June 9th, 2009

Throughout Coldplay’s world tour, which began May 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida, the band will be distributing a live CD to every fan in attendance at the Viva La Vida summer tour.

Coldplay will continue distributing the CD, LeftRightLeftRightLeft, at every regular tour date (ie, not including festival dates).

The band released a statement which read in part, “Playing live is what we love. This album is a thank you to our fans – the people who give us reason to do it and make it happen.”

In addition to the physical copy that will be passed out during concerts, fans can find a digital version of the nine-track live album on the band’s official webpage. The tracks were taken from various performances during the Viva La Vida tour.

Coldplay will be finishing off their tour dates with a two-day stint at Wembley Stadium September 18 and 19.

Franz Ferdinand have confirmed that they will be releasing a new single around the same time that the band begins performing various gigs at summer festivals.

The third single from the band’s latest album, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, will be “Can’t Stop Feeling,” will be released with the B-side LCD Soundsystem cover “All My Friends.”

The song is set to drop July 6, in between festival appearances from Franz Ferdinand at Glasonbury and T in the Park.

The band will follow-up the summer festival season with a UK tour in October, featuring these stops:

Aberdeen Music Hall (October 10)
Dundee Caird Hall (12)
Inverness Ironworks (13)
Newcastle Academy (15)
Sheffield Academy (16)
Manchester Apollo (17)
Wolverhampton Civic Hall (19)
Leeds Academy (20)
London Brixton Academy (23)

According to the up-and-coming band Magistrates, Damon Albarn can be “harsh.” That is, having him for a mentor can be inspiring, though Albarn is at times hard to please.

The Blur frontman has been helping the band with their debut album, much to their delight. Magistrate guitarist Mark Brando told My Park Mag: “We were in a room and Damon was dancing around just enjoying the music and just playing. He’s a harsh guy. It was really inspiring to be around the guy, his working ethic is just unbelievable. He’s a 100 percent interested in making music – and that is really inspiring to be around.”

Magistrate was one of the first to hear that Blur would be reforming, after Damon came in one day and told the band he’d had a late night with Graham Coxon.

Magistrate singer Paul Usher thinks that one of the reasons Damon got Blur back together was “because he spent some time with us and enjoyed the idea of being in a band again. We planted the seed in his head and he was like, ‘Yeah you’re right, that’s a good idea.’”

Hotly tipped for a successful upstart, Bombay Bicycle Club are preparing themselves for their debut album release later in the year.

After attracting notice from record labels with their upbeat indie rock sound, the band released their first EP in 2007, The Boy I Used to Be.

Last summer the boys of the band reached a turning point in their career – they graduated from high school, relieving the band members of the added pressure school held over their musical aspirations.

After that, the band became a presence in the summer festival circuit, playing at T in the Park, The Great Escape, and Underage.

Now Bombay Bicycle Club will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of Island Records – the band’s new label – with the release of their debut LP, I Had the Blues but I Shook Them Off, on July 6.

This is the tracklisting for the debut:

Emergency Contraception Blues
Lamplight
Evening / Morning
Dust On The Ground
Ghost
Away Like This
Magnet
Cancel On Me
Autumn
The Hill
What If
The Giantess

It was by chance that PJ Harvey and John Parish reunited after thirteen years to create music together once again. The singer tells NME that she happened across a tape containing the music for “Black Hearted Love” that she and Parish had created six or seven years earlier, inspiring a collaborative album from the duo, A Woman A Man Walked By.

The 10-track album “almost never happened,” though luckily for fans Harvey contacted Parish after discovering the tape featuring music that neither artist had used.

She told the NME Radio: “It was actually a piece of music that John had written and given to me and asked me for a lyric idea for one of his solo albums. And we never used, or he never used it. It was at that moment, that this was the right time for us to make a record.”

According to the Daily Mail, Joss Stone wants so much to leave EMI that she is offering the label £2 million to be let out of her contract. Allegedly, the singer wants very much to leave, though she has only released one album during her £7.5m four-album deal.

After the private equity firm Terra Firma purchased EMI in 2007, many artists – including Lily Allen – were disheartened and have publically criticized the move. In recent years, Radiohead and Paul McCartney have left the label, and Joss Stone is just the latest artists to claim that she has “no working relationship” with EMI.

The singer – who sold 11 million copies of her debut album – has been reportedly reluctant to pass recordings of her new record over to the label. Instead of sharing Colour Me Free with EMI, she wants to pay to be released from the label.

EMI claims that Stone missed a deadline for Colour Me Free in 2008, and the label has filed suit for the return of £1.2m of the singer’s advance. The singer will be named co-defendant on June 22 in the case.

Stone blamed the label for the album delay back in March, telling the Daily Mail: “ were supposed to be launching the album in April but now they’ve postponed it until July. They really need to pull their finger out. I’ve worked very hard on this record and I don’t know what the plans are until EMI confirms a release date.”

The Doves stopped by to play to a soldout Terminal 5 in New York City last week . They are on a world tour in support of their new album.