Fans of the copper genius may be interested to see this video of a whole gig, recorded at the Kennedy Center. It'll keep us Brit fans going til he comes back. Impressively, this is his band's first show together.

http://www.kennedy-center.org/explorer/videos/?id=M4906

Due to illness, I have two spare Rival Sons tickets, for this Thursday, at the 02 Academy in Islington. Since they're paid for, I'm offering them up to anyone who wants them, for nowt. PM me if you're interested, first come first served.
They look and sound like this:

Fraser, of course, please take this down/alert me/slap the back of my outstretched hand if any of this breaks any rules.

This pulls me in a number of directions - disturbing, jaunty and nostalgic.

[Whistling Heart's 'Alone']

Have you seen anything else that inspires such emotional confusion?

Despite owning quite a lot of Cds and Vinyl, it has recently stuck me that I don't own an awful lot of entire oevres. Even if you discount live albums, best-ofs and odds'n'sods collections (which I do in this case). For every band/act I really like, there's nearly always one that I either never got round to buying, or decided that this was their Moon Sausage (blogs passim.) I love Stevie Wonder, but I'm not going out of my way to acquire In Square Circle - ditto with the Beach Boys, Stones and so on. Even my beloved HJHMs have a couple of CDs missing from the pile - I never got round to Please Please Me or Yellow Submarine.
So, for any act who's released more than three studio albums, I own the official studio output of:
Aimee Mann
Fountains of Wayne
Ben Folds Five
Big Star
The Hold Steady
Jason Falkner
Wilco
Nick Drake
REM
Wondermints

And, aside from REM, these are slender bodies of work. However, I know you can do better. Anyone own everything by Bowie? Neil Young? The Grateful Dead? The Fall???

As the football season comes to its close, it's time to tick off the images and soundbites we have seen, and are going to see next weekend.

• "He'll never score another goal as important as that one" (sometimes prefaced with "if he plays football for another fifty years...")
• "Desperate stuff, now, from xxxxx"
• Crying child in Colours Of Relegated Club being comforted by dad, himself on the verge of being a bit unstoic.
• Pretty girl in CORG crying
• Larger than average man in CORG, in an otherwise deserted stand, trying to take it all in. Stewards hovering like flourescent vultures.
• Relegated player/manager "We'll come back stronger"*.
• Lots and lots of pitch invasions.

Any others?

*You won't. The player, having been convinced he is too good to play one division lower by his weaselly agent, will jump ship within 48 hours. The manager's cards are being prepared by a hacked-off owner.

New single by the WWYH is available for free and legit, here:
http://crowdedhouse.com/

That is all.

(Play fair, no Googling)
What have the following artists got in common?
Ian Dury
Lou Reed
Sergei Prokofiev

During lunch today, a freelancer working for my company casually mentioned that his job, for a few years, was setting light to 'Crazy' Arthur Brown's headpiece during 'Fire'. A bit of trainspotterish questioning from those of a certain age proved he was not lying.
Other than a totally apocryphal task involving Stevie Nicks and a straw, can anyone name a more impressive errand for a roadie?

I received a free CD with the Independent on Sunday last weekend. At the end of its 10 '90s hits' there are a further five tracks (heralded in much smaller type) by such rock gods as Biscuits in the Ashtray, Lighterthief Productions and Cooper. I've seen it before on free CDs given away with tabloids, but others given away with the Guardian and, of course, the quality rock monthlies, don't do this.
I'm imagining it's some kind of dodge to avoid paying excessive publishing levies. Does anyone know how this works, if I'm completely wrong, or who the poor souls in 'Cooper'are. Again I'm only guessing, but they're probably session folk paid small potatoes to churn out such filler.
Anyone able to enlighten me?

At an acoustic gig last night I was stuck by how many clichéd phrases will not go away. Here are a few I would be delighted never to hear again:

'I would swim the deepest ocean/climb the highest mountain'
'I love you more than words can say'
Anyone being 'all alone', usually in the proximity of a telephone
'Stop and wonder why'
Anyone having 'a dream come true'
Anyone whose paramour/ex makes them 'blue'
Stars pointlessly described as being 'in the sky', usually to fill three syllables

Any more? And in particular, any great and good songwriters guilty of such a crime who really should know better?