NME Awards 2015: Kasabian, Kasabian, Kasabian

Last night was the NME Awards, which a few years back had become quite a thing; even getting televised. This year, they don't even seem to have bothered putting people picking up the prizes on the NME YouTube channel, although there's some video on the NME site.

The lack of a livestream seemed to upset some people on Twitter last night, but looking at the list of winners, it might have been wise for the magazine to try and do it in secret:

Godlike genius award Suede
Rock’n’roll soul award Jimmy Page
Best British band Kasabian
Best international band Foo Fighters
Outstanding contribution to music Teenage Cancer Trust
Best solo artist Jake Bugg
Best new band Royal Blood
Best live band Royal Blood
Best album 48:13 by Kasabian
Best track Zombie by Jamie T
Best video Zombie by Jamie T
Best festival Glastonbury
Philip Hall radar award Dean Blunt
Best TV show Game Of Thrones
Best film Northern Soul
Best music film Pulp: a Film About Life, Death and Supermarkets
Reissue of the year The Holy Bible by Manic Street Preachers
Dancefloor filler Fancy by Iggy Azalea featuring Charli XCX
Worst band 5 Seconds Of Summer
Villain of the year Nigel Farage
Hero of the year Alex Turner
Music moment of the year Jamie T’s comeback
Best fan community Muse
Small festival of the year Liverpool Psych Fest
Book of the year Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys by Viv Albertine
Best band social media Liam Gallagher’s Twitter
Best lyric “I’m wearing Win Butler’s hair/There’s a scalpless singer in a Montreal rock band somewhere” by Happyness
Best quote “Five records, ten years. We’ve earned our shot” - Sergio Pizzorno of Kasabian talking about headlining Glastonbury

Let's just take a second to look at the full name of one category, shall we?

Best International Band supported by Austin, Texas – The Live Music Capital Of The World®

Sponsored awards? Well, that's probably unavoidable. The sponsor's crappy slogan? If you must. But a registered trademark symbol as part of the prize name? Jesus wept. Or rather Jesus wept with the King James Bible copyright the Bible.

(Incidentally, the NME 'full list of winners' doesn't actually list all the winners.)

There's a lot of Kasabian and Jamie T there. Could the prize giving be any more awful?

Oh, hang on. Yes. Yes, it could. Added Gervais:

A special video, featuring the band's former manager comedian Ricky Gervais, was also shown - watch the video above. "I did help this band out a little bit in the early years," he comments. "When I told them I couldn't manage them anymore, there were no tears, they didn't beg - and that's when their career really took off."

At least he didn't do it in character as Derek, I guess.

Let's celebrate the good news here: Liverpool Psych fest; Viv Albertine; respect for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

But then... look at that "quote of the year"" - Serge out of Kasabian suggesting that they've paid their dues and it's now buggin's turn. Look at the belief that the best thing that happened in music during the whole of 2014 - the whole of 2014 was Jamie T's comeback (to a world that hadn't even noticed he'd gone in the firts place. The way that Muse still won a fucking prize.

Good lord. A magazine that has set its sights so very low might struggle to even give itself away.

Robbie sobby, undone by One

Apparently Radio One has taken a bite out of Robbie Williams' arsenal:

"I'm very ambitious," he told BBC Radio 4's Mastertapes programme. "So when Radio 1 goes and is taken away from you, a huge bit of your arsenal goes."

"It's your main oxygen to get your stuff out there."

To be fair, Robbie, you've just released an album of swing covers. It's like sticking out a porn video and wondering why Blue Peter won't invite you on talk about it.

In the BBC News story, though, a much more interesting detail is hanging about:

The station's head of music has also said rock groups Green Day and Muse may have outgrown the station.

"The last Green Day project simply wasn't good enough," George Ergatoudis told trade magazine Music Week.

Muse, meanwhile "are approaching a crossroads" - their last single was the first one not playlisted by Radio 1 in a decade.

"The door remains open to them but we'll have to think carefully about their next album."

Yes, we've now come so far through the Rock & Roll Years that Muse have effectively turned into Cliff Richard.

And Green Day are Status Quo, but that's hardly breaking news.

Muse help with the mopping out

Muse played Denver last night; they handed over the profits from merch sales to the Colorado Flood Relief effort.

Good work, Muse.

Teignbridge District Council give up, plan to get Muse to do job

There's a germ of an idea lurking in Teignbridge councillor Jeremy Christophers' plan to ask Muse to run the district for a day. Unfortunately, that germ has been submerged in a gimmicky stunt:

Jeremy Christophers, who is the leader of Teignbridge District Council, said: "We're still in talks to get things sorted. It's vital for the council to engage with the younger generation."

He also claimed that the political themes of the band's most recent album, 'The 2nd Law', made them suitable candidates for the role. "Muse have been busy on tour promoting their album 'The 2nd Law'," he said. "The album has songs about global warming and sustainable living, which are important issues."

Well, yes, Muse are interested in that. The problem is that local politics has a focus on getting the opening hours right at Newton Abbot Swimming Pool and making sure that the recycling bins of Dawlish Warren are emptied on time.

Those are important things too, but it's not entirely clear by having Matt Bellamy stand in the council offices talking about ecogeddon is going to link the kids (by which we actually mean Muse fans, who are increasingly-less-young people) with the debate over double-yellow lines in Teignbridge.

After all, Westminster City Council had one of Blur actually fighting for a seat and that didn't do much for the turnout.

Gordon in the morning: Muse play with fire

Gordon seems to have missed his own story this morning, deciding to portray Muse's admission they bribe officials as a bit of a lark:

But the size of their productions have been causing them problems of late, with the band having to resort to backhanders to get shows on.
Frontman MATT BELLAMY said: “Everywhere you go there are problems. We have accountants and lawyers arguing with all sorts of local councils and police and promoters.

“In Rome, we had to bribe people with thousands of euros just to be allowed to blast our fire effects. We had to phone the British Embassy in Rome and argue with some official.

“If you want to do things like this on the move, it’s quite a big deal. It’s pretty bloody expensive, though. It’s mind-boggling how much, actually.”

You'd have thought that someone working for The Sun, where so many of the staff are being investigated for allegedly dropping money into the pockets of public officials might spot that Bellamy is admitting to a crime.

More importantly, with the long history of fire-related disasters at music events, from Santika to the Station Nightclub to the Beverley Hills Supper Club to Cromañón, the very idea that you'd short-circuit local fire regulations by paying off an official is a disgraceful thing to do.

Muse fly the flag for Imperial Japan

It's nice - or perhaps "nice" - to have a lunkheaded flag controversy without it being either a Nazi German or Confederate American flag.

Muse managed to lob the flag of Imperial Japan into the video for Panic Station.

It's probably the worst possible time to accidentally be promoting Japan's expansionist past.

Muse yanked the video, re-edited it, and apologised:

Muse wrote an apology on Twitter which read: “Sorry for the mistake re the intro graphics for the Panic Station video. We are fixing it now.”

This is why every band should employ a historian.

Vicky Cryer: Is it a supergroup?

Does Vicky Cryer count as a supergroup?

It's got Killers bassist Mark Stoermer, Muse drummer Dominic Howard, ex-Jamiroquai bassist Nick Fyffe and ex-Mars Volta drummer Dave Elitch and New York Dolls singer David Johanssen involved, which makes it supergroupy.

But it's mostly about Louis XIV's Jason Hill, which makes it feel more like a side-project where the session guys are more storied than the heart.

Apparently there's a record due out in a matter of days. In the meantime... there's this:

Gordon in the morning: The Brits are coming

The worst thing about New Year is that each change of calendar means that, somewhere, a shady group is getting ready to put on a Brit Awards show. Gordon's excited, though:

IN only six weeks the The Brit Awards 2013 will burst on to your TV – and they are shaping up to be one of the best on record.

Really? One of the best on record, you say?

MUSE, ROBBIE WILLIAMS, MUMFORD & SONS and ONE DIRECTION have all signed up to perform live with more acts to be announced.

JAMES CORDEN is back on board as host, so the winning formula is almost complete. THE ROLLING STONES could just be that extra-special ingredient — and are preparing the Deep Heat after a Best Live nomination.

Those two paragraphs appear to be completely at odds with the first one, surely?

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'.

This isn't news, Matt Bellamy

Matt Bellamy has revealed that a big influence on the new Muse album is U2. Whoever would have thought?

Frontman Matt Bellamy told Classic Rock magazine: ''We toured with U2 last year in South America. And there's definitely a little bit of influence come on to this album, a little bit of [1991 album] 'Achtung Baby' here and there.''

Muse have been pushing stadium-shaped vacant bombast for years; surely the U2 influence has always been obvious?

Muse take up some of Vince Cable's slack

Good old Muse have donated £15,000 worth of equipment and money to Plymouth University to encourage students on music courses.

Now, if they could just find a couple more billion to make good the cash axed from the university system elsewhere...

NME goes cold on Olympic anthem story

Paste are running a story based on an NME piece, trumpeting that Chris Martin, Damon Albarn and Matt Bellamy would be writing an anthem to open the Olympics.

It does sound unlikely, doesn't it? To be fair, the NME didn't make it up, and were just churning something they'd read in the Mirror, but they had joyfully run the story as fact without showing any critical thought at all.

Someone seems to have finally got round to reading what they were telling their visitors, though, as the news story has since vanished, leaving only a version in Google's cache:

Coldplay, Muse and Damon Albarn have reportedly been approached to write the official anthem for the London 2012 Olympics.

According to the Daily Mirror Chris Martin and co are the organisers' top pick for the job, and have been asked to write "something inspirational" for the official song of the event.

A source told the paper: "Chris is at the top of the list to front the official record. We're pulling out all the stops to get Chris, ideally with the rest of Coldplay involved too."

Joss Stone has also reportedly been approached to take part in the games' opening ceremony, as well as Coldplay - should they agree to write the song.

For god's sake, did nobody even twig when typing that Joss Stone was being lined up for this? Joss Stone? Were they thinking 'well, that makes sense, they probably left it too late to book Alex Parks'?

Grammys 2011: Winners

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. She arrived in an egg. In an egg! What larks!

Although musically Lady GaGa is becoming more and more like a good-period Madonna, her staging is starting to recall nobody so much as pre-Watford-chairing-period Elton John. And she arrived at the Grammys in an egg. Like Mork! Mork was crazy, right? So that's crazy? Officially crazy?

The real worry about GaGa's approach is that it just sends other artists flicking through the Yellow Pages for the Crazy Stage Show section. So Cee Lo Green turned up with Gwyneth Paltrow and some muppets. Didn't Scissor Sisters do the muppets at the Brits a few years back?

There was something truly surprising last night, though, in Esperanza winning best new artist. In a category where time had been bent to allow Justin Beiber to run (alongside Mumford And Sons and Florence And The Machine), a barely-known-outside-the-jazz-crowd winner feels like a genuine surprise and delight.

I'll bet the Beibpubesecents or whatever it is Beiber fans call themselves are struggling with that one.

Eminem had been nominated in ten categories and managed a win in just two. And that was Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Album, which is like expecting to sweep the awards at the Horticultural Show but just taking home the three runner beans prize and the four runner beans prize.

Mumford And Sons performed with Bob Dylan - there's some debate as to if there was anything interesting left about them before the performance, but pretty much an agreement that any vitality they once had has now been removed and replaced with the sickly scent of Official Approval.

Arcade Fire won best album for The Suburbs, which fits the usual pattern of these things - your weakest work to date will tend to get the greatest praise from the Academy. (It's a good album, but...). Muse - who exist solely to win prizes at glittering ceremonys - won Best Rock Album.

The full list of winners is on the Grammys site and would take too long to reproduce here, but here's some highlights:

Album of the Year: "The Suburbs," Arcade Fire

Record of the Year: "Need You Now," Lady Antebellum

Song of the Year: "Need You Now," Lady Antebellum

New Artist: Esperanza Spalding

Pop Vocal Album: "The Fame Monster," Lady Gaga

Pop Performance by a Duo or Group: "Hey Soul Sister," Train

Female Pop Vocal Performance: "Bad Romance," Lady Gaga

Male Pop Vocal Performance: "Just The Way You Are," Bruno Mars

Rock Song: "Angry World," Neil Young

Rock Album: "The Resistance," Muse

R&B Song: "Shine," John Legend & The Roots

R&B Album: "Wake up!" John Legend & The Roots

Rap Solo Performance: "Not Afraid," Eminem

Rap Song: "Empire State of Mind," Jay-Z and Alicia Keys

Rap Album: "Recovery," Eminem

Female Country Vocal Performance: "The House That Built Me," Miranda Lambert

Male Country Vocal Performance: "'Til Summer Comes Around," Keith Urban

Country Performance by a Duo or Group: "Need You Now," Lady Antebellum

Country Album: "Need You Now," Lady Antebellum

Latin Pop Album: "Paraiso Express," Alejandro Sanz

Contemporary Jazz Album: "The Stanley Clarke Band," The Stanley Clarke Band

Classical Album: "Verdi: Requiem," Riccardo Muti, conductor

Traditional Gospel Album: "Downtown Church," Patty Griffin

Dance Recording: "Only Girl (In The World)," Rihanna

Electronic Dance Album: "La Roux," La Roux

Alternative Music Album: "Brothers," The Black Keys

Spoken Word Album: "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Presents Earth (The Audiobook)," Jon Stewart

You'll notice the unbearable Train was given a prize for best pop performance. I think that one fact alone invalidates the Grammy's claims to be a judge of anything.

Gordon in the morning: It's not a secret if you know

Stuart Pink - who seems increasingly to be handling the bigger stories on Bizarre these days - files news of an engagement:

ROCK star MATT BELLAMY and Hollywood actress KATE HUDSON have got engaged in secret.

Not much of a secret if you know about it, Mr. Pink.

Gordon in the morning: Man to spend Christmas with partner's family

Yes, that's the big splash on Bizarre today, that Matt Bellamy will spend Christmas with Kate Hudson and her family.

You might think that Gordon would struggle to make this typical Yuletide plan into anything beyond a nib, but Gordon has got it covered.

Let's also hope [Matt's] mum doesn't take along any proof of his circumcision when he was a lad.

I'm sorry...what?

Yes, Gordon has decided - hilariously - that it's going to be just like Meet The Fockers. No, Kate Hudson wasn't in that movie, nor were Goldie Hawn or Kurt Russell, her mum and stepdad. In fact, the only link seems to be that that's a film about someone meeting somebody's family, and that's what Matt's doing so... it's bound to be identical, right?

MUSE rocker MATT BELLAMY could soon end up nicknamed Gaylord Focker if his Christmas get-together fails to go to plan.

It's a slim conceit, but you might just be able to get away with one reference, however shoe-horned in.

Matt may decline the water volleyball as he doesn't want to give Kate a shiner.

Like in the film. Do you see?

As long as Matt doesn't kill the cat or get caught raiding Goldie's undercrackers drawer, it should be happy families.

Like in the film. Do you see?

Of course, Gordon's not so gauche as to assume that simply listing the plot of a film and adding 'let's hope that doesn't happen, eh, reader?' isn't enough to carry an entire piece, so he turns to wondering how Bellamy's in-laws - who may or may not be going along together too, depending on which paragraph you're on (at one point, the families are all "shacking up together", at another, there's talk of "splitting the US trip between [Matt's parents]") - will get on with Hudson's:

Kurt is a huge music fan and Matt's dad used to be a guitar player in Sixties group THE TORNADOS so there's already common ground.

Oh, yes. That's practically being brothers, isn't it?

"I was once in a band"
"That's such a crazy coincidence, I've just bought a CD. From a shop. That's got a band on it."

Perhaps it's best to stick to wedging in references to barely-connected comedy films as possible events that you hope don't occur during the holidays.

Let's hope Kate Hudson doesn't put a flute up her pussy, eh, readers?

Let's make more Muses

Harvey Goldsmith has got a plea - apparently we need more Muses. As in the band, he doesn't want Pierus to be getting all busy again:

"The only kind of stadium star or arena-plus star act that has come through recently is Muse. That’s it. Both here in Britain and in America. We need more of them.

"We need to have, as I have said time and time again, new promoters with new ideas, building new acts up so they become the new superstars. Without that, within five years’ time, there will not be a business."

Harvey Goldsmith, manager of Jeff Beck, promoter since England last won the world cup, suggesting the problem is old promoters with stale ideas. Whoever would have thought?

And his big idea is to clone an already successful band. "Let's make more of these, as they're already popular" isn't the most obvious way of encouraging "new ideas" in the music industry, is it?

Still, Goldsmith's warning should make all our blood run cold. If there aren't a dozen or so Matt Bellamies wandering about by 2015, there won't be any oversized gigs in inappropriate venues where you can only 'watch' by staring over people's heads at a giant TV screen that is out of sync with when the music reaches you. No more £45-plus gig tickets, plus parking, plus two quid bottles of water because you can't bring your own in. No more tailbacks on motorways as thousands try to cram up a road to a temporary stage in a country house back garden. Do you want to live in such a world, people? Because that's what will happen. Harvey Goldsmith says so.

Gordon in the morning: Supermassiveblackhole

Sean Hamilton from Gordon's team files a story about Matt Bellamy dating Kate Hudson. So far, so meh.

But the headline?

It Muse Be Love

In what way, in what world, does 'muse' sound a bit like 'must'? Apart from the 'm' at the very start?

Bloody hell, you shouldn't have to explain to The Sun how puns are supposed to work.

SXSW 2010: Muse

I'm a little surprised at the NME report from Austin this evening:

Muse win over industry crowd at SXSW

Do Muse - who are more established than the Church Of England - really need to "win over" an "industry audience"? If the "industry" still needs to be "convinced" by Muse, hasn't it gone beyond the point of no return?

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: Cover-up

Gennaro Castaldo has already enjoyed himself with the story of the Manics album sleeve, taking the opportunity to sniff at supermarkets selling music. Now, with the Manics coming second in some sort of limited poll for 'best album cover of 2009', he's able to have another go:

HMV’s pop guru Gennaro Castaldo said: “It shows that when someone tries to ban something that you attract even more interest.

“That has happened throughout entertainment history; just think of the Sex Pistols and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. It’s good that despite their attempts to block this album it’s done so well.”

That's the South Wales Echo dubbing Castaldo "pop guru", by the way.

I'm not sure that comparing 'not having your record in some shops' is quite on a par with having Mike Read condemn you live on the Breakfast Show; nor, indeed, that coming second (to Muse) in a year-end poll is quite on a par with actual success, but it's to HMV's credit that they kept the record on their shelves.

Q Awards contains a surprise

Whoever said the Q Awards were predictable is going to be ordering a large slice of the most humble pie. You'd be expecting them to give best live band to Muse and best band to the Arctic Monkeys, right?

Surprise! It's the other way round. Crazy, huh?

The winners in full:

Best Act In The World: Muse
Best Live Act: Arctic Monkeys
Best Album: Kasabian - West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum
Best Track: Lily Allen - The Fear
Best New Act: White Lies
Best Breakthrough Act: Mr. Hudson
Outstanding Contribution: Robert Plant
Q Icon: Marianne Faithfull
Q Inspiration: The Specials

I don't know if the idea that Kasabian's album is worthy of our attention is more or less funny than the straight-faced presentation of a prize to Mr Hudson, the Syd Little to Kanye West's Eddie Large. Mr Hudson is not a pop star name; it's the name of a 1970s chain of trouser shops operating through seven East Midlands locations.