“Bono’s actually — even though he’s small, he has this huge — like a bison head, this really big head.”

Poor Bono! That’s how photographer Gregory Heisler describes Bono in a video explaining how he put together the cover shot that TIME magazine used when it named Bono, Bill Gates and Melinda Gates as “persons of the year” back in 2005.

It’s at about the 2:10 mark of the video below, which is interesting overall if you have even a remote interest in photography.

There’s some more background, too, in a post on the Strobist blog.

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

Photog: “Bono Has … a Bison Head”

In the video, Chad says he found it on a Japanese fan site and labels it a “mysterious demo from U2′s album recording sessions.”

But in our forum, “Sam” says it’s actually a jam from a somewhat well-known soundcheck that U2 did before its U2 360 Anaheim show in 2011:

“…this particular track is just from the edges earpiece and is merely a sound check of the instruments as bono is just playing main chords of the jam and edge is fiddling his way through it with his signature sound as a test for Willie Williams.”

In the middle of the clip, you can hear Bono saying something that sounds like “Happy birthday, Flory.” As our friend Beth pointed out on Twitter today, Flory Turner was part of the 360 touring crew … which adds credence to this being a soundcheck jam and not necessarily anything related to U2′s next album.

Postscript: Sam (from the forum) has uploaded the full 9+-minute-long jam session from Anaheim, which includes the shorter clip above and continues by becoming “Magnificent.” Here’s the full audio:

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

AUDIO: New U2 Album Song Leak or Old Soundcheck Jam?

The video is from June 23, 2000, when a group called TROCAIRE organized a small birthday party/event in Dublin in honor of Aung San Suu Kyi (whose birthday is June 19). There’s a longer video of the whole event on YouTube, but U2Valencia edited it down to just the couple minutes where Bono is singing an obviously unfinished version of “Walk On.”

Very cool discovery — one that I missed in U2-A Diary. So, hopefully someday there’ll be another update to the book and I can add this.

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

VIDEO: Bono Sings Unreleased “Walk On” in June 2000

His presence is a bit odd, at least to me, because I’m not aware of U2 ever actually recording in Muscle Shoals. (Did I miss something?)

In any case, Rolling Stone has a little more on the film, and we’ve embedded the trailer below if you haven’t seen it yet.

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

Bono Appears in New ‘Muscle Shoals’ Music Documentary

It runs about 15 minutes. You’ll see Bono rehearsing with the other artists early on in the video, and then it ends with Bono and friends singing “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home).”

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

[VIDEO] Bono Busking 2012: Behind the Scenes

It looks like this slipped our radar entirely back in May 2011, when songwriter/producer Paul Brill collaborated with U2 on an acoustic version of “Walk On” for a documentary film called Burma Soldier.

The soundtrack came out on May 17, 2011, and the track sounds to me like it was (at the time) completely new — not a stripped down “acoustic” version of something that had been recorded before.

What’s cool is that you can listen to it for free:

And if you click that “download” link above, you’ll end up on Paul Brill’s page on Bandcamp … where there’s another “download” link that will let you grab the song at no charge.

Pretty cool. Enjoy!

(Thanks to U2valencia.com and others for tweeting about this today.)

Update, December 16

As Aaron S. explained in today’s OTR column, this is not a new version of “Walk On.” The audio is from U2′s concert in Tokyo back on November 29, 2006.

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

LISTEN: U2′s Acoustic “Walk On” from Burma Soldier

The book is the German-language version, but U2tour.de’s article says the book content is the same in the English-language version. Enjoy the video, and if you’re sitting/watching in a quiet office, note that there’s music playing and some German-language narration.

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

VIDEO: Flip Through the New U2 360 Book

You probably don’t need to be a word geek to love this, but it might help. Me? I think we need more U2 parody videos like this, and the sooner, the better. Great stuff!

(tip via Galleycat)

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

Best. Book Promotion (and U2 Parody) Video. Ever.

“He wore lemon…”

Is this the fashion faux pas of the year?

Bono was spotted over the weekend wearing yellow pants while walking around St. Tropez, France. Don’t adjust your monitor … this is really what color they are:

The Daily Mail has a couple more photos if you can’t get enough. Edge is in a couple of them, too, but wearing much quieter clothes.

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

PHOTO: Bono’s Yellow Pants

Bono fans, I think you’ll really enjoy the next 57 seconds.

This is a post from the @U2 blog.

VIDEO: Bono’s Evolving Look