Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the families of George Harrison and John Lennon have lost their legal battle with Apple. They took the company to court saying that thanks to the introduction of iTunes, Apple had gone back on their agreement not to enter the music industry, because of the band’s label being called Apple.
However, the judge of the case said that Apple Computers used their logo with its shops, rather than the music itself and as such didn’t break any deal. The logos were also different, with The Beatles’ label being a full apple whereas the computer firm’s logo being an apple with a bite out of it.
This year’s Rise Festival, an anti-racism festival which is laid on for free, which this year takes place at Finsbury Park has added Graham Coxon and Sway to the bill. The festival will be on July 8th and will also feature The Buzzcocks, The Wailers and Roy Ayers.
A message to promoters: when putting on a show, try to remember to actually promote it. London soul-punk septet Jesse James can usually pack out the Underworld, but there has been very little advertising for tonight’s show, and hence the venue is barely half full.
Hellicar, Crago, Lewis Lloyd and Friends will be playing Cargo in London on May 15th as support for My Lastest Novel.
Atmospheric metal overlords Katatonia will release their new single ‘Deliberation‘ on May 15th through Peaceville Records.
The venue is reasonably empty for a Sold Out gig. Goths’ dressed to the nines huddled inwards to hear the unknown sound of The Ivories. As the not only drop dead gorgeous, but extremely talented drummer bangs hard on her drums, heads turn, and the front of the stage fills up with boys, and their camera phones, desperately waiting patiently to take a souvenir pic. The singers scuttle reminds me of The Kills or Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, and the music is reminiscent of early Siouxsie & The Banshees. In a nutshell, watch this band, they are on fire! Just like Giant Drag snuck in and took the world by storm, this almost (1 male bassist) girl band definitely have the makings of something great. I remember murmurings of their CD being launched in stores over the next week…
With Andrew as the only original band member, the new guitarist, and bassist, are rumored to be from Leeds…hence referrals to Leeds in some of the lyrics. As the newbie’s basque in the limelight, and ignore the screeching feedback, the crowd divides into 2 camps-bored!, and die hard’s! Not only could you not see anything(I was in the front!), but you could hardly hear any of the vocals. With Andrews voice being so close to the baseline you would expect the levels to accentuate his voice as much as possible-like their damn CDs. The backing vocals, and baseline were so much louder than the vocals, if you closed your eyes it was like being at an instrumental, with random shoutings of “hey now, hey now now now”? If that wasn’t confusing enough, the track “Temple Of Love” emerged out of I don’t-know-what-the-hell-just-happened?
Big Hand have announced some Scottish tour dates for all the fans north of the border. The group have been described as “Chuck Berry and Madness having a fight with Manu Chao trying to break it up, with the Chilli Peppers and a load of Eastern European folk musicians watching n’ cheering it on, all with a bottle of Jagermeister” and with a reputation like that, we don’t think you can go far wrong!
Grime artist Dizzee Rascal is going to speak at the Oxford Union next week, talking about his career, his life and what’s in store in his future.
Hey peeps! Its that special time of year…GUMBALL 3000! Woohoo! For those of you guys, that ain’t sure what Im bangin on about, it is an 8 day rally around the World! Mostly illegal, but over the past couple of years the police have warmed up, and been known to occasionally escort the Gumballers’ safely and speedily to their destinations.
Kool Keith’s aliases and unofficial materials are so vast that its hard to remember if he ever put out an official sequel to the brilliant Dr Octagon. Well, up until this point, he hasn’t, but come June 27th, The Return Of Dr Octagon will hit the streets and will blow everyone away no doubt.