Well, when U2 found out about the article they hit the roof. Bono

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called a meeting with Deal in which he said it was keyhole peeking and she said that the whole gigantic Zoo extravaganza had gotten too far away from rock & roll, that bands and journalists should all hang out together and have some sort of equality. After some saber-rattling U2 decided to let the Pixies finish the tour, but Pixies leader Charles Thompson was furious with Deal about the whole thing. He said that U2 had treated the Pixies great and he couldn't imagine what Deal thought she had to complain about. No one would feel comfortable saying that the Spin story broke up the Pixies, but it was one contribut­ing factor in the demise of a group no longer big enough to contain both Thompson and Deal.

And, I imagine, it was hard on the Pixies—a great band who were a big influence on Nirvana and a hundred other groups—to finally go out and play American arenas after years in clubs and not go over. Thomp­son launched a solo career under the name Frank Black, and Deal gave her full attention to the Breeders, who quickly got more popular than the Pixies had ever been. I was having dinner with Bob Guccione one night not too long after the dust settled, and he told me that Spin no longer had any interest in doing interviews with U2; he could not forgive them for what they did to the Pixies. Tonight the different camps stay on different sides of the room, with R.E.M. going easily from one side to the other.

U2 has also been pilloried in much of the American underground for their alleged part in the destruction of the parody group Negativland. I think it's a bum rap. In the weeks before Achtung Baby was released, when anticipation for the new U2 album was high, the satirical group Nega­tivland released a twelve-inch vinyl single called "U2." It juxtaposed U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" with a bootleg tape of U.S. radio personality Casey Kasem screwing up a scripted reading about the band and cursing out his staff for feeding him shit about this band "from England" that nobody gives a shit about. It was a very funny, naughty record. It also looked like a new U2 album. The LP-sized jacket had a huge red "U2" across the cover with the word Negativland" in small type, like a title. It looked something like the cover of War. Island Records immediately hit Negativland and STS, the independent record label for which they recorded, with a lawsuit for illegal use of the U2 trademark and for releasing a record that U2 fans would buy, thinking it was the new U2 LP.

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That was a real consideration. My friend Timothy White, the re­spected rock journalist and editor in chief of Billboard, picked up the parody disk at Tower Records thinking it was the new U2 album. If it fooled Tim, it could sure fool teenagers in the boondocks.

Anyhow, Negativland's label, STS, at first responded to the Island lawsuit as a great publicity opportunity. They launched a "Kill Bono" campaign and made public requests for U2 to play a benefit show for Negativland. But when it became clear that the court was going to rule that it was a copyright infringement, STS turned around and froze Negativland's royalties and insisted that the parody group pay all the damages. What followed was an increasingly ugly battle between Nega­tivland and STS. Island Records president Chris Blackwell wrote to Negativland that U2 had asked him to back off, and he would, but he would not swallow the court costs. Those costs, and their own label's refusal to share the burden, bankrupted the parody group, who were meanwhile further sued and injuncted by Casey Kasem, who accused them of maliciously disparaging his wholesome image.

What a mess.' At one point two members of Negativland even posed as Journalists and got Edge on the phone, did half an interview with him, and then revealed their identities and begged him for money to help pay their legal bills. Edge laughed and said he'd think about it, but he did not cough up. The whole fiasco went down with almost no effect on or notice from U2 themselves. Island had the right to protect the trademark they paid so much money to license, and anyway, the Island lawsuit was curbed early on. Negativland themselves vacillated between being contrite and taking on the battered defensiveness of Lenny Bruce in his last days, railing against the injustice of copyright laws and saying that such laws should only be enforced on people whose intentions are bad. Not on artists.

Like the Pixies -Spin controversy, the Negativland brouhaha cast U2 as evil giants stomping on the little guys who get in their way. One editor of an alternative rock magazine told me with a straight face that he could not listen to Achtung Baby because "U2 are fascists." I said, "Oh, come on.' They may be capitalists, they may believe in intellectual property rights, but if that makes them fascists, then so are we all." But he was adamant. He thinks U2 are literally Nazis. I find that sort of simplemindedness offensive on a dozen levels, but I'll tell you what— that editor is not stupid and he is not alone.

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The day after the MTV awards everybody sleeps late and then limps around the Sunset Marquis like wounded soldiers. Well, almost every­one. The Irish actor Richard Harris is smiling and greeting all comers while strolling about in some kind of powder-blue pajamas (or light-weight leisure suit), cradling a white toy poodle and looking for a volunteer to join him at the bar. Eddie Vedder gives me two cassettes of Pearl Jam's unreleased second album—one for me and one for Edge, with hand-customized covers and personal notes. If Pearl Jam is about to ascend to the Biggest Band throne, they are doing it in a remarkably human way.

I bring Edge's tape to him at a breakfast table by the pool, where he and Morleigh are looking at maps and talking about driving out to the desert. I hope he's not planning to propose to her under the Joshua tree. The members of Nirvana wander by the pool, gather their belongings, and load them into a single car—a big old dad sedan, a Caprice or Impala. They drive off together looking like a high school band going to play at the big dance. There are a lot of different ways to be a rock star.

The Troubles

scandal rocks the U2 camp/ a trip to the gaultier show/ the gossip press/ "in the name of the father"/ catholics & protestants/ proposed: Shakespeare was a lunatic/ falling into the television

this has been a tough week for U2," Bono says wearily. He's smoking, drinking, and wearing two weeks' worth of beard. He has deep bags under his eyes. He's sitting at a small table in the restaurant of the Clarence Hotel, the Dublin property purchased by U2 a couple of years ago and into which they keep pouring money. Alt is sitting at a long table nearby talking gaily with Larry's girlfriend, Ann, director Jim Sheridan, and a half dozen other guests. Bono is off by himself, getting serious and stealing bites of my dessert while All's not looking.

The tough week began when the British tabloids ran stories about Adam Clayton's wild binge in a London hotel after a fight with Naomi. According to the report, Adam got wrecked and sent out for a succes­sion of expensive prostitutes. The tabloids claimed that Adam had paid for the whores with his credit card, leaving a paper trail of ugly proof. Regine, U2's publicist, did not deny the story. She merely pointed out that Adam and Naomi had since reconciled.

The story shook the U2 camp, Naomi most of all. She was about to appear at the big Gaultier fashion show in Paris, which is a media zoo anyway, and this scandal added about sixteen tons of unneeded anxiety to the event. Bono, Ali, Larry, and Ann accompanied Adam to Pans and the fashion show in a public display of solidarity and the lovey-dovey-ness of the Adam-Naomi union.

Bono was overwhelmed by the hoopla attending the Gallic clothing circus. "It's bigger than rock & roll to them.!" he says. "It's bigger than

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movies! There were models with chains, pierced nipples, the whole nine yards—and for some reason they all seemed to stop in front of me. Naomi stopped in front of me to wind me up. Christy Turlington stops, gives me a kiss, gives Ali a kiss. Now, you know there's been stories in the tabloids about me and Christy. So all the papers run pictures of Christy kissing me and don't mention that my wife was right there!" Bono shakes his head and chuckles. There has been gossip that he and Christy were having an affair ever since she started coming around with Adam and Naomi, and for a long time no one around U2 was very bothered by it. When Bono told his wife last summer that he would avoid hanging around with Christy so that the tabloids wouldn't get fed, Ali chastised Bono for it and told him that Christy is a lovely girl and if he lets the gossip press run his life, then he's a sap. "Don't miss the opportunity," Ali advised. But since the Adam scandal Bono is more concerned with setting the record right.

"You know, I had fun flirting with Christy, but I never had an affair with her! I wouldn't. After introducing these beautiful women to my wife they all lost interest in me! They're her friends now."

Bono glances across the room at Ali and then turns serious again. "And Adam is not a sleaze. Ask any of the women who work for us. Adam is not a sleazy guy. But when Adam bottoms out he goes way down. And that's what happened. He hurts no one but himself. But I'll tell you, if Adam gets in his car some night and kills himself or someone else, it won't be funny anymore. Then it won't be a joke. That is my fear. Adam is a good person. He is. He may have screwed up, but at heart he's good. Being with Naomi has been good for Adam because it's forced him to be the stable one in a relationship. Usually the woman has to look after Adam, but Naomi's so wild that Adam has had to become the responsible one."

Some more bad news today was that Martin Scorsese said no to directing the video for Bono and Sinatra doing, "I've Got You Under My Skin." They have to find a substitute quickly, as the video must be shot in California next week, when Bono is on the way to Australia to begin the final leg of the tour.

Gavin Friday joins us at about midnight. He is brain-burned from working night and day on the soundtrack to In the Name of the Father, Jim Sheridan's new movie. Bono and Gavin are doing the music. It is due on Saturday and this is Tuesday evening. Time is tight. It is equally tight

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For Sheridan, who is over at the next table eating dinner and trying to forget for a minute that he is supposed to have the movie finished by the weekend, and he's still working. He's just completed the editing and he still has to do the sound, including whatever music Bono and Gavin deliver. Vanessa Redgrave has convinced Sheridan to join his lead actor, Daniel Day-Lewis, and a group of other artists on a trip to Sarajevo. Were it a less noble commitment, Sheridan would have already blown it off, but he has given his promise to go protest the Bosnian slaughter. He'd just like to finish his movie first.

In the Name of the Father has already stoked tremendous controversy, especially in England. It is the story of the Guildford Four, a group of hippie layabouts who were framed by the British government for an IRA pub bombing in the 1970s. Day-Lewis plays Gerry Conlon, one of the accused. Tonight on the news there was a report on British anger at Sheridan's re-creation of the pub explosion, and the assumption that this was going to be a pro-IRA/anti-English movie.

Watching the TV news tonight—at Edge's parents' house—I had the feeling I often get with U2: that I had fallen into the television. In addition to the Name of the Father controversy, there was film of Naomi at the Paris fashion show, and a report about Salman Rushdie, another of whose publishers has just been shot by Islamic terrorists. After the news came Ali Hewson's Chernobyl documentary, "Black Wind, White Land" which was an effective and terrifying look at how the countryside around that disaster area has been ravaged and the people ruined since they became irradiated. Ali has been enormously uncomfortable this week with being made a public figure in the reviews of the show and in interviews she's done to promote it. She will not do any more. She has a new understanding of how the public praise and scorn constantly heaped on him sometimes blows the gaskets in her husband's head.

It's probably nuts for Bono to be trying to squeeze in this movie soundtrack with so much going on, but he and Gavin have known Sheridan since U2 and the Virgin Prunes played their first professional shows at Sheridan's Project Arts Centre. Part theater, part art gallery, the PAC was also home to aspiring young actors Gabriel Byrne, Stephen Rea, and Liam Neeson. When Sheridan's 1990 film My Left Foot set the movie world on its ear, Bono and Gavin liked to believe that Daniel Day-Lewis's Oscar-winning performance in that film was based at least a little on Sheridan's in-your-face, thinking-faster-than-he-can-get-the-

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words-out manner. Both musicians are convinced the director is a ge­nius. As they work on the soundtrack Sheridan gives them musical instructions such as this: "Do you know the way when you're running from someone who's trying to kill you, his foot-beats behind you are louder than your own? Can you make it sound like that?"

Or: "That's jazz, isn't it? Do you know what jazz is? Jazz is a black man in a spotlight. Only the spotlight is the headlights of a police car and he's trying to lean out of it. That's why jazz leans out of the melody. So no one can say he stole it. Now, on this, can you lean farther?"

The incredible sensitivity in Britain to all matters related to the Irish Republican Army has made for some moments of black comedy too. On the train going up to Liverpool to shoot the pub bombing scene, Sheridan got into an argument with a crew member who wanted to delay filming the explosion for technical reasons. Finally Sheridan said loudly, "The bomb goes off at two! That's the plan we agreed to and we're sticking to it! The bomb goes off at two!" When he settled down he looked around the train and realized that the English passengers were all staring at him in fear and horror—they thought he was a real IRA terrorist.

The IRA and the troubles in Northern Ireland are swimming through Sheridan's mind when Bono and Gavin join him at the main dinner table. Sheridan wants to invite the families of the victims of the Guildford bombing to a private movie screening. Sheridan says the IRA kill randomly, but the Protestant Unionists kill with precision and logic:

"Seven killed in IRA bombing. All right, we will go out this weekend and kill seven Catholics. Agreed." Sheridan says the Irish still think England is the master of the world. They don't know the USA has been running things for some time.

Bono says he thinks this comes from an Irish Catholic sense of deserved guilt. Ireland must deserve the lash England gives it. Bono, who understands evangelical thinking, says that Unionist Ian Paisley and his ilk have an apparent, evangelic logic behind their philosophy of retribu­tion—but that it crumbles under real scrutiny because the Protestant-dominated Northerners had the opportunity for Home Rule and re­jected it. Therefore, by evangelical logic, the initial rebellion was Protes­tant and theirs is the ultimate fault.

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