FEARNE COTTON'S RECORD COLLECTION GOES ONLINE

The record collection of legendary disc jockey Fearne Cotton is now available online. Uploaded by ‘The Void’, an Arts Council funded pop-up site, from today music fans will be able to browse Cotton’s overwhelming collection of over seven records.

“There’ll be information about the record sleeve, all the information about the record itself, as well as whether Fearne rated the album or not,” explained Cotton’s widow Keith Lemon. Cotton famously employed a meticulous 5-star rating system for each piece of music she bought or received. Fearne awarded every item in the collection the full 5 stars, accompanied by additional superlatives such as “mega”, “massive”, “most awesomest ever”, “cool” and “really, really cool”, suggesting that her critical faculties may have been damaged in childhood.

The virtual museum includes such rare curiosities as a first pressing of Mis-Teeq’s 2004 hit ‘Scandalous’, a Foo Fighters greatest hits compilation, and some stuff by The Kooks. It’s not all obscurities though, as the trend-setting DJ also found room for plenty of U2 and Coldplay.

Many of the items have had to be professionally cleaned and restored after suffering significant physical damage from the bestial drool and other bodily products expelled by Cotton’s simian colleague Chris Moyles.

Besides the details of her records, the electronic archive also includes Cotton’s hand-written preparation notes for her ITV2 television vehicle ‘Fearne And…’ Intended for celebrities such as Peaches Geldof, Paris Hilton, and Craig David, a list of hard-hitting, penetrative questions such as “How many shoes do you own?”, “What’s it like being so famous?” and “Can I touch your hair?” can be viewed in their original form, written in blue crayon on the back of some SpongeBob toilet roll.

Cotton died in 2011 after almost ten years at the BBC. She was 65 years old.

THE SPECTACULAR ADVENTURES OF STARS OF THE LID: Episode 1

PRIMAVERA TO CURATE PITCHFORK STAGE AT ATP CURATED BY BONNAROO

Primavera are to curate this year’s Pitchfork Stage at the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival curated by Bonnaroo. The event will take place in December 2012 or possibly March 2013, in either Minehead, New Jersey or Japan.

Confirmed line-up:
Mogwai, Joanna Newsom, Animal Collective, Panda Bear, Avey Tare, The National, Low, Retribution Gospel Choir, Atlas Sound, Deerhunter, Deerhoof, The Dears, The Antlers, Crystal Antlers, Caribou, Shellac, Battles, Dirty Three, Dinosaur Jr, Sebadoh, Sentridoh, Lou Barlow, The Folk Implosion, Moon Duo, Wooden Shjips, Tindersticks, Jeffrey Lewis & the Novelty Wore Offs, Sleep, Om, Grails, Oneida & Boredoms present the ‘Drums, Drums & More Bloody Drums 36-Hour Drum Extravaganza’, Spiritualized, Best Coast, Real Estate, Ducktails, [insert recently reformed cult ‘80s/‘90s/‘00s indie band here], Melvins, Fleet Foxes, Yo La Tengo, Wilco, a couple of jazz things and a rapper.

There will also be an exciting new contemporary art installation by Turner Prize award winner Martin Creed during which he will put a small thing on top of a larger thing and then sing a song about it in a sub-Fall style.

The Magnetic Fields will not be appearing.

Dress-code is ‘Beards’.

Talking over the bands using hipster slang with the emphasis in the wrong part of the sentence will be actively encouraged.

No food or drink to be brought into the venue. Please eat our hotdogs.

HOUSTON FUNERAL TO BE BILLED AS "THE OPPORTUNISTIC MULTI-OCTAVE CELEBRITY CHALLENGE"

Insincere and limelight-demanding tributes are lined up from Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey, and numerous other tune-strangling divas in what promoters are describing as “like Etta James’ wake turned up to eleven!”

Not only will the event help relieve the pain of this great loss but by the time headliner Aguilera throws herself into the key change of “I Will Always Love You”, you’ll have completely forgotten who Whitney Houston was in the first place.

MUSICAL BASED ON MELVINS SONGS PROVES SURPRISE BROADWAY HIT

A new musical theatre production centred around songs written by Washington sludge-rock grunge godfathers Melvins has proved astonishingly successful on Broadway, smashing box office records, impressing the critics, and earning a string of nominations for several prestigious awards.

A History of Bad Men was co-written by Buzz Osborne, Dale Crover, and Sir Timothy Rice. The musical is set several years in the future, in a vaguely Orwellian world known as Dog Island, where instruments are forbidden and aspiring musicians are encouraged to get boob jobs and become actresses. The planet is ruled by an evil queen - the Stoner Witch - who asserted her dictatorship after her husband, the king, took his own life. A group of rebels known as the Civilised Worms have been circulating rumours that the Stoner Witch orchestrated the king’s death herself, although their evidence is flimsy at best. In response to the accusations, the Stoner Witch falsely accuses an innocent bystander named Melvin of having tried to inject her husband with a drug overdose and has him incarcerated in a vast filthy prison.

The heroine is a character by the name of Lizzy, also known as the Magic Pig Detective. She is a plucky guitarist who wishes to form her own band and achieve fame without the humiliation of having to flash her breasts or sleep with Billy Corgan, Evan Dando, or TV’s Alan Partridge. Before she can rouse the rebel forces and overthrow the wicked queen however, Lizzy must first determine who is her real father. After discovering her mother’s diary in a piece of moon pie, she narrows her potential Pa down to three possible candidates: it is either Boris, Billy Fish, or the Bloated Pope. After several superfluous renditions of various Melvins tracks, Lizzy decides that it doesn’t really matter who is her biological father as they are all great people, apart from the Bloated Pope who she murders by feeding him to the Night Goat.

Boris, Billy Fish, and Lizzy then ride nude in boots on the back of a talking horse to the Stoner Witch’s Los Angeles palace. Enlisting the help of the Civilised Worms, they overthrow the evil queen by poisoning her with a hog leg, which transforms her into a harmless rat faced granny. With the evil queen defeated, everyone is at liberty to play music once more, Melvin is released from jail, and the production ends with a triumphant performance of ‘Anal Satan’.

A History of Bad Men has received glowing reviews from the international press, attracting praise such as: “audaciously sublime” (The New Yorker), “super awesome” (Rolling Stone), “skull-smashingly mammoth” (Rock-A-Rolla magazine) and “a simultaneously sincere yet ironic experimental discourse on our collective yearning for post-hypnagogic nostalgia and a great night out for all the family” (The Wire).

The producers are planning to bring the show to London’s West End by the end of 2012, where the role of Lizzy will be played by Lily Allen, Minnie Driver has been cast as the Stoner Witch, and the role of Boris has been offered to a confused but amiable Jimmy Osmond.

AXL ROSE, KEVIN SHIELDS AND DR. DRE FORM WORLD'S SLOWEST SUPERGROUP

Guns N’ Roses singer Axl Rose, producer and My Bloody Valentine leader Kevin Shields and rap superstar Dr. Dre have announced tentative plans to form a band together and to think about maybe releasing an album sometime in the relatively near future.

Each member has made a fairly firm commitment to begin recording the initial tracks for the project within the next 36 months. The as-yet-untitled album will be recorded at Axl Rose’s Malibu mansion/hermit cave after which Shields will transport the tapes back to his London home studio for mastering. When this process is complete, Shields will prove he has not forgotten about Dre by posting the results back to Los Angeles where the rapper will remix the album before spending as long as it takes to invent and develop the groundbreaking headphone technology required to do justice to the phenomenal music. The project intends to meld the contributors’ disparate styles in a fresh and unique fashion. Embellishing Dre’s old-school hip-hop beats with Axl’s authoritative cock-rock vocals and Shields’ washes of shoegaze guitar, the trio hope to invent the entirely new genre of ‘hipcockgaze’.

The album’s release date is currently pencilled in for Autumn 2028, although this may alter depending on the availability and schedules of proposed guest vocalists Kate Bush, Beth Gibbons and that bloke from The La’s.

UNCHARACTERISTICALLY CONFRONTATIONAL MCCARTNEY NAMES NEW ALBUM "KISS MY BLACK ASS"

Sir Paul McCartney has rejected the advice of his friends, family and personal psychiatrist by giving his new solo record the needlessly provocative title Kiss My Black Ass.

Sir Paul has explained that the LP takes its name from the lyrics of gangsta rap group NWA’s 1990 track ‘100 Miles and Runnin’ which McCartney covers on the album. The lyrics in question are:
“Now wearin’ my dyes ‘cause I’m not stupid, motherf***ers / They’re out to take our heads for what we said in the past / Point blank, they can kiss my black ass.”

The rest of the album consists of other hardcore hip-hip songs which have inspired McCartney over the years, including Body Count’s ‘Cop Killer’, Snoop Dogg’s ‘Murder Was The Case’, DMX’s ‘Where The Hood At’ and Lil’ Kim’s ‘Big Momma Thang’.

The album has been recorded with legendary producer Tommy LiPuma and features appearances from Diana Krall, Stevie Wonder and Ghostface Killah. Sir Paul has even managed to persuade Eric Clapton to play electric guitar on a version of Public Enemy’s ‘Fear Of A Black Planet’ in spite of Clapton’s reputation for being a massive racist.

When challenged over the album title’s potential for causing offence on account of its profanity and appropriation of African-American cultural slang, the Liverpudlian Just For Men fanatic replied: “I can do whatever the s*** I like, motherf***er. I’m Sir motherf***ing Paul motherf***ing McCartney, bitch! I was in the greatest motherf***ing rock band in the history of the motherf***ing world. And before Wings I was also in The Beatles.”