Soundbites: Noel Gallagher cries like a baby, Bono definitely isn’t a billionaire, The Broken Needles review


In today’s Soundbites – our look back at the past week’s news, reviews, and tabloid gossip – , Manchester City reduce Noel Gallagher to tears, Alan McGee may fulfill a public duty by returning to music, Axl Rose defends his lame ass, Bono is absolutely not a billionaire, The Beatles walking backwards fetches a few grand, the latest Broken Needles track is reviewed and our pick of the week’s new videos is selected.

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Noel Gallagher (Photo: Live4ever Media)




Nothing like a bit of football drama to bring out some male emotion. On the most dramatic day in Premier League/British/World history blah blah last Sunday, Manchester City’s late, late winner against QPR was enough to render former Oasis songwriter Noel Gallagher into a blubbing mess. “My mate tried to pull the TV off the wall,” he said of the events immediately following Aguero’s winner. “I swore a lot and then I cried like a baby because I’ve never seen anything like that before. It was mindblowing.” Full comments here.

There’s not many more vocal critics of the current music scene, so a return to the industry for ex-Creation boss Alan McGee has for a long time seemed about as unlikely as him turning up at the front row of a Coldplay concert. But in writing on the Huffington Post this week, McGee has appeared to hint that the possibility might not be as remote as we all first thought. “I am going to meet some people in Japan who want to bring me back into music,” McGee wrote. “If I’m honest, I am torn on this but at the same I feel it’s almost a public duty to cause chaos in the world of Simon Cowell and co.” McGee elaborates further on his plans here.

Now, we can’t be the only ones to think BBC 6Music would be the perfect station if it just got rid of Lauren ‘look at me, look at me’ Laverne? So it was a bit of a shame when Laverne’s fellow host and sometime Fun Lovin’ Criminal Huey Morgan issued a grovelling apology to her via Twitter after being less than complementary in the wake of this week’s Sony Radio Awards. Check out the Twitter nonsense here.

In a week when Slash insisted Scott Weiland is ‘out of his mind’ for suggesting he had returned to front Velvet Revolver, the former Guns N Roses guitarist also unveiled the first video from his forthcoming second solo album ‘Apocalyptic Love‘. Visit our Videos section to sort through all of the week’s new and classic videos.

Thanks to Facebook’s Stock Market float, Bono’s gonna be rich. Super rich. Or is he? Despite reports this week that the U2 frontman’s stake in the social network was going to be worth over $1bn, he has in fact now told MSNBC: “Contrary to reports, I’m not a billionaire or going to be richer than any Beatle – and not just in the sense of money, by the way, The Beatles are untouchable – those billionaire reports are a joke. In Elevation, we invest other people’s money – endowments, pension funds. We do get paid of course. But you know, I felt rich when I was 20 years old and my wife was paying my bills. Just being in a band, I’ve always felt blessed. I got interested in technology because I’m an artist… Technology is huge, I wanted to learn about it. People might say that’s odd, but I think it’s odd if artists aren’t interested in the world around them. I’m always chasing that. Facebook are an amazing team, a brilliant team, it’s a technology that brings people together.”

Says a lot about the legacy of The Beatles that a photograph of them walking the ‘other’ way across the famous Abbey Road zebra crossing is predicted to set someone back to the tune of around £9,000. The snap, taken by Iain Macmillan, will be hosted by Bloomsbury Auctions in London on May 22nd. “The photo has been called an icon of the 1960s. I think the reason it became so popular is its simplicity. It’s a very simple, stylised shot and is a shot people can relate to.” A bit more on the story here.

Over an hour late coming on stage, but at least they weren’t bottled off this time. Axl Rose and his fairly anonymous bandmates arrived in the UK & Ireland this week, and the slightly better reception afforded to Guns N Roses upon their return to Dublin was not lost on Axl. “Thanks for coming out, thanks for putting up with my lame ass and thanks for not throwing shit,” he told the crowd. For details of the band’s mammoth three-hour set, follow this link.

For better or worse, think of Australian rock and the image of two-chord, beer swilling brain-dead grunge is hard to force out of your mind, unless the gurning, contorted features of Angus Young have got there first. But with North Queensland’s The Broken Needles, something very different is on offer. Sounding like it’s been borne out of the swampy marshes of the Aussie outback rather than late-night Sydney watering holes, ‘Cheap Gin‘, a free download released to showcase new album ‘Terra Nullius‘, is a supremely enjoyable slice of twangy, brassy bluegrass. ‘Cheap Gin’ is featured in today’s New Tunes Guide. Look, listen, discover.

Cheap Gin by The Broken Needles


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