No Rock And Roll Fun

PEARL SPAM RETURNS: The one-woman NME gossip column Pearl Spam (oh, alright, Lowe) is about to make her comeback to music. Pearl, what-used-to-be-in-Powder, has got a new band - imaginatively, she's called it Pearl - and it might be all as bright and sparky as Powder were. On the other hand, there's so many famous names knocking about in the mix (Jackson Scott, Brett Anderson, Rhys Ifans, Heather Nova) there's a sick feeling in the pit of our stomachs that it might turn out to be a little like the musical equivalent of Sadie Frost's What Sadie Did Next tv series: a painfull and self-indulgent way of demonstrating that watching people having fun doesn't always mean that you will. In fact, Sadie Frost even turns up on the album. (Incidently, we love the way that some of the gossip websites have taken to describing Sadie as a "fashion designer" on the basis of her going "okay" to some pant designs.)

Pearl makes an interesting point, though, about the change that the pairing of festivals has made to the atmosphere. Harking back to the Britpop years (ask your parents), she says:

"The festivals were different then ‘cos the bands didn’t move (to an alternative site) so it would just be one mass party the whole weekend from Thursday until Tuesday."