No Rock And Roll Fun

WHAT THE POP PAPERS SAY: We could be heroes edition
The NME is in one of its experimental moods this week, constructing three covers from the 'Heroes Issue' concept - Franz Ferdinand and Morrissey get the cover proper, flip it out and there's The Ordinary Boys and Paul Weller (Weller looking bad - he's aged, but he's wearing Lynn's Mum's cataract glasses which doesn't help) and on the place which would be page three, The Strokes and Lou Reed - Reed looking better now than Weller.

As if that's not enough to be going on with, there's also a picture of Courtney Love's mass wedding for the Universal Life Church. Apparently Courtney has got the legal right to marry these people.

Young Matt Phillips from the BPI is back in harness again for the NME's debate about digital music. He talks the same crockload you'd expect, but mmm, ain't he tasty? Let's hope Cosmo get him in for their next naked issue. Meanwhile, here's Matt about the future: "[Filesharing] has gone up and up, and it's setting a very bad precedent if everyone can get their music on the internet for free..." - the BPI still talk like we're in 1998, like Napster is still just a word whispered between hipsters. You can see why the music industry likes the new Napster, though: Brad Duea insists that "it's not about making music cheaper, it's about a better experience for about the same value." First, why shouldn't it be cheaper, for all the reasons that everyone can list in their sleep; Second - "a better experience?" Seriously, anyone who works in the music industry who thinks that listening to an MP3 rather than a CD is anything to do with "the experience" really shouldn't be allowed to do anything more than choose tracks for New Woman compilations. Music is music is music. The experience is the emotion. If you don't get that, you have no right to even start trying to suggest what the value of music is.

In other news: Pixies official CD bootlegs are zipping about Ebay for a thousand bucks; Kasabian needed two sets of riot police to keep order at a hometown gig.

Meanwhile, two NME readers went off to LA to see The Darkness, having won a competition. Justin Hawkins mistook them for NME writers and tried to have them ejected. The girl started to cry, someone stepped in and explained they weren't NME writers at all and Justin apologised. What's interesting about this is it's the first time the NME has acknowledged that there's been a falling-out between the band and the paper - presumably pepped up by the rapprochment with Morrissey, it's now viewed as just a matter of time before it's all cleared up.

The slick Glastonbury ticket sell-off takes another twist, as Leisa Richards had been told she'd not been able to buy a ticket. Then 300 turned up with her name on. And a GBP30,000 bill for her trouble.

Thirteen Senses make a pretend CD - Grandaddy, REM and, oh, Coldplay.

Peter Robinson takes on Graham Coxon, doing what seems to be a phone interview while Coxon trots home from buying a pair of trousers. Worryingly, he tries to enter a debate on cucumbers and gherkins, which is the sort of discussion we know just ends in tears.

The Radar band is The Mean Reds - they all look about twelve, like the Senseless Things used to. And look what happened to them. Anthony says that his Mum doesn't like it when he talks about his penis. They've all taken their shirts and trousers off for the photo, too.

So, the Heroes thing, then: It's the Bowie/Brett Anderson "One day, son, all this will be yours" issue revisited and writ large. Morrissey asks the Franzes what the first album they bought was; when Bob replies "Michael Jackson's Bad" Mozzer blanches "I wish you hadn't been that honest." He then sounds a little disappointed to hear that they're all knocking thirty.

The Strokes come face to face with Lou Reed. Reed tells them the bit about walking down life's highway in I Found A Reason was meant to be a joke when he wrote it. And then there's a big piece with the Ordinary Boys and Weller. Weller complains that bands today don't have anything to say, and then The Ordinary Boys prove his point by moaning about Pop Idol.

The poster section continutes the theme, with more great meetings of minds: The Clash/Bo Diddley; the Datsuns/Metallica; The Libertines/Morrissey and The Beatles/Ali. Luckily they don't have to scrape about any further as the survey is in again.

Sam Delaney files a nice report from somewhere in MOR hell. The revelation that Joss Stone came off a talent show and was dreamed up by her management team isn't much of a surprise, but it's worth stressing.

reviews
live
princes trust urban music festival, earls court - "while the UK has much to offer, it is, for now at least, all about the US"
the fiery furnaces, kings cross scala - "colourful, twisted, hilarious"
funeral for a friend, newport city live arena - "not afraid to cut to the heart of the matter - or the matter of a heart"
the duke spirit, birmingham academy - "blissed out euphoria not heard since My Bloody Valentine"

albums
slipknot - vol 3 - "an ambitious attempt to move things forward", 8
nick drake - made to love magic - "it's taken a death to give this stuff life - not a trade-off we should encourage", 6

singles
sotw
hope of the states - the red the white the black the blue - "there's a storm in heaven tonight"
scout niblett - uptown top ranking - "by FAR the whitest record ever made"

and, finally, Greg Gilbert of Delays loves The Stone Roses, which would make sense, except he tries to pass them off as "the godfathers of shroomadelica", which is of course nonesense.