Joe Kavanagh's Music News

The big story in the Irish music world last week was the inclusion of Lisa Hannigan's debut album, Sea Sew, on the list of nominees for the Mercury Music Prize, which is awarded annually to the best album from Ireland or the UK. The prestigious award is considered to be one of the valuable prizes in music, given that the winner is chosen by an extensive panel of judges from across the music media. Past winners include Portishead, Arctic Monkeys and Elbow, who walked away with the award last year for their album, The Seldom Seen Kid. Hannigan's inclusion on the list represents the first Irish nominee since Fionn Regan was nominated in 2007, with his album The End Of History. The full list of nominees for this year's prize is as follows. Florence and the Machine - Lungs, Kasabian - West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum , Bat for Lashes - Two Suns, Glasvegas - Glasvegas , La Roux - La Roux, Speech Debelle - Speech Therapy, The Horrors - Primary Colors, Lisa Hannigan - Sea Sew, Friendly Fires - Friendly Fires, Led Bib - Sensible Shoes, The Invisible - The Invisible, Sweet Billy Pilgrim - Twice Born Men...

You would imagine that being nominated for a Mercury Prize would be enough to put an artist in good mood, but Kasabian's Tom Meighan was more interested in berating US music fans during an interview with indie radio station XFM last week. The fiery singer claimed: "We're like a cult band over there. You have to be U2 or Coldplay to get radio play. Americans are deluded - not all of them - they think they're ahead, but musically they're not. They're 30 years behind." Has it ever struck him that perhaps US audiences just aren't crazy about his band? Given that their latest album debuted at a somewhat pathetic 121 in the US album charts, Meighan's comments sound like a bad case of sour grapes and I don't think insulting US audiences is the best promotional tactic I've ever heard... Speaking of sour grapes, Lily Allen is allegedly furious that her last album, It's Not Me, It's You, failed to get a nod from the Mercury Prize judges. Writing on her Twitter.com site, she posited: "The judges hate me, but the people, dem (sic) love me. I hope La Roux wins." It's possible that her album simply isn't good enough. I'm just throwing it out there...

Ozzy Osbourne is apparently writing a memoir, chronicling his four decades of success and excess. The former Black Sabbath singer issued a statement saying: "It haunts me, all this crazy stuff. I took lethal combinations of booze and drugs for 30 f***ing years. I survived a direct hit by a plane, suicidal overdoses, STDs (sexually transmitted diseases). I have been accused of attempted murder. Then I almost died while riding over a bump on a quad bike at f***ing two miles per hour. People ask me how come I'm still alive, and I don't know what to say." Given the fact that he finds it difficult remembering where he put the remote for the TV, and then tries to use his cell phone to change the channels, I can't imagine how he is going to recall episodes of his life from 60 years ago. I'm also not sure that I'm buying the fact that Ozzy is writing this memoir, particularly seeing as it is due to hit shelves this October. They'll probably just give him a copybook and some crayons while they have some ghostwriter type it up using old Kerrang issues as a guide. Then they can tell him he did it and he probably won't know any better...

A one-legged man accused of assaulting another gig goer at an Alice Cooper concert in Southampton last year, has been spared prison time by a judge. Andrew Miller became extremely unruly at the concert last September and assaulted John Lynch, punching him several times, after the latter asked him to calm down. The judge refused to believe Miller's story that he was the victim in the argument, and handed him a six month suspended sentence while ordering him to pay Lynch $375 in damages...

While we're on the subject of malignant one-legged people, Heather Mills, continues to get creepier by the day. The former wife of Paul McCartney recently purchased Redwood Wholefood Company, and intends to promote her own global brand of vegetarian products, which is essentially copying Macca's first wife, Linda McCartney, whose vegetarian food range is one of the most successful in the world. Of all the businesses that she could buy into, Mills chooses the same one as her former husband's dead wife. It must really stick in his craw that this crazy lady is doing all of this with the money she got in the divorce settlement. Mills also caused a furor last week with comments suggesting that journalists who write bad things about her could end up with cancer, which she made during the course of an interview with the Observer newspaper's Food Monthly magazine supplement. She was quoted as saying: "The truth always outs in the end... no one gets away with those things. Certain journalists have written horrible things, and then they've got cancer, or they've had a tumor, or they've died. And it's terrible for them, but they've done really evil things. I truly believe things come back around." If things come back around then this lady is in for some serious trouble later on in this life. Mills has denied making the comment but, given the Observer's impeccable journalistic standards, I'm sure she's just trying to save face. Talk about putting your foot in it...

I read last week where Simon Cowell was having a surprise 50th birthday party held from him in London over the weekend and I was just wondering how in the hell you can have a surprise party for someone when word of it is all over the internet? I was also wondering why he would be having his 50th birthday party in July when his birthday is not until October? Unless it's one of those Freddy Mercury-type affairs that runs for months with midgets carrying around trays of coke on their heads...

James Blunt has refused to grant 'Weird' Al Yankovic permission to release a parody of his utterly, hopelessly unpleasant track, You're Beautiful. Yankovic has apparently already recorded his own take, titled You're Pitiful, but was recently informed that he will not be allowed to put it on an upcoming album, writing on Twitter.com: "In case you were hoping for You're Pitiful to be included on my Essentials collection, sorry, this just in from Blunt's manager: Thanks for your email, but both James and I will never approve this parody to be released on any label." I don't see the problem, it's not like James Blunt has any musical integrity to speak of. Perhaps it's to do with the fact that You're Beautiful already sounds like it's being performed by someone taking the mickey...

Glasvegas are currently trying to clear their schedule so they can enter the studio and begin working on a follow-up to their critically-acclaimed eponymous debut. Front man, James Allen claims that he has already begun working on new tracks, saying: "I've been putting them all down and writing the ideas. I've got a typewriter and it's been quite nice to put down the words and all that. We'll do the demos and then we'll just record at Christmas-time or early January. Hopefully by the time the leaves are grown on the trees and the daffodils are starting to bloom, that's when out second child will be born." A typewriter? What's that about? Why doesn't he just go all out and use a quill? ...

Seeing as it was a rather quiet week on the music front, and simply because I generally don't like the woman, I'll leave you with this joke. See if you can guess who it pertains to. In a remote South African gold mine, a miner was setting dynamite to blast a seam when it exploded taking one of his legs clean off. As he was stretchered out, he was heard to sob "What will happen to me? I have a family to look after, we are very poor... who's ever going to want a one-legged gold digger?" then his mobile phone rings..."Hello? Who? Oh, Sir Paul... what an honor..."