Joe Kavanagh's Music News

After 12 months of global success, Snow Patrol will see out the remainder of the summer festival circuit before taking a year's hiatus after almost four years of touring and recording that has seen them rise to the very upper echelons of rock royalty. Although the band have an album's worth of material ready to go, Gary Lightbody claims that they are ready to enjoy a well earned break. Speaking to XFM Radio in the UK last week the singer said: 'I've written loads. Nathan (Connolly) has written quite a few songs, Paul (Wilson) has been writing quite a bit as well, so the new album could be done when we finish this tour in September. But I don't think there's any point of doing it this early. I think people by the end of the summer will just about have had enough, and that's fair enough. We understand we've been at it for four years non-stop on tour as well and we need a break and maybe everyone else needs a break too. So we're gonna take a good bit of time off, make the album in our own pace and come back fresh maybe a year later.'...

While Snow Patrol's immediate future seems all but assured, another Irish act appears to be floundering as they struggle with the apparent commercial failure of their latest album. Downpatrick rockers, Ash, were the talk of the music press last week, as journalists openly speculated that the band was on the verge of splitting. While performing at the vast Isle of Wight Festival, singer, Tim Wheeler, claimed that recently released, Twilight Of The Innocents, would be the band's last ever studio album, saying 'most people have forgotten how to make a decent album.' Speak for yourself Tim. The band claim that they will now only record singles, which they will release over t'Internet, which is probably a good job because their anemic sales will most likely mean that they will be out of a record deal in the near future...

While we are on the subject of the Isle of Wight Festival, the musical extravaganza was the catalyst for reigniting a couple of simmering rock feuds last week as some of indie's elite took aim at each other. First up was Kasabian, who once again launched a verbal salvo at Keane, and more specifically the band's frontman: Tom Chaplin. The feud had its roots in 2006, when Chaplin checked himself into rehab for an addiction to - amongst other things - port. At the time Kasabian guitarist, Serge Pizzorno, wondered aloud as to what kind of sad, snobby rock star goes to rehab for an addiction to port before coming up with the conclusion that it was done as a PR exercise in order to look more rock n' roll. Chaplin then fired back a few months back, challenging Kasabian to a drinking match, hardly the most sensible thing for a so-called recovering addict, saying: 'if you pitched me into a battle to see who would get wasted with any of those guys, I'd definitely come out the winner.' Over the course of the Isle of Wight Festival, Kasabian frontman, Tom Meighan responded with his own opinion claiming: 'Well, he's got a big advantage in that he has twice the body mass of any of us. He's six foot five, five foot wide and he lives on a diet of pies and Quavers (cheese-flavored corn chips). He doesn't know what he's talking about. We'll have him and he knows it. He's just a posh boy.' I somehow get the feeling that perhaps the Keane singer should quit while he's behind in this one because if he keeps getting mocked like this then he is going to look more Charlie Chaplin than Tom Chaplin...

The wheels appear to have come off the Happy Mondays return to the US before the band even got going with visa problems causing them to cancel their first New York show in over a decade. Last month, the Manchester 'baggy-beats' pioneers were forced to perform at California's Coachella Festival without their dancer, Bez, who was refused a visa because of a prior drug conviction. Now it appears that the entire band has been barred from the US for the foreseeable future because of their near-mythical history of drug abuse. A statement on their website read: "It seems that post-9/11 visa application restrictions for a band with the Happy Mondays' history - known as much for their legendary lifestyle as their unique collision of rave beats, indie rock and street poetry - has proven difficult this time. Essentially the U.S. Embassy in the U.K. has halted the process of Bez's visa application until the outcome of pending court proceedings. Although the rest of the band were able to enter the country and perform at Coachella, it transpired that other band members, including (frontman) Shaun Ryder, had been issued with single entry only visas, due to their prosecution histories. Although the duration of the term of their visas would have allowed another visit to the US, the single entry status meant that the whole visa application process had to be restarted upon their return from LA, placing their plans to appear in NYC in jeopardy.' Just how is it that people like Keith Richards - who recently admitted snorting his own father's ashes along with a few lines of the finest Colombian marching powder - can get in to the US when likes of Ryder and The View's Kyle Falconer cannot? It appears there is a slight double standard to say the least...

Radiohead are about to leap into another genre of music entirely when their songs are set to ballet in the coming months. Dance impresario, Stephen Petronio, claims that he will be using at least five of the band's tracks in an upcoming ballet, which has yet to be named. Petronio says: 'Radiohead's music is a brilliant investigation of achingly modern taste. They sail through genre and form effortlessly and passionately, and their music demands a physical response from me that by-passes reason.' You know, that's exactly what I was thinking