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The NME Awards happened last night. Here are the results:

• God Like Geniuses Award – Manic Street Preachers
• Best British Band – Arctic Monkeys
• Best International Band – The Killers
• Best Solo Artist – Kate Nash
• Best Live Band – Muse
• Best New Band – The Enemy
• Best Album – Klaxons – Myths of the Near Future
• Best Track – Arctic Monkeys – “Fluorescent Adolescent”
• Best Dancefloor Filler – The Wombats – “Let’s Dance to Joy Division”
• Best Video – Arctic Monkeys – “Teddy Picker”
• Best Music DVD – Nirvana – MTV Unplugged in New York
• Best Live Event – Carling Weekend: Reading and Leeds Festivals
• Best TV Show – The Mighty Boosh
• Best Radio Show – Zane Lowe (BBC Radio 1)
• Best Film – Control
• Sexiest Woman – Kylie Minogue
• Sexiest Man – Noel Fielding
• Worst Album – Britney Spears – Blackout
• Worst Band – The Hoosiers
• Best Dressed – Noel Fielding
• Worst Dressed – Amy Winehouse
• Hero of the year – Pete Doherty
• Villain of the Year – George Bush
• Best Live Venue – Wembley Stadium
• Best Website (excluding NME.com) – Facebook
• John Peel Award For Musical Innovation – Radiohead
• Phillip Hall Radar Award – Glasvegas

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Saturday 14th June promises a banging line up of top drummers at London’s ExCel venue.

Presented by REMO, the night is also supported by top drum and cymbal companies such as DW, Zildjian, Pearl, Sabian, Gretsch, and Paiste to name a few. The night will bring the drumming community together with up to 16 top name, world class drummers performing with a band of session musicians.

The event is to celebrate the many hits that the collection of drummers has achieved over the years in support of the teenage cancer trust.

Names of the performers are to be confirmed, we can only hope we might see the likes of Thomas lang or Dennis Chamber’s. With the top name brands I think it’s worth getting your hopes up ; )

See you there!

For further information go to: www.remo.com

How is it that in this day and age Maxim can assign a star rating to it–without actually listening the album?

The review of Warpaint–the new album by The Black Crowes in the March issue of Maxim. The writer who has not listened to the album since advance CDs were not made available wrote what appears to be an offensive assessment anyway, quoting “it hasn’t left Chris Robinson and the gang much room for growth.”

The magazine gave the album a two and a half star rating although the writer nor the editor could have heard more than one song (the single “Goodbye Daughters of the Revolution”).

When questioned for an explanation, the magazine described the review as “an educated guess preview.” which is pretty poor.

Black Crowes manager Pete Angelus said, “Maxim’s actions seem to completely lack journalistic integrity and intentionally mislead their readership. When confronted with the fact that they never heard the album they are claiming to ‘review’ in their music section–with a star rating, no less–they attempt to explain that it was an ‘educated guess.’ In an email correspondence, Maxim went on to state: ‘Of course, we always prefer to (sic) hearing music, but sometimes there are big albums that we don’t want to ignore that aren’t available to hear, which is what happened with the Crowes. It’s either an educated guess preview or no coverage at all, so in this case we chose the former.’”

Angelus also stated, “It speaks directly to the lack of the publication’s credibility. In my opinion, it’s a disgrace to the arts, journalism, critics, the publication itself and the public. What’s next–Maxim’s concert reviews of shows they never attended, book reviews of books never read and film reviews of films never seen?”

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The US10 Ukulele is an the entry level Ukulele from Stagg. It retails at £15.99, though it’s available from PlayRecord.Net at a big discount.

First impressions upon opening the box are this Ukulele is not a toy, as the £15.99 price tag would suggest. It looks like a proper little instrument.

Buy the US10 Ukulele from PlayRecord.Net

The headstock is well finished sporting the Stagg logo, the biggest surprise being the machine heads. They are actually machine heads and not just pegs in the headstock as is usually the case with Ukuleles at this price, these are open, geared units with a reasonably smooth action.

Looking further down the instrument we get to the fret board. There are 12 frets all reasonably well finished with dot markers at the 5^th 7^th and 10^th frets.

The action is 2mm at the highest point, which is very forgiving for large and little fingers alike. Which is useful as this instrument is clearly aimed at beginners.

The Body is by far the best feature of this Ukulele. It’s seamless and has a lovely paint job. The finish itself is a rich matt mahogany that is totally consistent over the entire body.

Looking in the sound hole you can see the struts are all held in place with glue and all look well secured.

The Bridge is glued to the body, thought there is no visible glue and the strings are secured into the bridge with a simple knot.

Sound wise the US10 delivers a warm and very adequate sound for an instrument of this price, The strings stay in tune after an initial stretch and the instrument plays consistently well all the way up the fretboard.

Altogether this Ukulele is a fantastic little instrument for a snip over a tenner! It would be rude not to buy one at this price, if you are a complete beginner or even a guitarist who needs to broaden their horizons with a suitcase friendly instrument. Oh and I forgot to mention, it comes in a little gig bag! fantastic.

You can buy the Stagg US10 Ukulele from PlayRecord.Net at the Best Price.

For those of you who like to lift the veil on music and our understanding of it, you might fancy sourcing a copy of the latest issue of New Scientist magazine as they are doing a music special for this month. If you don’t fancy shelling out then you can see one of the articles for free on their web site here.

They are running a few music related articles with the following titles:

Are animals naturally musical? (subscription only)

The illusion of music (subscription only)

Flexible scales and immutable octaves (subscription only)

Music special: Singing in the brain (subscription only)

Five great auditory illusion (free to view)

If this has wetted your intellect then you can’t really go far wrong by giving wikipedia a read. Musicology is the best page to start from as you can then browse to the music psychology, music sociology etc etc pages.

After a bit of Googling we also managed to find this pdf file on music which is really an ebook and is titled Music and Dance as a Coalitional Signaling System.

If that isn’t enough for you then you probably want to be taking a degree on the subject!

Electronic drum kits are readily available now at affordable prices. No longer does the consumer have to pay extortionate prices for an electronic drum kit that comes close to sounding like the real deal.

I’ve recently road tested one of the more affordable electronic drum kits, the Alesis DM5 Pro. Having played the standard DM5 for a good while with no problems at all, I was keen to get my hands on the new ‘Pro’ kit.

Buy the Alesis DM5 Pro

Standard rrp on this kit is around £465, nearly £100 less than the retail of the it’s competitors; Traps E400 and Yamaha DTXplorer. However, you will find the kit at the best price on PlayRecord.Net.

Out of the box, setting up the kit was a breeze. Not once did I need to look at the instructions to figure how to put the rack together. Once tightened the rack stands solid and feels comfortable as far as reach goes. I then fitted the toms to the kit, firmly locked in with a couple of turns of the screws with no wobble on the tom arms..superb. The wiring is neatly all together with just enough length for each trigger it reflects the all-togetherness of the kit.

So the kit was all together within an hour and I was ready to plug it in and start enjoying. Note: there’s no bass drum pedal supplied with these kits, so I used a Ludwig. If you’ve used the DM5 kit you’ll be familiar with the brain straight away, I turned it on and let rip.

First off, the pads now have rims and actual drums skins on. The general feel is very close to the feel of an acoustic kit, which is great. All the tom pads are 8 inches and I appreciate the way that this forces accuracy around the kit. The snare has dual triggers, using the rim as the second trigger. By default the rim trigger is not set to the standard “rim click” sound that I desired but with a quick tweak of the DM5 brain it was soon sorted. The new cymbals are designed well and they don’t miss a beat, they’re extremely quiet and sit nice and firm in position. Bass drum pad, held upright with a floor plate and two legs on a 45 degree angle. On the bottom if the plate is some velcro, when I eventually managed to move the bass pad I noticed that i’d actually pulled the carpet tile up to – that’s how much it stays in place.

So i’m playing the kit and the first thing that comes to mind is that unlike a few of its competitors, the pads don’t miss a beat. Buzz rolls, any roll, you play it and you’ll hear it. The sensitivity is great, giving a very dynamic feel to the kit.

After a good play of the kit i can only find one thing that i would change, that’s the hi-hat pedal switch. It’s simply to big and chunky. You really need to take your foot of it to get the open hat sound, and this is an unnatural feel compared to the rest of the kit. In my opinion, I would buy a replacement standard DM5 hi-hat switch pedal and use that.

So, overall i’m very impressed. Price is great, the feel is like an acoustic kit and its reliable. Apart from the hi-hat switch i’ve nothing to grumble about. Just remember to get yourself a decent bass drum pedal and some headphones and start rocking out.

Tonight at Earls Court in London is the Brit Awards. There is a whole host of British musicians and bands lining up with a chance to walk away with one or more of the famous awards.

The Brit awards is owned and run by the British Phonographic Industry and BRIT stands for British Record Industry Trust, and also is short for British of course.

There is a wide variety of British music and tonight will see bands like Take That competing against The Arctic Monkeys for the Best British Album award. Sir Paul McCartney is regarded to have the Oustanding Contribution To Music Award pretty much spoken for but the award for Best British Single is going to be decided by live public vote so who knows how that will turn out.

The Brit awards can be really important for these bands and artists as made clear by Matt Phillips from the British Phonographic Industry.

“The Brits generate an enormous amount of interest in record sales and for a lot of artists it’s a case of being in the right place at the right time.

“In the case of Amy Winehouse, her album came out at the end of 2006. She had been already been talked about and there was lots of media coverage so it was perfect timing for her in terms of record sales.”

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It appears that a Stone Temple Pilots reunion this year is not just rumor, but it’s almost certain. On January 20th of 2008, lead vocalist Scott Weiland told the Miami Herald at a charity event in Miami that Stone Temple Pilots fans “should be on the lookout for a STP reunion in the coming months.”

The rumor of a STP reunion had been circulating for some time since reported problems in Velvet Revolver rose up again, which also coincided with Scott Weiland reconciling with Robert and Dean Deleo, who were also the main songwriters with Stone Temple Pilots. Stone Temple Pilots broke through in 1992 with the release of their debut album ‘Core’ which has since gone 8 times Platinum on the strength of the single ‘Plush.’ Stone Temple Pilots released their last full length studio album ‘Shangri-La Dee Da’ in 2001 and the fans have been wondering if Scott and the Deleo brothers could ever reform.

While Weiland formed Velvet Revolver with former members of Guns N Roses and the Deleo brothers went on to release an album under the name Army of Anyone, it seems STP fans can finally get excited about the certain. We caught up with Robert Deleo recently at an Army of Anyone show to find out how he feels about Stone Temple Pilots long list of accomplishments and if there were any hard feelings between him and Weiland.

Deleo Proud Of Stone Temple Pilots Accomplishments

“You know, I haven’t seen Scott in awhile. I wish him the best and there’s no hard feelings at all. We just kind of moved on and I’m very proud of what we did.”

In 2006 Scott Weiland was questioned if he could see a Stone Temple Pilots reunion in the future and he stated “the only thing that’s left unfinished is the completion of the story. If all the planets lined up, you never know what might happen one day,” implying that the end of the bands story had yet to be written. Recently, current Velvet Revolver and former Guns N Roses guitarist Slash, who is currently working on a solo album, mentioned a Guns N Roses and Stone Temple Pilots reunion tour wouldn’t be impossible to happen. Although anything that would involve Axl Rose certainly wouldn’t be easy to make possible. Look for Stone Temple Pilots to confirm their plans for in the coming months.

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Falcon acoustic guitars have been around for a while now and have pretty much established themselves as being one of the cheapest acoustic guitars on the market. Originally built without a truss rod and a reinforced neck, the falcon is now build with a fully adjustable truss rod so you can do all your fine tweaking.

The headstock sports 6 silver di-cast unsealed machine heads, which after 10 minutes of playing did a good job of keeping the guitar in tune and the nut has a tidy finish and is seated well for a guitar of this price.

The neck had quite a shallow D shape which is a great help for the beginner and the action is set at a reasonable height, though the edge of the fret board isn’t as tidy as I would have liked, however it’s hard to find a guitar twice the price of the falcon with a better finish.

Sound wise, the falcon delivers a very bright and quite brash sound, perfect for folk and blues players. The high and mid range frequencies are very apparent. The low end is not quite as forthcoming though, this is probably due to the light construction, which is better suited to the beginner.

The construction of the guitar body is quite light which is perfect for the beginner. The body is solid and the internal struts are well finished, which contributes to the overall volume of the guitar.

All in all this guitar is absolutely perfect for a beginner the price is the main reason for this. It’s REALLY cheap for a guitar of this quality, so much so that i have known more experienced guitarists to buy this model as a ‘knock about guitar’ to take on holiday and to festivals (one of whom said he was going to burn it on the last day of a festival, but he grew too attached and still has it to this day. bless) .

Buy This Bargain Price Acoustic Guitar

Local boy Liam O’Donnell has reached the semi finals of MTV’s Get Seen Get Heard talent competition, in association with Oxfam’s Oxjam music festival.

Aspiring musicians and bands uploaded their videos of live performances from last years Oxjam festival for MTV web site visitors to vote on. Nearly 200 thousand votes were cast online in this first round.

The next step will involve Liam being shown on MTV throughout March and April. One of 25 semi finalists, he is hoping to make it through to the finals which will involve mentoring by a music industry professional and then a head to head battle with the other finalists on MTV.

Liam performed at a gig at Cargo in London during October for Oxjam 2007, and other Leeds bands can do the same, as Oxjam returns nationwide throughout April 2008. Liam, who counts Paolo Nutini, Otis Redding and Bob Marley among his influe
nces, plays The Library on 27 February and the Royal Park on March 6.

Alexandra Johnson, Music Marketing Manager at MTV said: “Oxjam is a rare opportunity for unsigned bands to give their own music career a boost whilst doing something charitable.

“Last year, we were thrilled to find a wealth of promising new artists such as Liam amongst the hundreds who performed at Oxjam gigs.

“The festival is set to kick off again in April, so whatever sort of music you play, get involved.”

Oxjam manager Benny Littlejohn said: “As Liam’s success shows, taking part in Oxjam can help take local musicians to the next level, as well as helping us to fight poverty.

“We’d love to see as many Leeds bands as possible getting out there and playing Oxjam shows in April.”

The collaboration between MTV and Oxfam came as part of a groundbreaking partnership with v, the youth volunteering charity.