If hell is other people, it makes sense that heaven should have an extremely exclusive door policy. Glastonbury, the ever-expanding Somerset festival lovingly documented in Julien Temple's new film, was originally conceived as a hippie idyll, a place in the country where the heads could get their heads together, long of hair, bare of foot and blown of mind.

The first "happening" in 1970 featured Marc Bolan and Al Stewart performing at Michael Eavis's Worthy Farm and included free milk in the £1 ticket price. Thirty-five years later, the flower child had become a carnivorous beast, its 150,000 tickets selling out in less than three hours. At the heart of Temple's film lurks an unsettling thought: how can utopia exist when everyone wants to live there?

Using archive footage and Super 8 film from every stage of the festival's history, Temple distils 36 years of history into three imaginary days. Music fans will revel in the performances but, like the festival itself, Glastonbury isn't really about the bands.Instead, it's a revealing social history, showing the slow assimilation of the counter-culture and the neutering of its ideals. Footage of the early days is pricelessly quaint: a tweedy local who looks as if he would be happier shooting something to hang over his mantelpiece declares that "a number of them do smell to high heaven. Somebody has to make a stance against these very unwashed people." John Craven soberly reports on "naked dancing", something he must have missed after joining Newsround.

As the whole festival grows up, however, The Man suddenly stops ogling from the perimeter and throws himself into the action. The rise of the mobile phone minimises the chances of losing your tent. The hairy freak-outs have been replaced by the tall-decaf-latte rock of Coldplay. There are even cashpoints on site. Yet, tellingly, Glastonbury shows the festi-val's biggest enemy to be within: not the forces of branding and big business, but the revellers who fail to realise that their free- spiritedness comes at a price. Eavis gave the travellers' convoy refuge from the police after 1985's notorious Battle of the Beanfield; they repaid him by demanding money and, in 1990, indulging in ugly rioting. With 150,000 people insisting on the right to "be themselves", cynics won't be surprised that something has to give.

Glastonbury does not indulge in the gloriously pretentious Albion myth-making that drove Temple's 2000 documentary about the Sex Pistols, The Filth and the Fury. Instead, viewers are treated to forensic close-ups of the toilets being emptied, confused people stumbling over tent pegs, the squelch of mud beneath combat boots. You can almost smell the noodles, the bonfires, the rivers of effluent. There's also a shot of a juggler setting himself on fire, which, as any festival- goer will know, is very gratifying. Too long, with too many shots of hands-in-the-air ravers and too much Damien Hirst, Glastonbury is still hugely evocative, developing a keen sense of place - an achievement, considering that it's a film about somewhere that doesn't exist. "It's not real, is it?" ponders Eavis. "It can't be real." Unfortunately, it seems not.

Source: newstatesman.com

Fiona Apple, who last toured the US while opening for Coldplay, will get top billing during a summer roadtrip as she continues to back last year's "Extraordinary Machine."

After playing a trio of early May warm-up dates, Apple will tackle a busy itinerary that begins in late June and stretches into mid-August. So far, stops are planned in more than 30 cities. Details are included below.

Prior to its release last October, "Extraordinary Machine," Apple's third studio set, was the subject of some controversy. The original version of the album, which Apple recorded with producer Jon Brion, was allegedly rejected by Epic Records back in 2003. Some of the cuts were eventually leaked on the Internet, and a grassroots movement spearheaded by a fan-run website dubbed FreeFiona.com was launched to push for the album's release.Despite the campaign, Apple reportedly wasn't entirely happy with the original version of the disc, and quietly re-worked much of it with producers Mike Elizondo and Brian Kehew before releasing it last year.

In January, the Recording Industry Association of America certified "Extraordinary Machine" gold, signifying US shipment of 500,000 copies.

"Extraordinary Machine" features the cuts "O' Sailor" and "Not About Love," the music videos for both of which are streaming online.

May 2006

6 - West Palm Beach, FL - SunFest

7 - Lake Buena Vista, FL - House Of Blues

9 - Myrtle Beach, SC - House Of Blues

June 2006

20 - Phoenix, AZ - Dodge Theatre

21 - Temecula, CA - Pechanga Resort & Casino

23 - San Diego, CA - SDSU Open Air Theatre

24 - Los Angeles, CA - Greek Theater

25 - Santa Barbara, CA - County Bowl

27 - Saratoga, CA - Mountain Winery

29 - Concord, CA - Chronicle Pavilion

30 - Saratoga, CA - Mountain Winery

July 2006

1 - Bend, OR - Les Schwab Amphitheater

3 - Woodinville, WA - Chateau Ste. Michelle

5 - Denver, CO - City Lights Pavilion

7 - Grand Prairie, TX - Nokia Theatre

8 - Austin, TX - The Backyard

9 - The Woodlands, TX - Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion

12 - Noblesville, IN - Verizon Wireless Music Center

13 - Chicago, IL - Charter One Pavilion

14 - Minneapolis, MN - Northrop Auditorium

21 - Boston, MA - Bank of America Pavilion

22 - Wantagh, NY - Nikon at Jones Beach Theatre

24 - Uncasville, CT - Mohegan Sun

26 - New York, NY - Central Park SummerStage

28 - Camden, NJ - Tweeter Center at the Waterfront

29 - Atlantic City, NJ - Borgata

31 - Vienna, VA - Filene Center/Wolf Trap

August 2006

1 - Virginia Beach, VA - Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre

2 - Atlanta, GA - Chastain Amphitheatre

4 - Tampa, FL - Ford Amphitheatre

5 - Charlotte, NC - Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre

6 - Cary, NC - Koka Booth Amphitheatre

8 - Pittsburgh, PA - Chevrolet Amphitheatre

9 - Clarkston, MI - DTE Energy Music Amphitheatre

10 - Cleveland, OH - Plain Dealer Pavilion

Source: livedaily.com

If you didn't get tickets to the Arctic Monkeys' sold-out club tour this spring, here's some good news: the British indie rockers are returning to the States next month.

The Artic Monkeys -- whose many fans include David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Paul Weller, Oasis, and Chris Martin from Coldplay -- have announced a second North American headlining tour that kicks off May 27th in Vancouver. Dates are currently scheduled through June 17th, when the band plays Toronto's Kool Haus.

Some of the US cities where you can catch the Arctic Monkeys include Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Tempe, Houston, Dallas, Austin, Atlanta, New York City, Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC.The Arctic Monkeys are touring behind their debut album, "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not." The album includes the single, "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor."

Here are the announced tour dates for the Arctic Monkeys, according to the band's official web site.

May

27 - Vancouver, BC - Commodore

28 - Sasquatch Festival, Washington

29 - Portland, OR - Roseland

31 - San Francisco, CA - Warfield

June

02 - San Diego, CA Soma

03 - Los Angeles, CA - Wiltern

04 - Tempe, AZ - Marquee

06 - Dallas, TX - Granada

07 - Austin, TX - Stubbs

08 - Houston, TX - Warehouse

10 - Atlanta, GA - Roxy

11 - Norfolk, VA - Norva

12 - Baltimore, MD - Sonar

14 - New York, NY - Roseland

15 - Boston, MA - Avalon

16 - Montreal, QC - Le Medley

17 - Toronto, ON - Kool Haus

Now more than ever, Britain's hype machine works overtime, cogs spinning on a predictable wheel of buildup and breakdown.

Propelled by a Pitchfork–meets–Us Weekly editorial fickleness, bands are born and busted in the public consciousness before they even have record deals—which brings us to three survivors of this process. What makes them unique is their scrappy passion. Liverpool's Ladytron have thrived as a highly stylized act that might've gone out with the electroclash trash were they not so multifaceted. Hard-Fi and the Editors are from the burbs and industrial Birmingham, respectively.

Playing Seattle next week, they're all up against some of the most discriminating audiences this side of NME. Here's why we think you should—attention span permitting—work their diverse sounds into your showgoing schedule.Hard-Fi

Hard-Fi frontman Richard Archer is propelled by the same documentary spirit that drives his countrymen Dizzee Rascal and Mike Skinner of the Streets. He wants to chart the daily experience of the young English everyman in warts-and-all pop that doesn't scrimp on detail. On Stars of CCTV (Atlantic), Hard-Fi's debut, he sings about coming up short at the ATM, getting into "unnecessary trouble," and receiving interesting results from his girlfriend's pregnancy test. Unlike Dizzee and Skinner, Archer plays in a proper rock group, one with a guitarist and a bassist and everything. The music on CCTV—titled after the closed-circuit surveillance cameras peppered throughout London's public spaces—isn't as straightforward as stuff by the Strokes or the White Stripes, but it certainly beats with a live-band pulse.

"The original idea was mine," Archer says of the outfit's beginning in 2002, when he formed the group in suburban London Staines with guitarist Ross Phillips, bassist Kai Stephens, and drummer Steve Kemp. "Hard-Fi is a band, though, and it's always been a democracy. If you're in a band, you have to live and die for it. We're all equals."

CCTV seems to back him up on this. Archer's vision dominates the material, but his bandmates give the music its vital push. Stephens might be the album's MVP: He anchors "Cash Machine" with an irresistibly funky bass line just waiting to be sampled by some MC (maybe Dizzee). Phillips layers fuzzy stun-gun guitar throughout "Middle Eastern Holiday," threatening to derail the track into a pure-noise gutter. Kemp never seems satisfied with just one beat per song, repeatedly leading the band into dub-reggae breakdowns right in the middle of hard-charging post-punk tunes.

Like music by Gorillaz or "Song 2"–era Blur, Hard-Fi's rock is constantly nodding to other, more elastic forms: "Hard to Beat" erupts into a sweet disco chorus; "Move on Now" is a tender piano ballad; the title track wants to be a spaghetti Western overture. "Music in the U.K. crosses over quite nicely," Archer says by way of explanation. "People won't just listen to guitar bands or just listen to urban acts. If it's good, it's accepted by everybody."

And Hard-Fi are being accepted. A bona fide hit at home, where the band was nominated for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize last year alongside Coldplay and M.I.A., Stars of CCTV has been making headway in the U.S. of late as well— always a milestone for English bands intimidated by how enormous our country appears to someone mapping a tour route. Archer acknowledges that American interest in Dizzee and the Streets, as well as in young English rock acts like Kaiser Chiefs and Arctic Monkeys (both of whom share in the singer's quest to spotlight the mundane), might have eased Hard-Fi's way here. "They have a very British sound," he admits, "so that could have opened things up for us a little."

The Editors

"Men and mascara . . . they both run at the sight of emotion," reads the female-targeted copy on a Lambrini ad. Tell that to the Editors—whose platinum-selling indie debut, The Back Room (Kitchenware), has brought them success via bleeding hearts, though they're still drinking swill.

"The money hasn't come through yet. Maybe it will never, I don't know," laments guitarist Chris Urbanowicz, who creates the tremulous, shimmering canvas for singer-guitarist Tom Smith, bassist Russell Leetch, and drummer Ed Lay's somber hues. On tour with New York's We Are Scientists recently, "we introduced them to British lifestyles, to the shittiest alcoholic drink you can possibly get," Urbanowicz says of Lambrini. "You can buy a liter and a half for about 2 pounds. It's hideous—it takes like crusty lemonade and wine and gives you a high that's almost drugesque." Sparks, anyone?

Once based in Birmingham, the quartet now live "out of a bag," a situation that's given them the tag of "Europe's hardest-working band" in some of their overseas press. Touring aside, detractors will say that it's not hard to modernize strategic pieces of Echo and the Bunnymen's back catalog, but the Editors aren't sore that critics stall out at easy comparisons. "We understand why it happens, and we're not offended by it," says Urbanowicz. "Joy Division and Echo and the Bunnymen are amazing bands, so it could be a lot worse."

Like saying that The Back Room, just released in the States, is the sophomore album Interpol should've made instead of Antics. Both offer cryptic, annoyingly memorable lyricism—"You don't need this disease" (over and over) from the Editors' "Bullets"—propulsive whorls of sound, and a darkly compelling frontman. But The Back Room, for all its melancholy and mystery, has patches of clever, sexy optimism ("I'll keep your eyes wide open tonight/Keep the car on the road, now/Feel love bite") that make it enjoyable where Antics is obtuse. Ironically, while achieving the larger fan base that BBC radio provides, the Editors aren't yet enjoying the champagne-and-caviar decadence of their American counterparts.

After its members graduated from college in 2003, the group refined its sound in Birmingham while courting A&R scouts. Being removed from the U.K.'s rock and roll cities might be what's kept the Editors so down-to-earth, despite their brooding public poses. "We're not from rock and roll circles, and our reputation has always gone on what we did musically and never what drugs we took or didn't take," says Urbanowicz. "We get up to shenanigans once in a while, but we don't really talk about them." Except for the occasional flirtation with fortified wine, of course.

Ladytron

Genre is a four-letter word. Ask Ladytron, whose first EP, Commodore Rock, and long-player 604 got the internationalist Liverpool quartet lumped into the nascent electroclash movement. With no one bandying the E-word about anymore, the band's third album last year, Witching Hour, had some listeners marveling at its new neoshoegazer bent. Only trouble is, many of the disc's presumed guitar sounds weren't.

"To be honest, there's not as many as people think," says Ladytron founder and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Hunt from a New York hotel room. "A lot of the time, it's just synths. We had the same thing with the last album. If you overdrive anything, people assume it's a guitar, like if you've got an overdriven organ or an overdriven monosynth or whatever."

People don't often recognize an electric guitar as the machine that it is, Hunt agrees. "This is our attitude with guitars as well—once you stick guitars through modulation and drive and delay and everything, it's a synth anyway. Especially if you're playing it with an E-bow, it's just a tone generator."

Hunt says the group resists definition even within the ranks. For instance, they won't make a distinction as to whether they're a pop band or a rock band. He does allow an interviewer's comparisons with Blondie and Siouxsie and the Banshees, who also resisted formula. "Maybe not stylistically," he says, "but in that kind of place where you can make a different kind of sound track on track. We'd be happy to be in that position."

Hunt also "just got the parts to about five Blondie tracks, 'cause we're doing some remixes for them." He's at his most passionate and excited discussing Debbie Harry and band, who are his first musical memory. "So strange to root around in those multitracks. It's like archaeology, strange demo guide vocals by Chris Stein and things like that."

Blondie's meld of style and substance resonates in Ladytron tracks, even if some observers miss the levels of humor and thought in something like "Seventeen," which examines the human cost of aging and changes in fashion. "I think it's fair to say that if we gave one of those songs to another band on the sly and they did a version of it, it would probably be taken a hell of a lot more seriously in some quarters," Hunt says. "Another thing is—it sounds pathetic—but it's a female vocal as well. There's so many people who don't listen to any music with female vocals."

For a while, it seemed female voices had disappeared from American "modern rock" radio. Though that's not necessarily the case anymore, a lot of the action for women has been in R&B. If so, that's a loss for modern rock audiences—especially as long as Ladytron push against pigeonholes, insisting on cutting their own path to the dance floor.

Source: seattleweekly.com

Music group Ball in the House recently announced their launch of a digital music store through BurnLounge, the first community-powered digital music service that enables passionate music fans to sell the music they love to friends or like-minded individuals.

While Ball in the House may not be on a major record label, the Boston-based pop and R&B band has risen above the ranks of professionally-signed chart-toppers, including the Black Eyed Peas, Coldplay, Gorillaz, Kelly Clarkson and James Blunt. Thanks to the emergence of digital music download services such as BurnLounge - on which Ball in the House held the coveted number one position on the BurnLounge Top 10 Chart for two full weeks in March 2006 - independent artists can compete with signed artists on a more level playing field.

“Digital distribution is the future and we want to be part of this revolution,” said Aaron Loveland of Ball in the House. “Now, our music is as accessible as any major label’s artists.”With sales of digital music generating more than $1.1 billion last year, up from $380 million in 2004 according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the Internet has become a hot, new marketing tool for music artists – even more so for indie bands. Independent artists, who usually find themselves lacking a promotional voice in today’s record company-controlled music market, may find their salvation on the World Wide Web.

According to industry experts, digital music sales will continue to grow and gain momentum, and as it does, so will the chances for independent artists to generate exposure for their music. And as the consumer alters the way they purchase music, the face of the music industry may change as well.

About Ball in the House:

Ball in the House is a five-man soul-pop/R&B group from Boston, represented by James Lucente and Kim Venturo of LucKi Entertainment, LLC. With an extensive tour schedule (averaging 250 dates per year), Ball in the House reaches millions of music enthusiasts and is arguably one of the most successful indie bands working today.

The group has opened for and performed with numerous influential artists, including Gladys Knight, 98°, Jessica Simpson, Blondie, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson and Cher. They are also the creative force and voice talent behind the Cool Whip commercials, which air on national TV and radio.

Ball in the House’s first radio single, “Something I Don’t Know,” charted for six consecutive weeks in the Top 100 of the national AC Charts, peaking at #17.

Fans can checkout Ball in the House online at ballinthehouse.com or visit their BurnLounge store at burnlounge.com/ballinthehouse.

Source: prweb.com

A humorous look at choosing baby names

Here's a rule of thumb I always try to follow: Never, ever discuss celebrity baby names with your husband, unless you want his eyes to roll so far back in his head they are wedged there forever. My husband, Doyle, is a plain-spoken, flannel-shirt-wearing, meat-and-potatoes kind of fellow in all matters, not just which monikers the rich and famous deign to label their offspring.

So I should have known not to initiate the following conversation with him:

"Apple is going to have a baby brother or sister," I told him one day, apropos of nothing save the fact that my best friend, Rachel, moved across the state, and I have to share these clever trivia tidbits with someone. Doyle happens to be that someone, more often than either one of us would like.

"Hopefully what's-her-name can stay away from the fresh produce this time," he said. "If it's a boy will she name him 'Kumquat'?" "How do you know Kumquat is a male name?" I said, throwing a neutralizing comment in to stop a possible tirade in its tracks.

I happen to like the name Apple; call me overly whimsical. I think Gwyneth Paltrow and her rock-star husband, Chris Martin of Coldplay, chose a fresh, evocative name for their firstborn that also happens to be crisp and juicy. And considering what other celebrity couples, especially rock stars, have appointed their rock babies with, Apple is mild and pleasant, much like the Jonagold or Gala varieties of you-know-what.

Consider Bob Geldof's daughters, Peaches (there we go again with British rockers and edible baby names) and the doozie Fifi Trixiebelle. Or David Bowie's son Zowie Bowie, Todd Rundgren's son ReBop or Madonna's little boy Rocco.

"Of course, Rocco makes sense because it's a real Italian name, and she's a real Italian," I said, defending the Material Girl's choice of names. "Well, I'm glad she's a real Italian, and she's not just faking it because that would just be wrong," Doyle said, trying to be droll.

But seriously, what is it with men and ultra-safe baby names? My dad was given the job of throwing something into the middle slots of my signature and my brother's. His picks? "Jayne" for me, and, two-and-a-half years later, "Wayne" for my little bro, Dan. Dad really went out on a limb there.

I asked Doyle once what he would have named our three children had I handed over the entire naming department to him, instead of just ultimate veto power. (Trust me, many, many fabulous, Yum-O names were disqualified during his vetting process.)

"Well, I dunno. Like 'John,' or 'Ken,' or maybe for a girl, 'Anne,'" he said. "Or Doyle Jr., for a boy." Those are all fine, sturdy, even classic names, but they didn't mesh with my "Let's try something creative and nouveau and luscious and whimsical" mentality. Have I mentioned Doyle has a very low whimsy threshold? This meant "Milo" and "Esme" and "Daisy" were banned from our family tree, although I still pine for them.

But even I, an admitted name freak, must admit sometimes celebs go a bit far in their quest for the unpaved pathways of imaginative and fanciful child-labels. Actor Jason Lee's choice of "Pilot Inspektor" is a bit strange, and the late Michael Hutchins of INXS made us all whoozy with Tiger Lily Heavenly Hirani. These names make "Apple" seem almost sedate and commonplace by comparison, which is what I told Doyle. "Besides, Gwyneth has a friend named Plum, so she is accustomed to fruit names," I said.

"How do you know these things?" he said, eyes widening in alarm.

"Rachel told me," I said, deciding right then and there to phone her the next time I wanted to shoot the breeze about celebrity baby names. Who knows? Maybe Gwyneth is open to suggestions. My vote is "Pear," because "Peaches" is already taken.

Lorilee Craker is the mother of three kids, Jonah, 8; Ezra, 5; and Baby Phoebe, 1. She's the author of seven books, including The Wide-Eyed Wonder Years (Revell, 2006). Her first book, A is for Adam: Biblical Baby Names (Waterbrook, 2000), is very whimsical but does not include the name "Apple."

Source: christianitytoday.com

There may be no Glastonbury this year, but it will still be difficult to avoid an outdoor festival. Up to 250 festival organisers are hoping to attract the crowds in the next few months - and some fear that the summer is already saturated.

Six years ago Neil Greenway set up efestivals.co.uk, a website packed with information and festival discussion forums. He said the market was overserved. "It was always a bit of an underground thing and now it's gone overground. And there are an awful lot of festivals - we've got 200 listed and another 40 waiting to be listed. There will be some casualties this year."

For the big ones, invariably backed by mobile phone companies, selling tickets is not a problem. No sooner do they go on sale than they are sold out. The lineups are strong, with Coldplay headlining on the Isle of Wight, Radiohead at V and The Who at Leeds.Equally, some events serve such special interests that they are guaranteed an enthusiastic, if small, audience. If your idea of heaven is listening to boogie woogie piano for three nights, then you should head to Fontwell Magna in Dorset on July 21. Alternatively, didgeridoo enthusiasts should go to Escot country park, Ottery St Mary, Devon, on the first weekend of August for Didjefest.

This year John Shearlaw, a long-time spokesman for Glastonbury, is involved in what is billed as the largest outdoor green event in Europe, the Big Green Gathering in the Mendip Hills from August 2. It will have the biggest solar-powered sound system in the world, and cinemagoers will be encouraged to pedal to generate a movie.

Other festivals will have a harder time. Aerosolics 2006, the first aerosol art and music festival, hopes to attract 5,000 people on June 30 to a secret location in Surrey. Press officer Lucy Wilson said competition was tough. "We're up against things like Global Gathering and V Festival, who can afford to saturate all the magazines with full page ads. The graffiti community is much bigger than you think and this is trying to raise the profile even more. It's normally considered a menace or a lower art form. We're trying to show that it's not." Bands signed up include Gogol Bordello, who invented gypsy punk, the Young Knives and The Departure.

There are other festivals with no advertising, particularly smaller ones trying to stay faithful to their hippy roots. "Some festivals don't actually want the publicity because if too many people come along it will just cost more in terms of security and other things," said Mr Greenway.

But not everyone is saying bring it on. Deeply Vale was the biggest free festival in Britain before it was banned by the local council in 1979. This year was meant to see its triumphant free-loving return, but Manchester city council has ruled that bars will have to close at 9.30pm and music turned off an hour later. The organisers hope to have another go in 2007. Vince Power, the music industry entrepreneur who sold his live music and festival business Mean Fiddler last year, has a different solution to oversupply in the British festival market. He recently bought a majority stake in the Benicassim festival in Spain. Among the bands performing over four days from July 21 will be Depeche Mode, Morrissey, Echo & The Bunnymen and Scissor Sisters.

Another overseas venue is the Sziget festival in Hungary (August 9-16), with a weighty line up, including Radiohead, Franz Ferdinand and Robert Plant.

But there will be no escape for those who stay at home. More festivals than ever are scheduled for TV, with BBC3 due to broadcast Leeds, Reading and T in the Park. Where and when:

Hi-fi North, May 27

Location Matfen estate, near Newcastle. Born out of Global Gathering, this is a new venue in the Northumberland national park

Acts Ian Brown headlines with other names including Editors, Maximo Park, The Subways and Audio Bullys

Tickets £58 - £94.50

Belladrum Tartan Heart Festival, August 11-12

Location Belladrum estate, Invernesshire. A beautiful setting promising everything from rock to country to Celtic

Acts Arlo Guthrie confirmed

Tickets £60

O2 Wireless Festival, June 21-25 and 24-25

Location Hyde Park, London June 21-25. Leeds on 24-25

In London The Strokes, David Gray, Massive Attack, James Blunt and Depeche Mode headline while The Who are in Leeds

Tickets £37.50-£152.50

Carling Weekend, August 25-27

Location Leeds and Reading. Mean Fiddler organised biggie

Acts Pearl Jam, Franz Ferdinand, Muse, Placebo, Kaiser Chiefs, Arctic Monkeys and The Streets

Tickets £60-£135

Green Man Festival, August 18-20

Location Glanusk Park, Brecon Beacons. A mellow weekend in beautiful location

Acts An eclectic lineup that includes the old - Bert Jansch - and the new - José González

Tickets £98

V Festival, August 19-20

Locations Weston Park, Staffordshire, and Hylands Park, Chelmsford

Acts A combined total of more than 135,000 will see an extremely strong lineup including Radiohead, Morrissey, Faithless, Sugababes and Rufus Wainwright

Tickets £58.50-£120

Escape into the Park, June 17

Location Singleton Park, Swansea

Acts Goldie Lookin' Chain are the headliners in a lineup that includes Fabio & Grooverider

Tickets £34.50

Nokia Isle of Wight Festival, June 9-11

Location Isle of Wight

Acts More than 30,000 people are expected to watch Coldplay headline along with Lou Reed, Foo Fighters, The Prodigy, Placebo and Primal Scream

Tickets £85.00-£105.00

Big Green Gathering, August 2-6

Location Mendip Hills, Somerset

Acts No big names yet but achingly green with all venues renewably powered. Some people plan to walk from London but there are buses from Weston-super-Mare.

Tickets £20.00-£95

Hi-fi South, May 27-28

Location Matterley Bowl, Winchester

Acts This southern partner to the northern festival will feature Hard-Fi, Super Furry Animals and The Go! Team as well as Ian Brown and The Subways

Tickets £54.50-£150

Aerosolics, June 30 - July 2

Location So far undisclosed, but in Surrey. Organisers hope 5,000 aerosol art-loving swingers will gather for a weekend of music and graffiti.

Acts Include Gogol Bordello, The Feeling, The Young Knives and The Departure

Tickets £75.

As Americans we tend to recycle our music but are rarely swept into a mania. Sometimes, it takes a while for us to feel any sort of mania that may be happening throughout the rest of the world, especially in England.

It took us almost a year and a half to catch on to the Beatles and the British invasion. We signed on to Coldplay far after “Yellow” was released throughout the rest of the world. It took a “Wonderwall” to breakdown the door to those quirky Gallagher brothers of Oasis. So who the hell are the Arctic Monkeys?

The hype has increased around The Arctic Monkeys after two number one singles in their native Great Britain. They have already procured millions of fans that absolutely adore them after their first tour in America. “When the Sun Goes Down,” and “I Bet That You Look Good on the Dancefloor” have barely broken radio play in the States, yet their album, “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I Am Not,” debuted in the American charts at number 24 – nothing to scoff at.The Monkeys have received instant fame throughout the world, and must feel jittery about the praise from members of the respected music community, such as White Stripes front man Jack White, who said they’re his favorite new band.

The Arctic Monkeys performed on “Saturday Night Live” just a few weeks ago, but unlike The Beatles’ Ed Sullivan performance, it did little to boost their popularity. The reaction to the band was a bit timid; at one moment lead singer Alex Turner pointed a finger at the audience and yelled, “that man just yawned.”

The Arctic Monkeys are selling out shows all over the United States before they are old enough to drink. Lead singer Alex Turner and guitarist Jamie Cook are both 20, and bassist Andy Nicholson and drummer Matthew “The Cat” Helders are both 19. Their first album is the fastest selling debut album in Great Britain – not bad for a band that is not on a major label or old enough to remember “Thundercats.” It is a fantastic whirlwind of punk and indie rock that will give Franz Ferdinand and The Strokes a run for their money. The band is currently on tour in America and will be making a stop on June 12 at Sonar in Baltimore.

British bands come and go without making much of an imprint on American pop culture. We’re a tough town (country) to break into and we won’t be wrapped up in any kind of mania that is not in boy band form. The band has released an E.P. that will soon hit United States stores with the ironic title “Who the Fuck Are the Arctic Monkeys?” We were just thinking the same thing.

Source: thetowerlight.com

In Manhattan's trendy Soho district, rock star Lenny Kravitz peers down from an 18-m-wide billboard for Absolut vodka, holding in his outstretched arms what appears to be a digital cable with bottle-shaped plugs. This isn't just the physical manifestation of the vodkamaker's latest hip ad campaign; it's also a display of advanced technology.

At the bottom of the sign, Absolut invites passersby to send a text message or enable their Bluetooth cell phones to download a free 4-min. MP3 track where they're standing. "We always try to be edgy and different with our ads, but this time we wanted to go beyond the traditional," says Jeffrey Moran, a spokesman for Absolut, which has a similar sign up on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.Thanks to the Web, cell phones and applications like Bluetooth and text messaging, one of the oldest ad media is suddenly one of the most fashionable. The world's marketers spent $22 billion last year on out-of-home campaigns, as billboard advertising is called. That's an 8% increase from the year before in both the U.S. and Britain, while growth in places like China and Thailand is in double digits — a pace that makes outdoor the second fastest-growing ad medium after the Internet. And we're not talking just your standard roadside eat at joe's billboard. Today's outdoor ads are everywhere — on waste cans, taxis, bus shelters, phone kiosks, even gasoline nozzles. Intrusive? Perhaps, but some of them are also interactive at your request. And at a time when consumers have become increasingly mobile and increasingly overloaded with information, the outdoor ad industry is touting the billboard, the updated version as well as the old standby, as the last powerful way to reach a mass audience efficiently. "It's a medium where there is no remote control," says Paul Meyer, worldwide president of the $2.7 billion Clear Channel Outdoor, a leading player in the global outdoor arena. "You can't mute it or change the station. You can't turn it off. It's there 24/7."

Technology, in part, is driving the medium's rebirth. Consumers can now download music, play video games, watch movie trailers or custom-design a pair of sneakers and purchase them — all by interacting with outdoor ads. Signs can send a digital coupon to our cell phones, and soon they may even start addressing us by name, as they did in Steven Spielberg's 2002 futuristic film Minority Report. "We're almost there," says Stephen Freitas of the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, an industry trade group. "Outdoor advertising is evolving to a world of two-way advertising very, very fast."

Marketers love the interaction with consumers, and it's easy to see why: the results are immediate and measurable. "For the advertiser, it really turns out-of-home into a direct-response mechanism," says Alasdair Scott of Filter in London, the firm that developed BlueCasting, the Bluetooth-based system used in the Absolut campaign. The rock band Coldplay used BlueCasting last summer to launch its album X&Y. During a two-week period, 20,000 people downloaded video clips and sample tracks directly from posters in London's main rail terminals.

Fifty bus-shelter ads in Britain for the movie Alien vs. Predator prompted 500,000 riders to vote for who would win the celluloid battle by pushing a button on the signs. "That's what I call engagement," says Jean-Luc Decaux, a co-ceo of JCDecaux North America.

Entertainment isn't the only thing being advertised on digital signs. When Lancôme launched its new fragrance, Hypnôse, in France last summer on bus-shelter signs, cell-phone users with Bluetooth could download coupons for a sample. The supply ran out in three days. In the fall, British fashion retailer New Look used Hypertags, small electronic devices embedded in billboard panels that sent digital discount vouchers via infrared and Bluetooth, which could be spent at nearby stores. Hypertag counts Procter & Gamble, Ford, Nike and Vodafone as clients. "It tends to be big companies who want to do exciting, above-the-line promotions," says Rachel Harker, one of the company's co-founders. And in Britain the line keeps getting higher, says James Davies of Hyperspace, the innovations division of the London ad consultancy Posterscope. On trial at the company's headquarters: a billboard that changes ads depending on the gender of the person standing in front of it. Davies says the demo gets it right 95% of the time. The billboard as a medium is changing rapidly too, as outdoor agencies transform static boards into digital light-emitting-diode (led) or liquid-crystal-display (lcd) screens that flash new images every few seconds. The dynamic screens allow marketers to fine-tune their messages, depending on the time of day. Lamar Advertising, based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has converted 75 vinyl highway boards into digital led displays at a cost of $300,000 to $500,000 each. "Advertisers can change their messages almost instantaneously," says Sean Reilly, Lamar's president and coo. Reilly plans to put up 200 of those smart boards before the end of the year. That time-shift ability has fresh appeal for even the most familiar brands. McDonald's, for example, could advertise an Egg McMuffin in the morning and a Big Mac in the afternoon. "Selling day parts has never been an option for out-of-home advertisers before," says Jodi Senese, executive vice president of CBS Outdoor, which will unveil a network of 75 high-definition lcd subway-station signs this summer in Manhattan. In London since December, led screens have been traveling around the city, mounted on a fleet of 25 buses. Advertisers can update ad messages within 10 minutes, or even match an ad with the neighborhood the bus is passing through. "Once you introduce that kind of flexibility," says Jon Lewen, who is overseeing the effort for Viacom Outdoor, "even those advertisers who traditionally wouldn't consider it do."

Not only are digital displays nimble, but they also allow outdoor ad agencies to sell the same real estate more than once. Since July, in a test campaign in Cleveland, Ohio, Clear Channel Outdoor has had seven large-format led boards, each running seven 8-sec. spots a minute. If the current rate of ad sales continues, Clear Channel's Meyer estimates that the boards will produce revenue of $2.3 million in 12 months. Those seven displays in their static form generated $380,000 last year. "An ad medium that historically has been viewed as cumbersome and slow to react is now as flexible as broadcast," says Meyer.

It's possible that, given the mobile lifestyle of today's consumers, billboards can reach more people more reliably than TV commercials. A survey released by the Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Research last month found that 78% of U.S. advertisers think traditional TV commercials have become less effective. Since TV audiences are so fragmented, insiders argue, outdoor ads are a surer way to reach more people more frequently than other forms of advertising. On average, says Senese, out-of-home signs are seen by 90% of U.S. adults in a given geographic area over a four-week period. And in places where mobile technology has penetrated deepest into the culture, the effects are even more eye-catching. According to research by global ad agency Mediaedge:cia, around 50% of adults worldwide have experienced "new outdoor" ads, a figure that rises to 65% of adults in Singapore and 75% in Hong Kong. In Japan, 30 million phones are equipped with a gizmo for reading QR Code, a tiny two-dimensional bar code commonly found on the front of magazines, which can bounce readers to a website, a competition or discount coupons. Last October in Tokyo, Northwest Airlines blew up QR codes to as large as 10 m in height and put them on billboards for passersby to snap, decode and win air miles in an online contest.

Television execs are not about to give up the game, but on one selling point the outdoor industry is improving: its metrics. How many people see an outdoor ad and when they see it can be tracked much more accurately than ever. Since 1933, the only equivalent of TV's Nielsen ratings for outdoor boards in the U.S. came from the Traffic Audit Bureau (TAB), which counted how many people passed a given sign. That antiquated system worked in local markets but couldn't capture the impact of a national campaign. So the industry has invested heavily in research, recognizing that big-time advertisers are demanding more accountability. Says TAB's president and ceo, Joseph Philport: "We realize the challenge has been not just to deliver the size of an audience that sees an ad but to determine how many in the audience notice it."

Enter Nielsen Outdoor. The research group last fall tested the Npod, a gps-based device about the size of a cell phone, giving one each to 850 consumers as they moved around Chicago for 10 days and counting when they passed 12,500 ad sites. Layering demographic and TAB traffic data over maps of billboard locales, the study delivered the sharpest outdoor ratings the industry has seen. Nielsen found that, on average, Chicagoans pass 66 outdoor displays each day. TAB is conducting its own industry-funded study to measure the likelihood that a person passing an ad will see it.

It's not all that surprising, then, that advertisers such as Unilever, Coca-Cola and McDonald's are reconsidering billboards in their ad mix. "Outdoor now has a place in the media-planning process," says Wally Kelly, ceo of CBS Outdoor. Coca-Cola in the U.S. is back outdoors full throttle this month to advertise its new beverage, Coca-Cola Blak, and its new global slogan, "The Coke side of life." According to senior vice president Katie Bayne, the brand will run ads on the top 10 boards in 28 national markets. Last year she advertised in only 10 markets.

That's not to say new billboard technology is free of challenges. Advertisers and privacy advocates are worried that interactive campaigns could be intrusive. Not everyone wants to be talked to by a billboard. "If somebody starts pinging phones, there's going to be consumer backlash," says Tom Burgess, ceo of Third Screen Media, a mobile-marketing and software consultant. For that reason, the newest high-tech outdoor campaigns invite consumers to opt in, say, by sending a text message. For example, insurance-company Nationwide is encouraging visitors to send in snapshots via a company website. Each afternoon it posts selected photos on the 23-story Reuters billboard in New York City's Times Square. Up the street, Walt Disney World advertises a new theme-park attraction. Send a text message to the number posted, and seconds later your phone buzzes with an sms from Disney asking whether you want further promotions. For now, the advertiser knows only your number. Before too long, though, it could know your name too. Pretty cool stuff — and maybe just a little scary.

It seems almost unimaginable for any 21st-century movie star to send his children out among the Hollywood elite equipped with ordinary names like Michael, Eric, Joel and Peter, as Kirk Douglas once did.

This point was driven home again last week, when Gwyneth Paltrow and her husband, Chris Martin, the frontman of the band Coldplay [both pictured, left], named their newborn son Moses. It was an unlikely enough name for a baby boy born in 2006, but perhaps less startling than the much discussed (and mocked) handle his sister, Apple, born two years ago, will carry through life.

Not that a name like Apple Martin stands out among celebrity children anymore. The director Peter Farrelly plucked that very name for his daughter before Apple Martin came along.Skeptics scoff at the mad rush by stars to come up with exotic baby names as another means for the attention-hungry to grab headlines. But psychologists and others who have worked with high-profile performers say that the naming of children can function as a window into a psyche. Perhaps subconsciously, they say, stars seize the opportunity of parenthood to express their obsessions, ambitions and inner quirks in a way that is, for a change, unscripted and not stage-managed by publicists.

Mr. Jillette, for example, managed to satisfy a number of interests and objectives when he and his wife, Emily, gave their daughter her highly individual name.

“You’re likely to be the only one in any normal-size group with that name,” Mr. Jillette said by e-mail, adding, ” ‘Moxie’ is a name that was created by an American for the first national soft drink and then went on to mean ‘chutzpah,’ and that’s nice.”

Besides, Moxie CrimeFighter fits right into the creative world.

“Everyone I know with an unusual name loves it,” he wrote. “It’s only the losers named Dave that think having an unusual name is bad, and who cares what they think. They’re named Dave.”

Not all performers present their decisions in such terms.

“Apples are so sweet, and they’re wholesome, and it’s biblical,” Ms. Paltrow said in an interview with Oprah Winfrey in 2004. “And I just thought it sounded so lovely and clean.” (”Moses” meanwhile is a song that Mr. Martin wrote for Ms. Paltrow in 2003.)

But while middle-class parents increasingly trade in standard names like Karen and Joseph for fancier ones like Madison and Caleb, movie stars seem compelled to push the baby naming further. The names may be merely distinctive (say, Maddox, Angelina Jolie’s Cambodian-born adopted son) or bizarre, like Makena’lei Gordon, Helen Hunt’s daughter, inspired by a place name in Hawaii. Celebrities may not so subtly be saying that for them ordinary rules need not apply.

If celebrities are the new American aristocracy, the exotic baby name can sometimes function as the equivalent of a royal title, a way for a privileged caste to bestow the power of its legacy on future generations.

“There’s a sense of ‘I’m special, I’m different, and therefore my child is special and different,’ ” said Jenn Berman, a clinical psychologist in Beverly Hills, who has worked with actors. “It’s unconscious, but they think, ‘We’re a creative family, you have the potential to be creative, so here, I bestow you with the name ‘Joaquin,’ ” Dr. Berman said.

As artists, actors often consider it their duty to shake up assumptions, defy conventions and push the frontiers of the possible. To settle for a tedious name for the child would almost be a form of spiritual surrender, said Stuart Fischoff, a psychologist, who has also worked with Hollywood clients.

“They’re expressing their creativity, and they’re also expressing their fear,” Dr. Fischoff said. “It would be very embarrassing for people to think of them as normal.”

The unusual celebrity baby name is not new. Decades ago, Anthony Perkins named his sons Osgood and Elvis, and Marlon Brando named his daughter Cheyenne. And Ms. Paltrow, the daughter of the actress Blythe Danner and the director and producer Bruce Paltrow, is named Gwyneth, after all.

But those who track the popularity of baby names say that the pressure for stars to come up with creative names for their children has grown in recent years, particularly as Hollywood members of Generations X and Y have moved into their peak years of child rearing, carrying with them their generation’s taste for obscure pop cultural references, iconoclasm and smirky irony.

Just as Frank Zappa proved himself the classic hippie prankster by naming his children Moon Unit and Dweezil in the 1960’s, the actress Shannyn Sossamon, 26, established herself as a proud product of her times by naming her son, born in 2003, Audio Science.

“A name is free, it is something that everyone has, so if you are a celebrity, you are going to have to work that much harder to set yourself apart as a person with a specialized knowledge or a rarefied taste,” said Pamela Redmond Satran, who has written baby-name books with Linda Rosenkrantz, including “Beyond Jennifer and Jason” (St. Martin’s). She said a competitive impulse among stars seems to account for the recent bonanza of unlikely baby names.

“In a weird way, it’s like anorexia” in Hollywood, Ms. Satran said. “Anyone can be thin. The famous have to be thinner.”

They also have a traditional role as tastemakers. It’s hardly a coincidence that the name Ryder, which was the 901st most popular boy’s name in the country in 2001, according to Social Security Administration statistics, jumped to 341 in 2004, the year Kate Hudson and Chris Robinson chose it for their newborn son.

But as regular people — the sort who wait in line at restaurants and pay for their own clothing — try to catch up, the stars are pushed further into the realms of obscure names, in an effort to stay ahead of this particular fashion curve. So stars troll deeper into the Old Testament for name ideas (both Bono and Wynonna Judd have an Elijah, and Cynthia Nixon has a Charles Ezekiel), into world geography (David and Victoria Beckham have a Brooklyn, and Summer Phoenix and Casey Affleck have an Indiana) or even into Grandmother’s attic. (Jude Law dusted off the name Iris for his daughter, and Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams exhumed the name Matilda for their first child last fall.)

Some therapists said the celebrity impulse to foist odd names on their children amounts to simple narcissism by the parents, and the resulting status comes at the child’s expense. The children, after all, are the ones who will have to raise their hands every time a teacher calls out “Coco” or “Eulala.”

“It’s like having a mini me,” said Robert R. Butterworth, a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles, who has had actors on his patient roster. “The child is a part of them, not an individual. It’s an appendage.”

The burden of celebrity falls even on the unborn. The child Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are expecting has already been a cover subject for magazines.

Other psychologists, however, believe fears for the child’s well-being are overblown. If, for example, Harvey Keitel’s son, born in 2004, feels a bit conspicuous being named Roman, he will at least have company. Both Cate Blanchett and Debra Messing named sons Roman that year.

Besides, the offspring of the Hollywood elite have other matters to discuss in therapy, said Dr. Berman, who said she has counseled several: “With kids of celebrities, in all honesty, the other issues are so big this one pales in comparison.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com

Because Elbow makes pretty rock music, Guy Garvey occasionally tries a falsetto, and the whole thing has a distinctly English sensibility, the comparisons to Coldplay come easily. The bands' differences are real, however, and crucial.

Elbow seems more reliable, more grounded. Garvey's knack for lyrical detail and his droll humor focus on the dramas at hand; he doesn't have one eye on the girl and the other on free-trade coffee, but rather on the facts of life as most people experience them.

Lines such as "Your sweet reassurances don't change the fact that he's better looking than me" get to the heart of human frailties without resorting to pretension. And when Garvey wants to get dreamy, he does so without the tired cliches that pass for insight with Chris Martin (on "The Everthere," he muses "All my saints have taken bribes, singing going, going, gone/All the angels taken dives, leaving you the only one").Nearly everything about Elbow is delivered with an inviting subtlety and restraint.

The flourishes of slightly off-center instrumentation and sounds, such as the hand-claps on "Mexican Standoff" or the background vocals on "An Imagined Affair," rarely call attention to themselves but consistently catch the ear. They provide texture without clutter. Even when the songs build to a climax, as in "Station Approach," Garvey's subdued singing plays against the music's vitality, creating a nice tension.

"Leaders of the Free World" is a giving record, easy to listen to but deeper than it appears and more rewarding over time.

Jeffrey Lee Puckett is SCENE's pop music editor and oversees this page.

Source: courier-journal.com

They had the fastest-selling debut album in UK history. But with their strong northern accents and Frank Spencer references, how will America take to the Arctic Monkeys. Alexis Petridis boards their tour bus in New York to find out.

The Spotted Pig has a fair claim to be called the hippest restaurant in Manhattan. A kind of upmarket gastropub, it has a Michelin star and rave reviews - its low-carb alternative to gnocchi is apparently to die for - but the food is overshadowed by its celebrity connections. Beyoncé eats here. Liv Tyler pops in for lunch. One of the owners used to manage The Smiths, the head chef came recommended by Jamie Oliver, and its investors are rumoured to include everyone from Bono to Fatboy Slim. It's so hip that the New York Times sent a writer to review not the food but the background music. "They played Air, a French pop group," he noted approvingly, "before segueing into a homage to Apple Records, then some reggae dubs."

Tonight, however, Helders will be spared the hell of an offal-based starter. The Spotted Pig is hosting a party in honour of Coldplay, who played an arena in New Jersey earlier this evening, and the Arctic Monkeys have been invited. Bassist Andy Nicholson has cried off, pleading fatigue - "I find that sort of thing reet awkward, so I stopped in bed," he says the following day - but Helders, guitarist Jamie Cook and frontman Alex Turner dutifully mount the stairs to the restaurant's first-floor bar. It turns out to be both tiny and comically overloaded with celebrities.

Jay-Z arrives in a chauffeur-driven vintage Rolls-Royce. He is followed, in short order, by Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow - who get a round of applause on entry - the rest of Coldplay and Moby.Then there is Michael Stipe, who will later request an audience with Turner, and Courtney Love, who will later attempt to engage in conversation Turner's partner Johanna, before one of the band's road crew sharply intervenes, on the harsh grounds that "after what happened to Nirvana, you don't really want Courtney Love talking to your lead singer's girlfriend".

But all of this counts for little with the Arctic Monkeys' 19-year-old drummer, Matt Helders. He emerges from his taxi and regards the Spotted Pig's tastefully discreet fascia with a wary eye. "We've been 'ere before," he sighs. Like the rest of the Arctic Monkeys, Helders speaks with a broad Sheffield accent. "I ordered chicken livers on toast for starters. I didn't really know what it were. I just ordered it. They brought it and..." His voice trails off, as if he can't find words to describe the horror. He wrinkles his nose. "I ended up scraping it all off and just eating the toast. When the waitress came back, I said to her, "You lot should be arrested for serving this muck.' "

However indifferent you may wish to appear, it is almost impossible to stop yourself craning at the entrance to see who's going to turn up next, although Cook seems to be having a good try. Maybe his jaded air tells of the ennui that comes when you've recorded the fastest-selling debut album in British history and have a serious distrust of showbusiness trappings (when the Arctic Monkeys were being wined and dined by a plethora of British record labels, Cook stubbornly insisted on paying his share of the bill at the end of every meal). Or perhaps it is simply the result of the events of the previous evening, which sound remarkably like the kind of thing Turner writes songs about. Abandoned by the rest of the Arctic Monkeys party in a downtown bar in the small hours, Cook managed to fall off his seat, was ejected from the premises after an altercation with a bouncer, then hailed a cab only to discover he couldn't remember either the name or address of his hotel.

Tonight, as Manhattan's A-list crowd into the Spotted Pig, he lurks behind a pillar and discusses his previous job as a tiler in a tone of voice you could easily mistake for wistfulness. He was still doing bathrooms last May, when the Arctic Monkeys' vertiginous ascent to success had begun: he finished one off for a friend after coming back from a sold-out tour, because he had promised he would. "It were reet good. You'd get in the van at five on a Monday morning and drive to London, stay four nights, then drive back to Sheffield on Friday afternoon." He smiles: "You can charge 'owt for tiling in London." Cook's attention is suddenly drawn to the table in the centre of the bar, where the biggest celebrities are seated together, although in this instance it's not the succession of multimillionaires who have caught his eye. "Look at Helders' top," he chuckles. Indeed, the drummer certainly stands out among the bling and casually worn designer labels, wearing a lurid orange tracksuit top. "Whenever we get sent free clothes and that, there's always something you pull out of the box and think, 'Nobody is going to wear that.' And every time, Helders comes in and, straightaway, he goes, 'I'll have that.'" And with that, Cook departs to meet his cousin, who has been deemed insufficiently important to attend Coldplay's party.

If you want a metaphor for the astonishing speed of the Arctic Monkeys' success, then look no further. None of them is legally old enough to drink in America (a fact that led one magazine to abandon plans to put the band on the cover, after liquor companies threatened to pull $500,000 of advertising). One of them is wearing a frightful tracksuit top. Barely 18 months ago their ambition apparently extended no further than getting to play a gig somewhere other than Sheffield. And here they are, chatting to Jay-Z and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Can their astonishing success be replicated in the US? Adhering to the long-established rule that any British band who get through their set in New York without the audience throwing litter at them must automatically be reported to have stormed the US amid scenes unwitnessed since Beatlemania, one excitable journalist has already dubbed the current tour "the next phase of Operation Arctic Monkeys: World Takeover". The truth is a little less hysterical.

The Arctic Monkeys have received critical raves in the New York Times and rock magazine Blender, and been described in Rolling Stone as "one of the most exciting bands on the planet". They have been introduced by Matt Dillon on Saturday Night Live and their tour has sold out. But their debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, has, thus far, sold well rather than spectacularly: certainly not enough to panic the apparently omnipresent James Blunt, whose Back To Bedlam took up residence at the top of the US chart sometime in January and shows no signs of vacating for the foreseeable future.

Manager Geoff Barradale says there is "no big plan to 'crack' America", and the Arctic Monkeys tour bus certainly doesn't feel like the white-hot epicentre of a world takeover bid. Someone has been writing slogans with their finger in the dirt caked on its sides. Given that most of these slogans seem to involve Sheffield United and internecine rivalries with other areas of Yorkshire - "100% BLADES", "LEEDS = SHITE" - you rather suspect that someone was one of the Arctic Monkeys themselves. Inside, the bus bears the distinctive aroma of a vehicle in which a rock band and its road crew have been sleeping for some weeks. "Sometimes I think about other bands and I wonder if they have conversations about their ambitions and that," muses Turner, as he sits amid the debris of the bus's rear lounge. "Everyone else seems to know what they're doing a lot more than we do. I read about other bands and it's as if they had a big meeting when they started and worked it all out. But we started just for something to do, because all us friends had bands. We never had a manifesto or 'owt. We just wrote songs and it came out like this."

Back home, one popular theory suggests that the Arctic Monkeys may simply be too British for US ears. In the past, Americans have welcomed culturally specific, socially observant English rock bands with the same warmth and eagerness with which Helders greeted his chicken livers. The artists usually held as the Arctic Monkeys' forebears made few ripples in the US. There were hardly any Stateside takers for the Jam, and none at all for Mancunian punk-poet John Cooper Clarke or Pulp. The Smiths remain an acquired taste and even the Kinks only really tasted success after they toned down the irony and wry observations and transformed themselves into a straightforward stadium rock band. If they proved too parochial, then what chance do the Arctic Monkeys have of making themselves understood, with their accents, their references to Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em and their song called Mardy Bum?

A fair proportion of their US press to date has concerned itself with explaining the band's more arcane references. Rolling Stone informed readers that chavs were "white working-class stock characters, ridiculed for their gaudy tracksuits and hard-partying lifestyle, and known for loutish behaviour and conspicuous consumption". Blender magazine dispatched a reporter to Sheffield's High Green district to get a flavour of the Arctic Monkeys' exotic background, while Turner says he feels "a bit silly playing Mardy Bum over here, a bit like I don't know where to look".

For their part, all the Americans I speak to get a bit huffy when I suggest they might not get some of the more recherché nuances in Turner's lyrics. "Sure, I understand them," says one female fan, who has travelled across the country, "but I'm kind of an Anglophile. Mardy means pissed, right? I'd never heard of Frank Spencer, but I Googled his name, so now I know."

"I don't think it's a big problem," agrees Craig Marks, editor of Blender. "It may be equivalent to a southern hip-hop record being understood in Sheffield. It would be a little bit of a challenge, but lyrics like 'I think she looks good on the dancefloor' [sic] are not vague, they're not in cockney slang or anything. Alex's ability to tell relatable stories to teenagers is one of the strong points and unique qualities of the group."

The crowd at the New York show, however, tells a slightly different story. It includes Liv Tyler and Amanda de Cadenet ("'oose that?" asks a bewildered Cook when her name is mentioned), as well as a sizeable number of British ex-pats. But towards the back of Webster Hall, I find an intriguing split in comprehension. To my right are two men in their mid-20s so overwhelmed by the Arctic Monkeys experience that they seem to have gone native: they are not only word perfect in every song, but have cultivated both a Dick Van Dyke-ish English accent for the purposes of singing along, and a slightly inscrutable chant that they deploy between songs: "ENGLISH BOYS!" they yell. "ENGLISH BOYS!" But to my left are a group of locals who spend the entire gig in a state of advanced befuddlement. "WHAT DID HE SAY?" bellows one, as Turner thanks the audience for coming and informs them he's fond of New York. "I NEED A TRANSLATOR!" I tell him what Turner just said. "Awesome!" bellows the gig-goer, relaying the information to his friends, before turning back to me with his palm outstretched. "High five!"

Quite aside from the possible need for subtitles, there may be another barrier to US success: the band's reputation for surly, difficult behaviour. The vast fanbase they gained through steady touring and fans sharing their songs on the internet means they attained British success without compromising: they refuse to appear on Top Of The Pops and rarely give interviews. "There's no commandments, no manifesto to what we turn down," insists Nicholson. "People ask us to do things and you think, 'I'm going to feel reet stupid doing that,' so you just say no." He shakes his head. "I'm amazed at what people will do to get their photo in a fucking magazine."

One result of their reluctance to do press and appear on TV is that, 360,000 album sales on, a slightly intimidating air of mystery still surrounds the Arctic Monkeys. In lieu of hard facts, a variety of lurid rumours has gained currency. The most diverting suggests that, far from being the work of a keen-eared and preternaturally gifted 20-year-old, the Arctic Monkeys' lyrics about prostitution, recalcitrant girlfriends and taxi rank rucks are written by manager Barradale, formerly the frontman of dimly remembered indie rockers Seafruit. "That's a good 'un," says Nicholson, in a tone that suggests he doesn't think it's a particularly good 'un at all. "Have you heard any of Geoff's songs?"

In fact, the band's members are noticeably less truculent in the flesh than advance publicity suggests. Turner is quiet and clearly deeply uncomfortable with being singled out for attention, but he is never less than scrupulously polite. Nicholson's face seems naturally to arrange itself into a look of profound disappointment - something about him makes you think of Bobby, the perennially disenchanted son in King Of The Hill - but in person he is charm itself, possessed of a bone-dry wit. Helders and Cook, meanwhile, are an absolute hoot, which seems at odds with their relentlessly pessimistic interviews in which they are much given to predicting imminent disaster for their careers. "Every silver lining has a cloud," says Helders when the dictaphone is pointed in his direction. "Our history teacher, Mr Staunton, always used to say that. There's a downside to everything."

If the kind of intransigence that has become their trademark seems odd back home, it is unheard of in America, where bands are expected as a matter of course willingly to press the corporate flesh and smile their way through interviews with gormless DJs. "There's no way around it," says Craig Marks, of Blender magazine. "Over here, if you want to sell a lot of records, you have to go to local radio stations in Dayton, Ohio, and shake the hands of men with satin jackets." There seems little chance of the Arctic Monkeys doing that in the foreseeable future.

Today, they are due to appear on MTV, where they will be filmed performing live and then interviewed. They don't seem exactly overjoyed by the prospect - "Check this shit out," mutters a rigidly unimpressed Turner as they arrive at the studio. The interview passes with all the zip and good humour of an agonising death after the Arctic Monkeys refuse to introduce themselves to camera. "It's our company policy that we don't introduce ourselves," says Nicholson, flatly. Initially, at least, the only one who seems willing to answer any questions is Helders, whose idiosyncratic approach to designer freebies is once more much in evidence - the top part of his head is almost entirely obscured by a vast pair of sunglasses - and whose answers invariably involve bands no one in America has ever heard of, and lies: "I like East 17, me. They were a reet underground dance act in Britain." The interviewer's smile never slips, but when she attempts to direct an inquiry about the band's influences to Turner, he stares at the floor and his answer tails off first into monosyllables, then into indistinct noises, then into silence: "I dunno, really. Songs are more influenced... by different events... than... artists... I... don't... huh... hmm..." Things pick up marginally when Nicholson, apropros of nothing, tells her that he used to be a champion tapdancer, "then I pulled me 'amstring and it were all over". It's difficult to tell if she pursues this line of inquiry because she believes him, or simply because she's relieved that someone is talking about something other than East 17, but she asks about his dancing partner. "Me partner's dancing with someone else now," says Nicholson, his expression even more mournful than usual. "I don't like to talk about it."

While MTV's interviewer heads off to have her smile removed by a crack team of surgeons, the Arctic Monkeys tour bus drives to Philadelphia and a seedy ballroom in what is self-evidently the least salubrious area of town. Backstage, Turner wearily ruminates on his night with Manhattan's glitterati at the Spotted Pig. "It were weird. They seem strange people, like. A bit glazed. All sat on a table with everybody staring at them. If they just stood around with everyone else, nobody would be looking at them, would they? I feel in them situations almost like..." He sighs. "Not an imposter, but do you know what I mean? I like to be in normal situations, me. I just want to be in the same atmosphere as everyone else."

Outside, the venue is heaving. As in New York, there are British ex-pats waving St George flags, word-perfect wannabe Yorkshiremen and a healthy sprinkling of bewildered frowns. The Arctic Monkeys sound fantastic - taut, explosive and exciting. Turner tries to talk to the crowd, but he's drowned out by cheering and chanting. "You're not even listening to me, are you?" he complains. "'Ow rude." They play a new song called No Buses, and he ends the gig jumping into the audience, still playing his guitar.

Afterwards, his mood seems to have lifted. "There's worse things you can do in life," he says. "I keep forgetting that. You only think about things within what you're doing, so there's always bad things about it. But if you put it on the grand scale of things, you think, 'Oh, shurrup you dickhead, there's worse things to moan about than that. You've got the opportunity to write songs for a living.'" His eyes shine, and for a moment Alex Turner seems neither weary nor jaded nor rigidly unimpressed. "You're proper fucking blessed."

Considering that album sales have been down in four of the last five years and are off by 2 percent from 2005, it might seem like faint praise to trumpet that Rascal Flatts pumps the biggest sales week of 2006.

But an opening week of 722,000 copies for "Me and My Gang" genuinely entitles Rascal Flatts to bragging rights. The opening tally is the biggest since Mary J. Blige Mary J. Blige rang 727,000 copies when "The Breakthrough" arrived during Christmas week 2005 and the largest week by a country album since Tim McGraw opened with 766,000 in September 2004 with "Live Like You Were Dying."

Further, in the 15 years that Nielsen SoundScan has tracked sales, only five country albums accomplished larger first weeks. That puts Rascal Flatts in the rarefied air of Garth Brooks (twice, with "Double Live" reaching 1.1 million units in 1998), Shania Twain , Dixie Chicks and McGraw.

In these newfangled times, the trio‘s latest also sets a record for digital copies sold in a week by a country set, with 30,000. Among all genres, "Me and My Gang" owns the sixth-largest week, behind the digital frames rung by Coldplay‘s "X&Y," Jack Johnson ‘s "Curious George" soundtrack, Kanye West‘s "Late Registration," Madonna‘s "Confessions on a Dance Floor" and U2‘s "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb." The largest sum among those was 62,000 for the Coldplay title.Rascal Flatts‘ last album, "Feels Like Today," was country‘s best-selling digital set of 2005, posting 23,000 copies.

"Me and My Gang" marks Rascal Flatts‘ second No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and its third trip into that chart‘s top five.

"Feels Like Today" was the trio‘s first No. 1 on the big chart, selling 201,000 when it arrived in October 2004.

This is also the group‘s third consecutive No. 1 on Top Country Albums. Its first, self-titled set peaked at No. 3 on that list in 2002, almost two years after its release.

"What Hurts the Most," the lead track from "Gang," chalks up its third week at No. 1 on Hot Country Songs, its fifth No. 1 on that list.

Rascal Flatts might emerge from the Easter frame with a second chart-topping week, or it might lose a close battle to another country artist who has held the Billboard 200 throne, Toby Keith .

The former‘s distributing label, Hollywood, projects a second-week decline in the vicinity of 58 percent to 60 percent.

A slide like that would put "Me and My Gang" at around 310,000 copies, which is where pundits think Keith‘s new "White Trash With Money" will start, based on chains‘ first-day sales. Easter weekend traffic is a factor that makes it difficult for chart watchers to predict either album‘s sum with certainty.

Rascal Flatts‘ new album joins the six other country sets that debuted at 600,000 or more in the Nielsen SoundScan era. Three had declines of less than 50 percent, with the smallest erosion, 28 percent, belonging to Shania Twain‘s "Up!" (from 874,000 to 626,000 in 2002). Three had steeper drops, the sharpest a 70 percent dip by Tim McGraw‘s "Live Like You Were Dying" (which fell to 227,000 in its second week in 2004).

Keith‘s last one, "Honkytonk University," sold 283,000 units 11 months ago during its opening frame, but his previous two had bigger starts. His fattest ever, 585,000, happened with 2003 set "Shock‘n Y‘All," his second No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

Regardless of which of those takes next week‘s crown, look for the "High School Musical" soundtrack to bounce back to No. 3, possibly scoring its first week north of 200,000. That would continue a streak that has seen it post a gain in each of the 13 weeks since it bowed.

Veteran rapper LL Cool J seems on course to begin with 100,000 or more.

Daniel Powter, current king of the Billboard Hot 100, is projected at 70,000 copies. The Canadian would likely have drawn an even larger start had his album not already sold 26,000 digital downloads since May 2005, with "American Idol"-adopted track "Bad Day" selling another 693,000 downloads.

Source: Reuters/Billboard

Take a novelty record, infuse it with the perfect holiday timing, toss in a bit of "Fresh Air" and, voila, What I Like About Jew has its first hit.

The duo -- Rockapella founder/former leader Sean Altman and Blender magazine music editor Rob Tannenbaum -- self-released its debut album, "Unorthodox," April 10. The next day, it ranked a pitiful 34,598 on the Amazon sales chart.

But later that day, after Terry Gross played the pair‘s Passover song, "They Tried to Kill Us (We Survived, Let‘s Eat)," on her NPR program, "Fresh Air," sales at Amazon started to soar. By April 12, the album was ranked No. 45 -- ahead of such acts as Coldplay, the Black Eyed Peas and Morrissey.With tongue planted firmly in cheek, Tannenbaum is sure the chart rise will continue: "After Passover comes Shavuot and, uh, Tisha B‘Av, which I‘m sure will keep us on the chart. And then we have three Hanukkah songs ... Right now, we‘re the top-selling Jews on Amazon -- bigger than Matisyahu and even Madonna."

What I Like About Jew is on a Passover tour that concludes April 21 in Los Angeles.

Source: Reuters/Billboard

Nobody's quite sure if they're pop or opera - but by any definition Il Divo are a fully-fledged phenomenon.

It's barely two years since the quartet were launched by Simon Cowell, but they are now global superstars with the statistics to match. Earlier this year they became only the fifth non-American act to debut an album at No 1 in the Billboard chart. The other members of that ultra-elite club are The Beatles, Elton John, Led Zeppelin and Coldplay - and Zeppelin are the only previous group to achieve the feat without releasing a single.

In total they have sold more than 10 million albums, topping the charts in 26 countries.And they are currently on the UK leg of a 72-date/58-city tour that has seen them post sold-out notices all over the planet.

This summer they will perform under the ramparts of Warwick Castle as part of a Summer Nights festival that includes Luciano Pavarotti and Simply Red.

And you could hardly ask for a line-up that better illustrates the massive crossover appeal of the international quartet - American David Miller, Frenchman Sebastien Izambard, Swiss Urs Buhler and Spaniard Carlos Marin.

As he prepared for their shows at Birmingham's NEC tonight and on Tuesday, Urs admitted that he struggles to get his head round the scale of those achievements.

"We are focused on the work we do, not how big we have become," he said, "but sometimes you do stop to think about it and it really is amazing.

"The other week we had a showcase in Hong Kong and the record company produced a display of the gold and platinum awards we have won.

"We saw that and thought 'my goodness, have we done all this in the past year and a half?' It's incredible!

"There have been other crossover groups around, but we never expected to have such a broad appeal."

As you would expect from a project masterminded by Cowell, the marketing of Il Divo has been as slick as it has been relentless, paying particular attention to the group's beefcake appeal.

"We had to fight against the perception that that was the only interesting thing about us," admits Urs, "but it doesn't bother us any more because I don't think anybody who sees one of our shows would think that we are just some sort of boy band.

"You do have people in the opera world who don't think we are classical enough and people in the pop world who think it is not modern enough.

"But we haven't encountered any real snobbery from classical music lovers and it would shock me if somebody suggested that opera should be confined to some sort of intellectual elite.

"We do get critics who say 'Il Divo do not sing opera' but our answer to that is 'we never said we did!'

"I haven't seen a breakdown of our fanbase but I would think it is mainly people who normally listen to pop music and are ready to take a careful step into classical territory.

"We don't see ourselves as disciples, but classical music has a huge and diverse repertoire and it is a shame that it seems inaccessible to a lot of people.

"It's not like listening to the Top 20 - it needs a bit of effort to get into it. I'm classically trained, but if I approach a new opera or symphony I have to take time to get my brain around it before I can start enjoying the music."

Il Divo are now at home in vast venues such as the NEC.

"If you play a symphony hall, the audience is not very far away but you have two or three balconies, some of them very high up," Urs said.

"You are trying to relate to people on all those levels which can be quite difficult. If you're playing a hockey stadium, you're at one end and you look out at a sea of faces.

"It's a bit easier, because you don't have to divide your attention. And, of course, it feels great to play to 10,000 or 15,000 people instead of 1,500.

"You have some people who treat it as a serious concert and just want to sit and listen and some who want more of a show.

"We don't like to bounce around too much but we know how to adapt our performance to different audiences.

"You don't change the way you sing, but you have to change the way you relate to the public."

As to the future, Urs admits: "You can't really tell how long this is going to last - we might get tired of it or the public might get tired of us.

"I would be glad to do it for a few more years because it is great fun and we've achieved a level of fame that you don't get in the classical world.

"On the other hand, singing a beautiful opera part is a huge pleasure and at some point I will want to go back to that.

"But we are really proud of what we have achieved so far. It's been an amazing adventure."

Richard Ashcroft swears that he doesn't go searching for mind-blowing spiritual epiphanies. They somehow seem to find the brainy Brit — on a basis so frequent it could spook the Dalai Lama himself.

One such memorable moment occurred in 1997, when the singer decided to re-christen his pending "Urban Hymns" solo set with the working title of his old band, the Verve. Thanks to operatic hits like "Bittersweet Symphony" and "The Drugs Don't Work," the album went on to sell a career-making 7 million copies.

That fatherly frustration manifests itself on Ashcroft's just-issued third effort, "Keys to the World," which debuted at No. 2 on the UK charts, only held in check by the overseas phenomenon of the Arctic Monkeys. Coldplay's Chris Martin — who recently invited Ashcroft to open his stateside stadium tour — has called his chum "the best singer in the world." But when Ashcroft finally did fly alone on 2000's musically inventive "Alone With Everybody," he says, "I lost 6 million people because I was no longer the Verve, so I lived through the fact that — on a professional and artistic level — we really just deal in trade names. But it was my decision, and I've lived with that, with 6 million people ignoring me on my next album."

The next eye-opener came on Ashcroft's 30th birthday, in 2001. The place: His mother-in-law's house in the south of France. The date: Sept. 11, unfortunately.

Mid-celebration with his wife and year-old son, he switched on the television and watched in horror as the the World Trade Center came crashing down. "I saw the pain and the confusion happening to a city that — when I was a young man, traveling as a musician — I drew so much energy from," he recalls. "And when I actually imagined how that energy could be turned into paranoia and fear, it put me into a very depressed state for quite a long time. Because I suddenly realized that the decisions that were going to be made by the administrations in America and England were not only going to affect my life, they were going to affect my son's son's life, and his son's as well."

Ashcroft's deep, warble wafts gently over self-questioning ballads like "Why Do Lovers?" and "Words Just Get in the Way," grows uplifting in anthems like "World Keeps Turning" and "Break the Night With Colour," then growls with socio-political rage in the title track and the anti-religious-right rocker "Why Not Nothing?"

Well-studied in mysticism thanks to a Rosicrucian stepfather, Ashcroft says he's run the full gamut of religious beliefs. And as a kid, he studied the play "Death of a Salesman" and understood that humans, just like Willy Loman, are rats perpetually caught in a soul-crushing race.

He isn't exactly agnostic, he says, "because I believe that there have been many enlightened people who've walked this planet. But Jesus Christ for the past 2,000 years has been used and abused by this ragtag bunch of power-hungry people. And now you've got a lot of people trying to say that they've seen the light, that their God is literally all our God, that the president's God is my God. And that is freakish beyond belief, but we have to let that go."

Letting go is one of Ashcroft's latest revelations.

Over the course of a nearly hourlong chat, he speaks of zenlike subjects: the loneliness of the astronauts who landed on the moon, as described in the book "Moon Dust"; the new tribal nature of post-9/11 society, the importance of disappearing into his Gloucestershire estate with his wife Kate and two sons; the English songbird who follows him on walks through his property flitting from tree to tree. There also are conspiracy theories, like the one that neoconservatives orchestrated the Twin Towers destruction with inside detonations. Again, he says, let go.

"People are getting so hooked on conspiracy theories that they miss the fact that we're on a rock in infinity," he says. "We don't need conspiracies — forget them. Forget the lizards, the UFOs, the Masons, forget all that."

That's why he composed the heartwearmer "Music Is Power" for the new album.

He says, "For anyone out there who believes in the music like I do, let go of those conspiracies because the whole thing is bigger than we ever, ever can imagine. And we can never truly penetrate the powers that be, so let that go and start dealing with the day-to-day, the people around you. And if you've got a tribe of people that you love, look after your tribe and respect other people. Because it is a crazy world out there, but everyone can take their place in it. And that's what my album is all about."

Will the meek really inherit the Earth? Ashcroft hopes so. With his co-producer-arranger Chris Potter, he's spent his post-Verve years chasing his own muse, and crafting some of the most texturally-lush folk-rock around.

But it's at a cost. When fans demanded the swirling, shoegazing guitar squall of the Verve, he unhooked the amplifiers and shambled down Burt Bacharach/Noel Coward sidestreets, exploring the hushed potential beauty of standard-serious craftsmanship.

No matter that a fraction of earlier acolytes get it, Ashcroft says. "What I'm talking about is living with your decisions and feeling comfortable with where you're at at the time. Which sounds like a cliche, but cliches are there for a reason."

So the man is at peace this morning, as he watches from his hotel window as the early-spring snow drifts delicately over Central Park. His wife and kids are asleep in the next room, and he's still feeling the buzz from his first solo show in years at New York's Webster Hall.

"I'm moving now, I've got the momentum, and you've really got to embrace that when it comes," he declares.

It also helps to keep your eyes and heart open to those little epihanies, as well. On the flight over from London, he chose to sit next to a woman "who seemed like she had a good soul. and we got to chatting, and she told how she'd been involved with somebody who was a polygamist who then shot himself and blamed her in the suicide note. So I put her on the guest list and I hope she made it to the show."

Ashcroft can cite countless reasons to stay secluded in his English mansion, quietly enjoying the family life.

But, he says, "I'm not here to lock myself away. I'm here to hear the stories and have a toast with someone I've never met before in the back of a plane. And that's what I'm singing about."

And what would he change if he had "Keys to the World"?

He can't stifle a kooky laugh. He says, "Ah, that's the question, isn't it? But it's up to you. The question can scare you for two weeks straight if you really want to think about it, but after that, it's up to you."

Source: insidebayarea.com

Back in 1970, Michael Eavis, a young farmer, opened his 150-acre farm to 1,500 people who paid a pound each to watch a handful of pop and folk stars perform for a weekend. The Glastonbury Festival was born. Last year, 153,000 people paid £125 for the privilege of making hay in the mud and rain.

Julien Temple's minutely researched rockumentary concentrates mostly on these exhausted but happy campers who have travelled to Worthy Farm over the years to enjoy a kind of micro-city far removed from the outside world.

We dip into the festival's 30-year history, not in chronological order, but in a way which reflects the fashions, attitudes and social changes of the era.The main commentary is provided by Eavis himself, with additions from sceptical locals ("I'd go in there with a Tommy gun, myself"), those who have witnessed the changes and those who are just desporting themselves, often ridiculously, as part of the scene. The only notable absentee is the late John Peel, who went there often and encouraged many of the lesserknown groups on display.

Then there's the music, though there is no indication of who's playing (discreet subtitles would have helped). Those featured include The Velvet Underground, David Bowie, Richie Havens, Nick Cave, Bjork, Morrissey and Coldplay. I wish there were more of them and less of the obvious exhibitionists padding about in the huge tented city.

Even so, this is Britain's very own Woodstock, repeated year after year, except for this, the year Eavis gives his fields a rest. It makes for an epic film which Temple painstakingly melded from thousands of hours of footage, some fortuitously rescued from the bin. And worth the trouble.

If Glastonbury is too long and lacks a sustained interest in the music, it is a slice of history that intrigues and entertains.

Source: thisislondon.co.uk

A lawyer for Apple Computer on Wednesday defended the company‘s right to use the apple logo on its iTunes Music Store and in a series of TV advertisements for iTunes, despite objections from the Beatles‘ Apple Corps recording label.

The British company, started by the Beatles in 1968, argues Apple Computer has infringed on its territory by entering into the music business, and is seeking to force Apple Computer to drop its apple logo from iTunes and pay unspecified damages.

Anthony Grabiner, a lawyer for Apple Computer, said Wednesday that advertisements featuring musical acts U2, Eminem and Coldplay were entitled to display the apple logo because they were promoting the iTunes store and its download services and not the music itself."Apple Computer has the exclusive right to use the apple mark on such a broadcast, if used to indicate the source or origin of the hardware and downloading services mentioned in the advert," he said.

Grabiner has rejected Apple Corps‘ claim that the tech company‘s iTunes Music Store violated the trademark agreement.

Grabiner has said the "distribution of digital entertainment content" was permitted at Apple Computer under the agreement.

He said Wednesday that Apple Computer had breached the 1991 agreement by providing a "seamless integration of hardware, software and music."

Vos has argued that while Apple Computer is entitled to produce programs like iTunes, it should stay out of the music business if it uses the logo, a cartoonish apple with a neat bite out of its side.

Source: Various

Top celebs from across the country are heading to London's Leicester Square tonight for the premiere of the long-awaited Glastonbury festival film.

They're all going to be there tonight. Kate Moss, Coldplay, Jarvis Cocker, the Gallagher brothers, Rolf Harris.

And they'll all be on hand to witness the unveiling of the Julien Temple-directed film of the fest – a project that began in 2002 when Glasto guro Michael Eavis was pondering bringing the festival to a close.He wanted a record of the event in case it was the last time it ever graced the fields of Somerset and enlisted local boy Temple, who has also directed The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and Absolute Beginners, to film the mud and mayhem.

Almost four years on the festival is still going strong but will not be taking place this year as the fields are being given a chance to recover – meaning that the film will be as close as usual Glasto-goers can get to the real thing.

The Velvet Underground, Nick Cave, Morrissey and David Bowie all make an appearance in the film, which was produced from more than 15 hours of footage that spans the ages, and Eavis is well impressed.

"I think [Temple's] done a brilliant job," Eavis enthused. "It's very bold, very brave and will raise some eyebrows."

The first Glastonbury took place in 1970, when Eavis pulled off a minor coup in persuading Marc Bolan of T-Rex fame to play on his farm, and it has since gone on to establish itself as the definitive summer festival – despite the mud.

More on this here

Saw Gwyneth Paltrow coming out of FAO Schwartz with her mama (Blythe Danner) and Apple in stroller. Looks heavily pregnant now. Had a Burberry umbrella, and was very gracious to the guy who held the door open for her. Almost no makeup, but seemed in a great mood.

Was walking south along the Hudson Park path on Friday when I saw a gorgeous man jogging & pushing a stroller. I thought, “Of course all the hot guys are married,” when I realized it was Ed Burns. He wasn’t dressed to run (jeans, blazer, oxford) but his adorable daughter was screaming with delight. They crossed the West End Highway to Harrison St. in Tribeca. Off to pick up mommie Christy Turlington or to visit Gwyneth Paltrow & Chris Martin who live around there?

Source: http://gawker.com

If last year was Ottawa's ultimate year of rock, this year is sputtering along as if it's going to fizzle out.

In one month, Donald Fagen, Nine Inch Nails, Sheryl Crow, Hawksley Workman and MC Rob Base all blew off dates in Ottawa. There were various legitimate reasons, mostly health-related, but so far only Workman has made it a priority to reschedule (May 8, Bronson Centre). A new date for Crow is to be announced today.

Recent concerts by superstar artists such as Coldplay, Nickelback and Hilary Duff drew well, but there were seriously underattended performances. The most recent example was Rob Thomas, who performed for barely 1,500 people at Scotiabank Place last month.

Even the Tulip Festival has been forced to downsize its concert series from an 11-day marathon to a couple of weekends, an act of fiscal responsibility that nobody is particularly happy about. Don't write it off yet, though, because there are still potentially good weekend shows to catch by Xavier Rudd, Trooper and the Trews.This anecdotal evidence could be a sign that the decline in the North American concert industry is starting to hit Canada. We sailed through the past couple of years, partly because booking agents saw Canada as an opportunity to cultivate new, concert-deprived markets. That's why Pearl Jam stopped in Thunder Bay and the Stones and U2 finally included Ottawa on their tour schedules last year.

Some say this year's downturn is part of the natural cycle, the inevitable hangover following a U2- and Stones-gorged year. Others speculate the phenomenon is a direct result of declining revenues by the record companies, who then trim their financial support for touring acts.

You can also point to escalating ticket prices and pressure from other forms of entertainment. I can understand the temptation to stay home and watch Coldplay on the big-screen TV rather than fight Queensway traffic, pay for parking and compete with thousands to see them live. (But I'm glad I didn't succumb, because it was a great concert).

Last year's bountiful crop of shows in the nation's capital also included Green Day, Pearl Jam, Aerosmith and an amazing Bluesfest lineup that featured Black Eyed Peas, Kid Rock and ZZ Top. Any slump is going to seem especially dramatic.

Glancing at the upcoming concert calendar, the immediate outlook is less than spectacular. Rumours persist regarding Paul McCartney, Madonna and AC-DC, but so far the only major acts of note confirmed for Ottawa are the Strokes, Black Crowes, George Strait and Gordon Lightfoot. While those will be decent shows, I'm waiting for something monumental.

Well, what about Bluesfest? What can we expect from Ottawa's biggest summer music festival, only three months away? If it's tough for the multinational promoters, it must be really tough for a community-based festival that strives to attract the same major acts.

"From what I've seen so far, the concert business is pretty scary," admits executive director Mark Monahan, who has less than three weeks to finalize the lineup. Details on the 2006 Cisco Systems Ottawa Bluesfest are to be announced on April 26. The festival runs from July 7 to 16, with four stages on the grounds of City Hall and a satellite stage at the Casino du Lac Leamy.

"A lot of shows have not done well. What happens is, everybody starts out with the same intent.

"We're going to spend the same amount on artists. If the artists aren't available, then the artists that are available start charging more ... suddenly, you can pay too much."

For a festival with set dates, the artist also has to be available during the required time frame. Plus, financial situations are often precarious in the festival world, where success or failure can hinge on factors such as the weather, ticket sales, corporate sponsorships and measly government funding.

The only rumours I've heard so far concern Blue Rodeo, Great Big Sea, Etta James, Bonnie Raitt and possibly the Tragically Hip. Fine acts all of them, but they're not going to blow the minds of the younger demographic the festival is trying to cultivate as an investment in the future.

But don't forget that Monahan has expert help in the programming department. Again he is assisted by Black Sheep Inn proprietor Paul Symes, who's been part of Bluesfest artistic direction for three years, and this year's two new recruits -- punk/indie-rock guru Shawn Scallen and Zaphod Beeblebrox impresario Eugene Haslam. Both men are veterans of the Ottawa music scene and plugged into the North American touring circuit.

"Given the input from people like Paul and Eugene and Shawn, I think it's a pretty well-rounded approach to the programming, and I think you'll see that reflected in a lot of the shows," says Monahan. "I'm pretty happy with how it's shaping up. We just need the last few pieces of the puzzle."

He's reluctant to address the rumours, but there is one act Monahan is happy to talk about. It's the Grammy-nominated Cuban flautist Maraca that Monahan discovered on a recent trip to a jazz festival in Havana. Maraca brings his group, Maraca y Otra Vision, to Ottawa for the first time, dividing their Bluesfest time between the casino's Havana Nights series and the acoustic/Cuban stage on the festival grounds.

"It's a big-band salsa show with the flute player as the leader," Monahan says. "They're phenomenal. Fantastic. The energy is amazing."

Rest assured, there are no intentions of downsizing the festival. In fact, Monahan is jockeying for more space. Negotiations are under way that would allow the festival to use Lisgar Collegiate's sports field, thereby expanding the space available for the Roots stage.

Still, one Bluesfest-related endeavour facing financial challenges is Blues in the Schools, the festival's do-good program that brings blues artists into schools for educational sessions with the students. A five-year provincial government grant ran out last year.

"We now have to fundraise for 100 per cent of it," says Monahan. "The board feels strongly that we should continue Blues in the Schools at the level we're at, so my job is to try and make that happen. It's just unfortunate there isn't government help at this point."

To cut down on travels costs, this year's edition, which is set to run from April 24 to May 5 in city schools, features more local artists. Along with out-of-towners such as Rick Fines and Ellen McIlwaine, resident artists include Ottawa gospel singer Sharon Riley, guitarists Drew Nelson and James Cohen and drummer-percussionist Steve Lund.

To raise more money, a new Hyundai Tuscon will be the grand prize in the annual raffle. The traditional offering of an autographed guitar will be the second prize.

More funds are raised at other events through the year, including a golf tournament and silent auction. In addition, net proceeds from a Sunday-night talent showcase at Zaphod Beeblebrox are earmarked for Blues in the Schools.

The showcase, which runs from May 7 to June 25, is aimed at discovering Ottawa-area bands worthy of performing at Bluesfest. Bands representing all musical genres are invited to participate. Promo kits should be submitted to Haslam by e-mail (zaphods_ottawa@hotmail.com) or regular mail (27 York St., Ottawa, K1N 5S7). Deadline for entries is April 21.

Source: canada.com

It will be just like the festival but without the mud. Many of the big names to have graced the Pyramid stage and the bars over the past three-and-a-half decades will converge on London tomorrow for the premiere of Glastonbury, the movie.

Julien Temple, whose previous films include The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle and Absolute Beginners, has woven together miles of footage, professional and amateur, to create a record of the festival by which all other outdoor music events are judged. Glastonbury veterans, from Björk to the Gallagher brothers, members of Coldplay, Radiohead, Faithless and the Chemical Brothers, are expected to turn out to relive their moments in the West Country sun - and rain.Rolf Harris, whose unlikely appearance in 1993 was such a hit that he has returned three times, is on a guestlist that also features many of the DJs to have covered the festival, including Jo Whiley, Lauren Laverne and Edith Bowman. Kate Moss, the model who graced the mud in 2005 with her then amour Pete Doherty, is rumoured to be bringing the Babyshambles singer to the Leicester Square celebration.

All are captured on the film alongside such luminaries as The Velvet Underground, Nick Cave, Morrissey and David Bowie.

The English National Opera's stunning performance of Wagner's Die Walküre two years ago makes the final cut - although some vintage Glastonbury moments, such as Johnny Cash in 1994, do not. Nonetheless, the movie is the nearest thing to a Glastonbury festival this year as founder and organiser Michael Eavis, who holds the event on his family farm, is giving his fields a rest. "I think he's done a brilliant job," Mr Eavis said of Temple's film. "It's very bold, very brave and will raise some eyebrows."

The project began in 2002 when the future of the festival was in question and Mr Eavis decided he wanted a record in case it turned out to be the final year. Robert Richards, a long-time festival worker, took on the role of producer and enlisted Temple, who lives nearby in Somerset to help. In the event, the festival survived and Temple returned in 2003, 2004 and 2005. He also re-cut clips from the film Nicolas Roeg made of the event in 1971 and invited attendees to submit their own amateur footage.

More than 900 hours were sifted to produce the final film which, said Temple, had been made from the point of view of the audience. "Hopefully you get the sense of surviving this event rather than being guided through by some narrator," he said.

Details of how to apply for tickets for the Glastonbury Comes to Town Tour, sponsored by Orange and Sony Ericsson, are on the www.glastotour.com website. The film goes on general release on Friday.

Mr Eavis, a dairy farmer, held the first festival on his farm in the village of Pilton, Somerset, in September 1970. It became a regular event only a decade later but there have been occasional gap years, either to rest the fields or because of battles over the licence for the event which was marred by violence in the early 1990s. The festival now raises considerable sums for charity.

Source: http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk

For 20 years, the Cubs have played the same pregame song while the pitcher is warming up, but on Friday and Saturday, it was "Have a Nice Day" by Bon Jovi.

The Cubs now will rotate four or five songs in an attempt to be more contemporary. Among the other titles are "Clocks" by Coldplay and "Beautiful Day" by U2.

Read the full article here

THEY may have been making music together for almost 20 years – but 80s pop heroes A-ha are far from best pals.

When we caught up with the Norwegian wonders for an exclusive webchat, they REFUSED to be interviewed together and described their relationship as an 'unusual marriage'.

Speaking separately to The Sun Online, Morten Harket and Paul Waaktaar-Savoy revealed they didn’t speak to each other for most of the 1990s and that they wrote much of their new album Analogue separately.

Despite their personal differences, the group are still phenomenally successful.

They've sold a whopping 30million albums and count Coldplay's Chris Martin and U2's Bono as fans.What do you think of your celebrity fan base?

Paul: I’m a Coldplay fan so it was nice to hear that Chris Martin is a fan.

Hi Morten. Would you like to collaborate with Chris Martin from Coldplay or Bono from U2?

Morten: If it made sense and it was a musically interesting idea we would do it.

I wouldn’t want to team up for a publicity stunt. I don’t think it would work.

Read the full, exclusive interview at The Sun

Julien Temple's new film Glastonbury isn't the first attempt to bring the festival's myriad wonders to the screen - the 1995 Lottery-money squandering Glastonbury The Movie regrettably springs to mind. But it looks like they've got it right this time. If you really want to know what it feels like to be edged out of a muddy field by thousands of confused Coldplay fans then this is for you.

Actually, this provides a decent, music-filled overview of the summertime fixture and this series of special screenings adds live performances from bands such as Starsailor, and a DJ set from Belle And Sebastian. Hopefully there'll be no jugglers or tent thieves present.

Source: The Guardian