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Placebo have - somewhat close-by the upcoming UK tour - parted ways with Steve Forrest, who has been drumming with them since 2008.
It's an amicable split (they say) and he's going to pursue his own musical projects (he reckons); the drum stool will now be occupied by Matt Lunn, late of Colour Of Fire.
That's really all there is to this story, apart from the observation that they're not small venues, but they're, shall we say "cosier" than the venues they played the last time they did a big UK tour:
25/02:Dublin Olympia
26/02:Belfast Waterfront Hall
28/02:Edinburgh Corn Exchange
1/03:Glasgow o2 Academy
3/03:Aberdeen Music Hall
4/03:Newcastle o2 Academy
6/03:Hull City Hall
7/03:Blackburn King George’s Hall
9/03:Leeds o2 Academy
10/03:Liverpool Guild Of Students
12/03:Manchester o2 Apollo
13/03:Sheffield o2 Academy
15/03:Norwich UEA
16/03:Leicester De Montfort Hall
18/03:Birmingham o2 Academy
19/03:Bristol Colston Hall
21/03:Bournemouth o2 Academy
22/03:Southend Cliffs Pavillion
24/03:London Hammersmith Apollo
Here's a lovely creative commons image of Brian Molko from 2007:
A couple of months ago, Filament magazine [NSFW] ran an interview with Placebo's Steve Forrest that they'd originally printed in the magazine in 2009:
If you were stranded on a desert island with Stefan and Brian, who would you eat first?
Definitely Brian. Both of them would be easy to take down, but although Brian is a small man, he does have more meat on his bones than Stef, and would probably keep me and Stef alive until help came. Plus I don’t think Stef would feed both me and Brian, so just to fill my belly I would have to then kill Brian, but would only be able to eat half of him due to already having had a helping of Stef, and that would just be a waste.
New-ish Placebo drummer Steve Forrest nearly set himself up for a sit com moment thanks to a scant knowledge of late 90s British androgopop:
Yes, he tells my paper from Sydney, Australia, where Placebo were touring recently, he even thought lead androgynous singer Brian Molko, 37, was a girl.
He recalls: "My tour manager played a Placebo CD and I said, 'This chick's cool. She has a really good voice'."
It was only later, when Forrest met Molko in person, that he realised Molko is a guy.
Brian Molko collapsed during last night's Osaka gig. There's a statement:
We would firstly like to thank you for all your kind words and messages of support regarding Brian’s health after fainting at the show in Osaka, Japan, yesterday.
It is always incredibly disappointing when a show cannot take place for any reason, particularly on this occasion due to Brian being unwell, as we have looked forward for such a long time to these shows in Japan!
We have undertaken a gruelling and intensive schedule over the last few months and the last couple of weeks alone played 5 countries in 9 days. Brian picked up a virus which coupled with jet lag and exhaustion caused his collapse on stage. Thanks to prompt and professional care Brian is recovering well.
We would like to extend our grateful thanks and sincere apologies to the fans who made a huge effort travelling to see us in Osaka, especially after long queue’s in the heavy rain. We would also like to extend many thanks and apologies to the promoters, Creative Man, at Summer Sonic for all their help and understanding under difficult circumstances.
We are all the more devastated after such an amazing show in Tokyo on Saturday where the crowd was incredible. We were so excited to be back in Japan after a few years away and we were reminded what a very special place Japan is to us.
Thank you all for your ongoing support and we hope to make it up to you with new dates in Japan very soon. We love your country and can’t wait to come back.
After the digital stuff, MIDEM turns to the music, and amongst the early announcements is that Placebo are signing to PIAS for the next album. They could have had their pick of the majors - they say - but instead fell for PIAS small-scale, big-idea charms:
Placebo frontman Brian Molko said “We are delighted to be signing with [PIAS], one of the world’s most respected and successful independent music companies. We were very lucky to have so many great labels interested in signing us, it means a lot, especially after 12 years of releasing records!! But we now feel we have the right partner for Europe in these ever-changing times to continue this crazy adventure and to scale even dizzier heights with our new record".
Placebo have announced they're parting ways with Steve Hewitt, who's been sat on a stool behind Brian Molko for eleven years. Statement:
In a bid to persuade young people to invest money in the repowered release of Placebo's excellent Meds, the label is encouraging free-peeking at the band playing the title track live at La Cigale in Paris. [Realmedia stream]
There's also a windows audio (i.e. rubbish) stream of the She Wants Revenge remix of Meds.
Placebo's secret(ish) one-off London gig at the Coronet - being done in celebration and as a warm-up for their South American tour - sold out in a blur of speed greater than that of men typing in "Jennifer Aniston topless The Break Up" into Google images yesterday.
Sniffing the chance to make some extra spends for Rio ("Aware there were many disappointed fans") the band are adding an extra intimate date the night before, 6th March. Tickets will be released for a frenzy of buying on Tuesday morning.
Placebo are also releasing a new, download-only album of Covers. It hits iTunes on 5th March, and is effectively the extra disc that was given away with Sleeping With Ghosts. It's a fine thing indeed - who couldn't love their version of Daddy Cool? - but there's a sense this might be too late. After all, the extra disc was only made available after SWG had been out for a couple of months, throwing the keenest fans into a puzzlement of loyalty - did you buy again and reward this cynical move? or did you go for the semi-illegal download?
The main justification for the new push seems to be the inclusion of their Running Up Hill on the soundtrack as The OC slid down the spiral.
Last Thursday, Howling Bells were in session for Mark Radcliffe, and said some very lovely things about how nice Brian Molko was.
Virtue, it seems, is it own reward, but public virtue comes with a nice dollop of work attached - the band have today been named as the support for the Placebo tour of Europe.
These are the dates:
Tues 28 November – ANTWERP – Sportpalais
Thurs 30 November – OBERHAUSEN - Oberhausen Arena
Fri 1 December - ROTTERDAM - Ahoy Halle
Weds 6 December – GLASGOW - SECC
Thurs 7 December - NOTTINGHAM - Arena
Sat 9 December – LONDON – Wembley Arena
Sun 10 December - MANCHESTER - MEN Arena
Weds 13 December - VIENNA - stadthalle
Fri 15 December - BERLIN - Arena
Sat 16 December - HAMBURG - Sporthalle
Sun 17 December - GERMANY Leipzig messehalle
Tues 19 December – HANNOVER - AWD hall
Weds 20 December – MANNHEIM - SAP Arena
At the moment, the Bells are doing support duties for the Killers.
Back when Brix Smith showed her house to the Daily Mail, we wondered how Brian Molko could afford to lend her a Warhol original. Tim Footman of Cultural Snow suggested that Warhol churned out his work with the all the care to personalisation shown by Microsoft packaging boxes of spreadsheet software, and so the artwork might not be that expensive. Tim's in Bangkok, which places him at the heart of the coup. We hope the new military-civil service junta there aren't Warholites, and wish him well.
However, the vexed question of the value of the world's most over-rated artist has raised itself again as the ongoing struggle to get Axl Rose to pay his arthouse bills. Broker Acquire d'Arte (that's French for 'You might not know much about art, but you know how to write a cheque, don't you?') had managed to beat down the price on a Warhol picture of John Lennon from USD2.65million to USD2.36million. The picture was duly delivered.
Subsequently, Rose gave Acquire d'Arte a payment which was less than they were expecting. According to a lawsuit Acquire d'Arte have filed in New York:
Rose's manager and attorney told the broker that the rocker would not pay the remaining balance because he didn't have enough money and "the painting was not worth the price he had agreed to pay."
If their version of events is true, that's a spectacular flub on the part of Roses' people - you might, with some justification, try and weasel out the deal by saying, once you got it in the light, it looked less like Lennon and more like Blakey from On The Buses, or the frame was scratched, or there simply wasn't a decent painting hidden underneath. But to say "I haven't got the money... oh, and it's rubbish" makes it look terribly like you're trying to get out of buying a picture you can't afford.
Besides, Rose did offer to pay USD1.21million, which has the air of an even more arbitrary figure he's pulled out the air. How did he decide that the picture was worth that? Did he start with the full price, and go around knocking off 100,000 bucks at a time? "He's got the eyes wrong... that's a hundred grand off per eye... and he's coloured over the lines there, that's another 100 big ones..."
Rose's people have indicated that they're not sure things played out quite like this:
Rose's lawyer, Howard Weitzman, said some of the deal's terms and conditions may have been misrepresented to his client.
"It's my opinion that Axl Rose is the victim of some fraud or misrepresentation here," Weitzman said Wednesday.
Only some of the terms and conditions, you note.
Plug: The SCUM manifesto, by Warhol's strongest critic
Back when she was sitting on a giant beefburger in the interests of The Fall's I Am Kurious Oranj album, what odds would you have got on Brix Smith ever inviting the Daily Mail into her beautiful Shoreditch appartment?
Now married to Philip Start (he runs some clothes shops, apparently) and rebadged as Brix Smith Start, she's delighted to show the paper around her converted garment factory home.
It's a bizarre distance from The Fall days - Jamie Oliver's apparently been shot in the kitchen (sadly, only in the TV sense) and the walls are dripping with art:
A Warhol in the kitchen is a reminder of Brix's rock-star connections - she was the guitarist in Eighties cult band The Fall, and still writes music for other artists.
"It's on loan from Brian Molko, lead singer of Placebo," she says of the Warhol. "He felt that it just went with the apartment. I had to agree!"
As if the Fall somehow sits logically alongside Andy Warhol. We're not even going to start to ponder how Brian Molko came to own an original Warhol, but there's obviously more money in indie than we'd been led to believe.
The great shame of the piece is not that Brix is having a lovely life and is clearly very happy, as nobody would begrudge her that. It's just it's written in such a way as to make her sound like a simpering simpleton:
"I do tend to order a lot for me when I'm buying for the shop. But don't tell Philip," she whispers theatrically.
Unless working in the fashion retail business really does eat away at your brain, we can't believe that the mighty Brix has really turned into some sort of Sharon Osbourne figure...
"I love nothing better than sinking into a sofa with Philip and my two pugs, Gromit and Pixie, and having quiet time. Up here you feel on top of the world."
... has she?
Next week in the Mail: 'Them bottles, there's money back on them...' - Mark E Smith invites us into his beautiful house
Thanks to the wonders of the BBC Radio Player, there's a slewth of stuff from the weekend festivals available online. Until the links expire:
The Radio 1 Reading BBQ - yes, exactly what you'd fear it would be
Last night's Reading-marbled Lamacq Live
Raw Talent - the improbably-named Alan Raw's rather good BBC Yorkshire & Humberside alt music show's Leeds special
The Session - the more convincingly-named Susanne Courtney's BBC Radio Berkshire alt music show
And, with a permanent, special non-decaying link:
Brian Molko and someone from the Telegraph talking about festivals on last Friday's Today programme. Noteable because Brian admits that, at his age, he'd not bother with festivals if he wasn't being paid to be there.
Of course, any Placebo is better than no Placebo, and who wouldn't love the reworking of the stuff from the recent album? Set free from the trickery of studio wizardry, Placebo at Reading threw a lot more weight onto Brian's vocals - doubly so, as it seems they were having all kinds of trouble. Frustratingly, the TV coverage seemed to want to keep things tidy and so made every effort to keep the scampering guitar tech out of shot, the way Parliamentary coverage refuses to focus on the noises of off protest and confusion, so it was hard to tell what was actually going on.
Earlier, Brian Molko had popped up alongside Edith and praised the "magnificent Slayer, the quintessential death metal band", who he'd gone to see before they played their set. In a similar aside, Paul Smith had spoken about meeting with Eddie Vedder - Vedder, apparently, couldn't believe that he'd spent the time prior to taking the stage with Maximo Park watching Pearl Jam. We can't, either, to be honest, although probably for different reasons. That anecdote does probably tell you everything you need to know about Vedder and his approach to music, though - so bloody serious, faced with a field full of dozens of bands, it doesn't occur to him to go and see any of them.
People who know about these things assure me Pearl Jam were everything you could hope for from them; certainly, they were exactly as I'd feared.
Larrikin Love invited their mother (well, one of their mothers; unless she was Hutterite I doubt she could have given birth to all of them) to play spoons; oddly, she seemed less out of place onstage in the tent than Mark E Smith did with The Fall earlier. The audience seemed to be united in general bemusement (besides the front two rows, of course) and, frankly, Smith seems to have gone well past the point of wanting to win the curious over to The Fall's cause.
The posh girl who was doing the video diary ended up enjoying herself, as it turned out.
Placebo are limbering themselves up in order to play the hugest UK gigs of their glitter-strewn lives:
Wednesday 6th December SECC Glasgow
Thursday 7th December Nottingham Arena Nottingham
Saturday 9th December Wembley Arena London
Sunday 10th December Evening News Arena Manchester
Yes, yes, they've done Wembley before, but this is the first time they've attempted to fill stadia outside of the capital. Blimey.
The week on No Rock:
The most-read stories this week:
1. Heather Mills porn burst
2. Heather Mills porn burst #2
3. We don't know. Is KT Tunstall a lesbian?
4. Janet Jackson gets her weight under control with five meals a day
5. McFly naked
6. Vince Welnick, RIP
7. Heather Mills did some soft porn, too
8. Theresa May confuses Jack White with Ricky Kaiser
9. Top of the Pops axed
10. JJ72 split
Read all the week's posts on one page
or breeze through the previous week in one post
And we basically pointed you in the direction of these fine new releases:
Smart psych comp, including the Budweiser-suing Standells and Electric Prunes
Episode Two: A New Hope (of the states)
TV's Paul Morley chooses well over three CD's worth of Manc-Scouse post-punk
Brian Molko. Tony Visconti. Kristeen Young.
Get well soon, Rachel Goswell
We've never been entirely convinced about Frank Black's solo stuff, but there's no denying he's made another album
This, apparently, is the "legacy edition" of Sweet's Girlfriend
What's that coming over the hill... is it a novelty band, or is there something more?
Re-born Sandy Devotional... time to upgrade your Triffids
Plot holes, etc, but... Kate Beckinsale. In leather.
The entire Black Books in a single box
Includes some of his Corrie & Bootsie & Snudge work, as well as his single dramas - both Jack Rosenthal and ITV are now, sadly, dead
Long-awaited UK release for The Presets' Beams
Placebo are going to be in town tonight filming a video for their soon-released (and slightly disappointing) new single Because I Want You and they're appealing for people to turn up to play the part of the crowd. Tonight, at the Koko in Camden. You might get in, or be turned away, and can't take cameras or stuff; have to be over 16 and should be there at 6.30pm.
Don't wear a tshirt saying "Why is the European release single better than the one we're getting?", and although we'd never accuse Placebo of being shallow, we reckon you'd stand a better chance if you're pretty and wear eyeshadow.
There's an interesting story in the current Private Eye, of the Mean Fiddler's Melvin Benn selling two FA Cup final tickets to Mendip Council Environmental Officer Chris Malcolmson. Benn, of course, is the name on the Glastonbury Festival licence; Malcolmson is the man who reports to the council on the suitability of the Glasto licence application. The Eye raises it brow that Benn - apparently - sold the tickets for face value when they could have been worth two grand, suggesting this is rather a cosy arrangement. But the paper must have its story wrong - after all, doesn't Glastonbury look askance on people reselling its tickets - at face value or not - insisting that anyone who cannot attend return the tickets to them? In fact, in May this year, Benn was quoted in the Independent on Sunday bemoaning his inability to bring criminal proceedings against people who sold on Glastonbury tickets: " I have no ability to take action against touts. It [touting] is rank profiteering and hugely disappointing that it is not against the law." Hugely unlikely, then, that Benn would be pimping someone else's tickets, face value or not, to a third party.
There is, of course, one sort of ticket which is illegal to sell in the UK: tickets for football matches, a law brought in as an anti-hooliganism measure, and a model for the sort Benn would like to have at his disposal for music touts. We're sure he'd be first to turn in anyone selling FA Cup tickets to his local police station.
Conor McNicholas this week picked up his pen and his Basildon Bond to send a letter to the MediaGuardian to explain part of the rationale behind this season's revamp of the NME: the idea is to try and build writers to rival those names that make old guys go weak at the tearducts by giving more prominence to the current crop of writers - so everybody gets a photo-byline now, not just in the week when it;s buggins turn to edit Angst; and the font showing who reviewed what has been boosted a couple of point sizes and emboldened. Having said that, though, the new look seems to be bigger on pictures rather than words.
This reworking finally slews off anything that remains of the NME of the 80s - every redesign of the last five years (and there have been quite a few) has left behind some taste of the paper during the Danny Kelly era, but this week, the only real thing that links to the classic design is that logo. Having said which, a more useful role for the paper's heritage has been found in the shape of a "tales from the NME archive" - this week, it's the Stone Roses at Spike Island, which is an oven that has been revisited many times before, and it'll be interesting to see what they start selecting once the obvious choices have run out - it could just be a boring older brother chanting "Pistols at the 100 club/Oasis at Knebworth"; but there's potential for it to be more like an interesting uncle. We'd like to see a re-run of Steven Wells going to Sellafield, but we suspect that's unlikely to happen.
Flicking through the magazine, we were convinced that the pages were bigger than they had been before - even getting down to measuring them against last week's issue; it took a while before it hit us what we were experiencing: the new NME bears a more than uncanny resemblance to the glossy Melody Maker, and being tabloid rather than A4, that was why it seemed larger. (Actually, the album reviews also have something of the Observer Music Magazine about them.)
Having made a decision to go with pictures, at least the magazine has the images to back it up with inside - The Big Picture has become Shots, with a slew of this-week photos; the main image appears to be of Kanye West showing Franz Ferdinand how to make their hands into a vagina shape (apparently this is "throwing a diamond", or making the logo of Roc-a-fella; we suspect you probably knew that). In fact, with so many great photos inside, it's curious that the cover of this year zero issue is a bit poor - the Killers all looking a bit ropey. Brandon looks less like his charming self than a really low-rent Brian Molko lookalike; surely there must have been a better picture? Mercifully, the bulk of page one is taken up with a CD; the sort of CD which the paper has a reputation for effortlessly compiling (Arctic Monkeys, BRMC, Boy Kill Boy, Arcade Fire, and a taping of that Reading Rakes/Bloc Party/Maximo Park/erm, Towers of London supergroup).
Peter Robinson is still there, taking on Rick Parfitt. Parfitt doesn't like Pete Doherty - "he's something beginning with 'P'" he growls. But... erm... Mr. Parfitt, aren't you something beginning with P, too?
Radar has been beefed up considerably: two bands (Five O'Clock Heroes and panda-eyed sweetthrobs Louis XIV); demo reviews (The Puzzle's Let The Sun Shine "has a harmonica"; a column about new music in "your town" (assuming you live in the town featured, which is Brighton this week, which means The Pipettes); something called The Buzz, which we're keeping an open mind on for now, and extra space for live reviews of new bands which used to get poked in the corner of the main review pages (My Latest Novel at the Camden Barfly - "Arcade Fire without the fire"). This is actually one of the most positive things we've seen come out of the NME in ages, and it throws into relief how poor the coverage of new stuff had become. It might free the paper from the diminishing number of keynote bands it was having to rotate over the weeks by building up a few more groups. To knock 'em down, of course.
There's an interview with Noodle from Gorillaz, which is only slightly ruined by the fact that, as a person, she's a two-dimensional cartoon, and as a character, has a couple less dimensions than that. The questions are pretty sharp, though: "You're Japanese, called Noodle and you're into martial arts. Do you, perhaps have a French friend called Fromage who likes eating snails?"
reviews
albums
various artists - help: a day in the life - "succeeds where Live8 failed", 10
the dead 60s - the dead 60s/space invader dub - "they never lose focus", 7
ladytron - witching hour - "rather makes one want to have sex", 7
tracks
totw - arctic monkeys - i bet you look good on the dancefloor - "pure, seething TEENERGY"
death cab for cutie - soul meets body - "like something from David Bowie's Labyrinth soundtrack"
ms dynamite - judgement day - "actually reallty great"
live
coldplay - madison square garden - "looking at all these placid faces, is it really such a bad thing?"
mystery jets - london ICA - "defeaning enough to rattle the Palace crockery"
There's a new feature at the back, The Recommender, where a pop star gets their PA to pull together a list of cool stuff - Paul Smith, from Maximo Park, namechecks Life Without Buildings (who were actually bloody good - although we suspect their golden moment, The Lean-To, isn't going to be available on iTunes).
In a rather astonishing coup for the advertising sales department, they've managed to persuade Virgin Digital Downloads to sponsor the tracks pages, while HMV Digital Downloads has sponsored the free CD. There's probably a message about the plurality of voices or something there.
The small ads are back - although it's not 'send a letter to box number x' style any more, it's phone dating type stuff; oddly, none of the people searching for their soul mates through the music paper mention a single band they might like. Perhaps they're all Andrew WK fans?
So, all in all, then, it's not the most radical redesign of a music paper, and the changes seem to be more about a growing confidence about what the NME is doing and - and this has been lacking for a while - a firmer sense of what it stands for. We're sorry to see the ending of the two letters from America, but delighted Queens of Noize have been sent elsewhere. We'll give it a couple of weeks to see which of the changes take, but at least we're not looking forward to next week with a sense of dread.
Bobbing about in the middle of the Kerrang! awards nominations is a sign that somebody still loves Placebo, other than the boy who looks like Brian Molko who works on the third-from-left-till on our local garden centre. They've picked up one nomination; Green Day have done somewhat better as you'd expect what with them being The Official Voice of Young People Letting Off Steam In A Safe Manner:
1. Best British Newcomer
Voted for by the readers of Kerrang! Magazine and Kerrang.com
1. Bullet For My Valentine
2. Fightstar
3. Towers Of London
4. Nine Black Alps
5. THE GA* GA*S
2. Best International Newcomer - Sponsored by Epiphone
Voted for by the readers of Kerrang! Magazine and Kerrang.com
1. Trivium
2. Eighteen Visions
3. Emanuel
4. Lordi
5. Still Remains
3. Best Single
Voted for by the readers of Kerrang! Magazine and Kerrang.com
1. Green Day 'American Idiot'
2. System Of A Down 'Bring Your Own Bomb"
3. My Chemical Romance 'I'm Not Okay (I Promise)...'
4. Foo Fighters 'Best of You'
5. Nightwish 'Nemo'
4. Best Video
Voted for by the viewers of Kerrang! TV
1. My Chemical Romance 'Helena'
2. Green Day 'Holiday'
3. System of A Down 'Bring Your Own Bomb'
4. Good Charlotte 'Chronicles of Life and Death'
5. Weezer 'Beverly Hills'
5. Best Album - Sponsored by Virgin Megastores
Voted for by the readers of Kerrang! Magazine and Kerrang.com
1. Green Day 'American Idiot'
2. System Of A Down 'Mezmerize'
3. My Chemical Romance 'Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge'
4. Foo Fighters 'In Your Honor'
5. Trivium 'Ascendancy'
6. Best Live Band - Sponsored by Carling
Voted for by the readers of Kerrang! Magazine and Kerrang.com
1. Rammstein
2. Green Day
3. System Of A Down
4. Slipknot
5. Avenged Sevenfold
7. Best British Band - Sponsored by Roadrunner Records
Voted for by the readers of Kerrang! Magazine and Kerrang.com
1. Feeder
2. Stereophonics
3. Funeral For A Friend
4. Placebo
5. Cradle Of Filth
8. Best Band On The Planet - Sponsored by Kerrang! 105.2
Voted for by the readers of Kerrang! Magazine and Kerrang.com
1. Green Day
2. My Chemical Romance
3. System Of A Down
4. HIM
5. Foo Fighters
Your bonus question is: how many women have picked up nominations for this year's prizes, either solo or as a member of a band? (NB: Good Charlotte doesn't count).
Now that Kerrang's glory days as the biggest selling rock weekly are starting to fade into a frightening memory, you might find yourself wondering exactly who the magazine is pitched at these days. The back to school stationery range might give you an indication:
Yes, that would be the Kerrang pencil case there. We expect the K! branded shoebag is only a marketing department meeting away.
There's been an element of "see?" about web reaction to Conor McNicholas' UK Press Gazette interview (marking his anointment as Editor of the Year), mainly focusing on his admission that his tenure in charge of the NME has been focused on bringing in a younger readership - and while we agree with DJ Martian that this does leave a bit of huge gap in the target market for IPC Ignite's music magazines, we're not entirely convinced that McNicholas was wrong in trying to get teenagers buying the NME again - after all, while old sods are great, the paper has survived for fifty years not by hanging on to the people who were reading it in 1952, but by regenerating itself time and time again. And while we wouldn't agree with everything he's done, there's no question that he's managed to stop the paper going the way of the Melody Maker: "Frankly, when I joined [as editor] about three years ago, there was a whole generation of 18 year-olds who didn't actually know who the fuck we were," he adds. "An absolute mainstay of popular culture and nobody knew who we were. I thought that was a travesty." Leaving aside the question of how you can have a generation of 18 year-olds, it's worth remembering it wasn't long ago that the NME had lost its crown as the world's biggest selling rock weekly to Kerrang. It's taken McNicholas' paper a long time to settle down - and it wasn't helped by following blind alleys like Andrew WK and hiring that woman from the Daily Star to edit the news pages, and it's clear he's listened to a lot of the criticism and done a lot to return a bit more bottom to the paper. That he's managed to reverse the aging of the readership, though, isn't a criticism. I started reading the pop papers when I was 12 (although my initial spiritual home was Record Mirror, which ran more topless pictures of Martin Gore) and it's surely more vital for the long term health of the magazine (and the UK music scene) for the NME to be tempting the smarter twelve year olds into its world than to keep the thirtysomethings. Frankly, if you think that the NME is getting too trivial for you, it's possibly as much because your musical tastes are starting to get a bit Dido at the edges as because the paper has dumbed down.
On the other hand, with Oasis on the cover this week, clearly McNicholas needs to make the paper even less relevant to grumpy old men who should know better. Frankly, we can't really describe quite what Liam Gallagher but if you remember the TV series Horace, he looks a bit like the lead character from that. Only more daft.
News focuses on the Stone Roses reunion rumours (it's not going to happen, unless the Inland Revenue demand a large slew of back taxes); Thom Yorke turning up at Parliament to demand something be done about global warming, and the Killers turning down the offer a headline slot at Glastonbury - even they thought that would be taking the piss.
Peter Robinson's face is at the top of his page, but his name has disappeared: in other words, it's Spooky Unnamed Hand versus Maxi Jazz from Faithless. Jazz is happy that having been banned from driving as he's saving a fortune in petrol. The rest of the world is happy that he's banned from driving as it's one less cunt who believes that it's okay to drive after a couple of pints providing you've had a snack on the road.
The letters page has a complaint from someone that there's never any news about Placebo. See, Record Mirror, if it was still going, would be finding two or three excuses a month for a near-naked Brian Molko to be spread across the cover.
Even if Johnny Borrell thinks you're a genius, if you were really smart you wouldn't go round telling people, would you? Ryan Needham doesn't seem to spot the problem - he's singer with Komakino (they take their name from a Joy Division b-side, which couldn't be any more modish if the were called Dutch Vote Nie) who get a nice write-up as a thank-you for leaping into the gap on the NME new music tour when Nine Black Alps remembered they'd left the iron on.
So, the big Oasis feature is based on questions from fans - by which they mean goading from readers. Liam's response to being asked how drunk he was when they played Wembley in 2000 is to suggest the questioner's name is "rubbish"; and he says he's glad that Bloc Party - "them cunts" - don't like Oasis. Noel starts to get a bit frothy when he's accused of being lazy: "I work 18 hours a day and ended up playing Knebworth..." (you try telling kids that today, they won't believe you... oh, hang on, he's not stopped yet) "... ask Kelle from Bloc Party how [calling Oasis unambitious] sits this time in two years when he's working in his Dad's garden centre while I'm playing Red Rocks..." Do you see what Noel has done there? He's confused pleasing the lowest common denominator with being ambitious - if ticket sales told us who was the most risk-taking artist, then Celine Dion must be shaking our world to its roots.
In a really nice piece, Jeff Maysh answers the Busted/McFly management ad from a couple of weeks ago and - although Maysh can't sing - gets given an option to try out for "another project." They should have sent Tim Jonze, of course, who would have been given some nice trousers and a contract on the spot.
reviews
live
boy kill boy - camden koko - "every song is an anthem"
m83 - kings cross scala - "your brain is being ejected into outerspace"
the bravery - leeds blank canvas - "you won't trust them - they look too good, sound too good"
albums
foo fighters - in your honour - "your partner trying on costumes and gadgets [while you realise] they wouldn't have had to bother if you'd shown them more love in the first place", 7
the tears - here comes the tears - "an embarrassment of riches", 8
of montreal - the sunlandic twins - "a trip to Ikea with Kate Bush", 8
tracks
totw - kid carpet - £1,500 and a bus apology - "it wobbles but doesn't fall down"
neils children - always the same - "like syd barrett with 21st century bits"
keith - hold that gun - "nothing that sounds like it was made by a band called keith"
There's a Crazy frog interview, too. But it's a spoof. Now, this means either the answers are going to be (a) a stupid noise or (b) revealing that the Frog is actually erudite and witty and finds the concept of being famous for going"bing bing bing" a little embarrassing and that he really wants to be known for his songwriting. We won't spoil it for you and tell you which one they went with.
In The Guardian Guide, David Stubbs said out loud something which we'd felt for a long time - The Tube wasn't actually that good. "Paula Yates, draped sluttishly over Midge Ure, smugly asks him if he's embarrassed by old photos of himself. This from a woman in a pink puffball dress and mauve boots, interviewing a bloke with a pencil moustache and wearing enough Falcon hairspray to weld girders." Our main memories of The Tube are of Go West doing never-ending tracks, that bloke who used to blow up hot water bottles and the feeling that it was a very long time until Channel Four News would be on; even with enough airtime to allow three Shakespeare plays to be performed, when they did book a decent act, they'd fuck up the timings and run the credits and the Tyne Tees Television caption while the band would be half-way through their first song. Week in, week out, Whistle Test would out-perform them. The Tube would offer Paul Young, already with that "the game is up" rictus in his neck, while Whistle Test would have Sudden Sway; The Tube would make way for Ian Astbury to flounce about in a blouse three sizes too large, while Whistle Test would have the first live performance from the Pet Shop Boys. The Tube - by U2's own admission - would play a major part in creating the Bono-ego-machine (Malcolm Gerrie, the Tube producer, would routinely drop large chunks of U2 into the mix), while Whistle Test offered Ivor Cutler. The Whistle Test-Tube split is the same as the Swap Shop-Tiswas fracture, and just as the commercial kids show seemed to be brighter, busier and more fun, it was the BBC programme here, too, which actually offered something to watch. "Some of our audience might look bored" Muriel Gray once told Smash Hits, "but we wouldn't give them balloons and funny hats to try and disguise it." Nope, but then you wouldn't need to when there was the Paula Yates one-woman sideshow sucking down acres of camera-time to do that.
And finally: also for the Guide, Steve Lamacq offers a guide to making the perfect wooing mix tape. But... "before you get carried away and think that you can make a kiss-and-make-up compilation, trust me, it never works. By that point buy her something she really does want."
