Faith without Wires

Jack Jack




Funbongo: Just Jack is Funbongo's popstar of the year. Why? Because he loves it. The Wireless festival suffers from a lack of atmosphere. It was sunny and early in the day, most of the crowd were not there to see Just Jack. However, by the end of the set everyone was converted to the ways of Jack by his sheer enthusiasm and wonderful band

Just Jack - No Time Live at O2 Wireless



Albert Hoxton: 9.2 out of 11.

Kelis



...looked amazing. Unfortunately, her vocals were too low and she completely messed up her setlist. Why did you play album tracks in a 8 song set? You have about 8 hits; play them.

Kelis - Lil' Star Live at O2 Wireless



Albert Hoxton: 6.6 out of 11.

Mark Ronson

The jury is still out. Is he anything more than just a covers band live? Does he actually play anything on that guitar he carries? Is there any point without Lily, Amy and Robbie?

Mark Ronson - Stop Me Ft Daniel Merriweather Live at O2 Wireless



Well... he was enjoyable. Daniel Merriweather was fantastic. Alex Greenwald sang their Radiohead cover joyously and then undid all his good work by performing two rubbish songs no-one cared about.



Albert Hoxton: 7.3 out of 11.

Faithless



We don't actually know many of their songs but the band were entertaining and Insomnia was brilliant. God is a DJ was also a highlight.

Faithless - God is a DJ Live at O2 Wireless



Albert Hoxton: 7.2 out of 11



Faithless - Last This Day - iTunes

Faithless - Mass Destruction - iTunes

One Giant Leap - My Culture (Robbie Williams and Maxi Jazz from Faithless) - iTunes

Mark Ronson - The Only One I Know Ft Robbie Williams - iTtunes

Kelis - Caught Out There - iTunes

Just Jack - No Time - iTunes

Rudebox '74

Albert is so happy about Robbie's Rudebox being nominated for an Ivor Novello award that he doing the fandango.

Most people hate the Rudebox album. Most people haven't heard the Rudebox album. We only liked two songs when we fist listened. Now we love eight.

Industry rumours suggest that Robbie will release another swing album at Christmas to win back the housewives. Robbie please don't; release a RudeboxEMO album instead. I also read 50 Cent's people had been in touch with him, mmmmm.

The Rudebox lyrics are absolutely priceless. The guy is a genius, they are hilarious. Here are some of our favourites:

Rudebox



Good Doctor





just hurt me leg its not terminal
But a pain killer could help for whats wrong with my knee
And I'm a little bit down from too much tea
Got me own collection can't get an erection
If I take em' too long they'll fuck me complextion
That's right If I take em for like more than a few days I get that haunted look
Give me loads of pills

The Actor




Keep On Ft Lily Allen

Hotel motel Holiday Inn
Hotel motel Holiday Inn
Hotel motel

Croups crouping
Roots rooting
Ludes looting
Loops hooping
Got no strings but I think with my dingalingaling
Two two for the two ting tong ting two stonking
Two's two
Looks luking
Fruits fruiting
Sleuths sleuthing
Got no strings I think with my dingalingaling
Root root for the rooting
Toot toot for the tooting

The 90's

"Boys I don't believe it, I'm gonna be famous!
Pick you up in a Porsche and buy you lots of trainers."
I met the other guys, one seemed like a cock
I think it's gonna be like New Kids on The Block

Now we're famous and that, and we're dancing and that
And I'm thinking "I can't see! Why am I stood at the back?"
So fuck the band give me some gak.

The Good The Bad And The Queen Apple

EMI have announced the introduction of higher quality DRM-less MP3's on the iTunes Music Store for £0.99. DRM encased MP4's will remain on sale at the traditional price of £0.79.

The Good

Higher Quality EMI MP3s will be available and will not feature copy protection (DRM).

EMI Music Videos will also be available at the same price without the copy protection.

A 256kbps DRM-less album will cost the same as an album encoded at 128kbps with DRM

This is the first concrete step by a major label towards a new legal digital music environment. Free us from paranoid copy protection please.

EMI's competitors (Sony, Warner and Universal) are likely to be under unstoppable pressure to follow suit. Independent labels are already able to sell DRM-less tracks on eMusic and so it is likely they will strike similar deals with iTunes.



The Bad

Customers will have to pay £0.99 for each of these 'premium' downloads.

I have bought the whole Joss Stone and Air albums already at 128kbps, can I upgrade for free as I bought the whole album? Can I upgrade my Robbie Videos for free?

The Beatles catalog is still not legally available online.

The Apple Queen



We tried out the new some of these 'Higher Quality' MP3's by buying EMI's first offering, The Good The Bad And The Queen (TGTBATQ). Ironically this album is available on the bands website via an iTunes rival, 7digital.

TGTBATQ is actually not the name of the band, its the name of the album. Damon decided it was stupid for them to have an actual name because they were all rock orphans from somewhere or another (Blur, Gorillaz, Gnarls Barkley, The Verve, The Clash...)



You can tell the difference between 'premium' MP3's and the normal ones. Its not mind blowing though, for the most part 128kbps is completely adequate for most people. Funbongo recently spoke to someone in the 'industry' and he mentioned that they felt people were concerned about the sound quality of their legal MP3 collection. Really? I haven't met anyone that genuinely finds 128kpbs a problem or not up to scratch.

It seems to me like an excuse to justify hiking up the prices and reducing the potential revenue loss from piracy. 'Lets rip those off music fans who already use iTunes a little'. They should have offered the all the MP3s without the copy protection. This would be a more genuine and positive move.



Funbongo would have been far more impressed if the DRM was stripped from £0.79 downloads as well. The restriction is still there, you can only purchase liberated MP3 if you are pretentious enough to pay more and fit into Steve Job's invisible class of 'audiophiles'.



Although this development falls short of what we had hoped it is certainly a fantastic move; three cheers for EMI and Apple. You have uncuffed one of the hands of legal music downloading. We predict that over the next few years these new offerings will become normalised across all internet music stores, regardless of record company affiliation. Once we have reached that stage the pressure will increase uncontrollably to abolish DRM altogether. The extinction of DRM was a bridge to far today. lets all hold hands, share iPod headphones and listen to 256kbps encoded music without the devilish copy protection. John Legend, I mean John Lennon would be proud.

Download The Good The Bad and The Queen (Premium Edition) here

EMI Press Release


PS The Good The Bad and The Queen LP is quite good.

Filthy Few Ft DJ Funbongo Live

Come and see if I can sneak some Jossy Stone and Bert Williams into my set.

I will play Lovelight, even if Filthy Few Firas tries to head-butt me again. Some people seemed to think he was trying to kiss me last time. To avoid his violent advances I will hide behind Albert's Malfoy Drako (From Harry Potter of course) Cloak.

Christian K is DJing with us.

Probably some bands too. No Girls Aloud or Fall Out Boy Sadly :(