No Rock And Roll Fun

WHAT THE POP PAPERS SAY: 22/05/02
seven has relaunched, as the first ever weekly dance mag reinvents itself as a monthly, like all the others. Um... only problem is, if you're now not coming out every seven days, shouldn't you be renamed thirty, or thirty-one, excepting february, which would be twenty-eight, or twenty-nine in each leap year? Also curious is the lobbing overboard of the serious dance angle to become just another dance-music-themed lifestyle rag. Maybe seven is the number of issues they expect before the plug is pulled...

bizarrely, the top shelf at out local Smiths now boasts a wealth of Blair-funding porn, Gay Times, Diva, AXM and... um, Dazed and Confused. What's even odder, though, is that while the not-sexual at all D&C is on the wrist shelf, the genuinely gay Attitude is down at "could scare kids" lower shelf, lifestyle mag shelf...

just how seriously does Moby take his greenchristianmorality stance? we only ask because he didn't seem at all uneasy being surrounded by naked women in a photo shoot for Q. Yes, we know it was a supposed homage to that Hendrix cover (though lacking the wit of Onionhead's Electric Ladland ep sleeve of a few years back) but... seriously, Moby promos using tits and fanny? Don't tell us, Mobe - the record company made you, did it?...

"Fifty Years of Sex, Drugs & Rock and roll" - maybe this week the nme coverline is apt, as front page is given over to Ozzy...

Eminem the new Matt Johnson? "When I worked nine to five, I expected to get a fucking pay cheque. It's the same with music" whines Marshall, all het up because some "scrawny little dickhead" has put his album on the internet. Hey, Em - lighten up, mate - you sound as whiney as one of those lesbians who objected to your singing about raping them if they won't sleep with you. (joke used on XRRF yesterday. and probably tomorrow). Chris Martin is the voice of reason here, as the Coldplay bloke observes "You see what Hobnobs look like before you open the packet, don't you?" - meaning its a try before you buy thing, we think...

other bizarre things: Liam Gallagher refused to sing a line in the new Death in Vegas song because they used the f-word - ("Fuhrer"); Radio One have edited out the references to roiphy from the Prodigy song, thereby foiling their attempts to be fashionably banned; Fischerspooner describe their new stage show as "more The King and I than colonial", thereby proving they have neither style nor an understanding of the works of Yul Brynner; there's a big question makr hanging over the future of Glasto, Leeds and Reading - does nobody else find it ironic that Mendip Council insisted on the Mean Fiddler being in charge of Glasto security when the Fiddler's Leeds festival ended in a riot in 2000, and the 2001 Reading festival played host to a rape and a toilet block being razed to the ground? Maybe Eavis should be offering Power tips instead; Simon Goddard has unearthed a lost smiths track - more excitingly, it's on one of those white-bodied TDKs you don't get anymore; White Stripes have recorded a duet with ex-thee headcoatee Hollu Golightly. Or maybe they've adopted her. With those crazy Stripes, you just can't tell, can you?; Kelley Deal nearly burned down her chalet at ATP - lets hope the Breeders stay away from the toilet blocks at reading, then. The NME asks the question on everyone's lips: Is Dave Grohl too committed to the Queens of the Stone Age? What do you mean, you couldn't give alearning to fly?
And smallest offer of the week: Log on to nme.com and get a "track-by-track preview of the eminem show." Or log on to audiogalaxy and get the whole thing...

On bands: Box Car Racer - Blink 182 (no, *really* Blink 182) apologise and say "We'd quite like to be Fugazi, really" - which sort of knocks The Mad Capsule Markets, who are Japanese would-be-weirds into a cocked hat - sure, you can dress up as robots, but for odd, you can't beat a chart snot band doing what amounts to a confession that, so far, they've been tiresome...

Showing the Prodigy how to do it: The Yeah Yeah Yeahs managed to get the line "Take a swallow as I spit, baby/ as a fuck, son, you suck" unedited onto Radio 1...

In a bid to fill the six pages on the Osbournes, David Stubbs attempts to convince us that its the 21st century version of Wait Till Your Father Gets Home (ask your gran/Tv Cream)...

At long last, Peaches gets an interview. So, what shocks peaches? "If you;re in bed with someone that tries to fuck you in your sleep. Or Charles Manson. Anyone who wears a Charles Manson tshirt can fuck off." Having been asked to pose lying down with a neon bulb between her legs, Peaches then stands up and "takes control. Those pictures are much sexier. We'll see which ones you use..." The nme, of course, pictures Peaches on her feet...

lp reviews: the breeders - title tk ("what the second elastica album should have sounded like", 8); faultline - your love means everything ("a cerebral banker for Mercury Prize nomination", 8); dot allinson - we are science ("spooky cinematic vista", 7); mum - finally we are no-one ("fans of Boards of Canada will find plenty here", 7); the get up kids - on a wire ("brave, potentially suicidal", 7)...

singles: sotw peaches - set it off ("not entirely unlike Gary Numan after a sex change", scarily); worst sotw - ant and dec - we're on the ball ("somehow managed to find the two men in england with worse voices than David Badiel and Frank Skinner"...

live - the libertines in bristol & london ("idols in waiting", but nb: nme promoted gig); kylie in brum ("Kylie defines pop"); (international) noise conspiracy in highbury ("great frontman; no shakes as a singer")...

that perpetual circle: having turned into a postcard themselves, the Sex Pistols are using that stock postcard image of a passed out guardsman to promote their oh-so-ho-hum "jubilee" gig...

electric soft parade fill an unsold advertising slot with their ten song Cd thingy - My Bloody valentine, neu, television and royal trux...

and, finally: someone in angst describes brett's face as looking like "soggy dairylea". But dippa or triangle?