Happy Birthday, Adam!

Today Adam Clayton turns 52. Hope he had the best of days together with friends and family. We wish him the best because he has given us the best these last years!!

A good idea to celebrate his birthday may be to join  the  "Walk in My Shoes" campaign , to support mental health services  for young people in Ireland.
More information and donations: here.
Support Mental Health on April 26th by Wearing Unusual Shoes!

http://www.walkinmyshoes.ie/

Bono comments on Invisible Children’s Kony 2012 campaign

ONE co-founder Bono commented on Invisible Children’s “Kony 2012” film and campaign in Ireland’s edition of the Sunday Times yesterday. The campaign, which aims to raise global support for Ugandan war criminal Joseph Kony’s arrest, has caught the attention of the worldover the past few days, and the filmmakers have urged public figures to speak out in response. Here’s is Bono’s full comment on the campaign:

“Having just been in Gulu with Edun and Jolly, this is particularly pertinent for me…Spreading like wildfire, and sparking a heated, fascinating, much needed debate, this is brilliant campaigning. Not only does the public now know about Kony and his most despicable atrocities, they also know what a huge range of experts think about it, even if they all don’t agree. I salute a strategy that generates this much interest if it¹s targeted towards lasting meaningful solutions owned and directed by the people of the region on their journey from the trauma of these atrocities towards stability and development. Is there an Oscar for this kind of direction? Jason Russell deserves it.”

 To read the full article, click here.




http://one.org/blog

Bono Participated in a Documentary about Victor Jara

"The Resurrection of Victor Jara"  is a  film that documents the life and work of iconic Chilean songwriter Victor Jara, executed in 1973 by a coup de etat government. 

The film chronicles the outrageous efforts of Jara´s widow, Joan, to return the censored singer to the cultural life of his country. It also explores his profound  impact on artists, activists, and musicians of all ages inside and outside Chile.

Bono together with other musicians, activists and singers all  over the world participate  in the documetary that will be premiered on 28th September when Jara would have been 80 years old.

   

http://www.resurrectionofvictorjara.com

Happy 25th Anniversary, The Joshua Tree

Desert sky
Dream beneath the desert sky
The rivers run, but soon run dry
We need new dreams tonight...
In God´s Country

On March 9, 1987, U2 released The Joshua Tree, its fifth studio album and one that would catapult the Irish rock quartet from popularity to international superstardom.

Rolling Stone named it the third best album of the '80s and   the magazine critic Anthony De Curtis wrote: 

"The wild beauty, cultural richness, spiritual vacancy and ferocious violence of America are explored to compelling effect in virtually every aspect of The Joshua Tree — in the title and the cover art, the blues and country borrowings evident in the music ... Indeed, Bono says that 'dismantling the mythology of America' is an important part of The Joshua Tree's artistic objective."

One of the most influential and influenced albums by U2, The Joshua Tree is and was a jewel in the discography of the Irish band (and in any other who would die to have their own "Joshua Tree"). More history of the album here

It produced the hit singles “With or Without You”, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”, and “Where the Streets Have No Name”. The album won Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 1988.

"I just think the album takes you somewhere," bassist Adam Clayton told the magazine. "It's like a journey. You start in the desert, come swooping down in Central America. Running for your life. It takes me somewhere, and hopefully it does that for everyone else."

And it has takes us many places for sure...Happy Anniversary, TJT!!! 

"Original of the Species" in Every Mother Counts

A new benefit project for model Christy Turlington Burn’s Every Mother Counts program will include tracks from a bevy of big names in rock. Among those featured are U2′s Bono and the Edge, Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, Paul Simon and Edie Brickell, Dave Matthews Band, Sting, David Bowie, Beck, Rufus Wainwright and Coldplay, among others.

Highlights include an acoustic version of Coldplay’s early hit “Yellow,” an acoustic take on “Original of the Species” by Bono and the Edge, and Vedder’s “Skipping.” Also participating: Sade, Faith Hill, Diana Krall, Seal, Alanis Morrisette and Patti Smith, among others.

Starbucks is co-sponsoring the project, which will be called Every Mother Counts, Volume 2. Turlington Burn’s charity seeks to raise awareness in reducing the maternal mortality rate. The compilation will be available from May 1-29 in America; release dates in the UK have not yet been set.

“Bono and (Coldplay’s) Chris Martin were great supporters of the project the first time around,” Turlington Burns told Rolling Stone magazine, “and when I knew I wanted to include men on this album, they were obvious choices. They are also both fathers to daughters. I generally wanted a diverse group of artists who were parents.”

Tracklist:

Bono  and The Edge: Original Of The Species
Eddie Vedder: Skipping
Paul Simon  and  Edie Brickell: Pretty Day
Faith Hill: Wish For You
Sade: The Sweetest Gift
Lauryn Hill: I Remember
Rita Wilson: Baby I’m Yours
Diana Krall: Don’t Fence Me In
Seal: Secret
Dave Matthews Band: Sister
Sting: Fragilidad
Alanis Morissette: Magical Child
Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros: Mother
David Bowie: Everyone Says Hi
Cedella Marley: Get Up Stand Up
Beck: Corrina, Corrina
Rufus Wainwright: Instead Of The Dead
Patti Smith: Somalia
Coldplay: Yellow


http://everymothercounts.org/

Happy International Women´s Day!!!

And as Bono would sing: "Women of the future hold the big revelations"...so, women, Get on your boots! and Celebrate!!!

AMP Visual On U2´s Logos

AMP Visual   talks about their work for U2.

"We’ve worked with U2 for a long time as their graphic designers and through the years we’ve made quite a number of design pieces for the band. So we thought we’d do an occasional blog called U2 x 5. The idea is simply for us to take 5 related graphic pieces we’ve designed for the band and comment on them. This blog is about U2 logos.


Logos, they’re absolutely all around us. They are the shorthand and visual idiom of our age. We have always enjoyed making these little marks and symbols for U2. We’ve picked just five logos out of the many we’ve made for the band and say a few words about each."

The Joshua Tree

The isolated silhouette drawing of the Joshua tree was the first U2 logo to appear that people recognised globally. It works both literally and figuratively and it is highly memorable. People connect it intrinsically with the U2 masterpiece album and as such the icon has inherited the characteristics of integrity and a certain kind of honesty and beauty. The tree itself has a lovely very individual shape with its unusual branches and leaves. The logo represents all that that album means to people, so much so that some people have it as a tattoo.

Zooropa – Astrobaby and ring of stars

The ZooTV tour had a fantastic hi-tech connection with satellite technology and the notion of being a TV station on the road. By the time of Zooropa’s outdoor shows, it was incredibly in your face. The icon drawing of the astrobaby surrounded by 12 stars in imitation of the European flag came to represent the tour and subsequently appeared on the cover of the Zooropa album. The logo has a whimsy and intrigue that is appealing. It can be understood without words and somehow its human smallness nicely represents the largesse and technicality of the Zooropa tour.

Pop – Lemon-planet logo

The PopMart tour had a multitude of references – a kind of celebration of 60s kitch and Americana, pop-art, and shopping were all in there. The stage featured an enormous yellow arch almost in homage to the golden arches of the McDonald’s restaurant sign and the band emerged out of a huge chrome lemon during the set. So somehow this logo – made for the tour merchandising – of a shopping trolley traveling around a lemon like a satellite made good sense.

How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb – Chevrons, target and blast

While the How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb warning chevrons, the target and the ‘blast’ shape isn’t just one visual icon, it is still a visual language that worked in the same way as a logo for the album and tour campaign. The icons worked especially well on the cover of the special edition ‘handbook’ version of the album. These black and red-coloured components featured heavily as the album’s identity in promotion and advertising and through the singles from the album and consequently in the tour stage and merchandise.

U2360 – Logo

This icon represented the U2360 tour and in much the same way as The Joshua Tree logo, it’s a literal interpretation, with the logo’s simple curvilinear lines conveying the stage’s iconic shape rather than the other featured logos, which are more about representing an idea. It works well perhaps as its shape is not dissimilar to the elegant streamlined logos as seen for the likes of 60s automobiles with their reminiscence to the golden age of rockets and spacecraft.

AMP Visual work in a number of design disciplines in areas of cultural, entertainment, identity and corporate design and in assorted mediums and platforms from online to print, packaging to promotion. 

http://www.ampvisual.com