Sunday, October 31, 2004
The End of The Likely Lads?
Regular readers will be familiar with my obsession over the Libertines and the ongoing troubles of their estranged front man, Pete Doherty.
A couple of things have happened in recent weeks that are making me think that the Libertines will eventually split. Firstly, Pete seems to be doing very well in his new band, Babyshambles. We saw them play at The Scala a couple of weeks ago and thy really have come a long way since the support slot for PRimal Scream. Songs that sounded ill rehearsed imitations of Libs numbers now have a real kick to them with lyrical hooks that keep you singing them for days. I downloaded a verision of Fuck Forever the other day, played it once and was then singing it for two days (much to the iritation of all around me).
Secondly, The Libs have just released Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads, the second single from their self titled record. It's a great track and has had plenty of air play and radio ads. I popped into HMV the other day to buy a copy, expecting it to bev packed full of great Libs B-Sides. Well, I have to say I was very disapointed with the singles, which across the 3 formats (2 cd singles and a 7") havea selection of live tracks. Don't get me wrong - The Libs are a great live band - but up to this point they have always put out great singles packages. The fact that there isn't a new track on any of the formats is a sign that the creative pool may be drying up without Pete.
Finally, and this is the thing that has me most annoyed, is the news that The Libs will be repackaging and rereleasing their latest album with a Live DVD. This is perhaps the most annoying way to market a record because it alienates the loyal fans who went out and bought the album when it was first released. I'm sure it will drive sales of the album from people who had previously only bothered with a downloaded copy or new punters who where wondering what all hte fuss was about. But those of us who already own a copy will now have to decide whether to shell out for another copy (avec le DVD) or try to find a copy of hte DVD on the Internet Hopefully some enterprising young tike will rip it to DivX and make it available for everyone to enjoy.
BTW. Go and check out the video and audio downloads on babyshambles.net.
OK. Rant over. We're off to see The Scissor Sisters play their special Halloween show this evening. A full report will appear here soon.
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
John Peel R.I.P
Tragic, Tragic news. A fellow muso, champion of new music and an insperation to anyone with an interest in music, John Peel will be sorely missed in these parts.
I won't pretend that I used to listen to his show every day but just hearing 10 minutes of the show every so often was more rewarding than listen to hours of other radio shows.
It is a great irony that I discovered at the weekend that his shows were available online to play at anytime on the BBC web site (a truely great inovation that the BBC sholud be praised for).
THe BBC have opened an online forum for tributes, many of which are very touching:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/alt/johnpeel/features/peel_tributes.shtml
It really shows how much he was appreciated by people who love music.
