12.5.08

Our man in Africa - Jamie Drummond lobbies the richest people on the planet on behalf of the poorest. Tim Adams meets the man with a direct line to the world's most powerful leaders -
Tim Adams
The Observer, Sunday May 11 2008

It is unnerving, as a journalist, to travel with Jamie Drummond. He never stops asking questions. In Tanzania, where I spend a week with him, he asks questions of world bank leaders and presidential advisers, of dollar-a-day farmers and fishermen on dhows, of editors and opposition leaders and economists and statisticians and doctors and teachers and nurses. He cheerfully interrogates the sick and the well, schoolchildren and grandmothers. The questions are always local and precise, but they also relate to a bigger enquiry, Drummond's specialised subject: how best to change the world.

'If we are trying to persuade someone to spend a billion dollars here,' he says, as we drive through the back streets of Dar es Salaam, flooded a foot deep after the rains, on the way to another meeting, 'the very least I can do is never stop being intensely curious as to the way that money should be spent.' Some questions get closer to the heart of things than others. At one point, on a rural road toward the end of a long day, we pass a wooded area in a valley near Kilimanjaro. In the back of the car is a local agronomist. 'What exactly is in the forest?' Drummond asks, with his routine edge-of-the-seat alertness. The agronomist looks out of the window. 'Trees,' she says.

Drummond, 37, is the executive director of Data (Debt Aids Trade Africa), the organisation he set up six years ago with Bono and Bob Geldof, among others, to lobby the richest people on the planet on behalf of the poorest. While Bono and Geldof have made headlines and met presidents, Drummond has been their representative on earth, driving arguments, making policy, creating access. Data grew out of the Jubilee 2000 Drop the Debt movement and came of age three years ago in helping to co-ordinate the Make Poverty History campaign, pressuring G8 leaders into signing the historic Gleneagles agreement to double aid to Africa. Since then, Drummond and his team of nearly 100 in London and Washington have been working non-stop in the sometimes losing battle of making sure those signatories honour their promises.

In this effort, Data has perhaps the most star-studded board of advisers and supporters of any organisation anywhere: it counts Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, George Soros and the guys from Google among its backers; the Harvard economist Jeffrey Sachs and Nobel prize winner Amartya Sen as its mentors; and most of A-list Hollywood - Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Matt Damon - as its informal ambassadors. (Drummond resolutely does not drop names, though he will from time to time say something like, 'I was in the mountains of Ethiopia with Brad Pitt when news of his relationship with Angelina Jolie broke. He got drunk with the locals, who had no idea who he was.')

Data has, through Bono's determined charm and Geldof's anger and the stubborn need to know of Drummond and his team, succeeded in getting its argument into places never before thought possible; in February, George W Bush was in Tanzania with Drummond and Geldof delivering $700m in aid; each of the three potential US presidential candidates has been filmed wearing Data's white One.org wristband and endorsing its policies. However, the currency of Data is not celebrity but information. 'Access doesn't last long if you don't have anything to say,' Drummond says. Hence the questions.

He has come here by invitation of the Tanzanian president, Jakaya Kikwete, the new leader of the African Union, who met Bono at a conference in New York at the end of last year. Tanzania is something of a laboratory for those who believe that properly directed aid can transform the lives of the world's poorest people. It is, in this sense, the latest in a long line of African countries to assume the media mantle of Most Hopeful Nation. Though 90 per cent of Tanzania's 36m population live on less than £1 a day, the more you travel and talk it is hard not to see an extraordinary extravagance of possibility here: untapped agricultural resources (only 3 per cent of land is irrigated), abundant mineral deposits (including the continent's second-largest gold reserves) and a largely unexploited tourist brochure that includes Kilimanjaro and Zanzibar and the Serengeti. Above all, Tanzania is peaceful, relatively democratic and tolerant - in short, the development agencies' dream.

As a result it is also currently the biggest recipient of foreign aid in sub-Saharan Africa, this year with $1.8bn in funding from the World Bank, $700m from President Bush's Millennium Challenge Account and enormous investment in health, primarily for Aids and malaria, from the Global Fund. Dfid, the British international development department, is giving £150m in direct aid to Kikwete's government, more than to any other country. When added to aid given through European agencies, that's £5 from each British citizen to each Tanzanian. Data has been at the heart of the lobbying for that unprecedented compact; Drummond wants to prove it is money that can be well spent. If poverty is to be made history anywhere, this seems a good place to start.

To this end, in his informal tour of duty, Drummond explains what he calls the Data deal. He does this so often that it becomes a kind of single-word mantra. "We'll-try-to-do-more-about-Debt-Aid-Trade-if-you-do-more-about-Democracy-Accountability-and-Transparency,' he suggests. The second half of that bargain is hard to measure, but some figures stick. Since 2000, when Tanzania was granted $3bn of debt relief, 3m more children have enrolled in the country's primary schools.

To ensure such momentum can be maintained, Drummond goes in search of evidence of that most elusive of entities: the growth of civil society. He finds it in the person of Sakina Datoo, the editor of the Sunday Citizen, who talks animatedly of holding politicians to account; in Zitto Kabwe, a young opposition spokesman who has given teeth to Parliament by exposing a history of corruption in government mining contracts; and he finds it, too, on school noticeboards, 'talking walls' that explain to parents the resources schools have been promised, the teacher-pupil ratios they should expect, and in homegrown agencies collecting independent statistics of Tanzania's healthcare trends and nurturing women's rights.

All African development tests an optimist's faith. Drummond argues that it is always about 'moving the chaotic mess of governance slowly in the right direction'. From this perspective the fact that the newspapers are full of stories of corruption, that Kikwete has just removed his prime minister and two of his cabinet for alleged collusion in fraudulent energy deals, is for him the clearest indicator of progress. It is not enough for Drummond to be asking complex questions; all of Tanzania needs to be asking those questions too.

I have a question: how did Drummond, a man with clear-eyed intelligence, who has retained a backpacker's zeal about the injustice of the world, come by his address book? The answer is that he started with one phone number and went from there. Much of the time, sitting in the back of a 4x4 as it bumps along some of the more challenging miles of Tanzania's roads between meetings, the only sound apart from the grind of the gears is that of Drummond's thumbs on his mobile phone, passing news of the world outside the windscreen back to London and Washington; he works in three time zones and his BlackBerry never sleeps. Now he is on the phone to a Japanese minister about the forthcoming Tokyo G8; now he is in touch with Bill Gates's office about a board meeting; now he is listening to Bob Geldof, who wants to talk 'Africa strategy, Asia strategy, Strategy strategy'. (It is, Drummond says, 'always like a double espresso talking to Bob'.)

This evangelism about connecting different worlds is compulsive. Once, he confesses, during a Davos weekend he had two phones clamped to his head all day, and in the evenings he had to apply ice packs to his burning ears. Several times he has been rendered digitally helpless by repetitive strain injuries, but his thumbs have always come back for more.

Given this compulsion, it's no surprise that all of this began with a phone call. All development workers have an epiphany, and Drummond's came in 1995, when he was 24 and working for Christian Aid in Ethiopia. It was 10 years after Live Aid and he was on the ground looking at what had changed - the answer was, depressingly little. While £200m in aid was coming in to Ethiopia, double that was always going out to service the debts run up in the ruinous Mengistu dictatorship. Remembering the catalysing spirit and chutzpah of Live Aid, Drummond helped to shape an initiative called Jubilee 2000, which looked to use the celebration of the millennium to give Africa a new start by cancelling billions of dollars of debt.

By 1997, Drummond had the unenviable task of trying to sell this idea to the White House. There wasn't time, he believed, to do it only through conventional lobbying, so he sought to enlist some alternative support. He had only one good contact. Drummond grew up in west London, where his father was an art dealer, but the family spent every holiday in the west of Ireland, and one of their neighbours there was Chris Blackwell, the legendary boss of Island Records. Through Blackwell, Drummond got a message to Bono. When the singer phoned him, Drummond recalls, his opening line was: 'Hello, this is Bono. Doesn't the economic crisis in south-east Asia make debt cancellation impossible?' Half-thinking it was a mate winding him up with a fake Irish accent, Drummond nevertheless answered the question as best he could, and in so doing began a conversation that a decade later is still very much in progress. Drummond is unerringly modest and anxious at every turn to stress that his was only one small voice in a 'great ecosystem of wonderful development advocacy' - but still, without that call, you could certainly argue that $50bn of debt might never have been written off.

The genius of Jubilee 2000 was the understanding of how mobile communication and the internet might transform protest. Huge amounts could be achieved cheaply out of one small office. Drummond is explaining how this worked as we drive up to a remote farm in the foothills of the snow-capped volcano Mount Meru, 50 miles west of Kilimanjaro. He is a fan of Google Earth, the software that allows you to telescope in on any spot on the planet, from any other spot. The last time he came up here he was with one of the founders of Google, Larry Page, and the perfectly named Larry Brilliant, the director of their charitable arm, Google.org. They were here to see the joined-up possibilities of working development.

The Google team came to earth in a farmyard at the top of a fertile valley in Masai country. Loishiye Meshurie lives here with his wife and three children. Meshurie is something of an agrarian revolutionary. He is a pioneer of a plant called artemisia, the so-called 'wonder herb' that can cure malaria. Up until 2005 artemisia only grew in south-east Asia, but with the help of TechnoServe, a charity that teaches best agricultural practice to smallholders, artemisia is now cultivated by 4,000 farmers in this corner of Tanzania. Meshurie walks us round his farm and describes a perfect vision of development in practice: he can sell the crop for a premium; it can be used locally to treat malaria cases (his youngest daughter successfully fought the disease with it); and with the profits he can send his children to school and invest in his farm. Meshurie helps to train 100 other farmers in growing the crop. Since Drummond was last here Meshurie has made an addition to his roof of which he is particularly proud: a $100 solar panel which not only powers a light bulb in the two-room house - the first electricity in the great, quiet valley - it allows him to charge his mobile phone.

The phone itself represents another crucial strand of progress. On the far hill is a mast; the reception is better here than in parts of London. Drummond loves the neatness of all this. 'Communication is helping the farmers get their products to market, to keep track of prices. It helps clinics get the supply chain of drugs right. Some of it is happening through technology, some through investment.'

It was this kind of story that, after their visit, prompted Google.org to sponsor a variety of projects that will give people like Loishiye Meshurie more access to knowledge. 'They are working out smart ways to help people at a very local level in places like here, to access statistics about what is really happening in their area - and what should be happening,' Drummond says. And it is a good example, too, of one way that Data has helped to shape investment here. 'One thing we realised was: there are a lot of people at the beginning of the 21st century who are newly extremely wealthy. Particularly on the west coast of America. They have made a lot of money and have changed the world through software or the internet or in investment. Now they want to change the world again. And when someone who is as demanding of results as Bill Gates gets into the sleepy backwater that development had been, it is sure to shake things up.'

It was Gates who got Data moving. After Jubilee 2000 Drummond was contracted to Oxfam, but his address book by now contained advisers to the G8, heads of state, and all the rightwing republicans that the NGOs found it hard to talk to. He felt, along with Bono and Bobby Shriver, a west coast cousin of the Kennedy clan who had managed to open many doors in Washington, and an inspiring activist called Lucy Matthew, who had worked indefatigably on Jubilee 2000, that they should do something with these numbers, that the work they had begun had to go on. With this in mind Drummond wrote to Bill Gates, to George Soros and to the Silicon Valley entrepreneur Ed Scott. Each of them eventually gave $1m to set up Data. Gates has subsequently suggested it was the best million dollars he ever spent.

When that funding came through, Drummond and Bono were already finding their way around the White House. Condoleezza Rice, in particular, was a fighter on their behalf. Drummond recalls a particular meeting with Rice at the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001, the summer before 9/11, partly because it was a surreal occasion. The summit had been moved to an aircraft carrier because of fears that suicide bombers in planes might target the conference. 'One morning Bob and Bono and I were sitting with Dr Rice having a coffee outside, and she was suggesting that she thought Drop the Debt had been very effective and successful and they wanted to build on it. Suddenly out of the water comes a man in a frog suit. We all thought: is he a terrorist? He comes right up in his flippers and stares at us. And then he says to Bono: "Are you Bono?" and Bono says yes. And he says to Dr Rice: "Are you the girl off the telly?" And she says: "Well, kind of." And he flops away.'

There were several results of that 'frogman' conversation: one was the extraordinary pledge from the Bush government to work toward 100 per cent debt cancellation, another was that Drummond was seconded for several months to Washington, to help draft the parameters of what became the president's $10bn Millennium Challenge Account, which rewarded good governance in Africa with capital investment. Drummond didn't have an office in Washington at the time, so he worked out of a Kinko's copy shop.

At the same time, he and Bono and Shriver were organising a Heart of America tour, a kind of magic bus roadshow of American states - Lincoln, Nebraska to Nashville, Tennessee with Lance Armstrong, Warren Buffett, Ashley Judd, Bono and Shriver on board. 'We did town hall debates about the Aids crisis,' he says. 'As a result, in 2002 we got 10,000 Americans to contact the White House to ask for a historic Aids initiative to be included in the 2003 State of the Union address.'

Drummond is given to understatement. 'It was a challenge at the time to have to say to the president of the United States that $10bn for Africa was not enough,' he suggests. 'In addition we wanted the Aids programme. I was basically negotiating the terms of whether Bono would be in a photograph with Bush, which in the end he was, because we decided the terms of the deal were good enough.' The terms of the deal were $15bn for Aids in Africa, which has risen to $20bn. 'We are,' Drummond says, 'currently looking at a re-authorisation of $50bn, to be spent more widely on health, over the next five years.' Despite these successes, in his recent acclaimed book The Bottom Billion, the Oxford academic Paul Collier is less than flattering about the contribution made by Bono and Geldof to the development debate. 'Development buzz is generated by rock stars, celebrities and NGOs,' he writes. 'To its credit it does focus on the plight of the bottom billion. It is thanks to development buzz that Africa gets on the agenda of the G8... Unfortunately, although the plight of the bottom billion lends itself to simple moralising, the answers do not. It is a problem that needs to be hit with several policies at the same time, some of them counterintuitive. Don't look to development buzz to develop such an agenda: it is at times a headless heart.'

The day after we have been out at Kilimanjaro we fly back to Dar es Salaam; the small plane is delayed nine hours, so we arrive at 4.30am, Drummond having slept flat out on the floor of the airport. At eight he is due at an Aids hospital to see Bono - who has interrupted a family holiday in Kenya - to make a film for an American Idol fundraiser.

Data has never been shy of mass media. The hospital at which the film is being made is a Catholic mission which gives Aids treatment to 32,000 people, with 3,000 new cases a month. Its free antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) are supplied by the Global Fund, and by George Bush's President's Emergency Fund for Aids Relief (Pepfar).

When we get there, Bono is sitting on a step of the hospital telling stories to camera with a little boy named Deloy. Deloy has lost his father and mother to Aids in the past couple of years. He has a memory box, which he is sharing with the viewers of American Idol; in it is his father's rosary. Bono tells Deloy his own mother died when he was 13, so he knows a bit about how it feels. 'Two pills a day would have saved your parents, Deloy,' he says. Deloy is a Chelsea fan; he wants, he says quietly, to be a high court judge. 'Do you believe in God?' Bono asks Deloy, 'even after all that has happened to you?' Deloy nods. 'Well, Deloy, God believes in you, too.' With that hope in mind Bono hands over to Annie Lennox in Johannesburg. Before he goes he addresses the American Idol audience directly: 'Remember: you can save a life tonight, but tomorrow you can change the world. Click on to One.org. Put on your marching boots, tell the politicians what you think...'

I'm standing with Drummond in the shade. When Bono is done with this performance - which though familiar and staged is also sincere and direct - he calls over to us: 'Jamie, you have your worried face on rather than your really worried face. So that means it was probably not too bad.'

As a result of events like the American Idol show - which raised $60m - One.org, the American wing of Data, is now the biggest pressure group in America outside the National Rifle Association. It has a database of 2.5m supporters and it has been crucial, Drummond believes, in keeping up the pressure on the White House. He has no doubt of the complexity of the issues in kickstarting the Tanzanian economy, but without 'buzz', without the simplification, in his view, nothing complicated happens. 'What Bono is amazingly good at,' he says, 'is reminding people - politicians, aid workers - the reasons they came into this in the first place. He is an antidote to jadedness and cynicism.'

When the filming has finished, the pair of them wander off to a church, where a wedding is in progress. I ask Bono about that first phone call, and he admits, laughing, he sometimes regrets having made it. 'In the Eighties I was involved with charity, but I had the sense that there was a structural aspect of this poverty I was not getting.' Jamie's explanation was like a calling. 'It has become a vocational thing now.'

He was always wary of the simplification of what Paul Collier calls 'buzz'. 'You're a rock star; it's like being a bottle blonde with a cleavage.' In meetings with finance ministers he knew he had to be the person in the room who knew the most. 'People kept saying to me: how do you know all this stuff? And the organisation that Jamie put together is how I know it. He found the people who have made this organisation a hard little fist of facts. Any politician who meets a rock star, especially an Irish one, imagines, you know, they are going to bleed everywhere. Our approach was always scientific.'

Drummond agrees. 'Washington is a very sober place: you have to know your arguments more there than perhaps anywhere. It is imperial Rome - the centre of power, for better or worse. But sometimes our policy got better too: they forced us to be a little tougher on governments and corruption.'

Celebrity does not win those arguments, knowledge does. To start with, Bono says, George Bush did not want to see them. The then treasury secretary Paul O'Neill didn't want to see them either. 'We walked in and he said: "If you think we are going to increase aid to Africa while I am sitting in this chair you are out of your mind. We are not giving you money to redecorate some presidential palace." So I said: "Well, what if we could show you that there are some countries where they are tackling corruption where there are new leaders coming through, for example Tanzania..." And he said: "OK, show me." So that began our trip through Africa - the odd couple, they called us. We would visit an Aids clinic in the morning and they would take us to a Ford motor plant in the afternoon.'

It was an education for all of them, in understanding a complexity that it is not possible to convey on American Idol 'Top-line melody: that is what I do for a living,' Bono says. 'But we have harmony and rhythm, too. Yes, there are daily maddening events, like what's happening in Zimbabwe right now, but I have just come from Kenya, where there are 46 per cent fewer malarial deaths because of increased bed-net coverage in the past three years. When people were out on the street in their Make Poverty History T-shirts, people could laugh and say: "What will they ever change?" We have changed a lot: $72bn of debt has now been cancelled; in Tanzania an extra 3m kids are going to schools. People say: "Yeah, but how good are the schools?" Well, the schools are not quite there yet and there are not enough teachers - but you know, that's the next problem to solve.'

We talk a little about what Data is. Drummond comes up with a definition. 'Basically it is a response to him [Bono] asking questions. You have heard me asking constantly this week, "Where did that fact or figure come from?" And it is because I know he is going to ask me when I get back. We want Data to be like that really irritating child who is always asking "Why?"'

They are, I suggest, growing old together, asking these questions.

'That's right,' Bono says. 'One day we are going to get a beach on the Mozambique border and build a home there for retired geriatric activists.'

There is an argument that aid will never change anything in Africa. It is put forward most persuasively by William Easterly of New York University in his book The White Man's Burden. Easterly is a fierce critic of Jeffrey Sachs, whose contention that Africa requires a 'big push' of development aid to get out of poverty has underpinned the agreement of the Millennium Development Goals and the Make Poverty History movement. Easterly contends that 'economic development in Africa will depend - as it has elsewhere and throughout the history of the modern world - on the success of private-sector entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs and African political reformers. It will not depend on the activities of patronising, bureaucratic, unaccountable and poorly informed outsiders...'

Bono and Drummond do not merit any of those adjectives. When he was in the audience at a conference in Tanzania and a speaker asked Easterly's question: 'Name one country in the world that has succeeded with aid,' Bono raised his hand. 'Ireland,' he said. 'Twenty years ago it was a very poor country and now it is a very prosperous place, all done with European aid into infrastructure.' So the speaker said: 'OK, name another country...' And Bono raised his hand again, and said: 'Germany' and started talking about the Marshall Plan.

If there is one word we hear more often than any other in Tanzania in response to Drummond's questions, it is 'infrastructure'. It comes as the answer to questions about education and questions about health and questions about agriculture. It is much harder to raise money for a sewage pipe or a motorway than it is to get emergency relief for an orphan - but those are the things that will often help bring lasting change. Ask interested parties in Tanzania what they want most and they say, 'a road from Botswana to Kenya'. The Chinese understand this: in their current quest for African raw materials and energy they barter with concrete and tarmac, and don't bother too much about transparency or accountability.

If Bono is evangelical about anything, it is about infrastructure. 'There's a part of me that would just like to give up my other life and just come here and build roads,' he says. 'Flying over Dar in a little Cessna, coming in to land I had to ask myself a question: have I really got to a point when I am physically aroused by the sight of quarries? Should roads being built give me a hard-on?'

In a sense they should. Without the ability to get to school or get goods to a market or get to hospital, everything else falls down. Getting a road built, though - without the blind-eye development deals that come from the Chinese - is no easy matter. For a start, it requires statistics. Drummond does not have faith in many things, but he does have faith in measurable facts. Without facts you can't make an argument, and without an argument you can't build a road.

You could hardly find a drier place on earth than the office of Anna Mwasha. It is at the end of a corridor that might only exist in East Africa - metal doors, wooden benches, long afternoons. Mwasha's office itself is like the inside of a filing cabinet, yet Drummond inhabits it with palpable excitement. Mwasha is head of MKUKUTA, the Tanzanian government's poverty reduction unit. She is in charge of the Tanzanian Statistical Master Plan, an audit of the country's progress - a requirement of debt relief. She talks quietly about inputs and measurable surveys and about the fact that 'women in labour can make it to prenatal care, but when it comes to birth, without roads, often they are stranded in their villages. Only 40 per cent make it to a clinic, while 90 per cent go to prenatal.' One in 30 women dies in childbirth in some of these rural areas. Drummond is captivated. 'Once a government starts to invest in independent statistics then you have a real chance,' he says.

With such fact collecting about health, and about education, Drummond knows he can start making other connections. In Dar we visit the offices of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which will spend the $700m that has come from George Bush for capital projects here, part of the account that Drummond lobbied for from the Washington branch of Kinko's. Much of the money will go on building roads. Ben Mchomvu, head of the Corporation, gets out a map of Tanzania and starts tracing his finger between towns and cities: 'The Japanese will build this section, this money will come from the World Bank and we will tarmac from here to here.' It is all about joining the dots.

Later, Drummond recalls how when they travelled to Ghana with Paul O'Neill in 2002, the road from the airport to the hospital they were visiting had a large sign next to it, saying 'Built by the Bin Laden Construction Group'. When he went back a couple of weeks ago with Geldof on President Bush's trip they were announcing the construction of the brand new George W Bush Highway from Accra to the airport. 'There's some hope in that...'

Back in London a couple of weeks later, I speak to Jeffrey Sachs about what he makes of Data's contribution to development in places like Tanzania. 'I think they have been phenomenally effective in raising public awareness,' he says, 'in raising political awareness, and in helping achieve commitment. There is a long list of particulars: getting rid of school fees, malaria controls, providing school meals, distributing bed nets, providing antiretroviral drugs for Aids. Data has played a crucial role in all of these areas, through cajoling, convincing, illustration. Bono and Jamie are extraordinary and unique individuals. I don't think we should underestimate what has been achieved, but also we should be shocked at the gap between the promises of governments and the deeds at this point.'

In the Data offices in Soho, Drummond and his team are putting together this year's annual Data Report, which will dwell on that gap, praising the G8 governments which have honoured their Gleneagles commitment - thus far, Britain and the US - and highlighting those that are falling way short of it, particularly the French, the Japanese and the Italians. The French have pledged to spend 0.7 per cent of GDP on development aid by 2012, but so far every year since 2005 they have cut their small aid budget; Sarkozy is now saying he will get there by 2010, but no one will believe that until it happens. The hardest nut to crack on these issues is traditionally Berlusconi. Drummond has not given up. He has his sights set on putting the arguments to the Vatican before the Italian G8 next year.

Because of the shortfall, 2008 has once again been declared an Emergency Year for Africa by Bill Gates and Gordon Brown, among others. Data's calendar is organised around some of the events at which they might make this sense of emergency count: the Tokyo International Conference on aid on 28 May, the G8 summit, also in Tokyo, in July, and an emergency UN session on Africa in September. In a meeting, Drummond's colleagues talk about the ways they can, in conjunction with the other NGOs, try to influence the 'sherpa meetings' of advisers in advance of the summits. With Japan in mind they are organising a viral film with Bono in Japanese; he or Bob will edit a newspaper in Tokyo; lobbying will be coordinated with Bill Gates and Jeffrey Sachs, and decisions will be made whether positive encouragement will prove more effective than public admonition. The Japanese finance minister recently suggested to Drummond that 'with flattery a pig can be made to climb a tree'. But then he would say that, wouldn't he? Drummond is entirely pragmatic about these methods. Data is not about ideology; it is about persuading rich governments of the case for properly directed aid and investment. (Bobby Shriver, who created much of this philosophy and now runs, with Bono, Red, the corporate Aids initiative, says: 'We were never there to make a point, always to make a deal'). Sometimes it requires supping with parties many NGOs might consider the devil. 'Probably,' Drummond says. 'We specialise in trying to negotiate with those elements least favourable to our issues...'

The best recent symbol of the success of that flexibility was the presence of Bob Geldof on Air Force One. Drummond subsequently introduces me to Geldof at an investment forum for Tanzania on the Strand, where he is speaking with the trade minister. Was it weird to be on the presidential jet?

He laughs. 'No! What a vibe, you know. It just turned out it wasn't much better than Ryanair business class.'

Geldof is entirely sanguine about what Data has to do to get things done. 'We inhabit this bizarre thin space between the pieties of the NGOs and the politics of government,' he says. 'We weave in and out.' He was impressed by Bush's grasp of African issues and by his commitment. 'Bush saw the creativity, the intelligence, the wit of the people [in Tanzania]. It sounds like a Geldof speech, but when you see it they cease to be objects on television. Suddenly you see: give these people the tools - and bang! They are off. And Bush saw he had given them the tools to go to school, to get well...'

I wonder how much he thought that commitment had been down to the advocacy of Data and other NGOs. Ever contrary, he thinks it probably had more to do with the emergence of China in Africa.

'Still, the object was always: how do you use this access to a purpose? Basically Jamie, Lucy Matthew and the rest kidnapped Bono, and he in turn kidnapped me. I resist all the time, still do... The only thing I am certain of is that we are always wrong. Otherwise this thing would have been resolved. But then everyone else is wrong too.'

His strategy, Geldof suggests, is to always define himself in opposition to whichever way Data is going. 'I cannot stand this empire-building,' he says, gesturing with some affection toward Drummond. 'He goes fucking mad when I say this. I don't think it should be a massive structure. Very smart people, very deft, very fleet of foot. Those are the arguments we have on a daily basis on the board and elsewhere. But then, we can't stand still just using the diminishing juice of two Paddy pop singers...'

Talking to Geldof you get some sense of the challenges Drummond faces in trying to keep this group of people together, let alone trying to connect them with the world. When they are all in one room, Gates and Geldof and the rest, how does the dynamic work?

'Well,' Drummond says, grinning a little wearily, 'if there were not strains and tensions, it would be boring and not real. Tensions are good. All the time we are trying to figure out: what kind of organisation are we? Are we an NGO? Should we become more like a media company, trying to get information out to create a debate? There are a lot of different views. Some of it depends on whether you came from the music industry or the software business. There's geeks and post-punk activists...'

And there is him in the middle?

'There are lots of people in the middle,' Drummond says. And for all their disagreements - Lucy Matthew calls it 'this big messy family led by three people, Bob, Bono and Jamie, with incredible amounts of energy and incredibly clear visions, all of them slightly different' - they share a common enemy: the idea that the complex problems of Africa are insoluble. 'For all of us, really,' Drummond says, 'it is about connecting the granny who came out on the street for Jubilee 2000 or the person who bought a wristband and the policy outcome. If you thought the cancellation of debt had no effect, think again. Across Africa since the year 2000 there are 29m more children in schools; 2m Africans on ARVs, which has gone up nearly 750,000 in the last year; 46m insecticide-treated bed nets have been distributed across the continent to protect children, and expectant mothers in particular, from the mosquito bites that cause malaria. These are fantastic, fantastic breakthroughs. And they are,' he says, with relief, 'unarguable.'

Does he ever imagine they will make poverty history?

'No,' he says, 'there are no new ideas in development - it is about looking at what went wrong last time and trying to do it better and with more energy this time. No one has all the answers.' But, it goes without saying, that does not mean anyone should for a moment stop asking the questions.

· To hear more from Jamie, Bob and Bono, three years on from the launch of Make Poverty History, visit guardian.co.uk/video

Africa by numbers
55 Countries in Africa

24 African nations in the bottom 24 countries of the UN Human Development index, a measure of population well-being

119 Rank of the highest-rated sub-Saharan African country, Gabon, in the UNHD index

941m Population of Africa

6,500 Africans are dying every day from a preventable, treatable disease sub-Saharan Africa

1.7m Sub-Saharan Africans have been infected by HIV/Aids in the last year

1.6m Sub-Saharan Africans died of Aids last year

33.4% of the adult population in Swaziland has HIV/Aids

$39.9bn of aid was given to Africa by developed countries in 2006

18 African countries have received total debt cancellation in the past five years

1.1m Sub-Saharan Africans, mainly children, die from malaria annually

3m insecticide-treated nets were given to Rwandan households in 2006 by the Global Fund

66% Drop in malaria-related deaths the following year

500,000 children in Mozambique have been vaccinated against tetanus, whooping cough and diphtheria with its debt savings

1000% Increase in Niger's teacher recruitment through foreign aid

20m more children are now going to school in Africa due to debt cancellation - Compiled by Tom Templeton
guardian

27.4.08

Jazz Fest 2008 - Saturday - April 27, 2008
Photos, videos, audio, articles: nola
Cameras in New Orleans:
Parade cam
Quarter cam
River cam
Reports live:
WWOZ
Radio:
Nola radio

****

kids get the best seat in the house

Kids get the best seat at the Imagination Movers show - More photos in this gallery

****

Billy Joel's singing in the rain
Posted by Keith Spera, Music writer, The Times-Picayune
April 26, 2008 9:10PM
Categories: Jazzfest

As Billy Joel plowed through "Keeping the Faith" at the Acura Stage, a roadie armed with a squeegee swept standing water off the top of the black grand piano. That tells you all you need to know about the weather Saturday evening at the Fair Grounds. A hard, steady rain fell throughout Joel's set. "Why, God, why?" shouted a guy standing in the puddle behind me. Joel, too, had some questions for the Almighty. More than once, he shook his fist and glared at the foreboding sky. "Is that the best you got?" he shouted at one point. "C'mon, bring it on." The weather was obviously a distraction for Joel and his band. But being highly paid professionals -- extremely highly paid professionals -- they carried on with a no-frills tour through the leader's extensive catalog of hits: "Don't Ask Me Why." "Allentown." "Movin' Out." "Matter of Trust." "You May Be Right." "River of Dreams," refitted with a few bars of "When the Saints Go Marching In." The deteriorating conditions called to mind fresh interpretations of various lyrics: "We didn't start the fire" -- but we'd like to, in order to stay warm. "A river so deep" -- like the one we're standing in. "I may be crazy" -- for not seeking shelter. "Even rode my motorcycle in the rain" -- while leaving Jazzfest. "Alone in your electric chair" -- can we not talk about electrocution, with all the lightning? "You've got us feeling all right" -- well, not exactly. With lightning flashing and the downpour not slacking, Joel's set would finish 30 minutes early. For "It's Still Rock 'n Roll To Me," he stepped to the lip of the stage while spinning his microphone stand, rain soaking his black sport coat. He returned to the piano for an epic "Scenes From An Italian Restaurant," stamped with a Max Rivera sax solo. After "Restaurant," Joel took a bow as Jazzfest producer Quint Davis stepped to the microphone to proclaim this "a show none of us will ever forget." For a moment, Joel seemed unsure if he would be allowed another song. Of course, he was, and of course, it was "Piano Man." All across the muddy infield, goosebump-covered arms draped across sodden shoulders in a mass singalong. When Joel turned the chorus over to the audience, the rain, as if on cue, fell harder. By then, it didn't matter. All were wet and cold. Even the Piano Man. Photos: nola times picayune - Source: nola

****

New Orleans invites you to 'Come Out and Play'
The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — The city is hoping to attract more tourists with a new campaign to bring people in during the slower summer season. “Come Out and Play” is the theme of advertisements touting the city’s music, food and cultural and family attractions. Since Hurricane Katrina, tourism officials have tried to sell prospective travelers on the idea that the city is open for business, but they’ve often come up against concerns about violent crime, misgivings about having a good time when people are still rebuilding their lives and misperceptions that parts of the city are still under water. After pulling off a series of successful events and bringing up tourism numbers, officials now feel they’ve turned a corner, said Lea Sinclair, a spokeswoman for the Tourism Marketing Corp. fayobserver

****

A jam-balaya of jazz in New Orleans
BY DAVID HANDSCHUH - Sunday, April 27th 2008, 4:00 AM

New Orleans Jazz Fest favorites Lil Nathan and the Zydeco Big Timers kick off the fun before noon on May 3.

- Also on May 3, Jimmy Buffett will have Parrotheads searching for their lost shakers of salt.

Is Jazz Fest in New Orleans an amazing music festival with the best food around, or the most yummylicious food festival surrounded by the greatest music on Earth? You can answer that eternal question yourself as the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival continues this week from Thursday to Sunday. But if you want to go, book your visit to New Orleans now. Flights are getting costly and rooms are becoming scarce as lovers of culinary and musical delights are planning their visit to the Crescent City. Returning this year to seven full days of music, Jazz Fest features more than 1,000 blues, rock, jazz, country, gospel and other musical performers picking guitars, strumming banjos, beating congas and joining voices on 11 different stages to entertain more than 10,000 visitors a day. And there's a full lineup of more than 100 food vendors to tempt the taste buds, quench the thirst and satiate the tummies of those moving to the beat. Sure, you can satisfy the basic yearnings for the New Orleans staples: po' boys, beignets, muffuletta, crawfish etouffée and ribs are all here. But Jazz Fest foodies are famous for trolling the fairgrounds and spying on people's plates looking for something new and different, as the sweet sounds of music mix with the aromas of things baking, broiling, frying, roasting and grilling on Toyota-size smokers. There's always someone pushing the limits with traditional Cajun ingredients. Look for the crawfish strudel, the white chocolate bread pudding or the spicy crawfish sushi roll. You'll find several different versions of gumbo, but none more upscale than the pheasant, quail and andouille sausage version. Make sure you sample the crawfish sacks from Patton's Caterers. Try the crepe beggar's purse stuffed with a spicy crawfish mixture and tied with a leek string. They sell more than 25,000 of these handmade delectables during the week, and you can be sure there will be a long line in front of their booth as an army of Patton relatives and their friends toil to serve the masses. It's great entertainment listening to the Brooklyn-like Cajun Patois as the orders are yelled by the waitstaff up-front to the cooks in the back. But the real sounds of Jazz Fest is the music, the big names that show up every year and are consistent crowd-pleasers: Buckwheat Zydeco, the Neville Brothers, Tower of Power, Marva Wright and the BMWs to name a few. Headliners usually perform the last set of the evening from about 5:30 to 7 p.m. This year, Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, Jimmy Buffett, Santana, Al Green, Diana Krall and the Raconteurs are scheduled to perform. But the real fun is wandering from tent to tent all day and hearing old-time jazz musicians and the glorious singing at the gospel tent, or catching shows by undiscovered newcomers, who usually play as early as 11 a.m. on any given day. Our pick? Look for Lil Nathan and the Zydeco Big Timers opening the Gentilly Stage on Saturday at 11:25 a.m. You'll be able to tell your friends you saw the next Zydeco supergroup. For a schedule and roster of performers, go to www.nojazzfest.com
source: nydailynews

****

Jazzfest in New Orleans: I'm Showing Up for the Party
Posted April 26, 2008 | 03:53 PM (EST)
Welcome to virtual New Orleans. It's a cool day, wild parrots are screeching in the back yard and we're waiting to see if it rains before heading to the racetrack. Bob French, proud owner of a Habitat for Humanity Musicians Village home, drummer for the longest running band in the city and the planet's most uncensored disc jockey on WWOZ is keeping listeners posted on Jazzfest weather. He says, "There will be no rain today," and his guest adds: "You listen to some of these weathermen with their gloom and doom and they say, 'we're all going to be under water . . . well actually we were under water that one time so maybe they're right." Radio New Orleans at its finest. Dr. John is a must-see at 3:20. He's been working in new tracks from The City That Care Forgot, and based on a sneak preview over the holidays this one will make him the most uncensored musician in New Orleans when it debuts in June. We listened to hundreds of tracks to compile the New Orleans Musicians Relief Fund benefit ReDefine 8/29 download and I thought I had my fill of post-Katrina songs. It turns out I haven't. The "Turbinton's House" Tribute is this afternoon in the WWOZ Jazz Tent to honor Earl "The African Cowboy" Turbinton and his brother, Willie Tee, who both passed away within the last year. Too soon, and both very missed. Each New Orleans musician is distinctive enough to each leave a void that can never be filled, but each also mentors a new generation in a way that no other city offers. They gather in a rolling sideshow of bands as exemplified by Paul Sanchez and his Rolling Sideshow. Paul's former band Cowboy Mouth also plays today. John Thomas Griffith of Cowboy Mouth was in The Fate Brothers with my husband Jeff, and all these ties reinforce the sense that everyone you love is just up the festival track. Jeff now plays bass with Bryan Lee Lee and the Blues Power Band. The Braille Blues Daddy mentored Kenny Wayne Shepard as a young prodigy, and Kenny Wayne will be playing the Fest next weekend. Bryan will rock the Rivershack tonight with Brent "The Maistro" Johnson on screaming guitar, John "The Wheel" Perkins on drums and Jeff "The Groove" Beninato. I love bands with nicknames. Then they head to festival season in Germany. Bryan is one of the many New Orleans musicians back on the road after losing a steady gig to the storm, and his "Katrina Was Her Name" is up for Best Contemporary Blues Album at next month's Handy Awards. But first Ingolstadt, Germany, the fictional (hopefully) home of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. [End of Band Wife Endorsement] Back at the Jazz and Heritage Festival, the rain is finally coming down and Big Jay McNeely, a founder of rock and roll, is taking the stage. Known for leading strolls out of clubs and around the block, he was once arrested for disturbing the peace on one of his second lines. His band kept playing until he was bailed out, came back to the club and finished the song. In the '40s, Big Jay once crawled from home plate to first base on his back while playing sax in an LA stadium. His stage show made him one of Jimmy Hendrix' biggest influences, and eventually got him banned from LA. He introduced his track 3-D, available from the nomrf Sax on the Web download, with: "When I was 21 I recorded this number. I'll be 81 on Tuesday, so here we go . . . " Yesterday Robert Plant played "Fortune Teller" as Allen Toussaint beamed backstage. He also loaded up on swamp pop at the Louisiana Music Factory, as any good visitor should. John Boutte just stopped by the WWOZ tent to thank New Orleans visitors for supporting its music. He also described the challenge of bringing music to fans ready to let the good times roll, while waiting for the recovery of your home town. "People are still dying from the devastation from the failure of the federal levees and they're dying in auto accidents trying to make it back home, they're dying from increased substance abuse, people are being thrown out of their homes, living in facilities, but yet here we are. We're still trying to make it through. Thank God we do have a little distraction, and thank the world for helping us." John specifically thanked the Threadheads, a jazzfest supergroup, for funding his and Paul Sanchez' new cd, and closed with "Showing Up for the Party": "I'm showing up for the party so everyone can see. I'm showing up for the party, but I know it's not for me." source: huffingspot

7.4.08

April 7, 2008

Hannover Quay


Interferencer BonosCamerawoma took this photo with Bono, recently, April 2008. Interference. More pics: U2chat.com. Some fans had met Adam, Larry and Edge. Rumors say they are in studio, again.

Your TIME 100 - Vote for Bono
Vote for who you think are the most influential people this year. here
April 6, 2008:

U2 ‘tie the knot’ with Live Nation

06 April 2008 By Gavin Daly
Shares in the management firm rose by almost 4% on the New York Stock Exchange after the deal was announced.

‘Why U2 are still able to make our best ever album at this point, I think, has to do with the fact that we long ago figured out the dynamics of how to work with other people,” said U2 guitarist Edge in an interview with RTE presenter John Kelly last Monday.

The following day’s newspapers showed that was indeed the case - U2 had agreed to hand over control of its touring, merchandising, and website to US firm Live Nation. The 12-year deal was reported to be worth more than $300 million to the band, although neither Live Nation nor the band would comment on the financial terms.

The deal stops short of a trend towards so-called ‘360-degree’ deals, where management firms such as Live Nation take full control of a band’s operations. U2 have held back the publishing rights to their music, and the band’s long-running recording relationship with Universal Music is not affected by the deal.

Nevertheless, shares in Live Nation rose by almost 4 per cent on the New York Stock Exchange in the hours after the deal was announced. The shares climbed steadily during the week, finishing at about $13,up from a low of $9.26 in January.

New York analysts said that investors were attracted by the potential of the deal for LiveNation.U2’s last tour, Vertigo, took in almost $400 million, so touring revenues alone should come to more than $1 billion during the life of the contract.

U2 have worked on a project-by-project basis with Live Nation since 1980, and Paul McGuinness, manager of U2, told Billboard.com that the band’s relationship with the firm was ‘‘pretty near perfect’’ to date. In a statement, Bono, the band’s singer, said: ‘‘We’ve been dating for over 20 years now, it’s about time we tied the knot.”

The deal will take Bono and bass player Adam Clayton up to their 60th birthdays in 2020, while Edge and drummer Larry Mullen will be 59 when it expires. In the RTE interview, Edge saidU2 were ‘‘operating pretty much in the same way now as we always did’’ - a major feat, considering the band was formed in 1976 after Mullen put a note on a school notice board.

The guitarist attributed U2’s longevity to a consensus-based approach, which doesn’t appear to have happened entirely by accident - he cited a book called the Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod.

While U2’s members often have disagreements, they have never once had to resort to a vote to sort out issues, according to Edge. ‘‘Most groups collapse because of envy and ego within the group, and somehow we figured that out early on. Maybe it was because we always put the songs first, rather than any of our own individual selfishness.

It’s almost like we’ve got a group ego that we buy into,” he said. ‘‘In the end, it’s the smart option to find people you can work with, and figure out how your strengths and their strengths together will benefit both individuals. It’s borne out and proves throughout nature to be a really smart strategy.”

It is also no accident that the band is handing a certain degree of control to Live Nation at a turbulent time in the music industry. ‘‘I don’t think it’s as simple as ‘the internet is killing music’; I think there are a lot of factors,’’ Edge said.

‘‘But it certainly isn’t helping that the major structures of distributing music are losing so much money and firing people every week. We are going through a period of major upheaval and it is hard to say how it will pan out. My hope is that there will be a new system in place that will supersede the old way of the record labels and the publishing companies.”

Music industry sources said the Live Nation deal was significant for a number of reasons - reflecting the shift in power in the industry from album production to touring, as well as the growing importance of the internet. Live Nation will take over U2’s online presence, which is expected ultimately to lead to concerts being broadcast online.

‘‘There’s a certain convergence taking place in the industry, and it’s obvious that the biggest part of U2’s business now is their live business - even though they’re a major, major record-selling act,” McGuinness said, adding that Live Nation ‘‘has an online vision that I believe in’’.

For a band that started out when there were no mobile phones or internet, U2 have consistently used technology to communicate with their fans, including the recently released three-dimensional film, U23D.

Bono said that the Live Nation deal would help improve the band’s website and build ‘‘a closer, more direct relationship between the band and its audience’’.

For its part, Live Nation is upfront about its ambitions. In its corporate literature, the firm says: ‘‘Live Nation is the future of the music business.”

The firm speaks of revolutionising the global music industry and ‘‘building an integrated platform aimed at further strengthening and monetizing [sic] the relationship between artists, fans and sponsors - before, during and after live events’’.

In other words - finding new ways of making money from music. The U2 deal will add to the coffers of an already wealthy business. Live Nation had revenue of $4.2 billion last year, an increase of $473.3 million from2006. It had an operating income of $82.1 million, an increase of $49 million, but made a net loss of $11.9 million after all its expenses were taken into account. It had free cash of $84.7 million at the end of last year.

When the firm announced the results in February, chief executive Michael Rapino said it expected this year ‘‘to be another healthy and growing period for the live music industry’’.

The firm has hit the ground running in that regard - theU2 deal followed a ten-year contract with Madonna, which includes rights to new music, and is reportedly worth $120 million. Live Nation wooed Madonna away from her contract with Warner Music.

Michael Cohl, chairman of Live Nation and chief executive of Live Nation Artists (LNA), said the U2 deal was similar in structure to the Madonna contract, with some money to be paid up front and LNA sharing in the profits and ‘‘substantially and materially involved’’ in revenues from rights.

Live Nation should start seeing the benefits of the deal by next year, as U2,who have sold more than 140 million copies of their 11 studio albums, are currently working on their next album.

McGuinness said the album should be released this autumn and the band should tour next year. Edge was more circumspect. In the RTE interview, he said the band recently had song-writing sessions in the south of France and Morocco, with producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, but ‘‘don’t know a date’’ for the new album.

‘‘What we’ve been doing recently - and it’s been amazing - is just making music without having any sense of where it’s going to go. . . We haven’t set any agenda for what’s going to happen with the work. We’ll see, we’ll make some music and see what we’re going to do with it.”

While the RTE interview was recorded before the Live Nation deal was struck, Edge had no doubt of the benefits of being inU2.

‘‘I remind myself a lot that we, as members of the band - and our friends - are some of the luckiest people that have ever lived,” he said.
thepost

Video: Bono - King, History Cheannel - April 06, 2008 (37 Seconds):

King, History Channel - Host Tom Brokaw brings to life the heroic story of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and displays the leader's remarkable journey for civil rights and racial integration. Only the parts with Bono have been included.
Download: savefile
April 6, 2008:
The Edge personally supervised the repackaging — and remastering — of U2's first three studio albums
U2: Boy; October; War (Reissues) Summer - The Edge personally supervised the repackaging — and remastering — of U2's first three studio albums. The two-disc sets — which contain the classic tunes "I Will Follow," "New Year's Day" and "Sunday Bloody Sunday" — are packed with live tracks, B sides, outtakes, never-before-seen photos and new liner notes by the guitarist himself. source: rollingstone

Bono was in Kenya, when he recorded to BBC-Zane Lowe; some fans say Edge was with him and their families ... Invest heavily in tourism marketing, Italian billionaire tells Kenya - Story by DANIEL NYASSY - Publication Date: 4/4/2008 - The Government will have to invest heavily in tourism marketing if Kenya is to compete effectively with other tourist destinations in Africa, Italian Formula One tycoon Flavio Briatore, has said. Mr Briatore said after the recent post-election violence, the country needs to take charge and market tourism aggressively to regain lost ground. He said Kenya’s beauty and tourism potential largely remained untapped due to lukewarm marketing strategies. “Countries like Egypt and South Africa have had worse disasters in the past but their tourism industry has quickly recovered because they have moved forcefully to counter such disasters,” he said. Mr Briatore told a press conference at his prestigious Lion in the Sun hotel in Malindi that his coming and last week’s visit by super model Ms Naomi Campbell in the country was clear testimony that the country was safe. “Kenya has to do something urgently because other countries with similar natural endowments were marketing themselves more aggressively and could take over most of the tourism business from Kenya,” he said. The Italian billionaire, who owns the prestigious Lion in the Sun hotel in Malindi, said Kenya cannot afford to remain complacent as far tourism marketing was concerned. “Nobody in Europe at the moment knows there was a peace deal. Outside there, it is still so quiet about Kenya. The deal has not been communicated adequately outside there. The good news about the peace deal has to be communicated like the bad news was, ” he said. Mr Briatore revealed that world celebrity U2 singer Mr Bono had left Malindi on Tuesday after a 10-day holiday with his family at Lion in the Sun, saying that was a clear indication that Kenya was a safe destination for tourists to visit. “The fact that I am here with my girl friend and a friend, and the fact that my friend Mr Bono who is a world celebrity was also here shows that we have confidence in this country. The country is quite safe especially the Coast region,” he said. This is the same message Ms Campbell sent to the world after visiting the country last week. Mr Briatore arrived in Malindi aboard a private jet on Monday afternoon accompanied by his girl friend Ms E. Gregoraci and two friends Mr M. D’Onofrio and Mr G. Fasciano enroute to Bahrain to attend a Grand Prix race. Malindi MP Mr Gideon Mung’aro, who accompanied Mr Briatore said once a new cabinet was formed, there would be a change in the way Kenya is marketed. “The Tourism Bill already before Parliament is expected to bring major changes in the sector including fresh strategies to market the country,” said Mr Mung’aro. nationnmedia

6.4.08

April 6, 2008:

No Failte Ireland welcome for U2's proposed Clarence revamp



U2's plans for a €150m revamp of the Clarence Hotel in Dublin have not been given one hundred thousand welcomes by Failte Ireland, the national tourism authority.


Failte Ireland criticised the project, saying that the planned dramatic facelift for the hotel -- owned by Bono and The Edge -- contravenes policies relating to conservation and does not constitute sustainable development.

The comments were made by Paddy Mathews, the authority's manager for Environment and Planning, in a submission that will be made at an An Bord Pleanala oral hearing about the case later this month.

It will be a blow to the band, after they especially requested the hearing to put their case forward before the planning board come to a decision on whether or not they should be allowed to go ahead.

The ambitious project for the Clarence -- which involves knocking down four neighbouring listed buildings and erecting a spaceship-like atrium on top -- was given the green light by Dublin City Council in November of last year.

However, a number of interested parties appealed the decision to An Bord Pleanala. An Taisce, the national trust, and the Irish Georgian Society voiced opposition.

Bono, The Edge and developer Paddy McKillen then requested an oral hearing by the board, believed to be in order to put their views forward ahead of the board making a decision.

Failte Ireland did not volunteer the submission, it was requested by An Bord Pleanala.

In his comments, Paddy Mathews conceded that the development would be "exciting and innovative".

But he added: "It is clear that the treatment of these protected structures contravenes Dublin City Development Plan policies relating to the conservation of protected structures and does not constitute proper and sustainable development."

He said: "Dublin city derives much of its character and appeal to visitors from its Georgian heritage. It is important that the integrity of this historic fabric be protected.

"It is also considered that this may set an unwelcome precedent for development in the Georgian heart of the city."

One of the appellants, environmentalist and former head of An Taisce Michael Smith, welcomed and agreed with the Failte Ireland submission.

He said: "It is part of a new, serious approach to the environment that the former Bord Failte has started to take over the last few years. Formerly it was inclined to support all tourist infrastructure."

Smith also called on the Minister for the Environment John Gormley to make a submission to An Bord Pleanala, as he said would be usual, against what Smith described as "the biggest demolition of protected structures in more than a decade in Dublin" before its oral hearing on the matter starting on April 16.

The revamp has already been given the go-ahead by Dublin City Council, despite its own city conservation architect, Clare Hogan, advising a refusal in her report, stating that the planned development did not meet legal requirements.

She expressed concern that the band was unable to provide "exceptional circumstances" to demolish four neighbouring listed buildings -- as required under the Planning and Development Act 2000.

Bono and The Edge plan to demolish the Georgian buildings and transform the 44-bedroom boutique hotel into a 141-bedroom five-star hotel and spa -- complete with restaurant, bar and fresh food market.

A spokesman for Failte Ireland said: "Our position is as outlined in the submission to the oral hearing. We would be happy to meet developers to talk about plans in great detail, if developers think that would be of benefit."

A planning source said the Failte Ireland comments were not as damning as they may initially seem. They said: "It is pretty balanced. They make a nod towards the good points of the project, while also voicing a bog standard concern about gutting buildings."

- Larissa Nolan

independent.ie
April 3, 2008:

The Richest of the Rich


THE Sunday Independent in Ireland published its annual list of who’s making what over there, and to absolutely no one’s surprise, U2 top the list of wealthiest entertainers, with a healthy bank balance of €900 million. Nice! “The band, which has traditionally split earnings equally among Bono, Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen, the Edge and manager Paul McGuinness, has begun to divide up its vast portfolio among their respective families,” says the Indo. Clearly, the relatives won’t have any financial worries in the future!

Coming in second is Michael Flatley, who’s said to have €590 million to his name. Chicago-born Flatley resides full time at his Castlehyde mansion in Co. Cork with wife Niamh and son Michael Junior. “He has a wide range of investments,” says the paper. Putting it mildly!

Though their first foray with a Broadway musical flopped with last year’s Pirate Queen, Moya Doherty and John McColgan, the genius behind the ever-enduring Riverdance franchise, come in a very respectable third with €172 million.

Fourth is the reclusive Enya (€128 million), thanks to some 70 million in album sales worldwide. Van Morrison comes in fifth with €74 million, which should soar even higher this year as he’s got a new album that’s due for imminent release.

Colin Farrell, though he splits his time between his home in LA and a place in Dublin, comes in ninth on the list with earnings of €38 million. “Farrell’s most lucrative role to date was Alexander the Great, accounting for about a quarter of his total wealth,” reports the Indo. Maybe so, but the starring part in Oliver Stone’s 2004 stinker almost completely derailed Colin’s career.

The richest man in Ireland for the second year running is Sean Quinn, who made his €3.5 billion fortune in quarries and insurance. Total wealth of those included on the list is €42 billion “equivalent to the GDP of Morocco,” says the paper.

And if you’ve got anything less than €75 million to your name, you can forget about making the grade, as that’s the minimum wealth cut-off.

Speaking of the incredibly rich, U2 should easily hit the billion dollar mark in the next year or two thanks to the mega-deal they inked on Monday with concert promoter Live Nation. U2 will enter into a 12-year deal with the company that will see them perform exclusively under the Live Nation banner. Live Nation will also handle U2 merchandise and its U2.com website. Basically, they’ll cover everything but the band’s recordings, which will still be the property of Universal.

The deal pays U2 $80 million upfront, and undoubtedly oodles and oodles of cash down the road.

By Debbie McGoldrick, Irish Voice

undependent.ie

5.4.08

April 4, 2008:

U2's Bono linked with Derry civil rights concert

Friday, April 04, 2008

By Gary Fennelly

A concert planned to be held in Derry later this year as part of the civil rights commemorations could attract some of the biggest names in the music industry including U2 frontman Bono.

The concert, to be held in November, is being organised by the Civil Rights 1968 Commemoration Committee. Organisers said they are unable to confirm who is performing at the concert.

However rumours are beginning to circulate linking humanitarian rocker, Bono, to the show. The U2 lead singer has spoken in the past about his admiration for Martin Luther King, one of the founders of the American civil rights movement which was a major influence on the civil rights campaign.

The gig is part of a series of events throughout Ireland and Britain announced by the Civil Rights 1968 Commemoration Committee and includes conferences, lectures and a summer school.

The organisers say it is important to remember the events of 1968 in a "sober and reflective way".

"The things that happened during that pivotal year had a profound effect upon our society, and precipitated an avalanche of change which left no part of our community untouched," the group said.

They said they will "seek to learn from what happened, to consider the significance of the Civil Rights Movement for our society today and the continuing resonance of the issues which it addressed, and the ideals which underpinned it".

The programme includes a lecture in Magee University next month featuring top academics. It will be chaired by Nobel Laureate John Hume and speakers will include Lord Paul Bew, a Professor at Queen's University, Belfast, and Paul Arthur, a Professor at the University of Ulster. The lecture will be held on April 15 at Magee.

Denis Haughey, chair of the committee, said: “The civil rights movement here modelled itself very much on the civil rights movement in the United States.

“Those of us who were involved in the civil rights movement were hugely impressed and hugely struck by the dignity and courage, the integrity of purpose and the non-violence of the United States movement.

“That motivated us to take the same approach and put the spotlight of publicity on the injustices we saw around us here and it was our intention to generate peaceful pressure on the authorities here and in London to take responsibility in their hands and deal with the injustices over jobs, housing and electoral matters.

“At that time a lot of very ordinary people showed a lot of extraordinary courage in peacefully confronting and challenging injustices and showed change could be brought about by peaceful means.

“Unfortunately the potential of creating a normal democratic process of gradual and peaceful change was lost in the tragic events which followed but it is important to reflect and learn from these events as we work to create a stable democratic society today.”

An international civil rights conference will take place in Derry on October 4th to commemorate the Duke Street march in the city.

belfasttelegraph

Stipe talks about U2, Jacknife Lee & The Edge's role in the new R.E.M album


HIV/AIDS: Lesotho gets 'Bono-Bobby' funds
Written by Henry Neondo
Friday, 04 April 2008
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced Thursday that Lesotho has become the fourth country to receive funds from (PRODUCT) RED, joining Rwanda, Swaziland, and Ghana in the Global Fund-(RED) portfolio.

(RED) was launched in 2006 by Bono and Bobby Shriver to engage business in the global fight against AIDS in Africa. (PRODUCT) RED has become one of the largest consumer-based income-generating initiatives by the private sector for an international humanitarian cause.

As the Global Fund looks to existing and new donors to finance programs globally to fight AIDS, TB and malaria, (PRODUCT) RED has become a significant new source of funds.

“In generating more than US$ 100 million for the Global Fund so far, (RED) has rapidly proved to be an effective and innovative source of private sector financing in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa,” said the Global Fund’s Executive Director, Dr Michel Kazatchkine.

“We are delighted to announce the addition of Lesotho to the three countries already receiving (RED) funds. With one in four people in Lesotho infected by HIV, this country’s fight against AIDS is a fight for survival. The Global Fund-supported program is contributing to stemming the growth of AIDS in Lesotho and ensuring treatment and care for thousands of people living with the disease.”

The Global Fund selects programs for (RED) investment based on their proven track record, ambitious targets and the countries’ undisputed need.

The Global Fund-(RED) supported program in Lesotho is implemented by the Lesotho Ministry of Finance and helps fund in-country services including: Antiretroviral therapy for AIDS patients, Prevention of mother-to-child transmission and community home-based care for people living with HIV. Further, the programme will help counseling and testing for HIV and basic care for orphans and vulnerable children.

One hundred percent of the (RED) money received by the Global Fund flows to Global Fund-financed programs, as regularly scheduled disbursements. So far US$ 57 million has been disbursed to the programs in the Global Fund-(RED) portfolio. Through these programs, (RED) funding has reached over 1.3 million people.

The Global Fund is a unique global public/private partnership dedicated to attracting and disbursing additional resources to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

This partnership between governments, civil society, the private sector and affected communities represents a new approach to international health financing. The Global Fund works in close collaboration with other bilateral and multilateral organizations to supplement existing efforts dealing with the three diseases.

Since its creation in 2002, the Global Fund has become the dominant financer of programs to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, with approved funding of US$ 10.1 billion for more than 550 programs in 136 countries.

To date, programs supported by the Global Fund have averted two million deaths through providing AIDS treatment for 1.4 million people, anti-tuberculosis treatment for 3.3 million people and the distribution of 46 million insecticide-treated bed nets for the prevention of malaria.

The Global Fund provides more than 20 percent of international funding to fight AIDS, as well as two-thirds of international funding to fight malaria and tuberculosis, and aims to raise US $6 billion to US $8 billion annually to sustain and increase this level of funding.

africasciencenews
April 2, 2008

'Shot Rings Out in The Memphis Sky'

Seen John Legend's stripped-down, piano-based cover of Pride (In The Name of Love) ? It's part of a two hour TV special marking the fortieth anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King.


Beautiful in its simplicity, Legend covered the track for 'KING' which is aired on the History Channel in the US this Sunday evening.

Catch the clip on YouTube below and find out more about the show, which also includes an interview with Bono, here


source: U2.com
April 1

Edge On 'The View'


Last night's RTE interview with Edge is now online. Recommended viewing... From the earliest days of the band to what they're up to in the studio right now... sit back and enjoy the whole of John Kelly's interview here. source: U2.com

Videos:




Comments: "Not very revealing about when the album is coming out. Currently they are just making music without having any sense of where it’s going to go. They haven’t set an agenda for what is gonna happen with the work. They've never had that luxury really, he claims. They'll see what they want to do with it. They are more free in that sense than they’ve ever been, he says. They don’t want to deal with the pressure that this is an album that has to go to number 1. Brainiac Edge doesn't think the industry's problems are as simple as 'the internet is killing music', but he thinks it certainly isn’t helping that major structures are losing money and firing people every week. Edge tries not to noodle if at all possible. The members of U2 are all social democrats. Brian Eno is The Edge's favorite keyboard player in the world. The album could be made pretty quickly, but brainy says he doesn't know the date. He claims they don’t want to spend a lot of time messing with it. Also, The Edge has deep respect and love for his bandmates, and no, The Edge doesn't really want to wrap a guitar around the Bono's neck ..."
March 31, 2008:

U2 to Join Live Nation Artists
LOS ANGELES, March 31 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Live Nation President and Chief Executive Officer Michael Rapino announced today that the company has reached an agreement in principle to enter into a 12-year global contractual relationship with U2, who will join the company's Live Nation Artists roster. "U2 has created some of the greatest rock music of all time and their career has been uniquely successful," said Michael Cohl, Chairman of the Board of Live Nation and Chief Executive Officer of Live Nation Artists. "It has long been our intention to consolidate and extend our relationship with U2, so this is a very exciting deal for us. The band has always been forward thinking and as one of our original and most successful artists, we are delighted to be able to work with them for many years into the future." Acknowledged as one of the best live acts in the world, U2 has played to millions around the world on their ground-breaking tours. Their eleven studio albums have garnered 22 Grammy Awards and sold in excess of 140 million copies globally. Through this new association U2 and Live Nation Artists will collaborate on a variety of the band's global music enterprises including touring, merchandising, and the band's website, U2.com. "We've been dating for over 20 years now, it's about time we tied the knot," said U2's Bono. "With regards to U2.com, we feel we've got a great website, but we want to make it a lot better. We want a closer, more direct relationship between the band and its audience and Live Nation has pledged to help us with that." Arthur Fogel, Chairman of Live Nation's Global Music Division and Chief Executive Officer of Global Touring, who has produced every U2 tour since PopMart in 1997, said, "Our long relationship with U2 has endured and flourished over the years. This is an opportunity to move forward with them while building on the past, utilizing our unparalleled global marketing platform to expand U2's universe into the future." Paul McGuinness, U2's Manager said, "U2 are doing their best work right now, on record and in concert. The opportunity to integrate U2 and Live Nation's vision of the future is a great extension of our established business and of our working relationship with Arthur Fogel and Michael Cohl, which started back in 1980 at the El Mocambo in Toronto." By expanding the scope of its activities with touring artists, Live Nation Artists unlocks value to increase economic benefits to artists through the creation of innovative new products, and delivery and distribution channels for music and other content. Operating within this new model, Live Nation Artists serves more than 1,000 artists through its array of services, including global touring, merchandise and licensing (Signatures Network, Anthill, TRUNK, Ltd.), sponsorship and strategic alliances, recorded music, studios, media rights, digital rights, fan club/websites (UltraStar, Musictoday), marketing and creative services (Tour Design) to facilitate direct artist to fan connection. U2's longstanding relationship with Universal Music for recording and also publishing is not affected by the Live Nation deal. The deal is subject to the completion of documentation and is expected to be finalized in the coming months. ABOUT LIVE NATION: Live Nation is the future of the music business. With the most live concerts, music venues and festivals in the world and the most comprehensive concert search engine on the web, Live Nation is revolutionizing the music industry: onstage and online. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Live Nation is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, trading under the symbol "LYV." Additional information about the company can be found at www.kivenation.com under the "About Us" section. source: prnewswire

UPDATE: Live Nation Signs Concert-promotion Deal With U2 SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones) -- Live Nation Inc. has reached a 12-year deal with U2 that gives the U.S. concert promoter exclusive rights to produce the Irish rock band's concerts, manufacture and sell its merchandise, license its image and run its Web site and online fan club, according to a media report Sunday. Terms of the U2 agreement weren't disclosed, The Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition. The U2 arrangement, which follows an even broader 10-year deal with Madonna, would guarantee desirable inventory for the new ticketing service, set to launch at the beginning of 2009, the Journal said. Live Nation (LYV), the world's largest concert promoter by revenue, has said it is parting ways with IAC/Interactive Corp.'s (IACID) Ticketmaster, the biggest ticket seller, when their partnership ends at the end of this year, Live Nation plans to launch a competing ticket service to sell seats to its own concerts as well as events staged by others, the Journal said. Unlike Live Nation's $120 million deal with Madonna, the U2 agreement, which is to be finalized soon, doesn't cover distribution of recorded music or music publishing, according to the report. For the same rights Live Nation is getting from U2, the promoter paid Madonna about $70 million, the Journal said. U2 extended its record contract with Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group SA late last year and also has a long-term publishing deal with Universal, the Journal said. For U2, the promoter is effectively paying the band to lock in the status quo: Live Nation or its predecessors have produced and promoted every world-wide U2 tour since 1997, and a Live Nation subsidiary already manages the band's Web site and fan club, the Journal said. Formed in Dublin in 1976, U2 remains one of the most potent live draws in the world. Its most recent tour was the second-highest-grossing concert tour in history, earning $389.4 million at the box office, according to data from Billboard magazine. The Rolling Stones' 2005-07 "Bigger Bang" tour took in $ 558.3 million. Live Nation promoted both. U2's record sales haven't held up quite as well; 2004's "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" wasn't among the 10 best-selling albums in the U.S. that year, the Journal said. cnn

U2 Signs With Live Nation, Forces World To Imagine What Bono Will Look Like In 2021 U2 has signed a 12-year-deal with Live Nation, handing their worldwide merchandising, digital and branding rights over to the concert-promotion behemoth. The size of the payoff was not announced, but it should be considerably smaller than the $120 million the monolith shelled out to Madonna, as the band will continue recording for Universal Music Group. But with the majors rushing to sign their acts to all-encompassing "360" deals in the face of dwindling music sales, "merchandise and licensing rights, sponsorship and strategic alliances, digital rights, fan club/Web sites and other marketing and creative services" may be the sweeter plums. Which would you rather own, the copyright to Bono's mug or the sequel to How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb? source: idolator.com

U2 Signs 12-Year Deal With Live Nation March 31, 2008, 3:10 PM ET - Band Will Continue To Record For Universal Music Group - Ray Waddell, Nashville - U2's deal with Live Nation puts the promoter in business with one of the highest earning bands in the world for more than a decade. It's a 12-year deal with Live Nation Artists that includes worldwide touring, merchandising, and the band's U2.com Web site. The deal, however, is not a true 360-degree pact, as there is no publishing component and the band retains its relationship with Universal Music to release music. "It's not do-or-die that we have to have everything. We just have to have certain critical mass, and we more than have it in this deal," Michael Cohl, Live Nation chairman of the board and CEO of Live Nation Artists, tells Billboard.com. U2 manager Paul McGuinness adds, "There's a certain convergence taking place in the industry, and it's obvious that the biggest part of U2's business now is their live business, even though they're a major, major record-selling act." The band's relationship with Live Nation has been "pretty near perfect," McGuinness says. "For some time now they've been executing, promoting and producing our tours as partners pretty well perfectly. Since they want to consolidate rights and they have an online vision that I believe in, their Ticketmaster deal is expiring, which is going to change their margin, I'm very happy to go into a partnership with them. And, apart from all the financial stuff, there is a real friendship, a real bond." Financial terms were not disclosed, but Cohl says that the deal was similar to the previously announced Madonna deal (valued at $120 million), in that there was some money paid upfront and that LNA would share in the profits and will be "substantially and materially involved" in all pertinent rights' revenue streams. Both camps expect synergies to come into play when exploitation of these rights are integrated. "Conceptually it's got to be better, in that the broadcast and the streaming and the Internet and the fan club and the website are all in the same hands," says Cohl. "There's no debate. There are no different vested interests. We're going to have a great starting block and where we go will be new, unexplored territory that instinctively feels like it should be exponentially better." U2 is in an elite class for touring, with its 2005-2007 Vertigo tour taking in close to $400 million, the second highest ever. So touring alone should generate more than a billion dollars in grosses over the course of the contract. The length of the deal, which exceeds even Madonna's 10-year pact, "indeed is a mark of the faith and trust we have in them," says McGuinness, adding, "In 12 years time U2 will not even be the age the Rolling Stones are now." If everything goes as planned, the power of the U2/Live Nation Artists venture will become apparent by next year. "The band are in the studio now. We hope to release an album this fall and tour in '09," says McGuinness. "There's a constant rolling plan and sometimes it gets postponed, but we plan all the time, and that's the current plan."
source: Billboard

Promoter Expands Reach With U2 - Live Nation, Preparing To Battle Ticketmaster, Signs Up Irish Band - Wall St. Journal, March 30, 2008 - Ethan Smith - As it girds for a looming battle with IAC/InterActiveCorp's Ticketmaster, concert promoter Live Nation Inc. is looking to enlist powerful allies. The latest to sign on: U2, which has reached a 12-year deal giving the promoter exclusive rights to produce the Irish rock band's concerts, manufacture and sell its merchandise, license its image and run its Web site and online fan club. The situation highlights the shifting landscape of the concert industry, as various players vie to expand their influence. Live Nation, the world's largest concert promoter by revenue, has said it is parting ways with Ticketmaster, the biggest ticket seller, when their partnership ends at the end of this year. Live Nation plans to launch its own competing ticket service to sell seats to its own concerts as well as events staged by others. Live Nation has also acquired several companies that run Web sites and sell merchandise for artists, and it is looking for artists to sign to record deals like the one it entered last year with Madonna -- a move pitting it against record labels. Promoters, labels and ticketing companies alike are looking for ways to expand their presence online, by acquiring companies that market and promote music on the Web. "It's clear that the lines, or the silos, that were in place historically are breaking down," Arthur Fogel, Live Nation's chairman of global music, said in an interview. Many previously disparate parts of the music business are being consolidated, he added: "Companies such as us are best positioned to execute on that basket of rights." The U2 arrangement, which follows an even broader 10-year deal with Madonna, would guarantee desirable inventory for the new ticketing service, set to launch at the beginning of 2009. Unlike Live Nation's $120 million deal with Madonna, the U2 agreement -- which is to be finalized soon -- doesn't cover distribution of recorded music or music publishing. For the same rights Live Nation is getting from U2, the promoter paid Madonna about $70 million. Terms of the U2 pact weren't disclosed. U2 extended its record contract with Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group late last year, according to people familiar with the matter, and also has a long-term publishing deal with Universal. For U2, the arrangement represents a windfall that results ultimately from Live Nation's newly embattled position and its resulting need for loyal allies. The promoter is effectively paying the band to lock in the status quo: Live Nation or its predecessors have produced and promoted every world-wide U2 tour since 1997, and a Live Nation subsidiary already manages the band's Web site and fan club. Live Nation Chairman Michael Cohl said he considers Ticketmaster "already our competition." He added that long-term artist relationships are one of two keys to the company's ability to compete effectively with its rival; the other key, he said, is building up infrastructure like venues and subsidiaries that can execute merchandise deals. In preparing for this kind of battle, Mr. Cohl said, "one of the things you do is start to position yourself in terms of the hardware, and you try to position yourself in terms of the content. We're trying to line up as much of both as we consider meaningful and beneficial." Live Nation's stock closed Friday at $11.83 in 4 p.m. composite trading on the New York Stock Exchange, sliding 10 cents and coming in at nearly half its closing price of $23.36 on Oct. 10, the day before the Madonna deal became known. Formed in Dublin in 1976, U2 remains one of the most potent live draws in the world. Its most recent tour was the second-highest-grossing concert tour in history, earning $389.4 million at the box office, according to data from Billboard magazine. The Rolling Stones' 2005-07 "Bigger Bang" tour took in $558.3 million. Live Nation promoted both. U2's record sales haven't held up quite as well; 2004's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb wasn't among the 10 best-selling albums in the U.S. that year. The deal may also offer ways for U2 to address problems that arose on its last tour. The band offered members of its online fan club, who paid $40 apiece to join, early access to tickets. But during the so-called fan-club presales, many would-be buyers encountered frustrating waits and a limited, expensive inventory comprising some of the worst seats in the house. Ticketmaster had a hand in the presale fiascoes, inasmuch as its infrastructure couldn't handle the surge of ticket requests that flooded its computers. But people involved say the bigger problem was that there were simply too many members in the club to provide them all premium seats. "We feel we've got a great Web site," U2 lead singer Bono said in a statement. "But we want to make it a lot better." U2.com is already hosted by Signatures Network, one of several merchandising companies recently acquired by Live Nation; they are being merged into one unit. While Live Nation has been snapping up artists along with companies that provide them services, No. 2 concert promoter AEG Live has been seeking to make strategic moves of its own. Earlier this month talks stalled in a deal for Ticketmaster and Cablevision Corp. to take a 49% stake in the promoter, which is owned by Anschutz Corp. IAC and Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, together operate a personal-finance Web site. sourece: wsj


180 Things I Hate About You
I love this idea. Eighteen artists based in London were asked to design a dartboard with the thing they most hated on it for an exhibition curated by Garudio Studiage that starts at the Dazed & Confused Gallery this week. From left, Bono, moths and drivers on mobile phones were most hated by artists Miles Donovan, James Hollingworth and Annabelle Hartmann respectively. (Click images for detail.) Who are we to disagree? You can see more of the works at the 180 Things I Hate About You site, or head to the exhibition, which runs from this Friday, 16 February until 23 March 2007
Dazed & Confused Gallery
112-116 Old Street London
EC1V 9BG United Kingdom
source: coolhunting

In The Name Of Love: Africa Celebrates U2 - promo video and mp3 Behind the scenes with the artists who contributed to the new album In The Name Of Love: Africa Celebrates u2.

mp3: Pride (In The Name of Love) - Soweto Gospel Choir

'Spontaneous Combustion' Daniel Lanois, Canadian singer-songwriter and producer extraordinaire, has been in the studio with U2 on several of their albums since The Unforgettable Fire in 1984 - and he's working with them on the latest. He looked back on some of those albums to come up with his U2 Playlist.
Here's Danny's U2 Playlist.
1. PRIDE (IN THE NAME OF LOVE) - The Unforgettable Fire
Now this holds a special place in my heart given that we must have recorded it at least twenty times! We tried it in the Castle and that didn’t seem to work. If I remember right Bono wanted the drum roll that springboards into the chorus to go a certain way - he had a memory relating to rehearsals - so we found ourselves in the mixing room at Windmill Lane and we still did not have the version of Pride that would satisfy our wannabe drummer. At Windmill they didn’t have a drum sound that I liked and so I insisted that we build a cement wall behind Larry’s kit so we could get that sort of stone-wall sound. Sure enough the crew came in and built a wall of cement blocks behind Larry’s kit and that sound satisfied me - a great performance by Larry - so we cut the version that ended up on the record. Drum sounds aside I think what probably delivers the song in such a big way is Bono hitting the top notes.
2. MLK - The Unforgettable Fire
This song has a sweetness to it that appeals to me. I used this beautiful Sony microphone called a C500 which has this velvety top end that sounds really nice for Bono’s voice and it’s one of those little moments you want to keep coming back to.
3. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For - The Joshua Tree
The story has been told before but its worth telling again: the drums, another very fine performance from Larry, were from another song, that I didn’t want to lose and Larry’s drums inspired Edge to come up with a lovely acoustic guitar chord sequence, which itself seemed to spawn some good R’n’B melodies from Bono. But we still didn’t have a chorus: that came one morning when The Edge came in from home with the line ‘but I still haven’t found what I’m looking for’. So the song had found its identity which fuelled some very lovely bass from Adam who must have played it a dozen different times to accomodate the never ending chord changes. The background vocal is Edge, Eno and myself singing at the top of our lungs with a lot of fire. The song has such a lot of feeling in it that it sustains me even now.
4. Exit - The Joshua Tree
This was a lovely gift from the band room: U2 have the capacity to have spontaneous combustions and this song is a fine example of that kind of work where you never know what is going to happen when you huddle up with them in the band room. We call it the room of shattered metal and glass! Exit was in fact an extract from a very long jam, the shining gem of that jam, and I remember some long nights chopping the tape to pull out the best bits.
5. Mothers Of The Disappeared - The Joshua Tree
I love that piece of music as it’s a marriage of human playing of instruments and of technology. Eno came up with some great kind of machine gun and bomb sounds, almost like a soundtrack piece of music, and painting such a strong picture. It’s a subject matter that should be looked at all the time – a strong force going into a small community and pushing it around to serve its own needs, even if the expense is people going missing.
6. One - Achtung Baby
What an incredible journey Achtung Baby was. The guys had it in their mind that they wanted to make a rock’n’roll European record so they went into Hansa Studios in Berlin where Iggy Pop and Bowie and Eno had worked - Eno found himself sitting in the same chair that he sat in the seventies and it was a great place of innovation. That wonderful old orchestra room spawned the song One, a favourite of mine. That song started with a chord sequence from The Edge who then came up with a second chord sequence, and when I suggested a blend of the two that slight twist allowed Bono to come up with his melody. It was a song built through several chapters. As I remember right after a Christmas break, Eno and I turned up at Hansa before the band had arrived, and I had this Les Paul part which I call the mantra and Eno doubled it up on the synth so that was a little surprise for the guys when they walked in. That’s a nice thing to do for Bono, to juice him up with some sonics, that way he usually goes off to the microphone and comes up with something new and that was the case with this.
7. Until The End of the World - Achtung Baby
Flood came up with a great mix here, I was his cheerleader. There was something on the equalisers on the console we used that allowed us to have a kind of sweeping effect on the guitar, almost like a wah wah peddle being performed on the consol. I love the vitality and speed of this song.
8. You're So Cruel - Achtung Baby
One of my favourite grooves from Larry, about as close as we’ve ever gotten to a Motown or Sun Studios performance and such a simplicity and clarity, that it’s always fun for me to listen to.
9. Love is Blindness - Achtung Baby
I love the darkness of this, we hit on something there sonically.
10. Beautiful Day - All That You Can't Leave Behind
There’s a song that got bashed around pretty well in the studio and went through many versions. Chord sequence by Bono I believe and kind of rooted in the tradition of what I call the Bo Diddley riff. It never quite grew out of bar room territory. We didn’t really know what to do with it, then Eno dialled up a little drum beat, and a piano part and a string part, kind of as a loop and I played a telecaster part in harmony with that which provided a lot of encouragement to the room and so a big jam took place and in the middle of that session Bono yelled ‘It’s a beautiful day!’. And then we went for lunch! When we came back we realised that that had been a special moment and so we transferred that beautiful day idea to an earlier part of the song, creating a chorus, and it went on from there. Background singing is by Edge and myself, processed by Mr Eno who made us sound like a choir.
11. Grace - All That You Can't Leave Behind
I love this piece, another one of those quiet numbers that I like to hear on records, you are hearing a nice blend of spontaneous U2 track, grown by the Eno and Lanois production team.
12. Where The Streets Have No Name - The Joshua Tree
Another track that we struggled with but there was always something in the symphonic beginning which appealed to everybody and that had come from a demo Edge had made at home. It has a strange time signature which really screwed up the rhythm section, a very anti-rock’n’roll thing to do. I can remember myself like a science teacher pointing people through the chord changes. In the end it has this great uplifting feel and maybe it is the closest thing U2 have ever come to a dance song.
Read and watch our clip of the band in Morocco with Danny
Back to Play Lists
Click here to read Catherine Owen's U2 Playlist
Click here to read Jacknife Lee's U2 Playlist
source: U2.com