Bob Geldof - The Years Of The Rat
In the first part of a major interview conducted at last year’s Music Show in the RDS, BOB GELDOF talks candidly about life as an illegal immigrant in Canada, how the Boomtown Rats took on official Ireland and then went on to duke it out with the Pistols and The Clash, and what triggered his involvement in Live Aid. Plus, a look back at Bob and the Rats on the cover of Hot Press.
Niall Stokes, 09 Feb 2011
The hits started to happen immediately and you hit No. 1 in the UK for the first time with ‘Rat Trap’. And when you hit No 1 you tore up a picture of John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John on Top Of The Pops. What was that all about?
As we arrived in London, this whole surge of kids came forward, the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Jam and we were viewed with deep suspicion ‘cause we spent a year in Ireland learning our chops sort-of thing. And we were paddies, all living in one house, and sort-of there were no punks outside of London, I don’t know of any punks from Derbyshire if you can remember, but the Yanks liked us. So we played with The Ramones and Talking Heads from four in the afternoon in schools and gymnasiums and nobody could beat The Ramones – but the kids who had the flares and the mullets didn’t get Talking Heads, ‘cause it was The Talking Heads first, Rats second and The Ramones third.
And we started making records. We had the hits but really the charts were clogged up with stuff like y’know Olivia Newton-John, John Travolta, always at Numbers 1, 2 and 3. And they seemed to be have been there for years. People think now that The Clash, The Pistols, The Jam and us, we just had constant hits, it just isn’t true, it’s just like how you imagine the ‘60s with The Beatles and The Stones but when you look at the charts it’s awful. And so when we got to No. 1 we couldn’t believe it because we were getting killed by the critics because we had so many singles, so we said we’ll prove to them we’re not just a singles band. And we’ll bring out the most album-y track we have, ‘Rat Trap’. And it was the DJ Kenny Everett that suggested it – he had a TV show and we shot a video for the show, we were on tour, mid-city and next thing literally all the record shops were calling to say that people have been asking for that record but it’s not a single. So Nigel Grainge from Ensign said, “Put it out as a single”, so it crawled up the charts, went in at Number 6… 5… 4. I thought we’ll never get higher than 4, so I cut it out of Music Week and kept it. And then it went to 3, so I kept that, cut that out and I thought that’s it. And then we went 2, I mean it just doesn’t happen and I mean we never thought, because 2 is so exciting… and then No. 1. And I couldn’t believe it, could not believe it. It was the first Irish rock No. 1, and so if you look at that Top Of The Pops I’m wearing a little Irish flag badge, and I mean, I’m not nationalistic at all but it felt great. And it was the first of the new wave of No. 1’s and so I got this thing from My Guy magazine of John Travolta and I told Kid Jensen who was the DJ who introduces it to go in on the camera and to say “It’s No. 1” and everyone would say “Oh, it’s fucking John Travolta again”. And so (motions to tearing the picture) like this was the big reveal… and so I revealed the magnificent us.
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Niall Stokes
Latest Articles by Niall Stokes
The two latest entries to Today FM’s Poetic Champions Compose series arrived a decade apart and certainly made their mark. We plunder the Hot Press vaults once more to reflect on two of the greatest offerings from Van Morrison and The Boomtown Rats.
2012-11-13
He’s one of the outstanding Irish songwriters of the modern era. Now Paul Brady is taking fans and newcomers alike on an intimate journey, with an album chronicling some of his favourite career moments. Here, he looks back over his extraordinary 45 years in the business, argues that the emerging generation has shot itself in the foot and, controversially, takes the Government to task in relation to copyright
2012-06-25
In the second part of a major interview, conducted at The Music Show in the RDS, Bob Geldof talks about Band Aid, Live Aid, Paula Yates, the death of his father Bob Snr. and his new solo album, How To Compose Popular Songs That Will Sell.
2011-02-23
Selected as the Best Irish Male singer at the Meteor Awards 2010, CHRISTY MOORE first emerged as a performer towards the end of the 1960s. Since then, he has become one of the most distinctive and influential voices in Irish music. A magnetic performer, his work variously with Planxty, Moving Hearts and as a solo artist, has been widely acclaimed and he is regarded among his international peers as one of the pre-eminent folk singers.
2011-01-24
Selected as the Best Irish Male singer at the Meteor Awards 2010, CHRISTY MOORE first emerged as a performer towards the end of the 1960s. Since then, he has become one of the most distinctive and influential voices in Irish music. A magnetic performer, his work variously with Planxty, Moving Hearts and as a solo artist, has been widely acclaimed and he is regarded among his international peers as one of the pre-eminent folk singers.
2010-03-10 - Interview
You don’t go to Berlin for the weather. You go for the history, the culture, the atmosphere, the vibe.
2010-02-11 - Reports
After an online poll of its 6,000 members, the Irish Music Rights Organisation doled out their live Music Venue of the Year Awards 2009 on Tuesday December 1 in Copyright House.
2009-12-11 - Frontlines
Why the musical legacy bequeathed by Michael Jackson will ultimately outlive and overshadow the huge morass of questions surrounding his life and death...
2009-07-03 - Reports
A special interview from the Hot Press archives, first published in 1985: Minister for Women's Affairs Nuala Fennell talks feminism, sex and contraception with HP editor Niall Stokes.
2009-02-12 - Interview
Opening this month with a volley of gigs from such rock 'n' roll A-Listers as Kings Of Leon, and Coldplay, the 14,500-capacity Dublin O2 looks like being one of the best venues in the world.
2008-12-11 - Reports
A short and sweet album that hits the ground running with a sexy sound that's sure to produce a few chart-toppers.
2008-11-19 - REVIEW
Where has he been all these years? You might well ask. Henry McCullough is one of the unsung heroes of Irish music.
2008-09-09 - REVIEW
Niall Stokes shares a barstool with Tom Waits
2008-06-17 - Interview
Phil Lynott fans beware – supposedly ‘rare’ Thin Lizzy artefacts being sold by an English dealer are not what they seem.
2007-05-21 - Frontlines
He began working in music as a drummer, but Dave Pennefather's greatest success has been as MD of Universal Music. Hot Press looks back over the life and times of a man with a larger than life reputation.
2006-11-15 - Interview
The death has occurred of the great Irish writer John McGahern, at the Mater Hospital in Dublin. He was 71 years of age. Although his health had not been the best for some time, his death was sudden.
2006-03-30 - News
Irish labels, bands and artists often face an uphill struggle to garner recognition, even on their home turf. Which is why hotpress and HMV have undertaken their own combined initiative, to coincide with the announcement of the shortlist for the first Choice Irish music prize. As a product of this initiative, all ten albums will be specially stocked and displayed in HMV stores all over Ireland on the run-in to the announcement of the winning album later this month. Here, we take a look at the list – and reflect on those that have been omitted.
2006-02-17 - Interview
The banjo has got some bad press over the years and not without some justification. However, prepare to have your prejudices on this score reduced to rubble: Alison Brown is a wizard and a true star and Stolen Moments is a cracker of an album from start to finish.
2006-01-30 - REVIEW
The idea for Home, an album of Irish songs, has been on the agenda for The Corrs for a number of years. But its release marks an important stage in the evolution not just of the band, but of lead singer Andrea Corr – who has been exploring new ways of expressing herself as an artist with increasing poise and confidence.
2005-11-25 - Interview
An extraordinary letter, written by Bob Dylan, offers a remarkable insight into the greatest songwriter of his generation. It also offers a hugely challenging perspective on the role of the artist.
2005-11-11 - Interview
She learned her craft with the Wild Oscars and Kaydee, and more recently featured on the John Hughes album Wild Ocean. Now, Tara Blaise has taken flight with the release of her debut album Dancing On Tables Barefoot – a record that unveils an impressively free-spirit and a desire to live life to the full.
2005-07-12 - Interview
The perfect pop record: it’s an elusive goal. Some people say Pet Sounds, others any one of a rake of great singles from the collected works of Abba. In either case, they wouldn’t be far wide of the mark. But the magic pop gene also disports itself in all sorts of musically diverse situations, from ‘We Are Family’ by Sister Sledge, through ‘Perfect’ by Fairground Attraction, to ‘There She Goes’ by the Las.
2005-06-24 - REVIEW
It was Wednesday June 14th, 1995, when the terrible news of Rory Gallagher’s death was first phoned through to the Hot Press office. In more ways than one, it was the end of an era. On Wednesday November 8th, a commemoration service was held at Brompton Oratory in London. The ceremony ended with a tribute, which was delivered by Niall Stokes, editor of Hot Press. As a special remembrance of Rory, on the 10th anniversary of his death, we reproduce here the full text of that tribute.
2005-06-03 - Interview
It’s been some time since Tara Blaise first came on like a potential star, fronting the EMI-signed Dublin band Kaydee. In the interim, she has worked quietly away, developing her craft as a songwriter and performer – and, last year, guesting as vocalist on John Hughes’ largely instrumental album Wild Ocean. Now, it’s her turn to grab the spotlight and she does it with impressive finesse, emerging as a vocalist to be reckoned with in the process.
2005-05-17 - REVIEW
It is one of the perverse facets of contemporary music that there is a constant demand that artists have to re-invent themselves. I’m all for it if it’s what a band or a performer either needs or wants to do, in order to give renewed sparkle to the muse. But it isn’t something that we ask of poets or writers. Would we want or expect John McGahern to produce a sci-fi thriller set in an imaginary bog landscape five hundred years into the future?
2005-05-05 - REVIEW
It's almost two years since Sinead O'Connor announced her retirement from music. However, it was always on the cards that she would find her voice again. The good news is that she has. She explains all in an exclusive interview with Niall Stokes...
2005-02-10 - News
It's the way that the movie business works. It took 15 years to raise the money to make the biopic of Ray Charles life. It got done in the end, as they say, but Ray himself couldn't wait around to see its release: he died at the age of 73, in June of last year.
2005-01-20 - REVIEW
He may be better known as manager of The Corrs – but John Hughes has been a musician for well over 30 years. Besides, with a US top 50 album to his credit in the 1980s, his new record – the remarkable Wild Ocean – is just the latest instalment in an extraordinary journey that has taken him close to the edge and back. interview: Niall Stokes
2005-01-10 - Interview
Last night began a momentous chapter for the world’s biggest band. For U2, it was the first live airing and radio/internet broadcast of material from their eleventh studio album, How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. For those in attendance, it was an opportunity as rare as they come. The location: Dublin, Ireland. More specifically, at the album’s birthplace, in their Hanover Quay studios. Hot Press editor Niall Stokes was in attendance to feel the impact and capture the aftershock. [photos by John Dardis, courtesy of U2]
2004-11-17 - News
The canvas of Wild Ocean is big and ambitious, the music almost symphonic in its sweep.
2004-11-10 - REVIEW
Turbulence, the debut album proper from Saucy Monky, is one of those records. It is at once rich, smart, sexy, thrilling, entertaining, diverse and hugely accomplished. It is a great, rock’n’roll record, both playful and deep, its sometimes dark indie heart-core spangled with enough sparks of pop magic to light up the western sky.
2004-09-02 - REVIEW
The answer is blowing in Iraq. And, back home, the immigration referendum is another ill-wind.
2004-05-21 - Interview
An Omagh girl of Methodist farming background, with an unassuming determination to match, Juliet Turner has already come some distance from the straightforward and endearingly earnest folk thrust of her roughly recorded debut, Let’s Hear It For Pizza.
2004-02-16 - REVIEW
It’s the title of his new album, his first on the legendary jazz label, Blue Note. it’s also an apt introduction to an interview in which Van Morrison talks freely about his work, his background in Belfast, his brushes with the music industry – and about what made him what he is.
2003-10-28 - Interview
but who knows how long the struggle in Iraq will go on?
2003-04-23 - Interview
At the end of an exciting, painful and earthshaking year, Bono reflects on the political and the personal – from drop the debt, September 11, Afghanistan and Genoa to the death of his father Bob, the birth of his son John and the enduring friendship which underpins U2’s music and career. Interview: Niall Stokes [this interview originally appeared in the spectacular Hot Press Annual 2002 - used in the pictures below - a very limited number of this unique collectors item will shortly be on sale - email u2@hotpress.ie to reserve a copy]
2002-12-16 - Interview
I’d always have said that Irish people were good at huddling. Our history and our climate, not to mention the controlling influence of the Roman Catholic Church, had tended to give us an inward-looking aspect. We had a thing about bars, matter a damn how dark or gloomy they might be. What we wanted, it seemed, was good place to whisper and to hide.
2002-06-10 - Interview
What we find is an artist on top of his game, treating us to a thoroughly competent and engaging exposition of what he can do
2002-05-23 - REVIEW
Soul-searching at the end of a poignant year with the girl from the north country. The Andrea Corr interview: Niall Stokes
2001-12-06 - Interview
At the end of another eventful year, Andrea Corr takes time out to reflect on life, death, love, health, music and her role, off-stage and on, in the family that plays together. Interview: Niall Stokes
2001-12-06 - Interview
In the same week that an Amnesty International report highlighted the alarming incidence of RACISM in Ireland, NIALL STOKES offers one eye-witness example of just how unwelcoming this country can be. Additional reporting: PHIL UDELL
2001-09-13 - Frontlines
The glitz and glamour is but the tip of the iceberg a lot of blood, sweat and tears has also gone into making THE CORRS the huge success they are. And it s not just about the music either the tricky business they call show has to be negotiated too. NIALL STOKES gets the inside story from the captain of the ship, manager JOHN HUGHES, with supporting testimony from some of the crew.
2000-12-15 - Interview
Niall Stokes: With this record you took on responsibilities as a group which were significantly greater than had been the case before, in terms of shaping the record, being involved in production. How did that affect the process?
2000-12-07 - Interview
Niall Stokes: As a band you took more responsibility with In Blue you have a greater level of input into the production and so on. Was that a strain when you were doing it?
2000-12-07 - Interview
Niall Stokes: People would make an assumption that since The Corrs have sold millions of records, you ve already got it made. Does it feel like that to you?
2000-12-07 - Interview
Niall Stokes: As the drummer in a band, you re occupying a seat that s normally occupied by men. Caroline Corr: It s a natural thing for boys to go for instead of girls. But I think there should be a lot more females playing. I don t know why they don t.
2000-12-07 - Interview
By any standards, The Corrs are an extraordinary phenomenon. It won't be long before the combined global sales of their albums to date top the 20 million mark. In Ireland alone, by the end of the year, they will have sold over a million records - at which point they may well have established themselves as the biggest-selling Irish act of all time on home turf.
2000-12-07 - Interview
SINEAD O'CONNOR has been many things - bona fide pop star, tabloid target, controversial activist, mother and priest. But, above all, she is one of Ireland's most compelling musicians. With a new album due for release, she talks to NIALL STOKES about love, sex, the Church, fame, racism and why "it's important to make it soul music." Pictures: MYLES CLAFFEY
2000-05-25 - Interview
He scored his first hit single as lead singer with Them in 1965, with Baby Please Don t Go . In 1968, he released his debut solo album Astral Weeks, which is widely regarded among critics as one of the most important and complete records of the past 50 years. But these are just two early landmarks in a remarkable career which finds Van Morrison still on top of his game 40 years since he made his debut with his own skiffle group, The Sputkniks, at a school concert in Orangefield in Belfast. In an exclusive interview, carried out for the RTE television series From A Whisper To A Scream, and published in the run-up to Van s latest Irish dates, he talks to Niall Stokes.
2000-03-02 - Interview
You look up 'skiffle' in the Chambers 20th Century Dictionary and it says "a strongly accented jazz type of folk music, played by guitar, drums and often unconventional instruments etc. popular about 1957".
2000-01-20 - REVIEW
Well done, Desmond! Most people in Ireland will be well aware of the controversy which has erupted following the speech which Archbishop Desmond Connell of Dublin gave recently concerning the church s teaching on contraception
1999-03-31 - Frontlines
The Corrs Talk On Corners was the biggest-selling album of 1998 in the UK. So far it s shifted 6 million copies worldwide and rising. And now the band are set to embark on their American campaign, with who knows what ultimate destination at journey s end. So they ve had it easy, eh? It s all a big marketing scam, masterminded by the moguls in the American record company that signed them? We thought you d like to know so we put these and other accusations to someone who should know, their manager of nine years, john hughes. And got some interesting answers too. Interview: niall stokes.
1999-03-03 - Interview
Having made his name in the folk arena with Emmet Spiceland, Planxty and The Bothy Band, DONAL LUNNY went electric with the ground-breaking Moving Hearts. In the second part of a wide-ranging interview reflecting on all of the major characters and plots in Irish music since the folk revival blossomed in the '60s, he talks about the demise of the Hearts, the impact of Riverdance, Shane MacGowan, Sharon Shannon, Altan, Coolfin – and what he'd like to do with Sheryl Crow. Tape: NIALL STOKES
1998-09-30 - Interview
It s been a long, long way from there to here and DONAL LUNNY has been at the centre of things every step of the journey. He has achieved enormous acclaim and considerable success with Planxty, The Bothy Band and Moving Hearts. Now with the launch of his latest band and their eponymously titled album COOLFIN, he takes time out to reflect on all of the major figures who have contributed to the extraordinary revival of folk and traditional music that has taken place over the past 30 years. He also recalls the highs and the lows the heartbreak, the good times and the great music that he himself has enjoyed as one of Ireland s finest and most influential musicians. Interview: Niall Stokes. Pics: Colm Henry
1998-09-16 - Interview
The Republic of Ireland's pallid 2-0 defeat by Argentina in last week's international friendly showed that MICK McCARTHY's time and resources are becoming increasingly limited, as Yugoslavia and Croatia loom over the horizon in the Euro 2000 qualifiers. NIALL STOKES asks: "What is to be done?"
1998-04-15 - Frontlines
The initial rumours were that it was going to be a rock n roll record . Then subsequent whispers hinted at everything from trip-hop to techno to ambient. But U2 s eighth studio album, Pop, is all of these things and more. It s the first album since 1983 that they ve made without the assistance of Brian Eno, it s been a long time in the making roughly a full year, all told and it s selling like the proverbial warm buns. Here, NIALL STOKES talks to BONO and ADAM CLAYTON, as well as co-producers FLOOD, HOWIE B and THE EDGE, about its lengthy genesis and what the band hoped to accomplish in creating it. Pix: STEPHANE SEDNAOUI .
1997-03-19 - Interview
The news of Rory Gallagher s tragic death has sent seismic shock waves through the music world. Here was a man who managed to combine the gift of being an authentic creative genius with the even rarer gift of being a genuinely decent, honourable human being. Over the next six pages, Hot Press pays tribute to both the legend and the person, with contributions from the stars, friends, fans and colleagues who were touched by the Gallagher magic, and takes a trip through the backpages of an extraordinary career.
1995-06-28 - Interview
NIALL STOKES takes a very personal journey back through the music and memories of a friendship with a man he was proud to have known THE DRIVE to Cork was a lonely one. Ry Cooder on the deck, that sweet slide guitar shooting off tracers: the memories, stacked up like a vast rack of on-line CDs, kept slipping in and out of the engagement slot. No need ever to press the play button. Now and then I had to hold back the tears as the music of past friendship flooded the car and, with it, a terrible awareness of all the things that might have, but hadn't, been done.
1995-05-31 - Interview
Irish music is now better-placed than ever before to give the world what it wants to hear. Niall Stokes reports on the upbeat post-MIDEM mood.
1995-02-22 - News
Niall Stokes and Eoghan Harris – the article the Sunday Times refused to print
1994-02-23 - Frontlines
The end of the Republic of Ireland’s World Cup qualifying campaign was deeply unimpressive, not so much for the poverty of the results as for the manner in which they were achieved. And just when everyone was breathing a collective sigh of relief at the whisker-fine nature of our qualification, worse was to follow with the news of Niall Quinn’s critical knee injury. So what is the best way forward for Jack Charlton’s embattled troops? Analysis: Niall Stokes
1993-12-15 - Frontlines
When Pat Kenny steps before the cameras every Saturday, he attracts an audience-rating which is increasingly likely to threaten the long-standing supremacy of The Late Late Show in Irish broadcasting. But despite his popularity, the host of Kenny Live remains something of an enigma. In the first part of a wide-ranging interview he talks about everything from his first kiss to, well, the meaning of life. Interview: Niall Stokes
1993-10-20 - Frontlines
They go together like a horse and carriage. You can't have one without the other - or words to that effect. In fact, however, even rock 'n' roll has yet to invent an erotic language that does justice to the breadth and complexity of human desire. In pushing out the boundaries, madonna has taken on the role of sexual pioneer, and done it with courage and no little success. Niall Stokes weighs up the evidence . . .
1993-09-22 - Frontlines
When Siniad O Connor tore up a picture of the pope on the Saturday Night Live television show in the US recently, she unleashed a storm which has been swirling around her ever since, causing her at one point to announce her premature retirement from the music industry. One month on, bruised and weary she may be but Siniad is neither downhearted nor repentant. Having declared war on the Roman Catholic Church she is determined to keep taking the battle to the real enemy. Interview: Niall Stokes.
1992-11-19 - Interview
There is no question about it. He may look as if he's been dipped in a bottle of red ink but it is Adam who stands there bollock naked before the camera and the world on the back sleeve of the latest, long playing opus from the band whose name begins with U and ends with 2. And is that Eve who hovers topless behind Bono on the front?
1991-11-14 - REVIEW
It was a year when all manner of ecological malaise seemed to come home to roost. In particular the Sudan was in turmoil, putting our own nasty little problems of smog, toxic waste and criminal fish kills into sharp relief –
1988-12-15 - News
From a darkened studio in Artane to the bright lights of Top Of The Pops and beyond that 'Orinoco Flow' has taken Enya and all who sail with her on an unprecedented voyage of discovery. Niall Stokes joins the key figures as the flow swells into a torrent of success and is pleased to report that nobody on board is in danger of losing their bearings.
1988-11-17 - Interview
Nearly a decade after the release of their debut single, U2 are widely regarded as the No. 1 rock band in the world. But the album and the film "Rattle And Hum" depict another kind of reality entirely. Larry, Adam and The Edge talk to Niall Stokes.
1988-09-22 - Interview
Having already achieved a degree of acclaim with her soundtracks for The Frog Prince and The Celts -- with the release of her first fully-fledged solo album, Watermark , Enya seems set for the type of accolades reserved for major-league artists. Niall Stokes unveils the creative trinity behind the finished meisterwerk, talks to Enya and her collaborators Roma and Nicky Ryan, and ponders the question:what will commerce do to this thing of beauty?
1988-09-22 - Interview
The privilege of being given space in a newspaper to pontificate on the events of the past year is afforded to very few people. As such it is a privilege. The same applies to rock criticism in general.
1987-12-31 - News
On the release of "The Joshua Tree", Niall Stokes and Bill Graham talk to Bono, Larry, Adam and The Edge about the making of U2's tour de force.
1987-03-26 - Interview
Amid rumours and press reports that his career could be at an end, Larry Mullen reveals the truth about the extent of an injury to his hand that is becoming a common problem for rock drummers. Interview: Niall Stokes
1986-09-11 - Interview
Niall Stokes sees U2 light up Madison Square Garden in New York.
1985-04-12 - REVIEW
Niall Stokes sees U2 light up Madison Square Garden in New York.
1985-04-12 - Interview
It's hard to believe that it's so long since John Fogerty's last album. In the intervening time span, rumour and speculation flared intermittently about a new album in the marking - yet Fogerty, one of rock'n'roll's most tantalisingly enigmatic recluses remained silent.
1985-02-01 - REVIEW
In a mediocre year, there was one album which offered a complete vindication of our continuing belief in the power of rock’n’roll. Just one – but that one is enough.
1984-12-14 - News
Bob Dylan at Slane - The music, the magic, the mayhem and so much more...
1984-07-27 - Interview
After his divorce from Moving Hearts, dejection must have seemed almost like a friend to Christy Moore.
1984-06-15 - REVIEW
An occasion, a night to remember, an unrepeatable experience.
1983-04-15 - REVIEW
It is because we’ve been force fed dogma all our lives that there is such a reaction against organised religion among young people in Ireland.
1983-03-18 - REVIEW
Too often the assumption remains that seriousness, that angst, comprises the central ingredient in great songwriting.
1983-01-21 - REVIEW
? weighed the pleasure and the music itself was too often forced into the background by economic and business considerations.
1982-12-15 - News
As Clannad storm the charts, Niall Stokes reports on perhaps the most outstanding success story of the year
1982-09-17 - Interview
The time has come when we can no longer pretend that we’re in control. An incipient sense of cosmic disorder, for the past year gnawing away at the fringes of our collective consciousness, has suddenly become devastatingly palpable.
1982-08-06 - REVIEW
This is the point at which we finally jettison any attempt to lumpen Rory Gallagher with the HM crew, new or old.
1982-04-02 - REVIEW
Niall Stokes talks to Bono and The Edge about their 1982 Hot Press Poll victory.
1982-03-05 - Interview
The story of how Paul Brady was transformed from a superlative folk artist into a superlative rock artist in a blinding flash of light (well, fifteen years actually). Today's reading is by Niall Stokes.
1981-05-23 - Interview
There's a new star in the charts tonight, and throughout the land there is much rejoicing (especially in some of the more fashionable areas of London). One of punks more pathetic jokes, Adam Ant, forsakes his past of seedy night clubs.
1980-12-20 - REVIEW
ABBA have seldom been acknowledged by those who arbitrate or presume to arbitrate on matters of rock taste. Apart from a brief flirtation about five years ago, rock culture – in as much as the phrase actually signifies anything concrete – has continued to stick them with the legacy of their Eurovision success.
1980-11-22 - REVIEW
Somebody is onto something, that's for certain. To begin with the name has a touch of magic. Dexy's Midnight Runners suggests something illicit, even apart from the drug reference. It's both strong and open, pointed and evocative. And in the end it's accurate because it registers the desired connection – Dexy's Midnight Runners are a soul band.
1980-07-19 - REVIEW
Niall Stokes' 1979 My own album of the year was the Radiators ‘Ghostown’
1979-12-15 - News
The last year has been one of ups and downs for Thin Lizzy. Brian Downey elaborates for Niall Stokes
1979-10-04 - Interview
Searchlight On The Future. View From The Rear: Brian Downey. Occasional Angles: Phil Lynott. In the middle: Niall Stokes
1978-07-21 - Interview
On the surface, it might seem that Thin Lizzy have their eyes and hearts and minds on only one thing- the present.
1978-07-20 - Interview
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