Damon Albarn's new composition to hit BBC airwaves

Damon Albarn's newest composition, named "2LO London Calling" has hit the airwaves across 55 BBC Radio stations globally at 5:33pm , on Wednesday, November 14th 2012.  The new song has played across national radio, World Service and the local UK radio stations to mark the 90th anniversary of the BBC yesterday.

Damon created a comissioned musical collage for this special event. It was a mixture of soundbites of radio listeners from all ages all across the UK. More information was revealed via The Guardian's feature:

Albarn's creation, called 2LO London Calling (named after the original 2LO transmitter) is an unconventional affair, featuring Big Ben, bird song and a quote from philosopher Bertrand Russell, relayed in morse code.

It will also feature excerpts from the original broadcast on 14 November 1922 as well as the Greenwich Time Signal "pips".

The broadcast will be "hosted" by Radio 2 DJ Simon Mayo during his drivetime show, live from the Science Museum in west London.

The one-off broadcast, the first time such a wide-ranging simulcast has been attempted by the BBC, could be heard by an estimated 80 million listeners around the world. 

Listen below for Damon Albarn's new song debut. It is an interesting piece of audio, and sounds like a mixture of messages from across the times.

After all, the estimated audience worldwide for the stream was 120 million and each has heard Damon Albarn's 3 minute composition. We particularly liked the ending when music started and the speaking stopped.

Listen and watch the full Damon Albarn interview about his project, inspiration, process and excerpt from the special radio program below. He explains how he tried to collate the soundbites and what it means for him. He even talked a little about Nigeria and his feelings on each sound on the track.

Blur for Spain and Portugal  HERE

Blur confirmed for Poland HERE

Blur Europe Tour News  HERE

Order the new Blur: Parklife (Live at Hyde Park CD / DVD) HERE

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Dave Rowntree to DJ in London - Death2Disco November

Dave Rowntree is set to DJ in a London club, the Notting Hill Arts Club, on the 14th November 2012.

The promotional flyer for this special night writes that there will be a very special guest DJ called 'Dark Destroyer' from Blur - and it is none other than Dave Rowntree who is the man behind the name.

Dave is also DJing in Madrid, Spain on the 17th November. It looks like the drummer's hectic schedule of being a lawyer, drummer and now DJ means he has to fly to and from England! Read the feature here to get the details.

Check out Death2Disco's official Facebook page for more details and for those Blur fans in London this week, make sure you RSPV for the party and a chance to meet the one and only Dave Rowntree (from 7pm - 2am) by clicking here.

* Dave will start at around 11:00pm 

Blur for Spain and Portugal  HERE

Blur confirmed for Poland HERE

Blur Europe Tour News  HERE

Order the new Blur: Parklife (Live at Hyde Park CD / DVD) HERE

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If you missed old news, visit the NEWS ARCHIVE to read about past news!

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Watch Alex James and Phil Daniels on Pointless Celebrities

Alex James and Phil Daniels appeared on the TV show 'Pointless Celebrities', a game show which aired on November 10th 2012. Watch to learn whether the twosome had enough musical knowledge to win the game.

Fun Blur fact of the week:

 'Song 2' was blasted all across the grounds for the Tennis tournament - ATP Finals Week - in London this week. 

Graham Coxon Interview - November 2012

Graham Coxon was interviewed by Roland UK recently and he had more to say about Blur's Hyde Park Olympics closing ceremony gig from August 2012. The Blur guitarist explains his "madness", creativity, artistic inspirations and reveals what bands he is currently listening to.

Graham also answered some questions about Blur and their recent gigs. He said that the band were "pretty hyper" and that they were glad to prove to everyone that they were not "old clapped out gits". So much for Graham Coxon's idiosyncratic style of speech!

The excerpts about Blur, taken from the original interview (by Jamie Franklin), were:

How do you feel about your Olympics gig with Blur? I feel fine. I feel like it’s about five years away. We haven’t even rehearsed yet so it feels like it’s not for ages.

Do you really need to rehearse? We’ve got to be good haven’t we?! We’ve got to give ourselves the best chance to be good. It’s important for me to know what I’m doing and not play bum notes – not that I often get bum notes these days – and to play at the best of my abilities. I don’t want to feel like I didn’t give it everything.

The Glastonbury and Hyde Park gigs were amazing. What’s it like for you playing these huge gigs? It’s a pleasure to play gigs on that scale. Technology’s moved on such a long way since we were first playing. The sound was louder, the speakers were smaller and the sound onstage was phenomenal. The equipment is incredible now. When you have a nice guitar, a nice amp and you have thousands of people watching you, it doesn’t get much better. [At Glastonbury] It was mental – I thought we were playing better that we ever did.

Picture credited to Essy Syed

Did you feel like you have anything to prove? A little bit. Blur requires a hell of a lot of commitment and energy so I was happy that we could do those shows and do them justice, and not look like old clapped out gits. That’s what Blur performances have always been about – taking us to the edge of exhausting ourselves. We’re all pretty hyper.

At Hyde Park I saw you do a backwards roll whilst playing a riff and you didn’t miss a note. I don’t even think I can do a backwards roll, let alone play guitar while doing it…

(Laughs) You just saw the one that went OK! There have been 50 times before where I ended up flat on my face with a broken headstock on my guitar. It’s always a risk. Yeah, but sod it. Most of my guitars have been broken anyway. My favourite SG was broken before I even played it at a gig, thanks to British Airways.

Last month, Graham Coxon just missed out being nominated on the Mercury Music Prize 2012. He also kept busy with a 4-track collaboration with British rapper Example and is rumoured to be making a new album for release next year. 

Check out the full interview by Roland UK Blog to read all about what Graham Coxon is up to these days, what bands he is currently liking and more technical talk, random musings and guitar chit chat.  

Blur for Spain and Portugal  HERE

Blur confirmed for Poland HERE

Blur Europe Tour News  HERE

Order the new Blur: Parklife (Live at Hyde Park CD / DVD) HERE

SUBSCRIBE NOW!

If you missed old news, visit the NEWS ARCHIVE to read about past news!

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