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.