With their new album, Nude With Boots, out next Monday (7^th July), the Melvins have uploaded ‘Kicking Machine’ to their myspazz page.

And masters of doing covers in a comedic pop-punk style, Me First & The Gimme Gimme’s have uploaded their entire new album (also out next Monday), ‘Have Another Ball’, to their myspazz page.

The songs, including hits by Simon & Garfunkel, Di(a)no Ross, Neil Diamond, Jimmy Cliff, Elton John, and a few others, were recorded at the same time as their debut ‘Have A Ball’ way back in 1997. It’s a sequel, I guess.

I done wroted a story of fear and horror over at my friend Toby’s blog: My Life With Flying Machines.

But, unlike Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Saul Williams, The Levellers, The Offspring, et al. I guess Gene Simmons has never really come across as being interested in music, only how to make money on the back of it. If there was every a person who was saddened by the demise of an extremely-backwards industry, I guess it would be Mr Simmons.

The first series of RockSchool was pretty good, though. Strangely compelling viewing: even if it was a peculiar form of self-inflicted torture.

It’s too long since I posted something, I guess.

I went to see Japanese noise masters Melt-Banana last night, reviewing for Terrorizer: my brain is still frying. Possibly one of the best gigs I’ve seen, I think. Everything played faster than the speed of light, tighter than a gnat’s arsehole. Seriously good shizzle.

Rancid are touring the UK in November, if that counts as anything exciting. I can’t decide if I want to see them again or not. They were one of my favourite bands, and unquestionably deserve a decent sized paragraph in the book of American punk, but Tim Armstrong is embarrassing to watch one stage, he doesn’t even sing that much. He just poses. It’s annoying.

Devo, THE masters of quirky new wavery, are suing McDonalds. Why?

“McDonald’s [is offering] American Idol TV show themed toys in their children’s Happy Meals. One of the toys is named “New Wave Nigel”, who sports an orange jumpsuit, punk shades, and an unmistakable DEVO Energy Dome. Flipping a switch plays a DEVO-esque song (which sounds a bit like a mutated version of DEVO’s Doctor Detroit.)”

Well, suing McDonalds is probably a worthwhile persuit, but if you’ve actually got a reason: why, that’s even better! Go DEVO!

New music, you say? Erm … I’ve just been wondering if I should spend £60 on various versions of the new Metallica album, because - and, I know I’m going out on a limb out here - but MissionMetallica.com’s little clips: some of the music sounds pretty damn good. We’ll see … vote by comenting.

 ”Pennsylvanian quartet INNERPARTYSYSTEM are proud to be the first band ever to have their debut UK single pressed onto a seven-inch single made entirely from dark chocolate and limited to only 100 copies. Featuring their forthcoming single ‘Don’t Stop’, released June 30^th, if kept cool enough the record does actually play as the grooves are cut into the chocolate, allowing it to play like a normal, if slightly crackly, vinyl single. We kid you not. It might not sound as good as regular vinyl but it sure tastes better and it’s far easier to swallow.”

How ace is that? That’s so cool!

But what they should’ve really done is pressed it into different types of chocolate - dark, milk, white, etc.

I have no idea what they sound like, but I want one of these pieces of chocolates to forever keep in a fridge. Well done of Innerpartysystem. Fucking genius!

Whilst we were missing, the mighty Melvins had a track unveiled on the site Pitchfork Media. It’s the title track and a song of epic proportions, and whilst at first I wasn’t sure about the positive vibe on it, I’m now moist with excitement in a way only a horny dog can be.

Check it here: Nude With Boots

In other news, Coldplay currently have the number one album here in the UK, mainly, one might feel, due to the unavoidable press campaign that even includes an iPod advert. Lord, save us from their dreary bullshit.

For some reason, the BBC are treating it like the return of a deity, with a concert and headline news of Chris Martin walking out of a Radio4 interview. What they were doing on Radio4 is beyond me – Coldplay are less challenging than the Archers, and far less interesting than the talking clock.

Generally, the most offensive thing about this whole mountain of marketing bullshit is that the genre ‘rock’ is being used to describe Coldplay. Not the more accurate ‘absolute shite’.

But, I’ll be fair – they really do have an impressive marketing machine.

Shhh! Today, we’re in the presence of Wildlife – a Seattle based band, who produce ethereal-ish almost-drone prog with the odd element of violence; and their myspace has a penis chandelier for the background which is, frankly, amazing. Huzzah for Wildlife! 

In another plane of existence, there’s a big global plan to release a compilation on July 4, promoting the contribution to music that independent record labels have made. Each country which gets an album gets on unique to their country.
Pretty cool, hey? There’s a five part series on it, too. Sadly, I’m betting that the series will focus on the mainstream history of it and completely ignore the punk rock/heavy metal sides of things. There will be a lot about Factory, a lot about Island (because it was one of the first), Rough Trade (terrible record shop, by the way. Horrible place.), etc. Golden boys amongst all indies, certainly. But what about the sub-culture world that battles on and doesn’t, so much, seek mainstream recognition? 

Will Fat Wreck; Epitaph; Roadrunner; Nuclear Blast; SST; Alternative Tentacles; Household Name; etc.; get a voice? It’d be unfair for such labels not to, not because they’ve been at peaks in a scene, but because they are the pillars that maintain them, keep them going and keep it thrusting forward, despite whatever mainstream culture decides is cool. 

Still, the UK compilation includes some pretty interesting bands covering great songs – Feeder covering Public Image by PiL (Johnny Rotten’s second band); The Prodigy covering Ghost Town by the Specials; Rodrigo y Gabriela covering Orion by Metallica, etc.

Most of the tracks are unimaginative and pretty boring and predictable …

I take very few recommendations, music wise. But, there are a handful of people I will check out what they say without questioning it before I listen to – Joe, the editor of Terrorizer is one. 

He’s a really lovely bloke, and like me, he’s into very progressive stuff (without knowing it, we both ended up at the New Japanese Music Festival gig. Which was something else). So, it was a trade off: I sent him Maps & Atlases; Parts & Labour; Beta Popes; Mr Kamikaze (he mentioned he liked Devo …) and this week, I’ll depart the recommendations he has sent to me: 

Today we start with These Are Powers. A sort of weirdo post-punk band, that remind me of Bow Wow Wow, Siouxsie and the Banshees but with a very modern stint. I think they’re great, and I hope you do, too : These Are Powers.

“a dude with a pencil is worse than cat with a machine gun”
- Bo Diddley, at some point in the 1990s

More sadness: the Weezer album isn’t that good. It’s just not consistent, really.

And yet more sadness in the music world: six people who used the infamous OiNK site have been arrested, a members based bittorrent network.#

MORE badness: Yoko Oh! No! has lost a legal battle to prevent a 15 second clip of Lennon’s Imagine being used in a film challanging evolution.

“There were important free-speech issues here - they were literally asking the judge to censor the film,” said lawyer, Anthony T Falzone.

Erm … I’m not sure I understand how not wanting a song to be involved in a film challanging evolution is challanging free-speech? Anybody? No? Surely to censor, you’ve got to be wanting to delete things the film makers are saying, rather than the music they’re using?

Download, you say? Why not buy, mister? 

Well, kids, in Europe, we can’t buy the thing because they moved up the release date in the US only. So, the way I see it: download it until it’s available to buy. It’s only fair we have it when America has it … 

Why would you buy it, mister? 

It might just be that good, kids. 

Gee, mister, I guess you’re right. Is there anything else going on, mister? 

Not really. Quiet weekend. I saw Captain Sensible (Damned) riding a bike on Saturday night … 

Mister, that sounds like a euphemism for somefink … 

It’s not, he was riding it. Up a hill. 

Up a hill, hey? Hmmm…

Very little. 

However, scroll down and there is something that catch the eye which is very useful: “News”, it says. And it holds this information which had escaped me until now: “Mike Patton and The Melvins to curate ATP Nightmare Before…” 

This means this otherwise completely worthless site is not worthless. It has a quality; a tool; to make it useful along side the pure databaseness of allmusic and Wikipedia, which are, at best, slow to update and have no live news about acts (something they would greatly benefit from, but they don’t need them as they have everything else Soundflavour doesn’t have). 

By the way, The Melvins are playing ATP’s Nightmare Before Christmas and Fantamos are playing the Directors Cut all the way through. See you then! 

Another test reveals that the news service is good, but not as good as it should be: it’s missing collating the metal news site Blabbermouth, which is a massive gap for metal bands. 

Ahh, well. Don’t bother looking at any of them, I’ll just let y’all know when something worthwhile is up. Scar’s on Braodway’s pretty crappy artwork:

ahh well…

Such a matter happened this morning: The Guardian reports “hidden charges add 30% to cost of seat for music and theatre fans”. This, in itself, sounded as if it had the possibility to shed new light on the subject of overpriced gigs. Did it? 

“… four out of five Which? members surveyed thought the booking fees were too expensive and 89% wanted to see all additional charges included in the advertised price of tickets for concerts and other events.” 

Well done, Which? Fantastic work there, stating the bleeding bloody obvious. Has no one at Which? or the Guardian ever bought a ticket from major outlets before? They’ve been doing this shit forever. 

O2 Festival tickets for the Morrissey, Beck, New York Dolls and Siouxie Sioux day go from a reasonable £45 to something in the mid-to-late 50s. Just try and book a ticket with ticketmaster (one of the worst offenders), go on! I dare yah! Some online box office charges you £2.50 to print your own ticket. Why? 

And now for a tale of an old Oxbridge academic getting things completely wrong: 

Come, now, Cambridge: Amy Winehouse in the same league of lyrics as Bob Dylan? I’m not really one for Dylan (I like his songs played by other people, though), but Winehouse is not even close. 

“I ain’t got the time
And if my daddy thinks im fine
He’s tried to make me go to rehab
I wont go, go, go.”.
- Rehab (Amy Winehouse) 

“Go lightly from the ledge, babe
Go lightly on the ground
I’m not the one you want, babe
I’ll only let you down
You say you’re lookin’ for someone
Who’ll promise never to part
Someone to close his eyes to you
Someone to close his heart
Someone to die for you and more”
- It Ain’t Me Babe (Bob Dylan)

Raleigh represents a pinnacle in English literature. Dylan also represents that. Maybe Holiday represents that, she’s definitely an era-defining musician, but Winehouse? What about Johnny Rotten? Joe Strummer? Kurt Cobain? Even George Clinton would be better. 

“The students could have suggested that the writers shared regular brushes with the law and a fall from grace.” 

Fucking hell, if that’s the level of comparison they want in Cambridge … They could have also suggested that the writers shared similar features like noses, hair, ears, fingers, arms, toes, legs, blood, veins, nails, body fat, nerve systems …