First night: My Bloody Valentine - MBV

So last night, then, Kevin Shields hit 'send', or possibly 'return', or issued an instruction to release the babies, and all of sudden, we had a new My Bloody Valentine album.



Squee, as I believe they say.

What is the world making of it?

Caspar Llewellyn Smith doesn't want to rush to judgement:

We should honour Shields and co by not rushing this, and publish the real review of the album in 2035.

Just kidding! Of course he wants first dibs on a review:

so, yes, very, very early impressions: it's not a great leap forwards – it sounds not so much as a continuation of Loveless but a record completely akin to it ... although you can hear the vocals and instruments in the mix more clearly; and the closing track, Wonder 2, is that hallucinatory drum and bass tune Shields once suggested he'd gone and recorded. If that had come out in the mid-90s, the Britpop boys would have all taken their Beatles songbooks and gone home crying.

Must be exciting for the NME, though? A new record by a legendary band, and them with a shiny website ready for a first impression review. Right?

Er, no. They scrape together a tracklisting, but their blogs - presumably the best place to stick a quick response - is leading on something about Elton John wearing funny hats. (That might make it sound like NME haven't updated the blogs since about 1976.)

The LA Times seemed willing to have a go at a review, but struggled with technology and fact:

[Updated Feb. 2 at 7:27 p.m.: An earlier version of this post misidentified My Bloody Valentine as British. The band was actually formed in Dublin, Ireland. Also, as of late Saturday, the new My Bloody Valentine album reportedly is available at the above website. However, the site remains crashed as of this writing, possibly due to a crush of visitors. We'll update as we hear more -- good luck, everyone.]

The Mirror threw the ball to its readers:

Are you excited about m b v? Leave your comments below

This 'write your own review' approach hasn't yet got a single taker.

Peter Paphides' review is acute on the process of release:

Slowly but surely, something about this “sudden release” business is becoming clear. It won’t be for every artist. Young bands seeking to establish themselves have little to gain from springing new works onto an unsuspecting world. Neither will it work for your journeyman rocker who puts out a similar record to the last one every two years, seemingly untroubled by its sonic proximity to the last one. For artists who have had trouble dealing with the expectations of their audience, however, this might be the best way. Screw the build-up. What is the “build-up” anyway? Isn’t that the bit between the announcement of the release date and the release itself? The bit where we all talk about how much we loved the earlier records and, by doing so, place impossibly high expectations on music we simply haven’t had a chance to get nostalgic about?

Gideon Coe is excited:

That's a record worth listening to again and again. Several times today to start with.Beautiful. Any chance of another? No hurry. #MBV

— Gideon Coe (@gidcoe) February 3, 2013

But perhaps Beach House have it right, though:

Don't read what anyone is writing/going to write, just listen to the new #mbv record without some idiot clouding your thoughts

— Beach House (@BeaccchHoussse) February 3, 2013

24 Hours from David: 23. We Have All The Time In The World

Hal David worked with John Barry for the theme tune to On Her Majesty's Secret Service. It then got reworked all over me by My Bloody Valentine. This appeared on an album Peace Together, a 1993 attempt to solve the Troubles in Ireland through the power of indie guitar music. It wasn't all Bond covers - it included Curve doing Ian Dury and Therapy? having a go at being the Police. But the Valentines doing Bond was something of a highlight.

Altogether now: "No, Mr Bond, I expect you to disappear for twenty years burning through Alan McGee's money."

[Buy: Peace Together]
[Part of 24 Hours from David]

Bookmarks: My Bloody Valentine

From Vox, via Rock's Back Pages and Guardian Music, enjoy again Stephen Dalton's 1992 meeting with My Bloody Valentine:

Fixing a price tag upwards of £250,000 on the long-overdue Loveless, the music press predicted bankruptcy for MBV's label, Creation, and hot water for Kevin if he didn't deliver something with platinum potential. Judging by the album's critical reception, the future of both band and label seems assured.

When the buzzing hordes of acolytes from post-Valentines bands Ride, Lush, Chapterhouse and Slowdive dissipate from the dressing room in Reading, Kevin is finally willing to nail those rumours.

"Creation are no closer than any other label to going bankrupt," he offers ambivalently, confirming the astronomical figure quoted above but stressing this also covered two expensive EPs, three videos and the band's living costs over three years. "They paid for everything bit by bit so they'd eaten up the cost as they went along. They felt strained, but nothing special: they would spend easily as much on two or three smaller bands."

My Bloody Valentine: New album this year

This is actually exciting: Kevin Shields has told Uncut there's going to be an LP and a couple of EPs from My Bloody Valentine.

This year.

For definite.

It's not exactly totally new material - just stuff that Shields found while remastering the albums we all know and treat like pieces of the true cross. He's finished them - or will finish them - and they'll get a proper release.












Unless he changes his mind.

Bookmarks: Some stuff to read on the internet: Yo La Tengo

Yo La Tengo share some of their favourite bands with the New York Times:

MR. KAPLAN You know, it’s funny. Georgia made this list, and it got me thinking about all the people on it. One thing that I was thinking about My Bloody Valentine was that they’re so legendarily difficult; they’re the band that bankrupted Creation Records. But they never took any, as far as I could tell, great pleasure out of — that wasn’t their motivation. They were just listening to the music in their head, trying to make it. It seems like they were doing what made sense to them, and the fact that it didn’t make sense economically or decibelwise, it was almost like: “Oh it doesn’t? I thought it would.”

Membranes forming up again

The comebacks which delight are often, it seems, centered on All Tomorrow's Parties, and this one adds to that strike rate: The Membranes are getting back together at the behest of My Bloody Valentine. This is the Nightmare Before Christmas one.

John Robb is, naturally, verbose in his excitement:

Like King Arthur's knights buried beneath the soil of Merrie Englande we are ready to be called on in the country's hour of peril. We were called. And we will play.

It's not clear where they were during the time of Gareth Gates, but better late than never, eh?

1988 Festive Fifty Weekend: Number six

And this, of course, is why all right thinking people were giddy with over-excitement when they returned. My Bloody Valentine's You Made Me Realise. This, live, from Amsterdam in 1988:



Buy: Remastered vinyl version of Isn't Anything

[Part of the 1988 Festive Fifty Weekend]

... and I never liked Kevin Shields anyway

Alan McGee takes to his MySpace blog for what presumably was meant to be an enthuse over Mogwai, but which crashes into being another one of his tiresome railings against former friends:

Finally got time to listen to it and it's even better than the last two Mogwai albums which to me have both been wonderful.I'm Jim Morrison,I'm Dead/Danphe and the brain/Local Authority/Kings Meadow/Thank you space expert are all beautiful Mogwai music.Their is a beautiful irony that the ''nostalgic cabaret'' that is my bloody valentine are throwing at people in 2008 gets critical acclaim in the easily pleased UK press with MBV still playing the exact same set they did 20 years ago and the only trick Kevin Shields has anymore in 2008 is actual volume and double extra pa to numb you and zero new songs.


Hear the new Mogwai record it's beautiful.Mogwai are 2008 My bloody valentine were a joke signing in 1991 maybe they got better...

This, of course, from a man who would be sleeping under the arches but for Oasis' tired old slogging.

Niall, who emailed us to bring the post to our attention, also offered a little context:

From the man who in 1996 took out a full-page ad in NME to rave about a gig the reformed Sex Pistols had played at Shepherds Bush Empire...

Also he seems to have trouble with "there" and "their".

Mojo Honours announced

The annual attempt to try and show some interest in the Mojo Awards, then - and, once again, the puzzlement over why they do a copy of the Q/Brits/NME/etc etc awards and not something a little more inspired?

Perhaps the clue is in the less-than-inspired list of winners:

Song of the year: Duffy - Mercy

Breakthrough act: Last Shadow Puppets
Oh, yes - because they came out of nowhere, didn't they?

Best live act: Led Zeppelin
Heaven help us. Still, Mojo must be delighted at the chance to give them something other than a 'old blokes prize' category

Best album: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig
Okay, this is slightly less predictable. And the prize sponsored by Ford as well. We bet they'll be popping a comp copy into every Focus in-car CD player from now...

Best compilation: Juno
What is point of best compilation prize? What is point?

Inspiration: John Fogerty

Icon: The Sex Pistols

Hall of Fame: The Specials

Classic album: Loveless - My Bloody Valentine

Hero: Motorhead

Catalogue release (no, we don't, either): Cherry Red 1981 - 1984
(Okay, that's a surprising one, and - unlike the Specials and the Valentines, not linked to a major comeback tour)

Les Paul award: John Mayer.

Oh, alright then. John Martyn.

Outstanding contribution: Paul Weller

Roots: Toots
Possibly the first rhyming awards winner since Beth Spewtummer was Brits best newcomer in 1996)

Mojo Vision: Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten
(It turns out they mean best rockumentray)

Mojo Medal: Dave Robinson
We don't know if there's an actual medal - it would be rather fun if there was, and Robinson will have to wear it on his lapel on official occasions.

Legend award: Irma Thomas
It's been noted her contribution has yet to be considered outstanding

Special award: Judy Collins
Judy is, therefore, special and not legendary

Lifetime achievement: Genesis
The citation was careful not to mention the illegal alien video, or - indeed - it's role in inspiring Tescos tortilla chip packaging

Classic songwriter: Neil Diamond
How fortunate to rediscover him while he's out touring a new album

My Bloody Parties

Good news for New Yorkers: My Bloody Valentine are curating a debut upstate NY branch of the All Tomorrow's Parties franchise. Kutshers Country Club is the venue - so let's hope that Kevin Shields has bought a blazer. Or at least run a comb through his hair.

Bestival scoops the lot

Bestival - when it's not smiling gently at Glastonbury and going "what happened to you, Dude, you used to be cool?" - is actually managing to pull together a pretty impressive line-up, headed off with My Bloody Valentine.

Valentines day extended

My Bloody Valentine have added some extra dates to their tour, with a schedule which Pitchfork is now tracking thus:

06-20 London, England - The Roundhouse
06-21 London, England - The Roundhouse
06-22 London, England - The Roundhouse
06-23 London, England - The Roundhouse
06-24 London, England - The Roundhouse
06-28 Manchester, England - Apollo
06-29 Manchester, England - Apollo
07-02 Glasgow, Scotland - Barrowland
07-03 Glasgow, Scotland - Barrowland
07-03-06 Roskilde, Denmark - Roskilde Festival
07-09 Paris, France - Zenith
07-17-20 Benicassim, Spain - Festival Internacional de Benicassim
08-08 Oslo, Norway - Oya Festival

Valentines download album

In what Gigwise describes as 'doing a Radiohead', My Bloody Valentine's manager Vinita Joshi has suggested they're thinking of making the new album available as a download and a vinyl version.

Which is hardly "doing a Radiohead", especially since:

[S]he added that MBV are unlikely to follow Radio head’s ‘pay what you like’ stance for the download.

My Bloody Valentine: Now we knows when

My Bloody Valentine dates! MBV tour dates! Dates for a My Bloody Valentine tour. When the band will be on stage and playing music together:

June 2008

20 London Roundhouse
28 Manchester Apollo

July

02 Glasgow Barrowlands

Kevin Shields in his own words

After a couple of weeks of speculative build-up, Kevin Shields finally gets to speak: VBS.tv posts the first of four parts of the interview:

Bloody, confused, returning

The NME reports the most solid news of a My Bloody Valentine reunion so far, quoting Kevin Shields:

"We were making a record in the '90s around when the band broke up in 1995...and I continued with Belinda [Butcher- guitarist/vocalist]. We kinda made most of an album... It's going to be this 96/97 record half-finished, and then a compilation of stuff we did before that in 1993-94, and a little bit of new stuff."

He added: "I pretty much know what the one that's going to come out this year is going to sound like because its already pretty much three-quarters done already... it sounds like what we sounded like - different, but not radically different. People will go, "yeah, it sounds like My Bloody Valentine."

Even the NME accepts this isn't entirely definitive, headlining its piece:

My Bloody Valentine reunion confirmed?

... with the get-out-of-jail-free-ish question mark.

Prepare to drop Shields?

The appearance of My Bloody Valentine on MyBloodySpace - complete with classic line-up - has fuelled the talky-guess-network that is the internet with rumours that the band are going to play Coachella.

With the Mary Chain having got back together for this year's Coachella, it's clear that they're engaging on a slow-motion replay of the Rollercoaster tour. Blur with Coxon and Damon's penis on-stage for 2009, then.

Alan McGee: he really does see Oasis as his legacy

In the latest Guardian Music blog, Alan McGee sounds a deathly warning against hype. "Would you put your life in the hands of these rock and roll bands?", he asks, a not-very-subtle reminder of the band he put his pension scheme in the hands of, before kicking off a list of some of the much ballyhooed acts who flopped - Sigue Sigue Sputnik, The Roaring Boys, Orlando. That sort of thing. There's no room, oddly, for references to Baby Amphetamine, or the other bands that he pushed himself despite their lack of saleability; nor the Ozymadiantics of post-Definitely Maybe Oasis - Knebworth, surely, being a working example of what happens when you over-inflate the myth.

What really marks out the piece, though, is the opening, where McGee kicks the shit out of two of his own acts - two of the bands whose presence on the Creation roster made it impossible to dismiss the label as simply the packaging of nutritionally questionable fayre it had become by the time it ended:

Highlights of my hyping skills include talking up Kevin Shields to be a Brian Eno-like genius (when in fact you could put a monkey in the studio with Alan Moulder and make it sonically interesting), and the Boo Radleys, who were signed to demonstrate to Kevin that I could take anybody doing "his" music and make it a number one.

Although, of course, the Boo Radleys never had a number one single, and their number one album was the least Valentines-esque collection they ever turned in. Still, it's nice that McGee is keen to distance himself from the records which we used to have admit gave him a grudging claim to care about music - and it answers the question of how he could have put out Be Here Now with a straight face. It's the sound of calculators.

And his view of the current music scene is equally odd:

Now the internet is such well-trodden territory, death by blog-hype is becoming de rigueur. Both Beirut and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah had been called the indie second coming, and enforced an A&R policy of "Sign anything above an eight in Pitchfork" that caused certain bands to be picked up and dispensed with very quickly. Beirut's poor live performances were his death knell while Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's second album was (perhaps unfairly) dismissed.

Beirut, surely, is something of an acquired taste - Zach was never going to be a David Hamilton hotshot or play the lottery show, and it seems a little odd for McGee to be sniffly dismissing him after one album - not to mention that 4AD hardly oversold that one.

And who called Clap Your Hands Say Yeah "the indie second coming" anyway? Not to mention that per McGee's opening gambit, I might not put my life in their hands, but I'd certainly bet on them giving me a better evening or two than anything on Poptones.

The comments box on the blog has been overflowing with responses, but the sweetest of them all is a simple link to this, on YouTube. We're not entirely certain, but we think it might proves that Creation records was founded on the income McGee generated from his time as the Hofmeister bear:



[Thanks to Oliver Keens]