Depeche Mode proceed in an unhurried fashion

So it's looking like we're going to have a new Depeche Mode album, which is good. But not this side of Christmas. Possibly not this side of Easter:

“We’ve probably got 20 songs demoed,” Gahan told Spin. “Some of the songs are in really good shape, some need some work, but we’re definitely on track. We have a deadline of the end of November, and there’s no reason we why we won’t meet that at the rate we’re going.”

Not entirely clear what the November deadline is for - hopefully not finishing the album as that would give months of leak-time before the vague "early 2013" release date. If the record turns out to be on everyone's phones before you start the promo tours, you'll only have yourselves to blame.

Dave Gahan given prize for not caning it

Musicares has thrown a pricey bash to raise funds for charity and, erm, applaud Dave Gahan for not being a lush any more:

Dinner was served but alcohol was off the menu.

Yes, you might expect that.

Gahan :

Gahan, 48, told Reuters before the event that he lives a clean life now, although it requires discipline and self-control to avoid giving in to temptation.

"If you sit in a barber's shop long enough, you're gonna get a f---in' haircut," he said with a laugh.

"I don't hang out with people that are getting high because I'm not that strong. It's fun to party and I had a lot of fun, and I kind of used up all my chips in that department."

If you sit in a barber's shop long enough, you're going to get a haircut. If he wasn't parading his sobriety, you'd have to have assumed he was drunk when he said that.

It's funny, most barbers I've been too require your consent before they start shoving cocaine up your nose.

Rock sick list: Dave Gahan

Well, that explains all those canceled Depeche Mode tour dates: Dave Gahan's gastroenteritis has turned out to be a cancerous tumour.

He's had an operation, and is expected to make a recovery fast enough to allow the tour to resume on June 6th.

Gahan insists: it was an accidental OD

Apparently Dave Gahan is annoyed that people still put his drugs OD down to a suicide attempt when, really, he just was rubbish at measuring out his drugs:

"I'm painfully aware that was not what I was trying to do. All I was trying to do was disappear for a while, and that became a lost weekend."

Yeah, it must really irritate that people think you took a speedball to kill yourself rather than just because there was nothing on HBO that evening.

Dave Gahan goes format crazy

Dave Gahan is, according to Side-Line planning a new single. It's going to emerge as a download on August 27th.

Then, in October, it will also come out as a seven inch.

And a 12" single.

Oh, and a CD single.

And a Maxi-CD single.

And a picture disc 7", too.

It's like the glory days of the early 1980s - we wonder if he's thought about releasing the 7" singles in a range of different-coloured sleeves as well?

More Glasto sign-ups

Dave Gahan and Prince, together at last. There's just going to be a cloud of pervert air hanging over Pilton, isn't there?