Joe Kavanagh's Music News

Snow Patrol completed an extraordinary year with the announcement by the British recording industry that the Irish band's Eyes Open album was the biggest selling album of the year with sales of over 1.5 million in the UK. The highest selling single of the year was Crazy, by Gnarls Barkley, which moved a little over 700,000 units but it would have sold even more had the band not decided to remove it from the shelves because they feared over exposure...

Former Stone Roses frontman and acclaimed solo artist in his own right, Ian Brown, revealed in an interview last week that he has asked no less a figure than Paul McCartney to play bass on his upcoming album, which he describes as: 'really beautiful, with violins, dead sharp beats, socially conscious lyrics.' The singer is quoted as saying: 'I'm trying to get Paul McCartney. I spoke to his assistant and I was like, 'Me name's Ian Brown and I'm a singer,' and she was like, 'Yeah, I've heard of you.' I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I don't mind waiting for him. I'd put it back for him, I just think in the last 40 years, no-one's touched McCartney on the bass. It's a bit of a pipe dream, but if you don't ask, you don't get, so I'm going for it.'...

Speaking of people who can't touch Paul McCartney, his estranged wife, Heather Mills, is now under police investigation after a woman claims she was assaulted by her recently. Emma Levy says that she saw Mills and a male friend in a London coffee shop but when she went to take a photo of the pair with her cell phone: 'She (Mills) jumped up, grabbed me by the throat and pushed me towards the door. She lashed out with her left leg, kicking me in the bum. I have a big bruise.' A spokesperson for Mills claimed: 'She was taking private notes from a lawyer when a woman tried to take her picture. Heather suspected that she was a journalist. She even admitted she was trying to make some money out of her. Heather did kick her up the backside.' Firstly, Mills has got quite a nerve assaulting someone else for trying to make money for nothing, considering her own gold-digging ways. Secondly, the assault kind of puts to the sword the old line about people with one leg being no good in arse kicking competitions...

Given that Pope Benedict XVI is considered to be one of the most conservative popes in decades, it came as a surprise that the Vatican has apparently commissioned a punk-rock opera version of Dante's The Divine Comedy, which will tour the major cities of Europe throughout 2007. Under the guidance of Monsignor Marco Frisina, the three-part epic, which will also feature jazz and classical pieces, will begin holding auditions later this month in Rome. The monsignor told an interviewer last week: 'The poem is an inexhaustible source of stories, messages and teaching. This is the poem of our Christian roots, of our faith, the opera of man in search of love, of the true sense of life.'...

Former Oasis manager and Creation Records boss, Alan McGee has leant his considerable support to have convicted pedophile, Jonathan King, stripped of an award that he received several years back from the British Phonographic Industry. McGee was publicizing an online petition started by Kirk McIntyre, who was both a victim of King and a central figure in the trial that led to the former UK DJ and TV personality receiving a seven-year sentence in 2001. McGee claims he is ashamed that King has not been stripped of the Man of the Year Award he received in 1997, stating: 'The BPI would rather protect King... than the victims. It's as if King is on the same footing as George Martin, the Beatles producer. I am one of the few people in the music business who is not scared to speak their mind. I was brought up in Glasgow. The industry in general are cowards. The BPI are a bunch of prissy middle class southerners.' King remains wholly unrepentant regarding his reprehinsible actions...

Hollywood tough guy and accused woman beater, Steven Seagal, is currently doing the rounds of UK club circuit playing a selection of his own original acoustic compositions from his album, Songs from the Crystal Cave. In typical self-inflated, egotistical fashion, Seagal claims that he never would have bothered pursuing this second career were it not for the fact that one of his friends, who was dying, made him promise to do so. Great, so now he is going around killing audiences instead. I never thought I would say this but for God's sakes, someone sign this man up for a movie. It's not like it takes much, just a story about a misunderstood outsider who has been dealt some hard blows in life but then reluctantly comes back - usually because someone close to him has been killed - to save mankind from the brink of destruction. Three word titles seem to do it: Man of Honor, Fists of Fire or some such nonsensical heading. Hell, I'll do it myself if I have to, just to make sure he never makes it to Ireland because I would rather hear Chris De Burgh covering Daniel O'Donnell to be honest. I better get cracking.