Gordon in the morning: Newton Faulkner throws the awe away

Newton Faulkner has turned up at The Sun to do one of their sessions, and tells one of those anecdotes that is meant to be about one thing, but is really about something else entirely:

Faced with Scottish twins Craig and Charlie Reid, the notoriously chatty singer clammed up completely, as he revealed at his recent Biz Session.

He said: “I was playing at the V Festival four years ago.

“It was a weird audience – like the whole cast of Hollyoaks, Paul Rudd and Matt Lucas. There was no one there I didn’t know.

“I turned to go off and the Proclaimers – the two main guys – were standing there and saying they really enjoyed it. I couldn’t talk. I was mesmerised."

"The Two Main Guys" out the Proclaimers, eh?

This is supposed to be a little story about how humble Newt met the blokes who did Letter From America and was overcome with awe.

But it isn't, is it? It's an anecdote about how many famous people came to see him play V (the cast of Hollyoaks counting as 'famous' here), and even the Proclaimers bit is self-regarding, with its subtext of 'famous as I am, I was struck dumb by these surprisingly less-famous artists' and the little rush to reassure us that how they "really enjoyed" it.

We can only hope that all the familiar faces like the Cast Of Hollyoaks and Paul Rudd saw him humbly accepting the praise of the two main guys from The Proclaimers.

T in the park's weak brew a national outrage

Drowned In Sound are suggesting that this year's T in the Park line-up is an affront to Scotland, with its Rage Against The Machine and Shed Seven and Newton Faulkner.

It might also just be an indication of how very, very thin the talent jam gets spread around the multiple festivals - especially if you sideline a couple of bigger acts with drugs problems, for example.

On the other hand: surely there's no schedule vacuum wide enough that would allow an excuse for having The Hoosiers and Bowling For Soup on a public platform, surely?

Faulkner's mouth

Neil McCormick met with singer-songwriter Newton Faulkner for the Telegraph (apparently he hates being called a singer-songwriter, which is probably fair enough as most people only seem interested in his cover of Teardrop.

Neil was excited to meet someone who he feels came up under the radar:

Faulkner is Britain's latest word-of-mouth musical sensation. Relentless touring and a growing internet fan base propelled his debut album, Hand Built By Robots, to number one for two weeks in July.

Yes, his sales are driven by word-of-mouth: people gathering at watercoolers and saying "have you heard that bloke who's got the Sony BMG marketing department behind him on Jo Wylie's show over and over again?"