Although it has gone a bit quiet on The Darkness front, the boys have been floating around their myspace accounts. We even heard rumours some of them went out to enjoy Hyde Park Calling to see Aerosmith play in the rain!

The latest word from the guys is from Dan Hawkins! Here's the blog...

Still alive...
Hi Everyone...just to let you know that i'm still alive! Been working non stop for months on the new project and we are now nearing the very end of the album (a few bits of percussion/backing vox/a few solo's etc) and we will be done! Then it's handed over to someone VERY SPECIAL INDEED who will mix the record! I can't tell you who it is yet but trust me, we are in safe hands. It's been a long old slog but we're almost there. Thank you again for your patience and also your messages of support, (and just funny shit that's made us all laugh!) it's really given us a boost along the way...especially that recent lord of the rings character stuff which is genius!!!...once again, sorry for not stopping by on myspace as much as people would like...and thanks for sticking around! right, lets go and finish this thing! ...Dx

Prince William has admitted he is likely to be left a "gibbering wreck" by the end of the Concert For Diana at the new Wembley stadium.

The Prince admits he is dreading having to make a speech, for although he and brother Harry have had a hand in every stage of the preparations for the sell-out gig including picking the bands they hadn’t counted on taking any active role on the stage. [...]

Harry mused: "We don’t have the contacts. Apparently we can’t just ring up people like Robbie Williams."

Then he added: "The Darkness are good friends of ours." But William stepped in and said: "We’d like to claim they were." I reckon the Princes should get their jumpsuits on and do Justin Hawkins and the boys proud.

Recently I was offered the opportunity to review a band called "One EskimO" at a local venue in Kansas City called Crossroads.

I'm going to be totally honest for a minute here. I had no idea who this band was. I sent my littlest sister-in-law a message on Facebook to see if she knew of them and I got the response back, "Oooh I LOVE them" so I immediately agreed to do the review.

Here's the band on the stage at the Crossroads. They are an indie rock group from London (except for Pete Rinaldi, the guitarist, he's originally from Australia) and according to Pete, he's known Kristian Leontiou (the lead singer) for about nine years and the band has been together for about four years. They have a bluesy, acoustic blend and sound fantastic.

Read the full article at http://the-zookeeper-ramblings.blogspot.com

The backlash against MIA in recent weeks has been rather fascinating to watch. The history of polemical musicians living in the comfort of wealth is a centuries-old phenomenon -- it used to be that only the wealthy could afford to be polemical -- but in the wake of punk, and especially in the wake of the unreasonable, confused standards of the internet, indie backlash is arguably more mainstream than the music.

The problem with backlash is that it has unfairly ruined the careers of some truly fantastic artists who have gone misunderstood. Some were prevented from long-term success by hipster backlash; others never even got the chance to be successful in the first place. This list is an example, with the powers of 20-20 hindsight, of great artists who in the past 20 years have fallen in and out of favor (and sometimes back in again) due to ridiculous demands.

The Darkness

Punks discovering they like Queen and Metal is about as old a punk itself; even a band with as much DIY cred as Fugazi bonded over their love of Queen. So the Darkness exposed the public secret with their fantastic 2003 album Permission To Land, and once out in the open, metal nostalgia was back in full force. But rather than reward Justin Hawkins for blowing open the doors, many turned to pseudo-ironic appreciation of Journey, Poison, Motley Crue, and other bands that caused people to turn away from Metal in the first place. Hawkins has done some fine work with both the Darkness and Hawkwind since, but he was more used and abused by fickle fans than appreciated.

Read the full article at mog.com