News :
Our very own horse-faced, crack addled, retro-warbler Amy Winehouse has enjoyed another visit to the hospital this week after collapsing in what has been described as a ‘a shaking mess’ on her extended trip in the Caribbean. Apparently, she ran out of the pills given to combat the effects of withdrawal from crack cocaine, but sources say she had been seen drinking heavily the night before. Again…? C’mon now.
The alt-inspiring beast that is The Meat Puppets, who influenced the like’s of Nirvana, Sublime and Stone Temple Pilots have signed to Megaforce Records and will release a new album on the 12 May 2009. It will be called ‘Sewn together’, and I will be having that, thank you very much.
‘Loony-tune’ fronted Guns ‘N’ Roses’ new Album ‘Chinese Democracy’ is set to be released for Rock Band this spring…weirdly, after Axl Rose verbally chastised Activision a few months back for including G’N'R Tracks on Guitar Hero. I WANT CONTROL!!!!
Super-wrong, scary man Marilyn Manson, and ageing beardy rock bandits ZZ Top, have been added to the bill at Download 2009.

Bookies lost a solid 100,000 on Paul Weller winning a Brit award. They shut the books on the Jam front-man after a flurry of suspicious bets. The pre-recorded acceptance speech was sure to have made some random unnamed runner at a production company a few grand if they had their wits about them

Sadly, bass player for ELO, Kelly Groucutt died this week age 62 from a heart attack. He will be sadly missed and our hearts go out to his family at this time.

U2‘s record label Universal Music Group, have been blamed for leaking their new album early this week. The Australian branch of the company were selling high quality downloads of the album and the mistake was not caught for a few hours. By which time of course, every internet savvy U2 fan online had them selves a copy of the album through the file sharing networks.
Someone gettin’ fired at Universal this week!

Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid : CD
Have you ever loved a band that you can’t believe you didn’t listen to earlier? Leaving you feeling like you have missed out on so many years of fulfillment you could have had if you’d only just sat down for 30 minutes and listened. I have. For me this is Elbow. Hailing from around the Manchester area in the North of England, they used to be a band that you found out about by word of mouth. You never heard much about them in the music press, and you didn’t often find tracks on the radio. And like me, if you didn’t listen to people who told you to give them a try, you could end up missing out altogether. Don’t be like me.

The latest studio Album from Elbow is just an astounding feat of beauty and grace that almost wasn’t to be. Their relationship with label V2 took a turn for the worst after 3 studio albums, and complex legal proceedings hampered the bands signing to a new label, eventually falling through and leaving the band adrift in the ether. Having no one to answer to, and no pressure of deadlines they holed up in Blueprint Studios in Manchester, the same facility they used for recording ‘Leaders of the Free World’, and set about writing the album they wanted to write.
By late 2007 a deal with label Fiction had been made and the album had been completed.
And so with a solid platform for the album that was almost never released ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’ saw the light of day.
The fallen-angelic voice of Guy Garvey never, & i mean never fails to amaze me, and is perfectly complemented by the exquisite musicianship of the rest of his band. Elbow really know how to make use of sound and effects, enabling them to create and separate each instrument quite unlike any other band I can think of, producing the most uplifting atmospheric background to some of the most beautiful tracks in the Brit/Alt genre. All this is oftentimes wrapped in a cozy, orchestral blanket, creating a warmth that you miss when you realize its not there.

Stand out tracks for me are ‘Grounds for Divorce’, ‘The Loneliness Of A Tower Crane Driver’ and the anthemic ‘One Day Like This’.
I would urge you to check out all 4 of the full length studio offerings from Elbow – listened to chronologically, you can actually hear a band grow. I would also urge you to check out Elbow perform the entire album with the BBC Concert Orchestra, which they actually did about 3 weeks ago – I think you can see it on the iPlayer, but if you’re too late it’s being released on DVD & CD in March. Get it, its good for the soul.
In 2008 Elbow took the Mercury Music for the album ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’ and also took Best British Group at the Brit Awards last week, and quite right too, as deserve it they do.

The Prodigy - ‘Invaders Must Die’ : CD
I wanted the new Prodigy Album to be good so badly. I’d had a renewed vigor regarding the Prodigy over the last few months in the lead up to the release of ‘Invaders Must Die’. El Dan had been rinsing a CD on the office stereo that my head rockin’ and my fingers desk-drumming like never before, prompting me on more than 1 occasion to turn and ask “What we got on here, pal?”. After the reply came back, always starting with “Prodigy, beht” and ending with a small explanation of where the tracks had come from, it was clear that he had made a ‘Mix Tape’, if you will, of previously unreleased, re-mixed and soundtrack specific tracks that I had never heard before.

Awesome, it was on. I now had some hype in me about the new album release.

My personal favorite Prodigy Album is ‘Music for The Jilted Generation’, and as I imagine a few other people did too, I wanted to hear a little of that ‘By Christ, I cant help but get up and Dance to this Techno Punk madness’ back in the new album. I had lost interest after ‘Fat of The Land’ was released, maybe because my wondering musical mind was focused on something altogether different, or maybe because I had overdosed on the The Prodigy with the previous Album and didn’t have the heart to face up to the fact that ‘Fat of the Land’ might not meet with the high expectations I had for it, and except for a few single releases filtering through the radio, I pretty much forgot about The Prodigy until now.

Over the last couple of weeks the radio has been playing ‘Omen’ the new single, and by rights this should really have prompted Pendulum to pack up their shit and go home. If that didn’t do it then the release of the album this week might.
It’s a bit of a blinder ladies and gentlemen, I believe The Prodigy are…how do you say?…BACK!

The opening track ‘Invaders must die’ get the hairs on the back of my neck to stand and salute as the dirty distorted bass and soaring synths smack you square in the face . The beat sounds like one you’d use while kickin’ a door in, and the simple vocal refrain ‘We are the prodigy’ cements this band at the forefront of your mind for the next 40 minutes, or so.

The neck hairs stay stood for tracks 2 and 3, ‘Omen’ who anyone owning a radio would not have been able to avoid over the last couple of weeks and who’s chorus will have you reciting ‘Omen men men men men’ over and over again, and ‘Thunder’ which sports a dark dirty bass line and ragga vocal refrain.
‘Colours’ is more of a conventional song, a techno punk tune with male/female harmonizing vocals – something relatively new for the prodigy, but still retaining something that says, err…we are the prodigy.
‘Take me to the Hospital’ immediately transports me back to early prodigy circa ‘Charli’ and ‘Out of Space’ then bring be crashing back to the present with a classic Keith Flint delivery.
Straight back to the old school for ‘Warriors Dance’ with a classic female house vocal, super fat bass line and break-beats running the show with those ever present melodic synths on top.

You’d be forgiven for thinking of Ministry at the start of ‘Run with the Wolves’ it’s a downright dirty driving track, balls to the wall noise war, with drums courtesy of rock-god, Dave Grohl.
The album finishes up with classic sounding ‘Worlds on fire’ and ‘Piranha’, another hard-driving punk tune but littered with awkward melodies that wouldn’t be out of place in a 60′s horror flick.
The biggest surprise on the album is the last track ‘stand-up’ and probably the biggest departure from the prodigy sound you will have ever heard. A horn led anthem with fat beats and spiky synth melodies. It’s a really positive sounding tune and truly a different tack for a band like The Prodigy.

So, I’m proper chuffed that the album is as good as I wanted…no, needed it to be. I am reformed again, The Prodigy are back in my life, and as this seems more like an album review, Ill give it a score…hrmm…9/10. Buy It.

Long Lost…
OK, all music lovers have ‘em so I wanna see some action down the bottom there. I wanna know what you know. I have them, and they crop up every now and again. What I’m talking about are those albums that helped form your musical preferences during your youth. Those albums that you come across and play for the first time in 15 or 20 years, and suddenly find all the lyrics pouring out of your mouth as you listen, realizing that the whole album was imprinted on the inside of your skull way back in the day. The albums that bring back memories, of stuff, that you were sure that your internal cursor should have Ctrl Alt Deleted years ago.

This is the dillio – I want to know what your long lost albums are, and hopefully ignite a spark under your asses and go back and listen to some of that music and let us know what you still have a flame for, or if you’re lucky, a raging inferno.
Here’s one from me.

The Wonder Stuff – ‘Eight Legged Groove Machine’ 1988
The music scene around Birmingham where I grew up was exploding around 1988 and 1989 with local bands like Pop Will Eat Itself, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin and reaching me first were The Wonder Stuff. The upbeat jingle-jangle of pre-shoe-gazing indie tinged with a raw punky feel,and the melodic, comical and at times arrogant vocal meanderings of Miles Hunt were more than enough to make me sit and listen to this record again. Although it’s fair to say it sounds a little dated, it’s lost nothing for me at all. Singles, ‘Unbearable’, ‘Give, give, give, me more, more, more’ and ‘It’s yer money I’m after baby’ still sound great to me, along with my personal favorite off the album, ‘No, for the 13th time’. I have an enduring memory of being in Guernsey on a school camping trip and walking up the site one day came across two girls from the year below me marching past me sharing one of those over the head walkman headphones, hopelessly trying to sing the chorus of ‘No, for the 13^th time’ a bit too loud for their own good. Smiling to myself, knowing that I could sing it no problem, I carried on walking, chuckling to my 15 year old self at their shocking attempt. A ridiculous memory, I know, but nonetheless one that is poignant when I talk about music and memories associated with it. Actually, watching the video below has just thrown up a load more lost loves. I’ll keep them to myself for now though.

This weeks releases, as I see ‘em…

Notable album releases this week are U2 and did I mention The Prodigy before.

Take That and Will young both have new singles out this week, I expect they will both predictably do quite well.

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1. The Dutchie Sessions
2. B-Minor’s Nerdles Blog – Saturday February 21st, 2009
3. Free Springsteen tracks coming to World Tour
4. Read Dead Space Comic For Free!
5. New GTA Coming This Year?