Excellent Online

Jools Holland took to the stage (um some stage?) in London this morning to announce the shortlist nominees for this year's Mercury Music Prize. As I'm sure you all know, this is one of the most prestigous awards to be given out in the UK music world... as well as the fabulous cash prize of £20,000. Personally it lost a little prestige in my eyes the year they overlooked Pulp's "His n Hers" in lieu of giving the prize to M People. Upon reflection I'm sure they now agree with me... anyhoo...We'll find out September 6th exactly who won but for now we can all argue about the list below to suss out who deserves it most...

The Hidden Cameras were fucking STUNNING last night.

Now, I've seen em 9 times and they've never been anything less than spectacular, but something about last night's show pushed it to the next level.

Maybe it was the set list. The mix of brand spankin new songs, kinda new songs, and the right mix of oldies - including a few from "Smell of Our Own" that I haven't seen aired in a while - that just hit the crowd right. Maybe it was the crowd - from the word go, everyone was dancing and singing along having a grand ol' time. Maybe it was the energy level of the band themselves - they had travelled from Toronto to Boston that day and encountered all kinds of troubles, so they were playing to make the show worth it, dammit. And boy, was it ever.

MTV actually listened to the complaints and will air 10 hours of uninterrupted performance footage from last week's Live8 concerts. Starting at 10am-3pm, VH1 will start the broadcast and then it will switch to MTV from 3pm-8pm. Some of the performances include: U2, Pink Floyd, Coldplay/Richard Ashcroft, Paul McCartney, Killers, Robbie Williams, the Who and more...

If you can't watch, then maybe you'd like to download the performances from AOL. That site has a list of direct download links for almost every performer in every country. And as always, please go to the Live8 website and sign up, they don't want your money, just your face.

...and just like that, the 2005 GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL is history. And, between the webcasts and early reviews pouring in, the fest was an all-around success. Highlights being thrown about:

It's Glastonbury weekend in an England far, far away... but a torrential downpour early this a.m. has caused all kinds of higgeldy-piggeldy to the concert site, forcing start times and lineups to get all jiggled. The Dead 60's have been scrapped from the lineup altogether, and Ryan Adams has pulled out due to illness. The punters have been forced to seek high ground as Eavis & Co. attempt to dry out the fields in front of the stages. If things get sorted, though, you might want to spend some of the weekend with our friends over at PlayLouder, who are planning on webcasting bits and bobs from the show, including full sets from BABYSHAMBLES, BLOC PARTY, DOVES, INTERPOL, NEW ORDER, and the highly anticipated live return of THE LA's.

BLOC PARTY and NPR are offering a recording (MP3 or stream) of the Party's DC show at the 9:30 Club last Thursday as a free download. If you want to hear what the boys had to say... as well as play you can also stream an interview that ran on All Songs Considered.

Here's some unexpected news...

Porl Thompson has re-joined THE CURE. Just when we thought ol' Robert was losing it by firing his guitarist and keyboard player last month, now it seems to make sense. Thompson is often considered the quintessential Cure guitarist, having put in two stints with the band, one of which was during the band's "Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me"/"Disintegration" heyday. After leaving the band for the second time following the "Wish" album, Thompson has gone on to work with (among others) Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. Cure fans on the net are, naturally, either (a) extremely excited, or (b) incredibly upset by the announcement.

Well, well. Looks like the decision to go with XM or Sirius satellite radio just got a little easier, as Sirius has today announced via a press release that they'll be carrying BBC Radio 1 twenty-four hours a day by the end of the summer. (Awesome news!) Now, we hate it when stuff's not live, but this is pretty cool -- when the station goes live, it will be time-shifted on a six hour delay, meaning that Sirius listeners in the States will get the Radio 1 morning show in the morning, Pete Tong's Essential Friday Night Selection on Friday night, etc. VERY cool.

Could any new material be in the cards? Odds are slim... but still, we're incredibly happy that THE OLIVIA TREMOR CONTROL are hitting the road. Sadly, it's only 4 gigs (Chicago, Athens, and 2 nights in New York City) in late July/early August. Meanwhile, Olivia co-frontman Will Cullen-Hart is confirming that the 2nd release from his new project, Circulatory System, will be finished this month for release soon.

The trouble with some of the indiepop bands that we know and love is that since they operate on such a small scale, you oftentimes miss the press exposure that your Coldplays and Radioheads of the world get... that's why discovering a fun interview with one of your favorite bands can sometimes be a refreshing goldmine. OF MONTREAL, one of our favorite indie bands out there, recently got some pretty decent exposure on NPR's Weekend Edition. The NPR website has the entire interview archived on their site. Check it out if you havent joined their cult yet.