Noel Gallagher And Damon Albarn Are “Like Best Mates Now”

Former Britpop adversaries Noel Gallagher and Damon Albarn are best buddies now, according to Blur bassist Alex James.

Speaking to Irish radio host Ray D'Arcy, Alex James said: "Ironically Noel and Damon are like best mates now. They go off and smoke cigars together. I think we realised we we're all on the same side eventually."

Damon and Noel had a rather rocky relationship (to put it lightly) in the 90s, as they were both the figureheads of Blur and Oasis respectively, two of the largest bands in the UK at the time. Noel famously said that he hoped Damon would "catch AIDs and die", and Damon accused both Noel and his brother Liam Gallagher of being bullies. However, the pair have buried the hatchet and even joined each other onstage earlier this year for a performance of Blur's 'Tender' - although Noel couldn't do so without getting one last dig in, saying that he only offered to join in because the song was "easy to play on guitar".

James also spoke of Blur's break up and subsequent reunion, saying: "It was 2003 when Blur really kind of stopped. And it had been 15 years of us doing the same thing, just the four of us. That's a long time. I think we just all needed to go off and do other things. We've all worked with other people. So when we come back to play together I think we do it just because we want to – there's no pressure… It's actually the best thing we ever did, splitting up."

He continued: "Back in 2009 when we got back together, they were the best shows we'd ever done. And I think we all thought that was a good place to leave it, maybe. Then we got the call to do this big show last summer to mark the end of the Olympics and I think we all felt we can’t really say no to that. It's such an honour to be asked. And it was so brilliant, we thought what's not to like?"

Source: craveonline.com

Parlour Flames Interview

This summer’s Nozstock festival will almost be a homecoming gig for Vinny Perculiar.

Vinny Perculiar is the pseudonym for Alan Wilkes, a singer-songwriter and poet who has been based in Manchester for nearly twenty years.

But Vinny, who has worked with former band members of the Smiths, Aztec Camera and The Fall, was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. He has famously been christened as the “Tony Hancock of Pop” by Uncut Magazine, and has regularly appeared at Glastonbury. Growing up, Perculiar was influenced by not only music artists such as David Bowie, David Burn and Roxy Music, but also writers such as Charles Bukowski and Jack Kerouac.

Click here to read the full article.

Noel Gallagher Meets Up With Russell Brand And Morrissey In LA

Russell Brand should have guessed what he’d be in for meeting up with Noel Gallagher and Morrissey.

He tweeted this snap on a night out in LA, and wrote: “Victimized by heroes. Me with Moz and Noel G. Quite badly bullied.”

He’d help himself by turning up without the beads and waistcoat.

Strange reaction from Morrissey – the closest his mouth has ever been to a smile.

Source: thesun.co.uk

Russell Brand Would Want A 'Taxidermied Noel Gallagher' On Desert Island

Russell Brand has told BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs programme that if he were to become stranded he'd want a stuffed Noel Gallagher as his luxury item.

When asked by presenter Kirsty Young what item he’d want with him to make his life more bearable, Brand asked: "You can't take a person, can you? I can't take Noel Gallagher as a luxury item, as a minstel?" Young replied: "You could take him stuffed." Brand then said: "That’s the perfect thing. I'd like a taxidermied Noel Gallagher, perhaps somehow misrepresented – like wearing one of Liam’s jackets."

Later he added: "I've got my stuffed Noel Gallagher to worship and dress up, if I want to. I can do what I like to him. It’ll be a mockery of that man on that island."

For his eight musical choices, the comedian and actor picked:

Amy Winehouse – 'You Know I’m No Good'
Daniel Johnston – 'Like A Monkey In A Zoo'
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – 'Red Right Hand'
The Libertines – 'Tell The King'
Ravi Shankar With Family & Friends – 'I Am Missing You'
Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip – 'Thou Shalt Always Kill'
Nirinjan Kaur – 'Triple Mantra'
Morrissey – 'Now My Heart is Full'

Earlier this year, Brand performed with Noel Fielding for the Teenage Cancer Trust Show at London's Royal Albert Hall as part of a week of events organised by Gallagher. During the show, Brand played a video recorded at Gallagher's house, which showed the singer's children punching a Brand face mask while shouting, "I hate Russell Brand!"

Source: www.nme.com

Video: Beady Eye 'Shine A Light'

Below is the music video for Beady Eyes 'Shine A Light' single.

Bonehead On Parlour Flames, Oasis, The Vortex And More

Paul Arthurs, better known as Bonehead during his days with Oasis, has put together a band with Manchester-based singer songwriter and poet Vinny Peculiar (aka Alan Wilkes). Parlour Flames combine Peculiar’s witty lyrics and melodic piano with Bonehead on multi-instrumental duties, and their debut album – a 60s-soaked folk/pop fest - is really very good...

This Feeling caught up for a chat with the ex-Oasis man in the midst of a string of live dates across the UK…

Click here to read the interview.

On This Day In Oasis History...

Below is a video from July 19th 2002, when Oasis played at the Bern Gurten Festival in Switzerland.

 

Beady Eye Roll Into Benicassim

Beady Eye will play at the Benicassim Festival in Benicassim, Spain later today (July 19th).

You can also tweet us pictures and updates @scyhodotcom

On This Day In Oasis History...

Below is a video from the July 17th 1995, when Oasis appeared on Zona TV in Spain.

Beady Eye Roll Into Ibiza Rocks

Beady Eye will play at Ibiza Rocks in Ibiza, Spain later today (July 17th).

You can also tweet us pictures and updates @scyhodotcom

Beady Eye Roll Into Mallorca Rocks

Beady Eye will play at Mallorca Rocks in Mallorca, Spain later today (July 16th).

You can also tweet us pictures and updates @scyhodotcom

Video: Beady Eye At 'T In The Park'

Click here to watch highlights of Beady Eye's performance on the Radio 1 stage at T in the Park 2013.

Liam Gallagher's Latest Tweet

Groovy Gang X http://twitpic.com/d2l7g1

Follow Liam on Twitter by clicking here.

Noel Gallagher: Love Is... Lending Your Best Trainers

When the Oasis guitarist gave up drugs he need something else to obsess about - and began collecting adidas trainers.

What do you give a millionaire rock star who wants for nothing? The answer, it would appear, is a pair of trainers. And Noel Gallagher likes trainers. A lot. So much, in fact, that they helped fill the void when he kicked his drug habit more than a decade ago. The singer spent years, and a small fortune, on cocaine before quitting the drug in 1998, replacing it with a new fix.

"When I gave up drugs I had to obsess about something, and I'm not into cars, not into jewellery and all that kind of thing, and I had loads of guitars, so I set off on a quest to collect adidas trainers." Adidas was a central part of the Oasis look, along with a Beatles mop of hair and Lambretta jackets. For the young Gallagher brothers, the sports brand symbolised youth culture.

And for Noel and Liam, growing up in Burnage, Manchester without much money meant resorting to crime. "We weren't really in the market for the good gear when we were lads. We were on the dole. We had nothing, so what we had that was nice was mostly shoplifted."

Years later, with the pair selling millions of records and playing to sold-out stadiums as Oasis, Gallagher admits he would spend hours scouring sports shops for trainers instead of sound-checking and doing interviews. "I had silly amounts – you couldn't open a cupboard without 20 pairs of adidas trainers falling out." And he laughs as he admits trying to hide his trainers from his wife by having two pairs in each box.

He ended up with more than 100 pairs of trainers, but several years ago decided to scale back his collection. "I kept the best ones back, I've probably got about 20 or 30 real vintage pairs, and I put the rest back out there – I gave them to charity shops. Funnily enough when I go to Camden market I still see some of my pairs there and I've been very tempted to buy them back."

We are talking ahead of an adidas Spezial exhibition organised by his friend Gary Aspden, a consultant to the company. Opening at the Hoxton Gallery, London on Friday, the exhibition will feature more than 600 pairs of trainers – from the late 1960s to today. Gallagher has lent some of his collection, including his most prized pair of "adidas holiday" trainers.

Surely he must be inundated with free ones? Wrong. "I like buying them. It's like getting shoes, or getting owt for free, like downloading, it's wrong." But at 46, he says his trainer days are numbered. Gallagher once spent a drunken night with Paul Weller when the pair "scientifically worked out that the cut-off age is 50 for wearing trainers".

It is not just fashion that Gallagher dwells on. Institutions like the NHS and welfare system were created "when England had a massive empire and the country was rich," he says. "Our country is not rich any more." New Labour "killed politics" and there is "nothing left to vote for," he adds. "They proved themselves to be the same as the Conservatives, they killed politics in a way."

The former Oasis star has played with his High Flying Birds since Oasis broke up in 2009. After more than a decade together he married Sara MacDonald in 2011. The couple have two young sons, Donovan and Sonny, and Noel has a teenage daughter, Anais, from his first marriage to Meg Mathews.

There's no sign of reuniting with his estranged brother Liam but he seems happy. The singer agrees. He is "writing all the time" and says this is "one of the happiest" times in his life. "1995 to '97 would take some beating but yeah, it's good, man."

Source: independent.co.uk

Beady Eye On The New Album, Touring And More

Listen below to an interview with Liam Gallagher and Gem Archer, that was broadcast the other night.

Gallery: Liam And Nicole Gallagher In London

Liam Gallagher wears a leopard print jumper as he arrives back home with his wife Nicole Appleton after a late night out in London.

Click here to see the pictures.

Beady Eye Roll Into T In The Park

Beady Eye will play at the T In The Park festival in Perth, UK later today (July 13th).

You can also tweet us pictures and updates @scyhodotcom

No Oasis Or Rolling Stones - For The Queen's 12 Minutes Of British Pop

The Beatles and Blur make the cut but there’s no room for Oasis and the Rolling Stones. A 12-minute medley of British rock’s greatest achievements will be performed at Buckingham Palace after the Queen requested a potted history of Britpop.

A four-day festival, with a “Best of British” theme, opens to the public on Friday in Buckingham Palace's gardens, to mark the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s coronation.

The event will showcase British fashion, food, technological innovation and the arts. For the musical contribution, the Palace has chosen the chart-topping band The Feeling, to play a tightly-constructed medley featuring the most essential music of the Queen’s reign, which neatly encompasses the popular music era.

The Feeling, whose set list was approved “at the very heighest levels” by the Palace, have boiled down 60 years of artistic innovation and cultural reinvention into just seven songs.

The medley begins with The Beatles and revives the sonic crunch of The Kinks. It singles out the 70s rock operatics of The Who, the flamboyant showmanship of Queen with David Bowie and the artful state-of-the-nation addresses delivered by Pink Floyd and Blur.

There are unavoidable omissions, said Dan Gillespie Sells, frontman of The Feeling. “We had to leave out the Rolling Stones and we chose Blur over Oasis because they were the band who most influenced us,” he said. “We could have chosen from a million songs but we went for artists we liked and tried to cover all the bases inside 12 minutes. We didn’t want the medley to be too quickfire either, we restricted it to seven songs.”

The Queen was spared some controversial choices. “We couldn’t have the Sex Pistols’ God Save The Queen. I’d have liked to do an Elvis Costello song but it would have been too political,” said the singer.

“We had to send the set-list to the Palace for approval but that’s fair enough – the event is in her house.”

However some may wish to send The Feeling to the Tower for including their own hit, Love It When You Call as the climax of their Britpop history. “The palace asked us to include one of ours. It was the most played song on the radio so I think it’s fair enough,” explained Gillespie Sells.

The band debated whether Pink Floyd’s “We don’t need no education” lyric was appropriate for the Palace. “We wanted some Floyd but they don’t really do pop songs,” said Gillespie Sells. “This one clips along and helps with the pace of the medley.”

At least The Feeling, soon to release a new album called Boy Cried Wolf, did not use their valuable minutes to try out some new material. “We could have included a noughties song from Coldplay,” Gillespie Sells said. “But it’s a bit weird to cover a song by your contemporaries who are your friends.”

The Feeling will perform their medley each day during the festival and hope the Queen will attend one of the performances.

Katherine Jenkins, Russell Watson, Katie Melua and Laura Wright will also perform at the festival of “innovation, excellence and industry”. Each day more than 6,000 ticket holders will attend the palace gardens which will be filled with more than 200 display stands exhibiting products and services.

Tickets for the Coronation Festival at Buckingham Palace at: https://www.coronationfestival.com/

The Best of Britpop?
Day Tripper – The Beatles (1965 UK chart peak - No 1)
You Really Got Me – The Kinks (1964 No 1)
Pinball Wizard – The Who/Elton John (1969 No 4)
Under Pressure – Queen & David Bowie (1981 No1)
Another Brick In the Wall (Part 2) – Pink Floyd (1979 No 1)
Parklife – Blur (2004 No 10)
Love It When You Call – The Feeling (2006 No 18)

Source: www.independent.co.uk

Artwork For Beady Eye's 'Shine A Light' Single

Beady Eye will release 'Shine A Light' on August 19 as the second official single to be lifted from their latest album BE.

Beady Eye 'Shine A Light' 7" Vinyl Single Pre-Order!

Beady Eye have confirmed the title of their new single. The band will release 'Shine A Light' on August 19 as the second official single to be lifted from their latest album BE.

Click here for details on how to order.