| CMU Daily - on the inside 29 May 2003 |
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In today's CMU Daily:
• Sonic Mook Experiment tour and festival
• More set to download as broadband proliferates
• Review: K-Os - Exit
• Drugs claim another star
• New research shows up Rajars as inaccurate
• More kids for McCartney
• Wogan and Roslin to front Evans' new show
• Jemini not as shit as previously imagined
• Bono is screaming prima donna
• Live review: T. Kolai album launch live at Cargo
• Jackass star fined and released
• Lavigne song to become feature film
• Review: Various - Darren Emerson & Mutiny Present Underwater Episode 2
• Expect hard, driving and poppy from Queens Of Stone Age
• Various - All Time Classic Rock 'N' Roll Tearjerkers (Warner)
• Timberlake on the big screen
• Norwich Pop Underground Convention
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SONIC MOOK EXPERIMENT TOUR AND FESTIVAL
Sonic Mook Experiment are set to host their own three day festival at Kings Cross's new Egg venue on 12-14 Jun. The 'Hot Shit' event will feature performances from new Warp signings !!! (pronounced Chk Chk Chk) as well as Crack Village, Richard Fearless (Death In Vegas) and Dan Themroc Pepe amongst others. The festival aims to promote Sonic Mook's third compilation, 'Hot Shit' due for release 23 Jun, and features cuts from the aforementioned !!!, Pink Grease and Radio 4. The festival is part of a Sonic Mook Experiment Tour starting in Manchester on 11 Jun.
Tour dates:
11 Jun: Roundhouse, Manchester
12 Jun: Barfly, Glasgow
13 Jun: Rescue Rooms, Notts
14 Jun: Egg Club, London
17 Jun: Prater, Berlin
19 Jun: Nouveau Casino, Paris
21 Jun: Concorde II, Brighton
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MORE SET TO DOWNLOAD AS BROADBAND PROLIFERATES
In their 2003 Youth Market Survey of American teens, research firm The Yankee Group have found that 30% of teenagers who don't currently download music say that connection speed is the main reason why they abstain. Only 20% say illegality is the main reason.
The group's Tom Gramaglia said: "Our recent survey suggests that peer-to-peer file sharing, using software programs such as KaZaa and Morpheus, will increase substantially as the 'speed barrier' diminishes. This is mixed news for the new online music firms such as the iTunes Music Store. Their market opportunity will certainly benefit as broadband penetration overtakes dial-up within the next five years, but competition with free services also will increase."
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REVIEW: K-Os - Exit (Virgin/EMI)
There's very little that Kevin Brereton doesn't do: he's a singer/songwriter/producer/MC/philosophy (small p) student. While various indie/rock acts use sampled beats; here is a hiphop artist un-afraid of using only a voice and an acoustic guitar. With conscious rhymes and soaring sweet vocals K-Os takes a journey through a number of styles: from contemporary hiphop to analogue soul and spoken word. You can't possibly get bored of this LP, every time you listen to it you get something new. This is progressive hiphop songwriting and production at it's absolute best. Watch the polymath. JG
Release date: 26 May
Press Contact: Virgin [CP, CR, RR, NR] APB [RP, NP]
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DRUGS CLAIM ANOTHER STAR
It was confirmed that Jeremy Michael Ward, keyboardist with The Mars Volta (one of the bands formed by former At The Drive In members) died on 25 May, apparently from a drug overdose. Their label Gold Standard Labs told reporters: "Ward was found dead in his Los Angeles home by his roommate on Sunday evening. The cause of death has yet to be determined pending autopsy. Band members, family, and friends of the Mars Volta were shocked and saddened to hear of the passing of band member Jeremy Ward."
The Mars Volta had just returned to LA from supporting the Red Hot Chili Peppers. The band were down to start touring on 2 Jun, with their debut album 'De-Loused in the Comatorium' due for US release on 24 Jun on Universal.
In a statement the other members of the Mars Volta said: "We have collaborated with Jeremy for the past 10 years. He was an integral part of the Mars Volta, who often went unnoticed because he chose to perform offstage. We are devastated by the loss, but know that Jeremy will continue to be with us in spirit at every show and during the making of every record."
In addition to his work with the Mars Volta, Ward also released one album, "Megaton Shotblast" with Defacto in July 2001, also through Gold Standard Labs.
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NEW RESEARCH SHOWS UP RAJARS AS INACCURATE
The first set of TV and radio listening figures have been released by market research firm GfK, who, as previously reported, are using small wrist based receivers that monitors what the people taking part in the survey are listening to or watching. And they may well mean a bit of reassessment on who is listening to and watching what.
For example, while the traditional radio stats from Rajar showed Radio 4 as having 10m listeners in its last quarterly report, the new research shows the station as having 17.9m. Radio 2 have 12.2 million, rather than the 13.2m according to Rajar. And good news for TalkSport - one of the strongest advocates of the new research method. This research shows a listenership of 8.1m, compared to the 2.2m listeners RAJAR gave them.
GFK also revealed that Sky News and Sky Sports 2 has a viewership more than double previously cited - 16.5m and 8.9m respectively (though the first period of the research was during the war when all news channel viewing was up).
Of course critics will argue the new method has its own limitations. Aside from questions about the reliability of the technology (which can only tell what media someone is near, not what they are proactively consuming), all current ratings methods rely on very small sample groups and some questionable maths.
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MORE KIDS FOR MCCARTNEY
Paul McCartney and his new wife Heather Mills are expecting a blessed occasion. Heather is pregnant with the couple's first child, a spokesman for the couple added that they "are delighted with this happy news."
The 34-year-old former model married McCartney in Jun 2002, and only three months ago said in interview that she feared she would never children because of a series of health problems, including cancer and two ectopic pregnancies.
While McCartney, 60, has three adult children, Stella, Mary and James, and a stepdaughter, from his marriage to first wife, Linda, the child will be the first for Mills who was married briefly in 1989.
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WOGAN AND ROSLIN TO FRONT EVANS' NEW SHOW
Chris Evans has told the Guardian that if his new daytime show for Five is unpopular, he'll sack off telly and become a market trader.
Named after its hosts Terry Wogan and Gaby Roslin, 'The Terry and Gaby Show', begins a 200-episode run on Monday. The show will be Evans' third since his TV comeback last year. Evans' ' Boys and Girls' show for C4 flopped miserably, but Evans said: "We can't go wrong. If we mess this one up we'll have to go and set up a market stall somewhere."
"I don't think Terry or Gaby have been given the offers they want or the respect they deserve from the other channels. Terry is one of the most famous voices on the BBC and he wasn't even approached to be part of their coverage of the golden jubilee. I don't get that."
"The two of them present the biggest television telethon we've got and not to make any more out of that is a bit silly. People say, 'who decided to put Terry and Gaby together', but it was there to be done - anyone could have done it."
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JEMINI NOT AS SHIT AS PREVIOUSLY IMAGINED
Talking of Wogan, the Radio 2 presenter and long term Eurovision host has been getting his claws into the Contest following the UK's dismal performance last weekend. He said the Song For Europe contest (the UK bit where we select our entry) was full of poor tunes, and that we should be accessing the UK song writing elite like Elton John or Tim Rice to write us a Eurovision winner.
Blaming Jemini's failure to rack up one point on the bad song and anti-British voting, Wogan said: "We should get Rice or Elton to write four songs then pick the singer. Then Radio 2 listeners or other people with taste would pick the best song from the four. Nobody would lose face if it didn't win and I think it would be certain to ensure a higher standard of entry."
Following yesterdays reports that Jemini couldn't shift their single 'Cry Baby' anywhere but in Liverpool - there now seems to have been a sudden boom in sales. After the end of Monday it wasn't even making the Top 20, but their post-Eurovision media rampage has prompted enough sales to see the track vie for a spot in the top ten.
"Doing loads of publicity on the back of their Eurovision disaster seems to be paying off," an HMV spokesman told reporters: "Jemini could make the Top 10 this Sunday - even if it is for all the wrong reasons."
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BONO IS SCREAMING PRIMA DONNA
Get this - Bono has splashed out a grand to fly his hat to Italy. The U2 singer forgot his favourite hat for Pavarotti's charity event in Modena and spent £1,000 to have the trilby flown over first class. A cab took the hat to Gatwick from West London, (£100); stewards then put it on the 13.40 BA flight to Bologna, (£442). Even though it had its own first class seat, flight attendants were concerned it would go missing or get squashed so they moved it into the cockpit, and finally a hired driver sped to Modena (£150). "Including £200 insurance and tips, he spent about £1,000 flying it out," an insider told the Sun, "but that's nothing compared to the amount he'll have raised on the night."
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LIVE REVIEW: T. Kolai Album Launch live at Suburb, Cargo
A packed Cargo was finally beginning to groove to DJ Patrick Rollercone's funky strains of house, before they pulled the plug on him at around midnight, for the showcase of Chillifunk Records' new signing from the US - T.Kolai: Taha 'T' Elroubi and Nicolas 'Kolai' Leget, with Mustafa Akbar on vocals and Leget on sax and flute. Live dance music often falls flat on its face, and often never lives up to the studio sound but the Kolai boys reversed this trend with ease. With Akbar's booming vocals on 'Most High' and a harder dance edge with 'One Another' the tracks come over tighter than the album versions. 'Never Let it Go' (not on the album) took us into 4/4 with Akbar MCing, and the Cargoeans lapped it up. The awesome afrobeat in 'Zouk' had a more carnival feel - definitely a winner from the album, with Mustapha beginning to whip the crowd up from the stage, swinging around to that crisp latin guitar riff. Then Taha stepped up to do some DJing, followed by Chillifunk co-head honcho Lofty, choosing some deeper cuts of soulful house. An ultra short sweet set. And where was 'Exodus'? The best track on the whole album. 'Teak All Eye' is released 16th June, and is worth checking. PV
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JACKASS STAR FINED AND RELEASED
Jackass's Steve-O has been fined and released from prison in Sweden after pleading guilty to possession of drugs. Johnny Knoxville's fellow lunatic was arrested on suspicion of smuggling drugs, after he said in interviews that he swallowed a condom full of marijuana before travelling from Norway to Sweden last week.
Police detained Steve-O, who is currently on the European leg of the 'Don't Try This At Home' tour, after they raided his hotel room last week. In court he successfully appealed against the order to be detained in the city until 6 Jun, on the grounds that he wouldn't be able to making his living.
On Tuesday he pleaded guilty to possessing five grams of marijuana and an ecstasy tablet, though he claimed that he know how the pill came to be in his room. Steve-O is continuing his tour having paid the £3,500 fine.
Detained in solitary confinement for five days, the police collected Steve-O's excrement and went through it with a fine toothcomb. In court he made reference to the specimen collection through his interpreter standing before the judge, that anything which had police digging through his faeces was "hilarious."
His spokesperson said that his comments were unappreciated by the court, but the jailers told his lawyer that he kept them laughing and remained cheerful throughout his detention.
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LAVIGNE SONG TO BECOME FEATURE FILM
Writer and producer of 'ER' David Zabel is set to turn Avril Lavinge's track 'Sk8er Boi' into a feature film about a failed love across (sub)cultural boundaries. Expected to be in the same vein as 'Flashdance' and 'Footloose' the songwriting team - Scott Spock, Lauren Christy and Graham Edwards (The Matrix) - who co-wrote the track with Lavigne, will act as consultants on the screenplay. Reports on the Reuters website state that the Paramount Pictures film will focus on two teenagers from different backgrounds and the social constraints in which they find themselves.
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REVIEW: Various - Darren Emerson & Mutiny present Underwater Episode 2 (Underwater)
Darren Emerson may be the big boy label owner, and although his mix is very cool and low key, he is shown up just a tad by South Londoners Mutiny in this 2 CD house work-out. Emerson's CD1 features tracks from Gusgus ('Call of the Wild'), Tim Deluxe ('Less Talk More Action') and the Random House Project featuring vocal legend Robert Owens ('Longing'), but Mutiny really don't mess about with waffty tunes, it's straight in there with some funky house action: 'Piano Thing' from Planets, 'Where You At?' by Derek Carter and their own 'Jack U' and 'Drums' cuts. All in all, this a great mix, with the icing being the underdogs. JG
Release date: 26 May
Press Contact: East 22nd [CP, RP, NP] Anglo [CR, RR, NR]
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EXPECT HARD, DRIVING AND POPPY FROM QUEENS OF STONE AGE
Queens of the Stone Age are set to hit the studio to record a number of the 25 songs written by guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen, singer Mark Lanegan and new drummer Joey Castillo for the follow-up to last year's 'Songs For The Deaf'.
The band's bassist Nick Oliveri told reporters: "There's all kinds of guitar-heavy stuff that's similar to 1998's 'Queens of the Stone Age', and some more melodic, poppy stuff with hooks and choruses like 2000's '(Rated) R', and stuff that's hard, hard, hard and driving like 'Six Shooter' from 'Songs for the Deaf'. Plus there'll be unexpected stuff: we're always trying to experiment with new things so we never end up making the same record twice."
"We've finally found players that want to stay and we want them to. We haven't had that before. It wasn't that we wanted it to be two or three people, it was that we hadn't found the right people until now."
The Queens have revealed that they will not be giving anyone a sneak preview of any forthcoming tracks at festivals this summer: "We just don't want to burn out on them... We're not even rehearsing the new songs, because if we start rehearsing then we're gonna be playing them live. And by the time we go to record them, we'll already be tired of them."
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Various - All Time Classic Rock 'n' Roll Tearjerkers (Warner)
Compilations often come across as a bit naff, but if you take a closer look at a select few, you'll discover that they're not all absolutely-cringeworthily-awful, as 'All Time Classic Rock 'n' Roll Tearjerkers' proves. This double album is compromised of 40 ballads from the 50's, 60's and 70's; and features timeless artists such as Buddy Holly, Patsy Cline and The Everly Brothers. It boasts such sing-a-long classics as 'A Teenager in Love', 'Poetry in Motion' and 'Oh! Carol', but also includes some real tearjerkers such as Roy Orbison's 'Crying' and Ketty Lester's 'Love Letters.' It features old favourites, 'It's My Party' and 'Blue Velvet'; as well as the oldie versions of 'Rhythm of The Rain', 'Tears on My Pillow', and 'Unchained Melody' before they were cheesed up in epic proportions during the last two decades (by Jason Donovan, Kylie and Robson and Jerome/ Gareth Gates, respectively.) With cutesy lines like 'Zing! Went the Strings of my Heart!' you'll either completely love or loathe this one. But if loved up, ye oldie ballads are your cup of tea then get ready for a collection of songs that sound so good you'll want to listen to them again and again whether or not Cupid's gotcha smitten. MY
Released: 9 Jun
Press Contact: PPR
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TIMBERLAKE ON THE BIG SCREEN
Justin Timberlake is already busy with his summer tour and has pencilled in a reunion with NSYNC, but having read a number of scripts hasn't ruled out moving to movies.
JT: "Honestly, I think that transition will be made at some point, I'm just not exactly sure when. Just being onstage and being an entertainer you get the bug, you wonder how you'd be onscreen ... but until the right project comes along I won't make that step. I won't do a movie just so when I'm old I can say, 'Hey, remember when I did a movie?' I'd rather it be something that I believed in and something that I felt passionate about."
"I try not to look too far ahead. I think it's important to not forget those steps up the ladder that you have to take to get to a certain point. That's the beauty of being an artist - you just go where the inspiration lies. You can't put a finger on it and you never know what's going to work. You just have to go with how you feel."
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NORWICH POP UNDERGROUND CONVENTION 13-16 JUN
Metal Queen Projects is set to launch the first Norwich Pop Underground Convention running from 13 June to 16 June. The event will feature over 30 live acts from lo-fi guitar pop to hi-fi electronica, and be hosted in six of Norwich's art-centric venues.
An event spokesperson said: "One of the event's aims is to showcase Norwich and East Anglian talent. Norwich has a strong underground lo-fi guitar pop community and a growing number of live electronica/laptop acts. The event has been put together with a lot of kindness and hard work; no sponsorship - but a lot of running around, general begging and lots of email activity. We're not expecting it to make money; we just hope it will be a lot of fun."
Playing will be local stars Magoo, Bearsuit and Hyper Kinako amongst others - all of whom have recorded sessions for John Peel. Also performing will be Norwih non-natives Garlic, Slowloris, Mountain Men Anonymous, The Telescopes, Printed Circuit, Utab and Los Planetos Del Agua.
Events over the four days will include an afternoon acoustic session in Norwich Arts Centre bar (14 Jun), a three-floor party with 10 live acts at Kafe Da (14 Jun), an electro-picnic in the bar and on the terrace of Norwich Playhouse (15 Jun) and The Biggest Raffle You Ever Saw - where people can win one items donated by everyone performing. "The aim has been to keep tickets as low-cost as possible - three of the six events are completely free."
For more information go to http://npuc.mqprojects.co.uk