Hole-y Moly!

Late last night Helen Of Troy... stumbled upon this rather confusing article on the Guardian website. It seems chain-smoking chantress Courtney Love has decided to release her not-so-forthcoming album Nobody's Daughter under her old Hole moniker, despite being the only member of the seminal grunge outfit to be associated with it - Melissa auf der Maur's backing vocals don't really count as far as we're concerned.

So has the decision to revive the aforementioned moniker been made in a bid to help shift more units, or is it merely a statement that the raucous rocker feels Nobody's Daughter is a return to past form and merely wants to brand it as such? Either way, we're chomping at the bit for news on a final release date. C'mon Courtney, show us what you've got!

Courtney Love’s Album Pushed Back, AGAIN!

The fact that we love Courtney's off-the-wall antics is well documented by this point, but what we don’t love, is her chronic inability to get her ‘upcoming’ album Nobody’s Daughter ready for public consumption.

Helen Of Troy... has been keeping a watchful eye on the ever-changing release date, and has guestimated that Courtney’s sophomore solo album has been pushed back no fewer than five times – truth be told we think it’s probably more than that. So what the fuck is going on?

The last official excuse came from Courtney herself, who said it was due to a host of paranormal occurrences that had taken place in the studio. To be honest, this doesn’t sit well with us candid cynics, and we can’t help but suspect that the real reason is featured in the video below (skip to 1.54 to see exactly what we’re talking about).

Or, we could be completely wrong. It’s no secret that debut album America’s Sweetheart was plagued with problems from day one, resulting in such poor sales that it was considered a commercial flop by her label and the industry in general. And now the focus is firmly on Nobody’s Daughter, the album that will ultimately make or break Courtney’s solo career – let’s hope it’s the latter. So perhaps she’s simply taking the time to make sure she gets this one right, who knows. It seems we'll have the play the waiting game a little longer in order to find out.

Nobody’s Daughter is currently scheduled for release on the 20^th of July.

Bite-Sized News Round-Up

With Peaches’ fifth studio album I Feel Cream scheduled for release on May 4^th, the video for lead single Talk To Me finally hit the interweb a few days ago. While we’re lovin’ the electro experimentalist’s new do, we're not so keen on the rather uneventful video.

It seems PJ Harvey will be performing sans guitar or piano for her upcoming tour with John Parish. She made the announcement to the Guardian during the pair’s takeover a couple of weeks ago, stating that JP will be performing alongside a full backing band, allowing her to concentrate on her vocals. You can watch the full interview here.


No Doubt’s cover of Stand And Deliver (originally an 80s hit by Adam And The Ants) has been leaked online. To be honest we’re not feeling it. Check it out below and see what you think.

Poor Courtney Love. Our favourite troubled singer is claiming that millions of dollars have gone missing, and suspects the money has been pillaged by some of her former staff. Apparently, she was too fucked to notice, but she’s sobered up now (ahem) and is hoping to reclaim her lost fortune in court. We wish her all the best!

New Music: Spinnerette

Hole were, for us, the quintessential female-fronted punk-rock band (we’re aware this makes us a tad uncool in certain circles), and whilst the Distillers produced some exceptional material, they never quite reached the heady heights of Courtney and co.

Fast forward to 2009, and sadly neither bands are in existence. Ms Love, aka Cherry Kookoo, is busy blogging about paranormal happenings in her studio providing the perfect excuse for still not having released her sophomore solo album, Nobody’s Daughter. Whilst the more balanced Mrs Dalle has been busy nesting with husband and QOTSA frontman Josh Homme and their two-year-old daughter.

Thankfully it seems rusks and mobiles have lost their appeal - momentarily at least - and Brody has finally embarked upon a new musical endeavour. The band is called Spinnerette, and they’re rather fucking good! Recently released début EP, Ghetto Love, showcases a different direction for the princess of punk, featuring four funky electro-infused punk-rock songs all sated with attitude and ardour. This is gritty stuff, but with a dash of some much needed glitz!

www.myspace.com/spinnerettemusic

Women Don’t Rock!

The kids are calling for a smothering by bollock-swinging, sweaty, stadium rockitypop, so AC/DC, Bon Jovi, Dragonforce & Rush will be coming round to drink your Red Bull, mess up your bed and call your mother rude names. That’s right, all the greats are lining up inside Rock Band 2, and you get to party like a real rock legend if you play with them!

Harmonix, and their Guitar Hero brothers Neversoft, have been releasing a never-ending stream of hard-rocking games based on the premise that you get to pal-up with the big names from rock history. But as Leonie Cooper at The Guardian pointed out some time ago (sorry I’m late) it’s pretty much only the men who get to play.

That’s because across the five games there are less female artists included than there were Tupperware parties at Kurt & Courtney’s house. Is that because Hole, The Slits, Gossip, Blondie or Polly Jean herself, don’t deserve a spot at the rock picnic alongside The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and The Offspring (?!)? Hardly.

Sure, you can play along with Bikini Kill, Joan Jett or The Donnas, but the pitiful number of female-fronted bands out of the 85 plus tracks on Rock Band 2 means you’ll have to replay those few a lot if you don’t fancy singing along to Journey. Again. According to Eric Brosious (RB2’s Audio Director) “[There are] more female-fronted bands this time… but not enough. Oddly enough, girls don’t seem to mind singing guy songs, but guys don’t like singing girl songs, we’re such idiots”. Seems like Brosious' heart is in the right place, but distinguishing between guy and girl songs in the first place ain’t a great start.

So maybe it is because the boys demand that the disc be loaded with as many Judas Priest tracks as possible. But if Harmonix are content to keep the boys (and girls) drumming along to an achingly out-dated beat, and will happily admit to doing so, we'll have to take it back to basics, strap on our air guitar and make do with striking some classic Courtney Love poses.

Jordan Stead

Currently listening to...
Lykke Li - Youth Novels
Feist - The Reminder
Gwen Stefani - The Sweet Escape

God Bless Courtney Love

We’ve been following Courtney’s, let’s face it, genius blogging adventures for a while now and thought it only fair that we share the super-intelligent rocker’s ramblings with those of you unfortunate enough to have missed out on them.

To date, Courtney's blogs have included...

1. A brief mention about her ‘kookoo bananas’ alter ego Cherry Kookoo and her attempt to kill Kookoo off in the hope of avoiding further emotionally-fraught rants!
2. Her present feelings towards Madonna and how their ‘karma seems a bit intertertwined’ of late - compared to, y’know, the good old days when they seemed at constant loggerheads over burning issues like Madonna’s supposed lack of musical talent and... erm... shoes!
3. A self-examination of the reasons why she is attracted to sociopathic men, one of whom is described as a British comedian, quite mean and unusually dark. I wonder who that could be! Jim Davidson maybe?!

Whether you love her or loathe her, she always has something interesting to say. Not least her self admonishment on how we should all resist the urge to blog about private matters when suffering from ‘Shoptoe’ – that’s an unlucky combination of fraud and broken toes to you and I. So the next time you find yourself trawling the interweb looking for a bit of amusement, why not check out Court’s MySpace where her brilliant collection of muddled, and sometimes poignant, ravings reside. http://www.myspace.com/courtneylove

Currently listening to…
Poppy And The Jezebels – UFO (single)
Radioclit featuring M.I.A. and Santogold – Get It Up (Mixtape version)
Sleater Kinney – The Woods
PJ Harvey and John Parish – Dance Hall At Louse Point