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Cult Rock Posters 1972-1982 by Roger Crimlis and Alwyn Turner is due to be published on Monday September 25.

The launch will be followed by a small exhibition of rock & roll posters at Bamalama Posters, 55 Leather Lane, London EC1N 7JT from Thursday, September 28th until October 20th.

From the label’s description:

Dario Marianelli’s riveting score is the emotional bedrock for V For Vendetta, a futuristic thriller starring Natalie Portman (Star Wars Episode I, Closer) as Evey who falls under the spell of, a charismatic masked vigilante known only as “V” played by Hugo Weaving (veteran of all three Matrix and Lord Of The Rings) films. It is a race against time as police detective Stephen Rea (The Crying Game) tries to stop V before he follows through with his threat to bomb Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Based upon characters appearing in the best selling graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, V For Vendetta deals with the timely subjects of terrorism, government corruption and loss of rights, V For Vendetta is certain to become one of the most watched and talked about films of the year.

V For Vendetta takes place in the year 2020 where the ominous atmosphere of government oppression has forced a handful of citizens to risk death by protectively hiding many banned cultural artifacts. “V” is one such individual, and among his treasures is a jukebox. Three of these banned musical treasures (Julie London’s breathy classic “Cry Me A River,” “Bird Gerhl” from the critically acclaimed Antony And The Johnsons and Cat Power’s slinky cover of the Lou Reed song “I Found A Reason”) are also featured on the soundtrack CD.

As mentioned elsewhere, Matthew Barney’s collaberation with Björk, Drawing Restraint 9, is to get a (probably very limited) US theatrical release, courtesy of IFC Films.

But if you didn’t get to see the film, you can, at least, enjoy the soundtrack.

A soundtrack composed by Björk with minimal vocals for celebrated contemporary visual artist Matthew Barney’s next film Drawing restraint 9, in which she also appears. This is a collection of delicate single instrument studies, for harp, harpsichord and celeste, large orchestral masses scored for trumpet, trombone and oboe, electronic basslines, children’s choir and, in a manner recalling the all-vocal Medulla album, Björk’s singular voice, treated as an instrument of astonishingly flexible texture.

Long before Katrina and tsunami relief, Live 8 and Live AID, former Beatle George Harrison assembled an all-star concert that cast the mould for celebrity charity.

The 1971 concert in New York’s Madison Square Garden featured Harrison, fellow Beatle Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Leon Russell, Billy Preston and sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar, Harrison’s Indian music mentor.

The pair of shows, one afternoon and one evening, benefited UNICEF and raised $250,000 (140,000 pounds) from ticket sales alone. While that may seem a small sum compared to tens of millions raised for Katrina relief or in the Live 8 concerts to raise awareness of poverty in Africa, it was a huge amount at the time.

All the performers worked for free to aid refugees from Bangladesh, the former East Pakistan, who fled into India to escape political strife. They suffered from starvation and disease in the process.

And with a new DVD and remixed songs, The Concert for Bangladesh is raising money again.

Shatner sings again!

Captain James T. Kirk is attempting to revive his pop career again. 35 years after his last attempt, The Transformed Man, was released (and it’s being re-released on Monday), he has gone and recorded a follow up.

The amusingly titled Has Been is out now and you can click here to hear Shatner’s unique rendition Pulp’s Common People.

Remember Transvision Vamp - The pop-punk band fronted by Wendy James that burst onto the music scene in 1988 with the boisterously catchy I Want Your Love?

And - of course - their first album, Pop Art, included the song Hanging out with Halo Jones which made hem an instant favourote of mine, for some reason.

Well, now Wendy James is back.

Following the bands split in 1991, James moved from London to New York, learned to play every instrument she could lay her hands on and started recording as Racine - which is the name of a drag strip in Chicago and also means “roots” in French.

And Racine’s first album, Number 1 is now available.

I heard about Kasabian via The Independent, of all places. But lines like…

“Rock’n'roll lost its imagination and electronica had no soul, so we married the two together,” explains the songwriter Sergio Pizzorno, before struggling to spit out the word “innovation” to some laughter from his bandmates. “If you can sing a song with an acoustic guitar, then it’s a song, but it’s up to you to see how far you can take it,” he adds, referring to Kasabian’s open-ended recording methods, where each member might play any instrument, just like Primal Scream (”Old rockers, aren’t they?”).

and

Catchy singles such as “Reason Is Treason”, “Club Foot” and the soon-to-be-reissued “Processed Beats” have been well received, but the band’s image has been skilfully manipulated, with impressive graphics and the occasional inspired video. The clip for “Club Foot”, filmed in an old army base in Budapest, managed to conflate Cold War dissidence with the ancient rock-as-an-opposition-force thing. But it looked good, and even ended with a dedication to Jan Palach, the Czech philosophy student who immolated himself in protest at the Soviet invasion of 1968.

… piqued my interest enough to pop over to Amazon and was it worth it or was it worth it. These lads are incredible.

Songs like Club Foot, Processed Beats, Reason is Treason and L.S.F. are catchy, uptempo and damn good.

The dual disk DVD/CD also has the videos for Reason is Treason (which is spectaclarly surreal), Club Foot and L.S.F. (which I enjoyed for all the obvious reasons) as well as a couple of ‘Making Of…’ videos and a short film.

All in all, Kasabian are a great band with a great first album to their name.

I laid my hands on the latest album from Swedish punks, The Hives last Thursday and have been listening to it incessantly ever since.

I’m no music reviewer, so I’m not goint to try. Instead, here’s what Amazon said:

Refreshingly though, even under the yoke of a major label, the Hives play their rock & roll like a fuse burning short. “Abra Cadaver” is a two-minute blast of Stooges worship that joyfully confirms the band’s pledge to straight-up garage–and intriguingly, it finds lead singer Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist sounding more like the Strokes’ Julian Casablancas than ever, albeit Casablancas with blood on his shoes and skin under his fingernails. Meanwhile, there’s myriad moments where the Hives demonstrate themselves to be far more than a boozy bar-band: “No Pun Intended”, which wields a curious complex chord progression you’d perhaps expect from Fugazi, or “Diabolic Scheme” a taut, mid-paced number bedecked with stabbing violin sweeps straight out of a Hammer horror.

The Hives are such a wonderfully over the top antidote to the self important blandness that infects most modern pop and rock that I’d probably love them on principle. It’s a huge bonus, therefore, that their music is so listenable.

September 20th 2004 marks the Quarter Century of unarguably one of the greatest albums of all time. The Clash and London Calling constantly receive accolades from the media, industry and music buyers alike and this, the bands 3rd album is regarded as a groundbreaking masterpiece by many.

This deluxe edition, in digipak, with full-colour booklet and slipcase cover, includes the original album and a second CD of material found by Mick Jones–including all the album tracks plus 2 bonus tracks that did not feature on final album–”Lonesome Me” and a cover of Dylan’s “The Man In Me”. The bonus DVD includes 32 min doc, directed by Don Letts, and previously unseen footage of the band during recording of the album at Wessex Studios. A booklet includes previously unseen photographs by legendary rock photographer Pennie Smith.

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