Kevin Shields on the front of Hot Press

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Haven't bought this rag since 1987 but had to last night after seeing a giant poster of Shields bespectacled face staring out the shop window. The headline -- Exclusive: The Hidden Genuis Of Irish Rock. A complete joke of course that Hot Press are now lauding his "Irishness" when they ignored MBV during 1988-91. The guy who did the interview absurdly goes on about Loveless being part of a great sonic trilogy of Irish albums that also includes Boy and Astral Weeks. How preposterous is that? Still though, it's a longish interview and the first front cover he's graced since the NME had MBV on around the time of Glider's release. Anyone else buy it yet? I assume Hot Press is still sold in the UK.

― David Gunnip (David Gunnip), Friday, 26 March 2004 10:35 (twenty-two years ago)

part of a great sonic trilogy of Irish albums that also includes Boy and Astral Weeks
Do I speak for the ILM massive when I say ... WTF?????

― Barry Bruner (Barry Bruner), Friday, 26 March 2004 11:08 (twenty-two years ago)

Not sure if "sonic" was the exact word used but the implication was that each of these albums changed the face of Rock so to speak. The idiots have to get in a mention of U2 no matter who they're writing about. During the 80's they had the fuckers on the front cover with the same regularity as Posh n'Becks on OK magazine. Shields did say however that it was nice when U2 started mentioning MBV as an influence on Achtung Baby. Hot Press probably forced him at gunpoint to say that though.

― David Gunnip (David Gunnip), Friday, 26 March 2004 11:23 (twenty-two years ago)

I have 2 reviews in the reviews section if you're that way inclined.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 26 March 2004 12:42 (twenty-two years ago)

(not without some nasty editing on my usher review, i did not and would never say "IT'S AN R&B THING", it's stunning how peoples preconceptions of genres as vacuous are manifested in their sub-editing.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 26 March 2004 12:42 (twenty-two years ago)

I read the Kev Shields thing yeah.

What do you think of the general standard of it these days David?

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 26 March 2004 13:15 (twenty-two years ago)

erm sorry my first sentence there was like a half thought! I meant to say I thought it was pretty interesting, and that the guy who did the interview is a good writer. Though I'm not sure about him bigging up that last Primal Scream record.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 26 March 2004 13:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I will buy Hotpress now and read it as I eat my lunch. I hear they have a SEX columnist now who is so SEXY that she has the word SEX in her name. I like the sound of that.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 26 March 2004 13:26 (twenty-two years ago)

I can't really comment fairly on the general standard of Hot Press these days but it's good that they seem to be recruiting some young writers like yourself with fresher agendas and whose minds haven't been infiltrated with all the fundamentalist flag waving rhetoric of the Rattle And Hum days. I'm a lot more inclined to flick through it now at a newsstand after completely ignoring it throughout the 90's. Growing up as the teenager in the 80's I just grew to hate Niall Stokes, Bill Graham and all the other folk heads chucking out the same bullshit week in week out with their Blood On The Tracks/Joshua Tree aesthetic. My worst Hot Press moment was when they gave out free issues at the U2 gig in Cork in August 1987. There were thousands of them littered around the stadium with Bono's mug yet again on the front and the whole ethos Stokes seemed to be giving to the youth of Ireland was "well 20 years ago there was this band called the Beatles and here finally are their successors, big enough now to save us all". I knew shag all about pop history back then but I remember thinking to myself there must be another way, this can't be all there is! I'll have a read of the current edition over the weekend. Admittedly, I haven't had a chance to read the full Kevin Shields interview yet but when I saw that snippet mentioning Boy and The Edge I just went oh shit, not again!

― David Gunnip (David Gunnip), Friday, 26 March 2004 14:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I can't bear to read Hotpress really. I'll flick to see if they've got any news on upcoming gigs but I generally won't bother reading it. It seems to fawn far too much on whatever BIG act is passing through. I never bought it after they did a short interview with Julia Roberts and asked her what her favourite colour was... I can't remember when that was, myabe 2 years ago. But that's the vibe I get off hotpress, it seems sort of.. unprincinpled in admiring 'stars'. I also don't like turning the page to see a glossy nivea visage or bacardi ad. I also don't really care to see what new Irish acts they're championing, as they're usually acts that have already put in plenty of time on the Dublin scene etc or they're acts that i'd connect with the tbmc kiddies scene. Review wise i don't think they review enough albums etc. haven't looked in a while at reviews but I'm as happy with sunday tribune and ticket reviews.

final thing I hate: society pages at the very back with Ireland's thrid rate glitterati at third rate parties in over designed venues. Why does Hotpress need to print that stuff?

― Major Alfonso (Major Alfonso), Friday, 26 March 2004 16:52 (twenty-two years ago)

whatever else you might think about Hotpress, it certainly looks a lot better than it used to. I'd even lean towards saying that design-wise it's a good bit better than the current NME.

I've read some of the Kevin Shields article... I think their playing up the whole Irishy angle of MBV is an attempt to appeal to their rockist audience-base, who still think that rock music was invented by Peig Sayers.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 26 March 2004 17:40 (twenty-two years ago)

by the way, both Boy & Astral Weeks are great records, although there is little to link them to Loveless.

and marxist science proves that Loveless is inferior to Isn't Anything.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 26 March 2004 17:46 (twenty-two years ago)

and marxist science proves that Loveless is inferior to Isn't Anything.

Are you actually allowed to criticise "Loveless" in ILM?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 26 March 2004 17:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Nein.

― ILXfuehrer Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 26 March 2004 17:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought as much

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 26 March 2004 17:54 (twenty-two years ago)

I didn't criticise it, I merely demonstrated that compared to Isn't Anything it is Untermusik.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Friday, 26 March 2004 17:54 (twenty-two years ago)

I know the guys who did the re-design, they'd be delighted. apparently it took a long time to commission.

The Ticket or the Tribune are absolute fucking toss, they make most of Hot Press seem good! Tribune is just hazy lazy side job for the few hacks who they toss CDs to, and the Ticket is just "AH TIME TO WRITE MY WEEKLY COLUMN, ERM DONT REALLY LIKE THAT BAND, SORT OF A THEORY ABOUT THEM YEAH, THEY'RE CRAP, RIGHT".

Or if you're Jim Carroll "long ago Joe Golden Amplifier Flagrante released his magnificent BOOMTONES selection of early soul and funk, mind you try telling that to todays pretenders".

How do Hot Press not review enough albums when the ticket or the tribune review about 6 from rock and pop and dance and Hot Press reviews about 14 or 15?

I won't stick up for HP, I have confidence in my own ability/dedication but other than that only in 2 or 3 writers there, nonetheless the above criticism seems ridiculous. And I will say it's better than the fucking Tribune, whatever about the Ticket. Does anyone read anything in the Tribune except for Ross O'Carroll-Kelly without thinking what a disgusting paper it is?

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 26 March 2004 17:58 (twenty-two years ago)

review-wise i'd check mojo, wire, pitchfork, absorb, and good few others online, (including discussions here). the tribune music section is actually fairly poor now that I think properly on it, sorry bout that. I haven't read hotpress reviews in a long time, maybe I'll re-examine. But I do wish there was a greater breadth of material reviewed in Hotpress, maybe that's not possible, I don't know but I do mean beyond pop rock and dance, which the ticket does do, and I will buy classical and jazz and I find that handy. I mean i wouldn't expect to see a review for a new john williams album in hot press, or a review of a new performance of rach 2 or something.
I hate brian boyd's column in the ticket, think it's shite, not keen on Jim carroll's, think it's fairly shite too. Reviews in the ticket are not terrible as irish newspapers go, but then I suppose that doesn't say much. for irish albums i've tended to rely on word of mouth and *ahem* college newspapers..

can I ask why the negativity re: tribune in general as newspaper? hate ross o'carroll-kelly myself, never took to it, maybe it's not funny to a non-southsider, i can't tell why. Otherwise i'd rather read the tribune than a: absolute dearth of news in sunday times (though culture's good) b: unprincipled rag journalism of sunday indo, which has in the past lied to my family and printed an insulting article and c: overly corporate-orientated business post. I kind of find myself left with it as final option. much prefer independent on sunday and observer though. frankly i find the tribune the least disgusting.

I'll buy the new hot press and see what it's up to, it'll go in my basket with my economist and koko noodles.

― Major Alfonso (Major Alfonso), Saturday, 27 March 2004 00:29 (twenty-two years ago)

I left Dublin for London a few years back but I flick through Hot Press in Borders occasionally and it doesn't seem to have changed at all. Still too reliant on its "personality" writers, still too parochial ( there was an awful issue a year or so ago with a Glen Hansard-Mundy-Gemma Hayes-David Kitt roundtable cover feature which made me cringe) and still badly laid out (it always read to me like a student union paper).
When I do go home once or twice a year and read the Arts & Pop Culture coverage in the Irish papers, its appalling...is the Slate still going? INDublin? The Event Guide?

― David Nolan (David N.), Saturday, 27 March 2004 01:47 (twenty-two years ago)

INDublin went under as a result of advertising prostitutes' 'massage parlours'
slate retired, demanded 10 yoyos for a best of
event guide's still going, thankfully

sunday times culture actually, not that good, just the fact that there are art features is positive is what I meant, its far far far too little though. I better stop revising my opinions on everything, it's easier to be irrationally stuck-in-the-mud

hot press' parochialism is very tiring

but then it's too easy to be critical.

― Major Alfonso (Major Alfonso), Saturday, 27 March 2004 02:16 (twenty-two years ago)

can I ask why the negativity re: tribune in general as newspaper?

it's boring, basically. Obviously, it's the best Irish sunday paper, but that's not saying much. I wish the Cork Examiner would do a sunday paper.

hate ross o'carroll-kelly myself, never took to it, maybe it's not funny to a non-southsider, i can't tell why.

Is that the Hoy everyone I am a southsoide wanker column? That's not unamusing.

While we are on the subject of Irish papers, today's Irish Times features a restaurant review written by some cunt who feels it helps us if he explains vegetarianism for a third of the article and then goes on about how attractive the waitresses are in Cafe Paradiso (Ireland's best restaurant, according to me). This has little relevance to the topic at hand, obviously.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Saturday, 27 March 2004 15:52 (twenty-two years ago)

The vast majority of non news/political writing in Ireland is pretty desperate. I can't think of a single lifestyle columnist whose personality doesn't seem like a monster created by crap TV and the odd movie here and there.

Tribune pisses me off immensely on this side of things, it's like the most vacuous airhead toss, that magazine you get with it is written by 6 people who never consider life beyond a couple of middlebrow southsider pubs and aging Dublin indie/journo circles.

Do they have a fucking "WHAT'S HOT/WHAT'S NOT" thing still? The one in the Irish Times on a Saturday is just cringe-worthy,

WHAT'S HOT-FETA CHEESE ON FRENCH BREAD, WE SAY, DELICIOUS

WHAT'S NOT-LAST WEEK, WHAT WERE WE THINKING

WHAT'S HOT-FOCCACIA BREAD FLAVOURED COFFEE FROM KEOGHS BISTRO IN DALKEY, EAT AWAY THOSE WINTER BLUES.

WHAT'S NOT-BIG HAIRCUTS, TOTALLY NOT COOL YEAH.

etc etc etc

So crappy and insular, it's like reading the process of becoming middle aged, glorified with what amount to ads. I don't know what it says about Ireland that there's such a lack of decent personalities in the papers but it bloody says something.

Everyone correct about Hot Press, it never changes and jesus if you'd seen how it works first hand and close up you'd be amazed. I better not say any more!

― Ronan (Ronan), Saturday, 27 March 2004 19:30 (twenty-two years ago)

OTFM here and also re: N*E*R*D. I thought that song was the Chili Peppers the first time I heard it.

― fcussen (Burger), Saturday, 27 March 2004 22:50 (twenty-two years ago)

it's true really, about the tribune, it has such an amazingly small constituency. But I feel I need to read at least some irish news on sunday.

irish times magazine is excruciatingly bad. it's horrific. especially Roisín ingle, i could wring her fucking neck. insipid lifestyle journalism. she's always writing about her brother as well. and the tribune magazine is the same, now that I have it in front of me, grmph.

re: ross o'carroll kelly, I don't know, it don't find it too funny because its astonishingly accurate, I've countless people of the ilk in my lectures. i just have too much class/bogger hatred to laugh at it, which is terrible.

― Major Alfonso (Major Alfonso), Saturday, 27 March 2004 23:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Whenever I do read Irish news, Irish "celeb" gossip or Irish criticism now, I feel incredibly distant from it. It is strange to read about new Irish bands from British journalists rather than having them anointed by the Dublin press for months before any records are released, for one thing. Refreshing, frankly.

I would hate to have read the Irish coverage of the relative success enjoyed by the Thrills or Damien Rice, for instance. I imagine it consists either of tub-thumping "good old Dublin Music scene" crap or begrudgery crap.

Plus the esteem in which the Frames are held at home is absent over here. Unless you go to one of their gigs in tiny London venues, always stuffed with Irish blokes. Its like being transported back to Whelans or something....

I could write a column for the Sindo. One wanky expat and his wry musings...but I fear I may be too Northside...

― David Nolan (David N.), Sunday, 28 March 2004 00:32 (twenty-two years ago)

haha Roisin Ingle is DREADFUL isn't she? She once wrote an anecdote where she said "I looked under the door and knew from the shoes: jehovas witnesses"

Under the door?????? Knew from the shoes???? If you're going to make shit up at least make it plausible!

― Ronan (Ronan), Sunday, 28 March 2004 12:50 (twenty-two years ago)

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