Virgin

Friday highlights at Glastonbury - after the rain, came the sun and then came the music. N*E*R*D’s Pharrell Williams, Little Boots, Hot Chip, Gabriella Cilmi and Lily Allen all paid their tribute to Michael Jackson. The Specials offered their take on the Glastonbury lineup and revealed no love loss for Lady GaGa - Terry Hall called her ‘gross’ and ‘obnoxious’. Lady GaGa herself seemed to prefer to chat her way through her set rather than sing, Jack White’s The Dead Weather played a surprise set and headliner Neil Young proved there’s life in the dog yet…

In anticipation of the third all-out new wave cover record of Francophonic lounge champs Nouvelle Vague, our weaving electronic paths intertwined with founding member Olivier Libaux to discuss the contemporary significance of the cover version, urges to throw a bit of original songwriting into the copyright-cleansed mix and the odd guest spot…

Josh Holliday: You’ve just pieced together your 3rd record. how difficult is it to decide on which cover versions make each final cut?

Olivier Libaux: Putting together a Nouvelle Vague album is like selecting own songs to do the tracklist of a solo album. There’s a mix of favourites songs, songs you think are working very well, slow songs, fast songs, etc, etc. We generally have to pick 13 songs out of 40 for an album - which can happen to be disappointing and frustrating for us.

JH: How and when do the covers begin to take shape?

OL: We usually start a cover by only playing the song on my guitar. Obviously, the idea is to change the rythm of the song, compared with the original, and find a way of playing it - just with the guitar - which could drive our ideas of arrangements in an interesting direction. As soon as we feel the cover is happening, we start the recording and think about the girl who is going to perform the song.

JH: Having received critical acclaim through the songs of others, do you ever feel the urge to write music of your own?

OL: We do write and record personal songs and music. For example, my next album will be my third, and before that I used to write all songs in my 1st band (all material is unfortunately only available in France and a few other countries). All Nouvelle Vague members are also solo artists, which is a good thing, because we all can take Nouvelle Vague freshly, with the pleasure and creativity it deserves. We are often asked if we would one day put some of our songs on a Nouvelle Vague album, and the answer is always no. Nouvelle Vague is dedicated to covering new wave music.

JH: When commissioning your work for TV ads, do you ponder the dilemma of “selling out” or do you regard it as a vital way to expand your horizons?

OL: We don’t really think that much about it. The thing is, Nouvelle Vague happened to become sort of popular in terms of “syncs” - meaning our versions being used in Ads, Movies, TV shows, etc. We were not really expecting that kind of thing back in 2003, but we are quite happy with it. Our english label is also good at dealing with these things, and good news is these syncs are interesting for original publishers/writers too.

JH: Who would you class as your deepest influences?

OL: There are so many…it’s impossible to answer. Anyway, as anyone and everyone can guess, punk, post punk, new wave music has been a huge influence for us, among others.

JH: How deeply does the french heritage run within the work of Nouvelle Vague?

OL: It’s funny; everybody outside France considers Nouvelle Vague to be a “French” thing although we never felt like incorporating French influences (or heritage) into our project. Our name “Nouvelle Vague” was only picked because of its translation into “new wave” and “bossa nova”. We were not really thinking about Godard when we picked our name. Anyway, obviously we are french, we sing with a French accent, and I guess too that we have a way to do things which is quite…personal.

JH: Were one of your own songs to be covered by one of your contemporaries, who would you select?

OL: I don’t really know. Divine Comedy or Belle and Sebastian, maybe?

JH: What sort of feedback, if any, do you receive from the original artists and songwriters you chose to interpret?

OL: Feedback has always been good - or if it hasn’t been, we have never heard about it…! We’ve had good reactions from nearly every artist, fanclub, publisher etc. I think that many artists we have covered were initially surprised by Nouvelle Vague versions but then, a sort of relationship has developed between ourselves and certain artists. For example, I don’t think Martin Gore, Ian Mc Culloch, Barry Adamson or Terry Hall would have accepted to feature on NV3 if they were not appreciating the band.

JH: Finally, how significant to today’s music world is the cover version?

OL: I could not tell. Cover versions have always existed. Just remember that in jazz, themes were being created by one artist, and then played over and over again by hundreds of different bands. Regardless, I see Nouvelle Vague as quite unique in the cover version domain, as I can’t find in my memory a single band dedicated to covering a single genre, let alone doing it the way we are doing it.

• Nouvelle Vague’s 3 is out now on Peacefrog Records
• Nouvelle Vague’s Myspace

V Festival has once again almost completely sold out across both sites only hours after tickets went on sale. Tickets to Hylands Park, Chelmsford sold out in under two hours and only coach packages now remain. The last remaining tickets to Weston Park, Staffordshire are going fast from www.vfestival.com. Tickets went on sale at 10am last Friday.

Virgin Media’s V Festival 2009 has two of the biggest and best live acts on the planet headlining in Oasis and The Killers. They will be joined on the 22/23 August by artists such as Razorlight, Fatboy Slim, Keane, The Specials, Elbow, Lily Allen, Pendulum, The Tings Tings, MGMT, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga.

The line up so far:

OASIS  • THE KILLERS • RAZORLIGHT • SNOW PATROL • FATBOY SLIM • KEANE • THE SPECIALS • ELBOW • JAMES • LILY ALLEN • THE ENEMY • PENDULUM •  THE SCRIPT •  BIFFY CLYRO • THE TING TINGS •  PAOLO NUTINI • MGMT • KATY PERRY • THE WOMBATS • JAMES MORRISON • TAYLOR SWIFT • PETER DOHERTY • DIZZEE RASCAL • THE STREETS •  LADY GAGA • HAPPY MONDAYS • SEASICK STEVE • OCEAN COLOUR SCENE • ALESHA DIXON • BRITISH SEA POWER • THE SATURDAYS

Oasis and The Killers are set to headline Virgin Media’s V Festival in Chelmsford and Staffordshire on 22 & 23 August. Fatboy Slim, Keane, The Specials, Lily Allen, Elbow, Pendulum, The Tings Tings, MGMT and Lady Ga Ga will also be playing at what will be V Festival’s  fourteenth year. The Virgin Mobile Union stage sees lyrical genius Peter Doherty take to the stage and will be joined by a load of other acts to be announced in the coming weeks. Tickets go on sale at 10am on Friday 6 March and fans are being advised to only contact official ticket outlets - and fast!

So ensure you have your dialling finger ready or your web browser refreshed and remember - make sure they’re legit! The organisers of V Festival urge fans to not purchase tickets from unofficial outlets.  Those wishing to get their hands on the hot festival ticket this Summer should make www.vfestival.com - where all official outlets are detailed as below - their first port of call on Friday morning. Buying from any other unofficial outlets could lead to disappointment.

official outlets:
www.vfestival.com
www.gigsandtours.com
www.seetickets.com (0871 230 5584)
www.stargreen.com (0207 734 8932)
www.ticketline.co.uk (0871 424 4444)
www.ticketmaster.co.uk (0844 847 1670)

Ticket Prices: £152.50 weekend pass with camping, £132.50 weekend pass without camping, £73.50 day ticket.

Cut carbon, cut costs and have fun with fellow festival goers all the way to the festival.  Visit www.biggreencoach.co.uk for festival tickets with coach travel.
Here’s the lineup so far folks:

OASIS  • THE KILLERS • RAZORLIGHT • SNOW PATROL • FATBOY SLIM • KEANE • THE SPECIALS •  ELBOW • JAMES •  LILY ALLEN •  THE ENEMY • PENDULUM •  THE SCRIPT •  BIFFY CLYRO  • THE TING TINGS •  PAOLO NUTINI • MGMT •  KATY PERRY • THE WOMBATS •  JAMES MORRISON  • PETER DOHERTY  •   THE STREETS •  LADY GA GA • DIZZEE RASCAL • HAPPY MONDAYS • SEASICK STEVE • OCEAN COLOUR SCENE  • THE SATURDAYS • ALESHA DIXON • BRITISH SEA POWER

The barmy Christmas season is well and truly in full flow with yet more rumours of bands reforming - fuelling festive nostalgia. Following the news about Blur and then Ska heroes The Specials who are now all set to play together next year - albeit minus an apparently snubbed Jerry Dammers - come more rumours that The Smiths might be on the road to reformation. But perhaps even more unlikely than that are the rumours surfacing that The Stone Roses might also be considering playing together again.

Even though Johnny Marr has only said something along the lines of ‘maybe, who knows?’ - this is more than enough for a few thousand gladioli-growing fans to start earnestly praying and growing their Morrissey quiffs once more. Although the thought of a legion of 30/40-something old Smiths fans bravely ignoring their paunches beneath flowery shirts and charity shop blazers should be reason enough to kill off all thoughts of healing rifts. Or if some big promoter could top a £40 million offer that Morrissey said was most recently on the table then there might be panic on the streets of London once again…

Now Primal Screamer Mani has dropped a big old teaser about the dream you should never dare to dream - that The Stone Roses might get back together. He said to Channelbee that both him and John Squire might be keen but they have yet to persuade Ian Brown. And of course 2009 is the 20th anniversay of their legendary debut album.

So what do you think? Is it a good idea for these bands to hit the comeback trail? Who would you rather see - The Smiths or The Stone Roses? Any other bands ripe for reformation?