letters page and our columnist launches a new book which gleefully satirises the Northern political process.
Our columnist wasn’t exactly popping open the champagne at the news that Mark Thatcher had escaped with a suspended sentence for his part in the attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea. Plus: why Bono’s gushing endorsement at the Labour Party Conference has allowed Blair and Brown to continue to get away with murder.
An incident in a Spar shop in Dublin has sparked a flurry of comments about homosexuality. Unfortunately, the debate has become an excuse for rampant homophobia…
Football fans in North Korea enjoy a good deal more freedom than many might have suspected. Plus: The story behind John Hume and David Trimble’s decision to bring arms manufacturer Raytheon to Derry and why Skruf are one of the bands to look out for in 2005.
For connoisseurs of indie music, the Hot Press New Band Stage will provide a weekend-long bonanza. Here, Patrick Freyne selects 10 acts who will grace the stage that are essential viewing.
Three minutes from their first All-Ireland final in 15 years, the Dubs crashed and burned (again), handing victory to a disbelieving Cork team. What is a fan of ‘de boyz in blew’ to make of it all?
It s not only the presence of the country s hottest publication that makes Trinity Street one of the coolest in the capital. Street scenes: Sasfi Hope-Ross
You can very much hear the band gradually piecing together the constituent elements that would make Bleach such a bewitching sonic brew; the gonzo experimentation and guitar pyrotechnics of the ‘80s US underground, married to Cobain’s Beatles-like melodic sensibilities and, of course, that searing, indelible voice.
MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN (Directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh, with Robert de Niro, Helena Bonham Carter, Tom Hulce, John Cleese, Ian Holm, Aidan Quinn)
It is the problem that dare not speak its name. Yes, the incoming Taoiseach will have to act fast on the Zip Question, if we want to avoid economic meltdown - and worse. Much worse...
As if the prospect of a looooooooong bank holiday weekend wasn’t exciting enough, we’ve a seriously star-studded Free Music Friday to feast your ears on...
Any day now a hombre called Padre Alessio Parente will arrive on these shores to whip up support for the canonisation of an Italian madman who called himself "Padre Pio."
In which, after a year spent in the Savoy, our film editor declares her craw full to the brim with CGI animals, gloomy rom-coms and Celtic Tiger thrillers. But there were more than a few pearls in the pig-trough too.
When The National told us at Christmas that the streets of Brooklyn are paved with hipster bands, Celina Murphy thought she’d better get her ass over there.
Here at Hot Press we like to bring you interviews with the most influential figures of our times. And in Ireland 1999 who is more influential than Ballydung bachelors PODGE and RODGE?
STUART CLARK spoke to the zeitgeist-defining duo about the crucial issues: religion, sex, Mary Black and Jean Butler s minge . Also an entirely unfounded revelation about our esteemed editor. Pics: MICK QUINN.
Our footballers may have had a pretty wretched noughties, but they were a great time to be a rugby, GAA, cricket or golf fan. CRAIG FITZSIMONS recalls the highs and Saipans of the sporting decade.
Jesus Christ And The Church Of Gnostic Rock. Peter Murphy on the good, clean, but mostly dirty, fight for the soul of the Devil s Music. Part One: The Old Testament.
The media targeting of gay websites, following revelations that a 14-year-old boy had sex with men, is unhelpful, unjustified and contributes to an inaccurate picture of paedophiles ‘grooming’ young men for sex.
The Hot Press team of travelling rogues are on the move again – this time, the destination is Ireland’s gorgeous West coast and in particular the city of the tribes, Galway.
Hot Press illustrator David Rooney returns to the city he lived in over fifteen years ago and finds that – even accompanied by a fake plastic Kurt – Seattle retains its beating heart.
ANDY DARLINGTON reflects on how the role of women-in-rock has changed from making tea and sandwiches for the boys to demanding – and more often than not gaining – access all areas.
Two years ago this politically unstable, poverty-wracked Caribbean island was devastated by one of the worst earthquakes of recent decades. Thousands perished, many more were left clinging on without sanitation or basic medical care. But now Haiti is fighting back, with the invaluable help of aid groups such as Ireland’s Concern Worldwide. In a frontline report, Hot Press talks to ordinary Haitians as they try to rebuild their lives and reflects on the crazy energy of one of the most dangerous countries on earth.
This coming Saturday, Belgium play Sweden in the opening game of EURO 2000. But don t panic things will rapidly improve after that. In a Foul Play special, JONATHAN O BRIEN tells you all need to know about this year s crop of contenders
She was one of Ireland's original media babes, chasing down celebrities for Xposé on TV3. But Lorraine Keane became the story herself when she left the programme last year, provoking a flurry of media speculation as to what had gone wrong. Now she has written an autobiography - in which, she insists, she pokes as much fun at herself as she does at the stars she encountered along the way.
Located in Dublin’s thriving Temple Bar area and owned by U2, The Kitchen is one of the hottest clubs in one of the most happening cities in Europe. Report: Colm O’Hare
Neil McCormick enters the fifth week of shooting the movie Killing Bono – an Irish musical comedy loosely based on Neil McCormick’s 2004 memoir, I Was Bono’s Doppelganger.
Hard rock has taken on many forms, but if it's loud enough to annoy the neighbours, it should be categorised as good old-fashioned metal. Peter Murphy guides you through our choice of the Top 30 metal albums of all time.
Continuing his occasional Bum Notes series of reminiscences on life as a musician, Peter Murphy fondly casts a nostalgic eye over the birth of his daughter and the, eh, interesting rock ’n’ roll circumstances that surrounded it.
The relationship between drugs and creativity has always been a hotly debated subject. But narcotic indulgence has proven to be the downfall of many a gifted artist.
Blessed with total recall, Craig Fitzsimons relieves the most glorious Irish sporting achievements of the past 30 years – and some that we’d all rather forget.
Not counting Crystal Swing’s forthcoming appearance at Mullingar Community Centre, it’s surely the greatest show on earth - a four week carnival of footie featuring the world’s greatest soccer players (and Emile Heskey). As the South Africa World Cup kick-off looms, Craig Fitzsimons tells us who is going to shine and who might flop - and explains why, for all the hype, England are unlikely to replicate the success of ‘66.
With the death of Kurt Cobain in April casting a shadow over the following months 1994 will hardly go down as one of the most joyous in Rock history. Your guide to a month-by-month account of the names and events of the past year. Stuart Clark.
