Killing Bono

by Neil McCormick

  In terms of the actual work, I was even further out of my depth. Before the modern era of computers and desktop publishing, magazine layout was a hands-on process, made even more complicated by Hot Press’s lack of resources. Raw copy came in from journalists via the editor, often in the form of near-illegible handwritten tracts in ballpoint on bumper pads. We were then supposed to instruct the typesetter on the point size of the lettering and the dimensions she should set the copy to. As the reams of copy arrived, we would cut them up with rulers and scalpels and adhere them to pages of A3 tracing paper (placed over a grid) with a sticky substance known as cow gum. Headlines would be laboriously scratched out with Letraset. Graphic touches would be added by hand. We would calculate the dimensions of photographs and leave blank spaces while the original pictures were sent off with the pages to the printers to be transformed into print-ready coagulations of dots, known as bromides. Color overlays and specific instructions were added (in black) on a second sheet of tracing paper. It did not help that the printers, chosen on the basis that they were the cheapest in Ireland, were based hundreds of miles away in Kerry so there was no opportunity to examine pages and correct mistakes before the magazine went to press. All of this was new to me but I decided to bluff it. For the first few months I felt like I was walking a tightrope and that I could be blown off balance by the slightest gust. My progress was painfully slow but I covered up with chat, all the while trying to obscure (from Mairin in particular) how little I was actually getting done. I worked evenings and so, when everybody else left, I would volunteer to stay on, finish a few things off and lock up. Then, in the empty office, I would sit and labor alone for hours, ensuring I got my page rate up to an acceptable level. It was often so late by the time I finished that I would just sleep on the floor of the office, arising after a few hours’ uncomfortable rest to walk down to art college and start my day there. When college finished, I wandered back to Hot Press to begin another evening session. The second time I did this, I prepared for the long haul by taking a packed breakfast into work with me. It did not occur to me that cereal and milk might disintegrate overnight. When I opened my Tupperware dish in the morning, I was so disappointed by the soggy mess inside that I tossed the whole lot out the window. That evening, I listened to much bemused chatter about how a solicitor whose offices were located below Hot Press’s had been complaining that his third-floor window was plastered with soggy cornflakes. I didn’t say a word.

  “He’s never been the same since the goat ate his files,” sighed Mairin.

  Eventually I started to get the hang of things. I enjoyed being part of the witty, passionate team who put Hot Press together. Life in the office was endlessly fascinating and amusing, work being carried on with much creativity and good humor under the calm, nurturing auspices of Niall, who facilitated the whole fragile enterprise with an impressive combination of warmth, wisdom and goodwill. After a while, even Mairin (Niall’s partner in life as well as work) started to be nice to me. I felt as if I had gained entry into the very crucible of Irish rock culture. I could get into gigs for free and take home advance copies of the latest records. Sometimes I would answer the phone to find myself talking to an Irish rock legend. “Could you tell Niall Rory Gallagher’s returning his call.”

  I would stare at the handset skeptically. “Rory Gallagher?” I’d say.

  “That’s right.”

  “Rory Gallagher the guitarist?”

  “Just put Niall on, will you, for fuck’s sake!”

  I couldn’t wait to get back to Howth and tell my friends I had been chatting with Rory Gallagher. The exact nature of the conversation hardly mattered. He was a star. And he was talking to me!

  One day Bono and the Edge came into the office, plugging their latest gig. They did a double take at the sight of an old classmate sitting in this hallowed ground. “What are you doing here?” Bono inquired with evident puzzlement.

  “I work here,” I grinned. “I should be asking you that question.”

  “Bands aren’t allowed upstairs,” snapped Mairin.

  “It’s OK,” I said. “They’re with me.”

  Conversation quickly turned to music. The Modulators were gigging consistently, performing most Friday nights in the support slot at the community center. We hadn’t really solved our drummer problem. We did one gig with a local stoner called Hopeless Eric, a moniker which turned out to be sadly apposite. He smoked dope all through rehearsals, then freaked out on stage, shaking with nerves and fleeing immediately afterward, never to be seen again. After that, Paul Byrne sat in on drums. He was a neighborhood friend and the best young drummer in Howth but insisted we explain on stage that he wasn’t actually a band member. “Don’t want any girls out there thinking I’m a punk” was his reasoning.

  I was enjoying my growing local celebrity but soon learned that fame could have its downside. Walking up Howth Hill one day I was attacked by two boys my own age who kept knocking me to the ground with judo moves, swiping my legs from underneath me every time I tried to stand. “You can play guitar but you can’t fight!” yelled one of my assailants.

  “I can’t even play guitar,” I protested. Obviously I had been mugged by mistake. The one they really hated was Ivan.

  I related these tales to Bono and Edge to much laughter. But U2 were hardly strangers to the problems facing young bands. Edge told me about a Crofton Airport Hotel gig, for which only six people turned up, three of whom thought a different band were playing. “That’s the worst we’ve ever played,” he reported.

  “But look on the bright side,” said Bono, “only six people know about it.”

  The biggest debacle, however, was U2’s support slot for the Greedy Bastards’ December gig at the enormous Stardust Ballroom. The Greedies were a part-time outfit featuring members of Thin Lizzy and the Sex Pistols and so this was the hottest ticket in town. Everybody who mattered in the Irish music business and every hip punter in Dublin was there, but the Greedies’ disorganization resulted in U2’s going on without a sound check. They tried to cope by walking on one at a time to twang and bang away for the soundman’s benefit on an extended opening to “Out of Control,” but the audience were catcalling even before Bono started singing. Ivan and I watched incredulously, failing to comprehend how a group we knew to be dynamic and inspiring could be made to sound like rank amateurs. Maybe there was hope for all of us!

  “Everybody’s gotta fall flat on their face sometimes,” said Bono afterward. “The important thing is to pick yourself up.”

  I knew how that felt. John announced he was leaving the Modulators, uttering the immortal line: “I don’t think I can handle the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle.” I looked at him incredulously. What was it that he found particularly difficult to cope with? We weren’t exactly fighting off groupies, there were no drugs and only the occasional gig in the local community center. We found out soon enough that John was actually doing to us what we had done to Frank. He and Paul Byrne were forming their own band, Sounds Unreel, playing prog rock, a genre where John’s Afro and Paul’s blow-dried bouffant would not be so out of place.

  We recruited a new bassist, David Parkes. He had a distinct advantage over everyone who had held this position before in that he could actually play an instrument. Not bass, mind you—that would have been asking too much. But he was an accomplished classical guitarist and Ivan set about teaching him what he needed to know to transfer his talents from six strings to four. Then, through an advertisement in Hot Press, we procured a drummer who didn’t have probation restrictions, suffer from dope-induced paranoia or require us to make disclaimers before every performance. True, Johnny McCormack (no relation, thank God) was a Dublin Jack-the-lad who was quite a bit older than us (he must have been all of, oh, twenty-two or twenty-three, which seemed positively ancient) and with whom we had absolutely nothing in common, but he was willing to play drums in our band and (beggars, choosers and all that) that was enough to seal the deal.

  By summer 1979, w
e were ready to rock. Or perhaps that should be “ready to pop.” Our ideas of what we wanted to achieve were starting to coalesce and Ivan and I agreed there was something inherently limiting about the rock genre. It was full of bands who seemed to take themselves terribly seriously and who relied for effect on a form of sonic pummeling. We liked songs: verses, choruses, middle eights and all. Our heroes were the Beatles and we wanted to create a musical platform that would ideally allow us room to explore a multitude of different styles. And, in our fierce ambition, we really wanted to be popular, the key word that lay at the very core of our vision of pop music.

  “It’s all pop music,” I said to Bono after a gig one day, expanding on ideas that tied into my rejection of artistic elitism. “It’s about what’s popular, what the audience chooses to hear, what people listen to and sing to themselves even when the band isn’t there. You’re making pop music.”

  “Up yer bum, chum, with a big bass drum!” retorted Bono, aghast at the very idea. “U2 is a rock band.”

  “I’m talking about the Jam, the Boomtown Rats, the Ramones, Blondie…” I rattled off (perhaps pausing for a moment to contemplate the vision of Debbie Harry, new wave’s most appealing pin-up). “It doesn’t all have to be flashy disco and Eurovision mush. This is the new wave of pop. Its got snap and crackle!”

  “You want to sound like a breakfast cereal?” laughed Bono, incredulously. “That is the problem with pop! It’s like pre-packaged tins of music. Rock doesn’t fit on the supermarket shelf.”

  “Of course it does. When rock becomes popular then it’s pop music by definition.”

  “Calling us pop is like an insult to me,” countered Bono. “It’s such an insubstantial thing. Pop! The bubble bursts…and then it’s gone. But a rock will still be there no matter what. There could be storms, waves pounding—nothing is gonna wear it down…”

  We could go on like this at great length (and frequently did). But while we agreed to disagree, Bono invited the new-look Modulators to make their debut supporting U2 in McGonagles. They were planning a month-long residency known as the Jingle Balls, which they advertised as “Christmas in June!” in a gimmicky attempt to stir interest. Christmas decorations were draped all over the stage with a row of Santa masks hanging at the rear. The idea was to offer a cornucopia of delights, with special guests and other surprises every week. I don’t know how much of a surprise the Modulators were to the assembled throng, but our central-Dublin debut was a storming success for us. We tore through a set mixing originals and covers, encoring with a hugely silly, extended riff on the Ramones’ “Kill That Girl,” complete with a mock-preacher-style rock ’n’ roll call-and-response heavily influenced by Rocky De Valera, in which I practically testified to my homicidal intentions. In retrospect, perhaps there were a few issues regarding my summer of rejection by the opposite sex that I still had to deal with.

  We got our first review in Hot Press. “The Modulators (who demonstrated more enthusiasm than polish on their ‘first’ gig) boast a very fine lead vocalist who will undoubtedly establish himself as a major local force.” It was written by my boss, Karl, but who was I to question his taste and judgement?

  U2 were in another league. I could sense what they were becoming, even then. At a series of six Saturday-afternoon gigs in a disused car park next to the Dandelion Market and then over the month at McGonagles I watched all that promise suddenly bloom before my eyes and ears. They were a white-hot modern rock band, forging their identity in the blast furnace of performance. The Edge was just mind-blowing, playing through a set of effects that he would trigger with his foot, reverbs and repeats and delays transforming his guitar into a six-string orchestra as he layered up power chords and pinging harmonics to produce swirls and flashes and flares of bright electric sound. Adam and Larry thundered behind him, building up a booming wall of rock. And there was Bono, in a string vest and black-and-white Pierrot trousers (he was never anyone’s idea of a fashion icon), hair clamped to his forehead with sweat, always exhorting, cajoling, roaring his heart out, surrendering himself to the music and the audience.

  There was a white screen set up at the side of the stage with lights projecting on it from behind. During “Stories for Boys,” a snappy song about male-fantasy role models, Bono dragged Alison on stage and they disappeared behind the screen, where their silhouettes groped and snogged one another. It would be a long way from this shadow play to the hi-tech displays of Zoo TV but U2’s multimedia ambitions were present even in those earliest days.

  We supported them again at Howth Community Centre in August. This was our territory, the hall was crammed and the Modulators went down a storm. Then U2 came on and ripped the roof off the place. They played a furious new-wave rocker called “Cartoon World” (written, so I gathered, by the Edge, which might account for why it had finished lyrics rather than relying on lots of “oo-ee-oo”s). Against a chunky, stop-start guitar, Bono delivered droll depictions of ordinary lives where the characters seem to be increasingly dysfunctional, climaxing with the memorable couplet: “Jack and Jill go up the hill / They pick some flowers and they pop some pills!” With Bono roaring the punchline with maximum showmanship, hands aloft as the Edge’s guitar kicked in the chorus, the crowd went absolutely wild. These were Beatles-in-the-Cavern experiences for me. I was getting used to seeing all the big names who came to Ireland, but U2’s gigs were always the most special.

  Afterward, Alison (or Ali, as everyone now called her, so Ali it shall be) approached me as I was chatting with some of local fans, all of whom happened to be female (these were, to be honest, the only kind of fans I was remotely interested in).

  “I’ll have to keep my eye on you, McCormick,” she said. “Every time I see you you’re surrounded by girls.”

  “It’s your boyfriend you should be watching out for,” I said. “Bono’s gonna be a big star.”

  “Ah, never mind him,” said Ali. “He’s always thought he was a star. It’s my job to keep him down to earth.”

  My adolescent awkwardness around girls had more or less evaporated now. Being onstage was feeding my ego, until my natural self-confidence was in danger of becoming overcharged. I had a new girlfriend, Barbara McCarney, a fellow art student with whom I first made eye contact across a crowded life-drawing class, catching a twinkle that made far more impact on me than the nude model seated between us. She was a lovely, oval-faced, curly-haired, red-cheeked, sweet-natured, giggly girl, a million miles from the kind of rock vixens who occupied my fantasies, but over the course of a year studying together I became absolutely smitten. I courted Barbara for months and finally jumped on her on the very last day of college, prompted by the fear that I might otherwise not see her again all summer. She physically leaped back when I kissed her, and I thought, “Uh oh…Could I really have misjudged all those signals?” Then she smiled and reciprocated, whispering, “You took your time, boy.”

  “Lordy,” I thought, “I’m sure I’ll get the hang of this sooner or later.”

  I finally lost my virginity at an anti-nuclear rock festival in Carnsore, on the southwest coast of Ireland. I would like to state for the record that I actually disdain the notion that one can “lose” virginity. I don’t consider myself to have lost anything. Rather I gained something special when we surrendered to our natural desires in a tent in a muddy field while the din of rock music echoed in the background. But “losing” your virginity was a major psychological and sociological issue among my peers at the time. In a patently misguided effort to stop the single people of Ireland from fornicating like beasts of the field, the Catholic lobby had succeeded in making contraception illegal. Condoms were traded like contraband on the black market and so it was that I managed to score a packet of three off a drug dealer at the festival. “Are you sure you don’t want a bit of hash to go with that?” he muttered seductively. “It’ll heighten the whole experience, believe me.”

  “No, no, just the Durex, thank you,” I mumbled, blushing furiously. Romeo and Juliet n
ever had to put up with crap like this.

  I wrote a song with Ivan about that, called “In Your Hands,” a torturous but rather poetic account of the fear and guilt and twisted sense of defiance that was loaded by the church on to the simple act of making love. Our songwriting was definitely improving. And with it an artistic goal was crystallizing. I wanted to write about the realities of teenage life in Ireland: the frustrations of desire in a nation where law seemed to make young love illegal; the gnawing fear of mortality set against the bland succor of an atrophying religion; the obstacles placed across the path to fulfillment by repressive adult society. I wanted to fill the songs with practical details only a teenager would know, writing about the frustration of having to leave my girlfriend’s house every night to catch the last bus home in the prosaically titled “Last Bus Home.” I wanted to accomplish great things and I believed the Modulators could be my vehicle.

  We were getting paying gigs at last, with Johnny negotiating an £80 fee for supporting a show-band at an illegal strip club known, rather unattractively, as Sweaty Betty’s. Anticipating that the audience might not be particularly open-minded, we learned a raft of rock ’n’ roll classics which we duly played at our usual breakneck speed. The place went wild, with one rather elderly fellow jiving on the tabletops to our hyped-up “Peggy Sue.” Afterward he came up to congratulate us. “So this is what they call punk rock, eh?” he said. “It’s not so bad!”

  We made our television debut on Young Line, a well-meaning but ridiculously stuffy and amateurish youth program on RTE, Ireland’s only TV station. I walked into the studio wide-eyed, spinning around to take in the cavernous room with its thick hanging drapes and the multitude of lights suspended from a latticework over our heads. I took my position on stage and watched as the huge cameras rolled silently about, their lenses turning like blank eyes toward me. I stared boldly back, as if trying to see through the looking glass and out into the world of TV-watchers. Here I was: inside the magic box at last! I felt entirely nerveless. This was where I belonged. At a crucial juncture of our performance, I did something I used to do at gigs and leaped off the stage to jive about on the dance floor. Unfortunately, to the viewing public I simply disappeared out of shot. The camera had not followed my flight and now darted around in panic, as if looking for someone or something else to focus on. Then it cut to a presenter wearing a ridiculous multicolored knitted pullover and muttering inanities in front of a wobbly silent projection of the rest of the Modulators’ performance. It was dreadful. I cringed inside at the sight of all my exaggerated movements and labored gesticulations. Did I really look like that? And as for my singing…I knew my voice was not exactly one of the natural wonders of the world but I was absolutely horrified by its lumpy tone and my gulpy, frog-in-throat delivery. How had I ever convinced anyone to let me front a group?