**PHEW!** Dave Gahan had us seriously worried for a minute there…

After being unable to hit the stage in Athens, Depeche Mode resumed their Tour of the Universe in Leipzig on June 8. Thankfully, Dave’s recovery from surgery (removing a bladder tumour) in no way impeded his hip-grinding. Where would we (or Anton Corbijn) be without Martin Gore’s staple silver spandex pants or Dave Gahan’s semi-naked swagger and confident come-catch-me-skipping around stage?

Talk about a return to form too… FIFTY THOUSAND insane fans packed the sold out Zentral Stadium in Leipzig. YouTube is littered with hundreds of incredible HD videos from the night, but I think it’s best to grasp that sheer size and excitement of the crowd from the back of the stadium. Incredible. <3 <3 <3

Read DM’s tour blog (including pics from the Leipzig show)  at www.depechemode.com/tour/tourblog.html

Dave said “I’m grateful to the fans for showing their support and thankful to my family, friends and all of the doctors who looked after me so well… Being back onstage is an incredible feeling and I’m looking forward to each and every show.”

No worries mate… just come to Australia!!!

Exactly what it looks like…

She’ll be on Rove this Sunday night too! A good weekend to watch Lily all over the telly then…

One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.

Australian Artist Bill Luke is one of only a handful of artists in the world who practises ‘decollage’.

The Urban Uprising Art Gallery in Darlinghurst explain Bill’s artform as “works generated from the streets but in a reversal of the usual urban art. Bill stalks the streets at night, tearing down old ad billboards and then starts a very lengthy process of creatively removing layer upon layer until his creations emerge“.

So who’s old street poster turns up within the artwork? Our very own Jackson Jackson.

The Urban Uprising Art Gallery are showcasing Bill Luke’s art from this weekend. I think Jackson Jackson and their fans will get a kick out of seeing this.

If you’re on twitter and not following @Coldplay or @LilyRoseAllen… well, frankly I don’t believe you.

@Coldplay has just hit 1,000,000 followers – more than any twitterati ex-USA – and they’re celebrating right now…

@LilyRoseAllen pulled off a huge twitter hunt around Sydney, giving away 3 pairs of tix yesterday – resulting in serious scuffles and one winner with a broken finger. That’s dedication… The Nova drive team hunted Lily down too, begging her to call in via re-tweets. Obliging Lily gave ‘em their scoop. All the fuss made Lily top dog on the @happn_in_sydney hashtags for the day.

So, it’s not quite Friday yet, but here are your Friday Follows early: @clinicvoot | @LennyKravitz | @SITG | @depechemode | @WinButler (Arcade Fire) | @sebastianbach | @royksopp | @30secondstomars. Go forth!

It’s Lily weeeeek!!!

Our undercover spy Trent (ok, he’s our resident promo expert up north), headed to The Tivoli in Brisbane for the first show of Lily’s massive Australian tour. Sounds like an incredible gig, and I can’t wait to power down the computer & head over to Sydney’s Hordern tonight myself! Here’s the lowdown on the Brissy show:

Monday was the Queen’s birthday public holiday and Brisbane was lucky enough to have the new Queen of cool pop in town, on throne and holding court at The Tivoli.

From the blazing opening light-effects of Everyone’s At It through to all the favourites including LDN, Smile, Not Fair, Oh My God, The Fear, she had the adoring crowd in the palm of her hand. An absolute highlight was F*ck You where everyone in the audience happily followed Lily and held their middle finger proudly in the air supporting her objection to homophobic politicians taking office in the UK.

Her final song for the night (which we’ll not reveal so not to disappoint fans yet to see the show) was not what anyone expected but reassured everyone that Lily delivers better than anyone else.

Lily is up to lots more while she’s in Oz…

On June 10, she’ll be conducting one of her famed twitter hunts to give away tix for her final Sydney show. Follow her on http://twitter.com/lilyroseallen for your very-final-no-more-we-really-swear-this-is-it last chance to land tix… oh and to meet Lily on a sunny Sydney street corner in person.

When she hits Melbs, she’ll be appearing in her fave show, Neighbours! Always so surreal – the Brits just can’t get enough of Ramsey Street…

A David Lynch video and a few words from the mouth (or rather, the typing fingers) of The Maestro Moby:

hi, so, on june 26th i’m releasing my next album, ‘wait for me’.

i recorded the album here in my studio on the lower east side (although ’studio’ always seems like an overly grand word for a bunch of equipment set up in a bedroom). in the past i’ve worked in large and small studios, but for this record i wanted to record everything at home by myself.

i have some friends singing on the record. they’re great singers, but unless you live in fort greene or washington heights you might not know about them, as they’re relatively unknown (working with friends is almost always nicer than working with rockstars).

i started working on the album about a year ago, and the creative impetus behind the record was hearing a david lynch speech at bafta, in the uk.

david was talking about creativity, and to paraphrase, about how creativity in and of itself, and without market pressures, is fine. it seems as if too often an artists or musicians or writers creative output is judged by how well it accommodates the marketplace, and how much market share it commands and how much money it generates.

in making this record i wanted to focus on making something that i loved, without really being concerned about how it might be received by the marketplace. as a result it’s a quieter and more melodic and more mournful and more personal record than some of the records i’ve made in the past. it’s also, for better or worse, all homemade, in that i recorded it at home with my friends and drew the artwork with a black sharpie on copy paper.

Read the rest of this entry »

This just in…

Empire of the Sun to play Parklife 2009! Their first live shows ever… I can already hear the desperate cries from the untold masses of international fans – “what about us!?”

The Parklife Festival tours around lucky Oz from 26 Sept – 5 Oct. Full lineup on the website, but it looks incredible thus far – Junior Boys, Mstrkrft, Lady Sovereign, Crystal Castles, Little Boots, Metric, Tiga, The Rapture, more, more, more… phew!

“Emperor Steele” claims the show will be epic:  “...full of colours, dinosaur-teeth chomping at the valleys of future. It will be more outrageous than the scents of imagination and will take the audience on a journey to another world.” (we can’t quite decipher this, but it sounds not half bad.)

“Lord Littlemore”, who won’t be appearing in the live shows, says that Empire created their music as a celebration and that the live show “is an exciting new chapter in the Empire journey”. (makes slightly more sense)

• Sat 26th Sept: Botanic Gardens and Riverstage, BRISBANE
• Sun 27th Sept 2009 (Long Weekend): Wellington Square, PERTH
• Sat 3rd Oct 2009: Birrarung Marr, MELBOURNE
• Sun 4th Oct 2009 (Long Weekend): Kippax Lake, Moore Park, SYDNEY
• Mon 5th Oct 2009 (Long Weekend): Botanic Park, ADELAIDE

Fuzzy member pre-sale Thursday 18th June.
General tickets on sale midday Thurs 25 June from www.parklife.com.au

This… is… awesome…