“What is this that stands before me? Figure in black which points at me?” This is a line from Black Sabbath, the signature tune of the immensely successful 1970s Mogadon-driven heavy metal band of the same name. The band’s former lead singer, Ozzy (John) Osbourne – who sang these very lines before continuing with “oh, no, no, please God
There are two beginnings to this Britney Spears experience, and they are both salutary. The first arrived from an unexpected place. One of rock music’s most famous photographers, Pennie Smith, a sincere, respectful and grounded person who has captured the images of countless famous musicians and singers over the course of the past 30 years, was asked recently what
She’s been known to moan about her lot in the record music industry, but Aimee Mann is, possibly more than most, justified in making her continual barbed statements: fact is, she has been well and truly shafted. Since her days in US pop/rock band ‘Til Tuesday in the late 1980s, Mann has released solo album after solo album that
“If one hopes to live a long life then one can look back and think that so many years have passed, but I’ve done so much in the past 40 years. I’ve produced work, produced children, I keep working, I keep trying to live in the present, and staying healthy. I look to the future, actually. I don’t divide
Not that it matters, but if one were to apply the ‘granny’ rule, then Ed Sheeran is undoubtedly the biggest star to emerge from Ireland in quite some time. “Both of my grandparents are from Ireland – my granddad is from the North, and my grandmother is from the south, and I have family in Wexford, Galway, Cork and other
Matt Bellamy’s dressing room backstage. It is hotter than a very hot summer’s day, and the petite, voluble singer of Muse is sitting on a sofa, beside which resides a piano. Bellamy likes to have some time before a concert to go through some practice runs; he is a self-taught musician (he also plays improbably ornate guitar), and as a
What a guy; you ask Iggy Pop a question about the main turning points in his life and he takes pretty much the entire length of the interview time answering it. In normal circumstances, this would be – in the words of Beavis and Butthead, two badly drawn Iggy boys down with the Popman – a bummer. But we don’t
So here we are: just after midnight, October 25th, 2011, in Katy Perry’s dressing room at Belfast’s Odyssey. She is still dressed in her sparkly pink stage costume, has just completed a shake’n’hug’n’meet’n’greet with several troops of her fans, and welcomes us in with a whoop and a holler of “It’s my birthday! Glass of wine?” Well, it’d be rude
Tony Clayton-Lea is an Irish-based freelance journalist/writer/editor who writes on music, arts, and pop culture (and travel/hospitality) for a variety of print and online outlets.
Email: tclaytonlea@gmail.com
This is the personal website for Tony Clayton-Lea.