Brandon Flowers might be slightly wrong

At least Brandon Flowers believes in himself:

"Whether the people want to accept it or not, we might be the best band in the last long time," Flowers is quoted as saying. "I'd go up any night against just about any band that's come out in the last 15 years. Not that it's a competition, but I do feel sometimes people don't have a grasp on what we've accomplished and what we've acquired."

I think people know what you've accomplished, Brandon. A half-decent album; some amusing Christmas special things for Jimmy Kimmel. In Mr Brightside, a song chosen by people who think they're being edgy when they appear on singing talent shows. A sequence of albums where the proportion of acceptability slid from 'half-decent' to 'three per cent alright'.

I think there's around nine thousand bands who could probably crush yours if you went toe-to-toe, but let's just start with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs while you nip off to pick up your coat from the hatcheck, shall we?

Gordon in the morning: The sum of its parts

Come! Together! Woah a woahaaa! Come Together!

Gordon's got a scoopy scoop this morning. Muse. The Killers. Together at last:

Meet the Millers: Killers hint at Muse collaboration

The idea of just one overblown work from acts who have long since passed a point where their level of invention could match the scale of their acoustic footprint is thrilling - get over double disappointment in one go.

Hang on, though, Gordon. Is there really a "hint", or have you merely raised the idea of working together and got a polite reply?

THE KILLERS frontman BRANDON FLOWERS reckons there’s a good chance of a collaboration with MUSE.

A good chance? Really?

He said: “We’ve become good friends with Muse. We get along so well, so I’d never rule out working together. We would be trying to outdo each other. It would be spectacular, the choruses would be huge.”

I don't actually see either a hint or a claim there's a good chance this could happen; it's about half a step up from 'there's no law of physics which would make it physically impossible for us to work together'.

What the pop papers say: NME at sixty and a half

With a multitude of covers to choose from, this week it's the NME's 60th birthday.

Only it isn't, is it? As the free facsimile of issue one inside shows, the magazine launched in March 1952. Were you looking for a metaphor for "slightly behind the curve", turning up six months late to your own party would be a pretty good one.

So, who do we get on these multicovers? There is a nice surprise - a Patti Smith variant, meaning that at least there's one woman given front page prominence. A fifty per cent drop in the number of women who appeared on the front of issue one, but - hey, who said progress would always be a straight line, eh?

Smith is a slightly risky choice for the anniversary - she's not been considered worthy of a cover for over thirty years and so, unlike some of the other cover stars is a bit less grateful, a bit less eager to please. She tells an anecdote about how, to punky New Yorkers, NME was too expensive, so they'd read the content but not buy the magazine. Ah, for the days when that was just a problem in overseas markets, eh, IPC?

Other covers- well, obviously there's not one but two Gallaghers.

Liam is reminded that the NME in the 1990s was "practically stalking" him every week - imagine that, eh? Asked why the NME is important (a leading question) he burbles out something almost incomprehensible that they transcribe anyway:

When I go and do my weekly shop I get NME and I read it while my misses is putting all the gear in."

Ah, the magazine of choice for boorish middle-aged men; such a quick read you can get through it while someone lobs a couple of foccacias and a bottle of merlot into the Bag For Life.

Noel, meanwhile, makes a more spirited attempt to justify the NME's existence:

I don't read about things in the Daily Mail, or a Sunday supplement, or the fucking Guardian. I read them in the NME.

Me, Liam, Noel. Is there anyone in the actual demographic that NME sells to its advertisers buying the thing?

Talkingnof demographics, there's an inadvertently revealing quote from Noel when he's talking about his brother's covers:

I'd go into the shop, and me two Asian mates, they'd be reading it under the counter.

"Me two Asian mates", Noel? Apart possibly from David Cameron, who mentions irrelevant ethnicity in the middle of an anecdote?

Paul Weller awkwardly tells a story about the Melody Maker (hey, how is that Meldoy Maker website coming along, IPC?) but does spark a wonderful admission from Gavin Haynes, that the Preston from The Ordinary Boys interviews his hero Weller piece was a bit of a sham:

[Preston] wasn't even a fan, despite claiming to be. [...] He only didn't because that was the feature that would get him in the NME.

Really? Preston pretending to like someone just to raise his profile? Hard to imagine, innit?

Weller helpfully announces that he, too, reads the NME rather than blogs. The advertising department must have been screaming "can you find someone who doesn't wear trousers with elasticised waistbands who reads the bloody thing?"

There are some teenaged readers in the Arctic Monkeys piece, but, erm, they were the teenaged Monkeys.

Nicky Wire actually has something interesting to say, recalling a time when NME spoke confidently about Roth and Amis and - wonderfully - singling out the Sing Me To Sleep Youth Suicide issue, which normally gets pointed to as an example of what the NME shouldn't have been doing, despite it coming from an era of more solid sales and a more creative product.

John Lydon out of the estate agency business gets a front, too - I think he's the only person to mention Sounds, and as far as I can see, there's not a single mention of the fourth power, Record Mirror, anywhere in the issue.

The sixth cover is The Killers, who use their platform to announce that Razorlight get a bad rap. Which is true; Razorlight are no worse than The Killers.

Perhaps what's more interesting than the people who turned up is the people who didn't - most notably, no Bowie, who was something of a God for the 40th and 50th anniversaries and used to hold the record for most covers back when you had to wait for a while between reappearances. I wonder who fell out of favour with whom.

And there's barely a whisper of Pete Doherty.

What else do we get? There's a collection of "crazy covers" which ignores Wire's genuine enthusiasm for a time when NME was interested in the culture that created music rather than just rerunning old Lennon interviews. An arch eyebrow is raised for the Karen Grant and Blind Date covers - imagine, eh, the NME putting TV on its front cover. What were they thinking? It'd be like, say, half the 2012 NME website being given over to film and telly, wouldn't it? That would be crazy.

There's a two-page history of the magazine, which runs thought the well-trod path: Accordian Times, singles chart, Beatles, swinging London, falling sales, Tony Parsons, indie pop, lion rock, The Arctic Monkeys.

Alright, it might not have mentioned Lion Rock. But the is a namecheck for shrromadelica.
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Rather awkwardly, the history starts with an error, suggesting it was a merger between the Musical Express and the Accoridan Times which created the NME - a "fact" which the Guardian repeated this week.

The reprint of issue one is lovely, although to be honest, I'm more curious to see what the final Musical Express & Accordian Times looked like. It's interesting to see a tension as to what the magazine might be known as back in March 1952 - there's a small lobby for The New ME, and NME appears only once. The page given over to Accordians mentions the first ever electric accoridan. Dropped from the masthead and electricity - it must have been a worrying week for accordianists everywhere.

Perhaps the most heartening thing in the issue, though, is a short bit by Matt Wilkinson setting out a manifesto for the next 60 years. Part a diagnostic on what's gone wrong in alt rock - no stars, no spirit - and part a pledge for the future:

Personally, I'm for smashing the whole fucker wide open

Next week's cover is Palma Violets. That's a start. But only time will tell if this really is a new rallying call, or merely the new music ed doodling in the corner while the churn of Gallagher - Beatles - Gallagher - Clash covers roll on.

Saxobit: Thomas Marth

Long-standing Las Vegas musician Thomas Marth has died.

Marth is probably best known for his work with The Killers - he played on Sam's Town and Day And Age, and was a part of the expanded touring line-up for the band. In Vegas, he played with a number of acts, including The Big Friendly Corporation - a family concern which also had his sister and brother.

Reports suggest Marth took his own life; he was 33.

Sorry, America

It's two uninspiring solo artists detached from their welcome-outstaying bands for the price of one:

Beginning November 10th in Los Angeles, CA, Healy will join The Killers' front man Brandon Flowers for a two-week tour of the United States.

Staying in never sounded so good, right?

Just the Flowers

Imagine The Killers if the rest of the band had no real way of keeping Brandon Flowers' ego in check. They'd be a lot like The Killers, right?

So it's not entirely clear why Flowers feels the need to do a solo tour, but he does. Oh, he does.

Killers axe dates

Nothing makes you wonder what the hell is going on like a tart cancellation announcement that offers only "unforeseen circumstances" for that dropping of dates. Unless you're a psychic going for a punchline, using the phrase is effectively saying "you might as well develop your own groundless speculation for this".

Unforeseen circumstances, though, is the reason The Killers are offering for pulling their entire Asian tour:

"The Killers have been forced to cancel their appearances in Singapore, Beijing, Hong Kong, Manila, Tokyo and Seoul due to unforeseen circumstances."

"The band deeply apologizes to their fans and hope to reschedule their shows in these cities soon. At this time the band's Australian appearances remain scheduled as planned."

Our guess: Brandon Flowers has got his toe stuck in a bath-tap, and the rest of the band are currently trying to use gravy browning so that female help can be dispatched without the risk of an accidental glimpse of his penis. Hey, it happened to Pa Glum that time.

[Thanks to Michael M for the link]

Xfm announces "best song ever"

If you approach this with the understanding that Xfm believes there are only four songs that have ever been written which exceed Sex On Fire in terms of quality, you'll perhaps not be surprised to discover that they believe The Killers' Mr Brightside to be, definitively, the very best song ever.

Actually, that's not as surprising as Ian Brown's FEAR coming in at number 11. That's not even the eleventh best song with a video featuring a bicycle being ridden backwards in it.

Gordon in the morning: This is all wrong

This Bizarre story is very wrong indeed:

The Killers were playing a gig at the Hollywood Bowl on Wednesday night when a crew member interrupted the band's encore to hail support act THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS.

Frontman BRANDON FLOWERS appeared stunned when the man ran on to the stage to declare: "Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time and The Psychedelic Furs had one of the best songs of all time."

But it was all a big joke. Kanye had better get used to this.

The wrongness of this story? What sort of world do we live in where The Psychedelic Furs are warm-up act to The Killers?

Downloadable: The Noisettes

A gift for you from the Noisettes' people: yesterday's cover of The Killers' When We Were Young off the Live Lounge.

If only it had been Whipping Boy's song of the same name, we might all have been in very heaven. But this will do for me...

Oxegen reveal headliners

Taking on board the criticism of an anonymous poster yesterday that the cynicism on this blog can become wearing, I'm going to approach the announcement of the headliners for the 2009 Oxegen Festival with nothing, nothing, but enthusiasm:

The Kings Of Leon!

The Killers!

Snow Patrol!

You'd certainly have to agree, there isn't another festival taking place at exactly the same time that could pull together that exact same line-up. And so many guitars, so many, many men with guitars.

Not so historic after all, then

After all that waiting, all that press, and the best Guns N Roses can manage is runner-up to The Killers.

Killers in the stream

This would kind-of assume that anyone is interested in a new Killers album in the first place - and launching at this gifting time of year pegs them as the sort of band who your gran assumes you'd like - but you can hear Day & Age now.

It's happening over at MySpace this weekend - or, as the PR puff would have it:

MySpace Music, the world's premier online music portal

You can stream over at myspace/killers or give it an hour and pick it up off the torrents.

Reading, Leeds announce headliners

Presumably the motivation of announcing The Killers as headliners for Reading and Leeds shortly before the 7pm switch-on of the ticket sales is to try and dampen demand for them and stop servers from falling over?

It's not that there's anything inherently rotten about the Killers - alright, there is - but as a handy rule of thumb, festivals should steer clear of signing bands that seem to exist purely to headline festivals. The Killers are a bit like chemical toilets - you might put up with them in a field, although paying a hundred quid or so for them might make you feel a bit duped, but they're not really much of an attraction in their own right.

What is it with furrowed-brow bands doing Christmas singles?

As if the Manics wasn't bad enough, we're also going to have to put up with The Killers entering the holiday fray with Don't Shoot Me Santa. It's for charity, of course - in this case RED - which might explain why Brandon Flowers is getting to grips with Santa, who is something of a slippery subject for Mormons.

Lou Reed enters Sinatraesque 'pisspoor duet' career twilight

Lou Reed has signed on to appear as a guest vocalist on the next Killer's album.

At least when Sinatra reached this point of his career, he did it with the real Bono rather than a pretend one. It wasn't dignified, but it was a smaller indignity.

Attack of the Killers B

Presumably on the basis that even they couldn't do a greatest hits just yet - not with a straight face, anyway - The Killers are wheeling out a B-sides compilation. To answer some sort of demand. Although, to be honest, the idea of a collection of Killers B sides makes the one-track CD sound attractive.

Wire cutters

It's been quite a while since one of Nicky Wire's predictable but amusing attacks on his fellow musical toilers, but he's back on form for the V festival:

Of Snow Patrol he says: "They are utterly deplorable, there is something irredeemably shit about them, you can't quite put your finger on what it is.

"It's a desperate form of music, the endless repeated lines, over and over, the same drab fucking little thing on and on.

Even Snow Patrol fans might feel a little aggrieved at being accused of repeating lines endlessly from the You! Love! Us! You Love Us! You Love Us! Oh, You Love Us, Yeah You Love Us bloke, but Nicky is already moving on to The Killers:

[B]randing their second album "truly dreadful," adding: "There's no authenticity in that record at all, extremely false and calculated.

"People might like it, but people with brains don't."

And how do the 3AM Girls describe Wire in the piece?

He would be :

"the eye-liner wearing bassist"

Describing Nicky Wire as wearing a bit of eye-liner is like saying Danny La Rue sometimes wore heels, surely?

Killers bury Glastonbury

Well, that makes 2008 seem more attractive already: The Killers have said they won't play Glastonbury again. Or at least until they're old:

"This will probably be the last time we play here. You only get one real shot at it and this is ours. If we ever come back, we'll be The Who's age.

"I was trying to channel all my nerves into some positive energy, but 10 minutes before I was total wreck. The idea of headlining this festival was just so far off for us when we first played here."

Well, not that far off, as you were asked, weren't you?

Broadsheet round-up: The last knockings

This is an emergency message: Christopher Howse, are you alright? The Telegraph's virgin-in-a-tie last posted just after lunch yesterday, and hasn't been heard of since. We fear he may have been sacrificed in a distant corner of Worthy Farm. Or, worse, succumbed to the spirit and is, even now, heading onto the next festival in a camper van, naked except for daubings. And his tie.

In the Telegraph proper, Tom Horan suggests that Babyshambles were "compelling" (perhaps you had to be there), the Klaxons "all outfits and no content was about the sum of it".

It's a measure of how much stuff goes on at Glastonbury that even with the breadth of the internet, you still miss stuff. Horan, for example, tells us that Lily Allen sprung a surprise:

Her bright and breezy ska sound and acerbic delivery were a treat, and to top it all she produced Terry Hall and Lynval Golding, two of the founder members of Coventry band the Specials, who had not played together since the 1980s. They did their timeless first single Gangsters and the hillside was transformed into a riot of silly dancing.

Good lord, bringing on the Specials? It's like Ronald McDonald giving a job in the kitchens to Mrs Beeton.

Is the spirit of the festival fighting back against the 2007 wheel-heeled attendees? The Times reports that the people who splashed over a thousand pounds to hire a teepee for the weekend ended up getting splashed themselves, as the teepees peed:

Unlike traditional tepees, which have a fire in the middle to keep the damp out, Glaston-bury’s tepee village is banned from lighting fires for safety reasons. The problem is usually overcome by placing a “rain cap” over the hole, but families who thought they had paid for a premium service were told that there were only a handful to go around the 300 tents.

Kevin Stockton, 49, a water maintenance consultant, also found that most tents were not fitted with waterproof groundsheets, so he was soaked not only from above but from the soggy ground beneath. “We’ve been flooded out every time it has rained,” he told The Times. “About 5 or 10 per cent of tepees have rain caps. When we asked reception why they couldn’t give us one, they said that they didn’t predict the weather was going to be so bad.”

It's hard to feel sympathy for someone who would pay so much for a posh tent. The irony is that a thirty quid job from Millets would probably have kept everyone nice and dry.

Over in the Guardian, Alexis Petridis weighs the weekend's peformances:

Saturday night's headliners offer an intriguing study in opposites. The Killers offer pyrotechnics, ruthlessly efficient mainstream indie rock hits and the steely, unwavering professionalism of a band abundantly aware of how a successful Glastonbury headlining slot can affect album sales in the next financial quarter.

Over on the Other Stage, meanwhile, havoc reigns. Whether or not Iggy And The Stooges really fit with the Glastonbury ethos is a matter of some debate. The reconstituted punk pioneers are rightly legendary, but the violence and glowering negativity of their music seems at odds with the Glastonbury vibe of bucolic togetherness and abundant good cheer.