February 2010 Archives

Bono insisted on specially-prepared food when dining out recently, it has been claimed.

The U2 frontman amazed fellow diners at New York eatery Butter on Tuesday (23.02.10) when he made a string of requests to restaurant staff - and then made sure they were carried out.

A source said: "He demanded that his salad be chopped. And he made sure it was when it arrived."

The 'One' singer - who was eating with his bandmate The Edge - sent staff into a panic when he asked for a specific type of bottled water not stocked by the eatery.

By Jennifer Steinhauer, The New York Times

MALIBU, Calif. -- The house that the U2 guitarist longs to build here would have a copper roof, fashioned to resemble fluttering leaves. Boulders that dot the property would be left in place and assigned charming names like Dinosaur Vertebrae and Cistern. The dirt dug up to build would be reused, when possible.

Yes there would be a pool, but its central purpose would be to ward off fire should the local native plants not do the job. And every imaginable green building technique would be used.

But all of this does not mollify those who police the mountainside along one of the most gorgeous stretches of American coastline, where public access versus exclusive seclusion is an ever-raging debate that even a member of the most vocally earth-hugging rock band on the planet cannot escape.

by Paul Cashmere, Undercover.com.au

Bono is saying the next U2 album will be called `Songs of Ascent'. He should know.

In an interview with Sean O'Hagan, Bono called 'Songs of Ascent' the sister album to 'No Line Of The Horizon', similar to how 'Zooropa' and 'Achtung Baby' were bookends.

Atu2.com says the album is expected to be produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois once again, with additional work by Steve Lillywhite.

Some of the songs are expected to be the leftover tracks from 'No Line On The Horizon', but some are older.

Songs expected to be used include 'North Star', an unused track from 'How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb'.

U2's Larry Mullen Jr. will lend his voice to a pair of characters in the upcoming season of the Family Guy spin-off The Cleveland Show. According to the BBC, Mullen Jr. reached out to producers about guest voicing on the show's second season, and producers were only too happy to oblige. The drummer will voice two characters: a mobster and a bad Elvis impersonator.

Springfield Rocks: check out photos of music's biggest stars on The Simpsons.

"He came in and we hung out for a couple of hours. We just recorded him doing a couple of different parts and he was very funny," Mike Henry, who voices Cleveland, told the BBC. "It's a thrill for me to do all this. U2 is my favorite band of all time and David Lynch the film director plays a part on our show." (In other Cleveland Show news, David Lynch will also guest voice!) As for recording Mullen Jr.'s part, Henry said, "He's got his own studio so we just record it from Dublin. You don't have to record at a certain time. It's an easy gig and one that people like to do. It's very cool to have all these people from different walks of entertainment participating in what we're doing."

James Boyce, The Huffington Post

AC/DC's lead singer Brian Johnson gave an interview in Australia where he stood up and criticized both Sir Bob Geldof and Bono for the unforgivable sin of trying to make the world a better place and for helping those less fortunate than themselves. Or Brian, for that matter.

Certainly, Brian has a right to make his opinion, however, moronic it may be.

Any grown man willing to share a stage with a man in his 60s dressed as a school boy has more courage than most. Any man who, at the age of 62, can still claim to being knocked out by American thighs might also be worthy of respect on some levels.

However, when it comes to criticizing celebrities who stand up for causes and charities and especially when it comes to criticizing Geldof and Bono, Brian Johnson proves to be as ignorant as those music critics who don't recognize "Back In The Black" as a truly great song.

First, let's look at what Brian Johnson actually said:

The Huffington Post

AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson is taking on Bono and Bob Geldof for their public displays of charity work.

"When I was a working man I didn't want to go to a concert for some bastard to talk down to me that I should be thinking of some kid in Africa," he told Melbourne's Herald Sun. "I'm sorry mate, do it yourself, spend some of your own money and get it done. It just makes me angry. I become all tyrannical."

Johnson said that his own band prefers to make their charitable contributions in private.

"Do a charity gig, fair enough, but not on worldwide television," he said.