Glastonbury are hoping to increase the number of people at the 2007 event by 20,000 to 173,000. This would mean 10,000 more tickets for festival go-ers and 10,000 more staff and backstage crew. Melvin Benn, the Operations Manager, said that although the festival is taking a year of this year, it’s going to return with it’s biggest year ever. Michael Eavis has confirmed this, saying neighbouring fields will be able to accommodate the larger number of people.
However, everything depends on the District Council who would need to approve any increase and they claim they have not had any information from the festival organisers as yet. Watch this field…er…space.
Reading that a label was on Def Jux used to guarantee brilliant out put and a hot live show. Lately however, the label’s releases have been increasingly disappointing, so at least it’s a good sign that they tried something that sounds a little different with Cool Calm Pete. However, as quirky and fun as his album Lost may be, he really needs to work on his live show.
The legendary Lemonheads are back with a bang, signing a new record deal with Vagrant Records. Evan Dando’s band will reportedly release their new album later this year, ten years after the last studio album they put out.
A new festival, put together by Mean Fiddler [who look after Reading and Leeds and Glastonbury], is to debut this summer.
A fracas at Heathrow Airport involved Snoop Dogg and his entourage ended in arrest on Wednesday. The group were told they weren’t allowed to board their flight, to perform in South Africa, and they “became abusive and pushed officers” which reportedly left seven police officers with minor injuries.
Stanley Donwood, who became widely long thanks to his work on the album and poster art for Radiohead will launch his own show for a month at the Lazarides Gallery in Greek Street, London, on May 19th. His work on The Bends was loved and his album cover for the limited edition of Amnesiac won a Grammy for Best Recording Package.
Exeter’s Thousand Natural Shocks are coming out with a double A side single [released on June 12th] and tour. The record, Under The Sun b/w Attack is the band’s debut and has been described by Dan from the band as ‘essentially new wave with a bit of an art-rock thing going on, played with the energy of punk. But there’s also a big emphasis on making it dance, big beat and fast funk based. We all like a bit of a rave!’
Coldcut are back in a big way, with the single True Skool which features the ever lovable and utterly distinctive tones of Roots Manuva providing the lyrical content. The eastern tabla beat pounds away under a catchy-as-hell vocal sample as Rootsva tells you to “stamp your footsie” and “wiggle your tootsie”, you can’t really go wrong with words like that now can you?
Hardcore punk yobs Fucked Up made it over to the UK for the first time last week and successfully showed all the pretenders how real hardcore should be done, pulling of a show of brutal violence that saw blood flowing from foreheads and a nasty smell of violence in the air.
Annihilation Time are pure filth. There’s no better way to describe them. Mixing howling super-charged Black Flag inspired hardcore with a decidedly dirty rock n’roll edge, imagine Thin Lizzy and Deep Purple played with the intensity of hardcore and you’ll be some way to understanding what this killer band are all about.