Bono blogs

“As the sun arcs over the Manhattan skyline and the markets start dancing nervously out of time, the lyrics I’ve been scribbling over breakfast have been removed and replaced by spreadsheets with large numbers in tiny font as we wrestle with EU budgets in advance of meetings later today with Presidents Sarkozy and Barroso.”

Thus writes Bono on the Financial Times Millennium Development Goals Conference diary. Bono shares his blogging duties with Jeffrey Sachs.

We’d love it if he’d blog about music.

U2′s new album set for ‘early 2009′ release

U2.com reveals the new album won’t see the light of day until next year. The band has decided to continue working on the 50 to 60 new songs they’ve written.

Bono: ‘I’m always the one who underestimates how easy it is to simply ‘put out the songs now’, if it was just up to me they’d be out already! But early next year people will be able to start hearing what we’ve been doing. We want 2009 to be our year, so we’re going to start making an impression very early on …’

Up till now many fans had assumed a 2008 release in time for Christmas. Says Bono: “It has to be our most innovative, our most challenging … or what’s the point?”

Read more at U2.com.

The Edge to present Peter Gabriel with Ambassador of Conscience Award

Peter Gabriel is the recipient of the Amnesty International ‘Ambassador of Conscience Award’ 2008, Art for Amnesty has announced. The award will be presented to him by The Edge at a the Hard Rock Cafe in London, on September 10th, 2008.

The Ambassador of Conscience Award recognises exceptional individual leadership and witness in the fight to protect and promote human rights. In 2005, U2 and Paul McGuinness were the recipients of the award.

It’s a fun packed week for Edge as the Davis Guggenheim documentary ‘It Might Get Loud‘ in which he’s featured alongside Jimmy Page and Jack White will officially premiere at the Toronto Film festival this Friday, September 5th.

The Edge: ‘It’s totally frantic’

Q magazine talks to – a very busy – The Edge about U2′s new album. The guitarist sheds some light on the album’s sound and confirms some of the song titles that have floated around the web for some time.

“‘We wanted to give it some variety. There is some dark, heavy stuff but there are also some lighter things. Some we’ve really had to sweat to get and some just came so easily.” Work-in-progress highlights include “f—k-off live rocker” “Breathe”; “For Your Love,” which Edge says is one of his best-ever riffs; and the aforementioned “Get On Your Boots” (“Eddie Cochran with barbershop harmonies”). Other notable tracks include the eight-minute-long “Moment Of Surrender” and “No Line On The Horizon,” inspired by a distortion box called Death By Audio recommended by ex-Secret Machines guitarist Ben Curtis.”

The article suggests the band is still unsure whether to release the album pre- or post Christmas.

Read the full story at U2france.com.