Arising from the ashes of aborted supergroup Zwan, onetime Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan returns with a hotly anticipated solo debut. Still brimming with that patented goth angst, he tells Paul Nolan about his collaboration with fellow doom-merchant Robert Smith, his friendship with the two Davids – Lynch and Bowie – and, oh yeah, why he's still sore about the Pumpkins.
Her dad’s got the keys to St. Andrew’s Observatory, her mum’s texting to say she’s just seen Prince William playing hockey, and her new album Eyes To The Telescope is currently bewitching audiences throughout Britain. Things could hardly be better for Scots singer-songwriter KT Tunstall.
Former My Bloody Valentine frontman Kevin Shields in among those interviewed in a new documentary on the shoegazing movement. Billy Corgan and Trent Reznor also feature.
Time, it seems, has not mellowed Cure mainman Robert Smith one iota. If anything, this eponymous album, the band’s first since 1999’s Bloodflowers, is the angriest they’ve ever been.
The deadline is approaching for entries to the 2008 International Songwriting Competition, with the full list of judges just announced, including Tom Waits and Black Francis.
Revisit our Nirvana cover story from earlier this year, encompassing ten-years-on recollections from Butch Vig, Greil Marcus and Mark Lanegan and one of Hot Press' undisputed highlights of '02
Blogger faves and YouTube stars OkGo stepped into the A-league recently when they attended the Grammys. Biggest thrill of the night? Shooting the breeze with Mastodon.
Anglo-Swedish indie rock’n’rollers Razorlight are on the verge of releasing their debut album. A catchy attack on mediocrity with vocals that linger in the head.
A compilation, a new album in the works, more distressing rumours about Richey and the prospect of the greatest football song ever – Eamon Sweeney finds Nicky Wire of Manic Street Preachers with plenty to talk about
With Paul McGuinness now taking care of business, The Rapture can’t be entirely kidding when they tell Stuart Clark that they have no problem with becoming the biggest band in the world.
With the return of Sean's Show to Channel 4, Ireland's most successful funny man (he'll love that - Ed) is back in the spotlight. But behind the obsessive, neurotic, insecure, angst-ridden exterior of the show's central character, is there an obsessive, neurotic, insecure, angst-ridden individual? Here Sean Hughes worries over religion, dreams, sex, drugs, family and ... Christmas (aaah!). Interview: Joe Jackson.
Massive Attack explain why they are outspoken opponents of the proposed war in Iraq, give high praise to Sinéad O’Connor and reveal how a porn soundtrack left them gasping for airtime.
When massive attack decided that they'd meet the press in Dublin, stuart clark got just thirty minutes to prepare for the
interview. But he still manages to talk to 3d about music, football, the band's new album Mezzanine - and the difficulties of making sweet leurve to the sound of your own records.
The last 18 months have been a hell of a ride for The Thrills, catapulted from the relative obscurity of the south dublin suburbs to the top of the uk charts, rubbing shoulders with Van Dyke Parks and Peter Buck along the way. But are the band suffering from diver’s bends? is that laid-back california-in-my-mind facade starting to crumble? We put on our therapist’s hats and endeavour to find out, if something’s gotta give, what gives?
Annual article: The Electric Picnic wasn’t just one of the musical events of the year; it also let us chow down and have a natter with some of the top pop combos of the day, including Bloc Party, Gang Of Four and New Order.
How did Brandon Flowers, Ronnie Vannucci, Dave Keuning and Mark Stoermer go from the Las Vegas dive bar circuit to selling four million copies of their debut album, Hot Fuss? On the eve of the band's highly-anticipated Oxegen 2005 appearance, Stuart Clark talks to the people involved in the making of The Killers.
They scream and bawl at each other, and to the casual observer it looks like just another mutually abusive relationship. But we know better. This is the sound of discordant devotion, a marriage of highbrow concepts and barbarian rhythms spawning sweetly twisted music.
Ghostly, synthetic and smeared, possibly, in charcoal eye-liner, Billy Corgan’s first solo record throws a bleakly affectionate glance towards the ‘80s and the decade’s parade of sombre new-wave groups.
More than another group of wannabes hoofing together the latest trendy noise, Bloc Party are a ridiculously sophisticated outfit and Silent Alarm is a most gratifying piece of aural amusement.
Formed by Eoin McEvoy and Frank Kearns, CWN had the big sound and bombast of acts like Simple Minds and Big Country but, eventually, not enough hits to fuel the machine. Now the re-release of their debut Urban Beaches, plus bonus tracks, and the first release of the cancelled No Shelter give pause for a re-evaluation.
Such a strange and contradictory year. Mixed fortunes complemented perfectly by a bizarre range of listening choices. A disc for every mood, and every memory.
Do you remember the music that was playing when you got your first kiss? And what was the soundtrack the first time you had sex? Often it’s not the overtly sexy songs that have the deepest sexual resonance…
From rockers on the breadline to the political leader who has turned his mother into a deity, it’s all been grist to the mill of Caught In The Net in 2003. Stuart Clark presents the top ten.
