Gorillaz-Unofficial News - full site at http://gorillaz-unofficial.com

Gorillaz will be returning in 2016, according to Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett.

And Gorillaz-Unofficial will be back to cover all the news and updates, just like we did in Phase 2 and Phase 3.

Expect some changes and updates around here in the coming weeks.

The forum is up and open for registration so you can get discussing your Phase 4 predictions now.

Forum member Jordan Powers has compiled a list of recent Damon and Jamie Gorillaz comments on the forum, too.

It's good to be back!

Damon and Jamie's opera Monkey is having a run in New York City from July 6 to July 28. All ticketing and event information is available through the Facebook page here.

Yesterday Jamie made a personal appearance at the Lincoln Center to promote the show, and Gorillaz fan TwoDent23 was there, recording Jamie's comment about the future of Gorillaz and passing it on to us.

Jamie said: ""There's also a five years gap between the albums because they take a long time to do and- and they're very exhausting and when you're finished you feel like you need to go do other stuff. So Damon's touring with Blur- hes doing a world tour with Blur at the moment and then they're working on a new album so there isn't really time for him, and I'm doing other stuff as well. So I think it's, um, we'll come back to it when the time's right. But also the music industry's changed so much since we started doing Gorillaz. There's no money- in the industry so you know you get these amazing new bands, like the Stripes from Ireland, kind of fourteen years old, you know, the best rhythm blues guitarist you've ever seen. Age fourteen, make songs and film it in their bedroom. It doesn't cost anything, and so Gorillaz is kind of expensive. It's expensive to do because it's animated. ...(the interviewer mentions how they cant age, they can reunite whenever)... So there's plenty of time basically."


Remember, for all the latest on Gorillaz and Monkey, follow the Gorillaz-Unofficial Twitter @gorillaz_u and / or visit the Gorillaz-Unofficial forums at forums.gorillaz-unofficial.com.

Today (Thursday 6th September) between 2-3pm Jamie will be doing a Q&A on the Alfred Dunhill Twitter account. All you have to do is tweet questions to @Alfred_Dunhill using the hashtag #Voice and Jamie will try and answer them all.

At the end, Jamie will pick the best question and then draw a Gorilliaz style cartoon based on that users Twitter profile picture.


UPDATE 19:12BST:- The Q&A is now over. Click 'Read More' below to read all the questions and answers! Thanks Alfred Dunhill and Jamie!


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G-U is on holiday at the moment but we're still managing to tweet - so the best place for the latest news at the moment is the G-U twitter at http://www.twitter.com/gorillaz_u where we've been keeping up with all the latest.

Firstly, the truly Gorillaz news we have is that Converse have, as we previewed earlier, released a new range of Gorillaz shoes. You can check them all out on the Converse site here.

Beyond that, it's all about Damon's band Blur at the moment (Jamie just got back from holiday, according to his Twitter!). They have been doing interviews promoting their live shows and especially their 21 disc anniversary box set, which is available now worldwide (there is also a vinyl box, and standalone 2CD reissues of all their albums available).

They are playing the following shows / sessions over the next couple of weeks:-

31/07/12 - Steve Lamacq show Radio 6Music live gig / songs 16:00 - 19:00 BST.
31/07/12 - Jo Whiley show Radio 2 live gig 2000 - 2130 BST
01/08/12 - Winter Gardens, Margate, UK
02/08/12 - 100 Club, London, UK
05/08/12 - Civic Hall, Wolverhampton, UK
06/08/12 - Civic Hall, Wolverhampton, UK
07/08/12 - Pavilions, Plymouth, UK
09/08/12 - Smukfest, Skanderborg, Denmark
10/08/12 - Way Out West Festival, Gothenburg, Sweden
12/08/12 - Closing Ceremony Celebration Concert, Hyde Park, London, UK

You can listen to the Radio shows wherever you are, and may even be able to watch them live as well. A BBC blog has all the info on how to access the shows - click here.

There's loads more links to Blur's recent media coverage on the Twitter - the recent Q magazine Blur cover feature, Blur on the culture show on BBC2, Damon talking about Blur's album Parklife to The Sun.

Blur also released a new iphone / ipad app. If you don't have an iphone or ipad you can check out some of the video from the app here

On the twitter you'll also find links to a performance and media interview with Damon and Afel Boucoum to raise awareness for the Sahel hunger crisis, and a video of Damon on the tv show Magician Impossible. Thanks for bearing with us and normal service will be resumed shortly.


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A quickfire news summary of the latest Damon, Jamie and Gorillaz news. The Gorillaz-Unofficial Twitter ( http://www.twitter.com/gorillaz_u ) is currently what we're updating the fastest, and you don't need to be on twitter to read it, so for all the latest up-to-the-minute news check there this summer.

Electric Wave Bureau
Damon's in a new-ish (they've been around for at least a year without announcing anything) group / collective called Electric Wave Bureau. It's Electric Wave Bureau who've done the music for Rufus Norris' film Broken. Mike Smith is also in the group. Check out we currently know on the G-U forums here, including further links.

Blur announce 'secret' 100 Club show and BBC sessions / CD single and merch
*In addition to their previously announced summer 2012 dates, Blur will play London's tiny 100 Club on 2nd August (most tickets for journalists / guestlist).
*They will also play 2 BBC Sessions on 31st August, one for BBC 6Music Radio (on the Steve Lamacq show) and one on the Jo Whiley show for Radio 2 the same day. You can listen on the internet via the BBC site and we'll post all the relevant links near the time to listen live.
*In other Blur news, Blur's single Under The Westway / The Puritan is getting a release on CD single as well as the previously announced 7", and the CD single includes instrumentals and an acoustic version. It's only available from the Blur shop here. *The Blur shop also has a new range of Blur merchandise.
*Finally, William Orbit, who Blur worked on initially for Under The Westway but who didn't produce the final officially released track, leaked his version to the internet - apparently. EMI have been taking down links to the version but you can occasionally find it by searching youtube...

Damon in Umbro advertising campaign
Damon is one of Umbro's (sportswear company) 'faces of England' advertising the new England soccer strip. Check it all out on their site here

Damon features on Ghostigital record - they say
Ghostigital (of which Einar Orn, longtime Damon collaborator, is one half) released a new album on 30 June (according to their official site) or 25 June (according to iTunes). They claim it features Damon Albarn though he doesn't sing on the record. All the info we've managed to dig up is here.

Dr.Dee reviews, articles
Dr.Dee has ended its London run, we collected the reviews and final media appearances on the G-U forum thread here

Africa Express train tour dates and tickets
Damon's previously announced Africa Express early September train tour of the UK has announced some official dates and you can buy tickets. Check out all the announced dates so far on the official Africa Express site here

Damon features on JJ Doom track - release details
We reported previously that Damon was due to appear on a JJ Doom track, it's now announced the track will be 'Bite The Thong' and it will be out on the album 'Key To The Kuffs' on 21st August. All the details here.


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UPDATE 20:00 BST: The streams are now over but you can listen to the live and studio versions on demand (live also with video)

Youtube official uploads of the studio versions:

The Puritan
Under The Westway

The live tracks, both of them, can be streamed on demand here on Blur's official site.


Here's all the essential info about the launch of Damon's band Blur's new double A-Side single. We'll update this item later after the interviews and performances.

Under The Westway (studio version) from the single will premiere on the Steve Lamacq show on BBC6Music. The show starts at 16:00 BST and runs till 19:00 BST. You can listen online worldwide here. Steve will also be interviewing a member of Blur.

Blur will perform live, performing a song at 18:15 BST, followed by an interview, and a second song at 19:15 BST. This will be accessible via a live stream. ThisIsFakeDIY have a link to the stream on their site here.

Zane Lowe will be playing the song The Puritan (studio version) from the single on Radio 1 at 19:30 BST. (Zane's show is on 19:00 to 21:00) You can listen live at the following link here. Damon will be chatting to Zane on the show.

Finally, XFM have an interview with Alex from Blur and will be playing both songs (appparently after 19:30) on their Drivetime show. You can listen to that at the following link here.

After the songs are played, they are due to be uploaded to iTunes to buy tonight.

The single will also be released on limited edition 7" on August 6th and is available to pre-order now here.


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Gorillaz Syrian sessions material to get a release(?)

This one is still a bit of a rumour at present, but longtime G-U contributor and Damon fan dubchimp has posted on the official Blur forum "The guys at Honest Jons informed me that the sessions that Gorillaz recorded in Damascus in 2009 will be developed into some very hard arabic style music featuring Omar Souleyman and Waed Bouhassoun. When this begins is unconfirmed."

Blur to release new double A-Side single, premiere on Twitter

Damon'a band Blur have been teasing this release on their Facebook and Twitter since 19 June, but today it was officially announced that Blur to debut two new songs on Twitter via a video stream on Julyy 2nd. At 6:15pm BST on July 2 they will perform the first song, an interview with the band will follow the performance of the first track before they will debut the second song at 7:15pm. Both songs will then be immediately available to download. A double A-side 7" single of the songs will be released by Parlophone on August 6. The two songs will be 'Under The Westway' as performed by Graham and Damon at the Warchild benefit gig and by Damon on the radio, and 'The Puritan' as performed by Damon alone acoustically at the recent London poetry event. Bassist Alex James also added in his video interview that the two tracks will be performed on a roofop somewhere in London. Check out the NME.com report here and Alex's video message on Youtube here. The official Blur twitter, with some teaser images promoting the two tracks, is here

Dr.Dee promotional interviews and videos
Damon's opera Dr.Dee opens its London run today. Tickets still available here. Damon's been doing some promotion for the run, too, check out these links:-

A Short vid of Damon promoting the London run of Dr.Dee on BBC Breakfasthere

A video of Dr.Dee at Selfridges on Youtube here

A video of the rehearsals for the London run, courtesy of the ENO, on Youtube here

An interview with Damon and Rufus about Dr.Dee on the Q site here

More on the 'Broken' film, Rufus Norris with Damon music / another project(?) (UPDATE)

As we've been reporting, Rufus Norris (the Dr.Dee director) has made a film 'Broken' and Damon is apparently doing the soundtrack. Interestingly, Rufus says in the Q interview linked above, ""Damon and I have also done a film between Dee 1 and Dee 2 and that will be opening at the beginning of next year and our next project will be grown from there." perhaps indicating that Broken will not be out till next year (it premiered at the film festival Cannes recently).

The Unofficial Damon Albarn Tumblr tipped us off that there are some preview clips of the film on Youtube already, one features what is apparently some of Damon's score! Check it out here (thanks to the Damon unofficial tumblr here.

Update on 'Boy In The Oak' film UPDATED!
As far back as May 2010, Damon was reported to be working on the soundtrack to a short film based on 'The Boy In The Oak' a book by his sister Jessica Albarn (which was released in September 2010). Jude Law was said to be narrating the short film. There have been some rumours about the short film since then, with festival screenings and a tv showing apparently proposed, but nothing concrete has surfaced and now Jessica Albarn has spoken out on the subject, saying in interview: "I wrote a book, The Boy in the Oak, which is a dark fairy tale that I illustrated and am now writing the second one. I have a couple of other things on the boil and we might make the book into a film as well. We’ve done a short film and the script is being written for the feature. Damon has been involved in the short film. We will have the script done very soon and we will start looking for funding.’. Read the full interview with Jessica Albarn here.

Boy band Big Time Rush release Windows Down, based on Blur's Song 2
On 22nd June, boy band Big Time Rush released a new single 'Windows Down' which is musically based on Blur's Song 2. Check it out on Youtube here


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New Gorillaz image promoting Dalai Lama's visit to the UK
The Dalai Lama begins a UK tour today. Jamie has contributed a new Gorillaz image to promote the visit. You can check it out on the official Facebook of the visit here.

Jamie posts more art on Twitter
Jamie's been tweeting a lot, becoming a one-man reason to get on Twitter if you haven't already. He's also posted three more previously unseen pictures, find them at these links: Picture 1 | Picture 2 | Picture 3 | Picture 4 | Picture 5

New Bobby Womack video on Youtube
There's a new official low budget video for Bobby's track 'Whatever Happened To The Times' on Youtube now, from his Damon-produced and featuring album 'The Bravest Man In The Universe', out most places now. Check it out on Youtube here.

Damon performs 3 songs at Poetry event
As we previously reported he would, Damon appeared at a poetry night at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall last night. He performed 3 songs with an acoustic guitar: The Marvlous Dream (from Dr.Dee), Soldier's Tale (from The Good, The Bad & The Queen) and a new Blur song, which he said should be out in a 'few weeks'.
Check out audience videos on Youtube here:- The Marvelous Dream | Soldier's Tale | New Blur song - unconfirmed title

Damon to work on new "chanson française" -inspired musical, he says
Damon has revealed in an interview with French magazine Paris Match that he is currently working on a new musical in the style of "chanson française" (roughly, the tradition of French Popular Music, including artists such as Edith Piaf, whose records Damon played backstage before Dr.Dee's Onefest appearance recently). This is the first mention Damon has made of this project.
You can check out the full interview (in French - we'll try and have a full translation up soon) here.

'The Child Of Love' set to work with Damon and MF Doom according to report from thisisfakeDIY
This isolated report could mean any number of things, from just the fact that 'The Child Of Lov' will also be appearing on JJ Doom (the forthcoming project which is a collaboration between Jneiro Janel and MF Doom, on which Damon and Beth Gibbons have previously contributed to a track) or that he will be on the same track as Damon. Or, potentially, it might not even be on JJ Doom, though that's the only Damon-Doom collab we've heard about on the horizon before now.
Check out the full report here.


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If you haven't found out already, the latest news is that Jamie has joined Twitter and has been tweeting a lot in the past few days. You can find his account here: here, so get on Twitter and get following.

Perhaps most excitingly of all for Jamie fans, he has been sharing new art, some of which appears to be the first publicly shared fruits of his desire to get into painting. He's also promised there's more to come.

Check out the new art: Nancy Sinatra painting | another painting | Nosferatu picture | 'The Halloweeners' (in his more usual style) | his twitter background (we are assuming he is the artist of this onem no confirmation yet)


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Big news update! Sorry for being slow for the last week or so, and rest assured normal service will now be resumed.

More Gorillaz Converse incoming (apparently)
Rumours of a second set of Gorillaz Converse have been flying around the net (with pictures backing up some of the claims) since at least February (when we reported on the rumour, with the pictures here, various release dates have been associated with them (from summer 2012 to early 2013)
Now the most definite info yet has appeared, with website kicksonfire.com reporting here that the new range will be out 'winter 2012'. Also two of the designs appear to have changed quite a bit from the earlier leaked pictures, and the grey Converse briefly seen in the DoYaThing video is also now included, to make up a set of 5 different pairs.

Bobby Womack news roundup

Bobby Womack's album 'The Bravest Man In The Universe', co-produced and with some instruments by Damon, is out now in Japan, on Monday in the UK and Tuesday in the USA, with releases in other countries around these dates.

On May 24th Bobby's Facebook page reported that he had successfully undergone treatment for colon cancer. He was diagnosed with cancer back in March but a tumor that was recently removed ended up being cancer free.

The Guardian newspaper interviewed him while he was still in hospital and you can read that interview here

Rolling Stone has a special video / performance of Deep River from the album to view on their site here

The official XL youtube channcel uploaded Dayglo Reflection from the album (featuring Lana Del Rey) to youtube here.

Recently-announced Bobby Womack gigs have been slightly postponed. The London Heaven gig will now take place on 12th July (originally scheduled for 14th June), ticket details here.

Ordering the new album on CD from recordstore.co.uk will get you a free bonus DVD, while stocks last. All the details, and to order, click here

Damon video in 5 Magazine

5 Magazine is a digital magazine owned and run by England footballer Rio Ferdinand. Damon is on the (digital) cover of the lastest issue and there's a video interview with him too! Check out the magazine here, the Damon article begins on page 24, on page 26 you can click the play button to watch the video interview with Damon. On page 28 you can click the play button to watch a short promotional video about Africa Express featuring Damon.

Damon appears in Jools Holland program about London, clip on Youtube

Damon was on a Jools Hollands program about the music of London last night, Dr.Dee was mentioned and he talked about the bells he had had cast. You can watch the full Damon-featuring clip on Youtube here.

Murdoc's Birthday
We missed it - we're sorry, Murdoc - the dark lord of Stoke-On-Trent turned 46 on June 6th. Happy very belated birthday Murdoc. (in other news, on 28th May he took to Twitter to - in a single tweet - reassure a fan that he was not dead. Check it out on his twitter here.


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