The lovely Radio1 and TV presenter Fearne Cotton launched her new collection, exclusive to Very.co.uk.Fearne said: ‘Your first love, when your stomach is in knots. There’s no better feeling.
‘There are some really special pieces in there, perfect for a big summer party or event, alongside some versatile key pieces that can be worn all season.’Very.co.uk said: ‘We are confident that the summer additions to her range will inspire our customers and strengthen her position as one of Very.co.uk‘s most popular designers.’
The Overtones announce extensive UK & Ireland theatre tour including a night at the London Palladium.With their debut album ‘Good Ol’ Fashioned Love’ sitting at number 4 in the UK charts, male vocal harmony group The Overtones announce a sixteen date UK & Ireland theatre tour including a night at the London Palladium.
The tour will start in Derry on October 1st and visit Belfast, Dublin, Warwick, Bournemouth, Nottingham, Birmingham, York, Bristol, Salford, Gateshead, Glasgow, Preston, London and Northampton before concluding in Ipswich on October 27th.Tickets will go on sale at 9.30am on Friday 8th April ** Exclusive fanbase pre-sale from 9.00am Wednesday 6th April via www.theovertones.tv
Paul Simon will release his eagerly anticipated new album, ‘So Beautiful or So What’, on June 13th through Hear Music/Concord Music Group.Produced by Phil Ramone and Paul Simon, the ten track album – his 12th solo studio record – sees Simon crafting his songs around harmony and song structure instead of the beat-driven form of writing which has inspired him since the mid-1980s.
“Since ‘Graceland’, I’ve always made the record based on either making the tracks or the percussion first,” Simon told Rolling Stone. “This time the stimuli was a guitar in my lap. That takes me back to ‘Still Crazy After All These Years’ or ‘Something So Right’.”
Elvis Costello said: “This remarkable, thoughtful, often joyful record deserves to be recognised as among Paul Simon’s very finest achievements”
Opening with a song for all seasons ‘Getting Ready for Christmas Day’, the album starts as it means to go on, with a dry wit, keen political awareness (both personal and global) and a damn fine melody.
‘The Afterlife’ muses on the next world over a laid back Soca beat and the taut ‘Love Is Eternal Sacred Light’ on the power of good and evil while the tender ‘Questions for the Angels’ tells its tale of messengers of god and the homeless wandering the streets of Brooklyn and the title track gives listeners a chicken gumbo recipe.
Recording the demos in the equipment packed cottage next to his house in Connecticut, guitarist Vincent Nguini and percussionist Steve Shehan offered up their talents, as did Grizzly Bear’s drummer, Chris Bear, who contributed electronic drum parts.
Taking more than a year to perfect, Simon has revealed that ‘So Beautiful or So What’ reminds him of his very first solo release, his acclaimed 1972 album ‘Paul Simon’.
Paul Simon will be playing a number of live shows in the UK in June and July including:
June
Thu. 23rd NOTTINGHAM, Royal Concert Hall
Fri. 24th GLASGOW, Clyde Auditorium
Mon. 27th BOURNEMOUTH, BIC
Tue. 28th LONDON HMV Hammersmith Apollo
Thu. 30th BIRMINGHAM NIA Academy
Delivering feel good pop-punk for sixteen years is no mean feat and Grammy nominated Bowling For Soup are still setting the bar high with their 11th studio release. Recorded at Valve Studio in the band’s hometown of Dallas, Texas ‘Fishin’ For Woos’ packs yet another Bowling For Soup punch in all the right places, encapsulating the guileless fun the band are renowned for whilst delivering well constructed and catchy tunes.
For the first time in a decade the band are free from any major labels and now have the luxury of releasing their music independently. ‘The freedom is amazing’ explains front man Jaret Reddick ‘If we want to make a Christmas album or remix album, or sing in a Disney project, we can. We don’t need to get anyone’s permission.”
To the jubilation of BFS’s loyal fan base the album also includes the debut of the long-awaited studio version of sing-a-long favourite ‘Guard My Heart’, a track written by bassist Erik Chandler, which has been one of the band’s most requested live songs since their first sell-out headline tour of the UK in 2002.
‘Fishing For Woos’ incorporates a variety of guest performers and writers including long-time collaborator/producer Linus Dotson, Gabriel Mann (composer of the music for the hit TV comedy series Modern Family) and Letters To Cleo singer Kay Hanley, who features on the track ‘I’ve Never Done Anything Like This’. www.bowlingforsoup.com
If Knighthoods were given out for contributions to crowd rocking, Parker would be curtseying in front of the Queen come New Year. As it is, plaudits range from Massive Attack to DJ Yoda. Royalty indeed!Parker v Muse- Knights of Cydonia by DJ Parker2011 will see a multitude of releases served up, indisputably proving Parker as one of the most eclectic producers around.
His guise as one half of The Beekeepers along with Boca 45, results in the May album ‘Apiculture’ on Jalapeno Records; a feast of chilled out breaks and dubby bass featuring a myriad of delicious vocal sounds from various talented and diverse artists.
In between a run of festival and worldwide gig dates Parker will also be giving away plenty more treats including his frankly astounding remix of Muse’s ‘Knights of Cydonia’. www.facebook.com/parkeruk www.myspace.com/djparker
Suzerain return with their new album ‘Midnight In The Drawn City’ produced by Grammy award winner Steve Lyon (Depeche Mode, The Cure, Siouxsie Sioux) and proceeded by the blistering industrial strength of a single that is ‘What Happened’From the confines of a damp dark rehearsal studio under a strip club in Kingston to headlining the Angra Punkada Azores festival, Suzerain have come along way in a relatively short space of time.
From being named the UK’s best alternative act at the INDY Awards to appearances at Wireless with Depeche Mode, Hamburg’s infamous Reeperbahn Festival, Munich’s NRJ Festival with the likes of Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party, Suzerain are a band on a mission blowing audiences away with their own brand of Electro Punk New Wave Rock & Roll.
This band were made for big stages.With the hotly received debut EP ‘Apocalypse Disco’ already in the Suzerain arsenal, the single ‘What Happened’ took the lead where ‘Apocalypse Disco’ left you, waiting at the station for the next train to Suzerain.
Already under the wing of Steve Lyon and previously having worked with Stephen Hague (Public Image Ltd., Siouxsie and The Banshees, New Order), these electro new wave punks are destined for much greater things! www.suzerainmusic.com
Nicole Scherzinger has claimed that she thinks Lady GaGa is “a monster.” Speaking of GaGa, sexy Nicole told Attitude magazine: “We were one of her very first tours. I’m a huge fan. I just love her style and her vibe and her energy. I could tell that she was an artist, even when she didn’t have a big production or the money.”
“When she was just lying on the floor with a hand-made fairy cane stick or whatever and light-up glasses, I thought, ‘She is a monster in the most wonderful, beautiful way.’”
Nicole confessed: “Working with, GaGa’s producer RedOne, has just been unbelievable. Just when you think there’s no sound too big, he’s able to help you create that. We both had the same vision from the beginning.”
Nicole, who plays Will Smith’s evil girlfriend in the sci-fi flick, told Hello! magazine: “I open the film, some stuff happens, then I die! It’s really cool. It’s my first big movie and I’m in the first whole scene for a good amount of time.”
She added: “I am trained in theatre and studied for eight years in LA, so I went back to my acting coaches for help, to make sure I didn’t mess up.”
Max Raptor stream debut mini album ‘Portraits’ over Facebook before April 11th release date.Max Raptor’s debut mini-album ‘Portraits’ is exactly that: micro-sketches of society, framing scraps of the world around them, painting with ambition, arrogance, anger, disillusion, greed, joy, futility, violence and pride.
From alcohol abuse to domestic violence, from maddening jealousy to plain ineffectuality, ‘Portraits’ illustrates humanity’s divergent weaknesses.
As explained by front man Will Ray; “Hysteria is a state of panic but it is also a word we use often to describe a state of joy. ‘Portraits’ says that from the rich to the poor to the famous, we all have a capacity to hate and to do wrong, and if we cannot celebrate that unanimity in music…well…I hate you all.” Recorded at Fortress Studios with Dan Weller earlier in the year, ‘Portraits’ perfectly encapsulates their fusion of classic British punk attitude with an astute sensibility to a ballsy riff, forthright narrative and infectious hook-fuelled chant.
Portraits will be released on Aprill 11th through Naim Edge Records and will be avaliable to buy on CD and digitally via all the usual outlets.
The band having already played with the likes of Billy Talent, Blood Red Shoes, Oceansize, Ash, Attack Attack and The Stranglers will be heading out the road again this May for a headline UK tour. www.maxraptor.com www.myspace.com/maxraptor
Kurt Cobain: Grunge legend. Rock God. Troubled and Fragile young man.
Cobain died from a gunshot wound inflicted in what police ruled a suicide. He was found dead on April 8th; police investigators estimated that he passed on April 5th, making Tuesday the 17th anniversary of his death.
Today the World is paying tribute to the late singer-songwriter, musician and artist Kurt Cobain.
James Mercer and Brian Burton a/k/a Danger Mouse, collectively known as Broken Bells, will issue a four-song EP titled ‘Meyrin Fields’ on April 18th, to celebrate Record Store Day in the UK. The EP features the previously unreleased tracks ‘Windows’ and ‘Heartless Empire,’ as well as ‘An Easy Life’ and the title track.
‘Meyrin Fields’ will be available a little over a year from the March 2010 release of Broken Bells’ Grammy-nominated self-titled debut, and will be issued in vinyl and digital formats.
Broken Bells’ self-titled debut album reached #7 on the Billboard 200 and #1 at its peak on iTunes in the U.S.
Broken Bells’ genesis can be traced back to longtime mutual fans Burton and Mercer first face to face meeting at the 2004 Roskilde Festival in Copenhagen.
The pair immediately hit it off and kept in touch until May 2008 when they finally seized the opportunity to collaborate on original music together.
‘Meyrin Fields’ is the latest product of this amazing union, which will continue to record and tour together for the foreseeable future. BROKEN BELLS
MEYRIN FIELDS EP
RELEASED MONDAY 18TH APRIL
Available for Pre-Order Now at Brokenbells.com
Fearne said: ‘Your first love, when your stomach is in knots. There’s no better feeling.
Very.co.uk said: ‘We are confident that the summer additions to her range will inspire our customers and strengthen her position as one of Very.co.uk‘s most popular designers.’
