Word: u2
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...RECENT AD in Rolling Stone touted a new band from Ireland as "Standing between you and assembly line rock." Apparently wishing to dissociate itself from the squadrons of European bands flying in with the new "dance" sound, U2 could succeed even without Irish passports. The group has the superbly danceable beat of Ul-travox, replacing only the flashy electronics and crisp engineering of the high-tech groups, with the simple melodic energy of the best sort of folk music...
...classification. "You think this song makes me angry...Is that all?" But the guitar played by the Edge sounds distinctly like the Clash riff from "Running," and the guitarist's name follows the tradition of the Police's Sting. Their respective riffs and even bass line give away U2's origins, nowhere else but New Wave. Yet, the drums Larry beats so maniacally in "I threw a brick" echo, and Adam Clayton's piano filters through indistinctly in the "October" intro. These effects make the music fuller and subtler than the whinings of New Wave groups, striving for a minimal...
...America has responded well to the U2 formula. The group's first album, Boy, received much airplay, especially around Boston. Songs like "I will follow" become hits and "Gloria" off the new album is already turning up on the dial. The songs provide a welcome variety among the hits on BCN, but their weaknesses becomes apparent easily. The "formula" threatens to imprison U2 in a musical cul-de-sac. Though the melodies and intros alternate between tracks, the style remains immutable. After a while The Edge seems to repeat the same riffs, and Bono seems to sing nothing but "faaaalling...
...shoot down an attacking plane. The officers obligingly showed him the button that would fire off an SA-2 ground-to-air missile. Suddenly, Castro pushed the button. A missile went up and, Franqui writes dryly, "the plane came down amidst the consternation of the generals." The U2's pilot, Air Force Major Rudolph Anderson Jr., was the only known U.S. combat casualty of the six-day crisis...
...U2, though, that made the Skunk Works an air-age legend. When the first U-2s were being built, Chief Designer Clarence ("Kelly") Johnson and his team worked overtime and got whatever they wanted. After he told his old pal Air Force General Jimmy Doolittle, then at the Shell Oil Co., that he needed a fuel that would not boil off at the low pressures of the upper atmosphere, Shell scientists produced a special low-boil, kerosene-type fuel just for Johnson's plane. Inevitably, it became known as Kelly's Lighter Fluid...