No Rock And Roll Fun

WHAT THE POP PAPERS SAY: The good god of head fuck edition
Ha ha! The NME has got a humorous cover - they've got Phil Oakey to dress up as Kelly Osbourne for the cover... oh, hang on: Marilyn Manson. Oh.

News has got coverage of Chris Martin's impending baldness and razorlight praising the genius of the Cure.

Kasbian does the made-up CD thing: Tangerine Dream and Donna Summer and People Under The Stairs.

Peter Robinson takes on Paul Draper, out of Mansun, who confirms what all right-thinking people knew: even Mansun knew the third album was shit. Of course, he'll now come in for a kicking from Mansun fans on internet message boards. "How dare he say that what does he know anyway" type posts will be going up even as we speak.

radar band are the Go Team: they say they're "six people who will change music for the better."

Imran Ahmed goes to interview the Music and makes Robert Harvey cry. Now, that's an interview for you. Its when Ahmed challenges a slightly tipsy Harvey that he doesn't really care how people perceive him that Harvey cracks, and blubs and blubs. It's not quite Richey at the Norwich Art Centre, but it's probably the closest you'll get this year.

The Ordinary Boys take people round their home town, which is Brighton, of course. They don't drink in the Park View, shamefully.

Hmm... not sure we can endorse the suggestion that Goldie Lookin' Chain's "Argos aesthetic is merely a modern day take on the Beastie Boys' habit of wearing cheap Volkswagen badges on even cheaper chains" - it's a little bit like suggesting The Wurzels crowding round a combine harvester was on a par with the KLF's police car.

We like the Duke Spirit, especially because Leila explains they chose the name because it's "ennobling."

Marilyn Manson, sweet little goth boi, still thinks he's unsettling. Who to, marilyn? He compares his "threat" to that of Osama Bin Laden, which is like Pookey The Rodeo Clown trying to claim a kinship with Bob Hope - a distraction talking up their role a little too far. The trouble is, of course, he's just too chickenshit to actually take a line on anything. Manson is asked a straight question, say: Did you agree with the Iraq War? Now, that's a yes-or-no question; or maybe an 'up-to-a-point' question. Manson's answer is twisting prevarication: "It's like 1984. Is it real or is it fake? Who knows?" (Erm... the families of the fifteen thousand dead, probably, Maz) "Do we know that it's real when we hear the horror stories of the people who went over there not expecting what they got?" He wants to be the dark boil in America's buttcrack, but he's too shitscared of what people might think to even answer a simple question. Sideshow Bob.

The posters - which come in the middle of this - are like The Clash. Who actually had something more to offer than some gimmicks bought cheap when Hallmark was flogging off last year's halloween overstock.

reviews
live
kasbian - birmingham irish centre - "much less genial than the Happy Mondays" (crikey)

albums
interpol - antics - "they allow us to look forward and backward in time", 8
brian wilson - smile - "one of the greatest albums of the 21st century", 9
six by seven - 04 - "retains the sonic power most bands couldn't muster", 7

singles
sniff... this could be the last time; in the next few weeks, singles are being dropped by the nme in favour of reviewing tracks instead. It's all about the ipod, you see...

sotw
the dead 60s - riot radio - "ska not stuck in the decade of legwarmers and Thatcher"
the duke spirit - cuts across the land - "not unlike PJ Harvey after a decent meal"

and, finally, Tim from keane chooses a Why I Love. Nick Drake. I'm shocked by such an astonishing choice.