SPINAL BAP'S TOP ALBUMS OF 2010

The xXx - xXx
Unenthusiastic disco-goth featuring an unusually subdued Vin Deisel.

Janelle Monáe - The ArchAndroid
So ground-breaking, forward-thinking, and futuristic it didn’t even have gaps between the songs. Like Madonna’s Confessions on the Dancefloor. From 2005.

Robyn - Body Talk
SHE’S THE CREDIBLE FACE OF POP MUSIC
SHE’S THE CREDIBLE FACE OF POP MUSIC
SHE’S THE CREDIBLE FACE OF POP MUSIC
SHE’S THE CREDIBLE FACE OF POP…
Why aren’t you listening?
What do you mean you’re not interested?
Hello?

Katy Perry - Teenage Dream
An album as refreshing as having an ignorant Californian partygirl spray Bacardi hangover piss into your eyes and mouth whilst Snoop Doggy Dogg does a bit of a rap.

Gorillaz - Plastic Beach
Following the success of this record, Gorillaz mainman Murdoc plans to spend 2011 working on his conceptual cartoon band Blur. The “band” is made up of fictional characters based on age-old rock clichés who perform contrived novelty pop music for children. The members are “Damon” (the sanctimonious one), “Graham” (the misunderstood one), “Dave” (the boring one), and “Alex” (the floppy-haired cheese-making cunt). The project is a collaboration with Murdoc’s old flatmate, Arnold from Hey Arnold!

Hawkwind - Yes, We Are Still Going
Hawkwind are actually still going. This was their 283rd LP, they spent last month touring the UK, and currently live in what band leader Dave Brock believes to be a inter-dimensional multi-galactic quantum spaceship (a pokey bed-sit with tin foil for wallpaper and an overabundance of lava-lamps).

Michael Jackson - Yes, I did those things to those boys
Surprisingly confessional posthumous album from the late King of Pop.

Joanna Newsom - Have One (or rather, have eighteen) On Me
A record so needlessly long if you tried to sit through the whole thing in one go you’d end up with hair as long as Newsom’s herself and as well as a crippling physical aversion of all harps. But you can avoid listening to her warbling faux-folk hippyisms and still enjoy the album by not even playing the record and simply staring longingly at the many beautifully composed artful photographs of the singer’s long, stocking-clad legs which Newsom so generously included in the insert.

Vampire Weekend - Cuntra
Who says vampires have to hang around in coffins drinking blood and avoiding garlic? Some turn up in broad daylight, slap-bang in the middle billing of some popular indie festival, and proceed to play the kind of material Paul Simon himself would dismiss as “a little too Radio 2”.

Cher and Christina Aguilera - Burlesque Soundtrack
No, no, you’re quite mistaken. Burlesque in fact differs significantly from the humiliating and degrading practices of stripping or lapdancing. It involves elements of satire and vaudeville, the women are actually empowered by the experience, the participants never get completely naked, and sometimes even fat ugly birds are allowed to take part. But not in this film, thank god. The best scene featured Cher feeding a vocoder into the lips of her botoxed vagina and squeezing out a range of differently pitched fanny-farts which Christina then had to match with her multi-octave voice, despite the disadvantage of having her throat clogged up by a particularly stubborn globule of executive producer semen.

RUSSELL BRAND BATTLES INFIDELITY IMPULSES BY GRAFTING EXTRA VAGINAS ONTO BODY OF KATY PERRY

In a gallant attempt to remain faithful to his new bride and stave off the inevitable boredom of matrimony, Russell Brand has discovered an innovative new way of satisfying his compulsive urges for copious quantities of promiscuous sex. Using state of the art medical technology, Hollywood surgeon Dr. Denzil Lipstitch is to graft between 6 and 80 dead donors’ vaginas onto various locations of Katy Perry’s 26 year old body, for her satyriasic husband to discover and investigate at his pleasure.

Perry has expressed boundless enthusiasm for the operation, despite the procedure requiring several excruciating hours of painful surgery which will result in the singer’s figure looking like it’s been caught in the crossfire of a semi-automatic flangegun. In an interview with Radio 1’s preeminent investigative journalist Fearne Cotton, Perry explained that “I would do anything to make my man happy. I, like, totally dig him, and would gladly have the fannies… ha ha, isn’t that what you Brits call them here? …the fannies of car crash victims sewn all over my back and limbs if that’s what will please him.”
“Wicked,” agreed Cotton perceptively, “I mean, it’s, like, a bit weird for a strong, beautiful woman not to have some kind of cosmetic surgery in this day and age, isn’t it? Wicked. Brilliant. Totally wicked. I think it’s wicked. Wicked.” The interview subsequently petered out as both parties became increasingly distracted by a particularly shiny five pence piece.

The proposed operation has been condemned as an immoral perversion of science by US religious groups who frequently refer to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein without ever having read it. However, Mr. Roger Mourning, widowed husband of one of the deceased twat donors, is pleased that his wife’s body will be put to good use. “Emma had such a generous soul,” he explained through a niagara of tears and snot, “and it is a blessing that she can keep on giving after she has gone. She was such a huge fan of Russell’s ability to tell embarrassing stories from his life as a sex-obsessed drug-addict to comic effect, and she also found one or two of Perry’s early singles to be mildly tolerable.”

Since the news broke, Brand has been unavailable for comment as he has been busy perusing the erotic literature section of a Covent Garden bookshop in 1786.

ALAN MCGEE TO ADD AUTHENTICITY TO SCREAMADELICA ANNIVERSARY TOUR BY SWALLOWING A GOB-FULL OF E AND WANDERING ABOUT BACKSTAGE TALKING ABSOLUTE BOLLOCKS

As if it wasn’t embarrassing enough already to tour off the back of a twenty year old album because recent material has been uninspired bargain-bin fodder with lyrics like “I‘m the garbage man/I’m the garbage man/Sticky fingers in your trashcan/I’m the garbage man”, now Bobby Gillespie (Mick Jagger for the rave generation) has decided to take his midlife crisis to a new low. Primal Scream’s 2010/11 tour sees the band playing their 1991 album Screamadelica in full, even though the record sounds rather dated these days and it was all producer Andrew Weatherall’s work in the first place. To relive his hedonistic, carefree youth, and to “add authenticity” to the tour, Bobby Gillespie (The Aldi Mick Jagger) has hired ex-Creation Records boss Alan McGee to be present backstage on every date of the tour, during which he will be required to consume a minimum of seven ecstasy pills per night with which to inspire his characteristic horseshit pronouncements such as “yir witnessing the future o’ music” and “ah bet yirs tae thousand poonds the nex' Heavy Stereo record is ga’in triple pla’inum, aye.”

The ‘Scream, as they are known by people who also still listen to Oasis and Shed Seven, are to reissue Screamadelica on March 7 next year, as a special collector’s edition boxset which will include 2 double LPs, 8 CDs, 27 ‘making of’ DVDs, a limited edition print of Bobby Gillespie (Mick Jagger for the deaf and the stupid), a postcard collection, two glossy posters, a t-shirt, a butcher, a baker, and a candlestick maker. The set is to be remastered by Kevin Shields and will thus fortunately never see the light of day.

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY COULDN'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT M.I.A.

An insider from the C.I.A. has revealed exclusively to Spinal Bap that the intelligence agency to which he belongs is not in the least bit interested in the activities, opinions, pronouncements, or (especially) the music of Maya Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A.

This information is contrary to the claims of Arulpragasam herself, who is under the impression that the C.I.A. has bugged the telephones of both her and her extended family, and that the agency’s operatives follow her every movement in surveillance vans disguised with the words “U.P.S.”, “FEDEX”, and “ICE-CREAM”.

The reason, M.I.A. believes, for her supposed observance are her outspoken, controversial, and undeniably radical comments in press interviews, a small number of which read as follows:

“Governments are, like, well bad, aren’t they? Do you know what I mean? Cos, they, like, do wars and stuff. And wars are bad.” (NME, 2005)

“You know that movie, The Social Network, yeah, well that movie is just propaganda conceived to cover up the fact that Facebook was actually invented by The Pentagon to survey the activities of the masses. It’s, like, totally what happened in that book, Big Brother by George Orwell… which I’ve nearly finished reading.” (Guardian Weekend Magazine, 2010)

“Terrorism is good, you know, if it’s for a good thing, but terrorism what is for a bad thing, that’s, like, well, a really bad thing. But, you know who the real terrorists are, don’t you? It’s the governments. And the oil companies. Yeah, I said it!” (New Statesman, 2008)

M.I.A.’s lyrics, she claims, are also cause for concern for the U.S. government. For example, the incisive and incendiary rap/poetry of 2010 track Lovalot:

They told me this country was free
The FBI, well they don’t like me
‘Cos I’m just like Bob Marley
And also loads like Mahatma Gandhi
Shuck-a-lucka-lee
Push pineapple shake the tree

Our C.I.A insider denied M.I.A.’s allegations, however, stating that “the state is on high terrorism alert, for God’s sake. The Taliban are continuously establishing more and more fundamentalist sleeper cells throughout the western world with the aim of destroying every aspect of our society, culture, freedom, happiness, our life as we know it. Don’t you think we’ve got better things to do with our time than follow the insipid actions of a Mercury nominated hip-hop/grime/world music fusion artist?”

He also urged other musicians to try to curb their egos and sense of self-importance, instead of perpetuating the damaging myth that the security services are wasting tax payers’ money on surveying celebrities who are both harmless and overexposed in the media in the first place. The C.I.A. operative, who has close connections with his British counterparts, asked us to recall the interview in which Radiohead’s frontman made similar announcements, around the time of the group’s comatose glitch-pop album Kid A. “Remember when Thom Yorke decided that MI5 had a file on him? I chased that up. Turns out they had a copy of OK Computer next to the office stereo, with a post-it note stuck to the CD case reading ‘about as threatening as a damp ham sandwich.’”

Though of course he would say that.

CHARLIE BROOKER TO RELEASE DUETS ALBUM WITH WIFE KONNIE HUQ

Acerbic clog-faced journalist and television personality Charlie Brooker has announced plans to penetrate himself further into the mainstream by releasing an album of romantic duets with his sparkling television personality wife, Konnie Huq.

The album looks set to be the most hotly anticipated collection of celebrity duets since Peter Andre and Katie “Jordan” Price’s top 20 smash A Whole New World in 2006. Titled Beauty and the Beast, Brooker and Huq’s record will be released early next year and will contain the following cover versions (original artists in brackets):

1) Especially for You (Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan)
2) I Got You Babe (Sonny and Cher)
3) You’re The One That I Want (John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John)
4) 7 Seconds (Neneh Cherry and Youssou N’Dour)
5) Je t’aime (Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg)
6) Islands in the Stream (Big Tits and Beardy)
7) Crazy In Love (Beyonce and Jay-Z)
8) I’d Do Anything For Love (But I Won’t Do That) (Meatloaf and Mrs. Meatloaf)
9) Never Be The Same Again (Melanie “Sporty Spice” Chisholm and Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes)
10) Baby When You’re Gone (Melanie “Sporty Spice” Chisholm and Bryan “Gravelly Face” Adams)
11) I Wanna Be Like You (King Louie and Baloo the Bear)

Having recently quit his Screen Burn column in the Guardian newspaper because he suddenly started to empathise with the vacuous celebrities he had been lacerating after marrying one*, the album will no doubt lead to further questions of Brooker’s integrity and the inevitable accusations of selling out. Already messageboards have been flooded with angry posts from juveniles who enjoy reading rude things about people on the telly whilst sniggering like Beavis and Butthead.

Huq’s fans, meanwhile, have registered little complaint, being very few and unable to achieve any state of being higher than that of perplexed gormlessness.


* http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2010/oct/16/charlie-brooker-leaving-screen-burn

SONIC YOUTH FAN PRETENDS TO ENJOY LATEST THURSTON MOORE SOLO SEVEN-INCH

A Sonic Youth fan confounded his friends yesterday by claiming to enjoy the latest Thurston Moore solo seven-inch. ‘Amplifier’s Lament’, on the Not Very Important independent label, features two sides of nothing but squealing feedback and a looped sample of metal drum stands being scraped across a blackboard, to the non-rhythmical backing track of a home recording of Kim Gordon assembling a flatpack Ikea double wardrobe without the aid of tools save for an amputated piano leg. The sleeve to the record features imitation abstract art and boasts “Dedicated to Stockhausen and Kerouac” in attempt to ascribe the indulgent mess an element of gravitas.

Upon receiving the seven-inch in the post, which had been mail-ordered from online record store www.esotericool.com (“for music more outside than Captain Oates”), the fan slipped the record out of its sub-Joan Miró sleeve, placed it daintily upon his gramophone, lowered the needle carefully, sat down, folded his legs, gazed upwards towards the ceiling, and arrogantly proceeded to nod along to a rhythm that didn’t exist whilst stroking his bearded chin as if appreciating the unholy racket being shat into his ears on a level quite unattainable to normal people. When pressed by his friends on what exactly they were missing, the fan mumbled his meaningless stock phrases of “avant minimalism”, “post-noise experimentation”, “Steve Reich-isms”, and “taking rock to its logical conclusion”. The friends remained unconvinced, leaving him to enjoy the cacophony alone as they departed to attend a Fleet Foxes concert with some girls.

After they had gone, the fan gave the record a couple more spins before logging onto the internet to see if the latest proper Sonic Youth LP was available for preorder yet from the Matador website, secretly anticipating the prospect of listening to something with comprehensible lyrics, conventional rhythms, pop sensibilities, vocal melodies, and some actual bloody music on it.

NEITHER TING TING UNDERGOING TREATMENT FOR OVERWORK

British pop duo The Ting Tings have had their otherwise impeccable integrity called into doubt this week as it emerged that, contrary to the earnestly-sung lyrics of their latest single, neither one of the two band members has ever suffered from overwork, fatigue, exhaustion, stress, or ever having had to put the minutest degree of effort into any aspect of their lives in the slightest.

“Clap your hands if you’re working too hard” are the words which, in traditional Ting Tings style, are repeated over and over and over again in their new, imaginatively titled, single “Hands”, which has been all over the radio, and on the television, played in the supermarkets, and sung directly into Jools Holland’s smug pale face.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVbtBLZxL6w

Ironically, however, it seems that the band did not work hard enough even on this song itself, with its 1980s beats, its 1980s keyboard sound, its spoken-word intro straight out of the 1980s, and its chorus which could not conceivably be any more patronizing towards the audiences to whom it will be played many times over consisting of real human beings who have to work for a living because they aren’t the grandchildren of millionaire lottery winners and who don’t have a father willing to spend his share of inheritance on forming music management companies with which to propel his beloved daughter to fame and success.*

Meanwhile, The Ting Tings have confirmed that they no longer plan to call their forthcoming album “Kunst”, as originally planned, because they decided it was too early in their career for a self-titled record.**


* http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/latest/2008/05/24/how-feud-tore-ting-tings-star-s-family-apart-115875-20427681/
** http://www.novafm.com.au/article_kunst-not-the-new-ting-tings-album-name_104247

EXCITEMENT MOUNTS AS MALKMUS CONFIRMS JICKS REUNION

The tantalizing rumours have been circulating throughout the indie rock world for months, but now the moment we’ve all been waiting for is glistening alluringly upon the horizon: Stephen Malkmus has finally announced that he is to reform his seminal and hugely influential guitar and keyboard outfit, Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks.

The Jicks, need we remind you, were active in the years 2001-2008 during which time they astounded fans and critics alike with their four LP releases and hit tunes such as Jo Jo’s Jacket, Dark Wave, Baby C’mon, and that song where he says the word “One” over and over again. Since early 2010, however, Malkmus has been inexplicably frittering his time away by playing in the obscure and oddly-named lo-fi group Pavement; a band who are usually accused of causing more irritation than pleasure on account of being too sloppy, too underproduced, too lyrically dexterous, and of not letting Malkmus play enough of his sublimely long and unfocussed not-quite-soothing yet not-quite-rocking nimble-fingered guitar solos.

Having finally put this stain on an otherwise pristine résumé behind him, Malkmus has confirmed on his website that The Jicks are to reform with their classic line-up of Malkmus, Janet Weiss, Joanna Bolme, and that skinny bald guy who makes all those already perfect tunes even more perfect by playing twiddly bits on the keyboard, occasionally hitting a tambourine, and dancing as overenthusiastically as a sexually repressed English Literature masters student having mistakenly overestimated the jollity of the atmosphere at an underwhelming house party.

The Jicks will embark on a world tour next year, with dates on two or perhaps even three different continents, in support of a brand new album produced by none other than the Prince-impersonating Scientologist Beck, a record which will no doubt stringently avoid the pitfalls of sloppiness, underproduction, too few guitar solos, and intelligent lyrical dexterity.

In other news, the long awaited Frank Black and the Catholics reformation has been frustratingly postponed even longer, with Black choosing to schedule further dates with his lackluster vanity project The Pixies.

CHRIS MOYLES ACCUSES BBC OF PINCHING HIS DINNER MONEY

Warthog-faced breakfast DJ Chris Moyles started his show last Tuesday with a half hour rant against the BBC in which he accused the corporation of stealing his dinner money, calling him horrible names behind his back, and giving him a Chinese burn until his arm went bright red and really very sore.

Early reports suggested that Moyles was looking forward to spending the dinner money on two beef baguettes, ten packets of crisps (six cheese and onion, two smoky bacon, and two prawn cocktail), eight kingsize Mars Bars, and a Curly Wurly at the BBC tuckshop.

A small number of the nicknames he is believed to have been called by other BBC employees in the past few weeks are as follows: Fatty Arbuckle, Lard Arse, Pie Face, Swollen Bollock Head, Piss Boils, Blubber Tits, Jabba the Hutt, Jabba the Glut, and Jabba the F***ing C**t.

The Chinese burn is thought to be a metaphorical one of some kind.

The sudden “disrespectful treatment” of the burger-inhaling disc jockey is part of the BBC’s new crackdown on bullying in the workplace; the latest solution being piloted by the broadcasting company is “to fight bullying with bullying.” It seems, therefore, that the bloated kebab swallower has objected to a taste of his own hate-filled medicine; in the six years since he took over the Radio 1 Breakfast Show the waddling human beer-belly has regularly used the word “gay” as a derogatory insult, referred to women as “slags” and “dirty whores”, had his “team” (or “gang”) pin down BBC admin assistants of both sexes while he administered painful wedgies, and once tied a female intern to a chair, instructed “Comedy Dave” to hold her mouth wide open with his pastry-encrusted fingers while Moyles shoved scrunched-up signed photographs of his own balloon-jowlled face down her throat until she could no longer breathe, all because she could not adequately explain the offside rule.

Moyles’ mummy, in the meantime, has denied that her beloved son has ever bullied anybody and says that he doesn’t have to go in if he doesn’t want to until the issue is resolved.

MORRISSEY ADVOCATES CANNIBALISM OF IMMIGRANTS AS ALTERNATIVE TO ANIMAL CONSUMPTION

In an interview with a UK broadsheet newspaper at the weekend, ex-Smiths warbler Morrissey revealed the amalgamation of two of his most notorious viewpoints: his militant vegetarianism and his massive racism. During the Q&A, which was conducted by celebrity Smiths fan and dour northern poet Arman Simontage, the bequiffed misanthrope suggested that the farming of innocent animals should be halted immediately, and that meat-eaters who were still addicted to flesh could have their cravings satisfied by the mass slaughter and consumption of immigrants, both legal and illegal.

Though not pressed on the issue by Simontage, who was distracted in the task of attempting to push into Morrissey’s moisturized hand an unrequested signed copy of his latest underwhelming collection, Another Muted Autumn, Morrissey was given a small amount of time and column space to explain that the scheme would succeed in “killing two birds with one stone.” He added that this was merely a figure of speech and that anybody who willingly killed even one actual bird, by stoning or any other method, was subhuman and would definitely burn in hell forever and ever and ever.

Human rights activists have been up in arms at the revelation, demanding that Morrissey retract his offensive comments, whilst Morrissey’s fans have continued to enthusiastically purchase his records and concert tickets even though this is just one incident in a long line which reveal their hero to be a thoroughly dislikable scrotum.

Unfortunately for the Mancunian xenophobe, the plan has backfired somewhat as his solution to the perceived immigrant problem has proven so popular in Italy that the policy has been immediately implemented by Berlusconi’s government, and, as Morrissey himself spends most of his time residing in Rome, it has been arranged that as soon as he arrives back in the country after his current promotional tour he is to be baked into a fat lasagna.

GUNS 'N' ROSES TURN UP TWENTY YEARS LATE FOR READING FESTIVAL APPEARANCE

Guns ‘n’ Roses have come under criticism from both attendees and organisers of the Reading Festival for showing up over twenty years too late for their headlining slot last weekend. Originally booked to perform at the 1990 event, when the cock-rock group were at the height of their powers, the band were due to appear promptly at 21.30 on Friday 24 August, 1990, but did not manage to reach the stage until 22.30 on Friday 27 August, 2010, after most fans had become bored and irritated.

Axl Rose, whose name is famously an anagram for ‘Lax Sore’, released a statement on twatter.com/axlrose defending the incident, in which he claimed, “Turning up twenty years too late with a troupe of lowly session musicians whilst resembling a bloated Mick Hucknall and squealing like a parched, castrated vole were all terms of our contract. Reading Festival are against Guns ‘n’ Roses. The fans are against Guns ‘n’ Roses. Everyone is against Guns ‘n’ Roses . Guns ‘n’ Roses want their Mommies. Guns ‘n’ Roses are taking their toys and they’re going home.”

Rose also expressed anger that the band’s sound was cut off midway through their encore of ‘Paradise City’, though sources from the festival have explained to us that this was actually an act of charity intending to save the squealing ego twonk any further embarrassment after a set which included a number of tracks from 2008’s “comeback” album Chinese Democracy which nobody wanted to hear as well as numerous unnecessary and underwhelming costume changes.

Guns ‘n’ Roses were not the only unpunctual act at this year’s fest, however, with Blink-182 and The Libertines turning up a good eleven and six years late respectively. Neither of these acts suffered from having their sound cut off, however, as their equally catastrophic lack of musical ability led the stage crew to assume that both bands consisted of deprived or disadvantaged children with learning disabilities who had won a competition or something.

KATRINA SUFFERING FROM THIRD DEGREE BURNS UPON FEET

Katrina Leskanich was admitted into hospital at the weekend for emergency treatment of severe burn wounds to both of her feet. The injuries occurred as matters got out of control when Katrina was engaged in her customary practice of walking on sunshine. At the initial signs of danger, the singer had attempted to extinguish the fire with her Waves but the flames proved just too fierce and uncontrollable. She is currently being treated in the St. Andrew’s burns unit at the Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford. A specialist at the hospital has released a statement highlighting the dangers of Katrina’s activity and warning her fans not to make the same mistake: “It is surprising that Katrina and the Waves were not more seriously hurt, or perhaps even killed. Walking on sunshine is an extremely ill-advised and dangerous activity in which to partake for even two or three minutes. To have been doing this on-and-off for almost thirty years is unthinkable.”

OASIS TO REFORM FOR SPECIAL 'BE HERE NOW' THIRTEEN-YEAR ANNIVERSARY SHOWS

Noel Gallagher today sent shivers of anticipation through the music world by announcing that he is to make amends with his estranged brother Liam, and follow in the footsteps of his archrivals Blur, by reforming his old band: Oasis. The group are poised to play a five-night residency at the HMV Forum, each night performing their seminal third album Be Here Now in its entirety.

The shows are the latest in the ATP promotions’ Don’t Look Back series of concerts, in which cult musicians are asked to recite their most definitive album in full, from beginning to end. Previous successes have included The Lemonheads doing It’s a Shame about Ray, Mudhoney performing Superbuzz Bigmuff Plus Early Singles, Slint playing Spiderland, and Terence Trent D’Arby blasting through his cross-genre groundbreaking kazoo-wielding opus Neither Fish Nor Flesh.

As well as having coaxed the return of his erratic younger brother, the reunited all-star Oasis line-up will feature the talents of Paul “Bonehead” Arthurs, Paul “Guigsy” McGuigan, Andy “Belly” Bell, Gem “Gemmy” Archer, Tony “Carrolly” McCarroll, and Zak “Zak Starkey” Starkey. Also returning to the fold will be Noel Gallagher’s famous monobrow, “Monny”. The monobrow, sported by Noel during the years of Oasis’ artistic and commercial peak, has not been sighted since 2006 when Noel was persuaded to drop the ‘brow when receiving male grooming tips from his new friend Russell Brand who was dressed as a disabled pirate. Rumours among music industry insiders suggest that Monny consequently fell on hard times and in order to make ends meet found a day-job as a professional shoe polisher, whilst satisfying his need to perform by playing gigs in the evenings around the West Midlands area as a member of Charlatans tribute band ‘The Charlatan Charlatans’.

Messageboards have been buzzing with fans’ excitement at the opportunity to hear all their favourite Oasis tunes one more time; D’You Know What I Mean, All Around the World, and Magic Pie, to name just three. The only disappointment has been the news that Johnny Depp, who provided additional guitar on the classic number “Fade In-Out”, will not be appearing at the shows, as he is far too busy dressing up as a disabled pirate.

Some devotees of the ATP concerts and festivals have criticized the Oasis shows as evidence of the increasingly commercial and populist nature of the promotional company, once regarded as an important supporter of alternative and outsider music. These accusations have been denied by Barry Hogan, ATP’s head honcho, who claimed to have been a follower of the Mancunian indie rockers since “even before Wonderwall”, speaking to us from his secret lair built into the hills overlooking Butlin’s, Minehead, through a golden telephone, whilst receiving a massage from the identical twin sisters from School of Seven Bells.

2010 MERCURY MUSIC PRIZE TO BE JUDGED BY PANEL OF DEAF PEOPLE

The shortlist was announced earlier this week, and it has now been revealed that the panel set to cast the final decision on which album will receive this year’s prestigious Mercury Music Prize will consist entirely of aurally challenged judges. The appointment of the hard-of-hearing jury is speculated to have been instigated in response to last year’s competition problems, during which several panel members were struck down with sickness and nausea caused by intense and prolonged exposure to Kasabian’s West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum. Further alarm bells were triggered in the process of compiling the shortlist for 2010’s award when several listeners contracted symptoms of bilharzial dysentery upon being forced to listen to the debut album of Mumford & Sons for the third time in a row.

The employment of deaf people in judging the prize may effect the criteria for winning the award, although nobody at the Mercury Prize has ever revealed what the criteria may consist of, or if there is any criteria at all. However, it seems that quality of the albums’ artwork will hold more sway than usual this year, as well as the quality of the lyrics (at least for those of the nominees who bothered to reproduce them in the liner notes). It is perhaps for reasons of aesthetics, then, that since the announcement of the deaf judges, the betting odds on the prize have changed rather dramatically. Previous favourites The xx have slipped to 200/1 on account of their cheap haircuts, visible zits, and inability to appear non-monochrome, whereas Laura Marling and Corrine Bailey Rae have shot up to joint favourites as the panel, although being all-deaf, is still ninety per cent male and are therefore expected to admire the view of both Marling and Rae’s seductively crossed, long, luscious, young legs as each takes her turn to timidly and unenthusiastically strum her acoustic guitar whilst sat atop the traditional female singer-songwriter quite-high-stool.

Fears that the panel might accidentally pick an album that might not in fact the best British record of the year on account of their deafness are said not be troubling the organisers of the prize; previous winners have included Suede, Elbow and M People.

IAN MACKAYE PROMISES TO SELL OUT BEFORE 2023

Minor Threat/Fugazi/The Evens frontman Ian MacKaye has shocked the rock world today by announcing in a fanzine interview that he plans to “undoubtedly sell out before 2023.” Formerly obsessed with integrity and ethics, MacKaye has been infamous for his stringent, some might say fundamentalist, principles which include militant vegetarianism, teetotalism, releasing all records through his own Dischord label rather than through any major label or distributor, endeavoring to charge as little as possible for records and concert tickets, refusing to manufacture official merchandise, and encouraging illegal downloading.

All this looks set to end, however, as MacKaye aims to eventually whore himself to the man after all. The first stage of this will see MacKaye sign a deal with Universal, towards the end of the year 2022. Universal will embark on an extensive reissuing campaign, re-releasing the entire Dischord back-catalogue as a set of deluxe packages featuring b-sides, previously unheard live tracks, unpublished Glen E. Friedman black-and-white photographs, and brand new remixes from A-list producers such as Timbaland, Pharrell Williams, and Dappy out of the N-Dubz. At the same time, the song ‘Merchandise’ will be licensed for use in a worldwide advertising campaign by multinational clothing retailer The GAP.

The move looks set to please MacKaye’s fans, many of whom have been angrily calling for the post-hardcore singer to abandon his frivolous principles for nigh on twenty years. Fugazi fans, for example, were notorious within the ’80s and ’90s rock and punk communities for loudly campaigning for the singer/guitarist to reach out to the untapped mainstream audience, and to spread his net as wide as possible.
“This is a most encouraging move,” Evens fan Chester Budd told us from a Washington D.C. Starbucks outlet, “MacKaye deserves recognition, he deserves to be on MTV, he deserves to appear in Rolling Stone, he deserves the monetary rewards, he deserves the top billing at European festivals along with his balding reformed contemporaries, and his followers, like me, can’t wait to be freed from this horrible little elitist cult. We just want to be like normal human beings.”

This is not the first time MacKaye has attempted to sell out, or at least dip his emotional-hardcore toes into murky big business sewage. In 1992, for example, he guested on the Sonic Youth track ‘Youth Against Fascism’, which was released on the David Geffen label. Yet this stab at trying to appease his frustrated fans appeared to backfire, with many criticizing that MacKaye had not gone far enough. “I mean one track on a Sonic Youth album? What the hell is that? How many people even heard that record? He should have been rocking out with Slash or Kravitz, not jerking around with those arty douche bags. He’s better than that,” said Mr. Budd.

A source said the move has been postponed until 2023 in order for MacKaye to “get a few things in order, to milk his last few years of credibility and enjoy his last moments of anonymity as much as possible, as well as to psychologically prepare himself for his imminent supping of the sweat that drips from the scabbed and hairy balls of capitalism.”

DIZZEE RASCAL ATTEMPTS TO BEAT WORLD RECORD FOR EMBARRASSING COLLABORATIONS SET BY WYCLEF JEAN

He won the 2003 Mercury Music Prize at the tender age of 18, picked up the NME Award for Innovation the following year, was Best British Male at last year’s Brits, and has probably won several MOBOs if anybody still takes any notice of them. But those achievements have done little to quench Dizzee Rascal’s ambition and thrust to win further honours and smash yet more records. It therefore comes as no surprise that Mr. Rascal has risen to a new, almost entirely unrealistic and perhaps even foolhardy challenge. It has been revealed that Dizzee is embarking on a quest in which he hopes to beat the world record for largest number successive toe-curlingly embarrassing collaborations (and still maintain a career at the end of it all). The current record holder is ex-Fugee Wyclef Jean who in the late nineties and early noughties released tracks featuring the “talents” of country twerp Kenny Rogers, welsh windbag Tom Jones, homophobic dancehall star Buju Banton, oily wrestling bimbo The Rock, and even Brian Harvey from East-17.

Dizzee Rascal, rising to the challenge, already has a number of embarrassing collaborations under his belt, including those with Lilly Allen, Alex Turner, and his 2009 No.1 single with pasty-faced poor man’s James Murphy weekend-obsessed eighties-loving disco cretin Calvin Harris. At the time of the latter’s release, critics assumed Dizzee had suffered a serious lapse in quality control, that he had lost his mind, or had been led astray by manipulative management and/or intense record company pressure. Now, it seems, he had a greater scheme in mind. Since metaphorically bedding Harris, Rascal has picked up the pace immensely having hooked up with obese and squealing excitable comedy actor (not comedian) James Cordon for a world cup song which proved even worse than the England team’s performance as well as twig-faced compulsive You Got the Love coverer Florence Welch at this year’s Glastonbury bland-fest.

Dizzee is set for a bumpy ride, however, as a certain Mr. Jean is unlikely to take this challenge to his crown of disgrace lying down. Rumours have already emerged that Wyclef’s epic new album will consist entirely of duets and feature completely intolerable guest spots from the likes of Jamie Cullum, Gareth Gates, Geri Halliwell, Gary Barlow, Danii Minogue, Peter Andre, Sharleen Spiteri, Paloma Faith, Johnny Borrell, Bret Michaels, Billy Joel, Mick Hucknall, Boy George, Jason Donovan, Fred Durst, Craig David, Kelly Osbourne, Kelly Jones, Kate Nash, K-Fed, someone from Kasabian, Pete Doherty, Peaches Geldof, Bob Geldof, Limahl from Kajagoogoo, Brian May, 4 Poofs and a Piano, Simon Le Bon, Mika, Jim Davidson, Nickleback, Donny Osmond, some other Osmonds, Dane Bowers, David Hasselhoff, David Cassidy, David Bellamy, John McCririck, Rik Waller, Rick Witter, the bloke from Embrace, Amanda Holden, Cheryl Baker, Whigfield, both Appleton sisters, the other three quarters of East-17, and Mr. FUCKING Hudson.

Dizzee Rascal’s management, in the meantime, seem untroubled by the possibility of the phoenix of indignity rising from the blushing flames of shame, as Dizzee has a number of unbearable collaborations in the pipeline, including what they claim to be “the embarrassing team-up to end all embarrassing team-ups.” We can’t say at this time exactly who it will be or exactly how bad it will be. As a teaser, however, we can reveal that the certain someone begins with a 'B' and ends in 'ono from U2'.

MADONNA ARRESTED UNDER SUSPICION OF FATTENING UP ADOPTED CHILDREN FOR CHRISTMAS

Worldwide global pop sensation Madonna was granted bail today after having been arrested yesterday at her home in New York City, where she has been living since her split with ex-husband Guy Ritchie, under suspicion of feeding excessive quantities of fatty foods and sugar-based snacks to her adopted children with the intention of consuming the kids herself in a Satanic yuletide ceremony which would aim to prolong her life. David Banda and Chifundo ‘Mercy‘ James, both Malawi-born, were taken into care while an investigation is carried out by the New York Police Department in collaboration with the social services. The children were captured by paparazzi exiting their home, Mercy had visibly gained pounds, whereas David appeared the podgier of the two, waddling along, clutching a Twinky, seemingly struggling to breathe, as if soundtracked by a man with a baritone tuba.

The incident has increased speculation that Madonna originally adopted these deprived kids from the Third World with the specific sinister intention to increase their weight and then devour them when they became fat enough to satisfy her diabolical hunger. Other sources have added that it could have part of a program to keep Madonna alive for longer, or possibly forever, and could be linked to Satanism or the mystical religion ‘Kabbalah’, whatever the hell that is. The story has been compared to that of the infamous Hungarian countess, Elizabeth Bathory, who is thought to have regularly bathed in the blood of virgins in an attempt to gain immortality, though Madonna’s management has claimed that “such comparisons are both unfair and unfounded.” Madonna’s birth daughter Lourdes was also caught leaving the family home, but with her slender, trimmed professional dancer’s body, it is possible that Lourdes, too, far from having been fattened up, may also have been interested or complicit in the possibility of immortality, despite being only thirteen years of age.

Madonna is currently staying with friends elsewhere in the city whilst the NYPD search her home for any further clues or suspicious possessions. So far, however, the investigation has proved fruitless with nothing unearthed other than a number of innocent empty Pringles tubes in the garbage and a cute little house in the garden of the grounds made entirely out of gingerbread.

CHERYL COLE COLLABORATES WITH JEFF TWEEDY

Girls Aloud member Cheryl Cole, soon to revert back to her maiden name following husband Ashley’s infidelities and the couple’s imminent divorce, has revealed further solo career plans with the announcement of a joint album with Wilco’s alt-country Americana star Jeff Tweedy. The album, to be released under the moniker Tweedy&Tweedy, is reported to be a dueted collection of Nat King Cole covers.

The move is a slight left-turn for Cheryl, though she has endured success in her previous collaborations with Black Eyed Peas’ Will.I.Am. Tweedy&Tweedy’s press statement denied that the project spelt the end of the multi-platinum girl group, speculation also fueled by Nadine Coyle’s upcoming single with Wayne Coyne and Sarah Harding’s plans to work with Hefner drummer Antony Harding.

BBC TO REPLACE 6 MUSIC WITH 24-HOUR IAN DURY CHANNEL

After months of speculation, the BBC has finally announced its plans for the status of the 6 Music digital radio station, which has been under review as part of attempts by the Beeb to cut costs and streamline its services. Following a number of high profile and widely reported protests, petitions, and campaigns on social media network websites such as FaceStroke in opposition to 6 Music’s potential closure, director general Mark Thompson has revealed that, rather than shut down the channel entirely, it will be replaced by a slightly cheaper service, offering 24-hour rolling Ian Dury content. This compromise will consist of archived Dury interviews, old radio sessions, previously recorded Blockhead concerts, documentaries on the making of the tracks ‘Hit me with your rhythm stick’ and ‘Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll’ as well as live transmissions from the Camden Barfly of Dury poetry as read by Phil Jupitus. Whilst still facing criticism from 6 Music campaigners, Mark Thompson pointed out that BBC Dury 24 had already been running for a fortnight in place of its parent channel, without anybody noticing the difference.

In other news, the BBC Asian Network is to be axed as planned.

STARS OF THE LID SPLIT FOLLOWING COWBELL DISAGREEMENT

Stars of the Lid duo Adam Wiltzie and Brian McBride announced their immediate split today after Wiltzie’s fury at his bandmate’s attempt to incorporate a cowbell into the band’s drone-based comatose sound. A source close to the band confirmed that the dispute occurred whilst Stars of the Lid were working on new track, “Lying in a Silent Field with an Impotent Gasmask: Part IV”, a composition largely resembling the Eno-influenced sound the duo are famed for. At around the seven-minute mark of the eighth take, Brian became “somewhat agitated”, and without warning grabbed hold of the jaunty percussion instrument which had been left behind by a ska-punk band that had previously booked the studio. McBride then “proceeded to bang it with the enthusiasm of Animal from The Muppets.” Adam Wiltzie, at this point engaged in trying to hold a minor chord on his guitar for as long as humanly possible, due to the sudden shock, and perhaps compelled by the energetic rhythm and tone of the cowbell, felt his fingers involuntarily twitch across to a second chord, allegedly a G-major. As soon as he had realised what was happening, Wiltzie became engulfed with rage, threw his guitar at the studio wall, and screamed “cowbells and second chords are not what Stars of the Lid are all about, asshole!”

Brian McBride then attempted to pacify the furious Wiltzie, explaining that they had both been playing basically the exact same piece of ambient music together for years, with virtually zero commercial reward, and that he was literally yearning for variation, “a tambourine, some maracas, ANYTHING.” The duo, however, soon agreed that their differences could not be reconciled, and they have since announced their demise in a press statement to the music press citing a “definite hiatus.” The music press are said to be “uninterested at best.”

Following the split, Adam Wiltzie is continuing to work in the Stars of the Lid vein, crafting a “purposefully flaccid symphony” ether to be released under his own name or his Dead Texan moniker. McBride, on the other hand, has begun work on an “ambitious sub-Salsa-grind post-electro dubstep white rap project” featuring guest musicians Omar Rodríguez-López of the Mars Volta, Little Boots and Kid Rock DJ Uncle Kracker. Other sources have suggested this information to be false, and that McBride currently resides in a Texas rehab centre where he is being treated for Post-Traumatic Musical Over-Excitement Disorder (‘PTMOED’).

Susan Part, President of the Stars of the Lid fanclub ‘Tired Sounds’, told us “though it is a great shame that Adam and Brian will no longer be making music together, they have an outstanding body of work that they can both be hugely proud of and which will undoubtedly cement their legacy as giants of the post-post-rock soundscape scene. They will also continue to be massive influence on aspiring ambient musicians too young to remember Brian Eno, or perhaps too embarrassed to listen to him because he produces U2. Besides,” added Part, “perhaps splitting up was the best decision to take under the circumstances, as how many Stars of the Lid fans would appreciate being woken up mid cannabis- or morphine-induced slumber by a piercing and unwelcome cowbell being suddenly twonked?” Reporting on Wiltzie and McBride’s ongoing projects, Tired Sounds will continue to publish and circulate its biannual newsletter to its seven subscribers.

The incident is, of course, not the first cowbell-related musical mishap in recent memory. Californian stoner rockers Fu Manchu were forced to cancel a show in Paris on their 2002 European Tour when drummer Scott Reeder misplaced the band’s cowbell and was unable to unearth any other drum or percussion object during soundcheck that could imitate, replicate or replace the instrument that has become so critical to the Fu’s desert rock sound. “The entire vibe of our awesome unit,” stated Fu Manchu frontman Scott Hill in an interview from the back of a pickup truck, “simply fell flat. I mean, it was like being castrated, dude.” The ‘bell was later discovered in the band’s tourbus mini-fridge, behind a stack of beef mayo baguettes, and the tour continued without incident.