First off, thanks to Red 157 for spotting the stupid error in the Queens Of The Stone Age piece I posted here yesterday. It was of course Josh Homme and not Mark Lanegan who sang the original version of "I Wanna Make It Wit Chu" on "Desert Sessions 9&10" - something I would have got right if I'd bothered to check my original review of that album. Apologies.
I'm not sure we should be giving any more publicity to the bizarre media phenomenon that is Sharon Osbourne, but I couldn't resist starting today with this quote from her about Josh Homme. Homme, it seems, had the temerity to criticise Ozzfest. In response, Osbourne told Blender, "I hope he gets syphilis and dies. I hope his dick fuckin' falls off so his mother can eat it."
Coming from the same creative team behind the first two Spider-Man movies -- headed by director Sam Raimi -- the big question hanging over part 3 is: what the hell went wrong? Spider-Man 3 seems to have been willed into existence by the combined efforts of marketing departments, merchandise divisions and third-party licencees. The result is soulless and witless, a sequel too far.
I've just been reading through your comments again. Thanks for all of them: I really like it when Wild Mercury Sound starts to resemble a sort of forum, when we can swap tips and enthusiasms and also, of course, pick on Killers fans. Particularly taken with Lauren's eloquent post, not least because of the nice things she says about Uncut. "You are tripping if you think the Killers are more likely to make an impact on the hearts and minds of people than the Arctic Monkeys are," she writes in response to a post by Mitch.
It’s Sunday, and I’m at Wembley Arena to see Bob Dylan. Outside, the sun’s just starting to set on what without exaggeration you could call a glorious day. Inside, a packed an excited Arena, meanwhile, in stark and tumultuous contrast to the evening’s warm decline, storm clouds are gathering as Bob Dylan and his band roar towards the climax of tonight’s opening number, “Cat’s In The Well”, a turbulent gem from the much-derided Under The Red Sky.
A grim struggle to the death on the blogs between American and British music again today, though it seems America's interests are being defended primarily by an Estonian. Meanwhile, here, the reliably lucid Glory asks whether my taste "is more geared towards American styles of music (eg Americana) or because you think American artists are generally more talented than British artists?"
Plenty of traffic on the blog these past few days in response to my White Stripes and Arctic Monkeys stories. Someone called The_Glory wades into the argument about overhyped British bands with a bunch of decent points, notably, "Why judge bands on their nationality anyway?"
I won’t be seeing Dylan on his UK tour until Sunday at Wembley Arena, so I asked Damien Love to be a guest blogger and review the show for us. Damien is a veteran Uncut contributor, the author of a great biography of Robert Mitchum and a longstanding Dylan fan.
The Big Moment comes well over an hour into the second of Pete Doherty’s An Evening With. Pete Doherty gigs at the Hackney Empire, and what’s in truth become by now a somewhat rudderless sort of show is brilliantly redeemed when Pete announces his former Libertines accomplice, Carl Barat.
