YOU ARE OLD, FATHER FRED: As if to prove that this shouty rock is a young person's game, daddy Durst has had to cancel the rest of Limp Bizkit's tour because he's only gorn and put his back out. Leave it to the youngsters, daddio. Or at least Thurston and Kim, who do it with dignity.

FURTHER: The erotica listmania spreads - now someone's asked me to kick off a similar project on kenickie. An early worried response has been "What if one of them is lurking on the list?" - yeah, like I so don't want Lauren to know that I fancy her. Or Emmy. Or Marie. Apparently, Emmy-Kate is now working on a make-up counter.

WHY I LOVE THE ELASTICA LIST: Whereas some lists are so strictly on topic as to be as exciting as talking to an autistic child about their train number collections, the elastica list has always been a sparkier, more fun place to while away the working day. Having led to the hijacking of knickers list last year, changing it from a "buy my pants, they'll smell vaguely of my cunt" site to a home for bizarre underwear related conversation, in response to a less-sassy member's whining about the creation of another "what is your ultimate Elastica fantasy" poll there's been developed a multiple-writer piece of rolling erotica. So far, Justine's had her leather trouser rubbage inspected, several coathangers have been wasted and a wardrobe broken...

TIMMY VALENTINE: Oh, they're back, baby. Charlatans to play low-key warm up in Wrexham (raising the possibility of Dexadrina and Tim in the same place at the same time) and new website all looking spiffy... but where is the music? We want new music, dammit. New. Now. Music.

STONE BY STONE, INCH BY INCH: At first, didn't think that much to the new Catatonia single - but after a couple of hearings, its really grown on me. I dunno if this means the band should be worried, though - I'm the only person I know who liked Equally Cursed..., and if the first couple of listens left me cold and lukewarm respectively, how will the new single find a place in colder hearts?
karaoke queens - bsn catatonia spin-off
bsn cerys gallery
new tour dates
catatonia official site - still reporting "Karaoke Queen" as next single

TRUE FAITH: Bizarre but apparently true - New Order are going to make their comeback at Liverpool's Olympia, a venue so obscure even veteran Liverpool musos were going "where the fuck is that?" yesterday. Adding to the general confusion (at time of upload) the olympia site is returning the web equivalent of "could you wait outside please", while the Google cached version offers the prospect of entry for four quid, or sixteen quid if you get your tea, too...

ITS ALL ABOUT THE EYELINER: The usually reliable Sean ExRental put us onto Corporation Blend, and while we don't know what they sound like, we do know that they're gorgeous, and, according to the travisgonnadie list, they're so good they will make you have to go home and change your undergarments. Yay.

IT'S COMING UP TO A QUARTER PAST ONE: Now that Sky's Digiboxes can swap channels for you, and Paramount are re-running Seinfeld while I'm at work (or, more accurately, riding an over-crammed Arriva bus to nowhere), I'm catching lots of tantalising bits of other channels in the gap between video clicking on, and channel swapping over. Like, yesterday, there was just this so cute looking chap sat on TOTP@play, being interviewed... Yum. Wayne out of Thirteen:13. The band came across as nice lads, too, and were polite enough to only look mildly discomforted when compared to Travis and Coldplay
Thirteen:13 site - sigh... when will bands stop using their press releases as biogs?

CD REVIEWS UP: Proof that reviewing records isn't the cakewalk you think it - we spent an evening at ink listening to new stuff from the Bunnymen, Muse, JJ72 and others... and there was very little stuff in there to make your heart sing. The Bunnymen album in particular was a real disappointment.
Bunnymen review and links to others

WEBRING DAY: This indieblog webring looks to be pretty edge-of-the-foil box:

Indieblogs

previous -
next -
random
list

COINCIDENCE IS THE LITTLE CHEF THAT MAKES US STOP ON THE JOURNEY OF LIFE: Just as I was wondering if it'd be worth firing up blogger to record how quickly and deeply the new Catatonia track stone by stone had grown on me, it came on the radio, so I figure now I'm obligated, don't you? What sounded on first hearing to merely be overblown now is clearly anthemic and quite, quite beautiful. And I find myself in agreement with Chris Moyles, which is a pain but these things unite us.

CHRIS MOYLES, YOU ARE A TALENTLESS BUFFOON and your acolytes should hang their heads in guffaw-shame

TAKING THE PISS: Currently taking the piss, quite clearly:
Travis - the new single is laughable, even by their standards. "Sing, sing, sing, for the love you bring, sing, sing sing" sounds like nothing so much as Baldrick's "boom, boom, boom" poem
Basement Jaxx - oh, yeah, aint they smart? No, they've just released a single S Club 7 would blush to lipsynch to...

EMI CD DOWNLOAD DEAL DONE: - within the year, apparently, we'll be able to download radiohead cds without ever having to leave the house. Which is good news for people who like Radiohead CDs, it has to be said.

YAHOO SEARCH QUERY: So, I just idly typed "mascara music" into Yahoogroups search engine earlier, and it suggested I might be looking for groups about Tanita Tickaram. I can assure you I wasn't...

XRRF IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY:
Life Without Buildings
Angelica
Dexadrina

WHO'S GOT THE MILLION QUID TACKLE?: In a rare burst of equal ops, Music365 has followed up it's "How much would you pay to put Mylene Popstar's tits in your magazine" survey by getting the editor of Euroboy to, ahem, size-up bloke popstar's attractiveness to the gay "community" -in cash terms. Thus, we learn that Robbie Williams is apparently worth five million quid, and Noel and Danny Hear'Say together may get a million, but he fully expects Noel to have fallen back on a career of porn anyway in a few years. Tom Jones is too "specialist", Lenny Kravitz is a "straight women's fantasy" - not any of the straight women we know, mate; and Liam plus Noel would cost the same as Liam on its own.
The prices in full - So, Ronan: Not butch enough; Stephen Gateley, however, is?

UNINTENTIONAL HILARITY: Or, ignoring mote and beam jibes, we pick on smaller, poorly written websites: Ash - currently, they're from Northern Ireland...

BLANK HOLIDAY: Amongst the falling-overs this bank holiday weekend have been Music Choice on Sky - which never got beyond the opening page (for the first time since the reformat, I've been glad the new system won't let me deselect the ghost Alt Rock channel), and anything bothsidesnow web-related, including ink magazine's site. Which is a bit of a pain. On the plus side, X-fm have been playing I-Monster heavily, the perfect soundtrack to a dreamy, sunny bank holiday Monday.

"YOU CAN SEE ALL THAT FOR A SHILLING": Steven Sheilds, editor of so-classy-it's-wipe-clean stroke mag Mayfair, has been asked by Music 365 to price up, erm, pop totty according to what he'd be happy to shell out to get 'em on the top shelf. So we learn that the girls from Hear'Say are worth half a million if they'd touch each other up, but a few quid on their own; Madonna has flashed herself out of the market and if Kylie wants to unlock her five million value, "we'd have to see a bit of minge." Poor sales of the recent album shouldn't upset the Spice Girls - if they can persuade Gerri to be hogtied and slapped on the arse until it's as red as her shiny pink face (and, lets face it, someone persuaded her to do the equally undignified Its Raining Men cover), they can bank two million.
"I'd like some hot tonguing action" - yeah, wouldn't we all...
Usual modelling rates - so, thats where the term "continental breakfast" comes from...

SONY, HAPPY PEOPLE: At last night's Sony awards (the self-styled British Radio Oscars, of course), Radio 2 won Station of the Year while Mark and Lard took the daily music award or somesuch. But Radio One did pretty feebly, perhaps deservedly being frozen out after twelve months of developing shows based on presenters as faceless and talentless as they are usually surnameless. C'mon, for example: Nemone is sitting in for Jo Wylie, who is on maternity leave (at least a move forward from the time then-controller Johnny Beirling asked Janice Long if she could juggle a half hour show and being a mother.) Who is Nemone? What makes it more frustrating is Simon Mayo left the station expecting a swift debut at Five Live, only to be held off starting by the delay to the election...

SHUT UP, YOU'RE AN EMBARRASMENT: Thank god for that Christopher Walken video for the Fatboy Slim single. At least it means that that side of the single is getting the attention, rather than the dire *69... Talking of *69, which was also an REM, what on earth was that Peter Buck airrage incident all about? Clearly he must have got over-excited watching the Foo Fighters video or something. Are *69 the band still going? I liked them. My head hurts.

LISTENING POST: Our ears, our ears. Recently we've become fond of Dreampop Guitars and Girlsolider Radio over at Live365 - shoe and SHOO! respectively. When we're not burning the company cash, the newlook Music Choice alt rock channel is still as good as ever - although we could have done without 20 minutes of Semisonic last night. As we write, it's Madder Rose thats filling our cortex. Yum...

WE'RE #1, SO WHY TRY HARDER?: Sorry, Sleater-Kinney fans, XRRF is the number one return when you search No Rock And Roll Fun on Google. Which means, of course, yay for us.

AND MORE NAPSTER...: "Look, global sales of records have fallen" cries Music Week, "this proves how disatorous Napster has been..." Bollocks, if it proves anything its how shite music is now. The UK saw sales rise, helped mainly by another round of Beatles hawking, while although there was a huge decline in US singles sales, this could be because there was nothing of interest to the target singles market. Thats if there is a target singles market anymore. When I was a kid, I bought singles because I could just about stretch my pocket money to fit them. Albums were a rare treat, made possible by Christmas cash or allowing great aunties to kiss me without flinching or wiping. Kids born on the right sides of the tracks in the US these days have a greater weekly disposable income than many Independent sovereign states, and are just as able to go out and buy an album as a single. Providing there's something they want. They could just as easily buy a peregrine falcon or a discarded cattle-cull calf.
Anyway, US music sales were down just 1.5% year on year. In '98 and '99, they rose nine and four percent respectively. If a rising stock market trundled slightly backwards after ten years of continuous growth, it would be explained away as a "correction" rather than an indication of the end of the world, and so it would be here, were it not a handy stick to pass to the judge to beat Napster with. Set in the wider context of an American economy generally regarded as entering the "fucked" stage of the economic cycle, a small dip in sales should be praised as God smiling down on the industry. Not, of course, that it will.
Meanwhile:
Can copyright theft be constitutional? - FT article on Digital Millennium Copyright Act coming to court
FT reports ringtones seen as "new Napster" - yeah, because why would people buy a CD when they can have five seconds of something resembling the tune clanged out in tinny tones everytime someone rings for a chat?

MAYBE SHINK SHOULD HANDLE THE PRESS: Yes, forget the International Record Companies whining about Napster - they should just run off copies of Shinkansen's Why CDs cost money article and sit back...

CREATIVE THINKINGS: Nice to see Broadcast have been nominated in the Music Week creative awards, for their sleeve designs. Even if they probably will lose out to Robbie Williams and his lot of money but no idea teaser campaign type things...

AND WE'RE BACK: For those of you who care, you might have noticed xrrf has been quiet of late - I've been off doing things that are even more interesting than speculating on pop-related stuff. Sorry if you've felt abandoned. Things we've missed have included Robbie Williams claiming he'd lied about sex with Geri, Geri saying she was thinking of becoming a lesbian, and Scott Mills announcing he was gay. Yes you do, four am, on Radio One. Yes you do.

INDIE "NOT SCHMINDIE", SAYS MINISTRY: From the department of "We could have told you that", the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (or Ministry of things your parents dont believe are real jobs) has issued a report suggesting that indie labels who want to expand should explore other options rather than just getting into bed with a major. Next week: "Feeding cows to cows not that wise an idea", says Maff...

TRIBUTES BECOME EPITAPHS: We could almost forgive the good people at dotmusic for their clogging of the entire music world's email blocks with promo for the Dury tribute album, but the downside is that what will be recorded as Kirsty MacColl's last performance is included. To review her delivery of Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick while simultaneously not speaking ill of the dead would be nigh on impossible. A drunk prison officer with mittens wearing sweatpants would have more chance of finding the right key... But its all, of course, for charity...
Gateway to dotmusic's mini site - thank god the panties are new...