No Rock And Roll Fun

WHAT THE POP PAPERS SAY: Coming out in Hives edition
Just one magazine this week - well, one and a half, as the NME/O2 Music Guide is back, with lots of PJ Harvey, which is a good thing; Stuart Murdoch revealing that he never listens to anything while he's shagging ("never" kind of implies more than one sexual fumbling in his life, which surely wrecks his image?), while Allison Goldfrapp chooses to shag to the sound of Grace Jones.

NME proper has the Hives on the front page... even more than last time round, they seem like a stop-gap band: not bad, will do, fills a hole. And they're starting to look more than ever like the sort of band who'd be onstage for a school prom during a film set in the 50s.

The big news picture is of The Others doing a gig on a tube train - which makes us feel we got off lightly when we were last down in London and only had to endure a bloke doing poetry and juggling; other news includes the "world exclusive" of the Glastonbury Line-up, although it was also in today's Guardian, and they had the full starting times too. And BBC News Online had the line-up yesterday. And Q4music did, too. There's one of those rare beasts, an NME editorial on the subject of Pete Libertine's continued thrashing about - it's kind of "pull yourself together, get it sorted" stuff, but it makes the valid point that if kicking the band into touch is what it takes to save himself, then Pete has the right to do that. There's also a couple of photos you never thought you'd see: Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler working together, and Ian brown in a cameo in Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Arkaban - it's not surprising that he's in the movie, but he's reading a book.

There's a picture of radiohead supporting Bill Nighy on a cover of 'Love Is All Around' at oxford playhouse - although, ahem, radiohead aren't "covering Wet wet wet", they're covering The Troggs like the Wets did.

The Duke Spirit do a CD - Jackie Wilson, The Slits, the Clash.

Peter Robinson meets up with Peter Hooton, who now looks like he should be running one of those firms that offer "25 hour security" services. Hooton advises The Bandits to squander any money that comes their way.

Glasgow's Kain are the radar band - "we're about making girls dance, and guys beat the shit out of each other." So, like Bacardi Breezers, then.

"We have more in common with rocket scientists than most other bands" suggests Nicholaus Hives. Which is about as interesting as they get. They should read the Devendra Banhart interview for tips on how to hold the interest - he sets off on how he can't eat papaya because he thinks he's eating his mother when he does.

There's a curious piece by Imran Ahmed about Richard Pryor - curious because it doesn't really seem to be hung on any hook at all, it's just a piece out of nowhere about a commedian that Ahmed likes. We wonder if this is a testing the water for having, well, odd, passionate pieces tossed into the mix? If so, we welcome it with open arms, although we disagree with Ahmed's conclusion - to say there would be no hiphop or Bill Hicks without Pryor is akin to suggesting there couldn't have been a Libertines without Arthur Askey.

Tim Arnold - godson of June Brown, Dot Cotton to you, talks about his time drying out in Tibet, which is more than a little Derren Brown; his mum couldn't even remember who his Dad was, but one of the monks managed to come up with a name, and the internet did the rest.

We're sure Daniel Radcliffe is a nice bloke - and he gives good interview; he once dressed up as the Libertines to go to school. We're just not sure why he's got so much space here.

Pixies album covers make up the posters, along with a little explanation of why he made them that way by Vaughan Oliver.

Back like the Hives are the Datsuns, although they don't get the cover, despite sounding better and looking much, much better. Christian gets to do most of the talking, too, which makes a nice change.

reviews
live
hope of the states - rescue rooms, nottingham - "more relaxed and self-assured than ever"
slipknot - london astoria - "sometimes hell aint a bad place to be"
the killers - liverpool academy - "pop music is a helluva lot more entertaining than snow patrol"

albums
the datsuns - outta sight/outta mind - "a terrible letdown", 4
the killers - hot fuss - "half of the album of the year", 7
!!! - louden up now - "more saxophone!", 7

singles
sotw - the concretes - you can't hurry love - "not a cover of the Supremes"
britney spears - everytime - "bottom of a hotel piano balladry"

and finally, ben curtis of secret machines loves the beastie boys - "nowadays, they're the hiphop Bono"