FOREST

Mental

Peter Cech: Drummer Extraordinaire

This time last year Petr Cech was preparing to face West Ham at Upton Park. Now, thanks to lanky nerd Thibaut Courtois, Cech is struggling to fill the void before his inevitable move away in January. With all this time on his hands, Cech has started uploading videos of drum covers.

His first cover is the Coldplay dad classic ‘Clocks’. For some reason he decides to do some 6 minute live version.

Up next is Foo Fighter’s ‘Walk’ who he reveals to be his favourite band.

This morning he had a go at Nirvana’s ‘Rape Me’, a song he describes as having ‘strong lyrics’ but is also fun to play.

Cech’s love of drumming isn’t anything new, as we’ve already seen him do this cover of ‘Eye of the Tiger’.

He also appears to be a member of a Czech covers band. Here he is covering ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.

So if any London bands are in need of a drummer then hit him up before he goes to Real in January.

Band Aid 30

Ebola is a pretty nasty disease. If you get it, your internal organs slowly shut down causing you to die a slow and painful death. Luckily, ebola can only be spread through ingestion or blood contact with an infected persons blood, vomit or shit, and only after they become contagious. Therefore in countries where we don’t generally come into contact with much of that stuff during our day to day lives, only those treating people with ebola are in any real danger of catching it. However, in three west african countries, ebola has killed thousands of people in the last few months, although less than syphilis, aids, malaria and hunger by a long way.

So to help sort this all out, Bob Geldof gathered together some of the countries most well loved and talented musicians and got them to re-record the timeless classic that is Band Aid.

First to arrive is mr charity himself Bono, who in his charitable way arrives in a chauffeur driven car and storms straight inside (although only after being told where to go like its not obvious). He also looks like he’s carrying nothing but an Ipad, presumably with the U2 album still on it.

As the ‘stars’ begin to roll in, full time banterbus conductor Ollie Murs has a chat with a homeless man who has somehow sneaked in.

First African musician to appear in this charity single for Africa…

And another so thats two now.

One Direction have the honour of kicking things off. Harry and the blonde one appear to be the only ones actually singing, with Zayn and Liam looking bored/confused/stoned. Come on guys don’t you know how important this is???

Proof that the lyrics were indeed written down by humans. Also note how “how” is crossed out here despite the brilliant line “how can they know its Christmas time at all” still being included in the song. Almost like Bob thought it was just too good to change.

Mr charisma Guy Garvey does some finger pointing to prove how much more charisma he has than everyone else there. So much charisma.

First appearance of the cool dude sound producer who looks like he’s welling up at all the charity that’s taking place in front of him.

Bastille got run over on the journey in.

Bono is looking at porn on his Ipad and the black lady knows it.

“And tonight we’re reaching out, and touching youooo” win the award for weirdest lyric of the year. I can see why you would change “well tonight thank god its them, instead of you” as that could be interpreted as wishing ebola on people. But touching you feels just as bad and kind of creepy coming from Bono. Does he wear those purple glasses in bed?

The lady in the hat moved about too much for me to get a good grab of her.

Midge gets things organised before the obligatory group signing section. Ellie Goulding and Ed Sheeran pay attention like well behaved year 10s.

Olly Murs and Harry exchange some banter together (not prehistoric hopefully).

The Bastille lads look like they’re not regretting agreeing to this in the slightest. The one on the left looks bored and the one on the right looks confused/angry about something thats going on in the 1D huddle.

Olly Murs attempts to out charisma Guy Garvey by doing some banterrific arm action. Give up Murs, you could never out charisma Garvey.

No drums were harmed in the making of this video.

1D during the group sing along and again, Zayne and Liam look high-as-fuck, barely able to stay awake or clap.

The X-Factor audience give a standing ovation to all the artists who took a whole afternoon out of their busy schedules to take part.

Analysis of Bloody Knees at the Old Blue Last with One Picture

Everything you need to know about Bloody Knees’ epic headline show at the Old Blue Last a few weeks ago can be taken from this one photo.

Harry and this other random guy look very wasted here.

This guy finds it hilarious!

This guy looks confused and disgusted at everything going on.

A moment to appreciate Bradley’s chiseled abs.

A moment to appreciate Jordan appreciating Bradley’s abs.

Stock Profile – Happy Diving

What was Rivers Cuomo doing twenty years ago? Because by the sound of it he was conceiving the members of Happy Diving. Maybe J Mascis got involved as well? Do the members of Happy Diving know or have their mums been lying to them all these years?* This guy says YES, as its the only way to explain why they are the best sounding band around right now.

Who’s ur daddy?

Happy Diving have been my favourite band ever since I listened to the EP back in January, and I had already earmarked them for my mega BEST OF 2014!!! feature. Judging by the three preview tracks from their new album “Big Wave”, they are seriously in with a shot of getting the coveted one-two from me that bands have only ever dreamed of.  Thanks to the lads at Art is Hard, people unlucky enough not to be born in the USA can get “Big World” on an easy to carry cassette, saving everyone £15 on shipping. How nice of them. Make sure you listen to the whole s/T ep before you order anything cos there’ll be a test.

I WISH I COULD SAY WHAT I WANTED TO SAY
BUT I’LL BE QUIET
THERE’S NO NEED TO RIOT
I CAN DO WHAT EVER I WANNA DO
BUT THAT INVOLVES LEAVING MY ROOM
SO I’LL BE QUIET
THERE’S NO NEED TO RIOT

OOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOO OOO
OOOOOOOOOOO OOO OOO O OO O
OOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOO OOO
OOOOO O O O O OOOOO OOO

I’LL BE QUIET
THERE’S NO NEED TO RIOT
I’LL BE QUIET
THERE’S NO NEED TO RIOT**

Pre-order here

*soz if anyone from happy diving doesn’t actually know who their dad is irl
**lyrics to the song “never been”

Meet The Team

With the Fuzz-nancial Times about to reach the 200 view milestone, we thought it was time to introduce you to the team who have been giving you great content for the past few months.

DIY Darren 

Darren is more DIY that you, more DIY than you could ever dream of. Darren delivered himself at birth, schooled himself, built his own car, created his own girlfriend from a test tube and an egg he managed to form in a DIY womb he built in his own built shed. Darren has never let anyone do anything for himself and never will. When Darren gets ebola he will be treating himself. Being this DIY makes him in touch with all the latest DIY bands

Darren’s house

Pete Pavement 

Pete spends his life cemented outside the NME offices. Any hot new buzz band that enters the NME step on Pete, giving him unparalleled access to all the latest gossip. Where other writers claim to have their ears on the street when it comes to new bands, Pete is the street that everyone else is putting their ears on, which means he gets there first. Pressed in 1954, Pete is the oldest member of our team, so don’t be surprised if he references a few cool 60’s classics when he writes.

Spot Pete

Eugene Electron – The quantum mechanical representation of the scene 

Eugene may only be a sub-atomic particle, but he knows his stuff. Eugene passes through time and space millions of time every second, becoming the scene, and every scene that ever existed. Being the scene means that Eugene has the inside info on everything exciting that has ever happened in any scene ever. Remember Post-Ramesses II dronegaze from ancient Egypt? Eugene was, and still is that scene. Follow Eugene for all scene news.

Bernard Tittead 

Bernard Tittead is a self-entitled Weezer fanboy. He legally changed his name to Jonas Jonas in 2007 before his mum made him change it back. He claims to have Rivers Cuomo’s glasses tattooed on his scrotum but no one has any interest in verifying this.

Alex Logan 

Intern.

Nob

Everything Will Be Terrible Forever

When I emerged from my mother’s womb in 1994, the Sweater Song might have been playing somewhere in the hospital. When I was learning the fundamentals of life during infancy, there’s definitely a chance I heard Buddy Holly or Say it Ain’t So on the car radio. Being exposed to classic tunage at such an early age must have shaped my developing mind, sealing my fate as a lifelong power-poppin’ rockboy. This is the only rational explanation for my ravenous infatuation with Weezer.

Even as a two-year-old who couldn’t understand words, I saw through the initial critical panning for Pinkerton, and immediately hailed it as the greatest of mankind’s creations. The album replaced my parents as the arbiter of my growth, and subsequently I am only attracted to Asian women, which is a shame because they’re all right mingers where I’m from. Not in a racist way; I’ve only seen, like, three about town, and those specific Asian women were definitely not my thing.

Anyway, it’s no secret that after Pinkerton, Weezer got really shit. In fact, it’s such a non-secret that the band is about to release an album themed entirely around the fact that they are shit and that everyone thinks that they’re shit.

I wonder what this guy’s talking about.

And so, we are presented with Everything Will Be Alright in the End, an uncomfortably self-aware album with a cumulatively more stupid cover than previous works Raditude, Hurley and Death to False Metal.

The album is built with good intentions – albeit incredibly naïve ones. Before Raditude, Weezer were pretty bad in comparison to the 90s, but from that album on they became something of a horrific joke that thought releasing a compilation of songs too shit to include in previous albums would be a good idea. EWBAITE explicitly acknowledges that they got a bit too stupid for their own good, which, for diehard fans, is kind of nice to hear. ‘I’m sorry guys, I didn’t realise that I needed you so much,’ aww, thanks mate. ‘Maybe I should play the lead guitar and Pat should play the drums,’ ha ha, it’s an in-joke. It’s a shame this song is terrible, but they’re starting off the album with a message to set the tone for making amends (ignoring the fact there’s one song before this, because I forgot it existed).

But they keep making songs about it. Eulogy for a Rock Band, I’ve Had it Up to Here and The British are Coming are all very obviously about Weezer being bad and wanting to sort things out. So when exactly are they going to actually do something about it? The other tracks between 1-10 are pretty much stylistically identical to Hurley and Raditude. You’d think they’d try and do something different after LITERALLY SAYING they ‘had a good run / Fifteen years of ruling the planet’, which, incidentally, is the time span between the Blue Album and Raditude.

It’s a common argument that middle-aged Rivers Cuomo could not possibly make another Blue or Pink – those albums are too adolescent, too much a product of their times. To this I say, Weezer fans don’t want another Pinkerton, or an apology that times have changed; we want an album that doesn’t make us embarrassed to like Weezer in the first place. Unfortunately, EWBAITE does not do that, and despite its intentions is firmly in the Weezer canon of ‘oh my God what are they doing’ albums that began in 2009. In fact, one could argue it’s their worst album ever. Raditude was just really bad, but EWBAITE is bad, but seemingly certain that it’s good because of its self-awareness. It’s not as hateable as Raditude; it’s like a confused puppy pissing on its owner’s hopes and dreams and then barking for attention.

Weezer, please quit making music to maintain some of your legacy.

All this said, though, the last three tracks are okay. So I suppose everything was alright in the end.

Bernard Tittead is a self-entitled Weezer fanboy. He legally changed his name to Jonas Jonas in 2007 before his mum made him change it back. He claims to have Rivers Cuomo’s glasses tattooed on his scrotum but no one has any interest in verifying this.

The Big Interview – Royal Blood

Royal Blood have gone from relative obscurity to every Arctic Monkey’s fans second favourite band in twelve unforgettable months. So naturally I needed to find out more about the lads. I looked up their home number in the phone book and we had a chat…

What are you lads up to now?

Ben Thatcher – I’ve just been to McDonalds.

Matt Helders – Same.

How did you guys meet?

B – We bumped into each other in the coats and jackets section of Topman. They were playing Fluorescent Adolescent on the radio and Matt was singing along. We got chatting and then obviously started a band.

M – Yeah thats how it happened. Ben was clutching four bomber jackets so that combined with his gut meant I had no choice but to bump into him!

B – Cheeky!

M – You love it!

Weird! What was your first gig like?

M –  We opened for Electric Dream Machine at some bar on the seafront. We were expecting a guitarist and singer to show up as well, my mates George and Cosmo, but they missed the bus so we had to go it alone. After the first song finished I thought bass on its own wasn’t working so I fiddled with some nobs on my amp and made it sound cool. Thats how we found our sound.

B – I didn’t own any drum sticks at the time so used chop sticks. Don’t think the crowd noticed.

What was the reaction like? 

B – Our mums loved it.

M – Thats all that matters in the end.

When did Warner Records first approach you? 

M – After like our sixth gig.

B – After we finished playing some guy came up to us and said he liked our jackets and said he had some spare money lying around so wanted us to become the faces of the guitar music revival.

M – I chipped in and said we don’t actually have a “classic” guitar, like the ones with six strings Alex Turner plays but he said as long as it looks guitar-ish Zane Lowe will still play us.

What’s Alex Turner like in real life? 

B – He’s such a chill dude. When we toured with them it was just unreal to be in the presence of rock gods every day. Some people say “oh he’s a talentless hack who’s been drifting on a wave of mediocre riffs and GCSE lyrics his whole career” and that “their popularity initially was more a case of right place right time that actual talent” but thats not true at all. I mean he uses a twelve string sometimes come on.

M – The man is just a genius. End of. No debate.

If you had to name three genius’ who would they be? 

B – Arsene Wenger, Adam Sandler, Steve Jobs.

M – J K  Rowling, Newton and probably Steve Jobs as well.

Pretty left field picks. So what next for Royal Blood? 

B – Might get another Big Mac®. I’m pretty hungry. Involves leaving the house though.

I meant more in terms of musical direction. Any thoughts Matt? 

M – …

Hello? *weird noises in background* 

B – Look mate can we call you back?

Are you guys a couple? 

No answer, the interview was over.

not real don’t sue

I Listen to U2 so you don’t have to

If you’ve been following the news then you’ll know that U2, instead of persuading you to pay actual money for an album, are simply dumping their album onto your iTunes library in some weird deal with Apple that somehow arrived here from 2004. Wormhole probably. Before I delete it to trash, rejecting the chance to keep in finder, I decided to give it a listen.

The Miracle (Of Joey Ramone) – This track begins with some percussion that sounds a bit like a bird trying to peck through The Edge®’s hat to reveal his bald head to everyone. This song seems to be about Bono revisiting the site of some miracle, but the lyrics sound like they were written by a couple of year 9’s so we’ll never know. The title of this song seems to be Bono’s way of reminding us that he does listen to music actually, so leave him alone yeah.

Every Breaking Wave – Moody synth pop number that sounds remarkably similar to every other U2 song ever.

California (There Is No End to Love) – Even more moody synth and now with added strings makes this sound even more U2 than Every Breaking Wave. This is definitely the song yer da turns the car volume up slightly for whilst on his way to screw fix.

Song for Someone – Imaginative song title with the even more imaginative chorus line “this is a song for someone”. The someone could possibly refer to the mysterious other members of U2, anonymous even to Bono and The Edge®.

The Edge is a bald slaphead

Iris (Hold Me Close) – Not to be confused with Isis (Hold Me Close)*. Maybe Iris is the song Song for Someone was written for? Really enjoying the hour runtime here lads.

Volcano – Groovy dad song, full of groovy bass, funky muted chords and clapping.

Raised By Wolves – Nice of Bono to write a song about my childhood… The whole song has a weird sample thing that sounds like The Edge® blowing his nose into Bono’s arse. If so then an interesting production suggestion from Danger Mouse®(two thirds of the people involved in this recording don’t have real names wow). This is probably one of the worse songs I’ve heard for a long time.

Cedarwood Road – Surely the point all dads will give up. Weird mix of smooth piano and The Edge® certified crunching riffs creates a song worse than Raised By Wolves.

Sleep Like a Baby Tonight – More Synth and Bono trying falsetto…

This Is Where You Can Reach Me Now – Bono letting The Edge® know about his change of contact details.

The Troubles – Can someone check if I died during the last hour please? Cheers.

* – satire

Third member of U2

Fourth member of U2

Preview – Hardly a Party

 

Nai Harvest –  Last year they were fronting the emo revival, this year the revival is in tatters and Nai Harvest definitely aren’t emo anymore, trust me. 

The Magic Gang – After being given four haircuts out of four by the NME, Gus only went and got his shaved off, the lad. Unreal bantz. Can they keep it together with just the three haircuts remaining?   

Playlounge – Indie power couple Sam and Lawrie will bring the homoeroticism to proceedings. 

White Sands – Its the guy from that band and oh yeah I recognise that girl from that other band so it must be good right? First gig so who knows but I like their songs so probably.

BIRDSKULLS – Will the switch from three at the back to four be a stroke of Van Gaal genius or a Pardew piss up? We’ll see and no angry burlesque woman is going to stop me this time. 

Abattoir Blues – Careful these thugs don’t nick yer tote bag and zine on the way out.  

Poledo – “Wavves with more feels” CatFromJapan. 

Tyrannosaurus Dead* – Wooo.

Pinact* – Do the Shacklewell Arms serve Irn Bru? 

King of cats* – Bold statement. 

JOEY FOURR* – LIKES TO USE CAPS. 

Something* – I’m sure they’ll be quite something. 

Bordeauxxx – Yer step da makes a joke about how their x key was broken when they came up with their name.

Rice Milk – Nice desert.

Palomica* – Yes.