Hack at work.
Killing Bono
"The best book I have ever read about trying to make it in the music business" - Elton John
"A fantastic book, which manages the difficult trick of being simultaneously very funny and very sad." - Bob Geldof
"I was Neil McCormick's fan in school. He was much cooler than me, a much better writer and I thought he'd make a much better rock star. I was wrong on one count. He's written a great book" - Bono
U2’s manager: how to save the music industry
August 17th, 2010
One of these men is not a rock star: Edge, McGuinness, Bono, 1987
Bono’s back. And so am I.
I’ve been on holiday and so (no doubt to the dismay of my personal Twitter parodist) missed the return of U2 to live action. I gather all is going well and that Bono’s back problems have been sorted out: “rebuilt by German engineering” as the man himself said. Apparently his doctor told him he would “run further and faster in the future.” Vorsprung Durch Technik and all that. I still say they could have saved a lot of money, disruption and heartache with the simple deployment of an ergonomic stool. It worked for Val Doonican.
Anyway, enough about the man who stands at the front of the U2 juggernaut. In the new issue of GQ, we hear from the man who stands behind it. Manager Paul McGuinness has written a fascinating article: How To Save The Music Industry.
There is no doubt this is a business in peril.
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The Reel Deal
Neil & Ivan McCormick, circa 1986
Have you ever wondered which actor would play you in the film of your life? Perhaps you’ve also wondered if anyone would bother to tell a mass audience the story of your spectacular failures in the face of trying to make it to the big time? If you happen to be Neil McCormick, wondering is no longer necessary. With the film based on his life growing up in the shadow of his former school mates U2 now in post production, Killing Bono ensures Neil’s story of the underdog who never quite makes it, is soon to be immortalised forever.We had a chat to the real Neil and Ivan McCormick about having some of the hottest young actors playing themselves and would-be-probably-soon-to-be-real fame:
How close did you really get to becoming rock stars?
Ivan: As close as possible without it actually happening … and yet it always felt so far away
Neil: We got a deal from Warner then got dropped ’cause they didn’t like my hair
Ivan: Well, it was a crap haircut.
<<Read More at The Official Killing Bono Blog>>
Mark Knopfler solves Bono’s back problems
Published: June 2nd, 2010
The solution to U2's multi-million dollar tour disaster?
Bono isn’t the only aging rocker suffering for his art. As we all know by now, the U2 singer hurt his back during rehearsals and has had to pull out of their much heralded headline spot in Glastonbury and postpone the first half of U2’s north American tour. This is presumably what you get for leaping around like your 19-year-old self at the grand old age of 50. And I say that with some sympathy, cause I’m approaching the half century myself, although the only work related injury I am at risk of is bad posture from sitting at a computer all day typing blogs like this.
Rock and roll can be cruel. If you become famous performing with the energetic abandon of youth, your public will expect you to continue the same way when most of your contemporaries ideas of a physical work out is taking the dog for an arthritic stroll in the park. Last weekend, I watched 65-year-old Rod Stewart wiggling his behind and singing ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?’ To which the only sane answer is surely “put it away grandad, you’re frightening the kids.” Shouldn’t rockers be allowed (indeed encouraged) to age with dignity, like old jazz and blues players. No one ever expected Miles Davis to climb on top of a speaker stack and stage dive the front row at Ronnie Scott’s.
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Bono’s half century
May 10th, 2010
The author & friend. It takes more than sunglasses to make a rock star.
Today (Monday 10th) is Bono’s 50th birthday. The U2 singer has been on the planet for half a century, although for some it will probably seem longer. A band leader since he was 15, a rock star by the time he was 21, a global superstar at the age of 27, Bono has become one of the most ubiquitous celebrities on the planet, straddling the worlds of showbusiness and politics by the bridge of charitable activism.
Immediately recognisable by his trademark sunglasses and bullish Irish charm, Bono may be the most divisive, love-him-or-hate-him character in modern pop culture. For fans, and there are tens of millions of them, he is the greatest rock star of our age, a passionate heir to the pop art activism of John Lennon, leader of one the most extraordinary (and biggest selling) bands of our times. For his detractors, he is an egotistic pain in the neck, a God-bothering do-gooder always sticking his face where it doesn’t belong as a self-appointed, unelected, Messianic representative of the world’s poor, narcissistically boosting his self-esteem by hectoring and cajoling others to think of those worse of than themselves whilst hypocritically living the indulgent life of a super-rich, over-privileged tax dodger. I think that about covers it.
As a long-time friend and admirer, I have never quite understood why people get so upset about someone so obviously trying to do good, and indeed why people are so willing to ascribe negative values to transparently positive intentions. I have defended Bono before, which only unleashes ever increasing torrents of abuse. In my experience as a prolific music blogger, I have learned there are two things you cannot say without drawing the vitriol of poison posters: criticise Abba, or praise Bono.
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Is Liam Gallagher really the greatest frontman of all time?
March 25th, 2010
Readers polls are a bad advertisement for democracy.
The new issue of music Q magazine has a list of the best front men of all time, as voted for by their readers.
Here’s the top 20. Gird your loins
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Susan Boyle: the story continues
January 14th, 2010
My article about the underlying technological and social factors driving the global success of Susan Boyle has stirred up a hornet’s nest.
Alongside a plethora of mainly derogatory comments on the Telegraph website and Susan Boyle blogs, I have been receiving insults on twitter from fans who apparently think attack is the best form of defence (although I am still confused about what they imagine they are defending her against). As danzelldark commented on the Telegraph forum, “Haven’t you realised yet that SB is surrounded by a praetorian guard of thousands?”
Well, yes, I could hardly have missed it. Judging by the internet responses to articles I write, Susan Boyle’s self appointed defenders are only second in their rapid response to perceived offences as Bono’s even more vocal detractors. One you can’t offer the least criticism of, the other it is apparently forbidden to praise. But I have a solution. Maybe Bono & SuBo should do a duet as BoBo, then the SuBo defenders could take on the Bono haters & cancel each other out.
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Sting & Bono: should rock stars stay out of politics?
Sting got a grilling on Newsnight this week. Appearing by satellite link up to discuss his latest campaign to protect the Kayapo tribe of the Amazonian rainforest, he got well and truly Paxman’d. The famously scornful host dragged the rock star out of his celebrity comfort zone, challenging his real understanding of the issues and his commitment to cause and generally treating his position with scornful scepticism. “You’re not being blamed for it (the global environmental crisis), you’re just being accused of hypocrisy, that’s all,” said Paxman, with trademark sneering reasonableness.
Sting was visibly squirming in his seat as he tried to defend himself, not a good look for a rock star. Not even his claim that he had demarcated an area the size of Belgium to “ameliorate” his “admittedly large” carbon footprint was enough to satisfy Paxman. “The difficulty is, of course, that as long as you are open to the accusation of being a hypocrite, it potentially damages those causes with which you are associated,” sneered the presenter. (Meanwhile, I’m still wondering where Sting keeps this carbon offset area the size of Belgium? Maybe it is Belgium!? Could he have secretly bought the country to convert it into sustainable forest?)
Imagine if all celebrity interviews were like this. Cut them off mid-sentence and force them to justify their very existence. “I’m sorry, Sir Elton, you haven’t answered the question. How can your statement, and I quote, ‘Saturday night’s alright for fighting’, be viewed as anything other than an explicit incitement to violence? It’s not really the kind of sentiments we might expect to hear from the head of an AIDS foundation, is it? Self-appointed or not.”
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Why do U2 want to play Glastonbury?
November 24th, 2009
U2 are to headline Glastonbury this year, on the festival’s 40th anniversary. There has been some predictable scepticism expressed about this from the anti-U2 brigade, although it seems a bit of a no-brainer to me: rock band plays rock festival – let the controversy begin!
Like last year’s headliners, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, the Irish group have a long established reputation as outstanding live performers, which has helped make them one of the most consistently popular live attractions of the last few decades. It was probably a given that U2 would get to Glastonbury sooner or later (The Rolling Stones are really the only other band of that stature never to have played the festival), the real question being why has it taken them 26 years.
The answer lies partly in the fact that U2 just don’t need Glastonbury, or any other festival. They are one of the few bands who can pull mass crowds under their own steam on a regular basis anywhere in the world. And, certainly since they ascended to stadium status with The Joshua Tree in 1987, they have put a great deal of care and effort into creating their own unique and artfully integrated live environments. Whenever the issue of Glastonbury has arisen within the U2 camp, the same questions tend to arise, which, if I might paraphrase the succinct directness of their very pragmatic drummer, boil down to: “So, if I understand this correctly, we wouldn’t be playing to our fans, right? It’s not our sound system? It’s not our lighting rig? And we would be doing this for a fee that would be less than we would make on the gate at our own gig? And the point of this would be …?”
So what has changed? Well, Glastonbury itself, for one thing.
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Is Bono a Conservative?
Bono’s appearance in a pre-recorded video message at the Conservative Party Conference caused a bit of an internet uproar. Such was the outpouring of hostile comments on Twitter (with popular taglines including #Bonoisatwat and #BonoToryScum) that the social networking site temporarily broke down. So you are a rock superstar for 30 years, a Nobel peace prize nominee and tireless charity proselytiser and what do you have to do to become a trending topic on Twitter? Talk to the Tories.
William Hague seemed thrilled to have a contribution from a rock star, introducing him as “someone you don’t normally hear from at Conservative conferences” but Bono’s appearance actually seemed to horrify both the left and the right. One side apparently felt betrayed that a rock and roll exponent of good works, civil rights and Third World aid would actually deign to talk to the Conservatives at all, while many Tories (at least judging by responses to yesterday’s blog by Lucy Jones) appear concerned Bono’s contribution might actually lose them votes.
It has left me wondering if the problem is really Bono or the Conservatives? Bono’s speech fell well short of an endorsement, rather concentrating on his particular hobby horse by encouraging the party to maintain its commitment to spending 7 per cent of Britain’s GDP on international aid. It’s the kind of speech the Irish rock star makes all the time, at all kinds of public event. There is (as I know only too well, being an ally and supporter) a large and vocal anti-Bono brigade, who blithely ignore all evidence of the tangible benefits of his good works, preferring to cast aspersions about his motives, regularly accusing him of being a messianic megalomaniac, only involved in charitable works for his own egotistic self-aggrandisement. These sensitive souls are heartily sick of being preached to by a wealthy and unelected rock star, and can be counted on to sneer and bray whenever he intrudes on their mental space. But Bono talks about this stuff all the time, at all kinds of public events, and it never broke Twitter before.
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U2: secrets of stadium rock
The Claw: stage set or intergalactic people transporter?
U2 were in London this weekend, playing two dates at Wembley Stadium. Now, I am well aware that not all rock critics share my enthusiasm for the band (my colleague Michael Deacon awarded the show a mere three stars) but I was blown away once again. I have watched them from the school gymnasium all the way to this latest attempt to simultaneously transport 88,000 people to another galaxy on what appears to be a home made rocket ship. I thought the show was as powerful, exciting and transformative as a big rock show can be. The teething problems of the opening night in Barcelona’s Nou Camp have been ironed out, and the band have gained both a sense of the dynamics of that stage space and complete mastery of the set of songs. The second show, on Saturday night (when they had overcome some of the sound problems mentioned by Michael on Friday, apparently caused by Wembley’s roof being partially closed), was phenomenal.
From the epic statement of intent that is the opening ‘Breathe’ (“I’m gonna walk out, into the street / Got my arms out, got a love you can’t defeat”) to the raw, emotionally exhausted closing ‘Moment Of Surrender’, U2 just throw everything at their audience: lights, music, Acthung (Baby). Something seemed to happen about six songs in, when they delivered a particularly rich and emotional version of ‘Until The End Of The World’ which left them wreathed in smiles. The joy of the band themselves mirrored the joy in the audience, who pitched into ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I Was Looking For’ like they were auditioning for the role of the biggest gospel choir in the world. The sound was broad and open, the performances clipped and focussed, the rhythm section thunderously driven, Edge flying on his one man orchestra of sound, and Bono singing high and hard, utterly lost in the music.
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