I have known Bill since about 1969. At Trinity, when I was spending time in Players he was more involved in politics. He was my wife, Kathy Gilfillan's, campaign manager when she was elected Student Welfare Officer. Later on, I realised he was listening to records as well and we used to talk about Business, and the Music. Horslips showed that you could get a US record deal from an Irish base and Bill and I used to hypothesise about how to break a "baby band" from here and conquer the world. It was very military language.
One day Adam Clayton got him to attend a U2 rehearsal. Next day Bill was in my flat with their tape. We had to play it on my telephone answering machine. I went to a gig, the promoters were John Stephenson and the Sheridan brothers at the Project. Then I was their manager. It was the most important introduction of my life. Bill told them that I should be their manager and he told me that they were the band I had been looking for. During the early 1980s when we hurtled around the world in a transit van, Bill would often show up to cover the never ending tour for Hot Press, He would usually stay longer than we were expecting but he always wrote deeply perceptive pieces about what those early days were really like. A rock and roll band instinctively works on its own legend, rewriting history daily. Bill gave us context. He seemed to know so much. I've been in many nightclubs in many cities with 13 ill, eyes gleaming, pounding out a great theory, a dazzling insight. He was so easy to like, but so difficult to interrupt.
Now I look back on all those late night conversations that were to be continued, and I realise that it's too late now.
As the years went by his canvas broadened and his influence grew. He was the top Irish music critic of his time; he brought those skills to bear on political and social subjects, and sport. His repertoire of subversion, irony and a healthy assumption that people in high places need to be brought down a peg or two brought a tone of voice to music journalism and to Irish journalism that will be his legacy. The (wildly successful) UK music magazine Q seems to me to be in direct line of descent from Hot Press where Bill and Niall and their colleagues established a journalistic environment that was urbane, witty, liberal, knowledgeable, cross cultural and confident. In many ways Hot Press has achieved all the things that Hibernia and Magill were supposed to do. Hot Press is one of the great magazines.
Great is a word that Bill used sparingly, but great he was. When I first met Bill Graham, the legendary San Francisco concert promoter, in 1980, I immediately had a row with him, it doesn't matter over what. Flustered, I finished my rant with the baffling declaration that "where we come from you're the other Bill Graham anyway."