Excellent Online

Happy Mondays vibemaster BEZ (born Mark Berry) is now recovering from a motorcycle accident. He landed in intensive care with a punctured lung and broken ribs according to the weekly column written by Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder.

An Open Letter To Alan McGee:
Creation Records, London

Dear Alan,

Piss off. Please allow me to elaborate.

Noel Gallagher has told Melody Maker, as well as the Canadian press, that the forthcoming OASIS album will not be released on Creation Records. The elder Gallagher said in a recent Canadian interview, "We're looking at other alternatives." This news follows Creation's earlier claims that the band have no plans to leave the label.

Universal and BMG, two of the five big record companies, are going to start testing their new format for digital downloadable music. This new format for music will eventually allow record companies to sell music online. If everything go according to plan they expect e-commerce to begin in April or May.

Ex-Verve frontman RICHARD ASHCROFT has a small article in this month's Alternative Press. Asked about the new recordings, Ashcroft says, "I don't think people will expect the songs to be as full sounding as the Verve, but I'm achieving that--rich, timeless sound."
Helping out on the record is bassist Pino Palladino and a few members of the old Verve team, including Pete Salisbury on drums, producer Chris Potter, string arranger Will Malone, and B.J. Cole, who played pedal-steel on the Verve's final tour.

ELASTICA have set another date on their second album, reports NME. Apparently the record will be released in March on Deceptive. An insinder says the album is, "very moody and minimal with not much in the way of pop songs."

OASIS kicked off their North American radio festival warm-up tour last night in Philadelphia to mixed reviews. The band's set was extremely short, consisting of only FIVE songs: Cigarettes and Alcohol, Supersonic, Wonderwall, Champagne Supernova, and a closing Noel-led cover of "Helter Skelter." More importantly, the radio station sponsoring the show, Y100, played an exclusive new track from the forthcoming new Oasis record, a cut called "Who Feels Love" that Noel described as the likely choice for a second single off the album.

Orbital, Leftfield, and Asian Dub Foundation will be contributing new music to The Beach sountrack. Moby will include a remix of Blur's 'On Your Own' and as reported earlier, New Order will include their first new track in over six years, 'Brutal'. The soundtrack will be released February 8th on London Records.

When you conjure up the image of the original British Invasion, what exactly comes to mind? The Beatles on Sullivan, sure. The Stones doing "Satisfaction," likely. Perhaps thoughts of the Dave Clark Five, the Yardbirds, maybe Gerry and the Pacemakers. Or maybe, just maybe, you think about Herman's Hermits -- a band that really didn't get a big enough nod in most music history annals, despite the fact that they managed to outsell the Beatles globally in 1965. With the help of tracks like "I'm Into Something Good," "There's a Kind of Hush," "Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter," and many others, the band were catapulted into stardom during the mid-60's. The fresh-faced leader of the Hermits was Peter Noone, a boy then of only 16 who had already made a name for himself acting on the BBC soap, "Coronation Street." Today, Peter Noone still maintains a hectic schedule. Having recently completed a US "Teen Idols Tour" with Davey Jones and Bobby Sherman, he's about to embark on a rather lengthy British tour. Noone has also recently launched his on-line project, www.peternoone.com, where Noone chats regularly (almost daily) with his fans. We were lucky enough to talk to Peter exclusively for Excellent Online as he was preparing a few warm-up shows for the UK tour.

File this under Quite Possibly the Funniest Story of the Year, and it couldn't happen to a better bunch of blokes. Remember 80's cheeze-metal masters EUROPE? Well, according to sources at Q Magazine, Europe were getting ready to reap the millennium buck by reissuing their "classic" hit, "The Final Countdown," when suddenly all copies of the single had to be destroyed. Why, you ask? Because a printing error had omitted the first "o" in the word "Countdown," making it The Final C... you get the picture. Cheers.