After an online plea to fans some months ago, SING-SING have managed to raise the cash to start putting together their second record...

You know when celebrities say when they have won an award, "I couldn't have done it without my fans"? Well, literally - we could not have done it without you guys. Some of you already know this but we are making Sing-Sing album number 2! Yes, our appeal raised enough cash for us to go back into the studio and record the songs that have waited to be recorded all this time. The response was really beyond our wildest dreams so we both want to say a big THANK-YOU to you all!! This band is continuing because of you lot. You can all pat yourselves on the back!

Update - we are working on an 11-track album which we hope will be released sometime late 2004. Like the EP, Mark Van Hoen and El Drezidente are producing and Alan Moulder will be mixing again. It's all very exciting as it's sounding very good in this early stage. We haven't thought of an album title yet but here are some track names 'Come, Sing Me A Song', 'Lover', 'Mr Karachi', 'Going Out Tonight'......

Well according to the song he was a mod before we was... but what he's not right now is a recording musician. Who? Dan Treacy of THE TELEVISION PERSONALITIES. After dropping off the face of the earth (oh, quite literally after turning up on a prison boat in Dorset some months back), he's compiled 21 new songs that need to be recorded... but as these things happen when you're sobering up and coming out of jail... he hasn't got any money.

It just so happens that quite a few musicians count the Television Personalities amongst their influences and friends... and there's been a benefit show organized for Dan by members of The Baskervilles and other New York area artists. The show will be July 30 at Sin-e in New York (150 Attorney St @ Stanton St) and will be featuring the likes of The Mad Scene, My Favorite, The Baskervilles, The Insomniacs, Burnside Project and notTVPs.

Well, news of a new BJORK record is bound to make someone happy. The album, titled 'Medulla', will be stocked onto your local record store shelves on August 31 courtesy of Elektra. As always Bjork worked with a wide variety of artists on this one from Matmos to Rahzel from The Roots to Mike Patton (formerly of Faith No More). (Damn... I wanted to hear more from Matthew Herbert.)

In a recent interview with W Magazine, Bjork leads us on a bit of a goose chase trying to figure out what the new record will sound like... "I just got really bored with instruments. I started doing everything with my voice. Then suddenly I didn't want to work with any musicians, which is a bit weird. I only wanted to work with vocalists." ... "I wanted the record to be like muscle, blood, flesh," she says, pumping her fist. "We could be in a cave somewhere and one person would start singing, and another person would sing a beat and then the next person sing a melody, and you could just kind of be really happy in your cave."

Hmm... an album sung in a cave with no instruments named after bone marrow, how... Bjork.

As if Adam Schlesinger didn't have enough going on with Fountains of Wayne continually on a global tour, he's apparently been in the studio with Andy Chase and Dominique Durand laying down new material for a new IVY record. The trio has been putting the finishing touches on seven tracks in their NY studio with the help of James Iha (ex... oh do I need to spell it out?) and Scott McCloud (of Girls Against Boys). It has been several years since the world has heard original Ivy material (obviously not counting the brilliant, yet still covers record 'Guestroom'). Although there hasn't been any new 'Ivy' material in quite awhile, Chase and Durand have not been sitting by idly. They just released a new album under the moniker of 'Paco' with composer Michael Hampton and last year Chase released a record with his other, other side project 'Brookville'. Can't keep it all straight? Well just resolve yourself to the fact that we should see new material from Ivy not far into the new year.

I know you're thinking, 'that's great and all Liz but what's this new material sound like?' Well the band has gone back to the basics as Durand told Rolling Stone in a recent interview, "On this one, everything is played live - we have no loops, no drum machines, and there's not many keyboards. It's mostly going back to our roots, which is much more pop, light drums and lot of guitars, voice and bass."

For all those (and I assume that I am not the only one) who loved the cosmic country sounds of the Beachwood Sparks, and lamented their demise. Buck up. Christopher Gunst has a new project, just released on Rough Trade. It is called Mystic Chords Of Memory. After the Beachwood Sparks ended, Christopher went back to school to pursue teaching special education, but did not stay away from the music too long. He and his current musical partner Jen Cohen released their self-titled album on June 22. It is a bit more lo-fi than the Beachwood Sparks albums, but his wonderfully fragile voice makes these tunes sparkle.

Also to look forward to: Sub Pop Records is going to release an album by former Beachwood Spark's bassist/vocalist Brent Rademaker. His new band is called Frausdots, and they will be releasing Couture Couture on September 28. This is said to have more of an 80's gloom sound. According to Sub Pop's website, this is closer in nature to classic Echo & The Bunnymen. I greatly look forward to hearing it.

England's Glastonbury Festival went off this past weekend, with most reports coming back very positive. One band that certainly won't forget the experience is MUSE, who closed the festival with a headlining slot on Sunday night. Playing to easily their largest audience ever, the band rolled through an expansive set that many critics are calling the highlight of the festival. Muse frontman Mat Bellamy yelled to the audience, "This is the best gig of our lives," shortly before leaving the stage. Tragedy, however, struck moments later, as the father of drummer Dominic Howard collapsed and died on the festival grounds. Muse have cancelled all immediate festival appearances as a result of the death.

There's an interesting rumor that's been rolling around on European tech-geek sites this week. Apparantly someone's discovered that European copies of the new BEASTIE BOYS album, "To the 5 Boroughs," comes complete with a nice little executable trojan program that installs itself when you put the CD into your CD-ROM. The program then proceeds to wreak all kinds of copy-protection higgeldy-piggeldy in your hard drive, attempting to disable your computer from ripping and burning the disc. Again, this is just a rumor right now and involves no confirmation other than people talking about it in computer forums... AND it appears as though the program is ONLY on the European version of the disc and NOT on the American OR British versions of the disc. Just to be on the safe side, though, if you DO own the disc, and you DO want to stick it in yer CD-ROM, all it takes to defeat the Auto-Run feature on Windows is to hold down your SHIFT key while loading the CD.

Oh, how we CANNOT wait for this. There's an article in Billboard today about the current happenings of Ben Folds. Folds' new solo album was originally scheduled for release this summer, but has recently been pushed back to 2005. Why? Because Folds is busy co-writing, producing, and releasing the first new album in umpteen years from WILLIAM SHATNER. Yes, THAT William Shatner. And, in addition to guest appearances by Folds, Aimee Mann, and Henry Rollins, the album should be notable for two other reasons -- the first being that one of the tracks is a composition co-written by Folds and "High Fidelity" author Nick Hornby... which is only topped by the news that another of the tracks will be a duet between Shatner and Joe Jackson -- and it's a cover of Pulp's "Common People."

Fans of Mr. Show will understand when I say that PETE DOHERTY is rapidly becoming the Ronnie Dobbs of the music scene. When we last left the estranged Libertines frontman, we were told he was headed off to France for another round of drug rehab. Well, turns out that was a lie. "France" was, in fact, another round at London's Priory clinic (they made up the France bit to throw the press off-track.) Didn't matter in the long run, as Doherty skipped out of the voluntary clinic after only a few days. Then last week it was announced that Doherty was being sent to... yep... a Thai monastery. But not just ANY Thai monastery... but rather the Thamkrabok Monastery, known world-wide for its drug rehabilitation success. But is that enough to hold our Pete? Nope. After a mere two days at his new home, Doherty checked out of his own accord, found his way to Bangkok, caught a flight back to London... and promptly got arrested for possessing a knife while being pulled over for a driving infraction. It's hard NOT to start viewing Doherty in a comical light, but at the same time, we're watching the rather public unraveling of a guy with some pretty serious musical potential... which is actually a bit sad, really. We wish Pete the best, and hope he finds SOME kind of help before he completely loses it.

Wow. Didn't see this one comin'. The decision has been made just tonite by organizers of this summer's Lollapalooza tour to CANCEL ALL DATES due to POOR TICKET SALES. The tour was expected to have arguably the best Lollapalooza line-up yet, including The Thrills, The Polyphonic Spree, Gomez, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Morrissey, DJ Danger Mouse, Sonic Youth, The Flaming Lips, Broken Social Scene, The Datsuns, Elbow, Modest Mouse, and more. In fact, maybe, if anything, the line-up was TOO good, with no real revenue-generating behemoth of a headliner. Man. That sucks. This likely will also wreak havoc on the Gomez/Thrills/Polyphonic Spree mini-tour, which was to coincide across the U.S. on their days off from Lollapalooza. We'll try to find out and keep you informed.