No Rock And Roll Fun

NO, REALLY, THIS WEEK IS THE LAST TIME...: Cross-posted, cross-dressed, and cross, cross, cross. It's what the pop papers say:
This week, the New Statesman has considered Slipknot. Careful to avoid a right wing style kneejerk "bad", instead they approach the band from a different angle - why do the kids like this? Unfortunately, the staggers decides that their success is because teenagers feel disaffected and like society has nothing to offer them, which is plain wrong. Firstly, you can't make a blanket statement like that without balancing the rise of the godbotherers like Creed and POD; secondly, because teens will go and watch men make themselves sick by licking dead crows doesn't mean they feel alienated from normal society - how many punks who screamed "No future" in 1977 now work for pension providers? - merely that Slipknot are providing a gross-out freakshow to fill the time before growing up. Sure, a few people run away to join the circus, but most return to everyday life when the big top leaves town...

A letter in Q condemns Tim Burgess for suggesting he had not much of a future when, actually, he was working in the post room at the chemical works which was the only employer in the area. Yeah, Tim - a crappy, poorly paid job in one of the most dangerous factories in the country, forever. You'd never had it so good...

system of a down are on the cover of nme. beard. fuck off...

news has the story that the new oasis album is going to be called Heathen Chemistry. There's a sample of just how acute Noel Gallagher's lyrics are, too: "I'm smoking all my stash/ burning all my cash." Cunt, cunt, cunt...

badly drawn boy has lost the hat because it made him a target of violence - see, sometimes, the threat of violence does work; Gareth Gates has hit back at Marilyn Mans... oh, I really can't be arsed; it's like a war between Portugal and Albania; James Dean Bradfield likes the Vines, and will let us know who else he likes as soon as his PA has told him; Ant & Dec want to record the England 2002 single - perhaps an updated version of something from their back catalogue: Our Defence Sucks, maybe?; Fear Factory have split up - no, seriously, in the last week...

gossip with no name: girl singer cheating on boyfriend, while she's successful again and he... does anyone really need this much kylie detail? ok; rock singer uncertain of band comeback, now going to make porn instead; group's management hiring counsellors to help them now they're being dropped...

"NME asks: Are so solid crew being victimised?" Yes, dammit, bands should be free to smash girl's jaws in, wave guns at traffic wardens, hold shows which become lightning rods for violence and murder without being interfered with. Stop the liberal white hand wringing, nme, and face it - so solid have talked up - and walked - the bad boy thugs with guns image, and now, as they've sew-solid, they're reaping. The nme suggests that because they're multi-racial and entrepreneurial they're great role models (yeah, because you want your bands to be Lord Hanson in khaki pants, don't you?).
Some of their defenders still try to talk of the so-solids being "unlucky" - presumably, as in "Whoops, we've shouted our mouths off about being Gangstas, made videos glorying in violence and waved guns at traffic wardens. Again."...

on bands: down - five beards; ,stereo total - long-upped french/german duo (with a lady woman, and everything) and heron - some sort of singing milkman...

america lets starsailor in; they get mistaken for models, and americans apparently take them far more seriously than british fans...

larry from hundred reasons chooses ten tracks for a cd, includes 'rock with you' by Michael Jackson...

I normally would never advise anyone to bother buying the nme, especially to see a picture of Fran Healy, but the image which accompanies the Travis interview, but Healy is wearing fucking dungarees. He looks like a man who's had a disappointment at a Play School audition. Jesus. Then he says: "Regardless of whether you like us or not, at the moment, we're defining you..." You think, Fran? You think the gnats make the nation; the glint of the sun off a mailbox is the crux of Route 66; the slight scratch of the label as you pull them on is the essence of the pair of jeans? You're an irritant, but you don't define us - we don't need to hate you, you're not worth it. The screaming of a million tormented souls keeps us awake at night, 'Why does it always rain on me' merely makes us turn to another radio station. Don't flatter yourself...

What is system of a down's mission? NME thinks its all confused, and fucked up, and mysterious. BSN thinks its: identify gullible kids. take their money. shave. get slots presenting on NPR...

albums: thirty odd foot of grunts - clarity ("el vez forming Del Amitri", 2); desparecidos - read music/speak english ("cooler than the alaskan vines". 7); gomez - in our gun ("agreeable; difficult to love", 7); richard hell - time ("misfiring talent shines brightly", 6)...

sotw: the mars volta - tremulant ("huge and swirling"); wsotw: chineseburn - shhh dont tell a soul ("makes the only fools and horses theme sound sexy")...

live - peaches in london ("fashion may be fickle, but its got nothing on this lady"); QOTSA in LA ("this band *are* rock'n'roll") and shack ("beautifully shambolic") and the coral ("scooby doo meets 'crazy horses') in Liverpool...

fuck me, as if Virgin's V events weren't bad enough, Virgin Trains are putting on a mini-festival - insert your own "we apologise for the cancellation of Paul Weller's credibility" type joke here...

anyway, that's the nme. wooo.
nme reviews in full on their site, of course