PC On The Radio!

Remember when you used to tape the whole of the charts onto a crusty, stinking Maxell metal cassette and listen to Bruno Brookes play Marky Mark and The Funky Bunch?
We do and despite the amount of official radio podcasts around, it's just not the same as doing it yourself. They've all got Jo Whiley and Chris Moyles gurgling over the live session broadcasts and constant AudioBranding - Zane Lowe is particularly good at that: "You're listening to the best, most awesome band on the planet. I'm Zane Lowe, I sound a bit like Tim Westwood having a shit while biting a straw - you're listening to Radio 1, we're the best because this is what we do 24/7 - only Radio 1 can do this stuff for you, the British public, dude, on Radio 1."

Anyway, with this gadget, you can record radio directly to MP3 and cut out the shit bits. Great for late night broadcasts or perhaps Radio 2 sessions that you like but don't want to stay in on a Saturday afternoon for. It's 40 quid and can be programmed in advance via your PC. So you can record a music festival while you're actually there, instead of asking mum to tape it on the telly which is - let's face it - always a bit hit and miss when she talks about watching The Red Stripes and DSS.

The Hives, covered by Microsoft exec...

There's no dignified way of explaining what happened this week when Microsoft held a big press conference in LA to show off new Xbox 360 games, so we'll just get straight in to it...

The suited monstrosity you see above is the chief marketing penis for Microsoft, Peter Moore. He announced a new game called Rock Band which ensures that the fat, slobbering and terminally anoraky Xbox massive can actually be 'in a band' without leaving their own faces encrusted habitat. Plug in plastic guitars, a mic and you'll never have to worry about wobbling on to the X Factor stage and listing your hobby as Xbox before doing a passable impression of a singing can of corned beef.

Brilliantly, to promote the game, Peter - in a particularly David Brent moment - decided to play the game, Fisher Price style, with a plastic guitar and a few assorted goblins - the team that actually made the game. There's a couple of virgins who look like they've spent a good few months wanking over a good few Dawson's Creek box sets and then there's the female lead singer. Less Karen O, more Beth Ditto fused with kids TV panto-villain Grotbags, she destroys The Hives' Main Offender with Peter on backing vocals. The girl shimmies like a glam sausage while Peter rocks back and forth like some kind of paper ghoul. The girl is called Helen. She has a MySpace page and a collection of rock photos to make even Johnny Borrell jealous.

Embarrassingly, the song (and game) pauses midway through as Peter (clearly an expert at this type of thing) manages to keep hitting the pause button, screaming "bring me back in, bring me back in!"

Shed Seven return!

Okay, so you know the drill now. We unearth some band that's reforming and take the piss and hope that they don't actually go on tour. Not strictly because we didn't like them originally (Kula Shaker we did love you) but because, well, it's a bit embarrassing. In some cases (Northen Uproar) we never liked the band in the first place.

This year, Shed Seven have decided to go on tour - at Christmas, naturally - in order to pay for the care home bills for their respective parents. We did like Shed Seven briefly, perhaps once in 1996, while we stared at girls dancing in a Devon indie disco. In fact, we remember meeting Rick Witter and his giant head and speaking with him for a magazine article of some kind. At the time, he looked like some kind of large baby cave-man and smelled slightly...

Anyway, the point is this - reunions don't often work. The trick is to not stop in the first place but, crucially, that involves writing decent songs constantly. You know, like The Rolling Stones. The recent pic of Shed Seven (above) has neatly copied The Verve's album cover for Urban Hymns, creating the ultimate in 1997 indie nostalgia! Perhaps they're hoping that you might actually mistake them for The Verve and that binge drinking in the Britpop years may have actually killed the part of your brain that detects good music and shit music. They've all matched The Verve photo well, apart from the bloke at the back, who's clearly rocking the podgy '96 Noel Gallagher chic, wondering why Andy Bell was asked to join Oasis rather than him. Fookin 'ave it, lads...

Snow Patrol: Drug Update (part 2)

We're not in the business of turning into Popbitch or owt, but we couldn't help but report that Tom from Snow Patrol (the fat, uglier one on the left) was off his tits (and on someone elses) at the Isle of Wight Festival last month. See the sorry event here. By the way, if anyone can find a pic of Tom where he isn't in shadow, to the side of the frame or hiding behind someone, you'll win a prize...

This week, however, Tom's actually been arrested and given a caution for possession, clearly taking a leaf out of the Keane book of band publicity. Snow Patrol also met with a hostile reception at T in The Park where a gaggle of crackheads from Glasgow pelted the band with all manner of fluids. It was like a mini Braveheart battle, only in slow motion with slightly shitter music.

In order to entertain the crowds, Spider-Man turned up and got the loudest cheers as he climbed scaffolding. Gary Lightbody was said to have wet his pants for the sixth time of the evening.

Death of a rock band - Live review: Ash at Koko, Camden

There’s a curious feeling as you enter Koko on Thursday 5^th July. This is, after all, the penultimate gig of the four night stand at Koko by Ash – a band releasing their ‘final’ album this month. Of course, Ash are set to release singles online after saying the album as a format is dead, but you can’t help imagining this as some kind of farewell fuck to nineties indie. The smoking ban unmasks the hideous blend of booze, bleach and sweat in Koko previously hidden by fags. In short, the gig resembles a funeral and smells like someone has actually died. When the spotlight falls on Ash, things don’t improve.

On stage, Ash as a three-piece look like a vacant triangle of flustered and frustrated musos, lacking Charlotte Hatherly and the famous machine gun guitar spunk that made them in the first place. Tim Wheeler stands at stage left, leaving the centre stage hollow, clutching his flying V guitar and remaining largely silent. He’s intent on giving the hardcore fans as many songs as possible. Cheers only come when classic tracks from the first album are played. When Ash arrived in 1996, they were younger than the Arctic Monkeys and, sadly, they’ve never been able to escape being youngsters in the heads of everyone. This is partly down to the fact that they refuse to dress in clothes made after ’96 and still behave like students and not rock stars. Striding across the stage instead of jumping around with mad, crazy, drug fuelled energy, Tim Wheeler looks like your dad in a tribute band. The cover of Teenage Kicks is as ironic as it gets, but Ash don’t get it. Still, it’ll go down well on the inevitable tour of University Balls over the next few years…

Pete & Kate: Over?

It's possible. The UK tabloids have gone into inky orgasm over a number of things which may or may not be true. Like Kate changing her door locks, hiring a minder and getting DHL to collect all of Pete's sweat soaked scarves and take them back to his pad in Hackney.

If it's true, it's sad but not really a bad thing for Pete to ditch the eternal groupie. Especially with his new book doing the rounds. But we're sure that's got nothing to do with it. Or the fact that the company doing PR for the book are desperately seeking coverage, despite Pete doing fuck all in the way of promotions - apart from turning up at an obscure book-seller in fancy dress...

To mark the occasion, here's a live review, some pictures we took before Pete put the drum-kit on our head and an amusing clip of Pete before Kate got hold of him...

Concert for Diana: The best and worst bits

Yesterday, approximately 70,000 people braved the possibility of a terrorist attack to visit Wembley stadium to see a Diana benefit concert. The audience consisted of aged coffee morning Conservatives with bosoms the size of nuclear weapons, gay men expecting Kylie to perform and young competition winners placed near the front of the stage to show that the youths still have love for the Royal Family. The highlights were few, but we watched the WHOLE thing, so you didn’t have to.

Stuff that made us laugh, cry and sometimes, slightly aroused…

Fergie miming and the camera panning away from her greasy chicken legs to make up for the MTM (mouth to mic) malfunction.

P Diddy, doing a Jacko by dressing in white, praising the Lord and invoking the spirit of Diana to the sound of hip hop while pretending he was a preacher and/or Jesus. He sang his Sting infused ode to Notorious BIG – who Princess Diana shared a great deal in common with.

Kanye West, showing P Diddy how it should be done. Prince Harry was over-heard saying that he “rocked the house” before asking his aide if it was time for a spliff.

Nelly Furtado – fuck Christina and Britney, we’ll take Nelly any day.

Joss Stone, coming over all American again but looking quite nice with no shoes on.

Prince Harry and William doing the Royal Jive, which is half Peter Crouch, half David Brent…

David Brent (Ricky Gervais) running out of jokes after two minutes, after cutting his traditional gags about disabled people, cancer and sex. The previously sedate crowd excitedly chanted “dance! dance!” after too many Pimms, forcing the rubber-faced chubster to dance like he did in that episode of The Office. Curiously, he knew the exact routine…

Kate Middleton, nicer than Chelsea, who is to Harry what a Chihuahua is to Paris Hilton.

Tom Jones covering Arctic Monkeys, then a Joss duet with Joss singing louder than Tom.

The giant gaps between songs, with helicopter cameras exposing Wembley as a kind of Total Recall esque industrial wasteland with a hotel, a Land of Leather and a giant sand pit.

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