News: October 2006 Archives

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October 22, 2006

Bono law: You go on a head

Bono and his former stylist are in court to claim ownership of the singer's legendary Stetson. Male millinery is now the ultimate fashion statement, and the days when it smacked of a life of conformity are long gone, says Stuart Husband

When is a hat not a hat? When it's an iconic-ironic sartorial manifestation of your personal and artistic philosophy. This, at any rate, is Bono's explication for the significance of his Stetson, which he's trying to wrest back from U2's erstwhile stylist Lola Cashman in an ongoing court case. According to his testimony, it was this headgear, rather than any amount of keening vocals and guitar arpeggios, that propelled the group into the enormo-dome stratosphere.

"I dressed like Nana Mouskouri before," confessed Bono. "She [Cashman] had a very good eye, and I'd already had the idea of making the Stetson a trademark. It's an American icon and it was part of my idea of how I wanted to present myself to the world in an ironic sense. Plus I thought it could be archived in the future." It seems a crushing amount of cultural weight - part-semiotic determinant, part holy relic - for a high-crowned, wide-brimmed accessory to bear.

But Stetsongate is just the latest flashpoint in the vexed history of male millinery. Since the hat lost its status as the exemplar of worker-drone conformity it's been reincarnated as its swinging opposite. "These days, any man wearing a hat is perceived to be making some kind of fashion statement," says the milliner Stephen Jones. "It's become a way of standing out from the crowd. Even the closest thing men have to a utilitarian hat - the baseball cap - is a way of advertising affiliations."

No one knows this socio-cultural-stylistic minefield better than William Hague. His decision to wear a Hague-branded baseball cap to the Notting Hill Carnival was, commentators agreed, the chief reason for his tenure as Tory leader being short-lived. His attempt to be "down" with the kids was ridiculed.

Hague made an elemental mistake, according to Jeremy Hackett, founder of the eponymous blue-chip outfitting chain. "A hat cannot simply confer cool," he counsels, "though it can certainly top off pre-existing personality traits." He cites the trilby and its adoption by iconoclasts as disparate as Kenneth Clarke and Pete Doherty.

Badly Drawn Boy's battered beanie serves, says the Cavalier Daily website, "to reinforce the apathetic/tortured singer-songwriter archetype co-opted from Elliott Smith, and to legitimise him to the espresso hipsters".

Hats can be used to subversive ends. The top hat was a looming status symbol, a sign its bearer had risen through the public school ranks to become a staid burgher in histrade. Now it's been reclaimed either as would-be social satire (the late Screaming Lord Sutch fought 40 elections in his) or dissolute fancy dress.

Slade's Noddy Holder was wont to épater le bourgeois (or, at least, the bourgeois who regularly watched Top of the Pops in the 1970s) by covering his topper with dazzling mirror shards.

Certainly, most men would rather go hatless than have to ponder all the Bono-esque sub-textual signals they could be sending out by donning a deerstalker. That is, unless they're as simple a soul as Jay Kay, who "just likes wearing hats, to cover my, like, greasy hair", and whose more outré offerings got him nicknamed "the prat in the hat".

Or unless, that is, they're wearing a hat for the most prosaic reason of all. If Bono had peered out from under his Stetson brim, he'd have seen that, right alongside him, The Edge was sporting his own headgear. And it wasn't because he was in the midst of a 10-gallon cultural studies seminar. It was because he was going ever so slightly bald.

Posted by Brenda at 11:09 PM | Comments (0)

October 19, 2006

U2 Firm Cuts Losses to £2.9m in 2005

BizWorld

Not Us Ltd, the core business behind the rock group, U2, has cut losses to £2.9m from £18.81m.

The improvement came as the band embarked on the Vertigo world tour after the release of their 14th album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.

Part of the group's business empire have moved to the Netherlands for tax reasons.

Band members Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen jnr are directors of Not Us Ltd, in which they each hold a 25 per cent stake.

Accounts just filed for this firm provide a partial picture of U2's business dealings and their wealth, which is managed in a private partnership and estimated at more than £600 million, the Irish Times reported.

However, the Dublin-registered Not Us holds the band's interests in 10 subsidiaries in Ireland, Britain and the US, which manage its recording, touring and merchandising interests.

These include U2 Ltd, a company engaged in the production of master tapes which is believed to be one of the businesses that moved to the Netherlands this year. The band members resigned as directors of this company last June and were replaced by Dutch lawyer Roelof Kloeten, Dutch accountant Jan Favie and Dublin accountant Gaby Smyth.

The Not Us annual filing for 2005 says the balance due from Not Us to U2 Ltd at the end of 2005 was £3.87m.

Posted by Brenda at 06:49 PM | Comments (0)

October 18, 2006

Bono Says It Was His Idea to Wear Stetson Hat

By Times Online and PA

Bono, the frontman of U2, today gave evidence at an appeal in Dublin launched by his former stylist to keep the Stetson hat she claims the band gave her.

U2 successfully sued Lola Cashman last year and claimed back the hat, a pair of metal hooped earrings, a green sweatshirt and a pair of black trousers, which they argued she had taken without permission.

The stylist was ordered to return the items, estimated to be worth €5,000 (£3,500), to the band within seven days. Instead though, she has launched an appeal, which will leave her with a substantial legal bill if she loses.

Ms Cashman, who left the band in 1988, says that she was given the hat and other memorabilia as gifts during U2's Joshua Tree tour in 1987. She was hired by Bono personally to replace their stylist, who was on maternity leave.

Dressed in a chocolate brown suit and wearing rose-coloured tinted glasses, Bono - real name Paul Hewson - said that Ms Cashman had been found by his management company through an agency.

"It was a very big moment in the bands career," he said. "Everything had come right for us. We had a lot of songs on radio around the world and particularly in the US we had a couple of number ones singles."

Bono said Ms Cashman joined the 150-strong entourage at a tense and exciting time, when the group was moving out from playing in arenas to outdoor stadiums. He admitted styling was not the band's strength, and they were grateful to Ms Cashman for her input.

"I am trying to think of her exact moment of entry but I can't," he continued. She had a very good eye. She had a lot more experience than us.

"But it was very clear on almost immediate arrival she wasn't a good in dealing with personal relationships, and initially put a lot of people's noses out of place."

Bono told the court his trademark Stetson hat had been his idea, which he had thought of since before Ms Cashman's arrival. He said the image was used to represent American iconography. "It was always part of my idea of how I wanted to present myself to the world in an ironic sense."

The court was told that Ms Cashman was responsible for the transport of all wardrobe items. Bono stressed it was important to the band, and their manager Paul McGuinness, to keep record of their memorabilia to either archive or donate.

"We thought it would have some importance of the history of the band," he said. "We hoped we would be around long enough to be part of that."

The case continues.

Posted by Jonathan at 03:36 AM | Comments (0)

October 13, 2006

Oprah, Bono spree to support 'Red' HIV cause

BY SHAMUS TOOMEY AND RUMMANA HUSSAIN Staff Reporters

Like two best friends on a shopping date, Oprah and Bono hit North Michigan Avenue Thursday morning, turning heads and stunning fans as they zipped in and out of stores.

"So, wow, this is the Magnificent Mile," the U2 frontman marveled to Winfrey as they walked together in a freakish October snow, each clutching packed shopping bags.

"Here we come, walking down the street, get the funniest looks from . . ." Bono sang, doing a Monkees impersonation.

The high-wattage shopping spree was taped to air on Winfrey's talk show today. Winfrey is lending her support to the Product Red campaign led by Bono and Kennedy clan member Bobby Shriver. The effort sends proceeds from certain products to fight AIDS in Africa.

Kanye, Penelope, Christy join in
Bono will help launch the U.S. version of the campaign on Winfrey's show. On Thursday, he and Winfrey stopped in at participating Michigan Avenue stores: Gap, Apple, Armani and Motorola.

Along the way, they teamed up with other celebs helping the cause: Chicago-raised hip-hop star Kanye West, actress Penelope Cruz and supermodel Christy Turlington.

The Gap at Michigan and Ohio was Bono and Winfrey's first stop. With Winfrey behind the wheel and Bono riding shotgun, they pulled up in a cherry red Ford Thunderbird to a chilly but roaring crowd.

They loaded up on Gap's Red products before walking north on the Mag Mile.

"It's a beautiful mile," Bono said as he walked. "And it was a blessing on us today. It started to snow. It felt like Christmas."

Winfrey played the role of tour guide. "One of my favorite stores over here, Crate & Barrel," she told Bono. "I was thinking, driving this morning, you've got to get Crate & Barrel to go Red."

At one point, Bono stopped to talk to a girl about 6 years old.

"Kids, just like you, they can't get the medicines that we can get over here," he told her in a fatherly voice. "So we're going to get them the medicines. Is that good?"

The Red campaign is consumer friendly, Bono said, because you can help just by shopping.

"It's incredible to get these gigantic corporations to get involved in the fight against AIDS," he said. "We're not going to let 6½ thousand Africans die every day of a preventable, treatable disease. We're not going to do it. It's not American. It's not Irish. It's not English. It's not acceptable."

Scores of fans snapped photos and shouted for Bono and Winfrey, who drove to some of the stores in the T-Bird.

Carl Lokko, 43, a Ghana-born Lincoln Park resident, said Bono's fight against AIDS is "an inspiration."

"I'm very, very, very, very happy about" the Red campaign, he said as Bono and Winfrey greeted tourists passing on a trolley.

'I can't believe it'
Outside Armani, a woman offered Bono a drink of her pumpkin chai drink -- with lipstick on the lid. He obliged with a swig. Winfrey passed. "I can't believe it," said the woman, Luz Maria Nicholas of Streeterville. "It's so cool."

Penelope Cruz and Kanye West also encouraged customers to go Red. Cruz wore a $150 Gap denim jacket that's part of the campaign.

"I think everyone should get involved," West said. "It's important to everybody personally because AIDS is killing the world."

By the end of the shopping spree, the snow had stopped -- and Winfrey was still beaming.

What's it like to shop with Bono?

"It's, it's," Winfrey said, apparently fishing for the right word, "euphoric."

Posted by Jonathan at 07:11 PM | Comments (0)

October 09, 2006

U2 to split from Island Records

By Anthony Barnes

After 26 years and global sales of around 150 million albums, U2, arguably the world's biggest band, have quit the record label that discovered them.

Insiders claimed yesterday that the band's members, led by Bono, became fed up with the Island Records' senior management's "hands-off" approach towards them, despite their having generated hundreds of millions of pounds for the label.

Friends said yesterday that the final straw came during a recent recording session in London.

While Bono and the band worked on new tracks to add to their latest "Best of" compilation, no one from Island Records dropped by to meet them.

One observer claimed this "put their noses out of joint" and did nothing to help the deteriorating relationship.

Their closest ally at the label, the former general manager Jason Iley, was appointed managing director of Mercury Records last year, and the band have now followed him there.

U2 have frequently said they owe their career to Island and that its founding boss, Chris Blackwell, was instrumental to their career.

No other label had shown any interest in giving them a deal when the band were signed in 1980.

Despite leaving Island, the band will remain within the Universal Music Group.

The first release on the new label will be a charity single next month.

- INDEPENDENT

Posted by Jonathan at 04:33 AM | Comments (0)

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