Franz Ferdinand: Walk away, walk away

Nick McCarthy, who was with Franz Ferdinand before anyone had heard of them, and was still with them now people don't remember them, has quit the band. There was an official statement on Facebook, which explained Nick wanted to spend more time with his family.

The conclusion was amusing:

We'd love to say this is a result of personal or musical differences, but it's not. Those differences are what we formed the band around in the first place.

Mergermania: Franz Ferdinand & Sparks unite

Not since Marxism Today merged with the New Statesman has there been a coming together so unexpected, but so provocative. There's going to be a tour, too.

Franz Ferdinand audience pepper-sprayed

At first you have to get past the surprise that there was a Franz Ferdinand gig in Sao Paulo which was so popular there was a crowd control problem, but once you do, the details are pretty shabby.

The venue - 20,000 capacity - still had space inside, but organisers shut the doors "to reorganise entry". This freaked those outside out; they started pushing and, in the end, the cops pepper-sprayed them.

It's hard to believe that anywhere in the world there are still gigs which are so poorly organised that they'd risk shutting doors while thousands of people are still trying to get in. It's outrageous that we're hearing stories of Franz fans being pepper-sprayed; it's good fortune that we're not hearing stories of them being killed.

Not happening for Gene

Gene Simmons - one of the subbrands of merchandising corporation Kiss - wishes, oh he wishes that all British music could be as interesting as Oasis:

"God bless the U.K. for giving the world the music that makes all our lives better. I like Keane, I like Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand write great songs. What's missing is stars. I don't care what they do, who they're shagging, where they live... they're not interesting people."

"The most interesting people to me are the Gallagher brothers. The interesting thing about them is they're drug addicts and alcoholics and they fight with each other. That's really it."

The claim that Noel Gallagher and Liam Gallagher are both drug addicts and alcoholics is, I stress, Gene Simmons' opinion.

I guess Gene has a point - nobody is very interested in who Keane might be shagging. But, come to that, is anyone really interested where Gene Simmons lives? He might assume so, since people keep asking him to make programmes about his life. But Gene: nobody really cares.

Perhaps if you spent less time being "interesting", you might be able to write a song that - and let's set the bar quite low - is as good as Somewhere Only We Know.

[Thanks to Michael M]

Alex Kapranos: Wish I was Sid

Ah, the follies of youth - apparently Alex Kapranos was so desperate to emulate Sid Vicious, he was hoping he was going to die an early death:

"I wanted to be like Buddy Holly or Sid Vicious or Rupert Brooke and have achieved everything I was going to do and done it all by the time I was 21 and then die glamorously. Unfortunately, it didn't happen like that."

... so, instead, I did the next best thing and stabbed someone to death and spent time lying about in a pool of my own shit and misery.

Franz Ferdinand decide they don't like pirates after all

Back in August 2007, the BBC released a collection of cover versions to mark Radio 1's 40th birthday. Franz Ferdinand suggested that, rather than buying it, it would be more apt to help yourself:

"The whole shabang doesn't appear to be for charity so point your browsers towards Limewire soon, kiddies!" the band said in a statement.

It's all fun and games until... oh, it's your own label whose music is being pirated. Now, the band are sending WebSheriff after fans who have posted Tonight onto the torrents:

On behalf of Domino Records and Franz Ferdinand, we would kindly ask you not to post copies of ‘Tonight’ on your site. We do appreciate that you are fans of / are promoting Franz Ferdinand, but the label and artist would greatly appreciate your co-operation in removing your links to the pirate files in question.

Web Sheriff have also instructed the people getting letters - sometimes simply for posting links to other sites which had long since taken down the actual files. Oh, and demanding apologies:

You must also arrange for the following apology to be published on the relevant page of the site for a period of seven (7) days : “RSLOG wishes to apologies to Franz Ferdinand, Domino Records and Web Sheriff for the disruption caused to their sales, marketing and promotion plans by our publishing of pirate file details relating to the unreleased album “Tonight”.

It's not just the complete change in attitude from the Ferdinand camp; but if they do feel the need to chase down filesharers, couldn't they find a less embarrassing way of doing it?

Franz Ferdinand not going all Damon Albarn on us

Talking to Drowned In Sound, Nick McCarthy distances Franz Ferdinand from tales that they've gone all Eno collaboration on us and slapped an approximation of an "African" sound on us:

I'm not actually sure where the African thing came from. The album's not like that, anyway! I think it was because we played an African Express gig in Liverpool and someone got the idea from that that we'd be doing a load of African music. There's a couple of songs, one for sure, that's got an Afro-Carribean, 6/8 feel to it... we've listened to a lot of African music and taken some things from it, but it's not an African record. We're from Glasgow, you know?

Well, yes, but on the other hand Lily Allen's hardly from Kingston Town, is she? Doesn't stop her from trying to sound like UB40...

Glastonbury 2008: Franz Ferdinand

From the YouTubes - here's team Franz doing Katherine Kiss Me:



[Part of the Glastonbury 2008 video]

Glastonbury paper round: Scrubbing the mud of rumour from the pure doorstep of truth

Effectively, the Sun's coverage is hanging this morning on triumphantly blowing the Doherty isn't coming story out the water:

DESPITE rumours of him going awol - PETE DOHERTY took to his Glasto headline slot like a duck to water.
[...]
Pete was top notch, performing to a dedicated following who finally believe he cares more about the music than the drugs.

Hang about, Nadia Mendoza - that sounds like a dangerous deviation from the paper's party line, there.

Nadia's coverage of Franz Ferdinand's discovery of the risks of turning up as a surprise too high up the bill is pretty good, too:

SECRET giggers FRANZ FERDINAND should have gone down a storm - but when they took to the stage DIZZIE RASCAL fans were left wondering what had happened to their hero.

The Scottish rockers played a surprise set on the Park Stage before the British rapper, leaving the crowd bewildered and second guessing if the hip-hopper would turn up.

Polite applause and confusion left what should have been a fantastic set somewhat tainted.

We were surprised, though, that Nadia seemed both bemused how The Subways could be familiar enough to be on the main stage, and yet also convinced their songs were too over-familiar to be worth bothering with.

While The Sun is berating those who fall for rumours, it's slightly kinder on the people who ran stories about Dolly Parton's surprise plans - what with that being the boss, and all. No Dolly, no way, as she's playing at the other end of the country.

Perhaps surprisingly, the Mirror is leading its coverage with an interview with Martha Wainwright, and a sad tale of lost footwear:

She explained: "I did have my favourite wellies that I wore when I went to Africa with Damon Albarn (on a fact-finding mission to Mali for the Blur frontman’s Africa Express project). But they were in such bad shape by the end of Glastonbury last year, I just kicked them off and said goodby as I was leaving the site. They had done their duty. I’ve got to buy some there this year, but the mud can’t be anything as bad as last year."

The paper also found tickets on eBay for a tenner. So, Michael Eavis has finally beaten the touts - by tanking the resale value of the tickets.

The Mail has spotted Kate Moss, and so can now go home happy. She didn't speak to them, so the paper made do with the next best thing:

Tom Knowles, 27, a retail manager, from Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire, said: 'Every time the heavens opened, I felt a little down. I kept thinking "oh God is this it" but it kept clearing after 10, 15 minutes tops.

The Guardian's coverage focuses more heavily on the music, offering a handy scorecard of the acts so far:

Candi Staton - 9
Ting Tings - 8
Vampire Weekend - 8
Glasvegas - 7

Glasvegas probably lost a couple of points for being on a rival sponsor's stage.

The Telegraph has sent Tom Chivers down to battle through the crowds, although he does seem to be relying on his rivals to keep him in the loop:

I read in the Guardian that "despite the weather", and to Emily Eavis' obvious disappointment, "at least one in 10 festivalgoers are still wearing wellies". How odd.

But he rallies, and gets a scoop of his own:

And finally, a Such Small Portions exclusive - according to our sources (in this case, an authoritative-looking man overheard talking on the phone as he walked through the press tent), Michael Eavis has booked the headline for next year: Morrissey. Remember, you heard it here first. Unless it's not true, of course, in which case you didn't.

Morrissey? Bloody hell - the tickets'll be lucky to make a fiver on eBay, then...

[Part of Glastonbury 2008]

Glastonbury 2008: It's not a surprise if you tell people

Perhaps the decision to pre-announce Franz Ferdinand's 'surprise' appearance at Glastonbury tomorrow night is intended to try and shift some of those last few thousand tickets. But you can't help wondering if a surprise is slightly diminished by, erm, not being a surprise at all.

Franz Ferdinand chained to the mixing desk

The new Franz Ferdinand album won't be in the shops in time for Christmas. (Or, for those of you born after 1990, the new FF album won't be uploaded into secure retail space before Christmas).

Alex Kapranos is still putting it together. And they need to come up with a new name:

“We were gonna call it 'Bite Hard' at one point because there was a song called 'Bite Hard' and we weren’t gonna use that as a song, but liked the phrase,” he said.

“It’s quite suggestive but apparently in the States if you say something ‘bites’ it means it sucks, so if something bites hard, it sucks really badly. So we thought; ‘No we’ll choose another title.’”

We're surprised that Alex didn't know that - do British people really go to the US unaware of local idiom that's been filtered through a thousand films and songs? Would Alex have a driving holiday in Idaho scuppered because he couldn't find a petrol station - "they only seem to be selling gas, and this is a diesel car..."?

That Franz Ferdinand story, then...

Gigwise - who do say they heard it on Newsbeat - have more detail about the Franz's abandonment of their sessions with Brian 'Girls Aloud producer' Higgins:

"We learned a little bit from his methods. We wrote with him for a while and initially we thought we'd work more with him on the album but it didn't really work out.

"We just realised that we're not really a pop group. We're just a band that happens to cross over into the whole pop sphere."

The new album remains on course for October - or earlier, if it looks like leeking onto peer-to-peer.

Gordon in the morning: Pete in the morning

There's no question what the big story is this morning in Bizarre - it's the apparent claims of Kate Moss that she's going to marry Jamie Hince. Okay, she was drunk when she said it, and only said to people taking her picture on cameraphones, and couldn't explain any further than "soon", but it's a splashy big story. It gets an exclusive tag. In the print edition of the Sun, it's a big, prominent splash.

It's clearly the biggest story of the morning.

Oddly, though, it's shoved aside on the Bizarre webpage to make way for a lame Wayne Rooney wedding story which is 'rich man spends money on wedding', in effect.

Why would a long burble guessing how much Colleen is going to spend on flowers take priority over an actual, scoopy, surprising Moss story?

The byline on the Kate story, we'd guess:

By PETE SAMSON
Deputy Bizarre Editor

There is also a story about Franz Ferdinand, too, although Gordon forgets to mention his source for this one, too. "I heard it on Newsbeat", actually.

NME Awards 2008: Oh, the Arctic Monkeys won.

The NME awards have been doled out tonight, mostly going to the Arctic Monkeys, as seems to be the way, once again proving that the alternative to the Brits works by, erm, giving the same prizes to the same people.

And they had the Klaxons playing as well.

The backstage blogging from the site is a little toe-curling:

Big Gig VIP Party: Too cool for school

Imagine a backstage party so cool that the hottest model in London and one of the coolest bands from Scotland gets turned away from.

The party is so full that Agyness Deyn and Franz Ferdinand are still queuing to get in.

Is this the NME or the Daily Star? And if they're queuing to get in, how have they been turned away?

Those prize winners in full, then:

Best band: Arctic Monkeys
Best track: Fluorescent Adolescent
Best video: Teddy Picker

Best album: Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future
Best solo artist: Kate Nash
Best new band: The Enemy
Best live band: Muse (Muse could probably win this even if they didn't play any gigs for the year)
Godlike Genius: Morrissey scribbled out and replaced by Manics
Hero: Pete Doherty (it's not actually clear for what, although having the chutzpah to flog that bloody journal to publishers might count)
Villain: George W Bush (Like the US electorate, the NME voters turn on him when it's too late to make a difference)
Worst band: The Hoosiers
Worst album: Blackout - Britney Spears
Best international band: The Killers (really? Really?)
Best music DVD: Nirvana - Unplugged In New York
Best live event: Reading / Leeds Festivals (Is it really fair that two separate events have their votes added together? Since it's unlikely anyone attended both - apart from those involved - shouldn't you vote for one or the other?
Best TV show: The Mighty Boosh
Best film: Control
Best website: Facebook (But that's a cop-out, isn't it? It's not like Facebook has any content, it's like being asked to vote for your favourite radio show and choosing Radio 4.)
Best dressed: Noel Fielding (Fair enough. He puts in the hours on it.)
Worst dressed: Amy Winehouse
There are too many awards, aren't there? Way, way too many
Sexiest man: Noel Fielding (Oh, hang on now... he's alright, but not when he turns in profile. You still might, but surely the sexiest man has to work right round the sextant?)
Sexiest woman: Kylie Minogue
Radar award: Glasvegas (this is the NME staff's brightest hope prize)
Best dancefloor filler: The Wombats - Let's all dance to Joy Division
Too, too many categories. It's like prize giving day at the world's most egalitarian schools.
Best album design: The Good The Bad And The Queen (Because Damon Albarn has to win something, just in case)
Best band blog: Radiohead
Best music blog: The Modern Age

Franz Aloud

Franz Ferdinand are about to be in the studio, with Girls Aloud producer Brian Higgins doing what, apparently, we're obliged to describe as "twiddling the knobs". As if the reason wasn't obviously "because we'd like to see what happens and pop is bloody lovely", NME asks Alex Kapranos what they think they're playing at:

“We could easily make a ‘Franz Ferdinand by numbers’ record, but there’s no point, no enjoyment in making a record like that. If we wanted to make a record like that we would have released it last year, that’s why we’ve been taking our time to push ourselves.”

And, of course, that pop is bloody lovely.

Kapranos calls the car vigilantes

Alex Kapranos appears to have been ripped off by the Beastie Boys:

[H]is prized vintage Mercedes has been robbed of its precious badge.

Alex had parked the G-registration Merc outside his Glasgow flat while he was busy working on new material with the rest of the band.

He was dismayed when he returned to find it stripped of its badge.

Alex said: "If anyone knows who snapped the badge off the front bonnet when it was parked outside my flat, can you give his balls a wee boot from me? Much obliged."

He's then at pains to stress that the car only cost him £250 - so "vintage" in the "old and knackered" sense rather than something Lord Montagu might be interested in.

Franz tours their homeland (and Iceland)

Franz Ferdinand have put together a tour of (mainly) Scotland for September:

09 Stirling, Scotland - Fubar
10 Inverness, Scotland - Raigmore
11 Fort William, Scotland - BA Club
14 Reykjavik, Iceland - NASA Club
18 Dundee, Scotland - Fat Sam's
19 Aberdeen, Scotland - Moshulu
20 Portree, Scotland - Prtotree Community Centre
24 Shetland, Scotland - Whiteness & Wisedale Hall

And the moral is, don't smoke or something

Alex Kapranos is taking on the role of Surgeon General, delighted by the ban on smoking:

"The smoking ban has got to be a good thing. What's good about cancer? My grandad died of cancer through smoking.

"I came across the ban first in New York and it seemed freaky, but you don't notice it after a while."

The smoking ban we can take. The clumsy shoehorning of it into every soap opera set south of Carlisle we could do without. Don't stick a poster about smoking up in your going-out-of-business chip shop, you fool; you need that space to fight a grease-splattered battle against the kebab bar.

Sluts stalk Franz Ferdinand

The Columbos of the music blog world, MusicSlut, reckon they've unpicked the secret of Franz Ferdinand's secret gig in New York - Bowery on Wednesday 13th June, they suggest. They show their working, too.

Some of my best Franz are songs

Pitchfork is currently offering links to Franz Ferdinand covering LCD Soundsystem's All My Friends. You might like to watch it.