U2: U2 Exit News Blog - U2 News, U2 Audio, U2 Video, U2 Lyrics, U2 Images, U2 Webcam Archive

U2′s ‘Baby’ is all grown-up in new version, says Bono

Posted by admin on Sep 12, 2011 in News & Rumors | Comments Off

U2 singer Bono has revealed that some of the biggest names in music have
contributed to a tribute to mark the 20th anniversary of band’s ‘Achtung
Baby’ album.

White Stripes singer Jack White, performing legend Patti Smith, UK group
Depeche Mode, and Irish songwriter Damien Rice are among the artists who
have recorded U2 covers for the record, due out this autumn.

“Jack White did ‘Love Is Blindness’, Depeche Mode did ‘So Cruel’, Patti Smith
did ‘Until the End of the World’, Damien Rice did ‘One’; the list goes on
and it’s a list of the most incredible artists,” said Bono.

The singer was speaking at a press conference at the Toronto International
Film Festival at the weekend to promote ‘Achtung Baby’ documentary ‘From The
Sky Down’, which charts the making of the album.

The U2 frontman said, on first listen, he had been hugely impressed by the
contributions to the tribute record.

“It’s strange, because when I hear the album (‘Achtung Baby’), all I hear is
what’s wrong with it. But when I heard all these artists doing it, I
thought, ‘That’s really good’,” he said.

He went on to speak of his delight about American singer, poet and visual
artist Patti Smith’s involvement, having been influenced by her when he was
growing up in Dublin.

“That opening line, ‘Jesus Christ died for somebody’s sins but not mine’ (from
Smith’s 1975 album ‘Horses’) when I was 16, I was like, ‘I do not know what
this woman is on about but I’d better find out’,” the frontman said.

The covers album will be tied in with a reissue, ’20 Years of Achtung Baby’,
due out October 31.

The six-CD set, includes the original ‘Achtung Baby’ album, follow on
‘Zooropa’, B-sides and reworkings of previously unheard material, recorded
during the Achtung Baby sessions.

An ‘Uber Deluxe Edition’ even comes with a pair of Bono’s signature sunglasses.

In the US this edition, containing six CDs, four DVDs and a 92-page hardback
book will be on sale for $170, and, in Europe, can be ordered for ?297.48.

Article source: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/music/news/u2s-baby-is-all-grownup-in-new-version-says-bono-16048450.html

Tags

U2 News

U2 Frontman Bono Gets Roasted

Posted by admin on Sep 11, 2011 in News & Rumors | Comments Off

• Download New Pearl Jam- Dave Grohl Vs Glee Round 2- Adele Tops Beatles and Pink Floyd- AFI Break Up A Hoax- Killwhitneydead Return- Evanescence Tease- more (top story)

• Nickelback To Deliver New Album, Double Singles and Tour (top story)

• Rolling Stones Reconvene? (top story)

• Anthrax Day in the Bronx (top story)

• Metallica’s Lars Ulrich Jazzed (top story)

• Chickenfoot Launch Video Series for New Album (top story)

• Iggy Pop and The Stooges Announce Rescheduled Dates (top story)

• The Dear Departed Set New Album Release and Stream New Song (top story)

• Hawthorne Heights Team Up With The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus For Fall Tour (top story)

• Sebastian Bach’s Tuff Talk Against Metal Sludge (top story)

• Saves The Day Deranged and Desperate (top story)

• Sting: The Best Of 25 Years Coming in October (top story)

• Danko Jones Add Tour Dates (top story)

• Close Your Eyes Announce New Album and Tour (top story)

• George Harrison Exhibition For Grammy Museum (top story)

• After The Burial and Veil of Maya Co-headlining The Crush Em All 2 Tour (top story)

• Anubis Gate Streaming New Song Online (top story)

• Rolling Stones Some Girls Tour Coming to DVD and Blu-Ray (top story)

• White Wizzard Explain New Album Title (top story)

• Needtobreathe To Make Late Night TV Debut (top story)

• Every Avenue To Join Yellowcard and Go Radio For Fall Tour (top story)

• Turisas Announces New Lineup (top story)

• Scott H. Biram Giving Away New Song (top story)

• Krisiun To Deliver The Great Execution in November (top story)

• Fanfarlo Deliver Replicate and Announce Tour Dates (top story)

• Trapped Under Ice Announce Album Release Shows (top story)

• Panic! At The Disco and Patrick Stump Tour- Drink Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth- Ryan Adams Leak- Langerado Canceled- more (top story)

• Red Hot Debut For The Red Hot Chili Peppers (top story)

• New Aerosmith Studio Video (top story)

• Slash DVD Set For Release (top story)

• The Rolling Stones Ed Sullivan Appearances Coming To DVD (top story)

• Arcade Fire, Eddie Vedder, Dave Matthews and Foo Fighters For Bridge School Benefit (top story)

• Peter Murphy and She Wants Revenge Tour (top story)

• Dream Theater Expand Tour Plans (top story)

• South Park Leaks New Primus Album (top story)

• Bill Wyman Box Set Coming In October (top story)

• Of Mice Men Lead 2011 Outbreak Tour Lineup (top story)

• Fearless Friends Tour 2011 Announced (top story)

• Kyuss Lives With Plan B Following Oliveri’s Arrest (top story)

• Riot Announce Tour and New Album Details (top story)

• Noah and the Whale Plan North American Fall Tour (top story)

• The B-52s Hit The Road And Are Releasing Live Album and DVD (top story)

• Five Finger Death Punch’s Wildest Mosh Pit (top story)

• Me Talk Pretty Plan Fall Headline Tour (top story)

• Metalheads Vs New Zealand Music Awards (top story)

• The Pretenders Go High Def (top story)

• Les Paul Memorial Event Planned This Weekend (top story)

• Slacker Launches Grunge: 20 Years Later Radio Station (top story)

• Mudhoney Star Says Grunge Allowed Ugly People To Rock (top story)

• Magnum’s Evolution Coming (top story)

• Jonathon ‘Boogie’ Long Crowned King of the Blues (top story)

Subscribe to Day in Rock Report by Email

Article source: http://www.antimusic.com/news/11/sep/ts08U2_Frontman_Bono_Gets_Roasted.shtml

Tags

U2 News

Toronto 2011: U2′s Bono shows ‘em how it’s done

Posted by admin on Sep 11, 2011 in News & Rumors | Comments Off

In its 36 years, the Toronto International Film Festival has rarely opened with a non-Canadian film and never opened with a documentary. On Thursday night that all changed, as North America’s most prestigious film gathering kicked off this year’s edition with Davis Guggenheim’s U2 documentary “From the Sky Down,” trading patriotism for pizzazz.

Bono and The Edge both walked the red carpet and took the stage of the festival’s Roy Thomson Hall before the premiere of the film, which pulls the curtain back on the band’s artistic methods.

The lead singer offered a wry assessment from the stage about why he and the rest of the band had hesitated to cooperate on this kind of film before.

“We are very protective of our privacy and particularly the creative process, not just because we’re precious, which we are, but just because it’s not that pretty,” he said. “[It's] that old adage that if you knew what went into the sausage you wouldn’t eat it. You got some sausages and mash coming up, ladies and gentlemen,” he added, to laughter from the audience.

The film is a rather procedural look at how the band traveled to a studio in post-Communist Berlin to put together the 1991 album “Achtung Baby” at a critical moment in the band’s history. Members argued over how much to experiment with new musical styles in the wake of the disappointment of their previous album, “Rattle Hum,” and how much to move away from the more straight-ahead ballads of “The Joshua Tree.”

In the end, the impulse toward more experimental music won out, and it resulted in a mega-selling record that yielded hits such as “One” and “Mysterious Ways.”

Bono’s comments in the film were sometimes funny, but much of the movie is abstract, insider stuff about how he and others find inspiration. While some interview moments and new footage throw a genuine light on the creative process, Bono is also prone to offering homilies like: “The best way through writer’s block is to be truthful.”

The Edge told the Toronto crowd that he was aware of the pitfalls. “It’s a subject that in the wrong hands could be really kind of indulgent,” he said before the screening. (Guggenheim, the issue-oriented American filmmaker behind “An Inconvenient Truth” and “Waiting for Superman,” told 24 Frames earlier this week that he believes the film is “for anyone who is interested in how songs get written.”)

At the screening, the audience was clearly enthused, but in a Canadian way; there was a refreshing lack of hysteria when the rock stars took the stage to introduce the movie. Even with all the firsts, some things don’t change.

Toronto 2011: Six juicy storylines worth following

Toronto 2011: Our guide to festival films, in photos

– Steven Zeitchik in Toronto
twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT

Photo: Bono, Davis Guggenheim and The Edge arrive at the Toronto premiere of “From the Sky Down.” Credit: Evan Agostini / Associated Press

Article source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2011/09/bono-u2-the-edge-toronto-sky-down-guggenheim.html

Tags

U2 News

U2 TIFF Doc ‘From the Sky Down’ Reveals ‘Achtung Baby’ Secrets, But is it Too …

Posted by admin on Sep 11, 2011 in News & Rumors | Comments Off

AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Nathan Denette

Legendary rock critic Lester Bangs was firmly against the idea of music writers becoming friends with musicians because he felt that it ruined the writer’s ability to write honestly about the music. While U2‘s Bono, The Edge and director Davis Guggenheim argued that their relationship was at least a little bit adversarial during their recent press conference in support of ‘From The Sky Down,’ the film still would have been a little too-friendly for Bangs’ tastes.

The documentary, which explores the making of ‘Achtung Baby’ in the wake of the album’s 20th anniversary, is occasionally too nice. It’s pretty and glossy, but there’s very little bite to it. Taken at first glance, it’s simply too gentle to be anything more than pleasant viewing for the casual fan. But when you scratch beneath the surface, Guggenheim’s somewhat amiable relationship with his subjects does foster some very interesting revelations.

Without the comfort and trust that Guggenheim seems to have developed during the course of filming, many of the film’s best moments could have easily not happened. It’s unlikely that a less skilled and mannered director could have convinced The Edge and Bono to sit down and listen to early DAT recordings of the song that would eventually become ‘Mysterious Ways’ and discuss its evolution, not to mention the genesis of ‘One,’ in such an unguarded manner. These glimpses behind the curtain of U2′s creative process haven’t really been seen before, and are more than enough to justify the slight kid gloves treatment that the band get in other areas of the film.

So, too, is the surprisingly intimate portrait of Bono that emerges as ‘From The Sky Down’ progresses. The Edge’s personal life is the one that’s most openly discussed in the film — Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. remain, as always, mostly ignored — but it’s Bono who appears to have risked the most in his subtly revelatory interviews.

Watch the Trailer for U2′s ‘From the Sky Down’

The film isn’t completely free of the kind of pretension, attention-seeking and humble bragging that have turned Bono into a bit of a caricature over the course of U2′s latter years. Anyone who’s seen ‘Shadow Play: The Making Of Anton Corbijn, ‘the documentary about the photographer and longtime U2 collaborator, will find some of the singer’s behaviour rather familiar here. He’s still prone to discussing U2, and all of the art surrounding them, with too much pomposity, and can never really fight his need to be the most clever person being interviewed.

But there’s a lot lurking under the surface of Bono’s rather immense ego, and the relatively safe environment that Guggenheim has created comes as close to revealing that inner life as U2 fans have seen in a very long time.

If Guggenheim had displayed any less patience with Bono, if he had forced anything, it’s unlikely that the director and frontman would ever have made it to the point where they can discuss things like the creation of ‘The Fly’ character, and how Bono’s rock star persona was consciously cultivated to protect the fragile and sensitive man behind the sunglasses.

Bono admitted as much when he discussed Guggenheim’s style at the press conference. “I felt like I was being mugged, and what really annoyed me was that I didn’t know I was being mugged because of the way he carries himself. It was a sleight-of-hand, and I’m used to having a bit of arm wrestling.”

The singer was so alarmed by what he saw in rough cuts of the film that he complained to the director, but Guggenheim stood firm on this issue, and refused to change anything just to please his subject.

So maybe the real journalistic lesson of ‘From The Sky Down’ isn’t just that a friendly environment can encourage some really powerful material, but also that you still have to maintain enough distance from your subjects at day’s end to keep those moments from landing on the editing room floor.

Follow @Spinner on Twitter | Like Us on Facebook | Sign Up for Our Newsletter

Article source: http://www.spinner.com/2011/09/11/u2-doc-from-the-sky-down-tiff/