News: Tidbits Archives

January 16, 2008

Bono Designed Tee Now Available Through Hard Rock Cafe

Brenda Clemons, Staff Writer

The Hard Rock Cafe has just launched a Bono designed tee shirt with proceeds going to charity. The cost of the shirt is $26.00 (US Dollars) and comes in both women and men's sizes. The women's tee is white with a blue design and the men's tee is black with red design.

Both tees picture a fish with the words,"fish can fly". According to Hard Rock, "Fish can fly is more than just a phase on a t-shirt. Its a message that tomorrow can be better than today. And that change is happening right before your eyes."

A percentage of the price of the tee shirts will go to benefit The Wildlife Conservation Society's "Conservation Cotton Initiative". The Wildlife Conservation Society aims to save wildlife and wild lands through science, international conservation, and education. The Conservation Cotton Initiative hopes to educate African cotton farmers about alternatives to pesticide use, and to educate them about organic cultivation while protecting wildlife habitats. The tee shirt is available through the Hard Rock Cafe website at www.hardrock.com.

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

January 10, 2007

VOTE FOR U2 STATION

Many of us know that the U2 Station is the preferred website of choice for those fans seeking well-rounded news and editorials on a weekly basis. And, guess what? We're only getting better every day! Show your support and appreciation for all of our hard work by voting for us at the Hot Press Music Awards. Please sign up for free and vote for U2 Station at Hotpress.com. Thank you for your support!

Posted by Brenda at 12:40 PM | Comments (0)

January 09, 2007

Bono Seen Around Tourn

According to the Boston Herald, Bono and family were spotted all around Boston and it's suburbs over the weekend. The first spotting was in a museum. The second spotting was outside Boston in Plymouth, Mass. Is one of his children writing a school report on the Witch Trials? If Bono wants to visit historic places I suggest he come down to Richmond, Virginia. He can visit the spot where the famous "Give me liberty or give me death" speech was given. Of course, it's now a parking lot. But there's a really nice plaque and mural on a brick wall.........................

Posted by Brenda at 12:30 PM | Comments (0)

October 14, 2004

U2: Dancing With The Devil: Hex, Drugs & Achtung Baby

10.14.04 - Uncut Magazine

Next month, U2 release the eagerly-awaited new album, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. However good it is, however, it'll go some to Achtung Baby - an audacious act of supergroup mid-career reinvention that raised the bar for dozens of 90's megabands to try and copy - or fall by the wayside.

A decade on from its original release, we look back at U2's radical transformation from earnest musos to manic cyber-rockers in an eye-opening investigation into the circumstances surrounding the tortured making of Achtung Baby, which story involves the collapse of The Edge's marriage, Adam Clayton's self-destructive drinking, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the band allegedly getting involved in drugs and their dark side, a satanic aspect to their character hitherto well concealed.

As a bonus for U2 fans, there's also an exclusive track by track preview of the new album, which goes on sale in November, as well as a chance to win a VIP trip to Berlin, where much of Achtung Baby was famously recorded.

Elsewhere in this month's issue, we celebrate Martin Scorsese's classic mob epic GoodFellas, and a year on from his death we look back at Johnny Cash's legendary concerts at Folsom and San Quentin prisons. We also spend some entertaining time with the outrageous Tony Scott, director of high concept blockbusters like Top Gun, True Romance, Enemy Of The State and Days Of Thunder, who regales us with tales of Tom Cruise, Bruce Willis and Robert De Niro, meet Bo Hopkins, one of Sam Peckinpah's famous stock company and uncover the truth behind the mysterious death of American singer-songwriter Elliott Smith, who died of apparently self-inflicted knife wounds to the chest in October 2003.

To complete this month's package, our free CD, Mob Life, collects 16 great tracks from classic Scorsese movies, and includes music from Roxy Music, van Morrison, Johnny Thunders, Frank Sinatra, Little Richard, Tony Bennett and BB King.

Posted by Jonathan at 03:51 AM | Comments (2)

June 13, 2002

New U2!

6.13.02 - NME

U2 have posted a clip from new track 'HANDS THAT BUILT AMERICA' online.

The 30-second video clip sees the band in the studio working through the song - with Bono on vocals and guitar and guitarist The Edge playing keyboard. The track rather than more up and edgier tunes of recent album recalls hits 'One' and 'Stay (Faraway So Close)''Elevation'.

The song will feature in new, long-awaited Martin Scorsese film 'Gangs Of New York', his feature about rival Irish gangs in turn of the century New York. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day Lewis and Cameron Diaz.

Note: The video clip may be found at: http://www.u2.com

Posted by Jonathan at 04:42 PM | Comments (0)

October 08, 2001

Live Webcast of U2 in Notre Dame

10.8.01 - Tiscali network

U2 will perform live online from the opening night of the final leg of the Elevation 2001 tour, and the show is open to everyone worldwide. The entire show from Notre Dame, Indiana will be webcast on the morning of October 11th. The event will also be rebroadcast the same evening.

Elevation 2001 has been called 'the most successful in history' and the show promises to be one of the biggest online events of the year. Our two hour long live webcast will include state of the art viewing through the use of multiple cameras, exclusive footage with interviews, and a revolutionary spin cam. This event is brought to you by TISCALI, Europe's leading Internet company.

Do you want a Premium Webcast Experience?

You can get this on the Tiscali network and see U2 like never before, You'll see....

* An Interactive 360 degree spin cam
* High Quality broadband
* Exclusive Backstage footage-get ALL ACCESS.
* Interviews with the band, management and crew.
* An Access to On Demand viewing of the webcast after the event.
* and much, much, more-stay tuned to find out!

Click here now: http://u2.tiscali.co.uk

Get your VIP PASS HERE NOW!!:
http://u2.tiscali.com

Posted by Jonathan at 04:10 AM | Comments (0)

March 26, 1996

Excerpt from Bono on his stage persona

Juice magazine, March 1996

"The stage is a platform show after all. All it does is make us look bigger. I think dressing up as the devil was great, and I enjoyed every minute of it. In fact, I miss the old bird.... What we did with ZooTV was, again, just a way of stopping me being placed as one person, because you have to accept the caricaturing that goes on when you become a big band and have fun with it and create these alter egos. I mean, we were parodying it all, you know, these were other sides of myself: The Snake Oil Salesman, The Devil, The Mirrorball Man. It was a nice way of sending out decoys, because, deep down, I'm still a really nice guy. Honest." - Bono, as quoted in *Juice* Magazine, March 1996.

And here's what he calls his current image: "Returning form fat Elvis period, passing resemblance to Vladmir Lenin, on the way to Cuba to meet cigar-smoking women."

Posted by Jonathan at 08:14 PM | Comments (0)

March 26, 1994

Encyclopedia Britannica defines U2

At a 1993 U2 concert all eyes focused on a darkened stage lit only by the flashing headlights of several suspended Trabant automobiles. Giant video monitors projected Nazi propaganda footage punctuated by staccato bursts of slogans--"The Media Is the Anti-Christ," "Everything You Know Is Wrong," "Everyone's a Racist Except You"--reminiscent of some kind of bizarre brainwashing technique. Heavy drumbeats, amplified guitar wails, warped vocals, and 450 tons of technology rocked the walls and floors of the arena like a giant heartbeat. U2 featured four members: passionate lead singer and songwriter Bono, unpretentious lead guitarist and technological wizard The Edge, bad-boy bass guitarist Adam Clayton, and James-Dean-look-alike drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. U2 staged its Zoo TV tour, the hottest concert ticket of 1992 (in the U.S.) and 1993 (in Europe and other venues), to support its critically acclaimed albums Achtung Baby (1991) and Zooropa (1993), both platinum albums. Incredibly, Zooropa was conceived, recorded, and released in the three-month break between the U.S. and European legs of the tour. The nihilistic sound of these albums, as well as the glitzy tour, reflected society's eager embrace of the electronic superhighway and multimedia age and highlighted the battle between humanity and technology. The disorienting songs also dealt with the void left in Europe by the fall of Communism and the Berlin Wall.

In 1976 in Dublin three high school students, Paul Hewson (born May 10, 1960), Dave Evans (born Aug. 8, 1961), and Adam Clayton (born March 13, 1960), answered an ad that was tacked to a bulletin board by Larry Mullen, Jr. (born Oct. 31, 1961), who wanted to form a garage band. The four initially named themselves Feedback, then The Hype, and finally U2 (probably after the American spy plane, though no one knew for sure). Hewson was christened Bono Vox (later shortened to Bono) after a hearing aid store in Dublin, and he in turn renamed Evans The Edge because of his tendency to stay on life's fringe, just observing. While touring the local club circuit, U2 honed their unique blend of punk rock and classic rock mixed with Gaelic influences, and in 1978 they were signed by Island Records. The intelligent lyrics layered with social and religious references and the sometimes brooding, sometimes anthemic music on their first five albums, Boy (1980) October (1981), War (1983), The Unforgettable Fire (1984), and The Joshua Tree (1987), gained them worldwide critical and popular acclaim and earned them a reputation as the eight-legged conscience of rock and roll. The success of The Joshua Tree propelled them into indisputable superstardom and won them the titles "Band of the Eighties" by Rolling Stone and "Rock's Hottest Ticket" by Time.

By the early 1990s, U2 had won several Grammy awards, sold more than 40 million albums (note: An English newspaper claimed in November, 1996 that U2 have now sold over 70 million albums and have generated over one billion dollars in sales!) and been listed as one of Forbes' top-15 highest-paid entertainers. In an effort to shed the image they suddenly found themselves suffocating under, U2 reinvented their sound and pleasantly shocked the critics and most of their fans with the release of the two harder-edged, postindustrial albums. Whatever their musical direction, Ireland's second biggest export (next to Guinness stout) proved that artistic integrity would remain their chief hallmark. (SUSAN RAPP)

Taken without permission from Britannica on-line.

Posted by Jonathan at 07:24 PM | Comments (0)

March 26, 1991

"More Bitter Than Sweet"

In response to: SOME OF THESE SONGS THOUGH (on Achtung Baby) ARE MUCH MORE BITTER THAN SWEET, MUCH ANGRIER AND EDGIER THAN ROY ORBISON EVER WAS Bono said: "I think the opposite of love is not hate. Its apathy. You only get angry about things you really care about. So that kind of anger can emphasize the positive by allowing it to come out, to be bitter, to bring up all that stuff."

Posted by Jonathan at 07:14 PM | Comments (0)

December 30, 1989

Dream It All Up Again

Although often attributed to U2's New Year's Eve 1989/New Year's Day 1990 concert, this quote from Bono was actually made the night before, on December 30, 1989, during the opening strains of "Love Rescue Me."

"We've had a lot of fun over the last few months, just getting to know some of the music which we didn't know so much about -- and still don't know very much about, but it was fun! (pause) Anyway, thanks for coming along. It wouldn't have been the same without you. (applause) Some people have traveled a long way to come here tonight. (applause) This -- I was explaining to people the other night, but I might've got it a bit wrong -- this is just the end of something for U2. And that's what we're playing these concerts -- and we're throwing a party for ourselves and you. It's no big deal, it's just -- we have to go away and ... and dream it all up again."

Posted by Jonathan at 07:38 PM | Comments (0)

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