Larry Mullen Jr., drummer of the rock band U2 has made a statement that has the potential to really irk frontman Bono and also has risked incurring his wrath. Larry Mullen Jr. has blasted the singer for cozying up to world leaders.
The rocker launched a tirade against the outgoing U.S. president George W. Bush and also meted out the same treatment for former British Prime Minister Tony Blair saying that both these world leaders were no greater than “war criminals”.
Mullen while speaking to British music magazine Q, said in his interview: “Tony Blair is a war criminal and I think he should be tried as a war criminal. Then I see Bono and him as pals and I’m going, ‘I don’t like that’.
Larry gets to have an opinion; he also gets to keep it to himself unless he’s thinking of making a change. But you also got to think it as we all have opinions and express it at will so Larry has done the same only if he could have kept Bono?s name out of the thing it would have been better.
The McCain campaign has been using a lot of songs without artists? permissions and they should have anticipated that someone is going to get mad at some point. They recently used the Foo Fighters? ?My Hero? for which the band was none too pleased about. The band said ?This isn?t the first time the McCain campaign has used a song without making any attempt to get approval or permission from the artist. It?s frustrating and infuriating that someone who claims to speak for the American people would repeatedly show such little respect for creativity and intellectual property. The saddest thing about this is that ?My Hero? was written as a celebration of the common man and his extraordinary potential. To have it appropriated without our knowledge and used in a manner that perverts the original sentiment of the lyric just tarnishes the song.? The Foo Fighters, along with Heart, Van Halen, John Mellencamp and Jackson Browne all want to have the campaign stop using their songs.
Rage Against The Machine are considering crashing the U.S. political parties this year when the Republicans and Democrats hold their nominating conventions later this summer reports antiMusic.
While the band only have one U.S. appearance set for this year (Lollapalooza,) Tom Morello said in an interview “There is the possibility that we will be playing at the demonstrations surrounding the Presidential conventions. The Democrats are in Denver, the Republicans are in Minneapolis. But we’re still looking into that.”
RATM staged a protest concert outside the Staples Center in 2000 as the Democrats danced the Macarena while giving their nod to Al Gore. That protest event ended in a near riot as fans and protesters turned violent.
This was perhaps my favorite moment of the Grammys, although Beyonce and Tina Turner rocked. Rihanna and Jay-Z won for best rap/song collaboration for “Umbrella”.
When the two made it up on stage, Rihanna made it clear that SHE was there to accept the award. As Jay-Z approached her side at the microphone, she held up a hand and kept him at a distance while she made her speech.
Nice way to thank the person who helped you win, huh?
Sorry girls, for all those that would swoon at the sight of Gary, Howard, Mark and Jason; if you have the boys up on the pedestal and like to whisper ?my hero? at the posters on your walls, the boys would like to correct you. They say they are far from being heroes.
It came in a recent interview where the boys realized how hard their families took it when they were away for just five days; and made them think about our real heroes ? the boys fighting for our country on the front line.
Ah that makes a bit more sense. The guys are getting sentimental in their old age; despite still looking fab in their thirties.
Gary says ?We?ve done 28 dates in Europe and being away from home for a long time is tough. You miss your family a lot. Christmas is just around the corner, it?s not easy for the lads fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. It makes you realize how lucky we are.?
Well its not life changing events boys but I am sure all your fans appreciate the sacrifice you all make to perform for them, get famous, very rich, and meet beautiful people. It must be so hard.
Singer Melissa Etheridge beat a bout of breast cancer and says she used that experience as the inspiration to write a new album free from commercial pressures or concerns about producing hits.
Etheridge made her name in the late 1980s and 1990s with gutsy songs about matters of the heart. But on her ninth album, “The Awakening,” she criticizes the Iraq war and sings songs reflecting her roles as an environmentalist, gay rights activist and Democratic Party supporter.
“I called my record company and said, you know what? I am going to turn something in and if you want to release it, great, if not fine,” she said in an interview.
“I basically came out of cancer and said I should only do what I love.”
Etheridge, 46, is best known for singing and playing guitar on raw-sounding hits including “I’m the Only One” and “Come to My Window” and “I Want To Come Over.” Her latest effort is her first album since 2004, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer and announced in 2005 she was cancer-free.
Her new attitude has impressed some early reviewers. Rolling Stone magazine said the album has more depth than her previous work and that “her illness means she’s earned the right to explore the big picture.”
Indeed, Etheridge wants her legacy to go beyond music.
On the eve of her latest album launch this week, she dined with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, whose documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” featured a global warming anthem by Etheridge that won an Academy Award this year.
Last month, she was one of four panelists who posed questions to Democrats running for the White House in a nationally televised debate sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign that dealt partly with same sex marriage and other issues important to the gay and lesbian community.
“I would like to be known as a good American. Someone who really believes in the dream of democracy,” she told Reuters this week. “I would like people to say ‘Oh, she really believes in American people — and she wrote some good songs too.”‘
After her cancer scare, media attention turned to the birth of twins last year with actress Tammy Lynn Michaels fathered with the help of an unidentified sperm donor. She also has two children with her former partner Julie Cypher, fathered with the help of sperm donor, rock singer David Crosby.
But Etheridge says her stance on gay rights is more about honesty than being an outspoken lesbian.
“I think we all understand that you can’t put the genie back in the bottle and that we are here and that gay people get born every day just like everybody else. It is not going to go away,” she said.
