Weekly News Round-Up: The Smiths, Pete Doherty and more

Missed any of the week’s top news stories? Live4ever has it covered with our Weekly News Round-Up, looking back at ten of the biggest headlines we featured during the last seven days in British music.

Johnny Marr, formerly of The Smiths, live in London (Photo: Andy Crossland for Live4ever Media)

Johnny Marr has unsurprisingly picked one of the most revelatory sections of his forthcoming autobiography Set The Boy Free for publication on The Guardian.

In the extract, Marr details how close he and Morrissey came to putting the wheels in motion for a Smiths reunion back in 2008. “One day in September 2008 we were only a couple of miles apart in south Manchester and arranged to meet up in a pub nearby,” he writes.

Kasabian and Muse have got into the Halloween spirit, as bands now seem compelled to do, by each posting their own videos online.

Kasabian have taken Freddy’s Coming For You from A Nightmare On Elm Street and put their version on Facebook, while Muse have shared their fancy dress video of New Kind Of Kick on YouTube.

There’ll be some ‘exciting surprises’ to mark ten years of Glastonbury‘s Park Stage in 2017.

Writing on Instagram, co-organiser Emily Eavis revealed: “Next year will be ten years since we created The Park area so we are planning some exciting surprises to mark the anniversary.”

Rajar’s latest quarterly figures have brought more good news for BBC 6Music.

The UK’s digital station, now one of the last safe havens for new and alternative acts, has enjoyed a new record weekly total of 2.34 million listeners, while digital listening overall has grown by another 9%.

C Duncan‘s second album The Midnight Sun will be toured around the UK early next year.

Dates start in Scotland at the end of January 2017 and include a stop at the Shepherds Bush Empire in London on the first day of February.

Pete Doherty at the Hackney Empire, London (Photo: Alberto Pezzali for Live4ever Media)

Gigs in London and Manchester are the latest solo shows to be confirmed by Pete Doherty.

With the album Hamburg Demonstrations due for release on December 2nd, shows at the Forum in London and Albert Hall in Manchester on the 6th and 7th of that month have been added to the European shows which start next month with two nights at the soon-to-be-reopened Bataclan in Paris.

Liam Gallagher‘s solo plans for 2017 have taken another step forward with the news of his signing to Coda Music Agency.

Coda will handle Gallagher’s touring behind the first solo LP which is expected next year on Warner Bros. Records.

Tributes were being paid to former Dead Or Alive singer Pete Burns, whose death was confirmed last week.

“All of his family and friends are devastated by the loss of our special star,” a statement from his management said.

Stornoway will bow out after a February/March 2017 tour of the UK.

“We have achieved far more as a band than we ever dared to dream back as students in a drafty east Oxford garage and we are immensely proud of the music we have created together,” they’ve said.

John Cale will play a show in Liverpool next year to mark half a century of the Velvet Underground‘s classic debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico.

“I’m often reluctant to spend too much time on things past – then, a time marker shows up – The Velvet Underground & Nico turns fifty,” he says.

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