Gorillaz-Unofficial (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} gorillaz_news) wrote,@ 2007-02-09 01:15:00 |
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Brief Gorillaz movie mention
In an article published on news.com.au today, mostly about Gorillaz co-creator Damon Albarn's new project The Good, The Bad & The Queen, Damon said: ""It's been a very long process. We tried to start one with the first album, then gave up and made another album, which was a bit like a film, Demon Days. I'm glad we did that. Maybe we'll try to make another film and make another album, but we're definitely heading in the direction. For us, making a film feels a bit like getting in a rowboat and going all the way to Australia. It's not a first-class sleeper journey." Check out the full article here.
Nameless facesBy Cameron Adams
February 08, 2007 02:20pm
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Damon Albarn is no stranger to being busy. He is juggling phone interviews to Australia with dropping his daughter at school, fixing his troublesome dishwasher and taking his regular Spanish lesson.
Likewise, his musical output makes him the most prolific man in pop.
In the past five years he's released music with Blur, Gorillaz, his world music project Mali Music, an album of unreleased demos and a new project, The Good, The Bad & The Queen.
The band features himself, The Clash bassist and punk sex symbol Paul Simonon, Blur/Verve guitarist Simon Tong and 66-year-old African drummer and afrobeat superstar Tony Allen, who collaborates with Fela Kuti and has been described by Brian Eno as "perhaps the greatest drummer who has ever lived".
Albarn understandably cringes at the title "supergroup". He doesn't even want the band to have a name, just to be known by the name of their album, and insists it was never going to be a solo project, despite industry rumours.
"It was really just an experiment," Albarn says. "It started in Lagos and ended in London."
Albarn started work on the album days after flying home from last year's Grammys, where his cartoon band, Gorillaz, performed viatechnology with Madonna.
After the high of the award show dissipated, Albarn and producer Danger Mouse retreated to a studio deep in the British countryside with some tapes they'd made in Nigeria. Guitarist Tong has also worked with Albarn in Africa, travelling to Lagos several years ago to record with Allen and local musicians.
While Albarn and Danger Mouse were working on the tapes to see if they could make some musical sense of the sonic collages, the producer'sother project - Gnarls Barkley- began to take over the world.
"Brian (Burton, aka Danger Mouse) was trying to concentrate, but I had to lock him away," Albarn says.
"It was right when Crazy started to go crazy, pardon the pun."
As a regular chart-topper himself for more than a decade, Albarn knew his creative partner's track was something special.
"It's impossible not to be seducedby it, isn't it?" he says.
Danger Mouse told Albarn he should write an album about London, the subject of Blur's early '90s trilogy, Modern Life Is Rubbish, Parklife and The Great Escape.
After all, a generation inspired by Blur is now telling its own musical stories of life in Britain after the Cool Britannia revolution petered out.
Lily Allen, Arctic Monkeys, Jamie T and the new Bloc Party album, A Weekend In The City, don't paint the prettiest picture of urban life, but, as always, composers hit their mark when they write about what they know.
"I got inspired to write about where I live again," Albarn says.
"It'd been more than 10 years since I'd written about London."
He roped in (Tony) Allen, then was frustrated by the bass players he'd hired for the project.
"They sounded amazing, but there really was no room for someone like myself. Once they got going, I was a spectator."
He needed someone like The Clash's Simonon. So he called him up.
"We'd met 12 years back," Albarn says.
"I'd played the piano for Chrissie (Hynde) at a show. At the end she said she was going to a wedding reception with Joe Strummer, and did I want to come along. We had a group hug and that was the last I saw of him. Then I find out he lives two streets away from me."
Simonon and Albarn started workshopping the changes in London and soon The Clash legend was making his first major musical statement in 16 years.
The band played their debut show in London late last year, performing their entire album in full.
Reviews note that Albarn turned tyrant when he stopped a song midway and told his bandmates to "focus".
"People made a big thing about that, as though I shouldn't have done that. We'd only done three shows ever, it was a big deal and it was going to broadcast around the world," Albarn says.
"I'd rather stop in the middle of a song, start again and get it right. If something's not going right you have to start again. That seems more honest to me.
"With Blur we used to screw up and soldier on and hope no one noticed. I can't be bothered doing that anymore, life's too short."
Blur haven't released an album since 2003's experimental Think Tank, recorded after guitarist Graham Coxon left. Relations between Albarn and Coxon are said to have mellowed somewhat; it's rumoured he has discussed returning to the Blur fold after a string of solo albums.
"There's got to be some unfinished business with Blur; what that is I'm not sure yet," Albarn says.
"I don't want to make another record unless Graham comes back. That'd be nice.
"The others have talked to him a bit. It's not as silent as it was, but until there's some meaningful conversation I can't really talk about it, because I'd be saying things that weren't true."
But Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett are plotting a Gorillaz movie in between working on a Chinese musical for an arts festival in Manchester.
"It's been a very long process," Albarn says of the movie. "We tried to start one with the first album, then gave up and made another album, which was a bit like a film, Demon Days. I'm glad we did that. Maybe we'll try to make another film and make another album, but we're definitely heading in the direction.
"For us, making a film feels a bit like getting in a rowboat and going all the way to Australia. It's not a first-class sleeper journey."
* The Good, The Bad & The Queen is out now
In an article published on news.com.au today, mostly about Gorillaz co-creator Damon Albarn's new project The Good, The Bad & The Queen, Damon said: ""It's been a very long process. We tried to start one with the first album, then gave up and made another album, which was a bit like a film, Demon Days. I'm glad we did that. Maybe we'll try to make another film and make another album, but we're definitely heading in the direction. For us, making a film feels a bit like getting in a rowboat and going all the way to Australia. It's not a first-class sleeper journey." Check out the full article here.
Nameless facesBy Cameron Adams
February 08, 2007 02:20pm
Article from: Font size: + -
Send this article: Print Email
Damon Albarn is no stranger to being busy. He is juggling phone interviews to Australia with dropping his daughter at school, fixing his troublesome dishwasher and taking his regular Spanish lesson.
Likewise, his musical output makes him the most prolific man in pop.
In the past five years he's released music with Blur, Gorillaz, his world music project Mali Music, an album of unreleased demos and a new project, The Good, The Bad & The Queen.
The band features himself, The Clash bassist and punk sex symbol Paul Simonon, Blur/Verve guitarist Simon Tong and 66-year-old African drummer and afrobeat superstar Tony Allen, who collaborates with Fela Kuti and has been described by Brian Eno as "perhaps the greatest drummer who has ever lived".
Albarn understandably cringes at the title "supergroup". He doesn't even want the band to have a name, just to be known by the name of their album, and insists it was never going to be a solo project, despite industry rumours.
"It was really just an experiment," Albarn says. "It started in Lagos and ended in London."
Albarn started work on the album days after flying home from last year's Grammys, where his cartoon band, Gorillaz, performed viatechnology with Madonna.
After the high of the award show dissipated, Albarn and producer Danger Mouse retreated to a studio deep in the British countryside with some tapes they'd made in Nigeria. Guitarist Tong has also worked with Albarn in Africa, travelling to Lagos several years ago to record with Allen and local musicians.
While Albarn and Danger Mouse were working on the tapes to see if they could make some musical sense of the sonic collages, the producer'sother project - Gnarls Barkley- began to take over the world.
"Brian (Burton, aka Danger Mouse) was trying to concentrate, but I had to lock him away," Albarn says.
"It was right when Crazy started to go crazy, pardon the pun."
As a regular chart-topper himself for more than a decade, Albarn knew his creative partner's track was something special.
"It's impossible not to be seducedby it, isn't it?" he says.
Danger Mouse told Albarn he should write an album about London, the subject of Blur's early '90s trilogy, Modern Life Is Rubbish, Parklife and The Great Escape.
After all, a generation inspired by Blur is now telling its own musical stories of life in Britain after the Cool Britannia revolution petered out.
Lily Allen, Arctic Monkeys, Jamie T and the new Bloc Party album, A Weekend In The City, don't paint the prettiest picture of urban life, but, as always, composers hit their mark when they write about what they know.
"I got inspired to write about where I live again," Albarn says.
"It'd been more than 10 years since I'd written about London."
He roped in (Tony) Allen, then was frustrated by the bass players he'd hired for the project.
"They sounded amazing, but there really was no room for someone like myself. Once they got going, I was a spectator."
He needed someone like The Clash's Simonon. So he called him up.
"We'd met 12 years back," Albarn says.
"I'd played the piano for Chrissie (Hynde) at a show. At the end she said she was going to a wedding reception with Joe Strummer, and did I want to come along. We had a group hug and that was the last I saw of him. Then I find out he lives two streets away from me."
Simonon and Albarn started workshopping the changes in London and soon The Clash legend was making his first major musical statement in 16 years.
The band played their debut show in London late last year, performing their entire album in full.
Reviews note that Albarn turned tyrant when he stopped a song midway and told his bandmates to "focus".
"People made a big thing about that, as though I shouldn't have done that. We'd only done three shows ever, it was a big deal and it was going to broadcast around the world," Albarn says.
"I'd rather stop in the middle of a song, start again and get it right. If something's not going right you have to start again. That seems more honest to me.
"With Blur we used to screw up and soldier on and hope no one noticed. I can't be bothered doing that anymore, life's too short."
Blur haven't released an album since 2003's experimental Think Tank, recorded after guitarist Graham Coxon left. Relations between Albarn and Coxon are said to have mellowed somewhat; it's rumoured he has discussed returning to the Blur fold after a string of solo albums.
"There's got to be some unfinished business with Blur; what that is I'm not sure yet," Albarn says.
"I don't want to make another record unless Graham comes back. That'd be nice.
"The others have talked to him a bit. It's not as silent as it was, but until there's some meaningful conversation I can't really talk about it, because I'd be saying things that weren't true."
But Albarn and artist Jamie Hewlett are plotting a Gorillaz movie in between working on a Chinese musical for an arts festival in Manchester.
"It's been a very long process," Albarn says of the movie. "We tried to start one with the first album, then gave up and made another album, which was a bit like a film, Demon Days. I'm glad we did that. Maybe we'll try to make another film and make another album, but we're definitely heading in the direction.
"For us, making a film feels a bit like getting in a rowboat and going all the way to Australia. It's not a first-class sleeper journey."
* The Good, The Bad & The Queen is out now
