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Eddie Van Halen Widdles Off To Rehab

by Stuart Heritage

2007 was meant to be Van Halen’s year. There was going to be a huge Van Halen reunion, a huge Van Halen induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and a huge Van Halen stadium tour where the band just played the intro to Jump for two hours.

And then Eddie Van Halen decided he was too wankered to do any of that malarkey and ran off to rehab instead. Eddie Van Halen’s rehab jaunt has put the final nail in the idea of any Van Halen reunion shows happening any time soon, and the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction will just be attended by Van Halen’s bassist and least-famous singer. So Eddie Van Halen’s rehab decision is pretty much a disaster, but thanks to news being the way it is it’s only the 17th-biggest rehab disaster of the week. The other 16 all belong to Britney Spears, naturally.

2007 was meant to be Van Halen's year. There was going to be a huge Van Halen reunion, a huge Van Halen induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and a huge Van Halen stadium tour where the band just played the intro to Jump for two hours. And then Eddie Van Halen decided he was too wankered to do any of that malarkey and ran off to rehab instead. Eddie Van Halen's rehab jaunt has put the final nail in the idea of any Van Halen reunion shows happening any time soon, and the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction will just be attended by Van Halen's bassist and least-famous singer. So Eddie Van Halen's rehab decision is pretty much a disaster, but thanks to news being the way it is it's only the 17th-biggest rehab disaster of the week. The other 16 all belong to Britney Spears, naturally.
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Genesis Reunion: Now No Longer Just To Annoy Europeans

by Stuart Heritage

It’s a scientifically-proven fact that every broken-up band in the world will reunite this year. Highlights will include The Police, Crowded House and Paul McCartney And The Half-Zombie Beatle Allstars – but one non-highlight will be the Genesis reunion.

Phil Collins and Genesis were amongst the first charge of tatty old money-grabbing bands who realised they could coin it in by playing the hits in some European sports arenas for a couple of months. Although the last few months have seen bigger bands reform to greater acclaim, the idea of watching Phil Collins pound out a 16-hour drum solo in the middle of an interminable I Can’t Dance/ You’re No Son Of Mine medley still wakes us up screaming in the middle of the night. And Americans have no reason to be smug about it any more either – because Phil Collins has announced that the Genesis reunion is hitting the US too

It's a scientifically-proven fact that every broken-up band in the world will reunite this year. Highlights will include The Police, Crowded House and Paul McCartney And The Half-Zombie Beatle Allstars - but one non-highlight will be the Genesis reunion. Phil Collins and Genesis were amongst the first charge of tatty old money-grabbing bands who realised they could coin it in by playing the hits in some European sports arenas for a couple of months. Although the last few months have seen bigger bands reform to greater acclaim, the idea of watching Phil Collins pound out a 16-hour drum solo in the middle of an interminable I Can't Dance/ You're No Son Of Mine medley still wakes us up screaming in the middle of the night. And Americans have no reason to be smug about it any more either - because Phil Collins has announced that the Genesis reunion is hitting the US too
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Timbaland Wants To Save Britney Spears With Blippy Music

by Stuart Heritage

Everyone’s been so busy watching Britney Spears slowly unspool over the last few weeks that one question seems to have been lost in all the hubbub: just who the hell is ever going to want to buy a piece of music by Britney Spears ever again?

Even if Britney Spears lets her hair grow back, calms down a bit and stops telling people that she thinks she’s the devil, she’s got a long way to go to restore her reputation in the eyes of her once-adoring fans. But super producer Timbaland seems to think he’s the man to save Britney Spears – and he could be right. After all, we’ve lost count of the number of bald young women with suicidal tendencies that have been rescued by being made to sing Nelly Furtado cast-offs.

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MySpace Bleep Bleep Tour: See Bands & Win Prizes

by Stuart Heritage

Ever since as long as we can remember – OK, since the middle of last June – we’ve used our MySpace Trawl feature to crack open a band with a MySpace profile and write about what we find; but what if you wrote about some MySpace bands, and won stuff for it?

Well guess what? Now you can – to some extent – by going to see a show on the MySpace Bleep Bleep Tour. The MySpace Bleep Bleep Tour is made up of big indie breakthrough band Pull Tiger Tail, ketamine funk fiend Ali Love, 13,000-friended Hadouken! and I Say Marvin, who are Cornish – and it’s set to start bombing around the country from this weekend. The MySpace Bleep Bleep Tour is good and you should go.

And if you do go to see the MySpace Bleep Bleep Tour, you have the chance to write your own reviews of the shows and win a bunch of goodies. We’d tell you more about the MySpace Bleep Bleep Tour – and give you the tour dates – but it’d be much easier if you just visited the Live In The UK MySpace page and sodding well did it yourselves.

Ever since as long as we can remember - OK, since the middle of last June - we've used our MySpace Trawl feature to crack open a band with a MySpace profile and write about what we find; but what if you wrote about some MySpace bands, and won stuff for it? Well guess what? Now you can - to some extent - by going to see a show on the MySpace Bleep Bleep Tour. The MySpace Bleep Bleep Tour is made up of big indie breakthrough band Pull Tiger Tail, ketamine funk fiend Ali Love, 13,000-friended Hadouken! and I Say Marvin, who are Cornish - and it's set to start bombing around the country from this weekend. The MySpace Bleep Bleep Tour is good and you should go. And if you do go to see the MySpace Bleep Bleep Tour, you have the chance to write your own reviews of the shows and win a bunch of goodies. We'd tell you more about the MySpace Bleep Bleep Tour - and give you the tour dates - but it'd be much easier if you just visited the Live In The UK MySpace page and sodding well did it yourselves.
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Joss Stone Booed At Gig For Being Barmy

by Stuart Heritage

We’ve never paid much attention to Joss Stone here – yokels with rubbish hair shouting Aretha Franklin songs have never been our cup of tea, really – but that was before Joss Stone turned into a berserko nutjob who apparently lives on the moon.

After all, it was Joss Stone who single-handedly stole the show at The Brit Awards this year by launching into a confused monologue in a broad American accent about what Russell Brand would be like if he was discussing Robbie Williams’ recent rehab stint with Amy Winehouse using only the medium of ridiculous singing – and it’s looking alarmingly like Joss Stone’s behaviour at The Brits wasn’t a one-time thing, either. At a comeback gig in London on Tuesday night, Joss Stone was reportedly booed by the crowd after she turned up an hour late and then complained about being famous instead of singing songs.

We've never paid much attention to Joss Stone here - yokels with rubbish hair shouting Aretha Franklin songs have never been our cup of tea, really - but that was before Joss Stone turned into a berserko nutjob who apparently lives on the moon. After all, it was Joss Stone who single-handedly stole the show at The Brit Awards this year by launching into a confused monologue in a broad American accent about what Russell Brand would be like if he was discussing Robbie Williams' recent rehab stint with Amy Winehouse using only the medium of ridiculous singing - and it's looking alarmingly like Joss Stone's behaviour at The Brits wasn't a one-time thing, either. At a comeback gig in London on Tuesday night, Joss Stone was reportedly booed by the crowd after she turned up an hour late and then complained about being famous instead of singing songs.
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All Saints Finally Dropped For Being Rubbish & Unpopular

by Stuart Heritage

Newton’s Third Law says that every action has an equal and opposite reaction; so when Take That reunited to become the UK’s favourite middle-aged boyband, it was inevitable that another reunited group would fail miserably – that’d be All Saints.

It has been announced that grouchy combat-wearing 1990s girlgroup All Saints have been dropped by record label Parlophone after their last single Chick Fit didn’t even make the top 200. Social commentators are expressing their dismal at the outright failure of All Saints’ comeback, noting that they didn’t even get to make a bastard awful naked crime thriller directed by Dave Stewart that nobody wants to see this time around.

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Self-Important Bono To Edit Self-Important Magazine

by C J Davies

Dragging in a guest editor can really liven things up sometimes.

Why, only the other week we decided to open up the hecklerspray office doors and give ‘hilarious’ comedian Russell Brand the chance to run things. We had to stop after a couple of hours, though .. roundabout the point when we noticed that a) he spent too much time staring at his reflection in the computer monitor, teasing his hair into a pseudo-ironic sculpture and b) the only stuff he was writing was the word ‘ballbag’ over and over, laughing to himself as though he thought this was the epitome of postmodern wit.

So we shot him.

We can only hope that Vanity Fair’s upcoming experiment works out a little better. Why, you frenziedly scream? Because they’ve only gone and dragged in Irish rockstar Bono to take on editor-duties, that’s why.

Dragging in a guest editor can really liven things up sometimes. Why, only the other week we decided to open up the hecklerspray office doors and give 'hilarious' comedian Russell Brand the chance to run things. We had to stop after a couple of hours, though .. roundabout the point when we noticed that a) he spent too much time staring at his reflection in the computer monitor, teasing his hair into a pseudo-ironic sculpture and b) the only stuff he was writing was the word 'ballbag' over and over, laughing to himself as though he thought this was the epitome of postmodern wit. So we shot him. We can only hope that Vanity Fair's upcoming experiment works out a little better. Why, you frenziedly scream? Because they've only gone and dragged in Irish rockstar Bono to take on editor-duties, that's why.
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Jared Leto Smashes His Nose Up For His Crappy Band

by Stuart Heritage

The world is full of dreadful vanity projects – think Rudebox, Sting’s useless lute album or anything starring Ben Affleck – but possibly the worst of the lot is 30 Seconds To Mars, Jared Leto’s band; but the world knows this, and it wants them destroyed.

But even though 30 Seconds To Mars are so bad that we have to start smashing in our teeth with hammers the moment we hear one of their songs just to replace the bad noise with something else, it doesn’t mean that Jared Leto doesn’t suffer for his art. At a recent 30 Seconds To Mars show, for example, Jared Leto attempted to do a Bono-style walk through the audience to ‘connect’ with his ‘people’ or ‘something’ and ended up in hospital with his nose splattered all across his face.

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Old Cowboy George Strait Gets Some ACM Nominations

by Stuart Heritage

Country And Western music seems to be all the rage at the moment, what with the influx of country-influenced American Idol finalists and the newly-rediscovered sport of running over animals in a truck and then cooking them up for dinner and all.

And – apart from Whistlin’ Jeb Tenderfoot’s Bi-Weekly Banjoganza – there’s no greater place to celebrate country music than at the Academy Of Country Music Awards, where just about every country singer you can think of turns up in their smartest pair of dungarees to shoot pistols in the air and drink moonshine every time an award is given out. The nominations for this year’s ACM awards have recently been announced, and it looks like it’ll be a good year for George Strait; a middle-aged cowboy who we’ve never heard of, and – since he once recorded a song called Honk If You Honky Tonk – we’re not especially keen to, either.

Country And Western music seems to be all the rage at the moment, what with the influx of country-influenced American Idol finalists and the newly-rediscovered sport of running over animals in a truck and then cooking them up for dinner and all. And - apart from Whistlin' Jeb Tenderfoot's Bi-Weekly Banjoganza - there's no greater place to celebrate country music than at the Academy Of Country Music Awards, where just about every country singer you can think of turns up in their smartest pair of dungarees to shoot pistols in the air and drink moonshine every time an award is given out. The nominations for this year's ACM awards have recently been announced, and it looks like it'll be a good year for George Strait; a middle-aged cowboy who we've never heard of, and - since he once recorded a song called Honk If You Honky Tonk - we're not especially keen to, either.
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George Michael Gets To Play Wembley Before Anyone Else

by Stuart Heritage

Admit it – the construction of the new Wembley Stadium has taken so long that you figured the first act to play there would be some giant genetically-mutated spider monkeys celebrating their violent colonisation of the Earth in the year nine billion AD.

But tough shit if that’s what you thought – the real truth is far, far more terrifying. Instead of the spider monkey thing, the first act to play the new Wembley Stadium has been announced, and it’s George Michael. Now, we’re fully aware that George Michael seeing in Wembley Stadium is both dreary and upsetting, but it makes good logistic sense – after all, Wembley is just a short drive from George Michael’s house. Well, a short drive, three different unconscious slumping pit-stops and a time-out to wank off a man in a shrub, but who’s counting?

Admit it - the construction of the new Wembley Stadium has taken so long that you figured the first act to play there would be some giant genetically-mutated spider monkeys celebrating their violent colonisation of the Earth in the year nine billion AD. But tough shit if that's what you thought - the real truth is far, far more terrifying. Instead of the spider monkey thing, the first act to play the new Wembley Stadium has been announced, and it's George Michael. Now, we're fully aware that George Michael seeing in Wembley Stadium is both dreary and upsetting, but it makes good logistic sense - after all, Wembley is just a short drive from George Michael's house. Well, a short drive, three different unconscious slumping pit-stops and a time-out to wank off a man in a shrub, but who's counting?
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