Joe Kavanagh's Music News

The so-called "Swine Flu" which is currently sweeping the globe has created havoc in the music world and already threatens some of this year's music festivals. Several major musical events were cancelled in Mexico last week because of an outbreak, which the World Health Organization has deemed to be a Level Six pandemic. Festival organizers throughout the world are now warily watching the virus progression as the summer approaches and while the organizers of the UK's biggest festival at Glastonbury have said that they are confident that the festival will go ahead next month, they also admitted that they are monitoring the situation closely. In other Glastonbury news, festival organizer, Michael Eavis, has been listed among Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world, a remarkable achievement for an idealistic hippie farmer who has watched his project, which initially began in 1970 as the modest 'Pilton Pop, Folk and Blues Festival', grow into a behemoth that has attracted millions of music fans over the past three decades. A humble Eavis said of the honor: "I've put in 39 years and things have worked out incredibly well in that time. So I'm flattered and maybe a little embarrassed to make it onto this list. We've been awarded the best festival in the world by Pollstar in the USA for the last four years, so that must count for something over there. What's really important too, is that I'm a non-conformist. It's all about kicking against the traces and making it work." ...

Potential British Prime Minister-in-waiting, David Cameron, finds himself at the center of controversy after footage of an acid-house party from 1988 surfaced on the internet, which appears to show a long-haired partygoer who bears a striking resemblance to the Conservative Party leader, dancing maniacally to throbbing house music. Spokespeople for Cameron were quick to dismiss the footage as a case of mistaken identity but there is no doubting that the person dancing in the Sunrise Rave Party footage is a dead ringer for the Tory leader, and if it did transpire to be him then he should be banned from ever taking the highest office in the UK for the manner of his moves alone because he dances like a man stuck in a phone booth with a hive of bees...

Lily Allen claims that she is banning herself from having sex in order to focus on her career and the promotion of her latest album. I honestly wonder why Allen feels she has to share every little iota of her private life with the media, and then complain bitterly about her lack of privacy. She appears to treat the media like some kind of shrink and would probably serve herself best if she banned herself from flapping her jaws to every microphone that was held within hailing distance of her. Allen also spoke of how Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, once caused her to call-off a gig in Saint Petersburg back in 2007. The feisty singer recalled: "I went to Saint Petersburg to play a gig a couple of years ago and it got cancelled because a few hundred meters up the river Putin was watching a bare-knuckle fist fight. Last minute, he decided to go and watch a bare-knuckle fist fight and therefore my concert got cancelled because of security issues. So whatever, Putin - I'm not into you." I'm not sure that insulting the Russian leader is the greatest idea if she ever intends to play in that country again, and if she sees officials pulling on rubber gloves the next time she is approaching Moscow's customs department then she might rue the day that she ever uttered those words...

Metallica's Lars Ulrich claims that US officials would be better served using Norwegian death metal in their interrogation techniques, instead of the current practice of occasionally using the music of his band. The drummer raged: "If there are people that are dumb enough to use Metallica to interrogate prisoners, you're forgetting about all the music that's to the left of us. I can name, you know, 30 Norwegian death metal bands that would make Metallica sound like Simon and Garfunkel." I'll go one better again and suggest that they could simply play tapes of Lars Ulrich talking on any subject in such scenarios, because if I had to spend more than five minutes listening to that dude, I'd give up the farm...

Pete Townshend has launched a scathing attack on Mike Myers over the latter's portrayal of London's swinging 60s in his Austin Powers movie series. The Who guitarist claimed that Myers has trivialized what was tantamount to a cultural revolution in the English capital, which had far-reaching implications for British society in general. In an interview with the Times Online, Townshend fumed: "Austin Powers has done a lot of damage to the image of swinging London, parodying what had already been parodied by lazy American newsreels over the years. In a sense, my mission is to bring back some of the grayness, the bleakness of those years, and demonstrate to the cast that what happened simply had to happen, otherwise we would all have gone nuts... it was a vital rebellion. Everything was turned on its head. Girls looked like boys, boys wore eyeliner and danced alone or in pairs like girls. Today we are facing something of the same kind of upheaval." Correct me if I'm wrong but I was pretty sure that the Austin Powers series were a comedies and not documentaries. Either that or somebody spiked me with acid before I watched each one. Townshend is eagerly promoting the upcoming launch of a stage version of The Who's seminal rock opera Quadrophenia, which is expected to debut later this year...

Speaking of musicals, Madonna's ex-husband, Guy Ritchie is reportedly at work on his own musical, along with the assistance of tough-guy actor, Jason Statham. According the reports circulating in the British tabloids, Ritchie has been stung by the critical mauling he has received for his recent movies, so he has chosen to take his work in a completely different direction. Why does that report conjure up images of Cop Rock in my head? In case you don't remember that particular television debacle, just imagine watching CSI, where the actors burst into song every once in a while, and then multiply that by the number of times you've thought to yourself: "How in the heck did David Caruso ever get so much work in acting?"...

English punk act The Gallows have backed off claims that they recorded the sound of a pig being slaughtered for inclusion on their new album, after their initial assertion caused a furor among animal rights activists. The group initially maintained that they had recorded the animal being slaughtered in a British abattoir, and had no compunction regarding the decision as the pig was going to be killed anyway. They have now made a U-turn, issuing a statement last week, which claimed: "We would never harm an animal for the sake of our music. The sample is taken from the internet and we even traced it to come from Spain where they still use inhumane forms of slaughter. We do not want to upset our fans who we consider intelligent enough to realize we didn't kill a pig or any other kind of animal to achieve the sounds on Grey Britain." Quite why you would think that the sound of a dying pig would add to your music is beyond me, and I wouldn't imagine that the people from PETA will be rushing out to buy the Gallows next release despite their attempt at contrition. Personally speaking however, I would still prefer to listen to the sound of a dying pig that either James Blunt or Chris de Burgh, and I'm a vegetarian. Talk about two candidates for inclusion in interrogation techniques.