Well, the beautiful beautiful thing that is Glastonbury Festival is over for another year. The sun was uncharacteristically, um… out, and the incredible line-up were out in full force celebrating the UK festival’s 40th birthday!
Our fellow In Sounder Sarah attended, so we’ll hopefully have a full Glasto report coming from her soon (unless we’ve lost her to the stone circle and herbal highs tent). Stay tuned!
In the meantime, please check these Gorillaz and Empire of the Sun clips because they are utterly epic! Damon Is God, ya dig?
Snoop & the band absolutley kiiiiiilling Clint Eastwood
Lou Reed! Lou Reed! Lou Reed!
The legendary Mark E. Smith giving Damon a soundgasm
We all saw Stylo, the first video from the Gorillaz album Plastic Beach starring none other than the animated Gorillaz and Bruce Willis. Remember how their Chevrolet Camaro crashed into the ocean, conveniently transforming into a shark submarine?
The saga picks up where we left off the next installation, On Melancholy Hill. Murdoc, 2D, and Cyborg Noodle travel though the deep blue waters of the South Pacific in their shark/submarine/car/inexplicable-feat-of-engineering, meeting up with fellow underwater adventurers Lou Reed, De La Soul, Gruff Rhys, Mick Jones and Paul Simonon from The Clash, and Snoop.
Original Gorillaz band members Russell and the real-flesh Noodle (she’s alive!) reappear as the whole posse make their way to the mystical Plastic Beach. I could tell you more, but Murdoc does a far better job explaining his experience first hand here.
The incredible video was yet again created by the very talented Jamie Hewlett and his team, and is available for download on iTunes now, whilst the single is released on July 23.
iTunes will be the first to show the world the new Gorillaz for On Melancholy Hill video on June 15 from the guys album Plastic Beach.
For a preview of the video check out the below… could that be the real Noodle (as opposed to Cyborg Noodle) under that mask?
Looks like her work!
Also the “real” leader of the Gorillaz, Murdoc, spoke to the Hot30 team on Monday… catch his funny (even a little bit flirty!) interview on the Hot 30 podcast.
You may have heard about Cyborg Noodle and witnessed her getting shot in the Stylo video and short circuiting but what’s the story and how was she made? When Murdoc decided to it was time to re-assemble the Gorillaz band to record Plastic Beach, Noodle was gone, feared killed in the catastrophe epic El Manana video… cast your mind back.
El Manana by Gorillaz
No problemo. Murdoc had scraped up remnants of Noodle’s DNA from the El Manana crash site a long while back and had these shipped over to Plastic Beach by stork. Using cunning and ingenuity he creates a Noodle Cyborg, an android replica of his previous Gorillaz compadre! A fully operational life-sized Robot Noodle, the world’s premier guitarist! You can see some of the making of right here:
UK music journo Sasha Perera was fortunate enough to be at the Gorillaz gig on the 30th at the London’s Roundhouse this weekend and has kindly written a review for us to, well, make us all jealous really!
Gorillaz LIVE – Roundhouse, London – 30th April 2010
Hands down, the hottest gig ticket in London this year; Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s “virtual band” followed up their heralded US Coachella festival appearance with two sold-out shows on home turf in London town, and triumphantly reinforced their audio/visual onslaught with maximum effect. It’s been nine years since Gorillaz played to London audiences, and the expectant and ebullient audience were certainly treated to affair to remember. A two-hour bonanza of musical entertainment boasting a stacked deck of outstanding collaborators and musicians, overlooked by a giant video screen with interactive, animated visuals.
Stage set, the musical expedition of musicians included around 20 people on stage – ranging from horn sections, string sections, backing vocalists, the Gorillaz live band featuring Albarn, and Mick Jones and Paul Simonon of The Clash, and later, even joined by a section of the Syrian National Orchestra (who performed an interlude and a great revisit of the album track White Flag, alongside rappers Bashy and Kano). Kicking off the musical voyage and nautical theme, a fully resplendent Admiral Snoop Dogg set sail via some videoscreen interplay welcoming audiences to the world of the plastic beach, before Albarn took centre-stage to navigate proceedings with his own crowd-pleasing performances on the likes of Last Living Souls and Oh Green World.
Tomorrow, MTV will be streaming a Gorillaz gig from the Roundhouse in London… cool huh!?
To celebrate the release of their critically-acclaimed album Plastic BeachMTV.com.au will be streaming Gorillaz sold-out Camden performance around the world on Saturday, April 31 @ 7am (AEST).
With their new offering being hailed “a mind-bending feast for the ears” by critics, the performance, which will be teeming with dazzling video animation and artwork by Jamie Hewlett, promises to be typically brilliant and like nothing you’ve ever seen!
Check these out these for a sneak peak at what you can expect from their recent appearance on the fabulous Jools Holland show:
Gorillaz closed this year’s Coachella and the reviews have of course been incredible! Murdoc Niccals, 2D and Cyborg Noodle were supported by real life artists such as Clash members Mick Jones and Paul Simonon, Little Dragon, De La Soul, Bobby Womack and of course mastermind Damon Albarn.
BOY OH BOY how we wish we were there, me hearties – fingers & toes crossed those tour rumours come true, and the band of misfits & miscreants make it over to Oz sometime very very sooooon!!
Check out the beautiful On Melancholy Hill:
The gorgeous To Binge with Little Dragon (red-blooded girls the office over are imagining Damon singing just like that to us…sigh!!)
And, of course, epic & awesome favourite Feel Good Inc:
Just amazing. If everyone collectively wishes on a star tonight, the unbelievable Gorillaz live show might just make it to our shores! In fact, I’m gonna go put a note in a bottle and send it off via the Pacific Ocean to Plastic Beach. “Dear Murdoc…”
Sign up to the Gorillaz G – Club for 12months, which will set you back under $50, and you get special stuff like access to play some of the game Escape From Plastic Beach, a model of the car used in the Stylo video (most of the guys in our office signed up for that alone!) AND the chance to buy tix to exclusive gigs like this soundcheck party recently held in London.
Stylo
Superfast Jellyfish
Mind you the person that held this camera mustn’t have seen much of the show – they seem to have filmed everything! I hope they come out here!
Off the back of their #1 album Plastic Beach and the amazing Stylo video featuring Bruce Willis, the Gorillaz have released a game Escape to Plastic Beach. It’s a multi-level, multi-format game that takes you on a journey to the Gorillaz headquarters on Plastic Beach. The game also includes an MP3 download of the single Superfast Jellyfish currently getting huge airplay on triple j and Nova (thanks guys!)
Escape to Plastic Beach starts by recreating the events from the Stylo music video in a free-to-play 2D online game that sees Murdoc, singer 2D and Cyborg Noodle on their journey from the mainland to Plastic Beach. It continues underwater with Murdoc’s daring underwater rescue of the band, and then beyond taking you direct to Plastic Beach HQ in a challenging 8 level 3D pay-to-play game
Those of you who have bought the CD/DVD Experience edition of Plastic Beach had an exclusive preview of the 3D gliding game chapter as part of the extra content offered via the CD (see below)
CD/DVD Experience buyers will also be able to access the entire game in full, for free via their copy of Plastic Beach. Players can also save their high scores in the members area of Gorillaz.com.
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