Holy Ghost
by fat cherry » Sat Apr 06, 2013 11:06 am
soooo, sinc i dont subscribe any other hints as to what he's on about - should I have a guess? hmmm
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by Tenapenny » Sat Apr 06, 2013 11:45 am
in summary
claims regarding Bowie's recent career revival "if it was not for me there would be no David Bowie"
says that he gets on great with Liam Gallagher and "What Liam has to realise is that i'm only a part time pr1ck"
Mentions 2011 Glasgow meltdown storming off twice. Now has a new manager and off the drugs and cut down on drinking. Back on form with the release of Holy Ghost.
Says the last few years have been a hard time. My life was collapsing taking drugs to kill the pain. I stopped caring about my appearance, wanted to close the door and be like Howard Hughes but without the millions in the bank.
Puts his problem down to OCD but now back on the road and everything is clearer and sharper .
Oh and the normal tirade against Bono and U2.
I hope that it is a turn around.
claims regarding Bowie's recent career revival "if it was not for me there would be no David Bowie"
says that he gets on great with Liam Gallagher and "What Liam has to realise is that i'm only a part time pr1ck"
Mentions 2011 Glasgow meltdown storming off twice. Now has a new manager and off the drugs and cut down on drinking. Back on form with the release of Holy Ghost.
Says the last few years have been a hard time. My life was collapsing taking drugs to kill the pain. I stopped caring about my appearance, wanted to close the door and be like Howard Hughes but without the millions in the bank.
Puts his problem down to OCD but now back on the road and everything is clearer and sharper .
Oh and the normal tirade against Bono and U2.
I hope that it is a turn around.
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by Voodoo Billy » Sat Apr 06, 2013 1:20 pm
Didn't get as far as paying to read the bloody Times, nice use of a recent photo though, that cat must be at least 30 by now.
Purveyor of the 'semi-predictable one-liner (which) embodies the essence of the type of comedic crap we grew to love here. VB is a crazy fool'
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by meh » Sat Apr 06, 2013 2:04 pm
for all you cheapskates...
Ian McCulloch: Return of Mac the Mouth
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The Liverpudlian singer in his Eighties heyday London Features International
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Ian McCulloch sits on the floor of his home in 1981
The Liverpudlian singer in his Eighties heyday London Features International
Will Hodgkinson
Published at 12:03AM, April 6 2013
Halfway through our interview, Ian McCulloch recalls the moment when he realised U2 were going to be massive. It was during a sound check for a concert in 1980 when the then-unknown Dublin four-piece were supporting Echo & the Bunnymen, the band McCulloch had formed in Liverpool two years earlier with guitarist Will Sergeant and bass player Les Pattinson.
“Knobbo [he means Bono] came out and started telling the empty hall that it had been a wonderful audience,” says McCulloch, smiling at the memory during our meeting in a darkened corner of the bar in a Kensington hotel. “It was incredible. That’s when I knew that U2 and their brand of leprechaun-led rock would take over the world.”
McCulloch has been Bono-bashing ever since. “When I first heard U2 I thought: ‘They’re doing the same thing as us, but for the masses’,” says McCulloch, still looking every inch the rock star with his jet-black hair and ever present sunglasses even at the age of 53. “They bypassed whatever sense of cool we had so that they could make music for everyone. Even the name of the band is ingratiating. You too? God love him, though. Knobbo’s always been nice about the Bunnymen, despite everything I’ve said.”
Not for nothing is McCulloch known as Mac the Mouth. Alongside regular swipes at the man he refers to only as Knobbo, he also takes credit for David Bowie’s recent career revival (“If it wasn’t for me, there’d be no David Bowie”), and announces that his forthcoming solo album, a live recording of Bunnymen classics performed with an orchestra, is, to put it simply, “amazing”.
“It’s a Liverpool thing,” he says of his boastfulness. “You always want to make people laugh, as well as bring them to tears with your songs. It’s a survival instinct too, but the problem is that sometimes people take you seriously. That happened with Liam.” McCulloch and Liam Gallagher, two front men not averse to a slanging match, recently got caught up in a spat about the quality of Gallagher’s lyrics for his post-Oasis band Beady Eye. It culminated with Gallagher threatening to tattoo his lyrics to McCulloch’s forehead.
“You see, that’s a classic remark,” McCulloch. “I’ve always got on great with Liam, but he was going around saying that I was a prick, which is something a lot of people already know. What Liam has to realise is that I’m only a part-time prick.”
McCulloch’s big mouth sits in contrast not only to his songwriting style, which has produced such reflective, quasi-spiritual classics as The Killing Moon, The Cutter and Nothing Lasts Forever, but also to his fortunes. For much of the 1980s Echo & the Bunnymen really were the coolest band in Britain. Albums like Porcupine (1983) and Ocean Rain (1984) took a moody post-punk sound to a new level of ambition without ever losing integrity. Then, as U2 rose to ever-greater heights, McCulloch’s star fell. He left the Bunnymen in 1988, embarking on a solo career with erratic success at best and joined them again in 1997. He has been fronting the band, on and off, ever since. But over the past few years, things deteriorated for McCulloch.
In 2011 he had an onstage meltdown during an Echo & the Bunnymen concert in Glasgow, storming off — twice — after challenging an audience member to a fight. Increasingly, McCulloch looked and sounded less like an all-conquering rock star than just another guy at the bar of his local, talking about himself to anyone who would listen.
His 2012 solo album, a collection of heartfelt, intimate songs called Pro Patria Mori, was plagued by delays and was eventually self-released and crowd-funded.
Now he seems to have come through to the other side. He has a new manager, he has cut down on his drinking and he has stopped taking drugs — all of which means the good looks of his youth are returning after being buried for years under a layer of alcohol and cocaine-fuelled bloat. Musically, he is also back on form and later this month is due to release Holy Ghosts, a solo live album of orchestral reworkings of Echo & the Bunnymen classics, twinned with a new edition of Pro Patria Mori. Even the good looks of his youth are returning, after being buried for years under a layer of alcohol and cocaine-fuelled bloat.
“The last few years have been a really hard time,” he says, dropping the bravado for a moment. “My life was collapsing. I was getting bongoed [taking drugs] all the time just to kill the pain. That thing in Glasgow happened because I felt more alone than ever and I took it out on the audience — I was so paranoid that I forgot I was actually on stage. I stopped caring about my appearance. A lot of the people I turned to for help weren’t there for me. For a long time I wanted to close the door and tell everyone to f*** off. I was like Howard Hughes, but without the billions of dollars in the bank.”
McCulloch puts his problems down to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) he has suffered from since the age of five. “It’s non-stop — counting stairs, touching walls, all that. When I was getting bongoed I’d fuel it into writing mad songs and working all night in the studio, but a lot of the time the OCD stops you from doing anything. I remember one time in America, when I decided that I had to walk from one end of a hotel room to another without passing any lines before I could do the gig that night, which was completely impossible. Now I don’t ever want to let it get on top of me again.”
Now McCulloch is back to doing what he does best: getting out on the road with Echo & the Bunnymen while proclaiming the overriding greatness of both the band and himself. “Everything seems so much clearer and sharper now,” he says. “I want people who haven’t seen us before to say: ‘I can’t believe they wrote all those incredible songs, and that they’re the best band of all time’. Mates who have come to see me sing recently said that I’m back to sounding like I did when I was 18. When the band is on it, which we have been recently, it’s frightening. In 1981 everyone in music knew that Echo & the Bunnymen weren’t just head and shoulders above every other band in the world, but galaxies above them. We’re getting that feeling back again.”
Why, in McCulloch’s opinion, are Echo & the Bunnymen so amazing?
“The audience gets to see something they don’t see very often, and that is . . . ” he struggles to find the word, “. . . brilliance. And we don’t treat each gig like a popularity contest. Nowadays every band takes Knobbo’s approach, which is to talk to the audience like you’re making an Oscar speech. ‘How are you doing? I’m so thankful!’ and all that. These people should piss off and get OCD like me. Then they’d have more important things to worry about than whether people like them or not, like counting stairs.”
You might think all this boasting would get irritating. In fact, McCulloch turns it into an art form, especially as it is accompanied by graciousness to the people around him. “The thing about Knobbo,” he says, returning to his favourite subject after thanking a waitress for bringing him a plate of crudités, “is that he’d love to have a voice like mine. But he doesn’t so he has to wear cowboy hats instead. He does admit in interviews that he’s a knob-head every now and then, but so what? U2 fans can’t read.”
As he would no doubt tell you, there can only be one Mac the Mouth. It’s good to have him back.
Holy Ghosts is out on April 15
Ian McCulloch: Return of Mac the Mouth
1 of 2
The Liverpudlian singer in his Eighties heyday London Features International
Post a comment
Share via
Google+
Ian McCulloch sits on the floor of his home in 1981
The Liverpudlian singer in his Eighties heyday London Features International
Will Hodgkinson
Published at 12:03AM, April 6 2013
Halfway through our interview, Ian McCulloch recalls the moment when he realised U2 were going to be massive. It was during a sound check for a concert in 1980 when the then-unknown Dublin four-piece were supporting Echo & the Bunnymen, the band McCulloch had formed in Liverpool two years earlier with guitarist Will Sergeant and bass player Les Pattinson.
“Knobbo [he means Bono] came out and started telling the empty hall that it had been a wonderful audience,” says McCulloch, smiling at the memory during our meeting in a darkened corner of the bar in a Kensington hotel. “It was incredible. That’s when I knew that U2 and their brand of leprechaun-led rock would take over the world.”
McCulloch has been Bono-bashing ever since. “When I first heard U2 I thought: ‘They’re doing the same thing as us, but for the masses’,” says McCulloch, still looking every inch the rock star with his jet-black hair and ever present sunglasses even at the age of 53. “They bypassed whatever sense of cool we had so that they could make music for everyone. Even the name of the band is ingratiating. You too? God love him, though. Knobbo’s always been nice about the Bunnymen, despite everything I’ve said.”
Not for nothing is McCulloch known as Mac the Mouth. Alongside regular swipes at the man he refers to only as Knobbo, he also takes credit for David Bowie’s recent career revival (“If it wasn’t for me, there’d be no David Bowie”), and announces that his forthcoming solo album, a live recording of Bunnymen classics performed with an orchestra, is, to put it simply, “amazing”.
“It’s a Liverpool thing,” he says of his boastfulness. “You always want to make people laugh, as well as bring them to tears with your songs. It’s a survival instinct too, but the problem is that sometimes people take you seriously. That happened with Liam.” McCulloch and Liam Gallagher, two front men not averse to a slanging match, recently got caught up in a spat about the quality of Gallagher’s lyrics for his post-Oasis band Beady Eye. It culminated with Gallagher threatening to tattoo his lyrics to McCulloch’s forehead.
“You see, that’s a classic remark,” McCulloch. “I’ve always got on great with Liam, but he was going around saying that I was a prick, which is something a lot of people already know. What Liam has to realise is that I’m only a part-time prick.”
McCulloch’s big mouth sits in contrast not only to his songwriting style, which has produced such reflective, quasi-spiritual classics as The Killing Moon, The Cutter and Nothing Lasts Forever, but also to his fortunes. For much of the 1980s Echo & the Bunnymen really were the coolest band in Britain. Albums like Porcupine (1983) and Ocean Rain (1984) took a moody post-punk sound to a new level of ambition without ever losing integrity. Then, as U2 rose to ever-greater heights, McCulloch’s star fell. He left the Bunnymen in 1988, embarking on a solo career with erratic success at best and joined them again in 1997. He has been fronting the band, on and off, ever since. But over the past few years, things deteriorated for McCulloch.
In 2011 he had an onstage meltdown during an Echo & the Bunnymen concert in Glasgow, storming off — twice — after challenging an audience member to a fight. Increasingly, McCulloch looked and sounded less like an all-conquering rock star than just another guy at the bar of his local, talking about himself to anyone who would listen.
His 2012 solo album, a collection of heartfelt, intimate songs called Pro Patria Mori, was plagued by delays and was eventually self-released and crowd-funded.
Now he seems to have come through to the other side. He has a new manager, he has cut down on his drinking and he has stopped taking drugs — all of which means the good looks of his youth are returning after being buried for years under a layer of alcohol and cocaine-fuelled bloat. Musically, he is also back on form and later this month is due to release Holy Ghosts, a solo live album of orchestral reworkings of Echo & the Bunnymen classics, twinned with a new edition of Pro Patria Mori. Even the good looks of his youth are returning, after being buried for years under a layer of alcohol and cocaine-fuelled bloat.
“The last few years have been a really hard time,” he says, dropping the bravado for a moment. “My life was collapsing. I was getting bongoed [taking drugs] all the time just to kill the pain. That thing in Glasgow happened because I felt more alone than ever and I took it out on the audience — I was so paranoid that I forgot I was actually on stage. I stopped caring about my appearance. A lot of the people I turned to for help weren’t there for me. For a long time I wanted to close the door and tell everyone to f*** off. I was like Howard Hughes, but without the billions of dollars in the bank.”
McCulloch puts his problems down to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) he has suffered from since the age of five. “It’s non-stop — counting stairs, touching walls, all that. When I was getting bongoed I’d fuel it into writing mad songs and working all night in the studio, but a lot of the time the OCD stops you from doing anything. I remember one time in America, when I decided that I had to walk from one end of a hotel room to another without passing any lines before I could do the gig that night, which was completely impossible. Now I don’t ever want to let it get on top of me again.”
Now McCulloch is back to doing what he does best: getting out on the road with Echo & the Bunnymen while proclaiming the overriding greatness of both the band and himself. “Everything seems so much clearer and sharper now,” he says. “I want people who haven’t seen us before to say: ‘I can’t believe they wrote all those incredible songs, and that they’re the best band of all time’. Mates who have come to see me sing recently said that I’m back to sounding like I did when I was 18. When the band is on it, which we have been recently, it’s frightening. In 1981 everyone in music knew that Echo & the Bunnymen weren’t just head and shoulders above every other band in the world, but galaxies above them. We’re getting that feeling back again.”
Why, in McCulloch’s opinion, are Echo & the Bunnymen so amazing?
“The audience gets to see something they don’t see very often, and that is . . . ” he struggles to find the word, “. . . brilliance. And we don’t treat each gig like a popularity contest. Nowadays every band takes Knobbo’s approach, which is to talk to the audience like you’re making an Oscar speech. ‘How are you doing? I’m so thankful!’ and all that. These people should piss off and get OCD like me. Then they’d have more important things to worry about than whether people like them or not, like counting stairs.”
You might think all this boasting would get irritating. In fact, McCulloch turns it into an art form, especially as it is accompanied by graciousness to the people around him. “The thing about Knobbo,” he says, returning to his favourite subject after thanking a waitress for bringing him a plate of crudités, “is that he’d love to have a voice like mine. But he doesn’t so he has to wear cowboy hats instead. He does admit in interviews that he’s a knob-head every now and then, but so what? U2 fans can’t read.”
As he would no doubt tell you, there can only be one Mac the Mouth. It’s good to have him back.
Holy Ghosts is out on April 15
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by Tenapenny » Sat Apr 06, 2013 2:06 pm
I've got a copy now, and re-read the article, sorry no mention of the cat.
The online version has a bigger picture and I played spot the album covers with Mrs Tenappeny and won
BTW The paper also has a new picture of Mac and he does look well. I will scan and post tomorrow.
The online version has a bigger picture and I played spot the album covers with Mrs Tenappeny and won
BTW The paper also has a new picture of Mac and he does look well. I will scan and post tomorrow.
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by fat cherry » Sat Apr 06, 2013 3:19 pm
like the transaltion of 'bongoed'
Last edited by fat cherry on Sat Apr 06, 2013 3:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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by hieroglyphic city » Wed Apr 10, 2013 3:08 pm
“If it wasn’t for me, there’d be no David Bowie”.
There's a lot of great Mac quotes, but this has to be the best one. Hilarious!
There's a lot of great Mac quotes, but this has to be the best one. Hilarious!
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by Tenapenny » Thu Apr 11, 2013 1:58 am
There must be loads of Mac quotes, a new post or even a book?
Maybe he should have said “If it wasn’t for David Bowie, there’d be no me”.
My fav from this interview was “is that he’d love to have a voice like mine. But he doesn’t so he has to wear cowboy hats instead"
To tie in with the potential new album, could it be called "No Hat Required" or "Counting Stairs" , but that maybe something for another post.
Maybe he should have said “If it wasn’t for David Bowie, there’d be no me”.
My fav from this interview was “is that he’d love to have a voice like mine. But he doesn’t so he has to wear cowboy hats instead"
To tie in with the potential new album, could it be called "No Hat Required" or "Counting Stairs" , but that maybe something for another post.
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