Rock legend Meat Loaf this week told York University’s student newspaper Excalibur that he likes The Cranberries.

The interviewer asked him what other food-item-named-things he likes, to which he responded a UK singer by the name of Fish and of course the Irish band with the tart but delicious name.

French singer Dominique performed The Cranberries’ “Zombie” last Friday night on the French Idol-like TV show “Star Academy.” Dominique is in the running against other winners for the best weekly performances.

You can watch Dominque’s performance here at the TF1 website, which includes some rather elaborate choreography with, er, flight attendants and a giant airplane prop.

Thanks to Cyril for the news.

UK site Creativedesign has put up a profile of Cally, the graphic designer behind The Cranberries’ first three albums, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?, No Need to Argue, and To the Faithful Departed. Cally recently orchestrated a total redesign of the Island offices on Kensington High Street in London. You can read about it here. (LINK NO LONGER AVAILABLE)

A fan who recently purchased The Cranberries’ first commercially-produced demo tape has made high-quality photos and MP3s of the tape available online.

While “Water Circle” was The Cranberries’ first demo tape in May 1990 (then called by the dreadful pun The Cranberry Saw Us), it was home-made and its liner art photocopied. Later that year, Xeric Records released just 300 copies of the Saw Us’s first commercially pressed tape, “Nothing Left At All” (discography entry).

Zombieguide Forums member Caputokey was lucky enough to snag the extremely rare piece off of eBay months ago and has since put up MP3s and photos on his own server.

While MP3 rips of the tape have been available for years, most of those came from low-quality bootleg copies that had circulated among fans for the past decade. The quality suffered from high nth-generation tape-to-tape copying in the tape trading community in the mid-90s. (Now there’s a story I can tell my grandkids.)

“Nothing Left At All” is the same version that appeared in CD quality on the “Uncertain” EP. “Pathetic Senses” is different from the “Uncertain” EP and features vocals from Dolores’s (allegedly aggressive) boyfriend Miko Mahoney (also did the vocals at the end of “Dreams”) and producer Pearse Gilmore, whom the band accused of making secret agreements with Island during the band’s last days at Xeric. “Shine Down,” later known as “Take My Soul Away,” is the most elusive of the three. This is by far the best recording of “Shine Down” to ever surface.

You can grab them all from this directory, courtesy of Caputokey. (LINK NO LONGER AVAILABLE)

Some short biographies released in conjunction with the proposal of a new radio station for Limerick, Heart FM (read more), include some tidbits about what Mike Hogan and Fergal Lawler have been up to lately.

If the radio station is approved, Mike Hogan will become a director for Heart FM. Also, Noel, Mike, and Fergal will give some hands-on input for a show called “Green Heart,” which will showcase demos and upcoming local bands.

The bio also reveals that Mike opened a café on Catherine Street in Limerick called The Sage Café earlier this year. The café opened in mid- April and seats 45-50 people. Mike has become the director of a company called TM Coffee, Ltd. (which runs the cafe), and he continues to to live and work in Limerick.

As for Fergal, his bio reveals that he “has been collaborating with other local musicians and recording at his studio in Ballymorris.”

Heart FM, a new proposed radio station being funded by Mike and Noel Hogan that we first told you about here, gave an oral presentation on Monday to the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland. The Hogan brothers and Fergal Lawler are among a small group of investors who are competing to win a 10-year broadcasting license in Limerick.

In order to win approval for the station, the Heart FM backers will need to wrestle the city’s radio franchise away from the incumbent broadcaster, Live 95FM.

The Heart FM group told the BCI that if approved, the station would make a profit of €15-€20 million over 10 years. The station would also employ 36 full-time and 33 part-time staff, more than Live 95, and would open a new 5,000-sq ft office in downtown Limerick.

Live 95FM argued that it should be able to keep its existing license because of its strong track record, especially after being bought by UTV in 2002. (Coincidentally, Dolores’s brother P.J. O’Riordan was one of the previous owners of Live 95FM.)

The BCI will decide on January 22, 2007 which group will receive the new license.

You can check out some attractively designed proposal PDF documents at the BCI website. Of special interest to Cranberries fans are sections 3 and 4, which have short up-to-date biographies on Noel, Mike, and Fergal.

Sources: Irish Times, Irish Independent

Maurizio di Bona, a.k.a. theHand, who created a line of official merchandise for The Cranberries in 2003, has just released a new book that includes four pages of Cranberries caricatures.

di Bona, a longtime Cranberries fan, had put several of his Cranberries cartoons online before the band came to him and commissioned him to produce a series of illustrations for their last world tour. His new book, called Scarabocchio Ergo Sum, features works he created for the band and also more recent drawings of Dolores, Noel, Mike, and Fergal. The text is in Italian, but the spot-on caricatures are alone worth the price of admission.

You can order the new book for only $10.65 US from Lulu.com

MTV Latin America has ranked The Cranberries’ “Linger” as one of the 100 “poppiest” songs of all time. The network chose “Linger” at #92 on last night’s “Los 100 + Pop” special. The series began yesterday and will run until November 24.

Thanks to Cristobal for the news!

The redesign of The Cranberries Official Webpage has launched at http://www.cranberries.com (http://www.cranberries.ie has not yet rolled over to the new design). Not much new content, but there is a vastly improved lyrics section.

There are no official forums yet (surprise? They were promised two and a half years ago.), so instead why not join the largest and most active Cranberries forums online?

The Official Community Corporation, the Toronto-based corporation that now  runs http://www.cranberries.com today posted a preview image of the long-promised redesign of the official website.

This will be the second redesign since Official Community Corporation took control of the site in 2004. Previously, it was operated by Timeless Music, The Cranberries’ self-owned management company.

If the preview is accurate, it appears that an official discussion forum is in the works. No other new features appear on the preview layout.