September 5, 2012

Damon Albarn having the 'party of his life' after Blur

Before we get to the details, look - Damon Albarn played Gorillaz during his Africa Expres Train tour!




Dailystar reports that Damon Albarn is "having the time of his life thanks to booze from the Olympics". According to recent interviews, the singer is having the ultimate musical party of his life after embarking on an Africa Express Train tour, all around the UK and Scotland.

And with many other prominent musicians, including Jarvis Cocker, Gruff Rhys, Eliza Doolittle, Rizzle Kicks and many African musicians on the train, the Africa Express is indeed a musical riot. 

Party!... from xlrecording's twitter 
Damon peering out of his train of music

Dailystar reports comprehensively: 



“It’s a 24-hour party.

"It’s not necessarily a massive drunken party, but it’s one celebrating music and how it makes us feel.” The final date this Saturday at King’s Cross Granary climaxes the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad Festival.


Damon added: “There’s a bar on the train, it’s booze left over from the Olympics that takes up a few carriages.” Africa Express began in 2006, with Damon wanting it to show the brighter side of the continent. 


He explained: “It reminds people that Africa isn’t the cliché of this struggling place ravaged by war and famine. Those are very big problems there, but it’s also a very exciting continent, futuristic and forward-thinking in many respects.” The gigs, including “some pretty surprising” guest stars on Saturday, are totally unrehearsed. 

Damon laughed: “It’s rhythmical, groove-orientated stuff, so you go into a bit of a trance on stage. “Although, on a bad day, you think: ‘Oh, this is getting a bit boring.’ It’s a fine line. “But that’s what we’re doing on the train, getting inspired together, so hopefully by London we’ll be fairly articulate.”

Last year’s album Rocket To The Moon which Damon made with Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, 49, and drummer Tony Allen, 72, was inspired by them travelling to Lagos for Africa Express. And Damon revealed: “I might well make another record with people on this trip, you never know.

“That’s one of the joys of Africa Express, that spontaneity.”


Could this mean a new album for Damon Albarn after the tour ends?

The Africa Express train tour is currently up in Glasglow, Scotland as of today. It will end in a finale concert on September 8th 2012 in London's Granary Square, King's Cross.

Check out Africa Express's official website with lots of pictures here 

Although tickets were long sold out, do check out The Guardian's live coverage of the entire tour as it goes along. Damon Albarn sure is looking very happy up on his musical train. It is looking to be an excellent tour.

Tune in for a later post with the very best pictures of Africa Express 2012 - the highlights.





Order the new Blur: Parklife (Live at Hyde Park CD / DVD) HERE
Order the new Blur boxset HERE
Blur first ever 2012 gig-  Maida Vale gig full coverage HERE
Blur Exhibition review and photos HERE
Margate Gig (2012) review and pictures HERE
Rumours: Blur still play live after Hyde Park? HERE

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September 4, 2012

Blur features in DIY, Loaded Magazine - August 2012


BLUR NEWS: Blur has been featured on many more magazine and media coverage. Highlights include DIY Magazine, where Blur can be found across four fully coloured editorials on Pages 6-10. Read the magazine here: http://www.thisisfakediy.co.uk/magazine/read/september-2012/

Last month's Loaded Magazine featured Blur on a 6 page cover. There's new / old pics of the band and and an exclusive interview with Alex James. Check out the large scans, awesome Blur union jack logo and some other rare pictures of the band below.

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All scans credited to Agrainel. 

Order the new Blur: Parklife (Live at Hyde Park CD / DVD) HERE
Order the new Blur boxset HERE
Blur first ever 2012 gig-  Maida Vale gig full coverage HERE
Blur Exhibition review and photos HERE
Margate Gig (2012) review and pictures HERE
Rumours: Blur still play live after Hyde Park? HERE

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September 3, 2012

Blur - Hyde Park versus Brit Awards

Quite an interesting comparison - for those who bashed Blur at the Brits for performing poorly... note how the crowd makes or breaks the band.




Order the new Blur: Parklife (Live at Hyde Park CD / DVD) HERE
Order the new Blur boxset HERE
Blur first ever 2012 gig-  Maida Vale gig full coverage HERE
Blur Exhibition review and photos HERE
Margate Gig (2012) review and pictures HERE
Rumours: Blur still play live after Hyde Park? HERE

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September 1, 2012

Alex James' Big Feastival - Music and fine foods galore

Alex James has been continuing with his various, multicoloured side projects since Blur finished their Hyde Park gig (with Damon Albarn saying there are no plans to continue yet).

For those in the UK and are free on September 1st - 2rd, master chef Jamie Oliver is presenting The Big Feastival with Alex James, a colourful two-day celebration of music, food and fun for all the family, set on Alex James’s very own Oxfordshire farm. 

As mentioned on the website, you can "enjoy music from top acts, tuck into top chef demos in the Big Kitchen and have your fill from The Menu, which brings together pop-ups from top restaurants and the cream of the UK’s street food crop."

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Browse the Artisan Food Market for more edible enjoyment from a stunning selection of small producers and food businesses, and between eating, drinking and dancing, join a cookery session, dig a herb garden, raid the dressing-up box or take a spin around the on-site funfair. 

Keep big and little kids happy in the fun-filled Little Dudes Den, where Peppa Pig herself will be among the all-day entertainment highlights – or put them to work in Mini Masterchef and turn them into little Jamies. Go for the day, go camping, or style it out with our glamping options provided by The Pop-Up Hotel – there really is something for everyone.

So, if you want to meet Alex James, or enjoy the music, remember to visit the site for full details of where it iswhat’s on and why you mustn’t miss out on the Feastival. Buy tickets here.


Order the new Blur: Parklife (Live at Hyde Park CD / DVD) HERE
Order the new Blur boxset HERE
Blur first ever 2012 gig-  Maida Vale gig full coverage HERE
Blur Exhibition review and photos HERE
Margate Gig (2012) review and pictures HERE
Rumours: Blur still play live after Hyde Park? HERE

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August 30, 2012

Damon Albarn to put Blur aside for now

According to a recent report by Total Essex, Damon Albarn dismissed the 'this-is-all-over' Blur talk that was all over the media before and after Hyde Park 2012. 


On Hyde Park, Damon Albarn was patriotic and very proud to be British: "It was brilliant really. The whole thing was very special. What an extraordinary couple of weeks it's been. The whole Olympics has been brilliant – a tonic for the whole country – and it was an honour to be a part of that.


"I love this country and I love this city. London is our city and I live just round the corner from Hyde Park so when I was given the invitation to do the gig, I jumped at it really."


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"I think they are both strong Blur tunes – both sides of Blur really. We wanted to prove that we are still evolving because we have never stood still," said Damon on the new Blur songs.
"The world is a different place – almost unrecognisable – to when we started and the times when Blur fully existed and so are we. That's the whole point.
So what's in for the future? 

"Yes, It's a full stop for now because we've all got other stuff going on – Graham has another solo album due out, Dave is busy with politics and being a lawyer and Alex is combining making cheese and running a farm with his life as a media whore while the African Express sets off round the country this week – but to say it's 'The End', that's not true at all."

There's also a secret - Damon also remarked: "We've talked about it privately and I have my own idea of a scenario but it probably won't be that either because you can't be that clear about such things because you just don't know."

So, 21 years later and the vision is still no clearer than ever. Yes Blur or No Blur, it's still a blurred future. 
Check out Alex James' funny Hyde Park interview about Olympics, crying before the show, closing the show, Blur, Blur being shit and Usain Bolt below. He talks about Blur's fitness levels, Terry Hall and other hilarious little anecdotes. 

All we want to know is - what exactly did Blur discuss about that they can't tell us ? 


Order the new Blur: Parklife (Live at Hyde Park CD / DVD) HERE
Order the new Blur boxset HERE
Blur first ever 2012 gig-  Maida Vale gig full coverage HERE
Blur Exhibition review and photos HERE
Margate Gig (2012) review and pictures HERE
Rumours: Blur still play live after Hyde Park? HERE

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August 29, 2012

Graham Coxon - A new album to be out in 2013

Graham Coxon has revealed that there will be a new solo album out some time next year. His latest, A+E, was his seventh solo work after leaving for Blur's Think Tank.

The guitarist posted several cryptic tweets on his official Twitter page with revealing pictures of various body parts. When someone asked, he said that these were hints as to the name of his new solo album. Given the short time of announcement, it is likely to say that the new record will be out some time in January or early 2013.

graham coxon arm, graham coxon glasses, graham coxon hands, graham coxon twitter
"Yes Clues" says the next mysterious tweet
graham coxon arm, a+e, graham coxon knees, graham coxon glasses, graham coxon hands, graham coxon twitter
Ankle ? Knees ? 
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Who's a Graham Coxon Fan ? 

For you Graham Coxon fans, this is exciting and great news. New album out soon in 2013! We all could do with something new. Since the Olympics closing ceremony and it's grand Blur gig, some may feel like it's a Blur slump after the climatic return. 
So here's the riddle:


If A+E = A Knee
Elbow / ankle = ?


Order the new Blur: Parklife (Live at Hyde Park CD / DVD) HERE
Order the new Blur boxset HERE
Blur first ever 2012 gig-  Maida Vale gig full coverage HERE
Blur Exhibition review and photos HERE
Margate Gig (2012) review and pictures HERE
Rumours: Blur still play live after Hyde Park? HERE

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August 27, 2012

Damon Albarn hops abroad train for next big tour - Africa Express live

Damon Albarn's moving on after Blur, and he's moved on fast. The front-man literally jumped abroad a fast moving, speedy train and hired all his fellow musicians to create a massive Africa Express tour extravagance. Damon Albarn's Africa Express will be playing from September 3rd 2012 to September 8th 2012

Led by Damon, Africa Express brings together musicians from different cultures, genres and generations to break boundaries and offer a new perspective on Africa and its music.

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Moreover, there's a train set involved in all this. And it's not unlike the train from the cover of Blur's 'Modern Life is Rubbish' album. Africa Express, the collective of African and Western musicians, is filling a moving train with many guest artists and collaborators and taking it on a musical adventure across mainland Britain this September, produced in association with the Barbican as part of London 2012 Festival.

Africa Express will become ‘The Africa Express’, departing London’s King’s Cross on 2nd September for a unique musical tour journey passing through England (Bristol, Cardiff and more), Scotland and Wales.

So what we all want to know is - Who's playing in this musical show? 

Damon Albarn, Tony Allen, Amadou & Mariam, Baaba Maal, Baloji, Carl Barât, Bassekou Kouyate, Hatim Bensalha (H-Kayne), Afel Bocoum, Charli XCX, Toumani Diabate, Fatoumata Diawara, Nicolas Jaar, Jack Steadman (Bombay Bicycle Club), Jupiter & Okwess International, Kano, Krar Collective, Kyla La Grange

M1 (Dead Prez), M.anifest, Spoek Mathambo, John McClure (Reverend and the Makers), Noisettes, Nneka, The Temper Trap, Marques Toliver, Rokia Traoré, The Very Best (Soundsystem), Rizzle Kicks and Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs 

Check out some scans (credits to Shelley) of Damon's recent Africa Express interview, dated August 26th 2012 from The Guardian, below.






Check out the times and dates for Africa Express, and buy your tickets here.


Order the new Blur: Parklife (Live at Hyde Park CD / DVD) HERE
Order the new Blur boxset HERE
Blur first ever 2012 gig-  Maida Vale gig full coverage HERE
Blur Exhibition review and photos HERE
Margate Gig (2012) review and pictures HERE
Rumours: Blur still play live after Hyde Park? HERE

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August 25, 2012

Charting Britain's love affair with Blur (Special Story)


Britain and Blur – Falling In and Out of Love For 21 Years 

This guest post is by pop/ music culture blog Pop Lifer, who recently featured a 5-installment long tribute to Blur contribution to music and it's tumultuous relationship with Britain. 

Inspired by Blur’s victory-lap appearance at Hyde Park two weeks ago – which showed the shabby official Olympic Closing Ceremony what a Symphony of British Music should sound like – the Pop Lifer blog has been running a series of blogs on the band, and Britain’s 21 year, on/off love affair with them. As two thirtysomethings whose teens and tweens were soundtracked by Blur, this is a subject close to our hearts and we’re grateful to the brilliant BlurBalls for a chance to share our own personal reflections.

Having charted the band’s tricky early years from “Leisure” time to near commercial oblivion  the double-edged sword of “Parklife” and “The Great Escape” and the fascinating final three albums, we now move onto what happened next.

“There were no rows” Graham Coxon said when he left Blur in 2002, in the middle of the troubled “Think Tank” recordings in Morocco. This was both magnaminous and unlikely, given the combustible personalities involved. Indeed, looking back on Blur’s career, it seems obvious that Blur have been in various states of war from the very beginning, that their career has been one long and confusing battle.

blur relationship, blur group pic, blur hyde park 2012, blur picture, blur band picture, blur group shot, blur damon albarnFirst there’d been the war for attention (achieved with “Leisure”) and then the war against irrelevance, commercial oblivion and the glam wrecking crew called Suede. Then came the war for total cultural ubiquity (achieved through “Parklife” and the Britpop area), which they won, and the war against Oasis, which they lost. Finally the war turned into a civil war, with their final three albums increasingly a fascinating tussle between the increasingly independent Coxon and Albarn, with the former finally exiting. 

After “Think Tank” the band staggered on for a while. The live shows were smaller than they had been – both Pop Lifer writers were present for one at Brixton Academy – and for all the joys this intimacy could create, the absence of Coxon left Blur looking like a maimed band.

Each of the members drifted on to new projects so disparate that it increasingly seemed like a miracle the band had ever managed to share the same stage at all. Damon’s Gorillaz provided enough commercial affirmation for even his ego, while other side projects like The Good, The Bad and The Queen found an outlet for his increasingly melancholic, reflective songwriting. Coxon seemed to enjoy his solo records as well as the smaller scale success that had escaped him in Blur, Dave showed a perverse interest in politics and Alex turned his attention to cheese, with some relish.

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Damon's goes onto creating the successful Gorillaz - and went Bananaz

And then something strange happened. Slowly but surely, music critics and fans alike began to wake up to the fact that there was a gaping, Blur-sized hole in British music. It became obvious that history was winning all of Blur’s wars for them, without them having to raise a finger or a pistol. Suede had long ago faded into a ghastly parody of themselves before calling it a day (and if Damon ever needed comfort during dark nights of the soul, Brett Anderson’s solo records would surely have brought the laughter back). 

As for Oasis, they had degenerated into such a generic, repetitive caricature that only the doggedly loyal didn’t want the Gallaghers to finally have an argument big enough to make them leave the rest of us alone.

But most of all, it was obvious that there was no other new band with half the depth and range that Blur could command at their best. Franz Ferdinand could do the choppy guitar pop with aplomb, but couldn’t make the leap to songs as complex and moving as “This Is A Low”, while the Kaiser Chiefs could provide the knees-up entertainment but were incapable of such effortless loveliness as “Out Of Time”. As for Kasabian, well, they had their place, but it wasn’t Blur’s.


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Pals again - Brit Awards 2011 saw Noel and Damon mend their grudges

In 2009, after a few false starts, Blur again decided to give Britain what it wanted. Usually news of a band reforming is met with sneers, shrugs or cynicism – but Blur couldn’t be accused of needing the money, and the announcement of new live shows was met with a jubilation that may have surprised even Albarn. And so, for perhaps the first time in their career, the band lived up to expectations with ease.

The word’s “triumphant return” have become two of the most devalued in all music journalism, but they fit Blur’s 2009 Hyde Park shows like a glove. Over a 100,000 people flocked to the centre of London over two nights representing, if the clothes and hairstyles were anything to go by, fans from every Blur period. There were Fred Perryd Parklifers, sharply suited Modern Lifers, scruffily hip 13ers and even a few baggy old men of the Leisure class. If most were thirtysomethings whose teens and twenties had been soundtracked by Blur, there were also a huge contingent of kids who hadn’t been born when “There Is No Other Way” hit the top ten.


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Damon Albarn in Denmark, August 2012, Smukfest warm up

The set list touched on every album they’d ever done, from “Leisure” through to “Think Tank”, saw a band finally unified. It showed a band who could happily indulge in the pop romp of “Parklife”, but also give space to the more esoteric “Oily Water”, who could all take their moments in the limelight for “Tender” or who could be a springboard for Albarn’s hyperactive frontmanship on “Girls And Boys”. It showed a band who could be scuzzily furious (“Popscene”) or shamelessly, utterly beautiful (“For Tomorrow”), and every shade in between. It revealed Britain’s most complex, most versatile, most beautiful band in short, as did this year’s Hyde Park reunion reunion, in spite of the now famous sound problems.

Looking back over their 21 years it seems obvious that even when Blur claimed to know exactly what they were doing and where they were going, they never really did. Or, even if they did, there were some of them didn’t want to go there. So the contradictory statements since the big Hyde Park show, with some members suggesting Blur are finally done and others suggesting that there might be a future after all, are entirely in keeping with the band’s restless, contradictory nature. So yes, there could be more shows and there could be another album. With this amazing band it really, really, really could happen… but it might not.

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It really, really could happen - Blur on Primrose Hill and it's (now removed) graffiti 

And if not, if Blur have no distance left to run, we still have something quite extraordinary: the Blur songbook. Because one other thing has become obvious. Blur have probably not produced a perfect album. Every one of them has been bedevilled by lapses into the obvious or the obstinate, glibness or grumpiness. 

But they do have, overall, one of the best, most glittering back catalogues in all of our pop history. They won the only war that has ever mattered, the one for greatness, and they have earnt our love.
The full version of blurblog 5, the final part in our blur marathon can be read hereblurblog 1, on Hyde Park and how Blur have become a central part of our pop life is hereblurblog 2 on the tricky early years is here , blurblog 3 on the triumph of Parklife, and the cracks beginning to reveal themselves in the Great Escape here and blurblog 4 on Blur to Think Tank here.


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