You say its your birthday !

Adam Cayton Adam Charles Clayton (born 13 March 1960)

Clayton has resided in County Dublin since the time his family moved to Malahide when he was five years old in 1965. Clayton is well-known for his bass playing on songs such as “New Year’s Day”, “With or Without You”, “Get on Your Boots”, and “Magnificent”.

His work on No Line on the Horizon has been cited as his best bass playing. He has worked on several solo projects throughout his career, such as his work with fellow band member Larry Mullen Jr. on the theme of 1996’s Mission: Impossible. Clayton, as a part of U2, has won 22 Grammy

Clayton is the elder child of Brian and Jo Clayton, born on 13 March 1960 in Chinnor, Oxfordshire, England, when Clayton was five years old, his family moved from Oxfordshire to Malahide, County Dublin, where Clayton’s brother Sebastian was born. The Clayton family became friends with the Evans family, with their sons Dik and Dave (more commonly known as The Edge), who were both in the original group, Feedback, that spawned U2.

Clayton attended boarding school first at Castle Park School in Dalkey, then at St. Columba’s in Rathfarnham. He later changed school to Mount Temple Comprehensive School in Dublin, where he met fellow band mates Paul “Bono” Hewson and Larry Mullen Jr., and was reunited with his boyhood friend Dave “The Edge” Evans. Mullen had posted an advertisement on the school bulletin board for musicians to form a band with him; Clayton showed up at the first practice, which also included Dik Evans, Dave Evans’s older brother, Ivan McCormick, and Peter Martin, who were two of Mullen’s friends.

McCormick and Martin left the band soon after its conception. While the band was a five-piece (consisting of Bono, The Edge, Mullen, Evans, and Clayton), it was known as Feedback. The name was subsequently changed to The Hype, but changed to “U2” soon after Evans left the band. Clayton also served as the band’s first manager before Paul McGuiness, a more experienced manager, was hired, because Clayton had left school earlier.

Adam Clayton In 1981, around the time of U2’s second, spiritually charged album, October, a rift was created in the band between Clayton and McGuiness, and the three other band members. Bono, The Edge, and Mullen had joined a Christian group, and were questioning the compatibility of rock music with their spirituality. However, Clayton, with his more ambiguous religious views, was less concerned, and so was more of an outsider, until Bono’s wedding to Alison Hewson (Neé Stewart), in which Clayton was the best man.

In August 1989, Clayton made newspapers around the world when he was arrested in Dublin carrying a small amount of marijuana. However, he avoided conviction by making a large donation to charity, and has later been regretful, saying “It was my own fault. And I’m sure I was out of my head – emotionally apart from anything else. But it is serious because it is illegal.” Clayton has also had alcohol problems, which came to a head on 26 November 1993 when he was so hung over that he was unable to play that night’s show in Sydney. After that incident, however, he gave up alcohol.

In 1995, after the Zoo TV Tour and Zooropa album, Clayton headed to New York with bandmate Mullen to receive formal training in the bass; until then Clayton had been entirely self-taught. During that period, he worked on U2’s experimental album, released under the pseudonym “Passengers”, entitled Original Soundtracks . That album features one of the few instances where Clayton has appeared as a vocalist; he spoke the last verse of “Your Blue Room”, the album’s second single. Prior to this Clayton had only provided live backing vocals to tracks such as “Out of Control”, “I Will Follow”, “Twilight” and “Bullet the Blue Sky”. Since 1998’s Popmart tour Clayton has not sung live in any capacity for the band.

In 1996, while still in New York, Clayton collaborated with Mullen to re-record the Mission: Impossible theme.

Adam Clayton Clayton has remained a bachelor through his time with U2. During the early 1990s, he was involved with and briefly engaged to British supermodel Naomi Campbell.

He also had a long-standing relationship with Suzanne “Susie” Smith, a former assistant to Paul McGuiness; they were engaged in 2006, but the pair broke up in February 2007.

The High Court ordered the assets of Clayton’s former housekeeper and PA be frozen after it was reported that she misappropriated funds of €1.8 million.

As a bass player, Adam Clayton’s most recognizable basslines include “New Year’s Day”, which evolved out of an attempt to play Visage’s song “Fade to Grey”, and “With or Without You”.

His style includes Motown and reggae influences, and cites artists such as Paul Simonon of The Clash as influences on his musical style.

When Clayton first joined the fledgling U2, he did not have formal training in the bass.In the band’s early years, he generally played simple parts in 4/4 time.

Bono said of Clayton’s early bass playing, “Adam used to pretend he could play bass. He came round and started using words like action and fret and he had us baffled. He had the only amplifier so we never argued with him.

We thought this guy must be a musician, he knows what he’s talking about and then one day we discovered he wasn’t playing the right notes, that are what wrong, y’know are?”

Clayton has sung on several occasions, including on the song “Endless Deep”, the B-side to the single “Two Hearts Beat As One” from 1983. He also spoke the last verse of “Your Blue Room”. Clayton can be heard speaking on “Tomorrow (‘96 Version)” (a rerecording of “Tomorrow” that he arranged) a song from U2’s 1981 album October. He plays the guitar on a few occasions, most notably the song “40”, where he and guitarist The Edge switch instruments. He also plays the keyboard introduction to “City of Blinding Lights”.

Clayton’s basses include:

Fender Precision Bass

Fender Jazz Bass

• Gibson Thunderbird Bass
• Gibson Les Paul Triumph Bass
• Gibson Les Paul 70’s Recording Bass, unknown model
• Lakland Joe Osborn Signature Bass
• Lakland Darryl Jones Signature Bass (with Chi-Sonic pickups)
• Auerswald Custom Bass
• Epiphone Rivoli bass (seen in the get on your boots’ music video)
• Status John Entwistle Buzzard Bass

Throughout his career, Clayton has used both Precision and Jazz basses. His first bass, however, was a dark brown Ibanez copy. He uses Ashdown amplifiers and blue Herdim picks, as does bandmate The Edge. Clayton’s Precision basses are modified with a Fender Jazz neck; in an interview with Bass Player magazine, he said that he prefers the Jazz bass neck because it is more “lady-like” and is a better fit in his left hand.



Happy Birthday Adam

Adam Calyton / U2TOURFANS 2009Happy Birthday Adam from your friends at U2TOURFANS.

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Neil McCormick and Killing Bono

Many rock pundits are more than happy to write about their successes in life, but few would be prepared to espouse their failures so enthusiastically. And even fewer would be lucky enough to find their efforts the subject of a best-selling book and the basis for a major new feature film.

When self-confessed rock star failure Neil McCormick put pen to paper for his 2003 memoir Killing Bono, little did he realise how his tales of living in the U2 frontman’s shadow would click with fans of the Irish supergroup.

As a former schoolmate of Bono — real name Paul Hewson — McCormick was perhaps better poised to recount the trials and tribulations of the singer than many rock writers.

The pair grew up in a Dublin with a burgeoning late-70s punk scene, but while Bono went on to attain rock god status, McCormick found his efforts in bands such as Frankie Corpse and the Undertakers, and Yeah! Yeah! were to come to naught.

“One reason that Bono made it is he was lucky,” says the chirpy and not-at-all-embittered-sounding Neil.

“There are three things you need to have a good chance of making it. One is an abundance of talent, and Bono certainly has that. He was a charismatic character in school and he’s always been a hero to me.

“The next is luck, in meeting the right people, in being in the right band. The public chooses who it wants, you don’t impose yourself on them, so you’ve got to be in the right place at the right time.

“And there’s persistence — you stick with it until that combination of talent and luck pays off. I don’t know where I went wrong; maybe it was the talent, certainly I didn’t have the luck and 13 years demonstrates I had some persistence, so maybe if I had stuck it out for 14 years the world would finally have recognised my genius!”

Bono’s legendary sense of drive and purpose — so evident in his campaigning work and his musical performances — was also a crucial factor, Neil says.

“It comes from not a very good place,” he adds.

“His mother died when he was 13 and it’s amazing how many of our greatest stars have that kind of maternal or paternal loss in their background; it’s quite shocking. For him, music was a way of filling himself up, and for me maybe it was just something I was doing.”

The title of the book itself may be stark in its message (and one might think the subject of a restraining order) but for Neil it was more about laying old ghosts to rest than hitting out at his more successful childhood friend.

“Bono came up with that title!” he laughs.

“It was called I Was Bono’s Doppelganger, but when the book came out in the US they were perplexed by the word ‘doppelganger’. I had to come up with a new title. That was something Bono had suggested to me quite early on. I called him when I was writing the book. He read it and said “You should call it Killing Bono, like slaying your dragons”. He used to ring me up and leave messages on my phone saying “Neil, it’s Bono, you have to kill me”.

“I was worried that someone might take me seriously, though!”

The singer’s well-intentioned campaigns to save the world, including his very visible appearances in Northern Ireland in support of the peace process, have often made him an easy target for the sneering of others.

Yet Neil contends that the motivation of the man who wrote I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For is absolutely genuine and only exacerbated by his big personality.

“He’s not down-to-earth, he’s got a big head, and he’s got a big heart and he’s a big guy who is doing an amazing thing out there,” he says. “I find it quite sickening that people give him stick.

There’s no rock star or celebrity in the world who gives more of himself to help other people, and he has made a profound difference.

“Millions of people are alive in the Third World because of the intervention of him and others who give a hell of a lot of time. We can argue about whether that’s irritating or not, but nobody cares about ‘irritating’ when they’re dying of hunger.”

Neil will be visiting Belfast this week for the first of the annual Northern Bank/Ulster Museum Lectures. Having seen the music industry both from within and without as a rock journalist, Neil’s subject matter for his forthcoming lecture — Is There Too Much Music? — also promises plenty of insight into the industry.

“It’s something I think about a lot,” he says. “Because from being a musician in a series of obscure and failed bands to somehow ending up in that musician’s curse of becoming a rock critic instead, I have basically spent my entire life immersed in the world of music and have seen many changes over the decades.

“I was standing in Austin, Texas at a street intersection during the South By Southwest Festival, and there were gigs going on everywhere — in barber shops and on rooftops, thousands of bands playing in this city. I could hear the rumble of heavy metal from one side and country and western from another and hip-hop from another, all merging into this big mush.

“I thought that is a metaphor for the world we live in now, where there has never been more music available to hear.

“It made me wonder if there is in fact too much music. Humans evolved in a time of musical scarcity. If you wanted to hear music you had to make it yourself. Now you can’t escape music and every 14-year-old will have heard more different types of music than his grandfather will ever have in his entire life.”

The increasing prevalence of manufactured pop shows like the X Factor is also detrimental to appreciation of quality music, Neil says. “I do believe that everybody has music in them, but that doesn’t mean that everybody has a right to be famous,” he says.

“That is what the karaoke culture of Simon Cowell and co have exploited, that idea not that we’re all musical, that we’re all super-talented when we’re not.

“So I don’t really like the X Factor, because I find it exploitative. It feeds into the worst of human obsessions with music and not the best.

“It’s all ego really. The best part of music is when the ego gets put away and releases the music.”

With music such a big part of his life, he wonders now if he has become trapped in what he calls “the obsession of my adolescence”, something which was no doubt given a surreal edge by meeting his ‘younger self’ during the filming of Killing Bono in Belfast just last month.

“I had to shoot a scene where I got a cameo as a rather sad old Irishman in an illegal strip club watching my younger self play on stage,” he recalls.

“The director had stationed a stripper right in front of me, so my screen moments will be me looking at some young girl’s ass while my younger self plays in the background.

“I had a Spock-meets-Spock moment, a Star Trek paradox where I thought, ‘could I go up to my younger self, take him in hand and give him some advice and spare him the pain’?

“It’s complicated because this isn’t a novel, it’s my life.

“When they make a biopic it’s because the subject has done something great, like Gandhi or Nelson Mandela. But nobody knows who I am, or cares, so this is a story about a loser in rock ’n’ roll.

“On one hand I have the great victory of achieving the kind of fame I wanted when I was a kid, but on the other I am achieving it in the guise of a comedy loser played by an actor, so I’m not even going to be myself any more.

“Now I’m about to be subsumed in the shadow of a more handsome actor!”

Said actor is English pin-up Ben Barnes, star of Prince Caspian and Dorian Gray, and for whom Neil is fulsome in his praise.

“However, Neil found himself particularly moved by the portrayal of Bono by rising young west Belfast actor Martin McCann.

“He was amazing, he’s going to be a revelation to people,” says Neil. “I was never as good looking as Ben Barnes, but I would see Martin out of the corner of my eye and think “There’s Bono!”

“He’ll be walking towards you and he does something, a little jut of the chin and a movement of the shoulder and he just turns into Bono.

“It was very strange to see, and I had to stop myself from talking to him as if he was Bono. But he didn’t stay in character.

“When the cameras weren’t rolling he’d approach you like a good Northern Irishman.

“I said to Bono that the actor was doing a spookily good job and he said to me — “Just as long as he’s tall!’.”

Neil McCormick — ‘Is There Too Much Music’, Ulster Museum, this Wednesday 7.30pm. Some tickets still available

Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/entertainment/music/news/the-man-who-wants-to-kill-bono-14711158.html#ixzz0hy4Z1pT8

Cashman Snubed as Auction ends

IT WAS a case of the unforgettable buyer for U2 stylist Lola Cashman, who still hasn’t found what she’s looking for.

In fact there was literally no desire for a string of U2 trinkets that Ms Cashman had put up for auction — earning just a quarter of the expected amount.

The unique online auction for some of U2’s personal items from the band’s early days has raised just €10,000 of the expected €40,000.

The 16-item collection was put up for auction on a US website with just six items bid for in total. All the items up for grabs hail from the band’s early days including a number of the boys’ personal items such as a pair of Larry Mullen’s used Converse shoes and a chipped navy blue mug used by Bono and The Edge.

However, the final figures of the auction show that only six of the sixteen items generated bids, which totalled €7,000 — a far cry from the €40,000 that was originally predicted.

As the auction was coming to an end yesterday, a flurry of interest erupted for the unique items put up for sale — including a set of Bono’s rosary beads which fetched nearly €4,000.

Along with the beads, a Polaroid picture of Bono from 1987 which sold for more than €1,000 and a used set concert list also sold for €945.

As did a signed photograph of the band for €241 and a backstage pass from their Joshua Tree tour for €219.

Another religious object put up was Larry Mullen’s former Bible, given to the stylist in 1988, with the inscription “To Lola, With Real Love, Larry, 15-1-88”.

It was being auctioned off for $4,800 (€3,500) and not one bid was placed.

Larry Mullen’s worn Converse shoes were expected to sell for at least $4,500 (€3,300) which also failed to generate any bids.

The former stylist is no stranger to auctioning off memorabilia belonging to the iconic band.

Cashman was previously involved in a high-profile court case dubbed Stetsongate, for selling items belonging to the rock legends she had collected while joining them on their Joshua Tree tour from 1987 onwards.

After losing her appeal against a judge’s decision that the items were not hers to sell, she instead auctioned off items that were personally inscribed to her.

- Caitlin McBride



U2 Rumor Alert

CISCO BluesFest The Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest runs from July 7 to 18 this year, and while the schedule of performers won’t be officially announced until April 21, it’s certainly the season for rumours.Melting snow means one thing: Bluesfest is approaching.

A couple of different fans sites have suggested that it could be possible. The timing looks good, with U2 playing Philadeliphia on July 12th and Montreal on July 16th and 17th. The leaves a couple days to stop over to LeBreton Flats.

Hola Mexico !

Jerry MeleDecember 1997 gig in Mexico City. The melee exposed the disgusting sense of impunity running rampant among Mexico’s privileged elite—even during a period of immense social and political change—and the enormous influence of U2, which shamed the country’s top figure through its firm, but dignified response.

As the Mexican magazine La Revista tells the story, the Zedillo boys attended the 1997 concert—part of the PopMart tour  as VIPs, entering with complimentary tickets. Afterwards, they attempted to leave through a restricted area full of expensive equipment. Camera crews confronted the entourage, leading to a dustup. U2 security director Jerry Mele, a Vietnam veteran who was considered one of the best in the business and gained his reputation by maintaining order at death-metal concerts, was then run down by a vehicle carrying the Zedillo crew as they left the Foro Sol. Mele nearly died of his injuries.

The band immediately demanded an apology, threatening to expose the president’s children’s egregious impunity. Zedillo refused. At a concert the following evening, U2 front man Bono told the sellout crowd: “We nearly lost a brother last night.”

Embarrassed publicly and perhaps fearing a public-relations disaster, Zedillo relented, inviting U2 for a meeting at Los Pinos (the president’s residence) the following day.

During the tense affair, Zedillo reportedly told Bono: “(U2 security) put my sons’ lives in danger.” Earlier, the chief of presidential security refused to divulge the names of the officers involved in the scuffle to U2. The president, defending his guards, blamed the promoter.

Bono reportedly pointed out how President Bill Clinton’s daughter attended U2 shows without incident and that the Secret Service knew how to behave itself when accompanying her. He also repeated his demand for an apology in front of the entire country. The meeting ended without satisfaction for U2. President Zedillo would learn shortly thereafter that his boys had lied.

Jerry Mele and Bono Jerry Mele never worked again. He won a lawsuit against the show’s promoter and the Mexican government two years later.

Ernesto Zedillo Jr., long the object of U2 fans’ scorn, angrily rejected culpability. The young man, described by La Revista as “a businessman” and “jet-set figure” (read: a playboy living large with his father’s money), told Milenio, a Mexico City newspaper, that if U2 didn’t come to Mexico, it wasn’t his fault.

Perhaps not entirely. During the U2 hiatus, Kristy MacColl, a British singer, who previously performed a duet with Bono, died after being struck by a powerboat while diving near Cozumel. The boat owner has never faced justice. Bono dedicated a song to his late friend during one of last week’s concerts - and also made a call for action. The following day, the president’s office promised to reopen MacColl’s case. Fans suspected MacColl’s death had further soured U2 on performing in Mexico.

U2 has been back to Mexico, Jerry remains retired and has written a book. Life moves on.

U2 Fans Who is Jerry Mele ?

As we get closer to the start of the tour we begin to think about many things associated with a massive tour. So U2 Fans who is Jerry Mele ? Post your answer on Facebook. Come back later today to read all about Jerry and his adventures

Its a Beautiful Day, Really it is !

What do you know about the song “Beautiful Day”? Here is some info that you may find interesting, if you have other facts share them with us.

“Beautiful Day” is the first song and lead single from U2’s 2000 album, All That You Can’t Leave Behind. It was a commercial success, helping launch the album to multi-platinum status, and is one of U2’s biggest hits to date. It was their fourth #1 single in the UKand their first #1 in the Netherlands, while the single also was #1 for a week in Australia. The song peaked at #21 in the U.S., the band’s highest position since “Discothèque” in 1997. The song won three Grammy Awards in 2001.

The lyrics were inspired by Bono’s experience with Jubilee 2000, a benefit urging politicians to drop the Third World Debt.

This is about a man who loses his material things and feels better because he realizes the value of what he has.

U2 wrote this in stages. It changed drastically when Bono came up with the “Beautiful Day” lyric and the idea for the backing vocals.

This was featured in television coverage of the 2000 Olympics from Australia. It was used in a nightly video recap called “Images Of The Games.” NBC made a donation to The Special Olympics in exchange for the rights to use it.

This was one of the first major releases made available for download. Fans could stream the song from U2.com before it was released.

A live performance was taped for British TV show Top Of The Pops on the rooftop of a hotel in Ireland that Bono and The Edge own. They also taped a performance of “Elevation” that day.

This evolved out of a punk rock song they were working on called “Always,” which was used as the B-side to “Beautiful Day.” “Always” was included on a 2002 album of U2 rarities called U2 7. The album was distributed through Target stores.

The video was first shown at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sep. 7, 2000.

In England, this went to #1 its first week. It beat out a duet by Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue which was expected to claim the top spot.

This was the first track and first single on All That You Can’t Leave Behind. The album did much better than their previous one, Pop, released in 1997.

When this went to #1 in the UK, Bono told BBC Radio One: “This tastes very sweet. You think to yourself, you’re a rock band, you don’t need the pop charts, but you do need the pop charts. Singles are what makes rock sharp, and we’ve not been great at singles. I can’t tell you how excited we feel, we’ve been around for a while and to hear this song on the radio, it feels very special.”

This won 2000 Grammys for Song Of The Year, Record Of The Year, and Best Rock Performance By Duo Or Group. The album was released after the 2000 cutoff date and was not eligible for awards, but this was because it was released as a single before the date. The next year, U2 won 4 more Grammys.

When accepting the Grammy awards for this, The Edge wore a jersey with the number 3 as a tribute to Dale Earnhardt, a race car driver who died the weekend earlier in the Daytona 500.

U2 performed this at halftime of the 2002 Super Bowl after it won an online poll, beating out “Desire,” “Pride” and “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Unlike the year before, when Aerosmith was joined by Britney Spears, Mary J. Blige and Nelly, U2 had the halftime show to themselves.

Clips of this song are used as the theme music for The Premiership, a weekly TV show in the UK which shows that covers all the English Permier League football (soccer) games.

This song was played at the end of a Smallville episode entitled “Nicodemus,” where Clark takes Lana up on the windmill and shows her the Metropolis horizon line.

Kurt Nilsen from Norway won the 2003 World Idol competition singing this song. World Idol brought together winners for the Idol competitions in various countries to compete against each other. 2003 was the only year it took place, and Nilsen beat 10 other contestants, including Kelly Clarkson, who placed second.