The decade in music
In a business previously dominated by personalities and movements, this decade belonged to the fans
By Greg Kot
Tribune Newspapers Critic
December 22, 2009
"It's up to you" -- so said Radiohead when fans clicked to download the band's "In Rainbows" album from its Web site in 2007.
Radiohead had become the equivalent of the busker on the street corner, playing for tips. But as one of the biggest bands in the world, Radiohead also was posing a question: "What's music worth?"
That was the decade's signature moment in pop music, a sign that fans -- once a faceless marketing demographic -- were now de facto distributors, marketers, publicists and co-conspirators.
Previous decades were dominated by personalities and movements, larger-than-life figures such as Elvis Presley and the Beatles, and cultural shifts such as hip-hop, rave music and punk. But the 2000s belonged to music technology and delivery systems. Most of all, the decade belonged to fans.
The combination of broadband Internet access and file-trading software such as Napster seized power and control over music from a handful of corporations and transferred it to the laptops and cell phones of consumers. Since 2000, the industry has seen its business cut by one-third to less than $10 billion annually, while compact disc sales have been chopped in half, to fewer than 500 million annually.
Though sales of digital music have increased, those gains are far outweighed by rogue peer-to-peer file-trading networks. Web-tracking services estimate that for every digital file that is sold, 40 are traded in violation of U.S. copyright law. Even as massive judgments were awarded to the music industry in highly publicized copyright infringement trials against Jammie Thomas-Rasset and Joel Tenenbaum, jurists noted the inadequacy of 20th century copyright law in addressing the new digital reality. Though a jury ultimately awarded the record industry $1.92 million in damages because Thomas-Rasset was found to have made 24 copyrighted music files available on her home computer, she "acted like countless other Internet users," U.S. District Judge Michael Davis said.
"Her alleged acts were illegal, but common."
Copyright holders have reason to gripe. Intellectual property that consumers covet is certainly worth something -- as Radiohead's "In Rainbows" marketing strategy implied. Yet the industry is hardly blameless in the shift to illegal file-sharing. As consumers made their desires clear by shifting from physical product to digital music, important catalogs such as the Beatles and AC/DC still can't be purchased from legitimate music stores like Apple's iTunes. But fans can download the songs of any band through countless black-market sites; indeed, just about any song you can possibly think of is a mouse click away, for free.
As recently as a decade ago, it could take the dedicated fan months to track down obscure releases. Now they can be found in a matter of seconds, turning music into the cultural equivalent of tap water or oxygen. More music is more accessible to more people than ever, and yet that very ubiquity makes it feel somehow less essential.
Music fans hang on to their portable music players, the iPod in particular, rather than the music they hold. They collect music and then dispose of it, certain they can replace it with a few mouse clicks.
Just about everything (except for maybe the latest "American Idol" star) feels smaller, more niche. The age of the Beatles, U2 and Madonna -- the all-encompassing global superstar -- is in decline. Within this fragmented culture, in which every movement no matter how obscure has its own Web site and cult following, great music still is being made. Communities of listeners are sprouting up for countless styles of music and tiny underground explosions of creativity that in past decades wouldn't have stood a chance of getting noticed. There's hope for the little guy and gal who can't get a deal with one of the major labels.
But the question remains, what's the music worth? It leads to more riddles: How will content creators get paid, and by whom? Who will decide what constitutes legal file sharing? Can the notion of an Internet that is democratic co-exist with 20th century copyright law?
Now all industries that depend on intellectual property for revenue -- movies, television, books, video, newspapers, magazines -- face a similar crisis. As this anxious decade comes to a close, we are no closer to a definitive solution, a new business model, than we were at its chaotic start.
But Radiohead's approach suggested that the very notion of an all-encompassing business model may be outmoded. It's not a one-size-fits-all world anymore.
greg@gregkot.com
baltimoresun
29.12.09
28.12.09
Play On
Sunday, 20 December 2009 18:11 Jonathan Yip
Music, politics, and celebrity in the age of Bono
Bono jumped eagerly across the stage, swinging his microphone. The Edge launched the guitar intro for "No Line on the Horizon," the drum line paused, and the towering stage lights flashed, and Bono began.
In front of me soared a 160-foot tall, $25 million claw-shaped stage. With a production cost of $750,000 a day, the U2 360° Tour is every bit the dazzling spectacle one expects from the band that will not stop growing. Around me, 80,000 dancing fans had come to worship the only mega-band left. In DC, NYC, and Las Vegas, Nancy Pelosi, Michael Bloomberg, and Bill Clinton have all paid their respects to the tour. Today, U2, like its monstrous stage in Gillette Stadium, straddles our musical-and political-landscape. For the 33-year old U2, there does seem to be no line on the horizon.
Last of the rock stars
Despite a few close brushes with irrelevance, U2 has somehow managed to stay at the forefront of the popular psyche. In an age when the musical scene is fragmented and changeable, U2 continues to leave an outsized footprint on pop culture that neither Coldplay nor Kanye West can approach. This September at Giants Stadium, Bono humbly pointed out that U2 filled more seats than the Pope's mass held there previously.
Why does U2 still have such allure? It is not merely popular music and a brilliant front man, but a reflection of a culture that has allowed U2 to become more than just a band. It has allowed the group to expand out of the musical sphere and into the political, becoming a phenomenon only the 21st century could have created.
Bono opens for Conservative Party leader David Cameron in the UK. Movie theaters show U2:3D. Ten million people across the globe watch a U2 concert live on YouTube. Bono shared Time's 2005 Person of the Year award with Bill Gates and founded the pervasive Product (RED). U2 has been uniquely poised to breach the crumbling walls between pop culture and policy, cultivating pure cultural power.
"We built this spaceship on rock and roll."
Since its start at an Irish high school in 1976, U2 has always written deeply political songs, from "Sunday Bloody Sunday," commemorating Northern Irish violence, to "New Year's Day," in honor of the Solidarity movement. All the same, though U2 had a big break at Live Aid charity concert in 1985, the first thing that concerned the band and their fans was music.
At the time, no politicians took musicians seriously. There never could have been meetings with senators or working partnerships with Harvard professors, as Bono would later develop with economist Jeffrey Sachs.
During U2's early 90s ZooTV tour, a massive, media-saturated, ironic series of concerts, Bono called President George H.W. Bush on stage every night, knowing full well that he would be rejected each time by the White House.
Bono was making a point: politicians are inaccessible, irresponsible, and worthy of mockery. Musicians and politicians were on opposite ends of the cultural spectrum, never to cross paths.
Walk On
After the relative failure of 1997's Pop, an experimental electronic album, the band seemed to be flagging. Its frontman, in particular, began to explore side projects, eventually latching onto Jubilee 2000, a campaign to lobby for third-world debt relief.
Bono grasped something that would change the way the world dealt with and interpreted fame. He realized that he could deploy his celebrity to galvanize and glamorize almost any issue.
Bono had to prove himself, of course. By all accounts, the frontman is more intelligent than the average pop star. President Clinton once recounted to Time an instance in which the Secretary of the Treasury, Larry Summers, mentioned: "Some guy just came in to see me in jeans and a T-shirt, and he just had one name, but he sure was smart. Do you know anything about him?"
Since then, Bono has founded two successful NGOs, and has been summoned to the White House many times, toured Africa with Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, and been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Recently, he has become a popular guest columnist for the New York Times, but also finds common ground with conservatives, often turning to scripture to successfully appeal to President Bush or even the late Senator Jesse Helms.
Bono, after years of concentrated smooth talking and dedication, managed to inject himself into the world of policymaking as a man to be taken seriously. He, unlike almost any other star, has deftly melded the worlds of politics and celebrity, becoming a powerhouse in both, casting aside the convention that once kept them separate.
"Sing with us."
U2 has allowed this passion for politics to pervade its live performances. U2 360° is three parts rock spectacle and one part motivational preaching. From dedicating "Sunday Bloody Sunday" to the Iranian freedom movement, to singing about Aung San Suu Kyi, U2 has become an overtly political band.
By all appearances the audience laps it up. They eagerly text the ONE campaign, sign up at the Amnesty International booth, and cheer for a deposed Burmese leader that most have never even heard of. Some, apparently, are even willing to appear on stage wearing masks with the house-arrested Prime Minister's face.
While Bono and U2 have done a great service by raising awareness for the Millennium Development Goals and Africa's plight, the concert gives the audience good vibrations without actually assigning any real responsibility. At worst, the political content of the performance actually absolves us of action. It's unclear what good it does to have Nobel laureate and real hero, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, tell the audience, while name-dropping the tour, that the "same people who marched for civil rights are the same people who protest Apartheid in South Africa ... are the same beautiful people when I look around this place tonight in 360°." In all likelihood, we are not the ones who fought against apartheid or for debt relief. Praising us for having done nothing seems counterproductive, even duplicitous, but for me or any concertgoer, it is a hard deal to resist. We pay for a concert ticket, listen to our favorite music, and get lavish moral praise for struggles we never participated in.
The tour and band's politics have been stretched so thin it is hard to perceive U2's message as anything more than "doing good." U2, for better or worse, has become diluted beyond recognition, standing only for stardom and righteousness. Perhaps the formula for everlasting relevance is to shed all irony and embrace star power. Bono has developed the perfect celebrity persona for our age: political, passionate, and pervasive. We all want to be a hero and rock star at once: U2 puts us on the stage.
hpronline
Sunday, 20 December 2009 18:11 Jonathan Yip
Music, politics, and celebrity in the age of Bono
Bono jumped eagerly across the stage, swinging his microphone. The Edge launched the guitar intro for "No Line on the Horizon," the drum line paused, and the towering stage lights flashed, and Bono began.
In front of me soared a 160-foot tall, $25 million claw-shaped stage. With a production cost of $750,000 a day, the U2 360° Tour is every bit the dazzling spectacle one expects from the band that will not stop growing. Around me, 80,000 dancing fans had come to worship the only mega-band left. In DC, NYC, and Las Vegas, Nancy Pelosi, Michael Bloomberg, and Bill Clinton have all paid their respects to the tour. Today, U2, like its monstrous stage in Gillette Stadium, straddles our musical-and political-landscape. For the 33-year old U2, there does seem to be no line on the horizon.
Last of the rock stars
Despite a few close brushes with irrelevance, U2 has somehow managed to stay at the forefront of the popular psyche. In an age when the musical scene is fragmented and changeable, U2 continues to leave an outsized footprint on pop culture that neither Coldplay nor Kanye West can approach. This September at Giants Stadium, Bono humbly pointed out that U2 filled more seats than the Pope's mass held there previously.
Why does U2 still have such allure? It is not merely popular music and a brilliant front man, but a reflection of a culture that has allowed U2 to become more than just a band. It has allowed the group to expand out of the musical sphere and into the political, becoming a phenomenon only the 21st century could have created.
Bono opens for Conservative Party leader David Cameron in the UK. Movie theaters show U2:3D. Ten million people across the globe watch a U2 concert live on YouTube. Bono shared Time's 2005 Person of the Year award with Bill Gates and founded the pervasive Product (RED). U2 has been uniquely poised to breach the crumbling walls between pop culture and policy, cultivating pure cultural power.
"We built this spaceship on rock and roll."
Since its start at an Irish high school in 1976, U2 has always written deeply political songs, from "Sunday Bloody Sunday," commemorating Northern Irish violence, to "New Year's Day," in honor of the Solidarity movement. All the same, though U2 had a big break at Live Aid charity concert in 1985, the first thing that concerned the band and their fans was music.
At the time, no politicians took musicians seriously. There never could have been meetings with senators or working partnerships with Harvard professors, as Bono would later develop with economist Jeffrey Sachs.
During U2's early 90s ZooTV tour, a massive, media-saturated, ironic series of concerts, Bono called President George H.W. Bush on stage every night, knowing full well that he would be rejected each time by the White House.
Bono was making a point: politicians are inaccessible, irresponsible, and worthy of mockery. Musicians and politicians were on opposite ends of the cultural spectrum, never to cross paths.
Walk On
After the relative failure of 1997's Pop, an experimental electronic album, the band seemed to be flagging. Its frontman, in particular, began to explore side projects, eventually latching onto Jubilee 2000, a campaign to lobby for third-world debt relief.
Bono grasped something that would change the way the world dealt with and interpreted fame. He realized that he could deploy his celebrity to galvanize and glamorize almost any issue.
Bono had to prove himself, of course. By all accounts, the frontman is more intelligent than the average pop star. President Clinton once recounted to Time an instance in which the Secretary of the Treasury, Larry Summers, mentioned: "Some guy just came in to see me in jeans and a T-shirt, and he just had one name, but he sure was smart. Do you know anything about him?"
Since then, Bono has founded two successful NGOs, and has been summoned to the White House many times, toured Africa with Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, and been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Recently, he has become a popular guest columnist for the New York Times, but also finds common ground with conservatives, often turning to scripture to successfully appeal to President Bush or even the late Senator Jesse Helms.
Bono, after years of concentrated smooth talking and dedication, managed to inject himself into the world of policymaking as a man to be taken seriously. He, unlike almost any other star, has deftly melded the worlds of politics and celebrity, becoming a powerhouse in both, casting aside the convention that once kept them separate.
"Sing with us."
U2 has allowed this passion for politics to pervade its live performances. U2 360° is three parts rock spectacle and one part motivational preaching. From dedicating "Sunday Bloody Sunday" to the Iranian freedom movement, to singing about Aung San Suu Kyi, U2 has become an overtly political band.
By all appearances the audience laps it up. They eagerly text the ONE campaign, sign up at the Amnesty International booth, and cheer for a deposed Burmese leader that most have never even heard of. Some, apparently, are even willing to appear on stage wearing masks with the house-arrested Prime Minister's face.
While Bono and U2 have done a great service by raising awareness for the Millennium Development Goals and Africa's plight, the concert gives the audience good vibrations without actually assigning any real responsibility. At worst, the political content of the performance actually absolves us of action. It's unclear what good it does to have Nobel laureate and real hero, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, tell the audience, while name-dropping the tour, that the "same people who marched for civil rights are the same people who protest Apartheid in South Africa ... are the same beautiful people when I look around this place tonight in 360°." In all likelihood, we are not the ones who fought against apartheid or for debt relief. Praising us for having done nothing seems counterproductive, even duplicitous, but for me or any concertgoer, it is a hard deal to resist. We pay for a concert ticket, listen to our favorite music, and get lavish moral praise for struggles we never participated in.
The tour and band's politics have been stretched so thin it is hard to perceive U2's message as anything more than "doing good." U2, for better or worse, has become diluted beyond recognition, standing only for stardom and righteousness. Perhaps the formula for everlasting relevance is to shed all irony and embrace star power. Bono has developed the perfect celebrity persona for our age: political, passionate, and pervasive. We all want to be a hero and rock star at once: U2 puts us on the stage.
hpronline
22.12.09
Stellar Van Morrison offering tops best album list
The Irish Times - Saturday, December 19, 2009
RONAN McGREEVYVAN MORRISON’S 1968 masterpiece Astral Weeks remains the choice of some of Ireland’s top musicians as the best Irish album.
U2’s The Edge, Shane MacGowan, Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, Glen Hansard, composer Bill Whelan, Sharon Corr, Gavin Friday and Laura Izibor as well as members of The Sawdoctors, The Blizzards, The Coronas, Republic of Loose and dozens more bands and musicians all participated in the poll for the 250 greatest Irish albums for Hot Press magazine.
The poll, published in the magazine yesterday, was last carried out in 2004.
The enduring appeal of Astral Weeks is no surprise.
Last year Morrison celebrated the 40th anniversary of the album’s release by playing it in its entirety at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
The album entitled Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl and a DVD of the same name were released earlier this year.
In a rare interview, Morrison said he decided to play the songs live because the album had received no promotion on its release from Warner Brothers.
Morrison said the album was “timeless and unchanging”.
U2’s 1991 album Achtung Baby at number two is chosen ahead of The Joshua Tree (number 5), which has often featured on the top of best Irish albums polls. The albums are usually reversed in best-of polls.
Thin Lizzy’s classic Live and Dangerous , which was voted the best live album of all time by Classic Rock magazine, comes in at number three, while the choice of The Irish Times music critics of greatest Irish album, My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless , is at number four.
Whipping Boy’s little known 1995 album Heartworm is at number six, The Undertones’ self-titled debut, with its single Teenage Kicks , is at number seven and The Pogues’ Rum, Sodomy and the Lash is at number eight.
The only new entries in the top 10 from the last poll are Ash’s album 1977 and Damien Rice’s O .
Morrison’s 1970 album Moondance is at number 11. He has 11 entries in the top 250, U2 have nine and Rory Gallagher has seven.
Cathy Davey’s Tales of Silversleeve is the highest new entry outside the top 10 at number 19, followed by Fionn Regan’s The End of History at number 20.
Other prominent new entrants are two albums from last year – Jape’s Ritual at number 28 and Lisa Hannigan’s Sea Sew at number 29. Damien Dempsey’s Seize the Day is at number 30.
Julie Feeney’s album Pages , which was released earlier this year, made it to number 55.
irishtimes
The Irish Times - Saturday, December 19, 2009
RONAN McGREEVYVAN MORRISON’S 1968 masterpiece Astral Weeks remains the choice of some of Ireland’s top musicians as the best Irish album.
U2’s The Edge, Shane MacGowan, Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, Glen Hansard, composer Bill Whelan, Sharon Corr, Gavin Friday and Laura Izibor as well as members of The Sawdoctors, The Blizzards, The Coronas, Republic of Loose and dozens more bands and musicians all participated in the poll for the 250 greatest Irish albums for Hot Press magazine.
The poll, published in the magazine yesterday, was last carried out in 2004.
The enduring appeal of Astral Weeks is no surprise.
Last year Morrison celebrated the 40th anniversary of the album’s release by playing it in its entirety at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
The album entitled Astral Weeks Live at the Hollywood Bowl and a DVD of the same name were released earlier this year.
In a rare interview, Morrison said he decided to play the songs live because the album had received no promotion on its release from Warner Brothers.
Morrison said the album was “timeless and unchanging”.
U2’s 1991 album Achtung Baby at number two is chosen ahead of The Joshua Tree (number 5), which has often featured on the top of best Irish albums polls. The albums are usually reversed in best-of polls.
Thin Lizzy’s classic Live and Dangerous , which was voted the best live album of all time by Classic Rock magazine, comes in at number three, while the choice of The Irish Times music critics of greatest Irish album, My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless , is at number four.
Whipping Boy’s little known 1995 album Heartworm is at number six, The Undertones’ self-titled debut, with its single Teenage Kicks , is at number seven and The Pogues’ Rum, Sodomy and the Lash is at number eight.
The only new entries in the top 10 from the last poll are Ash’s album 1977 and Damien Rice’s O .
Morrison’s 1970 album Moondance is at number 11. He has 11 entries in the top 250, U2 have nine and Rory Gallagher has seven.
Cathy Davey’s Tales of Silversleeve is the highest new entry outside the top 10 at number 19, followed by Fionn Regan’s The End of History at number 20.
Other prominent new entrants are two albums from last year – Jape’s Ritual at number 28 and Lisa Hannigan’s Sea Sew at number 29. Damien Dempsey’s Seize the Day is at number 30.
Julie Feeney’s album Pages , which was released earlier this year, made it to number 55.
irishtimes
U2: Three Decades of the World's Biggest Band, Onstage and Backstage
Bono and Co. from their early days in Irish clubs to the Grammys to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
U2 photographed on the roof of the Cork Country Club Hotel in Cork, Ireland, on February 4, 1980. The band's debut album, Boy, came out later that year.
Photo: Corio/Michael Ochs Archive
51 pics: rollingstone
Bono and Co. from their early days in Irish clubs to the Grammys to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
U2 photographed on the roof of the Cork Country Club Hotel in Cork, Ireland, on February 4, 1980. The band's debut album, Boy, came out later that year.
Photo: Corio/Michael Ochs Archive
51 pics: rollingstone
Rocker Clayton chases 'missing' €1.8m (update - December 21, 2009, below
U2 bass player takes housekeeper to court
By DON LAVERY
Sunday December 20 2009
IN TUNE: Adam Clayton on stage at the band's Wembley Stadium gig. Photo: Reuters
U2 BASSIST Adam Clayton's personal assistant and housekeeper -- alleged to have misappropriated up to €1.8m of his money -- was lying low yesterday ahead of another High Court hearing tomorrow.
Carol Hawkins, who was employed by Clayton, is alleged to have spent the money on property, including a New York apartment, flash cars and jewellery, with €900 a month spent on a syndicate which maintained horses.
Yesterday a media posse laid siege to her modest detached Crannagh Road, Rathfarnham, home in Dublin which had the blinds drawn. Ms Hawkins, who has denied using the money in this way, was keeping a low profile.
In a surprise move late on Friday, Clayton secured a temporary court order freezing her assets. They will remain frozen at least until tomorrow when the case comes back before the High Court.
The court heard that Clayton, of Danesmoate Demesne, Kellystown Road, Rathfarnham, first became aware of problems in September 2008.
His senior counsel, Paul Sreenan, said Ms Hawkins confessed she had misappropriated €13,000 of his money. The U2 band member had dealt with this incident in "a compassionate manner". He had altered his financial arrangements and kept her in his employ.
But it had emerged since then that -- without his authorisation -- she had used his debit and credit cards for her own use and for her family's benefit.
On November 19 last, when the allegations were put to her, she had accepted the cards had been used and money was taken without Clayton's authorisation. But she had disputed the sums involved. Her employment was then ended by Clayton and the gardai had been told about "certain matters".
The lawyer said the former housekeeper had denied she bought a house, cars or flashy jewellery. When it was suggested to her she had been withdrawing about €600 twice daily for a period of 13 months, she said she had used it as needed.
She also acknowledged she had lodged some money into her own bank account and had breached her contract. An investigation revealed around €900 a month was spent on a syndicate which maintained horses.
It's also alleged that Ms Hawkins bought flights to Chicago for her son and members of a band in which he was involved. Clayton denies authorising this.
Mr Sreenan said a probe by two accountants revealed up to €1.8m seemed to have been misappropriated. The lawyer said it appeared an apartment in New York had been bought.
The U2 band member was concerned that Ms Hawkin's assets might be dissipated and this was why he was seeking the freezing order.
Ms Justice Mary Laffoy granted the interim order sought. The order restrains Ms Hawkins from reducing her assets below €1.8m. It also entitles her to €1,000 for living and legal expenses before the case is heard again in the High Court tomorrow.
- DON LAVERY
Sunday Independent
independent.ie
Clayton's court action adjourned
Monday, 21 December 2009 16:56
An action being taken by U2 bass guitarist Adam Clayton for a freezing order against his former personal assistant has been adjourned until 18 January.
Mr Clayton has taken the action against Carol Hawkins of Crannagh Road in Rathfarnham in Dublin alleging she may have misappropriated €1.8m.
The court heard last week that he ended her employment last month after she confessed to using his debit and credit cards for her own use and for her family's benefit.
AdvertisementThe court also heard that it appeared an apartment had been bought in New York and that an investigation had revealed that €900 a month was spent on a syndicate that maintained horses.
The court heard today that it had been agreed between lawyers for both sides that a temporary freezing order preventing Ms Hawkins from reducing her assets below €1.8m would continue until 18 January.
Ms Hawkins also has seven days to disclose the value of her current assets to lawyers for Mr Clayton.
rte
U2 bass player takes housekeeper to court
By DON LAVERY
Sunday December 20 2009
IN TUNE: Adam Clayton on stage at the band's Wembley Stadium gig. Photo: Reuters
U2 BASSIST Adam Clayton's personal assistant and housekeeper -- alleged to have misappropriated up to €1.8m of his money -- was lying low yesterday ahead of another High Court hearing tomorrow.
Carol Hawkins, who was employed by Clayton, is alleged to have spent the money on property, including a New York apartment, flash cars and jewellery, with €900 a month spent on a syndicate which maintained horses.
Yesterday a media posse laid siege to her modest detached Crannagh Road, Rathfarnham, home in Dublin which had the blinds drawn. Ms Hawkins, who has denied using the money in this way, was keeping a low profile.
In a surprise move late on Friday, Clayton secured a temporary court order freezing her assets. They will remain frozen at least until tomorrow when the case comes back before the High Court.
The court heard that Clayton, of Danesmoate Demesne, Kellystown Road, Rathfarnham, first became aware of problems in September 2008.
His senior counsel, Paul Sreenan, said Ms Hawkins confessed she had misappropriated €13,000 of his money. The U2 band member had dealt with this incident in "a compassionate manner". He had altered his financial arrangements and kept her in his employ.
But it had emerged since then that -- without his authorisation -- she had used his debit and credit cards for her own use and for her family's benefit.
On November 19 last, when the allegations were put to her, she had accepted the cards had been used and money was taken without Clayton's authorisation. But she had disputed the sums involved. Her employment was then ended by Clayton and the gardai had been told about "certain matters".
The lawyer said the former housekeeper had denied she bought a house, cars or flashy jewellery. When it was suggested to her she had been withdrawing about €600 twice daily for a period of 13 months, she said she had used it as needed.
She also acknowledged she had lodged some money into her own bank account and had breached her contract. An investigation revealed around €900 a month was spent on a syndicate which maintained horses.
It's also alleged that Ms Hawkins bought flights to Chicago for her son and members of a band in which he was involved. Clayton denies authorising this.
Mr Sreenan said a probe by two accountants revealed up to €1.8m seemed to have been misappropriated. The lawyer said it appeared an apartment in New York had been bought.
The U2 band member was concerned that Ms Hawkin's assets might be dissipated and this was why he was seeking the freezing order.
Ms Justice Mary Laffoy granted the interim order sought. The order restrains Ms Hawkins from reducing her assets below €1.8m. It also entitles her to €1,000 for living and legal expenses before the case is heard again in the High Court tomorrow.
- DON LAVERY
Sunday Independent
independent.ie
Clayton's court action adjourned
Monday, 21 December 2009 16:56
An action being taken by U2 bass guitarist Adam Clayton for a freezing order against his former personal assistant has been adjourned until 18 January.
Mr Clayton has taken the action against Carol Hawkins of Crannagh Road in Rathfarnham in Dublin alleging she may have misappropriated €1.8m.
The court heard last week that he ended her employment last month after she confessed to using his debit and credit cards for her own use and for her family's benefit.
AdvertisementThe court also heard that it appeared an apartment had been bought in New York and that an investigation had revealed that €900 a month was spent on a syndicate that maintained horses.
The court heard today that it had been agreed between lawyers for both sides that a temporary freezing order preventing Ms Hawkins from reducing her assets below €1.8m would continue until 18 January.
Ms Hawkins also has seven days to disclose the value of her current assets to lawyers for Mr Clayton.
rte
Nola's Morrison Snaps Color Art for U2 Album
Tuesday, 15 December 2009 | Levent OZLER
When U2 fans open the deluxe edition of No Line on the Horizon, the band's latest CD, they will find a book containing a beautiful color photo gallery that documents the legendary rockers throughout the album production process. Nola's Kenny Morrison - working closely with Nola EP Charlie Curran and the book's designer, long-time U2 Creative Director Catherine Owens - snapped these beautiful shots in Ireland and France. In an acknowledgement of Morrison's high standing in the art world, his work sits in the book alongside some giants in the field: he shares photo credits with internationally renowned black-and-white photographer Anton Corbijn, and a Hiroshi Sugimoto photograph graces the front cover.
"What an opportunity," exclaimed Morrison. "Watching the album-making process from a fly-on-the-wall perspective was truly a revelation. And the band couldn't have been more courteous and professional - an absolute joy to work with. Anton's black-and-white photos were breathtaking, and it is an honor to be associated with the great Hiroshi Sugimoto in any way."
Morrison's gallery - which sits alongside U2 interviews that Owens conducted - features an impressive mix of performers and instruments, close-ups and panoramas, individual portraits and photo montages, with scribbled song sheets scattered throughout. Some are presented in perfect sharp focus; others are treated with a grainy look or are slightly blurred - all are beautiful, and the collected works poignantly capture the chaos, the focus, the intensity, and the joy of artists fixated upon the final shared goal of cutting an album.
The photos are only part of the work Morrison has done in an evolving relationship with Owens and U2. He filmed Bono with Bishop Desmond Tutu in London last summer and Tutu's speech and visage were incorporated into their 360 Tour visuals.
"This was a great opportunity to show off Kenny's incredible range," Curran notes. "When one of the most successful acts in modern music respects your work enough to come back for more, you know you're doing something right. With great artists like Kenny up and down our roster, you can expect more high-profile work like this from Nola in the very near future."
dexigner
Tuesday, 15 December 2009 | Levent OZLER
When U2 fans open the deluxe edition of No Line on the Horizon, the band's latest CD, they will find a book containing a beautiful color photo gallery that documents the legendary rockers throughout the album production process. Nola's Kenny Morrison - working closely with Nola EP Charlie Curran and the book's designer, long-time U2 Creative Director Catherine Owens - snapped these beautiful shots in Ireland and France. In an acknowledgement of Morrison's high standing in the art world, his work sits in the book alongside some giants in the field: he shares photo credits with internationally renowned black-and-white photographer Anton Corbijn, and a Hiroshi Sugimoto photograph graces the front cover.
"What an opportunity," exclaimed Morrison. "Watching the album-making process from a fly-on-the-wall perspective was truly a revelation. And the band couldn't have been more courteous and professional - an absolute joy to work with. Anton's black-and-white photos were breathtaking, and it is an honor to be associated with the great Hiroshi Sugimoto in any way."
Morrison's gallery - which sits alongside U2 interviews that Owens conducted - features an impressive mix of performers and instruments, close-ups and panoramas, individual portraits and photo montages, with scribbled song sheets scattered throughout. Some are presented in perfect sharp focus; others are treated with a grainy look or are slightly blurred - all are beautiful, and the collected works poignantly capture the chaos, the focus, the intensity, and the joy of artists fixated upon the final shared goal of cutting an album.
The photos are only part of the work Morrison has done in an evolving relationship with Owens and U2. He filmed Bono with Bishop Desmond Tutu in London last summer and Tutu's speech and visage were incorporated into their 360 Tour visuals.
"This was a great opportunity to show off Kenny's incredible range," Curran notes. "When one of the most successful acts in modern music respects your work enough to come back for more, you know you're doing something right. With great artists like Kenny up and down our roster, you can expect more high-profile work like this from Nola in the very near future."
dexigner
U2's Edge Warns Nobody Will Invest in Music
17 Dec 2009
Interviewed exclusively for the Hot Press Annual 2010, which takes a look back over the past ten years, (out Friday, December 18), U2’s The Edge predicts the demise of the record industry if current trends prevail and admits that he’s never heard of Jedward.
Reflecting on the impact of the internet on the music industry, the U2 guitarist sounds a grim warning. “There aren’t going to be any record labels in a few years if things carry on the way they are, because CDs – that industry is pretty much all over,” he says. “And because there’s no replacement right now that’s viable, it just means no one’s going to invest in music, which just means no-one is going to get tour support, record deals, publishing deals, all the rest, which is how every band since The Beatles have managed to get going initially. That feels like that this sort of parasitical medium will basically kill the host, which would not be good.”
Asked about illegal downloading, The Edge tells Hot Press, “You’re never going to stamp it out totally, and in some ways I don’t think anyone cares as long as the majority of transactions on the internet involve some sort of a fair payment to the people who have put their life into the work, and the companies that support them… It’s not even that important, relatively, for us, but for bands that are coming up.”
Asked about the view that the telecoms have “gotten away with murder”, Edge agrees. “I think they have. I think that they are distanced enough that they can hold up their hands and say, ‘It’s not us. We’re not doing anything’. But in the end, people are buying broadband access in order to get ‘stuff’, content of some sort… I think that the people who have been making it their life’s work to create that content have got a reason to be upset… for young groups, it’s important that this gets resolved.”
In a lengthy interview with the Irish rock bible, Edge also reveals to Hot Press that the Spiderman musical is ready to go. “We’re waiting for the word that our director, Julie Taymor, can start putting the show together. We’re told it could be any day. We’ve got new producers involved: Michael Cohl is coming in, to become an additional producer. So they’re busy working on raising finance and getting all that stuff in order.”
When the legendary U2 guitarist is asked “Did you see Jedward at all?” he replies “No. Who’s Jedward?”
For the full interview, see the Hot Press Annual 2010 - out now!!!!
hotpress
17 Dec 2009
Interviewed exclusively for the Hot Press Annual 2010, which takes a look back over the past ten years, (out Friday, December 18), U2’s The Edge predicts the demise of the record industry if current trends prevail and admits that he’s never heard of Jedward.
Reflecting on the impact of the internet on the music industry, the U2 guitarist sounds a grim warning. “There aren’t going to be any record labels in a few years if things carry on the way they are, because CDs – that industry is pretty much all over,” he says. “And because there’s no replacement right now that’s viable, it just means no one’s going to invest in music, which just means no-one is going to get tour support, record deals, publishing deals, all the rest, which is how every band since The Beatles have managed to get going initially. That feels like that this sort of parasitical medium will basically kill the host, which would not be good.”
Asked about illegal downloading, The Edge tells Hot Press, “You’re never going to stamp it out totally, and in some ways I don’t think anyone cares as long as the majority of transactions on the internet involve some sort of a fair payment to the people who have put their life into the work, and the companies that support them… It’s not even that important, relatively, for us, but for bands that are coming up.”
Asked about the view that the telecoms have “gotten away with murder”, Edge agrees. “I think they have. I think that they are distanced enough that they can hold up their hands and say, ‘It’s not us. We’re not doing anything’. But in the end, people are buying broadband access in order to get ‘stuff’, content of some sort… I think that the people who have been making it their life’s work to create that content have got a reason to be upset… for young groups, it’s important that this gets resolved.”
In a lengthy interview with the Irish rock bible, Edge also reveals to Hot Press that the Spiderman musical is ready to go. “We’re waiting for the word that our director, Julie Taymor, can start putting the show together. We’re told it could be any day. We’ve got new producers involved: Michael Cohl is coming in, to become an additional producer. So they’re busy working on raising finance and getting all that stuff in order.”
When the legendary U2 guitarist is asked “Did you see Jedward at all?” he replies “No. Who’s Jedward?”
For the full interview, see the Hot Press Annual 2010 - out now!!!!
hotpress
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