Neil Finn has announced plans to record a follow-up to his 2002 live album Seven Worlds Collide, including some of the the same faces. These include Ed O’Brien and Phil Selway of Radiohead, Jeff Tweedy, John Stirrat, Glenn Kotche and Pat Sansone from Wilco and Johnny Marr from, well, whatever indie band he happens to be involved with that week.

Now, this follow-up will be a studio project, unnamed, which will recorded “over the next few months” in Auckland and will be released next year. Many of the guest artists will also join Finn for a concert series the first week of January at Auckland’s Powerstation.

Save for the Wilco members, the other guests all participated in “Seven Worlds Collide,” alongside Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder. All proceeds from the new endeavor will benefit international development organization Oxfam.

I honestly cannot wait for this - two of my favourite songwriters in Finn and Tweedy together in studio. 2009 is shaping up nicely…

Minotaur Shock is the nome de plume, or at the very least, nom-de-keyboard, whirry thing and beat pusher of self proclaimed ‘sad electronica hero’ Dave Edwards. For a variety of reasons this record will be released only online, with no physical format. In a somewhat bold move, Edwards has laid bare the reasons for this on his website, which are well worth reading. The gist being, he has a family to support, his music doesn’t make that much money, and by downloading for nothing it risks a small artists like him slipping off the books of a ‘supporting’ label (although one does wonder for an electronic artist such as Minotaur Shock, who tours irregularly, how much support they are giving.) and eventually not being able to afford to put out records anymore. Continue Reading

Armed with my ticket, and what little cash I had to spend on beer and merchandise, I marched with the other 40,000 Radiohead fans onto Victoria Park to see the band return with a performance of their number one album In Rainbows.

Whilst waiting for support act, Bat for Lashes, to emerge the crowd speculated in the sweltering sunshine as to how the light show would fair in the blazing daylight. Huge wind chime like rods were being drawn across the stage-money well spent if the sun actually goes down.

Finally Natasha Khan arrives, rain stick in hand and ready to set the tone. Although generally well received, it really did need to be dark for her to work her magic on the crowd. It also didn’t help that the screens were not even switched on during her performance, Nevertheless she still managed to wow us with the airing of new material and familiar tracks such as ‘What’s a Girl to Do’ and ‘Priscilla’.

Then at 8.15pm, fifteen minutes earlier than last night’s performance, Johnny, Thom, Phil, Colin and Ed took to the stage with smiles all round. ‘Reckoner’ made an odd but well received opener, followed by ‘15 Step’ and ‘There There’, which was strangely anthemic as Greenwood pounded the drums.

It’s apparent from the off that the band are not only tighter than ever but thrilled to be touring again. Thom remarks about the sun and it’s reluctance to sink behind the trees so the lights can be used. However this is perhaps a blessing in disguise as they then burst into ‘Lucky’ with the audience reciting back “Its gona be a glorious day” with the sun doing what it does best right on que. Continue Reading

10:30
A reasonably ordinary start to the day at work. Just finished off some mid-week invoices and settled down to enjoy a mid-morning tea whilst browsing through the regular online music rags. Just 15 minutes.

10:45
The word is officially out. Everywhere it seems. ‘RADIOHEAD PLAY ROUGH TRADE RECORDS’. I’ve literally gone sheet-white. What should I do? Should I stay at work for the rest of the day, miserable and mumbling incoherently to myself of the regret of missing one of my favourite bands play the most intimate concert in 15 years or should I go. Panic takes over, and I’m pacing around, biting my nails. Continue Reading

We are a lucky generation, really. And the latest installment in the Wordless Music series, held last Wednesday and Thursday night, is my exhibit A. Held in the massive and beautiful Church of St. Paul the Apostle (site of a previous Múm show for the series), the show featured the works of three living composers: Gavin Bryars’ The Sinking of the Titanic, John Adams’ Christian Zeal and Activity, and Jonny Greenwood’s Popcorn Superhet Receiver.

Continue Reading

Continuing on from last weeks White Stripes performance at Glastonbury ‘05 we are offering up another classic Glastonbury set. 1997 was the year of the mud. Torrential rainfall days before the festival was due to start had turned the site into a gigantic muddy bog. 1997 was also the year that Radiohead headlined the Pyramid stage on the Saturday night.

Ten years down the line Radiohead’s Glastonbury appearence has been heralded as one of the greatest festival moments of all time, Glastonbury organiser Michael Eavis has also been quoted as saying the show was “the most inspiring festival gig in 30 years”. It turns out though, for the band it was a complete nightmare - with major monitor issues they couldn’t hear a thing onstage, not that you can tell.

Radiohead - Glastonbury Festival, 28th June 1997
1. Lucky [download mp3 ♫]
2. My Iron Lung [download mp3 ♫]
3. Airbag [download mp3 ♫]
4. Planet Telex [download mp3 ♫]
5. Exit Music (For a Film) [download mp3 ♫]
6. The Bends [download mp3 ♫]
7. Nice Dream [download mp3 ♫]
8. Paranoid Android [download mp3 ♫]
9. Karma Police [download mp3 ♫]
10. Creep [download mp3 ♫]
11. Climbing Up the Walls [download mp3 ♫]
12. No Surprises [download mp3 ♫]
13. Talk Show Host [download mp3 ♫]
14. Bones [download mp3 ♫]
15. Just [download mp3 ♫]
16. Fake Plastic Trees [download mp3 ♫]
17. You [download mp3 ♫]
18. The Tourist [download mp3 ♫]
19. High & Dry [download mp3 ♫]
20. Street Spirit (Fade Out) [download mp3 ♫]

Watch: Radiohead - Karma Police [Live at Glastonbury 1997]