New Saint Etienne single!

Hot on the heels on the "just inside the top 40" (aka scarping in at #36) success of their Side Streets single, Saint Etienne have apparently given given the go ahead from Sanctuary for a second single from the Tales From Turnpike House album.

As they put it on their official site: "Sanctuary have agreed that we can take another single from Tales From Turnpike House, with mixes. And other quality b-sides. Which will probably bankrupt them."

This is good news, as the Saint Etienne remix was sorely lacking from the last single, even though there were 4 b-sides.

C'mon feel the Lemonheads!

Today I got to work to some rather good news. The Lemonheads gig at the Shepherds Bush Empire has had an extra date added. Their 15 September date sold out before I'd even heard about it. Today I find out that they've added the 14th as well.

As part of the All Tomorrow's Parties series of "Don't Look Back" concerts, Evan Dando and co-horts are performing the It's A Shame About Ray album in it's 33 minute entirety. How cool is that? Very very cool.

I came to the Lemonheads late, too late to ever see them live in their heyday, so this opportunity has just put me on cloud nine.

Mozza label-less again

Morrissey seems to be labelless again.

According to rumours, he copped a strop when Sanctuary released a press statement saying he'd play this weekend's Isle of Wight festival. He won't, and apparently he won't be releasing anything else on Sanctuary either.

According to various sites, he's busy working on a new album and hasn't sacked his drummer. Of course, he's never welcome back to the Isle of Wight festival either.

For those counting, this makes five record labels for his last five albums, so I guess no one could be really surprised at this news.

Greatest Radio Station on earth

I've been a very happy Audioscrobbler for almost two years now, but it took until mid-March of this year to actually subscribe to the service, pledging a one-off payment of £2 to the cause.

Why oh why would I pay for something I've happily been using for free for over two years, you ask?

In a word - Last. Or more aptly Last.fm, Audioscrobbler's sister site that streams music to you night and day. As your Audioscrobbler plugin sends info to the servers about the music you listen to (as you listen to it), it gets collated and generates musical neighbours based on what you listen to.

If you don't pay-subscribe to Last.fm, you can listen to "profile stations" which are the musical preferences of these generated neighbours. The big problem here is that just because they also love Duran Duran and New Order, they also might love Bolt Thrower or Boyzone, thus disrupting your life with irritating tracks you don't like.

Solution? Pay-subscribe to Last.fm and all of a sudden you have the choice of listening to your own "personal radio station". This option takes tracks from your personal collection of fave tunes and tracks listened to and pumps them back at you. It's the greatest radio station on earth. Every track's a winner and there's no annoying DJ or advertising to listen to.

My only concern is some of the more obscure and Canadian stuff I listen to isn't represented. Oh well. You can't have everything, but you have most of it.

Link: My Last.fm page

Deluded Halliwell

Today's Metro had a wonderful interview with Ginger Spice, the completely self-deluded one.

Of interest, if that's a word is her assertion that she's the most "unmanufactured pop artist you could meet. It freaks people out when they meet me - they are very surprised by what a creative force I am in the studio." Um... yeah. So she actually sings the material other people write. Great.

The best part of the interview was when the interviewer asked "You issued a statement denying you were dropped by your label after malicious rumours appeared on the Internet. Why do you think people write things like that?," to which the waste of space replied, " I ignore it. I don't even talk about it because it feeds it. I just get on with what I do." So, issuing a statement is ignoring it, you dolt?

Why is this woman still allowed to release music?

Links: Metro interview

Let Sleeping Roses Lie

After thinly veiled "wouldn't it be nice if" remarks this week, it looks like the darlings of the Madchester scene, The Stone Roses, are getting back together.

If they'd split after their fantastic first album, this news could come with a huge amount of excitement. Likewise, if the seperate members hadn't attempted a solo career, this news would be viewed with a sense of anticipation.

As it is, I can't get any excitement out of this news. Certainly any kudos Ian Brown once had as a solo artist have waned, likewise John Squire and whatever hamfisted band he's cobbled around his once elegiac guitar playing.

The Roses were of a time and place. Manchester late 80s/early 90s. Nowhere is this more apparent than their 1994 Led Zeppelin tribute album which they plied as a second album. Gone was the scene that forged them as well as any of the feeling or inspiration that made the debut album one of the 20th century's standout rock albums.

Will their new stuff be any good? Doubtful, as the rock/guitar scene today is focused more on the 80s influenced art-rock scene like The Killers and Franz f***ing Ferdinand. Maybe they can kick start a new Madchester revival, but as a sceptic, I'm firmly entrenched in the "this is a horrible idea" camp until proven otherwise.

Of course, there's always the cash in argument, but that is WAY too obvious.

Link: Review of The Stone Roses

Amaz(on)ing freebies

I know this will come as no surprise to many, but surfing through the American Amazon site as I don't usually do, I happened upon an area called "free downloads" under the rather well hidden music menu.

Normally sites like this that feature freebies feature freebies noone has ever heard of or have them wrapped in so much DRM you can never listen to them. Kudos to Amazon that neither of these factors are true. On the front page of the downloads page today is an exclusive Moby b-side, a couple of new Aimee Mann tracks and a track off the Bloc Party album.

Further digging and I found two MP3s from VHS or Beta, a band who opened for Duran Duran recently in North America. Now whether Amazon planned this cunningly or not, having downloaded the two free MP3s, I now have to own as many VHS or Beta CDs as I can find. Damn you Amazon.

The one complaint I do have about the site is it's American-centric offerings. That said, it is the US site, so it can't really be helped.

I just don't know how they can offer over 200 free MP3s without any recompence from the record labels. However they did it, my hat is definitely off you Amazon.

Link: Amazon's Free Downloads