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That Was The Week That Was…

added 02 July 2003 at 05.29

It’s been a week of rebirths in the world of Music News. Whereas once a band simply formed, played gigs and released records with a dependable regularity, these days things are more complicated. Albums take years, band split, then reform under different names or guises, adding new members willy nilly and the whole process feels more akin to a military exercise than good old rock n’ roll.

Well the big updates from the frontline recently include our exclusive chat with Tom Morello, guitarist with Rage Against The Machine / Soundgarden supergroup, Audioslave. Apparently while shooting the video for their new single ‘Cochise’ the band were mistaken for a terrorist attack, such was the level of noise and commotion they were making. Good work, I say.

Another new band hiding members from an old favourite are Zwan. Formed around ex Smashing Pumpkins singer Billy Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, Zwan have just finished their debut album and have a new single, entitled ‘Honestly’ all set and ready to hit the airwaves. And predictably it’s been leaked on the internet already (not that we were looking) and it sounds pretty damn good (not that we’ve heard it, honest).

In terms of collaborations, all manner of strange bedfellows have been popping up from under the duvet. It looks like there’s a chance that REM will be working with PJ Harvey (a cool thing), Marilyn Manson has been buddying up with Eminem (an oddly not surprising thing) and the remaining members of Guns & Roses have been talking about joining forces with Courtney Love (an abso-f***ing-lutely brilliant - if totally insane - idea).

Talking about Eminem, the man himself also topped Rolling Stone’s ‘People Of The Year’ award this week and had the more dubious honour of having his old Detroit house put up for auction on eBay. At time of going to press the house (which has been in Shady’s family for generations) has raised bids of over $1,500,300.00. Just about enough to buy a condemned bedsit in North London then.

We haven’t heard a lot from The Strokes of late, it must be said. The band have been playing a huge US tour for the past two months, but we snatched some chat with them, only to find singer Julian Casablancas describing their debut album ‘Is This It?’ in less than glowing terms. “It’s probably my least favourite album of all time,’” Casablancas explained, “Cos I’ve heard it so many f***ing times.”

Is it? Is it really? Write some new f***ing songs then, eh? You moaning p***k.

Another exclusive we secured came courtesy of Xfm favourite Liam Lynch. He told us about, working with the Foo Fighters on their new video, his upcoming projects with Ben Kweller, and No Doubt, as well as revealing fantastic news about his plans to make a full length Tenacious D feature film, set to feature all manner of guest cameos and surprises. And we were like, “Yeah, whatever”.

And finally, in the ‘Token bloody stupid story’ file, the top Top 50 ‘Greatest Drugs Songs Ever’ list has been revealed (is this recent godawful spate of ‘Top [insert name of something] Lists’ gonna get worse as we lead up to Xmas?]. Anyway Jefferson Airplane’s ‘White Rabbit’ was number 1 just behind The Beatles ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’. Elsewhere hip hop legends Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel sniff in at 6 The Lemonheads rolls up at 30, The Happy Mondays are at 40 and bringing up the rear at 50 are sadly imploded baggy tune dealers Flowered Up with ‘Weekender’.

Mind you, I calculate that Primal Scream have recorded about 76 songs, all of which are about, connected with, recorded or on or while waiting for, and simply written while under the influence of all the major narcotic categories, and yet they only have two entries in a chart. So the list can’t be that accurate.

To discuss these stories on the Xfm Messageboard click here.

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Have you got a music news story? E-mail the Xfm News Desk here.

Matt Everitt

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