I was asked to write a critical review of 30 years of U2, here it is...

The boy on the cover of U2’s debut album, Boy, looks at the world with wide-eyed innocence and curiosity. Thirty years later, the girl in the title song of U2’s 2009 album, No Line on the Horizon tells the singer, ‘time is irrelevant, it’s not linear.’ This ode to the infinite nature of creativity might be interpreted as wishful thinking for these now ageing rockers but for U2 fans it was a reassuring signal of the four Dubliners’ continuity.

No band has sought inspiration in the zeitgeist of their generation more than U2. While many of their songs have explored their own souls’ dark journeys, they have found reflection in the lives of their worldwide army of fans and the life and times of the world that surrounds them.

The ‘70s is not a decade we reflect upon with a rosy glow of nostalgia. The first major oil crisis of the last century set the tone for a decade marked by strikes, international hijackings, rampant inflation and progressive rock.

In Ireland, violence in the north east had reduced to sectarian, tit for tat murders while the IRA exported terrorism to the streets of British cities. Closer to home, security issues were so pressing, State intervention was perceived as invasive and oppressive.

Was it any wonder punk came along? The revolutionary cry went up; out with the old, in with the new. It was an exciting time to be making music, living in Dublin. A whole scene grew up around the Grafton St corner of St Stephen’s Green. There were few venues for emerging punk bands and those there were, were overbooked. U2 were just minor players in a scene inspired by new policies of ‘do it yourself’ but occupied still by the old guard in new clothes.

The band of likeminded classmates put together by Larry Mullen got their first gigs in local northside venues as The Hype, playing Bowie covers. By the end of 1978, a browser in the Dandelion Green flea market could catch them playing Saturday afternoon free gigs in a partially flooded stable.

Participation was a byword for U2 as they embraced the audience that ventured to embrace them. Their music was an invitation as well as an evocation to and of their collective angst. In the boiling pot of this incestuous Dublin scene, the involvement of some members’ of the band in the Shalom group, inspired devotion and derision. A rival group emerged calling themselves The Black Catholics, opposed to all things U2.

In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t amount to a hill of beans. U2 had a plan to become the biggest rock and roll band in the world and when they met Paul McGuinness, they found the man who might have the moxy to realize their dream.

McGuinness was a Trinity graduate who had dabbled in music management already with Celtic rock outfit, Spud. He was well read and admired and emulated Brian Epstein and Led Zeppelin manager, Peter Grant, the two cornerstones of world domination and megastardom. He had dabbled in the world of advertising and commercial production and understood the power of image and the value of intellectual copyright.

The deal with Island Records was mutually beneficial. Although Island had considerably success in the ‘70s introducing reggae and Bob Marley to a worldwide audience, carving its own niche in the prog rock scene with Jethro Tull as well as tradrock and troubadours with Cat Stevens, Sandy Denny, Richard and Linda Thompson, among others, it failed to make any impression on the punk or new wave scene.

For Paul McGuinness and U2, it was a canny alliance. Island was cash rich and inclined to allow creative freedom and development room. And, as it turned out, it was needed. U2 was not an overnight success. It took more than three years of hard slog, thousands of road miles in hard touring and countless, nameless motel rooms before some faint flicker of light and hope appeared. Heavily in debt and suffering the doubt raised by the rock and roll lifestyle against their own personal convictions, the band almost split after the release of their second album, October.

They persevered in adversity. Even the setback of Bono losing his lyrics for the album while they toured inspired them to compose on the hoof. The singer ‘wrote’ his lyrics at the microphone while producer Steve Lillywhite was mixing the track. The album was not a commercial success but, in retrospect, it helped shape how they worked in the future.

The picture of Peter Rowan, the boy on the cover of U2’s first album, Boy, changes significantly on the cover of War, the band’s third studio album. He’s growing up. There’s an inquisitive anger in the eyes. The album announced U2’s arrival as a band with something to say. They now had a distinctive sound. The Unforgettable Fire laid the foundation for what was to follow.

As the first album with the production team of Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, it was greeted with suspicion by U2’s American fanbase. But it consolidated a sound that was already manifesting itself since October and made a creative virtue of the band’s willingness for impromptu experimentation.

All of this came to fruition with The Joshua Tree, a massive album exploring the journey of the soul through a material wasteland, the American hinterland, drunk on imperial power and lust. Suddenly U2 were on the cover of Time magazine and on top of the world.

Hardly overnight success but it allowed them to buy bigger homes and stay in better hotels. As individuals, they were rock stars without portfolio. They felt like pretenders.

Rattle and Hum, the double album and feature film that followed The Joshua Tree, was panned by critics as pretentious, presumptious and arrogant. It was misinterpreted. U2 wore its creative heart on its sleeve. When Boy was released in 1980, Bono declared they had no influences as though they’d emerged in a vacuum. But what was simply an assertion of the band’s singular creative vision, would come back to haunt him. In Rattle and Hum they sought to explore, absorb and pay homage to the heritage that informed their own music; blues, soul, country and gospel. It was no wonder that at the end of the subsequent tour, significantly on the last day of the decade, in the Point theatre in Dublin, The Edge declared the band’s intention to go away and reinvent themselves.

Ironically, the world around them was in the same process. As Gorbachev’s Perestroika movement edged the Soviet Union tentatively towards more democratic freedom, the promise overran the reality and the walls, quite literally, came tumbling down. As though a corked steam kettle had popped, popular unrest and impatience spilled over into direct action. The Berlin wall was torn down, brick by brick. In Czechoslovakia, writer Vaclev Havel lead the ‘velvet revolution’ and in Poland, Lech Walensa was leading a popular move to democratic freedom and independence.

U2 chose Hansa studio in Berlin to record Achtung Baby, arguably the band’s creative zenith and the point where the band’s creative output and the zeitgeist coalesced. From the opening track, as the U2 locomotive chugs out of Zoo Station and Bono declares ‘I’m ready for what’s next…’ It was as though the ‘80s had never happened and Rattle and Hum was someone else’s nightmare. In the ‘90s U2 grew up, as a band and as individuals.

It was a period that was not without cringing embarrassment as they embraced the new dance culture and Zoo became the argot of post modern irony. Bono as Macphisto could order pizzas for an audience of thousands and phone Bill Clinton for a natter about world peace. In the end with POP and the subsequent tour, their emergence from a giant lemon was too reminiscent of Spinal Tap for comfort. They appeared to choke on their own post modern joke.

But what artist cannot embrace failure? Failure, in U2 terms, meant earning millions less than expected from what they produced. The only ‘loss’ they could suffer now was creative and the three albums the band released in the ‘noughties – All that you Can’t Leave Behind, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and No Line on the Horizon – have found them returning to basics in different measures and with varying results. In the meantime Bono has become a world statesman, at home in the company of world leaders. Adam has been through rehab and just recently married. The Edge is in a new marriage with a second family. Larry Mullen has a family and just recently launched himself in a new role as a film actor. They’re boys no more.

Give it back

How much money did builders contribute/donate to political parties in the past decade? A lot, I'll warrant though I don't have the figures to hand and I'm not even sure if you could ever find the true amount. But given that millions were spent in the past two decades on tribunals charged with the task of rooting out the misuse of power through bribery and other nefarious activities, there must be a ball park figure available somewhere.
Not that all political donations were given for the purpose of suborning unfair political or commercial advantage either (heavens forbid, eh?).
All that aside, it is now clear the digital money coffers of the political parties have to have expanded, if not in line with, at least in reflection of the inflated wealth of their contributors.
So, my simple question is why don't they give it back?
Think about it. If a political party has a record of these financial contributions from now impecunious and in some cases, disgraced individuals or organizations, should they not, in conscience, give it back.
Whatever way you look at it, the money belongs to the people since they are footing the bill for the princely excesses of these paper magnates. The money, when they donated it, probably came from the free flow of funds available from the likes of Anglo Irish Bank.
So give it back.
Of course, we all know it'll be a cold day in Hell when that's going to happen...

shame 2

Whoops...although the previous post might be construed, for its very succinctness, as a commentary on all western behaviour towards discovery in another world or one alien to its own, it was, simply, a mistake. For even this world of cyber technology is alien and untested to the likes of me. No, I felt shame in the past week when I viewed tv programmes about the church's collusion in covering up child abuse by its own members and then about church members defending that collusion. I felt shame when I overheard a customer in the pub I work in try to explain to her father that Hitler could not be blamed for the death camps because his signature never appeared on the death orders so he could not have known what was going on in the death camps. I felt shame when I watched Colin Farrell in a movie called The New World; not for Colin, whose acting, I thought, was exemplary, but because it portrayed the blindness with which the western world savaged those so-called savage lands of the new world, their people and their culture. I felt shame again when I considered how we waste our lives in the relentless pursuit of wealth to satisfy our greed and forget that the word is true then as it was in the beginning; that dust we art and into dust we shall return. You can't bring it with you, brother, sister. You can opnly wear one suit at a time; live in one home at a time and eat one meal at a time, so surely there's enough for us all?
Have we forgotten how to welcome strangers, share our lives and our homes? Have we forgotten the old Irish traditions of hospitality, not unlike, I must point out, those inherent in Muslim traditions when a stranger seeks shelter, it must be given for it is the will of Allah...it is also the will of ordinary decency and a humanity, apparently, forgotten.

shame

rant on a saturday

It was probably, on reflection, an inappropriate time for a first date. Saturday night in Dublin - so far, so good - meet in a city pub and then go for dinner, somewhere intimate, cosy and serving quality food, reasonably priced.
So, eliminating all the overpriced and pretentious, you had to think cheap and cheerful; convivial.
My date had a wheat intolerance issue - not coeliac, just prone to bloating, she explained. Sympathising, I ticked my favourite pizzeria off the list.
And where to meet? Well, the first obstacle was the football. Ireland was playing the first leg of the World Cup qualifier against France in Croke Park. If you weren't at the game, you were almost certainly in a pub, nursing a pint and watching the game with your mates on a big screen.
The first pub I suggested was Neary's of Chatham St, the only pub I knew in the city without a tv. Of course, it's near Pizza Stop, my favourite pizzeria but that was no longer our dining destination.
My date fancied French food, oblivious to the implications of having the customary Gallic shrug replaced by a Gallic gloat, in the event of a score in favour of the visitors.
Although I knew Le Geuleton on Fade St did not entertain bookings, I thought I might have a punt at it anyway. The girl on the line confirmed my suspicions but then suggested I come in at 6.30, put my name on a list and then wait for the summons. Luckily I was sitting down or I would have staggered.
I booked Chez Max instead. It's a tiny place but cosy and reeking of garlic and Gallic charm. One very long table in the centre of the room was occupied by a rather noisy birthday party who, when they weren't whooping and hooting, were telling everyone else to 'shush.' They were Irish.
There was a big screen and yes, it was showing the match but the sound wasn't turned up; the staff were discreet about the solitary French goal and I sat with my back to it anyway which was no bad thing when I heard how boring it turned out to be. So all in all, a splendid night was had apart from the phone call to Le Geuleton, a drafty, overpriced monument with Gallic arrogance.

income cuts? look, no gun...no mask!

So all the hens have come home to roost and there's nowhere to set themselves. Not that all the income real estate has been taken over by foreign workers either. They're going home, slowly and for many, reluctantly. Ireland provided a good living and they worked hard for it. Indeed, as this country grew fatter, its workers grew lazy so all the marginal, workforce entry level, service and shit shoveling jobs were snapped up by immigrant workers. When you grow fat it's harder to lose it than it was to gain it. Young Irish workers need to learn to work hard.
They don't need to work for less money though. This really gets my goat. First, income levies and now the spectre of income cuts. First, they'll freeze public service pay for twelve months and extract levies to the bone while they're doing it. It's only a matter of time before the private sector gets it. In the current economic climate, we can't afford to pay people this much...that's what you'll hear.
My work hasn't changed. I'll work an hour or two more. I'll use every skill available to me to get business for my employer, improve our turnover, increase our profits and keep me in a job. I have no problem with that. I grew up working and I've seen recessions come and go. That this one has been different there is no doubt. We (they told us) rose higher than we ever imagined we could go before. But, to paraphrase the immortal words of Jimmy Cliff, the harder they come, the harder they fall. And 'we' apparently, had a long way to fall.
Never mind that I can't remember ever being up there, riding the 'Tiger's back, so to speak. No, you could leave that to the high fliers in Anglo-Irish, Bank of Ireland and AIB; the builders and developers, the speculators, the land grabbers and the out and out chancers who bought fancy suits, took flying lessons, bought flash motors with V8 engines and holiday homes in Marbella.
In the meantime, I've been doing what a lot of other people have been doing; living my life, muddling through, paying for what I need, using what I've got and borrowing nothing. More than ten years since I cleared my last debt, I'm paying other people's debts; the debts of those same speculators, bankers, chancers and Bengal Lancers. Those who purport to govern this situation took their eyes off the ball while their greedy mincers were stuck on how they got their share. Share of what? the air in a balloon? No, taxpayers' money when they could fiddle expenses; developers' money when there was an opportunity.
When will we wise up and see we are ruled, not governed. Find me a politician who can spell 'democracy' and I'll show you a naiive fool.

Cabaret, craparet!

Whoever let that appalling production of Cabaret onto a Dublin stage has a lot to answer for. I caught this tacky parody on its last night in the Gaeity and if it wasn't for the songs, I would have legged it from the theatre in disgust.
This production, featuring Wayne Sleep as the M.C., was tacky like the carpet of a suburban pub lounge in the smoking days. None of the original film's underlying themes were evident in any substance; the latent homosexuality and sexual confusion, the racism, the rise of the Nazis, the latent violence, the cutting commentary and parody.
Instead, there was an obsession with whether Wayne Sleep could dance anymore, given his age and then, when he did manage a few faltering steps, the expected gushing applause. It was enough to make me puke.
There was a famous stripper in the United States back in the '70s. Her name was Chesty Morgan and her unsiliconed 70 inch chest was a frightening sight to behold. Chesty became a minor celebrity and made a couple of films as a secret agent who smothered counter agents to death by enveloping them with her massive mammaries. In her latter years, she made guest appearances in tacky nightclubs; her act? she sat in a chair, wriggled about and tried, often failing, to teeter upright and standing. I'd rather watch her than Wayne Sleep.