I’ve not posted for ages but there are good reasons/excuses – rockhaq is coming ever-closer to completion so I’ve had a fair bit to sort for it, I had to prepare a talk I was asked to give to journos at Nottingham Trent University’s Centre for Broadcasting & Journalism, the snow put paid to some of the work I had planned and I didn’t get to see my first live gig of the year until this week!

[View with PicLens]

Frist things first though – the gig. I was sooo looking forward to this week’s NME Awards Tour show - not only was it my first real gig of 2009, it also signalled the live return of Friendly Fires to Notts! But disaster struck in the form of terrible quality sound, even worse than usual for Nottingham Rock City (do they have new/even worse speakers or wot?), which really peed me off to be frank. I knew Florence & The Machine must have been good having seen her/them before along with Friendly Fires, but it left me kind of unable to really judge White Lies and Glasvegas. There also seemed to be far too many old/dull people who weren’t ignited by the wicked calypso style vibes emanating from St. Albans’ finest, so not a great night musically. In fact, you could say it was a bit of a let-down.

Meanwhile, I gave my first ever proper grown-up style talk (called Journalism 2.0, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Online Media) to about 80-odd first-year print and broadcast journalism students on Thursday. The NME gig the night before left me feeling knackered and I made the stupid mistake of skipping breakfast and driving straight to Notts and then meeting Emma Hemmingway, who had a pretty in-depth chat with me about online journalism over a latte on NTU campus.

Then onto the lecture, which really was crazy. I still can’t believe I was asked to talk to all these young inquisitive minds in a massive theatre with an even bigger projector. Odd times. The worst thing was that I talked for a whole hour (20 mins more than I needed to) and by the time I got out, I was so shattered I zonked out in the ng studio and couldn’t move! Not good, I will never skip breakfast again. I’ve been asked back next term and have attracted work experience queries/more contributors, heaven knows why..

I was in two minds about catching Filthy Dukes supporting the Secret Machines at the Rescue Rooms last night, but Adrian Read from Polydor had a word with me on Friday and by the end I felt like the man from Del Monte (only without the tonnes of fruit). I woke up on Saturday in excruciating pain though! I was in two minds about going to the gig but the pain wore off and I thought – why not? Lucy and Alex M were covering Alkaline Trio at Rock City anyway so I thought I should lookafter my flock! Besides, I did want to check out Filthy Dukes, their recent press left me feeling very intrigued.

And what did I think? Bloody awesome! I’m so impressed with everything about these guys – they look nerdy and awkward, sound incredible and have killer tunes! I’m just gutted I didn’t know what more of them were called, but hopefully Adrian will sort me out a copy of their soon-to-be-released debut album Nonsense In The Dark. They’re coming back to Notts soon and playing headline dates all over the UK, so check em out suckers!

I could write loads about The Prodigy but I shouldn’t cos this post is already an essay. The first, and most bizarre, thing is that the marketing brains behind them seem to think their target audience visits the Autotrader website. I had a proper laugh when I saw the ad for their new album all over it on Friday! But back to the music – I’ve listened to both new album and the promo sampler and I’ve got to say that the version of Omen on the sampler is much better than the album version, but the album version would work so much better in a live arena. On the whole, Invaders Must Die is self-consciously a live album and from what I’ve heard so far, I’m pretty impressed. It really mixes every good thing the band have done over their 15 year history – Experience, Jilted and Fat of the Land. My review will be coming soon, but in the meantime, here’s some tracks from their new release(s) to keep you happy.

1. The Prodigy – Invaders Must Die (Invaders Must Die, 2009)
2. The Prodigy – Omen (Invaders Must Die, 2009)
3. The Prodigy – Thunder (Invaders Must Die, 2009)
4. The Prodigy - Invaders Must Die (Invaders Must Die album sampler, 2009)
5. The Prodigy -  Omen (Invaders Must Die album sampler, 2009)