Music Madness, Moz's 50th birthday and more...

LFO reforms!
World asks: "Who?"

Following in the LARGE footsteps of the likes of Take That, Boyzone and NKOTB, hideously ineffective boy band LFO, aka Lyte, Funky Ones, have reformed. Admittedly I liked their one super-small hit "Summer Girls" but really? A lot has change since they were, well, loitering on the bottom of the charts (New Kids on the Block had a bunch more hits) but they're coming back anyway.

How's it going to work though? What are they going to do at a show? Sing that one song 17 times? Will they still sing about Abercrombie & Fitch... a lot? A few blogs have cited their infamous lyric from that song - "Chinese food makes me sick" - as a highlight but I think that needlessly neglects the nuances to be found elsewhere in the song such as, "When you take a sip you buzz like a hornet/Billy Shakespeare wrote a whole bunch of sonnets" Come on! He says sonnet like "soRnet" so it rhymes. Gold, I tells ya.




Or how about the line, "Call you up but whats the use/I like Kevin Bacon, but I hate Footloose" AWEsome. But wait... who likes Kevin Bacon but hates Footloose? That's entirely ludicrous! Man, they don't write songs like that anymore. Well, they do but they're usually sung by Eminem. Still, LFO did actually have that other song called "Girl On TV" that they wrote about lead singer Rich Cronin's then-girlfriend Jennifer Love Hewitt and she even appeared in the video. Bet she regrets agreeing to that for so many, many reasons, including the fact that a couple of years ago Rich went around telling anyone who'd interview him that she was a complete tramp.




Anyway, this mid-to-low level band reformation is likely giving all the wrong people - like other semi-to-unsuccessful groups - big ideas. Will we be hearing from Marky Mark and his Funky Bunch? (Ahem, "Not a f**king chance," confirms the always-delightful Mark Wahlberg) How about O-Town? Dreamstreet? Ultimate Chaos? ("I am not your casanovaaa...")




While we're at it should solo artists get back in the game? How about Jennifer Love Hewitt recording a country album? Oh. Where will the madness end? Actually, while we're on the subject Madness should totally reform. Oh, they have. SEVERAL times.

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Dude, You Gotta Start Running Your Press Releases Past Someone First *
* Or "when bands that suck make my job too easy..."

While getting ready to record their upcoming album, newly reformed Creed - hmmm, who even knew or cared that they split or reformed? - has also been sorting out its US tour set list, with a repertoire that will reportedly include "all the Creed songs people want to hear."

So... that would be NONE of them then. Phew, glad that's settled. We get to not go to their concert. They get to stay at home and be silent. Everybody wins.

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How To Save A Life

I'm not a Nine Inch Nails fan. At all. However, they just did the nicest thing that I think you can do as a celebrity/band/person. They've selflessly gone about (hopefully) saving someone's life.

Just last night, usually-infuriating lead singer Trent Raznor hopped on the band's official website and asked fans for help. Big help. Eric De La Cruz has had no assistance from the medical system in Nevada and is sadly in dire need of a life-saving $150,000 heart transplant. In return for donations of a significant sum to help Eric, Trent offered up backstage passes to some of their gigs.

Read Trent's full letter here : CLICK ON ME!

Since then, Trent has updated his Twitter profile to let everyone know that their efforts have raised over $260,000:

I am truly blown away by the response to this: http://store.nin.com/helperic - we are over 260K in less than a day! THANK YOU #ERIC

Most excellent. Job well done, NIN. Spread the word that thems good peeps... whose music I refuse to listen to.

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Happy birthday, Moz!

Morrissey is 50 today.

So, happy birthday to This Charming Man. And what's he doing to celebrate? Oh, playing a gig at the Apollo in his hometown of Manchester. It's his 50th birthday, man. Sigh. He's so freaking cool.

You have made the unbearable somehow more bearable many times over, sir. Thank you. We shall now all sing along in your honour to, erm, one of your songs that I heart:





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Carolyn Stewart
"Call me a fool but I know I'm not/I'm gonna stand out here on the mountain top" o'clock, May 22, 2009