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Gulf Today
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Gulf Today
Live Aid: ‘We switched it off when Status Quo came on'
Forty years ago this weekend, two concurrent concerts were held in London and Philadelphia in aid of relieving a brutal famine that had taken hold of Ethiopia. The legend of Live Aid has grown exponentially ever since. But each retelling draws upon the same familiar names and faces, the cameras trained on the contemporary darlings of Geldof and Collins, Freddie and Diana. The many millions who watched on from home are treated as a matter of scale, not depth. They are remembered as an amorphous blob of common opinion, a simplified version of the public that in reality can never exist. And yet four decades from the event itself, each individual person retains their own individual memory, full of colour and life and utterly unique to themselves. Peter Collins was one of the lucky ones. He grew up in Belfast, playing in bands and exploring the punk scene, a devoted reader of Melody Maker and the NME. Early in the morning on 13 July 1985, he and his schoolmate Alan headed for Belfast City Airport, bound for Heathrow, then London and Wembley. Already, he had a hunch that it was a day that he'd be talking about for years to come. Forty years later, he still remembers almost every detail. There was the young boy in the crowd who waited all day for David Bowie, only to suffer an epileptic fit at the very moment he took to the stage; the people with picnic blankets and baskets; the tray of room service sandwiches delivered up to their hotel room later that night. In fact, the only thing missing from Peter's memory is the music. 'We were going to it not because of how good the bands would be,' he explains. 'We were going to it because it felt like that was going to be the thing that was happening on that day, the thing that everybody in the world was going to be aware of.' Paul Rance was 25. He watched Live Aid from a sleepy village in the depths of rural Lincolnshire and describes it as one of the greatest days of his youth. 'For people who were a bit older than me, it would have been a bit like seeing England win the World Cup,' he says. 'A big communal event. It felt like Woodstock to me.' Joanne Ash was only nine. Sometimes she is unsure of which parts of the day really happened and which parts have been backfilled into a kind of false memory. Certainly, she recalls having been at a birthday party, the television blaring all day long inside the house as the guests filtered in sporadically from the outdoor sunshine. The party was in Feltham, a town on the western outskirts of London, less than 15 miles from Wembley Stadium. 'I'm convinced that we could hear it,' says Joanne. 'I've got this idea that we were in the garden going — did you hear that?! I'm sure it was round about the Queen performance. It was just a roar.' At just nine, she stood within earshot of the centre of the universe. Eighteen-year-old Simon Moffatt could hardly have been further away. He and his friends were on a holiday, walking between youth hostels in southwest Wales, with two of the group celebrating their birthdays. 'It was quite a big week for us, really. We would have just finished our A-levels. You get to that age and your whole friendship group starts to disband. 'One of our group had brought a little transistor radio with them. We arrived at this little bay, this tiny little bay in southwest Wales, and put this transistor radio on, listening to Status Quo (opening the concert with) 'Rockin' All Over the World'. Keith Webb travelled from Grimsby for the concert. He'd been to big gigs before, but this one felt different. 'I wasn't there for an audiophile experience,' he says. RM Clark, The Independent
Time Out
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Dennis Morris: ‘Music + Life'
The Jamaican-born, London-raised photographer Dennis Morris is best known for his portraits of Bob Marley: a teenaged Morris, then a Hackney schoolkid, first photographed the reggae star in 1973, long before images of Marley were as unavoidable as those of Princess Diana, Che Guevara and Pope John Paul II. Morris contributed a great deal to the growing iconography around Marley, with his shots landing in splashes in the NME and Melody Maker (as well as the pages of Time Out). He went on to photograph the Sex Pistols and other reggae and punk icons, and there are plenty of stunning portraits of the likes of John Lydon and Lee 'Scratch' Perry in this hugely satisfying first UK retrospective of Morris's work. Morris's musical portraits are thrilling, especially given the chemistry he obviously had with Marley. But it's his 1970s documentary work capturing Black and Asian life in Hackney and Southall that steals the show. Morris clearly had a knack for showing up and making things happen and converting that talent into images which are valuable, essential moments in time. He captures the capital at a point when Black British and British Indian communities were becoming well-established in some neighbourhoods but were anything but integrated or widely accepted. One of his most remarkable photos is taken at a wedding of a Black woman and a white man: as the groom goes in to kiss his pristinely-dressed mother, the tension is remarkable. These images are valuable, essential moments in time Morris's story of how he went from a boy photographer to hanging out in Jamaica with Marley is equally remarkable, and it's teased out in this show by fascinating quotes that sit next to many images. Morris sold his first photo before he was a teenager and used to give the number of the phone box outside his mum's Dalston flat as the contact for his photo studio. (In reality, he'd hang a sheet on the wall and take pictures of locals – a few of those appear in the show.) His confidence led to him doorstepping Marley at the stage door of a London gig, and his career grew from there, with stints as the lead singer of Basement 5 (replacing Don Letts) and art director for Island Records (designing album covers for the likes of Marianne Faithfull) running alongside his photo work. Presumably whatever it was that appealed to Bob Marley also appealed to all the 'regular' folk he photographed, whether it's a young Sikh working in a family shop or a group of kids protesting to stop their squat being demolished. The 1970s and 80s are the stars of this show, so Morris's later work takes a back seat, although it's not ignored: a slideshow of portraits and live shots include Nirvana, Patti Smith, Ian Dury and Oasis. There's a small room away from the show's two main spaces which includes t-shirts and album covers. But it's Morris's shots of everyday life in east and west London that offer the most powerful moments and do a remarkable job of transporting us back to a pivotal and transitional chapter in the city's history.
Irish Examiner
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Ireland In 50 Albums, No 8: Tattoo, by Rory Gallagher
Rory Gallagher was in a sweet spot in his career in 1973, the year he recorded his album Tattoo. It seemed everything was building towards it, the good and the bad. His band Taste had disbanded at the start of the decade, which freed him to set up the Rory Gallagher Band. He was recording with his heroes, one year with Muddy Waters (1972), the next with Jerry Lee Lewis (1973). Melody Maker magazine voted him Guitarist of the Year in 1972, ahead of peers like Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jerry Garcia. 'Rory was embarrassed by the Melody Maker poll,' says Dónal Gallagher, his brother and manager at the time. 'The magazine was a bible for music fans. He didn't expect it. It was quite something. He had come out of Taste, which had imploded. It wasn't going to destroy his career, but he received a lot of bad press, which he refused to comment on – the other musicians blaming him.' Rory Gallagher working with Jerry Lee Lewis in 1973. His bad experiences at the end of Taste had taken a toll on Rory. 'Mentally, they almost destroyed Rory, but he decided to get up and go, and get back out there playing, to forget about the past and move on,' says Dónal. Gallagher got back on the horse with a vengeance. He had extraordinary stamina. In 1973, he played 160 gigs, including tours in the United States in the spring and autumn as well as hitting venues across Europe. His final gig of the year was on New Year's Eve at Dublin's Carlton Cinema. He also released Blueprint early in 1973, his third solo studio album, while finding time later that summer to bang out Tattoo. 'It was hard to catch your breath back then, the pace he was going at,' says Dónal Gallagher. 'It was a prolific time for him writing, done mostly in Cork. We'd stay at the family house on the Douglas Road. He was in his element. He was working on adrenaline. There was one or two nights, Rory and the band would come back from a gig at one or two o'clock in the morning and set up to record for a couple of hours, or Rory would go in and mix through the night. 'He didn't sleep. At that age, turning 25, you have the energy. Rory was a dynamo. He burnt himself out in the end, but he lived three or four lifetimes.' Tattoo, by Rory Gallagher. In July 1973, Gallagher carved out a couple of weeks to put some shape on what became Tattoo. His band was tightly knit at this point. Belfast bass guitarist Gerry McAvoy had joined him in 1971, and went on to spend 20 years riding shotgun. Classically-trained Lou Martin was on keyboards. Drummer Wilgar Campbell, who had a fear of flying, had left by mutual consent and was replaced by Welsh man Rod de'Ath. They were based in London, but it made sense to convene in Cork to rehearse the new album. 'We set up a recording studio at the Shandon Boat Club,' recalls Dónal. 'It was comfortable for Rory because he was at home. The guys loved staying at the Metropole Hotel. They always had great craic around the city. It was a very 'up' period. I'd describe it as his Cork album. It's a strong album from the Rory canon point of view because you've 'Tattoo'd Lady', one of the classics opening it.' 'Tattoo'd Lady' describes the life he was leading at the time: living under a canvas roof, roaming from town to town, like the circus or fairground way of life, and it captures his childhood memories. As a kid, Gallagher loved going to the Mardyke in Cork city to visit the fairground. It always caught them off guard when suddenly it would have disappeared, gone for another year. No trace left behind. The curiosities of the fairground are carved into the song, the shooting gallery, the penny slot machines, the bearded baby, the 'Tattoo'd Lady' herself. 'A track like 'Sleep on a Clothes Line' is also about the band's lifestyle on the road, living like a trucker,' says Dónal. 'For a month or more they never stopped. They kept driving through the night – that was the feeling. I remember my grandmother's bar on Cork's MacCurtain Street. A lot of customers who came in were dockers. They were so exhausted at the end of the day an expression they'd use was, 'God, I could sleep on a clothes line.' ''A Million Miles Away' is a far more sombre song. Rory used to stay in his bedroom for days on end. You'd almost have to bring meals up to him. He'd only come down occasionally. I told him, 'You need to get out of the house, get some sea air.' 'As kids, our grandmother used to take us down to Ballycotton. I remember driving a few us down for the day, my mother and himself. He disappeared out the cliffs. I started to worry because we couldn't locate him. I was heading back to call the coast guard when I saw him waving to me from the far cliff. 'I told him, 'You took the heart out of us. We thought you'd fallen off the cliffs.' He said, 'I just got inspiration for a new song. If I didn't sit down and write it there and then, I was going to lose it.' That I believe to be 'A Million Miles Away', looking out at the ocean, a million miles away, but at the same time he's in the bar with the band after a gig when his thoughts might be a million miles away. While it sounds a very sad song it's about getting peace of mind.' In early August 1973, Gallagher and his band travelled to London to record the album in Polydor Studios. The fourth track on the album, 'They Don't Make Them Like You Anymore', brought out the jazz influences that permeated Gallagher; jazz was also a guiding light for de'Ath, the band's drummer. The German Carlos Olms was the house engineer working on the album. 'It was very much the experiment of Carlos to have the studio in the basement of the Polydor office block building,' says Dónal. 'In this huge empty basement, he rigged up an echo chamber. It was the early days of echo. You could get a lot of hollowness, which you hear very much on A Million Miles Away.' Tattoo was released in November 1973. It received a favourable review from Rolling Stone magazine, believing it to be Gallagher's 'brightest and most joyful work, but still contains that streak of meanness which makes his live sets so powerful'. Donal Gallagher, brother and manager of the late Rory Gallagher. Picture: Ger Bonus What happened next Rory Gallagher sold more than 30 million records. In 1975, he jammed with the Rolling Stones as the band auditioned for a guitarist to replace Mick Jones, but Gallagher was happier to continue with his solo career. Through the worst years of the Troubles, he steadfastly gigged every year in Northern Ireland while his contemporaries bypassed the region. In 1990, he released Fresh Evidence, his final studio album. His health was failing, as alcohol, prescription drugs and 30 years on the road – often gigging 300 times a year – had taken its toll. He died June 14, 1995, aged 47. Read More Rory Gallagher and the town he loved so well
New Statesman
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
Martha Wainwright, in her own right
'Though I was a 'daughter of' twice over, doors seemed closed to me,' writes Martha Wainwright in her 2022 memoir Stories I Might Regret Telling You, recalling the difficulty she had getting her music career off the ground in the late Nineties. Wainwright – the daughter of the American songwriter Loudon Wainwright III and the Canadian folk artist Kate McGarrigle, and the younger sister of the singer and composer Rufus Wainwright – was born into a family renowned for its musicality. Yet far from the ease with which some might have expected her to glide into stardom, Wainwright found these associations worked against her. This was in 'stark contrast to the attention paid to the 'sons of' musical stars', she writes, naming 'all those boys' she hung out with in New York and Los Angeles: Teddy Thompson (son of Richard and Linda), Sean Lennon (son of John and Yoko), Chris Stills (son of Stephen), Harper Simon (son of Paul). Two decades on from that time, performing at London's Union Chapel in late May to mark the 20th anniversary of her self-titled debut album, Wainwright, now 49, is far from over this early push-back. After opening her set with 'Far Away', on which her voice retains the almost unbelievable balance of childish twee and adult gravel captured on the original recording, and 'GPT', named after Brooklyn's Greenpoint Tavern bar, she explains why it took her the best part of a decade finally to release this album in 2005. 'There was already a lot of Wainwrights in the room, and a couple of cute McGarrigles,' she says to laughs from the crowd – so the industry big shots weren't much bothered by her raw, untethered songs. How could she ever change that? Martha Gabrielle Wainwright was born in New York State in 1976. Her parents were living in Woodstock at the time, but they soon separated, and Martha and Rufus moved with their mother to her native Montreal, where they grew up in a bohemian, folkish family. Wainwright is often asked if her parents 'made' her do music, she writes in her memoir, and the answer is yes. 'But I liked it and I wanted the attention and fun of performing. I was a misfit, and often unhappy, but singing and playing made me feel good.' But she doesn't consider herself 'naturally gifted. I don't hear music in my head… I get intimidated.' No wonder, given her relatives. Loudon Wainwright (now 78) is a Grammy Award-winning songwriter of tracks that have become classics of Americana, including 'The Swimming Song' and 'Motel Blues'. Meanwhile Kate and her sister Anna McGarrigle (Kate died in 2010; Anna still lives in Montreal) are Canadian folk royalty: their self-titled 1976 record was Melody Maker's 'best record of the year', while The McGarrigle Hour (1998, featuring Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt) remains a stalwart of the modern folk canon. This musical prowess continued into the next generation: Rufus Wainwright signed to DreamWorks Records when he was 22, had hundreds of thousands of dollars poured into his 'artist development' and is now a household name for his baroque pop, as well as his soundtrack and opera work. 'Growing up, I never played the piano – how could I with my brother wailing away on it day and night?' Wainwright writes. Numerous aunts and cousins of the Wainwright-McGarrigle clan are musicians too. At the Union Chapel, Martha's cousin Lily Lanken (Anna's daughter) sings backing vocals. But it wasn't just that her family all wrote and played songs; they wrote and played songs about each other – and no one was more candid than Loudon. Martha Wainwright's father was absent for much of her childhood, 'almost denying my existence', she writes. She portrays a man who instead of caring for his family wrote songs about them. When she was 14 and he was 44, Martha was sent to live with Loudon in New York City for 'a year of discontent'. His song 'Hitting You' is based on that year. Over lively guitar he recalls hitting Martha in the car when she was much younger, moving on to how he felt the need to hit her again: 'These days things are awful between me and you/All we do is argue like two people who are through/I blame you, your friends, your school, your mother, and MTV/Last night I almost hit you/That blame belongs to me.' It's brutal. A decade later, Wainwright learnt that another of her father's songs, 'I'd Rather Be Lonely' – which she'd always thought was 'a bit stupid and mean-spirited', and probably about a girlfriend – was actually about that same year with her. She was in the crowd at a Loudon Wainwright concert, having opened for him, when he introduced the next song as being about his daughter, and proceeded to sing: 'You're still living here with me, I'd rather be lonely/All the time I look around/For excuses to leave town/Everybody wants somebody, but I'd rather be lonely.' It's no wonder, then, that when Wainwright came to write, her songs burst out with a wily, frenetic energy, as though charged with resentment for her father's tunes and insistent on making their own mark. Many of the tracks from Martha Wainwright use unusual guitar tunings – 'what I thought were genius tunings,' she says at the Union Chapel, 'now it turns out they're just a pain in the ass' – a lot of piano, and rickety drums. On stage she introduces 'Ball and Chain' as a song of 'desperation, about wanting to be loved and desired', before giving in to its jangling intensity, anchored by her five-piece band. On the fan favourite 'Factory' she sings, 'These are not my people/I should never have come here,' with ferocity. Yet as the song goes on, her vocals, elsewhere hard edged, morph into a beautiful sloppiness, her vowels soft around these words as her body, too, finds an elastic effect, her legs bending and slinking below her guitar. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe If Wainwright's assertion of being withheld the full benefits of nepotism because of her gender is hard to swallow for those of us who will never have the luxury of benefiting from nepotism whatsoever, another of her declarations is undeniable: that unlike Loudon and Rufus, her career has been held back by motherhood. Wainwright is the mother of two teenage boys, their father her ex-husband and former producer Brad Albetta, who comes off particularly badly in the memoir. In London she plays an unreleased track, singing: 'I chose my children over my career/But I still have to feed them and they are dear/And that is why we are here tonight.' Further into the song, she reflects: 'I sound more like my father every day/But I can't call him on Father's Day.' She is being at least partially comedic, the song a wink to the audience who know exactly who her father is – and that he writes about her too. All of this is, of course, part of the appeal. 'She's got her father's wit,' one woman behind me whispers, approvingly. But the song's point is potent: Wainwright is one of many women whose careers have not run as ascendant a course as they might have had they not paused to have children. That hits harder for Wainwright, given her absent father continued to garner renown as a prolific songwriter. Although her family patter occasionally feels like theatrical shtick, it ultimately lends a melancholia to Wainwright's performance, reinforcing her belief that she hasn't found proper success in the context of her family name. 'In so many ways, my career is a failure,' she writes in her memoir. It's immensely sad, because these songs are fantastic. They are jagged, raucous, yet introspective things, and live, her unburdened stage presence and full-bodied guitar-playing makes them all the wilder. Martha Wainwright was acclaimed upon its release 20 years ago, but never placed higher than 63 in the UK charts, and 43 in the US. The six albums she has released since then have been similarly well received by critics without breaking through into the mainstream. But it is a feat to sell out a 900-capacity venue, in a country that is not your own, playing a record that's two decades old. Wainwright's cult listeners don't care that Rufus isn't there to join her on her rendition of her brother's song 'Dinner at Eight' (about Loudon, of course) – yet she still sounds apologetic when she tells them so. They do, however, care for the single encore track, the rambunctious 'Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole', first released on an EP in 2005, included on the debut record, and now performed by Wainwright solo on acoustic guitar. It's the song that made her name, although she doesn't play it often any more. It is typically – and wrongly – described as a song about Loudon. Wainwright admits she once told a journalist it was about her father, which probably didn't help the matter. But really it is about the industry, about 'getting the short end of the stick' in her career, she writes – being that 'daughter of' rather than 'son of'. 'I will not pretend/I will not put on a smile/I will not say I'm all right for you/When all I wanted was to be good/To do everything in truth,' she sings, boldly and then softly. Martha Wainwright will always be a Wainwright. It is up to her whether she chooses to write like one. [See also: Keir Starmer's grooming gang cowardice] Related
Campaign ME
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Campaign ME
K-pop star takes lashes on a ride in the latest Maybelline campaign
Maybelline New York has launched a new campaign across the APAC region featuring Chinese singer NingNing, a member of K-pop group aespa, as its new Asia brand ambassador. Dubai-based post-production house Singularity UAE was brought on board to lead the visual execution for the campaign film, building a stylised version of New York with a pink roller coaster running through the city. The metaphor – 'take lashes on a ride' – supports the promotion of Maybelline's Sky High Mascara and aims to capture both product energy and a sense of visual spectacle. The film was shot entirely in green screen and directed by Melody Maker. It was produced by Fresh Films London, with creative led by Gotham New York and support from Seoul-based service company Amazing People. With vibrant textures, dynamic movement and pop-forward art direction, the film blends music video sensibilities with cosmetic brand storytelling. Fast-paced VFX and camera trickery drive the high-energy aesthetic, while the pink roller coaster and stylised cityscape add a layer of visual metaphor. Built entirely from green screen footage enhanced by hyper-real CGI, the spot delivers a polished and playful take on a familiar urban backdrop. Post-production was handled entirely by Singularity UAE, who delivered the final creative in coordination with multiple stakeholders across time zones. 'A global campaign of this scale demands a custom-built workflow,' said Zubin Mistry, Founder and Executive Producer at Singularity. 'Our team worked across five time zones, coordinating creative reviews, online sessions and ensuring a flawless delivery process.' Marking Maybelline's first collaboration with NingNing, the campaign was rolled out in mid-2025 and is currently running across digital, out-of-home screens and activations in China, Korea, Japan, Vietnam and other countries in the region. For Singularity, the project is part of a growing slate of international work highlighting the UAE's capabilities in high-end post-production and global campaign delivery. Credits Client: Maybelline New York Creative agency: Gotham New York Director: Melody Maker Production company: Fresh Films London Service production: Amazing People Post-production: Singularity UAE
