Four music books chart unconventional lives in the industry
1975: The Year the World Forgot
, by Dylan Jones (Constable, £25).
This generation of music acts, which included the likes of Genesis, Steely Dan, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Joni Mitchell and Queen, was who punk rock would fight against. It aimed to replace their mature, erudite music with pared-back, stripped-down, revved-up pop songs.
Jones, a prolific chronicler of pop music and the people who created it, is refuting the perception of pre-1976 being the preserve of prog rock bands such as Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. 1975 was the paragon of adult pop, he writes. A year rich with masterpieces such as Blood on the Tracks (Bob Dylan), Young Americans (David Bowie), Horses (Patti Smith), The Köln Concert (Keith Jarrett), Born to Run (Bruce Springsteen), Another Green World (Brian Eno), and The Hissing of Summer Lawns (Joni Mitchell).
Across 21 albums, Jones smartly covers the songs and music as well as the geocultural milieu that nurtured and enveloped them. An excellent book that, thoughtfully, closes with a '75 from '75' playlist you can listen to on Spotify.
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Eamon Carr: 'I found the cumulative effect of the horror stories I was reporting on from the North difficult to shake off.' Photograph: Eric Luke
Pure Gold: Memorable Conversations with Remarkable People
, by Eamon Carr (Merrion Press, €16.99), contains recollections of a different but no less important time, when journalists could interview people without the presence of PRs and their clipboards.
Pure Gold gathers a series of interviews (culled from an assortment of mislaid cassette tapes) that Carr, a former member of Horslips and a long-established journalist, conducted in the late 1980s and early 1990s with a motley crew of people. The list is as impressive as it is eclectic: Eartha Kitt, JP Dunleavy, Josephine Hart, Brenda Fricker, Shane MacGowan, Rudolf Nureyev, Jack Charlton, 'Mad' Frankie Fraser, John Mortimer and more.
The collection is much more than a conversation between two people or, God forbid, a set of predictable questions that too often receive rote responses. As well as insightfully deconstructing the interview process, Carr has a knack for going off-piste, judging the mood of the interviewee and burrowing down as far as possible.
Earnest indie rock bands, he writes, answered questions with quotes that 'were homogenous, interchangeable'. Not so the interviewees here, who pounced on Carr's puckish, innate curiosity with a speed that less engaged inquisitors can only dream of.
Keith Donald has played with The Pogues, Van Morrison and Ronnie Drew.
There is enough of a life story in
Music and Mayhem
, by Keith Donald (Lilliput Press, €18.95) to fill in many hours of questions and answers, but the meat, so to speak, is in the reading. The career musician, now in his 80s, is best known, perhaps, for being a member of the groundbreaking ensemble group, Moving Hearts. Donald's peaks and troughs in life are documented with assured pragmatism.
'My days are numbered' is the kind of first chapter opening sentence that sets the scene for what follows (spoiler: it isn't pretty). From trusted boundaries being broken to grasping an instinctive love of music, from being diagnosed with lifelong PTSD to embarking on, writes Donald, 'a thirty-year internal battle between attraction and revulsion, emotionally up when the drink kicked in, down when it wasn't available, the rollercoaster of addiction'.
Music courses through the book, needless to say, but the 'mayhem' of the title runs it a close second, and often the two are locked in a battle for supremacy. Stitched into the fabric of each is a distinctive history of Ireland's fledgling music industry. It is one populated by showbands ('human gramophones that rehearsed and learned three new songs every week'), Moving Hearts ('unlike any band I'd played with') and shoals of business sharks and redemption. A life lived? You bet.
One could say the same for US rapper Tupac Shakur (1971-1996), who is regarded not only as one of hip-hop's most influential figures but also, through his music and activism, a torchbearer for highlighting political injustice and the marginalisation of African Americans.
Late rapper Tupac Shakur was shot aged 25 in 1996 in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. Photograph: Al Pereira/MichaelWith the primary motivation of presenting hip-hop's most noted nonconformist,
Words for My Comrades: A Political History of Tupac Shakur
, by Dean Van Nguyen (White Rabbit, £25), maintains a firm balance between placing Shakur within the context of the Black Panther movement (both of his parents were party members) and avoiding the usual biographical cliches of hero worship or downgrading unsavoury aspects of the subject's life (including a conviction in 1994 for sexual abuse).
There is also much to admire about Van Nguyen's industrious, thought-provoking research, oral histories and thorough critical analysis of Shakur's significance. Those looking for a strictly linear approach will be disappointed, but anyone (Shakur fans or not) interested in hip-hop history and Black radical political ideology will, with some justification, love it.
Dean Van Nguyen places Tupac Shakur within the context of the Black Panther movement. Photograph: Daragh Soden
Another unconventional life is outlined in
The Absence: The Memoirs of a Banshee Drummer,
by Budgie, aka Peter Clarke (White Rabbit, £25). Merseyside-born Budgie studied art in nearby Liverpool, where in the mid-1970s he joined fledgling punk bands the Spitfire Boys and Big in Japan.
He is best known, however, as the drummer in Siouxsie and the Banshees, which he joined in 1979 until their dissolution in 1996. Afterwards, he and Siouxsie (with whom he was romantically attached) formed The Creatures. Following their divorce in 2007, Budgie continued in music. His most recent work was a 2023 collaborative album with former Cure drummer Lol Tolhurst and Irish musician/producer Jacknife Lee.
English Punk and New Wave musicians Siouxsie Sioux and Budgie feature in the Creatures' Right Now music video. Photograph:The Absence, however, is anything but an orderly trawl through back pages. Rather, it is an evocative, lyrical memoir of boyhood; from 'on the walk back to the guesthouse along the Golden Mile, my dad and I would stop to buy a takeaway of fish and chips' to remembering after-show hangers-on 'Siouxsie might play along… almost as a game, but most times she would get irritated, snap, and tell them to f*** off'. He also reflects on a doomed marriage: 'Our intense love was real, as was our intense anger and disgust'.
A bold, bracing retelling of Goth beginnings and unhappy endings.
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Ryan Tubridy still has the Tiggerish verve and breezy name-drops. So why does it feel sour?
In a world riven by social division and online venom, there's a place where the vibe is unwaveringly upbeat, negativity is determinedly banished and everyone is nice to each other, or to one person at least. So fervently cheerful is the mood on The Ryan Tubridy Show (Q102, weekdays) that it's possible, just for a minute, to forget about troubles roiling the globe and even the payments scandal that saw the host exit RTÉ two years ago this month. Broadcasting from the London studios of Virgin Radio UK, the station he joined in January 2024, Tubridy approaches his late-morning show with Tiggerish verve, bringing an unflagging enthusiasm to the insouciant musings, breezy interviews and industrial-scale namedropping with which he punctuates his soundtrack of indie oldies. The net effect is akin to the opening monologue of his old RTÉ Radio 1 weekday programme being shorn of anything vaguely news-related and spread out over three hours. 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The pair are joined by the artist Kerry Guinan to examine what Clancy calls 'one of the art world's greatest pranks', the burning of £1 million, in 1994, by the K Foundation, aka the techno-pop act The KLF, aka the anarchic artists Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty. Tóibín is slightly aghast, his 'inner social worker' wary of the destruction of sums that could be used elsewhere, while Guinan approves, claiming the act took away the power of money: 'The money is not doing what it's supposed to'. Not that Tóibín is necessarily against incendiary cultural gestures. 'I burned a diary,' he reveals. 'It was pure freedom.' It's a thought-provoking conversation – sparky, even.
Irish Times
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Ryan Tubridy's on-air fervent cheer has a sour backnote
In a world riven by social division and online venom, there's a place where the vibe is unwaveringly upbeat, negativity is determinedly banished and everyone is nice to each other, or to one person at least. So fervently cheerful is the mood on The Ryan Tubridy Show (Q102, weekdays) that it's possible, just for a minute, to forget about troubles roiling the globe and even the payments scandal that saw the host exit RTÉ two years ago this month. Broadcasting from the London studios of Virgin Radio UK, the station he joined in January 2024, Tubridy approaches his late-morning show with Tiggerish verve, bringing an unflagging enthusiasm to the insouciant musings, breezy interviews and industrial-scale namedropping with which he punctuates his soundtrack of indie oldies. The net effect is akin to the opening monologue of his old RTÉ Radio 1 weekday programme being shorn of anything vaguely news-related and spread out over three hours. 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But, taken together with his books podcast and his resurgent visibility in the social pages, the unmistakeable impression is of someone living his very best life. And, you might say, why shouldn't he? Having endured a torrid period of public approbation and political scrutiny following the revelations about RTÉ's controversial payments to him which were not disclosed publicly , Tubridy has come out the other end, if not quite redeemed, then refreshed and relaunched. So why does all this positivity carry a faint backnote of sourness? Tubridy may not have been the cause of RTÉ's need to remunerate presenters so handsomely in a market it dominated. But public outrage at the host's surreptitious top-ups – €150,000 of which hasn't been repaid – contributed to a precipitous drop in licence fees. And while Tubridy can be excused being permanently clad in sackcloth and ashes, his on-air jauntiness comes perilously close to making him sound pleased with himself at a time when his former colleagues face an uncertain future, as does the network that once promoted his career so lavishly. If Tubridy's old home at RTÉ Radio 1 has soldiered on since his departure, it's still grappling with more recent developments. First and foremost, there is the sad and dreadfully premature death of Seán Rocks , the presenter of the long-running arts show Arena, whose passing was announced as this column was going to press. The loss of such a versatile and engaging broadcaster is immense, to radio and the arts, and – most of all – as a warm, smart, friendly human being. [ Seán Rocks, presenter of RTÉ radio's culture show Arena, dies aged 63 Opens in new window ] Meanwhile, Liveline (RTÉ Radio 1, weekdays) putters on without the retired Joe Duffy , amid conclave-esque levels of speculation and opacity surrounding his successor. In the absence of a permanent replacement, the phone-in show perhaps unavoidably has the feel of an extended audition, with Colm Ó Mongáin currently helming after a fortnight's stint by Philip Boucher-Hayes. Whatever the outcome – Katie Hannon remains the favourite for the post – Ó Mongáin's spell highlights his virtues as a broadcaster while indicating the limits of the Liveline brand without Duffy. Ó Mongáin cuts a likably understated figure, his quietly encouraging manner drawing out stories from callers. 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The pair are joined by the artist Kerry Guinan to examine what Clancy calls 'one of the art world's greatest pranks', the burning of £1 million, in 1994, by the K Foundation, aka the techno-pop act The KLF, aka the anarchic artists Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty. Tóibín is slightly aghast, his 'inner social worker' wary of the destruction of sums that could be used elsewhere, while Guinan approves, claiming the act took away the power of money: 'The money is not doing what it's supposed to'. Not that Tóibín is necessarily against incendiary cultural gestures. 'I burned a diary,' he reveals. 'It was pure freedom.' It's a thought-provoking conversation – sparky, even.
Irish Times
a day ago
- Irish Times
Bonnie Blue: Why the free-sex ‘content creator' is nauseating and wrong
In the totality of human existence, so goes the cliche, the best time to be alive is now. I believe it. We can gesture to a kind of ambient liberalism, a better organising principle for society than anything else we have managed to come up with so far. Then there's all the stuff about literacy rates, women's suffrage, epidemiology and declining crime. There have always been war, pestilence and suffering, but in sum there is just less of it now than ever. I hold this idea as foundational to my thinking. Well, nothing has come along to shake my commitment to the principle more than a 26-year-old porn star from Derbyshire in the English midlands. Perhaps I did not cling to the axiom as robustly as I once thought if the whims of just one person can make me question it. But forgive me and all the moralising prudishness about to spill out, because I suspect my feelings on the question – as visceral as they are – will be shared. If not, perhaps everything is even worse than I thought. READ MORE The innocent among us might not be familiar with the name Bonnie Blue, a nom de plume for Tia Billinger. She is a former recruitment agent and NHS staffer who turned to porn out of professional boredom. She makes her money – sometimes as much as an estimated £2 million (€2.3 million) a month – on the 'content creation platform' OnlyFans , where she charges a fee for people to watch her increasingly extreme sexual stunts. She is now permanently banned from OnlyFans. The latest stunt saw 1,057 men line up to have sex with her over the course of 12 hours. Another saw her offer free sex with fresher students at Nottingham Trent University, so long as she could film it and dispense it on her OnlyFans account. OnlyFans finally baulked and refused to host her next planned stunt – whereby she would be tied up in a glass box in public at the mercy of any sexual act anyone wanted to perform on her. I am glad they found a limit somewhere, even if that proverbial line was crossed years and miles ago. The phenomenon of Bonnie Blue, however, is not too far for Tuesday night's Channel 4 documentary 1,000 Men and Me: The Bonnie Blue Story. The broadcaster said it wanted to tell stories at the edge of modern morality. And I applaud their interest in doing so in the abstract. The Bonnie Blue problem, however, is that everyone who engages with it is simply too credulous and forgiving. Take, for example, the tiniest effort made by the director to push back on Billinger's chosen career path. 'In terms of feminism, are you not maybe sending us backwards?' she asked the 'actress'. I don't know if I have ever heard a challenge quite so mealy-mouthed and equivocating. Look elsewhere: thousands of words of think pieces dedicated to the woman and her sexual deviancy, asking meandering questions about whether Billinger is a champion of libertarianism or a victim of latent patriarchy. The Guardian signed off its review of the documentary with this: 'Do I admire her work ethic and facility for business? Yes ...' One long interview in the London Times last weekend complimented her manner and expressed discontent at her promiscuity, but never quite said what it clearly wanted to: this is all nauseating, horrifying, wrong. If this is the best the commentariat can muster then I'll say it. There are no qualifications to be made here, no actuallys, no chin-stroking: there is nothing redemptive about the Bonnie Blue story; we do not have to credit her work ethos out of some nonsense commitment to balance and fairness; there is nothing of value to all of this pretend nuance. This is something only a villainous society – with no sense of shame or mutual care – would prohibit. Bonnie Blue is a victim of sexual forces she has helped foment. She has abettors, but she is as responsible as they are. The men involved are gross: this much is easy for anyone to recognise. They are also suffering the extent of this warped, sexually permissive culture. I could dig deep into my soul and still find nothing positive or neutral to say about any of it. Billinger is not the first to reveal the immutable flaws of liberal feminism, though I suspect she has helped turbocharged its demise. Women used to cherish the mantra 'my body, my choice' as a shorthand for these gently liberating politics. It was a rhetorical route to necessary and long-denied rights. Well, here we are – thanks to Bonnie Blue; thanks to OnlyFans; thanks to anyone who explains all of this away as just a function of market forces; thanks to the internet and the virality machine – with 'my-body, my-choice' exploited for totally immoral ends, and the principles of liberal feminism abused beyond use. And we are left in search of a new system, because any one that has led us here is irredeemably corrupt.
