Author: peter

A blast from the past

We at U2log.com are once again excited to bring our readers some goodies to keep you company through the holiday season and into the new year.

This year we are happy to share with you a rare gem from our 1/4″ reel tape vault; radio ads announcing the upcoming release of Achtung Baby. One cannot help but to wonder what the media onslaught will look like next year as the boys get ready for the release of the next album.

This download (bittorrent) will be available for a limited time only.

Happy Holidays!

OLPC G1G1 offer is ending soon

As reported by u2.com (login required) last month, The Edge has contributed to the One Laptop Per Child non-profit organization by creating a custom startup sound for the XO laptop. Your chance to get a laptop, and to empower the children of developing countries, is soon drawing to a close for the current offering period. If you’d like to support the cause, head over to laptop.org right now for more details on how you can contribute and give one more child access to knowledge and modern forms of education.

Having received one of these XO machines just in time for Christmas, I set out on a hunt for the startup sound. It took longer than expected, but in the process I was able to find a number of startup sounds, two of which are of particular interest. The first was apparently used for some time during development until such a time that the final sound had been provided. Below you will find links to these two sounds. Before simply downloading these and forgetting about OLPC, please consider donating.

Prototype sound (named startup.flac but downloads as data-startup.flac), used approximately from September 24, 2007 to November 13, 2007*
Final sound, used since September 19, 2007*

* These dates represent when the files were added or removed to the XO firmware and software projects, not necessarily when they showed up in products shipped to consumers.

Do you hear what I hear?

As in years past we at U2log.com are excited to keep our tradition alive by bringing you some goodies to keep you company through the holiday season and into the new year.

This year we are pleased to share with you some rare gems from our vinyl vault. But before we open the vault we would like to present you with the following message.

It was 20 years ago today:

  • Vicki Iovine introduces A Very Special Christmas, taken from a US cassette promo.
  • An edited version of Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), taken from that same promo.

From the vinyl vault:

  • I Will Follow (Special Edited DJ Version), from a UK 7″ promo.
  • An edited version of Fire, from a UK 7″ promo.
  • An edited version of Gloria, from a UK 7″ promo.
  • An insanely rare edited version of Gloria, from an Argentine 7″ promo.

These downloads will be available for a limited time only. A big thank you goes out to our friend Rajiv Udani for providing some of these rarities!

Merry Christmas!

The Edge’s biggest solo gig?

As some of you may remember, The Edge visited Russia on behalf of Greenpeace back in March of 1989. This was chronicled by Bill Graham in Propaganda issue number 11. What that story didn’t reveal was the following happening that we recently found in our u2log vault.

“We come to the studio, with all these musicians, and we’re hustled into a little room, down the hall, and we’re all cramped in, and there’s wires knocking over coffee cups, and I think that the result of it all was the fact that it put everyone very much at ease.
“It was very informal, but very sincere. The production level was not what you would find in the States for example. We didn’t have cue cards. We didn’t overproduce. People didn’t get pancake makeup. We were just there.
“And they’re asking questions and having people sing songs, and the tea cups were flying all over the place, and out there somewhere were 150 million viewers watching this whole thing happen, with the wires flying and the microphones in the way and everything else, and there’s a sincerity in all that. It’s not overproduced.
“All of this is new for people in the Soviet Union and I think it’s like the cork coming off a bottle of champagne; there has been a big release. Sure, let’s do a television show with these musicians. Let’s all get them in a room. Hey, here’s a camera, you know. Let’s take their photos and put it up and see what happens. It’s great. It’s all very experimental.
“At one point the interviewer asked The Edge from U2 to sing a song from U2’s album, of course, just sitting here on a couch with a cup of coffee in front of him was just mind boggling. It was… it’d never been done before and could never be done in the west I don’t think. The result of that was that he actually sat for a minute, I think stunned a bit. And then he said ‘Well, do you know the song “It’s a long way to Tipperary“?’ And he actually, on television, in front of 150 million people started singing the song.”
– Peter Bahout, describing a live performance that will never see the light of day on a U2 album.

Download the audio

Do you hear what I hear?

Just as in years past, we are carrying forward u2log.com’s tradition of sharing holiday gifts with our readers. This year we are again pleased to offer some previously unreleased tracks.

First off, from a French acetate comes Ruff’s New Club Anthem of Discothèque. This was a track that never saw the light of day as other mixes were favored for the Pop singles.

Furthermore, from a rare Nanci Griffith advance screening copy of her album Flyer come alternative versions of the tracks This Heart and On Grafton Street.

These downloads will be available for a limited time only.

Merry Christmas!

Norwegian Would-be Bono

Although somewhat old news, we just learned about it recently and couldn’t help but pass it on. Norwegian entertainer Kristian Valen has done a Bono impersonation that can be found here (look for U2 – Elevation). Kristian has released a DVD, “Valen TV,” containing a U2 impersonation which we believe to be the one featured on the web site, but we have not yet been able to confirm it. For those not fluent in Norwegian, you might want to know that the producer tells Kristian to “stick to the script, and no vulgarity!”