Fully illustrated 64-page clothbound book and enhanced CD recording of Peter and the Wolf, with music by Sergei Prokoviev interpreted by Gavin Friday and the Friday/Seezer Ensemble, with a behind the scenes documentary, photographs and original paintings by Bono, with help from Jordan and Eve Hewson. Royalties from the project benefit the Irish Hospice Foundation who work to provide better care for people with terminal illness.

• Enhanced CD including a documentary of the making of Peter & The Wolf
• Produced and arranged by Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer
• Narrated by Gavin Friday
• The Friday-Seezer Ensemble are: Gavin Friday, Maurice Seezer, Renaud Pion, Michael Blair, Julia Palmer, Gareth Hughes, Des Moore, Catriona Ryan
• Length 27 minutes
• Book: 200 x 124mm/ 4 7/8″ x 7 7/8″
• Illustrated by Bono with daughters Jordan and Eve
• Full colour with colour cloth case
• 64 pages

More information at www.peterwolf.org or call The Irish Hospice Foundation +353 1 6793188 or email info@hospice-foundation.ie

• Back to Gavin Friday guest appearances and other projects

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First single from the soundtrack to Jim Sheridan’s In The Name Of The Father.

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Paul McGuinness

Good evening ladies and gentlemen. I’ve known Gavin and his band the Virgin Prunes for as long as I’ve known U2 and for quite a while in the early days the Virgin Prunes were the obligatory opening act for U2, so I saw them many times. Perhaps more often than I liked. And on one occasion… the Virgin Prunes had some extreme theories: Dada, Theatre of Cruelty, things like that, which didn’t always mix with the… the rock and roll. But on one occasion I do remember after the performance, excellent performance, given by the Virgin Prunes, Bono arrived in time for the U2 gig and he said to me: Why are the audience in such a bad mood? And I said: Well, Bono, it might have something to do with the fact that your friend Gavin has just been throwing pigs entrails over them. They were a very unusual band and one of their earliest fans was Ms Courtney Love…

Courtney Love

Hi. I’ve never actually even been inside Carnegie Hall. I wasn’t asked to do this show, I demanded to do this show.

I didn’t expect the task of introducing one of the most important precious figures and bands and siren call that framed my rock and roll life for better or for worse. Nor do I have any idea of who I am speaking to, so I will just simply speak my truth about Virgin Prunes and about Gavin Friday.

Courtney Love - by Wout-er

I was a pudgy 15-year-old from San Francisco who thought randomly and maybe… I just, I don’t know to just go to Ireland and blag my way into Trinity College and become a theologian, seriously, and I would maybe get to meet that guy with the angelic voice that sung I will follow. Why I picked Ireland? I don’t know, accident or intelligent design… random, I don’t know, but it was one of my life’s great experiences. I saw the band with the singer with the angelic voice and the guitar player who I just knew from the I will follow riff was beyond words in their return of their station wagon tour of the States to do their show at Punchestown.

It was excellent, however a few nights later at a pub called McGonagles I had my ass truly handed to me. They were magnificent. Can I curse? Anyway, un- ff-ing genius they were, they would obviously take over the world. Swagger, charisma, shamanism, fury. I had never seen and have rarely ever seen since so much sex, snarl, poetry, evil, restraint, grace, filth, raw power and the very essence of rock and roll which was [ ? ] that night by the Virgin Prunes. The storm that raged on that stage astonished me. At that time their reputation was on a par with my own – minus the stuff that we should all just forget.

I loathe, I seriously hate this concept that rock musicians are somehow vulgar and stupid, idiots and that we’ve never read a book – and some of us haven’t – that we haven’t read Middlemarch or that we don’t know that Shakespeare’s last play was [ ? ]. The Virgin Prunes are geniuses. Lucifer; arch and cunning to U2′s Gabriel; angelic and gorgeous, I can honestly stand here and truthfully say U2 gave me lashes of love and inspiration and a few nights later the Virgin Prunes fucked. Me. Up.

So for the first time in 20 years from the council estate of Ballymun to the most prestigious venue in the world where one brings ones diamonds, I am so proud to present for the first time in many years per incendia ut astrum – which means through the fire to the stars: The Virgin Prunes.

After Courtney’s introduction, the original members of the band: Gavin, Guggi, Dik were joined by J.G. Thirlwell (Foetus) to perform two classic Prunes songs: “Sweethomeunderwhiteclouds” and “Caucasian Walk”. Later during the show, Courtney and Gavin sang Magazine’s “The Light Pours Out Of Me” together.

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This is the setlist of ‘Gavin Friday and Friends’ as performed at Carnegie Hall.

Act 1

1. Apologia – Gavin
2. Children Of the Revolution – Gavin, Flo & Eddie, Bono, The Edge, Herb Macken
3. I Want To Live – Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen, Adam Clayton, Flo & Eddie, Maurice Seezer
4. He Got What He Wanted – Gavin, Antony, Maurice Seezer
5. Paul McGuinness memories of the Virgin Prunes
6. Courtney Love memories of the Virgin Prunes
7. Sweethome Under White Clouds – Gavin, Guggi, Dik, JG Thirlwell, Herb Macken (piano), Maurice Seezer (on drums!)
8. Caucasian Walk – Gavin, Guggi, Dik, JG Thirlwell, Herb Macken (piano), Maurice Seezer (drums)
9. Thief Of Your Heart – Martha Wainwright, Maurice Seezer
10. Ballad Of Immoral Earnings – Gavin & Maria McKee, Maurice Seezer
11. The Light Pours Out Of Me – Gavin & Courtney Love
12. Mr Pussy – Gavin, Scarlet Johansson & Rufus Wainwright
13. Benares Song – Gavin & Rufus Wainwright
14. A Rainy Night In Soho – Shane MacGowan, Maurice Seezer
15. Falling Off The Edge Of The World – Gavin, Maria McKee, Joseph Arthur, Jenni Muldaur, Flo & Eddie

Act 2

1. Cabaret / Money – Joel Grey
2. Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves – Gavin & Joseph Arthur, Jenni Muldaur
3. You Take Away The Sun – Gavin
4. Patrick McCabe reading from first chapter of Breakfast On Pluto
5. King Of Trash / 21st Century Boy – Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen, Adam Clayton and Flo & Eddie
6. Knives In The Drain – Lydia Lunch
7. Caruso – Gavin & Eric Mingus, Maurice Seezer
8. ‘Red’ ( a Poker Face improv) – Lady Gaga
9. Angel – Gavin, Antony and Flo & Eddie
10. Love Is Just A Word – Gavin, Chloe Webb and Flo & Eddie
11. Another Blow On The Bruise – Gavin & Edge
12. Time Enough For Tears – Andrea Corr, Gavin
13. The Last Song I’ll Ever Sing – Bono, Maurice Seezer
14. Improv – Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, John Zorn
15. Sonnet 40 – Gavin, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, John Zorn, Larry Mullen, Edge, Shane MacGowan
16. Sweet Jane – Gavin, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, The Edge, John Zorn, Larry Mullen, Edge, Shane MacGowan, Bono, Flo & Eddie, Maurice Seezer
17. Jean Genie – Gavin, The Edge, Bono, Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen, Eric Mingus, Courtney Love, Jenni Muldaur, Flo & Eddie, Andrea Corr, Herb Macken, Shane MacGowan (playing Bill Frisell’s guitar upside down) etc, etc

The band:
Doug Weiselman – musical director, arranger, clarinet, saxophone
Thomas Bartlett – keyboards
Steven Bernstein – trumpet, arranger
Knox Chandler – guitar
Bill Frisell – guitar
Hank Roberts – cello
Erik Sanko – bass
Jim White – drums

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And while you are enjoying the slideshow, remember it’s Gavin’s 50th birthday today… come add your wishes (no registration required).

Pictures by Eva van der Valk for GavinFriday.com, all rights reserved.

Pictures by Wout-er

Photos by Babette Ross

Photos by folie rufie

Photos by Gerry Visco

Photos by aphrodite in nyc

Photos by tibetjb

photos by cafeconflores

photos by Peddieart

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Full 30-minute interview with Gavin by BigThink.com.

Question: What was it like growing up in Ireland?

Gavin Friday: Well I was born nearly 50 years ago, so I was a child of the ’60s basically, which is a real blank. I really started growing up, I think, in the ’70s. I’m a glam-rock kid. But Dublin, Ireland in those days was a very dark place, as in it was a very poor, almost third world. Economically, the whole world is going through a recession at the moment. In the ’60s, ’70s, and the ’80s in Ireland was a real recession. It wasn’t a pleasant place. It was massive unemployment, we had huge political problems with the north and it was dull and gray. So I formed a band and tried to escape it all.

So it’s a great country; a really beautiful, great country, but it’s had its troubles. The last 15 years we had one of the biggest economic booms. We became — overnight, we became almost the wealthiest country in Europe. And last year, the bubble burst. But I think a few bubbles have burst in a few countries. So we are all going through the same things. But let’s say Ireland, in the ’70s and the ’80s was tough, but if you grow up with a tough background it makes you strong.

Question: How has Irish Catholicism influenced you and your work?

Gavin Friday: One of the biggest problems I found with Irish politics and the economic thing was after the war, after World War II, most of the European countries started to develop economically and socially, but whatever way the Catholic church they took a grip and they almost governed the country. I mean, we were almost like a dictatorship. There is good and bad, but we experienced an awful lot of bad, especially from the institutions that taught children the Christian brothers, etcetera. All those stories are all coming out now; not just in Ireland, in Canada, and all over the world. So it was pretty intense. The Catholic church [was] like our Edgar J. Hoover if you know what I mean. They ruled the roost. But it had a huge profound influence on me in that as you get older you realize that you can’t blame everything; that there is good and bad, and things get misdirected. So I would call myself a “black Catholic”. I still have this attraction to it because all religions I’m not a fan of. I’m a fan of sort of belief in spirituality. So I would be into Christ rather than the Catholics

Question: What were your main influences as a child?

Gavin Friday: I was a very shy child. I didn’t like football. I didn’t like the usual stuff that was shoved at. Sports were always down you and the Gaelic language, which I’ve actually disliked as a kid but as I grow up I quite like it. My real name isn’t Gavin. I was given Gavin Friday by my friends. I’m christened Fionan Hanvey, which is Gaelic and there is no actual English translation. I hated it as a kid but as I grew up I sort of went, “Now I like it.”

My main influences – I loved art. I sounds a little pretentious to say I was into art but I liked drawing. I liked music; music was my outlet from day one. I was giving you an image of Ireland being this dull, grey, massive unemployment, not much going on and the future was the dull queue or – and, for me, the window of hope was music and books. So I fell in love with sort of T-Rex and David Bowie very young. They sort of said, “Hey. You don’t have to live in this north side of Dublin that’s all grey and depressed. You can be a spider and go to Mars.” So music and books too. I read avidly as a kid. And that’s the beautiful thing about books and music and even movies, is that you can actually escape. You can go into other worlds.

Question: What was Lypton Village?

Gavin Friday: Lypton Village was an imaginary place really. It was a group of young guys that grew up around the same area. I grew up on a street called Cedar Wood Road and by coincidence my best friends that are around the age 10 became a guy called Bono and another guy called Guggi. And we just — it was music again. The fact that — that pulled us together. I lived at the bottom end of the street and they lived at the top end and I was quite shy as a little kid, but they found me quite interesting because I had the right albums underneath my arm. Those days where you carry the latest Bowie album or Roxie music album as you go to school. I mean you can’t play an album at school but you were being cool just showing, “Look what I got.” And I’m not into Meatloaf; I’m into Bowie. So I attracted their attention and I long hair and earrings when it was quite a risque thing to do in Dublin. We didn’t have the liberation that America and Britain in the ’60s but I did always look to England and America, mainly because of the music that came from there. But we became friends through music and we had real names, Fionan Hanvey and Derek Rowan — what a dreadful name. And Paul Hewson. We gave each other nicknames just the way most kids do, but the nicknames had more to do with how we physically looked or our essence and I had quite square features as a young kid.

Almost like there was this surge, this ad on the TV as surge pipe, called Wavin and it used to go, “Wavin Piping.” And this big square pipe would come. I can be full on at moments, so I was called Wavin for awhile, but I’m a bit softer — I’m a little softer than a surge pipe so they changed that to Gavin. I didn’t chose it, it was Bono and Guggi who gave it to me. And then Friday was added because I have a talent of getting on with most people. So it’s a bit of a man Friday thing. We gave each other these nicknames and then we didn’t — we had similar interests; we were into — it sounds really pretentious at 12, 13 year old kids were like into art and poetry, but we were. We weren’t into football, we were into making music or being into music and painting and stuff like that. And we called this sort of little gang Lypton Village and we made up imaginary games and this is one day we’ll form bands and one day we’ll make movies and one day we’ll do this and one day we’ll do that. But I think a lot of kids do this in their own way, except 25, 30 years later legend happens because some of us have become quite well known.

So the myth becomes magical. So I tend to sort of see it very practical for me. When I go out for a drink, Bono can buy the pints because he has more money than me. We’re the same guys, do you know what I mean

Question: What comes first when you perform: personality or musicianship?

Gavin Friday:That’s a tough one there. I’ve always — I mean, as a performer on stage, I tend to sort of throw myself into the character, whatever I’ve written about, so it depends on how I’m writing or what I’m writing about. A lot of singers don’t really know who they are. They have this massive insecurity and this massive ego and they are sort of pulled between both. I mean, why do you want a lot of people to look at you all the time and listen to you? There is something going on there, there is sort of need to express and attention. It’s not just ego, it’s some sort of complex thing and sometimes you create characters to say something you want to say and then you just throw yourself into that. In the last couple of years, I’ve been acting a lot more. I’ve done one or two movies; I’ve done a lot of work with the Roy Shakespearian Company and that’s been intense, baby I can tell you that.

I love the way an Irish man — they can hardly speak proper English — is doing Shakespeare. So I find that extraordinary as I get older. But I always see music, live shows, performances as moments and to really get there you’ve just got to actually get into the essence, flesh and the blood.

Question: How did you benefit concert at Carnegie Hall come to be?

Gavin Friday: It had nothing really to do with me. I was — I think it’s going back years. I think it was on some TV interview. A lot of people think, “Oh, what’s he at now. He’s doing this…” So what are you going to do next? And I say, “I don’t know.” What do you want to do? I say, “I don’t know. I just want to get better.” Who do you want to ****. “I don’t know.” And **** says, “Well where would you play?” I says, “Look. I’d love to play somewhere classic, somewhere legendary. A place where music was when music was; at Carnegie Hall.” I just said it like that. So it became this sort of — between my friends and different people — oh Gav’s going to play Carnegie Hall or Gav’s going to play Carnegie Hall. Blah, blah, blah. Oh maybe he’ll do Shakespeare in Carnegie Hall and it just became this thing over the years. Like a joke almost. And then my friends, as I was talking about, were all turning 50, slowly or quickly. And Guggi turned 50 in May. A gang of us went to a really nice hotel and had a beautiful weekend and we had a few drinks. My good friend Bono says, “Hey. You know what you’re doing for your 50th?” I said, “Do you know what? I don’t really care. Whatever. I want somewhere with my friends and loved ones and whatever. And he says, “I know what you’re doing for your 50th.” I says, “Really?” He says, “Yeah. You’re going to be working. You’re going to be making a show and you’re going to be working for Red.” When I have a few drinks on me, I can talk but I shut up for the night. So I was a little taken aback and it was sort of out of my control. I went, “What’s this about?” But the guy who is putting the show together, Hal Willner, I’ve worked with since 1988 and he’s a little bit of a genius, well that’s an understatement. He is a genius, in my mind. I’ve done many of his collaborations and shows and he says, “Let’s just see who wants to play with you and let’s throw the dice up in the air and see what comes down. I mean you’ve seen the cast. It’s pretty extraordinary.”

From Joe Grey to Rufus Wainwright to Martha Wainwright to Courtney Love to Maria McKee to Eric Mingus and Lydia Lunch to U2 as you’ve never seen U2 as it’s Bono, it’s Adam, it’s Larry, it’s Edge. To some ex-Virgin Prunes, Guggi and Dick to actresses, the incredible Elizabeth Ashley, Chloe Webb and more and surprise guests. Laurie Anderson and after I leave this interview, I go to rehearse with Antony Hegarty for a few songs. So what I am most excited about is a lot of music today is so over-rehearse, so worked out, so un-spontaneous; these events, we’ve got three days rehearsal and there’s been a lot of preproduction and thought and e-mails and letters and conversations, but you’re getting a group of musicians, almost like a workshop, that love music, that are like pushing it out there and spontaneously doing something. That’s a rare thing in these days. This — I don’t know what’s going to happen and I love that because in these days and age everything is so ordered and anal and music is about spirit and spontaneity. And that’s what we’re going to do on Sunday night.

Question: What do you want to achieve in your next 50 years?

Gavin Friday: Do you think I’m going to live until 100? I’ll have to — maybe Bono can arrange that. That would be interesting. Hey Bono, thank you for my 50th, can you make me live another 50 years? It’s just such a pleasure to be — and an honor. And you know what’s so great is that we’re making money for AIDS in Africa. There’s a lot of love and spontaneity, we’re doing something creative. That’s what I love about Red. It’s not just a charity, “Give us money, give us money.” It’s being innovative. Like here’s a show that you won’t see anywhere else and you can come and whatever you pay for your ticket it’s going somewhere. You can go and buy a pair of Armani shades, like Bono, but the money goes to Africa. It’s quite cool. But I’m actually quite modest. All I want is a nice car. All I want is a drink at midnight on Sunday night and I’ll be a very happy man.

Question: Why do so many successful artists come from Ireland?

Gavin Friday: That’s a tough question. We don’t have a long of natural resources as a country; we have a very beautiful country. Visually, I mean, everyone goes on about it’s green, it’s the mountains and the rivers and it’s clean and it’s not that populated. It is stunningly beautiful, but we’ve no oil. We’ve no coal. We’ve no money. We just have Ireland. But a weird theory I have is we come from a suppressed culture. We’re one of the most invaded countries ever. I think the British started it very early, it could be like 800 that decided to come and show us out; and the Danes in the north. We’ve had a tough time and pretty much a similar culture would be the Jewish culture; they had a pretty hard time. They were being kicked around for a long, long time.

So when that happens, and when people try to take your culture away from you, your essence of your culture becomes stronger. It’s like even in Africa. When you see African-Americans, they’re stronger because of what they’ve gone through. It’s even subliminal; I think it becomes in their genes. But our language was even taken from us. The Irish Gaelic language was outlawed and the religion was outlawed. Hence the religion later being stronger; stronger to a negative point of view. But our venge was — I mean if you listen to Irish language, it’s very complicated but it’s very poetic. To say hello in Ireland is Dia dhuit, which translated means “Sunshine of God on you.” That’s a lot nicer than “Hello”. Do you know what I mean? And goodbye is Go n-éirí an bóthar leat, which means “May the road rise with you,” which is a very well-known phrase. That’s a really nice way to say goodbye.

So there was engrained poetry and then when you look back at our history and in the 20th century, the last century, probably the greatest writers of the 20th century were Irish. You go from Beckett to Joyce to **** to Shaw to Oscar Wilde; you just go “Jesus, what’s going on here?” All these guys and the most famous book in the world could be Ulysses, after the Bible. But that was almost like our revenge on how dare you take our culture from us. So it became our only weapon, was our poetry, our music. And if you listen to Irish music, I think we’ve — they say that kilts came from the middle east. So really I’m an Arab. If you listen to the way they — listen to the way someone like Sinead O’Connor sang. It could be Muslim. You know that angst that sort of seanos. That wail. I think it’s in our genes. I think certain stuff is in our genes, like nobody can dance like a black guy. It’s in their genes. So we don’t have oil, but we have poetry.

Question: How has the Celtic Tiger economy changed Ireland’s art scene?

Gavin Friday: I am not a huge fan of the Celtic Tiger; I was so glad that you could see people being prosperous, that you didn’t see people begging, that the city started looking good, that people had jobs. But it was almost like if you have such a hard time for so long, then you turn around and give a kid a check for a million quid, they’re going to go nuts. And we went a bit nuts, we went up our ass. Suddenly every one started sounding very American which freaked me out. The “Oh my God” syndrome kicked in really quick and I got a freight. The bubble has burst. Time tells; time tells everything. We blew it too quickly, but it wasn’t totally our fault because the big boys that run those banks they messed up America, they’ve been up Europe, they’ve messed up the world. Really it’s the start of the 21st century. We’ve got to re-think things.

Socialism and Communism don’t work, but neither does straightforward capitalism. We’ve got to get a new way of thinking and working. We blew it so there was good and bad about the celtic tiger. But we’re tiny. There’s four million in the country, do you know what I mean? We’re tiny. Four million in a country, how many is in New York? Seven? Ten? But we’re strong, so hopefully we pull through. And you never really know until you get perspective a couple of years away. But I really disliked the fact that our culture is what make us and made us and will make us. And when money came in, we rejected it so quickly. Not even rejected, we didn’t think. We just got lazy and all the girls started getting fat and that’s not good is it

Question: What is alcohol’s role in creativity?

Gavin Friday: Alcohol. I mean, I like a fine wine. Who can beat that? I’m not drinking this week because it messes with my throat. But I can drink for Ireland if I wanted to. I don’t think it helps writing; I think it’s a hinderance. It helps numb you. If you’ve been working your ass — like I tell you, I will be having a few drinks next Sunday after that show is over. So it helps bring you down and chill you out and have a laugh. You’ve got to use alcohol and not let it use you. I come from a country that’s been doomed by alcohol. The Irish could drink; they could drink Europe. And they’d have a good go at America, too. I mean, you guys — your alcohol is like not good, it’s weak.

So I don’t even think any stimulants really help writing. You talk to most guys and they say, “Hey. I wrote this.” And they’re out of their head or they had a few beers or a bottle of whiskey. You wake up the next morning, it’s usually pretty crap. But you know Dylan Thomas wrote some great poetry. Brendan Behan. You never know but ultimately I’d say you have to get up early in the morning and you’re usually sober when you write your good stuff; it’s hard work. So alcohol, keep it for chilling out, fun, and having a good time. Not for work.

Question: Had Ireland’s alcohol problem lessened with the Celtic Tiger economy?

Gavin Friday: Nt. We’ve got wars. Imagine having more money, you could buy more beer. Have you been to Dublin in its heyday like in the boom heyday at like 4:00 in the morning on a Sunday or Saturday? It’s like beyond New Orleans. It’s like St. Patrick’s Day every day. It’s not good. I don’t even like pubs anymore. I like going for a meal and having a bottle of wine. Be more gentle. You can’t go to a pub when you get old; well you can, I suppose, but you know what I mean?

Question: What advice to you have for young people entering into music?

Gavin Friday: I like the way that you said entering into music. There is a terrible thing that’s been happening probably for the last 20 years or so and it’s called the music business. And music isn’t really business; it’s work and you got to pay and you’ve got to buy your guitar or go into the studio. So there is a business side but when people say, “I’m going into the music business,” it’s not. It’s about expression. It’s about creativity. You don’t join music, in my mind, to make money. You join it because it’s in you; it’s in your blood stream. So if you want to be Justin Timberlake, go for it. But if you want to be somebody else, go for it but it’s usually very hard. You just got to believe in yourself, work hard. I’ve no advice, I did everything the right and wrong way. You make it up as you go along, but it has to be in your blood stream and it’s not a job. It’s a way of life.

Question: What keeps you up at night?

Gavin Friday: Alcohol. If I open that bottle, I can stay up and then I love that if you go out and you have a great meal with friends and then you go home with a few friends and you have a late night disco. I mean, you’re not dancing on the table, but you open another few bottles of wine, you’ve great friends, and you’re playing music and talking rubbish. That’s a great thing on a weekend. So that keeps me up late. I tend to — in the last couple of years, because I used to live right in the city center, I’ve moved out to the sort of not the city center: county Dublin, near the coast. So I tend to get up early now. I’m known to get up at 7:00 in the morning. I like swimming because I have a bad back. I have no choice there. I write and I sometimes go to bed at 11:00 and then sometimes I go to bed at 5:00 in the morning. That’s when I go out. But worry, I get anxious but worry doesn’t really do any good. If something is broken or in trouble, you’ve got to bend down, pick it up and fix it. Worry just makes us get wrinkles. So try not worrying.

Question: What is the biggest career mistake you’ve made?

Gavin Friday: A mistake? I have shot myself in the foot so many times, I’m crippled. Look, I am not exactly Mr. Great Career Guy. I shoot actually what I think. In a weird way, I used to think that was really messed up. Now I think it’s okay. Mistakes, once you don’t repeat the same mistakes, have no regrets. Live and learn. We mess up, so what. But know why you messed up and don’t make the same mistake.

Question: Who are your heroes?

Gavin Friday: They’re all dead. I’ve lots of heroes. My mum is a hero. She had to put up with me and my dad. She is one of my heroes. Some of my friends are heroes. There are so many. But heroes usually let you down, don’t they? There is people I admire, people I respect.

Question: If you could choose, who would you have dinner with?

Gavin Friday: Oh, most definitely Mr. Oscar Wilde. I’d say the conversation would be mind-blowing. So Oscar Wilde followed by Groucho Marx. The two of them together and me would be interesting.

Question: Who are you wearing?

Gavin Friday: What am I wearing? I’m wearing a very funky pair of shoes. Shall I show you them? Even the cameraman here beside me commented. Can you see them? Yeah. As I’m getting older, I’m getting funkier. So that’s what I’m wearing. Funky shoes.

Recorded on: October 1, 2009

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• On Lypton Village
• You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart
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PROFILE GAVIN FRIDAY: He led an elite group of avant-garde chancers that included Bono and The Edge. A host of stars, including U2, will take the stage in New York to celebrate the former Virgin Prune’s 50th birthday

LYPTON VILLAGE was a little known area in Ballymun, Dublin. It only ever existed for a few years during the 1970s. Its residents included Fionan Hanvey, David Evans, Paul Hewson and Derek Rowan. You could never find it on a map because it was a virtual village – a psychological place of escape for its inhabitants. Lypton Village had its own laws: art, music and weirdness were good, everything else was bad. It had its own language and its members were christened with new names – which is why Fionan Hanvey, David Evans, Paul Hewson and Derek Rowan are better known today as the musicians Gavin Friday, The Edge and Bono and the artist Guggi.

by Peter Hanan

Apart from all four members of U2 (who are down to do individual performances on the night), the cast also includes Courtney Love, Antony Hegarty (from Antony and The Johnsons), Scarlett Johansson, Rufus Wainwright, Andrea Corr and Shane MacGowan. Billed as “An Evening With Gavin Friday and guests”, the show will also include “Special Guests” who can’t be named in advance.

It’s a typically extravagant and fantastical Lypton Village gesture.Back in Ballymun, these Villagers would think big and dream bigger. For Gavin Friday, who was banned from RTÉ for an early “art performance” by his band The Virgin Prunes on The Late Late Show , who used to get beaten up by skinheads for wearing dresses and makeup around Dublin and who was regularly bottled off stage for his outré behaviour, headlining Carnegie Hall will be a breeze – and also the fulfilment of a boyhood dream.

Asked in an interview years ago what his musical ambition was, he replied that he’d love to play the fabled venue before he was 50. Earlier this year he and Bono had arranged Guggi’s 50th birthday party (the three are all best friends). During the evening, Bono asked Gavin what he had planned for his upcoming 50th. Friday said he was going to run away and hide from the milestone anniversary, but Bono had already made plans for him: “Gavin, you’re playing Carnegie Hall for your birthday.”

While Friday may be a well-known figure in art/music circles (and he does have a considerable reputation in Europe from his Virgin Prunes days) he wouldn’t have the same commercial traction as any of the other musical guests playing on Sunday. What he represents, though, in an Irish cultural sense, is that musically he was avant-garde before there was a “garde” to be “avant” of in this country.

Initially inspired by Bowie and T.Rex, it was only when whisperings of a new movement called punk rock reached Dublin in the mid-1970s that Friday found a license to put into practice his absurdist art-shock musical performances. Dadaism and Krautrock were the aesthetic backdrops for The Virgin Prunes, a band made up of fellow Lypton Villagers including Guggi, Dave-id Busaras, Strongman, Pod, Mary D’Nellon and Haa-Lacka Binttii. Some critics used to acidly note that their names were better than their songs. Dik Evans (The Edge’s brother) was so impressed by the band’s art-punk sound that he actually left U2 to join them – probably not something he needs reminding of.

THE VIRGIN PRUNES were like nothing this country had witnessed before: they dressed as gothic transvestites, adorned the stage with rotting meat carcasses and would specialise in doing a 20-minute version of The Stones’ “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” – slowing it right down so it would take one minute to get one line of the lyric out. They came across like a northside of Dublin version of Throbbing Gristle and Devo.

For Friday, The Prunes were a reaction to the banal cultural wasteland of Dublin in the 1970s. “We were like a Third World country,” he has said. “If you go back to parts of the Eastern bloc of Europe now, that’s what Dublin was like in the ’60s and ’70s. Grey, dull, mass unemployment and complete poverty. Music became a lifeline to escape for kids. Punk gave you a licence to form a band with just an attitude. I turned 16 when punk kicked in and had plenty of attitude.”

If The Prunes came into being in order to épater la bourgeoisie , they soon developed a sizeable cult following. Signed to the coolest independent record label of the time, Rough Trade, they were one of the first punk era Irish bands to build up a fanbase outside this country – with Germany and Scandinavia at the top of the list.

As they toured their avant-garde travelling roadshow around Europe – shocking and surprising at most every turn (they were banned from many a venue for various sexual and scatological stunts) – the other, and at the time lesser known Lypton Village band, U2, were perfecting a very different music and type of performance as they warmed up for global superstardom. The links between the two bands are indivisible – both bands started playing together in Dublin’s Dandelion Market under the banner “U2 Can Be A Virgin Prune”; both bands had a member of the Evans family in their ranks (The Edge and Dik) and Guggi’s younger brother, Peter Rowan, is the child featured on the cover of the U2 albums Boy and War. Despite The Prunes having the early upper hand on U2, there has never been any rivalry between them. To this day, both bands see themselves as different sides of the same Lypton Village coin.

The Prunes stuttered to a halt in the mid-1980’s and Friday has been a freelance bohemian ever since. He’s had an exhibition of his paintings, I Didn’t Come Up The Liffey In A Bubble , in Dublin’s Hendricks Gallery; curated a series of cabaret nights called Blue Jaysus at the National Stadium and, alongside Jim Sheridan and Bono, he opened the short-lived Mr Pussy’s Café De Lux in Suffolk Street.

AS A SO LO ARTIST he has released three albums – Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves, Adam ‘n’ Eve and Shag Tobacco – frequent collaborators including Maurice Seezer and the novelist Patrick McCabe. With Bono, he worked on the soundtrack for the Jim Sheridan film In The Name Of The Father , starring Daniel Day-Lewis. Acting wise, he turned in a very creditable performance as the glam rock singer Billy Hatchet in Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto . He has narrated a version of Prokofiev’s Peter And The Wolf and toured with the Royal Shakespeare Company for a new interpretation of Shakespeare’s sonnets. He was last seen on a Dublin stage two years ago with his “Tomorrow Belongs To Me” show which was a personal tribute show about his lifelong passion for German music, art, literature and film.

As a sideline he has also been an “aesthetic midwife” on every U2 tour since The Joshua Tree . He gave Bono his “MacPhisto” character for the Zoo TV tour and says of his tour consultant role: “I look at all the things that they can’t see because they’re on stage. I’m their eyes and ears in the audience, noting down this, noting down that to improve the performance. I understand the four of them very well because I’ve known them for 30 years or more. We speak the same language and I don’t blow smoke up their ass.” He’s leaving the new U2 tour behind shortly to get back to Dublin to begin work on a new studio album – and there are also further art, theatre and literary projects in the pipeline.

This punk renaissance man now lives in Killiney, is an avid swimmer and is only seen these days on his regular Friday night city-centre drinking sessions with Bono and Guggi. The mainstream was never his friend; he is happiest on the artistic margins and along the way he has become a bit of a pop culture polymath.

It has been suggested that with his background in and knowledge of both the French chanson and the German lieder tradition, he would be an ideal, if eccentric, Irish choice for the next Eurovision Song Contest. We’ve had a turkey (in fact, quite a few turkeys) over the last few years – maybe it’s time for a Virgin Prune.

Back in the Lypton Village days, Bono and Guggi awarded him the title of “Being in charge of being in charge”. This Sunday night at the Carnegie Hall he will be just that.

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Question: What have Laurie Anderson, Andrea Corr, Courtney Love, Lydia Lunch, Maria McKee, Shane MacGowan and Rufus Wainwright got in common with Larry, Bono, Edge and Adam. Answer: They’re all fans of Gavin Friday and they’re all taking part in a one-of-a-kind show in New York next week, set to raise funds to combat AIDS in the poorest countries.

An Evening with Gavin Friday and Friends, on Sunday October 4th at Carnegie Hall in New York, is curated and produced by Hal Willner, someone with an unrivalled track record in one-off musical events inspired by maverick artists from Leonard Cohen to Kurt Weill, Tim Buckley to Thelonius Monk.

Gavin, of course, has been hanging out with the members of U2 since before they were the members of U2 and is invariably to be found with them in the studio when an album needs to be finished… or out on the road, when a tour is about to kick off. Right now, he’s working on songs for his own next solo album due in 2010. We caught up with him in Dublin to find out more about the Carnegie Hall show:

“Believe it or not, this was not born in my head. I think I was on some kind of TV show, maybe 12 years ago, and I was asked about my musical ambition and I said I’d love to play Carnegie Hall before I’m 50. That was the seed of all this. Then earlier this year a gang of us went away for a day to celebrate the 50th birthday of Guggi and at the party, Bono, who turns 50 himself next May, said to me, ‘Do you know what you’re doing for your fiftieth ?’ I said I didn’t have a clue and that I’ll probably run away to avoid the attention. He said he did know what I was doing, that I was playing Carnegie Hall.”

“A couple of weeks before, Bono had met up with our mutual friend Hal Willner and they’d decided on this event to celebrate my birthday and to raise funds for RED, the organisation which fights AIDS in Africa. And I was so taken aback at the idea that a very rare thing happened – I was completely silenced. I couldn’t believe it. I think everyone found that quite humorous: ‘Look, we’ve actually shut Friday up!’

Hal Willner is the moving force behind the whole thing, he puts these kinds of events together and I’ve often worked with him on them. They’re like creative extravaganzas where a whole gang of musicians come together to pay tribute to someone, like he did this incredible homage to the work of Leonard Cohen, another to Kurt Weill. More recently Bono and I worked with him on ‘Rogue’s Gallery’ an album of pirate ballads and sea chanteys.

There’s always this extraordinary twist that he brings – like his tribute to the music of Walt Disney where he had Tom Waits singing ‘Hi Ho Hi Ho’ and when we did it live, he had me singing the ‘Siamese Cat Song’ from Lady and The Tramp. I remember turning up one day for a Harry Smith tribute to find Jimmy Scott, the jazz singer, at the piano with Mary Margaret O’Hara and Nick Cave. Two days later we were performing it on stage.

We’ve already got an amazing bill lined up for Carnegie Hall, I can hardly believe it. We talked about the kind of people we wanted to take part – those who influenced me over the years and some that I might have influenced. Some are very well known and some I hope will become more well known – like Eric Mingus, an unsung genius and the son of Charlie Mingus. Or Flo and Eddie, who many people don’t realise are the backing vocalists on all those great T Rex songs that people like me remember from being young.

Anthony from Anthony and the Johnsons will be something else and then Maria McKee, what a talent she is, and goes way back with our musical community in Ireland. She’s always been close to us, she lived here in the 1980′s and we often recorded with her. And Courtney Love, Hal bumped into her in New York and she said she’d love to be part of it. Laurie Anderson doesn’t need any introduction and we’ve also got Rufus and Martha Wainwright and, not surprising this, a big Irish contingent with Shane MacGowan, Andrea Corr and of course the Royal Family – Larry, Edge, Bono and Adam.

The thing with those four is that I know them all individually, so they’re all taking part but what’s unusual is that they aren’t going to be U2, so I think we’ll see something pretty different, which is something that always happens with Hal’s events.

Dik, Edge’s brother will be there, who was in U2 before they were U2, and Guggi of course, so I would love Dik and Guggi and myself to do some Virgin Prunes songs – it won’t be the Virgin Prunes reuniting because we don’t do that, but let’s see what happens. When Hal is involved you never know how it’ll work out.

He pulls together this potpourri of musicians for a day or so of rehearsals, which are like this musical workshop, very organic, where you never quite know what you’re going to produce. The spontaneity is what I love about it, it’s precious and so rare these days, when everything is over-rehearsed and over-marketed. The next day you have a soundcheck and before you know it you’re playing live in front of an orchestra and an audience.

I still don’t know what to say about it, I’m 50 not 80 and I’m not an icon but it’ll be a celebration of music and a beautiful thing to do for a friend. Hal for me is a real touchstone of a person, an inspiration and he creates quite unique musical moments, It won’t happen again, this collection of artists won’t be together like this ever again… which I love. It will be an unrepeatable night and I’m planning on enjoying it.”

Source: U2.com

Tickets are available now from Carnegie Hall.

Previously:

• Hal Willner presents: An Evening with Gavin Friday and Friends
• Q&A with Gavin about the event

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• Hal Willner presents: An Evening with Gavin Friday and Friends
• Courtney Love’s introduction to the Virgin Prunes
• Prune power

Hal Willner presents:

An Evening with Gavin Friday and Friends

click to enlarge

Featuring Laurie Anderson, Antony, Elizabeth Ashley, Bono, Adam Clayton, Andrea Corr, The Edge, Flo & Eddie, Joel Grey, Bill Frisell, Guggi, Scarlett Johannson, Courtney Love, Lydia Lunch, Patrick McCabe, Maria McKee, Shane MacGowan, Eric Mingus, Larry Mullen, JG Thirlwell, Martha Wainwright, Rufus Wainwright, Chloe Webb, Plus Special Guests.

Sunday 4th October 2009
Carnegie Hall – New York City
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage

Tickets go on-sale Wednesday,
September 16, 11AM EST
Available at CarnegieCharge at 212.247.7800
www.carnegiehall.org and the box office.

Ticket price breakdown:
Parquet $250 (front & center) & $150 (left & right)
First Tier $150
Second Tier $100
Dress Circle $90
Balcony $70 & $35

A portion of the proceeds goes to help eliminate AIDS in Africa. www.joinred.com/rednights

• Read a Q&A with Gavin about this event

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• Gavin Friday and Friends – setlist
• Gavin Friday talks about ‘An Evening with Gavin Friday and Friends’
• ‘Look, we’ve actually shut Friday up!’

Gavin Friday, Guggi, Bono, Michael Stipe, Brandon Flowers, Dave Gahan and others tell the story of Anton Corbijn, “the ultimate insider who now finds himself outside the Hollywood system” in Shadow Play: The Making of Anton Corbijn, a documentary by Josh Whiteman now making the rounds on the festival circuit.

Anton has photographed Gavin many times over the years, but will be best known to Friday-fans for his iconic work on the Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves album sleeve artwork.

Anton Corbijn is currently working on his second feature film, a thrilller starring George Clooney based on the novel A Very Private Gentleman. He is also making a new photo/lyrics book with Tom Waits.

• Icon Movies
• Anton Corbijn on IMDB

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