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According to Twitter, it looks like the big turn-on of Christmas Lights in Birmingham has been cancelled by West Midlands Police, who were afraid they couldn't control the crowds who'd turned out to catch a glimpse of JLS.
From @Spacemanmills:
Downtown Bar in LV. Me to waitress: Where can I find an indie rock bar with Sonic Youth or Pavement on a jukebox? Waitress: Williamsburg
Acoustic, in a record shop in Hamburg:
[Part of George Best weekend]
Last spring, when Sweden enacted legislation to allow copyright businesses to demand personal details of file sharers, the music and film companies trilled excitedly to see the level of web traffic in the country drop by a third. This, apparently, was a sign that pirates had been frightened off and everything would be alright.
Turns out it was a temporary effect, as traffic has returned to pre-Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive levels. All that lobbying, all that money spent, and the end result was a few months of reduced internet traffic. If they weren't so insufferable, you could almost feel sorry for the RIAA companies, couldn't you?
The Guardian investigates if The X Factor is killing music, and naturally, a call to HMV's Factor factotum is required:
In a further innovation this year, the Sunday results show has been built around other artists promoting their own singles, leading to a previously unforeseen scale of chart dominance. "In an age when there are very few truly mass-audience platforms left, the X Factor has become pivotal for those labels and artists seeking to reach a family-based audience," says Gennaro Castaldo of HMV, one of the few music retailers that retains a high-street presence. "As soon as an artist goes on, almost overnight we tend to see a huge surge in demand for their single or album, initially via downloads, but then over the course of the following week via physical CD sales instore and online."
Album sales, he says, "can double or treble or increase by even more, so much so that a good chunk of our marketing and planning at this time of year tends to revolve around the show now".
It's cold, it's raining, it's gloomy. What better response than to dip into an albums' worth of comfort food. The Wedding Present's George Best is the Heinz Big Soup of comfort food albums.
Originally released in 1987, and subsequently revised with extra tracks both on CD release and then in a 20th anniversary version. The first 3,000 were sold with the extra inducement of a free plastic bag. To be fair, this was back when you needed something to carry music home in.
Because these things are just flung together on a whim and contain no proper research at all, I'm not sure if all the original tracks will be available in performance on YouTube, but I'm feeling pretty confident with this one.
Track one, Everyone Thinks He Looks Daft, certainly is:
I'm guessing most of the live versions are going to come from the 20th anniversary tour.
Buy
George Best on CD
George Best on comparatively over-priced mp3
Hopefully the tracklist will grow over the weekend
What Did Your Last Servant Die Of?
Don't Be So Hard
A Million Miles
All This And More
My Favourite Dress
Shatner
Something And Nothing
It's What You Want That Matters
Give My Love To Kevin
Anyone Can Make A Mistake
You Can't Moan, Can You?
During the squabbles last month, the Sugababes Organisation were reduced to using stand-ins to take the place of actual Sugababes during the making of a pop video.
They seem to have forgotten to swap the proper Sugababes back.
You'll remember Russell Brand, won't you? It's only a year since The Sun was calling him "smuuty", "vile", "sick", "filthy", a "juvenile... overpaid twerp".
In short, then, he's the perfect man to guest-edit Bizarre.
Still, out of deference to the polite and family-friendly tit-publishing newspaper he's working for, Russell keeps it clean:
JEDWARD mania has given me a novel idea of how one could reunite OASIS - give the band a new name that's a combination of the Gallagher brothers' names.
NIAM or LOEL? Could that work?
Having passed from self-parody into meaningless many years ago, it's not especially surprising that Liam Gallagher is going to press on into becoming s full-blown cultural irrelevance. Yes, he's pledging solo shows:
"I'll be back doing that [playing live] within a couple of months. I've just done a tour, I always miss singing songs. I miss the people."
"We're sort of doing things at the moment. Not Oasis, Oasis is done. Everyone except for Noel," Gallagher explained.
And, as a sample of the new album, The Tindersticks have released a free track, Black Smoke.
January 25th 2010. That's the release date for a brand new Tindersticks album.
Yes.
The band say so:
Here is a message from the band:
"Our last album, The Hungry Saw, was our first in five years. We didn’t really know what to expect on its release; we had just six concerts booked, and everyone was a little nervous…
That was April 2008. The success of those concerts, including the Royal Festival Hall in London and the Folies Bergere in Paris, took us all by surprise and led to seventy more shows in Europe and the US - ending with a beautiful summer’s evening headlining The Serpentine Sessions in Hyde Park in July of 2010.
In our ‘downtime’, we have scored 2 film soundtracks for Claire Denis: the much loved and critically acclaimed 35 Shots Of Rum and, due for release in the new year, White Material, which stars Isabelle Huppert. Somewhere during that time, we were also commissioned to create the music for the Louis Vuitton summer collection in Paris.
From those nervous beginnings a new unity and sense of direction grew. Where once our touring days were spent hanging around, killing time, now we found ourselves cobbling together acoustic rehearsals for new ideas in dressing rooms and venue corridors. There was a growing need to explore and we quickly started working in the studio.
Very soon this work became Falling Down A Mountain, our eighth studio album. Recorded at the band’s own Le Chien Chanceux studio in rural France and at ICP in Brussels between May and July 2009 and mixed at Le Chien’ in September and October.
With hindsight, The Hungry Saw now seems like an album made within the confines of what we knew; in making Falling Down A Mountain those boundaries became irrelevant.
The title track was borne out of a collection of moments; a dreamed idea recorded into a mobile phone in the night evolving into a spontaneous recording with the band, Terry Edwards’ trumpet (we didn’t play him the song, just gave him some clues, ran the tape and he played into the silence), singing with David Kitt and his great overdubbed guitar… All, more or less, made in one or two takes. Sometimes you just get lucky.
From the dream of building Le Chien’ three years ago, this is the first recording that gets close to what we have been looking for and gives all the effort some meaning.
The album ran on from there in many different directions, but always with a shared feeling between all the musicians and a sense of discovery towards the ideas. Highlights were many and varied: singing a duet with Mary Margaret O’Hara; new additions to the group in the shape of Earl Harvin (drums and vocals) and David Kitt (guitar and vocals) brought with them new colours to the music, and their voices combining with bassist Dan McKinna’s realised a long dreamt of “vocal section” within the band. In addition, Jo Fraser and Andy Nice, who have played a big part in our soundtrack work, provided some great flute and cello moments.
We hope you enjoy."
From @mandarin:
Is that some Bis news to announce on 24th Nov? Hmm I think so!
Next week is pancreatic cancer awareness week. While some cancers get thousand upon thousands of people out jogging against it, and pink-coloured kitchen items, pancreatic cancer struggles to get its voice heard. If cancer had a voice. You know what I mean.
To help with the awareness-raising, there's a rock-meets-art affair at the Proud Gallery in Camden between the 19th and 30th November. The artwork is all by pop stars - Placebo, Maximo Park - and people like The Stereophonics; on the 18th and the 30th, there's a pair of special events which will include auctioning of said artworks.
TechCrunch is reporting MySpace plans for charging visitors to listen to music. Understandable to a point - at the moment, the company is burning through USD20million a month on royalties for streaming music, which is ridiculous from a business point of view.
The trouble is, the big streaming bill is because they're paying too much to the labels. Admittedly, raising a paywall will help by sending most of MySpace's traffic away. But wouldn't it just be quicker to close MySpace down altogether rather than make it dwindle away to nothingness?
MySpace: Friends Reunited is waiting.
Here we are, worrying about what would happen if the record labels forced a household off the internet. In Ohio, an entire town has been disconnected at the behest of Sony Pictures. Because one user of the muncipal wi-fi allegedly downloaded a movie.
[via Boing Boing]
Oh, sure, you think that his predictions of Robbie Williams playing with Take That being crushed is going to make Gordon Smart abashed?
Of course not: if you squint, he was right:
OBBIE WILLIAMS was moved to tears last night as he took to the stage with his old TAKE THAT bandmates for the first time in 15 years.
And later came the moment all TT fans had been waiting for - GARY BARLOW and Robbie arm in arm, singing on stage together for the Children In Need gig at London's Royal Albert Hall.
Readers of yesterday morning's Bizarre column knew what to expect:
Not only will the original Take That line-up - Gary, Robbie, MARK OWEN, HOWARD DONALD and JASON ORANGE - play together for the first time in almost 15 years but ex-BEATLE Sir Paul is teaming up too.
A source said: "The reunion is go. Robbie is utterly thrilled about it. He's been dreaming of performing with Take That again for years and now it's going to happen."
Robbie Williams has joined his former Take That bandmates on stage at the Children in Need charity concert, but there was no reunion performance.
A smattering of Brooklyn indie, as Au Revior Simone get a Social Disco Club reversioning to Another Likely Story.
The hope is that you'll love this so much, you'll buy the single when it comes out next week with this, the original flavour and Aeroplane and Neon Indian remixes as well.
Vivendi had much to be happy about in its latest set of figures, announced today. Helped by its soaring computer games business, it posted profits of €3.58 billion (£3.23 billion) for the nine months to September - that not even counting the money it's making right now from Call Of Duty.
Universal, though, proved a little less glittering, with revenue in the third quarter of the year down 62% year-on-year. The glimmer, though, is that even this mismanaged behemoth in a business whose supernormal profits are evaporating, has managed to make profits of €269 million (£243 million) in the nine months to October. A quarter of a billion in profits. And yet this is a company supposedly being so damaged by piracy that it requires draconian legislation worldwide.
Rose Elinor Dougall - who has been thriving since dropping off the end of The Pipettes - is squeezing in a couple of dates before Christmas:
3rd Dec - LONDON Wild & Innocent @ Hoxton Bar & Kitchen
5th Dec - CHESTER Telford’s Warehouse
6th Dec - YORK Fibbers
And, as you ponder if it's worth taking Merseyrail to its wildest reaches, here's what you could expect:
The first date on this slate of Field Music tours is a freebie; the rest you'll have to pay for but should find it worth the entry:
13th Nov - LIVERPOOL The Bumper - Liverpool Music Week - Free Show
19th Nov - MANCHESTER The Deaf Institute, Manchester
21st Nov - GLASGOW Captain's Rest, Glasgow
22nd Nov - EDINBURGH Sneaky Pete's, Edinburgh
27th Nov - NEWCASTLE The Cluny
28th Nov - NEWCASTLE The Cluny
7th Jan - LONDON Hoxton Bar & Grill
This is what you'll get for your pound:
Baria Qureshi has decided not to return to The XX, after pulling out of the band shortly before their recent London date. Romy Madley Croft tells the NME that the band will continue as a three piece:
"Baria has left the band," she confirmed. "I guess 'personal differences' would be the standard way to say it. I guess it's just the intensity of being on tour, things are so much heightened."
The Liverpool gig that got cut short when a bottle bounced off Mozzer's bonce is going to be restaged:
"Event organisers are working with the artistes representatives to explore all ways of restaging the abandoned concert. Everyone involved in the show is deeply upset that the actions of one individual have spoiled the evening for the thousands of genuine fans and for Morrissey himself." They added.
Going on to say that fans who can't attend the event will be given a full refund, they also asked for "Patience while we work to try and resolve [the issue]".
To save you time: In short, they've never done a Police Week.
Sting doesn't like The X Factor. In fact, it makes his blood boil, possibly even to the point where he'd start smashing up his tiny medieval guitars. This almost makes the X Factor worth it.
Fume Sting, fume:
"They [The contestants] are either Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston or Boyzone and are not encouraged to create any real unique signature or fingerprint."
He also attacked the show's judges - Simon Cowell, Cheryl Cole, Louis Walsh and Dannii Minogue - claiming they had "no recognisable talent apart from self-promotion".
"How appalling for a young person to feel that rejection," he told the London Evening Standard.
"It is a soap opera which has nothing to do with music. In fact, it has put music back decades."
Talking of the I'm A Celebrity juggernaut, surely the luckiest recipient of a slot on that programme must be Peter Andre? Before, he was a failed pop star with nothing of value to offer the world; ever since, he's been able to charge for being a failed pop star with nothing of value to offer the world.
According to Gordon this morning, he's dating Alexandra Burke. Or, as they're saying in the ITV press office, attempting to pull down synergy between The X Factor and The ITV2 Reality Circus.
Gordon insists Andre is "smitten". Although if he's been wandering about in a daydream with a silly simper on his face, it's hard to see how you could tell the difference from his normal demeanour.
Andre is plannning to cook for Burke:
Pete told a friend: "I think she's really cool. She's seriously hot and once I've cooked for her, she won't be able to resist."
The pair have even discussed recording a track together.
A pal of Pete's told The Sun: "Alex was the one who broke the ice first. She was really complimentary about Pete's album."
The people who are going on the next series of I'm A Celebrity Although Not So Much That I Can Turn Down Stuff Like This have been announced. It's very, very light on pop stars this time round - there's no "really?" moment like when Cerys was on the list. Indeed, music's end this time is being represented by Sam Fox (she's a bit better-known in some places on the globe for her music than her ability to not wear a shirt) and Sabrina Washington. Yes you do; one of the other ones from Mis-Teeq.
Fox is on the way down - she once had a pointless reality show all of her own - while Washington is on the way up, having previously done Celebrity Scissorhands, the BBC Three programme where celebrities tried to stop Steve Strange from cutting people's hair.
The list in full:
The eleven celebrities heading into the jungle for series nine are: Lucy Benjamin, Gino D’Acampo, Camilla Dallerup, Sam Fox, George Hamilton, Stuart Manning, Colin McAllister, Justin Ryan, Sabrina Washington, Jimmy White and Kim Woodburn.
Never mind that it's 20 years since the Guardian launched Notes & Queries - can you believe that it's ten years since Ladytron first coalesced in what was (then) a Liverpool back street and is now probably the fridge aisle in the big new John Lewis?
They're celebrating with an album collecting the best bits from the first decade. It's going to be a greatest hits collection, which suggests a reliance on natural justice rather than strict facts.
It might be a bit late for some loud electro-punk... actually, it never is, is it? This is Le Corps Mince De Francoise; they're Finnish and ready to download, unzip and play.
You can share your thanks and love with the band over at their corner of the declining empire of the MySpace.
The excitement of watching Aerosmith wandering about tripping over each other isn't through yet: after the announcement last week that Steven Tyler was out, Steven Tyler has now disannounced his departure at a Joe Perry gig:
"I just want New York to know, I am not leaving Aerosmith," Tyler said. Rather than leave it at that, however, he then chose to drop one of the best quotes we've heard in a while. Turning to the Aerosmith guitarist, he said, “Joe Perry, you are a man of many colours. But I, motherfucker, am the rainbow!”
And the sample sizes continue: Hot Hot Heat are serving up two tracks from their new album, Future Breeds.
They've not done a record since 2007, and I'd chide them for their slow work rate, but they've admitted that themselves:
Singer/keyboardist Steve Bays apologized to fans for "taking so long to finish" the disc in a Nov. 4 post on the band's website, but said Future Breeds is "by far" his "favourite thing we've ever done."
