The Joe Jackson Interviews

Bell X1 2006. Paul Noonan soul searching and uncensored at the time of Flock, talks about life, art, love, music and death

I did this interview with Paul in 2006, at a time when the Bell X1 album Flock, had gone straight to number one in the Irish charts.  This is Noonan uncensored and soul searching on subjects such as 'Uaneen, Damien, arty and life' to cull a headline from the magazine in which the article was printed. This is the first of two podcasts that will include the complete interview

PaulaYates 1993 on Sex, Ageing and Life. Paula Yates soul searching and uncensored. Part one.

In my eBook Bob Geldof: The Joe Jackson Interviews Plus, Bob - whom I have known, socially, since we were kids - reacts angrily against the questions I posed in defence of Paula Yates, who had died. He said I didn't really know anything about her or about their relationship. Did I? You decide. Here, in the first half-hour podcast of three, is Paula uncensored, soul searching and having lots of fun talking about owning Napolean 's dick, her book Village People, feminism, the role of a mother, being tortured by tabloids since she was 14, lusting after Daniel Day-Lewis, her children and a certain Mr Geldof. If you are tight-assed it might be best not to listen, there are no holds barred.  

Tori Amos censored and silenced by The Irish Times in 1994. Tori responds to Joe Jackson telling her during a phone call that The Irish Times censored her interview.

In my eBook Tori Amos Soul Searching and Uncensored, I tell the tale of the time in early 1994, when The Irish Times, for whom I did weekly interviews, told me they didn't want "this woman" in the newspaper "at all" with her "ramblings about Jesus, masturbation and rape." I had to break the news to Tori, which I did by leaving a phone message. This podcast contains her initial response and a longer chat we had - during which I readily admit I talk too much, maybe because I was still incensed at The Irish Times - about my plans to rework the interview and publish it in full elsewhere. 

Boy George 1993. "I still fancy Larry Mullen Jnr and it depends who calls me a 'pervert,' 'homo,' or 'fag.'" Boy George soul searching with Joe Jackson

In 1987 during my first interview with Boy George, he said "tell Bono if he still hasn't found what he is looking for, to look behind the drum kit!" The quote was winged around the world courtesy of MTV News. Six years later, we did our second interview and that subject, naturally enough, was raised at the start. But much as Boy George lusted after Larry we then went on to discuss, for The Joe Jackson Interview slot om The Irish Times, a broad set of issues and subjects in-depth - but always with Boy George's irrepressible sense of humour. 

Tom Jones as you never heard him before. The Irish Times Interview 1992 Part 1. Jones on his music, sex appeal, Welsh Nationalism, and religious conflict in his marriage

This was the third interview I did with Tom and given that in The Joe Jackson Interview slot in The Irish Times myself and my editor Paddy Woodworth were attempting to redefine pop interviews in the newspaper, this time around Tom and I were free to discuss, yes, his music, of course, and sex appeal but also topics he rarely discussed in public, such as Welsh Nationalism, the fact that he as a Protestant married, Linda, a Catholic, and the pressures this led to, not only becuase she was pregnant at the time. Tom once said I was "dangerous" because he said, "talking to you is like talking to a mate in a pub, and I have to remind myself that you are an interviewer!" I loved talking to the guy. This is part 1 of a two pare podcast

George Martin tells Joe Jackson about the evolution of Let It Be album and how it led to Abbey Road. A Single.

As I say in the intro, to this short podcast - hence the 'single tag' as it runs roughly five minutes - I came of age as a kid during the Beatles era. Their songs, up to and including those on Let It Be and, better still, Abbey Road, were an intrinsic part of my life. So, sitting with George martin in a London recording studio a quarter-century later, was heaven to me! Here, from our ninety-minute interview, is George Martin telling me the story of Let it Be and how it led to Abbey Road. Copyright Joe Jackson.

Eamon DeValera sucker punches Winston Churchill at the end of World War Two. A 'Singles' podcast from Boom! Joe Jackson's History of Pop Culture

An amazing sound collage from Boom! The Joe Jackson History of Popular Culture, podcast one, 1945. Winston Churchill got digs at Eamon DeValera, vis-a-vis Ireland's neutrality during the Second World War and 'Dev' punched him right back! Also included is Edward R Murrow, reporting from Piccadilly Circus on VE Day

A Priest blesses the Enola Gay before it drops the world's first atomic bomb.A Joe Jackson 'Singles' podcast clip from Boom! JoeJackson's History of Popular Culture. 1945

I have already uploaded the first podcast in my series, Boom! Joe Jackson's History of Popular Culture, but here, as part of my 'Singles' podcasts, lasting less than five minutes, is a still-staggering sound collage evoking the day the world's first A-Bomb was dropped. 

Boom! Joe Jackson's 26-part History of Popular Culture. 1945.

In 1998 I wrote and presented on RTE Radio 1 radio my first major documentary series, The Years Go Pop, a title I hated. Either way, I set out to give in a series of one-hour programmes my view of the history of popular culture from 1945 to 1989. I definitely did not want to tell a traditional history of rock or pop if only because most took a musicological tilt on the tale where I was more interested in pop culture as a socio-political phenomenon. I set out my case at the start, in a half-page article in The Irish Times and at the start of the show, when I pointed out that I would play not just those singles or albums that put the art into pop art but songs that help change the way we see ourselves, the way we dress, dream, engage in sexual politics, fall in love - in other words, the way we live. And I said that even though most rock histories start in 1956 I tended to side with the view of social commentators who suggested that year zero was 1945. Now an abridged version of the series is called, Boom! Joe Jacksons History of Pop Culture. This show was the first and focuses on 1945.

Pat Egan announces break up of Taste Dublin National Stadium October 1970. Sound bite from The Joe Jackson Archive.

The sound of this clip I recorded on cassette at Dublin's National Stadium on October 14th 1970, as a fan of Taste - that is me you hear saying "they are breaking up! Thank God I'm here!" - is appalling. But as I say in the intro, the recording was made by a teenage Taste fan, with a Sony cassette recorder strapped around my shoulder and a mic half-hidden in the pocket of my "John Lennon army jacket!" But this is a slice of Irish rock history and I was not only there- I got it on tape. This is the first in a series of flashback sound bites