message query for band tba

He used to say the same thing.

I do not miss the commute to York at all. Despite the reading and music listening and leching at lovely business type ladies at the station.

I don't even know what facebook is. I've got a myspace thing, but there's nowt on it, I only got the account to leave rude messages on my mate's band's site. Got flikr: www.flickr.com/photos/78892004@N00/

Pie! Football!

Really bad and sad news about Paul Hunter, he was only 27 and had just become a dad, should have known things were very serious when his ranking was frozen earlier this year, that's an unusual move, though we really thought and hoped he'd recover.

Also fairly bad news from East Asia, indeed how do you solve a problem like Korea?

Also my interview went quite well I think, afterwards I met Clare for a fairly rubbish lunch in a pub near her work, then I bumped into a friend in the park on the way home:

Bizarre one about Google buying YouTube, for about eight hundred million pounds... They've only been going less than two years I think, so even if the rumours were true about them spending a million dollars a day in bandidth costs for all of that time, they're still in profit. And they've had some investment in the mean time. Why did Google not buy popex? Seems someone's filling the gap left by popex's departure:

PRESS RELEASE | Official UK Charts Company to launch Fantasy Music Manager game

> Record industry vies for slice of booming interactive gaming market.

London, October 9 2006, 11.30am | The Official UK Charts Company (OCC) is to launch a new internet-based game which applies the successful Fantasy Football Manager formula to the fast-paced world of the UK music charts and offers �40,000 in prizes and tickets to The BRITs 2007.

The OCC - which is co-owned by the British recorded music trade association the BPI and the Entertainment Retailers Association - has linked up with commercial marketing agency Why Not! to create a Fantasy Music Manager game which will run over the eight weeks up to Christmas, culminating with the Christmas Number One.

The game, which allows players to select a roster of artists who then perform based on their week-by-week performance in the charts, is sponsored by Xbox 360 and will be promoted to a potential audience of 8.5m people through tie-ups with commercial radio's Hit 40 UK, games site Freeloader.com and youth web portal Xtaster amongst others.

The OCC says that music adds a new twist to the fast-growing �10m market for fantasy gaming.

Bah. Anyone here remember popex? On the upside, if yesterday's meeting went as well as I think, I will be working on an all new game soon... Up early and online again for another interview, they're coming thick and fast now, more later this week too.

Action Plan

Pleased to report that the band were ace last night, and so is the venue. Can't believe we've not been to The Eye before, I suppose because it doesn't look like it'll be much from the outside, but inside there's a huge doglegged space with a couple of bars, pool table, table football, stage area, sofas, everything... no real ales on though.

The Action Plan are good, younger viewers will draw comparisons to early Manic Street Preachers and Muse, the Dads standing at the back (man was that how I felt) will pick up some Wedding Present in Niall's guitar and occasionally some Ian McCulloch in his voice. Definitely seeing them again. They're local so maybe it will be at The Eye again.

Clear some space for their amphetamine-epileptic off stage excursions.

Caught up with the flatmate who had stopped to assist some fellow who was possibly having a heart attack, on the way to the venue. We were on the way to the venue, not the chap with the dicky ticker. At first I thought he was making an improper suggestion from his prone position, but no, he was trying to say he had acute angina. Luckily there was a first aider also passing, and an ambulance arrived soon enough. Also saw one of the bendy busses wedged into Stoke Newington High Street on the way home. They're too big man.

Grand Designs Abroad on tonight, "The Lot, France". Thanks www.bleb.org/tv/.

Late at the Tate, GRATE

Tate Britain plays host to a special musical event next Friday, "art rock" bands Mugstar and Art Brut are playing a free gig (find out more at the late Tate Britain page) and word on the David Devant site is that they're playing too! See you there, it's so exciting that they're back...

Belated gig review, I have been off since Tuesday; fantastic I'm very glad to report. A return to the venue of their first album launch, and the place was rammed.

A shameless attempt was made to return to glories past, with Vessel coming onto the stage in silhouette form first of all, but without the fully elaborate painting-himself-real thing. The stand-in spectral roadies were reasonable lookalikes, but we weren't all fooled, particularly not Iceman who was in the crowd taking pictures like this. You should be back on stage son!

The set was a mix of very new and very old, almost none from the difficult second album "Shiney on the Inside", but a good few early rarities, including my personal favourite "Cookie", also "Slip Into Me", "Life on a Crescent", "Ballroom" and more. The new material all sounds good, get the new album from Outstanding Records, I keep leaving my copy places, so am not entirely familiar with it yet. It's got "Gentleman Jim" on it though, which is ace.

Anyway, see my pictures of the whole band in action or just Professor Rimschott.

Don't Let The Bells End

Let's set aside for a moment that any sort of "homecoming" for The Darkness should certainly be at The Barfly in London's very own Camden Town, as it's where they did their first half a dozen or so proper gigs. Last night's show at The Astoria was a triumph. Three costume changes for Justin, an impromptu walkabout in the crowd, spectacular pyrotechnics, a storm of glitter, autumn leaves, and shock of shocks SOME NEW MATERIAL! The long awaited Christmas Single was garnished with a choir of tiny carol singers, but was a touch to cheesy for my non dairy tastes, but its a firm contender for the number one spot.

Wacky set up with with the tickets - everyone gets a laminate to get them into the gig, then some punters are lucky enough to get a wristband to get them in downstairs! Only thing is, everyone knows the cool bit of the Astoria is upstairs, all the celebs are in the Keith Moon Bar, so that's where we want to be. But if you've put your wristband on already, security guys say no. OH NO, HOW WILL WE POSSIBLY GET ROUND SUCH A WELL THOUGHT OUT SCHEME. Apart from taking the wristband off again. It was well worth it to see Sophie Ellis Bextor, Mark Owen and the drummer out of Menswear, I can tell you.

Thanks to Rupe for getting us into the aftershow, without which I'd not have met my new favourite band, The Goldie Lookin' Chain. You knows it.

A good day

Man it's cold today,not the best day to be queued up outside Hammersmith Apollo for a couple of hours, but at least we have our wristbands for the show now... Saw Fruitbat from Carter USM in front of us in the queue and also Marie and Emmy-Kate from Kenickie... not sure whether it will prove better to have downstairs tickets (which we have) or upstairs, Clare thinks it might be a celeb-fest upstairs. Find out in about three hours!

Spent an hour or so in the British Library today,mostly just in their "treasures" department, an amazing display of first editions and manuscripts... saw Alexei Sayle on my way out too, he was walking along Euston Road towing a tiny little case on wheels behind him... got an hour to kill now, then off to meet Clare on her break (she only had the morning off) to play pool in ULU. Then most likely off to the pub, I see they are having a month long "cask festival" in the pub near Waterstones... damn can't remember the name of it, it's near The Pint Pot but doesn't seem to be listed on BITE (aha, it's the Marlborough)...

I'm looking forward to AC/DC A LOT, hope they put on a full pyrotechnic show, I'm sure they won't let me down.

Fingers crossed The Darkness don't cancel tomorrow, they have cancelled tonight at Portsmouth Pyramids, and last night at Folkestone Leas Cliff Hall.

Electric Six Tour

Electric Six were top last night, they're like a big rock caberet Village People, ace... Sounds a bit dismissive doesn't it, sorry... Not the campness of the Village People, just that there is one there for everyone - there's the one who's like Neil Young, the one who looks like Jim Reid, the one who looks like [come back and fill the names in later when I've read a review by someone who'd drunk less], and so on...

The singer is particularly ace, a cross between Brian Johnson and Rob Halford. Had to leave the room after they'd played the current single as it was RAMMED, it's a bit of a treat to see hot bands in tiny venues like the Barfly.

Crimea are brilliant too, much different to what I expected... I never saw The Crocketts, but thought they'd be sort of noisy jangly indie, like the one single "Cars and Football" I have... They were more like say Pavement though, crossed with someone more accessible indie girl pop like Placebo or the Stereophonics.

Here's the rest of the Electric Six forthcoming dates...

Manchester Night and Day (24th Oct)
Glasgow, Nice and Sleazy (25th)
Nottingham Social (26th)
London Trash (28th)
New York Bowery Ballroom (31st)

You can get tickets for some of those UK shows here... That NY show is part of the CMJ festival (but you'll be at The Darkness' gig won't you?) and you can't normally get Trash tix in advance, try winning them off XFM...

So, did Santa come?

Did your free REM wristbands turn up today? Mine didn't... Postman even woke me up today, ringing the doorbell, so I literally SPRANG out of bed thinking that they'd arrived... NO, he just wanted to be let into the block to deliver a parcel to someone else... cheerful letter delivering BASTARD!

Apparently all 17,000 wristbands have been sent out now. The number available has been reduced from the original allocation of 30,000 because of security fears.