the fyrehaus

1. There is a new, full-length Franz Ferdinand track. Bitch. Yeah.  You can listen here and it’s just as awesome as you think it would be, the kind of poppy, old-school Franz song that is going to be ridiculous fun to dance to at concerts. (Thanks to Jess for the tip.)

2. New Lily Allen! Someone ripped her new track, “Fuck You Very Much”, which is sweet and poppy and angry, like we love her, and slapped it up on the yubes. (via ONTD)

2a. Apparently Lily has a feud amping up with Katy Perry. This is MAGNIFICENT. It should end with Lily kicking the everloving hell out of Katy Perry.

3. October is going to suck. How is it possible that there are four shows I want to see on October 11th? (Panic in San Jose, Cobra Starship in New York, Tragedy in New York, and something else.) Plus Beck + MGMT the day before, which I couldn’t get tickets for anyway. (Look at me being a big girl and not complaining that my favorite artist since pubescence is playing 7 blocks from my house and I can’t go.) And how is it possible that Panic at the Disco is playing Bridgeport the same night that Gym Class is playing NYC. Aren’t they on the same label? Did it not occur to them that they might have overlapping fanbases? Bridgeport’s easy to get to from the city, and tickets for it went on sale a week before Gym Class dates were announced. Feh.

4. Much coming. I need to pimp Tragedy to you (heavy metal Bee Gees cover band!!) and post my recap of last week’s Bloc Party show (summary: Webster Hall sux).

• Ringo Starr doesn’t want you to ask him about his time in the Beatles [DS]
• Clive Davis things that singers shouldn’t insist on writing their own songs [DS]
• Liam Gallagher waxes his chest and eyebrows [DS]
• The Flaming Lips, Goldfrapp, and Jack Penante to headline Lovebox Weekender along with The Human League and Groove Armada in London on July 19-20. [DS]
• Noel Gallagher has taken up shooting and bought some guns. Also Kenicke pulled a knife on him. [DS]
• Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails to headline Lollapalooza in Chicago’s Grant Park, August 1-3 [Brooklyn Vegan]
• Kate Nash, The Hoosiers, and One Night Only added to T in the Park lineup. [NME]
• The Sex Pistols, Paul Weller, and The Hives are playing the EXIT Festival in Serbia, July 12,-16. [NME]
• Kasabian will headline the Creamfields Festival in Cheshire, August 23-24. [NME]
• Franz Ferdinand, Damon Albarn, Reverend and the Makers, and Hard-Fi played the Africa Exprez gig on March 6. I could go for a boot of that. [NME]
• Amy Winehouse, The Pogues, and The Charlatans have been added to the lineup of the Oxegen Festival in Ireland. [NME]
• NOFX will air tour documentary on Fuse. [Punknews]

• Peaches Geldof is annoyed she was sat next to The Enemy at the NME awards last night. [DS]
• Owen Gibson at the Guardian wonders if NME will be successful at making money off the awards. (This is the first time they’ve paired the awards with a gig punters could get into.) [Guardian]
• Loads of random gossip, my favorites being: Alex Kapranos giving his number to Glasvegas’ James Allen, and Kate Nash and Billy Bragg crashing Vampire Weekend’s table to sing along to the Cribs. [NME]
• Yet more random gossip: Pete Doherty was bleeding from a cat scratch, and Alexa Chung got food poisoning, but her Arctic Monkey boyfriend Alex Turner held her hair back in the loo. [Guardian]
• And Vampire Weekend got in a car crash. Drummer Chris Thompson is awake and will probably be released from the hospital this afternoon. [NME]
• To round out the NME awards detrius: pictures! [DS]
• A Heroes soundtrack will be released next month. It will include: Bob Dylan’s ‘Man in the Long Black Coat’, David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’, Wilco’s ‘Glad It’s Over’, Panic at the Disco’s ‘Nine in the Afternoon’, ‘Not Now But Soon’ by Imogen Heap, and ‘He’s Frank’ by Brighton Port Authority featuring Iggy Pop. [DS]
• Did you know Ja Rule was born on February 29th? So was Antonio Sabato Jr! [DS]

Highlights from the NME blog:

During ‘I Predict A Riot’, Wilson tried to dive into the crowd, but security guards thwarted him and sent him back to the stage.

Anthony Rossomando, Dirty Pretty Things: “We’ll be out here for a while caning it on the cigarettes. I’m sure they’re gonna be Nazis about it inside!

Kate Nash on the Cribs: “The singer’s quite fit I guess,” she laughed. “And the drummer and the bassist too, I guess! They’re the best.”

Alex Kapranos, Franz Ferdinand: “We just got a lift with Anton Corbijn in a golf cart which was quite weird. They abandoned us at the side of the road because they thought there was a fire and then we got picked up by the golf cart. I’m excited to see Gallows tonight. I was out with The Cribs last night, it was a beer, wine and whiskey night. I’m feeling it a bit today.”

Apparently the Cribs are every musician’s favorite band. Ricky Wilson even asked the audience why they didn’t vote for them. (I left out the less witty comments.)  Also, I think there’s a party at Anthony Rossamando’s place.

Anyway. Awards. Blah blah blah Arctic Monkeys for pretty much everything, yay Muse for best live act, Glasvegas for Phillip Hall Radar award which is the official tipping award, I guess. And no Cribs. Pfft. Full list, including who lost, here.

Franz Ferdinand drummer Paul Thomson tried to describe the next album on a MySpace posting that got a little run-on, including 3 YouTube videos and references to Sly and the Family Stone, Jacques Brel, MIA, Brian Eno, and Busby Berkeley.  And I get just a little bit closer to convincing them to write a musical. (via the Guardian)

• Full T in the Park lineup. Includes: The Verve, Rage Against the Machine, REM, Kings of Leon, Kaiser Chiefs, The Fratellis, Interpol, and Panic at the Disco (Really?) (NME)
• Radio 1 Big Weekend will be May 10-11, Scouting for Girls is first act announced. (DS)
• Massive Attack will curate this year’s Meltdown Festival June 14-22. (DS)
• The Melt! Festival (Jul 18, 2008 - Jul 20, 2008 - Gräfenhainichen, Germany) includes: Bjork, Franz Ferdinand, Editors and The Teenagers.

Robert Plant apparently disdains rhyming:

Gordon claims his source reported thusly: “He was drinking with a woman and didn’t like the choice of tunes playing. Radiohead was on and he started complaining. He said ‘What’s this rhyming crap?’”

At this point we doff our fashionable woolen bobble hat to the Led Zep frontman. Disliking music because it rhymes, while on the one hand damning 99% of all popular songs, shows a modernist rigour desperately lacking in the current culture. Well done.

In the same column, Alex Kapranos says that the next Franz Ferdinand album will be dancey and dirty, to which I say, yay!

Says Alex Kapranos in today’s Kim Dawson’s Playlist with Kim Dawson: “The imperfections are what make it perfect, like the cheapest, shittiest guitars and practice amps.

“Logically we should have gone to a big studio and spent millions. But you’ve gotta trust your instincts. This stuff made us want to dance.”

I love a well-made documentary, especially the kind broken up into convenient 45 minute bites. So I’ve watched a few “history of rock” things on MTV and VH1 before. But the BBC/VH1 Classic “Seven Ages of Rock” was really fascinating, especially because it’s unapologetically British in point-of-view. They certainly don’t ignore the American scene, but it is really only important in its relation to and influence on the British scene, all leading up to the apotheosis that is contemporary British Indie Rock, cockily titled, “What the World is Waiting For.”

In case you were wondering the ages are:

1. The Birth of Rock: The Who, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix (the BBC didn’t pay for worldwide rights to the Hendrix footage, so he’s largely missing from the VH1 cut)
2. Art Rock: Pink Floyd, The Velvet Underground, David Bowie
3. Stadium Rock: Led Zepplin, Queen, Kiss, Springsteen, U2
4. Heavy Metal: Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Motley Crue, Metallica
5. Punk Rock: Sex Pistols, The Ramones, Television, Patti Smith, The Clash
6. American Alternative: Nirvana, REM, Black Flag (Actually, more like, the story of Kurt Cobain and some other guys. But really interesting.)
7. British Indie: The Smiths, Oasis, Blur, Stone Roses, The Libertines, Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand

I’m still trying to figure out how this story is missing Factory Records, other than a passing reference to dropping E at the Hacienda, though I suppose one could argue that is the story of Tony Wilson, and not any of the bands or the music. It’s a very linear story they’re trying to tell, so if you don’t quite fit in to the story, I guess they cut you. I’ve also confirmed yet again that I like punk, and generally hate metal. (Except for Master of Puppets and Enter, Sandman? Metallica can leave me alone.)

I’m terribly happy that there was a disparaging remark about Coldplay, whom I hate. For Sarah’s reference, the interviews with Damon Albarn and Alex Kapranos (and Dave Grohl, for that matter) are totally adorable, and Noel Gallagher comes off like a prat. A very rich prat.

You can go to VH1 Classic to see video footage of all the bands, including some that got left out, and keep your Tivos peeled for the reairing.

Yep, that’s right, end-of-year lists are starting to come out. The Fyrehaus is working on one of its own (we’re aiming to make it an actual end of year list by posting it on December 31st), but I thought I’d take five minutes and point you towards Silly Pipe Dreams’s Top 20 Covers of 2007.

Clearly SPD loves covers as much as I do, which is reassuring. Even more reassuring is their vote for #1 cover of the year: Franz Ferdinand’s cover of LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends,” which breaks my “Please For The Love Of God Don’t Cover A Recently Released Song” rule and is one of my top 5 songs of 2007, hands down.

As SPD says,

The lyrics seem to fit even better in the hands and guitars of Franz Ferdinand, which add a sense of urgency and drive, while still keeping its kinda depressing foundation. When I’m driving home alone after a night out, which is every night out, I find myself listening to this version more.

Head on over to give their top 20 a listen, all the songs are linked.

Two of my favorite bands are fucking with my head using only the power of html.

Panic! At The Disco and Franz Ferdinand are both, in theory, releasing albums in the first quarter of 2008. They are two of my favorite bands of, oh, let’s say the last four years.

They’re also making me want to squish their little faces in glee as I delve into their html and css.

Panic!’s site, at the moment, has a fill-in-the-blank image which is rumored to read “You Don’t Have To Worry!” The exclamation is to make the extra space at the end make sense. I kind of hope it’s something else, something incredibly obscure and literary. Yesterday there was no image, just an adorable note in the html. Look at the page source to find it.

Franz’s site has an adorable picture of the band, backs to a wall, and a page title of “notyet” which, presumably, refers to the fact that they haven’t yet announced a release date for the new album.

I will admit I’ve spent more time than is probably expected looking for hidden clues inside the code of the sites. Panic’s was clearly hand done by someone who knows html and css. The link to the picture is hidden in the css and images are stored in a subfolder. The image name is just ohidontknow1.gif, prompting Sarah to ask if there was a ohidontknow2.gif.

Franz’s site was either done by someone who loooooves xhtml or is using a client. The stylesheet doesn’t have its own page and there’s a doc type declaration.

Summary? These boys make me love being a geek.