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Track: Stylo Featuring Mos Def and Bobby Womack
Artist: Gorillaz
Album: Plastic Beach (8 Mar 10)
Tags: electronic, multi-genre, my gang rotw
Video: Click the pic...

http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/h9vAOzYz-Qs/default.jpg YouTube, official video

The biggest music news of the week, apart from the threat of closure to BBC 6 Music (see also BBC-o-gram and also the full review), is the new album from Gorillaz, due out next week and streaming in full now at NPR.

There isn't much I can add to the excitement. Everyone knows who they are and can't have failed to have missed the eager anticipation online and in print.

Plastic Beach is my joint number one album of 2010, along with Massive Attack's Heligoland. I was pleased to see The Sunday Times write positively about them:

By Mark Edwards, 28 Feb 2010

Next week, the new Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach, arrives. Alongside Damon Albarn and his usual cartoon crew, we will be treated to an extraordinary and eclectic line-up of guest stars. …

Sorry to say but all charity songs are lame or just totally crap. Yes, the heart is in the right place and everything else but as songs. Well, can you really call them songs? That is why they're charity songs because you have to buy it and it doesn't matter how rubbish the song is because it all goes to helping a good cause. The singers are not getting payed but come on, in the end you just wish they didn't bother at all. Every charity songs from We Are the World to Everybody Hurts are, well...are lame or just totally crap.

http://www.concern.net/sites/concern.net/files/blog_images/shane_bobby_nick.jpg
Until now with this song, Shane Macgowan and Friends doing I put a spell on you. Shane Macgowan is the singer from The Pogues and picked this song because the songwriter Screamin' Jay Hawkins died ten years ago on the same day (12th of January) that the earthquake hit Haiti. Shane also regards the song as a modern day “hymn for hope and love.”

…

Foreigner is back with the album Can't Slow Down, which comes with a disc of their remixed hits and a DVD of live footage. Their guitarist Mick Jones has been there from the start, when their first single "Feels Like the First Time" launched a string of hits that includes "Double Vision", "Urgent" and "I Want To Know What Love Is". Jones is the British side of Foreigner, which he formed with lead singer Lou Gramm in 1976. Foreigner's new frontman is Kelly Hansen, who you can see in the clips included for "Cold as Ice" and "Juke Box Hero".

Read the exclusive Songfacts Interview with Mick Jones here

http://i49.tinypic.com/wc01er.jpg

You can listen to some excerpts on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLYBWuDo4zE

Track: Transmission (full track)
Artist: Hot Chip
Album: War Child - Heroes Vol.1
Tags: cover, charity, electro-indie, my gang rotw
Video: Click the pic...

http://i4.ytimg.com/vi/_FWJFBcDiWg/default.jpg?e=thm_100 YouTube - aural upload


The War Child series of charity albums has been my favourite since the first, the Help Bosnia album of 1995 which featured Radiohead - Lucky, the track that made me realise just how great they are. 'Heroes' is the fifth in the series and was released yesterday.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51QsZ3SGptL._SL500_AA240_.jpg Last.fm

Reviews are varied, ranging from average to excellent and I'd say I'd agree with that. TV on the Radio's Bowie cover of Heroes does sound like they threw everything at it. However, there is one track that, in my opinion, is outstanding: Hot Chip's cover of Joy Division's Transmission.

It begins with the familiar bass and beat, you recognise it and think you know what's coming. For a whole minute, you think you know where you are. …

This is an alphabetical list of nearly every band I've seen - minus local stuff and support acts I forgot about. I'm not going to write down dates, venues, who I've met and shit because who cares and I will die. ):

4Minute x2
65daysofstatic
The 69 Eyes
911
A
AFI x2
A Day to Remember
Adema
Akercocke
Alesha Dixon
Alice in Chains
All Saints
Alter Bridge x2
Anaal Nathrakh
The Answer
アンティック-珈琲店- x2
Apocalyptica
Aqua
Arch Enemy
As I Lay Dying x2
Atreyu x2
Avenged Sevenfold x2
彩冷える
B2ST
Backstreet Boys
Bakers Dozen
Beat Union
Blackeye
The Blackout
Black Stone Cherry
Black Tide x3
Bludvera x3
Breed 77
Bring Me the Horizon x4
Britney Spears
Caliban
Cathedral
Chase & Status
Chimaira
Citizen Keyne
CKY
Cleopatra
Combichrist
The Cure
The Darkness x2
Deathstars
Def Leppard
Deftones
DéspairsRay x2
DevilDriver
Die Antwoord
Dio – distraught overlord
Dirty North
DIR EN GREY x9
Disturbed
Down
DragonForce
Dream Theater
Dulce Liquido
…

Recently Carbon/Silicon posted a couple new tracks on their site (http://www.carbonsiliconinc.com/mp3.aspx). The Meaning of Life & The Inconvenience of Truth which both feature Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet fame. Kemp's inclusion seems to really add a pop touch to Carbon/Silicon's usual sound. Very interesting and a good listen, so if you like Mick Jones, Tony James, The Clash, Big Audio Dynamite, or of course, Carbon/Silicon check these out. They are free to download at the link above (another cool thing about Carbon/Silicon).

The four original members of pioneering alternative rock band Jane's Addiction performed in public for the first time in 17 years on Wednesday, burying their differences to receive an award for career achievement.

Singer Perry Farrell, guitarist Dave Navarro and drummer Stephen Perkins hit the stage at the inaugural NME Awards in Los Angeles with bass player Eric Avery, who had declined to play with the band since it first broke up in September 1991.

They performed four tunes, including "Mountain Song" and an acoustic version of "Jane Says" for an excited crowd of about 400 people at the el rey theatre.

"We made it and I'm really happy to be here," said Farrell, alternately guzzling from a bottle of Red Wine and dispensing its contents to fans in the mosh pit.

The quartet received the godlike genius award -- a trophy of a clenched fist with the middle finger pointed skyward -- for their contribution to the development of alternative rock.

…

This is another CD where it has a CD Warehouse sticker with a price affixed to the case - those little buggers are damn near impossible to peel off! I honestly have never listened to this album all the way through - it was only upon my girlfriend's recommendation that I bought Stray by Aztec Camera in the first place. Aside from what I could plagiarise from my Last.FM window, I couldn't tell you anything about the band either.

So, this is more or less a first listen...

"Stray" is the opening track and it has a very lounge/soft jazz feel which isn't heard again until three songs later on "Over My Head." I felt somewhat out of place listening to these songs without a smoking jacket on and a Martini in one hand. I'm not poking fun - they aren't bad songs - but I suspect it wasn't a good idea to listen to them after just listening to an album by The Ataris. Obviously, I'll have to re-visit this disc...

I've been digging the upbeat tracks. …