A news story today on Drowned in Sound has revealed that Seattle funk-punks Pretty Girls Make Graves have broken-up.

With the recent ambush of bands that play in a similar style to them -most notably We Are Scientists and Bloc Party- this news is a true loss to both this genre and style of music, and to my preferences as a music fan. Perhaps more saddening is that while PGMG did achieve massive potential, more often than not they were overlooked, or simply, just never discovered in the first place.

So if you haven't heard of them before, go pick up "The New Romance" from Amazon or elsewhere immedieately. It's certainly a record that takes a bit of listening to before you appreciate it wholly, but once you do get into it it's an absolutely fantastic record. It's just a shame now that this once fantastic band will no longer be able to produce records like this any more.

Via BBC News-

Arctic Monkeys are hoping to repeat their NME Award success of last year after receiving four nominations.

The Sheffield-based group, who are in the running for best British band, live band, album and music DVD, called the nominations "very nice".

The fact that one of the most unbearable bands of last year are shortlisted for four awards should already be a cause of concern with this pantomime of an awards ceremony, but if that's not the case, how about some more evidence?

• The NME Awards have both a best and worst dressed category, presumably a lot like any of the other celebrity publications.
• Lily Allen is nominated for best solo artist, while bizarrely, also sexiest female- because all fans of this magazine are supposedly pre-pubescent music fans.
• The View, tipped wrongly by supposed "people in the know" as being ones to watch this year are nominated, despite their horrible by-the-numbers generic blandness.

But again, if that's still not enough evidence that this is one of the most hilarious awards ceremonies ever, check out this statement from the official page of the awards.

The Rock'n'Roll Party Of The Year! A riotous, star-studded celebration of the year’s best music and the only awards ceremony at which the winners are chosen by genuine music fans: the readers of NME.

So, landslide victory for the Arctic Monkeys or Pete Doherty then I suppose, and none for more deserving outfits such as Kasabian or Muse.

We'll see come Thursday March 1st, 2007 when the winners are announced...

Rage Against The Machine reunite for one-off performance at Coachella

Bands reunite the whole time, but as this is the band I grew up listening to, this time it's special. Hopefully they've still got it.

Prison Break returned last week to Five in it's Monday 10pm slot.

Name complications aside, following on from the events of Season 1 the show is now in a completely new playground both literally and visually, as now that the antiheroes of the show have "broken" prison and on the run, Season 2 has them evading capture by any means necessary. The idea that a lot of the action now takes place outside a cell is a refreshing change, and perhaps the most interesting prospect of this new concept is seeing the characters we know in a completely new setting and scenario. As an example, only five minutes into the new season the screen was awash with green as the escapees legged it through forest, and hopefully there's going to be plenty more scenes of this nature coming in the next few weeks.

Thankfully all of the elements that made the first season so gripping to watch have also returned along with our escapees, and those feelings of tension and suspense are thankfully there again, but they feel different, obviously because of the show's new direction. The return of the behind-the-scenes political plots ensure too that despite the change in location the show is still trying to stay true to it's roots, but with so much physical action taking place within the main story, this year it's not as effective and just feels tacked-on. Again though, there's plenty of time for that to change, and hopefully, before long, both plot and sub-plot will meet.

Understandably though, there's new stories and characters now too, something that should come automatically with a season premiere. The return of Dr Sara Tancredi is one such case. Her appearances this season slow down the action vastly, and currently with all the events outside the prison her role seems very limited, especially in last week's episode, but certainly like the poltical goings-on, hopefully this can change. Willliam Fichtner of Invasion fame (or infamy?) on the other hand is a fantastic addition to the cast, and having the role of Special Agent Alexander Mahone, naturally, is critical to the show's success or failure. His scenes in the first episode understandably were action-packed, and already there's a real sense of cat & mouse that's been established with him and the inamtes, or, if you'd rather, PacMan.


With such a major change to both the show's direction and proceedings, there's inevitably going to be fears of the show failing, but if the rest of the season follows on from the standard set in this first episode, really, there should be no problem. Like the premise last year it may take a bit of padding for the concept to last a whole season, but with a show as dramatic and tense as this, it's safe to say already the creative forces have plans up their sleeves...

Dunechaser and many others are renowned for their creation of Lego minifig versions of famous people or bands- fictional or real.

It's something I do myself sometimes, but last night I decided i'd make Lego minifigs of my favourite UK comedy duo, David Mitchell and Robert Webb. They're far from perfect, and certainly LEGO could do with making some new generic torso designs, but they're okay I guess.

Via BBC News-

MySpace is being sued by the families of five teenage girls who it is claimed were sexually assaulted by men they met through the social networking website.

I don't like MySpace, regular readers will know that's no secret. The site is full of assholes and the whole "a place for friends" ideology is horrible. Most of all it's got an absolutely terrible layout and concept design. It's got a great music section but aside from that, any possible appeal is lost completely on me.

A five-minute glance through user comments will already tell you that the site isn't suitable for children (Share your Pics & Videos! etc) so in reality the above news isn't all that surprising in the least. It's nice to know that MySpace are putting up new security measures to prevent this kind of thing happening on a regular basis, but like the "videogames are evil" argument, the blame lies solely with the parents too lazy to actually know what they're kids are doing on their computers- what happened to family conversation anyway?

Social networks like MySpace have come under attack like this before, but as long as parents continue to turn a blind-eye to their children's activities, a security upgrade or five certainly isn't going to make any difference. And besides, when was it MySpace's job to be a "parent" anyway?

Via BBC News-

Lily Allen leads the field for the Brit Awards 2007, shortlisted for four prizes including British female solo artist and British album.

Already a hate target here, this news alone has already destroyed what little faith I have in this ever inadequate awards ceremony. The information that Snow Patrol, Amy Winehouse and Muse all have more than one award nomination each is a little reassuring, but given the history of these awards, frankly i'd be surprised if any of these artists went home with an award.

We'll see what happens on the 14th of February.

The 64th Golden Globe Awards took place through in America last night.

Wrongly, Grey's Anatomy was awarded Best Drama. In a category with competition from 24, Heroes and LOST, it's place as winner is clearly an insult to any self-respecting TV fan. For starters it's a show with no drama at all where nothing unexpected ever happens, a show where the most complicated element is a love triangle, a show where there is no action or intelligence whatsoever. But more on that in a future post I suppose.

Ugly Betty (which i've yet to watch) picked up Best Comedy, while incidentally lead actress America Ferrera would also pick up the award for Best Performance by an Actress In A Television Series - Musical Or Comedy. Hugh Laurie won Best Drama Actor too, helping further to renew what little prestige the Awards have, especially after the win of Grey's.

Nip/Tuck, which had a strong year with fantastic performances from both of it's lead actors again went unnoticed both in the wins and the nominations themeselves, while personal favourite LOST also missed out on wins in the two categories it was nominated in. One can only hope results will be better next year, but with obvious omissions in the nomination list alone, why bother?

The full list of winners at last night's awards can be found here.

Via BBC News-

HMV is pulling the official UK singles chart from its stores after more than 40 years, saying it is no longer relevant to the way it sells music.

The high street chain had supported the national singles chart since the 1960s and was one of the last major retailers to display the top 40 in-store.

It was inevitable that the Singles Chart was in for a rocky ride as soon as download sales were included, so in reality, this news isn't all that surprising. Granted this by no means signifies the death of singles in general (or does it?), but simply put, if there was no singles chart there would be no horrible dance covers or novelty Christmas records. Would the removal of those two genres from music really be that bad?

Exactly.

Slowly but surely i've come round to the idea of HDTV and better resolutions, so much so that yeah, this year is probably the year that I buy an HDTV for myself and my Xbox360- we can call it an anniversary present or something. But there's a lot of good sets out there at the moment, and while they're still pricey, the HDTV dream is getting a lot cheaper.

But if shops aren't going to take the time out to even configure the sets and truly show the masses what these sets are even capable of, this is one technology concept of the future that certainly isn't going to work. Everytime I visit *namedrop* Tesco *namedrop* the picture's even worse than that of a portable TV, and as a result it's certainly difficult to see the need let alone the appeal of these "more expensive" TVs.

The growth of Freeview set-top boxes in homes is incredible, so how long exactly will it be before HDTVs follow a similar pattern? The answer is, rather unfortunately, as soon as the concept behind HDTV is better advertised and promoted...