18th June -  WILLIAM D.DRAKE has been invited to play at Lost Voices, an impromptu and involuntary organisation, based in Liverpool, that puts on live music events. Promoting the spirit of the eclectic, Lost Voices nights are an intoxicating blend of the strange, the wonderful, and the strangely familiar.  He will be playing a grand piano on July 31st and will be supported by Brightonian melanchemist Crayola Lectern. www.myspace.com/lostvoicespresents  or www.lostvoices.co.uk or www.viewtwogallery.co.uk or indeed www.williamddrake.com

F**KED UP ALBUM AND GIGS - The always radio friendly (well we play them) Toronto based hardcore outfit F**ked Up have just completed their new album, and it is set for a worldwide release via Matador on 7 Oct. It will be called 'The Chemistry Of Common Life' and feature guest performances from Katie Stelmanis and the Vivian Girls on vocals, and Max McCabe-Locos on organ. If you are extra eager to hear the new material, you could head to one of the following gigs/festivals this summer - 3 Jul: The Tap And Tin, Chatham, Kent, 4 Jul: Z008 Festival, Ashford, 5 Jul: - Eurokennes Festival, 12 Jul: T In The Park, 13 Jul: Supersonic Festival, Birmingham, 14 Jul: Water Rats, London, 20 Aug: Limelight, Belfast, 21 Aug: Whelans, Dublin, 23 Aug: Reading Festival, 24 Aug: Leeds Festival, 25 Aug: 1 In 12 Club, Bradford

FIGHT LIKE APES are playing this week, good, we like them, they’re like, well, hey you, get some grace, if you haven’t discovered them yet then you must be like... well, anyway Thursday at London Metro, Oxford Street on stage 10.15pm, then Friday at Proud Galleries, on Camden and they’re releasing: a new single on July 28th - 'Lend Me Your Face' / 'Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues' (Mclusky cover) - 7" green vinyl and download (21st July), their album is due in September. The gigs: JUNE 19th Metro, London, 20th Don't Panic, Dance @ Proud Galleries & Bar, Camden, London, 23 - Kasbah, Coventry*, 24 - 53 Degrees, Preston*, 25 - Met Uni, Leeds*, 27 - Late 'n' Live Stage @ Glastonbury Festival, 29 - Boring By The Sea Festival, Weymouth, JULY 10th - The Forum, Darlington, 12th - T in the Park, Scotland, 15th - Somerset House, London* (*Supporting We Are Scientists) - www.myspace.com/fightlikeapesmusic

16th June - EIGHTIES MATCHBOX replace REUBEN:  The TWO THOUSAND TREES Festival people say “We are totally gutted that Reuben has pulled out of all tour dates until further notice, which includes the 2000 trees festival. We wish them well and hope to see them with us next year, but there was absolutely nothing we could do to change their minds.  However, the good news is we have lined up a kick-ass replacement, in the shape of gothic psychobilly rockers Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster. Yes, a very big woop woop indeed is required! Incidentally, we also have day tickets on sale from today as weekend camping passes are very close to selling out.See you all there!”
     The festival takes place on July 11th/12th and features a whole load of rather decent bands and such including ART BRUT, FRANK TURNER, IMPERIAL LEISURE, find out lots more over at www.myspace.com/twothousandtreesfestival

MIA CLAIMS BANNAROO SET HER LAST EVER – Seems MIA cancelled her planned UK tour last week. Now it seems there are reports that the rapper called her performance at this weekend's Bannaroo festival in the US her "last show ever". She told her audience at the festival: "This is my last show, and I'm glad I'm spending it with all my hippies". According to the New York Times she said that it was her last show ever three times during the set. Let's hope that's not true - certainly we can expect more recorded work from Ms MIA - when she cancelled her UK tour last week she said she'd use that time to get back into the studio.

SLAYER, TRIVIUM and MASTODON TOUR TOGETHER - The Unholy Alliance Tour Chapter III has announced some European dates, set to take place in the autumn. The third installment of the metal tour will feature Slayer, Trivium, Mastodon and an additional opening act yet to be announced. The tour, first launched in Europe in 2004 featuring Slipknot, Slayer, Mastodon and Hatebreed. The success of the venture led to the launch of a second 'chapter' in North America in the summer of 2006, which subsequently toured Europe in the following autumn. Here are the UK dates for those who want a slice: 27 Oct: Manchester Arena, Manchester, 28 Oct: NEC, Birmingham, 30 Oct: Hammersmith Apollo, London, 31 Oct: Hammersmith Apollo, London, 2 Nov: CIA, Cardiff, 3 Nov: SECC, Glasgow
 

INFADELS have announced a 'Free Things Day' on Tuesday 17 Jun to promote the release of their new single, 'Free Things For Poor People'. From 12pm to 5pm the band will be travelling up and down Oxford Street on a free Routemaster bus, where they will be doing some reverse busking - ie playing songs and then paying the audience (or, at least, giving them chances to win cash prizes). There will also be guest bus conductors, tombolas, raffles, music and free prizes, and the day will culminate in a very special secret event. More info: www.freethingsforpoorpeople.com

12th June - The ever excellent SONIC CATHERDRAL team will be co-hosting a show this weekend on BBC Radio 1 –“It's a one-off shoegaze special on Rob Da Bank & Friends and, as we've pre-recorded it, we can safely say that it's a great show and the tracklisting is very impressive! It goes out at the listener-friendly time of 2am-4am on Sunday night/Monday morning, but you will also be able to listen online for a week afterwards". This is the link: www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/robdabank/
                  Sonic Catherdral would also like to remind you that their new single by Japancakes - featuring covers of My Bloody Valentine's 'Soon' and 'Touched' expertly remixed by James Rutledge and Ricardo Tobar - is out on June 23. You can pre-order your copy here. And "We've got quite a few Sonic Cathedral events coming up over the next few weeks” More details over at www.soniccathedral.co.uk
 

9th June - JOHN THE BAKER lands on a spike! Do not look at these (or these, or...) if you have a weak stomach when it comes to flesh wounds. INSTANT ASSHOLE had a show at a Skatepark and John The Baker crashed into a rail slide after dropping in to a ramp that dropped into the street course. OUCH. He gets home Tuesday and will be resting that leg. Send Well Wishes to www.myspace.com/johnthebaker

REUBEN PROBABLY SPLIT – Reuben have announced that they are pulling out of their planned slot at the 2000 Trees Festival, and have no plans to play live or release any records in the foreseeable future. I guess that means they're on one of those 'indefinite hiatus' things, which we presume means they've split up. Their management left a statement thanking everyone who ever did anything for them on their website if you’re interested 

GO! TEAM GIVE AWAY MP3 - The Go! Team will be giving away a new version of 'Milk Crisis', a track from their second album 'Proof Of Youth', from 21 Jul, along with a video and some rare remixes. The band are also due to start work on their third album later this year. - www.thegoteam.co.uk
 

            Resonance was originally launched as part of the John Peel curated Meltdown, a then new music festival held in London. “a radio art project using FM airwaves will begin in June. Phil England, organizer of the project as well as  staff member of England's much respected LMC (London Musicians Collective) and an editor at Resonance magazine, explains what radio in the U.K. has become and how the project came to be here. 
               Resonance FM is wonderful, never mind the fact that we have a weekly Organ show (alternating with the Organ Other Rock Show) where we get to play all kinds of experimentally challenging music that comes in here to us at Organ – demos, cutting edge weird slices of awkward punk and lumps of twisted prog and slicing death metal and pointy new wave and art rock and things we’d never expect to hear (let along get away with playing! – the only thing we can’t get away with is radio friendly blandness!) on an FM radio in London, never mind our show, a total privilege that constantly has us leaving the studio with big did we just get to do that grins on our faces... never mind that though, Resonance is wonderful for many many (many) reasons. You can discover all kinds of things, only last week I discovered all this wonderful Persian hip-hop and a girl from Manchester called Persia on the Six Pillars From Persia show – there’s always good music to discover, and all kinds of discussion and art and field sound and found art and creature comforts and protesting pensioners and the real art of noise and sound and sculpted thought and art that matters – celebrate, Resonance is ten and while things like Resonance FM exist and creativity is a twist of a dial away there is always hope, we love Resonance FM and we are honoured to contribute a small part to it... 
            And with that, we shall load up our bags with CDs and head down to the river and London Bridge, for that is where the Resonance Studio is and tonight is Sunday. We have a ahow at 9.00pm. this week we have the Other Rock Show and the exploration of rock music on ‘other’ times – more on that here...  RESONANCE IS TEN! CELEBRATE!
 

Marie was part of a group of twelve cyclists who left Brixton in the early hours of the morning to join the Smash EDO demo. They were on the A23 by Burgess Hill when an impatient gas guzzling imbecile swerved across two lanes straight into Marie, then another car hit her. She died instantly, there was nothing her friends could have done. The driver of the second car got straight on his phone as soon as he came to a halt - not for an ambulance but to call his lawyer. He then started pushing Marie's mates around. One driver was nicked. 

Marie was just a few days away from her 20th birthday, and a massively popular figure on the London activist scene. She was a warm, loud, fun, vivacious figure with an infectious laugh that was always ready to help others. Until recently she lived at the Ramparts social centre, where she was always on hand help with skipping for food, cooking and helping out. Her friends also said that she loved to flirt - everyone asked for her number. She had suggested doing the last part of the bike ride naked. 

Part of the Food Not Bombs group, just the day before she died, they'd been outside McDonalds in Brixton with a sound system and a load of free vegan burgers for the Climate Day of Action (see A La Dust Carte in this issue). She had plans to start a social centre of her own. 

When the news of her death was broken to the crowd that had just escaped the clutches of the police on Brighton's Level there was a minute's silence for her. 

Her friends, as well as the wider activist community, are devastated by the news of her death. She had done so much for other people in her life in such a small time, we will never know what else she could have achieved. Her friends have said that they take some consolation in the knowing that her life will inspire them and others to carry on the causes that she left behind. 

Her death brings it home just how dangerous it can be to do the right thing. Although the A23 is supposedly OK for cyclists, there are no cycle lanes, and bikes are expected to compete for space with caffeine addled truckers and wankers in 4x4s. The cost of a proper cycle network wouldn't exactly break the bank of the world's 5th richest country, but the government is in bed with the car and oil industries. 

This isn't gonna stay like this though, as cyclists are a notoriously tight bunch, and are prepared to fight tooth and cog for road space. Critical Mass bike rides are held at the end of the month all over the world, and their pedal power is a fun way of imparting a serious message. The London Critical Mass makes a point of stopping at the site of fatal crashes involving cyclists. Make sure you're there at next Critical Mass; whatever town you're in make it massive. (SchNews)

www.critical-mass.info
www.criticalmasslondon.org.uk
Indy Media article on Marie - www.indymedia.org.uk
Indy Media article on the Smash Edo protest Marie was gonig to - indymedia

Marie's Campaigns: 
Whitechapel Food Not Bombs -  www.londonfnb.org/whitechapel/home.html
Brixton Reclaim Your Food - http://wordpress.com/tag/reclaim-your-food
 

5th June - THE BOYCOTT LIME-HEADED COCA-COLA MARMADUKE DOG EXPERIENCE -  “South Eats London is tough on football tournaments and tough on the causes of football tournaments. To this end we are marking the beginning of Euro 2008 by ignoring football completely and instead providing space for some lesser known games, such as Monkey Tennis, Flameball! and Slap The Haddock. PLUS! We have fine music from the likes of quirky noiseniks Lime-Headed Dog (featuring Joel Good Shoes), The Boycott Coca-Cola Experience  ("Genius" - The Guardian), the swoonsome Scott Walker esque balladry of Marmaduke Dando, and its all rounded off by the looped and loopy performance stylings of Mesparrow? All free, all night. - Saturday 7th June Deptford Arms 52 Deptford High Street, Nearest DLR: Deptford Bridge - Lime-Headed Dog, The Boycott Coca-Cola Experience Maramaduke Dando, Mesparrow? DJs Three Men and a Little Lady 8pm-1am. Oh and yes, it's free” - www.southeatslondon.com
 

YES CANCEL OVER FRONTMAN HEALTH SCARE - Legendary prog outfit Yes have cancelled their upcoming tour because frontman Jon Anderson has been diagnosed with acute respiratory failure - which is rather serious – and doctors have told him not to work for at least six months. Anderson said in a statement: "I'd like everyone to know how deeply disappointed I am by this turn of events. I was looking forward to celebrating our music with the amazing family of Yes fans once again; but as we all know, health must come before anything else".

TINDERSTICKS HIT THE END OF THE ROAD - More additions for the End Of The Road festival - Tindersticks, Brakes, Pete And The Pirates and Let's Wrestle to be precise. This one takes place in Dorset from 12-14th Sep. Also joining Mercury Rev, Calexico and British Sea Power on the bill are Hush the Many, Screaming Tea Party, The Acorn, Mumford & Sons, Thinguma*jigsaw, Seabear and The Accidental - www.endoftheroadfestival.com – look at that! They’ve got a service where you have a tent pitched for you, waiting for you to arrive! What is wrong with festivals these days! Whatever happened to dead sheep in the water supply and gangs of hells angels battling with drug dealers from Bristol? 

AWESOME COLOR - Having recently released their new album, 'Electric Aborigines' to critical acclaim, Brooklyn-based psychedelic noise merchants Awesome Color are bringing their "knuckle-dragging power rock" (Uncut) to venues across the UK (and a bit of Ireland) throughout the rest of June. Fresh from the ATP stage at Primavera, this is a rare chance to see one of the most talked about bands on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label.
              The dates: June 7th Club Ping Pong, Cork, 8th Upstairs at Whelans, Dublin, 13th Proud Galleries, London, 14th The Faversham, Leeds, 16th Bodega Social Club, Nottingham, 17th Nice n Sleazy, Glasgow, 18th The End, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 19th City Screen Basement, York, 20th The Shakespeare, Sheffield, 21st Deaf Institute, Manchester, 22nd Joiners, Southampton, 23rd Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen, London, 24th Freebutt, Brighton. 
               You know what we said already (don’t you?), the Organ review in on this page  here's a bite of that review from last week - "walking it, feeling it – this band rock, vibrantly  awesome acid rock that sounds very much right here right now. Fuzzed out, heavy and right now". - www.myspace.com/awesomecolor
 

DEMO OF THE WEEK MAY 8th 2008
I-DEF-I – Whoooooooo, back on line and seriously cooking it up once more, this is what we’ve been wanting (and needing) from I-Def-I! What took them so long?! We knew they had it in there. Two new tracks from Manchester’s finest and this time around they really are making the cutting edge modern metal music that their early days threatened.  Now you may just know how much we championed the band in the early days - demos, tracks on compilations that got their first bits of serious radio play and media attention, that track on Organ Radio 21 that had Radio One straight on the phone... That last album was a little disappointing though – not a bad album, pretty good album by most band’s standards, left us with a feeling that they were holding back, a little afraid of really going for it, playing it a little safe and just a little conservative when it really did feel like they had something more in there somewhere. Here it is then! The next step, the step we were waiting for – two slices of front line forward looking modern metal and some complex melodic forward looking front line biting metal – better than anything we’ve heard in recent times from any of those hyped US bands that labels like Roadrunner keep on feeding us and if the rest of the new material is as good as this then time the big league opened the door and let them in. Yep, sounds like I-Def-I’s time is just about here – Seriously colourful adventurous modern crunching metal intelligence and front line big league worldwide class from Manchester – we knew they could do it, we damn well told you they could – www.i-def-i.co.uk or www.myspace.com/idefi (none of this new stuff is on their pages yet though, these new tracks blow away what you'll find up there right now)
 

DRAGONFORCE release their new album, “Ultra Beatdown” on 25th August. There was a bigass press release after this but hey, good taste prevails, they’re not as good as Saxon are they. There’s some Dragonforce UK tour dates in September and October, click over to www.dragonforce.com if you’re interested 

TO THE BONES – Just about the best new live wired up destructive ROCK band in the land right now, have some more dates lined up for July. They’re just finishing up work on their debut album, catch them at MANCHESTER ROADHOUSE on July 5th GLASGOW KING TUTS on July 6th and in LONDON at the KINGS CROSS WATER RATS on JULY 8th – keep up with what they’re doing over at www.myspace.com/tothebones

JOHNNY HAS ROTTEN TEETH FIXED - John Lydon has had the teeth that gave him his Rotten nickname fixed. He told The Daily Telegraph: "All those rotten teeth were seriously beginning to corrupt my system".Waht are you doing John? Talking the Telegraph?!
 

BO DIDDLEY DIES - As you may already have heard, legendary rock star Bo Diddley died yesterday, at the age of 79, from heart failure. He had, as previously reported, suffered a stroke and a heart attack during the course of 2007, and his health never really returned.  Diddley, born Ellas Otha Bates in McComb, Mississippi, moved to Chicago at the age of seven. He took violin lessons as a child, but became inspired to play the guitar by seeing John Lee Hooker and began his musical career playing on street corners with friends. In 1951 he obtained a regular gig at Chicago's 708 Club, and adopted the name Bo Diddley. 
          Known for creating the distinctive 'Bo Diddley beat', he also developed many special effects and innovations for the guitar. He reached the peak of his fame in the fifties, when he recorded and released such tracks as 'I'm A Man', 'Who Do You Love?', 'Mona', and 'Road Runner', and also got barred from appearing on 'The Ed Sullivan Show'. He was a prolific artist – between 1958 and 1963, Diddley released a total of 11 albums via Checker Records, and in addition to performing songs he also wrote them for other people – Mickey and Sylvia's 'Love Is Strange' being the most notable.
       His output slowed down in later years, but he continued to tour into his late seventies. 
Over the course of his career, he received many awards and honours, including induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame back in 1986, a Grammy Lifetime achievement award in 1998 and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhythm And Blues Foundation in 1996.  Diddley died at home, surrounded by more than thirty five family members. (CMU)
 

 MOGWAI have teamed up with legendary ex-13th Floor Elevators frontman Roky Erickson for a track on the band's new EP, 'Batcat'. Erickson lends his vocals to the song 'Devil Rides'. The EP is released on 8 Sep, followed by Mogwai's new album 'The Hawk Is Howling' on 22 Sep. The band have also announced three UK shows for October: 21 Oct: Edinburgh, Corn Exchange, 23 Oct: Manchester, Academy, 24 Oct: London, Hammersmith Apollo

1st June - ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN will be headlining this year’s Blackburn Festival in Lancashire. The event is at King George’s Hall on July 26th. A thousand free tickets will be made available on Monday 2nd at 9am, tickets are limited to two per person and are available by calling into the box office in person - not over the phone. Meanwhile Ian McCulloch will be in conversation with Janice Long, discussing his delight at United being European champions, he’s got a smile as wide as a crocodile about that one, on BBC Radio 2 on 25th June, full details can be found here

31st May - The new LEISUR HIVE album The Soft Column is now ready and apparently can be downloaded for £5 as a zip file containing all 11 album tracks as high quality (256k) MP3s, album artwork plus multitrack audio files of the song Interval 1 for you to remix at your leisure. Go here: www.leisur-hive.co.uk to purchase the album. An album launch show is being planned at a pleasantly intimate London venue.. more news on this in the coming weeks.. Meanwhile Dan Knowler of Leisur Hive will be playing guitar for the excellent Cindytalk at the 12 bar club on the 30th June.. www.myspace.com/cindytalk
 

Meanwhile CARDIACS have added two dates to the previously announced UK tour, the tour will now start at York Fibbers on November 13th and end on November 22nd at the Plymouth White Rabbit. Full dates further down this page. News on new singles and such here on ORG soon. 
 

29th May - MoHa! Have announced a UK tour, and look, the tour is happening next week, all that beautiful free-jazz and extreme avant noise – you just might have caught them several times on our Resonance FM show: Wednesday 4th June London (House Show), 5th June Bournemouth (Gander), 6th June Brighton (Engine Room), 7th June Bristol (Venn Festival), 8th June Sheffield (Freenoise), 9th June Birmingham (Rainbow), 11th June Cambridge (Portland), 12th June Manchester (Saki), 13th June  Leeds (Royal Park Cellar), 14th June  Suffolk (Campsea Ashe Victoria Hall). Here’s the Organ review of the last album Norwegianism (Rune Grammofon) from last August - You know those strangely compelling noises you get when you drop your beautiful vintage valve guitar amp down an endless flight of stairs. You know those noises that mice make when they eat in to your beautiful vintage valve guitar amp, all those squeaks and cracks and wheezes and fizzes and those echo sounds and the squeaky bits that insects make when they’re moving heavy machinery - and the way moths squeak at each other when communicating electronically? (and the Clangers getting all avant). All blips and blurts and unobtrusive crashes and refined arcs and restrained screams, nothing that uncomfortably noisy though – free form electro jazz that in truth isn’t really that jazzy either. The work of a duo from Norway (although one of them may be German) and for the sake of clarity, it is alive with clarity. All kinds of obsolete effect peddles and fractured electronics and Anders Hana and Morton J Olson and some kind of customised drum with loads of triggers. Doesn’t sound accidental, I guess a lot of people would think they could do this, key here though with all the freeform hard boiled avantness is the clarity and the control that they have, rather soothing actually – www.runegrammofon.com / www.myspace.com/themoha
 

27th May - CUTTING PINK WITH KNIVES SPLIT - Hardcore pop band Cutting Pink With Knives have announced they are to split once they complete their current touring commitments. In a message posted on the band's MySpace page, frontman Eddy Frankel said: "We are splitting up. No drama, no hatred between us. We're just calling this shit to an end. It's hard to know how to say goodbye to something that's been the most important thing in our lives for the past three or four years. Why are we breaking up? Well, I started this band to get chicks, and to be totally honest, it hasn't worked. Chris joined the band to fund his hair gel habit, and we've not made enough money. Alex joined the band to get a foothold on the international stock market, but we've got no shares. It's a sad, sad state of affairs; a chick free, hair-product depleted and financially rocky state of affairs that we're waving goodbye to".  The band plan to release a compilation of their final recordings at some point over the coming months. Here are those final shows: 30 May: Liverpool, Korova, 31 May: Bradford, Love Apple, 11 Jul: Birmingham, Supersonic Festival

22nd May - SPIRITUALIZED ANNOUNCE UK TOUR - Jason Pierce's Spiritualized will hit the road in October to promote the forthcoming album, 'Sons In A&E'. Pierce has also been telling XFM how he nearly dropped new single 'Soul On Fire'  from the album. He said: "I had a problem with something like 'Soul On Fire' - I had a thing that it's a pop song. I feel that sometimes I shouldn't be writing songs like that, that I should be pushing the boundaries into this improvised world. So, for a long time I resisted and to be honest I couldn't find a single person that would back me when I said I wanted to take it off the album. It became what it is and it now makes sense within the album". Tour dates: 9 Oct: Newcastle Academy, 10 Oct: Leeds University, 11 Oct: Manchester Academy, 13 Oct: Oxford Academy, 14 Oct: Portsmouth Pyramids, 15 Oct: Birmingham Academy, 16 Oct: London Roundhouse

NEW ART SITE LAUNCHES TONIGHT - Not a music website – but worth a mention anyway, plus they have some fine DJs playing their launch at The Social on Little Portland Street in London tonight. BLANK NO MORE is a new website set up to champion top art and design talent – including eBoy, Dan Mumford, Eskimpush and Paul Willoughby at launch - and to give those artists a simple way to sell their prints. You can find out more about the venture at blanknomore.com. The website formally launches at a bash at The Social tonight, which will include a chance to see work by the artists featured on the site, then DJ sets from Another Music = Another Kitchen, Toshiki Ohta and Watkins. Preview kicks off at 6pm, party from 7pm. 
 

> Brilliant! Argghhh, hang on, damn! We're on the radio on Sundays, what time are you on? > Yes, we'll get a plug up on line in a bit and you've given me an excuse to play you on the radio (we have an Organ shows on Resonance 104.4 FM on Sunday nights) Is there a BTTP website or anything to link up a new story to - we'll get all the dates up  -Sean O

Hi Sean,
Bloody good to hear from you - long time no see and all that... The BTTP web site is www.backtotheplanet.com. It's always out of date because we are truly slackers. Paradise Gardens web site is www.paradisegardens.org.uk. We're also due to play Shambala (www.shambalafestival.org), Endorse-It-In-Dorset (www.lgofestivals.com) and Solfest (www.solwayfestival.co.uk) this summer, before we wheel ourselves back to the old folks' home. It's really nice just to be playing: it's come as a bit of a surprise that anyone remembers us at all :) Cheers feller, Frags

Back To The Planet, on stage 6.45pm, May 25th, Victoria Park, London E3 - Paradise Gardens web site is www.paradisegardens.org.uk. Oh look, Katy Carr, Alabama 3...

RUSH DRUMMER DIES - Drummer and founding member of Canadian prog-rockers Rush, John Rutsey, has died, aged 55. Rutsey played with the band from 1968 to 1974, appearing on their eponymous debut album. However, he was forced to quit due to a lifelong diabetes-related illness. Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson said that Rutsey had become a fitness fanatic after leaving the band, and that the pair had remained in contact until the 90s. According to his family, via an obituary printed in the Toronto Star, Rutsey's death was caused by "complications from his lifelong affliction with diabetes". 
 

The band are also doing some US shows and for these shows, Jeff Pinkus will be on bass and Teresa Taylor (along with King Coffey) on drums. This is the rhythm section the band had for most of the 80s and marks the first time this line up has played together since 1989. Paul Leary has prior commitments and unfortunately can't play the European dates (he will be on stage for the New York City show and possibly more stateside). “However, fear not, our European friends. Joining the band onstage for all shows in the US and Europe will be The Paul Green School of Rock All-Stars. This mob of teenage geniuses will blow your mind, forming a virtual Butthole Surfers Orchestra when they play with Gibby and company. Check back for more confirmed dates/ticket info (more European dates announced soon). - www.buttholesurfers.com

and if that's not enough 90'sness for you

NED'S ATOMIC DUSTBIN will reform this September for a one-off show in London to mark their 21st anniversary. It will be the first time Jonn Penney (vocals), Gareth "Rat" Pring (guitar), Matt Cheslin (bass), Alex Griffin (bass) and Dan Warton (drums) have performed together since their split in 1995. The band will play the Astoria on 6 Sep, with tickets going on sale this Friday. They are also rumoured to be working on new material.
 

MESSHUGGAH HIT THE UK - Swedish metallers Messhuggah will return to the UK this September to promote their eighth album 'Obzen'. Here are the dates: 4 Sep: Brighton, Concorde 2, 5 Sep: London, Astoria 2, 6 Sep: Newcastle, Academy, 8 Sep: Glasgow, Garage, 9 Sep: Manchester, Academy 3, 10 Sep: Sheffield, Corporation, 11 Sep: Birmingham, Academy 2, 12 Sep: Bristol, Academy, 13 Sep: Nottingham, Rock City

LESS THAN JAKE For Camden Barfly and such. The Skasters have announced that they will be doing two UK gigs in June, prior to the release of their new album, GNV FLA  - Fri 13th June LONDON, The Barfly and Sat 14th June SHEPTON MALLET, NASS Fest – Main Stage (headline). Tickets for the Barfly show cost £12.50, subject to a booking fee of £1.25 per ticket plus a transaction fee of £1.50, plus a pound of blood and the shirt off your back and will go on-sale Monday 5th May via www.artistticket.com / 0871 230 0333. Tickets for the NASS Fest are on-sale now at www.nassfest.com. Less Than Jake will also be returning to the UK in August to headline the Lock-up Stage at the Reading Festival on Friday 22nd, and they will be the penultimate band on that stage at the Leeds Festival on Saturday 23rd. The new album is set for release on Monday 23rd June, GNV FLA is named after LTJ’s hometown of Gainesville, Florida, and marks the debut of their first new material on the new self-owned and controlled indie label Sleep It Off Records, which is licensed to Cooking Vinyl in the UK.  Just last month, the label re-released four of the band’s early titles with expanded DVD content – Pezcore; Goodbye Blue & White; Losers, Kings and Things We Don’t Understand and the DVD The People’s History of Less Than Jake – the Organ review of those albums/DVDs is here

“Embarking on a whole new journey as independent artists in control of their own destiny, LTJ have decided to revisit their roots not only in spirit (and the album title) but also in their music.  A return to form that could be called the ‘traditional’ Less Than Jake sound, complete with their trademark bouncy ska grooves and horns galore.  GNV FLA comes full circle with the band’s beginnings, when they were scrapping up money from gigs to augment their Pez collections.  Recorded at Atlas Studios in Chicago and produced by Matt Allison (Rise Against, Alkaline Trio, The Falcom), this album is a surefire testament that, once again, proves why LTJ have one of the most durable and faithful fanbase that stretch from the top of Canada to the bottom of South America and spans both sides of the globe. A sobering look at the realities of Gainesville in particular but with a universal eye to the everyman living in every small city in the US in these down economic times, GNV FLA by no means is a depressing record, but instead a hopeful and positive one.  By pointing the microscope on folks like single mothers, drug dealers and other common city characters, LTJ celebrates their lives and pays tribute to those who are forgotten”. - www.cookingvinyl.com / www.lessthanjake.com / www.myspace.com/lessthanjake