Peter Murphy (Irish)
Peter Murphy is a writer and journalist based in Dublin. His first novel, John the Revelator, was published by Faber & Faber/Harcourt Books in 2009. Murphy is a contributing editor with Dublin's Hot Press magazine, and he's contributed articles to Rolling Stone, Music Week, the Sunday Business Post, and other publications.
In 2000, Greil Marcus called Murphy's "The Man Who Built the Old Weird America" article for Hot Press "amazing - sophisticated, clear, enormously gratifying, intense, complete, and full of references to stuff I've never heard and now must." Murphy's article, "Lost in Transmutation", based on his interview with Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine, appeared in Hot Press in 2004. It was the first interview Shields had granted in over a decade.
Murphy has been a guest panelist and consultant, lending his insights on various aspects of music and culture in the worlds of academia, entertainment, and journalism. His journalistic collaborations with the controversial author, J.T. LeRoy (a pseudonym for Laura Albert) led Albert to comment that "Peter spits and it comes out a rainbow."
He's written liner notes for A Tribute to Killdozer (2006); Garbage's best of collection, Absolute Garbage (2007); and the forthcoming remastered edition of the Anthology of American Folk Music. Murphy's comments on music, literature, culture, and the arts are regularly featured on RTE Television's arts programme, The View, and Phantom Radio's arts and culture programme, The Kiosk, in Dublin.
16 articles
List of articles in the library
Funkadelic, George Clinton, Parliament: The Story Of The Funk: George Clinton
Retrospective and Interview by Peter Murphy, Hot Press, 1996
IN THE BEGINNING was the word, and the word was Funk. Deep in the prehistoric bog, two microbes rubbed together, caused some friction, got frisky ...
Tracy Chapman: Hardcore Troubadour
Interview by Peter Murphy (Irish), Hot Press, 3 February 1999
TRACY CHAPMAN’S eponymous debut album was one of the biggest sellers of last year – more than ten years after its release. She spoke to ...
Fun Lovin' Criminals: Wise Guys: An Adventure Starring Fun Lovin' Criminals
Interview by Peter Murphy, Hot Press, 12 May 1999
Characters:HUEY MORGAN: Guitarist and frontman with the Fun Lovin' Criminals. Exudes the suss and streetsmarts of Pacino in Serpico or De Niro in Mean Streets. ...
U2: Bono: The Million Dollar Man
Report and Interview by Peter Murphy, Hot Press, 29 March 2000
IF IT'S PARIS it must be Spring. Bono's been out roaming the city of light with Miles' 1957 opus L'Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaudon the headphones, feeling ...
Garbage: Heart Of Garbage: Inside The Manson Family
Report and Interview by Peter Murphy, Hot Press, 2001
MADISON, WISCONSIN, USA. June 7, 2001. Take a walk down East Washington Avenue, past the Pontiac workshops, car dealerships, gas stations and establishments with names ...
Ash: Free All Angels (Infectious)
Review by Peter Murphy, Hot Press, 12 April 2001
SIXTEEN IS A state of mind that, like that summer feeling, haunts you the rest of your life. It's a quickening of stirrings into one ...
Radiohead: How Radiohead Learned To Loathe The Bomb
Report and Interview by Peter Murphy, Hot Press, 11 October 2001
IN THE DAYS following the terrorist attacks on New York, the Pentagon and Pittsburgh on September 11, 2001, Radiohead were not the kind of band ...
The Red Hot Chili Peppers: Red Hot Chili Peppers: By The Way
Review by Peter Murphy, Hot Press, 17 May 2002
AHEAD OF THE Red Hot Chili Peppers' forthcoming Lansdowne Road show on June 25th, Hot Press has been granted an Irish exclusive preview of the ...
Eminem: The Eminem Show (Aftermath)
Review by Peter Murphy, Hot Press, 6 June 2002
WELCOME TO artimitateslife.com, a multi-streamed gush of live webcam feed where we get to see Mr Marshall Mathers as Truman trapped in some Gollywood remake ...
Shine On, The Lights Of The Bowery: The Blank Generation Revisited
Retrospective and Interview by Peter Murphy, Hot Press, 12 July 2002
ONE MORE MAN gone. A year after the passing of his brother in arms Joey, Dee Dee Ramone died from a narcotics overdose. ...
Willie Nelson’s Straight Story
Report and Interview by Peter Murphy (Irish), Hot Press, 23 July 2002
IN DAVID LYNCH’S The Straight Story, the septuagenarian Alvin Straight showed his steel when the twin freak mechanics the Olsens tried fleecing him for repairs ...
Sonic Youth: Radical Adults: Sonic Youth
Interview by Peter Murphy (Irish), Hot Press, August 2002
IT’S A MUDDY TRACK only a few bands have managed to negotiate, but Sonic Youth figured out how to grow up and stay hardcore. From ...
Diamanda Galás: Through Galás Darkly
Profile and Interview by Peter Murphy, Hot Press, November 2003
AUTUMN SPAWNED a monster. Aileen Wuornos, dubbed "America's first female serial killer" by the US media, was executed on October 9, 2002. In the aftermath, ...
The Cramps: Fiends Of Dope Island (Vengeance)
Review by Peter Murphy, Hot Press, Spring 2003
HERE WE GO, once more with feeling, down the Halloween Parade. In a time of interminable fluxed-upness and infinite variables, in an era of war, ...
My Bloody Valentine: Lost In Transmutation: Kevin Shields
Retrospective and Interview by Peter Murphy, Hot Press, February 2004
SAIGON. Shit, I’m still only in Saigon . . . okay then, Camden. And no, we’re not throwing Martin Sheen shapes in the mirror, but ...
Stiff Little Fingers: Stuart Bailie on Trouble Songs: "I wanted to do something beautiful and pure"
Interview by Peter Murphy, The Irish Times, 12 May 2018
For his new book, about the music that soundtracked the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Belfast journalist Stuart Bailie followed the DIY aesthetic of the punk-era ...
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