THE STROKES ARE DEAD

...well, maybe exaggerated a little there. Nikolai Fraiture (The Strokes bassist) has a new solo project coming out, its called Nickel Eye (get it?), its been described as Folk Rock and two new songs have been premiered on the Mark Ronson radio show - I've heared them, and they are very neat.

Also, Fab Morreti (The Strokes drummer) has a new 'side-project' called Little Joy, a joint collaboration with his girlfriend Binki Shapiro - songs should be released in the near future and are reminiscent of the 1960's, wall-of-sound girl groups.

ALSO, Julian Casablancas (The Strokes singer) has collaborated with Santogold and Pharrell Williams on a track about Converse All-stars, yay.

ALSOOO, Albert Hammond Jr.'s new album was released the other week - its very, very good. It's called 'Como Te Llama', it's a lot more mature than his previous album (a lot of songs of which were written when he was a teenager), and features an 8-minute long instrumental (*creams*).

And so this begs the question, will The Strokes ever re-group for a new album? Albert Hammond Jr. has stated that: 'If there isn't any new material out for 2009, people will think we've split up' = well duuuuuuh. And Pharrell Williams has expressed an interest in producing the new album, so even if they do re-group, they'll be dipping their feet into more Alternative sounds, quite un-like the Garage Revival material that I fell in love with.

Anyway, only time will tell.

xxx

2008 Nationwide Mercury Prize

The shortlist was announced today:

- Adele - '19'
- British Sea Power - 'Do You Like Rock Music?'
- Burial - 'Untrue'
- Elbow - 'The Seldom Seen Kid'
- Estelle - 'Shine'
- The Last Shadow Puppets - 'The Age Of The Understatement'
- Laura Marling - 'Alas I Cannot Swim'
- Neon Neon - 'Stainless Style'
- Portico Quartet - 'Knee-Deep In The North Sea'
- Robert Plant And Alison Krauss – 'Raising Sand'
- Radiohead - 'In Rainbows'
- Rachel Unthank And The Winterset – 'The Bairns'

Thats a nice ecletic short-list I guess, Alex Turner has made it a Mercury Prize hat-trick after being nominated for the past 2 years (Arctic Monkeys), and with The Last Shadow Puppets this time. Radiohead have a strong chance of winning, its an excellent album and what they did with the 'pay-what-you-like' strategy will win them extra brownie points. I don't, however, understand why Foals aren't in there, they've brought new genres into a mainstream industry and what they're doing at the moment is wonderful.

xxo

Slow Night, So Long

So I'm seeing Kings of Leon at the o2 arena in December! It should be really really good, something to forget that I've booked, and then realise like a month before the gig that 'OMG I'M SEEING KOL IN A MONTH!'

And so its Summer(-ish) now! I haven't got a lot planned, I'm going to Greece with the family soon and then theres Reading fest with the fam, but apart from that I've got a suprising amount of college work to do over the holidays: History textbooks, Business coursework, and 3 books to read for English Lit.

Having said that I've got 3 books to read, I've taken it upon myself to buy/rent a shed load of books for the next 6 weeks, among them are:
- Clockwork Orange
- If You Liked School, You'll Love Work
- Importance of Being Earnest etc.
- Animal Farm
- And others that I cannot remember.

And although some of them are rather dystopian and un-summery, they are a lot better than what I have to read for college:
- The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro
- And like other books that I've yet to decide to read, we were given a list of 9 books that we have to compare to 'Remains of the Day', but they are all period drama novels set in Edwardian England in manors and huge estates (c. Pride and Prejudice).

Also while I'm writing a lengthy blog - *gets up on high horse* - the Government's new policy to tackle knife crime, the idea of showing knife-carriers stab victims in hospitals is ridiculous: if i had been stuck in hospital after being stabbed, i wouldn't be the happiest of chaps anyway, and so i wouldn't be to bloody impressed if some jobsworth came into my ward escorting some 'hoodie' that 24 hours before was carrying a blade.

*demounts high horse*
*falls asleep*

xx

Wet

wet wet, I had to cycle home in the rain today and I got a puncture and I got wet

Olympics

Don't really agree with the Chinese hosting the Olympics this year, what they are doing in Tibet is stupid - its not cool and its not clever. But I cannot exactly run to Shanghai and be like 'oi twats stop it!', because 1. My asthma will play up because of the polluted air, and 2. Because I don't think EasyJet fly to Beijing!

So instead I'm spiting the local Chinese Take-aways and boycotting their food.

Woodsy 1 - 0 Pancake Rolls

Bloc Party - Mercury

New Bloc Party Song!

Its called 'Mercury' and its very good, you can listen to it here: www.blocparty.com

Its like Flux, but not, string orchestras, brass, electronic, and a lot of drums

I like it