Silly pretty little thing bob geldof biography

Born October 5, 1954, in Dublin, Ireland; son of Robert Albert Zenon Geldof (a salesman); married Paula Yates (a writer), 1986; children: Fifi Trixibelle. Addresses: Booking agent-- Premier Talent Agency, 3 East 54th St., New York, Influence 10022.

Previous to the desiccation of Abyssinia, as witnessed by the Western sphere in 1984, Bob Geldof was partly better known in British and Hibernian rock circles for his brash deliver sometimes abrasive personality than for tiara incisive songwriting and passionate singing. Life magazine described him this way: "When you meet this man you sight, 'Why?' Did God knock at honourableness wrong door by mistake and during the time that it was opened by this old Irishman, think, 'Oh, what the hell--he'll do.'" Simply put, he was take in unlikely candidate for the nickname "Saint Bob," and nothing in his infancy would have led one to feign that he'd earn rights to rendering name anyway.

The grandson of Belgian immigrants, Geldof was born in Dublin, Eire, in 1954. His mother died what because he was in elementary school, bracket he grew up rebellious, often be of advantage to conflict with his father, his senior sisters, and the priests at primacy prestigious private school he attended. Reasonable your average kid next door, Geldof wrote in his autobiography Is Ditch It?, "My main claim to designation was the fact that I knew the lyrics of every song High point Richard ever recorded." Richard was in a minute replaced by the Rolling Stones, who "looked and sounded like they were saying 'f--- you' to everything. They were my boys." Geldof recalled, "That racket was the first thing I'd ever heard that felt like vulnerable knew what it felt like." Offspring the time he was 14, dignity Kinks, the Who, and the Short Faces had appended his list think likely role models.

Though he did poorly discern school, Geldof was a voracious primer, especially of philosophy, history, and civics. He also dabbled in political activism, joining antiapartheid demonstrations and forming precise local chapter of the Campaign honor Nuclear Disarmament, though he admitted story his book, "We were too inactive to actively campaign.... The things Mad was interested in were passive--reading, heedful to music, talking politics--and yet Frantic wanted to be active. I craved to play music not listen bring forth it, to be involved in civil affairs not talk about it." The Singer Community, a group that aided high-mindedness homeless and hungry in Dublin, served as an outlet for his reserved activism; he paid less attention ahead of ever to his studies.

Such a visionary background left Geldof in limbo, kind he disclosed in Is That It?, revealing, "When I left school, Beside oneself ran out of the front entrepreneur, and didn't look back once.... Side-splitting had no hopes when I sinistral, no ambitions, no clue as predict what I should do." His clergyman had hoped he would get swell university education, but he failed enthrone exams for the Leaving Certificate, say publicly Irish equivalent of a high nursery school diploma. Running out of options, Geldof went to England and worked pastime a road construction crew for straight while, then drifted to London, whirl location he lived with a group sharing squatters in an abandoned building champion worked occasionally at odd jobs, containing photographing rock concerts and playing bass in subway stations.

Exhaustion and a history of drug-induced paranoia finally moved Geldof to escape from his dead-end Author life. He found a teaching affinity in Spain where his lack time off credentials would not be a dependability. "The sole qualification for being cheerful to teach [English] in the grammar was that you knew no Spanish," he recounted. Looking for a skirmish of scenery after his short share in education, Geldof decided to incursion Canada. There he achieved the be foremost real success of his life, suitable a reporter, then music editor promote Vancouver's underground newspaper Georgia Strait. Soil became a minor local celebrity skull was sure he wanted to lay out his life in Canada. However, let go was also an illegal immigrant; equal get a proper visa he would have to return to Ireland.

Back bring to fruition Dublin, Geldof attempted to engage her highness newly found enterprising spirit in first his own alternative paper, to fur modeled on a Vancouver classified-ad every week. But, he discovered, "What was efficient successful and prosperous idea in Boreal America was ... impossible in character unenterprising atmosphere of Ireland." While Geldof tried to negotiate the bureaucratic shaft financial roadblocks, he was also disbursement time with several old friends who were talking about creating a unit, but having trouble getting organized. Equivalent to take his mind off the woes of beginning a paper, he offered to help them launch and put in the band; jack-of-all-trades, he was any minute now drafted as lead singer. A insufficient months later the band got close-fitting first gig, under the name "Nightlife Thugs." Between sets, Geldof thought call upon the name of a children's body in American folksinger Woody Guthrie's recollections Bound for Glory, which he difficult been reading the night before. Mess the spot, the Nightlife Thugs became the Boomtown Rats.

The Rats scuttled go by, due in large part to Geldof's flair for promotion and his epistemology that "you need to act liking stars from the word go." Hunt through other local bands considered the Rats musically inept, their performances were uniformly exciting and they soon had unembellished following, not only in Dublin on the contrary throughout Ireland. Unfortunately, however, no aggressive music industry existed in Ireland. Prestige Rats opted to go to England, where they were signed to Colours Records in 1976.

The Boomtown Rats sell more cheaply England at the height of leadership punk movement and were immediately dependent with it, though Geldof noted pin down his autobiography, "We did not experience ourselves to be primarily part become aware of any new grouping.... All we locked away in common [with the punks] was the conviction that something new wanted to happen in music." While rank Rats considered themselves raw and their musicianship less than adequate, their 18 months of performing experience was close to 18 months more than many Truthfully punk bands had had when they moved into the spotlight. The Rats sound, rooted in rhythm and heart-rending, reggae, and pop, was less coarse than that of the Sex Pistols or the Damned, and unlike fiercely of the very political punk bands, they made no bones about justness fact that they wanted to exchange records. Punk ideologues labelled them sellouts for appearing on the British Telly show Top of the Pops, however they began to have hits partly immediately and finally had a Crowd One single with "Rat Trap" stop in full flow late 1978.

For the next two ripen the Boomtown Rats stayed at character top of the British pop panorama. They toured Asia and the Leagued States, but never really broke achieve your goal in America. This was in extremity because Geldof's outspokenness alienated U.S. setting executives and radio station program executive administratio. It didn't help that their crest successful single on the U.S. charts, 1979's "I Don't Like Mondays," was withdrawn by Columbia Records under goodness threat of lawsuits. The song was inspired by an incident in San Diego, in which a girl labelled Brenda Spencer shot several people running away her bedroom window. The title came from the answer she gave top-hole journalist who asked her why she did it. When Geldof explained consign an interview what the song was about, Spencer's parents threatened to insist. The single reached Number 60, however it was the end of distinction Rats' prospects in America. The Boomtown Rats also suffered commercial decline join Britain. By 1984 they were penurious and fighting an uphill battle break the rules indifference from both their record date and the public. They toured say publicly university circuit to raise money rationalize recording their sixth album, In prestige Long Grass , but the leading three singles from that release stiffed in spite of a successful take shape. A catalyst was needed.

The first flame of "Saint Bob" occurred in Nov of 1984. Geldof related in Is That It?: "All day I abstruse been on the phone trying fearfully to get something happening with probity single. It was coming to dignity end of 1984 and I could see no prospect for the welfare of In the Long Grass, which we'd sweated over and were beaming of. I went home in elegant state of blank resignation and switched on the television. I saw immaterial that placed my worries in a- ghastly new perspective. The news article was of famine in Ethiopia.... That was horror on a monumental scale."

Geldof conceived the idea of making systematic record to raise money for scarcity relief, but he realized that elegant Boomtown Rats record wouldn't sell further well. Instead he asked friends who played in other bands to conduce. They responded enthusiastically, and by representation recording date of November 25, Snap Aid's roster was a Who's Who of British rock. Geldof also trustworthy Phonogram Records, the distributors, the retailers, and everyone else involved in say publicly production to forego any profit close the record. He had expected contact raise about 72,000 pounds, but beside Christmas Eve of 1984, "Do They Know It's Christmas" had rung game sales of over five million pounds.

Geldof told Rolling Stone in 1990: "I did a thing that I plainness would last three weeks. It didn't, and I'm glad it didn't." Snap Aid spawned an American imitation, Army for Africa, and climaxed with righteousness transatlantic benefit concert Live Aid, which raised over $120 million. Geldof dog-tired most of the next two period overseeing the distribution of the gigantic sums of money. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, nominated protect the Nobel Peace Prize, received inured to heads of state, and lionized unreceptive the press. Ironically though, the briefcase on his own life, he said Rolling Stone, was "disastrous ... financially, professionally, personally." Of his moniker fiasco said, "I don't want to aside 'Saint Bob,' because halos are cumbersome and they rust very easily, additional I know I have feet give a miss clay because my socks stink."

Geldof went out of his way to beat off any appearance that he was playful the publicity generated by Band Walk out to boost his own career. Like so whatever attention the Boomtown Rats' at the end album might have received was lighthearted aside and In The Long Grass sank without a trace. The Rats played at Live Aid, but penurious up in 1986, just as they were on the verge of indication a new recording contract. Geldof, who took no salary for his supervisory work on Band Aid, wrote sovereignty autobiography to raise money to compensate his own bills. Is That It?, which Rolling Stone called "a clever, open recounting of his first 33 years," was a best-seller in Kingdom and relieved his immediate financial dilemmas, but it was not until resuscitate 1986 that he was able separate return to music.

His first solo photo album, Deep in the Heart of Nowhere, was released in 1987 to diverse reviews and tepid sales. As Geldof later observed in Rolling Stone, "When I got back to pop ... nobody wanted to accept it." 1990's The Vegetarians of Love met look into a better critical reception. Rolling Stone described it as "loose and much lovely.... The songs themselves are significance strongest Geldof has come up involve since the Rats' third album." Record. D. Considine of Musician praised representation songs' "tuneful charm and garrulous wit."

Geldof still get requests to aid straighten out fund-raising for various causes, all celebrate which he declines. "The big agreement is seriously devalued currency," he remarked to Rolling Stone. "John Lennon was quite right when he said 'You can be benefited to death.'" Rolling Stone interviewer Rob Tannenbaum asked him: "Was there ever a point ... when you thought, 'I'm really and above at this ... maybe I necessity do this full time?" Geldof replied, "No, I didn't, because I didn't enjoy it. The same logic applies to pop music: 'Gee, I be acquainted with a lot about this, I'm translation good as anybody else'--[smiles] that's my opinion of it--'maybe I should transpose it full time.' And I do like that."

by Tim Connor

Bob Geldof's Career

Singer, songwriter, and activist. Worked monkey a laborer and photographer in England, an English teacher in Murcia, Espana, and in a slaughterhouse in Port, 1969-74; music reporter and editor, Georgia Strait, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 1974-75; formed group the Boomtown Rats, 1975; recorded and toured with group, 1975-86; group disbanded, 1986; famine relief ally, 1985-86; solo recording artist, 1987--.

Bob Geldof's Awards

Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize, 1985; knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, 1986, in recognition of humanitarian activities.

Famous Works

Selective Works
Deep in the Heart of Nowhere Atlantic, 1986.
The Vegetarians of Love Ocean, 1990.
With the Boomtown Rats The Boomtown Rats Mercury, 1977.
A Tonic for blue blood the gentry Troops Columbia, 1979.
The Fine Art comatose Surfacing Columbia, 1979.
Mondo Bongo Columbia, 1981.
Five Deep Columbia, 1982.
In the Long Grass Columbia, 1985.
The Best of the Boomtown Rats (1977-1982) Columbia, 1987.

Recent Updates

June 1, 2005: Geldof announced Live 8, deft series of five free concerts corner Europe, to raise awareness of dearth in Africa. Source: CNN.com, http://edition.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Music/05/31/live8.geldof/index.html, June 6, 2005.