Harry Potter was ahead. of his time: Round eyeglasses, the distinctive kind worn by the young wizard, are shaping up to be the next big thing in eyewear. During the past decade, myopic hipsters have favored rectangular frames. Now, design houses such as Paul Smith, Balenciaga, Lunor Eyewear, Anne et Valentin and Theo Eyewear are returning to classic round and semiround frames. "There's definitely a move to more conservative eyewear and vintage shapes," said Filipa Fino, senior accessories editor at Vogue. "For a while, everything has been oversized. It was all about overpowering the face. Now, the trend in fashion is to go back to the classics." Classic with a modern twist, that is. Paul Smith's new Boys Only collection of sleek, round frames comes in bold colors -- orange, royal blue and translucent gray. Balenciaga, which is rolling out its first line of sunglasses through manufacturer Safilo USA, is showing large, round frames reminiscent of the 1970s. Robert Marc, a New York designer, has introduced two modified round frames (a cross between round and square), called style 195 and 196 as well as a rounded sunglass frame. The frames are available in five colors including smoke gray and chestnut brown. The country's serious mood translates to a more conservative image, Marc said. "People are really thinking about things: the economy, the elections, the war, the 'green' movement." In fashion, that has translated into more retro looks. "Look at Harry Potter and Ugly Betty. We are celebrating the nerd." Celebrities are embracing the bookish look. Bono, the eyewear bellwether, was spied recently in France sporting a pair of round frames. Round eyeglasses have never been officially off the market. The Anglo American Optical Co. in Illinois and London has been making round frames since 1882. But Allan Caliman, the company's co-owner, concedes that round shapes can be a tough sell. "Round faces can't wear round glasses," he said. "You need to have a long, slim face." For spring, Anglo American has round styles in colors from red to yellow to light brown. "I think it's all a question of getting used to it," Fino said. "In fashion, there are often things we think we'd never wear again . . . and then they pop up on the runway and look new." columbusdispatch
21.3.08
See you around: Frames go in circles for spring - March 20, 2008
Harry Potter was ahead. of his time: Round eyeglasses, the distinctive kind worn by the young wizard, are shaping up to be the next big thing in eyewear. During the past decade, myopic hipsters have favored rectangular frames. Now, design houses such as Paul Smith, Balenciaga, Lunor Eyewear, Anne et Valentin and Theo Eyewear are returning to classic round and semiround frames. "There's definitely a move to more conservative eyewear and vintage shapes," said Filipa Fino, senior accessories editor at Vogue. "For a while, everything has been oversized. It was all about overpowering the face. Now, the trend in fashion is to go back to the classics." Classic with a modern twist, that is. Paul Smith's new Boys Only collection of sleek, round frames comes in bold colors -- orange, royal blue and translucent gray. Balenciaga, which is rolling out its first line of sunglasses through manufacturer Safilo USA, is showing large, round frames reminiscent of the 1970s. Robert Marc, a New York designer, has introduced two modified round frames (a cross between round and square), called style 195 and 196 as well as a rounded sunglass frame. The frames are available in five colors including smoke gray and chestnut brown. The country's serious mood translates to a more conservative image, Marc said. "People are really thinking about things: the economy, the elections, the war, the 'green' movement." In fashion, that has translated into more retro looks. "Look at Harry Potter and Ugly Betty. We are celebrating the nerd." Celebrities are embracing the bookish look. Bono, the eyewear bellwether, was spied recently in France sporting a pair of round frames. Round eyeglasses have never been officially off the market. The Anglo American Optical Co. in Illinois and London has been making round frames since 1882. But Allan Caliman, the company's co-owner, concedes that round shapes can be a tough sell. "Round faces can't wear round glasses," he said. "You need to have a long, slim face." For spring, Anglo American has round styles in colors from red to yellow to light brown. "I think it's all a question of getting used to it," Fino said. "In fashion, there are often things we think we'd never wear again . . . and then they pop up on the runway and look new." columbusdispatch
Harry Potter was ahead. of his time: Round eyeglasses, the distinctive kind worn by the young wizard, are shaping up to be the next big thing in eyewear. During the past decade, myopic hipsters have favored rectangular frames. Now, design houses such as Paul Smith, Balenciaga, Lunor Eyewear, Anne et Valentin and Theo Eyewear are returning to classic round and semiround frames. "There's definitely a move to more conservative eyewear and vintage shapes," said Filipa Fino, senior accessories editor at Vogue. "For a while, everything has been oversized. It was all about overpowering the face. Now, the trend in fashion is to go back to the classics." Classic with a modern twist, that is. Paul Smith's new Boys Only collection of sleek, round frames comes in bold colors -- orange, royal blue and translucent gray. Balenciaga, which is rolling out its first line of sunglasses through manufacturer Safilo USA, is showing large, round frames reminiscent of the 1970s. Robert Marc, a New York designer, has introduced two modified round frames (a cross between round and square), called style 195 and 196 as well as a rounded sunglass frame. The frames are available in five colors including smoke gray and chestnut brown. The country's serious mood translates to a more conservative image, Marc said. "People are really thinking about things: the economy, the elections, the war, the 'green' movement." In fashion, that has translated into more retro looks. "Look at Harry Potter and Ugly Betty. We are celebrating the nerd." Celebrities are embracing the bookish look. Bono, the eyewear bellwether, was spied recently in France sporting a pair of round frames. Round eyeglasses have never been officially off the market. The Anglo American Optical Co. in Illinois and London has been making round frames since 1882. But Allan Caliman, the company's co-owner, concedes that round shapes can be a tough sell. "Round faces can't wear round glasses," he said. "You need to have a long, slim face." For spring, Anglo American has round styles in colors from red to yellow to light brown. "I think it's all a question of getting used to it," Fino said. "In fashion, there are often things we think we'd never wear again . . . and then they pop up on the runway and look new." columbusdispatch
Fanfire has U2 3D the t-shirt
'U23D' T-Shirt - Marking the release of the 3D concert film, this black, 100% cotton pocket T-shirt features exclusive 'U23D' logo on front left breast and four silhouette images of band members and instruments on back. (U2T42792) - fanfire
'U23D' T-Shirt - Marking the release of the 3D concert film, this black, 100% cotton pocket T-shirt features exclusive 'U23D' logo on front left breast and four silhouette images of band members and instruments on back. (U2T42792) - fanfire
Aramex provide logistics for U2 - March 19, 2008)
Aramex has successfully transported two valuable guitars, which were autographed and donated by all members of the rock group U2 for a Samaritans charity auction in the United Kingdom.
U2 GUITAR: Aramex transport signed guitar for international rock band. American actor Declan Joyce donated the guitars on the band's behalf to Joeri Groenwoud, sales director of Aramex, USA, who then delivered them to Matinair's Los Angeles airport facility himself. Aramex endorsed the care and cost of shipping the highly prized guitars as part of the company's social corporate responsibility initiative. On arrival into the UK the guitars were inspected to ensure they had arrived safely before being delivered to the Samaritans in Kent. "We handle plenty of precious shipments in the course of a year, but this one had The Edge - and Bono, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. too of course!" said Anthony O'Neill, director of international express for Aramex in the United Kingdom. "Meticulous planning and our personal attention to detail made sure everything went off precisely according to plan." arabianbusiness
Aramex has successfully transported two valuable guitars, which were autographed and donated by all members of the rock group U2 for a Samaritans charity auction in the United Kingdom.
U2 GUITAR: Aramex transport signed guitar for international rock band. American actor Declan Joyce donated the guitars on the band's behalf to Joeri Groenwoud, sales director of Aramex, USA, who then delivered them to Matinair's Los Angeles airport facility himself. Aramex endorsed the care and cost of shipping the highly prized guitars as part of the company's social corporate responsibility initiative. On arrival into the UK the guitars were inspected to ensure they had arrived safely before being delivered to the Samaritans in Kent. "We handle plenty of precious shipments in the course of a year, but this one had The Edge - and Bono, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. too of course!" said Anthony O'Neill, director of international express for Aramex in the United Kingdom. "Meticulous planning and our personal attention to detail made sure everything went off precisely according to plan." arabianbusiness
(rumor) Re-release:
Boy and October: June 6, 2008
War and Under A Blood Red Sky: June 20, 2008
Live At Red Rocks - DVD: July 2008
U2tour.de
Boy and October: June 6, 2008
War and Under A Blood Red Sky: June 20, 2008
Live At Red Rocks - DVD: July 2008
U2tour.de
NAB2008 TO FEATURE U2 3D FILMMAKERS - March 20, 2008
If you're curious how 3D technology comes to life, you'll be able to get all of your questions answered at the NAB2008 conference "where content comes to life." The creators of U2 3D will present "U2 3D: Case Study" alongside other producers and directors who have made 3D films, explaining their process and techniques. There are also a host of other notable guests, including the creative team from the TV show Lost. The conference happens in Las Vegas April 11 - 17 and tickets are available now. nabshow
Ground-breaking. Mind-blowing. "U2 3D" forever changes the way concert films will be made. Bono and The Edge tell us why it's so special
Clips from U2 3D
U2 3D to record: U23dmovie
If you're curious how 3D technology comes to life, you'll be able to get all of your questions answered at the NAB2008 conference "where content comes to life." The creators of U2 3D will present "U2 3D: Case Study" alongside other producers and directors who have made 3D films, explaining their process and techniques. There are also a host of other notable guests, including the creative team from the TV show Lost. The conference happens in Las Vegas April 11 - 17 and tickets are available now. nabshow
Ground-breaking. Mind-blowing. "U2 3D" forever changes the way concert films will be made. Bono and The Edge tell us why it's so special
Clips from U2 3D
U2 3D to record: U23dmovie
Bono's Birthday Well 6 - March 17 - May 10 2008
For the sixth year in a row, the African Well Fund is pleased to announce plans for a fundraising drive to " Build a Well for Bono's Birthday ". From March 17th through May 10th, the African Well Fund invites U2 fans and others who are inspired by Bono's tireless activism on behalf of Africa to make a donation in honor of Bono's birthday on May 10th. Your donation in the amount of $100, $75, $40, or whatever you can afford, will go a long way in helping to provide clean water for the people of Africa. Donations from the five previous campaigns totaled over $110,000 and have been used by our partner Africare to fund well projects in Uganda, Ethiopia, Angola and Zimbabwe. Check the AWF Wells page for more information on our projects. During 2006, two African Well Fund members traveled to Africa to see wells built by previous birthday fundraisers. You can see video from the trip at youtube.com or read the trip blog from AWF's visit to Africa for more information.
afticanwellfund
For the sixth year in a row, the African Well Fund is pleased to announce plans for a fundraising drive to " Build a Well for Bono's Birthday ". From March 17th through May 10th, the African Well Fund invites U2 fans and others who are inspired by Bono's tireless activism on behalf of Africa to make a donation in honor of Bono's birthday on May 10th. Your donation in the amount of $100, $75, $40, or whatever you can afford, will go a long way in helping to provide clean water for the people of Africa. Donations from the five previous campaigns totaled over $110,000 and have been used by our partner Africare to fund well projects in Uganda, Ethiopia, Angola and Zimbabwe. Check the AWF Wells page for more information on our projects. During 2006, two African Well Fund members traveled to Africa to see wells built by previous birthday fundraisers. You can see video from the trip at youtube.com or read the trip blog from AWF's visit to Africa for more information.afticanwellfund
Why would someone toss $1.35m at Wikipedia?Jimbo Wales catches VC from Bono on Mexico City rooftop There's little doubt that anyone with the time and the inclination can overhaul at least a few Wikipedia entries to suit their personal ambitions. All they need is the right friends. Or a little pillow talk. The question is, could someone overhaul the entire encyclopedia? Over the past two years, one man has donated or "lined up" donations totaling more than $1.35m to the charitable organization that runs Wikipedia, dwarfing the contributions of any other donor. And this man is among Silicon Valley's most conspicuous venture capitalists. His name is Roger McNamee, and he runs Elevation Partners, a San Francisco-based VC firm whose partners include Bono, the U2 frontman more famous for pop records than venture capital. In fact, Bono played a significant role in the mysterious pas de deux between Elevation and the Wikimedia Foundation, making nice with Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales and his wife Christine before a U2 concert in Mexico City more than two years ago. In the beginning, McNamee's donations were made anonymously - at least on official records. But the Elevation Partners connection has long been an open secret among Wikimedia insiders, and last week the secret spilled out onto the web when former Foundation executive Danny Wool posted a few details to his well-read blog. After Jimmy Wales dumped his lover on the "free encyclopedia anyone can edit", and Danny Wool accused the site's Spiritual Leader of mismanaging Foundation funds, many assumed that the The Great Wikipedia Soap Opera had reached its climax. But there's more to come. At the very least, McNamee's involvement with Wikimedia is a puzzle that needs solving. Considering the Foundation's status as a tax-exempt non-profit, a VC would need more than a little sleight of hand to turn it into a personal moneymaker. And if he did, this would surely raise the ire of more than few Wikipedians. Remember: Wikipedia was built almost entirely with free labor. When Bono met Jimbo: According to Danny Wool, Elevation Partners - named for the U2 song - first approached the Wikimedia Foundation in late 2005. Wool took a phone call from a partner named Marc Bodnick.
"There was a period of time where everybody was trying to get in on the Wikipedia action," Wool told us. "Bodnick was really intriguing. He gave me the whole Bono thing, and I thought that was really cool. So I told Jimmy." Wales soon met with Bodnick at Wikimedia's St Petersburg, Florida, headquarters, and later chatted with Roger McNamee in San Francisco. Then, several weeks later, Wales and his wife Christine had dinner with Bodnick and his personal assistant at a steakhouse in nearby Tampa. According to Wool, this was the $1,300 meal that Wales famously asked the Foundation to pay for. In the end, the Foundation did not reimburse Wales for the steakhouse tab. But a few weeks later, on February 15, 2006, Wales and his wife flew to Mexico for that U2 concert, together with Danny Wool and another Wikimedia staffer. And this tab was on Elevation. "They paid for all the expenses," Wool told us. "All of them." That night, the four of them joined Bono for drinks on the roof of their hotel, and at one point the pop icon suggested that Wales dump Wikipedia's volunteer editors and hire professionals. Bono also suggested the Wikimedia foursome meet him for lunch the next afternoon before attending the concert. But in the end, that meeting included only Wales and his wife. "I was all dressed for the lunch with Bono and I was told that Bono only wanted to meet with Jimmy and Christine," Wool said. Non-disclosure: But these weren't the only meetings between Elevation Partners and the Wikimedia Foundation. After the Mexico City trip, Wool claims, the entire Foundation board met with Marc Bodnick, who happens to be the brother-in-law of Sheryl Sandberg, the top Google sales exec who recently took over as Number Two at Facebook. "There was a board meeting in Rotterdam in January 2007, and Bodnick walked in," says Wool, who was present at the meeting - though he was not a board member. "Half the board didn't know who he was, but I said hello. Then everyone else signed a [non-disclosure agreement], and I had to leave." According to Wool, Bodnick also met with the board on several other occasions, and each time there was an NDA. In the meantime, Roger McNamee started donating. During the 2006 fiscal year, he gave about $70,000 in Google stock, and in fiscal 2007 he donated another $286,000 - also in Google stock. When McNamee made his first donation, the foundation did not have a brokerage account, and it was Wool who opened one. All of this stock was sold prior to the end of fiscal 2007. In the months since Wool left the Foundation, McNamee has facilitated additional donations. Foundation executive director Sue Gardner told The New York Times that the Elevation partner "lined up" a $500,000 donation in December and a second $500,000 donation just last week. When we phoned Elevation Partners and spoke to Marc Bodnick, he referred all questions to Roger McNamee and said that McNamee is on vacation. Likewise, we didn't get an answer from the Wikimedia Foundation. But in speaking with The New York Times, Jimmy Wales claimed that Elevation's involvement with the Foundation ended after a single meeting. "It took one meeting for them to realize it was off the table," Wales said. "Certainly there can be no investment in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a non-profit and always will be." But Wales did acknowledge a personal relationship with McNamee, claiming the venture capitalist acts as "a bit of a mentor in doing fundraising". And McNamee said that his involvement with Wikipedia had nothing to do with Elevation. "I am a Wikipedia volunteer - I help with strategy, fundraising and business development - it has nothing to do with Elevation Partners. And no one should be confused about that," McNamee claimed. Not-for-profit meets profit: Nonetheless, Wool insists that Marc Bodnick met with Wales and the Wikimedia Foundation board several times since that first meeting, and Bono lunched with Wales and his wife in Mexico City, with Elevation footing the Foundation's bill. Judging from conversations with board members, however, Wool does not believe an official deal has been struck. Such a deal would break the law, says Arthur Rieman, of the Los Angeles-based Law Firm for Non-Profits. After all, Wikimedia is a tax-exempt charitable foundation. "As a not-for-profit, you have no investors," Rieman told us. "If a VC is making donations, they may not have any expectations of a return as a matter of law. Otherwise the [non-profit] is not allowed to be tax exempt. "Most of the laws regarding exempt organizations are designed to prevent what the IRS and Congress call private benefit - meaning the assets and activities of the non-profit may not provide any benefit to individuals or companies unless these benefits are incidental or causally related to the operation. For instance, if it's a child welfare agency and kids and their families are benefiting, that's OK." That said, Rieman also points out that there are ways for board members or even a big donor to make money from a non-for-profit. Without a doubt, the Wikimedia Foundation could turn on the profit tap at any time. "In the not-for-profit world, there are always non-profits that make money. If they do not have net income - from whatever sources - they do not survive," Riemen continued. "And many non-profits set up for-profit subsidiaries, or they spin off some of their assets to credit earned income." Precedents include the Mozilla Foundation, which spun off a for-profit company around the Firefox browser. And Rieman points to the example of Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), which built a for-profit for Garrison Kellor's Prairie Home Companion, passing hefty salaries and compensation plans to MPR executives. The Minnesota attorney general investigated the deal for nearly two years, but eventually let it stand. Yes, McNamee would be scrutinized if he horned in on a deal to commercialize Wikipedia, Rieman says, and he might even face a fine from the IRS. But there might be ways around this. "It would be dubious. But lawyers make many interesting decisions." Whether or not McNamee is interested in making money from Wikipedia - for himself or for someone else - the facts remain: He's donated a hefty wad to the Foundation, and he has the ear of Jimmy Wales. The Willypedia Affair shows that Wales is willing to violate Wikipedia's mission in favor of a personal relationship. And this particular personal relationship is backed by more than $1.35m. Update:
Our story originally said that Roger McNamee recently made two donations of $500,000 to the Wikimedia Foundation. The Foundation has now responded to us, and it says this is incorrect. McNamee merely facilitated these donations, "introducing" the Foundation to the donors.
theregister
"There was a period of time where everybody was trying to get in on the Wikipedia action," Wool told us. "Bodnick was really intriguing. He gave me the whole Bono thing, and I thought that was really cool. So I told Jimmy." Wales soon met with Bodnick at Wikimedia's St Petersburg, Florida, headquarters, and later chatted with Roger McNamee in San Francisco. Then, several weeks later, Wales and his wife Christine had dinner with Bodnick and his personal assistant at a steakhouse in nearby Tampa. According to Wool, this was the $1,300 meal that Wales famously asked the Foundation to pay for. In the end, the Foundation did not reimburse Wales for the steakhouse tab. But a few weeks later, on February 15, 2006, Wales and his wife flew to Mexico for that U2 concert, together with Danny Wool and another Wikimedia staffer. And this tab was on Elevation. "They paid for all the expenses," Wool told us. "All of them." That night, the four of them joined Bono for drinks on the roof of their hotel, and at one point the pop icon suggested that Wales dump Wikipedia's volunteer editors and hire professionals. Bono also suggested the Wikimedia foursome meet him for lunch the next afternoon before attending the concert. But in the end, that meeting included only Wales and his wife. "I was all dressed for the lunch with Bono and I was told that Bono only wanted to meet with Jimmy and Christine," Wool said. Non-disclosure: But these weren't the only meetings between Elevation Partners and the Wikimedia Foundation. After the Mexico City trip, Wool claims, the entire Foundation board met with Marc Bodnick, who happens to be the brother-in-law of Sheryl Sandberg, the top Google sales exec who recently took over as Number Two at Facebook. "There was a board meeting in Rotterdam in January 2007, and Bodnick walked in," says Wool, who was present at the meeting - though he was not a board member. "Half the board didn't know who he was, but I said hello. Then everyone else signed a [non-disclosure agreement], and I had to leave." According to Wool, Bodnick also met with the board on several other occasions, and each time there was an NDA. In the meantime, Roger McNamee started donating. During the 2006 fiscal year, he gave about $70,000 in Google stock, and in fiscal 2007 he donated another $286,000 - also in Google stock. When McNamee made his first donation, the foundation did not have a brokerage account, and it was Wool who opened one. All of this stock was sold prior to the end of fiscal 2007. In the months since Wool left the Foundation, McNamee has facilitated additional donations. Foundation executive director Sue Gardner told The New York Times that the Elevation partner "lined up" a $500,000 donation in December and a second $500,000 donation just last week. When we phoned Elevation Partners and spoke to Marc Bodnick, he referred all questions to Roger McNamee and said that McNamee is on vacation. Likewise, we didn't get an answer from the Wikimedia Foundation. But in speaking with The New York Times, Jimmy Wales claimed that Elevation's involvement with the Foundation ended after a single meeting. "It took one meeting for them to realize it was off the table," Wales said. "Certainly there can be no investment in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a non-profit and always will be." But Wales did acknowledge a personal relationship with McNamee, claiming the venture capitalist acts as "a bit of a mentor in doing fundraising". And McNamee said that his involvement with Wikipedia had nothing to do with Elevation. "I am a Wikipedia volunteer - I help with strategy, fundraising and business development - it has nothing to do with Elevation Partners. And no one should be confused about that," McNamee claimed. Not-for-profit meets profit: Nonetheless, Wool insists that Marc Bodnick met with Wales and the Wikimedia Foundation board several times since that first meeting, and Bono lunched with Wales and his wife in Mexico City, with Elevation footing the Foundation's bill. Judging from conversations with board members, however, Wool does not believe an official deal has been struck. Such a deal would break the law, says Arthur Rieman, of the Los Angeles-based Law Firm for Non-Profits. After all, Wikimedia is a tax-exempt charitable foundation. "As a not-for-profit, you have no investors," Rieman told us. "If a VC is making donations, they may not have any expectations of a return as a matter of law. Otherwise the [non-profit] is not allowed to be tax exempt. "Most of the laws regarding exempt organizations are designed to prevent what the IRS and Congress call private benefit - meaning the assets and activities of the non-profit may not provide any benefit to individuals or companies unless these benefits are incidental or causally related to the operation. For instance, if it's a child welfare agency and kids and their families are benefiting, that's OK." That said, Rieman also points out that there are ways for board members or even a big donor to make money from a non-for-profit. Without a doubt, the Wikimedia Foundation could turn on the profit tap at any time. "In the not-for-profit world, there are always non-profits that make money. If they do not have net income - from whatever sources - they do not survive," Riemen continued. "And many non-profits set up for-profit subsidiaries, or they spin off some of their assets to credit earned income." Precedents include the Mozilla Foundation, which spun off a for-profit company around the Firefox browser. And Rieman points to the example of Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), which built a for-profit for Garrison Kellor's Prairie Home Companion, passing hefty salaries and compensation plans to MPR executives. The Minnesota attorney general investigated the deal for nearly two years, but eventually let it stand. Yes, McNamee would be scrutinized if he horned in on a deal to commercialize Wikipedia, Rieman says, and he might even face a fine from the IRS. But there might be ways around this. "It would be dubious. But lawyers make many interesting decisions." Whether or not McNamee is interested in making money from Wikipedia - for himself or for someone else - the facts remain: He's donated a hefty wad to the Foundation, and he has the ear of Jimmy Wales. The Willypedia Affair shows that Wales is willing to violate Wikipedia's mission in favor of a personal relationship. And this particular personal relationship is backed by more than $1.35m. Update:
Our story originally said that Roger McNamee recently made two donations of $500,000 to the Wikimedia Foundation. The Foundation has now responded to us, and it says this is incorrect. McNamee merely facilitated these donations, "introducing" the Foundation to the donors.
theregister
Producer is U2's 'gatekeeper of the bedrock' - March 18, 2008 From his work on The Joshua Tree to, more recently, that on How To Build An Atomic Bomb, Daniel Lanois and U2 have a strong and unique bond. Lanois says the relationship is almost other-worldly. "I think we work well together because there's kind of a premonitional force in the room when I work with these guys," he says. "We sense that something might be right but we're not convinced yet and it's still the unknown. It's that unknown that keeps us going. We want to do something original. Bono wants to say something that has never been said before. We know we're going to have to roll up our sleeves, put our thinking caps on and do beautiful work." A recent quote from Bono also described the relationship the band has with both Lanois and fellow producer Brian Eno. "Daniel Lanois, in a certain sense, is about the ancient," Bono said. "And Brian Eno is about the modern, the future, the things that haven't happened." "I'm about the ancient? I'll take that as a compliment," Lanois says with a laugh. "I'm just on a different floor than Eno. He uses his airplane time to build these rhythmic tapestries that he brings to the studio. And we'll often use them as a springboard for building a song. I've got a good barometer for what feels good so anything we do that we carry on with will have a reliable, emotional plateau in it for us to keep working on it. "I will fight for a very soulful bedrock and I won't carry on until we have it. I'll pay special attention to the ingredients that I deem to be viable as soulful. Eno will come in with these incredible electro-beginnings but in the end the bedrock that we end up with, I'm the gatekeeper of the bedrock." edmontonsun
Brian Eno in Rome
Q&A: Film, U2 album keep Daniel Lanois on the go
By Jonathan Cohen - Fri Mar 7, 6:51 PM ET - NEW YORK (Billboard) - In between jet-setting around the globe with Brian Eno to write and record with U2, Daniel Lanois is still finding time to work on his own music. A documentary about his recent experiences in the studio, "Here Is What Is," will have its U.S. premiere March 9 at the South by Southwest Film Festival, and Lanois will play a host of shows in the following days during the music portion of the Austin, Texas, conference. The artist also has launched his own digital download store at RedFloorRecords.com, offering a deluxe CD/DVD of "Here Is What Is," his solo albums and a wealth of unreleased material. Just before leaving for Dublin to finish U2's new album, Lanois spoke to Billboard about his myriad projects.
Q: Your "Omni Series" will offer six albums' worth of unreleased music online. What inspired the idea?
Daniel Lanois: "Well, we can be fast and furious. I can record something at midnight and have it available at breakfast, and the money is in PayPal by 5. 'Omni' will accommodate my spontaneous offerings. We're going to put out a steel guitar record in May or June. Then, there's 'Midnight,' which is spooky, late-night stuff; a little more psychedelic and whacked-out. Another one I really love -- about a year ago, I did the music for a Pixies documentary. That little body of work has a nice feeling to it. So I called up all the members of the Pixies and asked if they minded if I could put it out, and they said sure. Finally I have my corner store. I've been dreaming about it since I was a little kid."
Q: You're selling the music as high-quality WAV files. Is there an added cost to you to do this?
Lanois: "No, we offer full fidelity for the same price. We're proud of that. We dedicate ourselves to quality. Part of the deterrent is the receiving end -- you need a high-grade Internet hookup. If you're in the boonies, it might be confusing. And it takes longer to download. It's not as quick and easy -- not quite the TV dinner."
Q: You were able to regain the digital rights to your solo albums. Any advice for acts trying to accomplish that?
Lanois: "If somebody wants to own your master, that's fine, but not for more than four years. That way, everybody has their party and everybody makes their money. I don't think it's necessary for artists to give up master rights forever, because then you become a catalog feather in the cap for a company that just wants to sell its content. It's unfair. I don't think record companies should automatically own your masters for good simply because they've helped you with a campaign. Those days are gone."
Q: Will you be playing any shows in support of "Here Is What Is?"
Lanois: "Our L.A. premiere will be at the Vista (Theatre) on March 27, and Brian Blade and I will play a half-hour set afterward. I don't know that I'll have the time to tour the world this way, but we'll certainly give it a try here in Silver Lake (a section of Los Angeles)."
Q: Besides U2, have you found time for other producing?
Lanois: "I've been avoiding it, but I've been helping out (alternative rock artist) Rocco DeLuca. He's just around the corner. We're coming out with one track a night, so there's practically an entire album done. He has a beautiful falsetto. It's strikingly pure. I've just never heard anything like it."
Q: U2 -- we'd be remiss if we didn't ask how it was going.
Lanois: "We're going to try and break new sonic ground and deliver a masterpiece. The sleeves are rolled up. Bono is all charged up with a lyrical angle. There's so much material. When you get Eno and I and those guys in the room, before lunch there's like eight things. We've had some exciting beginnings via jam sessions. Now we will pick our favorite beginnings and say, 'OK, that's a lovely springboard. Now what are we trying to say?' The springboards are sometimes melodic, sometimes riff-based, but I can assure you they are exciting."
Reuters/Billboard - yahoo
Nearly an hour Q&A interview with Daniel Lanois
Watch live video from Daytrotter.com on Justin.tv
Brian Eno in Rome
Q&A: Film, U2 album keep Daniel Lanois on the go
By Jonathan Cohen - Fri Mar 7, 6:51 PM ET - NEW YORK (Billboard) - In between jet-setting around the globe with Brian Eno to write and record with U2, Daniel Lanois is still finding time to work on his own music. A documentary about his recent experiences in the studio, "Here Is What Is," will have its U.S. premiere March 9 at the South by Southwest Film Festival, and Lanois will play a host of shows in the following days during the music portion of the Austin, Texas, conference. The artist also has launched his own digital download store at RedFloorRecords.com, offering a deluxe CD/DVD of "Here Is What Is," his solo albums and a wealth of unreleased material. Just before leaving for Dublin to finish U2's new album, Lanois spoke to Billboard about his myriad projects.
Q: Your "Omni Series" will offer six albums' worth of unreleased music online. What inspired the idea?
Daniel Lanois: "Well, we can be fast and furious. I can record something at midnight and have it available at breakfast, and the money is in PayPal by 5. 'Omni' will accommodate my spontaneous offerings. We're going to put out a steel guitar record in May or June. Then, there's 'Midnight,' which is spooky, late-night stuff; a little more psychedelic and whacked-out. Another one I really love -- about a year ago, I did the music for a Pixies documentary. That little body of work has a nice feeling to it. So I called up all the members of the Pixies and asked if they minded if I could put it out, and they said sure. Finally I have my corner store. I've been dreaming about it since I was a little kid."
Q: You're selling the music as high-quality WAV files. Is there an added cost to you to do this?
Lanois: "No, we offer full fidelity for the same price. We're proud of that. We dedicate ourselves to quality. Part of the deterrent is the receiving end -- you need a high-grade Internet hookup. If you're in the boonies, it might be confusing. And it takes longer to download. It's not as quick and easy -- not quite the TV dinner."
Q: You were able to regain the digital rights to your solo albums. Any advice for acts trying to accomplish that?
Lanois: "If somebody wants to own your master, that's fine, but not for more than four years. That way, everybody has their party and everybody makes their money. I don't think it's necessary for artists to give up master rights forever, because then you become a catalog feather in the cap for a company that just wants to sell its content. It's unfair. I don't think record companies should automatically own your masters for good simply because they've helped you with a campaign. Those days are gone."
Q: Will you be playing any shows in support of "Here Is What Is?"
Lanois: "Our L.A. premiere will be at the Vista (Theatre) on March 27, and Brian Blade and I will play a half-hour set afterward. I don't know that I'll have the time to tour the world this way, but we'll certainly give it a try here in Silver Lake (a section of Los Angeles)."
Q: Besides U2, have you found time for other producing?
Lanois: "I've been avoiding it, but I've been helping out (alternative rock artist) Rocco DeLuca. He's just around the corner. We're coming out with one track a night, so there's practically an entire album done. He has a beautiful falsetto. It's strikingly pure. I've just never heard anything like it."
Q: U2 -- we'd be remiss if we didn't ask how it was going.
Lanois: "We're going to try and break new sonic ground and deliver a masterpiece. The sleeves are rolled up. Bono is all charged up with a lyrical angle. There's so much material. When you get Eno and I and those guys in the room, before lunch there's like eight things. We've had some exciting beginnings via jam sessions. Now we will pick our favorite beginnings and say, 'OK, that's a lovely springboard. Now what are we trying to say?' The springboards are sometimes melodic, sometimes riff-based, but I can assure you they are exciting."
Reuters/Billboard - yahoo
Nearly an hour Q&A interview with Daniel Lanois
Watch live video from Daytrotter.com on Justin.tv
We 2 share U2 success story - March 16, 2008
Limerick Post, March 16, 2008
John O'Shaughnessy
(They have the date wrong in the first sentence below. U2 won the competition on March 18, 1978.]
Exactly 30 years ago this Saturday, rock band U2 catapulted into what was to become international fame when they were declared winners of Pop Group 78, at Limerick Civic Week, in what was their first public appearance.
The competition was to find the most entertaining pop group or showband.
Michael McNamara, who compered the event at the Stella Ballroom, recalled:
"Limerick launched U2, something that has never been forgotten by Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen. Were it not for Civic Week, they might never have hit the big time.
"In addition to prize money of £500, they received a recording contract with CBS Records -- and the rest is history."
Limerick auctioneer PJ Power, the man responsible for the running of Civic Week, told the Limerick Post; "Discovering U2 will always be on my CV. That was a very special night and another plus for our city."
McNamara told the Post that they had, in fact, entered under the name "Hype."
"I was brazen enough to tell Bono that name was awful, and he replied they were changing it to U2. I told him that was even worse."
There were only 60 people in the Stella for the final, added Michael, "but like Munster's famous win over the All-Blacks, you could find 10,000 to say they were in the Stella the night U2 were discovered."
He described Clayton's bass playing as "phenomenal," and probably swung the balance in their favour.
"Personally, I thought they were not commercial enough at the time, but I was proved to be wrong. In my years as Radio 2 disc jockey, they were the band most in demand.
"That CBS recording contract was their breakthrough. Later, they signed with Island Records."
The judges were Billy Wall of RTE and Jackie Hayden of CBS Records.
Limerick Post staff member Bron O'Loughlin was one of the people who attended the competition. "My friends and I agreed that they were by far the best band on the night -- although we never imagined just how far they would go!"
U2 was not Civic Week's only success story. On the same week, Stocktons Wing made their debut in the city.
In the same year, Limerick was represented in the National Song Contest by Billy Whelan and Don O'Connor.
Also, violinist Joe O'Donnell, a carpenter from Prospect, was unanimously praised for his album Gaodhal's Vision, released worldwide.
© Limerick Post, 2008.
limerickpost
Limerick Post, March 16, 2008
John O'Shaughnessy
(They have the date wrong in the first sentence below. U2 won the competition on March 18, 1978.]
Exactly 30 years ago this Saturday, rock band U2 catapulted into what was to become international fame when they were declared winners of Pop Group 78, at Limerick Civic Week, in what was their first public appearance.
The competition was to find the most entertaining pop group or showband.
Michael McNamara, who compered the event at the Stella Ballroom, recalled:
"Limerick launched U2, something that has never been forgotten by Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen. Were it not for Civic Week, they might never have hit the big time.
"In addition to prize money of £500, they received a recording contract with CBS Records -- and the rest is history."
Limerick auctioneer PJ Power, the man responsible for the running of Civic Week, told the Limerick Post; "Discovering U2 will always be on my CV. That was a very special night and another plus for our city."
McNamara told the Post that they had, in fact, entered under the name "Hype."
"I was brazen enough to tell Bono that name was awful, and he replied they were changing it to U2. I told him that was even worse."
There were only 60 people in the Stella for the final, added Michael, "but like Munster's famous win over the All-Blacks, you could find 10,000 to say they were in the Stella the night U2 were discovered."
He described Clayton's bass playing as "phenomenal," and probably swung the balance in their favour.
"Personally, I thought they were not commercial enough at the time, but I was proved to be wrong. In my years as Radio 2 disc jockey, they were the band most in demand.
"That CBS recording contract was their breakthrough. Later, they signed with Island Records."
The judges were Billy Wall of RTE and Jackie Hayden of CBS Records.
Limerick Post staff member Bron O'Loughlin was one of the people who attended the competition. "My friends and I agreed that they were by far the best band on the night -- although we never imagined just how far they would go!"
U2 was not Civic Week's only success story. On the same week, Stocktons Wing made their debut in the city.
In the same year, Limerick was represented in the National Song Contest by Billy Whelan and Don O'Connor.
Also, violinist Joe O'Donnell, a carpenter from Prospect, was unanimously praised for his album Gaodhal's Vision, released worldwide.
© Limerick Post, 2008.
limerickpost
In the Name of Love: Africa Celebrates U2 - March 14, 2008
(Shout! Factory)
Tom Laskin on Friday 03/14/2008
Tribute albums that mean to fete pop and rock artists are often well-meaning failures. But this salute to both U2's music and singer Bono's tireless humanitarian work on behalf of the African continent is the rare tribute disc that actually deserves repeated listening. The primary reason for that: None of the African acts involved make any attempt to ape the original. Instead, African stars like Les Nubians, Vieux Farka Touré and Ba Cissoko transplant the Irish rockers' earnest, stadium-swelling rock into their own traditions. The results are always interesting, and at times much more than that.
In Ba Cissoko's hands, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" becomes a cyclical Afro-guitar groove that simmers and burns but avoids U2's predilection for the epic gesture. Taking a different tack on "With or Without You," Les Nubian bring the burbles and bleeps of the disco to a dreamy club track that's more laidback than the original and also far sexier. And for pure soul, you can't beat Tony Allen's falsetto yearning on his buoyant, horn-powered version of "Where the Streets Have No Name." It's utterly different from the Pet Shop Boys' gloriously cool interpretation of the same tune and just as startling.
In terms of songcraft, no one will ever confuse U2 with the Beatles. Even so, In the Name of Love suggests that their songbook deserves much more attention from artists working outside the precincts of modern rock.
A portion of the proceeds from In the Name of Love will benefit the Global Fund, the world's largest financer of the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
thedailypage
Some audio-clips of the album: africacelebration
To buy the album: here
Africa Celebrates U2 On April 1, 2008, Shout! Factory will release In The Name Of Love: Africa Celebrates U2, an album celebrating the music, culture and future of Africa, and an unprecedented musical homage to Bono and U2 for their ongoing humanitarian relief efforts aiding the beloved continent. A portion of the record's proceeds will directly benefit The Global Fund. Interviews with select artists are available upon request.
Produced by Shawn Amos and Paul Heck, In The Name Of Love: Africa Celebrates U2 features Grammy Award-winning/nominated African artists as well as top up-and-coming talents including Angelique Kidjo, Les Nubians, Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars, Vieux Farka Touré, Vusi Mahlasela and the Soweto Gospel Choir.
Initially inspired by his work in South Africa while running the Quincy Jones Listen Up Foundation, Amos re-entered the music industry with a heartfelt initiative to cultivate greater awareness of the emerging socio-economic success stories happening within many of the country's regions. Amos, a longtime fan of U2, witnessed Bono's direct philanthropic impact via the launch of the ONE campaign and (RED), and his poignant outspoken public commentary on the immediate financial needs facing Africa.
Amos felt it was essential that African musicians unite and collectively share their voices of pride, accomplishment and appreciation for both their native country and icons like Bono who've substantially embraced the fight against the global AIDS crisis, extreme poverty and the spread of malaria. On December 1, 2006 at the World AIDS Day benefit concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Amos approached Red Hot producer Paul Heck about co-producing In The Name Of Love: Africa Celebrates U2. Several notable African artists were performing as part of Heck's live production of Red Hot + Riot: The Music and Spirit of Fela Kuti including Les Nubians, Tony Allen, Cheikh Lô and Keziah Jones. Heck expressed support for the budding project, and quickly became an invaluable partner with his strong ties to various well-established African artists and knowledge of a handful of buzz-worthy upstarts. Together, they consulted with the artists appearing at the World AIDS Day event, bringing Amos's personal dream a step closer to becoming a reality.
"Paul and I wanted to develop an easy entry point for the growing global community where they could get more involved and learn something deeper about Africa," says Amos. "It's really a focus on the key successes of several regions, and the African artists who originate from these areas. It's our goal for the public to learn more about all the good that's happening in Africa. We are trying to garner excitement about the culture, in addition to drawing people toward the struggles of Darfur, etc. This is a project which celebrates Africa!"
12 original interpretations of classic U2 hit songs and some of their more obscure material are featured on In The Name Of Love: Africa Celebrates U2. The collection kicks off with Angelique Kidjo's powerful multilingual cover of the 1991 chart-topper, "Mysterious Ways." Aerosmith's Joe Perry joins Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars for an upbeat, guitar-driven take on "Seconds," a track from U2's third studio release, War (1983). Rising Malian star, Vieux Farka Touré offers a trancy, Sahara Desert blues-influenced rendition of "Bullet The Blue Sky," an absolute standout performance of one of U2's most-played live in concert tunes. Additional highlights include Les Nubians dubbed-out dancefloor ready version of "With Or Without You," the Soweto Gospel Choir's epic a cappella version of "Pride In The Name Of Love," and Tony Allen's Afrobeat translation of "Where The Streets Have No Name Paul Heck notes that, "I was amazed when we approached the artists of how quickly they chose the songs they wanted to do. Many of them grew up listening to U2, and knew the songs so well."
In The Name Of Love: Africa Celebrates U2
1. Angelique Kidjo "Mysterious Ways"
2. Vieux Farka Touré "Bullet The Blue Sky"
3. Ba Cissoko "Sunday Bloody Sunday"
4. Vusi Mahlasela "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own"
5. Tony Allen "Where The Streets Have No Name"
6. Cheikh Lô "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
7. Keziah Jones "One"
8. Les Nubians "With Or Without You"
9. Soweto Gospel Choir "Pride (In The Name Of Love)"
10. Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars "Seconds"
11. African Underground All-Stars Featuring Chosan, Optimus & Iyeoka "Desire"
12. Waldemar Bastos "Love Is Blindness"
antimusic
(Shout! Factory)
Tom Laskin on Friday 03/14/2008
Tribute albums that mean to fete pop and rock artists are often well-meaning failures. But this salute to both U2's music and singer Bono's tireless humanitarian work on behalf of the African continent is the rare tribute disc that actually deserves repeated listening. The primary reason for that: None of the African acts involved make any attempt to ape the original. Instead, African stars like Les Nubians, Vieux Farka Touré and Ba Cissoko transplant the Irish rockers' earnest, stadium-swelling rock into their own traditions. The results are always interesting, and at times much more than that. In Ba Cissoko's hands, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" becomes a cyclical Afro-guitar groove that simmers and burns but avoids U2's predilection for the epic gesture. Taking a different tack on "With or Without You," Les Nubian bring the burbles and bleeps of the disco to a dreamy club track that's more laidback than the original and also far sexier. And for pure soul, you can't beat Tony Allen's falsetto yearning on his buoyant, horn-powered version of "Where the Streets Have No Name." It's utterly different from the Pet Shop Boys' gloriously cool interpretation of the same tune and just as startling.
In terms of songcraft, no one will ever confuse U2 with the Beatles. Even so, In the Name of Love suggests that their songbook deserves much more attention from artists working outside the precincts of modern rock.
A portion of the proceeds from In the Name of Love will benefit the Global Fund, the world's largest financer of the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
thedailypage
Some audio-clips of the album: africacelebration
To buy the album: here
Africa Celebrates U2 On April 1, 2008, Shout! Factory will release In The Name Of Love: Africa Celebrates U2, an album celebrating the music, culture and future of Africa, and an unprecedented musical homage to Bono and U2 for their ongoing humanitarian relief efforts aiding the beloved continent. A portion of the record's proceeds will directly benefit The Global Fund. Interviews with select artists are available upon request.
Produced by Shawn Amos and Paul Heck, In The Name Of Love: Africa Celebrates U2 features Grammy Award-winning/nominated African artists as well as top up-and-coming talents including Angelique Kidjo, Les Nubians, Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars, Vieux Farka Touré, Vusi Mahlasela and the Soweto Gospel Choir.
Initially inspired by his work in South Africa while running the Quincy Jones Listen Up Foundation, Amos re-entered the music industry with a heartfelt initiative to cultivate greater awareness of the emerging socio-economic success stories happening within many of the country's regions. Amos, a longtime fan of U2, witnessed Bono's direct philanthropic impact via the launch of the ONE campaign and (RED), and his poignant outspoken public commentary on the immediate financial needs facing Africa.
Amos felt it was essential that African musicians unite and collectively share their voices of pride, accomplishment and appreciation for both their native country and icons like Bono who've substantially embraced the fight against the global AIDS crisis, extreme poverty and the spread of malaria. On December 1, 2006 at the World AIDS Day benefit concert at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Amos approached Red Hot producer Paul Heck about co-producing In The Name Of Love: Africa Celebrates U2. Several notable African artists were performing as part of Heck's live production of Red Hot + Riot: The Music and Spirit of Fela Kuti including Les Nubians, Tony Allen, Cheikh Lô and Keziah Jones. Heck expressed support for the budding project, and quickly became an invaluable partner with his strong ties to various well-established African artists and knowledge of a handful of buzz-worthy upstarts. Together, they consulted with the artists appearing at the World AIDS Day event, bringing Amos's personal dream a step closer to becoming a reality.
"Paul and I wanted to develop an easy entry point for the growing global community where they could get more involved and learn something deeper about Africa," says Amos. "It's really a focus on the key successes of several regions, and the African artists who originate from these areas. It's our goal for the public to learn more about all the good that's happening in Africa. We are trying to garner excitement about the culture, in addition to drawing people toward the struggles of Darfur, etc. This is a project which celebrates Africa!"
12 original interpretations of classic U2 hit songs and some of their more obscure material are featured on In The Name Of Love: Africa Celebrates U2. The collection kicks off with Angelique Kidjo's powerful multilingual cover of the 1991 chart-topper, "Mysterious Ways." Aerosmith's Joe Perry joins Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars for an upbeat, guitar-driven take on "Seconds," a track from U2's third studio release, War (1983). Rising Malian star, Vieux Farka Touré offers a trancy, Sahara Desert blues-influenced rendition of "Bullet The Blue Sky," an absolute standout performance of one of U2's most-played live in concert tunes. Additional highlights include Les Nubians dubbed-out dancefloor ready version of "With Or Without You," the Soweto Gospel Choir's epic a cappella version of "Pride In The Name Of Love," and Tony Allen's Afrobeat translation of "Where The Streets Have No Name Paul Heck notes that, "I was amazed when we approached the artists of how quickly they chose the songs they wanted to do. Many of them grew up listening to U2, and knew the songs so well."
In The Name Of Love: Africa Celebrates U2
1. Angelique Kidjo "Mysterious Ways"
2. Vieux Farka Touré "Bullet The Blue Sky"
3. Ba Cissoko "Sunday Bloody Sunday"
4. Vusi Mahlasela "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own"
5. Tony Allen "Where The Streets Have No Name"
6. Cheikh Lô "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
7. Keziah Jones "One"
8. Les Nubians "With Or Without You"
9. Soweto Gospel Choir "Pride (In The Name Of Love)"
10. Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars "Seconds"
11. African Underground All-Stars Featuring Chosan, Optimus & Iyeoka "Desire"
12. Waldemar Bastos "Love Is Blindness"
antimusic
Bono in Berlin - March 11, 2008
Bono lauds Germany's poverty plan
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BERLIN - Bono's got some kind words for Germany.
"This new Germany" is not shy about showing the world what values are worth fighting for, the activist and U2 co-founder said Tuesday. Bono made the remarks after meeting with lawmakers to tell them about efforts to fight poverty and stem the spread of malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis in the developing world.
Speaking to lawmakers, Bono said his visit was aimed at letting them know that using money to fight poverty was helping.
"They should know that their cooperation has had some success," he said, adding that efforts by Debt AIDS Trade Africa and others were producing real results in Africa and elsewhere.
"The good news, help works," Bono said, referring to a 2007 aid package that he said could save up to four million lives in the coming three years. The rock star also praised a debt relief law passed by the government of former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, which Bono said let another 29 million children in Africa attend school.
Bono encouraged German lawmakers to continue working toward halving global poverty by 2015 as part of the UN's Millennium Goals program.
"That's why I'm a fan of Germany and why I want to come back," he said.
jam.canoe
I am fascinated by commerce
Interview with Bono, March 17, 2008
Musician and Africa activist Bono talks about poverty, business and consumerism – and about his plans with Adidas.
Q: Bono, for about two years you’ve been trying to get Germany to increase its aid for Africa. What progress has been made in these two years?
A: I wouldn’t say I have made any progress – but WE have. There is a broad coalition of the willing here: from Herbert Groenemeyer (German singer) to Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul (German secretary for development). It’s an unusual mixture of people. If we have achieved something, and I know we have, then I’d say the views of German people are on top of my list. 71 percent of the people here are supporting the Millennium Goals. In most other countries people don’t even know what the Millennium Goals are. 83 percent of Germans think that the fight against extreme poverty is important or even very important. This is just incredible. So don’t stop, continue!
Q: Isn’t this trend over already?
A: You cannot stop this. There is something going on in Germany. As an outsider who visits this country sometimes, I see that there is something going on among the people of Germany that is new and fresh. The thing with the (Football/Soccer) World Championship has become a cliché, but it is exactly about this spirit. The shyness about wanting to claim a certain place in this world is ridiculous, this is over. Germany wants to show the rest of the world what this country is about. The way they are dealing with development aid tells a lot about their intellectual values, as well as about their strategic and commercial ideas. I would be very surprised if the German people would allow their government to break their promises.
Q: But Germany hasn’t really provided the amounts of money you’re asking for.
A: In Heiligendamm (G8 summit 2007) we were disappointed, because we couldn’t get Chancellor Merkel and Secretary of Finance Steinbrueck to make any clear decisions about the way they would go until 2010. According to the Millenium Goals, 0.51 percent of the national income should be spent on development aid. Merkel wasn’t ready to make any clear statement, but she promised to work very hard on these numbers. Her contribution at the conference of the Global Fund against Aids, Maleria and TB was significant: The increase of Germany’s contribution to development aid of 750 Million Euro for the year 2008 has led the other leaders to give ten billion Dollars altogether. This is a very remarkable result of German leadership. But: Am I nervous about where this is going? Of course I’m nervous – I wouldn’t be here otherwise. I have a band in a recording studio, waiting for their singer. This is not a joke. I’m not ready yet to pull the emergency brake on Germany. We have pulled the emergency brake on France, on Israel, also Canada …
Q: What does that mean: Pulling the emergency brake?
A: That we’d call the situation an emergency. In an interview I’d call on the people to go to the streets. Get out your banners, meet your politicians and hit them where it hurts: in their election districts. If they break their promises to the poorest, most vulnerable people in the world, we won’t vote for them. In France I talked about a credibility crisis of the political leadership.
Q: What has to happen for you to pull the emergency brake in Germany?
A: We will take a very close look at the numbers. I have just been to Africa and I would be very disappointed if there would be less development aid for Africa. I would also be disappointed, if the amount of money stayed the same. We need an increase. We need a curve that will result in 0.51 percent in 2010. I have talked to all the politicians and I hope and think that they won’t disappoint me.
Q: Do you feel that you aren’t as welcome now as you were before Heiligendamm?
A: I have always received a friendly reception. Most people in the SPD (German Social Democratic Party) and most of all Gerhard Schroeder (former German Chancellor) acknowledge that I have helped them – by torturing them! – to make a decision that turned out to be one of the most important in Schroeder’s political career. 29 Million African children can go to school now because of debt relief that was decided 1999 in Cologne. 29! Million! Children! There has to be African leadership – but it can only happen if resources are made available by debt relief.
Q: Last year your organization DATA called Angela Merkel the most important person on this planet. Has she lived up to your expectations?
A: Our criticism concerning the final document of the G8 summit in Heiligendamm was never an attack on Chancellor Merkel. I was disappointed, that the leaders hadn’t been able to agree on a clear plan for development aid. But I wasn’t disappointed about Germany’s role. In fact, I was overwhelmed by it. To be honest, my expectations were very low prior to 2007. I was surprised they even took my calls, that Merkel wanted to meet me. I think she realized that there was a crisis of credibility in Europe and that Europe, under German leadership, had to do something for their neighbor – Africa. Europe is a thought that has to become a feeling. Europe is a concept, all right. But do people really feel it? I think, after our conversations Merkel began to realize that these issues can help to make a feeling out of that thought.
Q: What about Secretary of Finance Steinbrueck? Do you have any promise from him that the goals for 2010 will be fulfilled?
A: I went directly to him and told him my number for 2009 – 750 Million more for development aid – and he asked me if I was talking about pesos.
Q: So the answer is no.
A: No, the answer isn’t no. I think he’s a very good man and he won’t disappoint us. I haven’t received the check yet but I’ll be back.
A: Wouldn’t you achieve more if you convinced companies to invest in Africa?
Q: Trade is more important than aid. Our African friends hate aid because they need it. If Africa would have one percent more of the global trade it would be twice as much as the amount of today’s aid. I know everything about it, I have studied it. My wife cooperates with African businesses for her fashion label Edun and I cooperate with different companies for my (Red) campaign: Apple, Armani, Dell, Motorola are on board. I would like to win Adidas now as a (Red) partner. This would be something I like. We are in a very early phase right now, but I like the idea. Usually, when we talk about Africa, it’s about losing. I want the (Red) campaign and the fight against AIDS to be associated with winning.
Q: Do you consider the involvement of other German labels as well? Mercedes, BMW?
A: There is a new way of thinking about consumerism. It’s a conscious way of consuming, people are making conscious decisions – they know about the power of their wallets. People can ruin a company if they decide to buy their gasoline at a different gas station. If they have the choice between two similar products, like Mercedes and BMW, they will choose the product that they believe will make the world a better place. I bet they will.
Q: Really?
A: Former US Secretary of Finance, Rubin, once said to me: ‘If you are serious about all of this, you have to do two things: You must tell the people how big the problem is and you must tell them that it can be solved. And then you must spend 50 Million Dollars to bring this message across. You have to do it like Adidas or Nike.’ And I said: ‘Man, where do we get 50 Million Dollars?’ He shrugged his shoulders. But this is exactly what (Red) is doing: We let the marketing budget of big companies carry us. As musicians, artists or film makers, we are often arrogant towards business people. We say there is no creativity in commerce – but we are wrong.
Q: What’s the role of your own Private Equity Fund Elevations Partners in all of this? Is it also about Africa?
A: Not really. It’s a strange journey for me. Being an activist made me interested in commerce. You’re really scratching your head here. What does this guy think he’s doing? The more profound answer to this question is: Economy plays a more important role to help people out of poverty than all the world’s activists together. Activists help with preparations, like for fairer trade laws. I was booed at in Tanzania because people thought I was anti-business. And back home I was booed because I was pro-business. I am interested in commerce now, in the concepts behind it. This is relatively new to me. In U2, we have always been quite good with it, but now business has become something that I’m really interested in. I met some eccentric, but brilliant people from Northern California who are investing in technology. They asked me to work with them and I said no about ten times. But then I thought it might be interesting after all. There is a connection to my life in music business because Elevation Partners has its place at the interface between technology and media.
Q: But it’s about business after all?
A: Yes.
Interview by Moritz Doebler. tagesspiegel
All in a day's work Bono's words ring true
By Anne-Marie Walsh
Wednesday March 12 2008
IT IS incredible what Bono can fit into a day, let alone a lifetime.
The U2 frontman amazed his fans yesterday when he phoned a 2FM radio show to defend his legendary voice during the school run.
Just hours later, he was appearing in photos ringing a bell with a bunch of German politicians in Berlin.
Bono's busy day began when he took the unusual step of ringing an early morning radio show while dropping his daughter to school.
Fans nearly choked on their breakfast when his unmistakable tones rang out over the airwaves.
The inexhaustible star took umbrage when he heard a report read out that claimed he was no longer up to singing his hit duet with Clannad singer Moya Brennan. Bono and the Donegal trad singer had a big hit with the haunting song 'In a Lifetime' in 1986.
The breakfast show crew had been pointing out that Moya's uncle Noel Duggan had said that Bono did not feel he had the voice for the duet anymore.
Bono laughed off the report when he phoned hosts Colm and Jim-Jim and insisted he could still hit the high notes.
"This is inter-band rivalry from those Donegal messers. They've always been putting it up and I'd say it's the uncles, or it could be the brothers Paul or Ciaran. We'll see but there could be trouble," he said.
Listeners initially thought it was a spoof until the singer burst into a jingle for the radio presenters.
Not one to get stuck in a moment for too long, Bono then jetted to Germany to give its politicians an earful.
During a speech to a parliamentary council meeting of the Social Democrats, he said Germany had not been shy about showing the world what values are worth fighting for.
Bono, seen above ringing the bell next to Peter Struck, parliamentary floor leader of the Social Democrats, to start the party's meeting said his visit to Berlin aimed to let them know that using money to fight poverty was helping.
"The good news, help works," Bono said, referring to a 2007 aid package he said could save up to four million lives in the coming three years.
The rock star also praised a debt relief law passed by the government of former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, which Bono said let another 29 million children in Africa attend school.
A spokesperson for U2 confirmed last night that Bono had picked up the phone to 2FM in Dublin yesterday, but was not aware of his more distant, later, appointment.
- Anne-Marie Walsh
independent
Bono also phoned into a German radiostation for an interview while he was in Berlin, you can listen to it here:
dradio
Unfortunatly, it's difficult to hear and understand him because of the translator's voice. He's basically talking about the same stuff as in all the other interviews he did around that time, about Germany's role in fighting poverty and how important the pressure of civil society is.
In the end they ask him how he responds to the critisicm of people who say stars like him or Geldof only use their commitment to gain more popularity.
Bono says she should ask his band this question and they would laugh out loud because they aren't exactly happy about what he is doing and have been anxious from the beginning that Bono's political work would keep people from coming to the U2 concerts or buying their album.
He says his band wishes he'd stop meeting with uncool politicians.
Photos: U2valencia * interference * isifa * gettyimages * rexfeatures * U2miracle * welt.de
Bono lauds Germany's poverty plan
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BERLIN - Bono's got some kind words for Germany.
"This new Germany" is not shy about showing the world what values are worth fighting for, the activist and U2 co-founder said Tuesday. Bono made the remarks after meeting with lawmakers to tell them about efforts to fight poverty and stem the spread of malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis in the developing world.
Speaking to lawmakers, Bono said his visit was aimed at letting them know that using money to fight poverty was helping.
"They should know that their cooperation has had some success," he said, adding that efforts by Debt AIDS Trade Africa and others were producing real results in Africa and elsewhere.
"The good news, help works," Bono said, referring to a 2007 aid package that he said could save up to four million lives in the coming three years. The rock star also praised a debt relief law passed by the government of former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, which Bono said let another 29 million children in Africa attend school.
Bono encouraged German lawmakers to continue working toward halving global poverty by 2015 as part of the UN's Millennium Goals program.
"That's why I'm a fan of Germany and why I want to come back," he said.
jam.canoe
I am fascinated by commerce
Interview with Bono, March 17, 2008
Musician and Africa activist Bono talks about poverty, business and consumerism – and about his plans with Adidas.
Q: Bono, for about two years you’ve been trying to get Germany to increase its aid for Africa. What progress has been made in these two years?
A: I wouldn’t say I have made any progress – but WE have. There is a broad coalition of the willing here: from Herbert Groenemeyer (German singer) to Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul (German secretary for development). It’s an unusual mixture of people. If we have achieved something, and I know we have, then I’d say the views of German people are on top of my list. 71 percent of the people here are supporting the Millennium Goals. In most other countries people don’t even know what the Millennium Goals are. 83 percent of Germans think that the fight against extreme poverty is important or even very important. This is just incredible. So don’t stop, continue!
Q: Isn’t this trend over already?
A: You cannot stop this. There is something going on in Germany. As an outsider who visits this country sometimes, I see that there is something going on among the people of Germany that is new and fresh. The thing with the (Football/Soccer) World Championship has become a cliché, but it is exactly about this spirit. The shyness about wanting to claim a certain place in this world is ridiculous, this is over. Germany wants to show the rest of the world what this country is about. The way they are dealing with development aid tells a lot about their intellectual values, as well as about their strategic and commercial ideas. I would be very surprised if the German people would allow their government to break their promises.
Q: But Germany hasn’t really provided the amounts of money you’re asking for.
A: In Heiligendamm (G8 summit 2007) we were disappointed, because we couldn’t get Chancellor Merkel and Secretary of Finance Steinbrueck to make any clear decisions about the way they would go until 2010. According to the Millenium Goals, 0.51 percent of the national income should be spent on development aid. Merkel wasn’t ready to make any clear statement, but she promised to work very hard on these numbers. Her contribution at the conference of the Global Fund against Aids, Maleria and TB was significant: The increase of Germany’s contribution to development aid of 750 Million Euro for the year 2008 has led the other leaders to give ten billion Dollars altogether. This is a very remarkable result of German leadership. But: Am I nervous about where this is going? Of course I’m nervous – I wouldn’t be here otherwise. I have a band in a recording studio, waiting for their singer. This is not a joke. I’m not ready yet to pull the emergency brake on Germany. We have pulled the emergency brake on France, on Israel, also Canada …
Q: What does that mean: Pulling the emergency brake?
A: That we’d call the situation an emergency. In an interview I’d call on the people to go to the streets. Get out your banners, meet your politicians and hit them where it hurts: in their election districts. If they break their promises to the poorest, most vulnerable people in the world, we won’t vote for them. In France I talked about a credibility crisis of the political leadership.
Q: What has to happen for you to pull the emergency brake in Germany?
A: We will take a very close look at the numbers. I have just been to Africa and I would be very disappointed if there would be less development aid for Africa. I would also be disappointed, if the amount of money stayed the same. We need an increase. We need a curve that will result in 0.51 percent in 2010. I have talked to all the politicians and I hope and think that they won’t disappoint me.
Q: Do you feel that you aren’t as welcome now as you were before Heiligendamm?
A: I have always received a friendly reception. Most people in the SPD (German Social Democratic Party) and most of all Gerhard Schroeder (former German Chancellor) acknowledge that I have helped them – by torturing them! – to make a decision that turned out to be one of the most important in Schroeder’s political career. 29 Million African children can go to school now because of debt relief that was decided 1999 in Cologne. 29! Million! Children! There has to be African leadership – but it can only happen if resources are made available by debt relief.
Q: Last year your organization DATA called Angela Merkel the most important person on this planet. Has she lived up to your expectations?
A: Our criticism concerning the final document of the G8 summit in Heiligendamm was never an attack on Chancellor Merkel. I was disappointed, that the leaders hadn’t been able to agree on a clear plan for development aid. But I wasn’t disappointed about Germany’s role. In fact, I was overwhelmed by it. To be honest, my expectations were very low prior to 2007. I was surprised they even took my calls, that Merkel wanted to meet me. I think she realized that there was a crisis of credibility in Europe and that Europe, under German leadership, had to do something for their neighbor – Africa. Europe is a thought that has to become a feeling. Europe is a concept, all right. But do people really feel it? I think, after our conversations Merkel began to realize that these issues can help to make a feeling out of that thought.
Q: What about Secretary of Finance Steinbrueck? Do you have any promise from him that the goals for 2010 will be fulfilled?
A: I went directly to him and told him my number for 2009 – 750 Million more for development aid – and he asked me if I was talking about pesos.
Q: So the answer is no.
A: No, the answer isn’t no. I think he’s a very good man and he won’t disappoint us. I haven’t received the check yet but I’ll be back.
A: Wouldn’t you achieve more if you convinced companies to invest in Africa?
Q: Trade is more important than aid. Our African friends hate aid because they need it. If Africa would have one percent more of the global trade it would be twice as much as the amount of today’s aid. I know everything about it, I have studied it. My wife cooperates with African businesses for her fashion label Edun and I cooperate with different companies for my (Red) campaign: Apple, Armani, Dell, Motorola are on board. I would like to win Adidas now as a (Red) partner. This would be something I like. We are in a very early phase right now, but I like the idea. Usually, when we talk about Africa, it’s about losing. I want the (Red) campaign and the fight against AIDS to be associated with winning.
Q: Do you consider the involvement of other German labels as well? Mercedes, BMW?
A: There is a new way of thinking about consumerism. It’s a conscious way of consuming, people are making conscious decisions – they know about the power of their wallets. People can ruin a company if they decide to buy their gasoline at a different gas station. If they have the choice between two similar products, like Mercedes and BMW, they will choose the product that they believe will make the world a better place. I bet they will.
Q: Really?
A: Former US Secretary of Finance, Rubin, once said to me: ‘If you are serious about all of this, you have to do two things: You must tell the people how big the problem is and you must tell them that it can be solved. And then you must spend 50 Million Dollars to bring this message across. You have to do it like Adidas or Nike.’ And I said: ‘Man, where do we get 50 Million Dollars?’ He shrugged his shoulders. But this is exactly what (Red) is doing: We let the marketing budget of big companies carry us. As musicians, artists or film makers, we are often arrogant towards business people. We say there is no creativity in commerce – but we are wrong.
Q: What’s the role of your own Private Equity Fund Elevations Partners in all of this? Is it also about Africa?
A: Not really. It’s a strange journey for me. Being an activist made me interested in commerce. You’re really scratching your head here. What does this guy think he’s doing? The more profound answer to this question is: Economy plays a more important role to help people out of poverty than all the world’s activists together. Activists help with preparations, like for fairer trade laws. I was booed at in Tanzania because people thought I was anti-business. And back home I was booed because I was pro-business. I am interested in commerce now, in the concepts behind it. This is relatively new to me. In U2, we have always been quite good with it, but now business has become something that I’m really interested in. I met some eccentric, but brilliant people from Northern California who are investing in technology. They asked me to work with them and I said no about ten times. But then I thought it might be interesting after all. There is a connection to my life in music business because Elevation Partners has its place at the interface between technology and media.
Q: But it’s about business after all?
A: Yes.
Interview by Moritz Doebler. tagesspiegel
All in a day's work Bono's words ring true
By Anne-Marie Walsh
Wednesday March 12 2008
IT IS incredible what Bono can fit into a day, let alone a lifetime.
The U2 frontman amazed his fans yesterday when he phoned a 2FM radio show to defend his legendary voice during the school run.
Just hours later, he was appearing in photos ringing a bell with a bunch of German politicians in Berlin.
Bono's busy day began when he took the unusual step of ringing an early morning radio show while dropping his daughter to school.
Fans nearly choked on their breakfast when his unmistakable tones rang out over the airwaves.
The inexhaustible star took umbrage when he heard a report read out that claimed he was no longer up to singing his hit duet with Clannad singer Moya Brennan. Bono and the Donegal trad singer had a big hit with the haunting song 'In a Lifetime' in 1986.
The breakfast show crew had been pointing out that Moya's uncle Noel Duggan had said that Bono did not feel he had the voice for the duet anymore.
Bono laughed off the report when he phoned hosts Colm and Jim-Jim and insisted he could still hit the high notes.
"This is inter-band rivalry from those Donegal messers. They've always been putting it up and I'd say it's the uncles, or it could be the brothers Paul or Ciaran. We'll see but there could be trouble," he said.
Listeners initially thought it was a spoof until the singer burst into a jingle for the radio presenters.
Not one to get stuck in a moment for too long, Bono then jetted to Germany to give its politicians an earful.
During a speech to a parliamentary council meeting of the Social Democrats, he said Germany had not been shy about showing the world what values are worth fighting for.
Bono, seen above ringing the bell next to Peter Struck, parliamentary floor leader of the Social Democrats, to start the party's meeting said his visit to Berlin aimed to let them know that using money to fight poverty was helping.
"The good news, help works," Bono said, referring to a 2007 aid package he said could save up to four million lives in the coming three years.
The rock star also praised a debt relief law passed by the government of former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, which Bono said let another 29 million children in Africa attend school.
A spokesperson for U2 confirmed last night that Bono had picked up the phone to 2FM in Dublin yesterday, but was not aware of his more distant, later, appointment.
- Anne-Marie Walsh
independent
Bono also phoned into a German radiostation for an interview while he was in Berlin, you can listen to it here:
dradio
Unfortunatly, it's difficult to hear and understand him because of the translator's voice. He's basically talking about the same stuff as in all the other interviews he did around that time, about Germany's role in fighting poverty and how important the pressure of civil society is.
In the end they ask him how he responds to the critisicm of people who say stars like him or Geldof only use their commitment to gain more popularity.
Bono says she should ask his band this question and they would laugh out loud because they aren't exactly happy about what he is doing and have been anxious from the beginning that Bono's political work would keep people from coming to the U2 concerts or buying their album.
He says his band wishes he'd stop meeting with uncool politicians.
Photos: U2valencia * interference * isifa * gettyimages * rexfeatures * U2miracle * welt.de
CORRECTED - Scandal hurts Lynch more than Fidelity-analysts - March 7, 2008
(Corrects paragraph 9 to show Peter Lynch is a vice chairman not a vice president)
By Muralikumar Anantharaman
BOSTON, March 6 (Reuters) - The reputation of Fidelity Investments' most famous fund manager, Peter Lynch, will be hurt more by the scandal involving gifts from Wall Street brokers to staffers of the world's biggest mutual fund company than Fidelity itself, analysts said this week.
Privately owned Fidelity agreed on Wednesday to pay $8 million, and Peter Lynch, who ran its main Magellan Fund from 1977 to 1990, agreed to pay about $20,000 to settle charges brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The SEC charged Lynch, Fidelity and 12 other current or former employees with improperly accepting travel, entertainment and other gifts paid for by Wall Street brokers and accused Fidelity of allowing business to be swayed to these brokers.
"Far more damage has been done to Peter Lynch than the fine," said John Bonnanzio, editor of independent newsletter Fidelity Insight.
Lynch's involvement in the scandal came to light on Wednesday. However, many aspects of it were revealed a year ago after brokerage regulator NASD ended its probe into the matter and fined four Fidelity-affiliated companies $3.75 million.
Once known as America's most successful fund manager because Magellan at times generated returns more than five times that of the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, 64-year-old Lynch relied on two Fidelity traders to procure 61 tickets worth $15,948 for various events from 1999 to 2004, the SEC said. These included sold-out Ryder Cup golf tournaments, a Santana rock concert, and 11 tickets to see Irish rock band U2, according to the SEC.
"In asking the Fidelity equity trading desk for occasional help locating tickets, I never intended to do anything inappropriate, and I regret having made those requests," Lynch said in a statement on Wednesday.
"I want the public to know that I have never worked on the trading desk, and, since retiring from investment management at Fidelity over 17 years ago, I have not placed any trades on behalf of Fidelity with any brokerage firm."
Lynch is now a vice chairman at Fidelity.
FIDELITY ACTION REDUCED IMPACT
In a preemptive move in 2006, Fidelity decided to pay $42 million to its mutual funds for the gifts taken by traders, taking the sting out of the SEC's probe, begun in late 2004.
The company said in a statement on Wednesday that the SEC did not find that accepting the gifts caused financial harm to its funds' shareholders.
"Fidelity was embarrassed by this, but it's of minimal significance beyond the embarrassment factor," said Jim Lowell, editor of independent newsletter Fidelity Investor.
Some analysts expected investors to be supportive of the Boston company, which last week reported record revenues of $14.9 billion and pre-tax income of $2.2 billion for 2007.
"In this business all sins are forgiven when you are making money for your clients," said Bonnanzio of Fidelity Insight.
Fidelity Insight and Fidelity Investor are unrelated.
Both Fidelity and Lynch settled the SEC charges without denying or admitting them.
"It certainly does mar both of their reputations to some extent," said Lou Harvey, president of research firm Dalbar Inc. But for Fidelity's business, it was just a "pin-prick", he said.
"The big effect is they are going to have to answer questions from people who operate pension plans and other kinds of institutional investments. So it will be more of an administrative burden than any strategic change," said Harvey.
Closure of the gifts investigation was expected to remove a distraction for Fidelity management and help it to focus more on its core mutual funds business where it has lost market share to competitors such as Vanguard Group and American Funds.
According to funds flow research firm Financial Research Corp, Fidelity saw net inflows of $4.3 billion in its stock and bond funds in 2007 against $76.2 billion for Vanguard and $74.7 billion for American Funds.
"They have got that gorilla off their back, but it's a jungle out there, and there will be plenty of other monkeys jumping on their back," said Fidelity Investor's Lowell.
reuters
(Corrects paragraph 9 to show Peter Lynch is a vice chairman not a vice president)
By Muralikumar Anantharaman
BOSTON, March 6 (Reuters) - The reputation of Fidelity Investments' most famous fund manager, Peter Lynch, will be hurt more by the scandal involving gifts from Wall Street brokers to staffers of the world's biggest mutual fund company than Fidelity itself, analysts said this week.
Privately owned Fidelity agreed on Wednesday to pay $8 million, and Peter Lynch, who ran its main Magellan Fund from 1977 to 1990, agreed to pay about $20,000 to settle charges brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The SEC charged Lynch, Fidelity and 12 other current or former employees with improperly accepting travel, entertainment and other gifts paid for by Wall Street brokers and accused Fidelity of allowing business to be swayed to these brokers.
"Far more damage has been done to Peter Lynch than the fine," said John Bonnanzio, editor of independent newsletter Fidelity Insight.
Lynch's involvement in the scandal came to light on Wednesday. However, many aspects of it were revealed a year ago after brokerage regulator NASD ended its probe into the matter and fined four Fidelity-affiliated companies $3.75 million.
Once known as America's most successful fund manager because Magellan at times generated returns more than five times that of the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, 64-year-old Lynch relied on two Fidelity traders to procure 61 tickets worth $15,948 for various events from 1999 to 2004, the SEC said. These included sold-out Ryder Cup golf tournaments, a Santana rock concert, and 11 tickets to see Irish rock band U2, according to the SEC.
"In asking the Fidelity equity trading desk for occasional help locating tickets, I never intended to do anything inappropriate, and I regret having made those requests," Lynch said in a statement on Wednesday.
"I want the public to know that I have never worked on the trading desk, and, since retiring from investment management at Fidelity over 17 years ago, I have not placed any trades on behalf of Fidelity with any brokerage firm."
Lynch is now a vice chairman at Fidelity.
FIDELITY ACTION REDUCED IMPACT
In a preemptive move in 2006, Fidelity decided to pay $42 million to its mutual funds for the gifts taken by traders, taking the sting out of the SEC's probe, begun in late 2004.
The company said in a statement on Wednesday that the SEC did not find that accepting the gifts caused financial harm to its funds' shareholders.
"Fidelity was embarrassed by this, but it's of minimal significance beyond the embarrassment factor," said Jim Lowell, editor of independent newsletter Fidelity Investor.
Some analysts expected investors to be supportive of the Boston company, which last week reported record revenues of $14.9 billion and pre-tax income of $2.2 billion for 2007.
"In this business all sins are forgiven when you are making money for your clients," said Bonnanzio of Fidelity Insight.
Fidelity Insight and Fidelity Investor are unrelated.
Both Fidelity and Lynch settled the SEC charges without denying or admitting them.
"It certainly does mar both of their reputations to some extent," said Lou Harvey, president of research firm Dalbar Inc. But for Fidelity's business, it was just a "pin-prick", he said.
"The big effect is they are going to have to answer questions from people who operate pension plans and other kinds of institutional investments. So it will be more of an administrative burden than any strategic change," said Harvey.
Closure of the gifts investigation was expected to remove a distraction for Fidelity management and help it to focus more on its core mutual funds business where it has lost market share to competitors such as Vanguard Group and American Funds.
According to funds flow research firm Financial Research Corp, Fidelity saw net inflows of $4.3 billion in its stock and bond funds in 2007 against $76.2 billion for Vanguard and $74.7 billion for American Funds.
"They have got that gorilla off their back, but it's a jungle out there, and there will be plenty of other monkeys jumping on their back," said Fidelity Investor's Lowell.
reuters
25 Years of War: 5 Questions with Steve Lillywhite - March 2, 2008
@U2 interviews the legendary producer of U2's War album
@U2, March 02, 2008
Matt McGee
There's a soccer match on TV, another one coming in via a bad Internet feed, and the audio of the latter match can be heard on Sirius satellite radio. This was the scene at Steve Lillywhite's house when he picked up the phone to talk about the War album -- made long before the days of satellite radio and online soccer matches. What was planned as a five-question interview with War's producer turned into something closer to 10 questions with plenty of enjoyable memories on the occasion of the album's 25th anniversary.
Matt McGee: Neither you nor the band originally intended that you would produce War. So what happened that put you back in that chair?
Steve Lillywhite: Having done Boy, which was pretty successful, and then October, which was a bit of a dip due to various things -- Bono losing his lyrics, the typical not-having-enough-time-to-do-your-second-album, and all that -- I said to the band, "Look, you really do need -- you should try another producer." And they did go off and do a little bit of recording with a guy called Sandy Pearlman, who had done Blue Oyster Cult. Then they gave me a call and said, "Steve, what are you doing in September?" So, I said, "Nothing." And they asked, "Well, do you want to do our third album?" And I said, "Well, I've never done three albums with anyone." So, I went.
What was the hesitation on your part?
The hesitation on my part was, for some reason I had this silly idea that producers could work with lots of different bands, so it was good for bands to work with different producers. I did say to them after Boy, you should use someone else for October. And they said, "Why? We really enjoyed it." So, I said, "All right, then." But after October, I said, "Really, guys, it's been great fun, but I work with lots of different bands all the time. You don't. You need to learn from other people, because my way of making records is only my way. Other people make records completely differently, and you should learn. If you really want to be the big band that you want to be, that's how you should be."
So, that was my reasoning. In those days, I thought bands should work with different people. But in this current climate, I would never have got to do the third album, because someone at the record company would have said, "Wait, they need a change of producer."
Or, "We need to drop them altogether."
Or, "We need to drop the band altogether," which, the boss of the record company -- the guy below Chris Blackwell -- apparently wanted to do. And it was Chris Blackwell who said, "Hang on. There's something about these guys that I love. Let's give them another chance."
We know the October sessions were a real struggle. How would you describe the band's approach to the War sessions? Were they more focused?
Yeah, I think it was a case of, "OK, guys, we need to be The Clash." I always have these memories of Bono saying to Edge, "Don't do that! Don't be like The Edge! Be like Mick Jones!" -- trying to push Edge into a more aggressive guitar playing. Edge is a very whimsical, ethereal sort of person, and I think Bono was trying to get him to be more pointed and more sharp. He had his echo box, and you play around the sound you make, so Bono was pushing him to be more aggressive. I seem to remember the words "The Clash" came out more than once in the sessions.
How much talk was there about finding a hit single or having the album be a breakthrough on the charts?
Absolutely none! Absolutely no talk whatsoever, and never on any of the first three albums. There was no talk of what's going to be the radio song? Never! It was art. We were making music. And a lot of producers will say this, so it's not my line, but all the songs are equal. You don't put more effort into one song than any other.
It was funny -- it was actually one of the young guys in the studio, one of the runners, who was going, "Ohhh, that song, 'New Year's Day,' that's fantastic!" And we were all going, "Really? You like that one? But we like 'Surrender,' or we like -- " [laughs] I mean, it's only time that gives you hindsight. I love "New Year's Day," but I loved "Surrender" and some of the other ones.
War sounds nothing like Boy or October. What did you do to make that happen?
Every time you do more than one record with someone, you try to go on a journey. You try to not repeat the things you've done before. My thought is, it's going to sound like the same band, anyway, because it's going to be the same guy singing. You can try to dress it up and try to make that difference. Yourself -- you're going on a journey, and you're taking your fans along with you. It's never about trying to copy what you did before. It's always about the art, about trying to make something that's timeless and being true to yourself. That's one thing I've really learned from the band. Bono has often said he's a traveling salesman, and he wants to make sure the thing he's carting around the world for the next two years is something he's proud of.
Do you have a favorite story from the recording sessions for War?
I do remember, on "New Year's Day," actually -- I mixed "New Year's Day" in 15 minutes. What happened was, I'd spent a whole day mixing it, and everyone seemed to think it's good enough, but I had this thing in the back of my head that it really could be better. We were running out of time and had one more song left. Bono said, "Give me 20 minutes to write the lyrics. I've just got to finish them off." So, I said, "OK. I'll remix 'New Year's Day' in that time." I knew [the song] so well. I just put the tape on and did it. And I always say to people, if I could mix "New Year's Day" in 15 minutes, if I've got three hours left [on another project], I've got plenty of time.
Where does War rank for you among all the U2 albums?
Oh, God, I'd never like to say that! I mean, my favorites probably go Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, All That You Can't Leave Behind ... [thinks] then maybe War joined on with Atomic Bomb. Or maybe Boy, I don't know. I like Pop, but I think it was a bit ... confusing to people. And a few people have recently come up to me and said how October moves them in a certain way that no other record does. I think when they're great is when they're really focused. Oh! Unforgettable Fire -- I like that one, as well. They've made some good records! [laughs]
Yeah, they've had a modicum of success! [laughs]
They have! But you know, a lot of effort goes into it. It doesn't come easy for them. In some ways, their inadequacies in certain areas have really helped them because it's made them push themselves more. Do you know what I mean?
I do, yes. They're very up front about where they struggle.
Yes. They don't jam. I mean, they were so nervous at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because they thought they might have to jam -- that's what people did at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But that's not their style at all, God bless them. [laughs]
Any other stories [I can share]?
"40" -- that was literally the last song, the last morning?
Yes, that was the last morning. We were finishing the record, and the next band were literally -- this is very Irish -- the band who were booked in the studio from the following day, they were this band who really thought they wanted to get a jump on their sessions. They wanted to start at 7 in the morning. So they were literally standing outside the studio at 6:30 in the morning, while Bono was in there doing the last vocal of "40." And I basically mixed it, and it was all done.
But every U2 album has this legendary last -- you know, the last day of recording any U2 album is fantastic. Even on the last one [Atomic Bomb], it was coming up to midnight, and we were all thinking, It's going to happen. We're [actually] going to finish at midnight. And then Bono walks in and says, "OK, guys, I've got an idea! Set up the band, we're going to record" -- well, it was called "Xanax and Wine" at the time, and later became "Fast Cars." So we did that song in three hours at the end of the night.
Even "Party Girl" -- see, I had this other thing that you should never spend more than a half an hour on a B-side. So, I would let them all have one go -- you could play it once. They didn't know what they were playing, but it was just a real snapshot of that little moment.
Great thanks to Steve Lillywhite for helping @U2 celebrate the 25th anniversary of U2's War album.
(c) @U2, 2008.
atu2
@U2 interviews the legendary producer of U2's War album
@U2, March 02, 2008
Matt McGee
There's a soccer match on TV, another one coming in via a bad Internet feed, and the audio of the latter match can be heard on Sirius satellite radio. This was the scene at Steve Lillywhite's house when he picked up the phone to talk about the War album -- made long before the days of satellite radio and online soccer matches. What was planned as a five-question interview with War's producer turned into something closer to 10 questions with plenty of enjoyable memories on the occasion of the album's 25th anniversary.
Matt McGee: Neither you nor the band originally intended that you would produce War. So what happened that put you back in that chair?
Steve Lillywhite: Having done Boy, which was pretty successful, and then October, which was a bit of a dip due to various things -- Bono losing his lyrics, the typical not-having-enough-time-to-do-your-second-album, and all that -- I said to the band, "Look, you really do need -- you should try another producer." And they did go off and do a little bit of recording with a guy called Sandy Pearlman, who had done Blue Oyster Cult. Then they gave me a call and said, "Steve, what are you doing in September?" So, I said, "Nothing." And they asked, "Well, do you want to do our third album?" And I said, "Well, I've never done three albums with anyone." So, I went.
What was the hesitation on your part?
The hesitation on my part was, for some reason I had this silly idea that producers could work with lots of different bands, so it was good for bands to work with different producers. I did say to them after Boy, you should use someone else for October. And they said, "Why? We really enjoyed it." So, I said, "All right, then." But after October, I said, "Really, guys, it's been great fun, but I work with lots of different bands all the time. You don't. You need to learn from other people, because my way of making records is only my way. Other people make records completely differently, and you should learn. If you really want to be the big band that you want to be, that's how you should be."
So, that was my reasoning. In those days, I thought bands should work with different people. But in this current climate, I would never have got to do the third album, because someone at the record company would have said, "Wait, they need a change of producer."
Or, "We need to drop them altogether."
Or, "We need to drop the band altogether," which, the boss of the record company -- the guy below Chris Blackwell -- apparently wanted to do. And it was Chris Blackwell who said, "Hang on. There's something about these guys that I love. Let's give them another chance."
We know the October sessions were a real struggle. How would you describe the band's approach to the War sessions? Were they more focused?
Yeah, I think it was a case of, "OK, guys, we need to be The Clash." I always have these memories of Bono saying to Edge, "Don't do that! Don't be like The Edge! Be like Mick Jones!" -- trying to push Edge into a more aggressive guitar playing. Edge is a very whimsical, ethereal sort of person, and I think Bono was trying to get him to be more pointed and more sharp. He had his echo box, and you play around the sound you make, so Bono was pushing him to be more aggressive. I seem to remember the words "The Clash" came out more than once in the sessions.
How much talk was there about finding a hit single or having the album be a breakthrough on the charts?
Absolutely none! Absolutely no talk whatsoever, and never on any of the first three albums. There was no talk of what's going to be the radio song? Never! It was art. We were making music. And a lot of producers will say this, so it's not my line, but all the songs are equal. You don't put more effort into one song than any other.
It was funny -- it was actually one of the young guys in the studio, one of the runners, who was going, "Ohhh, that song, 'New Year's Day,' that's fantastic!" And we were all going, "Really? You like that one? But we like 'Surrender,' or we like -- " [laughs] I mean, it's only time that gives you hindsight. I love "New Year's Day," but I loved "Surrender" and some of the other ones.
War sounds nothing like Boy or October. What did you do to make that happen?
Every time you do more than one record with someone, you try to go on a journey. You try to not repeat the things you've done before. My thought is, it's going to sound like the same band, anyway, because it's going to be the same guy singing. You can try to dress it up and try to make that difference. Yourself -- you're going on a journey, and you're taking your fans along with you. It's never about trying to copy what you did before. It's always about the art, about trying to make something that's timeless and being true to yourself. That's one thing I've really learned from the band. Bono has often said he's a traveling salesman, and he wants to make sure the thing he's carting around the world for the next two years is something he's proud of.
Do you have a favorite story from the recording sessions for War?
I do remember, on "New Year's Day," actually -- I mixed "New Year's Day" in 15 minutes. What happened was, I'd spent a whole day mixing it, and everyone seemed to think it's good enough, but I had this thing in the back of my head that it really could be better. We were running out of time and had one more song left. Bono said, "Give me 20 minutes to write the lyrics. I've just got to finish them off." So, I said, "OK. I'll remix 'New Year's Day' in that time." I knew [the song] so well. I just put the tape on and did it. And I always say to people, if I could mix "New Year's Day" in 15 minutes, if I've got three hours left [on another project], I've got plenty of time.
Where does War rank for you among all the U2 albums?
Oh, God, I'd never like to say that! I mean, my favorites probably go Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby, All That You Can't Leave Behind ... [thinks] then maybe War joined on with Atomic Bomb. Or maybe Boy, I don't know. I like Pop, but I think it was a bit ... confusing to people. And a few people have recently come up to me and said how October moves them in a certain way that no other record does. I think when they're great is when they're really focused. Oh! Unforgettable Fire -- I like that one, as well. They've made some good records! [laughs]
Yeah, they've had a modicum of success! [laughs]
They have! But you know, a lot of effort goes into it. It doesn't come easy for them. In some ways, their inadequacies in certain areas have really helped them because it's made them push themselves more. Do you know what I mean?
I do, yes. They're very up front about where they struggle.
Yes. They don't jam. I mean, they were so nervous at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame because they thought they might have to jam -- that's what people did at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But that's not their style at all, God bless them. [laughs]
Any other stories [I can share]?
"40" -- that was literally the last song, the last morning?
Yes, that was the last morning. We were finishing the record, and the next band were literally -- this is very Irish -- the band who were booked in the studio from the following day, they were this band who really thought they wanted to get a jump on their sessions. They wanted to start at 7 in the morning. So they were literally standing outside the studio at 6:30 in the morning, while Bono was in there doing the last vocal of "40." And I basically mixed it, and it was all done.
But every U2 album has this legendary last -- you know, the last day of recording any U2 album is fantastic. Even on the last one [Atomic Bomb], it was coming up to midnight, and we were all thinking, It's going to happen. We're [actually] going to finish at midnight. And then Bono walks in and says, "OK, guys, I've got an idea! Set up the band, we're going to record" -- well, it was called "Xanax and Wine" at the time, and later became "Fast Cars." So we did that song in three hours at the end of the night.
Even "Party Girl" -- see, I had this other thing that you should never spend more than a half an hour on a B-side. So, I would let them all have one go -- you could play it once. They didn't know what they were playing, but it was just a real snapshot of that little moment.
Great thanks to Steve Lillywhite for helping @U2 celebrate the 25th anniversary of U2's War album.
(c) @U2, 2008.
atu2
Geldof and Bush: Diary From the Road - Thursday, Feb. 28, 2008 - By BOB GELDOF
George W. Bush and Bob Geldof aboard Air Force One en route to Ghana, Africa, Feb. 19, 2008
I gave the President my book. He raised an eyebrow. "Who wrote this for ya, Geldof?" he said without looking up from the cover. Very dry. "Who will you get to read it for you, Mr. President?" I replied. No response.
The Most Powerful Man in the World studied the front cover. Geldof in Africa — " 'The international best seller.' You write that bit yourself?"
"That's right. It's called marketing. Something you obviously have no clue about or else I wouldn't have to be here telling people your Africa story."
It is some story. And I have always wondered why it was never told properly to the American people, who were paying for it. It was, for example, Bush who initiated the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) with cross-party support led by Senators John Kerry and Bill Frist. In 2003, only 50,000 Africans were on HIV antiretroviral drugs — and they had to pay for their own medicine. Today, 1.3 million are receiving medicines free of charge. The U.S. also contributes one-third of the money for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria — which treats another 1.5 million. It contributes 50% of all food aid (though some critics find the mechanism of contribution controversial). On a seven-day trip through Africa, Bush announced a fantastic new $350 million fund for other neglected tropical diseases that can be easily eradicated; a program to distribute 5.2 million mosquito nets to Tanzanian kids; and contracts worth around $1.2 billion in Tanzania and Ghana from the Millennium Challenge Account, another initiative of the Bush Administration.
So why doesn't America know about this? "I tried to tell them. But the press weren't much interested," says Bush. It's half true. There are always a couple of lines in the State of the Union, but not enough so that anyone noticed, and the press really isn't interested. For them, like America itself, Africa is a continent of which little is known save the odd horror.
We sat in the large, wood-paneled conference room of Air Force One as she cruised the skies of the immense African continent below us. Gathered around the great oval table, I wondered how changed was the man who said in 2000 that Africa "doesn't fit into the national strategic interests, as far as I can see them."
"Hold on a minute. I said that in response to a military question. Condi! Canya get in here," the President shouts out the open door, leaning back in his chair. The Secretary of State, looking glamorous and fresh despite having been diverted to Kenya to articulate the U.S.'s concern over matters there before jetting back to Rwanda to join her boss, sits down. "Hi, Bob." "Hi, Condi." It's like being inside a living TV screen.
Bush asks whether she remembers the context of the 2000 question. She confirms it was regarding the U.S.'s military strategies inside Africa, but then 2000 was so long ago. Another universe. I ask him if it is the same today. "Yes, sir," he says. "Well, if America has no military interest in Africa, then what is Africom for?" I ask.
People in Africa are worried about this new, seemingly military command. I thought it was an inappropriate and knee-jerk U.S. militaristic response to clumsy Chinese mercantilism that could only end in tears for everyone concerned. (And so did many Africans, if the local press was anything to go by.)
"That's ridiculous," says Bush. "We're still working on it. We're trying to build a humanitarian mission that would train up soldiers for peace and security so that African nations are more capable of dealing with Africa's conflicts. You agree with that dontcha?" Indeed I do. The British intervention in Sierra Leone stopped and prevented a catastrophe, as did U.S. action in Liberia. Later, in public, Bush says, "I want to dispel the notion that all of a sudden America is bringing all kinds of military to Africa. It's simply not true ... That's baloney, or as we say in Texas — that's bull!" Trouble is, it sounds to me a lot like what the U.S. did in the early Vietnam years with the advisers who became something else. Mission creep, I think it's called.
"No, that won't happen," Bush insists. "We're still working on what exactly it'll be, but it will be a humanitarian mission, training in peace and security, conflict resolution ... It's a new concept and we want to get it right." He muses for a while on the U.S. and China, and their policies on Africa — Africans are increasingly resentful that the Chinese bring their own labor force and supplies with them. Then, in what I took to be a reference to the supposed Chinese influence over the cynical Khartoum regime, Bush adds, "One thing I will say: Human suffering should preempt commercial interest."
It's a wonderful sentence, and it comes in the wake of a visit to Rwanda's Genocide Memorial Center. The museum is built on the site of a still-being-filled open grave. There are 250,000 individuals in that hole, tumbled together in an undifferentiated tangle of humanity. The President and First Lady were visibly shocked by the museum. "Evil does exist," Bush says in reaction to the 1994 massacres. "And in such a brutal form." He is not speechifying; he is horror-struck by the reality of ethnic madness. "Babies had their skulls smashed," he says, his mind violently regurgitating an image he has just witnessed. The sentence peters out, emptied of words to describe the ultimately incomprehensible.
Rwanda brings him back again to Darfur. In an interview with African journalists, Bush explained the difficulties there now that the "rebels" had broken up into ever-smaller factions, no longer representing their own clans but their own warlord interests. What should we do in this very 21st century asymmetric situation? Impose a wall of peacekeepers first, stop the massacre and rape, and begin negotiating? "The U.N. is so slow, but we must act," Bush says.
Action may very well be his wish, but because of the U.S.'s intervention elsewhere and his own preemptive philosophy, it is now unacceptable for the U.S. to engage unilaterally. By his own deeds, he has rendered U.S. action in Darfur impossible. As for the rest of the world, for all their oft-spoken pieties, they seem to be able to agree on precisely nothing. Meanwhile, the rape and killing continue, Khartoum plays its game of murder and we won't even pay for the helicopters that the U.N. forces need to protect themselves. Pathetic.
The Presidential Gig
Earlier, in his private lounge, which is just behind the bedroom with the twin beds with blue blankets, complete with Presidential Seal, we'd talked of personal stuff. I'd been asking about the laundry arrangements. How do they get the presidential shirts, socks, undies, etc., done on this thing? I'm used to rock-'n'-roll tours where there's a washing machine and dryers set up backstage, but this is gigging on a whole other level. At least 20 military transporters haul presidential necessities around the planet. At our hotel in Ghana, the porter carrying my bag said they had thrown out all the other guests because "the President of the World was coming."
"Laundry, huh?" the President mused. "Y'know, I've never asked that. I usually just wear the same thing all day, but if I need to change, there's always a room I can go to. Laundry, huh? Is this the interview, Geldof? It's certainly a different technique!" He's showing me around because I've asked if I can get Air Force One stuff to bring home to the kids. "Hey guys, get Geldof the links and pins and stuff. And the M&M's. Didja know I got my own presidential M&M's?" Wow. "Yeah, cool, right? They'll love 'em." They did. They're in a presidential box with his autograph on them. The Queen doesn't have that. Or the Pope. And I muse later from Car 25 in the 33-car motorcade that there are probably only three people in the world who can bring crowds like this out onto the street — the Queen, the Pope and the President of the United States, and only one's a politician. "Jed," the President says to the man doing the ironing between the twin beds. "How do we do the laundry on this thing?" "We use hotels, sir." Ah.
Nobody else gets beds. The exhausted Secret Service guys, the secretaries of state, the chief of staff, the assistants and advisers and the press pool attempt a fitful sleep in the gray-and-beige reclining seats. Some give up the unequal struggle and order dinner. Not fantastic food, with decentish wine served by nicely uniformed, friendly waiters.
Up front we're knocking back Cokes. The First Lady, elegant and composed, is reading with her legs tucked under her on the L-shaped sofa. The President throws himself into a chair in front of me and sprawls comfortably, Texas-style. He asks about growing up in Dublin. "Was it poor then?" Very. "Huh. What'd your dad do? Your mom?" We went through it. "How'd you and Bono meet up? You knew each other back then? What's his real name?"
I don't know how, but eventually we arrive at the great unspoken. "See, I believe we're in an ideological struggle with extremism," says the President. "These people prey on the hopeless. Hopelessness breeds terrorism. That's why this trip is a mission undertaken with the deepest sense of humanity, because those other folks will just use vulnerable people for evil. Like in Iraq."
I don't want to go there. I have my views and they're at odds with his, and I don't want to spoil the interview or be rude in the face of his hospitality. "Ah, look Mr. President. I don't want to do this really. We'll get distracted and I'm here to do Africa with you." "OK, but we got rid of tyranny." It sounded like the television Bush. It sounded too justificatory, and he doesn't ever have to justify his Africa policy. This is the person who has quadrupled aid to the poorest people on the planet. I was more comfortable with that. But his expression asked for agreement and sympathy, and I couldn't provide either.
"Mr. President, please. There are things you've done I could never possibly agree with and there are things I've done in my life that you would disapprove of, too. And that would make your hospitality awkward. The cost has been too much. History will play itself out." "I think history will prove me right," he shoots back. "Who knows," I say.
It wasn't awkward. It wasn't uncomfortable. He is convinced, like Tony Blair, that he made the right decision. "I'm comfortable with that decision," he says. But he can't be. The laws of unintended consequences would determine that. At one point I suggest that he will never be given credit for good policies, like those here in Africa, because many people view him "as a walking crime against humanity." He looks very hurt by that. And I'm sorry I said it, because he's a very likable fellow.
"C'mon, let's move next door and let Laura alone." "I spoke to Blair about you before I came on the plane." "Tony Blair? What'd he say?" "He said you don't see color. To remember that you employed the first black secretaries of state, that your worldview had changed since you began, and that Condi was a big influence with regard to Africa." "So you were a big influence on me," he says to Condi. "I don't think so ..." "Nah, I've always been like this." "But now you sound like a hippie, for God's sake," I say. He laughs.
An Emotional Man
At a lunch for Peace Corps volunteers in Ghana, the President introduces the First Lady and Condi. Then he introduces me. It turns into a very funny Geldof roast. Finally, he says, "Anyway, he doesn't look it, but he's all right. And I'm not saying that to blow smoke up his rear just because he's doing some piece on me." Thanks for the compliment, Mr. President. He makes the volunteers relaxed and easy with him. They introduce themselves. One woman tells how six months previously, she was bitten by a cobra and rushed to hospital. As she was passing out, she tells the President, "that little voice whispered to me, 'You'll be all right,' and I was." She pauses, and says meaningfully to him: "You know that little voice, I think?" "Not really," Bush says drily. "I've never been bitten by a cobra." As they tell their stories he refers to them as being among the best of America. "I like courage and compassion. We are a courageous and compassionate people." A middle-aged couple say they gave up their careers and home to come to Africa. "It's important to take risks for the things you believe in," says Bush. Then disarmingly, he says to the man, who lives in a village, "What's social life like here?" "What's social life anywhere at 59?" the man asks his President, who is 61. "Tell me about it," says Bush. "Bed at 6:30!"
I have always heard that Bush mangles language and I've laughed at the satires of his diction. He shrugs them off, but I think he's sensitive about it. He has some verbal tics, but in public and with me he speaks fluently and in wonderful aphorisms, like:
"Stop coming to Africa feeling guilty. Come with love and feeling confident for its future."
"When we see hunger we feed them. Not to spread our influence, but because they're hungry."
"U.S. solutions should not be imposed on African leaders."
"Africa has changed since I've become President. Not because of me, but because of African leaders."
Some of these thoughts, were they applied to Iraq, would have profound implications on the man's understanding of how the world functions. ("U.S. solutions should not be imposed on African leaders!")
Of course, it would be ridiculous to be the President of the U.S. and not change as a person or evolve in your understanding of the world. I suggest that his commitment to Africa has been revolutionary in its interest curve. "That's not true," he says. "In my second debate with Al Gore, I came out for debt cancellation and AIDS relief. I called AIDS a genocide. I felt and still do that it was unacceptable to stand by and let a generation be eradicated."
You forget that Bush has an M.B.A. He thinks like a businessman in terms of the bottom line. Results. Profit and loss. There is an empiricism to a lot of his furthest-reaching policies on Africa. Correctly, he's big on trade. "A 1% increase in trade from Africa," he says, "will mean more money than all the aid put together annually." He's proud that he twice reauthorized the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a modestly revolutionary Clinton Administration initiative that enabled previously heavily taxed exports to enter the U.S. tax-free. Even though oil still accounts for the vast amount of African exports to the U.S., the beneficial impact of AGOA on such places as the tiny country of Lesotho, and its growing textile industry, has been startling.
AGOA represents precisely the sort of coherent thinking that will change things for Africa. But we talk of how the little that Africa does export to other parts of the world is still greater than the amount that it trades within the continent. I say that's because there are more landlocked countries in Africa than anywhere else in the world. "So they can't get their stuff to market?" he asks quickly. "Exactly," I say. "You have to pay so many tariffs at each border that by the time you get to the coast, you're overpriced." "You gotta dismantle borders, then." He's curious and quick.
He is also, I feel, an emotional man. But sometimes he's a sentimentalist, and that's different. He is in love with America. Not the idea of America, but rather an inchoate notion of a space — a glorious metaphysical entity. But it is clear that since its mendacious beginnings, this war has thrown up a series of abuses that disgrace the U.S.'s central proposition. In the need to find morally neutralizing euphemisms to describe torture and abuse, the language itself became tortured and abused. Rendition, waterboarding, Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib — all are codes for what America is not. America has mortally compromised its own essential values of civil liberty while imposing its own idea of freedom on others who may not want it. The Bush regime has been divisive — but not in Africa. I read it has been incompetent — but not in Africa. It has created bitterness — but not here in Africa. Here, his administration has saved millions of lives.
"Guys like me always like to cut ribbons," Bush says mockingly at a ceremonial opening. But it's a dangerous modesty. Congress must still agree to fund the massive spending he's laid out for Africa, and most of it will come after he leaves the White House. It is vital that the new President continues with this policy. "Whoever is President," Bush says, "will understand Africa is in our nation's interest. They are wonderful people."
On Air Force One, Jendayi Frazer, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Bobby Pittman, the National Security Council adviser for Africa, and I stayed awake as the pitch night engulfed us, only punctuated by the giant orange gas flares on the Gulf of Guinea. We ate our popcorn, drank our Cokes and watched Batman Begins as the airspace was cleared for miles around us. America was flying through the warm African night and I was hitching a ride on her. time
George W. Bush and Bob Geldof aboard Air Force One en route to Ghana, Africa, Feb. 19, 2008I gave the President my book. He raised an eyebrow. "Who wrote this for ya, Geldof?" he said without looking up from the cover. Very dry. "Who will you get to read it for you, Mr. President?" I replied. No response.
The Most Powerful Man in the World studied the front cover. Geldof in Africa — " 'The international best seller.' You write that bit yourself?"
"That's right. It's called marketing. Something you obviously have no clue about or else I wouldn't have to be here telling people your Africa story."
It is some story. And I have always wondered why it was never told properly to the American people, who were paying for it. It was, for example, Bush who initiated the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) with cross-party support led by Senators John Kerry and Bill Frist. In 2003, only 50,000 Africans were on HIV antiretroviral drugs — and they had to pay for their own medicine. Today, 1.3 million are receiving medicines free of charge. The U.S. also contributes one-third of the money for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria — which treats another 1.5 million. It contributes 50% of all food aid (though some critics find the mechanism of contribution controversial). On a seven-day trip through Africa, Bush announced a fantastic new $350 million fund for other neglected tropical diseases that can be easily eradicated; a program to distribute 5.2 million mosquito nets to Tanzanian kids; and contracts worth around $1.2 billion in Tanzania and Ghana from the Millennium Challenge Account, another initiative of the Bush Administration.
So why doesn't America know about this? "I tried to tell them. But the press weren't much interested," says Bush. It's half true. There are always a couple of lines in the State of the Union, but not enough so that anyone noticed, and the press really isn't interested. For them, like America itself, Africa is a continent of which little is known save the odd horror.
We sat in the large, wood-paneled conference room of Air Force One as she cruised the skies of the immense African continent below us. Gathered around the great oval table, I wondered how changed was the man who said in 2000 that Africa "doesn't fit into the national strategic interests, as far as I can see them."
"Hold on a minute. I said that in response to a military question. Condi! Canya get in here," the President shouts out the open door, leaning back in his chair. The Secretary of State, looking glamorous and fresh despite having been diverted to Kenya to articulate the U.S.'s concern over matters there before jetting back to Rwanda to join her boss, sits down. "Hi, Bob." "Hi, Condi." It's like being inside a living TV screen.
Bush asks whether she remembers the context of the 2000 question. She confirms it was regarding the U.S.'s military strategies inside Africa, but then 2000 was so long ago. Another universe. I ask him if it is the same today. "Yes, sir," he says. "Well, if America has no military interest in Africa, then what is Africom for?" I ask.
People in Africa are worried about this new, seemingly military command. I thought it was an inappropriate and knee-jerk U.S. militaristic response to clumsy Chinese mercantilism that could only end in tears for everyone concerned. (And so did many Africans, if the local press was anything to go by.)
"That's ridiculous," says Bush. "We're still working on it. We're trying to build a humanitarian mission that would train up soldiers for peace and security so that African nations are more capable of dealing with Africa's conflicts. You agree with that dontcha?" Indeed I do. The British intervention in Sierra Leone stopped and prevented a catastrophe, as did U.S. action in Liberia. Later, in public, Bush says, "I want to dispel the notion that all of a sudden America is bringing all kinds of military to Africa. It's simply not true ... That's baloney, or as we say in Texas — that's bull!" Trouble is, it sounds to me a lot like what the U.S. did in the early Vietnam years with the advisers who became something else. Mission creep, I think it's called.
"No, that won't happen," Bush insists. "We're still working on what exactly it'll be, but it will be a humanitarian mission, training in peace and security, conflict resolution ... It's a new concept and we want to get it right." He muses for a while on the U.S. and China, and their policies on Africa — Africans are increasingly resentful that the Chinese bring their own labor force and supplies with them. Then, in what I took to be a reference to the supposed Chinese influence over the cynical Khartoum regime, Bush adds, "One thing I will say: Human suffering should preempt commercial interest."
It's a wonderful sentence, and it comes in the wake of a visit to Rwanda's Genocide Memorial Center. The museum is built on the site of a still-being-filled open grave. There are 250,000 individuals in that hole, tumbled together in an undifferentiated tangle of humanity. The President and First Lady were visibly shocked by the museum. "Evil does exist," Bush says in reaction to the 1994 massacres. "And in such a brutal form." He is not speechifying; he is horror-struck by the reality of ethnic madness. "Babies had their skulls smashed," he says, his mind violently regurgitating an image he has just witnessed. The sentence peters out, emptied of words to describe the ultimately incomprehensible.
Rwanda brings him back again to Darfur. In an interview with African journalists, Bush explained the difficulties there now that the "rebels" had broken up into ever-smaller factions, no longer representing their own clans but their own warlord interests. What should we do in this very 21st century asymmetric situation? Impose a wall of peacekeepers first, stop the massacre and rape, and begin negotiating? "The U.N. is so slow, but we must act," Bush says.
Action may very well be his wish, but because of the U.S.'s intervention elsewhere and his own preemptive philosophy, it is now unacceptable for the U.S. to engage unilaterally. By his own deeds, he has rendered U.S. action in Darfur impossible. As for the rest of the world, for all their oft-spoken pieties, they seem to be able to agree on precisely nothing. Meanwhile, the rape and killing continue, Khartoum plays its game of murder and we won't even pay for the helicopters that the U.N. forces need to protect themselves. Pathetic.
The Presidential Gig
Earlier, in his private lounge, which is just behind the bedroom with the twin beds with blue blankets, complete with Presidential Seal, we'd talked of personal stuff. I'd been asking about the laundry arrangements. How do they get the presidential shirts, socks, undies, etc., done on this thing? I'm used to rock-'n'-roll tours where there's a washing machine and dryers set up backstage, but this is gigging on a whole other level. At least 20 military transporters haul presidential necessities around the planet. At our hotel in Ghana, the porter carrying my bag said they had thrown out all the other guests because "the President of the World was coming."
"Laundry, huh?" the President mused. "Y'know, I've never asked that. I usually just wear the same thing all day, but if I need to change, there's always a room I can go to. Laundry, huh? Is this the interview, Geldof? It's certainly a different technique!" He's showing me around because I've asked if I can get Air Force One stuff to bring home to the kids. "Hey guys, get Geldof the links and pins and stuff. And the M&M's. Didja know I got my own presidential M&M's?" Wow. "Yeah, cool, right? They'll love 'em." They did. They're in a presidential box with his autograph on them. The Queen doesn't have that. Or the Pope. And I muse later from Car 25 in the 33-car motorcade that there are probably only three people in the world who can bring crowds like this out onto the street — the Queen, the Pope and the President of the United States, and only one's a politician. "Jed," the President says to the man doing the ironing between the twin beds. "How do we do the laundry on this thing?" "We use hotels, sir." Ah.
Nobody else gets beds. The exhausted Secret Service guys, the secretaries of state, the chief of staff, the assistants and advisers and the press pool attempt a fitful sleep in the gray-and-beige reclining seats. Some give up the unequal struggle and order dinner. Not fantastic food, with decentish wine served by nicely uniformed, friendly waiters.
Up front we're knocking back Cokes. The First Lady, elegant and composed, is reading with her legs tucked under her on the L-shaped sofa. The President throws himself into a chair in front of me and sprawls comfortably, Texas-style. He asks about growing up in Dublin. "Was it poor then?" Very. "Huh. What'd your dad do? Your mom?" We went through it. "How'd you and Bono meet up? You knew each other back then? What's his real name?"
I don't know how, but eventually we arrive at the great unspoken. "See, I believe we're in an ideological struggle with extremism," says the President. "These people prey on the hopeless. Hopelessness breeds terrorism. That's why this trip is a mission undertaken with the deepest sense of humanity, because those other folks will just use vulnerable people for evil. Like in Iraq."
I don't want to go there. I have my views and they're at odds with his, and I don't want to spoil the interview or be rude in the face of his hospitality. "Ah, look Mr. President. I don't want to do this really. We'll get distracted and I'm here to do Africa with you." "OK, but we got rid of tyranny." It sounded like the television Bush. It sounded too justificatory, and he doesn't ever have to justify his Africa policy. This is the person who has quadrupled aid to the poorest people on the planet. I was more comfortable with that. But his expression asked for agreement and sympathy, and I couldn't provide either.
"Mr. President, please. There are things you've done I could never possibly agree with and there are things I've done in my life that you would disapprove of, too. And that would make your hospitality awkward. The cost has been too much. History will play itself out." "I think history will prove me right," he shoots back. "Who knows," I say.
It wasn't awkward. It wasn't uncomfortable. He is convinced, like Tony Blair, that he made the right decision. "I'm comfortable with that decision," he says. But he can't be. The laws of unintended consequences would determine that. At one point I suggest that he will never be given credit for good policies, like those here in Africa, because many people view him "as a walking crime against humanity." He looks very hurt by that. And I'm sorry I said it, because he's a very likable fellow.
"C'mon, let's move next door and let Laura alone." "I spoke to Blair about you before I came on the plane." "Tony Blair? What'd he say?" "He said you don't see color. To remember that you employed the first black secretaries of state, that your worldview had changed since you began, and that Condi was a big influence with regard to Africa." "So you were a big influence on me," he says to Condi. "I don't think so ..." "Nah, I've always been like this." "But now you sound like a hippie, for God's sake," I say. He laughs.
An Emotional Man
At a lunch for Peace Corps volunteers in Ghana, the President introduces the First Lady and Condi. Then he introduces me. It turns into a very funny Geldof roast. Finally, he says, "Anyway, he doesn't look it, but he's all right. And I'm not saying that to blow smoke up his rear just because he's doing some piece on me." Thanks for the compliment, Mr. President. He makes the volunteers relaxed and easy with him. They introduce themselves. One woman tells how six months previously, she was bitten by a cobra and rushed to hospital. As she was passing out, she tells the President, "that little voice whispered to me, 'You'll be all right,' and I was." She pauses, and says meaningfully to him: "You know that little voice, I think?" "Not really," Bush says drily. "I've never been bitten by a cobra." As they tell their stories he refers to them as being among the best of America. "I like courage and compassion. We are a courageous and compassionate people." A middle-aged couple say they gave up their careers and home to come to Africa. "It's important to take risks for the things you believe in," says Bush. Then disarmingly, he says to the man, who lives in a village, "What's social life like here?" "What's social life anywhere at 59?" the man asks his President, who is 61. "Tell me about it," says Bush. "Bed at 6:30!"
I have always heard that Bush mangles language and I've laughed at the satires of his diction. He shrugs them off, but I think he's sensitive about it. He has some verbal tics, but in public and with me he speaks fluently and in wonderful aphorisms, like:
"Stop coming to Africa feeling guilty. Come with love and feeling confident for its future."
"When we see hunger we feed them. Not to spread our influence, but because they're hungry."
"U.S. solutions should not be imposed on African leaders."
"Africa has changed since I've become President. Not because of me, but because of African leaders."
Some of these thoughts, were they applied to Iraq, would have profound implications on the man's understanding of how the world functions. ("U.S. solutions should not be imposed on African leaders!")
Of course, it would be ridiculous to be the President of the U.S. and not change as a person or evolve in your understanding of the world. I suggest that his commitment to Africa has been revolutionary in its interest curve. "That's not true," he says. "In my second debate with Al Gore, I came out for debt cancellation and AIDS relief. I called AIDS a genocide. I felt and still do that it was unacceptable to stand by and let a generation be eradicated."
You forget that Bush has an M.B.A. He thinks like a businessman in terms of the bottom line. Results. Profit and loss. There is an empiricism to a lot of his furthest-reaching policies on Africa. Correctly, he's big on trade. "A 1% increase in trade from Africa," he says, "will mean more money than all the aid put together annually." He's proud that he twice reauthorized the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a modestly revolutionary Clinton Administration initiative that enabled previously heavily taxed exports to enter the U.S. tax-free. Even though oil still accounts for the vast amount of African exports to the U.S., the beneficial impact of AGOA on such places as the tiny country of Lesotho, and its growing textile industry, has been startling.
AGOA represents precisely the sort of coherent thinking that will change things for Africa. But we talk of how the little that Africa does export to other parts of the world is still greater than the amount that it trades within the continent. I say that's because there are more landlocked countries in Africa than anywhere else in the world. "So they can't get their stuff to market?" he asks quickly. "Exactly," I say. "You have to pay so many tariffs at each border that by the time you get to the coast, you're overpriced." "You gotta dismantle borders, then." He's curious and quick.
He is also, I feel, an emotional man. But sometimes he's a sentimentalist, and that's different. He is in love with America. Not the idea of America, but rather an inchoate notion of a space — a glorious metaphysical entity. But it is clear that since its mendacious beginnings, this war has thrown up a series of abuses that disgrace the U.S.'s central proposition. In the need to find morally neutralizing euphemisms to describe torture and abuse, the language itself became tortured and abused. Rendition, waterboarding, Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib — all are codes for what America is not. America has mortally compromised its own essential values of civil liberty while imposing its own idea of freedom on others who may not want it. The Bush regime has been divisive — but not in Africa. I read it has been incompetent — but not in Africa. It has created bitterness — but not here in Africa. Here, his administration has saved millions of lives.
"Guys like me always like to cut ribbons," Bush says mockingly at a ceremonial opening. But it's a dangerous modesty. Congress must still agree to fund the massive spending he's laid out for Africa, and most of it will come after he leaves the White House. It is vital that the new President continues with this policy. "Whoever is President," Bush says, "will understand Africa is in our nation's interest. They are wonderful people."
On Air Force One, Jendayi Frazer, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Bobby Pittman, the National Security Council adviser for Africa, and I stayed awake as the pitch night engulfed us, only punctuated by the giant orange gas flares on the Gulf of Guinea. We ate our popcorn, drank our Cokes and watched Batman Begins as the airspace was cleared for miles around us. America was flying through the warm African night and I was hitching a ride on her. time
Bono no longer has the voice for Clannad
Mar 7 2008 by Sally Williams, Western Mail - As Irish group Clannad prepare to return to the spotlight, Sally Williams speaks to guitarist and vocalist Noel Duggan about their unique sound and their certain friend by the name of Bono. IT is more than 20 years since Ireland’s spiritual group Clannad teamed up with their countryman Bono for the spine-tingling hit In A Lifetime. But, as the band prepare to visit Wales as part of their first UK tour for a decade, don’t hold your breath for the U2 frontman to appear on stage with them. Guitarist and vocalist Noel Duggan admits that Bono never performed the hit live and when Clannad sang it on Top Of The Pops they did it without him. Duggan says, “He (Bono) says he doesn’t have the voice for it anymore. So we will have Bryan Kennedy (who has sung with Van Morrison) singing it in Belfast and there will be other guests on tour too. “But we see Bono a lot, we are bound to bump into him in Dublin because it is such a small place.” Duggan says that while his close friend is world famous, he can enjoy life without getting mobbed in his native city of Dublin. “When the public see him in Dublin it really is no big deal. They don’t like to treat people as heroes,” he says. “It’s a case of ‘Hey, Bono is up there at the bar. Ah, so what’. He is free to walk down the road without being mobbed.” In one bar in Donegal, Bono even ended up serving pints of Guinness to customers. “There was Bono pulling pints for locals, he is really down-to-earth,” says Duggan, whose mother and father were schoolteachers but had instruments all over the house. Clannad is made up of Duggan together with his niece, lead singer Moya Brennan, his twin brother Padraig and Ciaran Brennan. It is 25 years since their timeless piece Theme From Harry’s Game became a chart hit across Europe and 10 years have passed since their last studio album release, the Grammy Award-winning Landmarks. “It’s been a long time but I still crave the stage,” says Duggan, now in his 60th year and living near Dublin. “I’ve been in a group called Norland Wind, with my brother Padraig, in Germany. A lot of old groups are coming back together now. And together again as Clannad we’ve already played Glasgow and Dublin so somebody out there still likes us.” Duggan’s other niece, the solo performer Enya, spent two years working with Clannad. “She was a very shy little girl. We don’t see much of Enya at all now. “She lives in a castle at Killiney, she lives like a queen. She doesn’t go anywhere; she is a recluse.” Clannad’s trademark mystical trance sound has featured on a number of blockbuster movie soundtracks, including Patriot Games, starring Harrison Ford, Message In A Bottle and Last Of The Mohicans. Clannad have come a long way since winning a talent contest in Letterkenny in 1970. They have since sold more than 10 million records and have also been honoured with an Ivor Novello and a Bafta award. But Noel said most fans will remember the band for the song, Theme From Harry’s Game, which was featured in the television series, Robin of Sherwood, starring Michael Praed. He adds, “Harry’s Game took the group in a different musical direction and the record company asked us to go ‘poppy’. “But we did and still do hold on to our mystical Celtic roots. “We like to sing in our native Gaelic and hope that our listeners who don’t speak it still like the sound. “I think it is important to explain what the songs are about though. “We are really looking forward to playing St David’s Hall, we expect that the Welsh audience will be great. The hall has good acoustics for our pipers, fiddle players and harmonies. “When we last played Cardiff, there was no Millennium Stadium or Wales Millennium Centre so we are expecting a lot of changes.” Duggan hopes to revisit Wales in future on holiday when he will have a chance to have a proper look around. He adds, “I’ve never been on a tour around Wales, although I would really like to some day. “I get inspiration to write the songs when the feeling takes me, which is usually when I’m walking the dog (a border collie cross spaniel dog called Woofie) in Dublin Bay first thing in the morning.” Duggan and his partner Barbara have written a history of Clannad called A Moment In Life which will be published shortly. The 2008 11-date UK tour will end at the Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool on March 14. The concerts provide a rare chance for audiences to see them performing material from across their entire ground-breaking career, dating back to the ‘70s. Clannad are at St David’s Hall, Cardiff, tonight. Tickets are available from the box office on 029 2087 8444
icwales
Bono makes a call in to 2FM's The Colm and Jim-Jim Breakfast Show during the morning drive on Tuesday -- the announcers were commenting on recent news reports that Bono was not able to hit the high notes on the Clannad song "In a Lifetime," and Bono responds with his defense and receives an invite to sing at the wedding. You can hear the call here: rte
Bono joins Colm and Jim-Jim on air Bono was a surprise caller to RTÉ 2fm's 'The Colm and Jim-Jim Breakfast Show' this morning. Listen to show here. During the show presenters Colm and Jim-Jim had joked that Bono was not able to hit the notes any more, following a discussion with Clannad singer Moya Brennan about whether the U2 frontman could perform 'In a Lifetime' with the band. Bono then rang the duo live on air and said that he had lost none of his vocal abilities and that their show was the programme of choice in his car on the school run. The singer was then asked whether he would sing at Jim-Jim's wedding, and he hinted that he might. Bono also sang two of Colm and Jim-Jim's jingles live on air. Afterwards, Jim-Jim said: "Sharon and I hadn't even thought of a wedding band for our big day but if Bono and the lads are free then I'm up for it!" rte
Mar 7 2008 by Sally Williams, Western Mail - As Irish group Clannad prepare to return to the spotlight, Sally Williams speaks to guitarist and vocalist Noel Duggan about their unique sound and their certain friend by the name of Bono. IT is more than 20 years since Ireland’s spiritual group Clannad teamed up with their countryman Bono for the spine-tingling hit In A Lifetime. But, as the band prepare to visit Wales as part of their first UK tour for a decade, don’t hold your breath for the U2 frontman to appear on stage with them. Guitarist and vocalist Noel Duggan admits that Bono never performed the hit live and when Clannad sang it on Top Of The Pops they did it without him. Duggan says, “He (Bono) says he doesn’t have the voice for it anymore. So we will have Bryan Kennedy (who has sung with Van Morrison) singing it in Belfast and there will be other guests on tour too. “But we see Bono a lot, we are bound to bump into him in Dublin because it is such a small place.” Duggan says that while his close friend is world famous, he can enjoy life without getting mobbed in his native city of Dublin. “When the public see him in Dublin it really is no big deal. They don’t like to treat people as heroes,” he says. “It’s a case of ‘Hey, Bono is up there at the bar. Ah, so what’. He is free to walk down the road without being mobbed.” In one bar in Donegal, Bono even ended up serving pints of Guinness to customers. “There was Bono pulling pints for locals, he is really down-to-earth,” says Duggan, whose mother and father were schoolteachers but had instruments all over the house. Clannad is made up of Duggan together with his niece, lead singer Moya Brennan, his twin brother Padraig and Ciaran Brennan. It is 25 years since their timeless piece Theme From Harry’s Game became a chart hit across Europe and 10 years have passed since their last studio album release, the Grammy Award-winning Landmarks. “It’s been a long time but I still crave the stage,” says Duggan, now in his 60th year and living near Dublin. “I’ve been in a group called Norland Wind, with my brother Padraig, in Germany. A lot of old groups are coming back together now. And together again as Clannad we’ve already played Glasgow and Dublin so somebody out there still likes us.” Duggan’s other niece, the solo performer Enya, spent two years working with Clannad. “She was a very shy little girl. We don’t see much of Enya at all now. “She lives in a castle at Killiney, she lives like a queen. She doesn’t go anywhere; she is a recluse.” Clannad’s trademark mystical trance sound has featured on a number of blockbuster movie soundtracks, including Patriot Games, starring Harrison Ford, Message In A Bottle and Last Of The Mohicans. Clannad have come a long way since winning a talent contest in Letterkenny in 1970. They have since sold more than 10 million records and have also been honoured with an Ivor Novello and a Bafta award. But Noel said most fans will remember the band for the song, Theme From Harry’s Game, which was featured in the television series, Robin of Sherwood, starring Michael Praed. He adds, “Harry’s Game took the group in a different musical direction and the record company asked us to go ‘poppy’. “But we did and still do hold on to our mystical Celtic roots. “We like to sing in our native Gaelic and hope that our listeners who don’t speak it still like the sound. “I think it is important to explain what the songs are about though. “We are really looking forward to playing St David’s Hall, we expect that the Welsh audience will be great. The hall has good acoustics for our pipers, fiddle players and harmonies. “When we last played Cardiff, there was no Millennium Stadium or Wales Millennium Centre so we are expecting a lot of changes.” Duggan hopes to revisit Wales in future on holiday when he will have a chance to have a proper look around. He adds, “I’ve never been on a tour around Wales, although I would really like to some day. “I get inspiration to write the songs when the feeling takes me, which is usually when I’m walking the dog (a border collie cross spaniel dog called Woofie) in Dublin Bay first thing in the morning.” Duggan and his partner Barbara have written a history of Clannad called A Moment In Life which will be published shortly. The 2008 11-date UK tour will end at the Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool on March 14. The concerts provide a rare chance for audiences to see them performing material from across their entire ground-breaking career, dating back to the ‘70s. Clannad are at St David’s Hall, Cardiff, tonight. Tickets are available from the box office on 029 2087 8444
icwales
Bono makes a call in to 2FM's The Colm and Jim-Jim Breakfast Show during the morning drive on Tuesday -- the announcers were commenting on recent news reports that Bono was not able to hit the high notes on the Clannad song "In a Lifetime," and Bono responds with his defense and receives an invite to sing at the wedding. You can hear the call here: rte
Bono joins Colm and Jim-Jim on air Bono was a surprise caller to RTÉ 2fm's 'The Colm and Jim-Jim Breakfast Show' this morning. Listen to show here. During the show presenters Colm and Jim-Jim had joked that Bono was not able to hit the notes any more, following a discussion with Clannad singer Moya Brennan about whether the U2 frontman could perform 'In a Lifetime' with the band. Bono then rang the duo live on air and said that he had lost none of his vocal abilities and that their show was the programme of choice in his car on the school run. The singer was then asked whether he would sing at Jim-Jim's wedding, and he hinted that he might. Bono also sang two of Colm and Jim-Jim's jingles live on air. Afterwards, Jim-Jim said: "Sharon and I hadn't even thought of a wedding band for our big day but if Bono and the lads are free then I'm up for it!" rte
Hannover Quay: Edge, Bono, Lanois
1) Bono gets “doorstepped” outside the studio in Dublin by some fans from U2Valencia.com. Note how Bono encourages Sam to bring The Edge outside, too:
Photos: interference * interference * interference * interference * interference * U2place * interference
2) Bono: 'Hello, hello, Vertigo Radio':
3)Daniel Lanois interview to U2valencia fans ('Vertigo Radio') about the new album. February 27, 2008 by Octavio Morcuende and Javier Vara:
Around March 8, 2008, Sam O'Sullivan told to some Italian fans that the work in Hannover Quay is concluded. U2.place
Bono: flickr
Bono and fans
Fan meeting Adam and Bono interference
Photos: interference
1) Bono gets “doorstepped” outside the studio in Dublin by some fans from U2Valencia.com. Note how Bono encourages Sam to bring The Edge outside, too:
Photos: interference * interference * interference * interference * interference * U2place * interference
2) Bono: 'Hello, hello, Vertigo Radio':
3)Daniel Lanois interview to U2valencia fans ('Vertigo Radio') about the new album. February 27, 2008 by Octavio Morcuende and Javier Vara:
Around March 8, 2008, Sam O'Sullivan told to some Italian fans that the work in Hannover Quay is concluded. U2.place
Bono: flickr
Bono and fans
Fan meeting Adam and Bono interference
Photos: interference
20.3.08
'Amusing Chemistry'
'A 'Little Excursion' With Adam'
Adam takes us on a 'little excursion' through a Dublin show by the photographic artists McDermott and McGough.
Adam, celebrating his birthday this past week, took his video camera along to the Irish Museum of Modern Art which is currently hosting, ‘An Experience of Amusing Chemistry: Photographs 1990 – 1890’ .
It's a retrospective covering twenty years of work by the American-born artists David McDermott and Peter McGough, who met in the East Village New York art scene of the 1980s.
They're famous for the way they fuse art and life – not least by reconstructing their own lives as Victorian gentlemen. As Adam points out, they dress in Victorian clothes, live without electricity and even date their work in the era - hence the chronology in the title of the show.
Enjoy the clip...
Read more about the show at IMMA here
If you’re passing through Dublin, the show is on until late April.
Watch Adam: U2.com
'A 'Little Excursion' With Adam' Adam takes us on a 'little excursion' through a Dublin show by the photographic artists McDermott and McGough.
Adam, celebrating his birthday this past week, took his video camera along to the Irish Museum of Modern Art which is currently hosting, ‘An Experience of Amusing Chemistry: Photographs 1990 – 1890’ .
It's a retrospective covering twenty years of work by the American-born artists David McDermott and Peter McGough, who met in the East Village New York art scene of the 1980s.
They're famous for the way they fuse art and life – not least by reconstructing their own lives as Victorian gentlemen. As Adam points out, they dress in Victorian clothes, live without electricity and even date their work in the era - hence the chronology in the title of the show.
Enjoy the clip...
Read more about the show at IMMA here
If you’re passing through Dublin, the show is on until late April.
Watch Adam: U2.com
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