Artrocker

Artrocker are offering their second compilation album for download, featuring the likes of Metric and Keep Hope Inside faves Forward, Russia!.

Of the other tracks available on that page, we highly recommend The Victorian English Gentlemen's Club, Good Shoes and the Acoustic Ladyland ones. The mag itself comes with a free cd this week and is available from these shops.
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Newsround
Radio station XFM announce the first inductees to their Hall of fame - The Clash.

Considering the Gnarls Barkley single has been deleted, we actually hope the new Keane single will reign triumphant come Sunday.

Regina Spektor adds a second date at the QE Hall as part of her UK tour. You can download some of her tracks (Us is superb) from Good Weather For Airstrikes.

DJ Shadow plays some UK dates, or does he? Visa problems apparently. Racism.

Truck Festival adds more bands to its 2006 lineup. Everyone knows the Futureheads are headlining too. I thoroughly enjoyed Truck 2004 and am glad it's going from strength to strength.
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Also, I've never downloaded the BBC OneMusic podcast but I can only assume it's good. Right?

BBC Collective

Buy tickets at the NME ticketline...

Oh dear.
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The Futureheads talk to the BBC collective about moving away from their 'angular' sound on their second record, News And Tributes.

They also review Statik's Grindie Volume 1 mixtape, which is a very interesting listen to say the least. Download the first 40-odd tracks here. You can find the tracklisting on Statik's MySpace.

Whilst we're here you might as well check out the sessions index featuring all sorts from urban superstar Roots Manuva to the now defunct Test Icicles.

The National

Considering The National have returned briefly to the UK, I thought I'd attempt to spread the love. They first caught my attention in early 2005 with the release of the single Abel but it was their captivating live performance on Later With Jools Holland on BBC2 that really excited me.

The National - Secret Meeting (Live On Jools Holland)

The National - Lit Up (Live On Jools Holland)

"Startling and subtly affecting, The National creeps in like the killer in a bleak gothic novel. Strings tremble, hearts break, and each smoldering song brings a harrowing tale of new pities" - Magnet.

The group support Editors at the Glasgow Academy (28th), Manchester Apollo (29th), Brixton Academy (30th) and headline the London Koko on May 31st.

Their third album, Alligator is available at Amazon.
(I particularly like the way everyone gangs up on this terrible review. Power to the people.)
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Chart Roundup
Singles
Gnarls Barkley tops the singles chart for the ninth week. Yawn. Primal Scream, The Ordinary Boys/Lady Sovereign and ex-Busted "bassist" Matt Willis all make inroads into the top 10. Keane (in-good-song-shocker!) make it to 15 on downloads alone. The Futureheads break into the top 25 and Little Man Tate just edge the Mystery Jets out of the top 40. The Spinto Band manage to pop in at 56 with Did I Tell You?

Albums
The Red Hot Chili Peppers retain their number 1 slot while Tom DeLonge's post-Blink 182 project Angels & Airwaves burst in at number 6. Boy Kill Boy get to 16 off the back off their recent NME tour headline slot and the success of Suzie. Hot Chip's second album The Warning gets to a respectable 34.

Lily Allen

Lily Allen is a name that probably evokes fear in many a music purist. Her rise to fame has been stratospheric and I must be about the millionth blog to mention her. Yes, MySpace is to blame. Although Popjustice gives us ten reasons to love Lily Allen.

She's just announced details of a new date at the Astoria in London and a full scale single release. Smile, due out on July 3rd follows the 500 7" pressing of skapop ditty LDN. You can buy tickets for her November 6th Astoria date from Stargreen.

Lily Allen - LDN

Listen to Smile on Lily's MySpace (1.6 million plays overall! Crikey!) and if you feel particularly adventurous, download a zip of nine of her songs here.
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Seeing as I watched Sister Act 2 earlier, I decided to upload one of the songs featuring Lauryn Hill of The Fugees.

Sister Act 2 - O Happy Day

That Jesus, what a guy.

Catch 'em if you can

Post-somethingorother Northerners 65 Days Of Static released a free download single earlier this month and it's only available for the rest of today!

65 Days Of Static - Drove Through Ghosts To Get Here

DTGTGH is the opener to their most recent album One Time For All Time. The video for the track and the album are both available on the 65DOS website.

BONUS album track: 65 Days Of Static - Await Rescue
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Didz-less Reading combo The Cooper Temple Clause are also going the way of free downloads offering a taster of their third album Make This Your Own via Drownedinsound.

The Cooper Temple Clause - Damage

Don't fret however if you don't manage to get your hands on that as they have kindly put up a live version of Damage for all to download on their website. The band are also offering new live mp3s every week from now on so keep checking the Coopers website.
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Towers of London on the other hand decide the best way to promote their new album is by getting into a fight (on dem mean streetz of Peterborough as far as I can tell) and release the footage on YouTube. Blatantly, you'd rather watch Tony Yeboah's wonder goals from the mid90's.

I was watching a programme on Channel 5 the other night called How William Shatner Changed The World. Sadly, it turned out to be a Star Trek worship show with the great man himself narrating...well at least for the few minutes I watched. Apparently Star Trek even inspired the creation of the digital music files and the iPod. Supposedly.

Anyhoo, here's Captain James T Kirk doing Pulp's Common People, produced by the legendary Ben Folds no less:
D/l William Shatner - Common People

Buy the album, Has Been (if you dare) from Amazon.

Newsround
Plagiarism seems to be the name of the week, with accusations flying all over the place. Awesome. Handbags at the ready.

You've probably heard about the Red Hot Chili Peppers nicking everything from a Tom Petty song. Which according to a comment at the bottom of this page, rips off a song by the Jayhawks anyway.

Then there's rappers being sued for repeating the words "like that". How Ludacris. Ahem. (That was terrible wasn't it?)

On a similar note there's that comparison between the new Muse single and Do Something by Britney Spears, which you can familiarise yourself with here.

Mystery Jets

I had a nice surprise in the post this morning - my Mystery Jets slipcase arrived. It holds the two 7" vinyls that are out this week for the You Can't Fool Me Dennis re-release. Although I'm not a big fan of re-releases (is anyone? Maybe record company execs), the prog-pop that the Mystery Jets peddle deserves to be unleashed on a larger audience. No doubt anyone reading this will know who they are though.

Download the Good Books rework of YCFMD here (WMA format) and you can find some rareties in this savefile project.

You can hear the new single and b-side Inside Four Walls on their MySpace and all three formats can be cheaply bought at Piccadilly Records.

Their debut album, Making Dens is available for a bargaintastic £5.97 at Amazon

Newsround:
Belle & Sebastian have recruited a whole host of bands for a Save The Children compilation, out on September 11th. Franz Ferdinand, The Flaming Lips, The Fiery Furnaces, Snow Patrol and Travis all feature.

Fresh from Eurovision victory, Lordi will be releasing Hard Rock Hallelujah as a single on 6/06/06 - clever. They are also playing the Download Festival for the second year running, on June 11th.

Oh and Gnarls Barkley are set for their 9th week at the top of the UK singles chart. Surprise, surprise.

Little Man Tate

Sheffield. Four young lads. Indie band. Sounds all too familiar doesn't it?

I popped into Sister Ray's (formerly Selectadisc) on Berwick Street yesterday evening to see one of Sheffield's new bright young bands, Little Man Tate.

An Arctic Monkeys comparison is almost inevitable as LMT offer similarly exciting, poppy tunes with equally witty lyrics. No doubt the comparison is unwanted but they may well follow the AMs into the big time, having recently been signed by V2 records after months of internet buzz. Acclaimed debut single The Agent sold out its 500 or so 7" pressing in nanoseconds back in February and you can watch its video here.

This small instore performance was to promote their second single What? What You Got single, out this week on 7" and CD. They played at the 100 Club down the road later that evening but that sold out years ago and I can only assume it was nothing short of a riot.

The NME gave its stamp of approval (if that means anything anymore), awarding it runner up single of the week and Planetsound claims that 'not liking this is like saying "I drown kittens, me". Noisingly magical.' You can download the demo version of W?WYG here.

Hardly ground breaking but good fun and you have to love (or become incredibly irritated by) charismatic frontman Jon Windle's in-song gesturing. Plus, there were free badges and their generosity had already won me over.

You can buy the What? What You Got 7" or CD (or both!) from Sister Ray's.

Little Man Tate - Man I Hate Your Band

Other songs available in the downloads section of their website and there's always their MySpace.

Ah the beginning of something beautiful. Or so I hope.

A brief overview of this blog would tell you that it will cover musical titbits and god knows what else I find interesting. But mainly music.

You might be wondering about the name.....I was struggling to think of anything and decided that good old Greek mythology was the forward. It refers to Pandora opening that box of tricks and letting all sorts of rubbish escape, only closing it in time to "keep hope inside".

Anyways, onwards and upwards.