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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• Gavin Friday and Friends at Carnegie Hall in pictures
• Courtney Love’s introduction to the Virgin Prunes

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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{picture © Chris Conroy, do not copy.}

Friday arrived with Maurice Seezer, and explained his dedication to the IHF, an organization for which he has done several projects: “Well, I just think it’s a great charity, number one, because it accepts kids, adults dying of AIDS, and older people. As a charity, they tend to do creative things — so it’s making money, but it’s also contributing something artistically and musically. When you give the twenty bucks for the CD and the book, you’re getting something as well as helping a charity, so I find that quite interesting and quite innovative.”
It was that sort of innovation that inspired Friday. “The inspiration was really just to help Hospice. Three years ago we did it live and we said one day, it went so well that we should record our own interpretation of it,” explained Friday. “I was sick about a year and a half ago, and rather than moan, we sat and did our own arrangement of it.”

picture © Chris Conroy, do not copy.}

The ensemble for the project is quite impressive, as Seezer explained: “Michael Blair is a wonderful percussion player; he played with Tom Waits. Renaud Pion has played with us for fifteen years now or so. Julia Palmer played on our very first album together. (Julia Palmer played on Gavin and Maurice’s first tour, not the album. Ed. ) Des Moore [is] a great bango player from Dublin.” Electric guitar and double bass player Gareth Hughes and flutist Catriona Ryan completed the eclectic group of musicians.

An equally eclectic group of artists and orchestras have recorded the symphony with impressive narrators including David Bowie, Sting, Sir John Gielgud, Andre Previn, Jack Lemmon, Boris Karloff, Dudley Moore, Patrick Stewart, Melissa Joan Hart, Dave Van Ronk and Leonard Bernstein. But Friday is more of a Bond man: “Personally, my favorite version is Sean Connery’s version. He did it in the 60s.”

Friday’s version is sure to become the favorite of many fans of the classic and new listeners alike. Along with the fresh musical interpretation by the Friday-Seezer ensemble, the CD is coupled with a book whose drawings were done by singer and activist Bono, who can now add “painter” to his list of credits. Bono’s original paintings for the book, done with daughters Jordan and Eve, were minutes away from being put on the auction block when he arrived at Christie’s with his wife, Ali Hewson, and their close friend, artist Guggi.

Pausing to speak about his appearance at the event, Bono said, “You know, usually when you see me at these kind of events, I’m talking about really serious things like third world debt and the Africa AIDS emergency, but tonight it’s much more fun. I’m here to talk about my dead father. My father — I loved him very much — I am actually here to talk about him. He’s the reason that I did these paintings. He died of cancer a couple years ago. Hospice offered to look after him. They’re angels, really. And I did this for my kids. It was fun to do. I wanted to do something that would make me laugh but also make me cry a little bit.”
Of course, Bono was especially excited to once again collaborate with his long-time friend, Gavin Friday. “He’s a complete pain in the arse. He’s trouble from morning till night. He never shuts up, he’s in your ear, and he’s a genius,” said Bono with an exasperated grin. (We feel his pain. Ed.)

Friday’s genius was about to pay off in a big way. As video footage played of the recording of the “Peter and the Wolf” audio and the painting of the book’s illustrations on a screen in a room of Christie’s, the bidders took their seats. Among the guests showing their support were Principle Management’s Paul McGuinness and Keryn Kaplan, Elvis Costello and Diana Krall, Moby, and artist Darien Loeb.

Before bidding began, Friday took to the stage to applause. “The Irish are very good at telling stories, so I’m going to tell you a story,” said Friday. His theatrical monologue began: “Once upon a time in an ancient and old land called Hibernia, in a dirty little town called Dublin, there lived a man whose name was Bono. This man was very talented and much loved. So loved, it was rumored by some, ‘Could he be God?!’”

Friday’s introduction drew laughter and applause from the guests, for which he paused and then continued with a grin: “There is always some truth in rumors. Now, Mr. Bono had a friend, a dark and mysterious man named Mr. Friday. So dark and so mysterious was this man, it was rumored [Friday's voice lowered to a whisper] ‘Could he be the devil?!’”

When the laughter died down, Friday went on. “Mr. Friday had a friend, a musical giant, Mr. Seezer — so tall, like a big oak tree, he had much problems with dogs. Together, these three people — Bono, myself, and Maurice — believed that through music and through art, you can make a difference. This is the story of Peter and the Wolf. Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to…” said Friday, pausing dramatically, “…God.”
And, in case anyone was unsure, Friday added, “Bono.”

As Bono stepped to the auction podium, to the side of the stage, he stamped the auction gavel down three times and said, “I always wanted to do that.”

In response to Friday’s introduction, Bono quipped, “Well, Gavin is the devil. God and the devil are getting on.”
And although Bono was proud to explore new artistic directions for this project, he seemed to have no delusions about his ability with a paintbrush — or did he?

“My name is Bono and I’m a rock star. And where would we be without rock stars and their delusions? Rock stars who think they can sing — it’s okay. Rock stars who think they can dance — I’m not sure. Rock stars who think they can act — oh, dear Lord! Rock stars who think they can drink the Hudson and stay out later than anyone else — possibly. Rock stars who think they can save the world — spare me that one! But right at the top of the list of rock star delusions has got to be the rock star who thinks he can paint. And I came here to say that I am too much of a fan of art and artists to ever claim that these are more than marks on paper. In the room with real artists I came here to say that,” said Bono humbly.

Then humility faltered. “But I came into Christie’s today — and the Christie’s people are kind of really amazing — and I walked in the door and I saw all the paintings, hung up, and I thought, ‘Did I really do that? They’re really great!’” said Bono. “I was trying to explain why I did this and I wrote this. It’s called Rage Is Not A Great Reason To Do Anything But It’ll Do. So I’m going to read it if that’s okay.

“Rage Is Not A Great Reason To Do Anything But It’ll Do: I have a list of the usual frustrations with God and God with me. Right up there at the top of the list of things that motivate me is the distance between where I am as a songwriter and where I want to be. The difference between the note and the fret, I suppose.
I had a few difficulties on my way to being a musician, if that’s what I am — sometimes I’m not sure it is — but I remember standing with my head just below the level of the black and tobacco keys of my Granny’s piano and I could reach them but I couldn’t see them. Literally, my head was right beneath it. And I could hear the hammer hit the string and bone machine, but I didn’t know after choosing one ivory I could hear a sort of rhyme for it in my head, leading me through the ding and clangor of the choices to a melody. A composition. Song writing by accident. And if you stood on the sustain pedal on the piano, the room would change shape into a cathedral.

I knew then that music is a playground, that for the rest of my life, I will be chasing it. Reverb, echo, the sound of your own voice. The only problem was they sold the piano; there was no room. The two up, two down, outside toilet ,red brick for music. I lost the argument to bring it to our house in Ballymun. I wanted to learn how to play the melodies I heard in my head. Poor Bono. No, poor YOU. Megalomania for me started at a very early age, probably this age. Everyone’s going to have to pay for this.

“Everyone’s going to have to listen to me. Revenge like this takes a lifetime. Revenge on my father, a beautiful tenor who conducted our stereo with knitting needles and a man who never imagined that music might be handed down through the DNA, like his bad back or his bad temper, and never bothered to bother us about learning an instrument. Revenge on music education, which teaches children to imitate rather than create. It’s good to know the voice of the masters, but not to have your own voice drowned out,” said Bono, ending his essay.

“So anyway, ‘Peter and the Wolf’ is a lesson in how to teach,” continued Bono. “This is a new version of the Prokofiev classic by two of my favorite people, two of my favorite musicians, Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer. And it was in aid of the Irish Hospice Foundation, but actually for the Hospice Foundation worldwide, people who were so ready to look after my father in his losing fight with cancer. These angels asked me to illustrate the book that accompanies the music. Ciaran O’Goara was the art director and guide. I asked my little girls, Jordan and Eve, to help me with details, the filigree of flowers.”

Bono shared his inspiration for some of the characters in the book, as he went to work. “And in Mary Donnelly and Joe Donnelly’s art house looking over Killiney Bay, in one day, I painted myself into the corner as Peter. Age thirteen, I had a head like a baked bean, a formless ellipse until a nose appeared. I was frightened. The boy who lived in a can used to eat the baked beans cold.

Anyway, my father we made the Grandfather, as he was to Jordan and Eve, my two daughters who loved and were loved by him. And his golf club — a working class Dublin guy who loved opera and played golf. His golf club, as it happens, was called Forest Little. So the forest is Forest Little Golf Club. I cast my darling wife, Ali, as Pussy — mischief in her eyes and a curly tail. And the Wolf was ambition for things just out of reach,” Bono concluded to great applause.

Several variations of these characters, as created by Bono, then became open to bid. As the auctioneer took the podium, and the gavel struck, Lot 1 (“Peter & the Wolf VI”) was displayed on the stage. Bidding was intense for each of the sixteen lots, but the mood was certainly light and humorous.
After Lot 6 (“Peter & the Wolf II”) sold for $24,000, Friday appeared at the large desk to the side of the podium and commented, “It’s all a bit laid back. Let’s see something exciting happening here. And then maybe I’ll sing a song.”

After enthusiastic applause, bidding on Lot 7 (“Peter & the Wolf III”) began. When it concluded, the lucky high-bidding woman got a promise from Friday: “This lady, I will personally sing in her ear in about half an hour!”

Friday continued to encourage and entertain the guests, such as during the auction of Lot 9 (“Peter & the Wolf V”). When bidding stalled, he offered, “I will put my tongue in your ear for $30,000.” The auctioneer turned and asked Friday over the surprised laughter, “Do you think that’s a lot of incentive?” Getting a big smile in return, the auctioneer turned back to the audience and accepted an increased bid of $22,000. Friday encouraged, “I have a big tongue.”

The high bidder on Lot 10 (“Study of Wolf II”) was none other than Paul McGuinness. As he bid, Friday inquired, “Does Paul want my tongue in his ear?” to which the auctioneer replied, “He’s paying not to have your tongue in his ear.” McGuinness later said of his choosing to buy this piece (for $20,000): “I liked it. I thought it was the best of the wolves, and I’m looking forward to seeing it on my wall.”
One big supporter of the IHF paid $60,000 — the highest bid of the evening — to see one of these paintings on his wall. Bidding was fierce for Lot 11 (“Study ‘Peter’ I, Study of ‘Peter’ II on reverse”). This close-up painting of the “baked-bean boy” is essentially a self-portrait of age thirteen by Bono, and Friday shared, “I knew him when he looked like that, without the sunglasses. Working-class lads that did well.”
beanboy.jpg These working-class lads did do well, raising $368,000 for an important charity in little more than an hour. And, although, the IHF was certainly the focus of the evening, Friday discussed other projects in which he is currently involved.

Friday did the score to the film “In America,” which opens on Thanksgiving in the United States. This is his third collaboration with director Jim Sheridan (“In The Name of the Father” and “The Boxer”). When asked what attracted him to Sheridan’s film making, Friday replied, “He captures something called humanity and reality between actors more than anyone I know. He’s got what you’d call a cinematic genius but he’s a theatrical genius; he just gets a rapport that’s mind-blowing.” He paused and added, with complete sincerity, “Go see the movie. You’ll cry.”

Bono, who was sworn to secrecy about U2′s new album, did reveal one secret. A burning question whose answer an evening of “Peter and the Wolf” could not be complete without: Who’s the duck? Bono is Peter, Gavin’s the Wolf, Ali is the Puassy. But who’s the duck? Bono laughed at the question and then put his hand up to his grin, as if he were happily revealing this secret and whispered, “Guggi.”

So Peter, the Wolf, the Pussy, and, as is now known, the Duck were all present at Christie’s for the conclusion of this impressive and, thanks to the many collaborating artists, successful project. And we cannot forget Grandfather, whose spirit was present in the wonderful work of the Irish Hospice Foundation.
All photos by Ruth Barohn and Christopher Conroy for U2log.com and GavinFriday.com. Please do not use the photos that appear here on your website or forum without our explicit permission.

Related links:

• Peterandthewolf.org
• Telegraph: I wanted Dad to say he loved me
• New York Post: A Brush With Bono
• Wire Image: Event photos

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• An Evening at Christie’s
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Gavin and Maurice were among the many guests who appeared on a two hour tribute show to film director Jim Sheridan on Ireland’s Late Late show on Friday night.

Gavin told host Pat Kenny they have worked with Sheridan since 1993′s In The Name of the Father. Gavin has known Sheridan since the late 70s, when Sheridan ran the Project Arts Centre in Dublin and gave the Virgin Prunes a stage to play on. Doing a spot on impression of the director he said Jim had approached them saying: “We’ve got forty million for The Boxer, but I want youse to do the score and if Hollywood don’t like it, sure I’ll pay yis anyway!”

Andrea Corr, with Maurice on piano accompaniment, performed a moving rendition of the inspiring Time Enough For Tears a song co written for the soundtrack of In America by Gavin Friday, Maurice Seezer and Bono.
Friday joined Andrea for the last verse and chorus of the song before talking about its origins with her, Sheridan and Kenny. Gavin also spoke of Project Arts Centre memories, and that the Virgin Prunes were much more interesting looking that their U2 counterparts. He also revealed how he would like to become a ‘Count Friday’, and drew a laugh from all when he said that he would get Bono to arrange it with the Pope.

Bono, who performed the song Falling at your feet with The Edge and Daniel Lanois, acknowledged how the new Irish are better at been themselves than trying to be like anyone else and how they now look to themselves more through the art of Sheridan’s movies. He also described Jim as a great bodyguard, someone who would encourage them through their failures or self-doubts.

TV maker Gary Jermyn described as a ‘poet laureate’ to the Dalkey network of friends and neighbours who came on to read a poem to Sheridan.

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The cd will be released with an illustrated booklet. In recent years, the IHF has released similar projects to raise money: last year’s Art:Pack, and before that the Whoseday Book.
In June they will start recording the soundtrack for Jim Sheridan’s new film, for a September release.

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Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer give Peter Murphy a blow-by-blow guide to soundtracking The Boxer.

HUNCHED OVER their cappuccinos at the back of Tosca s restaurant, Gavin Friday and Maurice Seezer look for all the world like two mafiosi plotting the details ofa particularly tricky hit and not the chartbusting kind, either. But while this odd couple are not renowned for troubling the Top 40, they should be regarded as key players in any chronicle of Dublin s music culture. Between 1988 and 1996 the pair recorded a trilogy of albums for Island Records that, for anyone who was listening, created a new Irish musical identity, re-introducing humour and surrealism to an end-of-the-millennium party previously hogged by po-faced poltroons.

From the ruined pre-war splendour of Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves, through the velveteen aestheticism of Adam And Eve, to the blue-lit exotica of Shag Tobacco, the two men took Joyce and Beckett as their oracle and went hunting for the real indigenous Irish spirit in Europe, soaking up elements of Brecht, Weill, Brel, Gainsbourg and Piaf. The result was a canon of work that had an obtuse but very real influence on everyone from U2 down to Jack L.

In fact, on their most recent album, Friday and Seezer seemed to re-imagine the capital as some Western-European Interzone populated by a madcap cast that included Genet, Cocteau, Pat McCabe, The Diceman, Oscar Wilde, Behan and Bono, all scrambling for last hors d oeuvres in Mr. Pussy s at four in the morning.

Island finally dropped them in 96, but this duo were never going to be another record company casualty. ( You sort of worry about A&R men when you re 20, Gavin laughs. I mean, we re men! ) And with allies such as The Heads, Marc Ribot and Hal Willner, not to mention career breaks like having songs included in Robert Altman s Short Cuts and on the multi-million selling Romeo And Juliet soundtrack, it s clear that these two will never be short of fish to fry.

More recently, under the auspices of director Jim Sheridan (whom Friday had known since the days of The Virgin Prunes and the Project Arts Centre), the pair have become increasingly absorbed in the world of film. Gavin was employed as musical consultant for Sheridan s In The Name Of The Father, with that often stunning soundtrack providing a mad laboratory where he, Seezer and Bono, plus guests such as Sinead O Connor, Jah Wobble, Tommy Hayes and Tim Simenon, could turn Irish music onto alien elements.

Two years later, when Sheridan s next project The Boxer was reaching its final stages, the director again invited Friday and Seezer on board, but this time to provide an original score. The result is probably a more conventional soundtrack album, but a rich one nonetheless, juxtaposing contemporary dance rhythms with stark bouzouki parts (courtesy of Hothouse Flower Peter O Toole) and stately set-pieces. It is an accomplished work, and one that should raise a few eyebrows in cinematic circles.

It s trial and error, Gavin says of the fine art of soundtracking. Jim showed us the first boxing match of the three or four he shot, and his first call was that he wanted it really rhythmic and aggressive. But when we put up rough demos of this against the movie, he just went No, no, no, it s taking over the whole thing.

The mad thing about that was, you d think the boxing matches were the first and foremost thing that could have music, but ended up having none at all, Maurice muses. No matter what we tried, it just seemed to be wrong. I think maybe people are used to seeing boxing matches with just commentary. If you look at all the great uses of boxing in film in the past, very few of them have music. Rocky was probably the exception. It seemed really difficult to get anything that would work, but as soon as we clarified that in our heads it became a lot easier, we started working around it.

Scorsese used all old Italian opera and classical, Gavin recalls. If you look at Raging Bull, it s like an opera. Visually, it s so beautiful, it s in black-and-white with a blue tint, it s all slow motion, and you don t even feel the audience is there, it s like a big stage. I think Jim was really fighting against that, he just wanted the sweat and the kids screaming at the side of the ring.

The most interesting clue he gave us was that slow-motion in movies is so often used to heighten the violence of the moment, Maurice continues. Scorsese did an extraordinary thing with the actual boxing by having strange, slowed-down animal noises. They were really subliminal and heightened the tension. That was an influence.

Gavin and Maurice were renting a small studio around the

corner from Sherriff Street while Sheridan was shooting The Boxer, and the director would frequently call in to discuss his work in progress. However, the last thing they expected was an invitation to write the original score.

Our initial reaction to that was, well, we d never scored a film before in our lives, Maurice recounts. We said, You re in a situation where you can get any scorer in Hollywood. What if we don t come up with the goods? And he just said, If I don t like it, you ll get paid and I ll just get somebody else. So he was very straight from the very start. But the thing about a director is, it s his movie. He can actually tell you that something you ve been working on for three weeks is crap, and to drop it.

Was there pressure to come up with The Hit?

No, Gavin replies emphatically. I mean, Jim is a commercially-minded guy, but I think as the film started developing, it started showing that it wasn t a populist movie. I mean, it s quite stark, so that never really came into it. Really, we were working for Jim to get his vision across, but at the same time we were going, Eh, this is our next fuckin album, Sheridan! We argued with him a lot and he d argue back, but really healthy.

The singer is fulsome in his praise of Sheridan, frequently adopting the film-maker s squeaky inner-city accent in order to embellish a fruity anecdote.

Jim s like a character in 3D, he s like an actor in a movie himself, he continues. He d throw things at you like, The gym is a church, it s religion. I remember one of the first things he did after showing us the rushes in Ardmore was to say, C mon into the car lads. And you want to see his car, man. The fuckin woofers on it! He s decked out like Dr Dre. And he played Murder Was The Case by Snoop Doggy Dogg, and he s like, Can ye get that vibe? And I was goin , Yeah . . . but this is about the North, and we re all white and working-class and it s not LA!

But he d throw you abstract clues like that. One of the most intriguing things was when he said, Write a love theme, but when you re writing it, listen to the water. That s your rhythm, right? (laughs) He s a fuckin genius. But we know him years, and we d broken the ice with In The Name Of The Father.

Ah, yes. Between the thundering lambeg drums, Sinead O Connor s keening and Bono s blue note/sean-nos explorations, the original compositions on In The Name Of The Father were a wild cross-section of Irish, eastern, and even industrial sounds. By contrast, The Boxer is a rather more reflective piece of work.

The bravado of In The Name Of The Father was coming from a totally different place, Gavin expounds. I dunno, we sort of had this thing, like, Let s ban the bodhran. In The Name Of The Father was weird, Jim was going Let s go middle-east cos that s where the Celts are from , all those cliches, but we took it to the extent of getting Maire Breatnach in to do a fiddle solo and then putting it through a fuzzbox amp. So, it s like, yeah, it s a fiddle solo, but it s the spirit of the Gerry Conlon character as Jimi Hendrix.

With The Boxer, you re not in the spirit of a fuckin mad yob out on the piss who then gets into trouble. It s a far more adult movie. One of the first things we were struck by emotionally, and the real thing that I love about the movie, is that it s harsh. It looks like a working-class area, which Belfast is. The people dress like they re from Tallaght. It ain t stylised, there s a quite depressing look off the place, and our initial thing was to put some warmth and sensuality into the characters. So rather than going rock n roll, vibey bodhran , we decided to go for more emotion.

Which, in a way, is what The Godfather does, adds Maurice. It puts these beautiful themes in a very violent situation, which completely counteracts it.

Gavin Friday has long served as U2 s on-tour confidante and reality checker, and his input into the creation of such Bono alter egos as The Fly and MacPhisto on the Zooropa tour cannot be underestimated. Indeed, even on the PopMart extravaganza, Bono seemed to have absorbed an awful lot of Gavin s Chaplin-esque swagger. Such cross-referencing might be no stranger than supermodels swapping make-up tips in the toilets, but surely Gavin finds it a little odd to see elements of himself paraded in front of such vast audiences?

It s a weird thing, he says, hesitantly. It s very complex, y know? I know this bloke for 30 years. We re almost like brothers. I mean, I remember at one stage he just said, Jesus Christ, I don t know who I am, sometimes I m you. Yeah, I can see elements and influences there, but I can t really get into it, y know? What can I say?

I m sure bits of Bono rub off on you as well, Maurice points out.

They do, I can do a great Bono, Gavin grins. I can go into Principle Management and get a car sent to my house like that. There are times we sound like each other when we re talking, and in our mannerisms. Y know, I ve learnt an awful lot from him over the years, and vice-versa. I think half the great charm of any performer is the magpie element, but when you put your suit on, make sure it s your own suit.

The interesting thing is like, y know, MacPhisto was quite influenced by me, I mean I did put the horns on his head, literally, and then when we were doing our Shag Tobacco tour, I had created this character where it was me doing a pun on Mr. Pussy, and I actually started taking elements of MacPhisto. It s a double-barreled thing. I d only be worried about it if we were writing the same type of lyrics and expressing the same music. What is it somebody said? We re one/But we re not the same !! (laughs) Let s leave it at that! I think Hot Press, the next time you re talking to Bono, should ask him about Gavin.

Quentin Tarantino once suggested that compiling a 90-minute tape of songs is much the same as storyboarding a movie. Prior to shooting Pulp Fiction, the auteur reminded himself that if he was going to make a film worthy of following Dick Dale s Miserlou , it d better be an epic.

A lot of people work like that, Gavin confirms. Pat McCabe starts all his books with two songs. The Dead School was Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep and Macushla . I was out with Pat last week, and I met Neil Jordan he s made a new film with Robert Downey Jr in America, In Dreams is the working title. It s a psycho horror movie, and Neil s big into Radiohead, he has all their albums, but he can t put the music in, it d just dominate the film. He s in this dilemma that if you want to use contemporary stuff, you have to shoot with that in mind.

The two musicians readily admit that they would have liked a crack at scoring The Butcher Boy.

I know everyone rants on about the kid, Gavin states, but have you ever seen The Tin Drum? I haven t seen a performance like it since that.

Of course, Gavin and Maurice were utilising film and theatre references long before getting into the soundtrack business.

There s always been that cinematic quality to what we ve done, Gavin testifies. So much of Shag Tobacco was placed in movies without us even writing for them.

As well as absorbing the Berlin cabaret and torch song traditions into the live act, their early collaborations with New York record producer Hal Willner were quite cinematic experiences themselves.

It was almost like working with a Woody Allen who makes records, Gavin effuses. He d say Watch Satyricon or 81/2 by Fellini and then rethink how you approach that song . He s just this encyclopedia of art, music, everything, he s a genius. The first time we ever worked together really seriously was on Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves, and he put together people from Waits band, Fernando Saunders who d worked with Lou Reed, mind-blowing musicians, and he d sit there and go Alright, just play. It blew our minds completely. He ll take three months to sequence an album, he won t let go.

We contributed to his last project, Closed On Account Of Rabies, poems and words of Edgar Allen Poe, a double CD with Diamonda Galas 29-minute version of The Black Cat , Christopher Walken, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Marianne (Faithfull), and we did a poem called For Annie . Hal s getting more and more into spoken word, his whole thing now is a Lenny Bruce tribute. He s also making a dance record for Howie B s Pussycat label called Whoops, I m An Indian. There are two people I ve met in my career who actually sweat talent, and that s Pat McCabe and Hal Willner.

And if that sounds like a recipe for the spoken word project to end them all, bear in mind that there were substantial rumours of a Friday/Seezer collaboration with the Clones psycho last year, based on McCabe s Shagging Tobacco essay ( I dreamt that night I died in Dublin, alone in a city about to come apart . . . ).

It was weird, it felt really contrived and we put it on the backburner for a while, Gavin recounts. The flow of the way Pat writes is a tough one, and it wasn t even as narrative-friendly as The Butcher Boy I mean Shagging Tobacco is pretty much off its tits. We ll see, eventually it might be our sort of Basement Tapes. Pat s a mate, a real friend and an inspiration.

We actually started writing radio plays together rather than going out and getting pissed all the time. (imitates McCabe s Monaghan tones) Ah, we ll have to stop doing this Gavin Friday! I ll end up having a heart attack! So we used to meet for breakfast and discuss ideas and then go back and write. We wrote a great one called Bus Stop At The End Of The World which is set on New Year s Eve, 1999. A bus pulls up outside Mr Pussy s: Flann O Brien s the bus driver, Mr Pussy s the conductor, Oscar Wilde, David Bowie, Marc Bolan, me, Bono, Jim Sheridan. Mr Pussy hates David Bowie and wants to kick him off the bus for being a tramp. Just shite. But y know, the great thing about Pat is, half of you going out and getting pissed is writing stories and ideas, he s a fucking well of inspiration.

Despite some misgivings ( RTE need a bullet up the arse ), Gavin seems convinced that the temperature and temperament of Irish culture is changing.

Jordan brings out The Butcher Boy and it s like opening up the carpet, he enthuses. The Virgin Mary has a Dublin accent and says Fuck . Sinead s amazing, thank God she kept the Dublin accent. It s like a real little bubble has been burst with The Butcher Boy, it s a different Irish movie, as is The Boxer. The thing I quite like about The Boxer is it s probably Sheridan s hardest movie, there s no frills, no big crescendo, it s just this ordinary story about ordinary people in an extraordinary, fucked-up environment. End of story. n

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“Jim Sheridan’s an old friend who actually gave the Virgin Prunes one of their first gigs. He used to work in the theatre and in 1978 he put on a punk festival and the Virgin Prunes were one of the headlining bands. It was our second gig ever.
“So, last July Jim asked me to help him out as music consultant for the movie, which I did, and he then asked myself and Bono if we would write some songs because he wanted the original stuff to come from Irish people.
“It was easy to do because the subject matter of the Guildford Four (four Irish people unjustly accused of and jailed for terrorist activity) was something that was very close to our hearts. I remember very well the day they were freed from prison. We all went out and got drunk — as did half the country.
“As for Bono, well he was very much a fan of the Virgin Prunes. I mean, we grew up on the same street 20 years ago.We know each other well. I think, if anything in the last few years, U2 has turned into the Virgin Prunes,” says Friday laughing.
“We’ve written things together before but this is the first thing that we’ve ever put public. We’re mates. We’re like brothers. I knew him long before he was famous and, so what, it’s all bullshit anyway. Besides, whenever we go out for drinks, he pays. I make sure of that one.”
Interestingly enough, Friday, Bono and Seezer shied away from writing political lyrics for the soundtrack feeling that there was enough politics in the movie without having to club one over the head with it in the soundtrack too. A perfect example is their song Billy Boola.
“That song is definitely taking the piss, you know. Basically, it’s all about two kids going to London and getting away from home. The first thing when you leave home is that you’re not really concerned with anything other than the little thing between your legs. And that’s what a Billy Boola is.”
With any luck, his work with Bono on the soundtrack will direct more attention to Friday’s own solo albums (of which Seezer has been a big part) on Island Records. Adam ‘N’ Eve disappeared with nary a gurgle in 1992. And Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves from two years earlier didn’t fare much better despite its brilliant, moody songs in a style that can best be called cutting-edge, contemporary cabaret.
“When the Virgin Prunes broke up in 1986, it was like a death in the family. So, I sort of reclused out of music and painted. Slowly I got back into performing and ran a small club in Dublin called The Blue Jaysus, a pun on the old movie The Blue Angel,” says Friday.
“That’s where I met up with Maurice. I had become very interested in German and European pre-rock ‘n’ roll music, Jacques Brel, Kurt Weill. So, we started putting these ideas down and Each Man was really me hanging out my dirtylaundry.
“I was going through an intense part of my life.
“I was questioning everything. But after Each Man . . . I felt like all these clouds had gone.”
As for his new solo album, which may be out later this year, Friday says he doesn’t want to say much about it other than “it deals a lot with the end of this century, it’s very personal, very spiritual, and also very sexual.
“Sex is a big thing, you see . . . and drinking.”
Especially if Bono is buying.

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