Major (Label) Disappointment?

Whilst all the hoohah surrounding Jay-Z at Glastonbury was kicking off and a flood of announcements from rival festivals hitting the music press, the organisers of this year's V Festival had been keeping pretty quite since the first batch of names broke - until now. Estelle, Sam Sparro, Calvin Harris, The Stranglers, Captain, Presets, Alphabeat, Royworld, Delays, Michael Franti w/Spearhead, The Script, and Air Traffic complete the second batch of additions to the V Festival line-up and I've got to say I'm still pretty underwhelmed so far.

V has always had a reputation as the most corporate and soulless of all the summer festivals, which I always thought was harsh as there were always jewels to be found somewhere on the list - I have particularly fond memories of Cypress Hill back in 98, though a glance to the list so far reveals Prodigy aside, a lack of a name that promises to do something similar this time round.

Maybe its due to huge amount of festivals that are about these days that the big 3 struggle to attract a depth of line-up that they previously did, with many cult acts that would fill up the bill signing deals to headline the lesser-known festivals that are cropping up all the time. However I do hope that V manage to surprise me like they did last year with the announcements of Graham Coxon and the smaller stages to save me from hitting ebay with my hard-earned ticket.

I Will Possess Your Album Dammit!

I was pretty sure with all the excitement surrounding the new Death Cab album we'd have had a leak by now, but aside from a couple of April fools not a peep has been heard leaving fans to check out bootlegs of recent live dates and to get any clues as to what to expect from Narrow Stairs.

Now its not unheard of for the major labels to keep their heavy-hitters latest opus under lock and key till the last possible minute, but with the sheer amount of reviews and promo everywhere ahead of the release date it doesn't seem that they've followed this route for Death Cab, which is slightly frustrating for a dirty digital pirate like myself - but patience is a virtue and I'll be keeping an eye on diditleak in the meantime till I get my hands on the CD in May.

New Dark Knight Poster

So with this the new poster for The Dark Knight, last night's Pushing Daisies and all that Cloverfield business - seems Hollywood has gone all 9/11 on our asses all of a sudden and not in a particularly subtle way either.

Thankfully there's no American flag in sight for any superhero posing opportunities (are you listening Sam Raimi!) so I'll keep my faith in Nolan & The Bale for now.

ROH: Stars of Honor & Bloodstained Honor

Leading indie wrestling promotion Ring Of Honor recently inked a deal with KOCH Video to release a series of DVDs nationwide in stores across America - the first of which come in the form of Stars of Honor & Bloodstained Honor.

The two discs show the contrasting styles of the East-coast promotion, with wild brawls juxtaposed with crisp cutting edge wrestling. This has a definite echo of early ECW to it, and you can certainly draw comparisons with what's on show here to the hardcore styling of the likes of Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman which sat beside the mat classics offered up from Guerrero, Malenko and Benoit before they made the jump to the big two.

Indeed Stars of Honor focuses on the names who've passed through ROH on their way up (or on temporary hiatus from) the modern day big two of WWE and TNA, featuring matches from the likes of CM Punk, Matt Hardy and Samoa Joe in the 8 Match set. For those used to the WWE style it can take getting used the different approach in how matches are set out in ROH, as here the matches are generally given much more time and can take longer to get into their stride with a slower-paced, more technical style on show during the outset of many a match, but patience is rewarded as they build up the pace to thrilling climaxes and awesome displays of athleticism.

Highlights of this set for me are the opening match between CM Punk and Samoa Joe, which distils their rivalry into a more new fan-friendly 30 minute form and the low profile match between Bryan Danielson and Brian 'Spanky' Kendrick, which doesn't have the hype of word of mouth of many a ROH match, but for me is an excellent contest from bell to bell - showing stuff from Spanky that you don't really get to see in Umaga squash matches to be honest.

Bloodstained Honor however, takes a different tact in compiling the bloodiest brawls from ROH history and presenting them on one disc. Featuring many of the hottest rivalries in Ring of Honor history, fans of the hardcore style with lap up this side of the tag-team release. The two cages matches are my favourites from the set, partly as they feature the most actual wrestling in them - with Generation Next vs The Embassy stealing the show for me with 45 minutes of action that keeps up a fast pace throughout and somehow even manages to take it up a notch with the introduction of Jack Evans halfway.

If I'm being picky about the matches chosen I'd say Stars of Honor is a bit too heavy on Matt Hardy and Homicide matches, and I'd sacrifice their match together to showcase some of the current stars of the ROH roster in action. Whilst Bloodstained Honor for me contains too many of those brawls that can end up looking like those involved are just walking around the crowd holding hands and punching each other. Also commentary on a couple of matches is sorely missed, which would let new fans know a) What's going on and b) Who is doing it.

By no means perfect compilations, but maybe that is the point as these releases offer enough to draw new fans into the product and maybe explore the back catalogue of DVD releases that are the indie promotions lifeblood. These two DVDs offer an excellent introduction to Ring of Honor, and at a bargain price as well - I picked up the pair for £12 from Amazon.com including shipping, so for anyone curious to what Ring of Honor is about I'd recommend checking these out.

Beck @ Manchester Apollo

Three years after his last appearance, Beck returns to the Manchester Apollo on July 2nd, with one major difference - the price.

In June 2005 you could pick up a ticket for £23.50, but a quick visit to See Tickets shows that this time round its pushing on doubling the amount with the total coming in at £42.55 once you've been hit with all the hidden charges.

Beck is a fantastic performer and it will probably be worth it if he brings a full show that can top his puppet-based antics of his last trip around these shores, but I can't help be annoyed that this years O2 Wireless festival is strictly a Hyde Park affair - as a line up of Morrissey, Beck, The Wombats & The National is damn spiffy.

South Park S12E07 - Super Fun Time

South Park reaches its Mid-Season finale with the episode 'Super Fun Time' which like most of the season so far, contains moments of genius but never quite reaches the consistent levels that were hit in the last series.

Unlike most TV shows, season finales seem more of an afterthought for the South Park writers due to the intense writing process they put themselves under for the rest of the season. Creating & producing an entire episode from scratch in the space of a week often means by the time the end of season comes round the team seem burnt out and often fall back on ideas animated in advance to get out of jail - see Stanley's Cup and Night of the Living Homeless for recent examples.

Super Fun Time follows this theme losing the topical themes that weekly format brings to instead rely on a simple parody of a movie format - or this case two, with 80s stalwarts Ferris Bueller and Die Hard those in line for a good ol' fashioned spoofing.

The episode is set around a school trip to Pioneer Village - a living museum set in 1864, but Cartman forces Butters to sneak away with him to go to the amusement arcade (Super Phun Thyme) he spies through the fence. While they're having a good time (Well Cartman is...) at the arcade, a group of thieves who've robbed a Burger King break into Pioneer Village and take the class hostage.

The leader of the armed robbers is named Franz and has the air of Hans Gruber about him, the terrorist leader from the first Die Hard. This is the cue for several parodies and references to the heist movie genre throughout which leads to some nice lines, particularly his exchanges with Morlich. Though I must add I was slightly disappointed that when the cops arrived, the Irish cops weren't present - still you can't have it all.

Cartman and Butter's escapades borrow even more liberally from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, with the stuff like the Super Fun Time song heavily referencing the film before the "life moving pretty fast" speech being almost lifted ad-verbatim straight from 1986.

The way these two parodies are brought together suggests to me the writers had one on the beach when making this one, bringing together a couple of ideas floating around (What about, Cartman as Ferris Bueller!) into an episode that never fully functions as a whole and tends to drag a bit in the middle.

South Park for me always ups a gear in the second half of the season, look at the Imaginationland trilogy of last year for proof of that and I've no doubt it will do the same when it returns later in the year.

In fact I'm not just sure... I'm HIV positive.

YouTube Goodness: Does It Offend You Yeah?

Children's TV has a strong history of supporting the anti-drug movement - on these shores we have the infamous efforts of Grange Hill and 'Just Say No' while Japanese television makers obviously have had their own way of presenting the battle faced by modern-day youth against modern day vices , shown here in the ever so subtle form of the Power Rangers... fighting a giant pot-head. Literally.

Those behind the promo for the opening track from the Reading-based electro-rock outfit's debut album You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into obviously came across inspiration in a similar way to how I stumbled across the clip - the joys of YouTube have a lot to answer for I reckon, though props for the nod to the Japanese hack 'n' slash film of which it shares a name at the beginning of the video.