Win A Signed Photo Of Beady Eye

Beady Eye's US and Canadian record label Dangerbird Records have given us a signed picture by the band to give away to one of the sites visitors.

Beady Eye will be returning to North America in November and December, click here for more details on ticket availability.

All you have to do to to win the photo is join the Beady Eye and Dangerbird mailing lists, details are here.

One winner will be picked at random by Dangerbird Records on October 11th 2011.

A picture of the photo is below.

Thanks to Dangerbird Records.

Another Review Of Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds

A little over two years on from Oasis’ rather abrupt break up, big brother Noel releases his debut album later this month to much anticipation and speculation on what it may include. The biggest surprise of all may strangely be that there are no real surprises. While rumours spread about possible new directions after Noel kept himself away from the media spotlight for a large portion of his time away, what he actually comes out with is an album which shows every influence and feeling that we’ve always associated with him.

Over the last twenty years Noel Gallagher has soundtracked a generation of people who grew up during the ‘Britpop’ era, during which time he wrote some of the most well loved and biggest selling songs of all time. All the while he provided a steady supply of B sides which hinted at another side to his writing which it was always assumed would be turned out in a solo project at some point and now, with his High Flying Birds it has arrived.

All the influences you would expect to hear are liberally scattered through this album, sounds of ‘The Kinks’, ‘The La’s’ and ‘The Beatles’ pop up on a regular basis as well as the expected Oasis esque feel. Going in you expect to hear euphoric choruses, sing along lyrics and instantly memorable melodies and that’s exactly what you get. However it’s not as simple as a re-hash of what he’s done and heard before.

Indeed, album opener ‘Everybody’s On The Run’ kicks things off with a mass of strings and a backing from the Crouch End Choir, who were most recently seen performing with Ray Davies. It provides a constantly undulating wall of sound before Noel’s trademark vocal kicks in more strongly than it has seemed when still part of Oasis, perhaps a sign of an increased comfort now he is truly his own boss.

There are plenty of the traditional Noel moments too. Throughout the album there is a trail of melancholic lyrics wrapped up in layered guitars, a healthy smattering of strings and rolling drums while almost every track has you humming, tapping or singing along from the very first listen, second track ‘Dream On’ already has the sound of a live favourite.

Two ‘lost’ Oasis songs appear in the form of ‘(I Wanna Live In A Dream In My) Record Machine’ and ‘Stop The Clocks’ both of which offer versions far superior to those which have floated around the internet for several years now. ‘Stop The Clocks’ providing a spectacular close to the record as it builds to a noisy crescendo before quickly sliding off among a reverberating echo of feedback.

Already released singles ‘The Death Of You And Me’ and ‘AKA...What A Life!’ have already been heard by most and happily the latter provides the weakest moment of the album with its dance inspired sound feeling half-hearted and a little confused. Noel himself has said he had to be persuaded to keep the track, perhaps he shouldn’t have listened.

The undoubted highlight of the album is ‘If I Had A Gun...’ which is another that has had various versions doing the rounds on the internet. It’s wistful lyrics and softly delivered vocal provide a dreamy feeling while ‘Soldier Boys And Jesus Freaks’ shows a side of Noel we haven’t seen much of as he makes a strong lyrical statement. An unapologetically anti-war song wrapped in a shiny Kinks-pop tune singing of soldiers who “go to heaven on holiday” is much more direct than a typical Noel lyric and it’s a positive sign of what may come later in his solo career.

The main complaint people are likely to have with this album is that it doesn’t sound different enough and there are undoubtedly some lazy moments, the intro to ‘Dream On’ for example sounds eerily similar to that of Oasis’ ‘Lyla’. However, this was never likely to be some sort of groundbreaking piece of music. That sounds like it’s being saved for Noel’s ‘other’ album where he has teamed up with Amorphous Androgynous, due to be released early in 2012.

This isn’t the masterpiece many fans would have hoped for or expected, although I’m sure some will claim it to be but it is still a very good album. What has to be remembered is that, despite feeling like he’s been around forever this is a first attempt at a solo effort and, to compare to his most obvious peer in this situation, it stands up very well to Paul Weller’s self titled solo debut. The true test will be if Noel can progress his solo sound the way Weller has done since.

Over the past twenty years Gallagher senior has established himself as one of the best songwriters Britain has produced and this album will do nothing to tarnish that reputation while leaving plenty to anticipate what may come next.

'Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds' is released on October 17th on Sour Mash Records.

Source: www.stereoboard.com

Noel Gallagher Picks His Favourite Videos For GOTV In Austria

Noel Gallagher will be picking his favourite videos for GOTV in Austria on Sunday, the show starts at 11am (local time).

The show will be repeated on the 14/10 at 21:00 and 15/10 at 16:00.

Noel picked

Arctic Monkey - Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair
Kasabian - Switchblade Smiles
Talking Heads - Once In A Lifetime
Grace Jones - Pull Up To The Pumper
Beck - E-Pro
Rolling Stones - Undercover Of The Night
David Bowie - John, I'm Only Dancing
Zoot Woman - Grey Day
Bob Marley -Could You Be Loved
Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - The Death Of You And Me

Canadian Fans: Win Tickets To An Exclusive Noel Gallagher Acoustic Performance

Virgin Mobile Canada is hosting a special intimate acoustic performance with Noel Gallagher at the Virgin Mobile Mod Club, Toronto on Saturday November 5th, 2011. Sour Mash Records have arranged for NoelGallagher.com members to have a chance to get on the Virgin Mobile guest list by entering HERE!.

If you are a Virgin Mobile Canada Member, then you qualify for the chance to meet Noel to have him sign a poster of the event at the November 7th and 8th Massey Hall shows in Toronto by entering here – virginmobile.ca/gigs

Source: www.noelgallagher.com

High Flying Birds, Musical Kettles And Exploded Psych: Noel Gallagher Speaks

It was on January 27, 2000, when I was sitting with a group of journalists in the Albany pub on Great Portland Street having a long liquid lunch, when Noel Gallagher caught me napping. We were waiting in the vague proximity of the Portland Hospital – with its celebrated maternity ward favoured by rich and famous Londoners – for news of Meg Matthews who had entered the day before to give birth. I barely had chance to look up from my drink and get my notepad out when I saw the Britpop star striding towards the table. “Alright lads!” he beamed, “What are you having?” He bought everyone present a pint of Guinness, having a half himself, before filling us in on the birth of his daughter Anaïs, the health of her mother and how made up he was. “You got everything you need? I’d better go and get some flowers for the wife,” he said before marching back out to a round of applause.

I was no longer a news reporter by the time Liam Gallagher’s wife Nicole Appleton went into the same hospital to give birth to their son Gene 16 months later but I did read in the paper the next day that after leaving the hospital the proud dad had assaulted a photographer.

The one detail from these two brief vignettes that probably needs illuminating is the fact that Noel Gallagher knew the Albany pub quite well. He’d been a semi-regular at the Heavenly Social held in the basement club below stairs, where he mixed with Tricky, the Manic Street Preachers, Tim Burgess, Beth Orton, regular DJs The Chemical Brothers and other, slightly more open minds during the Britpop period. While Noel had lived just yards from The Chems while they were still The Dust Brothers back in Levenshulme and running Naked Under Leather in the early 90s and they had both been regulars at the Hacienda during its heyday, it was down the rickety steps in the 100 capacity central London club in 1994 that they first met. The next significant time they bumped into each other would be backstage at Glastonbury in 1996 and the plan to record ‘Setting Sun’ - the strangest, most fucked up electronic single ever to make number one in the charts – was hatched.

This was a crucial time for Oasis as John Tatlock rightly pointed out in a feature for us; Gallagher senior was being exposed to the world’s best hip hop, house and techno, recording chart topping psychedelic electronica and was keen on pushing his group out of its Beatles pop phase into its Beatles experimental phase. During the 1997 sessions for the Be Here Now album he was experimenting with playing riffs over hip hop breaks and espousing the joys of N.W.A. evangelically to the rest of the boys but they were looking at him “like I was talking French”.

But if he wasn’t exactly leaning on an open door, then he wasn’t exactly pushing all that hard either, and we know what happened after that. Oasis were simply already too big for the formula to be fucked with. As the Be Here Now producer Owen Morris said: "The only reason anyone was there was the money."

Some 14 years later Gallagher Senior is finally getting to indulge and explore these more experimental tendencies. Now free to embark on a solo career he is preparing for the release of his debut, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, a pleasingly sun-dappled album of warm-hearted psychedelia which could be filed next to Shack’s HMS Fable and The Soundtrack Of Our Lives’ Behind The Music and certainly towers over Beady Eye's Different Gear, Still Speeding. Not only that but the finishing touches are being put on his joint album with Amorphous Androgynous which, if their epic remix of ‘Falling Down’ is anything to go by, should be some Optrex for your third eye.

Talking of which, my third eye is just starting to open in all of its terrible glory as my other two eyes are drooping shut as I nod off. Sitting by the phone, waiting for the call, it looks like Noel Gallagher’s caught me sleeping on the job again.

Noel Gallagher: John, how are you doing?

Er... Hello... Not bad. Alright.

NG: Are you sure? You don’t sound alright.

No, I am actually. I’ve got a five month old boy so sleep’s at a premium but things are actually really great.

NG: My youngest turned one on Saturday, so I know what you mean.

Nice one! Happy birthday to him. Speaking as working rock & roll father of young children, how do you tie it all in with songwriting and making noise after a certain time and all that?

NG: I tend to do a lot on the road now because I’ve given up writing at home. It used to be the other way round but now that I don’t burn the candle at both ends any more I write on the road – that’s where I get some peace and quiet.

My boy will happily listen to any music that sounds like the washing machine, so he’s alright listening to black metal.

NG: [laughing] With the kids we only listen to music on the radio in the morning and in the car, but my eldest boy who is four loves acid house. And when he says, ‘Dad can we have some acid house please?’, I’m going to have to sample it and stick it on a fucking record because it sounds great.

Speaking of house music, there’s a link of sorts between that genre and the debut album of Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, isn’t there?

NG: Well, on the track ‘[AKA...] What A Life!’ definitely there is, and maybe on the other songs simply via their sense of hope. On that particular track, it just came about because of a beautiful accident really. I’d started off writing something completely different and then ‘Strings Of Life’ by Rhythim Is Rhythim came on the stereo at home and totally influenced it. I had one of those moments of, ‘Oh wow, that song might work if I do it like that…’ I went down that avenue with it and it came out great.

A quick Google before the interview revealed to me that the world’s highest flying bird is actually the Asian goose, and while it looks like a rather charming yet undynamic bird it can fly at over 20,000 feet, and clear the Himalayas without troubling its underfeathers. Now I was wondering if you were named after a skein of Asian geese, or if there was an even better story to the name?

NG: [laughing] I’m afraid it’s just a really fucking shit story. When I was recording the album I was passing by Shepherd’s Bush Empire one night on my way home and somebody was on – I can’t remember who – but I remember thinking, ‘Do I really want to see my name up there? I mean it’s a bit boring… Noel Gallagher. It’s hardly Ziggy Stardust, is it?’ And I didn’t think much of it really, because I had all this other stuff going on. I was making an album; no one knew about it; did I want to find a band?; and if I found the band would I have to get a singer, because he would probably turn out to be a dick... - that kind of thing. Then one day I was at home doing the washing up and ‘Man Of The World’ came on the radio and the DJ said, ‘That was Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac. And I thought, ‘Wow. What if I was Noel Gallagher’s Something Or Other? That would be really cool.’ So I thought of loads of different things for months and it never really went away. I liked it because the name could apply to me solo, or a band or to a collective, it could mean anything. And then one day I was at home looking through some CDs and I was looking at Jefferson Airplane’s debut album and I saw the track ‘High Flying Birds’, and I thought, ‘Oh, fucking hell… that’s it.’

You’ve nailed it.

NG: I’ve fucking nailed it. Genius! But there’s no interesting story there…

Read the rest of the article here.

Russell Brand 'Drugs' Woman In Sinister Gallagher Promo

Russell Brand pins a terrified woman to a couch and force-feeds her psychedelic drugs in the sinister promo for Noel Gallagher's new single.

The former Oasis rocker revealed last month he had agreed to give his pal a cameo in the video for AKA... What A Life!, but he refused to reveal details of the role.

Now the eight-minute film has been unveiled online - and Brand has a substantial part as an evil drug-pusher who forces a petrified blonde to go on a bizarre hallucinogenic trip.

At the start of the creepy promo, Brand - wearing a top hat and an ivory necklace - lures the woman into his lair and tells her, "There's really no decision at all. You already know what you are going to do... Once you have taken a little sip of this splendid brew, the world will never look quite the same again. And as I explained to you, you never really had a choice."

Two female slaves then appear alongside the woman and help to pin her down as Brand pours the blue concoction into her mouth, sneering, "Ladies, make it a little easier for her. Don't be flustered. It's okay. It's just a drizzle."

The track then begins and the weeping woman embarks on a bizarre drug trip before being 'rescued' from the trunk of a car by Gallagher at the end of the film.

Source: yahoo.com

Noel Gallagher: I'm Perfect For X Factor

Noel Gallagher has revealed he would have made the perfect judge for the X Factor - after correctly predicting the final 16.

The star turned down Simon Cowell's request to join the panel, but said he had no real objection to the show.

In an interview with Real Radio Yorkshire, he said: "I don't mind the X Factor, I've got an 11-year-old daughter; she's obsessed with it as all 11-year-old girls are.

"I was watching it on Saturday actually, and I managed to pick everybody they put through to the live finals."

In the interview, to be broadcast on Saturday morning, Gallagher tells presenter Daryl Denham he had a personal invitation from Cowell to be an X Factor judge.
"I know him and he was going 'we want you to be on it', I was going 'you don't really want me on it - I won't put anyone through, and I can't have people round my house crying in the kitchen when I don't put them through because they'll frighten the cat'. And the cat can't be frightened."

Guitarist Gallagher, who releases his first solo album, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, later this month, said his daughter Anais was upset when he refused to do the ITV1 show.

"She went into a rage when she found out I'd turned it down."
"So we're watching it Saturday night and I was saying 'that fat idiot - he's rubbish, get him off'. And she looked at me and she gave me a withering look and said 'well, you could have told him that yourself, couldn't you?' And I was like oh ... get to bed."

But he added that he would not reconsider. "No, no, no it's not for me, no, I couldn't," Gallagher said.

Source: The Press Association

Watch Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds Video For AKA... What A Life Now!

Video for Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds' new UK single 'AKA... What A Life!' featuring Russell Brand and directed by Mike Bruce.

The single is available to download now and is released by Noel's own label Sour Mash Records. The track will be available to buy as a digital bundle and on 7" and CD from 17th October featuring the exclusive b-side 'Let The Lord Shine A Light On Me'.

Beady Eye Feature In Argentinian Rolling Stone Magazine

Below are two pictures from the Rolling Stone Magazine from Argentina, that's on sale now!
































Thanks to AG_foto

Video: Noel Gallagher Talks About The Tracks On His Album

Click here and here to watch Noel Gallagher talking to the NME about tracks from Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds.

Watch Highlights From Beady Eye's Gig In Paris

Below are a few videos from Beady Eye's gig in Paris, earlier this year.

Watch the rest of the highlights here, the footage is taken from a special edition of Beady Eye's 'Different Gear Still Speeding' that is available in Japan.







Thanks to kvailas

Noel Gallagher Interview With Zane Lowe To Be Broadcast Monday

An interview with Noel Gallagher will be played on Zane Lowe's BBC Radio 1's show, on Monday 10th October.

The show starts at 19:00 (UK Time) to listen live click here.

Noel Gallagher To Be A Guest On Radio 4 Next Wednesday

Noel Gallagher will be a guest on BBC Radio 4's show Front Row, on Wednesday 12th October.

The show starts at 19:15 (UK Time) for details or to listen live click here.

On This Day In Oasis History...

The video below is from October 2001, when Paul Weller was joined by Noel Gallagher to perform The Jam's classic 'That's Entertainment' on the Jools Holland show.

Noel Gallagher On 'Stop The Clocks'

Noel Gallagher has told the current issue of the NME his thoughts on each track from Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds debut album.

This is what Noel had to say about the tenth and final track 'Stop The Clocks'.

"It will never live up to people's expectations of it [being written in Oasis]. But again, I thought, 'If I don't do it now, it's gonna be left in the corner, rotting away.' And it's too good to be left there. When I was doing it and the choir went on I thought, 'Yep I like it, it sounds definitive.' But it was only when we did the chaos at the end, with all the saxophones and the guitar solo that I thought, 'It's definitely worth putting on there now, for the last minute alone.' But I probably won't ever revisit it. It's kind of like a gift, clearing the decks for what comes next, the last postcard from the Oasis years."

Check out this week's magazine for the full article

Source: NME Magazine

Noel Gallagher On '(Stranded On) The Wrong Beach'

Noel Gallagher has told the current issue of the NME his thoughts on each track from Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds debut album.

This is what Noel had to say about the Ninth track '(Stranded On) The Wrong Beach'.

"The album starts off with 'Everybody's On The Run' and a sense of having to leave where you are to go and find paradise, find out if the grass is greener on the other side. But you end up stranded on the wrong beach, where you end up in paradise thinking, This isn't really what I wanted. I should be where I fucking come from. I should be where I belong.' It's where you're from is where you're at, really. Kind of saying the grass isn't always greener on the other side. Subconsciously I must've been thinking about all this. The brackets? I don't know why I put brackets in there, I'm prone to doing that!"

Check out this week's magazine for the full article

Source: NME Magazine

Noel Gallagher On 'AKA... Broken Arrow'

Noel Gallagher has told the current issue of the NME his thoughts on each track from Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds debut album.

This is what Noel had to say about the eighth track 'AKA... Broken Arrow'.

"Broken Arrow is Neil Young's ranch. As this one went on, I thought, 'It sounds like The Smiths, I fucking love it.' And of course it doesn't really sound like The Smiths - it only sounds like The Smiths to me. I tried to get Johnny Marr to play on it. I thought he would have put on a really incredible Johnny Marr guitar on it. But I called him, we exchanged messages for a week or two, and when he was in LA I wasn't, and when I was in LA he wasn't and it never quite happened. But I love it."

Check out this week's magazine for the full article

Source: NME Magazine

Noel Gallagher On 'Soldier Boys And Jesus Freaks'

Noel Gallagher has told the current issue of the NME his thoughts on each track from Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds debut album.

This is what Noel had to say about the seventh track 'Soldier Boys And Jesus Freaks'.

"Very Kinks sounding; the opening line about the village green is a clue as to where it all came from. I was listening to that album ['The Kinks Arc The Village Green Preservation Society1] a lot on the last Oasis tour. The title itself, people are gonna think, 'What the fucking hell's this going to be about?' Each line is like the scene of a film, it's really visual. In my head, it reminds me of that scene in The Deer Hunter where the guy gets back from Vietnam, and the girl puts the record on the jukebox in the bar. The second half of the album, from here onwards, has got a separate feel. They're all darker sounding. It's night-time music. "

Check out this week's magazine for the full article

Source: NME Magazine

Noel Gallagher On 'AKA... What A Life'

Noel Gallagher has told the current issue of the NME his thoughts on each track from Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds debut album.

This is what Noel had to say about the sixth track '...AKA What A Life'.

"After I made the demo, I was listening it back and thinking, 'Oh my God. This is disco music!' It was funny: when I played it to all the lads in the office they went, 'This is a bit weird'. But all the girls went, 'Fucking amazing!' I played it to my missus and she was like, 'At fucking last, something you can dance to,' so I was like, 'Right, I'm gonna fucking run with this!"'

Check out this week's magazine for the full article

Source: NME Magazine

First Listen: Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds

The much anticipated debut solo record from Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher came across the Your Daily SPA desk this morning and we just couldn’t help but jot down a few words about what this larger than life rocker has in store for us.

Some background rustling and a casual cough make for a disconcerting first couple of seconds of Noel Gallagher’s debut record, but it’s clearly there to throw us off the scent as Everybody’s On The Run erupts into an epic, anthemic piece, replete with strings, a choir and a big, bombastic chorus.

If I Had A Gun does away with the lavish touches and rest on more of a standard rock band formation. The sentiment is a little weird; “ If I had a gun, I’d shoot a hole into the sun and never burn this city down for you ” isn’t exactly Gallagher at his most poignant, but we’ve never been too romantic so who are we to judge?

Surely no one is looking forward to hearing a song called (I Wanna Live a Dream In My) Record Machine. We weren’t. The seemingly inappropriate sound of children chatting and playing opens it up, before we quickly realize this is yet another big ballad, this time driven by an acoustic guitar, some huge harmonies and before you know it, hello, here come those swirling strings and that choir again. It wouldn’t be that bad of a song, but when the chorus kicks in and Gallagher actually sings “_I wanna live a dream in my record machine_” you can’t help but laugh/cringe and then you just want those fucking kids to shut up. There’s a pretty nice guitar solo over an incredibly dramatic string interlude but it all feels a bit silly, really.

The rolling piano and static bass of What A Life starts the song of promisingly, and the song putters along just how a nice and inoffensive modern rock tune oughta. It won’t blow your mind but it’ll make you tap your foot and the little dash of mellotron thrown over the top of the solid groove established by the rhythm section is a very nice touch.

We certainly weren’t ready for The Death of You and Me. An intro that almost sounds inspired by a spaghetti western, Gallagher pulling out his finest falsetto and, frankly, one of the best choruses he has written in years is far removed from the sappy melodrama expected. It’s a perky tune with miserable subject matter and, most importantly, a big old fashioned New Orleans inspired horn section that kind of doesn’t fit, which actually makes it better. A bunch of rather disparate ideas smashed together doesn’t often work, but it has here. Might not be a single, but it’s bloody good all the same.

Stop The Clocks is boring, quite frankly, and it features the line “ What if I’m already dead? How would I know? “, which leads us immediately to the skip button. Dream On is a jaunty slice of Britpop that takes itself a bit too seriously to be fun, but hits the mark all the same. Suspicious as we are, a song called Soldier Boys and Jesus Freaks has us pretty excited, but sadly it doesn’t get anywhere as dark as its title had us hoping for, but it’s not anywhere near as banal as AKA Broken Arrow, which honestly sounds like Gallagher is just reading verbatim from a book called Clichés for Dummies; you have to hear this shit to believe it.
The brackets are given a second run as (Stranded On) The Wrong Beach drops by. It’s far better than the last bracketed song and the gritty, swaggering chorus is one of the best on the record. It’s a bit more Stones than Beatles and shows us Gallagher has balls, without slapping us in the face with them as has happened a few times with the

Forget the kitchen sink; Gallagher and co have thrown the entire housing estate at this record. It sounds like it cost millions of bucks to make and as if it would have been a bit of a pain in the arse to do. The production is slick, the instrumentation intense (sometimes too much so) and Gallagher really belts it out on his vocal takes. The results are mostly pretty impressive – a few missteps aside – now we just need to kick back and watch the fireworks as Oasis fans tussle over whether or not it’s better than Beady Eye…

Noel Gallagher’s solo debut album Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds will be released on November 8th on Sour Mash/Mercury Records.

Source: themusic.com.au