Robert Plant, of Led Zep fame, is ti play a one off gig to help raise money for his ill neighbour. The gig will take place at Kidderminster Town Hall to help his friend Jackie Jennings who is in the States getting medical treatment for a brain tumour.
Apparently, she needs another £25,000 to cover these costs and it is hoped this gig will help raise some of that figure. The gig will take place on December 23rd.
The majority of heroin addicts have always mentioned that doing the drug itself is like being wrapped in cotton wool and once the come down takes effect, your body suffers the withdrawal symptoms and needs to be refilled quickly to endure the pleasure of the highs on offer once indulged.
Brightblack Morning Light fronted by the laid back vocal skills of Nathan Shineywater and the divine intervention of best friend Rachael Hughes is simply herion in music form that if played once, will trap you into an aural paradise that seems to slowly melt your inner system. This record is by far the most baked record you will hear this year, in fact so laid back that the composers are alleged to not even have a fixed address and instead reside in tents in the wilderness of Humboldt County, CA.
The music itself is based around soft keyboard riffs, drugged-out reverbed vocals, trumpets, fantastic percussion and slide guitars that all blend to make an ethereal soundscape that can only be described as pure bliss. Although tracks such as ‘Everybody Daylight’, ‘Friend of Time’, ‘Fry Bread’ and ‘Black Feather Wishes Rise’ stand out, the entire album has this cosmic energy that encapsulates you so much that it’s one of those albums that you have to hear from start to finish to get the full effect.
This album is a must if you like to relax and also is sensual enough to have on when you spend some love time with your favourite squeeze. Music is the best drug known to man, go pick this up, it’s out now.
See them live at the follwoing dates:
OCTOBER
Fri 20 Glasgow ABC
Sat 21 Manchester Night and Day
Sun 22 Birmingham GLEE CLUB
Mon 23 Cambridge Junction
Tue 24 Brighton KOMEDIA
Wed 25 London SCALA
Manchester Academy 3
24.09.06
Those Swedes are a funny bunch aren’t they? What with all their Ikea and Volvos, any race that counts rotten fish as a delicacy has to be a bit weird. Still, all that rotten fish must be good for something as Sweden keep throwing out some of the best talent around in metal today and tonight, Academy 3 plays host to one of the much loved and much admired bands of the genre, Soilwork.
There is a sense of longing in the air as the fans have been waiting nigh on a year to see the group they so clearly adore after the bands unexpected no-show at this years Download festival, so it’s no wonder they are getting restless. Made up of mostly blokes, the decidedly hairy crowd raise their fists and with chants of “Soilwork, Soilwork” the opening bars of Stabbing The Drama blast through the room juggernaut style.
As Bjorn Stirds vocals kick in it’s obvious that the sound quality is as horrendous as the smell of sweat dripping off beards. It’s a problem which dogs the band all night, which is a bugger, because apart from this fact, Soilwork are on fire. No one really seems to care mind, and the crowd fill in where Stirds voice can’t be heard. It’s a gloriously fractured performance with tracks coming from Natural Born Chaos, Stabbing The Drama, Figure Number Five and Steel Bath Suicide to create a just about perfect setlist.
The band are immensely watchable and towards the tail end of their night, they steamroll into ‘As We Speak’ with a near-unbearable intensity which leaves revellers in awe. Wrapping it all up with a white hot rendition of ‘Follow The Hollow’ to near euphoric cheers, the wait seemed absolutely worth every minute. Amazing, all consuming stuff.
The final album of late rapper Ol’ Dirty Bastard will be released later this year. The ex-Wu Tan Clan member died in November 2004 but had completed the album beforehand. The album, A Son Unique, was due out in August 2005 but had been put back.
The album will feature Ghostface Killah, Method Man, Pharrell, Missy and Macy Gray and will feature the production of RZA.
Three people have been arrested by the police in relation to the shooting which happened outside the Scala in London last week.
The venue was hosting the Garage Fever presents Old Skool Fever night when Daniel Ross was shot dead outside the venue.
Other gigs at the Scala had been cancelled this week to allow for police investigations and police have now confirmed one man has been arrested on suspicion of murder, with two others have been arrested in relation to the shooting.
Former So Solid member Dwayne Vincent aka Megaman, has been cleared of murder after three trials. Vincent had been accused of inciting Carl Morgan, So Solid’s former producer, to murder Colin Scarlett in November 2004. Morgan shot Scarlett four times after Scarlett had beaten him up earlier that day. Morgan was convicted of murder last year and got a life sentence. Megaman’s case had seen two juries fail to reach a conclusion, but now he’s been cleared, the rapper said:
“I have finally been released from a system which has been designed to keep people behind bars whether they are innocent or guilty. I was an innocent man from the beginning – nothing has changed and nothing will ever change.”
Hailing from Aberdeen, The Needles are one of those bands that are preceded by swaths of justified hype. Support slots for Muse, Young Knives and Bloc Party to name but a few have made their name as a dynamic live act, building up a solid fan base before they’d even released an album.
They’ve been bubbling under since their 2004 EP releases sold out, and are now coming into their own with debut album ‘In Search Of The Needles’, a punky, raw and exciting debut, but still found a few minutes to talk to Crossfire about John’s pheromones, rickets, psychedelic windscreen wipers and of course, soup.
The Needles formed at school and have been together ever since – how did the name come about?
We were briefly known as The Invisibles, then The Subvisibles. We did songs about the comedian Frank Skinner on an Amiga computer. It wasn’t very good.
Who were your main influences growing up? Who were your musical heroes?
We’ve all always loved savage Rock’n’roll music be it Little Richard, AC/DC, or whatever reminds you of the existence of your reproductive organs, alongside great pop songs that are like the entire universe coming together in perfect harmonious, lyrical, mathematical order for 2 minutes and 45 seconds, if only to remind you you’ve been dumped. You know the ones.
Do you feel that growing up far away from the London music scene helped or hindered you? [The Needles were based in Aberdeen]
It perhaps meant our heads were filled with less silly rubbish, but then again we probably filled that space with all sorts of parochial nonsense about Londoners being full of silly rubbish.
I’d imagine we’re just as famous as we would have been anywhere with a ginger singer.
You were described by one journalist as sounding like Weezer covering The Buzzcocks, how would you describe your sound?
I always though we sounded like 50’s Cliff after a good bumming, or maybe a bad soup. But then I’m probably the wrong person to ask. Too involved!
Haha! Quote of the Week there! You’ve supported some impressive bands, what’s been your most memorable show so far? Muse must have been amazing!
Muse was good cause we got to go up a ramp to the stage wearing towels around our necks like Elvis.
We also made some Goths so angry they wrote into the internet to complain. Each of these in my book is a measure of success.
And in those love shows – you’re apparently somewhat injury prone? Explain!
The physical world simply isn’t built for our mental and emotional funkiness. End of.
The new record – where did you record it, who produced it?
We recorded “In Search Of the Needles” at Sawmills studio in Cornwall. It was produced between ourselves and Tom Joyce, the engineer down there who is a very rocking gentleman and is almost certainly going to Heaven after putting up with us whingeing, drunken man-children when he could have easily murdered us out there and nobody would have known.
Do you maintain artistic control in the studio? Has the end product ended up sounding exactly how you wanted? Who writes most of your material?
I think it took us a couple of sessions to get cookin’ I think. I think it helped massively that Tom really clicked with how we play as a band and knowing when we had it or didn’t. Although there’s a bit of experimentation sound-wise with backwards this and flanged that what makes the record sound like The Needles is The Needles playing how The Needles play. Ie not Pro-Toolsed to buggery like every damn record these days.
We recorded it over a year ago and I think it’s a good document of those songs at that time. I think the next record will be quite a bit different though. But there wouldn’t be any point in making a next record if it wasn’t would there?
What do you prefer – touring or being in the studio?
I’ll go wherever needs me most. I usually consult my Owls before deciding.
Where were you the first time you heard your single on the radio?
The first time I ever heard the Needles on the radio I was in the bath pretending I was on the telly.
What’s the best part of touring? And the worst?
Worst is hard to choose at the moment but it’s definitely somewhere between the impetigo and the rickets.
Best is, obviously, the good shows.
If you could change one things about yourselves, what would it be?
Either the impetigo or the rickets I thinks.
Many bands have random items on their rider – what’s on yours?
I’d love a nice soup and it’s not often we get one.
What are your hopes for the next 12 months?
To get to make another record and to bring about world peace with guitar solos and cloaks like in Bill and Teds.
What’s been your most memorable experience with the band so far?
Probably King Tut’s gig last week. It was a really good show and it was also last week so it’s easy to remember.
Who smells the worst after a show?
After the show we smell of pheromones which apparently is good. It’s the next day when the bacteria kicks in you’ve got to worry.
Probably John though.
What are 3 essential items to take on tour?
A nice jumper – you might have to stay with an elderly relative. Kaleidescope windscreen covers -turn the M25 into a psychelic thrill ride! These might be illegal, but not as illegal as drugs. A ham sandwich -You’d be surprised how hard these are to find in this day and age.
If you could be asked any question, what would it be?
Would the amount of crisps ever eaten in the world be less than, greater than or equal to what you feel at the exact point of death.
Finally…any words of wisdom for the readers of Crossfire?
Shut up you big weirdos!
For further info check out www.theneedles.net and www.myspace.com/needlesuk
‘In Search of The Needles’ is out NOW.
Dangermouse, the hottest property in music at the moment, has laid out plans for yet another new project. This time he will team up with Mark Linkous from Sparklehorse, having produced Sparklehorse’s new album.
Apparently the tentative title for the project is Dangerhorse though Dangermouse has said that any new stuff he does won’t get in the way of him working on a follow up to Gnarls Barkley’s St Elsewhere.
Blur’s bassist Alex James has decided he wants to get into making cheese. In his column for the Independent, he said loves cheese and as a result he wants to go into independent cheese making.
He followed up by claiming that his “heart always beats a little bit faster in the cheese aisle of a French supermarket. The Italians, too, eat more cheese than us, as do the Danes. Danish cheese is not as well known, but well worth exploring.”
And if that wasn’t enough, Marilyn Manson wants to set up his own line of absinthe and went further, saying he wants his brand ready for Christmas. The only problem with that is the fact that absinthe is illegal in the States. Oops.
The former Blur man will be releasing a double A side on October 23rd on 7″ vinyl and also via download.
The tracks are called What Ya Gonna Do Now? and Bloody Annoying and they will feature his new band for the first time.