A little bit on the side

Over on the Guardian Music site, Johnny Dee has a go at the side project and its usually dispiriting results:

The bit on the side has become a tiresome trend among indie groups. Particularly as there are countless acts who seem to be forming part-time bands and releasing solo albums just to stave off the boredom until their more talented bandmates can be arsed to write some new material. Worse still, the more talented members of said band will probably be involved in side projects of their own.

And he's right. Except... except for this:

This may be stretching the point a little, but what would be better – another nice Robert Plant bluegrass album with a lady who was going to make a nice bluegrass album anyway or a reunion of Britain's greatest rock band?

Seriously, Johnny? A pointless lumbering back of the surviving guys who used to be Led Zeppelin, making an album they have no interest in producing, making them a little less special, taking the band from being part of rock's royal family to fighting for record sales with Lil'Wayne and the Saturdays, or Raising Sand? I'll take the Alison Krauss work every time, thank you.

Argos giveaway

Eddie Argos' amusing-ish side-project Glam Chops has marked the start of Advent, not with a crown made of coathangers, but with a free download single, Countdown To Christmas and Baby Jesus Was The First Glam Rocker.

Meanwhile, back at the slightly less arch end of the business, Art Brut are off recording with Frank Black doing producery bits. For the next album.

Saint Etienne weekend: Seven Ways To Love

This, Cola Boy, was a Saint Etienne side project which released songs Stanley and Wiggs judged to be "too cheesy" to put out under their usual name.

They might just have been right:



[Part of Saint Etienne weekend]

O yeah

Karen O is indulging in a spot of side-activity, in the form of Native Korean Rock and the Fishnets. It's nothing to do with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs; at the moment, it consists of two live shows in New York on July 21st (= some shaky cameraphone footage on YouTube from July 22nd).

Placebo: side projects and new albums

Big thanks to Mariya for the email tipping our attention in the direction of Stefan's update on what's happening in the Placebo world right now:

Just want to say I’ve got an album coming out in June with my side project Hotel Persona. This is something I’ve been doing in my free time from Placebo over the past couple of years with some friends in London. It’s basically a collection of tracks we wrote for fun to play at parties, nothing to take too seriously! It’s pop music with a dancefloor beat, and lyrics sometimes bordering on comedy. Kind of exploring the entertainment value of music and making something a little more light hearted than what I am used to, something people with a couple of drinks in them could understand and sing along to! Some of the tracks are a little more serious and some quite intimate and fragile, and we’ve also got a couple of guests to bring some flavour.

Placebo is currently writing the next record and will record it this year, so Placebo fans shouldn’t be worried that this project is taking away from that.

So, we figure that would peg a Placebo album (and tour) early 2009?

Hotel Persona are interesting - Mr. Molko turns up to keep an eye on what Stefan's up to; also involved is Brits-trashing breast-showing, union-busting, none-more-80s sex symbol Samantha Fox.

This is the kind of noise they make:

Interdriver

NME has got some more news about the Interpol/Swervedriver side project: Sam Fogarino and Adam Franklin's Magnetic Morning are about to release a debut five-track ep in the US, also called Magnetic Morning.

Norah Jones attempts to be the indie Norah Jones

We hope that someone develops a system soon so that we can easily recall the difference between Katie Meluah and Norah Jones: surely there should be a mnemonic.

Things aren't helped by Jones launching a new identity, which makes... well, one and-a-bit identities, if we're being generous.

She's going indie.

If by "indie" you mean "has a shorter haircut and a side-project doing much the same stuff under a silly name." She's adopted the name Maddie for the band, El Madmo ("You don't have to be el Madmo to work here, but...") and - ooh - has written a song called Rock Your Balls Off.

Twenty years ago, this would have been a silly artistic project. Now, it looks more like an attempt to create a secondary brand without hurting the core product.

Billie Joe attempts to hold back tide

Billie Joe Armstrong has, rather sweetly, tried to stop people filming Pinhead Gunpowder gigs and putting them on YouTube. Well, it doesn't hurt to ask, does it?:

"YouTube can't own everything. There's also something called memories."

We're not sure that it actually wipes memories out of people's brains if things appear on YouTube - does it work like that?

We know, of course, that Billie Joe begged for fans to put their cameras away, thanks to the large number of people who filmed him saying this.